Blogger & author Todd A sent me a copy of his first novel, Being Good, a few weeks back.

This is the book I tried - and mostly failed - to write eight years ago. Fun, funny, and shocking. Just keep it away from your wife and/or girlfriend, because she'd learn too many of our Most Sacred Guy Secrets from reading it.

Highly recommended.

Tom Friedman needs to stop using poker analogies:

And this poker hand is seven-card stud, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em.

If you don't know, in Seven Card Stud, each player is dealt seven cards. Two down, then four up, then one down. There is betting after each card is dealt, starting with the first up card.

Texas Hold'em is an entirely different beast. Each player is dealt two cards, down. There is betting. Then "the flop," where a set of three "community cards" is revealed. More betting. A fourth community card ("the turn"). A fifth community card ("the river"). Final bets, as each player tries to build the best possible hand, using any combinaion of his two hole cards and the community cards.

They're both great games, but they have little in common other than the deck. Friedman would have made as much sense if he'd written, "And this ball game is full-contact football, the NBA's All-Star Game."

You'd think a major newspaper wouldn't allow such silly errors.

The next Blogger Bash is this Saturday at the Denver Press Club. And it's not just for bloggers - it's for readers, too.

In an effort to boost non-blogger attendence, I make this solemn vow: If you're a reader I've never met before, the first drink is on me.

"Incumbents are the bad guys."

Lili G of Eroticalee sent me an email ages ago, but I forgot to reply. My bad.

But Lili has one good photoblog. And when I say good, I mean hot. Click on over -- just not on work time.

"Only now, at the end, do you understand…"

Not exactly wise words, and certainly uninspiring ones. Geeks will know where the quote comes from – but I chose not to embarrass myself by identifying it for everyone else. Those were the words that came to me when I read that Terry Shiavo's feeding tube had been removed.

Only I don't understand. Not at all. I understand all the little details, but the big picture is as elusive as what's going on in whatever is left of Terry's mind.

Here's what I know.

My own wishes. If the time comes for me, I want the plug pulled. I want the respirator switched off. I want the feeding tube removed. I've always felt this way, but recently the point was driven home. Two Decembers ago I held the hand of the husk that had once been my grandfather, only moments after the doctor had removed his breathing tube - as dictated in his living will. Grandpa remained warm as I watched the numbers all drop to zero. I think in that moment we both found some peace. I'd want the same for my family.

Terry's wishes. Young and foolish – the two are basically synonymous, and I mean no insult – Terry never made her wishes known. Or if she did, she did so only off-handedly and to only one person. If you want to be kept alive by any and all means, that's your call. Get a lawyer to write it down for you. If you don't, then ditto; but underlined and boldfaced. Terry didn't, and that's the main reason we are in her mess. If that sounds cruel, it's a kindness compared her situation.

Terry's parent's wishes. Frankly, I find their hope for their daughter's recovery to be sad and misguided. But that's my own personal opinion, based on my own wishes – and not necessarily on Terry's actual condition. We've all read conflicting reports on whether or not she's actually brain dead. I believe she is, but I could be mistaken. My beliefs (or yours) should not in any way impact on what Bob and Mary Schindler choose to think.

Terry's husband's wishes. Michael Shiavo seems like a cad. That's a snap judgment based on what little I've seen of him on the news, but it's one I can't shake. What he looks like to me is someone who would rather be seen as a tragic widower than a man who divorced his sick wife. However: Michael wants Terry's feeding tube removed and Florida law gives primacy in this decision to the husband, cad or not. Do I agree with him? Yes, I do. Should that matter one whit? No, it should not.

Here's what I don't know.

Is the Florida law just? Certainly, it isn't to the Schindlers.

What would Terry want? We have only her husband's say so.

Is Terry really and truly brain dead? Very few can really say for sure, and not even they all agree.

The rest of this essay I shouldn't write (or at least not publish) but will, anyway. You've been warned.

So what if Terry Shiavo starves to death? What are a score of days of slightly increased agony, compared to fifteen years of agony, to be compounded by another fifteen? Or thirty? Or fifty? I see no nobility in suffering for suffering's sake. I do see that needless suffering is all that Terry (if there's any Terry left in there at all) has to look forward to.

I get no joy from her death. I get no satisfaction from "my side" "winning" the "debate." All I see is a sad end to a sad life – and none of it had to be this way. I hear a lot of sound and fury about how Terry represents some noble ideal to some crowd or other.

"Death with dignity!"

"Right to life!"

"You're evil!"

"No, you're evil!"

Oh, shut up already, all of you.

There's no good here.

There's no winning.

There's only the shell of a girl who was once beautiful, who suffers needlessly in life and will suffer needlessly in death – whether her death is 15 minutes or 50 years from now. Whether she dies of starvation, or whether she dies of "natural" causes.

These are the things I don't believe. I don't believe in the Christian concept that suffering is the measure of life. I don't believe in the humanist concept that suffering should be the measure of death. I don't believe that anyone grandstanding on either side, can come away from this with clean hands. I don't believe that any greater good can come from any of this.

These are the things I do believe. I believe a young woman could never picture herself dying – the definition of youth, if there is one – and so she never made a living will. I believe there is a husband whose self-image is so wrapped up in being the suffering widower, that he can't accommodate the wishes of his in laws. I believe there is a family clinging on to hopeless hope so hard that they can't accommodate their son-in-law's wishes.

But Terry's case is life and death. It's one or the other. There can be no accommodation.

And so the circle goes on and on until, whenever, however, Terry ceases to go on.

So, if you're planning on riding your hobbyhorse to victory, eventually you'll have to run it over Terry's corpse.

You loser.

Austin Bay on Iraq's political growing pains, and the doomsayers at the Washington Post.

Any PC more than three years old is an accident waiting to happen. Mine is 38 months old, and the wait ended yesterday. After a few (ahem) problems, everything seems to be working again - for now. But I can tell you the video card is about to go down for the last time.

Back after I read some news.

Indicted Cable had a little service outage in my area - starting Friday. Only just now (9:03pm MST) have I been able to connect. This is the third major outage Adelphia has had here this year, and it's only March.

I'm using my refound internetting abilities to get a quote from Qwest on getting DSL installed.

Back in a bit.

