TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY, January 31 and February 1, 2006

THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE."A hopeful society".  The message of a leader, willing to argue and fight for his proposed solutions to America's problems and challenges.  No "malaise" here.  No vacuum here for political mischief to flourish.  Some themes:

• Justice and Peace require freedom for all.  We promote democracy for our own safety.
• We are at war with Radical Islam, which is the perversion of a noble Faith.
• We take the terrorists' intentions seriously; and we will not allow the violent to inherit the earth.
• There is neither peace nor honor in retreat.  We will not surrender to evil.
• We have adjusted our idealism to the realities on the ground.  And we are winning.
• Hindsight is not wisdom.  Second-guessing is not a strategy.
• Isolationism will not work.  We will not dis-engage from the world.  Democracy is the right and the hope of all humanity; and we want to help.
• We need tools like the Patriot Act and surveillance of international communications.  We will not sit back and wait to be hit again!
• We seek the support of our allies for this, which will be a long war.
• For the U.S. to prosper, we must avoid protectionism and centralization and higher taxes.  We also need immigrants, admitted in an orderly and secure manner.  We cannot engage in economic retreat.
• On the domestic front, 60% of our national budget is controlled by Social Security, Medicare and Welfare.  The related problems must be solved; they will not go away; and delaying a solution will only leave us with terrible choices in the near future.  (Here, the ever-cynical, ever nasty, ever un-helpful Democratic side of the aisle rose and gave a collective Bronx Cheer.  Very nice).

This was an assertive, even aggressive presentation...a challenge to the nay-sayers.  Because this is "a point of choosing" for America.

GS

MONDAY, January 30, 2006

January 30, 1933: the birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the day that Adolph Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany by the Reichtag; and...(drum roll)...the day I was born.

73 years old.  Where did that time go? Actually, I have total recall: good years, Thank God.  "How about that!", as the Yankees announcer Mel Allen used to say.  But there have been some changes.

• Instead of the Hokey Pokey, I do the Pocomoco ("Slowly I turn, step by step...").
• Instead of jumping out of bed in the morning, I do a "Review of Systems" while seated at the bedside: headaches?, dizziness?, blurring of vision?, spots before my eyes?, bleeding from my nose?, bleeding from my mouth?, trouble breathing?, pains in the chest?.... If I have fewer than six of these symptoms, I get up.  If six or more, I get back into bed.
• I pray more than I used to.
• I appreciate my wife (my pal) and kids more than I ever have...which is saying a lot.
• I ache!
• etc., etc, etc.

So, remember that many of those "assets" of "the Golden Years" are natural results of aging (at least for now), and not disease states.  Remember that what you do for yourself today, good or bad, is "paying it forward", for you to cash in on in your 80's and 90's...unless you get hit by a bus.  Remember moderation in all things, good relationships, good work, good sleep, the Mediterranean Diet and Lifestyle (also an ad).  Don't sweat the small stuff.  And Thank God, a lot.

Happy Birthday to all.

GS

SATURDAY and SUNDAY, January 28 and 29, 2006

• Climate Change is again in the news, with the report of the chief NASA climatologist claiming that the government is trying to censor his confirmatory findings on this vital subject.   This must be addressed honestly, and at a distance from the pervasive oil cartels, international and home-grown.  In fact, as I have proposed for years, any American / International corporation should be required to have at least one Public Director on its Board of Directors, to keep a public eye on these de facto American foreign policy - making groups. There is no down-side to reducing toxic emissions.  It will also boost our needed energy independence.  Look to nuclear energy; to the Arctic reserves, so far up for grabs; to oil shale in Canada; to methane reserves beneath the sea in the Pacific; to wind power and solar power.   And especially induce Americans to conserve.  For more on this, see Thomas Friedman's "State of the Union Message" printed today in The Day, Perspective, pE2.  President Bush, this requires your leadership, and could be an important positive part of your "legacy".  One way or the other, it will be a part of that legacy.
• President Bush's new Health Care initiative is being mis-represented and criticized by the Democrats before it is even presented.  Stressing individual responsibility and individual choices as the only ethical way to foster the rational rationing and prioritization that have been missing in this field since the 1970's,  no one should be surprised by the un-educable Democratic stance.
• Commercial fishermen, especially on the Atlantic seaboard, are again being squeezed by necessary federal efforts to protect depleting coastal fisheries.  Many of these are small operators.  There is a clear analogy here with land farmers, who have been benefiting from generous subsidies for decades.  Why not help these people also during tough times?
• "Homelessness" is a fact...and is also a euphemism for many things: temporary hard times, unavoidable bankruptcy, mental illness, chronic alcohol / drug abuse, laziness....An admirable ministry of help for these unfortunate people is described in The Day today (pA1).  What is also necessary is a diagnosis and treatment for each case; else we risk legitimizing and "institutionalizing" this as a life-style.  That would be like giving a person with a serious illness two aspirins...and telling him to come back for two more aspirins in the morning.  As a community, we can do better than that.  If this sounds like the old "fish vs fishing pole" truism, it is.
• Palestine and the Middle East.  See David Brooks' article in today's NYTimes.  Especially see Bernard Lewis'  highly informative offering in The American Scholar, Winter 2006 edition entitled "Anti-Semitism's New Rationale" (pp25-36).  Anything that this expert writes or has written regarding that God - challenged area should be must-reading for anyone interested in our own future.   Meanwhile, let's just observe for a time.
• There is only one thing wrong with the "trial" of Saddam Hussein: it should not be held in a standard criminal court.  It should be held in a Military Court.  This man deserves no less and no more.  Meanwhile, let Ramsey Clark and the so-called "human rights" groups be damned.  Justice delayed is justice denied...and it's been denied for too long already.

