OpinionJournal on William Bennett

Is Political Correctness Finished?--http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006

The latest Bill Bennett kerfuffle leads us to think that the culture of political correctness that surrounds race in America may be in its final throes. Bennett and a caller to his radio show the other day were discussing a hypothesis in Steven Levitt's book "Freakonomics" (available from the OpinionJournal bookstore http://www.opinionjournalbookstore.com/cgi-bin/Shopper.exe?preadd=action&key=006073132X ): that the explosion of abortion after Roe v. Wade depleted the number of potential criminals and thus helped reduce the crime rate. Bennett rejected such utilitarian pro-abortion arguments:

"It's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could--if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. "

The ragemongers at MediaMatters.org ginned up a controversy over Bennett's remarks, and the ritual expressions of outrage followed, as the Washington Post reports: http://www.washingtonpost.com

"Bennett's comments . . . were quickly condemned by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who issued a statement demanding that Bennett apologize. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) circulated a letter, signed by 10 of his colleagues, demanding that the Salem Radio Network suspend Bennett's show. Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, demanded that the show be canceled. "Bennett's statement is outrageous. As a former secretary of education, he should know better," Henderson said. "His program should be pulled from the air."

Today the White House joined in: "The president believes the comments were not appropriate," the Associated Press http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_us/bennett_race quotes press secretary Scott McClellan as saying. But Bennett also has his defenders. One of them is the liberal journalist Matthew Yglesias http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/29/16450/9195 :

"Not only is Bennett clearly not advocating a campaign of genocidal abortion against African-Americans, but the empirical claim here is unambiguously true. Similarly, if you aborted all the male fetuses, all those carried by poor women, or all those carried by Southern women, the crime rate would decline. Or, at least, in light of the fact that southern people, poor people, black people, and male people have a much greater propensity to commit crime than do non-southern, non-black, non-poor, or non-male people that would have to be our best guess. The consequences, clearly, would be far-reaching and unpredictable, but the basic demographic and criminological points here can't be seriously disputed."

Keep in mind, too, that black leaders and liberal politicians constantly harp on the high incarceration rate of black Americans--so much so that John Kerry http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005239 was caught last year exaggerating it. Yet somehow it's considered invidious to point out that blacks, or black men at any rate, have a higher crime rate than nonblacks? We can't help but wonder if part of the outrage over Bennett's remark isn't precisely his view that aborting black babies is immoral. After all, the official position of the Democratic Party is that abortion not only is not immoral but is a fundamental constitutional right, as long as the mother consents. And although MediaMatters claims that Levitt's argument has nothing to do with race, blogger Bob Krumm http://bobkrumm.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/a_political_fau.html notes that in a 2001 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=174508 , Levitt and John Donohue expressly link black abortion to reduced crime:

"Fertility declines for black women are three times greater than for whites (12 percent compared to 4 percent). Given that homicide rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions."

In other words, whereas Bennett rejects the idea of reducing crime by aborting black babies, Levitt and Donohue argue that that is exactly what has happened over the past three decades, as a result of liberal policies. If they are right, there is, to say the least, a fundamental tension between blacks and pro-abortion feminists, two of the core components of the Democratic coalition. No wonder Bennett's comments have caused such discomfort on the left.
So why do we see this as a sign of political correctness's decline? Well, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we kept hearing from our liberal friends that what this country needs is an honest discussion of race. Of course, liberals who call for a discussion of race never actually want it to be honest. Rather, they want to engage in the old familiar ritual in which blacks air their grievances, white liberals trumpet their moral superiority, the rest of us shut up and listen, and dissenters are shamed and silenced (see John Conyers's and Wade Henderson's demands regarding Bennett, above). Our sense, however, is that this old ritual no longer has the same power it once did, and that as a result, liberals actually are getting the honest discussion about race that they have long demanded. If so, their worst fears are coming true.

Rodney King Arrested for Threats

Thursday, September 29, 2005

RIALTO, Calif. — Rodney King (search), whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police led to deadly riots in 1992, was arrested after he allegedly threatened his daughter and ex-girlfriend, police said.

King, 40, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of making criminal threats. He was being held on $25,000 bail.

He was accused of threatening to kill his 23-year-old daughter, Candace, and her mother, Carmen Simpson, after the two got in a fight with King's current girlfriend, Dawn Jean. All three women live in King's home.

The daughter, who called police, said King was armed with a handgun, but it turned out to be a toy, according to authorities.

King's videotaped beating after he was stopped for speeding shocked the nation when it was shown repeatedly on television newscasts. After the four white police officers charged in the beating were acquitted of most charges, Los Angeles (search) erupted in riots that left 55 people dead and caused $1 billion in property damage.

King sued the city for the beating, eventually settling for $3.8 million.

Since the beating, he has had a string of run-ins with the law. He walks with a limp since a 2003 accident in which he lost control of his car, crashed into a house at 100 mph and shattered his pelvis.

Without any refrence to events that have surrounded this man in the past, I seriously have to question his intelligence with his current living arrangements. He may have pushed the 'can't we all get along' thing too far.

Straight beat it up!

Israelis urge U.S. to stop Iran's nuke goals

By David R. SandsTHE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published September 30, 2005

The United States and its allies must act to stop Iran's nuclear programs -- by force if necessary -- because conventional diplomacy will not work, three senior Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum warned yesterday. As a last resort, they said, Israel itself would act unilaterally to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms. Iran will not be deterred "by anything short of a threat of force," said Arieh Eldad, a member of Israel's right-wing National Union Party, part of a delegation of Knesset members visiting Washington this week. "They won't be stopped unless they are convinced their programs will be destroyed if they continue," he said. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the best hope was for the United States and other major powers to make it clear to Iranian leaders now there was "no chance they will ever see the fruits of a nuclear program." "Threats of sanctions and isolation alone will not do it," said Mr. Steinitz. Yosef Lapid, head of the centrist opposition Shinui Party in the Knesset, added that Israel "will not live under the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb." "We feel we are obliged to warn our friends that Israel should not be pushed into a situation where we see no other solution but to act unilaterally" against Iran, he said. Mr. Steinitz, a member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ruling Likud Party, stopped just short of a direct threat to bomb suspect Iranian nuclear sites. Mr. Steinitz said Israeli officials estimate that Tehran is only two to three years away from developing a nuclear bomb and that time was running out for the world to act. "We see an Iranian bomb as a devastating, existential threat to Israel, to the entire Middle East, to all Western interests in the region," he said. "Despite all the different circumstances, we see similarities to what happened in the 1930s, when people underestimated the real problem or focused on other dangers. For us, either the world will tackle Iran in advance or all of us will face the consequences." The Bush administration has led the diplomatic campaign to pressure Iran, claiming the Islamic regime for two decades has secretly pursued a nuclear arsenal. The board of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna over the weekend concluded Iran had violated international pledges on its nuclear programs and said the matter could be referred to the U.N. Security Council. Iranian officials harshly condemned the resolution and insist the country has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program to meet its energy needs. Israel has acted unilaterally before to halt a nuclear program by a hostile neighbor, bombing Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. Widely condemned at the time, the surprise raid is now credited with dealing a major setback to Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions. Mr. Eldad said Israelis across the political spectrum see Iran as the country's most serious threat and one that cannot be ignored. But he added that unilateral action by Israel was the "worst possible scenario," likely to inflame opinion throughout the Muslim world. "If we have to do it, we'll do it," he said with a shrug. "If the United States and the world community do it, there is a chance the issue can be contained. If Israel has to do it alone, there is no chance the conflict can be contained." Mr. Lapid said he was sensitive to criticism that Israel was trying to push Washington into a potentially armed conflict with Iran that many Americans now oppose. "Our mission is to point out the dangers we see, to ourselves and to our friends," he said. "Avoiding speaking the truth does not mean you can then avoid facing the consequences of those facts," he said. The lawmakers met with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with senior administration officials, saying they highlighted the Iranian danger in all their meetings. Asked if he thought the message got through, Mr. Steinitz said, "I did not get the feeling we were talking to the walls."