In the comments for the "South Park" patch below, Mike Rentner writes,

As a Marine Officer currently in Iraq, I can say I've not seen this, but then I'm not in an Air Force base.

I appreciate the South Park humor, but I despise the sentiment that the words on the patch convey. It is arrogant, elitist and does nothing to further civil-military relations.

Rest assured that not all of us over here feel like we have a right to say such things.

Thanks for the note, Mike. Speaking as the owner and operator of one of the asses that's being saved, I think you do have every right to say such things. At the very least, the patch slogan is an accurate description of what you and your collegues do for a living, and I'm certainly not offended by it.

Then again, I'm somewhat unusual in that while I've never served, I've been around military folks all my life. My dad is a USAF veteran, his father was an Army drill sergeant, I grew up in an Army town, my brother-in-law just started his third tour of SWA (Army), and I've spent my entire professional life working on Army and Air Force bases. Maybe I'm too close to the subject matter to be entirely objective.

What do the rest of y'all think?

About ten weeks ago, I waxed enthusiastic here about the new "Battlestar Galactica" series that's running on the Sci-Fi Channel. The first season of "BSG" is wrapping up with a two-parter, and Part I airs tonight.

If you've been watching the show all along, you probably don't need me to tell you not to miss this one. I've already seen both episodes, and together they make up the best movie that I've seen in at least a year, give or take "The Incredibles." Not the best TV show, mind you--although "BSG" is, in my opinion, the best thing on television--the best movie.

For those of you who haven't been watching, you're missing out on the most intelligent dramatic series that's running today. If you want a comparison, "Battlestar Galactica" is for televised science fiction what "Hill Street Blues" was for cop shows. It redefines the entire genre for a grown-up audience. Even better, Sci-Fi is going way beyond the call of duty with additional content at their web site, including deleted scenes , making-of features, and even full-episode podcast audio commentaries from series creator Ronald Moore--the kind of stuff you'd normally have to wait for (and pay for) in a DVD set.

If you haven't been tuning in, Sci-Fi will be re-running the entire first season starting on April 8th. If you're sick of bad TV, but haven't tuned in to "BSG" because you remember the ultra-cheesy 1979 series, do yourself a favor and warm up your TiVo/ReplayTV/VCR to catch the repeats.

Season Two premeires in July, and that won't be a moment too soon--you'll see why I say that after Part II of the season finale airs next Friday night.

One of my office-mates who's in the Air Force Reserve got called up early this year to spend a little time in the big sandbox. He mailed me this patch last week, apparently it's rather popular among the US troops:

Ever since I saw Boogie Nights way back when, I've been a fan of Don Cheadle. But that's not why his WSJ op-ed (co-authored with John Prendergast) is today's Required Reading.

OK, so Watching America isn't exactly a blog, but it's a damn fine resource - and one you should be using.

What MEMRI does for Arab-language news about everything, WA does for all foreign-language stories about the US. They have stuff you won't see translated into English anywhere else.

Check'em out already.

Max Boot argues in favor of ending academic tenure:

[Ward] Churchill and his professorial colleagues are beneficiaries of the most ironclad protection for mountebanks, incompetents and sluggards ever devised. It's called tenure.

To fire a tenured professor requires a legal battle that can make the Clinton impeachment seem like a small-claims dispute. Even if there is clear evidence of wrongdoing, professors are entitled to endless procedural safeguards against being fired.

The University of Colorado wanted to offer Churchill a generous financial settlement to leave voluntarily, but that idea has been torpedoed by regents angry at the idea of buying off this buffoon. An epic struggle looms in which Churchill and his numerous faculty defenders will nail their colors to the mast of "academic freedom."

I'm still agnostic on the issue. Now that we have 24/7 news and a growing blogosphere to help keep it honest, I worry less and less about entrenched institutions. Universities can keep tenure if they so choose - but they can no longer avoid close public scrutiny and loud public derision.

And for now, that ought to do.

If you don't already know, Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash 4.0 is a done deal. Andy just told me we've got the deposit and the bartender -- now all we're waiting on is news about Jeff's hookers.

I'm kidding about that last point, I think.

Anyway, mark your calendars for April 2nd, and set your bar tab to "stun."

Full details here, and you can RSVP here.

One mo' time, we're going to try to link to working versions of those color WWI battlefield photos. David of Poiema Design was smart enough to save all the pictures on his own hard drive, and public-spirited enough to post them on his own website.

Here they are. Enjoy.

And thanks, David.

UPDATE: Calvin von Weissenfluh, a reader here and one of my favorite email correspondents, also saved the images. He's sending them to me in a Zip file. So if David ever gets tired of playing host, I'll gladly take up the slack.

Tuesday's post about rubella's North American extinction caught the attention of a reader at the National Institutes of Health. Sarah Miers sent me a press release detailing some of NIH's work against the avian flu:

Fast-track recruitment has begun for a trial to investigate the safety of a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today.

Sites in Rochester, NY, Baltimore and Los Angeles will enroll a total of 450 healthy adults. The clinical sites are part of the NIAID-sponsored Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEU).

"While there have been relatively few cases worldwide of H5N1 avian influenza infection in humans, the public health community is concerned that the virus will develop the capability of efficiently spreading from human to human and thus create a risk for a worldwide pandemic," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

Good to know.

I told you things were bad at GM, and now it looks like they might retreat even further:

GM's Buick and Pontiac are both "damaged brands" due to lack of investment over the years, and GM is working to correct that with an array of new vehicles coming to market, Lutz told a Morgan Stanley automotive conference in New York.

But if some of its brands fail to meet sales projections, "then we would have to take a look at a phase-out. I hope we don't have to do that. What we've got to do is keep the brands we've got."

Full story here.

If I had to guess, I'd say Buick should be the first to go. The median age of Buick buyers now stands at, I think, 807 years old. But there are still one or two Pontiac buyers sober and under the age of 40.

Just because a madman gives up his nukes, doesn't make him any less mad. Here's the latest from Muammar Gaddafi:

Speaking at the Arab League summit meeting in Algiers, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi defended Syria's role in Lebanon, saying Damascus should be thanked for what he called its sacrifices in Lebanon.

"Syria should be rewarded because it sacrificed for the sake of civil peace in Lebanon," Gaddafi said at the annual summit of the 22-member Arab League.

