Boyd

RCP:

Reporter Brian Ross: "Mary Mapes was the woman behind the scenes, the producer who researched, wrote and put together Dan Rather's 60 Minutes report on President Bush's National Guard service, a report which Rather and CBS would later apologize for airing . . ."

Ross to Mapes: "Do you still think that story was true?"

Ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes: "The story? Absolutely."

Ross: "This seems remarkable to me that you would sit there now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards."

Mapes: "I'm perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there's proof that I haven't seen."

Ross: "But isn't it the other way around? Don't you have to prove they're authentic?"

Mapes: "Well, I think that's what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false, yet."

Ross: "Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn't that really what journalists do?"

Mapes: "No, I don't think that's the standard."

- on ABC's Good Morning America, Nov. 9

CNN:

"I think it's unfair that men put laws on a woman's body," Fleiss says. "I think a woman has a right to choose with her own body. I mean, I don't think prostitution is a career ... but maybe [it is] a little steppingstone?"

On the other hand, if you're a parent of a daughter your number one job is to keep her off the pole.

Update: Start by not naming her after a car.

I like this post at JR's. A pro-newspaper guy is bemoaning the rise of blogs and says the newspaper folks should quit for a year presumably to show everyone how indispensable they are. OK. Go ahead John Henry.

NewsMax:

Donald Trump is considering asking New York State voters in next year’s gubernatorial race to tell him: You’re hired!

No more The Apprentice. It was getting tired anyway. The new show will be The Lieutenant Governor.

Reed:

Not long ago my wife and I were eating lunch in a greasy spoon in a small South Carolina county seat. A black guy in work clothes (name embroidered over his shirt pocket) came in to pick up a take-out order. He was chatting up the white waitress (tattoos, short cropped hair) and when he asked her for a date, I started eavesdropping even more intently.

She said no. He persisted. She said no again. He asked why not. I braced myself for her reply. I know it's a New South, but this town seemed to me the sort of place where maybe they hadn't got the memo.

She said, "I don't date men."

Newhouse:

Willie Pham loves his work here.

"I don't look at my job as a lower job," he says.

"I was placed here for a purpose."

Pham works for the hospitals' Environmental Services Department. His shirt says so. You'd call him a janitor if you saw him pushing those two big yellow trash bins room to room, picking up bags of dirty linen and medical waste.

But people who know Pham call him other things:

Mr. Willie. Brother Willie. An inspiration, a blessing, a saint. An angel sent by God.

May:

Almost a thousand years ago, Genghis Khan provided a candid and classic answer: "Man's highest joy is victory: to conquer his enemies; to pursue them; to deprive them of their possessions; to make their beloved weep; to ride on their horses; and to embrace their wives and daughters."

That's Jenjis Khan for you libs.

AP:

"There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction," he wrote.

"Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will."

"I want to experience during my Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience everyday, so that I may better empathize with their distress," he wrote.

Via Althouse:

"Narm." -- Nate Fisher on "Six Feet Under."

Opinion Journal:

At some point, the president of the United States will have to get behind the Statue of Liberty or Tom Tancredo's wall.

I don't want to live behind a wall. What we need to be doing is figuring out how to help Mexico reform itself so the opportunity disparity between our two countries is not so great. What we don't need is to criminalize 10 million folks who are here.

I've said it many times, I'd hang out with a hardworking Mexican capitalist anyday over a white socialist. Hell, I'd rather hang out with a lazy Mexican capitalist than a hardworking white socialist.

VDH:

Before we went in, analysts and opponents forecasted burning oil wells, millions of refugees streaming into Jordan and the Gulf kingdoms, with thousands of Americans killed just taking Baghdad alone. Middle Eastern potentates warned us of chemical rockets that would shower our troops in Kuwait. On the eve of the war, had anyone predicted that Saddam would be toppled in three weeks, and two-and-a-half-years later, 11 million Iraqis would turn out to vote in their third election - at a cost of some 2100 war dead - he would have been dismissed as unhinged.

At first I thought it might have been a denial of service attack by some angry lib, but alas the cause is more pedestrian - a failed hard drive on a PowerBlogs server. A new server was ordered and installed, however it required an IP change and you know how long those take for whatever 20th Century reason.

No matter what mean things people say about him, Chris at PowerBlogs is cool in my book.

Update: When I decide to quit, I'll give you advance notice.

AFP:

President Vladimir Putin's outspoken liberal economic adviser Andrei Illarionov announced his resignation to protest what he said was an end to political freedom in Russia. "It is one thing to work in a partially free country, as Russia was six years ago. It's another when the country has stopped being politically free,"

The Russian people still haven't been given the chance they deserve.

Don't these other countries look at the US and wonder how it's possible? What makes the US so economically successful? Our people are not smarter. We're not more talented. It's obvious, isn't it? It's freedom. Give up control, Russia, and be prosperous.

Rafael:

It had all the ingredients for a great fight. Nonstop, savage action. Blood. Courage. Momentum swings. High stakes. Knockdowns. Controversy. And an ending so stunning, so sublime, that you could hardly believe what you were seeing.

I remember relaxing on the couch last May when this fight came on HBO. Most of the time, when all the lights are out and I'm on the couch and it's late and I'm trying to watch something, sleep wins. However, on this occasion I was too stunned. This was a perfect fight. This is the kind of fight non-boxing fans can appreciate. This is the kind of fight that keeps you coming back in spite of boxing promoters.

Dionne:

Lord knows, a housecleaning in the Capitol is definitely in order. But the Abramoff scandal is just part of the corruption of our political system. There is another level of special-interest influence that cannot be handled by prosecutors: Only the voters can render a judgment on a politics of favoritism that has created a new Gilded Age. It's clear that the national government has placed itself squarely on the side of the wealthy, the privileged and the connected.

Sowell:

Power is such a dangerous thing that ideally it should be wielded by people who don't want to use power, who would rather be doing something else, but who are willing to serve a certain number of years as a one-time duty, preferably at the end of a career doing something else.

The Democrats used to be so corrupt that I thought if only the Republicans can come to power, then we can get something done. However, I've been let down. Now, some folks want the Democrats back in because the Republicans are equally as corrupt. The problem is that just because they are telling you what you want to hear doesn't mean they're all of a sudden not corrupt. Let's see their plan for changing the system. For that matter, let's see the Republican plan for changing the system.

UPI:

U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.

Barone:

...markets work and that lower taxes and less onerous government produce more economic growth than the alternative. About 43 million jobs have been created in the United States since December 1980, while the number in the more statist nations of western Europe is on the order of 4 million. Markets are creating millions of jobs in nominally Communist China and once socialist India.

Markets work everywhere they're tried. The only folks arguing against them seem to have some sort of delusional idea that if the government can get control of dispensing resources they might get to influence how money is spent and hence magnify their own power more so than if they are left to compete. In other words, they trust a bureaucracy (and their skills at maneuvering within it) more than they trust the people.

Rocky Mountain News:

The South did indeed rise again; 36 percent of the nation's population lives there, putting it well ahead of the other regions - the West with 23 percent, the Midwest with 22 percent and the Northeast with 18 percent. The three states that lost population between 2000 and 2004 were Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts.

Ever wonder why things in Washington are complicated? It's hard to search for particulars in bills. It's hard to read judicial opinions. Why? The principles involved are usually pretty straightforward.

It's to keep us blind to behind the scenes deals and workarounds. Remember the Alaskan bridges that were canned due to outrage over spending? They're back. As soon as the dust settled, Ted Stevens got his money. And all of his other politician buddies were complicit because they're going to want some help in the future - not for their people of their state, but for the sake of their own personal power. They want to do a favor for someone with your money so that they will be owed.

Reason:

But the state still got the money – a $454 million blank check.

And sure enough, Gov. Frank Murkowski has included money for both bridges in his new state budget.

Krugman:

Here's how I see it: Republicans have turned into tax-cut zombies. They can't remember why they originally wanted to cut taxes, they can't explain how they plan to make up for the lost revenue, and they don't care. Instead, they just keep shambling forward, always hungry for more.

You make up for 'lost revenue' by not spending it in the first place.

You cut taxes because the money belongs to the people earning it in the first place. And no matter what your politics, you have to admit that the people spend their own money more efficiently than the government spends the peoples' money.

The Wall Street Journal editors have long advocated for getting rid of withholding as the best way to reform the tax code. Imagine if everyone had to sit down monthly or quarterly and write a check to the government. How many folks would believe then, like Krugman, that they pay too little?

Media Research Center via Drudge:

Media Millionaires for Smaller Paychecks Award

NPR’s Nina Totenberg: "And let us say one other thing. For years, we have cut our taxes, cut our taxes and let the infrastructure throughout the country go, and this [Katrina damage] is just the first of a number of other crumbling things that are going to happen to us."
Charles Krauthammer: "You must be kidding here."
Moderator Gordon Peterson: "She’s not kidding."
Totenberg: "I’m not kidding."

— Exchange on Inside Washington, Sept. 3.

and...

Oh, That Liberal Media! Award

Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas: "Is this attack [on public broadcasting’s budget] going to make NPR a little less liberal?"
NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg: "I don’t think we’re liberal to begin with, and I think if you would listen, Evan, you would know that."
Thomas: "I do listen to you and you’re not that liberal, but you’re a little bit liberal."
Totenberg: "No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s a fair criticism, I really don’t — any more than, any more than you would say that Newsweek is liberal."
Thomas: "I think Newsweek is a little liberal."

— Exchange on Inside Washington, June 26.

There are many more sad, sad awards. And yes, Nina Totenberg wins a few more. She might get the Lifetime Achievement this year.

Cobb's been on Fishbone the last few days. I was a DJ at QFS for a while back in the early 90s and someone there turned me on to Fishbone. The studio had Truth and Soul. It got heavy play.

In some ways Kelo was worse because it involved many government officials and employees (including the incomprehensible Supreme Court - if this isn't a violation of the Constitution, nothing is - if you can find a right to privacy, why can't you find something that is clearly spelled out) all acting in the interest of government against individual property rights. And if you don't have property rights, you don't have democracy. Property rights are second only to speech in the struggle against tyranny.

Kirkpatrick:

"For public use--for a bridge or a road or a school or a hospital--that's bad enough," says Ms. Kelo over tea at the kitchen table of her little house at 8 East Street in the Fort Trumbull section of the city. "But you add insult to injury if somebody else can live here. That's exactly what they plan on doing here. Making it so somebody else can live here." But "I live on East Street. I live on East Street. Why can't I live here?"

Newhouse:

The sudden rush of Latino immigrant workers to the Gulf Coast in Katrina's aftermath has thrown into sharp relief the existence of an identifiable worker caste, a class of people at once economically essential and socially marginal. It is a national corps of day laborers...

There's a demand for immigrant labor. There is no question about it. What drives the demand? You and me. Whenever you look for a deal. Whenever you shop for a service, you're creating an opportunity for someone willing to work for less.

And what's the problem with this? Unemployment in the US is 5%. Many Americans don't want to do the difficult manual labor that these guys take on. So be it. Our economy has evolved to the point where Americans have choices. Use your brain, gather skills, show up to work on time, be respectful, do what your boss says and you don't have to work in a field.

On the other hand, illegal immigration is a big problem. We don't know who's coming into the country which is unacceptable. What we need is a sensible guest worker program where folks may register to come in and begin working toward citizenship. What we don't need is a permanent underclass resented by the folks already here and never fully assimilated into the culture.

WP via Coturnix:

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.

The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.

Well, well, well. One guy, huh. OGW - original grand wizard.

Update: Top 5 reasons OGW thrived.

5. Inability to dance allowed more time for mating.
4. OGW blended in with the snow hence making him less of a target for polar bears.
3. Affinity for Gap fashions big step up from loin cloths.
2. Smaller 'endowment' tremendous source of curiosity for potential mates. Think cell phones.
1. First ever to introduce primitive woman to the seductive power of Michael Bolton.

CNN:

Osama bin Laden's niece, in an interview with GQ magazine in which she appears scantily clad, says she has nothing in common with the al Qaeda leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans.

AP:

Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, providing the most dramatic evidence yet that the red hot housing market over the last five years is starting to cool down. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new single-family homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units last month, a drop of 11.3 percent from October, when sales had surged to an all-time high.

Carlson:

Why didn't the Administration bother to get warrants for the wiretapping? Bush's aides claim there wasn't time; the terror threats were so pressing, bureaucratic niceties could have been dangerous. Sounds good, except that the 1978 law that governs federal eavesdropping allows the government to apply for a warrant after the wiretap has already been conducted.

This is exactly right. The question is why would you not want to get warrant? Even if everything is on the level you make it easier for the next guy or gal to push the limits a little more. A small government conservative would understand this, but then...

