Here’s Mark Steyn on the European response to Arnold’s election. His conclusion?

”California's problem was that it was beginning to take on the characteristics of an EU state, not just in its fiscal incoherence but in its assumption that politics was a private dialogue between a lifelong political class and a like-minded media. It would be too much to expect Le Monde and the BBC to stop being condescending about American electorates. But they might draw a lesson and cease being such snots about their own.”

So I get to post a self-serving email to:

Hi Jonah,

I just read your corner comment about the hotline mistake and the example emails from your lefty readers. I am a political centrist and I'm comfortable saying that I can see through spin, propaganda, and lies as well as anyone. I must disagree with the delusional leftist jokers who emailed you because I consider you a very honest conservative. In no way do I see you as just a spinning/BS'ing republican party hack.

I've discovered why so many foul-mouthed buffoons are sending me this hysterical, unhinged nonsense about Dean (I don't mean the correction stuff, that's fair game. I mean the aggressive stupidity and crudity).

They're typical "Atrios" readers. My apologies to Dean fans. It turns out Dean-support isn't the common denominator at all. It's the sort of folks who think it takes a lot of cleverness to write like a ninth-grader who just learned the F word.

I've gotten a lot of email from Dean supporters saying I got it wrong about his "gaffe" with the Hispanic questioner. Apparently Dean had conflated answers to two different questioners. His reference to "your income level" was a reference to a previous question. I relied on the Hotline for the facts, something I am -- and will continue to be -- completely comfortable doing. The Hotline, if you didn't know, is an entirely non-partisan Washington tipsheet owned by the National Journal (which costs quite a bit to subscribe to). But in this case they got it wrong and therefor so did I.

What I find hilarious, however, is the near hysteria of the Dean emailers. I can't print many of them because of the language. But here's two that will give you the flavor:

Mr. Goldberg,

Here is the woman's question on Medicare from the recent Democratic debate:

"QUESTION: Yes. Forgive me for having to read this.

I am a stroke survivor, I am disabled and on a fixed income. For seven
months I went without prescription medication because we cannot afford supplemental insurance to my Medicare.

I chose food over medicine. How can you assure me and the many other voters -- there's millions like me -- that you empathize with my hardship and as president you will make certain this won't happen to any other American? Thank you."

She said she was on a fixed income, and Dean remembered that when he answered the question. FIXED INCOME. You were WRONG when you called Dean's answer racist responding to a Latina. Are you going to correct your gross error? I didn't think so. It would just spoil your record of spreading untruths. You and your ilk are what make this country rotten.
Sincerely,
[Name withheld]

And this one sent to the Corner:

Jonah obviously couldn't be bothered to track multiple questioners and a multi-part response from Gov. Dean. Hint, Jonah-boy, read the transcript and see if you can spot your error. Or was it an error, and not a spin-driven lie????

Disgustedly,

[Name withheld],

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eager to please a key Florida constituency, President George W. Bush directed his secretary of state and his Cuban-born housing secretary Friday to recommend ways to achieve a transition to democracy in Cuba after 44 years under Fidel Castro.

From the Hotline:

Making An Ass-umption? In answering a question from Spanish-speaking Ernestina Escobar, who was introduced as "someone in our audience who has experienced the American dream." Dean responded: "You would have prescription benefits if you moved to Vermont, because a third of all our people, especially at your income level, are eligible for prescription benefits without help from the federal government." She never mentioned her financial situation.

Imagine if a white, preppy Park Avenue Republican had made this gaffe?

I've gotten quite a few like this from political science prof:

The OED has the first English use of "defeatism" in the Observer of 9 June 1918, the quotation being "Irish Nationalists will henceforth support Pacifism, and that means defeatism." But Andrew Stuttaford may be on to something when he suggests a French origin--the OED has the French "défaitisme" as the derivation. And surely Lenin, like other educated Russians of his day, knew French.

If anybody has anything more detailed or conclusive, please let me know.

The following are literal translations of the Chinese names of fast food chains. Can you guess their English names?

a. 'Chinese Fortress King'

b. 'Agree Virtue Chicken'

c. 'Warm Base of a Fruit'

Here are the solutions, which you can find in Chinese characters on Marc's blog: a. Burger King (Han Bao Wang)

b. KFC (Ken De Ji)

c. Wendy's (Wen Di)

I just came across an item while researching my book. An author says the word "defeatism" was first coined by the Russian revolutionaries during WWI as an explicit policy for the defeat of ones own country. Through quick googling and such I've been able to find all sorts of references to Lenin's doctrine of "revolutionary defeatism" but that would suggest that the word "defeatism" already existed. Anybody have a definitive answer on this? Derb? Readers?

I'm not looking, by the way, for all sorts of stuff about Lenin at Finland Station. I'm looking for the etymological skinny.

Will you find a letter like this:

Jonah:

I was catching up on yesterday's corner postings and became enthralled with the subject of race in advertisements at NRO; i.e. Hillsdale College. Then you pop up with a link to the Whizzinator and I had to laugh. It seems there is a racial subtext to that product as well.

I work in the probation/parole field and was recently at a state manager's meeting when the issue of the Whizzinator came up. We have to keep ourselves apprised of all of the inventive ways in which offenders cheat on their drug tests. One manager noted that they had caught an offender using the Whizzinator in an unusual way. Seems that a black man had chosen to use a white Whizzinator to pass a drug screen, and an alert officer caught the discrepancy.

Needless to say, I was looking under the conference table to see if it had suitable room for me to hide from the state bureaucrats forthcoming lectures concerning sensitive racial subjects. Thankfully, it never came. Instead, everyone in the room exchanged uncomfortable glances in complete silence for a few moments, and then we moved on.

[Name withheld]

From a reader:

Doesn't her response prove your point since, I believe, the earlier posting referenced a picture of the Magazine staff having only white people in it. All white photo, but not all white Mag. All white photo, but not all white school. She corrected your reaction to the Mag photo and then went on to assert an interpretation of the school photo.

[Name withheld]

The following are literal translations of the Chinese names of fast food chains. Can you guess their English names?

a. 'Chinese Fortress King'

b. 'Agree Virtue Chicken'

c. 'Warm Base of a Fruit'

I shouldn't have said that the American Prospect was all-white. I assumed that from some of the earlier blog posts about the magazine's racial make up. Sorry about that.

The fact that it is not all white was brought to my attention by Melanie Alston-Akers. She writes:

"....Well, I'm not white and neither are others on our staff. If Goldberg's going to fling absolutes around, he should get them right.

And as far as the ad goes, it does have an only-certain-people-are-wanted-at-this-school flavor. I saw it immediately. Goldberg probably did not because many white people, of all political persuasions, are blind to the racial implications of things around them.