Dude, just show her your badge, the Blue Code says she has to let you go. 

Second Coming at Notre Dame?

September 23, 2005
BY TAYLOR BELL

Notre Dame, USC and Tennessee are recruiting the No. 1 football player in the junior class, quarterback Jimmy Clausen of Westlake Village, Calif.
The 6-3, 200-pounder is so good, said Chicago-based recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, that he could have ranked No. 1 in this year's class. His older brothers, Casey and Rick, played at Tennessee.
"Clausen is in a class with the best quarterbacks I have seen in 27 years -- with Jeff George, John Elway and Dan Marino,'' Lemming said. "He is the best I've seen since [Florida's] Chris Leak three years ago.''
How does the recruiting of Clausen affect Morgan Park's Demetrius Jones, who has committed to Notre Dame? Jones has been promised by Irish coach Charlie Weis that he will play quarterback at Notre Dame and won't be switched to wide receiver.
"It will have no effect on Jones or Zach Frazer,'' Lemming said. Frazer, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., is another blue-chip prospect who committed to Notre Dame. "We don't know where Clausen is going. And every major college signs a quarterback each year.''
Lemming reminds that Brady Quinn, this year's starter, will return to Notre Dame next season. It will be left to Jones and Frazer to break into the Irish system.
Remember, at talent-rich USC, Mark Sanchez, who was one of the top five players in the nation last year, is red-shirting this fall. In 2006, he hopes to replace Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart. But USC still is recruiting other QBs.
"Quarterbacks must be careful about being the man,'' Lemming said. "If a quarterback has NFL aspirations, he must choose a college program that has a reputation for developing professional players.''
In the last 15 years, many of the top-rated quarterbacks in the Chicago area went to programs that didn't prepare them for the NFL and didn't have track records for developing NFL quarterbacks. The list includes Jeff Hecklinski, Zak Kustok, Matt Schabert, Owen Daniels, Walter Young, Quincy Woods, Brad Bower and Corey and Casey Paus.
Some made good decisions: Chuck Long, Mike Tomczak, Donovan McNabb and Kurt Kittner, for example.
"A lot of quarterbacks commit to a college and fall into a system rather than choosing a college that will develop their talent,'' Lemming said.
After considerable debate, Lemming singled out running back LeSean McCoy of Harrisburg, Pa., as the No. 1 senior in the nation. His second choice was quarterback Tim Tebow of St. Augustine, Fla.
"It is a year where I'm not sure who is No. 1,'' Lemming said. "There were no-brainers in the past -- Ben Olson, Maurice Clarett, Chris Leak, Adrian Peterson. Last year, it was down to Ryan Perrilloux and Callahan Bright. This year? Five or six kids could be No. 1.''
McCoy, who is built like Walter Payton, has nearly 60 scholarship offers. But his grades don't compare to his rushing statistics. He wants to attend USC, where he could succeed Reggie Bush. Miami also is in the mix.
Lemming said Tebow is the best of an outstanding crop of quarterbacks in the Class of 2006. At 6-2 and 220 pounds, he is built like a linebacker. He amassed 7,000 yards and 70 touchdowns in total offense last season. His season opener was on national television.
Home-schooled, Tebow is expected to choose Florida (his father is a Gators graduate) or Michigan.

Weis uses play called by dying 10-year-old boy
Associated Press Posted: 2 days ago

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - Charlie Weis doesn't usually let anyone else call plays on offense. He made an exception for 10-year-old Montana Mazurkiewicz.
The Notre Dame coach met last week with Montana, who had been told by doctors weeks earlier that there was nothing more they could do to stop the spread of his inoperable brain tumor. "He was a big Notre Dame fan in general, but football especially," said his mother, Cathy Mazurkiewicz. Weis showed up at the Mazurkiewicz home in Mishawaka, just east of South Bend, and talked with Montana about his tumor and about Weis' 10-year-old daughter, Hannah, who has global development delay, a rare disorder similar to autism. He told Montana about some pranks he played on Joe Montana - whom Montana was named after - while they were roommates at Notre Dame. "I gave him a chance to hammer me on the Michigan State loss, which he did very well. He reminded me of my son," said Weis, whose son, Charlie Jr., is 12 years old. Weis said the meeting was touching. "He told me about his love for Notre Dame football and how he just wanted to make it through this game this week," Weis said. "He just wanted to be able to live through this game because he knew he wasn't going to live very much longer." As Weis talked to the boy, Cathy Mazurkiewicz rubbed her son's shoulder trying to ease his pain. Weis said he could tell the boy was trying not to show he was in pain. His mother told Montana, who had just become paralyzed from the waist down a day earlier because of the tumor, to toss her a football Weis had given him. Montana tried to throw the football, put could barely lift it. So Weis climbed into the reclining chair with him and helped him complete the pass to his mother. Weis asked Montana if there was something he could do for him. He agreed to let Montana call the first play against Washington on Saturday. He called "pass right." Montana never got to see the play. He died Friday at his home. Weis heard about the death and called Mazurkiewicz on Friday night to assure her he would still call Montana's play. "He said, 'This game is for Montana, and the play still stands,"' she said. Weis said he told the team about the visit. He said it wasn't a "Win one for the Gipper" speech, because he doesn't believe in using individuals as inspiration. He just wanted the team to know people like Montana are out there. "That they represent a lot of people that they don't even realize they're representing," Weis said.
When the Irish started on their own 1-yard-line following a fumble recovery, Mazurkiewicz wasn't sure Notre Dame would be able to throw a pass. Weis was concerned about that, too. So was quarterback Brady Quinn. "He said what are we going to do?" Weis said. "I said we have no choice. We're throwing it to the right." Weis called a play where most of the Irish went left, Quinn ran right and looked for tight end Anthony Fasano on the right. Mazurkiewicz watched with her family. "I just closed my eyes. I thought, 'There's no way he's going to be able to make that pass. Not from where they're at. He's going to get sacked and Washington's going to get two points,"' she said. Fasano caught the pass and leapt over a defender for a 13-yard gain.

noshines.wav (62 kb)

I said no more shines. Maybe you didn't hear about it, you've been away a long time. They didn't go up there and tell'ya. I don't shine shoes anymore.

Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice

Sep 29 11:45 AM US/Eastern
By JESSE J. HOLLAND Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON

John Glover Roberts Jr. became the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come.
The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts _ a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. _ as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month. All of the Senate's majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts.

The Great Symbol of Solomon.

By Eliphas Levi from his book Transcendental Magic; The Double Triangle of Solomon, represented by the two Ancients of the Kabalah; the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus; the God of Light and the God of Reflections; of mercy and vengeance; the white Jehovah and the black Jehovah.

Creepy.

Food for Thought http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050928/D8CSU0K80.html
Here are the first few paragraphs of an Associated Press dispatch from Seattle:

"Laurieann Cossey has always struggled with her weight. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with diabetes. Now, six months pregnant and struggling to get by, the single mother tries to make sure her 1-year-old son gets the fruits and vegetables he needs. "I worry a lot about my son being obese," said Cossey, whose mother and grandmother also had diabetes. Cossey, a 43-year-old community college student, and her son, Andrew, survive on food stamps, trips to the food bank, and a state program for pregnant women and their children that provides essentials such as dairy products, fruit juice and cereal. She knows they should both be eating more fruits and vegetables. But the foods on the government's new food pyramid are too expensive. Boxed macaroni and cheese costs less than a dollar to feed the whole family; a fresh chicken breast and steamed vegetables cost about $2.60."

The article makes no mention of the father or fathers of 1-year-old Andrew and his unnamed fetal-American sibling. The headline is "Poor Have Difficulty Eating Healthy Foods." A better headline would be "Women Without Husbands Have Difficulty Providing for Children."