And the Soviets restored civil order in Czechoslovakia, too. Some sacrifice.

What made conservatives blogs more influential in last year's election than their liberal counterparts? It's all in the hyperlink:

"Who were the bloggers writing about?" asks the new report, "The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog, from Intelliseek's BlogPulse project." It answers its own question, "Curiously, 59 percent of the mentions of John Kerry came from right-leaning bloggers, while 53 percent of the mentions of George W. Bush came from left-leaning bloggers."

The study was conducted by Natalie Glance of Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm in Cincinnati, and Lada Adamic of HP Labs, the main laboratory for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, Calif. It showed that of the 1,494 most influential blogs, during the two months leading up to the election, 759 were liberal in worldview, while 735 were conservative. The conservatives, however, showed a "greater tendency" to link to other blogs than did the liberals -- on average 15.1 links per conservative blog to 13.6 for the liberals. That made them more powerful agents of persuasion.

Who says Republicans don't know how to share?

Way out there:

Astronomers using NASA's newest space telescope have for the first time glimpsed the faint light from planets outside our solar system.

Indirect detection methods have found evidence of at least 152 planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, but the first light from two distant worlds is a key step in understanding the character of such bodies.

"It's an awesome experience to realize we are seeing the glow of distant worlds," says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "We've been hunting for this light for almost 10 years, ever since the first extra-solar planets were discovered."

Maybe NASA ought to stick to probes and space telescopes, and leave the manned missions to the private sector.

I've seen a lot of searches in my activity log for those color WWI photos I linked to a while back. If you're still looking, here's the link again.

UPDATE: Sorry, but it looks like Big D and Bubba took down the pictures. A shame, too.

Another fake memo? Powerline has the details.

(Hat tip, Jim Geraghty.)

In the years before Napoleon dismantled it, Voltaire quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Well, of course not. It was an amalgamation of independent German kingdoms, fiefdoms, and statelets, lightly bound together by a powerless Grand Moose or whatever with no revenue, army, courts, or police.

Much the same goes today for the United Nations. It is neither united, nor nations.

Oh sure, there are quite a few honest-to-goodness real nation-states in the UN – but they're in the distinct minority. Most of the "nations" in the UN are lines drawn on a map, between which today's band of thugs controls little more than the capital city, and then only in daylight. At least until tomorrow's thugs come along and destroy even that much nation-y state-ness.

And "united"? Only when condemning the US or Israel.

Now we hear that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (who is neither a secretary nor a general) wants to reform the UN. Well, I'm sure that the last Holy Roman Emperor wanted some reforms, too. Like, actually making himself an emperor (and leaving worries about holiness and Roman-ness for later).

Snarky comments aside, is there any meat on the bone Annan has thrown to UN-skeptics? According to Claudia Rosett, not much. She sums up Annan's proposals as "more of the same – and lots more money." Read:

Mr. Annan forges on to propose nothing less than reforming the entire known universe, via the U.N., while he bangs the drum for a budget to match. He wants to expand his own staff, change the world's climate, end organized crime, eliminate all private weapons, and double U.N.-directed development aid to the tune of at least $100 billion a year, "front-loaded," for his detailed plan to end world poverty. This comes from a U.N. that only three months ago was finally strong-armed by Congress into coughing up the secret internal Oil for Food audits confirming that under Mr. Annan's stewardship the U.N. was not even adequately auditing its own staff operations.

After Napoleon's armies crossed the Rhine, he "reformed" the Holy Roman Empire by condensing its 300+ states into about 30 sensible ones. And – oh yeah – he also completely ridded Germany of its pretend Empire.

It's time to do something similar to the UN. Reduce it to 30 (or fewer) real nations with real unity, and abolish the old structure.

Deepthink stuff from Phil Carter, on the "convergence of crime and war."

Read it, then read this.

Finally, a trial worth watching:

PARIS Senior allies of President Jacques Chirac and a member of Paris's Olympic bid committee are among 47 defendants accused of rigging public works contracts for kickbacks in a major political corruption trial opening Monday in France.

The trial, expected to run through July, implicates four former ministers and spotlights one of several party funding scandals that have come to light from Chirac's tenure as Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995.

Already I'm feeling all tingly inside.

More seriously, Chirac's 18 year tenure just absolutely smacks of a theme I've been pounding on lately: Entrenched majorities make for bad government.

Even more seriously, hey, they're all like French and stuff.

How bad are things in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe? Some blacks are pining for the days of white rule:

Binga, Zimbabwe — The hungry children and the families dying of AIDS here are gut-wrenching, but somehow what I find even more depressing is this: Many, many ordinary black Zimbabweans wish that they could get back the white racist government that oppressed them in the 1970's.

"If we had the chance to go back to white rule, we'd do it," said Solomon Dube, a peasant whose child was crying with hunger when I arrived in his village. "Life was easier then, and at least you could get food and a job."

Mr. Dube acknowledged that the white regime of Ian Smith was awful. But now he worries that his 3-year-old son will die of starvation, and he would rather put up with any indignity than witness that.

Let's be clear about something here. This isn't about racism. Or to be more exact, I'm not trying to endorse (and columnist Nick Kristof most certainly isn't) the bad old days when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, and had a "Whites Only" sign at the border.

On the other hand, this is about racism. Or rather, about manufactured racism. It's about dictator Mugabe whipping up white hatred in order to cover up his own brutal ineptitude, to enrich his cronies and himself, and to maintain his power. It's the southern Africa version of Nazi anti-Semitism, only without all the gas chambers. (Yet.)

White-on-black racism, however genuine, was still no better than Mugabe's black-on-white racism, no matter how manufactured -- no one would really say, "At least Ian Smith made the trains run on time." No one is really calling for a return of white rule, even if it was more economically efficient.

Now that both races have had a chance to royally screw up the country, it's time for Zimbabwe to look forward instead of to the past. It's time to get past the racism and get to building a decent country.

Getting rid of Mugabe - perhaps using the same international pressures brought against South Africa's white government - would be a good start.

NOTE: I know I've made fun of Nick Kristof in the past, but he's often a damn fine dirty-boots foreign correspondent. Read his entire column today.