When I looked at the ad, I saw a school where I didn't think my family would be wanted. Reading the small text was not on my agenda after I saw the photo and the accompanying caption. "Good old days" is a loaded phrase and has been, particularly for blacks, for a long time in this country. That's not the fault of black people. But that's not something that many white people are going to see or recognize or care about.

Hillsdale may have fabulous racial diversity, but you can't tell that from the ad. The ad shows white, I saw white, and I assumed white. Not because I'm a liberal, but because I'm not white. And I'm certain that there are plenty of other blacks and other people of color -- regardless of their political views -- who would feel the same.

My responseSorry, I really don't buy it. One person's feelings -- or many people's feelings -- do not have an alchemic effect on the motives of others. If the ad makes a black person feel unwelcome -- or if it makes them feel like a giant frilly duck for that matter -- that doesn't speak to the intent of the person(s) who designed the ad. If you think the effect of the ad was racially insensitive why assume the intent was racially insensitive? I know liberals are fond of pointing at things like disparate impact and then backfilling racist intent to explain why the impact is disparate. But I think such arguments are often ludicrous.

Plus, while I'm not familiar with Melanie Alston-Akers, I'm skeptical of her claim that such inferences have nothing to do with her being a liberal and everything to do with her being black. I'm sure it's possible that other blacks of different political persuasions, including conservatives, would draw the same conclusion as her about the ad. I am also sure that many blacks would not (I know this because I heard from some). I do not think those blacks are any less authentically black. In other words, what explains Ms. Alston-Akers inference is not her skin color but the ideological, political and culture views she brings to the table. Simply because she instantly felt unwelcome might be good proof Hillsdale shoud rethink its ad campaigns, but it counts for exactly zero toward Richard Just's still-outrageous assertion that Hillsdale is cynically racist in its appeals.

Moreover, if Ms. Alston-Akers can't bother squeazing into her "agenda" the time it takes to actually read the words in the ad before reading the minds of those behind them, maybe she should get into a business that doesn't require relying on words for a living.

Note: I do not agree that only weird people own turtles. My father's only pets as a boy were two turtles (I think they lived two weeks) and my wife is determined to get a pet turtle. Nonetheless, from a reader:

Could someone please point out that Dreher tossed in "Feed Turtles" in his morning routine? I like Rod Dreher, but I've had my suspicions about him before (the Rapture stuff scared me). Now I can confirm my suspicions, only weird people own turtles. You, of all people, can not let someone slip "Feed Turtles" into their morning routine without saying something. That's like me writing up this routine:

Wake up, shower, brush teeth, brew coffee, pour milk in cereal, hide the bodies, put on shoes, read the paper, drive to work.

And then nobody mentions the "hide the bodies" part.

[Name withheld]

I own the local Dairy Queen and will buy lunch for any new subscribers to NRODT with the zip code 28734. I will buy a small blizzard (okay, medium) for any new NRD subscribers with the same zip code. Okay, okay, I'll throw in dessert on top of the lunch for new NRDOT subscribers.

Any other readers willing to offer local incentives to new subscribers? Any Lexus dealers out there?

3 am Plug NR Digital...6 am: Plug NR Digital

6:30 am: Plug NR Digital

7 am: Plug NR Digital

7:30 am: Plug NR Digital

8 am: Plug NR Digital....

From a reader:

Have any black people spoken about the ad? I am curious. As a black person, and one whose friends, a majority anyway, are black, we never thought that all school photos need blacks in them to be non-racist or that all white ones implied racism, especially photos from schools in the middle of no where. OK, maybe no where is wrong, but certainly not the center of the black population. If montana colleges have brochures without blacks in it so what? Its more offensive when they make the 1 or 2 black kids who go there appear in every photo, like we are a significant presence at the school. We realize, unlike liberal whites, that we are not everywhere... we do get annoyed when tv shows in NYC show no blacks, hispanics, or asians and we are a huge percentage of NYC's population. If Montana, North Dakota, or those midwest states most people have a hard time placing on a map have schools or any school for that matter, want to have a pic without blacks so what. Now if the university of mississippi did that same add, I might think something was up given its actual history.

I wonder do travel ads for dean's vermont show the 3 black people living in the state, on their brochures?

6:15 AM dog barking because stray dog is outside the window. He's in love with her because he's not neutered and she was supposed to be at 6 months but she got mange and had to have injections before she scratched all her hair off. "Oh, she's too young to go into heat," says vet. Oh, really. Now stray is sleeping on our porch (cute, shepherd mix, sweet but irritatingly enamored).

6:20 walk dog. Wave NY Post at stray.

6:25 Children up and hungry (they do not sleep in like Derb's). Toast and jam three different ways, two kinds of cereal, one order of waffles.

6:40 Search for socks, gym uniforms, school shoes, permission slips, lunch boxes, last night's homework.

6:45 Make coffee, make lunch, pack lunch boxes, pack snacks.

6:55 Fill out permission slips, write checks for field trips to Emperor's New Clothes (should be some interesting staging for 2nd graders -- "it's a nudie play," says my 7-year old) and Pequot Museum.

7:05 Dutiful daughter dressed and feeding the dog. Second grader still pondering shoe laces of right shoe.

7:10 3-year old wants attention. "Mommy, I calling you!"

7:15 Left shoe of 7-year old now being tied. Dog barking.

7:20 Refrain of "we're going to miss the bus" begins.

7:25 Children returned to bathroom for face-washing and one case of skipped tooth-brushing. Dog still barking.

7:30 "It's time for the bus!" I realize once again that I will be standing outside in my flannel pajamas as I have forgotten to change.

7:32 We run en masse outside as I brush the kids' hair and ignore the little one who wants his waffles reheated.

7:33 "THE BUS! It's here!" Last dash back inside for forgotten lunch box. Dog going nuts.

Children pile on. Driver gives me that look -- "You made it today." I notice my son's shoes are still untied. "Tie your shoes!" I yell.

7:34 Return inside. Husband sitting in fluffy bathrobe with the newspaper and a cup of coffee. "Why was the dog barking so much?" he wonders.

Tiny son: "Mommy, hello? Waffles, please."

[Please note that there was no coffee-drinking or newspaper-reading by the person who posted this.]

NR print subscribers can access NR/D by clicking on the "Download NR Magazine Here" link at NRO's homepage. You will be prompted to enter your account number from a recent magazine label...so it's helpful to have one handy. After your account number is validated, you will create a unique username and password which will allow you access to NR/D at anytime.