Christopher Hitchens, on the deceptive groups who organized the demonstrations in DC: Anti-War, My Foot.

"The name of the reporter on this story was Michael Janofsky. I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across “International ANSWER,” the group run by the “Worker’s World” party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the “resistance” in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a “wide range of progressive political objectives” indeed, if that’s the sort of thing you like. However, a dip into any database could have furnished Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper—to mention only two radical left journalists—who have exposed “International ANSWER” as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism. The group self-lovingly calling itself “United for Peace and Justice” is by no means “narrow” in its “antiwar focus” but rather represents a very extended alliance between the Old and the New Left, some of it honorable and some of it redolent of the World Youth Congresses that used to bring credulous priests and fellow-traveling hacks together to discuss “peace” in East Berlin or Bucharest. Just to give you an example, from one who knows the sectarian makeup of the Left very well, I can tell you that the Worker’s World Party—Ramsey Clark’s core outfit—is the product of a split within the Trotskyist movement. These were the ones who felt that the Trotskyist majority, in 1956, was wrong to denounce the Russian invasion of Hungary. The WWP is the direct, lineal product of that depraved rump. If the “United for Peace and Justice” lot want to sink their differences with such riffraff and mount a joint demonstration, then they invite some principled political criticism on their own account. And those who just tag along … well, they just tag along. To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as “antiwar” when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side.

News Accuracy

Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.

By Susannah Rosenblatt and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers

BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports. "It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome. His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials." Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on "Oprah" three weeks ago of people "in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people." Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information. Race may have also played a factor. The wild rumors filled the vacuum and seemed to gain credence with each retelling — that an infant's body had been found in a trash can, that sharks from Lake Pontchartrain were swimming through the business district, that hundreds of bodies had been stacked in the Superdome basement."It doesn't take anything to start a rumor around here," Louisiana National Guard 2nd Lt. Lance Cagnolatti said at the height of the Superdome relief effort. "There's 20,000 people in here. Think when you were in high school. You whisper something in someone's ear. By the end of the day, everyone in school knows the rumor — and the rumor isn't the same thing it was when you started it."Follow-up reporting has discredited reports of a 7-year-old being raped and murdered at the Superdome, roving bands of armed gang members attacking the helpless, and dozens of bodies being shoved into a freezer at the Convention Center.Hyperbolic reporting spread through much of the media. Fox News, a day before the major evacuation of the Superdome began, issued an "alert" as talk show host Alan Colmes reiterated reports of "robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness. "The Los Angeles Times adopted a breathless tone the next day in its lead news story, reporting that National Guard troops "took positions on rooftops, scanning for snipers and armed mobs as seething crowds of refugees milled below, desperate to flee. Gunfire crackled in the distance." The New York Times repeated some of the reports of violence and unrest, but the newspaper usually was more careful to note that the information could not be verified. The tabloid Ottawa Sun reported unverified accounts of "a man seeking help gunned down by a National Guard soldier" and "a young man run down and then shot by a New Orleans police officer." London's Evening Standard invoked the future-world fantasy film "Mad Max" to describe the scene and threw in a "Lord of the Flies" allusion for good measure.Televised images and photographs affirmed the widespread devastation in one of America's most celebrated cities."I don't think you can overstate how big of a disaster New Orleans is," said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a Florida school for professional journalists. "But you can imprecisely state the nature of the disaster. … Then you draw attention away from the real story, the magnitude of the destruction, and you kind of undermine the media's credibility." Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part."If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering." Some of the hesitation that journalists might have had about using the more sordid reports from the evacuation centers probably fell away when New Orleans' top officials seemed to confirm the accounts.Nagin and Police Chief Eddie Compass appeared on "Oprah" a few days after trouble at the Superdome had peaked. Compass told of "the little babies getting raped" at the Superdome. And Nagin made his claim about hooligans raping and killing. State officials this week said their counts of the dead at the city's two largest evacuation points fell far short of early rumors and news reports. Ten bodies were recovered from the Superdome and four from the Convention Center, said Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.(National Guard officials put the body count at the Superdome at six, saying the other four bodies came from the area around the stadium.) Of the 841 recorded hurricane-related deaths in Louisiana, four are identified as gunshot victims, Johannessen said. One victim was found in the Superdome but was believed to have been brought there, and one was found at the Convention Center, he added.Relief workers said that while the media hyped criminal activity, plenty of real suffering did occur at the Katrina relief centers."The hurricane had just passed, you had massive trauma to the city," said Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard. "No air conditioning, no sewage … it was not a nice place to be. All those people just in there, they were frustrated, they were hot. Out of all that chaos, all of these rumors start flying." Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron, who headed security at the Superdome, said that for every complaint, "49 other people said, 'Thank you, God bless you.' "The media inaccuracies had consequences in the disaster zone.Bush, of the National Guard, said that reports of corpses at the Superdome filtered back to the facility via AM radio, undermining his struggle to keep morale up and maintain order. "We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people." But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television.

River Policy

September 08, 2005, 8:24 a.m.Greens vs. LeveesDestructive river-management philosophy.By John Berlau

With all that has happened in the state, it’s understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.” These words may seem especially inappropriate after the breaking of the levee that caused the tragic events in New Orleans last week. But “wet and wild” has a larger significance in light of those events, and so does the group using the phrase. The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.
The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.” But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations.
The lawsuit was settled in 1997 with the Corps agreeing to hold off on some work while doing an additional two-year environmental impact study. Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain. But it is just one illustration of a destructive river-management philosophy that took hold in the ‘90s, influenced the Clinton administration, and had serious policy consequences. Put simply, it’s impossible to understand the delays in building levees without being aware of the opposition of the environmental groups to dams, levees, and anything that interfered with the “natural” river flow. The group American Rivers, which leads coalitions of eco-groups on river policy, has for years actually called its campaign, “Rivers Unplugged.” Over the past few years, levees came to occupy the same status for environmental groups as roads in forests — an artificial barrier to nature. They frequently campaigned against levees being built and shored up on the nation’s rivers, including on the Mississippi. In 2000, American Rivers’ Mississippi River Regional Representative Jeffrey Stein complained in a congressional hearing that the river’s “levees that temporarily protect floodplain farms have reduced the frequency, extent and magnitude of high flows, robbing the river of its ability … to sustain itself.” Similarly, the National Audubon Society, referring specifically to Louisiana, has this statement slamming levees on its website, “Levees have cut off freshwater flows, harming fishing and creating salt water intrusion.” The left-leaning Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, in describing a grant it gave to Environmental Defense, blasted “the numerous levees and canals built on the lower Mississippi River” because “such structures disrupt the natural flows of the Mississippi River’s sediments.”
Some went beyond opposition to building or repairing levees. At an Army Corps of Engineers meeting concerning the Mississippi River in 2002, Audubon official Dan McGuiness even recommended “looking at opportunities to lower or remove levees [emphasis added]” from the river. The groups argued that the “natural” way would lead to better river management, but it was clear they had other agendas in mind besides flood control. They were concerned because levees were allegedly threatening their beloved exotic animals and plants. In his testimony, American Rivers’s Stein noted that the Mississippi River was home to “double-crested cormorant, rare orchids, and many other species,” which he implied were put at risk by man-made levees. So far the environmental movement’s role in the events leading to the flooding has been little discussed. One exception is former Rep. Bob Livingston (R., La.), who told Fox News on Saturday that environmentalists were one of the major reasons levee projects were held up. At this point, there are still questions about the particular levees that broke in New Orleans. Care should be taken about drawing direct conclusions about the causes until there are more facts. But there are some important points that are clear that should put in perspective about levee funding and flood control. Nearly all flood-control projects — even relatively small ones — are subject to a variety of assessments for effects on wetlands, endangered species, and other environmental concerns. These reviews can be costly and delay projects by years. In the ‘90s, for instance, the Clinton administration’s Environmental Protection Agency required a comprehensive environmental impact statement just to repair a few Colorado River levees that had been destroyed in the floods of 1993. The Clinton administration would frequently side with environmentalists on flood-control projects, even against local Democrats. The Army Corps of Engineers under Clinton began implementing a planned “spring rise” of the Missouri River that would raise water levels on the Missouri River during part of the year. This was supported by eco-groups, who argued that this restored the river’s natural flows and protected a bird called the piping plover. But farm groups and others said that combined with the ice melting from winter, the project could increase the risk of flooding in river communities and affect more than 1 million acres of productive farmland. Nearly all the Republicans and Democrats in Missouri’s congressional delegation opposed the plan, as did Missouri’s late Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan. But the Clinton administration refused to budge, and this was a major factor in Bush’s carrying of Missouri in 2000. The Bush administration’s flood-control efforts were often relentlessly opposed by environmental groups, and this opposition was frequently echoed by liberal activists and in the press. Bush kept his promise, and his appointees at the Corps of Engineers have stopped the “spring rise” plan that concerned so many about flooding. Environmentalists launched a barrage of criticism and a series of lawsuits. This was also the case with Bush’s moves to stop the Clinton administration’s plans to breach the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the northwest. Even though the dams greatly help to control flooding in the region, American Rivers blasted the administration for failing to do enough to save the sockeye salmon native to the region. Ironically, among those criticizing Bush for his actions to prevent flooding of the Missouri River was the ever-present anti-Bush environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He chastised Bush in 2004 for “managing the flow of the Missouri River.” If, before Katrina, Bush had proceeded full-speed ahead and fortified the levees of the Mississippi for a Category 5 hurricane, Kennedy and others of his ilk would very likely have criticized Bush for trying to manage the natural flow of the Mississippi. And it’s a good bet that many of the lefty bloggers now critical of Bush for not reinforcing the levees would have cited Bush’s levee fortification as another way he was despoiling the natural environment.

