Johnny gets a haircut -- and frikkin other things, too.

Grow up Sox fans. Just frikkin grow up. Damon is going to make $3 million more each year playing for the Yankees than he was going to playing for the Sox. That is a whole lot of salad. It will also pay for an excellent reliever, a good closer and a decent outfielder. Maybe not a 100 rbi, .300 batter, but probably 80 rbis and .280. If as a result you get a better bullpen, you still win. Damon simply was not worth the cash. And he has an arm that is in question. And an ego that knows no bounds. Nobody is irreplaceable, not Damon, not Ramirez. Whew.

Lets get rid of Manny too and presto! We have a war chest to snag some decent players. I know that the trading season is running late, but there is always talent available, you just need a good Gm to spot it ... oh, yeah. I forgot. Oh, well.
I cannot wait until the Kaiser meets with his new traitorous Sox import: "You. Get a haircut. Hey, just a minute, before you run off and play ... shut your mouth too. You're a Yankee now and that means you gotta play the party line. Idiot." I predict tears.

Speaking of tears ... finally a District Court Judge with a serious pair on him (coulda been her too -- remember Kimba Wood?). Intelligent Design? Pshaw!! I poop on your silly notions, religious fanatics! I have to read this opinion. From what I have gathered, this ought to make seriously amusing reading.

Just a thought: yesterday while driving through the People's Republic of Cambridge, I saw one of those classic Subarus, you know, the ones with all the stickers on the back? To wit: "celebrate diversity" and "more trees and less bush" (irony there that the diverse driver was female????) and other left wing slogans. So the driver is undoubtedly Democrat. Ok, so anti-war too ("peace is patriotic" sticker). But here is the kicker: the people that we are at war with are pretty anti-feminist. In fact, you could say that they would rather have them barefoot and in the kitchen with a curtain/rug over their heads. But this does not even contemplate the notion of two females engaging in intimate acts. That would mean a short-cut to visiting Allah, by way of the dude in the village square with the sword. So there we are, fighting a war that they are against, to defend their rights to unisex congress, among others, while they advocate peace and understanding. Understanding: the diverse need to understand that their champions are in fact the much reviled right. The left would, by its very inaction consign them to the front of the line when the faithful start handing out tickets on the Allah express.

What else? Oh yeah ... Saddam's complaining that American tourtured him. He looks to be in one piece, his tongue wags, he has two eyes to see with, 10 fingers/thumbs, no obvious broken bones ... what the fug has he to complain about? Huh? And Mr. Hussein, even if you showed up at court with no eyes, ears, fingernails, digits or unable to stand, that would be too good for you. How dare you claim YOUR rights were violation by torture. That is simply too much. Even that news agencies report this shit is too much. For JHC's sake, he'd swear the Pope did it if it would gain him more press in the Arab world and somehow make him look like the afflicted one. Lets just shoot him.

So what -- wiretaps

A busy period just past so no blogs.

But this morning I can't help but give a big "so what" to the wiretap thing that represents the latest media attempt to hang Bush. Oh, but the left cries "its illegal!!" And right wingers puff up and proclaim that it was necessary for national security. You're both correct.

But so what? Look, if you have to wait for the US court system to grant you a pass to listen, you will never hear a thing, and we would leave ourselves open to any Abdul, Rahman or Harry that wants to bomb us. The world should have learned from Spain and London, that our friendly terrorist use the phones -- particularly cell phones -- to do their work. So let's listen for patterns (yes, isn't that some form of cyber-profiling) to try and spot who is busy plotting against us.