Krauthammer sums up the Schiavo tragedy thusly:

Given our lack of certainty, given that there are loved ones prepared to keep her alive and care for her, how can you allow the husband to end her life on his say-so? Because following the sensible rules of Florida custody laws, conducted with due diligence and great care over many years in this case, this is where the law led.

For Congress and the president to then step in and try to override that by shifting the venue to a federal court was a legal travesty, a flagrant violation of federalism and the separation of powers. The federal judge who refused to reverse the Florida court was certainly true to the law. But the law, while scrupulous, has been merciless, and its conclusion very troubling morally. We ended up having to choose between a legal travesty on the one hand and human tragedy on the other.

There is no good outcome to this case.

Unless something really spectacular happens - and I have no clue what that could possibly be - I think this is the last time I'll mention Terri Schiavo.

UPDATE: This, too.

GM has a problem. Hell, GM has a lot of problems. The first problem is, not even Oprah Winfrey could build any excitement for Pontiac's new G6:

As evidence of the car's meager performance, auto experts note that the world's largest automaker has dramatically ramped up rebates on the car just to get it selling at modest levels. The automaker offered more than $3,600 in incentives on it last month, and it sold less than half of what the Grand Am was averaging per month.

This, just months after Oprah gave 200 of them away in an hour-long publicity/marketing stunt watched by millions of people, and read about by millions more.

However, GM's problems aren't limited to a struggling start for a single model. Down the road, they face a bigger hurdle:

In an internal memo last week, GM product chief Robert Lutz told employees that "until further notice," the automaker has stopped plans to introduce a new line of rear-wheel drive passenger cars that were scheduled to debut in North America by 2008.

Why is a RWD product delay a big deal? In one word: Power.

American drivers want more power. Asian drivers want more power. Even European drivers want more power. There comes a point, however, where you just can't put any more power through the drive train of a front wheel drive vehicle. Get too much over 200 horses, and torque steer becomes a serious problem. For automakers looking to sell more, and more powerful, cars with big power plants and fat profit margins (like the drool-worthy RWD Chrysler 300C), they have to switch back to Rear Wheel Drive platforms.

All that power comes at a price, too. Not just in developing fancier engines, but also in keeping emissions down and fuel economy up. And, oh yeah – beefier frames to handle all the high-powered stress. In short, if an automaker wants to increase, or even maintain, its profits and market share, it has to be in the game right now.

As already mentioned, Chrysler is already playing, and playing well. Ford, except for the new Mustang (ten years late, if you ask me), seems to have given up the fight. The Ford Five Hundred is a fine car, but bland and underpowered. Chevy is trying, really trying, with a slew of sporty SS models – but not one of them compares to sportier near-lux models from their Japanese competitors. In fact, the Japanese are so far ahead, they now have their sites set on dethroning BMW's venerable 3-series.

Fact is, if you want a performance sedan, you aren't looking at Ford at all, and the pickings aren't terribly much better at GM.

I don't know what the solution is to GM's problems, but I do know that delaying new RWD models is not the answer.

Apparently, Harvard has a problem with sexy librarians.

If only my own life were so cursed.

Ralph Peters on recent events in the Middle East:

I SPENT last week in Europe watching acrobats perform. There were no high-wires or circus tents — just left-wing intellectuals contorting themselves into bizarre shapes as they "explained" the changing Middle East. A few Euro-papers raised the possibility that Bush might have been right about some things — only to knock down that notion with excuses so convoluted even the writers and editors couldn't begin to believe them. They were trying, desperately, to save face.

The commonly agreed alibi runs that the Middle East was changing on its own, that Anglo-American actions had little or no effect, that the outbreak of democracy has been on the way for years, that the Arabs did it themselves.

Oh, really? Guess our troops overlooked the warehouses full of multi-party ballots when they took Baghdad.

Maybe they were secreted away and stashed in Lebanon's Bekka Vally. Would explain a lot, really.

Hitchens on Wolfowitz:

On the excruciating question of Israel/Palestine, Wolfowitz is not at all the "Likud" fan that his defamers portray. He almost went out of his way to be jeered and hooted at a pro-Israel rally in Washington in the early days of the Bush administration, by telling the gung-ho crowd not to forget the suffering of the Palestinians. He has spoken quite clearly of linkage between the demolition of Arab rejectionism and the demolition of Jewish settlements. I can't exactly say that I know the man, but on the occasions that I have met him I have been very struck by the difference between his manner and the amazing volleys of obloquy and abuse that have been flung at him. (This is made easier, for savants such as Maureen Dowd, by the fact that the first four letters of his surname spell an animal that is known in nursery rhymes to be big and bad. How satirical can one possibly get?) The truth is, he's a bit bleeding heart for my taste, even though I know some very tough Kurdish and Iraqi and Iranian and Lebanese antifascist militants who would welcome him as a blood-brother. No shame in that, I think.

And:

But with the Wolfowitz and even the John Bolton nomination to the United Nations, the Bush administration retains its capacity to startle, mainly because it has redefined the lazy term "conservative" to mean someone who is impatient with the status quo.

Read the whole thing.

I've always thought that corruption is unavoidable in ruling parties - because corruption always starts with the best of intentions. David Brooks explains:

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!

Before long, ringleader Grover Norquist and his buddies were signing lobbying deals with the Seychelles and the Northern Mariana Islands and talking up their interests at weekly conservative strategy sessions - what could be more vital to the future of freedom than the commercial interests of these two fine locales?

Before long, folks like Norquist and Abramoff were talking up the virtues of international sons of liberty like Angola's Jonas Savimbi and Congo's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko - all while receiving compensation from these upstanding gentlemen, according to The Legal Times. Only a reactionary could have been so discomfited by Savimbi's little cannibalism problem as to think this was not a daring contribution to the cause of Reaganism.

Again, Republicans have no special aptitude for corruption. Neither do Democrats. But it always comes, and it always (at least in healthy two- or multi-party democracies) leads to the end of the governing coalition.

NOTE: When I say "governing coalition," I don't necessarily mean the kind you get in parliamentary systems, where two or more parties explicitly share power in order to form a government. Yet even in our two-party system, we still have governing coalitions. The two-party system simply masks the fact.

The Republican Party includes everyone from Evangelicals to libertarians. The Democratic Party includes a similar range of interests. Each party is, in and of itself, a coalition of interests.