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson092305.html

Stay the Course?
"Our current policy is not just correct because we are now wedded to it. In fact, it is a reaction to our past strategy of realpolitik coupled with appeasement. That strategy led us to 9/11 and a quarter century of terror originating in Iran in November 1979 — whether we define that history as cynical support for dictators, leaving after lobbing a few shells and bombs in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, or Iraq, or allowing wounded tyrants like Saddam to stay in power.
Second, our efforts after 9/11 represent not the worst, but the best of America abroad. Millions just voted yet again in Afghanistan in one of the true revolutionary events of our time — mostly unnoticed by Western media. We forget that Iraq was not liberated until almost 15 months after Kabul. Yet it is already progressing down the same constitutional road. Despised Kurds and Shiites have achieved equal representation. And that topsy-turvy world has infuriated a once oppressive Sunni minority, formerly associated with Saddam Hussein, now in sympathy with al Zarqawi , the terrorist killer. Once unpopular because we were alleged to be cynical in our support of dictators, we are now even more suspect because we are proven proponents of downtrodden Kurds and Shiites in their efforts for political equality. Most Americans — since they are going to be disliked either way — prefer to be hated for their idealism rather than their cynicism.
Billions in American material aid has flowed to Iraqis, even as the price of oil has skyrocketed, costing us billions more — so much for oil conspiracies and stealing Arab resources. In short, Iraq is not an imperialistic venture, but a messy, unappreciated attempt to make the United States more secure by removing dictators from their petrodollar-funded arsenals and leaving constitutional governments in their wake, while promoting social justice for the formerly marginalized. Note that so far there are none of the indications that would rightly tell us it is high time to leave Iraq: Polls don’t suggest that Iraqis want us out immediately; the parliament has not asked the United States to depart; President Talabani does not order us home; American military commanders and diplomats on the ground in Iraq have not concluded that success is impossible, and there is not a grassroots popular movement across religious and tribal lines to oppose the American-sponsored democratic reforms.
Even though we have failed so far to marshal the strength to crush the Sunni insurrection, Iraq is still a far better place now than it was in March 2003, as most Iraqis agree. The Middle East is a better place, whether in Palestine, Afghanistan, or Lebanon. And the position of the United States, the object of unprecedented acrimony and invective, is better off — whether we measure that as the absence of another 9/11 attack, strengthening friendships with India, Japan, Eastern Europe, and the English-speaking countries, reforming the anti-American U.N., or making some progress in North Korea. But who is really angry at America since 2001?
Al Qaeda, of course. Saddamites, especially. Radical Islamicists no doubt.
France and Germany are also apparently unhappy: They lost plenty of oil business and loans in Iraq; they are facing the wages of not assimilating Islamic minorities in their midst; and they are fathoming that socialist and statist policies cannot be salvaged by cheap election-time anti-Americanism in an age when the United States is more eager to keep our distance from them than they us. Historic changes are underway in Afghanistan and Iraq. While we at home squabble and point fingers, the U.S. military fortunately continues in its difficult but landmark mission — and so far, thankfully, pays us all little heed."

China and the Web

Analysis: China's futile Web clampdown
By Edward LanfrancoUnited Press International Published September 26, 2005

BEIJING -- An axiom of Communist China's founder Mao Zedong goes, "a single spark can start a prairie fire." Today, the country's leaders fear this is only an Internet click away. China's national Cabinet and ministry covering the high-tech industry announced new rules Sunday clamping down on Internet-based news sources. The move is an attempt to limit the information available to the country's 100 million Web users at a time when non-governmental organizations and other basic elements of civil society outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party are evolving beyond the rudimentary stages of development.
According to official statistics, there were more than 74,000 incidents of "serious unrest" in China last year, involving protest groups ranging in size from fewer than 10 people to an uprising with 100,000 participants at a hydroelectric project in the mountains near Hanyuan, in Sichuan province. The protests have been sparked by a wide variety of complaints, but most center on the abuse of power at the local level fueled by inadequate legal mechanisms and channels for those seeking redress. The Internet increasingly has become the medium of choice to publicize these problems. The Chinese central authorities' greatest ability in maintaining the facade of stability in the face of mounting discontent has been to keep disaffected groups fragmented. The prospect of links being formed, either by organizations with multiple grievances (including pollution, income disparities, police brutality and corruption) within a province or by common cause (such as compensation rights for land expropriation) across provincial boundaries, terrifies the leadership in Beijing. The top headline in Monday's Beijing News ran: "The Internet is banned from inciting illegal protests." The new regulations issued by the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Information Industry on Sunday cover three categories of news dissemination:
-- services that provide online news stories;
-- services offering bulletin board systems, and
-- short message systems sending news content to individual cell phones.
The rules call for Internet service providers to re-register news sites and monitor the content they provide, scanning for items that "endanger state security" or "social order." The Beijing News reported that news cannot encourage "illegal gatherings, associations, marches, demonstrations or crowds." China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper -- which is heavily relied upon by non-Chinese readers -- took a different approach. The paper's article said "online news sites that publish stories containing fabricated information, pornography, gambling or violence are facing severe punishments or even shutdown." The paper also quoted an unidentified spokesman from the information office saying, "We need to better regulate the online news services with the emergence of so many unhealthy news stories that will easily mislead the public." The State Council Information Office must give its approval before established news organizations can publish stories from other sources, and non-news organizations must also seek permission prior to putting news stories on their sites, the China Daily article said. In an effort to keep news information compartmentalized the China Daily noted: "Sites by news organizations that only carry their own stories should register at the (State Council's) main office or provincial information offices. The regulation also spells out that media attached to the central government or directly under provincial governments are not allowed to provide any stories to other online news sites without approval." Earlier this month UPI reported on the case of Shi Tao, a journalist from Hunan in central China who received a 10-year prison sentence for "revealing state secrets" via e-mail. His crime was telling an outside news agency about the official edict barring Chinese media from reporting on commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Yahoo! cooperated with the Chinese security apparatus leading to Shi's arrest, citing obligations to conform to local laws. Internet, telecommunications and information-technology industry analysts will be watching to see what the impact of the new ruling will have on companies such as Google, Yahoo! and eBay, all of which are seeking to expand their mainland presence, as well as Chinese firms such as Sohu.com and Baidu.com, which are listed on foreign stock exchanges. The policy promulgated Sunday illustrates the need for ethical companies to take a stand on the issue of digital human rights. The country's clampdown on freedom in the virtual world rapidly may match its dismal record in the real one. China's national, provincial and local leaders attempting to strangle the marketplace of ideas might yet learn this comes with a price the market will not bear.