From a reader:

To most people good old days + education = well scrubbed and behaved kids learning the three Rs after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Anybody who can see a picture of a bunch of white kids and immediately think racism is probably almost incapable of framing anything outside the context of race. Like that woman who said the weather service was racist because there were no hurricanes with "typically black names". These are the most egregious of racists because they insinuate race into everything while standing on what they see as the moral high ground.

Nick Confessore -- who I respect -- jumps into the fray. His defense of the American Prospect on the staff photo thing works for me. Or at least, I don't think it's worth arguing about. However he sums up his larger position thus:

To recap, for Jonah's benefit: Pictures of white people: Fine. Pictures of white people paired with tag lines that seem to hearken back to the "good old days" of de facto school segregation: Questionable, at best.

And there it is. Even a school which has virtually no history of segregation -- unlike all the of the wonderful Ivy Leagues which churn out so many white liberals -- can never, ever, show pictures of white kids and speak of the good old days without it being a reference to segregation. Even when they provide a couple hundred words defining explicitly what they mean by "good old days." In other words, Tapped's position is just so much PC nonsense. And, according to them, if you break the PC language -- or in this case symbollic code -- you get no benefit of the doubt and are immediately assumed to be racist or at least practicing such poor judgement as to make racism a reasonable conclusion.

This is the sort of Catch-22 the left loves to create for conservatives. Remember when the GOP served a rich ethnic cocktail at the 2000 convention? They were lampooned as hypocrites across the liberal media spectrum. However, if they'd just trotted out white folks, they'd have been condemned as a bastion of white privilege. Next we're going to hear that we need an "honest dialogue" on race and the first conservative guy who opens his mouth will be denounced as a racist.

Well, I'm not buying it. I think Just should admit he was venting a knee jerk response and apologize. People sometimes speak too quickly when blogging. Lord knows I have. It seems to me at least that circling the wagons around a wrong and nasty jab is the wrong way to go.

Lots of email from readers who think I was too soft on Just. For example:

Jonah,

You let Mr. Just off the hook too easily.

The crux of his defense is the phrase: "in an age where the conventions of educational advertising, like them or hate them, mean that most schools use such photos as a chance to show off their diversity."

In other words, Just feels that being racial bean-counters is REQUIRED in order to avoid the charge of racism. That's the essential difference between his liberal/racist position, and yours.

Okay, I'm off the radio. Let's take a look at Richard Just's defense. He starts by recounting all sorts of negative things from Hillsdale's past in an effort to show that my own accounts of Hillsdale's past are a bit rosey. Sounds fair. Except, the problem is that my observations (and Aaron Bailey's) were on point. They spoke directly to the fact that Hillsdale's own "good old days" were decidedly un-racist. In fact, Hillsdale's record of inclusiveness shames Princeton's (Just's alma mater). Meanwhile, Just's clips are mostly irrelevant chatter applicable to almost any college campus (what school hasn't been called "Stalinist" by someone?).

Moving on, Just gets to the meat of his defense, which is worth reprinting here. He writes:

What do they mean by the phrase "the good old days"? It's impossible to know for sure, of course, but Goldberg doesn't offer any possibilities to counter my suggestion. By itself, that phrase could mean anything. Taken together with an all-white picture (in an age where the conventions of educational advertising, like them or hate them, mean that most schools use such photos as a chance to show off their diversity) and the ad's rather glib denunciation of "politically correct" revisionism, it's enough to make you wonder whether there is a racial subtext at play here.

Obviously there were a lot of things that were different about schools in "the good old days." But segregation -- both de jure and de facto -- looms pretty large in that history. In the context of an ad that raises race implicitly by discussing "politically correct" revisionism, how can Goldberg find it so outrageous to wonder if "the good old days" doesn't carry racial implications? And I'm not talking about the days of southern governors standing in schoolhouse doors and education being rigidly segregated by state law. I'm talking about that not-so-distant past, when parents of privilege in all parts of the country just didn't have to worry about their kids going to school with blacks or Jews or poor kids because those kinds of kids didn't go to the schools where they sent their children. If Goldberg doesn't believe that such a time existed, he's the one who's engaged in a little revisionism. If he doesn't think that nostalgia for such a time can be conjured -- and perhaps intended -- by an ad that invokes "the good old days" and refers implicitly to race, then he's not living in the real world with the rest of us.

How lame. Just not only ignores what I wrote he -- again -- ignores the words actually in the ad. As I noted before, there's a 7-point checklist on the ad which gives a good indication of what Hillsdale means by the "good old days" -- as does the rest of the text. Not one of these points includes such phrases as "keeping the blacks out" or "preserve white privilege." It's full of stuff like "teaching moral character" and "appropriate and effective self-discipline." Richard: that is the evidence you're looking for.

I know it comes as a shock to the brand of (all-white) liberals who staff the ramparts at the American Prospect, but most conservative parents don't think of Jim Crow when they hear about the "good old days" in education. If Just thinks white conservatives can never speak of the "good old days" without providing a cast that looks like America, he should just say so and defend his position.

Also, Just is now back-peddaling. Initially he said the racist implication of the ad was essentially obvious and "not too thinly veiled." Now he's merely saying it's not absurd to hold out the possibility that such was the intent. Sure, sure it's possible. But it is neither probable nor aparrent. And when things are not obvious they must be argued, not asserted. This is especially the case when more plausible and less slanderous explanations are available. For example, it seems to me that a far more likely explanation is that Hillsdale had no idea such an interpretation was possible since its conscience is clear and its own record on the issue is so exemplary. Reagrdless, if we could just get liberals like Mr. Just to employ Occam's Razor when it comes to issues of race this country would be a lot healthier.

Indeed, the fact that Mr. Just's first instinct is to assume racism on the part of others -- rather than, say, read the text -- reveals he's the one fixated on race, not Hillsdale.

6:00 Rise.

6:05 When breakfast under way (see next), walk down driveway to retrieve newspaper (New York Post).

6:10 Sit down to breakfast--Quaker Oats, with a sprinkling of raisins, a sliced-up banana and a splash of milk, plus a glass of orange juice. Read newspaper while eating breakfast.

6:25 Walkies with Boris.

7:15 (approx.) S, s, and s.

7:30 (approx) Sit at desk. Power up computer. Read stuff I wrote yesterday. (Note to aspiring writers: Always sleep on your work, if possible. It's amazing how different a piece can look in the morning.) Make necessary adjustments. Send to editor.

8:00 Start internet browse of day's news & opinion.

8:20 Family rise. Greet family.

8:30 Kids have first fight of the day. Pour oil on troubled waters.

8:45 Supervise kids' teeth-brushing, hair-combing, bag-finding, etc.

8:55 See kids off to school bus.

9:00 Resume internet browsing.