TSG:

Remember the SNL skit from the 90's labeled "Steroid Olympics" and that guy tries to dead lift 900lbs and as he jerks up, both arms rip clean off his shoulders and are still attached to the barbell on the floor and blood is spurting out everywhere from his shoulder sockets ... I hope Damon's arm comes flying off while he is trying to make a throw home and his hand and arm are still attached to the ball as it weekly lands in front of A-Rods foot and then A-Rod vomits and passes out and Joe Torre has to come out and give mouth to mouth to A-Rods bloated purple lips ... That would ease the pain of this trade
-- Mark Faselle, Dallas, TX

I wonder why anyone cares about baseball to this degree anymore? You've got two teams spending $150 mil plus on players. You've got other teams spending $25 mil. It's like the seventh grade divides into two teams to take on K-3 and then the seventh grade trades a few players back and forth to settle the 'world' championship. Call me when they get a salary cap and a level playing field.

Rosett:

...James Bone of the London Times began asking questions referring to two of the scandals that continue to bedevil the secretary-general: the saga of Oil-for-Food, and the cameo of a Mercedes-Benz allegedly bought and shipped under false use of Kofi Annan’s name and U.N. status by his son, Kojo Annan.

Instead of answering Bone, Annan cut him off, first calling him "cheeky," and then interrupting him again to say: "Hold on. Listen, James Bone. You have been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving, and please let’s move on to a more serious subject."

When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.

Charlotte Observer:

A sex toy and video mail order business, once picketed by ministers and searched by postal investigators, has been named business of the year in Orange County.

On the other hand, discover a need and fill it.

Raw Story (from the WSJ):

Amid soaring CEO compensation, a number of companies are paying extra sums to cover executives' personal tax bills. Many companies are paying taxes due on core elements of executive pay, such as stock grants, signing bonuses and severance packages. Others are reimbursing taxes on corporate perquisites, which are treated as income by the Internal Revenue Service. They run the gamut from personal travel aboard corporate jets to country-club memberships and shopping excursions.

Executive pay has gotten completely and utterly out of hand. I'm the biggest free market proponent you're going to find. However, I'm also against folks abusing or gaming the system. Don't get me wrong, I don't want Congress to pass a law forbiding companies from doing this, but they should be shamed by exposing it and their large institutional shareholders should speak out against the practice.

Part of the problem is all these laws passed to prevent hostile takeovers. If you can't change a board of directors easily, of course you're going to get corruption. And corruption is what it is. These guys are paid these absurd sums regardless of performance.

I'm sure you're dying to know. REK.

Check this out from the spirited folks at the News & Record and the homeowners on Deerglade Court.

If it weren't so cold, I'd move to New Hampshire so I could have that, the coolest of all state mottos on my license plate.

Fineman:

Arguably the most interesting - and influential - Republicans in the Senate right now are the libertarians. They’re suspicious of the Patriot Act and, I am guessing, pivotal in any discussion of the NSA and others' spy efforts. Most are Westerners (Craig, Hagel, Murkowski) and the other is Sen. John Sununu. He is from New Hampshire, which, as anyone who has spent time there understands, is the Wild West of the East Coast. All you have to do is look at its license plate slogan: "Live Free or Die." It'll be interesting to see how other nominal small-government conservatives - Sen. George Allen of Virginia comes to mind - handle the issue.

The Economist:

In recent years, housing has been a peach of an investment in many rich countries. The Economist's latest house-price index shows that since 1997 prices have soared by more than 85% in America, 100% in France, 112% in Australia, 150% in Spain, 166% in Britain and a whopping 208% in Ireland.

Williams:

Since consumers are far more numerous than businessmen, one might ask how in the world is it politically possible for businessmen to get congress and state legislators to allow them to rip us off?

Read the column for the blueprint on how businesses stifle competition. It is the job of government to create as fair and level a playing field as possible. After that, let the chips fall where they may.

A sad day to have to delete The Troublemaker from the Blogroll of Honor.

Update: Fooled again. Watch out Winston-Salem. Having worked in Winston for almost a decade, I can say without a doubt that it's a much more stratified community than Greensboro. You'll have your hands as full with them as they will have with you.

Boot:

It seems like only yesterday that every high-minded politician, pundit and professional activist was in high dudgeon about the threat posed to national security by the revelation that Valerie Plame was a spook. For daring to reveal a CIA operative's name - in wartime, no less! - they wanted someone frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs, preferably headed for the gallows.

Since then there have been some considerably more serious security breaches. Major media organs have broken news about secret prisons run by the CIA, the interrogation techniques employed therein, and the use of "renditions" to capture suspects, right down to the tail numbers of covert CIA aircraft. They have also reported on a secret National Security Agency program to monitor calls and e-mails from people in the U.S. to suspected terrorists abroad, and about the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity designed to protect military bases worldwide.

I've been wondering about this. It makes infinite sense in terms of some folks with big megaphones wanting to take shots at Bush no matter what the news is. Leaks good for Bush - Get the leaker! We can't have it! We endanger the CIA! Leaks bad for Bush - Someone is a principled whistleblower.

AP:

The Senate blocked oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday, rejecting a measure that had been put into a must-pass defense spending bill in an attempt to garner wider support.

Drilling supporters fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes to avoid a threatened filibuster of the defense measure over the oil drilling issue. Senate leaders were expected to withraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was 56-44.

I just don't get it. It's like banning slaughterhouses from being built and eating a Porterhouse every night. When you turn on the computer, do you ever wonder what makes it possible?

Two great articles in the WSJ today. Three if you count the one about realtors getting nasty over commissions. Oh sure, they smile in all those Rhino ads and they dress nice and smell nice and are perfect hosts at Showcase of Homes and Parade of Homes, but underneath it all, it's all about the 6%. What? You thought they did it for their health?

Anyway, the two great articles were first one about the oil situation and how we got where we are today. Factors are potential decline of Saudi oil fields, terrible short-term data on supply and demand, increased demand from China, continued high demand from the US, oil company focus on profits and cost cutting rather than exploration and speculators in the energy markets.

One thing that everyone worries about is peak oil. When do we cease discovering new oil and demand permanently outstrips supply? Of course, no one knows the answer to this and we won't know until it happens and even then a new technology breakthrough could change the equation However, I've heard many folks bemoan the fact that we don't search hard enough for alternate energy sources. The problem is that it's too risky. Go spend billions on new energy sources and you may or may not come up with anything. If you do succeed, what happens if new ways to extract oil are discovered or improved like what's happening in the Canada tar sands? Oil is still likely to beat whatever you came up with. The only way the investment makes sense is when oil really does go into decline and the price increases permanently. This way everyone's in the same boat and must invest. Risk drops dramatically.

The second article was about Olin College. The central question is if you had $400 million to start an engineering school, how would you design it to produce the best engineers in the world? What they came up with was the inverse of the way education is normally done. Instead of learn then do, it's do then learn. From comments on students who have been interning in private business, their bosses are generous in their praise.

By the way, there are no academic departments, no tenure and no tuition.

Innovation is the key to everything. Government schools don't innovate. Private enterprise innovates because it faces competition. Want to make something better? Find something to compete against it.

AP:

"The meaning of 'Barbie' went beyond an expressed antipathy; actual physical violence and torture towards the doll was repeatedly reported, quite gleefully, across age, school and gender," she said.

While boys often expressed nostalgia and affection toward Action Man - the British equivalent of GI Joe - renouncing Barbie appeared to be a rite of passage for many girls, Nairn said.

What does this mean? I have no idea, although I do know that when guys hate each other there's always a chance of reconciliation and a strong bond derived from mutual respect. When women hate each other, it's over. I think this may spring from the fact that women see men as not much of a threat - kind of how cats view people. However, quite clearly they view other women as a lethal threat - kind of how cats view other cats. Why don't men see anyone as a threat? I don't know. We just like to drink beer and watch football. Life's pretty simple that way. Two problems. Run out of beer - go to store. Football not on - that's why they invented ESPN Classic.

Fox:

More than 7 million people in and around New York City were forced to walk, find a cab, drive into work or work from home Tuesday after the strike began at 3 a.m. EST. The strike affects not only Manhattan but the other city boroughs as well - the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

These are pretty good jobs. Give someone else a shot.

Will:

Particularly in time of war or the threat of it, government needs concentrated decisiveness -- a capacity for swift and nimble action that legislatures normally cannot manage. But the inescapable corollary of this need is the danger of arbitrary power.

I think Bush is earnest and I think he thinks he's doing the right thing. The problem is the great leap forward in these type of powers. A line has been crossed. If ignored, the line will be more easily crossed in the future until it is a line no more.

Nordlinger:

You know how we on the right have been beating Bush up for ages on spending, and how many on the left have been doing it too? You know how Bush has been a drunken sailor, chastised by pretty much all sides? I always thought that, as soon as he tightened up a bit, he would be blasted as a heartless budget-cutter, willing to throw Grandma in the snow.

Well, whaddya know. I quote the AP report: "The House narrowly passed a plan to cut deficits by almost $40 billion over five years in legislation hailed by GOP conservatives as a sign their party was returning to fiscal discipline and assailed by Democrats as victimizing medical and education programs that help the poor."

Democrats are always going to say stuff like this when it comes to fiscal discipline. So why play? Do a press conference and say, "Yeah, we're cutting the rate in growth of spending and we're quite sure it's going to kill your grandma, but we're Republicans and we're doing it anyway because we just don't have the cash."

Nordlinger:

And did you hear his answer to the New York Times's David Sanger yesterday? Sanger asked whether errors in the Iraq intelligence made it harder to conduct diplomacy and warn people of current or future dangers. Bush said - yes.

I may be naive, but I think people in this country respond well to candor. Be straight up. We can handle it.

Heard a few minutes of Rush today. He was mocking Barbara Walters upcoming interview with a failed suicide bomber held in an Israeli prison. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy mocking Barbara Walters almost as much as I enjoy mocking Maureen Dowd. However, the very good news is that during the interview she asks the would-be bomber about his reward in the afterlife. He firmly believes the 72 virgin myth. He also firmly believes that only Muslims go to Heaven and everyone else is doomed to Hell especially Jews.

Given the evident primitive education level of this ignorant fool, it really shouldn't be that much trouble to put a little doubt in the minds of terrorist foot soldiers. All it's going to take is exposure. These guys have been brainwashed their whole life. Let's put our tax money to good use and buy everyone in the Middle East a subscription to DirecTV.

What are they doing? Do they want to be civil servants? Do they want to be celebrities? Do they want to be models? What is it with them and posing?

UCLA News via PEER Review:

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

CSM:

If China graduates more than eight times the number of engineers that the United States does, is it thrashing America in the technology race?

That's what many scientists and politicians are suggesting in the wake of an October report by the highly regarded National Academies. Its numbers are startling: China adds 600,000 new engineers a year; the US, only 70,000. Even India, with 350,000 new engineers a year, is outdoing the US, the study suggests.

But that gloomy assessment depends on how one defines engineers: Those with at least four years of college training? Or do their ranks include two-year graduates of technical schools and even, in China's case, auto mechanics?

There is no question that India and China are where it's at for the 21st Century. There's also no question that they're going to be aspiring to US levels of all sorts of things for years to come. And when they get there? So much the better. It's never a bad thing to have rich friends.

Nordlinger:

"How many Palestinians does it take to change a light bulb? None! They sit in the dark forever and blame the Jews for it!"

Power Line:

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that we have technology in place that allows us to begin intercepting phone calls within a matter of minutes after we learn of a phone number being used by an al Qaeda operative overseas. My guess is that there is a system into which our military can plug a new phone number, and begin receiving intercepts almost immediately. I hope so, anyway; and I'm guessing that the disclosure of this system to al Qaeda is one of the reasons why President Bush is so unhappy with the New York Times. If we do have such a technology, it certainly would help to explain the remarkable fact that the terrorists haven't executed a successful attack on our soil since September 2001. And the disclosure of such a system, by leaking Democrats in the federal bureaucracy and the New York Times, makes it more likely, by an unknowable percentage, that al Qaeda and other terrrorist organizations will launch successful attacks in the future.

I caution all of us to remain hinged on this. Spying on Americans is one thing. Spying on Americans who are al Qaeda operatives is another.

My objection is that our intelligence agencies haven't proved themselves to be all that on the ball recently. And without adequate accountability do they really deserve the benefit of the doubt in receiving an all access pass to spy on their countrymen? When government powers take a leap forward like this, there will inevitably be unintended consequences. All Republicans who were upset about Clinton and the FBI files ought to consider this carefully. All Democrats who dismissed the FBI file scandal, ought to weigh their Bush hatred vs. their love for the Constitution.

Cobb:

Here's the thumbnail sketch. Sharpton, Farrahkan, Cosby, Winfrey, Jackson, the five greatest oxygen suckers in all of black America formed a joint task force to derail Chappelles Show. Why? Because of his negative portrayals of black people. It came to threats and intimidation on his family.