"Swiftness of foot, Keeness of eye"

Padre of the Pigskin Team Chaplain Rev. Ribeiro is Hoya Football's No. 1 Fan
By John Lawless Special to The Hoya Friday, September 23, 2005

The ‘Hoya Football Padre’ is also an associate professor of English. As the football team explodes into the action of a scrimmage play, the joyful voice of Rev. Alvaro Ribeiro, S.J., can be heard across the field. “It’s just like an organized chaos,” Ribeiro, unofficial chaplain to the football team, says in his authoritative but friendly chuckle. Ribeiro has served as the team’s unofficial chaplain throughout his entire career at Georgetown. He has seen just about everything — a change of head coaches, a rise from Division III to the Patriot League in Division I-AA, and more Georgetown football than almost anyone else on campus outside of the actual team.
Though there are those who might regard football with the fervor of religious faith, Ribeiro’s perspective was more one of detached respect when in 1992 he first came to Georgetown. At the time, he did not have his eyes set on being involved with the team. He barely even knew what a first down was, having been born and raised in Hong Kong.
Ribeiro had his first encounter with Georgetown football in one of his first freshman English classes. Marcus Tewksbury (MSB ’96), one of his students and a football player, begged the class to come support Georgetown football at its first home game, complaining of the neglect that the team had suffered in the shadow of Georgetown’s men’s basketball. Not one to leave a prayer unanswered, Ribeiro was only too happy to stop by the team’s practice on the Friday before the game. It was there that he was pounced upon by then-Head Coach Scotty Glacken, who had been searching for 22 years for a Jesuit to act as chaplain to the team. “Without success!” Ribeiro remembers, laughing. When Glacken discovered that Ribeiro was the newest Jesuit on campus, he invited Ribeiro to meet the team the next day. If there was a rapport, he told Ribeiro, he had the job. This was not a job offer, as Ribeiro remembers it — it was an order.
Perhaps Glacken was exploiting the eager rookie, but as Ribeiro says, “I was the freshman Jesuit faculty member.” Exploitation by senior members of the faculty was hardly avoidable.
That was 14 years ago. Now Ribeiro is one of Georgetown football’s biggest supporters. He chats casually with the players as he moves among them on the sidelines during practice, discussing the previous game, sympathizing with the injured and admiring on-target passes.
“It’s been wonderful for me personally,” says the “Football Padre,” as Ribeiro calls himself half-jokingly. “It counterbalances too much intellectualism as a Padre-professor.”
It isn’t surprising that a close relationship has developed between the Padre and the team. Ribeiro says he has taken great pride in the players throughout his tenure, and he is only too happy at games to, as he puts it, “do my little magic of hexing the opposition.”

getajob.wav(140K) getajob.mp3(140K)

Brad: Why don't you get a job Spicoli?
Spicoli: Get a job? what for?
Brad: You need money.
Spicoli: All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz and I'm fine.

Wish I was surprised

Donations Found at La. Official's Home

BATON ROUGE, La. - Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

Police plan to seek a charge of committing an illegal act as a public official against Floyd, and more charges against other city workers are possible, police Capt. Steve Caraway said.

The donations filled a large pickup truck four times. "It was an awful lot of stuff," Caraway said.

The donated materials must be processed as evidence but eventually will be distributed to victims. "We have lots of families that are begging for these supplies," said Attorney General Charles Foti, whose office assisted in the investigation.

Attempts to reach Floyd were unsuccessful at home numbers listed under his name in Kenner. His office number went unanswered after business hours.

Philip Ramon, chief of staff to Kenner Mayor Philip Capitano, has said city officials were investigating the alleged pilfering but added that many employees were themselves hurricane victims.

Interesting Roe perspective

How does Roberts decide whether to bow to precedent and uphold Roe or correct an error and strike it down? As it happens, seven justices faced this question in 1992. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=505&invol=833 , three of them (Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter) joined the two justices who thought Roe was correctly decided (Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens) to uphold "Roe's essential holding." Here is an excerpt from the O'Connor-Kennedy-Souter ruling, for which all three claimed authorship:

"Where, in the performance of its judicial duties, the [Supreme] Court decides a case in such a way as to resolve the sort of intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe . . ., its decision has a dimension that the resolution of the normal case does not carry. It is the dimension present whenever the Court's interpretation of the Constitution calls the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution. The Court is not asked to do this very often, having thus addressed the Nation only twice in our lifetime, in the decisions of Brown [v. Board of Education] and Roe. But when the Court does act in this way, its decision requires an equally rare precedential force to counter the inevitable efforts to overturn it and to thwart its implementation. Some of those efforts may be mere unprincipled emotional reactions; others may proceed from principles worthy of profound respect. But whatever the premises of opposition may be, only the most convincing justification under accepted standards of precedent could suffice to demonstrate that a later decision overruling the first was anything but a surrender to political pressure and an unjustified repudiation of the principle on which the Court staked its authority in the first instance. So to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question."

Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting from this part of the ruling, sharply disagreed:

"The Court's description of the place of Roe in the social history of the United States is unrecognizable. Not only did Roe not, as the Court suggests, resolve the deeply divisive issue of abortion; it did more than anything else to nourish it, by elevating it to the national level, where it is infinitely more difficult to resolve. National politics were not plagued by abortion protests, national abortion lobbying, or abortion marches on Congress before Roe v. Wade was decided. Profound disagreement existed among our citizens over the issue--as it does over other issues, such as the death penalty--but that disagreement was being worked out at the state level. As with many other issues, the division of sentiment within each State was not as closely balanced as it was among the population of the Nation as a whole, meaning not only that more people would be satisfied with the results of state-by-state resolution, but also that those results would be more stable. Pre-Roe, moreover, political compromise was possible."

That Scalia had the better of this argument is all the more clear given that we are still debating this matter 13 years later and 32 years after Roe. But note that this is an argument over politics, not law.

Key West

Hurricane coverage veers off course
Jonah Goldberg (archive)
September 21, 2005 Print Recommend to a friend

The press was blindsided again. As Hurricane Rita barreled toward Key West, television news executives were unprepared to deal with the lamentable divide this storm would undoubtedly reveal between gay America and straight America.
You'd think the media would have learned their lesson. After Katrina, the press corps waited a full two days after the storm hit before it was able to report that one of America's poorest and blackest cities was full of poor and black people. Surely, this time around the Fourth Estate would hit the ground running with up-to-the-minute exposes on the "Other" Other America and trenchant-yet-lachrymose essays on What This Says About America, that one of America's zestiest gay resorts was left to twist in the wind.
The questions raised by unlovely Rita are as painful as they are obvious. Will gays stay behind in disproportionate numbers in this disproportionately gay city? If so, Why? If gay marriage were legalized, could some of this disaster be avoided? Would George W. Bush have responded more quickly if the victims were just a tad less stylish? And, of course: Will the federal government help keep Key West festive?

AUTO PILOT

SEN. John Kerry doesn't need to listen to President Bush to criticize him. Kerry sat down to dinner at Café Milano in Georgetown last Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with three other men, and never glanced at the TV set at the bar during Bush's address from New Orleans. "Mr. Bush's speech ended at approximately 9:25 p.m. local time," Washington Times columnist John McCaslin noted. "Lo and behold, when he was still seated at the table wiping squid from his chin, Mr. Kerry responded to the president's address with a statement of his own, issued at exactly 9:54 p.m." Buried in Kerry's statement was this nugget: "Americans want an end to politics as usual." Pass the calamari.