Kathryn - Here's how most mornings work for me. I get up. Deal with baby as needed (needs dictated by fair Jessica). Brush teeth etc. Check email, Corner, National Review homepage. Take Cosmo to park and ponder what I should say in Corner upon my return (usually while listening to NPR or C-Span on walkman). Then I come home. Clean off Cosmo's paws. Give Cosmo a pill. Compliment lil Lucy on her outfit. Drink coffee, if available. Surf web, look at papers, Post to Corner.

I suppose I should insert "re-check homepage" after "drink coffee, if available." Then again, I should also insert "do 200 push-ups," write "10 pages for my book" and "clean up my office."

Bush's desire for Turkish forces is craven. Hoping to reduce U.S. troop commitments as an election looms, he verges on throwing away the practical and moral achievements won with our soldiers' blood.

His actions will backfire at home as surely as they will in Iraq. A Turkish presence will make things worse, not better.

Conservatives in Congress are unsure whether to push ahead with a Federal Marriage Amendment, or what form that amendment should take if they do. One alternative approach that is being discussed is that of Rep. John Hostettler. He would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. That 1996 both defines marriage as heterosexual for the purposes of federal law and allows states not to recognize other states' same-sex marriages.

I'm sympathetic to Hostettler's bill because it would focus narrowly on the dangers of judicial abuse rather than also limit state legislatures' freedom of action (as the FMA would). But the bill leaves judges so much running room that it's hard to see what it would accomplish. The Supreme Court could order states to recognize same-sex marriage under any one of several constitutional theories; neither DoMA nor this protection of it would block the court. State courts in all 50 states could impose same-sex marriage, too, and the bill wouldn't block them. If the idea is to ensure that same-sex marriage comes only to states that choose it democratically, Hostettler's bill doesn't do it.

A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorised abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on… when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit co-operation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.

I'm surprised by the radio silence around here on Sullivan's Wall Street Journal essay on gay marriage. Maybe's there's no point in my repeating myself either, but I do find the essential point of Sullivan's argument quite compelling, even if I don't endorse gay marriage. Providing no social space for monogamous relationships among same sex couples while at the same time condemning homosexual promiscuity strikes me as not only an unfair Catch-22 but misguided on a number of practical fronts. But again, we've been through all of this already.

EEEk! I just realized that my husband marked our sample ballots just that way, NO on 54, and that's how I voted, because I didn't take time to look at it...I'm sure that's what he was thinking, that we were voting against the classification by race, etc.....

Completely ashamed and embarrassed in CA

Still no apology or defense or even explanation for Richard Just's knee-jerk liberal racialism. But I did get this from Kenneth Calvert, the headmaster of Hillsdale Academy:

Jonah,

Thank you for defending us in the recent hubub surrounding our National Review advert. It is interesting that our minority population at the Academy is 12% compared to 1% in the local, Hillsdale public schools. The "minorities" in Hillsdale County obviously choose us because of the rigor we provide rather than the condescending, pandering, liberal gibberish provided by those who thought our advertisement was too "white."

Best,
Ken Calvert
Headmaster

I disagree that Prop. 209 was "unfairly worded." The reader assumes that there is a set definition for affirmative action--either legally or in public parlance, and that therefore the use of the terms "discrimination" and "preference" is some less fair. But there is vast disagreement in both the legal and popular uses of the term affirmative action. For example, do stark quotas constitute affirmative action? While there have been lawsuits in which employers and educators have argued that programs amounting to quotas were nothing more than affirmative action, it is not clear that the general public or the legal community views such programs as "affirmative action." Thus, to use the term "affirmative action" would have been to use a term that was less precise, both as a matter of law and as a matter of usage.

Opponents of the measure did want to use the term affirmative action, because the term is ambiguous and sounds positive, while the terms "discrimination" and "preferences" forced voters to think about the actual operation and effect of affirmative action policies.

From the Anchorage Daily News website:

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A California author and filmmaker who garnered national media attention for his films of close encounters with brown bears was killed and partially eaten by his subjects, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
A bear, or bears, killed Timothy Treadwell, 46, and girlfriend Amie Huguenard, 37, this week near Kaflia Bay on the Alaskan coast, the newspaper said, citing Alaska State Troopers and National Park Service officials. The couple had gone there to live among the bears that were the subject of Treadwell's 1997 book, ``Among Grizzlies.''
Treadwell, a self-proclaimed ``eco-warrior,'' had developed a cult following among bear lovers. He appeared on David Letterman's show, ``The Rosie O'Donnell Show'' and ``Dateline NBC,'' to talk about bears, the paper said.
The bodies of Treadwell and Huguenard were discovered Monday by the pilot of a Kodiak air taxi that was to pick them up and return them from the wilderness. It isn't known when the attack happened or what led to it, the paper reported. The couple's tent was flattened and bears had buried their remains, the Daily News said.

Your reader has a point about the unfair wording of Prop. 54 on the ballot. You should know, however, that Prop. 209 (banning affirmative action) was unfairly worded in the other direction-- the description mentioned nothing about affirmative action or even racial preferences, even though that's what the proposition was supposed to address-- it just said it would ban "discrimination or preferential treatment" based on race, national origin, sex, etc. I realize that the voter CAN figure out what that means (just as a voter COULD figure out what 54 was going to do), but an honest ballot would have said that it was an initiative to dismantle affirmative action or racial preference programs, or programs that give preferences to minorities, etc. After all, that really was what the issue was.

There is one other example of this. A few years ago, there was a ballot initative sponsored by insurance companies to preclude uninsured motorists from suing for pain and suffering in auto accidents. The law was written, however, to say that "felons, drunk drivers, and uninsured motorists" could not sue-- felons and drunk drivers, however, were already prohibited from suing; the only change in the law was to add uninsured motorists to the list. The ballot description was written to emphasize felons and drunk drivers and deemphasize uninsured motorists, because the uninsured motorist issue was a lot more controversial, even though the only actual change in the law was to prohibit suits by uninsured motorists. The measure passed.

Basically, it comes down to whoever's in charge of the Secretary of State's office. During the times when Republicans were in charge, the ballot texts were slanted towards the right, and now with Democrats in charge there, they are slanted towards the left. And you are right to point this out-- it does have an impact. I would have thought going in that the Proposition 54 would have passed by a similar margin to 209 (or at least that it would have passed), given that it broke down along the same lines politically, but it didn't, and the ballot text has probably got something to do with it.

Such is the peril of direct democracy.

Very unfortunate ballot heading for Prop. 54: "CLASSIFICATION BY RACE, ETHNICITY, NATURAL ORIGIN." Following that bold heading was some fine print and then the big YES/NO boxes. Even though I knew what Prop 54 was, my instinct was to check the NO box (as in "no, I would not like to be classified by my race . . ."). I had to do a double-take as a result of the visual presentation. Not to play Fla politics (I did get it right), but I'm willing to bet that heading cost the measure because the heading presents exactly the opposite of the goal of the proposition.

