Euthanizing Babies in the Netherlands

Here's a not too surprising piece of news from the Netherlands:

Raising the stakes in an excruciating ethical debate, a hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures in a handful of cases and reporting them to the government.

Although shocking, I can't say it's really surprising to see something like this happening in the Netherlands. They permitted euthanasia for awhile now on adults, so the natural progression of such a slide down the slippery slope is to start including children.

Read the whole story here.

Rod Dreher at the Corner (National Review Online) has this to add to the Dutch discussion:

For me, the news that the Dutch are euthanizing babies brings back one of the most unsettling mornings of my life. It is 1990, and I am riding in the car through the tranquil, pastoral pastures of rural eastern Holland. My driver is a middle-aged Dutchman who speaks little English. He is sad, and trying to tell me why. We pass a brick farmhouse. He points to it and says, "Last night, suicide." We drive a little further, and he points to another. "Three months, suicide. And there, another suicide." Between my pidgin Dutch and his rudimentary English, I understood that he could not figure out why so many of his neighbors were murdering themselves. In his country, they had peace and general prosperity, hardly a material care in the world. And yet, they were dying from despair. One wonders if a culture that kills its newborns can survive. One wonders if it deserves to.

This is a messed up country.

Pat Sajak Takes on Hollywood

Pat Sajak, long-time host of "Wheel of Fortune" is a pretty outspoken conservative, and today has written a piece in Human Events Online castigating Hollywood for its failure to condemn the brutal murder of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh. Pat is a very funny guy, and used to be the local weatherman in Los Angeles many years ago (I still remember him pointing to the satellite map and stating that it was so clear that you could see all the state lines).

Pat's got a good point in his article, so be sure to read it. In just about any other scenerio, the Hollywood crowd would have been in full cry, but not in this case. Could there be a little "yellow fever" in the Hollywood crowd, or are they just afraid they might agree with President Bush?

Housing Bubble About to Burst?

U.S. News and World Report has a long article by Alex Markels regarding the current risk of a blowout in the housing market bubble:

After one of the broadest and longest run-ups in housing prices ever, most homeowners are sitting pretty. But there is a growing angst about how much longer the party can go on. Those who believe housing is now the new "bubble," much like the '90s stock market, point to slowing sales and rising interest rates amid nosebleed prices that have far outpaced growth in personal income. Take Las Vegas, for example, where the median home price has increased an eye-popping 54 percent in the past 12 months alone.

And while much of the middle of the country has enjoyed far more modest gains, red-hot coastal markets in California and the Boston-to-Washington, D.C., corridor, as well as in southeast Florida, have pushed up the national median sales price by more than 7 percent in the past year, three times faster than household income.

I probably share a common experience with many homeowners in this country. When a home comes on the market in my neighborhood, I'm usually the first one to grab a flyer and see just what ridiculous price they're asking. I then laugh at the homeowners for daring to ask such an astronomical price, while secretly praying that they get it so my house will appreciate even more. Just in my little townhouse neighborhood we've seen prices more than double in just the last 3 or 4 years.

My guess is that an individual's fear of the housing bubble is directly related to how recently he or she purchased their home. If you bought your home 14 years ago as I did, a 20% drop in prices is bad, but not lethal. If you bought last week, you better hope you don't run into some financial difficulties because you won't be able to sell the house without taking a beating, and certainly won't be able to refinance it. I know folks who had to walk away from their homes in the 90's due to a housing bust in their part of the country.

I purchased my townhome back in 1990 for what seemed at the time to be an obscene amount - $197,000. I also bought right before the last bubble burst. Within a couple of years townhomes like mine were selling for $155,000. My original plan had been to move in five years and plow the profits into a bigger home. That plan burst along with the bubble.

By the late 90's the market began to slowly recover and by the time we refinanced in 2001, our home appraised at $270,000. I was pretty happy with that.

Interest rates continued to drop and prices continued to rise, so in late 2002 I refinanced again, this time with an appriasal of $330,000. Happiness was also on the increase.

Things have only accelerated since then, and I tend to agree with the folks who doubt whether this pace can possibly keep up. A model just like mine one street over recently sold for $540,000, and my neighbor just put his home on the market (same model as mine) for $575,000. God bless America!

There is a downside, of course. As I was discussing with some friends over dinner the other night, my kids are going to have some real problems in a few years when they want to buy something to live in. What's a fixer-upper starter house in Southern California going to cost - $800,000? No young couple is going to be able to afford that.

However, these things have a way of working out. I still remember my dad talking about our new family home that he bought in Huntington Beach in 1977. Five bedrooms, two stories and about 2500 square feet. I remember him saying that he didn't know how in the world they'd ever be able to make the payments. The cost - $85,000.

Swift Boat Vet Betrayed Yet Again

This is the story of a military veteran whistleblower. He spoke out against someone he thought was dangerous for the nation, talked to local newspapers, and appeared on talk shows. In return, he was vilified by reporters, threatened by a political operative, fired by his company, and now he's broke.

His name is Steve Gardner. He's also known as "The 10th Brother," as in Band of Brothers. He's one of two members of Sen. John Kerry's 12 Vietnam swift boat crew members who refused to stand with Kerry at the Democratic Convention. The other man remained silent.

"They said I had a political agenda. I had no and have no political agenda whatsoever. I saw John Kerry on television saying he was running for the Democratic nomination for president, and I knew I couldn't ever see him as commander in chief -- not after what I saw in Vietnam, not after the lies I heard him tell about what he says he did and what he says others did."

The paragraphs above are from the beginning of a Chicago Sun-Times story on Steve Gardner, the only man from Kerry's Swift Boat days in Vietnam who served on his boat and spoke out against him. Mr. Gardner is now paying a steep price for his decision to stand against Kerry.

Although he currently doesn't have the funds to fight back against his firing, my guess is now that this story is out, there will be many who will rally to Mr. Gardner and provide him the funds to pursue a case against his former employer.

You have to admire Mr. Gardner and the other Swift Boat Vets who put their livelihoods on the line to challenge Kerry. That took some guts, and certainly they had a big impact. The Swift Boat story really took off in the dog days of August right at the time Kerry should have been basking in the glow of his convention. They took a lot of steam out of the campaign.

Suggested Holiday Reading

Hugh Hewitt posted a question on his website asking for book suggestions on modern novels worth reading twice. I'm not sure if these books fit that description, but they're certainly worth reading, especially if you have an interest in American history. I've read several of them more than once, and plan to revisit the others as time permits.

Jeff Shaara, and his father Michael, have written a number of novelized stories of significant American wars. A couple have been made into movies, and the I highly recommend the whole series. The stories are told from the viewpoint of the major players of the wars and really do a good job of putting the reader into the scenes. Here are a list of the titles, all of which I have in my collection:

Rise to Rebellion - the story of events and major characters leading up to the Declaration of Independence.

Glorious Cause - the story of the Revolutionary War as seen through the eyes of several major players, including Washington and Cornwallis.

Gone for Soldiers - the story of the Mexican American War. This was particularly interesting to me due to the fact that I really didn't know much about this war, and many of the men who went on to senior commands on both sides of the Civil War served in junior officer roles in this war. The viewpoints include those of Winfield Scott, Robert E. Lee and Santa Anna.

God and Generals - the first book of a Civil War trilogy which takes some of the senior generals of the war from the years prior to the war up until the march to Gettysburg. Included are the viewpoints of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and various Union generals.

The Killer Angels - written by Michael Shaara, is the definitive account of the battle of Gettysburg, and is required reading in my house prior to our summer vacation next year to visit the battlefield. The emphasis in this book is on Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Buford, and Hancock.

The Last Full Measure - this book takes up the rest of the story of the Civil War from the end of the Gettysburg battle through the surrender at Appomatix Courthouse. The last two years of the war are seen mainly from the viewpoint of Lee and Grant.

The entire Civil War trilogy is available on Amazon.com in a paperback set.

To the Last Man - this is Shaara's newest book and just out in hardback (available at Costco) and is the story of WWI. I just got this and haven't read it yet, but plan to do so during the holidays.

Also, in keeping with the Civil War theme, Newt Gingrich has co-written a couple of books with a different take on the war. For instance, what if Lee had not chosen to fight the third day at Gettysburg but had instead left the field to fight again another day. He has two books which start at Gettysburg and take that theme forward.

Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War

Grant Comes East

There will be a third installment which I assume will take the war to its revised conclusion. I'm looking forward to seeing how Newt wraps things up.

Happy reading!

Trading Palm Trees for Douglas Firs

The election is not quite over - at least not in Washington where the Republican Dino Rossi was declared by the winner in the governor's race by just 42 votes. There were substantial shenanigans going on on the Dem side during the count, and apparently there are still many more to come. John Fund has a good article on the whole mess in today's OpinionJournal.com.

Axis of Evil Update

There is of course a great deal in the news about Iraq and all the travails going on there, but we should be careful not to forget their neighbor, Iran. Iran is becoming a hotbed of martyrdom operations, both against our forces in Iraq and against Jews and others in different parts of the world. Check out this article "Thousands Respond to Call for Martyrs":

The 300 men filling out forms in the offices of an Iranian aid group were offered three choices: train for suicide attacks against US troops in Iraq, or train for suicide attacks against Israelis. Or train to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie.

It looked at first glance like a gathering on the fringes of a society divided between moderates who want better relations with the world and hard-line Muslim militants hostile toward the United States and Israel.

But the presence of two key figures – a prominent Iranian lawmaker and a member of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards – lent the meeting more legitimacy, and a clear indication of at least tacit support from some within Iran’s government.

Read the whole thing. It's pretty scary. There has been a democracy movement in Iran. Let's hope the CIA and our other contacts in the area are doing what they can to nurture and support that movement before the mad mullahs do something unspeakable.

Scrappleface has the right idea about European negotiations with Iran. Check out this parody news item that Scott recently posted:

Breakthrough: Iran to Aim Smaller Warheads at Euro Cities
by Scott Ott
(2004-11-26) -- After a week of tough negotiating by France, Germany and Britain, the Islamic Republic of Iran has conceded to reduce the size of nuclear warheads it will use in the eventual bombing of Paris, Berlin and London.

"Iran blinked," said French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who is a man. "We have achieved everything we wanted in these negotiations. Our capital cities will be spared to a certain degree and Iran has pledged to stop enriching uranium, while retaining 20 operating centrifuges, and continuing to process plutonium. This is a great victory of diplomacy."

A spokesman for Iran's President Mohammad Khatami said, "The Europeans are vigorous negotiators, and we have made deep concessions. The eventual survivors in Paris, Berlin and London will express gratitude to Allah when they compare their lot with the fate of Jerusalem and New York."

The Coming Permanent Republican Majority

Read today's Howard Fineman piece on Karl Rove and his plans for a permanent Republican majority. It has some interesting background info on Karl's first meeting with W back in 1973, as well as his plans for the future. The "architect" (W's own description) of the Bush victory will be a major player for many years to come.

Christmas Times a'Comin'

As promised in the post below, here are some electron-devouring Christmas light photos from the home of the Holy Coast. I always feel a little like Clark Griswold in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" when I'm putting up all the lights ("200,000 important Italian twinkle lights!", which of course when finally lighted after much grief and hilarity in the movie, don't actually twinkle). If you've never seen it, go rent it. It's the best Christmas movie ever.

Here are the results of this year's enterprise. So far so good...

The front of Casa de Holy Coast

Don't you just feel the Christmas spirit?

God smiling on my colored Christmas lights and declaring them good (actually I took this a few weeks ago, but it somehow seemed appropriate).

Colored Lights versus White Lights

After a day spent running cords for hundreds of colored Christmas lights (I don't allow white lights at my house - too cold and sterile), I found this article interesting (hat tip Hugh Hewitt). It was written in 2001 by Michael Kelly, a very talented journalist who died during the march to Baghdad in 2003. Being a colored light guy, I can relate (Hugh is too).

We had a white light Christmas tree about 10 years ago or so, but it was so boring that I think I would rather have skipped Christmas than do that again. Most of the pre-lighted artificial trees you now find in the stores have white lights, which is why we looked long and hard to find a 9' tree with NO lights. I'll put my own colored lights on, thank you (we don't use a real tree - just too much of a fire hazard with all the lights we put on it). And by the way, we use random twinkle lights which are really hard to find these days, not those robotic always on or flashing on and off lights that the imagination-challenged stores would have you buy.

We do have a giant wreath in our entryway window that was pre-lit with while lights. Actually, it's the second wreath. The first one had some kind of spastic response to electricity which caused a section of the lights to come on for awhile, then turn off. After they cooled down, they popped on again. Back to Costco with that one.

I predict that it will only work correctly one year, after which I'll be stringing some good colored random twinkle lights on that bad boy.

I'll post a photo of our electron-eating front entry in a day or so.

The Return of the Deaniacs?

Jonathan Chait does a little handicapping of the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination in today's L.A. Times:

Let's begin with Howard Dean. Most of us thought that Dean's spectacular defeat in the Iowa caucuses last January meant the end of him and his movement. Instead, it was more like the ending to "Terminator 2," where the evil robot is blasted to smithereens and presumed dead, then the fragments slowly regroup and come to life. As we speak, Deaniacs are reconstituting in their yoga studios and organic juice bars, plotting — in their benevolent, cheerful but fundamentally misguided way — to make Dean the leader of the Democratic Party...

A secular Yankee like Dean is about the worst possible candidate.

Unless, of course, the alternative is Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe she wouldn't be worse than Dean. But she surely would go down in flames if she won the nomination in 2008. President Bush owed his victory in large part to cultural division. If there's anybody who incites cultural divisions, it's Hillary Clinton.

Her advisors point out that she's religious and speaks the language of Scripture. That's nice, but nobody seemed to notice it during her eight years in the national spotlight. She's painfully uncharismatic. Her only political accomplishment is that she won a Senate seat in an extremely Democratic state, where she ran six percentage points behind Al Gore. Clinton's supporters like to note that she's not as liberal as people think. That's exactly the problem. I can see the logic behind nominating a liberal whom voters see as moderate. Nominating a moderate whom voters see as liberal is kind of backward, isn't it?

Probably the only worse option than Dean or Clinton, short of nominating Paris Hilton, would be to renominate John Kerry, who, reports have suggested, inexplicably harbors ambitions of running again in 2008. In a previous column I compared Kerry's contribution to his own campaign to an anchor's contribution to a boat race. In retrospect, I seem to have given him far too much credit.

It came out last week that Kerry ended his campaign with about $16 million left in the bank. It's unclear whether this was some kind of misconceived strategy to save money for a possible future run or, more likely, whether it was simply ineptitude on a mind-boggling scale. There's a lot a campaign could have done with $16 million. Maybe, you know, spend some of it in Ohio.

In his defense, a Kerry spokesman told the Boston Globe, "John Kerry raised more money than any Democratic nominee in history, and he gave more money to Democratic candidates across the country than any other nominee in history." Somehow this failed to mollify outraged Democrats. (Think of all the company funds former Tyco head L. Dennis Kozlowski didn't spend on himself.) So Kerry then agreed to "donate a substantial portion" of the unspent funds to Democrats. A substantial portion? After failing to spend it on what he called "the most important election of our lifetimes"? How about all of it, plus selling off some vacation homes and donating the proceeds, and then disappearing from public view forever?

Stab the Bird, Not Each Other!

Here's a heartwarming tale of Thanksgiving family bliss from today's Boston Herald:

WORCESTER, Mass. - A man was charged with stabbing two relatives who allegedly criticized his table manners during Thanksgiving dinner.

Police said the fight broke out when Gonzalo Ocasio, Jr., 18, and his father, Gonzalo Ocasio, 49, reprimanded an uncle for picking at the turkey with his fingers, instead of slicing off pieces with a knife, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported Friday.

The uncle, Frank Palacious, 24, of Worcester, allegedly responded by stabbing them with a carving knife.

The father and son were being treated for stab wounds at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

A nursing supervisor said Friday she had no information on the younger Ocasio's condition. Police said he suffered stab wounds to the chest, back and right side. His father was treated for a stab wound in his arm.

Palacious is charged with two counts of domestic assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault with intent to murder, Detective Sgt. Thomas R. Radula said.

Florida in the Ukraine?

There's a real mess going on in the Ukraine right now, and given the strong emotions on each side, real violence is a possibility. It appears from the reports of election observers that a pro-Russian government has been elected through massive vote fraud, and the pro-Western candidate and his supporters are not just going to sit back and take it.

