In Poland, the arms merchants ended up focusing on a new member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and one of the relatively few European countries to support the Bush administration's war plan. (emphasis added)

First Lt. Joe Florczak, 23, of Chicago, pushed his Kevlar helmet back a bit when asked what jobs he had had since his tank-killing Humvees pushed north into Iraq from Kuwait in March. "I've been a rifle platoon leader, a police officer, a police trainer and a labor negotiator," he said, describing his dealings with Iraqi security forces and civic leaders.

"The N.G.O.'s have been a disappointment," said Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Division, speaking of nongovernmental organizations. "Don't get me wrong, the truck bomb at the U.N. headquarters was horrific. But they seemed as if they were very, very quick to bail out of here, compared to the risks they have run in a variety of other missions."

Big-company share prices rose by more than 20 percent, and the high-tech and small-business sectors soared at twice that rate. Productivity is scaling new heights, profits are up, incomes are rising, inflation is nonexistent, and the dollar is in a so-far agreeable decline, shrinking the trade deficit. The unemployment rate has fallen to the level it averaged in the 1990s, which decade included both boom and bust. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' survey of households shows that over 2 million more Americans are working at year end than were employed at the start of 2003....

It is fashionable to dismiss these indicators of material prosperity on two grounds. The first is that inequality is rampant and rising; the second is that money can't produce happiness.

There is no question that statistical measures show a rise in inequality. The main reason: America welcomes more immigrants--legal and illegal--than all the other countries of the world combined. These newcomers typically start at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Exclude them from the statistics, calculates [Gregg] Easterbrook [in his new book The Progress Paradox], and the increase in inequality disappears. Indeed, for the 9 out of 10 Americans that are native born, inequality is declining.* And here is the reason that will surprise America's critics: The decline in inequality is due in good part to the rising affluence of African Americans.

Which leaves happiness, a commodity many argue cannot be bought with money.

"Russia's foreign minister called the grounds for imposing the sanctions farfetched back then," said Leonid B. Roshal, deputy director of KBP Tula, in an interview in Moscow. "I was never taught these diplomatic niceties, so I was much more straightforward and said, 'The dog may bark, but the caravan will proceed.' "

The generic proposition "rising unemployment is bad for incumbents" is so plausible, that one's inclined to give this claim a pass on first reading, but the specific claim that the causal factor here is the unemployment rate in the first six months of the year before the election smacks of specification-searching.

Dean... implied that many of his supporters, particularly young people, might stay home in November if another Democrat's name ends up on the ballot.

"I don't know where they're going to go, but they're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician," he said.

Though Dr. Dean has repeatedly said he would back whichever Democrat wins the nomination, he said Sunday that support was "not transferable anymore" and that endorsements, including his own, "don't guarantee anything."

The price of admission to the Democratic primary race is a pledge of committed support to whomever wins the nomination, period. (The sense of entitlement to other Democrats' support comes after you win the nomination, not before.) If Dean can't sign on that dotted-line, he has no business asking for the party's nomination.

Today, comments like those made by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman are producing an alarming feeling of déjà vu in Britain. Her insistence last week that "[p]eople should continue to feel very confident in the safety of our meat supply" was powerfully--and frighteningly--reminiscent of the tone adopted by British officials [during the outbreak of BSE in the U.K. in the late eighties].

We can be assured of one thing when it comes to the safety of our food: media hysteria will be inversely proportional to actual risks....

Those fretting about mad cow probably think nothing of taking a bath (which kills 320 Americans a year), walking downstairs (which kills 1,421 Americans annually) or driving their car (which kills 42,000 of us each year). Our odds of getting vCJD from eating British beef, said the CDC, is about one in ten billion....

[T]he USDA commissioned a study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis to study worst case scenarios. Their report found that should BSE be introduced in the U.S., measures taken during the last five years by the government and industry, while not foolproof, will arrest and eradicate the disease. The risk isn't zero, said David Ropeik, director of risk communication, "but it's as close to zero as you can get."

The import of one sick animal yields on average less than one new BSE case in 20 years and the disease and the disease is likely to be quickly eliminated from the U.S. following its introduction. Similarly, there appears to be no potential for an epidemic of BSE resulting from scrapie, chronic wasting disease, or other crossspecies transmission of similar diseases found in the U.S. Even if they existed, these hypothetical sources of BSE could give rise to only one to two cases per year.

An examination of what has grown into a multibillion-dollar contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure shows no evidence of profiteering by Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services company, but it does demonstrate a struggle between price controls and the uncertainties of war, with price controls frequently losing.

So far this year, Halliburton's profits from Iraq have been minimal. The company's latest report to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows $1.3 billion in revenues from work in Iraq and $46 million in pretax profits for the first nine months of 2003.