For the sake of Comedy Central, let Chappelle be Chappelle.

Marcus:

The Democrats can't utter a sentence these days without bemoaning the Republican "culture of corruption." How better to take the wind out of their sails than to co-opt the corruption issue? The president's most effective immunization against the Abramoff virus is one he could administer himself, by getting out ahead of the problem.

I don't care how it gets done, but it needs to get done. Let's have a vote on lessening the influence of lobbyists and see where everyone comes down.

WSJ:

Long a stronghold for Islamic extremists and the world's second-most populous Muslim nation, Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the U.S. than at any time since 9/11, while support for al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed 87,000. The U.S. pledged $510 million for earthquake relief in Pakistan and American soldiers are playing a prominent role in rescuing victims from remote mountainous villages.

VDH:

...American history is far kinder to those who persevered than those who alleged that their country's victory was impossible. Most today revere Lincoln and Marshall, along with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who weathered unimaginable slurs. A Gen. McClellan or Sen. Jenner - who opportunistically piled on when news from the front was bad - was mostly forgotten when things inevitably improved.

Thornton:

Whether this government succeeds or not, however, is ultimately the business of the Iraqi people, its success or failure their responsibility. What we need to make clear is that we spent blood and treasure to give Arab Muslims the opportunity to create a society and government that can allow its citizens a chance at the prosperity and freedom that do not exist anywhere else in the Arab Middle East. But we can't force them to make the most of this opportunity. They themselves have to want it more than they want their ancient religious and ethnic rivalries or their pipe dreams of lost Muslim glory or their toxic hatred of Israel.

King:

Said Leftwich: "You know the world is changing when the slow black quarterback stays the quarterback and the fast white quarterback gets switched. With Matt, it's fun to teach him what I know. He's a good learner.'"

Black guy as tutor. White guy as student. While I'm talking Jacksonville, did you know the Jaguars are an all-black-quarterback team? Leftwich, Garrard and Quinn Gray. Does anyone write about it, talk about it?

It's almost embarrassing to point it out is how far we've come. And how about Lovie Smith in Chicago and Marvin Lewis in Cincy? How many owners feel like idiots for passing these two by for so many years?

WP:

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the New York Times reported last week, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of hundreds of U.S. citizens and residents suspected of contact with al Qaeda figures -- without warrants and outside the strictures of the law that governs national security searches and wiretaps.

I don't know what to think yet. It was inevitable that we reach this point either in this administration or a future administration. Terrorists aren't going to face us on a battlefield. They're going to even the odds as best they can which includes recruiting US citizens and operating within the US. How to find them out and track them? They understand the restrictions on the government. There was no question they would attempt to exploit these restrictions. They already have.

Ask yourself, how would you feel about unauthorized wiretaps if they had been used to discover Atta and prevent 9/11? How would you feel about torture if it was used to get information out of Atta on other pending terrorist plots?

On the other hand, what do we gain in the War on Terror by condoning torture or spying on citizens? We may gain short-term tactical advantage, but we begin to lose what makes the US unique. The only strategy that wins this culture war in the end is the promotion of freedom and democracy. As I've said over and over, you can't play defense against terrorism. They're too small, the weapons are too big and the targets are too numerous. The only real way to win the war is to change the equation for millions of people around the world. If they see the US as tough and principled and willing to confront the evil in the world in the form of tyrants and the UN and European elite types that help them stay in power, they may begin to believe that things can be different. If this experiment works in Iraq, we may be doing more good than anyone can imagine. We ought not jeopardize that chance by sinking to the levels of our enemies. We are better than that. We've been better than that since we were founded.

The Colts are done. San Diego wore them out today. Peyton you can take the next three weeks off to get ready to play the Patriots who will be coming to see you this year. I might be worried Colts Nation.

Tracy and I went to dinner Friday with two of our favorite liberals. I'm grossly simplifying, but our conversation got me thinking.

A constant theme from liberals is that they don't trust business - Wal-mart, textile mills, developers, drug companies, big oil. You name it.

At the same time though they place unquestioned trust in the government. Maybe not the current government under Republican leadership, but the idea of government. Why? If you don't trust big business, why do you trust big government? Intentions? The primary motivation of business is to increase profits and the primary motivation of government is to care for its people? Do you trust someone because they choose to spend their life serving their fellow man in government? Are their motivations always pure? How can you tell?

Nature compared Wikipedia to Britannica.

Nature via The Corner:

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.

His site is performance art.

Power Line:

During the Roberts process, the MSM did a great job of finding primary documents, such as the memos Roberts wrote as a young Justice Department lawyer. But when it came to analyzing these memos and making arguments about them, specialty bloggers ran circles around even the best MSM legal affairs reporters.

JIC:

Lady Churchill was concerned for her son's safety. With a flippant insensitivity excused by his youth, he told her he would not die in combat because "I do not believe the Gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending."

Yes! Weekly:

"We're driving up Interstate 85 and we can't get into Greensboro because the traffic is backed up. We're saying it must have been a bad accident, but it was all people going to see wrasslin'."

Greensboro was rasslin' central for a long time. How about a Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling Hall of Fame? Get the city council to appropriate a few mil, put it downtown and start counting the tourist dollars.

Saw Narnia today. Liked it. Had never heard of it before the movie came out. The scene where Aslan is killed is too intense for little kids. I was surprised. The battle was done very well though.

One curious thing, it was strange how the whole outcome depended on the witch not understanding the bylaws of their constitution. Seems like since she'd gone to the trouble of understanding that traitors belong to her that she'd have read a little further to know that if she killed Aslan like she did that he'd be back. After all she had 100 years of winter to read up on this stuff.

On the other hand, maybe it's like Scientology and she didn't contribute enough to get the advanced course.

Update: Having written the word Scientology and published it on the Internet, I fully expect to be sued.

Opinion Journal:

All of this ignores what is the real bipartisan scandal of modern redistricting--which is the lack of political competition. In 2004 in Texas, there were two races out of 32 in which the margin of victory was 10% or less. In California, thanks to a Democratic gerrymander, only two of 53 contests were decided with less than 60% of the vote. Nationwide, 90% or more of all House seats are now considered "safe." In short, the politicians are now selecting their voters, not vice versa.

Districts all over the US are a disgrace. How can you throw the bums out with what we've got? We have established a kingmaking enterprise via the political parties. The most important thing now is getting the favor of party bosses. Once you're in, you're going to win the election.

CNN:

...Mostafa Pourmohammadi told The Associated Press: "Actually the case has been misunderstood. (Ahmadinejad) did not mean to raise this matter."

Of course he didn't mean to raise the 'matter.' It would've been better if the 'matter' had continued to be discussed amongst Arabs and had not gotten in the western press.

News.com via Raw Story:

"Iran's got a president that, that, you know, second-guessed the Holocaust and has announced ... the sort of destruction of Israel," said Bush. "He's an odd guy."

Wonder how you sort of destroy somebody.

VDH:

The world does not hate the United States. Of course, it envies us. Precisely because it is privately impressed by our unparalleled success, it judges America by a utopian measure in which anything less than perfection is written off as failure. We risk everything, our critics abroad almost nothing. So the hope for our failures naturally gives reinforcement to the bleak reality of their inaction.

If you think you are funny, you need to read this and weep.

We're stuck in the past today aren't we? I was very confused momentarily when I went to two typepad blogs back to back and they displayed entries from 12/11. Hmmm, thought I. Is there a disturbance in the space-time continuum? Or have I been working so furiously that I am now five days ahead of everyone else?

Cobb posted this table.



Interesting that more people are killed by deer than by lightning, tornadoes and hurricanes. Who knew deer were such a menace? I sense the need for another non-profit. There's a lobbyist somewhere who needs a job.

I was for Randal until he declined to endorse Rebecca for a second position. Who will want to work for him in the Trump org now that he's shown himself to be selfish and too calculating? Was his magnanimity up to that point a ruse? Who's going to put themselves on the line for this guy? If I was Trump, I'd have fired him on the spot and hired Rebecca. And speaking of Trump, why leave it up to Randal on whether to hire Rebecca? He just got through saying his success was based on people he chose to hire. When you've got a winner like Rebecca, why leave it up to Randal to decide her fate?

Or maybe it was all a ruse to get us talking this morning.

More thoughts here.

Two good lines from Randal speaking of Rebecca. When asked by Trump who was more qualified, Randal (consultant firm owner) said there was a world of difference in that he had ran a business and Rebecca (financial journalist) had only written about business. And when asked whether to give Rebecca a second slot, Randal said the name of the show was The Apprentice not The Apprenti.

ESPN:

Bruce Gordon, who heads the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, issued a statement calling McNabb "a great quarterback, an excellent role model and a class act" and said he intended to apologize for denigrating remarks made by Philadelphia chapter president J. Whyatt Mondesire.

"The NAACP has many civil rights issues that require our attention," Gordon said. "Criticizing Donovan McNabb is not one of them."

Good for them. Score one for common sense.

Americans who watched 9/11 on TV and saw their countrymen jumping from the towers or Middle East despots who suddenly have to deal with democracy? What do they say to their people now about how evil the US is when their people watched the US remove the most brutal despot and paved the way for free elections?

Brookes:

Iran's vigorous support for the Iraqi insurgency tells us that the mullahs' regime is probably the one most troubled by Iraq's democratic political revolution.

Guarino has several sensible suggestions in his proposed contract. I especially like 3, 5, 6 and 9.

Theroux:

In the early and mid-1960's, we believed that Malawi would soon be self-sufficient in schoolteachers. And it would have been, except that rather than sending a limited wave of volunteers to train local instructors, for decades we kept on sending Peace Corps teachers.

Drudge says Kong took in $9 million yesterday and asks if it's a bomb. Of course, it's a bomb. Expectations were absurd.

Here's the other thing. What's important is story. Not effects. Understand? Let me restate. Story important. Effects not.

Just because you can do something with effects, doesn't mean you should. And the effects aren't as good as you think. Yeah they're incredible based on how far we've come, but wake me up when I can't tell if it's a real person or not. Or a real King Kong or not.

Nordlinger:

When I was a serious student of the Middle East some years ago, I would often think, "You know, the world doesn't know anything about this - the Holocaust denial, the freakish theories, the irreconcilable hatred." And I wished the world could know more about the Middle East.

One thing that always amazed me is that many Middle Eastern elites couldn't decide whether to deny the Holocaust, celebrate it, or lament that it didn't go far enough.

AP:

Iraqis voted in a historic parliamentary election Thursday, with strong turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas and even a shortage of ballots in some precincts.

Better than expected turnout. Low violence. A good day.

ESPN:

Donovan McNabb is on the defensive again.

Just two years after responding to Rush Limbaugh's claims that he received accolades from the press because he is African-American, McNabb is now reacting to Philadelphia NAACP leader J. Whyatt Mondesire who wrote an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Sun in late November, claiming McNabb used the "race card" as an excuse for his poor play. Mondesire, the Sun's publisher and editor, wrote that McNabb is a "mediocre talent" who tries to disguise his ineffectiveness behind "some concocted reasoning" that African-American quarterbacks who scramble are somehow lesser "field generals."

Didn't Philly play in the Super Bowl last year? McNabb is a class act. Lay off.

If you work outside in the winter and need waterproof gloves that allow for good mobility, you can do worse than these. They're not good for tree work. They'll fall apart, but for everything else they're great.

Aljazeera:

Resistance fighters have in recent days backed away from the threats they used to keep Sunni Arabs away from the January elections. Some groups vowed not to attack polling stations to avoid civilian casualties.

That truce, combined with sealed borders, a three-day ban on traffic and a mass presence of Iraqi police and forces, backed by around 160,000 Americans, could make the election safer than the Jan. 30 poll, when more than 40 Iraqis died in bombings and shootings.

Correspondents say that a majority of Sunnis, who largely boycotted the last poll, are expected to vote in today's historic election. They also expect the vote to lead to a different, less Shia-dominated government.

Chapman:

As Cato Institute budget analyst Chris Edwards notes in his new book, "Downsizing the Federal Government," Republicans have learned that shoveling out dollars is a lot more fun than pinching pennies. In the 1995-96 session of Congress, for every bill introduced to reduce outlays, there were two bills to increase outlays. By 2003-04, the imbalance had become positively grotesque -- with 24 spending bills for every one bill to cut spending.

Jerusalem Post:

Shrapnel had split open his head and shredded his back and legs, but through semi-consciousness Aras Abded Akram smelled cooking gas and then rotten apples.

Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Air Force dropped dozens of gas-filled bombs on this Kurdish town in 1988. About 5,000 civilians died immediately, 21 of them from Akram's family, including his parents and all 10 of his siblings.