The NSA is possibly the single largest "wiretap" organization in the world -- or even the rest of the world combined. They are pretty good at what they do. So we should use them. And not just for foreign traffic or traffic to and from foreign jurisdictions, but internally too. I like the idea of 72 hours and then they have to go to a judge -- but that gives them a leg up to find out what it up. And they can't do 71 hours, wait for an hour and then 71 more hours. 72 hours and you that's it: warrant or hang up. In the modern super-paced world we cannot depend on old fashioned notions of due process and search and seizure. We'll lose the war that way. But we can demand due process and quash any evidence that was obtained in advance of the warrant: if you are listening for 6 hours and the stuff is good -- go to the judge if you want to use the evidence. Most often however, this is not the sort of evidence to be used in a court room anyway, so who cares about admissibility of the evidence? The 4th Amendment would not really apply in the first place. It is more about finding out what you need to know to prevent an attack: that is in the national interest. And if you are just Joe Shmoe walking down the street talking about drugs ... which you should not be anyway, you are an idiot for using your mobile phone, you are also protected from the use of that information as evidence against you in a court of law. But perhaps, the Fuzz could be waiting for you when you next take a shipment of herb: I would not be against that.... A slippery slope to be sure, but if you keep your nose clean, so what?

The Left at the trough

Why is it that whenever we hear about a politician sticking his/her nose in the trough of corporate greed it seems always to be a rightwinger or conservative? Is it because it is only the conservatives that do it? Or is it because our reflexively dogmatic left wing press cannot bear to point out that everyone does it, including their heros.

Gerhard Shroeder was the Chancellor of Germany. A dyed-in-the-wool lefty if there ever was one. SPD all the way (that is the German socialist party). During his tenure in office, he was ever leaning towards Moscow and against whatever the US might have in mind. "Oh, that stands to reason," you say. "It follows in the footsteps of Willie Brandt's 'Ostpolitik' and 'Realpolitik.' And anyway, they have to be careful around their large neighbor to the East.

Never mind that the US was their to guarantee their freedom for 40 years from Moscow. Never mind that it was the US that eventually forced the walls of communism to fall. Germany has always voted in their best immediate (financial) interests. Just like the French. No wonder these two fought each other so often for so many years: you've just got to be in conflict when you each are trying to take over the world socially, economically and culturally -- not to mention militarily.

So Mr. Schroeder was a keen champion of the new trans-European gas pipeline from Russia to the West. Except that old pipeline crossed several former "allies" of Moscow on its way West. So the new pipeline was placed across the bottom of the Baltic Sea on its way to Germany -- at a staggering increase in cost to the German taxpayer. All of which only serves to guarantee Germany's supply of gas (and an increasing dependency on Russian favor), cut out the risk of offending Poland, Ukraine, and some other smaller states, and boost GAZPROM (they're Russian and state controlled) stock. So now Russia can squeeze its neighbors without hurting Germany at the same time. Convenient.

Now that Mr. Schroeder is unemployed -- having lost to Ms. Merkel, he is joining GAZPROM! That's convenient too. Join the robber barons that you just spent time protecting in screwing your former employers ... the German people. But it gets better: the CEO of the GAZPROM led consortium is another German, formerly an "East German" and a STAZI operative friendly with Putin -- who served in the former East Germany as KGB officer. So, yessir folks, if you want to see a politician at the trough, this is as good an example as you will EVER see. And redder than red. In fact, given the former occupations of the management there, you'd be hard pressed to find redder. But then again, aren't these the sort of people who abided by Lenin's maxim of the useful idiots? BTW. Stick that in your granola.

Tookie

So they are going to kill another man because of something he did (or didn't) some 25+ years ago. Uh huh.

As I understand it, he has never shown remorse or admitted guilt. But the case against him appears to have been relatively solid ... but not a lock. If it were a lock, then the failure to show remorse could act as the trigger to deny clemency. By "lock" I mean more or less incontrovertible evidence that he did it. But there's no lock. And no remorse. Therefore the possibility that he didn't do it? How can you have remorse for something that you didn't do?

Arnold, you are screwing up here.