...on Social Security reform.

Want to become a spy? Apply online:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, under pressure to prevent attacks by Palestinian or Jewish militants ahead of a planned summer pullback from Gaza, launched a recruiting Web site on Tuesday.

With www.shabak.gov.il, the hitherto shadowy Shin Bet follows its overseas equivalent Mossad, and foreign counterparts such as the CIA and Britain's MI5, in making up for potential applicants lost to the private sector by seeking spies on-line.

"Love of humanity, love of nation, love of homeland -- these are the basic requirements for joining the agency family," reads the Web site's foreword by Shin Bet director Avi Dichter.

Yet I somehow doubt we're going to see a Mossad in-house blog any time soon.

The Iraq War has claimed another casualty: Kiefer Sutherland's job.

This looks like good news:

Rubella, better known as German measles, a dreaded disease that contributes hugely to childhood infections and congenital birth complications, has been eradicated from United States and Canada, health authorities of the two countries have said.

Speaking at a conference held at Washington, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Julie Gerberding said, "This is a major milestone in the path toward eliminating rubella in other parts of the world, including the Western Hemisphere."

Now if the Chinese could only get a handle on the avian flu...

An update to yesterday's post on Iraq's fractious tribes -- apparently violence is up:

Two Shia Arab tribes in southern Iraq, the al Halah and the Garamsha, have been skirmishing recently. The fighting has been going on for the past month, and is pretty low level stuff. A few shots here, a few shots there. The tribes were not able to have their traditional private wars when Saddam was in power. Well, at least not unless it suited Saddam’s purposes. But dozens of tribes have long standing feuds with each other, and the post-Saddam press freedom has allowed many Iraqis to say impolitic things about tribal grudges. These comments on radio, or in newspapers, have often escalated, and before you know it, carloads of young men, armed with AK-47s, pistols, RPGs and grenades, are driving off to settle matters.

But things aren't really all that bad, considering:

The tribes are a fact of life in Iraq, but the tribes have always been practical, at least the ones that still survive. Fewer tribes are interested in supporting a Sunni Arab effort to regain control of the country, and more want to make a deal with the new government. Those deals basically mean tribesmen are shooting at government forces less, and at each other, criminals and terrorists, more.

We took the lid off the pressure cooker, and it'll just take time for Iraqi tribes to settle down to a simmer.

Hoo-boy. Even Iran's mullahs are using the "chickenhawk fallacy":

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's supreme leader said Monday he would put on military fatigues and fight to the death if his country were attacked - unlike U.S. ``warmongers'' who he said cower in the rear far from the front lines.

President Bush has said The United States is not preparing to attack Iran, but no option is ruled out if Tehran does not abandon what Washington views as efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is only to generate electricity.

In an apparent bid to boost morale in the face of U.S. pressure over the nuclear program, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mocked Washington in a TV speech, saying its leaders keep to the rear in any confrontation.

``We are not warmongers like U.S. leaders. They are warmongers. They are after war, but we are men of sacrifice,'' Khamenei told a crowd of several thousand in the northeast city of Mashhad.

This, from a guy whose country has been waging a proxy war against Israel for 25 years. What, too afraid to take on 6 million Jews on your own?

A fast digital camera will make you a better photographer.

Don't get me wrong. The best equipment in the world can't train your eye to good composition. A jillion dollar Nikon or Canon still knows nothing about good light. And not even a Hasselblad will take itself out of your kit and go take some pictures for you. All a good camera does it make it easier to take good pictures; it can't take good pictures on its own.

But a good digital camera can help even more.

Photography is an expensive hobby. Once the bug bites you, you're going to spend more money than is wise, and certainly more than you can rationally justify. And that's just on equipment. Once you factor in film, processing, and printing, the costs really add up.

When I was a kid, I always tried to take the One Perfect Picture of whatever it was I was shooting. My hobby exceeded my budget, so I had to make every shot count. Even then, there were more wasted shots than keepers. And now I'll let you in on a little secret: Pros throw away most of their stuff, too.

I've seen a little of the business of photography close up. My cousin Trip von Hoffmann was once one of the premier advertising photographers on the East Coast. (The 1991-92 recession and subsequent – and lasting – advertising doldrums forced him into other work.) My Aunt Barb is a wildlife photographer, and has been for more than three decades. Her son, Brett Drury, is an architectural photographer based in San Diego. I don't know about the more rarified worlds Brett and Trip work(ed) in, but I suspect their technical fields means fewer wasted shots. But that's just not so for someone shooting moving subjects in the real world. Every year, Barb goes on safari to Africa for a month. In that time, she typically shoots 300-500 rolls of film.

Think about that. You go to Walgreen's or wherever, and spend nine bucks to get a roll of film developed. Barb does that at least 300 times in a single month – only she can't go with whoever develops the cheapest. She has to spend real money.

Even though I'm making slightly (ahem) better money than I did at age 12, I still can't (or at least won't) pay for that much film. At $15 a roll (film + printing), I probably wouldn't shoot more than 15 rolls a year. 15 x 36 = 540 pictures. Assuming half of them are crap, that's still only 270 keepers – for a serious hobbyist. Barb shoots that many in a couple-three days in Africa.

Odds are, she's going to take far more keepers than I ever will. Well, she's a pro. It's what she's paid to do.

Then along came digital.

One week in Mexico, and I took over 600 pictures. I didn't worry about the expense. When my memory cards got full, I uploaded them to the iPod and started fresh. Figuring, again, that only half those shots were worth keeping, I still took more pictures in one week than I would have kept in an entire year of shooting on film.

I get to experiment more, too. Without the worry of cost, I can take a picture – or even a dozen – just to see what will happen. If the results suck, there's always the delete button.

And the expense is only part of the equation. A cheap digital camera takes too long getting ready for the next picture. A digital SLR can snap pictures just as fast as I can click them. So now I bracket for exposure and/or depth of field. I play around in manual mode, looking for the perfect combination of composition, shutter speed, and aperture.

In short, I take more pictures. In the end, I take more good pictures.

Digital photography has made me a better photographer; it could make you one, too, if you've caught the bug.

UPDATE: See what I mean?