Finally, Atrios, apparently seeking to prove the white supremacist leanings of this fine magazine, posts pictures of members of our staff -- damn, he nailed us! Since the race and ethnicity of a magazine's contributors are apparently Atrios' most reliable indicator of liberal virtue and sensibility on issues of race, then he had best buy a subscription to National Review. After all, that particular journal counts Lopez and Ramesh Ponnuru, who are presumably of Latino and South Asian descent, respectively, among its senior staff.

From a reader:

My favorite part of last night was on Hannity and Colmes. Jesse Jackson was outlining why he would be protesting the outcome of the election including supposed examples of people being disenfranchised or harassed. Hannity asked him directly, "If Gray Davis wins, will you contest the election?" Jesse just said, "No."

Yesterday, Richard Just, editor of the American Prospect Online wrote this:

THE GOOD OLD DAYS. One page of National Review's new special supplement on higher education is, I think, worthy of special recognition. The supplement is filled with ads for various schools -- mostly obscure religious institutions such as Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., and Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. But on page 18, there is an ad for Hillsdale Academy, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school located in Michigan. The top of the ad reads, "Want to Bring Back 'The Good Old Days'?" and beneath it is a photo of six white kids.

You can look at the ad and decide for yourself exactly what kind of good old days the folks at Hillsdale Academy are seeking to bring back. I didn't think the message was too thinly veiled.

I did look at the ad myself and I drew one inescapable conclusion: I think Richard Just is a bigot. Time and again the bloggers at The American Prospect have simply asserted that conservatives are motivated by cartoonishly villainous motives. Remember their nonsense about how liberals oppose a military draft for high-minded reasons, but conservatives oppose the idea because it would make America a better and more just society? But this is just appalling. So unless he ate some bad clams, he has no excuse. And he should certainly apologize.

I don’t normally call anti-Christian conservative types bigots because I tend to think it plays into the language of victimology – something the right should avoid – and because it removes ideas from the equation. But I can’t avoid the conclusion that Mr. Just thinks “the message” is obvious because he works from the assumption that “obscure religious institutions” like Christendom College must be bigoted and a conservative school talking about the “good old days” must be referring to those rightwing wonder years when Amos and Andy were on the radio. Never mind that Just clearly knows next to nothing about Hillsdale Academy (which is not a religious school). I’ve been there. I even spoke at their graduation. This tiny school resides in rural Michigan in a county that is .4% black and a long drive from anywhere. Perhaps the lack of black students might have something to do with the fact that many black parents don’t want to send their kid to school two hours from the nearest city or can’t afford to board them there?

Whatever the reason, Mr. Just sees no need to inquire because he already knows “good old days” + “white kids” = nostalgia for Jim Crow. Well, for the record, most of the kids I met were the children of professors and other folks connected to the school. A smarter and more decent bunch of high school kids, I’ve never met. The conclusion they were racists or the children of racists or the product of a racist institution could be based only in ignorance – which liberals like Mr. Just usually insist is the cause of prejudice anyhow. The President of Hillsdale is Larry Arn, for Pete’s sake. He’s a full-blown Lincoln-worshipping West Coast Straussian.

But yes, do look at the ad in question. Look at the 7 point checklist the school includes to help flesh-out what they mean by “Old Days.” Is it so inconceivable that this is what they had in mind rather than the perfervid racial subtext Mr. Just sees so clearly?

And one last thing, would Just assume racism if he saw similar ad for a historically black college?

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- German brewer Spaten donated 600 cases of its namesake lager to the U.S. Navy Sept. 3, to thank U.S. Sailors and Marines who deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Browsing through the major liberally biased news websites to gloat over the CA victory, I discovered that the New York Slimes 12:53 a.m. top headline claims Arnold was "selected." Didn't read the article, but maybe they're claiming the Supreme Court intervened at the last minute, in some parallel universe, that is.

I am living proof of the need for Prop. 54 to be successful. On Sunday I got an automated call from Jesse Jackson urging me to vote no on the recall, which I believe he said was a right wing power grab coup. Monday, Bill Clinton called then Al Gore. At first I was thinking they picked numbers through zip codes. Then my buddy down the street told me she received an automated call from Republican Daryl Issa. Then another neighbor said that she had only received calls from Republicans. Why are they calling me, I am a registered Republican and I have given to the GOP?

Oh I know, my last name is Lopez (actually Lopez-Lopez, my husband says he always did find his best dates at family reunions) . A Portuguese Lopez and a Honduran Lopez, but a juicy Lopez to the Democrats I guess.

Jesse L. Jackson was also in town to campaign for Davis, and urged, "We must say no to organized chaos. . . . This is not about competency. This is about ideology."

Ponnuruvian
Low-Writer
Lowratized
Lopezimist / Lopezimism
Lopez dispenser
Grahamatical
Derbish

If you take a quick look at American history, you will realize instantly that the atrocities committed by the Americans on their fellow man might be one of the worst in human history, and that’s saying much — one, because humanity has reached levels of evil that no other creature on earth can compete with, and two, because the very short history of the American nation makes its crimes even more shocking when compared with other, more ancient lands.

The Champlain Channel reports:

'National Review' Writer Skewers Dean

Conservative Sheet Also Pummels Burlington

From an interesting interview with the Brown Daily Worker, er, I mean Brown Daily Herald:

Q: I wondered what your reaction to the death of Edward Said was.

I think he was an evil and dishonest man. I won’t say I’m glad he’s dead, that would be horrible thing to say. But I had the lowest regard for him.

More excellent reporting on the LA Times from LA Weekly’s unfortunately-named Bill Bradley:

”Senior Democratic strategists knew the particulars of last Thursday’s L.A. Times exposé on Arnold Schwarzenegger well in advance of the story’s publication, the Weekly has learned from well-informed sources. This knowledge came not only in advance of publication but also before anyone outside a close circle at the Times knew of the story’s timing and particulars.”

Referring to the LA Times sliming of Schwarzenegger, Glenn Reynolds makes this point:

"This is yet another reason why campaign finance "reform" is a joke -- this is effectively a huge secret campaign donation that just happens to be exempt from the law."

Yup.

When I do the Today show out here I get up at 2am because out here you have to be up and ready to go at 4 because it's 7 in the east. So I was getting a little tired, but I feel actually good because I flew out here and Rush Limbaugh sat next to me on the plane. He gave me some vitamins." She then spun her head to flip her hair as she smiled and yelped: "Whaa! It feels good!"