FRIDAY, January 27, 2006

• Democracy...always messy, but this?  Nevertheless, the people of the Middle East have the right to their own leaders, and to the consequences of their choices.  And regarding "terrorists", the past does not have to be prologue. At the beginning of the American Revolution, more of one-third of the colonists (the "Loyalists") considered the others rabble and maybe even terrorists, given some of the actions that were directed against them.  But things turned out pretty well after a while.  The risk now, as I see it, is for all the outsiders to talk too much and thereby to promote self-fulfilling prophesies. Hamas has articulated totally unacceptable goals in its Charter; but these were not included in its platform statements during this election.  Furthermore, there is a big difference between criticlzing the leaders...and having to be the leaders.  So, let's step back a bit and watch what they do - not what they say.  In addition, it would be a critical mistake for the Israelis now to embrace the bankrupt policies of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud.  It took Ariel Sharon decades...but he was finally getting it right, for both Israel and for Palestine, before he left the scene.  "He who seeks equity must do equity".   And, if more Middle East peoples (as in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran) democratically make choices difficult for the Western nations,we will deal with their actions too.  So, step back, take a breath, and observe.
• On this, the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, we should remember the words of Ronald Reagan for this...and also for our own personal disasters: "They Slipped The Surly Bonds Of Earth...To Touch The Face Of God."

THURSDAY, January 26, 2006

• Will this country ever get back to having a "loyal opposition" with whom the party and administration in power (having been elected to that position) can have an honest and productive debate on the merits?  There is certainly no dearth of issues that require resolution in order for this country to move forward.  But the Democratic Party, controlled by its most radical left wing, seem stuck in the time warp of December, 2000.  This is the challenge of this year's Congressional elections: move that party back toward the center, where the majority of its members reside anyway.  The whole country would be better for it.
• One example of an issue that cries out for debate and resolution: Immigration Policy.  What passes for policy now is a national disgrace, a schizophrenia.  Two current examples: 1) the Sensenbrenner-King bill that recently passed the House and is before the Senate (see "Keep America, America", by Andrew S. Grove, WSJ today, Opinion, pA10; 2) today's action by the Bush administration that forced Mexican authorities to cancel efforts, at least partly humanitarian in intent, to provide information to its citizens about avoiding injury and death when attempting to cross the border into this country.  The present situation brings to mind the words of Ronald Reagan in another time and place: "...Tear Down This Wall".  We can surely do better.

MONDAY through WEDNESDAY, January 23 through 25, 2006

• Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld continues in deep denial regarding the state of our Army and Marine Corps on the ground.  Or is this merely a rear-guard action until after the November elections?
• Palestine and Israel.  What a witch's brew, most recently stirred by the departure of Ariel Sharon and by today's Palestinian elections.  In some ways this decade is more dangerous than the 1930's.  At least then the antagonists knew what they were doing and why.
• On a lighter note, the FDA has approved the OTC sale of Xenical for weight reduction.  Have you ever read the mechanism of action of Xenical, or read about its potential side effects.  Those heavy-weights who use this medicine will see lower numbers on their scales...but only because they are levitating.

SUNDAY, January 22, 2006

• Today, the 33rd anniversary of Roe v Wade, another "day that will live in infamy".  What else can I say about a judicial decision that had and has no basis in Law, in Medicine, and in Morality?  Actually, quite a lot.  Just check out "The Involved Citizen" on this web site, the section on "Abortion".  There are a lot of people out there, men and women, who have a lot of atonement to do because of their "choice".
• Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Iran, North Korea, and undoubtedly other nations.  There are times when creative ambiguity is useful in international relations.  This is not one of them.  The clearly articulated choice for these other countries should be offers of free or bargain-priced domestic nuclear power supplied by the nuclear community...or destruction of their nuclear efforts aborning.  The other choice, whether we realize it or not, is between appeasment and nuclear war precipitated by one of these other countries through intent or mis-calculation.
• Our besieged friend Musharref and Pakistan.  Since it is clear that he cannot perform on his efforts to seek and destroy al Qaida and the Taliban in his country, he should take the personal and political risk and allow U.S.troops to engage in "hot pursuit" across the Afgan-Pakistani borders.  But, who am I to offer up someone else's life?  Can big monetary pay-offs be the answer?  A tough business, this.
• Bush vs the ultra-liberal Democrats.  Silence in the face of attacks never works.  Ad hominem attacks are always counter-productive.  Just keep telling the facts, just the facts.  Americans are starting to pay attention in this new election year.
• Harry Belafonte.  What's he smoking?  And/or is this his come-back?
• Gerald Ford's current health problems.  This demonstrates the importance of everyone - and especially the elderly - getting all the immunizations that are offered.  Increasingly rersistant infectious agents and age-related decreases in immune function are a bad combination.
• "Physician-Assisted Suicide" and adequate control of chronic pain.  This is not an either-or situation.  The moral imperative is "primary intent".  The classic...if rare...case is that of the pregnant woman who develops cancer of the uterus.  It's not an issue: the uterus goes, whether or not the baby can be saved.  But that is not the issue in some cases here.  Rather, it's the patient and/or the doctor wanting to play God.
• Eminent Domain.  Stop grandstanding, as in Weare, N.H., and propose legislation, State and federal, to clarify the limits of this Constitutional principle.  That is the principled approach.
• New Orleans.  Another hard case.  We had a 70% Black city de facto there before Katrina.  Do we want any city to be predominantly Black by design?  Is that what we're about?  But many of the New Orleans Blacks have family roots going back generations there.  They have a case.  Just let's not put a bandaid on this personal and national disaster.  All affected parts of the city should be re-built behind Category 5 levees, if that is physically and economically possible - or not at all.  Who will lead from the front on this matter?