During a long life in journalism I have made my share of errors, most often when I pass on a second-hand report that I have not myself checked out. I trust that is what happened in your "Weekly Dish" of December 26 which also appeared as an op ed piece in the Washington Times. You quote me as saying something that I did not say. In bestowing on me the Begala Award [for excessive left-wing rhetoric], you have me saying "I think this [ the Bush administration] is a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America." But I didn't say that or anything close to it. If you or your nominator had bothered to check, you would have discovered that that quote was incorrectly attributed to me by a journalist covering a speech that I made in Washington on June 4. Check it out yourself: "As a citizen, I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but I respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it. Their leading strategist in Washington, Grover Norquist, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its effect on schools and poor people, said,'I hope one of them' - one of the states - 'goes bankrupt.' So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, waterlogs the economy, and washes away services that for decades have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to their corporate cronies. It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime. I simply don't understand it -- or the malice in which it is steeped..." As I say, I have made such mistakes in failing to confirm some second-hand reports that I did not myself substantiate; I have tried to the best of my ability to acknowledge them in the same venue where I made them, including on the air. I trust you will find a way in this instance to acknowledge that you erred, too.

I'm a semi-conservative (?) boomer, and I don't engage in the "boomer idiocy" you speak of. I'm a U.S. Army veteran. In 197O I was spat upon, and called the standard names, like "baby killer", or a "brain washed dupe of the military industrial complex." My trying to explain that I was in the medical service and 1000 miles away from the fighting made no difference. When I came home in 1971, my pre-draft friends threw a Welcome Home party for me. At one point I was backed into a corner as they jabbed their fingers into my face and made all sorts of idiotic accusations. I started to think they had the party as an excuse just to beat up a veteran. When I got my first apartment it became a place to hide for several other returning vets. At age 23, I was the old guy. I ran into a grade school pal who was known for running laps around St. Cecilia's church in the 1950's doing the stations of the cross. He went to Boston College , joined the SDS, and told me in 1971, that two of our childhood friends, Norm and Richie "deserved it" when they were killed in Viet Nam. I wish I had punched the hell out of him, but instead, I walked away and cried. All I'm saying is that many, many of us are not like these people in the Village bar this young lady was in. Maybe MOST of us are not like them. Guys like me, saw the idiocy of these people at its genesis, and we were the first victims. Now that our side may be slowly winning, it's rough to think we may me lumped in with the people that abused us 30 years ago. I hold my nose and call myself "pro choice". I agree with everything you say regarding gay citizens, and gay marriage. But I cringe over PC thinking, and I'm terrified at the thought of Islamic madmen running around the world on slaughter binges. For this, the boomers of the "idiot" persuasion call me an out and out "Right Wing Madman". Thanks for letting me vent. Richie's father and mine were City Firefighters. I have memories of visting my father at the firehouse as a little boy in the 1950's. Richie was there too. Our big fathers used to hold us in their arms and slide down the poles with us, and we would all laugh. Richie was the first kid from my home town to die in Viet Nam. He died, his father's heart broke and never healed, and then some jerk from the Boomer Left, said he "deserved it". If you want to know who is REALLY mad at that tribe of boomers, look around for the likes of me.

Calling the plan for peace in the Middle East a "road map" is ridiculous. Women will not be able to follow it and men will know a better route without referring to it. Brian Christley Daily Telegraph, May 5

Our leading bishops demand hard evidence of Saddam Hussein's possessions of weapons of mass destruction. If we were to demand the same level of proof from their profession, they would all be out of a job. Avril Segal Times, January 21

French diplomacy finishes the year on a morose note. Not only must it watch American trains passing, in Iraq as in Libya, but it must also applaud. The success obtained by George W. Bush in his fight against 'rogue states,' with the arrest of Saddam Hussein and then Qaddafi's renouncing of weapons of mass destruction, have placed Paris in a delicate position.

The Post-ABC poll suggests that Dean's recent surge has come disproportionately from Democrats who do not closely identify with their party. In mid-October, Dean claimed the support of one in six Democratic-leaning independents and an equal proportion of party rank and file. Today, he gets significantly more support from independent Democrats (35 percent) than he does from party faithful (26 percent).

M de Villepin rejected suggestions that France lost face by being kept out of the diplomatic loop, arguing that it was a perfect example of his vision of an interdependent, multi-polar world at work. "It is only natural that those who are best placed at a given moment to use their capabilities to the common good do so, as long as their action is of an unquestionably multilateral nature."... Even the normally pro-government Le Figaro described the Libyan deal as a "semi-failure" for France, which has been against tough action against rogue states. Annick Lepetit, the Socialist party spokesman, said it signified "the isolation of France and French diplomacy in an area where it is traditionally influential".