But where do we draw the line? Most people that are against the death penalty would without hesitation fry a child molester, or terrorist. But, where that is not a lock ... would they? Or what is the strength of their belief in the notion that killing another human, even as the state is wrong? Should the people that arm teenagers with suicide bombs be put to death? Should a founder of a gang that preaches violence and practices it today be put to death -- for murder? Tookie is photogenic and media savvy. Does that mitigate the crime of which he is convicted?

Do civilized people put other people to death?

Its starting to look dark outside....

From the Globe 12/9/05:

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts has dropped 7 percent in the past two months, to $349,000 for sales that closed in October. But reductions in asking prices of 10 percent or 20 percent are now common in both high and moderately priced neighborhoods, according to real estate agents and listings of homes for sale. In Cambridge, price cuts averaged $300,000 in a sampling of a dozen houses listed in the $1.25 million to $4.3 million price range. In suburbs like Tewksbury and Hopkinton, homes originally listed for around $500,000 have been slashed to the low $400,000s.

''The evidence -- both early data and the anecdotes -- are pointing more toward a hard rather than a soft landing" in the housing market, said Nicholas Perna, an economic consultant in Ridgefield, Conn. ''Prices could come down. Could it be 10 to 15 percent? There's no way of knowing, but what we're getting is more clues that you've got a decline in prices underway.
______________________

So, what else is new? Ladies and gents, boys and girls, this is not just a blip from which your treasured asset will suddenly emerge, phoenix-like, shining with new accrued value. It is the start of a re-adjustment. Back to reality. A manifestation of the fact that Boston is no longer the center of anything, let alone the east coast alternative to Silicon Valley. Boston is a branch office town.

There is nothing at all that pulls the money to Boston. Boston as a business center only exists to serve the regional commerce and trade (such as it is) that is its natural due as a result of geography. With the exception of Fidelity, MFS and a few others, Boston is outlying service center for that which is Delaware registered and New York headquartered. Implicit in that remark is the awareness that if you kill off those firms, or otherwise make the business environment too hostile as a result of social regulation and taxation, you have nothing left but a regional college town. A big one to be sure, but ....

The next tier to leave will be the service firms that make their livings from what used to be a thriving banking and financial center: the law firms go "tits-up." There will be some survivors, of course. The academic hub (that is the only true hub that Boston has) will always spin out start-ups that are linked by the developmental umbilical cord to the research labs. These creations will need IP and patent representation, so some lawyers will survive, but kiss goodbye to the classic large firm like Testa. As the business environment gets progressively more hostile in response to the need to maintain the tax and services base, more business will depart. As Boston experiences these natural responses of rational business decisions, property prices will continue to tumble, deepening the chasm, putting more and more people into the deficit column -- creating the incentive to leave to go live someplace warm, at least.

Eventually, an equilibrium will be reached, presumably after some overshoot on the downside ... but you can kiss the notion of a soft landing goodbye. In some other regions, perhaps. But not here. We have a bill to pay and the piper is standing here with his hand outstretched. I have mentioned before that it only takes a good solid nudge to precipitate and then accelerate the slide. It may be happening without anything so dire as the H5N1 variety (alhtough as I noted yesterday, people are waking up to that one), but a harsh winter may be enough.

Oh, you just figured that out?

The following is a poached article from Knight Ridder and on various online newspaper editions (San Jose News, Seattle Post, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.) Read my blog and you'd have read this a month ago (of course written in my own delectable terrorist style).

WASHINGTON - A severe avian flu outbreak would cost the U.S. economy $625 billion - about 5 percent of the gross domestic product - as employers struggled with absenteeism, lost production and a sharp decline in consumer spending, a new government report has found.

The economic impact, driven in part by fear and confusion, would be equivalent to a recession, according to the Congressional Budget Office report. The estimates are based on a pandemic that would sicken 90 million people in the United States and kill about 2 million.

The findings are the government's first attempt at a detailed look at the cost of what could be the most devastating public-health threat in nearly a century. The analysis, while neither definitive nor exact, provides a clear understanding in dollar terms of why an influenza pandemic presents not only a health crisis but also a threat to national security and the economy.