Bush Braces As Cindy Sheehan's Other Son Drowns In New Orleans
September 21, 2005 Issue 41•38

WASHINGTON, DC—According to White House sources, President Bush is bracing for intensified criticism following Monday's report that the body of Tyler Sheehan, son of outspoken anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, was recovered from the receding floodwaters in New Orleans.
Although the White House has not released a statement, a firestorm of controversy is expected to follow the death of the dynamic, well-liked young man, who was working on a levee-upkeep crew while completing the EMT-certification training he needed to become a firefighter.
"Tyler was the very picture of an American hero," said Jorge Guiterrez, an Ochsner Hospital orderly present when Sheehan evacuated dozens of patients from its intensive-care unit. "He pulled off-the-clock double shifts moving guys in wheelchairs, guys without arms, guys on dialysis—you name it, he got them on a bus to Baton Rouge."
Before Sheehan moved to New Orleans, he was a struggling coho-salmon fisherman in Oregon's Klamath Basin. However, when the Bush Administration relaxed federal protection of the endangered fish, Sheehan's catch became contaminated with mercury. He gave up fishing and moved to Oakland, CA, where he opened a free clinic, which lost its federal funding in 2002 for giving out oral contraceptives to poor women.
A recent transplant to Louisiana, Sheehan reportedly went above and beyond the call of duty to aid imperiled New Orleans residents, dispensing bottled water and first aid to dazed hurricane survivors between shifts at the breached Canal Street levee.
Sheehan was last seen Sept. 4, hours after he and his levee crew sustained injuries while attempting to shore up storm-weakened levee pilings. According to sources, contaminated water laced with slicks of petroleum from a recently deregulated, poorly fortified refinery ignited, causing third-degree burns among the workers. Survivors recall seeing Tyler, badly injured and without the life jacket and medical kit denied him by recent budget cuts, digging survivors out of the wreckage.
"I don't know how we would have gotten out of there without Tyler," said Dom Ghivarello, Sheehan's crew chief. "Once we got clear of the break, we had no way of getting to high ground without our utility truck, which was requisitioned by the Defense Department last month for use in Iraq. But Tyler threw me his truck keys and went back to help others. That's the last I saw of him."
Sheehan moved to New Orleans in 2004 to take a year off from the University of California at Berkeley, where administrators had temporarily suspended the stem-cell research program in which he was enrolled in hopes of helping to combat his younger sister Ruth's spinal meningitis. Friends report that his public spirit continued in the Big Easy, as he delivered meals to elderly New Orleans residents affected by recent Medicare cuts, and doggedly petitioned the Justice Department for the release of his life partner, Amin Sagheer, who has been detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay for nearly three years.
"He made service to his fellow citizens his number-one priority," Ghivarello said. "He made that vow back in 1998, when his best friend, a developmentally disabled black juvenile, was put to death in Texas for a crime he didn't commit."
Cindy Sheehan was unavailable for comment, as she was busy trying to contact her lone surviving son Teddy, a meteorologist studying global warming with the International Geophysical Foundation in Antarctica, who is believed to be marooned on a 45-square-mile chunk of the shrinking Ross Ice Shelf that broke off Tuesday morning.

http://www.suntimes.com/index/pilarski.html

TWO: "Craps," "two aces," "rats eyes," "snake eyes," "push the don't," "eleven in a shoe store," "twice in the rice," "two craps two, two bad boys from Illinois."
THREE: "Craps," "ace-deuce," "ace caught a deuce," "winner on the dark side," "three craps three, the indicator," "small ace deuce, can't produce," "the other side of eleven's tummy." (Here's an example of an old-time crap dealer, Judd, who invents a call that made its way across Nevada to a carpet joint that I've worked in. It doesn't make sense, like many of the calls, so your confusion is fitting.)
FOUR: "Little Joe," "little Joe from Kokomo," "hit us in the tu tu," "ace trey, the country way."
FIVE: "After five, the field's alive," "thirty-two juice roll" (OJ's jersey number), "little Phoebe," "fiver, fiver, racetrack driver," "we got the fever."
SIX: "Big Red, catch'em in the corner," "like a blue chip stock," "pair-o-treys, waiter's roll," "the national average," "sixie from Dixie."
SEVEN: "Seven out, line away," "grab the money," "five two, you're all through," "six ace, end of the race," "front line winner, back line skinner," "six one, you're all done," "seven's a bruiser, the front line's a loser," "up pops the devil," "Benny Blue, you're all through."
EIGHT: "A square pair, like mom and dad," "Ozzie and Harriet," "the windows," "eighter from Decatur."
NINE: "Center field," "center of the garden," "ocean liner niner," "Nina from Pasadena," "What shot Jesse James? A forty-five."
TEN: "Puppy paws," "pair-a-roses," "pair of sunflowers," "the big one on the end."
ELEVEN: "Yo leven," "yo levine the dancing queen," "six five, no jive."
TWELVE: "Craps," "boxcars," "atomic craps," "all the spots we got," "outstanding in your field," "triple dipple, in the lucky ducky," "double saw on boxcars."

Powerline on Roberts

This whole Supreme Court nomination story has gotten a little weird, with everyone in suspense over whether the minority Democrats will approve Bush's nominees. Who cares? Since when does the Senate minority get to establish the critieria for Supreme Court nominations? When Clinton nominated Ruth Ginsburg in 1993, do you remember any discussion of what she would have to do to satisfy the Republicans? No, neither do I. (In the event, she did nothing, and they voted for her anyway.) The reality is that Roberts will be confirmed whether he gets a single Democratic vote or not. For all their furrowed brows and mangled metaphors, the Democrats' self-appointed role as the Court's gatekeepers is a joke. If they want to control who gets onto the Court, they have to go back to winning elections.

Uncharted Territory, Once Again
In recent years, the Democrats have violated many of the tacit conventions of civility that have enabled our political system to work for more than two centuries. Yesterday another barrier fell, and once again, we entered uncharted waters: former President Bill Clinton launched a vicious attack on President Bush on ABC's "This Week" program. This has never happened before. Until now, both parties have recognized a patriotism that, at some level, supersedes partisanship. AFP reports:
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."
This attack was false in every respect. The invasion of Iraq had the support of dozens of nations. The UN's inspections could never be "completed," but the UN itself had reported that large quantities of WMDs remained unaccounted for. On the other hand, Clinton's suggestion that there was "no real urgency" about the situation in Iraq was probably sincere, as it typified Clinton's approach to terrorism: he perceived no urgency after the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, or after al Qaeda's attempt to simultaneously destroy a dozen American airplanes over the Pacific in 1995; or after the attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998; or after Saddam's attempt to assassinate former President Bush; or after Saddam repeatedly tried to shoot down American aircraft; or after the Cole bombing in 2000; or after the Taliban took over Afghanistan and converted it into a training ground for anti-American mass murderers; or after any number of other provocations. So, naturally, Clinton saw no urgency with respect to dealing with Saddam's regime. Of course, had Saddam facilitated a post-9/11 attack on the U.S. using chemical or biological weapons, you can imagine how harshly Clinton would have criticized Bush for his lack of foresight.
Clinton's assertion that there was "no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction" is a flat-out lie. The Consensus Estimate of the American intelligence agencies has been made public, and we have quoted from it and linked to it on many occasions. America's intelligence agencies said, with a "high degree of confidence," that Saddam possessed both chemical and biological weapons. These were the same intelligence reports that Clinton received as President, so he is well aware of them. His statement was not a mistake, it was a lie.
Clinton goes on: Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together a constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.
A ridiculous standard, of course. No nation has ever adopted a constitution that was "universally supported," least of all, our own.
And more: The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.
Someone tell me: what did Clinton ever do, during his eight years in office, to build up America's armed forces or increase our power? He continues:
On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29. People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.
"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out" Note that when Clinton faulted the "authorities," he meant the Bush administration--although, as AFP points out, he "agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities." In fact, the entire responsibility lay with state and local authorities. Here, Clinton is simply playing on the ignorance of his listeners--a time-honored Democratic tactic. And speaking of "buses lined up to take them out," readers of this site are well aware that buses were "lined up," and that the City of New Orleans' hurricane plan contemplated that those buses would be used to evacuate residents. But, due entirely to the incompetence and fecklessness of local authorities, hundreds of buses that were "lined up" were never used. Clinton knows this; again, he is baldly attempting to deceive his listening audience.
Clinton finished up with some budget commentary:
On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.
As Clinton well knows, the Bush tax cuts benefited all taxpayers. And by historical standards, the current deficit is relatively small as a proportion of GDP, and is dropping.
Again and again, President Bush has tried to work with the Democrats as if they were loyal Americans first, and partisans second. Clinton's politically-motivated tissue of distortions is just the latest example out of many. But it is unprecedented, coming from a former President. That is a sad thing: the latest wound inflicted on the body politic by the Democratic Party.