On Wednesday, Akram, now 39, buried his uncle, who died at 58 from cancer related to the sweet-smelling concoction of mustard, cyanide and VX gases he inhaled as he fled into the hills.

But vengeance would be his, decided Akram, standing on the spot where the bomb that killed his parents landed. "This is my victory, this democracy," said Akram, "and it's a message to other Arab dictatorships.

"I will be the first in line tomorrow to vote," he said.

Charlotte Observer:

For the third time in six years, Augusta National has undergone a dramatic renovation, continuing the perpetual pursuit of maintaining the rhythm and demands created by designers Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie.

Why? Why go to all this trouble of mucking around with a classic golf course when what you really ought to be doing is putting some limits on equipment (tennis too, by the way). Otherwise, let's just go straight to 10,000 yard courses and forget the 500 yards a year it's taking to get there.

Jacoby:

Less than three years ago, Iraq was a place where dissent was crushed, freedom of speech unknown, and civil liberties nonexistent. Today it swirls and bubbles with democratic excitement. Thousands of Iraqis are running for office in this week's election. The sights and sounds of self-government -- political posters, passionate debate, radio and TV commentary, candidates pressing the flesh -- are everywhere. It is an extraordinary moment in Iraqi, and Arab, history.

Sperry:

Now for the first time, a key Pentagon intelligence agency involved in homeland security is delving into Islam's holy texts to answer whether Islam is being radicalized by the terrorists or is already radical. Military brass want a better understanding of what's motivating the insurgents in Iraq and the terrorists around the globe, including those inside America who may be preparing to strike domestic military bases. The enemy appears indefatigable, even more active now than before 9/11.

I have no idea what the answer is. But I wonder when we talk of Islam as a peaceful religion how much of it is the West projecting its idea of what religion is on Islam.

Reuters:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the Holocaust was a myth, ramping up his rhetoric and triggering a fresh wave of international condemnation.

In other news, Ahmadinjkfdkadkfjkjkjdkfjla reiterated the rock solid fact that you get 72 virgins for blowing yourself up in a crowded Jewish market.

Kazakhstan couldn't be so silly as this, could they?

China News:

As abbot of the world-famous Shaolin Temple, the holy land of kung fu, Shi indeed plays multiple roles. His latest is executive producer of a $25-million movie about the life and times of the legendary fighting monks that is set to hit cinemas in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also has a reality TV project in the works, a kind of "American Idol" for kung fu masters.

To critics, Shi's lifestyle and projects prove how far the Shaolin Temple has strayed from its roots in an increasingly commercial society. But its controversial abbot says it's no crime to keep up with the times in order to preserve the past.

"Movies, TV shows, the Internet - these are all modern communication tools," said Shi, sitting in the dark chambers of his office in the Shaolin Temple as aides with shaved heads buzzed around arranging his busy schedule on their cellphones. "We are monks living in a new era. We should take advantage of these technologies and use them to serve Buddhism and traditional culture."

Townhall:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, led by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole, continues to meddle in the Rhode Island GOP primary at the expense of conservative challenger Steve Laffey.

Nice. Very nice.

From the NRSC site:

Today, Club for Growth, a self-described conservative 527 organization, endorsed Steven Laffey for Rhode Island’s U.S. Senate seat. In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Club for Growth Chairman, Pat Toomey, implies that Mr. Laffey will carry the Ronald Reagan torch for limited government and tax reductions. In fact, Club for Growth portrays Mr. Laffey's record as Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island as one that highlighted hard-nosed spending cuts to correct Cranston's troubled budget woes.

That is plainly and categorically untrue.

Mr. Laffey never cut overall spending - he has increased municipal spending. As Mayor, Mr. Laffey balanced the budget by increasing taxes. In fact, under Laffey's leadership, Cranston now has the highest residential property taxes in Rhode Island.

Incumbents are the problem. They'll do whatever it takes to stay in power and by being the incumbent they have too many advantages in campaigns. It's time for term limits.

Lowry:

Democrats complain of a "culture of corruption" in the Republican-controlled Congress, and they are right in one respect: The spending process has been so twisted by the Republican majority that it has become inherently dirty.

The instruments of this perversion are "earmarks," special provisions attached to spending bills that direct federal money to specific projects. Earmarks are how Congress diverts spending to pork-barrel local priorities and to other special interests. This practice has long existed, but Republicans have made it part of the fabric of their governing.

In 1994, there were 4,126 earmarks in the 13 appropriations bills. In 2004, there were 14,040. This year’s highway bill alone had 6,371 earmarks. An industry has grown up around this specially designated money.

Throw the bums out. It'd be better for conservatives to get it done in the Republican primaries, but if they don't, I really don't see much difference in the group we've got now and Democrats. For example, if Democrats had passed the Medicare drug bill, we'd be screaming about socialized medicine all over the country. That it was the Republicans doesn't make it more palatable. In fact, it makes it worse. They're supposed to know better.

Washington Times:

The Army has exceeded recruiting goals in the first two months of this fiscal year, reversing a trend that had some Iraq critics saying the armed services branch was "broken."

The Pentagon yesterday said the Army signed up 5,856 recruits in November, 5 percent above its goal. It previously announced the Army also exceeded its target in October, the first month of the 2006 fiscal year.

Let me take a moment to address Murtha's point about the military being broken and living hand to mouth. Completely absurd. If a ragtag bunch of terrorists (read insurgents if you're PotatoStew) can break our military, what chance have we against China? Or Uruguay for that matter.

Sowell:

The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during a three-month period in World War II. In the Civil War, the Confederates lost 5,000 men in one battle in one day.

Yet there was Jim Lehrer on the "News Hour" last week earnestly asking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the ten Americans killed that day. It is hard to imagine anybody in any previous war asking any such question of anyone responsible for fighting a war.

We have lost more men than that in our most overwhelming and one-sided victories in previous wars. During an aerial battle over the Mariannas islands in World War II, Americans shot down hundreds of Japanese planes while losing about 30 of their own.

If the media of that era had been reporting the way the media report today, all we would have heard about would have been that more than two dozen Americans were killed that day.

This is very cool.

Instapundit posts about California's unpreparedness in dealing with future tsunamis. What about the east coast of the US? The mother of all tsunamis is only an eruption away.

BBC:

What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.

CNN:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has denied clemency for convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, who co-founded the Crips street gang.

Actions have consequences. Murdering innocents by shooting them in the back with a shotgun has the severest consequences. May this action by the state turn as many kids away from gang violence as your children's books have.

Reason:

"Government," wrote Friedman, "preferably local governmental units, would give each child, through his parents, a specified sum to be used solely in paying for his general education; the parents would be free to spend this sum at a school of their own choice, provided it met certain minimum standards laid down by the appropriate governmental unit. Such schools would be conducted under a variety of auspices: by private enterprises operated for profit, nonprofit institutions established by private endowment, religious bodies, and some even by governmental units."

Among other things, Friedman prophesied that an education system based on vouchers would minimize inefficient government spending while giving low-income Americans, who are traditionally stuck in the very worst public schools, a better chance at receiving a good education. Vouchers "would bring a healthy increase in the variety of educational institutions available and in competition among them. Private initiative and enterprise would quicken the pace of progress in this area as it has in so many others. Government would serve its proper function of improving the operation of the invisible hand without substituting the dead hand of bureaucracy."

DeMuth:

The unraveling of Constitutional government seems to have deep causes, not only in modern organization and communications, but in modern habits of mind. The principle of limited government was long considered a cornerstone of liberal democracy-right up there with freedom of speech and association, regular elections, an independent judiciary, and an apolitical military. But although it is still often included in the litany, the reference has become reflexive and vestigial. Limited government-or limited anything-is profoundly alien to modern American sensibilities. We regard limits as inherently arbitrary and irrational, and celebrate innovation and growth that breaks through established boundaries.

I thought the era of big government was over in 1996. I'm pretty sure I heard that announcement in the State of the Union address that year.

Safe for work. Brutal, but not graphically so.

Toomey:

Describing his 1976 challenge to incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan wrote, "It was time to scale back the size of the federal government, reduce taxes and government intrusion in our lives, balance the budget, and return to the people the freedoms usurped from them by the bureaucrats."

Reagan helped define the mission of the Republican Party. By re-establishing limited government as the central principle of the GOP, he laid the groundwork for the political revolution that bears his name. Almost 30 years later, the Republican Party is at a similar defining moment. Once again, challengers to certain Republican incumbents are needed to help restore limited government to its rightful place at the center of the Republican agenda.

AS:

There's a lot of money here, in other words. Even so, the amount of construction going on was notable. Everywhere buildings are going up. Massive piles of rubble are slowly being consolidated and hauled off to...well, nobody quite knows where, but out of the way. I asked my cab driver what precipitated the current boom.

"The country finally feels safe," he answered. "Before, always the worry America will leave, always Saddam Hussein threatening. Always Kuwait feeling like it is not worth it to build too much new until Saddam is gone. Now Kuwait is safe and only good times are ahead."

He added that he was Indian, and not entitled to all the benefits of Kuwait's riches. "Kuwaitis are proud people and will talk down to anyone except Americans," he explained, erudite enough that you just knew his schooling loomed high above his occupation. "They know there is only one reason they still exist and that is USA. Everyone else, they do not care." Why stay then? "It is not the best country for me, but it is also where the money is. With enough money, you can live without respect. Maybe one day I go to the USA where they have respect like Kuwait has oil." He sighed. "Yes, that would be nice."

Smith:

The inspections department had the notion that its inspectors could enter homes whether the tenant agreed or not. That is not legal.

Very nice piece by Roch Smith Jr. on Greensboro inspections personnel abusing their power. Look, if you work for the government in a democracy, the citizen is your boss. The citizen is not a problem to be dealt with. You should defer to the citizen.

Additionally, landlords should not be helping the government violate tenants' constitutional rights.

The bigger picture is why in the world does the city need to inspect apartments while someone is living there? The obvious solution is that a certificate of occupancy be required whenever someone new leases an apartment. That way it's up to the landlord to contact the city before a new resident moves in and all the paperwork could be handled between the city and the apartment owner without affecting someone's home.

I really don't care what Oliver Stone's take on 9/11 is.

Althouse. NYT.

Steyn:

So let's see: We have a Holocaust denier who wants to relocate an entire nation to another continent, and he happens to be head of the world's newest nuclear state. (They're not 100 percent fully-fledged operational, but happily for them they can drag out the pseudo-negotiations with the European Union until they are. And Washington certainly won't do anything, because after all if we're not 100 percent certain they've got WMD -- which we won't be until there's a big smoking crater live on CNN one afternoon -- it would be just another Bushitlerburton lie to get us into another war for oil, right?).

So how does the United States react? Well, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the comments of Ahmadinejad "further underscore our concerns about the regime."

We haven't even lost in Iraq and the only bullet left in our gun in dealing with Iran is empty diplomatic speech. Imagine how emboldened every two-bit thug in the Middle East will feel if we're seen leaving the region as cowards.

Kissinger:

Whatever one's view of the decision to undertake the Iraq war, the method by which it was entered, or the strategy by which it was conducted - and I supported the original decision - one must be clear about the consequences of failure. If, when we go, we leave nothing behind but a failed state and chaos, the consequences will be disastrous for the region and for America's position in the world.

For the jihad phenomenon is more than the sum of individual terrorist acts extending from Bali through Jakarta, to New Delhi, Tunisia, Riyadh, Istanbul, Casablanca, Madrid and London. It is an ideological outpouring comparable to the early days of Islam by which Islam's radical wing seeks to sweep away secularism, pluralistic values and Western institutions wherever Muslims live.

Its dynamism is fueled by the conviction that the designated victims are on the decline and lacking the will to resist. Any event that seems to confirm these convictions compounds the revolutionary dynamism. If a fundamentalist regime is installed in Baghdad or in any of the other major cities, such as Mosul or Basra, if terrorists secure substantial territory for training and sanctuaries, or if chaos and civil war mark the end of the American intervention, jihadists would gain momentum wherever there are significant Islamic populations or nonfundamentalist Islamic governments. No country within reach of jihad would be spared the consequences of the resulting upheavals sparked by the many individual centers of fanaticism that make up the jihad.

Defeat would shrivel American credibility around the world. Our leadership and the respect accorded to our views on other regional issues from Palestine to Iran would be weakened; the confidence of other major countries – China, Russia, Europe, Japan - in America's potential contribution would be diminished. The respite from military efforts would be brief before even vaster crises descend on us. Critics must face the fact that a disastrous outcome is defined by the global consequences, not domestic rhetoric. Similarly, the administration will ultimately be judged by results, not plans.

Put the emotion of Bush hatred behind you for a moment. Erase what memories of the 60s you might have left. What is happening in the Middle East is too important for petty politics.