SATURDAY, January 21, 2006

• Binge drinking among college students.  See "Colleges, Officials Looking To Reduce Campus Drinking", by Dan Pearson, The Day today, pA1.  Not having attended the seminar, which at least produced a Proclamation, I can only rely on the published account, which seems to capture the thrust of the meeting in the words of one participant: "I think the hot air in here is making the room levitate".  The story also reminds me of one of the first patients I saw in the emergency room of New York's Roosevelt Hospital in the summer of 1957: a college student who had just guzzled over a pint of hard liquor...and died there shortly after arrival.  Instead of bloviating about "rites of passage", just talk about rights and responsibilities.  Strict enforcement of liquor prohibition on campus, with referral to a drug rehab center for the first two offenses...and with expulsion for the third.  The only thing hard about that is that the college administrations and faculty can't bring themselves to take such clear action.  And so, students either finish college as they entered it, or as new drunks.
• The columnist and author Michael Kinsley generally espouses most ideas that I disagree with.  But today's offering hits a responsive chord - a sort of "reductio ad absurdum" ("Why Lawyers Are Liars", The Day today, Commentary, pA7).  Even here, he forgets one basic tenet: in their professional work, lawyers are advocates and should not allow themselves to become witnesses in their "cases or controversies".  So, what's a lawyer to do when he or she is brought into a Star Chamber, like the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and is asked all sorts of questions inappropriate to his reason for being there?  Nevertheless, this does remind me of the detailed career counselling that my wife received in 1950 when she revealed to her teacher - nun that she was considering going to law school: "Oh, you wouldn't want to do that, dear...you'd have to lie!"

FRIDAY, January 20, 2006

• Two current articles present two sides of the same tarnished coin: the failure of Public Education, thanks to the Education Mafia in this country.  See "College Students Often Not Literate Enough For Complex Tasks", by Ben Feller, in The Day today, Nation, pA4.  See also See also "Study: Cap Is Hurting Charter Schools", by Susan Haigh, in The Day yesterday, Ct. and R.I., pB7.  This follows the recent action by the Florida Supreme Court striking down that state's vital charter schools.  As I have said many times in the past: if the Medical Profession had that track record in health care delivery, we physicians would be in jail.
• That elderly Democratic loose cannon, Senator Harry Reid, has had to apologize for his recent rantings about just the Republicans being involved in the unfolding Washington ethics scandals.  If you are interested in the facts about Republican Congressional accomplishments, see "Our Record of Accomplishment Speaks for Itself", by U.S. Representative Roy Blunt, WSJ yesterday, Opinion, pA14.  If you want to know what needs to be reformed in Congress, see "Keep Politics Kosher: No Pork", by US Representative John Boehner, WSJ Tuesday, Jan 17, 2006, Opinion, pA16.
• God and Science, not God vs Science.  The Vatican itself has made that point this week in publishing an approval of the decision by a Pennsylvania court on this issue.  "If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another...But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science..." (from L' Osservatore Romano, Jan 16-17 edition).  On the other hand, as I learned first-hand while attending a college that was at the time a hot-bed of agnosticism and atheism, don't waste your time arguing such topics with an atheist.  Leave that to God.

Some important issues have been raised in the news of recent days.

• Integration or segregation?  Progress or stagnation?  Those have been the choices debated for the last two decades in the halls of the NAACP leadership.  And the leadership has been wrong, fortunately not followed by the rank and file of sensible Blacks.  Now comes Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, and his "Chocolate City".  Apologies are too late, Mr. Mayor.  You've blown your cover...and color.  Neither New Orleans nor the country need that attitude.
• Yesterday's USSC New Hampshire abortion law ruling and its Oregon assisted suicide ruling are based on federalism and states' rights.  That's OK, except where the issues go to the heart of what America should stand for: protection of human life at all its stages; and protection of the integrity of the Medical Profession.  With such issues, national standards should apply.  This country tried the "states' rights" approach to a similar issue in its adolescence: the issue of slavery.  And we know how far that got.
• Nuclear weapons proliferation...and the West's dependence on Middle East oil.  We're getting nowhere.  See "On Iran, Europe's Idea Of 'Success' Shows Its Impotence", by Charles Krauthammer, in The Day yesterday, Perspective, pA7.  Do we have to wait to develop energy independence until we run out of options?  See the Rapid Response offering on Tuesday, this week.  Note also the statement by French President Chirac today...that France reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against terrorist states in self-defense.  (He did not address the issue of "pre-emptive self-defense").  All this is serious, folks.  Consider all this when witnessing the clamor of desparate housewives and Democrats regarding the leadership of President Bush in trying to keep us safe and in trying to retain our options.

