Back on Thursday, November 14, we wrote:

All these quotes [about the vast right wing media conspiracy] have to be launched via a talking points memo issued by the DNC--it really is the left's new mantra...Between "conservative media bias" and the Barbra Streisand supported, "Republicans killed Paul Wellstone" theory, Democrats really risk becoming the new black helicopter set.

But hey...the truth is out there! (Somewhere left of the grassy knoll, probably.)

Today, on National Review Online's Corner Weblog, Jonah Goldberg posts:

SNFF, SNFF: I SMELL FOCUS GROUP [Jonah Goldberg]

In the run-up to his presidential campaign then Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush made the tactical decision to go after the -- objectively -- liberal media. It was a calculated ploy and it worked. Something similar seems to be going on with the Democrats these days. First Tom Daschle goes after Rush Limbaugh for reasons that can only have to do with the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party. Now, Al Gore gives this bizarre interview to the New York Observer which Kathryn posted below. Gore claims that the media is dominated by rightwingers. Call me crazy, but I bet you rank-and-file Democrats, the ones who vote in primaries, spend a lot of time fuming at Fox News. They are also staggered and bewildered that they are on the losing side of American political history and are in deep denial about it. So perhaps this is a theme that tests extremely well in Democratic focus groups. If so, expect a lot more of it.

Advantage, Ed! (And I agree with Jonah--this is a mantra with legs. Even if it's absurdly silly: compare CNN, NBC, ABC,CBS, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, and even "infotainment" channels like HBO, Bravo, Trio, Oxygen, Lifetime, etc., all on the left, with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, on the right.

Everything you know about the Rolling Stones' infamous 1969 free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California is wrong, according to Aaron Haspel in a provocative Blogcritics post.

THE AGE OF REAGAN: My review of Steven F. Hayward's recent book is now online at Blogcritics.

(Blogging will be light this week, incidentally. I'm on the East Coast sharing Thanksgiving week with my family.)

SEE ANOTHER MOVIE: Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard really, really hated Die Another Day, the latest James Bond movie.

Will my wife and I go see it? Probably. But it doesn't sound like we'd be missing much if we didn't:

If nothing else, "Die Another Day" will be remembered for this bit of ingenuity: The producers found a way to get product placement for three different cars. Jinx gets a Ford Thunderbird, the villain gets a Jaguar, and Bond gets his Aston Martin. The negotiations for how the duel between these machines was to proceed must have been dizzying.

So where does "Die Another Day" fit in the hierarchy? Somewhere beneath "Moonraker" and above, say, "Casino Royale."

Ouch.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Roger Ebert liked it. I like Ebert (we've exchanged a handful of emails, and he's always been gracious), but he can be--shall we say--merciful at times: I don't think my wife ever forgave him for giving the excrementally awful Buffalo 66 three stars.

WILL BAGHDAD RESEMBLE STALINGRAD? Probably not, but Victor Davis Hanson has some interesting comparisons.

MY KIND OF RANT: I've always thought political bumper stickers were silly, long before I moved to the Bay Area, where every other car has a bumper sticker exclaiming their political views and issue du jour (by the way, do you really want to admit that your politics can be filtered down to a bumper sticker slogan?). "Big Arm Woman", stuck behind "a 40 year old Toyota that seemed intent on violating every emissions standard EVER. Pasted to the back of this charming vehicle was a red bumper sticker with a heart motif and white writing which read, 'Better a bleeding heart than none at all.'" has unloaded a 64oz economy size can of whoop-ass in her blog:

Listen to me, you tin-headed little s**t. You are not my moral superior because you ooze emotion over every single example of unfairness on the planet. In fact, you are the opposite, because you obviously lack the judgement necessary to make the tough decisions which will result in material aid to the disadvantaged. I'm sure it makes you feel fabulous to wail, moan and gnash your teeth about environmental injustice while you drive the Pollution-mobile, but I don't see your ass biking to work every morning to spare us your greenhouse gases--the very ones that are now filling my vehicle. The fact that you have bought into the idea that empathy is an either/or enterprise doesn't fill me with optimism about your reasoning skills, either. Either a bleeding heart or none at all, eh? Ummm, no, you freaking moron. The application of logic to emotionally charged issues isn't easy, but it is necessary, and a little more effective than that glib slogan on sticky paper that appears to be holding your vehicle together. You suck.

There's more--click on over to read it. Not exactly a level of invective I can work myself up into on a regular basis, but the sentiment is very much appreciated.

(Link found via Joanne Jacobs.)

POT CALLING KETTLE DEPARTMENT: Germans call Churchill a war criminal.

GEE, HERE'S A SHOCKER: "Top Kyoto Minister Admits He Has Two SUVs".

Of course. And how many black Secret Service Chevy Suburbans did Al Gore employ,and how many tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel did Air Force Two expend, whenever he gave speeches?

By the way, speaking of Gore, David Frum writes that Gore's new book, Joined at the Heart, does for families what Earth in the Balance did for the environment.

REPUBLICANS WHO WANT TO SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY would be wise to adopt FDR's vision, according to Duane Freese at Tech Central Station.

By the way, this quote is a classic:

But many in the party appear frightened by shadows, such as Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who dismissed the bipartisan commission's findings as "classic Chicken Little politics."

Something McAuliffe and many of his party are experts at.

EBAY HAS THE PERFECT STARTER GUITAR: Ever wanted to learn how to play? This is one is guaranteed to be easy to play, no matter what your skill level.

I'd bid on it myself, but I'm just not sure where I'd keep it when it wasn't it use.

Orrin Judd links to a staggering review of the 1983 film Ghandi by Richard Grenier, who portrays the Indian leader in a much more realistic light than Richard Attenborough's film.

This is one knockout of an article: long, but hypnotic and well worth reading.

TORTURE BY AIR CONDITIONING? That's Peter Jennings' latest complaint, as the Media Research Center documents:

Leave it to ABC’s Peter Jennings to highlight the plight of a Pakistani who survived being detained at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. After Jennings on Tuesday night helpfully noted how “human rights organizations have complained the U.S. is violating the prisoners’ rights and acting without regard for international law,” reporter Bob Woodruff narrated a story about the prisoner’s claims of mistreatment, including the “torture” of air conditioning.

Woodruff empathized with how the man, who is now back in Pakistan, was “swept up in the chaos of the war, he was handed over to the U.S. and flown to Cuba, blind-folded and tied.” The Pakistani charged that “once gave a call for prayer, and after that, we were punished...They beat us, they hit us on the head, grabbed us by the neck.”

The man, “who had never seen air conditioning before, thought it was a kind of torture,” Woodruff related before the man complained about how “they pumped cold air from a hole in the ceiling. This was the punishment. The air was very cold.”

Most of the residents of Cuba outside the U.S. naval base dream of such a “punishment.”

I always assume Peter Jennings will take the anti-American stance on any topic, but doesn't he have enough common sense to realize how silly this must sound to the average viewer? Couldn't he have killed this story instead of broadcasting it on TV?

LUNCH, CIGARS, AND THE FINAL SOLUTION: My review of HBO's 2001 movie, Conspiracy is now online at Blogcritics.

WIDOWS AND ORPHANS: Donald Luskin says that the financial media is just as guilty as the analysts in cranking out tainted research and bogus stock picks.

WELL, I WAS BORN IN AUGUST:

"God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity he would be careless; and understanding of his adversity he would be senseless."

You are Augustine! You love to study tough issues and don't mind it if you lose sleep over them. Everyone loves you and wants to talk to you and hear your views, you even get things like "nice debating with you." Yep, you are super smart, even if you are still trying to figure it all out. You're also very honest, something people admire, even when you do stupid things.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson

(Link found on Group Captain Mandrake's Weblog.)

JUMPIN' JIM JEFFORDS: The Washington Times reports:

According to a senior Senate leadership source, the election results were barely in before Mr. Jeffords' office put out feelers to his former party's leaders. The message? That the Vermonter would be happy to caucus with the GOP — so long as he retained his committee chairmanship. Republican leaders rightly rolled their eyes.

Orrin Judd has more on America's jumping, jiving, hip-hoppingist Senator.

DEFINING OUR TWO WARS: Daniel Pipes makes a great point. We're fighting two wars at the moment--or (depending upon how you want to look at it) were fighting one war and about to fight a second war--at the moment. But one war is sharply defined and easy to grasp, the other isn't:

When the subject is Iraq, the U.S. government is proactive, articulate and specific. But when it comes to militant Islam, officialdom is reactive, awkward and vague.

Take the issue of preventive security. To stop Iraqi sabotage and terrorism, The New York Times recently reported, Washington tracks thousands of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi-Americans who might pose a domestic risk. It even has plans in place to arrest Saddam Hussein's sympathizers suspected of planning terrorist operations.

No comparable program exists in the war against militant Islam. (I define militant Islam as not Islam, not terrorism, but a terroristic reading of Islam). Fearful of being accused of "profiling," law enforcement treads super gingerly around those who back this totalitarian ideology. Thus, the airline security system randomly harasses passengers instead of looking for travelers known to sympathize with the likes of Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden. Immigration officials focus on superficial characteristics (nationality, criminal record) and ignore what is truly relevant (ideology).

The White House would not consider inviting apologists praising life in Iraq to festive functions. But it welcomed many of militant Islam's sympathizers at a Ramadan dinner hosted by the president earlier this month.

Or consider this: When did you last hear praise for Saddam's regime on an American television talk show? It does not happen. But media outlets routinely offer a platform to those promoting militant Islam.

If "war on Iraq" is easy to say, "war on militant Islam" is not. Instead, the Bush administration adopted the euphemistic "War on Terror."

Why the readiness to confront Iraq head-on but reluctance to do so when it concerns militant Islam?

Read the rest of it for the answers.

LOVE BOAT: THE NEXT GENERATION: New York City is considering using cruise ships as homeless shelters.

MICHAEL MEDVED DEBUNKS "the vast conservative media" meme that's the excuse du jour for the November elections.

THE ROGER AILES-BOB WOODWARD SMACKDOWN: The Brothers Judd have details. (Be sure to check out the comments as well.)

JAMES COBURN DEAD AT 74. He died of a heart attack while listening to music with his wife in his Beverly Hills home.

Coburn's career, derailed in the early 1980s by crippling arthritis, was coming back, with strong performances in recent films such as Payback. He won his only Academy Award in 1998, playing an abusive father in Affliction.

GO INSIDE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S email account--it sounds like he even gets offers from Nigeria!

THE HIGH TECH TIN-FOIL HAT: Perfect for keeping the alpha waves from those pesky UFOs, black helicopters, and other paranormal strangeness out.

COLIN POWELL SHOULD RESIGN: That's what David Frum writes in his daily diary in National Review Online.

MORE PROOF THAT THE VAST CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CONSPIRACY IS WORKING: USA Today reports that "Phil Donahue most likely to exit, stage left".

JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS: The Segway goes on sale on Amazon.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING: Ayatollah Khomeini grandson joins protest in Iran.

(Link found via NRO's The Corner.)

I WAS GOING TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT this article, but then I remembered Porphyrogenitus' comments to me.

UPDATE: File Jimmy Carter's recent comments in the same folder as well.

ANOTHER UPDATE: But evidently, David Limbaugh (Rush's brother, who's an attorney) hasn't gotten the message.

THE MSN BUTTERFLY: Maybe I'm sore from having to reinstall Windows 2000 on my main computer (which is where I do the lion's share of my writing, surfing, blogging, and home music recording), but it certainly takes a lot of chutzpah for Microsoft to be using a bug to sell their ISP.

NOW FOR SALE ON EBAY: The very first Les Paul guitar--you can tell by its serial number. It's too rich for my blood, but some lucky fellow's going to get one nice axe...

A MODEST PROPOSAL TO A NON-EXISTENT PROBLEM: on Thursday, I posted about "Conservative media bias" and practically blew my server out due to InstaPundit delivered traffic. Joanne Jacobs links to a modest proposal designed to solve this non-existent problem.

THEM: Liberals preach tolerance. But there's one group to whom no quarter is ever shown. Peggy Noonan has the details.

EL AL GUARDS FOIL HIJACK ATTEMPT on a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. But then, they're good at that!

UPDATE: National Review's Rod Dreher has more details. Start here, then scroll up to his next comment.

THE TWO FINGERED SALUTE: I had always assumed that England's two-fingered salute had the same meaning as America's middle finger gesture. But it's apparently much older, and with a far subtler meaning. Samizdata tells all, complete with WWII photos of Winston Churchill.

BEING CONDOLEEZA RICE: Yesterday evening, Matt Drudge's lead story mentioned that "In his new controversial book BUSH AT WAR, Bob Woodward reveals interior monologues of key newsmakers, including a description of National security adviser Condoleezza Rice's thoughts -- as she watched television alone..."

I know Matt thrives on controversy, but I'm not sure if this qualifies. If Woodward interviewed Rice, and she was willing to discuss what was going through her head during this particular moment, then it shouldn't be all that difficult for Woodward to recreate that moment as a scene. Tom Wolfe does that sort of thing all the time, and has been doing so since the early 1960s.

Of course, if Condi says she never spoke to Woodward, then all bets are off, and Woodward cooked the books.

LOCK AND (RE)LOAD: My main computer has been intermittently locking up on me, so I'm going to be doing a long overdue reformatting of the hard drive, reinstallation of Windows 2000, and reinstalling my main programs. So don't expect a whole lot of posting for the rest of the day.

If it doesn't work (or even it does), send help--preferably this person, who I have no doubt is an extremely highly skilled computer technician.

(Link found via Group Captain Mandrake.)

UPDATE: Mission accomplished--although, as usual with Windows, it took a lot longer than I anticipated.

SENIOR AL QAEDA LEADER CAPTURED: Fox News reports, "sources said the suspect was neither Usama bin Laden nor his number two man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, but he is one of the 'top handful of Al Qaeda leaders.'".

Link found via Charles Johnson.

WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO? Newt Gingrich addressed the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday during the presentation of a new book, Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph over Communism, by Peter Schweizer.

When Reagan won the White House in 1980, he did not plan to engage the Soviet Union in detente. Instead, the new president set his sights on the higher goal of freeing Russia and Eastern European countries from the Communist yoke, Gingrich said.

Similarly, the United States today has to come up with "goals worthy of the leading power on the planet" in its dealings with the Muslim world. Merely aiming to defeat the Taliban or replacing the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is not enough, he said.

"They have to be goals that represent a scale of change in the Islamic world fully parallel to the changes in the Soviet empire," Gingrich said.

These changes must provide for "a rise in opportunity for every Muslim to live in safety, health, prosperity and freedom and for every woman in the Muslim world to live in freedom - and those are very, very big changes," he said.

See also this recent article by Schweizer, for more on "What Would Reagan Do".

LAST YEAR'S VILLAIN: John Podhoretz says that if it's all quiet on the Eminem front after his movie opened, it's because because conservatives have bigger fish to fry:

The war against smutty and sleazy culture has been a popular one, to be sure. Throughout the 1990s, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum had a field day fighting it.
Bill Clinton and the Democrats pushed through legislation creating the so-called V-chip, which gave them bragging rights with independent voters disgusted by MTV and late-night cable. Social conservatives raised hundreds of millions of dollars in direct mail promising to clean up our culture.

But then something happened: Sept. 11.

Now Republicans and conservatives aren't concerned about rap music or TV sex and violence. They're interested in national security, in terrorism prevention, the war against al Qaeda and the war with Iraq. Are kids learning dirty words from Eminem? Big deal. Eminem won't kill them. Militant Islam will.
In other words, conservatives have given up fighting evanescent battles on catchy issues because they are consumed with matters of far greater import.

This deadly seriousness on the matter of a true and imminent threat to the United States has elevated the Republican Party in the 14 months since the attacks. That newfound gravity helped ensure the party's success at the polls.

Republicans have been talking about what matters most, not what's most annoying. And that made all the difference on Election Day.

FINALLY, THE FRENCH ARE STARTING TO WORK WITH US, for a change.

MANTRA MADNESS: Porphyrogenitus wrote to tell me "You're wrong, man. It's so big you can't see it".

Wow, when you review the evidence all I can say is, I think he's right...

SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT TOM DASCHLE, BUT WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN, HE REALLY DELIVERS, even over the objections of fellow Democrat Russ Feingold.

NEW MANTRA UPDATE: Gore Vidal picks up on the vast right wing media conspiracy. Michael Medved quotes him as saying:

"The same people own the media that own the White House that own the Congress that own the oil fields. They all work together to give a false view of the world to the American people."

Fortunately, Vidal's spirits aren't as low as this fellow:

One impassioned partisan in Wasilla, Alaska...became so "despondent over Tuesday's election returns" (according to the Anchorage Daily News) that he climbed to the top of a 230,000-volt utility tower and allowed the dangerous current to course through his body – in the process interrupting electrical service to more than 30,000 homes and businesses. Suffering serious burns over most of his upper body, the unhappy idealist has been hospitalized in critical condition.

Now that's bringing new meaning to the phrase, "body politic".

UPDATE: Here's more mantra mania! Media Research Center rounds up more quotes claiming a conservative media bias.

All these quotes have to be launched via a talking points memo issued by the DNC--it really is the left's new mantra:

In their quest for an even more aggressively anti-conservative media, liberals are trying the shame game, accusing their brethren of being right-wing tools: “Some of the major broadcast media are simply biased in favor of the Republicans, while the rest tend to blur differences between the parties,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman complained in a November 8 op-ed. “Talk radio and Fox News let the hard right get its message out to its supporters, while those who oppose the juggernaut stay home because they don’t get the sense that the Democrats offer a real alternative.” His advice: “Democrats should complain as loudly about the real conservative bias of the media as the Republicans complain about its entirely mythical liberal bias.” Has he read his own newspaper?

Time's Josh Tyrangiel sort of gives away the game:

“Even if Democrats pull together on some big issues, they’ll still have to overcome G.O.P. bully pulpits in the White House and Congress — and a new reality: conservative bias in the media,” insisted Time’s Josh Tyrangiel in his magazine’s November 18 edition. His only evidence? A “senior elected Democrat” said so.

Between "conservative media bias" and the Barbra Streisand supported, "Republicans killed Paul Wellstone" theory, Democrats really risk becoming the new black helicopter set.

But hey...the truth is out there! (Somewhere left of the grassy knoll, probably.)

CATS AND DOGS DEPARTMENT: National Review's Rod Dreher has some good words about Nancy Pelosi winning the position of House Minority Leader.

BRINGS NEW MEANING TO "INTERNET TROJAN": Bill Gates was welcomed to India with a huge condom.

GRAY DAYS AHEAD: Good essay on California politics at the The Claremont Institute. Here's an excerpt:

What is lost is the principle that the only free government is limited government, and that a sound constitution is the only way to keep government limited. Early in his campaign for governor, Bill Simon tried to engage Californians in a principled discussion about their government. Simon understood the crises facing California — a massive budget deficit, rolling power blackouts, embarrassing public schools, skyrocketing housing prices — as symptoms of a deep alienation from the principles of constitutional government and free society. But the media and the public paid little attention. He got noticed only once he began campaigning as a liberal "reformer," slinging mud at Gray Davis for his heavy-handed fundraising tactics. In the end, however, it served only to distract from something much more important, the principles of free government.

If you're interested in California's politics (and believe me, I can understand if you're not--the temptation to ignore California is great, and will only grow over the next four years) be sure to read the whole thing.

THE NEW MANTRA? It's certainly been making the rounds lately: The Democrats lost last week because of a "conservative bias in the media”.

FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN WAHOO, NEBRASKA: David Letterman's
Top Ten Signs Saddam Hussein Is Getting Nervous:

10. Recently he seems less "bloodthirsty" and more "murderous"

9. Every time the doorbell rings, he yells, "Incoming!"

8. At dinner, can only finish half a gazelle

7. Ebert-sized sweat marks on his fatigues

6. Has had his mustache bulletproofed

5. Panicked after realizing he might not be around to see who wins on "The Bachelor"

4. Too fidgety to sit still for his monthly gigantic portrait

3. Canceled his "Victory Over The Great Satan" party

2. Has started making bad decisions, like betting on the Knicks

1. He's taking Zoloft along with his Cipro

Them gazelles are good eatin', by the way.

INTERACTIVE TV FOR THE 21st CENTURY: That's the cover story on the Winter/Spring issue of Smart TV & Sound. I think it's pretty good...but then I wrote it.

My article is available online--but don't let that stop you from buying enough copies of the magazine to fill the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark!

THE DOG DAYS OF THE STOCK MARKET: Frank the Pug from the Men in Black movies will be ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow.

No, you didn't misread that. Here's what the Internet Movie Database has to say:

Perhaps unintentionally calling undue attention to the dog days of the stock market, Frank the Pug from Men in Black II will help ring the closing bell of the NYSE on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. as part of a publicity campaign celebrating the release of MiBII on DVD and video cassette, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment announced Tuesday. The canine star is expected to be accompanied by the film's director, Barry Sonnenfeld, and NYSE President Benjamin Feingold.

No word on if he'll be protected by agents K, J and Z.

JUST SAY YES: Saddam has agreed to the UN resolution, which exposes himself to all sorts of conditions, each of which, if violated, will bring lots of F-15s, F-117s and B-52s on top of him. Right Wing News has the details.

DAS KOUCH: The Onion discovers a college Marxists' apartment that's a microcosm of why Marxism doesn't work.

FOUND IN MY REFERRER LOG: New Hampshire Governor-elect Craig Benson's Transition Site.

I'm not sure what brought you here--but thanks for stopping by Governor-Elect!

And hi to everybody who dropped in from Right Wing News. Make yourselves comfortable, folks--there's plenty of food in the fridge, plenty of posts in the blog and lots of articles, and essays to check out.

Stick around y'all!

IT'S THE PERFECT CHANNEL FOR HIM: MSNBC is courting Jesse Ventura.

BUT WHAT ABOUT BICYCLE REPAIR MAN? Group Captain Lionel Mandrake says that John Cleese is poised to write a Superman comic book.

Great Python's ghost! Mandrake's got the link to prove it and everything!

(But will Superman fly on the left-hand side of the Van Allen Belt? Will Lex Luther drop lumps of Kryptonite into his afternoon tea? Will Clark Kent buy his suits at Marks and Spenser? The possibilities are endless...and extremely silly.)

WE'VE GOT TO PROTECT OUR PHONEY-BALONEY JOBS! Michelle Malkin, who's done yeoman work on the "Snipergate" story, writes:

Border Patrol agent Keith Olson, the arresting officer in Bellingham, Wash., who was responsible for obtaining the fingerprints of illegal alien sniper suspect Lee Malvo last December, has been the subject of two internal investigations during the past three weeks. Instead of pinning a medal on his chest and giving Olson a raise for taking the prints of Malvo that eventually led to his arrest in the Washington, D.C., area killing spree, federal officials are conducting a probe of his conduct.

Meanwhile, Border Patrol agent Daryl Schermerhorn has been castigated by an INS higher-up for publicly criticizing the decision by federal immigration authorities to release Malvo and his illegal alien mother earlier this year pending deportation proceedings.

Malkins quotes an swarmy and belligerent email sent on October 30th by the assistant regional director in the INS Western Regional Office in Laguna Niguel, CA to Schermerhorn, which was copied to nearly 50 other INS employees:

"Nobody, not even a person of your monumental intelligence, could have predicted what path the young Mr. Malvo would take.Your agenda, whatever it may be, is counterproductive to the thousands of [detention and removal] personnel who are doing their best in spite of the limitations placed upon them by Congress, uncooperative foreign consulates, [non-governmental organizations], pro bono attorneys, special interest groups, ect. [sic] Have you ever detained a non-criminal mother and her 16 year old child for a lengthy period of time? Have you had to face the wrath of the above mentioned groups?"

How very 1990s of INS. They just don't get it. We're used to Federal agencies being slack, expensive and wasteful during peace. But we expect results during war. As Malkin writes, "will a $37 billion Homeland Security Department prevent another Malvogate? As long as federal immigration authorities remain more committed to stifling whistleblowers instead of protecting them: Fat chance."

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Insight magazine has an eye-popping interview with a top Egyptian cleric who justifies suicide terrorism:

When Palestinians first began blowing themselves up to murder innocent Israeli civilians in April 1994, consternation gripped many official spokesmen of Islam. Moderate Islamic scholars emphasized that Islam long has considered suicide to be a sin. Several clerics in Saudi Arabia even joined the chorus, condemning the attacks. But then something happened. It became political, and Arab leaders realized they had a new way of controlling the masses and directing their anger away from their own leadership. The rest, as they say, is history — a history of innocent victims and state-sponsored murder — all in the name of political opposition to Israel.

As in most other Arab countries, it is the Egyptian state that appoints the Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the land and a man who has the power to issue fatwas and interpretations of shari'a law. Mubarak named Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb to the post earlier this year after his predecessor issued a ruling in favor of suicide bombings by Palestinians. Insight has learned that if Mubarak was embarrassed by the public embrace of murder by the previous state-appointed Mufti, he may have to reconsider his new choice.

Al-Tayyeb received Insight on Oct. 28 in his office near Al-Azhar University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the Arab world. Throughout the 90-minute interview, conducted mostly in Arabic through a government-provided translator, he repeated in excruciating detail his reasoning for encouraging Palestinians to murder innocent civilians through suicide attacks. He also displayed a remarkable flexibility when it came to defining terrorism.

To him, American Christian leader Jerry Falwell is a terrorist because his views about Islam have offended Muslims. Palestinians, on the other hand, are justified in massacring Israeli civilians in cold blood "because they are defending their land and have no other weapons at their disposal." The Grand Mufti pointedly condemned as a traitor any Palestinian who refuses to take such a step. "Why do the Americans always speak about Islamic terrorism? Why don't they speak about the extreme right-wing Christian terrorists?" he asked.

Read the whole thing--Al-Tayyeb's mindset is staggering.

But not uncommon, of course. In Nigeria, a Amina Lawal, a 31 year old mother of a ten month old baby is scheduled to be buried up to her neck and stoned until she dies. "Unless her second appeal succeeds, she will be executed as soon as Wasila is weaned or by 2004, whichever is sooner.":

One day, after accepting a lift on a motorcycle, she was raped by a man she thought was a friend. When it became obvious that she was pregnant the fundamentalist vigilantes, known as Hisbah, turned her over to the Sharia court.

When Ms Lawal heard her sentence, she bore it stoically. “I will get through this, with God,” she whispered, holding Wasila against her cheek. She tries not to think about what will happen to this baby, or her other children, if the sentence is carried out.

Ms Lawal is not the only victim of Sharia, which was introduced in the Zamfara state as a political platform by the campaigning governor in 1999, then quickly taken up by 11 other northern states.

There are four other cases of women sentenced to be stoned for adultery. There are also 11 children in Sokoto state awaiting amputation for stealing.

Ms Lawal’s lawyer, Hauwa Ibrahim, said: “We have heard they are waiting for the amputation machine to arrive.”

The amputation machine. So when do they move up to sealed carbon monoxide vans and then gas chambers?

THE OBLIGATORY LILEKS LINK: Having hooked up three DirecTV receivers to four different TV sets in the house (one feeds two TVs), I can feel for Lileks' lament:

When I went outside to get the mail I tripped over a large box on the stoop: the new receiver from DirecTV. Ah! Now the Battle Bridge would have a signal again. It was a reconditioned $25 RCA unit, nearly identical to the dead slab of crap I had before. Hooked it up, called DirecTV, went through the procedure to activate it - and here we enter mumbojumbo land. I chanted the magic numbers into the phone; the shaman on the other end moved his fingers, and the birds in the sky and the snakes on the land woke as one, and yea: the picture appeared on the wall, and seemed to move; the words appeared as if writ by an invisible hand, and I fell on my knees and said I will order the NFL Total Access Game Package, O my liege. I will! I am not worthy of this package but I shall accept it nonetheless. Blessed be unto you.

Will there be anything else? said the angel from the gray spirit-talker I held to my ear. I said that there was not. And the angel thanked me and bade me a good night. How could it not be good? Everything works again. The downstairs TV has a signal. I'd fixed the family room system that afternoon, so I now have stereo, and the new wireless headphones work perfectly. If ever again I have time to watch TV, well, I am SET.

Actually not quite, as you'll see if you read the rest of the piece.

IT'S HAMMERTIME? No! Marvin Olasky writes that it's "Karl Rove time".

PREACHING TO THE CHOIR: Stephen F. Hayes writes that "It wouldn't be a Republican victory without a dyspeptic attack from Bill Moyers. Paid for, in part, by you."

PROBABLY NOT TOO FAR FROM THE TRUTH: ScrappleFace uncovers a leaked
Democrat pre-election 'victory' news release.

MASSIVE HACKING SPREE HALTED, British citizen indicted on eight counts of computer fraud related to hacking incidents that allegedly damaged 105 U.S. government, military and corporate networks. Computerworld has the details.

APROPOS OF NOTHING DEPARTMENT: I just read in The Age of Reagan that Henry Kissinger was a fan of Oswald Spengler's pioneering doom-and-gloomer, The Decline of the West, and tried his damndest to get Nixon to read it. Why is that that book's most influential fans often go out of their way to make it a reality?

IN THE LAND OF THE ROCOCO MARXIST: Daniel Pipes looks at professors who hate America.

JUMPIN' JIM JEFFORDS: Jay Nordlinger checks in with everyone's favorite milkman:

Our friend Mr. Jeffords is acting awfully funny about now. Asked whether he expected “retribution,” he said, “The Senate’s a pretty collegial group. You learn it’s best to get along.”

Oh? Is that a lesson one needs to learn from James Jeffords — who ditched his party of many decades when the Senate was split 50-50 and handed control of that body to the opposite party? That was “collegial”?

But he had to serve his conscience, you might say. Okay, fine: but remember that he partook of two acts. He left the Republican party to become an independent. That was one. But he — he by himself — threw control of the Senate to the Democratic party, by choosing to caucus with Mr. Daschle. That was the second act. And if he’d wanted to do that, he should’ve done the semi-honest thing and joined the Democratic party outright.

SIRHAN SIRHAN JR. JR.: Charles Johnson links to an article which says that the Palestinian terrorist who murdered five people in an Israeli kibbutz last weekend is named Sirhan Sirhan.

OVER 1 BILLION SERVED: Matt Drudge has reason to gloat on his Drudge Report site--it's about to go over one billion Web views:

The WALL STREET JOURNAL declared "Matt Drudge a born loser" [10/24/00, Shafer], the NEW YORK TIMES last week in a Page One story claimed people have been "reduced to logging onto the Web site of the gossip columnist Matt Drudge" [11/06/02, Stanley], but in every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news -- at least one day ahead. Sometime this afternoon, the DRUDGEREPORT will pass one billion views of the site's main page: in the past year! Free from any corporate concerns, there are simply too many to thank since the site's inception in 1994. This new attempt at the old American experiment of full freedom in reporting is ever exciting. Those in power have everything to lose by individuals who march to their own rules.

As I wrote in my SpinTech article about Weblogs, Drudge, in my mind, is where personal news reporting began on the Internet (although there are probably others who would say they're the Altair of reporting--Drudge is merely the TRS-80 or Apple).

For some background at how Drudge got started, here's another SpinTech article, from 1999--which is about a decade ago in Internet years.

I don't think Matt's success is really repeatable, in that a lot of random elements had to come together in a unique fashion for it to had occurred--being an early Internet adopter, having a wide range of links to reporters on both sides of the aisle, breaking the Lewinsky story, being sued by Sid Blumenthal, riding the crest of the Internet boom, etc. But it is fascinating to watch and learn from.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, HOSS: Well, at least when he talks like this.

GUESS WHICH STATE SENATOR IS DROPPING INTO BAHRAIN for a friendly little chat.

Which of course, should be quite well attended.

THE WOUNDED BEAR: Thomas Sowell writes that "The Democrats are down, but not out. They are more like a wounded bear -- the most dangerous kind of bear."

Democrats know that one of the reasons for their disappointing showing in this year's elections is that they failed to get out the black vote in the numbers needed, especially in the South. Since Democrats have nothing to offer blacks, now that they do not control any branch of the federal government, their only way to get out the black vote in 2004 is by arousing fears and resentments.

The race card was played recklessly and shamelessly during the 2000 elections -- and successfully, with 92 percent of the black vote going to Al Gore. One television ad even tried to somehow connect George W. Bush with the dragging death of a black man in Texas.

The Democrats couldn't pull that kind of smear this year, with the president's approval ratings so high. But they have two more years in which to come up with something else, and they have long demonstrated fertile imaginations, unhampered by the truth.

That is what makes the Democrats as dangerous as a wounded bear. They know that their best hope for a political comeback is to turn some Americans against other Americans, stirring up resentments and fears among blacks and envy of "the rich" among others. In short, enhancing their future prospects involves polarizing Americans, at the expense of the country's future.

They can count on those in the media as allies. This is not just because of the well-established fact that nine-tenths of media journalists vote Democratic, but because the whole approach of the media favors polarization.

Of course. Just ask Bill Moyers, or Garrison Keillor, or Eric Alterman, or Helen Thomas, or lots of other members of the media.

AT&T SUED BY EXCITE@HOME SHAREHOLDERS OVER ASSETS: I'm not at all surprised--the switchover from @Home to AT&T, which happened in early December of last year, was incredibly chaotic and frenzied. @Home called AT&T's bluff, leaving thousands of subscribers in the lurch for periods of up to two or three weeks.

I counted up the hours I spent that week, either on hold or talking to AT&T's tech support to get hooked up again, and it was at least 30 hours. We finally get reconnected, but no thanks to AT&T--I found a solution via DSLReports.com, which was a godsend during that insane week.

LONG OVERDUE: "Nigeria To Pass Law Clamping Down On Notorious Scams"

A NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN FOR THE 21st CENTURY: The original Chamberlain at least wasn't trying to outdo Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan in a PR battle.

Note that there's an umbrella in the shot as well for perfect symmetry.

MORE ON EUROPE: Charles Johnson writes that "European Foreign Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten is flatly refusing to investigate the Palestinian Authority’s blatant misuse of EU aid money." and wonders why.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH: As Steven Den Beste writes, "We believe in it. Europe doesn't. The Council of Europe just outlawed it."

I'd love to jump through Star Trek's Guardian of Forever time machine (snagging Joan Collins circa-1966 along the way!) and see where this all plays out in 25 years. I was watching HBO's Conspiracy last night, about the Wannsee conference of 1942. And while another final solution seems absurd, is there another set of Nuremburg Laws in Europe's future?

I know, I'm sounding like an alarmist--and I hope to God I am. But then so did anybody who thought that the Versailles Treaty would set in motion a chain of events leading to a homicidal madman controlling all of Europe 25 years later.

SPAM OF THE DAY: The subject body reads, "Supplying Translation Servic".

No thanks--I read typo just fine!

ARMISTICE DAY: That's what today used to be called in America, from 1938, when it was first declared a national holiday, until 1954, when its name was officially changed to Veteran's Day. James S. Robbins looks back at the impact of World War I:

November 11, 1918 was an end, but only the end of the beginning. The Great War initiated the 30-year suicide of Europe, a tragedy whose causes are still difficult to understand. The European powers were the common inheritors of a culture millennia in the making. They were the leaders in science, culture, and economics. They had assembled the greatest military forces in the history of mankind. They were at the cutting edge of history, and they threw it away. And why? From the other end of the century looking backwards it is hard to understand what drove their animosity. The distinctions between Georgian England and Wilhelmine Germany may have seen great at the time, but are hardly comparable to Anglo-German differences 20 years later. The tsarist autocracy set the standard for brutality in its day, but the tsar was a minor leaguer compared the Lenin and Stalin. World War I introduced new magnitudes of death, both on and off the battlefield. Before 1914, the "Terror" during the French Revolution, in which between 15,000 and 40,000 people were killed, was generally regarded as the bloodiest, most savage act of state policy in European history. The killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during the Great War dramatically changed the scale of what was conceivable — and the 20th-century totalitarian states would engage in even more massive systematic slaughter of innocents.

With Europe's self-destruction came also the emergence of the United States on the world stage. In 1917, American power was projected abroad in a manner unseen in its history. Our country emerged with the potential to become the leading global military and economic force. But the horrors of the wartime experience, the postwar machinations of the European colonialists, and a resurgent American nativism, led our country to turn its back on the world, and on its new, unsought, and unwanted responsibilities. The United States nursed isolation in the years that followed, as the threat grew overseas. Pearl Harbor brought the consequences of inaction into clear focus.

Read the whole thing.

THANKS GUYS! We've been linked to by Samizdata, the great English libertarian blog--twice! We've been added to the text links on their homepage, and they used our swanky EdDriscoll.com Blog button on their links and pictures page.

Speaking of pictures on Samizdata, while we don't advocate graffiti and vandalism in any form, we did get a knowing chuckle over this creative artist's work.

By the way, if you'd like to use our deluxe EdDriscoll.com blog button to liven up the decor at your Blog, just click here to get your own copy. (Free photo of a Ginsu Knife included if you download in the next 30 minutes!)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Right Wing News features an excellent interview with Victor Davis Hanson, who has Europe pegged:

Radically, as we revert to the pre-1945 world of bilateralism with all its dangers. The cold war was an aberration. Note how quickly the Europeans turned on America once 400 hostile divisions were no longer on their borders. They make up a big continent with a big population that deserves pride and power commensurate with their economy and population; so it is time for both of us to recognize that, bring the troops home or redeploy them in more friendly eastern European countries, and as friends let them develop their own military identity. Keeping 200,000 troops abroad to protect a rich continent is unhealthy for all parties involved. We are a different people, and to preserve our common heritage and friendship, we must recognize those divergences and thus it would be safer in the long run to let them defend themselves and not seek such shrillness in lieu of power and independence. We are in a very Orwellian world now where al Qaeda could hit the Louvre or Vatican and do so with impunity -- if not for the overseas reach of the US military -- and yet the Europeans seem to resent their protectors by reason of their very dependency. Add our frontier experience, our original charter that was antithetical to Europe, our strength in mixed races and religions, our greater allegiances to liberty than enforced equality and it is no surprise that after the Soviets are gone we are rediscovering our differences. This is not fatal and yet cannot be laughed off either by careerists and the self-interested. If France had the ability to act resolutely to stop its ships being attacked off Yemen, then it would be less insecure and less vocal. Instead, we have NATO countries bristling over the invasion by Morocco of a barren rock.

Read the rest of the interview.

(Link via VodkaPundit.)

Bruce Bartlett, who worked as an assistant to Senator Roger Jepsen of Iowa in 1979 and 1980, and prior to that, to Congressman Jack Kemp, talks about what it's like to go from the minority to the majority when you don't think your victory will last:

As Republicans and Democrats absorb the significance of last week's election results, a few things are starting to become clear. For one thing, Republicans are finally starting to settle into the idea that they are the majority party in this country. They have not thought so since 1932.

I worked in the Senate in 1980, when Republicans won control there for the first time in almost 30 years, and I remember clearly the sense that this was all just temporary. In contrast to the Democrats, who treated Republicans like dirt, the latter were very deferential. They didn't treat Democrats with the same disdain, because in their hearts they knew it wouldn't last.

The memory of 1946-48 and 1952-54, the last times that Republicans held either house of Congress, were very much in their minds. Although no one ever said so, I think most Republicans in the Senate thought they would probably lose the majority in 1982. Consequently, they were fearful of alienating the Democrats, whom, they thought, would soon be back in power, lest they be punished as a consequence.

This sort of meek attitude toward one's oppressors is, sad to say, not uncommon. People who are kidnapped, such as Patty Hearst, have been known to fall in with their kidnappers.

Republicans in Congress had somewhat the same attitude. They were so used to being beaten and abused that they thought this was the normal state of affairs. When they got the majority, some reacted like a caged bird suddenly set free: They simply didn't know what to do.

Bartlett has some excellent advice for the incoming class of 2003, to avoid those same mistakes.

SEA CHANGE: Jen Taliaferro proclaims "Advantage: Blogosphere", after last week's elections:

Almost all of us Conservo-bloggers perceived and even predicted the Dimocrat loss on Tuesday and we knew precisely why it was coming.

As it turns out, we were expressing the thoughts, ideas and perceptions of many of our fellow non-blogging Americans.

Then the people spoke on Tuesday and there was a sea change in the national consciousness.

Like the political and cultural incrementalism so dear to the Dims, we Rightist bloggers may have won "hearts and minds" with thousands, even millions of posts that have gone up day after day for months, and in some cases years, with our comments, analyses, and informed thoughts about bills pending in Congress, terrorist attacks, legal decisions and the facts about the landscape of the vast theatre of geopolitics in which current events take place.

I, like most warbloggers, turned to writing a blog after 9/11 because television and print media presented "news and views" in such a way, with their Liberal agenda and their application of of Moral Equivalence to Islamist terrorism, that it amounted to sheer propaganda and worse, mendacities.

We decided that there had to be a way for the Truth to get out and while we know that you certainly can't believe everything you read on the Internet, much of what was being said on blogs began to have the ring of Truth and singularly bloggers have been able to put things together in such a way that this post 9-11 world of daily mayhem and insanity started to make real, undeniable SENSE.

Most of us use tracking mechanisms and it seems from even an aggregate of our "hits" that we are only reaching a small part of the American populace, even though some of the "Big Boys" are getting hundreds of thousands and even millions of hits.

Yet ideas, especially true, sane and sensical ideas have a unique and wonderful way of getting a life of their own and spreading like wildfire (The old "They told 2 friends and they told 2 friends and so on and so on...").

The Zeitgeist is tapped, chronicled, and spread abroad.

TV and print media went into an almost complete DISCONNECT after 9/11 [which, of course, they were guilty of doing years before 9/11, but it became egregious after 9/11's clarity.]

However, the world--America's world, certainly--really did change on 9/11.

No longer could we afford to hold the decadent political views of an isolated nation and culture in a world where many of us assumed that there was no more war and enough money to redistribute our vast wealth to any and all, thinking it would solve the world's problems.

9/11 was a rude awakening to the reality that America as the world's only hyperpower and democratic, capitalistic republic must lead the world, could lead it and now is leading it, especially the more backward, tyrannical states where our institutions and values are so desperately needed, which not coincidentally were those same countries in the Middle East that were the homes of the 9/11 hijackers.

9/11 and its aftermath reawakened us to the fact that America had gotten away from its roots and from everything about our country that had made it worth fighting for in the past and that made it worth fighting and dying for now.

This was no small awakening. At least not for myself.

I can certainly understand that. As I wrote for SpinTech in January:

When the Web log concept first debuted, it was largely used for on-line personal diaries. Lots of “day in the life” stuff; lots of updates of family information; lots of photographs of nature and birthday parties; lots of nice pretty, stopping and smelling the flowers commentary by assorted emotional exhibitionists. And this is still a common use for Web logs.

Then September 11th happened.

One interesting byproduct of that awful day was that the servers on most major news sites (CNN, The New York Times, etc.) were blown out from over capacity. Since a big chunk of America either didn’t go into work, or left early that day, they went home, turned the TV on, fired up the computer, and wanted to know just…what…the…hell…was…going…on.

But with the Web sites of news biggies jammed to capacity, some people started going to alternative sites. Little funky one man or one woman sites. And some of those men and women, such as Virginia Postrel on her page, The Scene, and Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com, spent the day keeping the nation, hell, the world, just as informed as the traditional news sites people couldn’t get into.

Then, as the dust settled, that hoary old standby, media bias, started rearing its ugly head again, especially in newspapers, where the reporters seemed to pull out style guides left over from the Tet Offensive. Quagmire! Failure! Evil imperialism! The brutal Afghan winter! Remember the Soviets!

Seeking opinions and news that didn’t seem to be outtakes from the Johnson years, many, many people stuck with the bloggers. And sometimes it seems that just as many people saw how much fun the bloggers were having and decided to get into the act themselves.

Like me--I launched this Weblog in between writing that article and when it went online in early March.

I think Taliaferro's basic assumption is probably reasonable. Having hung around a variety of computer forums (forae?) for the past seven or eight years, it's obvious that the amount of lurkers far surpasses the amount of active members in any forum--and the same has to got hold true for Blogs as well. Not everybody who reads this blog has a blog of his own. (I hope!)

At a minimum--the online newsreporting/commenting that Matt Drudge pioneered in the mid-1990s is still in its infancy--and the influence of blogs, and/or other types of "me-zines" will only increase going forward.

NUDGE NUDGE, WINK WINK: There's a great scene in All the President's Men where Redford and Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein interview Donald Segretti, played by Robert Walden (who would later portray a reporter himself in TV's Lou Grant). Segretti tells "Woodstein" that he'll probably go to jail for all the dirty tricks he pulled on the Democrat's presidential candidates during the '72 presidential campaign, as part of Nixon's "dirty tricks" team, to help get him re-elected. He tells the reporters something like "I'll probably go to jail...and for what??!!"

The subtext is obvious: the Democrats are good guys who would never do anything like that. Flash-forward thirty years to the 2002 midterms, where Jason L. Riley of the Wall Street Journal travels along with Rep. Julia Carson, a Democrat running for reelection in Indiana. Carson's election team winked and nodded right in front of Riley, as they pulled all sorts of shady tricks to get Carson elected.

Carson won the battle, but Bush won the midterms. The weight of Bill Clinton's shenanigans, the 2000 Florida election scandal, the Jeffords defection, and finally the Wellstone funeral/pep rally are finally beginning to stick to the Democrats.

Jimmy Carter, in retrospect, wasn't exactly squeaky clean. But the Democrats would be wise to find someone with that image, who can win honestly, then to keep relying on their own Donald Segrettis to win elections.

END GAME: Condi Rice spells out the timetable for Iraq.

Orrin Judd adds:

It's fairly amusing to listen to the foreign ministries from other countries describe all the concessions they won from the U.S. and then to hear Ms Rice tell them what they really just agreed to.

Yupper!

QB QUANDARY: Does Jerry Jones think that Chad Hutchinson is the QB of the future for Dallas? Compare and contrast these two headlines:

Jones enamored with Hutchinson's ability

Steelers: Will Kordell be traded to Dallas?

Going to Dallas would be a fresh start for Kordell Stewart--and he'll certainly fill seats at Texas Stadium. I don't know if it will happen, but it'll be a fun rumor to watch.

DOES THE NEW YORK TIMES HURT ANYONE IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION with their article on Bush's war plans? Steven Den Beste says "yes". Ironically, it's the one man on the Bush team the Gray Lady likes.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Reason's Daily Brickbat reports:

The Ayatollah Mohsen Mujtahed Shabestari, who is supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's personal representative to Iran's Azerbaijan province, is upset with three U.S. religious figures: Jerry Falwell, who has called the prophet Mohammed "a terrorist"; Pat Robertson, who claims Islam is a religion of violence seeking to "dominate and destroy"; and Franklin Graham, the son of televangelist Billy Graham, who says Islam is "a very evil and wicked religion." Shabestari is seeking to disprove these false notions by calling for the three to be killed.

"CLOUDCUCKOOLAND": Victor Davis Hanson looks at the ongoing implosion of anti-Americanism. Hanson writes:

The dream of 1960s radicals was supposedly that someday the United States might use its vast cultural influence and military power to be on the "right side of history." That meant — instead of Pavlovian opposition to idealistic socialists and occasional Communists in preference for odious figures like Pinochet, Somoza, or Franco — we would try to topple just those regimes and implant democracies in their place. Few then lectured that the Nicaraguans should be left to handle their own dictators or that we had no right to tell the Spanish what to do with Franco. Instead, support for revolutionary movements was voiced and action demanded.

Well, with the end of the Cold War, those days of hope have at last arrived. Noriega, Milosevic, and Mullah Omar not only were fascistic and bloodthirsty, but they are also all gone thanks to the United States military. Rather than seeing protestors chanting to ignore Saddam Hussein, I would have expected that the refrain would be "Solidarity with the brave Iraqi people in their brave struggles against a fascist mass murderer."

I can't help but think that simple knee-jerk hatred of the right is driving the left to many of these extreme positions that have no internal "logic" otherwise. It would be a fascinating "what if" scenerio to ponder what their response would have been if Clinton had pursued Islamic terrorism with the same vigor that President Bush has, when presented with several opportunities to do just that.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE LEFTIST BIGOTRY that Andrew Sullivan wrote about recently, spotted by Joanne Jacobs.

A TWO-FISTED FISKING? The New York Post's "Page Six" column reports that "Maverick director Larry Clark beat up the distributor for his movie "Ken Park" after the jerk declared that America deserved to get attacked on 9/11."

COMPARE AND CONTRAST Garrison Keillor in 2002 on Norm Coleman and in 1998 on Bill Clinton.

THE SILVER BULLET: JunkYard Blog has the skinny on the seldom discussed Paragraph Five of our resolution regarding Iraq--and it's a doozy.

"WITHIN WEEKS": That's how long military officials are saying it would take the US to be prepared to strike Iraq if Saddam Hussein violates the terms of a new U.N. resolution that was approved on Friday.

HIGH TECH SMELLS SUCCESS, in Republican Congress.

THE BUSH-GROUCHO CONNECTION, as discovered by John Podhoretz.

Nice to see Bush and Ari Fleischer not taking Helen Thomas very seriously, by the way.

UPDATE (5/27/05): If you're tripping over this post via a search engine today, this may be what you're actually looking for. But look around for a while. Many other items may catch your eye!

WISHFUL THINKING: "Pelosi Favored to Lead House" reads this AP headline.

No--Denny Hastert leads the House. Remember--the evil Republicans in charge--you know the drill, right? Pelosi is the Democrats' minority leader.

I normally don't think of AP as waving their bias in the reader's face, and they haven't been anywhere near as bad as Reuters, post Sept. 11th. But the person who wrote this article clearly is having trouble accepting which party has been charge of Congress since January of 1995.

WHEN DOES "NO" MEAN "MAYBE"? When it's Saudi Arabia, who are starting to waffle on their previous decision not to allow the US to use their bases to attack Iraq.

IF ALL THE HYPE REGARDING THE MICROSOFT TABLET PC is making you dizzy, you might want to check out the spiffy new Apple alternative. They really do know how to make the complex simple. Very simple!

15 TO 0: (No, I'm not predicting the score of the Seahawks/Cardinals game this Sunday.) "By a 15-0 vote Friday morning, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution authorizing U.N. arms inspectors to resume their search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- without conditions or limitations."

Stephen Green has some brief, initial thoughts.

I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING! (Sorry about going all Robert Duvall on you, but I had to work one of my favorite movie lines in there somehow.)

Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's literary classic Heart of Darkness, was chosen by a panel of 50 British critics and film writers. Group Captain Mandrake has the details.

We have rather mixed emotions about Apocalypse Now. For our take, see our recent entry in Blogcritics.

NOONAN NAILS IT: The strategy du jour to salvage the Democrats is "go left young man" (actually, "go left young hermaphrodite" would probably closer to their rococo spirit, but it just doesn't have the same historic alliteration). But that could leave the Democrats out in the wilderness for a very long time. Why? Peggy Noonan nails it:

The Democrat's base is left-wing. It is a worse problem for the Democrats than the Republicans' base is for them. The Republican base is simply essentially conservative; Republicans in power are conservative too but less so; they live in what they call the real world. They achieve what they can, explaining to the base what is possible. Sometimes the base gets balky, but mostly it follows. After all, they're all conservatives together.

The problem the Democrats have with their base is that it isn't liberal in the way the Democratic leadership in general is liberal. It is left-wing, and some parts of it are way left-wing. The last socialists are there, the warriors of race and class; there are environmentalists who want to set loggers on fire, people who think George W. Bush killed Paul Wellstone, activists whose only concern in the world is abortion rights, and people who support capital punishment for only one crime, smoking in public. Soon they will demand the death penalty for smoking in private. (Are there radicals and nuts in the Republican base? Sure. But 20 years of observation tells me there aren't as many and they don't have the same clout. Moreover, Republican candidates are somewhat protected from them. The protection comes from the media, which hate nutty right-wingers more than they dislike Republicans.)

Reporters rarely ask Democratic candidates about the price their base extracts, but it is big. The base determines primary outcomes. The base changes the shape of policy.

This is fundamentally a very conservative country--it may be balkanized in terms of social policy as a result of the sexual revolution and other trends that developed in the 1960s and '70s, but there's a reason the country as a whole isn't as screwed up as Europe has become. Why gun control was a dud of an issue. Why (unlike say, France) we take the war on terrorism seriously. And while going to the far left will help gin up that Democratic base, it's going to alienate far more people on the other side than Ronald Reagan did when he ran for president in 1980.

There were lots and lots of Reagan Democrats, especially in '84. Just imagine a constituency of Hillary or Pelosi Republicans. To paraphrase a famous icon of the hard left--it's not easy if you try!

FLASH! ScrappeFace's sources have leaked the actual wording of the UN's Iraq Resolution.

We're happy to see our Russian allies cooperating with us by supplying the drinks necessary to write such a hard-hitting resolution!

ARE THE BUSHES A NEW DYNASTY? Larry Sabato, political scientist with the University of Virginia, seems to think so.

NOT ON THE CHEAP: Patrick Ruffini has some thoughts on the Democrats moving to the hard left as a result of Tuesday's elections. As he writes:

There's something politically stupid about these developments, and it's not just the folly of alienating the sensible center just because it hasn't been tried before. Rather, it's the notion that you can build a Democratic majority on the cheap — ratchet up the rhetoric a little, get that Gore + Nader vote out, and win. While this strategy seems to be the most explosive, in fact, it's the most passive and intellectually self-abnegating the Democrats could adopt. It's mirrored by Judis & Teixeira's recent book, which calls for Democrats to bide their time, and simply trust that the electorate will catch up with their base voters.

"Majorities are never made by such narrow tactical maneuvers", Ruffini writes, and explains just what they are made of.

INFORMATION UNDERLOAD: In an excellent post, Steven Den Beste says that one reason why Saddam Hussein makes such poor decisions is that, like Hitler near the end of WWII, his generals are feeding him distorted information, to save their own skins.

WHY BILL SIMON LOST: More thoughts from National Review Online.

IN A SILENT WAY: Miles Davis knew how to make silence work for him as a musician--by carefully choosing when not to play, he made what he did play that much more eloquent. George W. Bush seems to understand that that can work equally well for politics.

Orrin Judd writes:

While everyone's focussed on the performance of George W. Bush in the days leading up to Tuesday, there ma be more to be learned about him by his performance since. First of all, here's the difference between W and the two men who dominated the American political scene in the '90s: we didn't even see him yesterday. Think about that. Now try to imagine those two fat egomaniacal onanists, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, staying out of the limelight on Wednesday. You can't can you? They would have made it all about themselves.

Precisely--although they each deserve credit for revitalizing their parties for a time, their desire to tan in the limelight afterwards ultimately did their parties more harm than good.

THE DEMOCRATS' RACE PROBLEM: Rod Dreher has some thoughts.

MEET NANCY PELOSI, quite possibly the Democrats' next House minority leader. Orrin Judd explains where she stands on the issues.

Something tells me that CSpan's ratings--not to mention sales of Alka Seltzer--are about to double come January.

UPDATE: CNSNews.com says that Pelosi's chief competition for the job, House Democratic Caucus Chair Martin Frost (D-Texas) has come out swinging, calling Pelosi's approach "too liberal" to lead the DNC into the majority in 2004.

The election to replace Gephardt will be held Thursday, Nov. 14.

OFF THE RECORD: Scott Ott interviews a voter who doesn't want to be named. And it's easy to see why...

That's the underlying message to President Bush and the Republicans in John Fund's latest column:

So while Republicans continue to pop the champagne corks, they would do well to sober up soon. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, two liberal analysts, have written a response to Mr. Phillips's 1969 book. It's called "The Emerging Democratic Majority" [Read Patrick Ruffini's take on it--Ed], and while Tuesday's results leave room to question its central thesis, it still makes valuable points. White-collar professionals such as teachers, lawyers, doctors and engineers are trending Democratic, and they are turning formerly conservative strongholds like Phoenix into competitive territory. In 1988, President Bush's father carried Phoenix's Maricopa County with 65% of the vote. In 2000, his son won it by two percentage points. This past Tuesday, Republican Matt Salmon carried it by an even smaller margin and the GOP apparently lost a governor's race in the Grand Canyon State for the first time in 20 years.

As significant a victory as the Republicans have achieved, this is still the closely divided nation that political analyst Michael Barone describes. Republicans again have control of both houses of Congress, but by narrow and potentially precarious margins. Once the celebrations die down, the party would be well advised to focus attention on where it is losing votes as well as where it is gaining them.

I think he's absolutely right. I've been reading volume one of The Age of Reagan for a review in Blogcritics, and Steven F. Hayward does an excellent job of describing in detail the hubris--and it was staggering--of the Democrats of the 1960s, a time when they controlled all three bodies of government.

While Republicans are unlikely to make the same enormous mistakes and overreaching that the Great Society Democrats did, hubris on a grand scale can also alienate a large percentage of the people who are skeptical of both parties--or those who don't like what the Democrats have become, but don't yet feel comfortable with conservatism.

The fact that Bush instituted a "no gloating" rule for his staffers is a good first sign that he understands that as well--and bodes well for the next two, and possibly six years of governance by a man consistently underestimated by his critics.

UPDATE: Stephen Green makes a similar point.

GLENN REYNOLDS HAS SOME AN INTERESTING NEW AVENUE FOR BUSH TO PURSUE with his newly reconstituted majority.

MORE OUTHOUSES THAN TiVOS: Eric Olsen has a humerous post on Blogcritics that reflects the fact that currently, America has more outhouses than personal video recorders, such as TiVos and ReplayTVs.

For some of the reasons why PVRs have been such a hard sell, check out my recent article in Tech Central Station I also have an article on the same subject in the November issue of Home Automation magazine that goes into even greater detail but unfortunately, isn't available online.

As to the continued sales of outhouses in quantity, I'll check my sources, read a magazine or two, and get back to you.

NATIONAL AIRLINES GOES BELLY UP: AP reports "National Airlines, which flew tourists to the nation's gambling capital, planned to cease operations Wednesday after nearly two years in bankruptcy court."

It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks: my wife and I flew back to New York in early October of last year on National, only a couple of weeks after regular flights resumed after being grounded as a result of September 11th. During a period where airlines should have been going out of their way to make passengers feel welcome and comfortable, the stewardesses were uniformly rude, inhospitable to special requests, and one actually said "with our rates, we don't have to take anything from anybody", meaning, sit down, shut up, and strap yourself in." We even upgraded to first class for the flight back, just because it had to be better than coach. (National's steerage made sitting in coach in American seem luxurious and sleek by comparison.) Fortunately, it was. But we vowed never to fly National after that debacle--and evidently, so did a lot of other folks.

FOOL'S GOLD: James Morrow of Reason asks, "hasn't New York City suffered enough?" Does it really need the Olympics to increase its miseries?

WHAT WENT WRONG IN CALIFORNIA? Some thoughts from Ken Masugi in National Review Online.

DISCONNECT! Compare and contrast these two Democratic strategists:

"Tonight was a good night for Democrats" Terry McAuliffe, DNC Chairman on CNN Larry King 11/05/02

And James Carville:

And then there's Tom Daschle, who says "‘This is the worst night I have had":

Terry--time to check in with your shrink, my man. Or not, as Glenn Reynolds notes.

SEC CHAIRMAN RESIGNS: Harvey Pitt is gone. As someone noted (if I can track down whom, or if someone emails me, I'll link to it), it was a smart move for the Bush administration to bury this under the election news.

GO LEFT YOUNG DEM: Orrin Judd says that "Democrats are probably going to look at tonight as a repudiation of the Clinton New Democrat/Third Way ideology and the party is extremely likely to jag to the Left":

This has the "advantage" of suiting where the activists would like the Party to be anyway, but the disadvantage of putting them at odds with the nation.

To get some sense of where this leads them, just imagine how much uglier tonight would have been if instead of "conservative" Democrats--Shaheen, Bowles, Pryor, Cleland, etc.--running as kind of softer versions of Republicans, you'd had full-throated liberals running on genuine Democrat positions, like raising taxes and opposing the war. It could not possibly have helped, but that's what their '04 campaign may well look like.

There's going to be lots of fascinating stuff written about this election--and what's to come next.

Stay tuned.

DRUDGE HEADLINE: GOP TAKES SENATE.

COMPUTER PROBLEMS TODAY: My wife's computer, which doubles as our main Internet connection via our cable modem, had several viruses (virae?) today, which meant a lot of downtime, a lot of time on hold with tech support, and a lot of time spent debugging (literally!) things.

Stephen Green is burning the midnight oil blogging the election tonight, so stop on by there if you've got a political itch that needs scratching. And National Review's The Corner Weblog is being updating fairly regularly, as is Matt Drudge. And I'm sure Andrew Sullivan will have some commentary later tonight.

UPDATE: Kirean Lyons is following the California gubernatorial race with regular updates on both voting and drinking.

UPDATE: Sullivan's take is up.

THE DNC WILL HAVE A SECRET WEAPON TOMORROW...

GODFATHER MEETS THE PUNK: Pete Townshend reviews Kurt Cobain's journals.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: A reader of Steven Den Beste's USS Clueless writes:

Europe really does not understand America. I remember a scene from a biography of Theodore Roosevelt (I think it was from that source) where an Englishman was out West and went to a ranch and asked a ranch hand "Where is your master?", to which statement the ranch hand replied "That sumbitch ain't been born yet."

DRISCOLL AFTER DARK: I have two articles in the November Home Automation, including a piece on using the X10 home automation standard and motion detectors to help make a home safe at night. The article includes a few photos of Chez Ed after dark. The text of the article is online, but you'll have to actually buy the magazine to see the photos (besides this one, of course!)

Hopefully my neighbor will buy a copy--God only knows what he thought when he saw me taking photos of my garage and front door at 9:00 on a Saturday night with my digital camera, running into the house (to check them on the PC) and then coming back out to shoot some more. Thank God for digital cameras: there are only a few photos in the piece, but I ended up shooting 20 or 30 shots and experimenting with exposures, fill lighting from the house lights combined with flash, trying the shots with no flash, trying to use the lights from the car as additional lighting, and just generally experimenting.

There's no way I could have done night photography like this with a conventional flash, and have to wait until the next day to see the results--I would have wasted far more film and time. And the digital image appears to me to have far more usable exposure range within a single image. (Compare the first three photos in my recent Napa Valley Wine Train article to the three after that: the first three are digital images, the next three are scanned prints. I had to really manipulate the scanned prints to balance the indoor lighting with the bright sunlight. The digital prints required much less manipulation before they were ready to be uploaded.)

Incidentally, my other article in Home Automation, which is not available online, is all about choosing the right PVR, which actually makes a nice companion to my interactive TV article in today's Tech Central Station.

Buy a couple of boxcars worth of Home Automation magazine today!

"WHEN PARANOIDS GET LAZY": Jesse Walker looks at the conspiracy theorists who believe that Paul Wellstone's plane crash wasn't simply the result of a combination of small plane and bad weather.

Somehow it's not surprising that Barbra Streisand is among them.

THROUGH A CRASS EYE: Robert Kagan has France's number:

The debate over Iraq, though, has been a special godsend. Seen through French eyes, the world is suddenly a wonderful place, at least for France: There is the United States, the rogue colossus. There is Tony Blair, America's poodle. There is Schroeder, impaled -- internationally if not domestically -- upon his unilateralist, "German way" pacifism. And then there is France, tougher-minded than the Germans, prouder and more independent than the British and, because of its seat on the Security Council, the only modern, civilized power in the world able to tame and civilize the American beast. It is a mission worthy of a great country.

Who would ever want to wake from such a dream? The real world of terrorists, tyrannical aggressors and weapons of mass destruction is a much less accommodating world for France than the legalistic, one-country, one-vote world of the Security Council or the postmodern paradise of the European Union. If the United States ever does invade Iraq, the French must either stand by helplessly or take their place by America's side, and that is not nearly as enjoyable. It's more fun to play Don Quixote, tilting at American windmills. And who knows? If France can prolong the game for a few more months, as Powell suggests, Bush's chance to remove Saddam Hussein will have passed and the Iraqi leader will be safe again. What a triumph that will be for France's vision of a just international order. What a triumph that will be for France's vision of a just international order. And then only the American people and all of Iraq's many neighbors will have to stay awake, waiting for the next catastrophe to strike.

Read the whole thing.

US KILLS AL-QAIDA AIDE IN YEMEN: AP reports that Qaed Salim Sunian al-Harethi, "a top associate of Osama bin Laden", was "traveling by car in northwest Yemen when a Hellfire missile struck it Sunday, killing him and five others".

AP believes it was a CIA operation.

Add this to the other recent successes we've had against al-Qaida.

UPDATE: al-Qaida reports a slightly different cause for the explosion...

IS MICHAEL POWELL ABOUT TO BLOW IT as chairman of the FCC? Jim Glasman thinks so:

Powell is becoming the worst sort of out-of-control regulator, adding uncertainty and instability to an industry that needs precisely the opposite. He's set to roll over the traditional authority of the states and introduce the same kind of government-led industrial policy that Republicans campaigned against in the 1980s. If he continues on the present course, the White House will suffer. It's surprising the administration didn't take Powell to the woodshed long ago.

The truth is that the chairman of the FCC does need to take decisive action, but, instead of destroying a law passed overwhelmingly by Congress (including every leading conservative legislator), the chairman needs to reaffirm it. After years of waffling, he should say, loud and clear, that he will enforce the Telecom Act and aggressively defend it in the courts and on the Hill.

After all, the law is finally working - and benefiting consumers and small businesses with lower rates and higher quality through competition. Going into the mid-term elections, the Bush Administration has a success on its hands. The states where reforms have produced the best results are important vote-rich political battlegrounds like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and New York. The White House would be nuts if it did not exert some not-so-subtle persuasion to divert Powell from taking a reckless and damaging step.

MAKE DAVID HOROWITZ THE HEAD OF THE RNC? That's what Kathryn Jean Lopez suggests.

Sounds good to me--Horowitz takes politics as war seriously, something sorely lacking in the GOP.

CHAOS AT SJO YESTERDAY, as a suspicious bag--which was allowed through after testing positive for explosives forced the evacuation of three planes at Norman Mineta's namesake airport.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Bill Bennett looks at the symbolism of the 1978 funeral of Hubert Humphrey compared to the 2002 funeral of Paul Wellstone, and observes what they each imply about the health of our political system.

PALESTINIANS REACT TO HRW REPORT. Charles Johnson reports on Human Rights Watch finally labeling suicide bombings by the Palestinians as war crimes:

To nobody’s surprise, the HRW report has provoked a reaction from the Palestinians that exhibits the winning combination of raging paranoia, murderous intent, and propensity for outrageous lying that has endeared them to so many Europeans and NGOs: PA rejects rights group report about suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority says everything is Israel’s fault.

Johnson also has some thoughts on Israeli checkpoints worth reading.

IS POLLSTER JOHN ZOGBY A FRAUD? Patrick Ruffini has some thoughts.

THE BENGALS' GUARANTEE PAYS OFF: Bengals 38, Texans 3

IS THERE LIFE AFTER TV? My latest Tech Central Station piece, on interactive TV, is up today.

Here are my previous TCS articles as well, in case you missed one. Click in early and often there!

THE SIMPSONS ON GUN CONTROL: Pretty amazing stuff for a mainstream TV series: I watched it last night, and couldn't believe how pro Second Amendment it was.

Apparently, neither could a lot of people.

JONAH JUDGES THE JUDGES: Jonah Goldberg takes a look at the judicial nomination process, and finds both Republicans and Democrats lacking, both for slowing down the process, and for building up the power of judges. He's right--particularly when it comes to the latter.

THOSE SCHIZOPHRENIC CANADIANS--they just can't make up their minds as to how they feel. Orrin Judd has the details.

SPEAKING OF NEW YORK, my latest review is online at Blogcritics: the new box DVD set of Law & Order's first season.

"TAVERN ON THE GREEN!!" "ART! ART! ART!" "T-REX!! T-REX!!" Is everyone as sick of the tourism commercial that shows whacko NFL fans let loose in New York as I am? It's run multiple times during just about every pro football game this fall. What on earth were they thinking when they created it? Doesn't New York City have enough louts and loonies already, without adding to its problems?

ANDREW SULLIVAN'S CONSTANT ATTACKS on the New York Times are finally starting to get results...

YOU DON'T SAY: "Saudi: Kingdom Won't Help Vs. Iraq"

Didn't we go over this back in early August?

UPDATE: Group Captain Mandrake has some thoughts on this as well.

UPDATE: As does Steven Den Beste.

RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE, WEST COAST DIVISION UPDATE: My wife and I spent much of yesterday afternoon wandering around Westgate Shopping Mall, a fashionably upscale shopping mall in San Jose that was packed with shoppers (and the parking lot was packed with their eeeeeevil (nudge nudge, wink, wink) SUVs. I don't know if it was the nice weather (no nicer than it's been all fall here; "the monsoon season" hasn't started yet), or people getting an early jump on Christmas shopping.

My wife needed some new business duds, I picked up some new shoes, we both did our bit to jump start the economy.

Later that night, we discovered that Eulipia, one of our favorite downtown San Jose restaurants was packed as well.

For an East Coast report, click here.

Nice to see lots of positive leading economic indicators!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHARLES BRONSON, the toughest 81-year old on the planet, whose last Death Wish (Number #5, and still counting...) was released when he was 73 years old!

MONDALE UPDATE: OK, let's see: he skipped the debate last night, (which is par for the course for Democrats this year), and you can't click on his Web site to discover where he stands on the issues.

"Where's the beef?", indeed.

BACKHANDED NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS FOR GRAY DAVIS, rounded up by Joanne Jacobs.

Most of those of course, were before "the other shoe dropped",and a federal judge released a pair of letters from attorneys representing a convicted state coastal commissioner alleging that, a decade ago, he and Gray Davis schemed to pull campaign donations from developers in exchange for political favors.

Incidentally, in the event of a terrorist threat, Californians should feel better knowing the state government is prepared--at a moment's notice--to move the gubernatorial pompadour to a secure, undisclosed location.

Finally, here's a recent interview with Davis' challenger, Republican Bill Simon.

IN THE 1970s, THE NFL CHANGED ITS RULES TO OPEN UP OFFENSES--it was thought that increased scoring possibilities would make pro football more wide open and exciting.

It looks like soccer has followed suit.

NORTH DALLAS FORTY: ESPN.com's "Page2" section looks at how reel and real life compare in their analysis of the best football movie ever made, North Dallas Forty.

GATES CALLS MICROSOFT DECISION "A MILESTONE", according to The Washington Times.

I think that means he's pretty happy with it--as well he should be.

I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY FOUND ME--BUT THEY'RE PRETTY COOL: In my refer stats was a URL called "http://f16houston.com/". It's the 147th Fighter Wing of the Texas Air National Guard, and they've got a nifty multimedia introduction to their homepage. Stop by and check it out.

When I showed it to my wife, she said, "Maybe they want you to join."

Hey, if I get to fly the F-16 shown in the intro, they could talk me into it!

(And whoever you are from the Texas ANG--drop me an email if you're reading this.)

MY MOM WILL HATE THIS ONE. Reason's Daily Brickbat column has this fast breaking story:

Pennsylvanians Saved From Depraved Bingo Nights (11/1)
Pennsylvanians can play the lotto and bet on ponies. They may soon be able to play slots or gamble on river boats. But they can't play bingo at Wal-Mart.

For years, the discount chain has permitted weekly bingo games. There was no admission fee, no charge to play, and no betting. The district attorney in Lebanon County has nonetheless decided the games violate the state's "small games of chance" law, which allows only state-licensed, not-for-profit community organizations to run bingo games. Wal-Mart asked the state to change the law. But Republican lawmakers voted down the idea, concerned that it would promote gambling.

Bingo at Wal-Mart! The next thing you know, certain words will be creeping into your conversation: words like...swell. And "so's your old man!" Well if so my friends, you got trouble. Right here in Monongahela City. With a capital T! And that rhymes with B! And that stands for Bingo!

(With my sincerest apologies to Robert Preston and The Music Man.)

SHARON OFFERS NETANYAHU the job of foreign minister in Israel's fragile minority government.

"BLOG TO COURT: CHECK YOUR FACTS": Wired News reports that "When attorney Howard Bashman noticed a small error in the footnote of a 5th Circuit appellate court opinion, he quickly noted it on his weblog".

The next day, Judge Jerry Smith, who wrote the opinion and also happens to be a reader of Bashman's blog, fixed the error in an amended version (PDF). The judge e-mailed Bashman, personally thanking him for bringing the mistake to his attention.

"It's the first time that I've noticed a weblog credited for pointing out an error and causing a correction (in a court decision)," Bashman said. "This example is noteworthy because it's the first time that something like this has come to light."

JUDGE OKS MOST MICROSOFT PROVISIONS: Here's the AP report.

Fox's Neal Cavuto is playing this as a major victory for Microsoft--"a slap on the wrist", he says. More as the dust settles.

UPDATE: Computer World reports:

Legal experts were still reviewing the judge's multi-part decision tonight, but pundits such as Robert Lande, an antitrust professor at the University of Baltimore, said he was having trouble finding any concessions made by the judge to the nonsettling states.

"This looks like an incredible victory for Microsoft," said Lande. "I see some little tweaks here and there but basically it's a near and complete Microsoft victory."

"There were questions about could this be appealed," said Tom Bittman, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "It certainly can be appealed to the Supreme Court. But our opinion is the Supreme Court has basically already said they’re not interested, so anything that did go to them would be rejected, we believe. And we think the case is essentially closed."

TUESDAY'S GOING TO BE A LONG MONTH: Absentee voter forms found burned in South Dakota.

Expect the Florida fiasco to become nationalized starting Wednesday morning.