While having a beer at a neighborhood bar/restaurant in NYC's West Village last weekend, I was party to a situation that I think you'll find directly on point.
Three mid-50's liberals were going on about the capture of Saddam; how it was a conspiracy, that the president knew where he was at all times and picked a politically opportune moment to capture him, it was all about the oil, etc.
The mid-20's girl sitting next to them broke from her conversation to chime in with the following, "I wish 60's sensibilities had stayed there. Someone points a gun in your face and you think 'My Fault', when you should be thinking 'You just picked the wrong fight'. Get your heads out of your asses".
They responded with dismissive claims about Republicans and tourists from the midwest.
She replied with, "One, I've grew up in Brooklyn. Two, I voted for Gore -- but I'll sure as hell take W. over someone who thinks the French are the height of moral authority and without ulterior motive."
I asked her out on the spot, and have a date for this Friday. Foxy, Cunning, and Fearless -- wish me luck!

We can also question why France was absent from Libya's aggiornamento [modernization; becoming current]. The dawn of a new strategic reality in the Middle East is accompanied by a considerable and dangerous division between Europe and the United States."

This was not achieved by military power, by invasion, by shredding inter national law, by enforced regime change or by large-scale bloodshed. Nor, in fact, despite Mr Bush's eagerness for plaudits, was it primarily achieved by his administration at all. It was achieved by discussion - by endless talk, mostly in London, latterly in Libya, and finally in a London gentlemen's club. Boring perhaps, but effective; and here, with shock and awe, is a lesson for the Pentagon to absorb. Here is a measure of the true worth of the diplomacy espoused by Mr Cook and others. It bore fruit in Iran last week, another country which Britain refuses to join the US in ostracising. It could yet produce results in Syria, another low-grade WMD state, and in North Korea, if only senior US officials would stop threatening them.

"Any pretence that this means that the tactics of their so-called war on terror are succeeding is sadly false. Obviously the news about Gadaffi is welcome, but it has been a long process, and any suggestion that events in Libya are linked to the war in Iraq is unfounded. The co-ordination of the Blair-Bush press conferences claiming a big success in the war on terror has a pathetic tone that reflects Blair's desperation and the two men's continuing belief that they can prosecute their war with half-truths and deceptions."

President Bush had been noncommittal about a constitutional amendment immediately after the Massachusetts ruling, with the administration worried that support for a ban on gay marriage would alienate moderate voters. But last week Mr. Bush for the first time voiced his support, saying, "I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that." The statement signals the White House's increasing confidence that it can exploit the matter in the presidential campaign, both to energize its evangelical supporters and to discredit the eventual Democratic nominee.

And I would say to the Europeans, I pledge to you as the American president that we'll consult with you first. You get the right of first refusal on the security concerns that we have. We'll bring you in.

"An email has been circulated telling us not to refer to Saddam as a dictator," I'm told. "Instead, we are supposed to describe him as the former leader of Iraq. Apparently, because his presidency was endorsed in a referendum, he was technically elected. Hence the word dictator is banned. It's all rather ridiculous." The Beeb insists that the email merely restates existing guidelines. "We wanted to remind journalists whose work is seen and heard internationally of the need to use neutral language," says a spokesman.

To summarize, here are the impressions a casual viewer might have taken from Monday night's CBC news: (1) Iraqis still love Saddam, and so his capture has only enraged them; (2) Despite Mr. Bush's "gloating," things will get worse; (3) Saddam's trial will be a propaganda trick engineered to re-elect a Republican president; (4) To the extent Saddam did anything bad, America was the real villain; and (5) Saddam's capture is meaningless anyway because Osama is still on the loose.

Earlier this year I wrote a piece for TNR that defended hatred of President Bush. (I argued that hating Bush may lead to irrationality--rooting against the capture of Saddam Hussein, or, say, nominating Howard Dean--but it's not irrational in and of itself.) But recently I'm finding that Dean hatred is crowding out Bush hatred in my mental space. It's not that I think Dean would be a worse president than Bush--he'd probably be better, although that's extremely faint praise given that Bush is the worst president of the last 80 years. Bush is like the next-door neighbor who lets his dog poop on your lawn and his kid shoot bb's at your house and who says something irritating to you every day on his way to work. Dean, on the other hand, is like the ne'er-do-well who's dating your daughter. You realize the neighbor is a worse person than the boyfriend, but the boyfriend (and the frightening prospect that he'll become your son-in-law) consumes more of your attention.

The longer we wait, however, the more likely it is that the ultimate result will be unfavorable. As for the US Supreme Court, nobody should feel any confidence about what it will do. The current court is highly unlikely to go as far as the Massachusetts court and discover a right of same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. But if offered an opportunity to over-rule the Defense of Marriage Act on highly technical grounds that did not involve same-sex marriage as such – well, I strongly suspect that Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Souter would accept, and Justice O'Connor might well follow.
The best argument against the Federal Marriage Amendment is that it might well lose, after which conservatives would be worse off than ever. And so it would be, if the Amendment were to lose badly. But if it were to lose narrowly, the FMA could nonetheless shock some reason into the courts.