WEDNESDAY, January 18, 2006

Another busy news - and opinion - cycle.

• Salaries, hourly wages and executive pay are increasingly in the news. While executive pay, in a race to the top, is finally receiving attention from the Securities and Exchange Commission as a likely raid on shareholded equity, the pay for common workers is in effect frozen at non-living levels (see "Is How Much You Pay A Worker A Moral Issue?", NY Times Magazine, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006).  You bet it is.  So are the increasingly common and permitted efforts of corporations to shed their promised (wisely or otherwise) pension funds for their employees.  Personal responsibility and rugged individualism are worthy goals for a vibrant society.  But so is social justice.  And so is a fair and effective approach to immigration.  If Republicans lose the 2006 elections, it will not be because of Iraq or "torture" or the Patriot Act or widespread ethical lapses.  It will be because of these other issues, as viewed by the majority of fair-minded Americans.  Even the clue-less Democrats can get this story right, if Republicans don't wake up.
• Meanwhile, the more imaginative of corporations may be starting to see the importance of re-tooling the millions of Americans in today's work force whose market baskets have become obsolete. Today's WSJ reports such an initiative by Ford Motor Co. ("To Shed Idled Workers, Ford Offers To Foot Bill For College", Marketplace, pB1).  As stated several times in the past in this section, what this country now needs is a WPA-type effort by both public and private sectors in order to help our work force survive and thrive in the new and unavoidable global economy.
• 'Tis the season, again, for the great cultural race to the bottom.  The Golden Globe Awards this weekend celebrated "breasts on parade" (especially Drew Barrymore's "golden globes"), gay cowboys and a woman acting as a man acting as a woman.  "Only in America"...but maybe that's OK, if the rest of us retain our sanity and self-respect.

MONDAY and TUESDAY, January 16 and 17, 2006

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD NOT BE USED AS BEDTIME READING!

GS

ACFR NewsGroup No. 658, Wednesday, January 18, 2005, Part 1

ITEM 1: Niall Ferguson: The Origins of the Great War of 2007 – An How It Could Have Been Prevented

 The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented
By Niall Ferguson
Telegraph
(Filed: 15/01/2006)

Are we living through the origins of the next world war? Certainly, it is easy to imagine how a future historian might deal with the next phase of events in the Middle East:
 

With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict - far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 - were in place.

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region's relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world's oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.

A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure.

This tendency was especially pronounced in Iran, where the social conservatism of the 1979 Revolution - which had lowered the age of marriage and prohibited contraception - combined with the high mortality of the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent baby boom to produce, by the first decade of the new century, a quite extraordinary surplus of young men. More than two fifths of the population of Iran in 1995 had been aged 14 or younger. This was the generation that was ready to fight in 2007.

This not only gave Islamic societies a youthful energy that contrasted markedly with the slothful senescence of Europe. It also signified a profound shift in the balance of world population. In 1950, there had three times as many people in Britain as in Iran. By 1995, the population of Iran had overtaken that of Britain and was forecast to be 50 per cent higher by 2050.

Yet people in the West struggled to grasp the implications of this shift. Subliminally, they still thought of the Middle East as a region they could lord it over, as they had in the mid-20th century.

The third and perhaps most important precondition for war was cultural. Since 1979, not just Iran but the greater part of the Muslim world had been swept by a wave of religious fervour, the very opposite of the process of secularisation that was emptying Europe's churches.

Although few countries followed Iran down the road to full-blown theocracy, there was a transformation in politics everywhere. From Morocco to Pakistan, the feudal dynasties or military strongmen who had dominated Islamic politics since the 1950s came under intense pressure from religious radicals.

The ideological cocktail that produced 'Islamism' was as potent as either of the extreme ideologies the West had produced in the previous century, communism and fascism. Islamism was anti-Western, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic. A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005, when he called the Holocaust a 'myth'. The state of Israel was a 'disgraceful blot', he had previously declared, to be wiped 'off the map'.

Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives. His decision to accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme was intended to give Iran the kind of power North Korea already wielded in East Asia: the power to defy the United States; the power to obliterate America's closest regional ally.

Under different circumstances, it would not have been difficult to thwart Ahmadinejad's ambitions. The Israelis had shown themselves capable of pre-emptive air strikes against Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981. Similar strikes against Iran's were urged on President Bush by neo-conservative commentators throughout 2006. The United States, they argued, was perfectly placed to carry out such strikes. It had the bases in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It had the intelligence proving Iran's contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But the President was advised by his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to opt instead for diplomacy. Not just European opinion but American opinion was strongly opposed to an attack on Iran. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been discredited by the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had supposedly possessed and by the failure of the US-led coalition to quell a bloody insurgency.

Americans did not want to increase their military commitments overseas; they wanted to reduce them. Europeans did not want to hear that Iran was about to build its own WMD. Even if Ahmad-inejad had broadcast a nuclear test live on CNN, liberals would have said it was a CIA con-trick.