Think about this for a moment. Let's say your dreams come true and a Democrat wins in '08. Life will be much easier for that Democrat if Iraq is stable and the terrorists (insurgents, if you prefer) have been routed.

PotatoStew posts about some group, somewhere boycotting Sears and Target for not using the word 'Christmas' enough in advertising.

That about does it. I officially declare the end of the effectiveness of boycotts. Ever since Carter's wildly successful boycott of the 1980 Olympics and its instrumental role in bringing the Soviet Union to its knees, boycotts have been losing their ability to inspire change with every Tom, Dick and American Family Association getting in on the act. It's over people. Nobody cares anymore. You beat the boycott horse to a bloody pulp. Let the poor beast rest in peace.

Maryland won the NCAA Men's Division I Soccer Championship today in Cary in front of 6922 fans.

In other news, some people practiced curling in Canada.

Allen Johnson says the current generation is looking pretty good.

I've seen other signs this semester that the times may be changing. Only a few years ago I'd witnessed growing rudeness and disrespect in college classrooms. I even expelled a pair of students after displays of childish, disruptive behavior.

Thankfully, at least in my little corner of academia, that trend seems to be ebbing, too. Students are more serious and respectful, punctuating their sentences with "sir" or "ma'am" and actually listening. Most not only arrive for an 8 a.m. class on time but consistently early.

On an even more optimistic note, the frequency of pregnancies among my students has dropped to nearly zero. That was hardly the case in the late 1990s, when students would disappear in the middle of the semester only to reappear as young mothers. Some of these pregnancies involved older, married students. Most did not.

I've noticed this too. Kids in the late 90s seemed more out of control (remember Woodstock '99?). What's the reason? Economic opportunity? Kids looked into the abyss and drew back? Baby boomer narcissism is finally fading?

Whatever it is, kids have not only grown more sophisticated over the last several years, but they seem to have matured a bit as well. Even baggy jeans are disappearing, thank God.

Seriously, the wisdom and idealism of some of these folks is overwhelming. We've gone from the unrestrained hedonism of the baby boomers back to the cool determination of their parents. Is it possible the boomers were just an aberration? We can hope.

Jacob:

We've come a long way from George Washington, who didn't need a law to require him to hand power back to the people. His example created a tradition of a two-term limit on the president that, when broken by FDR, culminated in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.

It's long past time to extend that heritage to all legislatures in all states...

Rosen:

Choice, variety and competition have been the bedrock of our free society and the formula for success in most every other field. Why should education be any different? There's certainly no shortage of competition in higher education and that's delivered in large part by private institutions.

The fundamental problem with public education today is systemic. Public school districts have increasingly become politicized, corpulent bureaucracies in tow to their most influential constituent group: teachers unions.

NR:

The result of these mutually reinforcing developments was catastrophic: Poverty became engrained and intergenerational among the "underclass"-a predominantly black subgroup of the poor, among whom the rates of welfare dependency, crime, illegitimacy, school dropout, and non-work skyrocketed. The explanation for these pathologies, Murray argued, had nothing to do with the zeitgeist or a breakdown in the work ethic or racial differences. "All were results that could have been predicted . . . from the changes that social policy made in the rewards and penalties . . . that govern human behavior. All were rational responses to changes in the rules of the game. . . ." In particular, Murray said, illegitimacy and non-work soared because the total package of welfare benefits paid to women for having an out-of-wedlock child came to be greater than the take-home pay from a minimum-wage job. "From an economic point of view, getting married is dumb." In the same vein, crime went up because the risks it entailed went down, and school failure rose because the disincentives to slacking off and acting up shrank to a vanishing point.

NYT:

But Democrats say there's a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, is routinely vilified on liberal Web sites for supporting the Iraq war.) Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates. They are generally less interested in examining every side of every issue and more focused on eliciting strong emotional responses from their supporters.

This is tripe. Folks may as well quit trying to classify blogs and make general statements about them because they're as varied and unique as the people who publish them.

The incomparable Michael Lewis via Jon Lowder:

Bad as it was for Texas A.&M., its staff might wonder how much worse it could have been if Leach had the same access to talent as A.&M. or Texas or Alabama or, God forbid, Notre Dame. The chances of that happening can't be great, though. Leach remains on the outside; like all innovators in sports, he finds himself in an uncertain social position. He has committed a faux pas: he has suggested by his methods that there is more going on out there on the (unlevel) field of play than his competitors realize, which reflects badly on them. He steals some glory from the guy who is born with advantages and uses them to become a champion. Gary O'Hagan, Leach's agent, says that he hears a great deal more from other coaches about Mike Leach than about any of his other clients. "He makes them nervous," O'Hagan says. "They don't like coaching against him; they'd rather coach against another version of themselves. It's not that they don't like him. But privately they haven't accepted him. You know how you can tell? Because when you're talking to them Monday morning, and you say, Did you see the play Leach ran on third and 26, they dismiss it immediately. Dismissive is the word. They dismiss him out of hand. And you know why? Because he's not doing things because that's the way they've always been done. It's like he's been given this chessboard, and all the pieces but none of the rules, and he's trying to figure out where all the chess pieces should go. From scratch!"

This guy is a complete and total genius.

Innovation is the key to everything. David Boyd rule of life #4.

ESPN:

The United States, which advanced to the quarterfinals of the last World Cup in 2002, was drawn into a strong group with Italy, the Czech Republic and Ghana.

"It's a very difficult group," U.S. captain Claudio Reyna said. "You have perhaps three teams that could have been top seeds."

Anybody care? I heard Papa Joe Chevalier a few years ago discussing why people sing at soccer games. He said it's because they're bored out of their minds.

Bryant:

The Terrell Owenization of the Democratic Party is pretty much complete. Selfish, media-hogging, and utterly unconcerned about the impact of what they are doing to their team, the Dean-Reid-Pelosi Party has thrown its ongoing collective temper tantrum for months now.

And the media has shown up whenever they chose to flex their muscles in the driveway.

WFB:

There are four insurgent groupings at work. The first of these is self-servingly ideological. It is the group that lost power with Saddam's deposition. They wish for a restoration of sorts. Democracy is the enemy, and they will fight any occupying power, like our own, that might advance self-government.

A second broader group — from which the first group largely is drawn — is identified as Sunni Arab rejectionists. This is the ethnic/religious group that under Saddam ruled Iraq — and despoiled it. These Sunni rejectionists are up against the majority Shiites. They are not intrinsically totalitarian, but they feel threatened by the predominance of the Shiites. They have now become, in the language of the BENS, "POIs" — pissed-off Iraqis. They are affected by the breakdown of services, like electricity, the loss of economic favors they once enjoyed and the prevailing chaos in the country. What they want is the re-establishment of an order in which they would play the principal role.

There is then a third group: the jihadists, or religious fanatics. They want the restoration of the ancient caliphate. Their principal agents — the suicide bombers — are mostly not native Iraqis. They come in from Syria, and though they do not have the backing of any substantial number of Iraqis, they have the influence generated by the audacity and critical impact of their feats.

A fourth element is, quite simply, a criminal class. Eighty thousand criminals were released from prison by Saddam just before his regime was toppled. These are abroad in the land and practicing their profession, and contributing to the disruptions from which they profiteer.

NYT:

Five years after running as the vice-presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket and a year after his own presidential bid, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has become an increasingly unwelcome figure within his party, with some Democrats seeing him more as a wayward son than a favorite son.

and...

"Some Democrats said I was being a traitor," he said in an interview on Friday, adding that he was not surprised by the reaction, "given the depth of feeling about the war."

and...

Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group with 10,000 members in Connecticut, said it would consider a challenge if the right candidate came along.

"It's like a betrayal," Mr. Matzzie said of Mr. Lieberman's stand on the war. "He is cheering the Bush Iraq policy at a time when Republicans are running away from the president."

Here's the new GOP commercial featuring Dean, Boxer and Kerry.

AP:

The American military Friday arrested a high-ranking member of al-Qaida in Iraq in the town of Ramadi, the U.S. Marines said.

Amir Khalaf Fanus, also known in the Ramadi area as "the Butcher," was wanted for criminal activities including murder and kidnapping, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool said in a statement from the town, located 70 miles west of Baghdad.

Fanus was No. 3 on a most-wanted list for Ramadi drawn up by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division.

We're getting really, really good at getting #3's. A few dozen more and we'll have all the middle management.

This guy has the added distinction of having the number one al Qaeda nickname - the Butcher. Not very creative, are they? It's all Butcher this or Butcher that. How many butchers do they have? We're going to wipe out a whole guild here. Maybe we should get them together with the Mafia. Those guys know nicknames. Or rappers maybe. Those guys are good with nicknames too.

Baute brings us the news and asks if anyone has ever delivered a commencement address whilst chomping on a stogey. The answer? Yes!

NYCMS:

Winston Churchill was invited to deliver the commencement address at Oxford University, and he arrived with his usual props - a cigar, his cane, and a top hat. As he approached the podium, the crowd rose in appreciative applause. With great dignity, Churchill settled the crowd as he stood confidently before the vast university audience and his admirers. He then removed his cigar from his teeth and carefully placed his top hat on the lectern. Looking directly at the eager audience, with authority ringing in his voice, he shouted, "Never give up!" Several hushed seconds passed. He rose to his toes and shouted again, "Never give up!" His words thundered across the audience and a profound silence enveloped the crowd. He then reached for his hat and cigar, steadied himself with his cane, returned to his seat and sat down. Historians have recorded this six-word commencement speech as the shortest and most eloquent address ever given at Oxford.

Ever wonder why everything good is brief? This is David Boyd rule of life #3.

That's right, ketchup delivery systems. Hot dogs and hamburgers are ketchup delivery systems also. If you live with a four year old, you understand.

When it looks like this. By the way, I hated Lost in Translation. Boring at best. Boring and pretentious at worst.

As long as the Colts are undefeated, Manning is not sitting on the bench. I guarantee it. It's not happening. Do not worry.

By the way, who in the NFC can beat the Colts? Bears? Ha. Seahawks. Ha, ha. Carolina? Let's revisit Carolina later. Giants? Eli starting opposite him might possibly get in Peyton's head, that is until the Indy D gets in Eli's grill.

TSG:

Don't you get the feeling that the Colts are sitting around reading these "Nobody plays them toughter than the Jags" stories, snickering to themselves, and preparing to dish out an absolute beating this Sunday. Ever since that Pats game, they have a swagger that I can't remember seeing before - culminating in that goofy halftime play last week when Manning flipped the ball to the ref, then tried to run back to the line of scrimmage to get off one more play. I'm telling you, Manning has gone insane - he wants to destroy everyone. And he just might.

Pretty wild when Aljazeera quotes the Detroit Free Press.

Aljazeera:

A recent analysis on the Knight Ridder Newspapers, says that the Bush administration's statistics prove that the Iraqi resistance is getting tougher than ever. It's become increasingly difficult for the U.S. army to beat those fighters, the Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight Ridder, reported Saturday.

Among factors mentioned in the analysis is; the fact that the U.S. military casualties rose from an average of about 17 per month in May 2003 to a current average of 82 per month, also the average number of U.S. soldiers harmed by hostile acts per month has jumped from 142 to 808 during the same period.

Moreover, the number of attacks targeting the American invaders since November 2003 rose from 735 a month to 2,400 in October, and the number of mass-casualty bombings grew from zero in the first few months of the war to an average of 13 per month.

"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research organization.

Schultz:

My guy friends always tell me that we're way too subtle. Just say what you mean, they tell me. No if-you-knew-me-at-all theatrics. None of this if-you-loved-me stuff, either. Apparently this doesn't work. In fact, I'm told that, whenever possible, use visual aids.

Yeah. Visual aids work. You might also try, "Honey, I'd like you to (fill in blank)."

VDH:

When Saddam was removed in a brilliant three-week campaign, few anticipated that the subsequent effort to craft democracy in his wake would evolve into a conflict for the very heart of the Middle East. Most feared that postbellum Afghanistan would be the harder task - given the wealthier and more secular nature of Iraqi society.

Instead the war, as wars almost always do, has morphed into something quite different than expected - a regional referendum on Lebanon, the future of Syria, reform movements in the Gulf and Egypt, about-faces in Pakistan and Libya, and continued pressure on a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. And despite the heartbreak of 2,100 deaths, we are not just winning in Iraq, but on the verge of something far larger, and more permanent: not a return to the ancient caliphate or another dictatorship, but the real chance for the birth of a new Middle East that takes its place at last among responsible nations.

All that was impossible to envision without the prior American removal of Saddam Hussein - now reduced to a pathetic deposed tyrant, railing against his victims and in his misery calling those "terrorists" who did not give him clean underwear. He plays the role of the dying thug right out the pages of Plutarch; all that is missing are Sulla's worms.