The CBO report estimates that 30 percent of the American population would become ill in a three-month outbreak, and about one-third of the U.S. work force would miss three weeks of work.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who requested the CBO report, told a National Press Club gathering Thursday that the findings were a "a grim prognosis" for a nation that's struggling to regain its economic footing.

"Voluntary quarantining would reduce turnout at restaurants, shopping malls, sporting events, churches and schools. Demand would fall by 80 percent in entertainment, arts, recreation, restaurants and lodging for a period of up to three months. Retail trade would fall by 25 percent. The demand for medical and hospital services would surge. And a fear of travel, coupled with likely government-imposed restrictions, would lead to a dramatic decline in domestic travel as well as international travel," Frist said.

Avian flu has been centered mainly in Southeast Asia but is moving westward through migratory birds. The disease is transmitted from animal to animal, mostly among birds. Humans are contracting the highly lethal disease after close contact with infected animals.

If the virus, known as H5N1, mutates into a form that passes easily from person to person, the world would be hit with a catastrophic pandemic because virtually no one would have immunity to the new virus.

To date, 133 people in five Asian countries have contracted the avian flu virus and 68 have died, according to the World Health Organization.

In testimony Thursday on Capitol Hill, Dr. Michael Osterholm told the House International Relations Committee that a U.S. flu pandemic would affect the world.

"The global economy will literally shut down," said Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "Pharmaceutical supplies, including drugs and very important childhood vaccines not intended for influenza but for our everyday lives, will be in extreme short supply, if available at all. Health-care systems will be overwhelmed and, frankly, panic will reign."

The CBO report estimates that a mild outbreak, similar to the 1968 flu pandemic, would infect 75 million people, kill 100,000 and cost the economy $160 billion, about 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services.

The Bush administration has asked Congress for $7.1 billion to prepare for a flu pandemic. Part of it would go to increase the U.S. stockpile of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu from 2.3 million full treatments to 81 million.

President Bush also wants $1.2 billion to purchase 20 million full treatments of an experimental H5N1 vaccine and $2.8 billion for research into a cell-based flu vaccine that would allow American manufacturers to produce enough for the entire U.S. population within six months of a flu outbreak.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said the CBO report shows "it is time for Congress to act on the president's request so we can immediately begin to implement our plans to prevent and contain a pandemic."

Roche Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Tamiflu, is in discussions with several drug companies, including Teva Pharmaceuticals and Mylan Laboratories, to increase production of Tamiflu as demand increases worldwide, Roche spokesman Terry Hurley said.

Shoot 'em up

Yes, an "innocent" man died yesterday when federal air marshalls terminated him. And predictably, the liberal press is all over the various responsible fedeal agencies and people are aghast: "the poor man was murdered."

Folks, pull your heads out of your asses and listen up. The air marshalls did the right thing. I am sorry but when someone runs from the law, refuses to give up even when cornered and then reaches into a carry-on that the airmarshalls have every reason to believe may contain an explosive device ... then they run the risk of getting shot, mental illness or not.

Witnesses say that the man's wife cried out that he was mentally ill and had not taken his meds -- and that he did not have a bomb. In the environment of today, even joking that a bomb is anywhere near an airport will earn you a trip to the slammer. Do not pass go, do not collect 200. Why should anyone listen to her? Wouldn't that be a good ploy to downplay a discovery? And if the dude is mentally ill, who is to say that he has not decided that that particular flight would be a good one to end his life on? One person's statement that another person is not a risk hardly qualifies as a surety on which the lives of hundreds could depend.