So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals.

Only one man might have stiffened President Bush's resolve in the crisis: not Tony Blair, he had wrecked his domestic credibility over Iraq and was in any case on the point of retirement - Ariel Sharon. Yet he had been struck down by a stroke as the Iranian crisis came to a head. With Israel leaderless, Ahmadinejad had a free hand.

As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.

This gave the Iranians all the time they needed to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz. The dream of nuclear non-proliferation, already interrupted by Israel, Pakistan and India, was definitively shattered. Now Teheran had a nuclear missile pointed at Tel-Aviv. And the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a missile pointed right back at Teheran.

The optimists argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis would replay itself in the Middle East. Both sides would threaten war - and then both sides would blink. That was Secretary Rice's hope - indeed, her prayer - as she shuttled between the capitals. But it was not to be.

The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.

• Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University www.niallferguson.org

• In my last offering, I singled out Senators Joe Biden and Edward Kennedy for particular attention regarding the "trial" of Judge Samuel Alito.  Now come two published offerings directly on point:
• From The Day, in New London, Ct., Friday, Jan. 13, 2006, a Letter to the Editor by Barry Buehler: "Watching the barely coherent, yet vicious, questioning of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito by Sen. Edward Kennedy brought to mind another besotted senator from the 1950's.  Now, as was then asked of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, I await the question from his colleagues, "  Senator: have you no shame?
• From the always coherent David Brooks in today's NYTimes, "In Praise of Joe Biden": "Some have concluded that Biden is a blowhard, though I assert he is thoughtful, just at Wagnerian length....They are senatorial arias of immense emotional range....Then he flashes his jaring grin.... It is frue that the man has no speed bumps between his brain and his mouth."   You get the idea.
• There are times when, in my efforts to have enough grist for this commentary mill, my cup runneth over.  Now is one of those times.  So, here are some recent topics that have appeared in print, followed by a pithy comment where my sentiments would not be otherwise obvious:
• "Syphilis Rate Increases Driven by Male-to-Male Sex"
• "Borking's End? Alito Survives Battle of Princeton"
• "Saddam's Documents: What they tell us could save American lives today."
• "Florida Supreme Court blocks school vouchers on state grounds"
• Spielberg's propaganda in 'Munich'"
• "Ed Schools vs. Education"
• "Keep Government Out.  Reforms will liberate health-care markets."
• "Study: CAPT good predictor of success"
• "Bank Loses Tape With Personal Information".  Too much of this is occurring.  Looks like the next area for Class Action Suits.
• "Clinical, Cynical: America's law schools are incubators of leftist activism"
• "Proposal to criminalize immigrant aid prompts outcry" (from churches, soclal service agencies, etc.)
• "Tom Tancredo's Wall: Trying to make the U.S. the world's largest gated community."
• "Losing the Alito's: The hearings show why white ethnics left the Democrats."
• "Overhaul is planned for disaster response: Government wants to avoid a repeat of Katrina failures"...and don't forget the current Medicare Part D failure.  And this is the gang that wants to become your doctor through a single-payor universal health care system.  First cure public education.  Then we may give you a crack at health care delivery!
• "Whom Do People Trust?"  A Sampler: The highest...nurses, at 82%; second, pharmacists at 67%; third, medical doctors at 65%; then there are lawyers at 18%; senators at 16%; car salespeople at 8%.  Again, you get the idea.
• Finally, good news: "Saddam Trial Judge Resigns."   As pointed out several weeks ago in this section, this man was spending so much time looking out the rear-view mirror that he was well on his way to earning the "Judge Ito Look-Alike Award".  You remember Judge "Itoit" of O.J. fame.  Now, let's get real here.

THURSDAY, January 12, 2006

• The Alito nomination hearings.  Here on parade are the two faces of ultra-liberal Democrats.  On the one hand, Senator Joe Biden, he of the big white teeth, all the better to snarl with.  On the other hand, Senator Ted Kennedy, a man who has learned not a thing in the last thirty years.  One statement by Judge Alito should summarize the future of these kangaroo courts that the Democrats create every time a judicial nominee to the right of Karl Marx is presented: "I don't think it's appropriate for me to speak about issues that could realistically come up before the Court."  You got that??
• On a directly related subject, much is made of the O'Connor seat on the USSC.  Respected observers of the Court have noted that, during her tenure, Justice O'Connor's votes were frequently situational, "outcome determinative", not having followed prior law in a predictable manner.  This is precisely the type of jurist that Democrats love, having had little success at the ballot box for a long time.  They love judicial activism in the generally forbidden areas of "political questions".  Conservative judges do not do that.  Nor will Justice Sam Alito.
• Meanwhile, the USSC continues to be the most productive and effective branch of our federal givernment.  One issue before it is whether convicted persons on death row should be given access to DNA testing,  not possible when they were convicted.  Despite the turmoil such rights would produce, the only fair decision would be to allow it, where the execution of an innocent person could be avoided.  This is simply one result of keeping death row inmates in a limbo of interminable appeals for decades; and I believe that it is required under  Constitutional Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of Due Process.  That's a prediction.
• The re-building of New Orleans.  A massive engineering, political, financial and human undertaking.  Let's not add a toxic brew of racial paranoia to this task.  It will be hard enough as is.
• On the health care front, we heard today that enlightened organizations like Scotts are adding one further element to their employee free work-out facilities and massive health care contributions: "If you smoke, you're fired!"   Since tobacco smoking is reportedly costing the nation's taxpayers and its employers about $150 billion annually, this sounds right to me.  But, perhaps to be fair, libertarian smokers should be allowed to smoke where they produce no secondary smoke...if they will pay 100% of all their own health care costs, now and forever (including forgoing Medicare coverage).  That also sounds right to me.  The next target: Obesity.

WEDNESDAY, January 11, 2006

Here, prompted by a confluence of issues, is an early State Of The Union message.

• The state of the Union is febrile, infected from within and from without.  Its "constitution" is strong; but it may not come out of all this as strong.
• While Washington fiddles, our country and the world do a slow burn. Talk about self-inflicted wounds:
• We ignore global warming despite evidence including weather in the Northwest, fires in the Southwest, Katrina and the whole hurricane season of 2005, and the loss of massive amounts of Arctic ice...leaving great expanses if new and resource-rich property above the Arctic Circle to an international land-grab - not involving ourselves.
• The expanding threat of renegade nuclear nations, like Iran, continues unabated despite the brave words of the nuclear nations...charged with freezing such irresponsible developments.
• The continued undermining of American efforts to introduce democracy in Iraq and in the Mideast, by our own people, raises legitimate questions about the loyalty of those people in time of war...or at least raises questions about their intelligence, common sense, and sanity.
• This nation's demonstrated inability to deal with crises, even four years after 9/11, has been painfully demonstrated in New Orleans and in West Virginia.
• If you wish to make an analogy between Viet Nam and Iraq, how about this: at the highest levels, our civilian leadership failed our military in Viet Nam; and our military is failing our civilian leadership in Iraq.
• And a catastrophe - and opportunities - in Africa continue to be virtually ignored: the world-wide AIDS pandemic, centered in that benighted continent.  Consider the following: 40 million people there have HIV-AIDS, in addition to massive increases in cases in Eastern Europe and in Russia; most cases are spread by hetero-sexual and by IV drug transmission; in Africa, mostof the victims are children and young adults; life expectancy there has been plummeting and is approaching age 40, with grave consequences for the future there...and for wherever else desperate people may migrate; in tandem with AIDS comes Tuberculosis, often of the multi-drug resistant varieties; abject poverty and injustice are also rampant, with little effort to address any of the root causes.
• Remember Globalization?  We in America own all this also, however much we might want to build a wall around "Fortress America".

GS

TUESDAY, January 10, 2006

And if all of the above were not enough to demonstrate that "a house divided on itself will fall", check out the following:

GS

From ACFR NewsGroup No. 655

ITEM 5: Amir Taheri: The Despicable Self-Loathing Preached by ‘Syriana’

THE DESPICABLE SELF-LOATHING PREACHED BY 'SYRIANA'
by Amir Taheri
Arab News
January 7, 2006

The would-be ruler of an oil-rich Arab state is planning a policy reform that includes allowing girls to go to school, and signing an oil contract with China. But days before he takes over he is assassinated when a remote controlled bomb destroys his bulletproof limousine in the middle of the desert.

But who would want such an enlightened prince out of the way?

The answer given in "Syriana", the new Hollywood blockbuster starring George Clooney, is simple: The murder was planned and carried out by the CIA, the dirty-tricks arm of the United States of America.

But why would the US want an enlightened Arab leader murdered at a time that President George W. Bush is publicly calling for such leaders to emerge in the Arab world?

Again, the answer provided by the scriptwriters is straightforward: The US government is controlled by Texas oil interests that cannot allow any Arab state to sign an oil contract with China.

I saw the film in a pre-release showing in New York last month and did not expect it to be already available throughout the Arab world in a pirated videocassette version. And, yet, in the past week or so I have received more than a dozen emails from Arab friends throughout the Middle East citing the film as, in the word of one of them, another "sure proof" that the US will never tolerate democratic leaders in that neck of the wood.

According to an old saying one can never convince anyone who doesn't wish to be convinced. The makers of "Syriana" are preaching to the converted if only because an extraordinarily large number of Arabs are comfortable in the certainty of their victimhood. Long before "Syriana" hit the silver screen those Arabs were convinced that whatever misfortune has befallen them is due to some conspiracy by a perfidious Western power.

In North Africa where France ruled for more than a century every shortcoming, and every major crime, is blamed on the French. From Egypt to the Indian Ocean all was the fault of the British, until the Americans emerged as a more convincing protagonist in the fantasyland of conspiracy theories. (In Libya where Italy ruled for a while in the last century, even the fact that the telephones don't work in 2006 is blamed on the Italians.)

Would it change anything if one were to remind the conspiracy theorists that none of the high profile political murders in the Arab world over the past century had anything to do with the US or any other foreign power?

Let us start with Rafik Al-Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, who was murdered last February. Was he killed by the CIA or, as Abdul-Halim Khaddam, Syria's former Vice President, now asserts by a criminal coterie in Damascus?