I must say, I didn't expect this:

BERLIN: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder signaled on Monday that Germany would support Paul Wolfowitz's candidacy to head the World Bank, arguing that the world may be "positively surprised" by the U.S. deputy defense secretary's performance.

President George W. Bush last week put forward Wolfowitz - a principal architect of the Iraq war, which Schröder opposed strongly - as his choice to take over from the World Bank president, James Wolfensohn.

"The American president called me and made the proposal, and I told him that it would not fail because of Germany," Schröder said in an interview with n-tv television. "I even have the impression that we will be positively surprised."

Or maybe Schröder just confused Wolfowitz with Wolf Blitzer.

I don't often praise EJ Dionne's Washington Post columns, but this one is on the money:

Conservatives say that liberals are a strange bunch to be defending the filibuster -- and the conservatives have a point. Liberals fought the filibuster when it was used by the Senate's Southern segregationist minority to stall civil rights bills. I'll acknowledge that when Republicans used the filibuster to obstruct health care reform and other pieces of progressive legislation in the first years of President Bill Clinton's term, I was tempted to support changes in the filibuster rules.

But conservatives who support the nuclear option are utterly unwilling to acknowledge their own convenient change of heart. They defended the filibuster as long as they were in the minority, but would cast it aside now that they have grabbed the presidency and narrow majorities in both houses. The liberals, moreover, never tried to twist the rules to get rid of the filibuster, as the conservatives are doing.

Senate Republicans are acting stupidly. And when I say that, I don't mean some special kind of stupid particular to Republicans. I mean, they're acting like a typical party-in-power.

Ruling parties tend to act as if their rule will last forever. For Exhibit A, I give you California's Democrats. After Pete Wilson destroyed the state Republican Party to get himself reelected in 1994, the Democrats took charge in 1998, with a stunning completeness. They then proceded to rewrite the rules to suit their agenda, and the opposition be damned.

It took them a mere six years to destroy themselves.

Arnold is now the Governator, and his popular reform agenda promises to hurt California Democrats in the same way an Al McGinnis slapshot would your forehead.

Senate Republicans - and Republicans in general - need to remember that no matter how rosy things have looked since 2002, things will change. Democrats will someday regain control of the Senate. When that day comes, Republicans will come to realize their mistake. And they'll realize it the hard way: Too late, when it comes back to bite them on the ass.

The filibuster is a frustrating rule, but it's a good one. Anything, almost anything at all, that slows down the never-ending flood of new legislation is, by my lights, a good thing. And do Republicans really want President Hillary Clinton being able to railroad judges past them?

So I'm disappointed in the Senate Republicans, but I can't say I'm surprised. Majority parties do one of two things. They either act like they'll always run things, or they act in haste on all things beacuse they're afraid that their rule will end too soon.

Either way, their actions tend to be self-defeating -- even at the ballot box.

UPDATE: I don't like to say I told you so, but I did just that over two years ago.

Once spent six months working weekends at an AM oldies station in Fortuna, California. Fun job, bad pay. When I say fun, I mean I got to read Newsweek and Playboy for eight hours while occassionally swapping out tapes on the four reel-to-reel machines. Anyway.

There was a song that got stuck in my head, and 16 years later, I can't remember what the hell it was. Just that it was midtempo and catchy and kinda dark. Think Atlanta Rhythm Section, only not. But certainly released from, say, 1969-1975. For a while I thought maybe the song was "Jackie Blue" by Ozark Mountain Daredevils - so I downloaded it off WinMX. No luck.

The lyric was something about a shy little girl who hides in her room all the time listening to her radio, until she finally gets sucked into it. Maybe literally, although I don't think the lyric was quite clear on that point.

What the hell song am I thinking of? And did it stay with me because it's good, or because it's evil?

It's been a bad day for the EU:

EUROPEAN Union leaders gather in Brussels later today for their annual economic summit in chastened mood. Five years into the Lisbon agenda, the bright millennial dream of transforming the whole community into the world's leading economic powerhouse by 2010 lies in tatters.

Germany, faced with 5.2 million of its citizens out of work and output stubbornly stagnant, is resorting to eye-catching cuts in corporate taxes and has negotiated relief from its serial breaching of the union's Stability and Growth Pact.

France, another serial pact defaulter, is facing growing unrest among its public sector workers and polling evidence that its voters are swinging against endorsement of the proposed new European constitution, when it comes up for ratification there at the end of May.

The two countries which formed the dynamic central axis of the European project for so long are now struggling to come to terms with these stark new realities as their governments prepare for tough domestic election battles in 2006 (Germany) and 2007 (France).

Germany, once a key architect of a rigorous stability and growth pact on the grounds that, without it, less responsible member states might play fast and loose with their deficits, has breached the "borrowing must not exceed 3% of GDP" rule three years in a row and looks like doing it again.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, an outspoken critic of tax competition across the EU, especially since the new former-communist economies of eastern Europe joined and started introducing powerful tax incentives to stimulate development, now seems intent on responding in kind with a headline cut in Germany's large company corporate tax rate, from 25% to 19%.

France, where unemployment has broken through 10%, has also breached the core rule of the pact three times in succession. However, with public sector unions whipping up sustained resistance to reform of pension rights and working conditions, Jacques Chirac, the president, is now openly hostile to any further extension of the European single market to services, for fear that that might destroy even more French jobs.

Is it too late for Paris to discover that you can't complete internationally when competition is all but outlawed at home? Probably. I say that because France is looking to act as enablers to any other dysfunctional EU members looking to break the SGP rules:

Special consideration is also being offered to member states embarked on a range of public investment in areas like research and development, innovation, peace-keeping and pensions reform. But if the summit over the next two days endorses the compromise pact, it will not please everyone.

"Everyone" being code for "all those 'New Europe' members east of the Elbe and south of the Danube." It seems our plucky, former Warsaw Pact comrades are out-innovating Old Europe:

Five years on from Lisbon, one senses that the economic dynamic across the enlarged EU is changing in subtle – but potentially dramatic – ways. The flat-tax revolution that is sweeping the new accession countries and other parts of the former communist bloc is seeing tax rates there on both corporate profits and personal incomes slashed in a bid to kick-start whole economies.

Somewhere, Charles de Gaulle is crying. Napolean and Hitler, too.

When the commanding general of 1st Cavalry Division speaks, you should listen.