Either you have air marshalls on board who are charged with the type of action that transpired yesterday, or you don't. Either you choose to protect our domestic and international flights from potential attack, or you go back to the box cutter days. A bolted cockpit door would have relatively small chance to protect a plane from a small Semtex device. A fed says "drop it" and you better believe that agent. Our society cannot make allowances for the fact that someone may have "lost it" when the safety of the public at large is at stake. It is indeed too bad that mental illness should have, in the end, caused that fellow's demise. But that is not the responsibility of a federal agency to determine in advance. And if there had been a bomb and it was triggered killing potentially hundreds of innocent people and it transpired that someone had hestitated to act and ultimately such action could have prevented the slaughter ... those self same second guess artists (chiefly looking for another reason to deride our government) would be all over it as "another failure to protect us. Boosh should have known."

You don't like it -- drive or take the bus.

U2 Vertigo

What an appropriate name. Watching U2 from a friend's box last night at the Garden was a vertigo inducing experience: but the location of the box may only be the half of it. Yes, it was the classic rock and roll stadium anthem show. Bono was in fine form, but you know, for all his prancing around the stage, it was his other band members that made the greatest impression on me.

Larry Mullen is simply brilliant, providing the driving beat that makes the songs possible. Brilliant. The Edge was strident, no less a force than Bono's voice: that guitar sings in a particularly Celtic fashion that send shivers up my spine. More on that later. Adam Clayton was similarly powerful, his bass guitar providing the mellowness that reinforces that beat. Essentially, without their genius (I am sorry all music snobs, they are in fact that good), Bono would merely be a good singer. Thats all. The whole is truly greater than the parts.

Interestingly, the concert was an all-northern European affair. There was almost no African-Americans to be seen. I saw two. Total. U2's impact cannot be that directed ... can it? What was even weirder was the impact the martial quality of the Celtic music: the crowd went ballistic when they played Sunday, Bloody Sunday. It seemed to tune in to the psyche of the crowd. Note, that this was not dance music, or R&B ... that is, something to feel good to. This was the descendent or derivative of war music. Derivative of the amping of the soul to go forth unto the world and smite it. Very different from soul ... but a Celtic musical version conveying the message of gangster rap. Mess with me and some shit's gonna come down. For white Celts/Anglo-saxons. And the mood was strong. Celtic music you say ... what in @#$% can he mean. Listen to the Edge and feels the riffs, listen to those drums ... that is pure Ireland there, folks. People with red hair, beards and freckles. Who in years past carried swords, hammers and axes. People who to this day enjoy gaelic football and hurley (think about carrying a stick and being able to whack someone over the head with it without incurring a penalty). And U2 seems to speak to those of Scottish extract, too, along with Brits, Swedes, Danes, Germans and Dutchmen. But this observation would probably wound the band members grievously: they could in no way be called racist. And I hope that nobody presumes or assumes the music to be. Which sets up an interesting tension between message and music.

There were some latinos there too, but few. Few, also, people of more Mediterranean backgrounds -- at least by appearance. And you know, the music did not have latin or southern heat, either, let alone any african-american soul. I just couldn't hear any in it. Even the song about the killing of MLK (Pride (in the name of love))... its Irish, the driving drum beat bringing to mind not a Memphis sky, but the Ring of Kerry. Perhaps that is the result of seeing them in Boston, a very segregated place.

All in all pretty weird. Bono strutting about the stage, secure in the knowledge that he is the superstar he thinks he is. The frontman for what is arguably the world's most "important" rock and roll band. Or music act, event/group of any form or kind. That's a rush. But he also believes deeply in what he preaches. That in of itself puts him/U2 apart from the rest.

But the music was merely so-so.

So why are we here?

Yes, I know, this is the big one and the answer is "42."

But looking at my daughter today, you ask the question. You cannot avoid it. What is it that makes up the human intelligence. A good friend told me yesterday that the person is really made up of memories: that fashions the great part of who we are. Cna't really argue with that much. But it still poses the questions of greater purpose. Procreation is a part - from that point of view the gay lifestyle cannot add up. But if we presume different wiring, then maybe.

But why? Why are we locked in age-old conflict and struggle? Why do ostensibly sane people want to commit mass murders? Why do people create spam that has no link, cannot result in commercial interaction, and yet is devious enough to elude the firewall? What's the point?

We have that white stuff on the ground here in Boston again. Another cycle of cold and frozen has arrived. My kitchen is still not done. I should really put winter tires on my car. I just re-discovered the pleasure of the 7Deadly Zins. My oldest wants a cell phone. Why?

If you know of any answers to these, e-mail, me.

The press pushes its agenda

"During his 15 years on the federal bench, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr. has worked quietly but resolutely to weave a conservative legal agenda into the fabric of the nation's laws." So writes Stephen Henderson for Knight Ridder in a story widely picked up by the nation's press.

That is the lead off. Later in the article, Mr. Henderson allows that Judge Alito has, according to just about everyone that has ever worked for or with him, only ever applied the law to the cases on which he worked and which were brought before him. He has never in any instance that anyone can point to applied a political view to a case: inverse judicial activism, if you will.

Judge Alito is then a conservative ... a conservative judge who does not read more into a situation regarding individual rights than is already present. He does not find penumbras of protection where other more activist (what we erroneously call "liberal") judges are able to stretch the meaning of laws to "protect" the individual. Never mind that the protection afforded was never in the minds of representatives who drafted the laws in the first place, the "liberal" judges see fit to extend coverage to where they presume it should have extended: judicial activism.

For his rational and clear thought Alito risks a political session in the pillory -- look that word up if you do not know exactly what it means -- because the press and the knee-jerk leftists who control it wants you to believe that you are at risk if Alito is elevated to the Supreme Court. At risk of what? Well, of having the laws of the United States applied and put into effect as drafted and intended by the legislature. That is, as intended by the people who are elected by us to draft such laws. The risk here is that Congress, the Senate and the Executive Branch are idiots -- and if that is the case, then it is our fault, not the fault of people like Sam Alito.

Those that support judicial activism eagerly point out that in fact the Executive Branch is populated by idiots ... well, I can't totally disagree, but then I really don't see where this is new. In fact, I can't really remember in my life (which covers back to Eisenhower) where an idiot has not been in the White House, accompanied by toadying sycophants and assorted lunatics. Far from being the exception, Dubbya's White House is really only the norm -- and please, before you trot out Pope Bill and Saint Hillary, remember getting a hummer under your desk from an intern while taking calls from Senators does not exactly model primo frontal cortex decision making. And staying with him does not show strength of character, but rather a purient lust for power.

But let's get back to the root of Alito-fear: Roe. And the unfettered right to abortion no matter how and where. If you are a pro-lifer, that right is the unfettered right to commit murder and slaughter the unborn. If you are pro-choice, it is the unfettered right to determine what happens to your body and what may or may not be able to grow within it -- found under the penumbra of PRIVACY.

Privacy and self determination ... reductio ab absurdum this right also would entail the right to commit suicide, perform any manner of self mutilation, or perhaps do anything so long as no-one else is harmed. Ah-hah say the right to lifers, you see it is precisely at that point where the harm occurs: you are killing another human being. Alito appears to say that the Constitution does not directly address this one way or the other, and certainly does not do so as it regards privacy. And this scares the crap out of the left -- its a domino theory, First we lose abortion, then a whole ton of other rights. But that is not the case. Where a right is directly given, Alito is your most rabid supporter: his record on First Amendment speech issues and freedom of religion is spotless. He is one of the most ardent protectors of these rights on the bench today. I like that. You want Alito to protect the right to abortion, then let's pass the laws that expressly permit it. It is up to us and the legistlature. We can enshrine it in the Constitution too.

Don't shoot Alito because he refuses to step in to correct the flaws already in the system by exercising power that should not be his to exert in the first place and in of themselves may be unconstitutional. If we cannot pass the appropriate laws to protect abortion rights as a federal concept, then if Roe goes down, it will be a State's rights issue. Certain states may outright ban it. Other (in my opinion the more enlightened ones) will protect these rights. That is democracy and our federal system in action.

It is simply not OK to say that because the result is correct that we can overlook flaws or errors in our system. That is not the path of clear and evenly-applied laws which will ensure the right access them. It hurts all of us. We may need to take a step back to get things right. One of those painful exorcisms may be the need to get rid of activist judges and bring the focus back to a representative system of intelligent and committed law makers who do their jobs rather than worrying about their pork ration. But the press does not want to go there. That would hurt them too. Imagine having to tell the truth? How could the New York Times manage?

NPR -- Official organ of disinformation

By accident this morning I was listening to Boston's NPR station while driving in the car (90.0 WBUR). Featured was an interview with a Arab "journalist" who was describing the conditions in Iraq. He had, apparently, been in Iraq "doing research" for almost two years since the fall of Saddam.

This "gentleman" was telling a rapt interviewer (who was breathless, with comments praising the courage involved) about his travels around Tikrit and through the zones of conflict. He was telling the interviewer how brainless and ignorant the US troops were. He recalled with amusement the irony of conferring with persons hostile to the US presence right by the side of the road as US troops in armored vehicles rolled by them. He stated how foolish the troops are (and the whole US presence is) with no understanding of the people, the inability to speak Arabic and the incompetence generally of Americans in Iraq.

For 10 minutes the interviewer fawned over the friendly witness -- more like fed him questions designed to elicit a view that the US are ciminals, Saddam was the rightful ruler, and that the people are entirely against the US presence. Then, the interviewer states, "and you have a book just out, 'Inside the Resistance....' The title uses the word "resistance...." "Well it is a resistance" explained the author. "The Iraqi people are resisting an outside invader."

If NPR had started the interview with this information, perhaps the listening audience would have been alerted that this author's views were, of necessity, slanted against the US and our actions there. But no, better to present this as the view generated by unbiased research of a neutral party, and slip in the information of bias at the end when the listener has already glazed over, and accepted as truth the "facts" and views espoused by the author.

Let's be clear about this: if this cat was walking about the streets of Tikrit, as he avers, he is a Saddam loyalist, most likely a Baathist and a Sunni hostile to the US right from the get-go. Otherwise he would be dead. Plain and simple.

Secondly, the Iraqis have held an election, widely acknowledged as fair and (mostly) untainted. They have a constitution now, as well. All this may be ill-suited to a culture given to dictatorial rule, oppression and murder, but it exists and even the most fervent leftist should be able to accept and take these facts on board. The Sunnis may not dig being in the minority to the Shias, but that's democracy in action. The people in charge of the government there are Iraqis -- not the US, although it is the presence of US troops that enforce the will of the electorate -- a situation I am VERY keen to remedy. But "resistance?" Who the $$$$ do you think you are kidding? These are foreign insurgents or ex-Baath party cronies of Saddam, funded by Saudis and other Ghaleegies, dedicated to the killing of Americans and all westerners they can possibly manage. The islamic fighters are dedicated to the greater jihad. The Baathists just want to establish another Saddam-style dictatorship where they lived a lot better of the backs of the majority Shias. But the primary victims of their actions are fellow Muslims, Arabs and native Iraqis. Zarqawi isn't even Iraqi - he is Jordanian. The few suicide bombers they have managed to capture have been largly confused teenagers and often from places like Saudi Arabia. Resistance? A person I respect and who is very connected with sources in Iraq tells me that the people hired to run the insurgency are in fact from South Africa -- white mercenaries oeprating in Damascus. But of course we don't want to offend them as a matter of diplomatic BS. But resistance?

And this rubbish, this leftist crap is broadcast on NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO (supported by listeners like you)???? Tokyo Rose is alive and well and living in Boston working for WBUR. And the scary part is how well they craft their "news" to sound reasonable -- reasonable, that is, until you dissect it and expose it for the propaganda that it is.