The list of Arab leaders murdered since 1900 is a long one. It includes six prime ministers, three kings, a ruling Imam, seven presidents of the republic, and dozens of ministers, parliamentarians and senior military officials. Every single one of them was killed either by Islamist militants (often from the Muslim Brotherhood) or by pan-Arab nationalists or by radical Arab security services.

That many Arabs should welcome the suggestion that their tragedies are due to evil doings by foreigners maybe understandable.

It is less so when so many Americans come together to make a film to portray their nation as evil incarnate.

"Syriana" is not only about a single political murder. It also depicts the US as the power behind much of the terrorism coming from the Middle East. The film shows American oil companies as employers of Asian slave labor while the CIA is the key source of supply for bombs used by terrorists.

So, why would any self-respecting American want to write or direct or play in "Syriana"? If the US is as evil as they suggest should they not be ashamed of themselves? And if the oil companies control the US government, presumably including the Congress, should we conclude that Hollywood is the last bastion of American democracy?

One answer to why anyone might want to make such a film is, of course, the very American desire to make money. And as things stand today there is a large market for dissent in the United States. In a recent trip to the US I noticed that unless you took a dig at the Americans no one would even listen to you. In one session when I politely suggested that Bush might be a better choice than either Mullah Omar or Saddam Hussein I was nearly booed by my American interlocutors.

The truth is that there is a market for self-loathing in the US today and many, including the producers of "Syriana", are determined to cash in on it.

Here is how the incomparable Evelyn Waugh described the present American situation when the makers of "Syriana" were still nothing but glimmers in their daddies' eyes: "There is no more agreeable position than that of dissident from a stable democratic society."

The reason is simple: In a stable democratic society in which you are protected by law you can lie, cheat, and mislead, all in the name of political dissent, and be rewarded with fame and fortune.

The fact that the CIA is little more than a costly leaking device used by rival groups within the US establishment to lump accusations and counter accusations at one other need not bother the makers of "Syriana". The CIA masters, for their part, would be pleased with "Syriana" if only because it claims that they can do anything at all!

The self-loathing party in the US would do well to ponder the second part of the above mentioned quotation from Waugh: " The more elaborate the society the more vulnerable it is to attack, and the more complete its collapse in case of defeat."

The self-loathing party in the US, which includes a disturbingly large part of the elite, is doing three things.

First, it says that America, being the evil power it is, is a legitimate target for revenge attacks by Arab radicals and others.

Secondly, it tells the American people that all this talk about democracy is nonsense if only because major decisions are ultimately taken by a cabal of businessmen, and politicians and lawyers in their pay.

Lastly, and perhaps without realizing it, the self-loathing Americans reduce the Arabs to the level of mere objects in their history. It is the almighty America that decides every single detail of Arab life with the Arabs as, at best, onlookers and, at worst, victims of American violence. The Arabs are even denied credit for their own terrorist acts as "Syriana" shows that it is not they but the CIA that decides who kills whom and where.

Pretending to be sympathetic to the "Arab victims of American Imperialism", the film is, in fact, an example of ethno-centrism gone wild. Its message is: The Arabs are nothing, not even self-motivated terrorists, but mere puppets manipulated by us in the omnipotent US!

By suggesting that the US has stolen the Arab oil and decision-making process, the makers of "Syriana" are, in fact, trying to rob the Arabs of something more important: Their history. The amazing thing is that so many Arabs appear to be ready to help the thief.

Or, perhaps, it is not so amazing after all.

Adversaries in history often end up resembling each other. So it is, perhaps, not surprising that the Arabs are learning the art of self-loathing from the Americans while the Americans develop a taste for Arab-style conspiracy theories.

SATURDAY through MONDAY, January 7 through 9, 2006

Some more food for thought...and for heartburn.

GS

Subject: How Tax Cuts Really Work

Sometimes Politicians can exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!", and it is just accepted to be fact. But what does that really mean? Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, we hope the following will help.  Please share this with your friends as you see fit.

Tax Cuts - A Simple Lesson In Economics This is how the cookie crumbles.

Please read it carefully.

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that
every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100.  If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this...

> > The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
> > The fifth would pay $1.
> > The sixth would pay $3.
> > The seventh $7.
> > The eighth $12.
> > The ninth $18.
> > The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.  "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."  So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.  So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.

But what about the other six, the paying customers?  How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?  The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal.  So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.  And so The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

> > The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
> > The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
> > The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
> > The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
> > The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.  "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too.  It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"  "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"  "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D
Distinguished Professor of Economics
536 Brooks Hall
University of Georgia

• Lord, preserve us from all religious fanatics.  In Afghanistan, "militants broke into the home of an Afghan headmaster and beheaded him while forcing his wife and eight children to watch, the latest in a spate of attacks blamed on the Taliban that have forced many schools to close.  The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam..."  In Iraq, Sunni-backed "insurgents" increase the killing of innocents...and even the killing of their own Sunnis of different opinions.  In Palestine,  followers of Hamas attack those of moderate leader Abbas.  In Israel, some take pleasure at the current fate of Arien Sharon, he who belatedly was wise and fair enough to realize that the Israel of today and tomorrow cannot be the Israel of the Bible...not for a while, anyway.  And then there is Pat Robertson, claiming the wrath of God on Sharon for the same reason.  But wait...there is hope and sanity out there.  Limbo is gone; and then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote during the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) that "men who are seeking for God and who are inwardly striving toward that which constitutes baptism will also receive salvation" (even without baptism).  (See "Life After Limbo", by David Van Biema, Time January 9, 2006, Essay, p68).  Even so, I can't help remembering the hope expressed on a Marine bumper sticker: "God will judge the terrorists.  We will arrange the meeting."
• Locally, some members of the New London City Council are making unhelpful noises just as the NLDC seems to be having some success in salvaging the Fort Trumbull project from the hysteria and demagoguery of recent months.  Folks, there is difference between the politicking and posturing that took place before you were elected and now: it's called responsibility.  So, why don't you just observe...and learn.   New London and its citizens need and want this project to succeed.