It occurs to me that with all of the hoo-haw over the Patriot Act from the left, their stance on gun control becomes less credible. Let's say you could repeal the 2nd amendent, via a new amendment. Let's say that the liberals get control of the government again and pass a total ban on all firearms. Do you think that they realize the level of police intrusion it would take to enforce such a law? Or are they willing to tolerate it when it comes to their own pet issues? It just seems disingenuous to me that the libs would carp over the Patriot Act when a total gun ban Act would require ten times the policing.

Not Derbshirian – Derbish. As in whirling.

Andrew Sullivan carved out a very interesting spot for himself on the cultural-political spectrum during the Lewinsky scandal. He was simultaneously anti-Clinton and anti-anti-Clinton. He, as much as anyone else, deserves credit (or in my opinion, blame) for the widespread notion that conservatives were anti-Clinton because they were prudes. His "The Scolds" article in the New York Times magazine, which I've criticized many times over the years, was a transmission belt for this meme. In it he declared among other things, "For the new conservatives the counterattack on homosexual legitimacy is of a piece with the battle against presidential adultery."

What bothered me so much about Sullivan's argument was that, while he believed Clinton should resign, he reserved for himself a monopoly on correct motives for that position. While other conservatives had bad motives deeply bound up in sex-panic. I'm sure it's true that, as Ramesh Ponnuru and David Brooks have been arguing, many conservatives saw Clinton as a stand-in for the broader culture war. But couldn't some of us have had less grandiose reasons for thinking Bill Clinton was a bad dude. Indeed, couldn't even social conservatives have agreed with Sullivan on his reasons for wanting Clinton to resign?

Anyway, I bring all of this up because my friend is now bashing the right for not supporting Arnold Schwarzenegger enough (even though pretty much every Republican in the state of California, minus McClintock, has endorsed him as has President Bush and a host of national GOP luminaries). Arguing that Arnold represents a "cultural revolution" because he's cool and saucy, Sullivan writes: "That Arnold should represent this and the Republican Party is threatening to all sorts of people: to the joyless, paranoid scolds who run the Dixie-fied GOP."

Um, maybe that's true. I don't know. But can't someone be less than enthusiastic about Arnold without a Freudian motivation? After all, I'm not terribly jubilant about the man, but after scouring my subconscious I can't find prudishness as an explanation. Maybe Andrew could convince me otherwise if he could actually explain what makes Schwarzenegger a conservative. He's pro-choice, pro-gun control, opposed to prop 54 and his wife is a liberal Kennedy (liberal wives are problems for even the most conservative politicians).

Rather than get into a lot of theorizing about the libidinal fears of social conservatives, maybe Andrew should have looked for a simpler explanation: the guy's not that conservative and he will probably make a lousy governor, a point even Andrew concedes. Sure, this whole thing is fun and it would be a great joy to see Davis lose. But politics is supposed to be about more than fun and rooting for the "coolest" candidate.

Actually I was merely looking to highlight Patrick Kennedy's idiocy. But if we're going to talk about Dean, okay let's talk. I think there's a lot of merit to Instapundit's analysis. But I think the situation's more complicated than that. Dean isn't nearly as pro-gun as many think. The fact is his state's constitution is unequivocally friendly to gun rights, stating flat out that you can have any kind of gun any way you want it. Moreoever, Vermont's coalitional politics, require any successful politician to peal off at least a few moderates and Old Vermonter types in order to win. And those folks would not truck with seeing their gun rights tampered with. However, Dean has said in the past that he would favor any gun control measure if it could be proven to him that it would save lives. This is an easy dodge in Vermont which has remarkably low-gun crime. But if Dean were president, it's not at all clear he wouldn't be persuaded that federal gun controls would save lives in California, Illinois, Michigan etc.

I agree entirely with Instapundit that being pro-gun, or even gun-neutral, would help a Democrat more than it hurt in a general election. But I'm not sure being anti-gun control is as harmless for Dean in the primaries as Instapundit thinks. And surely it doesn't cost Patrick Kennedy (or Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards etc) to hammer him on it.

American interpreters at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who are under suspicion of espionage may have sabotaged interviews with detainees by inaccurately translating interrogators' questions and prisoners' answers, senior American officials said on Monday.

It is unclear in how many cases, if any, this may have happened, the officials said. But military investigators are taking the issue seriously enough to review taped interrogations involving the Arabic-language interpreters under scrutiny to spot-check their accuracy.

If the investigators' worst fears are realized, officials said, scores of interviews with suspected Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at the Cuban detention center could be compromised, and military officials could be forced to reinterview many of the camp's 680 detainees.

Okay, you did it. I hope I am the one that puts you over the top with my NRD subscription so the suits leave you alone. I'm tired. Tired of the guilt of free Corner snooping.

Tired of the voice that keeps telling me "What's twenty bucks for a year? You waste more than that in one week smoking stuff that'll kill you. Die informed.

One feature in the current issue shows just how "nerdy" it has become: "The Esquire 70: As in, The Seventy Things That Make Us Very Happy to Be Alive Today." Included on this list are iTunes, Altoids Tangerine Sours, Canada, creamed spinach, the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, JetBlue, outdoor showers, Jennifer Coolidge, the New York Times, "the revenge (if there's even a shred of justice in the world) of Howell Raines," Sarah Silverman, "the nooner," Maura Tierney, deflation and Kleenex Cottonelle.

I think Mr. Jacob radically misinterprets my view and argument. I agree that democracy is a means to an end and have said so, hmmm, ten thousand times. He clearly thinks it's absurd that I think Californians should be punished for electing Gray Davis. But he misses my point that the "punishment" is not an ends either, but a means as well. You can find my original columns on the subject here and here.

"This is a personal issue with me, and I'm very disturbed at the fact that people are not paying attention to Dr. Dean's record" on guns, said Kennedy, nephew of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, both of whom were assassinated by guns.

Tom McClintock seems like a good guy, but I’m with Derb on this one, and not only on the grounds of electoral necessity. The Presidency may be an exception (as a combination of monarch and prime minister the President can be said – in theory – to embody the nation more than an ‘ordinary’ politician), but, generally speaking, if we’re looking for politicians to act as ‘role models’ (ghastly phrase) in all aspects of their lives we are looking in the wrong place and, not so coincidentally, elevating the status of those who presume to govern us to a far higher level than it needs to be. All we should ask of our ‘leaders’ is competence, honesty and a certain amount of brains. If they can inspire, so much the better, but it’s not essential. As to their sex lives, who cares? On the whole, it’s better to be ruled by a rogue than a saint.

Now, the reports (if they are accurate) of Schwarzenegger’s boorish behavior make unpleasant reading, to say the least, but, unless we really want a society prepared to criminalize every piece of hopeful pawing (and ‘investigate’ it - often years after the event), his apology (and the implicit undertaking on future conduct that comes with it) really should be enough.

I await the wrath of Ramesh.

Here's how her latest column starts--I rather like the second graph:

"What's the matter with conservatives? Why can't they relax and be happy? They have the White House, both houses of Congress, the majority of governorships and more money than God. They rule talk-radio and the TV political chat shows, and they get plenty of space in the papers; for all the talk about the liberal media, nine out of the fourteen most widely syndicated columnists are conservatives. Even the National Endowment for the Arts, that direct-mail bonanza of yore, is headed by a Republican now. Never mind whether conservatives deserve to run the country and dominate the discourse; the fact is, for the moment, they do.

"What I want to know is, Why can't they just admit it, throw a big party and dance on the table with lampshades on their heads? [When is your next party, Jonah?--ed.] Why are they always claiming to be excluded and silenced because most English professors are Democrats? Why must they re-prosecute Alger Hiss whenever Susan Sarandon gives a speech or Al Franken goes after Bill O'Reilly? If I were a conservative, I would think of those liberal professors spending their lives grading papers on The Scarlet Letter and I would pour myself a martini. I would pay Susan Sarandon to say soulful and sincere things about peace, I would hire Al Franken and sneak him on O'Reilly's show as a practical joke."

I guess it falls to me to speak up for the thin-lipped puritans among us. I think Schwarzenegger’s conduct has been disgusting. I agreed with a lot of what Katha Pollitt wrote in the Nation about this race. (Definitely not a sentence I’ve written before.) I also agree with Steve Sailer: Gov. Schwarzenegger means that you won’t be able to tell your sons that taking steroids won’t get them anywhere. I’m not denying that McClintock has made a mistake in jumping on the front-runner as hard as he has. Nor am I even saying that I wouldn’t vote for Schwarzenegger if I were a Californian. He may be the best available choice, but it’s a shame California couldn’t do better.

And I still think that the state could have done better. If the party establishment had not swooned for Schwarzenegger months ago, why couldn't the state's Republicans have unified around someone else? I could see the argument for moving left in California to get 51 percent. To go left to get 38 percent seems gratuitous.

When you post a message for Corner readers to "Get Digital", are you making a play on Olivia Newton-John's song, "Let's Get Physical"? That could be your NRD theme song.

Let's get digital
Digital
I wanna get digital
let's get into digital

Let me hear your wallet talk
your wallet talk
Let me hear your wallet talk.

1/ By what stretch of Wilson's -- or anyone else's -- imagination does it "embarrass" Wilson or "harm his credibility" to "reveal" that his wife works for the Agency, under cover or otherwise? Any normal person would conclude that such a "revelation" would ENHANCE Wilson's credibility, rather than the opposite. I mean, the whole thing's a non-sequitur.

and, 2/ Why on earth didn't Mrs. Wilson -- or her putative employer/handlers -- simply deny the allegation, either back in July, or since then? If indeed Mrs. Wilson was working "under cover", why didn't she USE that cover to deny the allegation? That's what cover is FOR, whether "official" or "non-official". If it's worth half a damn, or even if it exists at all, "cover" is there to be used PRECISELY to refute such allegations as Novak's. That's what cover IS -- your plausible deniability. Neither Wilson nor her supposed Agency superiors have ever tried to use it. I personally believe this is because she never WAS under cover -- and that Novak's claim that she was described to him as an "analyst" is correct. The fact that she "took trips abroad" means exactly nothing. I'm sorry, Ms. Plame, if you don't use your cover, or even TRY to, you ain't/weren't under cover, darlin' -- and the only person this whole farcical episode is likely to end up harming is Terry MacAuliffe. Better luck next time.

EU talks on the future of its draft ‘constitution’ are not going well. That’s no surprise – its provisions would make a straitjacket seem generously tailored. What is far more astonishing is the way that Europe’s political classes continue to delude themselves. Check out this comment from Noelle Lenoir, France’s Europe minister:

"Public expectations are extremely high and must not be let down."

Well no, Noelle. Check the polls. The vast majority of voters are indifferent, opposed or unaware, and that is why your own government is beginning to backtrack on the idea of letting the French people decide on this nightmare document for themselves.

Norway is (the Guardian reports) reversing its ban on all films that were previously forbidden in that country (cue Mike Potemra and Jonah Goldberg to start arguing). Amongst the hidden masterpieces, “the British/Spanish spaghetti western A Town Called Bastard (banned 1972), starring Martin Landau and Telly Savalas.”

What a title, what a cast.

From a reader:

Jonah,

Just read your corner posting from a reader saying he has never locked his car or house doors. Well, I live in Burlington, and 2 weeks ago today I had my side window smashed out and my car looted. Last weekend my girlfriend left her apartment early to deliver the papers on her route and came back to find someone had ransacked her house at 5:00 in the morning. When she called the police, they came and said there has been a rash of break-ins, all drug related, and they can't find who dunnit, and told her to get a guard dog. Roughly a month ago a homeless man was found killed just outside one of Burlington's homeless camps. Around the same time several furloughed prisoners shot up a North end neighborhood, fortunatly no one was injured, but I'm sure the people there didn't sleep well after that. If you can manage to look past the dirty hippies, Burlington IS a nice place to live, but Burlington is the exception in that it is a job center (IBM, Fletcher Allen Healthcare, UVM, General Dynamics etc), but the rest of Vermont continues to bleed jobs. An interesting story lately has been the fact that towns refuse to allow cellular phone towers to be built, meaning only 20% of the state has cell phone coverage. What business would want to come here with the high tax burden (sales tax just jumped to 6% from 5% on Oct. 1st), jumping through hoops for act 250 and stormwater permitting, and with no infrastructure?

[Name withheld]

Burlington, VT

Now there was a guy who knew how to throw a party. Here are some details from the New York Times . Note, however, that rather disappointing ‘anachronistic’:

“Mr. Plimpton despised guest lists; a minimalist selection of hors d'oeuvres laid out on the pool table; and an anachronistic offering of liquor that served as a kind of call-to-arms to revelry. "He would always order 38 bottles of Scotch, one bottle of white wine and a bottle of Dubonnet," said Jonathan Dee, a novelist who served as Mr. Plimpton's assistant in the 1980's. "And it was always a struggle to get him to order food."

The white wine, presumably, was for decoration, but the Dubonnet?

Gray Davis, again.

And then there’s this (from LA Weekly ):

”The [LA]Times maintains that none of the women came forward at the behest of Schwarzenegger’s opponents. That claim, however, is looking increasingly dubious. One of the three women in the story says she came forward at the urging of Jodie Evans, described by the Times as a peace activist and "co-founder of the women’s peace group Code Pink." At best, this is an incomplete, misleading description.

Here’s what the newspaper should have said about Evans. She is actually a former close colleague of Gov. Gray Davis, a longtime Democratic operative and a friend of noted Democratic hit man Bob Mulholland. Evans is also the ex-wife of Westside financier Max Palevsky, the man who gave Gray Davis his first job in politics as the fund-raiser in Tom Bradley’s 1973 mayoral campaign.

Oops!”

Britain is unusual in Europe in that it does not face the sort of pension crisis that faces the rest of that ageing continent. One reason for this is demographic, another is that far more Brits have privately-funded pensions (even if the stock market nightmares of recent years have diminished the value of that cash pile) than is usual in the EU and the third is that, since a reform introduced by Mrs. Thatcher, the state-provided pension is no longer automatically linked to increases in average earnings. Mrs. Thatcher’s aim was to encourage people to provide for their own retirement and also to avoid burdening the state with obligations that it could not possibly meet. To his credit, Tony Blair has resisted attempts to revert to the old (earnings-linked) system, something that would (at least in the short term) be worth more than a few votes.

Now it appears that this system is facing a new threat – from the Tories no less. They are reportedly going to promise a return to the old regime so correctly abolished by Mrs. Thatcher. This reform will supposedly be ‘paid for’ by a series of spending cuts elsewhere. Those cuts would be, one suspects, illusory, but, more to the point, there is almost no chance that the Conservatives will win the next election. So, in reality what they have done is made it far more difficult for Blair to defend one of the more sensible reforms of the Thatcher era. If, as a result, Labour do revert to the old system, you can be sure that they will do so without any attempt at economies anywhere else.

Thanks a bunch, Tories.

There’s an interesting piece in the Observer today written by a journalist who has just spent a month in that country:

“There is something disturbing, too, about the way that post-war Iraq has been portrayed. Visceral distrust of Bush/Blair has created a disregard both for fact and for the victims of Saddam. Arab commentators have had no shame in urging Iraqis, exhausted by three wars and more than a decade of sanctions, to launch a new war 'of liberation' against their liberators. Western commentators have luxuriated in the setbacks of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), as if wishing failure upon it - and by extension, the Iraqi people.”

Read the whole thing.

From an angry Vermonter:

Since I have never read anything else that you've written, nor have I seen anything in your article about my "latte" town that would lead me to believe you are anything other than a smug, over-confident, self-centered "head in the sand" conservative. I will just say this. There is no crime here to speak of (we laugh uproariously when you city folk turn on your car alarms here). We have the most beautiful sunset anywhere in North America, we enjoy nice caring neighbors, and quick access to NYC and Montreal, great hunting and fishing, and other than the few months when the students are here (and it's not 25 degrees below zero), we enjoy lots of peace and quiet. To paint our city with and wide green paint brush, proves only one thing, that you understand less about Burlington and Vermont than any other topic I've seen in the conservative press yet. But best of all, your little anti-travelogue will only keep more of you from coming here with your backwards, hypocritical, conservative "values" and trying to take over our state. You just keep painting Howard Dean as a liberal, we know the truth (he's far from it) and you will to eventually, and you'll be very, very sorry. I'm forty, a small business owner, member of the chamber of commerce, home owner, outdoorsman and I've just gotta say, if you come away from this city and this beautiful state with only negative things to say, I pity you, I really do. Your pathetic little "made in America" life must be hell on earth. And I don't mean on a "I have more things than you" level, I'm talking actual beauty and peace and respect in your life. I've never locked my doors, car or home, and I won't. I don't have a car alarm, or home defense alarm or even a neighborhood watch. I live in a city of 40,000 people and the thought of fearing someone never enters my mind. So you keep on portraying us as latte sipping intellectuals, that'll be just fine with me. That way I don't have to even consider questioning whether a customer or neighbor is a decent honest person. We get along fine here without you. Just ask Chief Justice Reinquist, he loves it here. [Name withheld] Burlington, Vermont

The Bush administration has already tarnished (to put it mildly) its free trade credentials. Comments from the President in Milwaukee Friday (via Reuters, but I cannot find the link) suggest that he's prepared to do so again:

”We’ve got to have free trade policy that includes fair trade…Fair trade means currency policy is fair.”

’Fair trade’ is, all too often, a euphemism for unfair tariffs, worse still, the talk about ‘fair currency’ is clearly designed to reinforce the pressure on China and Japan to let the dollar fall against their currencies, a policy that makes little sense so long as this country wants and, yes, needs (that pesky current account deficit, again) Japan and China to keep buying dollars/dollar-denominated securities.

"But we are receiving congratulations from people," Thahir said.

"Why should we cry? It's like her wedding today, the happiest day for her," he said.

News from California:

"In another possible sign of Election Day trouble for Gov. Gray Davis, almost 40,000 more Californians registered as Republicans than Democrats during the heart of the recall campaign, according to figures released Friday by the Secretary of State's Office.

Although the GOP edge in new registrations probably is too small to swing an election in which more than 15 million people can vote, political analysts say it could be an indication that Republicans are more energized than Democrats about the recall -- and more likely to go to the polls Tuesday.

``The numbers themselves aren't terribly significant,'' said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. ``But the Republican gains may be a strong wind of a Republican trend in the electorate. . . . That is likely to hurt Davis and help Arnold Schwarzenegger.''

Thanks to the reader who sent me these two links. The first from Neuen Zürcher Zeitung (in German, sorry) says that the Poles have apologized to Chirac for suggesting that the missiles were manufactured in 2003. The second, from Le Monde (in French) is slightly more ambiguous. The Poles are apologizing for having released this information, but the apology seems to be focused on how they did so (it was through unauthorized channels), not on what they said. Le Monde however goes on to report one explanation for what the Poles discovered: the ‘2003’ on the missiles was the last date they were checked (by the Iraqis) not the date of manufacture. Le Monde also repeats comments from the French foreign ministry that Roland-2 and Roland-3 missiles ceased to be produced in 1988 and 1993 respectively. They could not, therefore, have been manufactured in 2003.

I hate to say it, but it looks to me as if the French are off the hook on this one.

On a different point, I’m intrigued by the name of these missiles. Could they possibly be named after this guy? If so, that may not be altogether tactful.

Meanwhile, check out these comments from one ‘CodePink’ activist:

She admitted that Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes were as inexcusable as Arnold's.

"The difference is that Clinton was so brilliant," she said.

"If Arnold was a brilliant pol and had this thing about inappropriate behavior, we'd figure a way of getting around it. I think it's to our detriment to go on too much about the groping. But it's our way in. This is really about the GOP trying to take California in 2004 and our trying to stop it."