As you, dear reader, know, I am quite fond of Victor Davis Hanson and I quote him liberally. He is insightful, correct in his thinking and I like his references to Greek and Roman type things even though I don't know what the hell he's talking about half the time.

Fortunately, when you don't know what he's talking about and you don't want to google it and hash through a bunch of porno type sites regarding Suzy Sulla, all you have to do is make something up like this:

When VDH references Plutarch he's talking about the great Greek general Sulla who was a worm rancher after he retired from battling Caesar in 1702 AD.

Pretty soon after posting this, you will have in your comments from our resident classics professor the true explanation of Sulla and Plutarch and thugs and worms and how they relate to what VDH is saying.

VDH:

Contrast the Democratic reactions to respective advice offered by Congressman Murtha and Senator Joe Lieberman. The former is a respected but not nationally known Democratic figure; the latter ran for the vice presidency of the United States. The Democrats gushed over Murtha’s bleak Dean-like assessment that the war is essentially lost and that we must leave as soon as possible. But then when a vote was called on the issue, they voted overwhelmingly not to follow the congressman’s prescription.

In contrast, when Lieberman returned from Iraq and gave a cautiously optimistically appraisal that our plan of encouraging elections, training Iraqis, and improving the Iraqi economy is working both inside Iraq and in the wider neighboring region, he was shunned by Democrats - who nevertheless by their inaction essentially agreed with Lieberman and so made no move to demand an immediate withdrawal. How odd to be effusive over the Democrat whose advice you reject while ignoring the spokesman whose advice you actually follow.

Sort of makes it all seem like insincere political posturing, huh?

Reuters:

Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying of the Nazi Holocaust "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces..."

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe - like in Germany, Austria or other countries - to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe."

From the article it appears there's a pretty good outcry in Europe against Ahmadinejad. It has always been necessary for peace in the Middle East for the inhabitants there to recognize Israel's right to exist. Without this prerequisite fulfilled, negotiations on other matters are pointless.

Update: Since we spell al Qaeda about six thousand different ways, can't we come up with an easier way to spell this guy's name? I have to look at it about three times everytime I type it.

I might hate him. I'm not sure. It seems kind of silly to hate someone you don't know. On the other hand, if I did know him, I'd prolly hate him.

Anyway, it appears O'Reilly interviewed Stern recently.

Althouse:

Stern is so sharp that he makes O'Reilly look smushy. The O'Reilly bluster just can't get going. O'Reilly seems cowed by the knowledge of how damned much money Stern is getting from Sirius radio. Is it $500 million? Stern wouldn't quite say. Is it $500 million? O'Reilly kept asking.

Update: Remember that O'Reilly vs. Krugman interview with Russert a couple of years ago? I suppose philosophically I agree more with O'Reilly. On the other hand it was like trying to decide on pulling for either the Eagles or the Cowboys (for those not up on the NFL, both are bad choices).

Bismarck Tribune via Drudge:

North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy is accusing Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean of overstepping his bounds, saying the former presidential candidate should not give up on the war in Iraq.

On Monday, Dean likened the war in Iraq to Vietnam and said, "The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong."

"My words to Howard Dean are simple - shut up," Pomeroy told WDAY Radio in North Dakota on Thursday.

Pomeroy later told the Associated Press that he is tired "of the overblown rhetoric on both sides."

"We have young men and women with their lives on the line," he added. "The debate has fallen far short of what they deserve."

I'd like to take a moment to thank John Kerry for beating Howard Dean. As remote as the chances are that a Democrat presidential candidate from Vermont could win a presidential election, there was no need to take a chance.

Must read from Right In Raleigh on remarks from General Abizaid who is responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said that the questions he gets from some in Congress convince him that they have the idea that we are about to pushed out of Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no relation between this and the reality on the ground.

and...

The insurgency is in four of 18 provinces in Iraq, not all 18. You do not hear about the 14 provinces where there is no insurgency and where things are going well.

and...

The insurgency in Afghanistan is primarily in Kandahar province (home of the Taliban) and in the mountain region on the Pakistani border. The rest of the country is doing well. Iraq now has over 200,000 soldiers/police under arms and growing. They are starting to eclipse the US/coalition forces. Their casualty rate is more than double that of the US. There are more than 70,000 soldiers under the moderate government in Afghanistan and growing.

and...

Our primary enemy is not the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is al Qaida and their ideology. We are at a period now that is similar to the 1920s where Communism and Nazism had not taken hold in Russia and Germany. The ideology of Al Qaida is out there and it has not taken hold in any country in the Middle East. We need to make sure that it does not and we are doing that, but it will be a long problem with a long commitment.

and...

Since Desert Storm in 1991, US forces have not lost any combat engagement in the region at the platoon-level or above. al Qaida has no beliefs that they can defeat us militarily. They see our center of gravity as being the will of the American People. That is influenced by the media and they are playing to that. They don't need to win any battles. Their plan is keep the casualties in front of the American people in the media for long enough that we become convinced that we cannot win and leave the region.

and...

The battle against al Qaida will not be primarily military. It will be political, economic, and ideological. It will require the international community to fight too.

Any questions?

Podhoretz via Power Line:

In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq-which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces-cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.

I don't care how much you hate Bush or what a fool you think he is or how winning in Iraq might help spendthrift Republicans, winning in Iraq helps the US and Europe and the Middle East in terms of security far more than losing in Iraq. Leaving Iraq as a winner sets up the next decade for reform. Losing and running away leaves us sitting, waiting for the inevitable attack to come. How much more emboldened will Iran be? How much more threatened will Israel feel? This is a big deal. It's bigger than petty party politics.

And, yeah, it's hard. If it wasn't hard, Clinton would have done it.

May:

How do we know that a majority of those in the Middle East aren't more comfortable living under ordered tyranny rather than chaotic liberty?

The first real indication came less than a year ago: In January, millions of Iraqis risked their lives - and dozens sacrificed their lives - in order to cast ballots in the freest and fairest elections that nation had ever experienced.

They repeated the exercise, again defying al-Qaeda terrorists and Saddamist insurgents, to vote on a constitution in October. And on December 15, Iraqis will go to the polls once more, this time to vote for candidates who will serve a full term in office.

Surely, Americans - along with Brits and French and others in the Free World - ought to support these Iraqi voters in every possible way. Whether you were for the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq or against it, whether you think American troops should leave immediately or stay till the last al-Qaeda dog dies - none of that should matter when it comes to Iraqis who want to build democratic institutions and guarantee human rights - and not be suicide-bombed for their efforts.

Imagine a democratic Iraq. Who would have thought it possible that there might be a democracy in the heart of the Middle East? This is an effort worth supporting. Even if you were against the war from the start, we are committed now and all have a vested interest in leaving behind a stable and democratic Iraq. We'll all be better off regardless of short-term political consequences.

Boston Globe:

Globe: President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?

Mike Wallace: What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

Smith:

Polls consistently show that campaign finance reform is an extremely low priority for most Americans. It's not an issue that Americans wake up thinking about, even while pondering politics. It may seem like an obscure regulatory system that has very little effect on our daily lives, or even our political lives. But it's an assault on the First Amendment and a transfer of power from citizens to incumbent politicians, one that doesn't address far more serious conflicts of interest, including those of politicians who bang the campaign finance drum the loudest. As I step down as chairman of the Federal Election Commission, I fear that the regulatory machinery set in motion by Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold will be used to further grind down the free expression of individual citizens.

I have a hard time getting past the fact that McCain championed what amounted to an incumbent protection act. A real straight talking maverick would be all for congressional turnover.

WP:

The House passed three separate tax cuts yesterday and plans to approve a fourth today, trimming the federal revenue by $94.5 billion over five years - nearly double the budget savings that Republicans muscled through the House last month.

I love tax cuts almost as much as reductions in spending. The size of the government has increased by 55% as measured by revenues since 1990. Why? Have you noticed a 50% increase in the benefits you receive from the federal government in the last 15 years?

CBO:

US government revenues in billions of dollars

1990 1,032.0
1991 1,055.0
1992 1,091.3
1993 1,154.4
1994 1,258.6
1995 1,351.8
1996 1,453.1
1997 1,579.3
1998 1,721.8
1999 1,827.5
2000 2,025.2
2001 1,991.2
2002 1,853.2
2003 1,782.3
2004 1,880.1

Noonan:

Here is what is true of my immigrants and of the immigrants of America's past:
They fought for citizenship. They earned it. They waited in line. They passed the tests. They had to get permission to come. They got money that was hard-earned and bought a ticket. They had to get through Ellis Island or the port of Boston or Philadelphia, get questioned and eyeballed by a bureaucrat with a badge, and get the nod to take their first step on American soil. Then they had to find the A&S.

They knew citizenship was not something cheaply held but something bestowed by a great nation.

Did the fact that they had to earn it make joining America even more precious?

Yes. Of course.

AP:

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that if Germany and Austria feel responsible for massacring Jews during World War II, a state of Israel should be established on their soil. Ahmadinejad, who sparked an international outcry in October when he said Israel "must be wiped off the map,", also repeated his view Thursday that the Jewish state was a "tumour."

Me neither. This is the guy who won. Or at least he was one of the people who got voted off.

Althouse:

We don't trust each other!

Before you string me up, I quote selectively. She doesn't mean it. She's just riffing on the stereotype.

However...

Cone recaps Brooks column in the NYT on the difficulties conservatism is facing. Republican does not equal conservative. It happens all the time though, right? You concentrate so much on tactics that you lose sight of strategy.

...conservatism has been semi-absorbed into the Republican Party...A lot of the energy that used to go into ideas is now devoted to defending Republican politicians.

and...

...conservative media success means intellectual flabbiness...conservatives can be just as insular as liberals, retreating to their own media sources to be told how right they are.

Update:

From Raw Story, I missed this line in Ed's recap:

But, Brooks reserves his finest sword for the left: "And the final bit of good news for the right is the left. No matter how serious the conservative crisis is, liberals remain surpassingly effective at making themselves unelectable."

No doubt. Give the American people a real choice Democrats.

AP:

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

Aren't we supposed to be tolerant of diverse points of view? When's the last time conservative college students booed a liberal speaker so vigorously she quit speaking?

Part one.

MSNBC:

In a full-length version of a tape previously broadcast, al-Qaida’s deputy leader called for attacks against Persian Gulf oil facilities and urged insurgent groups in Iraq to unite to drive out American forces, according to a videotape posted on the Internet Wednesday.

Mathew Gross says we've spent $420 billion on the Iraq war. He then says we can insure all Americans for $80 billion spread out over the next ten years.

Hmmmm. This got me thinking. I wonder how much that is per person. Let's see. If I take $80 billion and divide by 300 million (the number of Americans give or take), I get $266.67. That's a heck of a plan, Matt. That's only $26.67 per person per year.

Sign me up.

Howard Dean:

The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong.

Why is this man still the head of the Democrat party? And why do the Democrats choose to invest so much in defeat?

Look, even if winning in Iraq might help Republicans, it's still good for the country, right? Let's be a little more sensible here. It's not always a good strategy to put party ahead of country.

Boot:

The US armed forces have a problem. They have the technical capability to hit any target on the planet. But which targets should they hit? Unfortunately, our enemies in the war on terrorism don't operate tanks or warships that we could blow up. They lurk in the shadows and emerge only briefly to set off bombs. Rooting them out requires getting inside their minds. But there's no machine that can pull off such a feat, at least not yet.

We need smart people, not smart bombs - Americans who are familiar with foreign languages and cultures and proficient in such disciplines as intelligence collection and interrogation. Yet these are precisely the areas in which the U.S. government is the weakest.

Darn enemy. Just when you figure out how to have the best military in the world, they go and change tactics.

From a Nordlinger reader:

My next-door neighbor is a retiree who loves to travel. He and his wife took a trip to India just a few years ago, and found themselves in a smallish town or village. They were approached by a man in his fifties who asked where they were from, and upon learning that they were American he began to ask a number of questions. He had read the Bible and asked many questions about apparent contradictions. He had read the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and Democracy in America, and asked question after question about America and our customs. He was dressed rather shabbily, but spoke excellent English, and was an NBA fan!

As my neighbor and his wife had to get back on the tour bus, the conversation only lasted about an hour. But just prior to taking his leave the man said to them, "In my religion we believe that how we live in this life determines what life we will lead in the next, so that our rewards are not eternal but must be deserved again and again. I believe that you must have done something extraordinary in your past lives to have been born an American in this one."

I share this story with crowds both large and small, and still get choked up.

Rumsfeld:

Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq - despite the costs - and they’re considerable - is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, although democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves good things to be sure. And it’s not only about reopening Iraqi schools, hospitals or rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and these things are desirable and ultimately essential to stability in that country.

But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to protecting the lives of the American people.

Of course, he's right. However I elevate the democracy thing a bit. Succeed with democracy and defeating extremist aspirations is easy. Democratic Iraq will handle it.