"I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me... What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.
How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you’ll say no you're wrong because of this and this and this. And I'll listen and I'll say, "Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this."
[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] ‘You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not here to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.'
I mean ... the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.

Bush has condemned the [Massachusetts] ruling before, citing his support for a federal definition of marriage as a solely man-woman union. On Tuesday, he criticized it as "a very activist court in making the decision it made." "The court, I thought, overreached its bounds as a court," Bush said. "It did the job of the Legislature." Previously, though Bush has said he would support whatever is "legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage," he and his advisers have shied away from specifically endorsing a constitutional amendment asserting that definition. But on Tuesday, the president waded deeper into the topic, saying state rulings such as the one in Massachusetts and a couple of other states "undermine the sanctity of marriage" and could mean that "we may need a constitutional amendment."
"If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that," he said. "The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they're allowed to make, so long as it's embraced by the state or at the state level."

"I want to remind you of a fact that I think you'll find interesting - or maybe you won't find interesting, but I find it interesting - that non-military, non-homeland security discretionary spending was at 15 percent - increase from year to year was at 15 percent prior to our arrival, then it was at 6 percent, 5 percent and 3 percent. So we're working with Congress to hold the line on spending. And we do have a plan to cut the deficit in half."

The family doesn't know much about Williams, Thurmond Jr. said. "I had a conversation with my dad about it about 10 years ago. I asked about this, and he didn't tell me whether she was or whether she wasn't (his daughter)," he said. "I did not ask again."

In the same northern Iraqi town yesterday, about 700 people rallied, chanting: "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood." US soldiers and Iraqi policemen shouted back: "Saddam is in our jail."

For the first time in its history the Left has nothing to say to the victims of fascism. Defeat explains much of the betrayal. The past 20 years have witnessed the collapse of communism, the triumph of US capitalism and the recognition of the awkward fact that many Third World revolutions are powered by a religious fundamentalism so strange the traditional Left can't look it in the eye. The result of the corruption of defeat is an opposition to whatever America does; a looking-glass politics where hypocrisies of power are matched by equal hypocrisies in the opposite direction.

the U.S. military could have found the former Iraqi dictator "a long time ago if they wanted." Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said, "Yeah. Oh, yeah." He added, "There's too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing." When the interviewer asked again if he meant to imply the Bush administration timed the capture for political reasons, McDermott said: "I don't know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they've been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they'd find him."

The scenes and speeches in Angels never add up, perhaps because Kushner's characters don't change or progress much over time. Roy Cohn, the one major character who never fails to impress audiences (and who gives actors a chance to tear off whole chunks of scenery with their teeth), starts the play as an amoral son-of-a-bitch, and ends the play as an amoral son-of-a-bitch. Prior Walter, the protagonist, begins the play as a sweet, introspective left-winger with a trust fund, and ends as a sweet, introspective left-winger with a trust fund. You'd think that angels and AIDS would have had more of an impact on these guys, but no.

The room erupted in cheers and shouts. Iraqi reporters in the room began yelling, crying, sobbing. A middle aged Iraqi man sitting near me wept while he frantically took notes. Other Iraqis called for Saddam's death. A man sitting in the front row wailed with his head in his hands. The press conference paused briefly while the man calmed down.

Sharon Ghidella: What about Australians troops though, we've still got 850 Australian troops over there in Iraq, surely now that we've got Saddam Hussein, they're on the road to recovery as such, or towards democracy, isn’t it time to pull the Australian troops out of Iraq? Prime Minister John Howard: No I don't believe so. Ghidella: Why not? Howard: Because the job is not yet done, it’s not completed, we have caught Saddam but that doesn't mean that overnight...

Mr. Rubaie said: "One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47's and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, 'You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.' I said, 'When they arrested you why didn't you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.'
"And he started to use very colorful language. Basically, he used all his French."
Mr. Rubaie added: "I was so angry because this guy has caused so much damage. He has ruined the whole country. He has ruined 25 million people.
"And I have to confess that the last word was for me: I was the last to leave the room and I said, 'May God curse you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the day of judgment? What are you going to tell Him about Halabja and the mass graves, the Iran-Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell God?' He was exercising his French language."

Along with the $750,000 in cash, two AK 47 machine guns and pistol found with Saddam, the U.S. intelligence official confirmed that operatives found a briefcase with Saddam that contained a letter from a Baghdad resistance leader. Contained in the message, the official said, were the minutes from a meeting of a number of resistance leaders who came together in the capital. The official said the names found on this piece of paper will be valuable and could lead to the capture of insurgency leaders around the Sunni Triangle.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," said [Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee]. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

"This will not stop the Iraqi resistance. if anything, it may set the resistance free, if you like, from the cloud of Saddam Hussein, and transform it into a purely national resistance movement without the charge that it's being controlled from behind by the deposed president."