Click.

Quietly - and sometimes not so quietly - the fractious tribes of Iraq are sorting things out:

The Sunni Arabs never expected all this armed resistance, to Shia and Kurdish rule, to get Sunnis back in power. What they want is a deal on the question of war crimes trials and revenge in general for their complicity in Saddam's decades of atrocities. The armed resistance gives the Sunni Arabs something to bargain with. Of course, the major members of Saddam's gang will go to trial, but there are thousands of lesser officials, nearly all of them Sunni Arabs, who also have blood on their hands, and real concerns about prosecution (legal, or otherwise.) Negotiations have been intense, and many of the Sunni Arab clans and families involved have begun to actively battle al Qaeda gangs in their neighborhoods. These groups are a mixture of Iraqis and foreigners, and are basically armed religious fanatics. There's no negotiating with them, and the terrorists don't apologize if one of their suicide bombers accidentally kills a lot of Sunni Arab civilians. It's Gods will, and all that. Increasingly, Sunni Arabs are fed up with this, and killing al Qaeda in their vicinity, or driving the fanatics out. It will be difficult to prosecute a lot of lesser war criminals who have recently become heroes by fighting al Qaeda.

And that's how it should be, on two counts. First, it's best if the Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds can settle things (relatively) peacefully among themselves. An imposed solution would most like break at the first stress - see Bosnia in the '90s. Second, there's no need to prosecute every single Baathist in Iraq, especially not ones who have come around to the good side, so to speak. We didn't do so in Germany or Japan after WWII, and that kind of practicality should serve us well in Iraq, too.

But mostly, it seems we're sitting back and let the Iraqis work it out. Smart.

Jeff Quinton proposed to his sweetie, and of course she said yes.

It seems Sunnis and Shiites can get along:

Senior al Qaeda financiers worked more closely with Iranian-backed Islamic radicals in the mid-1990s that previously known, showing that the division between radical Muslim Sunni and Shi'ites was bridged long before the meetings between al Qaeda and Hezbollah in 1996.

Full story here.

Just though I'd pop in to second Martini Boy's "thank you" for the contributions of the New Kids last week. I'd promised Steve months ago to step up with a full week of blogging while he was out chasing mescal worms, but as fate would have it, I spent most of that time on airplanes and in meeting rooms instead. Fortunately, Steve had the pre-bender foresight to invite in a merry band of bloggers who more than managed to pick up the slack for both of us.

So again, thanks, folks.

Oh, and regarding that Goldstein fella... [hankhill] That boy ain't right. [/hankhill]

The headline reads, "Arabs Reject Normalization With Israel." Same old, same old, right? Wrong:

ALGIERS, Algeria Mar 21, 2005 — This week's gathering of Arab leaders won't open the doors to establishing ties with Israel because of opposition from Syria and other hard-line countries. Still, some Arab nations are moving forward with a more welcoming stance on peace.

The Arab League is little more than a middle eastern United Nations, only without any nice countries at all. (Except Iraq, but that's still a work in progress.) No surprise then that they're not about to play nice with Israel.

What is surprising is that only 13 of the 22 member nations are attending the conference, and that the attendees are from the most brutal and oppressive Arab regimes. Even then, "some had predicted the summit, which opens Tuesday, would be 'historic' in dealing with rapid changes in the Middle East." In other words, much as the League doesn't want to rock the boat, it's already been rocked.

That's progress.

Are abstinence pledges keeping kids from having sex? I suppose that depends on what your definition of the word "is" is:

Teens who take abstinence pledges are almost as likely to be infected with sexually transmitted diseases as kids who don't, according to a new study that found pledgers tend to substitute other risky behavior for regular intercourse.

The rates of oral and anal sex among people who planned to stay abstinent until marriage are higher than among other teens who have not had intercourse at all, according to the study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. Researchers found that kids believe engaging in oral and anal sex gets around the rules of abstinence programs by technically preserving their virginity.

Let me get this, uh, straight: Abstience leads to buggery?

Anti-sodomites are gonna be pissed. The funny part is, they're a subset of the same people who thought "just say no" was an effective way to curb teen sex.

Germany and France seem to finally have scuttled the eurozone's Stability and Growth Pact:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Central Bank on Tuesday slammed an accord among finance ministers that relaxes the fiscal rules underpinning the euro by giving governments a range of let-outs to escape punishment over bloated deficits.

The euro zone's central bank issued a statement just hours after ministers struck a deal in Brussels to rework the rules of the EU Stability and Growth Pact after repeated breaches of the pact's deficit limits by Germany, France and others.

``The Governing Council of the ECB is seriously concerned about the proposed changes to the Stability and Growth Pact,'' said the ECB, which is independent and sets interest rates for the entire 12-nation euro area.

Want to know the irony of all this? Franco-German deficit spending will likely make the euro stronger vis-a-vis the dollar.

Let me explain. The ECB is much more hamstrung than our Federal Reserve when it comes to interest rates and inflation. Berlin and Paris spending too much? The ECB will jack up rates. Higher rates mean higher yields on the bonds used to finance those deficits. In the US, the Fed is usually more concerned with growth than with inflation -- and it can afford to be, given that American workers outperform European workers. (Productivity helps keep a lid on inflation.) With less inflation risk, the Fed can keep - and has kept - American interest rates low. Lower rates mean lower yields.

And so the euro gains against the dollar. After all, it pays better.

Meanwhile, the US economy continues to create much more wealth and many more jobs than the Eurozone has managed since the "economic miracle" ended 30 years ago. Since then, the dollar has been in a long term decline.

Ironic, isn't it? The worse Europe's economy performs, the more it costs us to buy their stuff.

NOTE: Yes, I know there are lots of other factors involved here. I'm just looking at one of them.

I'm pretty sure Jeff left out a Hannity.

Dan Drezner has everything you need to know about the state of "Iraqification" in a single post.

NOTE: Know what phrase I'm sick of hearing? "Exit strategy." Whatever happened to "winning?" As noted elsewhere, we had no exit strategy from Normandy. Iraq is our beachhead into the Arab world.

Just how badly did Vlad Putin overplay his hand in Ukraine last year? Read:

KIEV, March 21 (Itar-Tass) - Ukraine is steering firmly towards eurointegration, President Viktor Yushchenko said at a meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld.