UPDATE: this Clinton quote from July 23, 2003:

[I]t is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.

That was then, I guess; this is now. And 2008 is just a few short years away. So it's time, apparently, to revise the historical record.

He's the one they call Dr. Oh Shit!

ATLANTA Sep 18, 2005 — Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil is recovering from a leg injury after slipping off stage during a performance. The band was about five songs into the concert Friday night when Neil leaned over to sing along with the audience and slipped off stage, said police spokeswoman Sylvia Abernathy. "I just felt something snap in my leg," Neil wrote on the band's Web site. "I just couldn't go on." The band was forced to end the concert early. Neil was treated at Piedmont Hospital and released Saturday, hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis said.
The band said on its Web site that Neil partially tore part of his calf muscle. He planned to perform on Sunday night in Memphis, Tenn., and no shows were being canceled, the band said on its Web site. The 1980's glam band recently reunited after six years apart. Band members said they intended to return to Atlanta for a makeup show.

US to send four astronauts to moon in 2018

The United States will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a return to its pioneering manned mission into space, NASA administrator Michael Griffin announced.NASA is to design a new rocket based on the technology from its ageing shuttles that are to be retired in 2010, Griffin said Monday. The new rocket could be orbiting in space by 2014.The last manned mission to the moon was the Apollo 17 rocket in 1972. But the new mission will enable preparations to set up a permanent base on the moon, Griffin said Monday. The NASA chief estimated the cost of the moon programme at 104 billion dollars. He said the new rocket would be "very Apollo-like, with updated technology. Think of it as Apollo on steroids."

Dissent Is Patriotic

See if you can guess who said this:

[President] Bush, in his dealing with what was left behind by . . . the devastating Hurricane Katrina, which revealed to the entire world the great helplessness in dealing with the destruction caused by this hurricane, because of the tremendous attrition of the American army's resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This hurricane has once again brought to mind the manifestations of racial discrimination among the American people, and has exposed the fragility of the foundations upon which it is structured. The acts of assault and killings have spread, as well as robbery and looting, and what is still to come will be even more terrible.

Was it:

(a) Howard Dean
(b) Kanye West
(c) Nancy Reid and Harry Pelosi in a joint statement
(d) Cindy Sheehan

The correct answer, of course, is (e), none of the above. It was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's Iraq franchisee.

The Truth About Oil

The Truth About Oil
Pain at the pump has plenty of Americans ticked. Chances are, though, they are angry about the wrong things. Here are five myths many people believe about today's oil pinch-and what the real story is. FORTUNE Monday, September 19, 2005 By Jon Birger