On my return from Saint Peter's I met a man who informed me humorously of two things: that the Portuguese made their obeisance to the Pope in Passion week; and then, that on this same day the station was at San Giovanni Porta Latina, in which church a few years before certain Portuguese had entered into a strange brotherhood. They married one another, male to male, at Mass, with the same ceremonies with which we perform our marriage services, the same marriage gospel service, and then went to bed and lived together. The Roman wits said that because in the other conjunction, of male with female, this circumstance alone makes it legitimate, it had seemed to these sharp folk that this other action would become equally legitimate if they authorized it with ceremonies and mysteries of the Church. Eight or nine Portuguese of this fine sect were burned.

All in all, Bush's announcement sounds progressive and important. So how did the media play it? The New York Times, which has had the incredible, super-ultra menace of Midwest power plants on page one perhaps a dozen times since Bush took office, put the plan to end the problem on page A24. The Times story was a small box cryptically headlined. "E.P.A. Drafts New Rules for Emissions From Power Plants." The Washington Post put the story on page two but under the headline, "E.P.A. Aims to Change Pollution Rules," suggesting something ominous, adding the subhead, "Utilities Could Buy Credits From Cleaner-Operating Power Plants," neglecting to add that credits could be purchased only if the result was an overall decline in pollution.
The proper placement for this story was page one--where the anti-Bush environmental stories always run--and the proper headline was, BUSH ORDERS DRAMATIC POLLUTION REDUCTION. But you didn't see that, did you?

WOODRUFF: Was it just over a bike path that you left the Episcopal Church?

DEAN: Yes, as a matter of fact it was. I was fighting to have public access to the waterfront, and we were fighting very hard in the citizens group to allow the public to use it. And this particular diocese decided to join a property rights suit to close it down. I didn't think that was very public spirited. One thing I feel about religion, you have to be very careful not to be a hypocrite if you're a religious person. It is really tough to preach one thing and do something else. And I don't think you can do that.

WOODRUFF: And you don't believe, Governor, the Republicans are going to have a field day with comments like these?

DEAN: The Republicans always have a field day with things like this. That's the reason Democrats lose, is because they're so afraid of the Republicans having a field day with comments like this or like that, that they never make any comments.

In a recent book, journalist Mungo MacCallum recounted a trip the then prime minister, [John Gorton] took to Melbourne in a VIP aircraft after a hard day in Parliament. "He chose to unwind with a few drinks on the plane, some pre-dinner cocktails at the Sheraton, some wines, a port or two and the odd palate cleanser before being wheeled back to Tullamarine for the flight back to Canberra.
"He decided on a little nap, but on waking with the engines thrumming in his ears was so queasy he threw up in the aisle. A stewardess arrived to clean up the mess and Gorton turned on the legendary charm: 'Well, my dear,' he grinned, 'I suppose you're surprised that an old RAAF man like me can still get airsick?' But for once he was out done; the stewardess replied cheerfully: 'I am actually, Prime Minister, because the plane hasn't taken off yet.'"

Gore's endorsement of Dean is the most important since grainy film was shown at the 1992 Democratic convention depicting President Kennedy shaking hands with a teenage Bill Clinton. Gore's endorsement is not the passing of the torch to a new generation, but another conferring of legitimacy. For Democrats, he personifies the infamy of the last election. He is not another politician, but the rightfully elected president, by a popular majority of 539,895 votes.

Your generalizations about the boomer generation strike me as just plain wrong. This is akin to the position that all blacks or all gays or all Republicans must be a monolithic block that have to think and act alike. Re-read your rant and ask yourself what proof you have of these claims. As one of the early boomers (1946), I was going into the Army at about the same time the late boomers were being born (1964). So, we are to believe that all the boomers born in the early 60's are "unable think about any cultural or foreign policy matter outside the context of 1968?" And how is it so many boomers all vintages support so many of your viewpoints? I would guess that your readers cluster heavily in the boomer demographic.
To take the position that everyone in this huge demographic thinks the same, or wants the same things, is not only incorrect, it is just completely out of character for you. That you find all of us enraging largely because (we are) so immeasurably selfish just sounds childish (i.e., "don't trust any over 30" becomes "everyone between 57 and 40 is immeasurably selfish"). How is it then, that such evil people have been among your earliest and most constant supporters?
Do I sound angry? I guess the fact that I am asked to pay for you to lecture us so unfairly is what really drives me nuts. Unlike your situation, however, the solution to my problem is easy.

At a debate, the Hamas candidate asked the Fatah candidate: "Hamas activists in this university killed 135 Zionists. How many did Fatah activists from Bir Zeit kill?"

economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Jagadeesh Gokhale say that a typical man reaching age 65 today will get a net windfall of more than $70,000 over his remaining years. A luckless 25-year-old, by contrast, can count on paying $322,000 more in payroll taxes than he will ever get back in benefits.

The most absurd thing is to watch leaders of the left today greet and celebrate Arab leaders, even when they are fundamentalists. For example, in the debates that followed the attacks of September 11, we heard an anti-American discourse here, pooh-poohing the victims, something which is in and of itself terrible ! And there were those who tried to downgrade—with that tawdry third-worldism which characterizes some circles of the left—the danger embodied in individuals like Bin Laden, who is, in fact, an authentic fascist. I believe that for the moment the world remains blind to the biggest totalitarianism of the twenty-first century, which is Islamic fundamentalism. Now we must prepare ourselves seriously to face this danger : For me, this totalitarianism is without any shadow of a doubt comparable to Stalinism and Nazism, the biggest scourges of the twentieth century.

Once proud of being on time everywhere, Dr. Dean was late at most stops last weekend, only partly because of the snow in Iowa. His entourage went without enough work space and sometimes without food and drink.

Maybe Brooks' last view of the Internet was an AOL chat room, but in this Internet - this personal Internet of relations and reputations - long term certainly matters. And though this is an immediate medium - a helluva lot more immediate than a coupla-times-a-week column laboriously produced on paper - it's also true that if you're too "blunt and forceful at the moment" - you can and will reconsider it later... or others will reconsider it for you. On the Internet, this Internet, we're not "loosely tethered, careless and free" - in fact, we're making stronger relationships than many of us have in the world sometimes known as the real one. And we watch what we say because somebody's fact-checking our ass. And we take on the responsibilities that come with all that.
Mr. Brooks: I'll be happy to give you a guided tour of this Internet and show you how it's the opposite of what you say and also how this new medium of strong relationships and of power rising from the bottom is - like or not - what has powered the Dean campaign and what will change politics as we - or at least you - know them.

"I was caught completely off-guard," Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gore's running mate in 2000 and a hopeful for the nomination, said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. That many of Gore's positions are opposite to those of Dean made the decision a surprise to him, Lieberman said. "Al Gore has endorsed someone here who has taken positions diametrically opposite" of the former vice president, Lieberman said. "What really bothers me is that Al is supporting a candidate who is so fundamentally opposed to the basic transformation that Bill Clinton brought to this party in 1992," moving it to a more middle-of-the-road stance on economic policy and other areas, he said.

Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention before, but Al Gore's candidacy in 2000 is really what turned me away (possibly forever) from the Democratic Party. It wasn't just that I found myself disagreeing with him on issues (I did), but it was primarily the rhetoric. It started with his statements on Social Security. He campaigned on fear and appealed to that basest of human instincts - selfishness. The "what's in it for me" instinct. As I listened more carefully, I discovered that on virtually every issue, Al Gore's theme was centered around getting people to think that someone else was profiting and they were losing out. Taxes: the rich are getting richer AT YOUR EXPENSE. Social Security: "YOU will end up in the poorhouse; "THEY" will be taking something away from you." (Never mind that your children will not even have Social Security if we continue on this path - don't look to the future; worry about yourself first.) On and on. Are YOU better off than you were four years ago? (Oh, how I despise that question!) It's all about "THEY" versus "YOU". It's never "WE are facing this issue, and here's what I think is the best solution for US."
The "angry" Democrat wasn't created when Bush was elected. He was already angry because Al Gore told him he should be - because someone else was getting something he wasn't.

I don't think the story made the case that this was "a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact" of the trip. Maybe it was planned, maybe not. It would have been better just to record the known details of the saga and let the reader figure out whether it meant anything.

Militants ship a nuclear bomb into a U.S. port and ravage an entire city. More than the plot of a Tom Clancy thriller, it is the ultimate nightmare for many U.S. officials, ports and businesses.

"It is estimated that the nutritional status of some 3.03m people countrywide will be dire and that they will require therapeutic feeding [according to UNICEF estimates]. This consists of 2.03m severely and moderately malnourished children under 5 and one million pregnant women" [para 27]
"It is estimated that there will eventually be some 900,000 Iraqi refugees requiring assistance, of which 100,000 will be in need of immediate assistance, [according to UNHCR]" [para 35]. An estimated 2 million people will require some assistance with shelter [para 33]. For 130,000 existing refugees in Iraq "it is probable that UNHCR will initially be unable to provide the support required" [para 36]

The longer the time there is between her presidential election campaign and her husband's administration, the better able she will be to run on her own terms and without all that cumbersome and odorous baggage. Her book was a smashing success - however bland and fake the contents. She has been diligently working as a Senator, slowly building a bond with voters and a working relationship with other Senators, two critical elements in a successful presidency. I've been a Hillary-skeptic in the past. But everyone deserves a second chance. And as the time ticks by, the likelier it seems that Hillary Clinton is going to get one.

The only reason that these weapons were not used, said Col al-Dabbagh, was because the bulk of the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam. "The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight," he said.
"If the army had fought for Saddam Hussein and used these weapons there would have been terrible consequences."
Col al-Dabbagh, who was recalled to Baghdad to work at Iraq's air defence headquarters during the war itself, believes that the WMD have been hidden at secret locations by the Fedayeen and are still in Iraq. "Only when Saddam is caught will people talk about these weapons," he said.

I'm an absolutist on free trade and free speech, and a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights who thinks that the late Cardinal John O'Connor was a great man. I believe it's unbecoming for the well off to whine about high taxes, and inconsistent for those who advocate human rights to oppose all American military action. I'd rather spend my weekends exterminating rats in the tunnels below Penn Station than read a book by either Bill O'Reilly or Michael Moore. I go to a lot of concerts. I hardly ever go to the movies. I've hated the Yankees since I was 6.

"I couldn't believe it. I was sitting there with my son and he comes out with comments as if the Koran says it's OK to attack homosexuals," Mr Demiri said. "He told us they should have their heads chopped off. My son asked me if what the Imam said was true and I said 'No, it's not'. Then, he wanted to know if the Imam was lying and I couldn't give him an answer that would make any sense. We go there to pray, not to listen to that kind of rubbish. There were a lot of intelligent people there who were offended by it. He (Imam Idrizi) needs to be taken to task for it, because it gives Muslims a bad name."

Credible estimates of the total possible deaths on all sides during the conflict and the following three months range from 48,000 to over 260,000. Civil war within Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths. Additional later deaths from post-war adverse health effects could reach 200,000. If nuclear weapons were used the death toll could reach 3,900,000. In all scenarios the majority of casualties will be civilians.
The aftermath of a 'conventional' war could include civil war, famine and epidemics, millions of refugees and displaced people, catastrophic effects on children's health and development, economic collapse including failure of agriculture and manufacturing, and a requirement for long-term peacekeeping.

"[W]e're sitting in front of the pounding ocean in my rented LeSabre listening to Mortensen's new CD ... The music is dark, spooky stuff. Most of it comes from a jam session with Buckethead [a Japanese guitarist who has toured with Guns 'N Roses and has a cult following, but is otherwise known chiefly for wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket over his head during performances. ('He's very shy, and he doesn't want people to see him,' Mortensen explains)]. We smoke American Spirit cigarettes, as Mortensen, on the CD, recites over ominous guitar tracks a poem in Danish about a warrior who must leave home to avenge his country."

In March, 1956, after Khrushchev outlines Stalin's crimes against humanity, Robeson suffers an emotional collapse. Over a two-month period, he swings from a manic state to a severe depression.

[I]f the problem with Islam is that it seems constantly to give rise to sects violently hostile to secular institutions, to reason, and to cultured sentiment; that the countries in which it predominates have a chronic tendency toward theocratic despotism; and that as a religion it exhibits no institutional structure that might finally impose some discipline on the chaotic and lawless spiritual impulses that it generates - if all that is the problem (which it surely is), then it is absurd to hold that the solution is for Islam to find its Martin Luther. It has already had its Luther, not to mention its Calvin and its Henry VIII, all rolled into one: his name was Muhammad. What Islam needs is a Pope.

ATO: "You reckon that there are so many contradictions between the West and the Muslim world, is there any chance of reconciliation and dialogue between the two civilizations?"
Munawar: "There is none. The basic concepts of both civilizations are in total contrast with each other. When I say this I do not address Western civilization as Christianity. I speak of a man-made system completely devoid of divine guidance. Our concepts of God, human beings, the universe, are totally in contrast with the concepts of the Western world. We cannot segregate human lives into private and public, our lives are ruled by divine guidance, not by man-made rules based on his own prejudices and specific mindset characterized by its own dilemmas and shortcomings. Our concept of the universe is not materialistic, and the result of an 'accident'. Instead, it was a very well thought out process envisaged by the creator of the universe with a plan. So these basic concepts have made the difference between ours and Western approaches."

Why the decline [in HIV research]? Because the drugs companies no longer believe that they are going to get rich out of AIDS research. In fact they begin to doubt they will get any compensation at all. They read the newspapers, they study the speeches of politicians, and they sense that the popular wind is blowing against them. They think, probably rightly, that governments will either force them to sell at a loss drugs that were developed at huge expense or will bypass them and the law entirely by buying generic copies of patent drugs. Governments, after all, are the ones who can change the law when it is inconvenient. One minute the authorities will come down like a ton of bricks on pirate music or pirate videos. The next minute they will say that it is 'unacceptable greed' for companies to actually want to profit from patents on medical discoveries. I accept that there are subtleties and genuine conflicts of principle in the field of intellectual property - but the bottom line is that if pharma companies get nothing but abuse for the work they put in they bloody well won't put in much more of it. Just as for the slaves, it's no surprise that if people are forced to work for nothing then they don't bust a gut.

"Tell the new zealots of Washington that in the making of Israel a monstrous human crime was committed and they will call you an anti-Semite."

Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons.

This linkage takes many forms. Muslims were hugely overrepresented among the Social Forum's delegates; they even comprised a large chunk--perhaps a majority--of the American speakers. Perhaps this is unsurprising given the role played in this radical ideology by the American occupation of Iraq (universally opposed) and Palestinian terror against Israel (almost universally supported). The Arab world's case tends to get made in red-meat terms, as it was at a rally I attended in a mud-ringed, marijuana-smelling tent in St. Denis. The antiwar Scots member of parliament George Galloway had the audience roaring its approval when he expressed his hopes that George W. Bush would be buggered by one of Prince Charles's servants during his forthcoming state visit to Britain, and the American delegate Rahul Mahjane direly warned that the occupation of Iraq would resemble--horror of horrors--"what the United States did to Germany after World War II." The yearnings of radical Muslims are now at the core of the Social Forum's universe. They have jostled aside the left-wing economics and focus on global markets that once dominated.

Blair had been put into the position of having to appear before the president as petitioner. He asked for relief on U.S. tariffs (Bush had raised them on steel in an election play to steel-producing states, a move earlier rejected by Clinton); for rendering British prisoners at Guantánamo to Britain; and for substantive U.S. pressure on the Israel-Palestine peace process. But Blair was rebuffed.

Also being released early in 2004 will be the 27th stamp in the Black Heritage series, which will honor actor, singer, civil rights activist and athlete Paul Robeson.
David Failor, executive director of stamp services for the Postal Service, said there was strong support from the public for a stamp honoring Robeson, who was labeled a subversive for his mid-century activism against racism and anti-Semitism.

Here is what you have yet to hear reported in the mainstream media. In the few weeks since Coalition forces began to launch major counter-insurgency attacks, beginning with Operation Iron Hammer, over 1100 Iraqi Guerrillas have been captured or killed. This represents one-fifth of the entire strength of the Ba’athist and Islamist forces in the country. These figures, presented to President Bush in a secret briefing during his Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, do not include the forty-six terrorists killed in a battle on November 30th. In other words, the US armed forces are killing and capturing fifteen of the enemy for each loss of their own: and this figure is distorted by the high number of US personnel killed in aircraft shoot-downs in November, a figure which is not likely to be repeated. In individual combat, the results look more and more like those of the last Sunday in November: forty-six of the enemy killed and eight captured with no losses among our forces. At the present rate, the entire force possessed by the enemy will be destroyed, and the country pacified, in a matter of months.

Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy.

"RETREAT, the order or disposition in which a fleet of French men of war decline engagement, or fly from a pursuing enemy. The reader, who wishes to be expert in this manoeuvre, will find it copiously described by several ingenious French writers, particularly L'Hôte, Saverien, Morogues, Bourdé, and Ozane; who have given accurate instructions, deduced from experience, for putting it in practice when occasion requires. As it is not properly a term of the British marine, a more circumstantial account of it might be considered foreign to our plan. It has been observed in another part of this work (see the article HEAD) that the French have generally exhibited greater proofs of taste and judgment in the sculpture, with which their ships are decorated, than the English; the same candour and impartiality obliges us to confess their superior dexterity in this movement."

If you take into account the theory that Jews are responsible for everything nasty in the history of the world, and also the recent EU survey that found 60% of Europeans believe Israel is the biggest threat to peace in the world today (hmm, I must have missed all those rabbis telling their flocks to go out with bombs strapped to their bodies and blow up the nearest mosque), it's a short jump to reckoning that it was obviously a bloody good thing that the Nazis got rid of six million of the buggers. Perhaps this is why sales of Mein Kampf are so buoyant, from the Middle Eastern bazaars unto the Edgware Road, and why The Protocols of The Elders of Zion could be found for sale at the recent Anti-racism Congress in Durban.

"It is in fact a great consolation in this life to have someone to whom you can be united in the intimate embrace of the most sacred love;
in whom your spirit can rest;
to whom you can pour out your soul;
in whose delightful company, as in a sweet consoling song, you can take comfort in the midst of sadness;
in whose most welcome, friendly bosom you can find peace in so many worldly setbacks;
to whose loving heart you can open, as freely as you would to yourself, your innermost thoughts;
through whose spiritual kisses – as by some medicine – you are cured of the sickness of care and worry;
who weeps with you in sorrow, rejoices with you in joy, and wonders with you in doubt;
whom you draw by the fetters of love into that inner room of your soul,
so that though the body is absent, the spirit is there,
and you can confer all alone, the two of you,
in the sleep of peace away from the noise of the world,
in the embrace of love, in the kiss of unity,
with the Holy Spirit flowing over you;
to whom you so join and unite yourself that you mix soul with soul,
and two become one."