Jay Nordlinger:

If you read the news about Iraq - a wide variety of news, not just what the Establishment Press gives you - you can't help being furious to hear John Murtha say, as he just did, "When you fight an insurgency, you have to win the hearts and minds of the people, and we've lost the hearts and minds of the people."

How can he say such a thing? How? I think the hearts and minds of the people are made clear on election day. And, in a week or so, Iraq will have had three of them this year. And those hearts and minds are with a new, democratic Iraq - an Arab experiment, which the Americans are making possible. Iraqi voters dodge terrorists as they go to the polls. I'll never forget the image of a woman spitting on the corpse of a suicide bomber, as she walked around it, to cast her ballot.

Right on. Deny it all you want, but the images of Iraqis voting for a real slate of candidates and taking a chance with their lives to do it is affirming. What do you think folks in other Middle East countries make of these elections and Saddam's trial?

K-Lo:

There's a slowly growing anti-Che market out there (one that makes much more sense than fans of Marxist Che going capitalist).

I wear one of these. I encourage you to do the same.

AP:

Pittsburgh Brewing Co., the maker of Iron City Beer, filed for protection from creditors under federal bankruptcy regulations Wednesday after failing to pay $2.5 million in water and sewage bills.

That's a real shame. They had some cool bottles. Moral of the story? Drink more beer.

Goldberg:

If liberals really want to emulate conservative successes, I have some advice for them: Get into some big, honking arguments — not with conservatives, but with each other. The history of the conservative movement's successes has been the history of intellectual donnybrooks, between libertarians and traditionalists, hawks and isolationists, so-called neocons and so-called paleocons, less-filling versus tastes great.

No question about it. Not all of you should be against Iraq and for abortion and against school choice. Unity is overrated. Battle it out. Be for something other than against Bush.

E&P:

Admittedly late to the blogging phenomenon, The New York Times today launched a Hollywood blog and said more such efforts would be forthcoming.

In an memo to staff on Wednesday, Jon Landman, the paper's deputy managing editor, promised a real estate blog by Damon Darlin in a few days and said more blogs were in the works. Even more "are at the idea stage," he said. Noting that the paper has "come late to blogging" (trailing the Washington Post at a great distance, for example), he nevertheless declared, "Nothing is more important to the future of our web ambitions than to engage our sophisticated readers. Blogs are one way to do it."

Please, by all means, stay home. You are not that important anyway. Ask anyone.

Louv:

The truth is, fear - "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror" as Franklin Roosevelt called it - is changing our lives. Fear of strangers. Fear of strange lawyers.

In response, we're trying to control just about everything.

We raise their kids under protective house arrest, disallowing them the freedom to know a patch of woods, to build a fort or a tree house, or even to climb a tree. Never mind that the number of abductions by strangers has been falling for years.

We worry that the slightest slip in judgment, or even a random act of kindness, can invite a lawsuit from a stranger or a neighbor - even from someone we consider a friend.

Fein:

The White House and the nominee refuse to denounce the homonymic school of interpretation regularly embraced by Justice O'Connor or to celebrate the original intent standard of Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The homonymic school insists the Constitution sounds the same as the original document but means something different, i.e., whatever a majority of justices believe is socially or morally enlightened. The originalist school maintains the justices are confined to interpretations consistent with the intent and purposes of the Founding Fathers. Constitutional shortcomings or oversights are to be cured by amendments ratified by popular consensus, for example, the Bill of Rights, the Civil War Amendments, and the Women's Suffrage Amendment.

Wouldn't we all feel better if the Constitution were changed by amendment rather than by the whims of whatever judge happens to be on the court at the moment?

Charlotte Observer:

One of the scariest moments of the season came with 11 minutes, 36 seconds remaining in the first quarter when Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers went down with what first appeared to be a serious injury to his left leg.

The injury took place when Atlanta tight end Alge Crumpler came at Peppers from the side and appeared to hit him in the vicinity of the left knee. Crumpler was not called for a penalty, and Fox was asked Monday if there was anything untoward about the play.

"I'm not sure how to answer that," Fox said. "But within the rules" there was nothing illegal.

Why does the NFL continue to allow blocks below the waist? Teams invest millions in these players and the NFL condones diving at each other's knees. Foolish.

Bartlett:

A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. They show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.

VDH:

Our restraint will not ensure any better treatment for our own captured soldiers. Nor will our allies or the United Nations appreciate American forbearance. The terrorists themselves will probably treat our magnanimity with disdain, as if we were weak rather than good.

But all that is precisely the risk we must take in supporting the McCain amendment - because it is a public reaffirmation of our country's ideals. The United States can win this global war without employing torture. That we will not resort to what comes so naturally to Islamic terrorists also defines the nobility of our cause, reminding us that we need not and will not become anything like our enemies.

I agree with him. Of course, if it meant saving NY and I had to torture a terrorist to do it, see you in the dungeon. However, it's never that clear cut, is it?

The US is the shining city on the hill. Lead by example. It'll do more good than you can know.

Thornton:

The cause of this sorry state of affairs is the transformation of a once-noble Civil Rights movement into the Civil Rights industry, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party and the Social Welfare Plantation. This collection of academics, activists, pundits, bureaucrats, lupine lawyers, and all-around busybodies has reduced the discussion of race in America to a crude melodrama in which the prime mover is white racism, and black people are kept helpless victims in chronic need of rescue by big-hearted liberals and race-tribunes like Jesse Jackson. The economic and political gains made by black people are ignored, while the true sources of the problems and dysfunctions afflicting many black communities are obscured.

Drudge:

Now roars along another December blockbuster, KING KONG, a film many top Hollywood executives predict will break the record!

Overtaking Titanic is what he's talking about. Yeah right. 12 year old girls will not pay to see a giant ape 20 times. Let's get some perspective here. It's a movie and the trailers are OK. End of story.

We sure are good at getting the #3 al Qaeda leaders. There are more #3 al Qaeda leaders than there are #3 decals on pickup trucks in Kannapolis. How do you think the interrogations are going?

Latest al Qaeda type to be captured: Me? #3? No, no. I'm the janitor.

CIA: We have it on good authority that you are the COO of al Qaeda reporting directly to bin Laden himself.

al Qaeda type: I'm sorry. There must have been some mistake. I just brought the donkey in to pick up the trash.

CIA: Where's Zarqawi?

AQT: Zar who? Look, I need to get back to work. The donkey has got to be back to the village by dawn.

CIA: Zarqawi. Your boss. al Qaeda #2. Where is he?

AQT: I'm telling you. I just pick up after the place. Used sword here. Ninja mask there. Decapitated peace activist head on the floor in front of the hand-lettered bed sheet.

CIA: We're giving you one more chance #3. Come clean.

AQT: I can't tell you what I don't know. Some guy came by the cave and offered me a job cleaning up. He didn't say anything about being part of the management team.

CIA: Ever heard of water boarding?

Reason:

The administration's fundamental problem is not that the public is discouraged by U.S. casualties, or that news from Iraq has been bad, or that the president needs to give better speeches. The problem is that the public sees no stakes in Iraq sufficient to justify the military effort and diplomatic cost.

I think this is true. Once the administration committed to using WMD as the primary reason, to the exclusion of all others, for invading Iraq it was impossible to change the message to the reason for being there is to establish democracy. Although if the administration were better at communicating the long-term benefits of getting democracy going in Iraq, they might have held the wolves at bay a little longer.

And the democracy thing might not have flown anyway. The powers that be might have thought WMD was the easier sale. Establishing democracy would be a benefit that folks would appreciate later. Additionally, at the time, they probably thought WMD were a given and that establishing democracy was an objective so full of risk why even tout it? Either that or they weren't sure about WMD, but they were so committed to seeding democracy in the ME that it was worth taking a chance using WMD to make the case. Or maybe they just all wanted to get rich from Halliburton kickbacks.

Opinion Journal:

Kerry: And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not--

Schieffer: Yeah.

Kerry: --Iraqis should be doing that.

Oh, I get it. Of course. The Iraqis should be the ones terrorizing kids and women in the dead of night.

What the hell is he talking about?

Here. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Is there anything better than football in the snow? It's snowing like crazy in Philly for MNF. For the less fortunate, you can see each individual flake in HD.

DeShaun Foster is a beast.

Even my wife who doesn't know anything about football announcers was laughing at Mick Mixon during the Panthers/Falcons game yesterday. I really, really wonder whose wife Rosinski got caught with.

Both Mack Brown and Pete Carroll have little coaching ability proving once again that college sports are 50% recruiting, 45% ability to relate emotionally to 18-22 year olds and 5% tactics.

AP:

Saddam Hussein told the judge at his trial Monday that "I am not afraid of execution" during an unruly court session...

Jay Nordlinger:

Then he goes after Bush for the doctrine of preemption. Fine, Carter disagrees. But what would he do, when a hostile regime is amassing - or thought to be amassing - weapons of mass destruction? How long would he stand by? Does he regret Israel's takeout of the Iraqi nuclear facility? (I bet he does.) It would be good to hear him.

I have a serious question for y'all. Is it preemption itself that's bad or is it bad because it's Bush who's doing the preempting?

I wonder how many people are anti-war because they're anti-war and how many are anti-war because it's Bush's war and not Gore's. Bush seems to have the same affect on the left that Reagan did - they hate him to such a degree that nothing he is for can possibly be worthwhile. It's almost as if the left sees being in charge of the government as their birthright and whenever the right is in charge they see it as illegitimate.

And before you email, yes I know that if it was Gore's war some on the right would be against it. It just doesn't seem though that the right is as monolithic on things like this. There's much more diversity of thought.

Interesting discussion on The Corner regarding Irving Kristol's possible belief that men need religion in order to keep from descending into anarchy. And you thought neo-con scheming to start a war in the Middle East in order to establish democracy was a grand conspiracy. Ha. That conspiracy theory doesn't hold a candle to this one.

Bailey:

Kristol restated this insight nearly five decades ago in an essay in Commentary dealing with Freud: "If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without...let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine--for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish."

PJ media gave me a link to this post. It's been on their front page this morning. Maybe I was too hard on them. On the other hand, I've gotten one hit in an hour.

Humble civil servants. Hardly. Capitalism does not mean starting a company and bribing a politician to get a fat government contract.

Marcus:

If the Old Washington path to real riches was real estate, the New Washington boasts multiple ways to that end. The region now features its own merchant bankers, its own high-tech moguls, its own entrepreneurial barons overseeing enterprises of indeterminate purpose but with endlessly flowing government contracts. Once, a life in law or lobbying was a reliable route to comfortable prosperity; now, as the stakes have gotten higher, so have the partnership draws. Seven-figure incomes are scarcely noteworthy.

And if you doubt that these folks are flaunting it, take a drive out along River Road into Maryland, or Georgetown Pike in Virginia, and look at the acres upon acres of elephantine monstrosities, turreted and Palladian windowed and mega-garaged. Or look at the magnificent quarter-mile arising in Chevy Chase, where Barneys, Jimmy Choo and Dior are replacing a dowdy suburban strip mall. Not exactly Sparta on the Potomac.

Tracy and I did one of our favorite things today: go to the Showcase of Homes. We're overly impressed by large, beautiful houses. Sprawl or not Wharton, having a house with a theater in it is cool.

Anyway one of the houses was similar to a house someone I used to work with lived in. Somehow this cat had money (his family had money or he was a child model for Toughskins or maybe both). He had a huge house, much bigger than anything his coworkers could afford. Seems like it was maybe 4500 sf or something. How can I forget? He reminded us every other day.

One day a new guy was hired. One of my buddies knew the new guy and knew that the new guy had a very large house. Casually my buddy asked the new guy in front of the old guy with the large house how big the new guy's house was. "About 5000 sf," said the new guy. Obviously this caught the attention of the old guy. "Do you have any two story rooms," said the old guy. "No," was the answer. "Ah," said the old guy. "Mine's got a two story living room and great room. If you measured ours in cubic feet, mine might be a little bigger." Said the new guy, "That's great if you ever want to fill it up with water."

Brzezinski:

By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . . . is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal significance.

Why elevate Osama? Why not just dismiss him as the small-time thug he is? Two words: nuclear weapons.

There are three components needed to launch a nuclear attack on a US city: inclination, organizational ability and device. Check on the first two. It's a matter of time on the third. That's why you have to take Iran seriously. Iran is the most likely means of supplying a nuke to a terrorist once they have the capability.

Imagine for a moment that you're the president. What's the worst possible thing that you might be forced to deal with? Nuclear attack on a US city. What do you do? Everything you can to prevent it? Or something else? And remember, how we deal with this today sets the stage for ten years from now when the nuclear genie will be even more out of the bottle.

Read the whole thing. More here.