THURSDAY, January 5, 2006

After holiday travel and an up-grade in computer, it's time to address a lot of issues.

• Dick Clark and the New Year's Eve shows.  Katie Couric and her neurologist were too negative.  Bill O'Reilly and his neurologist were on target with a positive and up-beat message.
• The new anti-smoking campaign, and its lessons in tobacco pathology.  If anything, not realistic or soon enough.  Dying from the effects of smoking is easy.  Living for 20 or 30 years having to think about each and every breath is not.
• Governor Rell of Connecticut.  Is there less here than meets the eye?  A good person, very sympathico.  But is this just a facade for another traditional politician?  Her over-the-top reaction to the USSC decision in the Fort Trumbull case.  Her administration's waffling regarding the Seaside property.  Her veto of a bill that would have greatly curtailed the availability of junk foods in schools.  And her apparent antipathy to charter schools and some modicum of long-overdue parental choice in dealing with a failed public education system.  (See two related articles in the WSJ: "Charter Obstacle", editorial, yesterday, Opinion, pA10; and "Teachers' Pets", editorial, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2006, Opinion, pA24.  Say it isn't so, Governor.
• In the face of unadulterated evil, the leaders of the Sunnis and the Kurds are getting together to increase their political power vis a vis the Shiits.  A real democratic process is underway, despite the nay-sayers, cynics, dreamers and has-been old soldiers.  The Iraqii people will have earned their freedom after all.
• I guess my initial reaction to the coming Spielberg movie Munich was pretty much on target.  (See "Munich", WSJ editorial, weekend, Dec. 31,Jan. 1, Opinion, pA8).  Evidently a flagrant example of our "value neutral" world, although from a surprising source.
• What did 9/11, the London terror bombings and the Katrina mess have in common? A breakdown in communication.  If kept informed, people can be depended upon to help themselves and others.  In the absense of information, they will panic and will get in the way of any help.  The British learned this in the Blitz.  The lesson?  Have a cell-phone with text messaging capability.  Have a crank-type radio with AM, FM, and Short-Wave (available at Radio Shack).  Have an XM satellite radio.  (With the last of these there comes a bonus: no Howard Stern!)
• When all else fails at the New York Times, as it does with increasing frequency these days,  David Brooks can always be depended upon to get it right.  See "The Year Of Domesticity", Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006, Op-Ed, p8.   All you benighted members of NOW, NARAL, etc., NOW HEAR THIS!

SUNDAY through WEDNESDAY, January 1 through 4, 2006

Let's start the new year with a history lesson...a cautionary tale [author unknown] if there ever was one.

GS

Dear  Friends:

Many years ago in  Seattle, two wonderful neighbors, Elliott and Patty Roosevelt came to my home to swim on a  regular basis.  They were a great couple full of laughter and stories that  today I continue to marvel at.  Both are now deceased, but their stories remain.  During the years of our friendship we had many, many discussions  about his parents (President Franklin D. and  Eleanor  Roosevelt) and how his father and mother never intended for the Social Security and Welfare programs to turn out the way they are today.  Elliott used to say that if his mother returned to earth and saw what the politicians had done to their programs she would have burned all of them in  hell.

Here is a story I received today regarding the Social Security Program and I immediately thought  of Elliott's  comments.  Hope you will read this and think about  it.

Franklin  Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.  He  promised:

1.) That  participation i! n the Program would be completely  voluntary,

2.) That the  participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual  incomes into the Program,

3.) That the money  the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from  their income for tax purposes each year,

4.) That the money  the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather th! an into the  General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the  Social Security  Retirement Program, and no other Government program,  and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed  as income.

Since many of us  have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check  every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the  money we paid to the Federal government to "put away," you may be  interested in the following:!

--------------------

Q: Which Political  Party took Social Security from the independent  "Trust" fund  and  put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend  it?

A: It was  Lyndon  Johnson and the democratically  controlled House and Senate.

--------------------

Q: Which  Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA)  withholding?

A: The Democratic  Party.

--------------------

Q: Which  Political Party started taxing Social Security  annuities?

A: The Democratic  Party, with  Al Gore  casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he  was Vice President of the U.S.

-------------------

Q: Which  Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

AND MY  FAVORITE:

A: That's right!   Jimmy  Carter  and the   Democratic Party.   Immigrants moved into this country, and at  age 65, began to receive Social Security payments!   The Democratic  Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into  it!

------------------

Then, after doing  all this lying and thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the  Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your  Social Security away!

And the worst part  about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people  receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes  will evolve.  Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't  so.