As I listened to some of the reporting last night, I heard some statements that were eerily reminiscent of our own election. According to reports, the exit polling in the Ukraine showed the pro-Western candidate winning handily, but when all the "votes" were counted, the pro-Russian guy had a 3 point lead. We all have experience with bad exit polling - remember Zogby calling the election for Kerry at 11am PST? If the only evidence of problems were exit polling, I could easily dismiss that as bad samples, as in the case in the U.S. elections.

That's not all that has happened in the Ukraine. As you'll read in the linked article above there were enough problems in the Ukraine that even Colin Powell went before the press and stated that the U.S. could not accept the results. Putin has a very big interest in keeping a pro-Russian government on his border, and the events in the next few days in the Ukraine will be very volatile.

A "Fundamental" Lesson on Thanksgiving

David Galerntner writes today in the Wall Street Journal about the very Christian beliefs that gave rise to Thanksgiving, and how we can all thank those "fundamentalist" who brought it about.

Abortion Tide is Turning

There's an interesting article by James Pinkerton in Newsday regarding how the tide appears to be turning in the abortion debate:

On abortion, the tide has turned.

Events in 2004 have heralded the moment when pro-life - or, if one prefers, anti-choice - forces gained decisive momentum. This trend cannot be dismissed merely as a victory of Karl Rove and the Religious Right. Instead, deeper forces are at work: the basic instinct to perpetuate the species.

Read the rest of it here.

The First Thanksgiving

The text below is George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation from 1789 which first established the tradition. For any of you who are fans of the separation of church and state (which cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution), why don't you try counting all the references to God in this document. Liberals keep trying to separate God from the founders of this country, and this document is typical of other proclamations from those early days.

By the way, as you read this, there is a move in the Cupertino, CA school district to ban the reading of the Declaration of Independence in their schools due to the mention of God in that founding document. Maybe one day we'll be able to give thanks that morons like that are no longer in a position of authority in our schools.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.

(signed) G. Washington

The Mocking Begins

This from Scott Ott at Scrappleface.com:

Dan Rather Scrambles to Confirm Story of His Resignation

(2004-11-23) -- Veteran CBS News anchor Dan Rather this afternoon said he was "scrambling like a gila monster on hot sand" to verify allegations that he will step down from his role on the CBS Evening News in March 2005.

"If this is true, I want to break this story," said Mr. Rather as he rushed from his office to track down a hot tip on the story. "I received a fax from a Kinko's in Texas indicating that I'm relinquishing the anchor desk, but we need to run this past several handwriting experts and get it fully vetted before we break into programming with the announcement."

Loony Rooney

Andy Rooney long ago ceased being funny. His little pronouncements at the end of 60 minutes used to be charming, but now he's simply a cranky old liberal. Andy doesn't think much of Christians either:

The CBS star said he was chagrined over reports that religious values played such a critical role in this year's election.

"I am an atheist," Rooney told Tufts. "I don't understand religion at all. I'm sure I'll offend a lot of people by saying this, but I think it's all nonsense."

He accused Christian fundamentalists of being ignorant, saying Christians turned to religion because of "a lack of education."

"They haven't been exposed to what the world has to offer," he explained.

Andy's no spring chicken. One of these days, and possibly soon if the mortality tables catch up with him, he's going to find out once and for all if all this religion stuff was really "nonsense".

Anchors Away

There was a breathless breaking news announcement on the radio today: Dan Rather is leaving the CBS Evening News in March! (emphasis added) I don't know why all the drama. Does anybody watch Rather anymore? After the debacle of the forged National Guard papers, CBS ratings have tanked and I'm sure the network was looking for ways to get rid of him.

Both Rather and the network will insist that this announcement has nothing to do with the forged documents (by the way, what ever happened to the big investigation??), but I think there' s more of a connection than anyone wants to admit.

Weekend Update

I spent the weekend in Northern California where the Mission Viejo High School Marching Band was defending their Western Band Association State Championship. Mission Viejo put on a great show and achieved the highest score of their season in the Finals performance, but unfortunately fell a little bit short of James Logan High School which won the event. Mission came in a close second. Congratulations to the MVHS Band on another great season!

The other championship team at MVHS, the football team, won their first round playoff game 63-10. This coming Friday night they'll play Hart, the team who beat them badly in last year's CIF Championship game. Look for Mission to be ready to hand out some revenge at this game.

In racing news, 47 year old Bobby Hamilton won the Craftsmen Truck Championship on Friday night, and Martin Truax Jr. clinched his first Busch Series title last week in Darlington.

Kurt Busch came back from losing a wheel early in Sunday's race to finish 5th and claim his first NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship by only 8 points over Jimmie Johnson. Congrats to the 97 crew!

Now what am going to do until the Daytona 500 on February 20th, 2005??

kNucklehead Basketball Association

By now everyone has seen the video of the "basketbrawl" from Detroit Friday night. What a bunch of morons.

The players, fans, security, etc. all badly botched this whole deal. You can find blame in all of them, but certainly there was only one person in that arena who had the ability to start or stop the riot. Pacer player Ron Artest was laying on the scorer's table - where he clearly didn't belong - following an on court skirmish with the Pistons when some idiot fan threw a plastic beer cup on Artest. At that moment he had two choices. He could have controlled himself while witnesses pointed out the idiot fan and security arrested him, or he could jump into the stands and start a riot. Artest made the wrong choice and will now have the rest of the season off to think about it. It will cost him over $5 million in lost salary, but with his wealth, that's really not that much of a penalty.

Artest is certainly not the only culprit, and I don't think the penalties handed out were severe enough. If I was commissioner, I would add a little something. How about 10 home games for each team in an empty arena. That's right - no fans, no parking, ticket and concession fees, and no TV/radio fees. Full refunds for all ticketholders. That might get their attention.

Both teams deserve that kind of penalty. The Pacers because of the actions of their players, and the Pistons because of the actions of their fans and the lack of security.

The NBA has become a collection of poster boys for bad behavior. Whether it's Kobe and his extramarital dalliances, Dennis Rodman and his idiotic behavior, or any of a hundred or so other players who participate in similar conduct. When you give millions of dollars to undereducated but athletically talented young people, you're asking for social problems. Certainly the influence of violent hip-hop and rap music in the black community from which most of these players come is not making their transition into adulthood any easier.

One of the reasons I enjoy NASCAR so much is the drivers represent not only their teams, but multi-million dollar companies who worry a bunch about their image. If a NASCAR driver were to commit such idiocy as Artest did, he would quickly find himself out of NASCAR forever, and there wouldn't be any union trying to get him reinstated. Consequently, the drivers and team members in NASCAR manage to control themselves in situations that would probably result in a riot in other sports. Sure there are temper flareups and even occasional fights, but no NASCAR member would ever consider doing something that would bring the kind of embarassment on the sport in the way NBA players regularly do.

I wouldn't attend an NBA game if you gave me free tickets, a $1,000 and drove me to the game.

Bush Has No Fear

There's no fear in George Bush. Many an attempt was made during the campaign to tie his National Guard Service to a fear of serving in Vietnam. Advocates of that position were clearly misguided.

Charles Krauthammer talks today in Time Magazine about why Bush has nothing to fear in his second term in office. Simply put, he has nothing to lose. When his term ends in 2009 the Bush Administration will cease to exist, and Dick Cheney will not be running for the top job. Consequently, Bush does not have to worry about protecting his Vice President from criticism or tough political choices. He's pretty much free to pursue any programs or plans he wants, and to heck with the opposition. Some people would consider this president to be a "lame duck". Just watch Bush work - this duck ain't lame.

Bush also showed his fearlessness this past weekend during a trip to South America. At an event in Chile, the president experienced a little role reversal and he came to the aid of his top secret service agent:

Mr. Bush and first lady Laura Bush arrived at 8 p.m. local time yesterday at the Estacion Mapocho Cultural Center for the official dinner of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

After the first couple posed for photos with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, the four entered the doorway with a line of Chilean security guards and uniformed police closing quickly behind him.

The president's lead agent approached the line of men as quickly as it closed and demanded to be allowed through. Within a few seconds, the confrontation began to escalate with voices being raised and shoving in all directions.

"You're not stopping me! You're not stopping me!" yelled the agent, as captured by several television cameras. "I'm with the president."

During the fracas, another Secret Service agent was roughly pulled from the tumult and pushed against a concrete wall by Chilean security…

Mr. Bush calmly turned right as the other three continued on and inserted himself into the fight. The president reached over two rows of Chilean security guards, grabbed his lead agent by the shoulder of his suit jacket and began to pull…

A few Chilean guards turned their heads and noticed that the arm draped over their shoulders was that of the president, and the line softened. Mr. Bush pulled his agent through, who was heard to say, "Get your hands off me" as he passed roughly through the doorway.

Mr. Bush then adjusted his shirt cuff and said something to the first dignitary he passed as a grin crossed his face.

According to Secret Service sources, the man Mr. Bush pulled through is a high-level agent and one of the president's personal favorites…

Read the whole story here.

I can't help but think about the comparisons of what Kerry might have done in the same situation. Would Kerry have cursed at the agent, as he did during a skiing trip many months ago? Would he have just given in to the Chilean security and left his agent in their hands? I just can't imagine Kerry wading into a fight and coming to the aid of one of his agents.

Casinos Trumped

Donald Trump's casino empire is once again bankrupt. How in the world do you go bankrupt running a casino? It's practically a license to print money.

There's an old adage about gambling - how do you make a small fortune gambling? Start with a large fortune.

Draining the Swamp

About a week ago a CIA counterterrorism expert by the name of Michael Scheuer resigned from the agency and went public with his accusations against the Bush administration. Actually, this wasn't the first time he's gone public. Some months ago he published a book called Imperial Hubris under the pseudonym "anonymous".

You see, active CIA employees are not allowed to publish books under their own names, let alone publish books that criticize the current administration. However, it's now apparent, based on Scheuer's own words, that the powers that used to be in the CIA actively approved of Sheuer's activity and his book. In his own words, "As long as the book was being used to bash the president, they gave me carte blanche to talk to the media".

This is the mess that Porter Goss has walked into, and this is why the smarmy little anti-administration lefties in the CIA are running for the tall grass. The media is claiming that a blood-bath is going on at the CIA where many top folks are resigning, and I say go get 'em Porter! This swamp of anti-Bush alligators needs draining, and Porter has to repopulate the whole place himself, great!

You can read more about the CIA's active promotion of Sheuer's anti-Bush book here.

What If This Guy Had Shot the Wounded Prisoner?

We're seeing lots of news about the Marine who shot the wounded terrorist in Iraq. Wars are filled with examples of these situations. Take, for instance, this one:

Consider the story of Henry Tandey, a British infantryman in the Duke of Wellington Regiment in the First World War. On September 28, 1918, Tandey participated in an attack against enemy trenches near the small French town of Marcoing. The British carried the day, and as they advanced, Tandey Cautiously peered into a trench. He saw an enemy soldier, a corporal, lying bleeding on the ground. It would have been easy for Tandey to finish off his enemy, as he had killed many that day; Tandey had played an heroic role in the battle and later was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest wartime decoration, for his great courage. But he felt it was wrong to shoot an injured man, and he spared the corporal's life.

In 1940, during the Nazi bombardment of Coventry, when Tandey worked as a security guard at the Triumph automobile factory, he gnashed his teeth. "Had I known what that corporal was going to become! God knows how sad I am that I spared him." The corporal was Adolf Hitler. Tandey's human gesture had led to the deaths of millions of people and, in a bitter irony of military destiny, had placed his own life at the mercy of the monster whose life he could have taken.

Murder is surely evil, yet every reasonable person will agree that the cause of good would have been greatly advanced if Henry Tandey had killed Hitler in that trench. History abounds with examples of good actions furthering the cause of evil...

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

Oliver Stone's new movie about Alexander the Great is stirring up some controversy in Greece:

A group of Greek lawyers are threatening to sue Warner Bros film studios and Oliver Stone, director of the widely anticipated film "Alexander," for suggesting Alexander the Great was bisexual.

The lawyers have already sent an extrajudicial note to the studio and director demanding they include a reference in the title credits saying his movie is a fictional tale and not based on official documents of the life of the Macedonian ruler.

"We are not saying that we are against gays but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander," Yannis Varnakos, who spearheads the campaign by 25 lawyers, told Reuters on Friday.

I find it funny how these people try to suggest that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, but they don't want their hero associated with it. Hollywood types will go out of their way to support gay rights, but bristle with indignation if they are "outed".

Seinfeld did a show where George and Jerry were inadvertently "outed" by a college newspaper writer to mistook them for gays. Their protestations were hilarious as they furiously denied the allegation while at the same time trying not to appear politically incorrect with the comment "not that there's anything wrong with that".

Given the way Stone plays with the facts in his previous movies like "Nixon" and "JFK", I'm not sure I'd put much stock in anything he said. However, I recently watched a History Channel miniseries on Alexander, and apparently most historians believe he did in fact "swing from both sides of the plate". Who knows. It'll be entertaining to hear the accusations and defenses on both sides of this argument.

Chrismukkah?

Note the following from the Wall Street Journal:

It was only a matter of time before a TV show inspired a religious movement.

The show is "The O.C.," which traces the lives of some hip teens in Orange County, Calif. One of them is Seth Cohen, the fictional son of a Protestant mother and a Jewish father. Seth's moment of religious inspiration occurred in an episode last December in which he explained his family's holiday-season philosophy to his new foster brother, Ryan.

Seth: "So what's it going to be? You want your menorah or a candy cane, hmm? Christmas or Hanukkah?"
Ryan: "Um, I'm not--"

Seth: "Ah. Don't worry about it, buddy, because in this house, you don't have to choose. Allow me to introduce to you a little something that I like to call--Chrismukkah."

Ryan: "Chrismukkah?"

Seth: "That's right. It's the new holiday, Ryan, and it's sweeping the nation."

In case we needed further proof that life imitates art, "The O.C." inspired Michelle (the daughter of a minister) and Ron Gompertz (a Reform Jew) of Livingston, Mont., to design their own Chrismukkah cards and register ownership of www.chrismukkah.com. If Chrismukkah is not quite sweeping the nation, it's at least generating a little cash for the Gompertzes in the windup to this year's holidays.

"It was one of those moments when a spark goes off," says Mr. Gompertz, describing what happened when he heard Seth Cohen say "Chrismukkah." "It was so much more elegant that Hanumas or the other jokey names we'd come up with."

The Gompertzes made a few cards last year and sent them to family and friends. The response was positive. This year they hired an artist and designed more cards. Too late to get in on any of the industry's trade shows, for now they're selling them exclusively on the Web site. They hope to sell about 25,000 cards this season.

As we all have noticed, it is no longer politically correct to refer to "Christmas". Schools no longer have Christmas vacation - it's now the "Winter Holiday break" just as Easter week is now "Spring break". When I went to the post office this morning, the asked if I wanted any "holiday" stamps. I almost asked if they had anything for Groundhog's Day just to see how complete their "holiday" selection was.

This story reminds me of "Festivus", the holiday celebration created by Frank Costanza (George's father) on the old Seinfeld show. The holiday basically featured a scraggly Festivus tree and the family shouting insulting comments at each other. I'm sure Chrismukkah will make as much sense.

But then again, if we can all be required to celebrate Kwanzaa (my kid's elementary school choir had to learn a Kwanzaa song each year), a completely manufactured holiday created by some college professor in the 60's, I guess Chrismukkah celebrations won't be far behind.

As for me and my house, we will celebrate Christmas with all the attendant adornments and family togetherness. I'll leave the fake holidays to Hollywood.

Pardon Me?

Every year the President presides over the pardoning of the two turkeys who show up at the White House (no I'm not talking about Kerry & Edwards). The turkeys are then shipped off to a local petting zoo to spend the rest of their days being manhandled by small children.

Just once, maybe in 2008 as he's getting ready to leave office, I'd love to hear the President say:

"Every year we send these birds off to the zoo, but this year, we're eatin' 'em!"

The White House chef could then do his best Emeril Lagasse impression and BAM!, two turkeys ready to go to the oven. I bet that would make the evening news.

The President does seem to take the whole enterprise in stride. Here are some his remarks from this year's turkey pardon (hat tip OpinionJournal.com):

"It came down to a few battleground states. (Laughter.) It was a tough contest, and it turned out some 527 organizations got involved -- (laughter) -- including Barnyard Animals for Truth. (Laughter.) There was a scurrilous film that came out, "Fahrenheit 375 Degrees at 10 Minutes Per Pound." (Laughter.) Now, it's a time for healing."

In other turkey news, remember the President's famous secret flight to Baghdad last year for a Thanksgiving dinner with the troops? That trip has been memorialized in an "action figure" that you can buy here.

No Posting This Weekend

I'll be up in Pleasant Hill, CA at the Western Band Association State Championships where my daughter will be competing with the Mission Viejo Diablo Marching Band, and won't be taking the laptop with me. We'll catch up on Monday - thanks for reading this blog!

The Shooting of the Insurgent

The media has been all a'twitter this week over the tape of the Marine shooting the unarmed insurgent in a mosque in Fallujah. The media is always hoping for examples of brutality by U.S. troops. But was it really brutality? Was it a war crime?

I doubt it, and after you read this account and commentary, you'll probably agree.

The writer also makes this interesting comparison:

Popular histories of World War II are replete with examples of soldiers who killed their enemy after some overture of surrender was made or as retribution for atrocities by the other side. In Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry earned his Silver Star in part because he chased down and shot a fleeing Viet Cong fighter who had fired on his boat only minutes before.

Do you think this comparison to John Kerry would have been made had the campaign still been in progress? Not likely.

Personally, this case is a classic example of why the U.S. should never agree to participate in the International Criminal Court. I guarantee you some Euroweenie prosecutor would have had this Marine up on war crimes charges in a heartbeat. If our guys make a mistake, we can handle it. We don't need to parade our soldiers before some world kangaroo court.

For Whom the Bells Don't Toll

There's been a minor kerfuffle on talk radio today regarding the decision by Target, Best Buy and other retail stores to ban Salvation Army bellringers from the front of their stores (here's the story). To be fair to the retailers, they have not just banned the Army, but all solicitors. Some radio hosts are calling for a boycott of these stores, but I just can't get that excited about that.

Boycotts are usually of minimal usefulness, and if the companies involved were doing it for anti-Christian reasons, I might consider joining in. However, I doubt that was the reason for the decision.

I am a frequent shopper at Target, and it used to be that every time we went there we were confronted by some solicitor hanging out near the front door. In fact, Target had a box painted on the sidewalk where the solicitor was required to stand. I haven't seen anyone doing that for awhile and I don't miss them.

Target does have a good record with charitable contributions to schools and other organizations, so they're not just a bunch of misers. They seem to do a good job of spreading the wealth in their community.

For those that are upset about the missing bellringers, just do what James Lileks did:

That said: if I find that Target kicked out the Salvation Army for religious reasons, I'll be peeved. Doesn't mean I won't buy my soap there. But it would chip away at that ephemeral thing called good will, the stuff companies often spend too fast without heed. I love Target, but I'd leave it in a second if someone did it better. So far no one within five miles of my house does it better. I'll be willing to go six if they do it really, really better, and they're near a mall and grocery store and all the other nodes I hit three times a week in my 90-minute chore window.

End result? I wrote out a check to the Salvation Army tonight. Figured out what I put in the kettles, and doubled it. They're happy; Target's happy; I don't have to drive 20 miles to find a frickin' Wal-Mart.

Clinton Presidential Library and Massage Parlor

Today the Clinton Presidential Library and Massage Parlor (as aptly named by Rush Limbaugh) opens in Little Rock, AR in the largest double-wide trailer ever built. If you don't believe me, just look at the pictures.

You can expect much gushing and sighing from the assembled media as their favorite president opens his own private Fantasyland. Don't expect the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth from this collection.

Based on early reports, Clinton has definately put the best possible face on his term in office. When the Nixon Library opened, Watergate was not glossed over, but was treated fairly and openly. This is not the case with the biggest problem Clinton had - impeachment.

The impeachment section of the Library is called the "Struggle for Power". In other words, Clinton didn't do anything wrong, but had to fight off those Wacky Wepublicans who were trying to take away his power. What a crock.

Don't waste your time running to Little Rock to pay good money to see this.

Racist Treatment of Dr. Rice

Today Rush Limbaugh discussed several editorial cartoons concerning the appointment of Condi Rice to Secretary of State which, had they been directed at a liberal, would have been considered extremely racist and would have drawn howls of protest from every black leader in site. After seeing the cartoons on Rush's site, I can't believe in 2004 such cartoons could still be printed in a mainstream newspaper without absolute outrage. However, because Dr. Rice is a conservative, all bets are off and any attacks, racist or otherwise, are considered fair game. You can see the cartoons and read Rush's comments here.

Good Advice From Peggy Noonan...Sshhhhhhh!

Peggy has the right advice to all the noisemakers in today's political society - Sshhhhhh!:

"Ssssshhhhhhhh."

Wonderful sound.

And good advice for our country, isn't it? After all the Sturm und Drang of the past few weeks our country would benefit from an absence of sound. Next week we mark Thanksgiving. Today, in anticipation, and after our fractious election, we could declare National Settle Down Week. National Be Still Week. Or National Give It a Rest Week.

The Great American Ssssshhhhhhhh-Out.

Why Don't People Equate Values with Democrats?

This sort of speaks for itself (hat tip Dick Moore):

Why Democrats are tagged as the party without values
Dennis Prager November 9, 2004

According to The New York Times, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, reflecting on her party's recent losses in the presidential, Senate and House elections, asked: "How did a party that is filled with people with values -- and I am a person with values -- get tagged as the party without values?"

As one who was raised a Democrat and became a Republican only 10 years ago, I would like to answer Gov. Napolitano's question as honestly as she posed it.

Gov. Napolitano, your party does indeed have very many people with values in it. But the Democratic Party is no more representative of the average Democrat's values than the National Council of Churches is of the average Protestant's values. Both are far to the left of their membership.

Here is the Democratic Party as most Americans, including this John F. Kennedy liberal -- a New York City born and raised, Jewish, Ivy League-educated intellectual who lives in Los Angeles -- see it.

To most Americans, Michael Moore is a Marxist who has utter contempt for most of his fellow Americans, who goes abroad and tells huge audiences how stupid and venal his country is, and in his dishonest propaganda film, portrays the American military as callous buffoons. Yet, this radical was given the most honored seat at the Democratic Party convention in Boston, next to former President Jimmy Carter.

To most Americans, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are race-baiting demagogues. Yet they are heroes to the Democratic Party. Most Americans do not see their country as the bigoted and racist nation regularly depicted by both black and white Democratic leaders.

To most Americans, a man who wears women's clothing to work is a pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To the Democratic Party, he is a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of multiculturalism. The California legislature, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, passed a law prohibiting any employer from firing a man who shows up to work wearing women's clothing.

To most Americans, Eminem is a vulgar nihilist who poisons young Americans' minds. To John Kerry he was a man whose anti-Bush hate video was worthy of endorsement.

To most Americans, obscenity-filled evenings should be restricted to R-rated films or a Las Vegas comedy act, not a major party's fund raiser attended by its candidates for president of the United States. To Democrats, those who object to such evenings are regarded as judgmental, hypocritical and narrow minded.

To most Americans, Hollywood stars are regarded as terrific to watch in films but also as narcissistic ingrates when, between private jet trips to Cuba and Cannes, they express their contempt for traditional America. That the Democrats have a veritable monopoly on support from folks like Sean Penn and Robert "Castro-is-a-great-leader" Redford may give Democrats a heady feeling, but for tens of millions of Americans it merely reinforces their belief that the Democratic Party shares Hollywood's values. Even The New York Times, in a post-election analysis, wrote of "the possibility that activist entertainers' fervent endorsements might have cost Mr. Kerry the election."

To most Americans, the American military is not only heroic; it is regarded as more important to safeguarding freedom than any other human institution, including the ACLU, the United Nations or the university, to cite three major Democratic Party affiliates. To virtually the entire Left, which includes the Democratic Party, the military is, at best, a necessary evil. Otherwise, the overriding doctrine is "Make love, not war." That is why Harvard still refuses to allow ROTC training -- and it is unlikely that either of the Massachusetts senators even finds that wrong, let alone as reprehensible as most Americans do.

To most Americans, gays are fellow Americans who happen to be homosexual and who should be accorded the same respect any fellow American is accorded. But most Americans also believe that America should retain the millennia-old definition of marriage as man-woman. They regard liberal judges who take it upon themselves to redefine marriage with contempt. And these judges are identified with the Democrats.

Whatever their views on abortion and abortion rights, the vast majority of Americans view the abortion of a viable fetus/baby (partial-birth abortion) as immoral. The Democratic candidate and his fellow Democrats repeatedly voted against a ban on this practice.

Gov. Napolitano, I hope that this short list answers your question about how it is that your party has gotten tagged as "the party without values." Indeed, the real question, as this observer sees it, is how has this party retained so many people who have traditional American values?

C2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

W Ignores Race and Make Racial History

Michael Goodwin has an article in the New York Daily News which aptly describes how President Bush has basically ignored race while at the same time making racial history with his cabinet appointments. Here's how it starts:

Think Nixon going to China. It was historic because it confounded conventional wisdom - and thus soared above suspicion. A staunch anti-Red, Richard Nixon had the nation's support for his bold visit 30 years ago because no one doubted his resolve or sincerity of purpose.

So it is with President Bush and diversity. Against expectation, and without divisive debates over affirmative action and quotas, he has built an extraordinary record of minority appointments to his inner circle. He did it by sneaking them in the front door while everybody was watching.

Union Stagehands Make the Big Bucks

Here's an interesting non-political story about the dramatic costs that are added to your concert tickets by the silly union requirements at some of the country's major concert venues. I was more than a little bit shocked to learn that some stagehands at these venues earn well into six figures for the labor and technical skills they have.

I haven't had much experience working union concert halls, and after reading this, there's no way I could ever afford to promote an event in such a place. The union rules and requirements are intended not to support the arts, but simply to pad the payroll.

French Fried

Hugh Hewitt has the following note regarding Jacques Chirac and his poor loser attitude since the US disregarded his advice and re-elected President Bush:

Jacques Chirac waited a week to call President Bush with his congratulations, the last among major world leaders and "allies" to do so. Now he has begun to belittle Tony Blair while expounding on the deficiencies of America as an ally (and taking a shot at Donald Rumsfeld.) Chirac clearly hates being the head of a third-rate power, and Bush's sweeping electoral success must rankle. Too bad no one asked him how France is faring in the Ivory Coast.

The "new Europe"/"old Europe" distinction scored, obviously. Since Chirac violated the "never let them see you bleed" rule, I hope a "senior American official" finds the time to talk at length about new Europe's openness to the redeployment of American forces from old Europe.

Rush is Pestering the PESTs

Post Election Selection Trauma is taking its toll on the poor residents of Palm Beach County, FL, and Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to talk radio host in the country and a Palm Beach County resident, is trying to help. He has offered his own counseling services on his national radio show to those in need, but alas, his services are apparently unwanted by the local psychologist crowd. Says Rob Gordon, executive director of the American Health Association:

“The people here in Palm Beach County now in therapy or support groups are the canaries in the mine shaft,” Gordon said. “There could be thousands of others, even Republicans, who need to be in therapy over this election.”

My suggestion - tune into Rush each day and save yourselves thousands of dollars of therapy. Of course, the next best thing is to just vote Republican and you will no longer have to suffer the trauma of being on the losing side.

First Degree or Second Degree

I've never commented on the Scott Peterson case because frankly, I didn't much care for it. I think it was greatly overblown by the media and certainly didn't deserve the attention it got, including the breathless coverage on Friday as the verdicts were announced. I hate to say it, but had Lacy been an unattractive minority woman, nobody would have paid any attention to this case at all.

One thing I really don't understand, however, is how the degree of murder was decided in this case. I can certainly understand a first degree murder conviction in Lacy's murder. Scott did a lot of pre-planning and met the test for first degree.

However, how do you commit first degree murder on an 8 month pregnant woman, yet only commit second degree murder on the unborn baby? Surely if you planned to murder the women, the logical assumption is that the baby will also die as a result. Therefore, both should have been considered first degree.

I guess that's why I'm not a lawyer - my thinking is polluted by too much logic.

PEST Sufferer Cured

We mentioned PEST in a previous post, but here in her own word is the story of a PEST sufferer who has been treated and feels much better (hat tip Little Green Footballs):

A post-therapy John Kerry supporter spoke out about her trauma treatment for the first time this weekend, saying Florida psychologist Douglas Schooler took her from the depths of despair over President Bush’s victory to a new lease on life.

Forty-four year old Karen of Boca Raton, a divorced mother of one who didn’t want her last name in print, called the trauma specialist’s intensive election therapy “profoundly effective” and described his hypnosis technique as “a healing process.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Karen told the Boca Raton News in an interview. “I was very devastated and very astonished that people would re-elect this president. I was moody about the war and economic issues. I felt very unsettled and fearful. I thought, ‘Oh no, what will happen for four years?’”

Karen, whose medical insurance covers the treatment, said she approached Schooler last week after finding herself unable to function publicly due to President Bush’s re-election. “Dr. Schooler absolutely understood the pain this election caused me and he opened my mind to a new point of view,” Karen said. “You’re relaxed, he talks to you and you just come out of it feeling more positive and renewed. It took one session. He did some relaxation techniques and probably did some things I didn’t even realize.”

No comment.

Big Weekend Ahead

There's a big weekend coming up with significant events for three groups that I'm a fan of:

1. The Mission Viejo High School Marching band will be defending their State Championship this Saturday night in Pleasant Hill, CA (outside of Concord). The Band won the title last year in Fresno, and hopes to repeat. They have some very tough competition, but with proud Dad and little brother Eric in the stands, piccolo player Emily Moore will hopefully be wearing the championship medal by the end of the evening.

2. The Mission Viejo High School football team starts CIF playoffs Friday night against Los Osos. Wish I could be there, but I'll be up in Pleasant Hill for the band competition. The Diablos ended the regular season 10-0 and embarrassed most of the competition. They could end up playing Hart, the last team to beat them (in the finals last year) in the second round, but the first round shouldn't be much of a problem.

3. NASCAR wraps up their season Fri-Sun at Homestead, FL. Only 82 points separate the top 5 drivers in the Nextel Cup division, which means given the right circumstances, any of the 5 could win. Kurt Busch holds a lead of just 18 points over Jimmy Johnson, and if I were a betting man, I would bet that Johnson has another great day and wins the title. He's won 4 of the last 5 races and certainly knows how to get it done.

The Busch Series Championship was decided last weekend when Martin Truax Jr. clinched the title, so that race will be entertaining, but don't expect too many fireworks.

The Craftsmen Truck Division is lead by Bobby Hamilton with second place Dennis Setzer 70 points back. Should Hamilton have trouble early, Setzer could certainly win the championship. Last year's Truck Division came down to the final few laps, so it could be a good race.

After this weekend there won't be any more NASCAR until February. What to do, what to do.....

Expect a Bunch of Dem Retirements

Courtesy of Mickey Kaus:

From Joe Trippi (former campaign manager for Howard Dean): Expect a big wave of Democratic retirements from Congress in the next couple of years, as veterans who've been holding on in hopes of regaining majority power give up. Many of these Democrats have been using their personal popularity (and powers of incumbency) to win in Republican areas. When they leave, their seats will flip. The GOPs could attain 60 votes in the Senate and maybe 30 more seats in the House.

Dems don't like being out of power, and some of the veterans are going to tire quickly of being in a shrinking minority. That's why I don't worry about guys like Arlen Specter or Lincoln Chaffee changing sides ala the idiot Senator Jeffords from Vermont that quit the Republican Party in 2001. When he quit, it gave the majority to the Dems and Tom Daschle. If Specter, Chaffee, or both quit today, they'd just be joining a slightly larger minority and would give up all the perks of being in the majority.

Powell's Gone, Condi to State?

Colin Powell has resigned as Secretary of State, and the leading candidate to replace him would be Condi Rice from the National Security staff. Condi would be a great choice, a brilliant but tough lady who could carry out the President's diplomatic mission with grace and good humor. I don't know why anyone would want that job, but if someone has to do it, Condi would be good.

Powell is held in great reverence by the media as, in their view, the only "moderate" voice in the administration. Personally, I've never been convinced that he was right for the job. Despite his military background and former job as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he seemed more than a little reluctant to use force when force was clearly needed. Remember, he was not at all convinced that we should have gone to war with Iraq...in 1991. He was probably the ultimate diplomat - lots of talking but not too much action.

If Condi gets the job, she'll be good. Look for a nasty confirmation battle, though, as the Dems try and settle some old scores with her regarding the intelligence from the Iraq war.

UPDATE - Condi gets the nod.

Marines Invade an Anti-War Rally in San Diego

There's nothing like a few marines to mess up a really good anti-war rally. Read the story here.

Do You Have PEST?

Apparently a lot of folks in South Florida are still suffering from a malady that now has an official name - Post Election Selection Trauma, or PEST for short. John Fund has the story in today's OpinionJournal Political Diary:

I was in South Florida over the weekend and it is remarkable how many people say their Democratic friends haven't recovered from the election. An angry woman from Cleveland berated me at the Palm Beach airport and said I should investigate how George W. Bush "stole" Ohio.

The newspapers in South Florida read like a skit from Comedy Central's "Daily Show." More than 50 Kerry supporters have sought psychological counseling since the election. "A post-therapy John Kerry supporter spoke out about her trauma treatment for the first time this weekend, saying Florida psychologist Douglas Schooler took her from the depths of despair over President Bush's victory to a new lease on life," began a story in Sunday's Boca Raton News.

The article describes how a 44-year-old woman who would only identify herself as Karen had trouble sleeping and was "unsettled and fearful" about the war and economic issues. Then she said Dr. Schooler helped her comprehend that it was unhealthy for her to have been so certain that Mr. Kerry would be elected. "If I'd had time, I would have volunteered for Kerry, but I work full-time," Karen said. "I thought Bush's actions were war crimes. But I'm sleeping again since the therapy and have felt better ever since."

Those who can't afford expensive therapy are signing up for free support group sessions sponsored by the non-profit American Health Association. Executive Director Rob Gordon says his group has termed the travail that Kerry supporters are going through as Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST). "These unresolved issues from four years ago seem worst in Palm Beach County because this is where the pregnant chad scandal happened," he said. "People here still think Bush was appointed, not elected."

I certainly have met such people, including many in South Florida. That's why this month's election is such a clarifying moment in that there was an unambiguous winner. The election also provides anti-Bush voters with the time-tested therapy that democratic elections have always given to losers: the chance to improve their message and win the next time.

Bill Cosby Talking Tough to Black Audiences

Back in 1985 my future wife and I had our first date at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater where we saw Bill Cosby in concert. For nearly 3 hours he had us absolutely rolling in the aisles. I think my ribs still hurt occasionally as a result of that concert.

Politically, Cosby has always been pretty liberal, but his politics didn't show up in his concerts. Following the loss of his son, Ennis, in a tragic criminal act, his concerts have taken on a much more sombre tone. He's still funny, but there's a lot more pain behind the laughter these days.

Lately Cosby has been doing the Lord's work (in my humble opinion) in confronting black audiences with the realities of what's going on in their communities. He's dared to make a lot of folks mad by disregarding the usual rants from the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons, and has been looking black America right in the eye and telling them what's going wrong. He's taken no small amount of flak because of it.

There's a good article in Newsday which describes Cosby's current crusade. Here's how it starts:

'Let them stay mad," Bill Cosby told CNN's Paula Zahn last week.

He was speaking of the flak he's catching from African-Americans since he criticized the behavior of some low-income blacks last spring during a commemoration of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. He angered some black folks, who thought his remarks were insensitive and inflammatory, and that he resorted to ugly racial stereotypes.

But Cosby has no plans to shut up. "This is about little children and people not giving them better choices," the 67 year-old actor-comedian told Zahn. "How long you gonna whisper about a smallpox epidemic in your apartment building when bodies are coming out under the sheets?"

Be sure and read the whole thing. My hat's off to Cos for his efforts.

I remember a few years ago, I had an employee who grew up in a predominately black neighborhood back in the 50's. He told me when he was growing up, children were not just raised by their families, but by the whole neighborhood. If he misbehaved at a friend's house, the friends mom would spank him and them send him home to be spanked again by his own mom. As much as I hate the whole "It Takes A Village" mentality espoused by Hillary Clinton, it did seem to work well in this guy's case and he turned out to be a very good man.

It seems to me that the real villains today are not the people who are wrongly accused of keeping African-Americans down as accused by the so-called "black leaders", but the people in their own community who refuse to hold them responsible for their own acts. Until that starts happening again, the rampant crime and general misbehavior will continue.

Michael Barone's Take on the Old Media

Michael Barone accurately describes just how bad this election was for the Old Media:

It was a bad election for Old Media. More than in any other election in the last half-century, Old Media -- The New York Times and CBS News, joined often but not always by The Washington Post, other major newspapers, ABC News and NBC News -- was an active protagonist in this election, working hard to prevent the re-election of George W. Bush and doing what it could for John Kerry. The problem for Old Media is that it no longer has the kind of monopoly control over political news that it enjoyed a quarter-century ago. And its efforts to help John Kerry proved counterproductive.

Read the whole thing here.

Being Part of the Majority

Have you noticed that all of us who supported Bush are now considered to be idiots by the vocal left? Here's how George Will starts today's column in Newsweek on the subject:

A small but significant, because articulate, sliver of the Democratic Party seems to relish interpreting the party's defeat as validation. This preening faction reasons as follows: the re-election of George W. Bush proves that 51 percent of the electorate are homophobic, gun-obsessed, economically suicidal, antiscience, theocratic dunces. Therefore to be rejected by them is to have one's intellectual and moral superiority affirmed.

Carville Has Egg On His Face - Really!

James Carville, who helped mastermind Bill Clinton's election and who has been a rabid supporter of every Democrat since, has egg on his face following the election...I mean real egg! Yesterday on Meet the Press he smashed a raw egg on his head in a graphic demonstration, one that was not expected by either host Tim Russert or his wife Mary Matalin.

James has often been accused of "losing it", but this little episode will be really hard to live down.

David Broder Shoots His Own

David Broder, a very well known liberal columnist, takes some shots at his own side of the political fence in today's column in The Seattle Times. I have to hand it to Broder - instead of the doom and gloom being pronounced by so many of the lefty columnists, Broder takes a little more realistic approach to today's state of play.

The Wisdom of Tony Blair

Thanks to my dad, Dick Moore, for this bit of wisdom from Tony Blair:

In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the anti-American
sentiment and negativity about our government and its policies, we should
remember England's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words to his own people.

During a recent interview, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain was
asked by one of his parliament members as to why he believes so much in
America and its President. And does he think America is on the right
track?

Blair's reply -- "A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at
how many want in ... and how many want out."

Kerry's Failed Dream

On the afternoon of Aug. 9, John F. Kerry stood on the lip of the Grand Canyon, about to make one of the biggest mistakes of his three-year quest for the presidency.

This is the first sentence of an interesting article on Kerry's failed effort to win the presidency. There's some good behind-the-scenes stuff in the article.

Abortion is Taking It's Toll on the Democratic Party

Here's an interesting commentary by Francis X. Maier, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver, in today's Rocky Mountain News regarding the devastating effect abortion is having on the Democratic Party. Here's a short excerpt - be sure to read the whole thing:

In the years since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand, my wife and I have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic. Our youngest son has Down syndrome, and Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don't.

But it's also true that children like our son are becoming extinct in part because the abortion lobby has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party platform, with all that it implies for legislation and judicial appointments. The easiest response to handicapped children is to kill them before they arrive. That's not a solution. That's homicide.

We can't build a just society while killing a million unborn children a year. No matter how much good we try to do, we can't outrun the effects of that most intimate form of violence against women and children.

Planning to Fly Soon?

I am - next Friday as a matter of fact. And it sure makes me feel better about it knowing that the ACLU is trying to make it easier for hijackers to operate. Wouldn't it be nice if the organization that's supposedly trying to protect my civil liberties would actually try and protect MY civil liberties instead of the liberties of every wacko and nutjob in the world. Here's the story from Newsmax:

Not everyone is happy that tighter airport security has managed to prevent a rerun of the 9/11 attacks.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing Boston's Logan Airport, the very facility used by Osama bin Laden's suicide hijackers, claiming that its security measures led to the illegal detainment of one of it's officials.

In a press release issued last week, the left-wing group says that Logan's behavior pattern recognition program "effectively condones and encourages" racial and ethnic profiling and is therefore unconstitutional.

The lawsuit claims that King Downing, the ACLU's national coordinator for racial profiling, alleges that he was harassed by state police last year while he was on his way to attend a meeting on racial profiling.

Downing says he was making a telephone call when airport officials stopped him and "demanded that he produce some identification,” according to an ACLU press release.

Downing declined to give his information and was arrested on the spot. He was released, however, a short time later after producing identification along with his travel documents. No charges were filed.

"This program is another unfortunate example of the extent to which we are being asked to surrender basic freedoms in the name of security," said John Reinstein, the Massachusetts Legal Director of the ACLU. "This allows the police to stop anyone, any time, for any reason."

The Massachusetts Port Authority strongly denies the racial profiling charge, arguing that its program protects civil rights, and that there are no racial factors in behavior pattern recognition.

Famous Last Words

From the Best of the Web Today on OpinionJournal.com:

Twelve days before the election, James Carville stood in a Beverly Hills living room surrounded by two generations of Hollywood stars. After being introduced by Sen. John Kerry's daughter, Alexandra, he told the room--confidently, almost cockily--that the election was in the bag.

"If we can't win this damn election," the advisor to the Kerry campaign said, "with a Democratic Party more unified than ever before, with us having raised as much money as the Republicans, with 55 percent of the country believing we're heading in the wrong direction, with our candidate having won all three debates, and with our side being more passionate about the outcome than theirs -- if we can't win this one, then we can't win sh--! And we need to completely rethink the Democratic Party."

Sorry, James.

It's Not Quite Over in Ohio

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, who wrote a good book on election fraud, has this to say in today's OpinionJournal.com Political Diary regarding ongoing efforts to overturn the Ohio results:

Bloggers and pundits who believe Republicans stole the 2004 election continue to spin their conspiracy theories. Yesterday, they apparently convinced Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik to demand a recount of the votes in Ohio. Conspiratorialists are now trying to raise $110,000 to cover the costs of recounting all of Ohio's approximately 9,000 precincts. In a separate move, Ralph Nader is asking for a recount in New Hampshire, claiming that John Kerry conceded too quickly last week and reneged on his promise that all votes would be counted.

Democratic consultant Joe Trippi, who served as Howard Dean's 2004 campaign manager, says the Kerry people are under pressure from major donors not to ignore the Internet conspiracy theorists. "If they dismiss them, they risk seeing them walk away from future giving to the Democratic Party," he told me.

That helps explain why the Kerry campaign agreed this week to send attorneys to Ohio on a "fact-finding mission" to gather data from election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved issues. But Kerry advisers caution they don't expect to find anything dramatic. "No one would be more interested than me in finding out that we really won, but that ain't the case," Jack Corrigan, the lawyer who led Mr. Kerry's army of Election Day attorneys, told the Boston Globe. "Unlike 2000, there is no doubt that they actually got more votes than we did, and they got them in the states that mattered."

One of the main pieces of evidence cited by Internet bloggers is the fact that in about two dozen Florida counties, President Bush received far more votes than the number of registered Republicans. In Lafayette County, for example, Mr. Bush won 74% of the vote even though 83% of residents are registered as Democrats. But Lafayette County Supervisor of Elections Lana Morgan points out that her county is in the Bible Belt and routinely votes for Republicans. Bob Dole carried the county in 1996 even as he lost Florida to Bill Clinton.

But no amount of debunking will wipe away doubts about the 2004 election. The danger is that the conspiracy theories will prompt people to ignore legitimate complaints about outdated technology, voter fraud, poor voter education and poorly written and contradictory election rules. Everyone should realize how close the country came to another Florida-style litigation hell. "If the margin in Ohio had been 36,000 votes rather than 136,000, we would have seen another post-election meltdown," says Dan Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University. It's incumbent upon both Congress and the state legislatures to revisit our election laws early next year before memories of this year's near miss fade again.

Actually, the fat lady has sung in Ohio, but if this will keep the Dems occupied for awhile, it can't hurt.

Lileks on Arafat

Here's James Lileks' take on Arafat's current situation:

I am content to know he is not in Hell. Nope. Arafat did not go to Hell. He boards the ferry, yes; he makes it halfway across the River Styx, yes. Then the ferry blows up. Ten times a day for eternity. For a start.

Somehow seems appropriate.

"Bigoted Christians" the New "Angry White Men"

In 1994, when the Gingrich revolution swept Republicans into power, ending 40 years of Democratic hegemony, the mainstream press needed to account for this inversion of the Perfect Order of Things. A myth was born. Explained a USA Today headline: "Angry White Men: Their votes turned the tide for the GOP." Overnight, the revolt of the Angry White Male became conventional wisdom.

At the time, I looked into this story line and found not a scintilla of evidence to support it. Nonetheless, it was a necessary invention, a way for the liberal elite to delegitimize a conservative victory.

Ten years and another Democratic defeat later, and liberals are at it again. The Angry White Male has been transmuted into the Bigoted Christian Redneck.

That's how Charles Krauthammer starts his piece in today's New York Daily News. The media is trying to figure out who to blame for the Dem disaster on Nov. 2, and Christians are increasingly becoming the convenient target.

I'm also noticing that Dems, such as Hillary Clinton who wants the top job in 2008, are suddenly "getting religion". They are using Bible verses when talking about social programs, and you can expect to see a lot more of that in the coming four years. The polls tell them they have to be able to relate to the religious right, but they don't understand that religious folk will see through the mascerade. The Dems just can't pull off "religious" and make it work.

Just for Fun

Here are some actual quotes that were sent to me by a friend - makes for some fun early morning reading:

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."

--Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest

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"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
--Mariah Carey

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"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life,"
--Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign

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"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,"
--Winston Bennett, Univ of Kentucky basketball forward

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"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,"
--Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC

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"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

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"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
--Al Gore, Vice President

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"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
--Lee Iacocca

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"The word 'genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
--Joe Theisman, NFL football qb & sports analyst

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"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."

--Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor
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"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
--Bill Clinton, President

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"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."

--Al Gore, VP
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"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."

--Keppel Enderbery

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"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."

--Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

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"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."
--Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

Why Not Gloat a Little

Peggy Noonan is possitively giddy about the election and tells us why in today's OpinionJournal.com piece.

Arafat's Dead

I wonder how it's going with all those virgins in Paradise?

Woe Is Me

ABCNews seems to be leading the way in post-election analysis designed to cast the worst possible light on the election. Yesterday they were running stories about all the wacky conspiracy theories out there that insist that Kerry really won and Bush stole the election. Today we have this: Some Say U.S. No Longer Feels Like Home. Apparently some particulary enlightened folks have now decided that the U.S. no longer deserves to have their the blessing of their presence, and they must therefore leave to the promised land of Europe.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The Other Important Race

Now that the presidential race is over, there's still another important race yet to be decided - the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion. I had promised weekly sports updates, but the tide of political news kept me from following up.

There are two races left in the Nextel Cup season - this weekend at Darlington, SC, and the following and final weekend at Homestead, FL. Right now there are 4 drivers within 48 points, and these last two races promise to be barnburners. As of today, Kurt Busch leads with 4 time champ Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson in close pursuit. If these guys have problems, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman are still within striking distance, though it would take a pretty spectacular multi-car wreck to bring them back into close contention. Such a wreck is definately possible at Darlington, known as the "Track Too Tough to Tame" and "The Lady in Black".

There are two other divisions of NASCAR that will also be crowning champions in Homestead - the Busch Series and the Craftsmen Truck Series. Martin Truex (in a Dale Jr. owned car) leads Kyle Busch (Kurt's little brother) by 161 points in the Busch Series and could conceivably clinch the championship this weekend. If he ends the race with a lead of 155 points or more it's over. If the lead is 190 points or more, Martin doesn't even have to show up for the last race.

The truck series is going to have another close finish. Last year the championship wasn't decided until the final laps in Homestead, and it could happen again that way this year. Bobby Hamilton leads Dennis Setzer by only 7 points going into Darlington, and there are a couple of other guys who could get into the mix if these two have problems.

Oh, and I should mention that the Mission Viejo High School football team is 9-0, beating their closest league rival 48-0 last weekend. Their final league game is this Thursday night and the CIF playoffs will begin the following weekend.

Is It 1860 Again?

Believe it or not, many on the left think we are in the last day's before the nation's second Civil War. I've addressed the silliness of that in previous posts, but it looks like this issue isn't going away.

Matthew Continetti in today's Weekly Standard has a pretty good take on the subject. Bottom line - we live in a divided country, which has always been true. There have always been at least two political parties, which means there will always be folks on both sides of the issues. However, with the exception of that little dust-up in the 1860's, we've managed to be more civil than warlike. I imagine we'll get through this conflict without much violence, but it's remarkable that otherwise intelligent folks would even consider war a possibility.