WSJ:

I have always believed that good policy is good politics for Republicans. Reagan won against an incumbent president in 1980, declaring in his first inaugural address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." I beat an incumbent Democrat in 1984, against the dire predications of my party's political experts, on an aggressive agenda of smaller government and Social Security reform based on large personal retirement accounts. In 1994, Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years, running on the Contract with America, a clearly articulated public policy agenda based on smaller, smarter government.

Steyn:

And here's where the scale of the Bush gamble becomes clear. Islam and "the West" have a long history. And, without rehashing the last millennium and a half, the Muslim conquest of Europe and then the Crusades and the fall of Andalusia, if you take out a map of the world and look at the rise of the European empires you notice a curious thing: in conquering the world the imperial powers for the most part simply bypassed the Islamic world. They made Africa and South Asia and Latin America and everywhere else seats of European power, but they left the Middle East alone. And, even when they eventually got their hands on the region, after the First World War, they made no serious attempt to reform the neighborhood. We live with the consequences of that today.

I haven't really thought about this before. Very interesting. If the Europeans had colonized the Middle East a few centuries ago like they colonized the rest of the world, maybe the men there would be less irritable today.

WP:

Sen. George Allen rallied fellow Virginia Republicans to his 2006 reelection campaign Saturday, telling them that he would stand for low taxes, energy independence and opposition to "activist judges" on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Why low taxes when the debt continues to grow? Because it's not low taxes that cause the debt to grow. It's increasing spending, much of it unnecessary and wasteful.

Folks who advocate for increasing taxes act like every penny the government spends, it spends wisely.

John's latest reply regarding misleading statements in a June NYT op-ed is here.

The NYT op-ed page editor, David Shipley, claims the statement, Having endured the horrors of World War I trenches... is figurative and does not mean that the folks it references, Eisenhower, Patton, Marshall, Bradley and Truscott, actually served in a trench.

Unfortunately most of us are not smart enough to see clearly that the author of the editorial, Truscott's grandson, was using a literary device. The author, in an email available in this post of John's, even says he stupidly used the "trenches" thing as a metaphor. Why is there an argument Shipley? Correct it and be done with it.

ESPN:

"College football is not just an exhilarating sport, but a billion-dollar business that Congress cannot ignore," said committee Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican.

What? Someone can't have a billion-dollar business without Congress being involved? What the heck is going on here? Wasn't the purpose of winning the Cold War to end communism? We need another Reagan. Quick.

Why restricting speech of course.

Will:

Attacks on freedom of political speech are becoming more brazen. Because the attackers aim to enlarge government's control of the political campaigns that decide who controls government, the attacks advance liberalism's program of extending government supervision of life.

The attempts at restricting speech are coming under the guise of campaign finance reform.

Some liberal senators have filed a brief urging the Supreme Court, in a case concerning Vermont's speech restrictions, to affirm that people like the seven senators-"elected representatives and seasoned participants in the electoral process," meaning professional politicians-"are entitled to broad deference in the regulation of federal elections." Entitled, that is, to regulate the quantity, the timing and even the content of speech about themselves.

The ruling class will never stop seeking to insulate itself. Now that there are safe districts protecting about 400 representatives, we've got to take care of the other 35 and our 100 senators.

It is unquestionable that we have reached the point where the aims and desires of the ruling class have diverged from interests of the public. And what do you expect? Give more and more power to government and bureaucrats are going to make a grab for it. Haven't we learned anything from the failures of socialism? As well-intentioned as you are in setting up government programs, the reality is that you have to have an unchecked government bureaucracy administering the program. The check on bureaucracies in the free market is competition - GM gets too large and bureaucratic and Toyota eats their lunch. Where's the competition at the government level? Republicans vs. Democrats? Ha. That's like changing one board of directors for another. The underlying bureaucrats and their agendas remain in place.

Kinsley:

It used to be said that the moral arc of a Washington career could be divided into four parts: idealism, pragmatism, ambition, and corruption. You arrive with a passion for a cause, determined to challenge the system. Then you learn to work for your cause within the system. Then rising in the system becomes your cause. Then finally you exploit the system—your connections in it, and your understanding of it—for personal profit.

And it remains true, sort of, but faster.

CNN:

Abu Hamza Rabia, who was in charge of international operations for al Qaeda, apparently was working with explosives when the blast occurred, killing him and others, said Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan's information minister.

All we've got to do is wait them out.

Update:

MSNBC:

The operational commander of al-Qaida and possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, Hamza Rabia, was killed early Thursday morning by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials told NBC News.

Pakistan's president later confirmed the militant leader's death.

Well, they might blow themselves up eventually, but it never hurts to give an assist.

Took the kids to see Williams vs. Eastern Randolph tonight. Too cold to stay the whole game. At the half it was 20-14 Williams. Western Alamance was ahead 20-10 in Rocky Mount.

Hopefully when I read the paper tomorrow two Alamance Country teams will be joining Grimsley in playing for championships next week.

Update: Alamance County will be well represented. Both Willams and WA won. The games are next Saturday at Wallace Wade. Or as Ed would say, Kenan Stadium.

Newhouse:

The new weapon in the perpetual war against male facial hair is a five-bladed razor called Fusion, which Gillette will debut early next year.

I'm waiting for the day when you can have a mold made of your head and they design a razor to fit the contours of your face with about 6,000 blades and all you have to make is one stroke.

Kinsley via IP:

These distinctions don't really touch on what's corrupt here, which is simply the ability of money to give some people more influence than others over the course of a democracy where, civically if not economically, we are all supposed to be equal. So where do you draw the line between harmless favors and corrupt bribery?

It's not an easy question if you're talking about sending people to prison. But it's a very easy question if you're just talking: The answer is that it's all corrupt bribery. People and companies hire lobbyists because it works. Lobbyists get the big bucks because their efforts earn or save clients even bigger bucks in their dealings with the government.

Term limits. Unsafe districts. Line item veto. An admission that government is not the answer.

CSM:

The US worker shortage could signal a turning point in the nation's ability to produce its own food.

No it doesn't. It might signal a turning point in the nation's ability to produce food at current cost.

TSG:

New York reader Ernie Goodwin elaborates: "Did you hear Patrick and Theismann on Sunday night? Patrick said that Haslett has done a 'remarkable' job coaching the Saints this year. Yes, they were 2-8 at this point. Theismann followed with, and I quote, 'Haslett deserves to be Coach of the Year.' I thought I was dreaming and I was thinking to myself, 'Ernie, haven't you been smoking peyote for like the last 3 days, and maybe this is all in your head?' Turns out I was wrong, it was indeed actually said. Good times. I'm off to free-climb Mt. Vesuvius."

TSG:

This just in: Ricky Williams has invited himself over to Michael Irvin's house for Thanksgiving next year.

Charlotte Observer:

Flair and his wife Elizabeth separated in February after 22 years of marriage. In a divorce filing, she accuses Flair of "cruel behavior" and says he slapped, kicked, choked, threw, bit and spit on her and pulled her hair.

No word yet on if he used the Figure Four.

Michael Kelly:

One final belated word about the war and then I genuinely intend to ignore reality for the rest of my life and live in a world of books and art and elaborate sexual fantasy.

It is this: before, during and after the war we have heard a lot about the reactions of the so-called Arab Street. And I am tired of it. They are morons, and I don't care what they think. Like streets all over the world, they are loud, bigoted and ignorant. You might as well extrapolate British national sentiment by interviewing a bunch of football hooligans.

Who has time to prance around for camera crews burning American flags and calling on Allah to make the infidels' beards grow awry? A bunch of idle f--king layabouts, that's who. I sometimes fantasize that it is the same twelve inbreds being flown from city to city to behave like arses in front of Western journalists, and it may as well be.

From watching television you could easily get a picture of the whole Muslim world from Tangier to Karachi as being one vast sweaty bazaar packed with gibbering religious maniacs itching to jihad. And, you know, I don't get around much, and maybe that's the case. If it is, we should certainly be told about it and take steps accordingly. And by all means let those steps be violent ones. I'm a fairly liberal fellow but I could cheerfully cluster-bomb all of those oafs I see on the telly just for being rude and uncouth.

This is from a while back, but as with all Michael Kelly it is eternal. This is also a classic as is this.

WSJ:

This onslaught of negative thinking is clearly having an impact. During the 2004 presidential campaign, when attacks on the economy were in full force, 36% of Americans thought we were in recession. One year later, even though unemployment has fallen from 5.5% to 5%, and real GDP has expanded by 3.7%, the number who think a recession is underway has climbed to 43%.

Nordlinger:

As usual, Thomas Sowell has spoken for me: "A nightmare for the 2008 presidential election: Hillary Clinton versus John McCain. I wouldn't know whether to vote Libertarian or move to Australia."

I'm going to try to warm up to McCain. I hope he'll help me.

I worry little about Hillary. She'll do herself in when she starts talking.

On the other hand, my expectations for Republicans are less than zero after the last couple of years. I have a new strategy. I'm going to pimp good ideas like term limits and less government spending more than I'll shill for a candidate. However, I will continue to criticize all of them.

Jay Nordlinger:

I've always felt it inappropriate that TR is on Rushmore, with those other guys.

Me too.

VDH:

Our military realizes that it can trump its brilliant victories in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein by birthing democracy in Iraq - or risk losing that impressive reputation by having a new Lebanon blow up in its face. China, Japan, India, Russia, Korea, Iran, and other key countries are all watching Iraq - ready to calibrate American deterrence by the efficacy of the U.S. military in the Sunni Triangle. Our armed forces have already accomplished what the British and the Soviets could never do in Afghanistan; what the Russians failed to accomplish in Chechnya; and what we came so close to finishing in Vietnam. They won't falter now when they are so close to winning an almost impossibly difficult war, one that will be recognized by friends and enemies as beyond the capability of any other military in the world.

The whole world is watching.

VDH:

...every day the American people should have been reminded of, and congratulated on, their country's singular idealism, its tireless effort to reject the cynical realism of the past, and its near lone effort to make terrible sacrifices to offer the dispossessed Shia and Kurds something better than the exploitation and near genocide of the past - and how all that alone will enhance the long-term security of the United States.

and...

Kurds and Shiites support us for obvious reasons - no other government on the planet would risk its sons and daughters to give them the right of one man/one vote.

However, as we get older, we are still allowed to match our outfits.

Update: Why post about Britney Spears? Because I'm too stupid for this conversation. I'd rather just make fun of celebrities.

Time:

Critics of a timetable rarely bring up its greatest potential benefit: that it would send an unmistakable message to the Iraqis that the hour is soon approaching when they will have to set aside sectarian squabbles and figure out how to save their country on their own. If the Iraqis do that, the U.S. may ultimately be able to claim peace with honor - which is about as close as we're going to get to declaring victory. And don't take my word for it. In his briefing at the Pentagon this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "It's Iraq's country. 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country. They're not going to run it the way you would or I would or the way we do here in this country. But they're going to run it." The worst a timetable would do is let them know when.

If you want out of Iraq as quickly as possible, this is the argument you should be using. What's the saying about nothing focusing the mind like a deadline?

You can also look at it this way, why would the Iraqi leadership ever want us to leave?

Bethell:

George Will has made one accurate criticism of the idea he so dislikes: "The problem with intelligent design is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis." This is true; but he should have added that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is not falsifiable either. Darwin's claim to fame was his discovery of a mechanism of evolution; he accepted "survival of the fittest" as a good summary of his natural-selection theory. But which ones are the fittest? The ones that survive. There is no criterion of fitness that is independent of survival. Whatever happens, it is the "fittest" that survive - by definition. This, just like intelligent design, is not a testable hypothesis. As the eminent philosopher of science Karl Popper said, after discussing this problem that natural selection cannot escape: "There is hardly any possibility of testing a theory as feeble as this." Popper was the first to propose falsification as the line of demarcation between theories that are scientific and those that are not; both intelligent design and natural selection fall by this standard.

There's very little difference in ID proponents and many proponents of evolution. Both are imposing a world view on others based on faith.

If you're on the science side, the evidence is too scant to come to any conclusions at this point, much less to defend your position with such zeal. Besides what you ought to be doing is trying to 'disprove' evolution in order to get to the essence of the thing. So what if you don't have a theory as good to replace it. We can exist with this vacuum.

China Daily:

Statistics show that 20 per cent of the richest people in the country own 80 per cent of the social wealth.

This gives rise to the situation that on the one hand, the handful of rich people have a demand glut, even though their purchasing power seems limitless. On the other hand, the poorer people, who make up the bulk of the population, have limited purchasing power, though they have many needs.

Things are tough all over. Look, some people are talented at entrepreneurial activity in every society in the world. And thank God for them because they keep the rest of us employed and the store shelves full.

Bush:

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh, and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week, they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy give-away outside an Iraqi hospital.

This is an enemy without conscience -- and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory.