What a splendidly stupid editorial you have penned, and insulting too, although I must say the insults are easier to accept than the ignorance. Go to Iraq, and devastate the civilian as you did a deacde ago, kill thousands of innocent civilians, put Saddam in chains, and take the damn oil! He is no threat to America, or to anyone but his Arab neighbors, who coincidently also have great supplies of oil to sell. Go to Iraq and exercise your world bending might, take another injection of war lust steroid, and go for it! It is so very sad, to see a great nation, the nation of Jefferson, come to this. You had better get used to Canadians preaching the truth, because there will be a lot more of it coming your way. And guess what? We have oil, and water, and you can't have it!

Jonah, I could not agree more. As a Canadian who takes pride in the once rich history of this country, characterized by the stoicism of Vimy Ridge, D-Day and Hong Kong, I am appalled by the current tenor taken by the socialist government currently inhabiting Ottawa. American's should look closely at Canada, for we are now in the second generation of socialism. Canada's Liberal government believes that it need not defend itself, and in fact it regards the Canadian Armed Forces (the only unified military in NATO) as lightly armed social workers. Canadians have lost there sense of history and there sense of right and wrong in the world. Truly too many Canadians think this country is nothing more than the sum total of its social programmes. There are those who wish to change. The Canadian Alliance (the official opposition) follows the same moral and ideological tenants of the Republican party. Keep up the good work.

There are so many reasons to oppose Nurse Bloomberg's highhanded attempt to ban smoking in NYC bars that it is difficult to know where to begin. The philosophical and financial arguments ought by now to be familiar, but the author of this piece in the New York Observer takes a different approach. He objects on aesthetic grounds:

"To abolish the smoke is to abolish the neon, the grime, the melancholy, the stories, the dirty jokes, the dark, the leers, the brawls, the boors, the spilled drinks, the buybacks, the too-loud laughter, all the nuisances and toxins and charms that get mixed into that cocktail we proudly, even lovingly, call a New York saloon. "

Beautifully put.

The Fed cut rates earlier this week, but the ECB, the EU's new central bank, failed to follow suit. This is bad news - for Germany in particular. A report in a recent edition of The Economist gives some background:

"Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that, if the old Bundesbank were setting interest rates to suit Germany alone, they would now would be below 2% [the ECB's benchmark rate is currently 3.25%]. Worse still, not only is Germany unable to cut interest rates, but the EU's stability and growth pact [recently denounced, in a rare moment of honesty, by EU president Prodi as "stupid"] also obstructs any fiscal easing. nor can it devalue its currency. Stripped of all its macroeconomic policy weapons, Germany now runs a serious risk of following Japan into deflation."

A 'one size fits all' currency simply does not work. I wonder if Tony Blair could explain again exactly why it is that he wants Britain to join the Euro.

There's something more than a little totalitarian about the idea of a 'culture minister' , which makes it only too appropriate that Kim Howells, the man in London who holds that job is, in fact, a former communist. Still, he deserves at least one cheer for his remarks about the shortlist of 'artworks' in the running for Britain's supposedly prestigious Turner prize. These were described in last week's London Sunday Times as including "a ceiling of Perspex squares, a description of a pornographic film in pink letters and a giant black block."

Howells' comment: If this is the best that British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bulls***."

So it is.

The New York Times has an interesting article this morning on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born refugee now living in Holland. Her views on the emancipation of Muslim women have led her to oppose state-funded multiculturalism. For daring to speak her mind, she has now been subjected to death threats. The whole piece is worth reading, but don't overlook these two quotes:

The first comes from the author of the article -

"September 11 also gave politicians license to vent brewing animosities. Among them was Pim Fortuyn..."

The writer does go on to explain what Fortuyn stood for, but it's still a surprise to see his defense of Enlightenment values of tolerance, sexual equality and free debate described as the "venting" of "animosities".

The second comes from Ali Eddaudi , a Moroccan writer and 'cleric' living in the Netherlands. He dismisses "all the fuss" over a Muslim woman who "panders to the Dutch". Notice the contemptuous way in which Eddaudi refers to the Dutch, notice the hypocrisy in the fact he chooses to live in Holland.

...that CAIR is headlining a discrimination lawsuit a Muslim man has against Marriott. It may be a completely legitimate suit for all I know, despite CAIR's involvement. But it did make me wonder: has anyone--a non-Muslim, prohibited from staying there--ever sued Hilton for discrimination at their hotel in Mecca?
(I'm NOT advising it. Just wondering. If there were a non-Muslim CAIR, they would have done it by now.)

He was 9 points down to Wellstone when the senator's plane went down. But the tide was swinging toward the president in those last 10 days. And Norm rode the tide. Mondale took a little while to get a campaign going. And Norm finessed Wellstone's death beautifully. The Democrats stood up in raw grief and yelled and shook their fists and offended people. Norm played his violin. He sorrowed well in public, he was expertly nuanced. The mostly negative campaign he ran against Wellstone was forgotten immediately. He backpedalled in the one debate, cruised home a victor. It was a dreadful low moment for the Minnesota voters. To choose Coleman over Walter Mondale is one of those dumb low-rent mistakes, like going to a great steakhouse and ordering the tuna sandwich. But I don't envy someone who's sold his soul. He's condemned to a life of small arrangements. There will be no passion, no joy, no heroism, for him. He is a hollow man. The next six years are not going to be kind to Norm.

Salon.com is very, very afraid: One article warns: "A triumphant Bush is set to appoint an army of conservative judges who will overturn civil and reproductive rights -- and could kill Roe v. Wade."
Really? Don't wake me if I'm dreaming.

"By contrast, Mr. Ehrlich's running mate, state GOP chairman Michael S. Steele, brings little to the team but the color of his skin. His choice was a calculated move by Mr. Ehrlich, made all the more crass when it was discovered that Mr. Steele is being paid by the GOP as a "consultant" to run."

Some of my friends are in despair. They fear that by the time the political pendulum swings, the damage will be irreparable. A ballooning federal debt, they say, will have made it impossible to deal with the needs of an aging population. Years of unchecked crony capitalism will have destroyed faith in our financial markets. Unilateralist foreign policy will have left us without real allies. And most important of all, environmental neglect will have gone past the point of no return. They may be right. But we have to behave as if they aren't, and try to turn American politics around.

Democrats should complain as loudly about the real conservative bias of the media as the Republicans complain about its entirely mythical liberal bias; that will help them get their substantive message across.

Hillyer on Louisiana: Now, changing the subject, a comment on my native Louisiana, to add to Rod Dreher's cogent thoughts. (Rod: Have you been talking to our mutual friend, Lanny Keller?) Gov. Foster is a royal pain in the neck, and a Republican only through political calculation back when it helped him get elected in the first place.... but he's basically playing a private game of hardball with the White House. Unless the Bushies fumble him away the way they fumbled Jeffords, Foster should fall into line eventually, at least nominally, once he's gotten his extraneous concerns met.

Once he does, Suzie Terrell must be rated a slight favorite. There's a runoff election in the heavily conservative 5th district, where the GOPer Lee Fletcher should stomp Demo Alexander -- and while he's at it, draw Cooksey-Republicans to the polls.

Other places in the state, in an off election, "chronic voters" that favor the GOP should give Suzie the edge. And Suzie always has been friendly with the leadership of the one most moderate of the four traditional New Orleans black organizations, who in past elections actually have helped give her the margin of victory. They won't turn out FOR her this time, but they'll stay home rather than turning out strong for Landrieu.

Early pick here is Terrell, 53, Landrieu, 47.

Quin Hillyer sends this useful update from Alabama: Here's the latest from the Florida-Lite ballot challenge in Alabama: Gov. Don Siegelman, playing Gore-Lite, is asking for a recount in all Alabama counties, with a MANUAL recount in heavily Republican Baldwin County where the computer glitch temporarily made AP think Siegelman had 6,000-plus votes more than he actually did.

His Baldwin claims are ludicrous: If Siegelman received as many votes in Baldwin as were originally reported, the total number of votes (more than 50,000) would have far exceeded the number of people who actually signed in at the polls (around 45,000) -- and a town of, oh, about 800, where the computer glitch arose, would have had nearly 7,000 voters.

In short, the corrected numbers in Baldwin County, which put Siegelman down statewide by about 3,200 votes, are the only numbers that could possibly be accurate.

As for the rest of the state, the governor hasn't specified a single alleged irregularity; he's basically just fishing, and hoping some heavily Democratic counties can find a way to manufacture voters. He's like M. Night Shamalayan's Sixth Sense kid, seeing dead people voting in droves.

State law doesn't provide for the kind of recount Siegelman wants, however -- not without specified cause. But if he wants to be a real jerk, he can challenge all results in the heavily Democratic, heavily dishonest state Legislature, which can meet in January and declare a winner. For now, Siegelman's camp says that's out of the question... but don't put anything past this guy.

NOW WIN THE WAR: I've been reading with some disbelief all sorts of proposals for president Bush's next two years. Here's the only one that matters: win the war. If we can rid the world of Saddam Hussein and see Iran's dictators pushed to the brink, then an entirely new set of circumstances prevails in the world. What the president needs to focus on now is disarming Saddam. This election wasn't a mandate for tax simplification or welfare reform (however important those two things are). It was a vote of support for victory. If Bush lets Saddam wriggle through the gaping U.N. net, and lets al Qaeda off the hook, then he will deserve to be defeated in 2004. Getting the war right is paramount. Everything else will follow. Nothing else, in comparison, matters.

Here's a classic headline from the London Independent:

"Republican steamroller forces its agenda on Congress"

Forces its agenda?

Britain's Left has always found Gibraltar, an enthusiastically pro-British and patriotic sort of place, faintly embarrassing. Add to that the fact that 'Gib' continues to bedevil the UK's relationship with Spain, a fellow member of the EU, and the scene was clearly set for a spot of betrayal. The first stage of this process was to be the introduction of 'shared sovereignty'. Naturally the Gibraltarians were not consulted, but the Rock's inhabitants went and held a vote on the idea anyway. The result? 98.97% voted in favor of keeping things the way they are.

EU countries are always proclaiming the importance of local democracy. Now is a good time for the UK and Spain to show that they mean it.

It was clear to myself and many others (those not looking to be offended) that Mr. Goldberg's comment on Mohammed being a threefer was meant tongue-in-cheek. Were you also taken aback by Jonah's observation that 55% of serial killers are white males, and that "clearly we have some catching up to do" because we're underrepresented? I don't think you're that dumb. Stop obfuscating. Which leads to the real gist of the Coulter/Sullivan &c. rants, which is the insistence by the mainstream press that only a disenfranchised cracker could be capable of such crimes, and their subsequent refusal to: a) admit that they were wrong, and b) acknowledge that the suspects in custody are an America-hating Muslim and an illegal alien with an unusually high cash flow for homeless-shelter dwellers. Connect the dots? It's practically A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Shameful, selfish efforts by the elitist left to turn this tragedy into a gun-rights issue are, thankfully, failing. There are a hundred million guns in this country, and the dreaded "Dodge City" scenario only occurs where the law-abiding citizen is prohibited from owning one. Yale economics professor John Lott has documented how private gun ownership lowers crime, so stop blaming guns and access to them for the sins of their owners. The pundits you criticize only ask that the press and government stay focused on the real issue, which is saving American lives and property.

John Ashcroft reportedly sees these indictments as evidence of the "toxic combination" of drugs and terrorism. Perhaps, but an even more poisonous combination comes from the wildly profitable market for illegal drugs created by our narcotics laws and the money-making opportunities that it offers terrorists always looking for new sources of funds.

Story via Instapundit, who notes that this is a reason "to get rid of the war on drugs". He's right. Uncle Sam's drug warriors have trashed thousands of lives and squandered billions of dollars in their pointless and self-defeating crusade. They are also now, it is clear, a growing menace to national security. It's long past time to say no to them.