“We are resolutely minded to walk the road to the EU. We are aware this is going to be a tough journey. We shall do everything to build a Europe at home,” Yushchenko said.

Historically, Moscow has simply assumed Ukraine was under its thumb. "Ukrainian" was considered a fake nationality under the Czars, when they were referred to as "Little Russians" (as opposed to the "Great Russians" of Muscovy). Under the Kommisars, things were worse. Under Putin, Ukraine is looking more towards Brussels than Moscow - and there doesn't seem to be a thing Moscow can do.

What I love about the whole thing is reports like this one:

Are we Americans hypocrites of global democracy?

Consider what we have apparently been up to in Ukraine.

According to the Guardian and other sources, NED – the National Endowment for Democracy – and USAid, Freedom House, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and George Soros' Open Society Institute all pumped money or sent agents into Kiev to defeat the government-backed Viktor Yanukovich and elect Viktor Yushchenko as president. Allegedly in on the scheme is the supposedly objective and neutral Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

They say that like it's a bad thing. And yet, look at where the anti-Americanism is to be found:

Even as Putin was shaking hands with U.S. President George W. Bush in Bratislava on 24 February and emphasizing the myriad shared interests of Russia and the United States, a surprising wave of seemingly Kremlin-inspired anti-Americanism was sweeping through Russian domestic politics. Commentators, officials, and others began speaking in chorus about purported U.S. designs to install a pro-Western leader in Moscow, accusations that were buttressed by charges that the CIA had already done as much in Tbilisi and Kyiv.

That's right -- the anti-American sentiment isn't in Ukraine, where we helped the good guys. It's in Moscow. And it seems to be more the result of flame-fanning by Putin than it is a naturally-occuring sentiment.

Or maybe it's just the money that matters:

The vast public relations effort that went into building up the so-called "Orange Revolution" as a paragon of the pro-Western, pro-democracy movement supposedly breaking out all over the world won't be known for years, but we do know that a great deal of it was funded by U.S. tax dollars. As congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), put it:

"We do not know exactly how many millions – or tens of millions – of dollars the United States government spent on the presidential election in Ukraine. We do know that much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate, and that through a series of cut-out non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – both American and Ukrainian – millions of dollars ended up in support of the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko."

Because, you know, heaven forbid that the US government spend some money to defend democracy abroad - at a time when the children of autocracies are knocking down our office towers. That would be wrong.

Me, I'm just thankful that this one time, the CIA and Washington seem to have gotten a positive result for a minimal investment.

You know it's a big case when the accused hasn't even been on trial, and already his lawyers have been kicked in the SCOTUS:

The Supreme Court Monday rejected the appeal of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The justices announced their decision Monday after meeting privately Friday to discuss the case.

Moussaoui, an admitted member of al Qaeda, the Muslim terrorist group linked to the September 11 attacks, had asked the court to rule on whether his right to a fair trial hinges on obtaining testimony from other al Qaeda detainees who, he believes, would exonerate him.

Still no clue when we'll actually be able to put the bastard on trial...

Germany's Pink-Green coalition government continues to push for renewed arms sales to China, but nasty right-wingers say it's a bad idea:

''This is not the right time to lift the embargo," Friedbert Pflueger, foreign affairs spokesman for the Christian Democrats, said in an interview.

''It sends the wrong signal to China. It is also damaging for Europe's relations with the United States. We are going to bring this issue to the parliament and vote on the matter."

The European Union imposed the arms embargo after the Tiananmen Square massacres in 1989. Pushed by France and Germany, which have substantial economic interests in China and whose leaders are eager to increase sluggish growth rates, the EU is preparing to lift the embargo, saying the human rights situation in China has improved.

Remember when the lefties told us selling arms to dictators was a bad idea? Remember when righties were accused of being little more than shameless money grubbers with no interest in human rights?

Remember that? Wasn't that cool?

From Drudge:

**Exclusive**

PLAYGIRL editor-in-chief Michele Zipp has been stripped of her duties after she revealed how she voted Republican in the 2004 election.

Zipp, in an e-mail, claims she was fired after an onslaught of liberal backlash.

"Hello Drudge,

"After your coverage of my article about coming out and voting Republican, I did receive many letters of support from fellow Republican voters, but it was not without repercussions. Criticism from the liberal left ensued. A few days after the onslaught of liberal backlash, I was released from my duties at Playgirl magazine.

"After underlings expressed their disinterest of working for an outed Republican editor, I have a strong suspicion that my position was no longer valued by Playgirl executives. I also received a phone call from a leading official from Playgirl magazine, in which he stated with a laugh, "I wouldn't have hired you if I knew you were a Republican.

"I just wanted to let you know of the fear the liberal left has about a woman with power possessing Republican views."

Developing...

Meanwhile, Ward Churchill -- known liar and alleged plagiarist and human being -- is still employed by the University of Colorado.

Remember wheh Communists had all the cool culture? Movies by Eisenstein, bold graphic art on propaganda posters, truly heroic sculpture... you get the idea.

(Hell, up until fairly recently, you couldn't even find a decent right-leaning movie in this country. If our artists weren't all capital-C Commies, they sure seemed to travel that direction.)

So it's with no small amount of pleasure that I tell you that the tide has turned: The Communists can't even do decent web design any more.

Mark Steyn:

Sending John Bolton to be ambassador to the U.N. is like ... putting Sudan and Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission. Or letting Saddam's Iraq chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Or sending a bunch of child-sex fiends to man U.N. operations in the Congo. And the Central African Republic. And Sierra Leone, and Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Kosovo, and pretty much everywhere else.

All of the above happened without the U.N. fetishists running around shrieking hysterically. Why should America be the only country not to enjoy an uproarious joke at the U.N.'s expense?

Why? Because we're expected to pay 25% of the dues, sit down, and shut up. But where's the fun in that?

I'm tan, rested and ready to blog -- and maybe post a few pictures, once I finish sorting them.

Thanks to Will and Jeralyn and Jeff and La Shawn and Andy and Kate for filling in while I was away. Looks like they didn't trash the place too badly, which really is the only disappointment of the vacation.

Seriously, guys: Thanks.

Back with fresh stuff right after my morning coffee. Monday morning. Really.