A fellow road warrior pulls up to the pumps at Fillup's Food Store in Panama City, Fla. He looks at the nearly $3-a-gallon price of unleaded, and then with one word sums up the feelings of drivers nationwide: "Crazy."
Crazy indeed. Not that long ago, though, it would have been madness to suggest that oil could go from $18 a barrel to $65 in four years-and even crazier to suggest that such a run-up wouldn't spark a painful recession, with consumers spurning trips to the shopping mall and businesses crippled by cost hikes. Conventional wisdom has held that there are price thresholds that can't be breached without affecting spending habits. In 2003, for instance, Republican pollster Frank Luntz spoke of $2-a-gallon gasoline as a "magic number" that, if crossed, would harm Republican reelection hopes. Well, gas passed $2 a gallon a month before the 2004 election, and the oil guy in the White House still won. Two bucks wasn't so magic after all.
A sustained run of $3 gas could be what finally kicks the legs out from under the U.S. consumer-already, Wal-Mart is blaming lackluster sales on high gas prices -but it's hard to know for sure. After all, so much of the conventional wisdom on oil has been wrong. That's a problem, because if the U.S. is ever to make progress on treating its oil addiction, it needs to understand its source.
MYTH NO. 1: GAS STATIONS ARE GOUGING CONSUMERS.REALITY: If consumers are getting gouged, then gas station owners are being impaled. When gasoline prices spike, as they have in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, windfall profits rarely accrue to gas station owners. Kim Do, owner of a Coast station in Pleasanton, Calif., reports that in the immediate aftermath of the storm, she lost 8 to 10 cents on every gallon of gas she sold. "Customers are very angry-they call my prices a rip-off," Do says. "I tell them, 'I'm just like you.'" In fact, because retail prices are stickier than wholesale ones, gas stations make the fattest profits when prices are falling-a point made in a recent study by Berkeley economist Severin Borenstein.
Pumping gasoline is a dog-eat-dog business even when prices are normal, especially with Costco and Wal-Mart now muscling in. Low profit margins on gas are why so many gas stations double as convenience stores. "The objective is to get you to fill up on coffee, not gasoline," quips Gene Guilford, director of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association (ICPA). Those low margins can turn into no margins when there's a sudden rise in gas prices. Metropolitan service stations don't have much inventory stored in their underground tanks. That means they're buying gasoline from wholesalers at least once a day and are just as vulnerable as their customers to rising prices. What's more, most independent stations can't pass along all their costs because they compete with the likes of Chevron and Valero, which do have large inventories of lower-priced gasoline by virtue of being big refiners (see "The Soul of a Moneymaking Machine"). During price spikes, the majors use this advantage to underprice fuel, relatively speaking, in hope of gaining market share. In Connecticut, for instance, the ICPA figures the retail price of gasoline should have been $3.31 cents a gallon on Sept. 7, adding up all the taxes and costs. But the actual retail average was $3.08. No matter: On Sept. 8, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal announced he was looking into price gouging by gas stations. What about Big Oil? Aren't the giants guzzling profits? Sure, but there is nothing sinister about that-no cabal of cigar-chomping oil barons plotting how to squeeze the world for their evil ends. Yes, a few crooked traders were able to game the California energy markets for a time in 2001. But in a market as big and wide-open as oil, there are thousands of traders all over the world making the action. Unlike California power prior to the crisis, oil is a freely traded commodity. The markets, not the magnates, set the price.
MYTH NO. 2: HEDGE FUNDS ARE INFLATING THE PRICE OF OIL.REALITY: No, it's the Trilateral Commission in cahoots with the World Bank. Just kidding. Still, even many sophisticated people believe that hedge funds are driving up prices. Sean Cota, a Vermont heating-oil dealer who sits on the executive committee of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, points out that average daily trading volumes in NYMEX crude oil and heating oil futures have risen dramatically-61% and 36%, respectively-since 2000. When the trading volume of oil grossly exceeds consumption, he argues, that is a sign that hot money is firing up the market. "Prices are now being set by fear and greed, not by supply and demand," he concludes. His estimate: At least $20 of the current $65 price of oil is a byproduct of speculation by hedge funds and investment banks. Germany's Economy Minister, Wolfgang Clement, recently put the figure at $18, a sentiment echoed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. That is not, however, an accurate reading of how financial markets operate. Take Cota's concerns about excessive trading volumes. Futures trading in all commodities far surpasses the amount consumed by end users. And according to NYMEX, hedge funds account for less than 3% of volume in oil futures (a figure Cota disputes). In any case, basic market theory states that high volume leads to more, not less, efficient pricing. That's why thinly traded stocks tend to be more volatile-and vulnerable to manipulation-than heavily traded names like Microsoft or GE. "People make these kinds of arguments because they have their own ideas about where prices should be," says Stephen Figlewski, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and founding editor of the Journal of Derivatives. "Oil producers think prices should be high, and oil consumers think they should be low. But if the price isn't where they want it, the one thing they all agree on is that it must be someone else's fault." The truth is that emotion-fear of dwindling supply-drives oil prices harder than speculation ever will.
Even if speculators were dominating trading of oil and gas futures, it's still not clear that would lead to higher prices. Futures require two to tango. A hedge fund cannot purchase a contract to buy oil at $65 a barrel in November if someone else isn't prepared to take the bearish side of that bet. That someone else can be an oil company looking to offset some risk or another hedge fund looking to profit from falling fuel prices. Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show that the week before Katrina sidelined much of the Gulf oil industry, 14% of all short, or bearish, positions on crude oil were held by "noncommercial traders"-a subset that includes hedge funds and banks. This same group held only a slightly larger share-16%-of long, or bullish, positions. "For every hedge fund that's made money, I know a lot that have lost money," says Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach. Still dubious? Consider this: The average hedge fund has gained only 2.1% year so far this year. The average managed futures fund (the type most likely to invest in oil) has actually lost money, dropping 6.6%. Why? Because many have been shorting oil, according to Merrill Lynch hedge fund analyst Mary Ann Bartels. So if hedge funds really are driving up oil prices, they're doing a lousy job of profiting from it.
MYTH NO. 3: WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF OIL.REALITY: This one is true. Sort of. Unlike wind or water, oil is not a renewable resource. So by definition we're using it up, in the same way that we are all dying all the time. The real question is, When will it become impossible (or impossibly expensive) to recover enough to meet demand? Answering that question is not easy. New discoveries and new drilling technologies have transformed the science of exploration, which is why global reserves have doubled since 1980 (to 1.3 trillion barrels) even as consumption has soared. There's no shortage of oil experts, however, who say that the industry cannot keep up the pace, and that the age of ever-expanding reserves is over. These "peak oil" theorists argue that we need to prepare for an era in which supply trails demand, particularly given the fast-growing needs of China and India. The guru of the peak-oil set-and author of its latest manifesto-is Matt Simmons. A leading energy banker in Houston, Simmons spent years poring over oilfield engineering reports and concluded that some of the world's most important fields are thinning out. "I believe the Middle East has no spare capacity," he says. He's even more pessimistic about some newer fields like those in Russia and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Simmons is no kook-his book on the subject, Twilight in the Desert, is a must-read in energy circles. But there is a Chicken Little aspect to the peak-oil viewpoint. There have been a dozen or so oil shocks over the past 60 years-all replete with handwringing over in-the-ground reserves-and cheaper oil has returned each time. "The one thing I've learned," says Roach, "is that oil is a mean-reverting commodity." This time around, Roach expects high fuel prices to dent consumption-he's predicting a downturn in travel and other discretionary spending-while spurring oil companies to dig deeper and farther afield for oil. The analysts at Cambridge Energy Research Associates have done their own painstaking global survey of oil production, and they couldn't disagree with Simmons more. In their view, production could rise 16 million barrels a day by 2010, leaving a comfortable gap between supply and demand.
The real problem with the peak-oil argument has less to do with engineering than with philosophy. It lacks imagination. Thirty years ago few thought it would be possible to produce price-competitive oil from Canadian oil sands. Today the cost of producing that oil is about $20 a barrel and is still falling (see "The Dark Magic of Oil Sands"). Similarly, you can't rule out the idea that today's speculative energy technologies (see "Here Come the New Fuels") will become cost-efficient by the time Middle East oil production starts to wane. "The peak-oil argument underestimates the potential for technological progress," says Economy.com's Thorsten Fischer, who expects oil to fall to about $40 a barrel by next year. Simmons thinks prices could triple by 2010. Peak-oil theory also overlooks alternative explanations for why oil exploration hasn't been terribly fruitful in recent years. It may be that there is oil to be found, but investors haven't given oil companies the requisite incentives to find it. Blame the dot-com boom. Having been burned by accounting cheats and profitless wonders, post-2000 investors demanded cash flow, dividends, and stock buybacks. So despite booming profits and revenues, Exxon Mobil spent less on capital and exploration in 2004 than in 2003. And the $11.7 billion figure for 2004 was $3 billion less than the company earmarked for dividends and buybacks. Of course, $65 oil has a way of changing priorities. After years of stagnation, drilling-rig counts have soared 36% since April 2004. There are 2,895 active rigs worldwide, according to Baker Hughes, the most since 1986.
MYTH NO. 4: THE U.S. IS RUNNING OUT OF REFINING CAPACITY.REALITY: So what? It's fair to say that in recent months supply has been straining to meet demand and that U.S. refineries had to work flat-out just to convert enough crude into gas to keep the pumps filled. Then Katrina came, knocking out 20% of the industry. But America's struggle to ramp up capacity-we haven't built a new refinery in 30 years, though many existing ones have expanded-does not mean doom. There are many products that the U.S. happily consumes in which we are not self-sufficient-think kiwi fruit or funny T-shirts. The U.S. should easily be able to import gasoline and other refined petroleum products from India, the Caribbean, South America, and other places where labor costs, NIMBYism, and environmental regulations don't cripple new construction. The Department of Energy projects that worldwide refining capacity will increase 61% over the next 20 years. Says Fischer: "There's little reason to build a new refinery in the U.S. if you can do it faster and cheaper overseas." And while not all overseas refineries can produce gasoline that meets our environmental standards, who doesn't want to sell into the U.S. market? New plants will be, and already are, designed to meet American requirements. Finally, if oil companies don't want to build, their customers may beat them to it: In mid-September, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced plans for a $2 billion refinery that will help his airline defray the high cost of jet fuel.
MYTH NO. 5: THE GOVERNMENT MUST INTERVENE TO BRING DOWN ENERGY PRICES.REALITY: Nooooo! The last time the U.S. went down that road, in the 1970s, the end result was gas lines, shortages-and little change in prices. But evidently they don't teach much history in politician school anymore-a frightening number of elected officials seem ready to re-embrace price controls. U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-Michigan) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) want to give President Bush the power to set gasoline prices. In Massachusetts, secretary of state William Galvin has proposed a moratorium on natural-gas price increases. Hawaii's Republican governor has signed a law imposing limited price controls on gas; it will be interesting to see how much gas is left for the state to control. A confidence-boosting release of some crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve might help to calm tempers, but all in all, the best thing the U.S. can do to bring down oil prices is-nothing. Ask yourself, Which is more likely to deliver cheaper oil: bureaucratic controls or all those new drilling rigs that went up only because of the incentive provided by high prices?
Of course, "I did nothing!" won't fly as a campaign slogan. And in fact, there are things the U.S. could be doing to treat our oil addiction. Because here's another uncomfortable truth: The U.S. now imports almost 60% of the oil it consumes each year, and that figure will only grow. One unfortunate result: Prickly characters like Hugo Chavez have us over a metaphorical barrel . For starters, Congress could raise fuel-efficiency standards for cars. Even a 10% improvement would save the equivalent of two million barrels a day by 2025-more than we now import from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. We could reverse policies that encourage consumption, like the absurd tax incentives for small businesses to buy pickups and SUVs. We could ease some of the moratoriums on domestic oil and gas exploration. We could think harder about how to diversify supply; displace oil from uses not associated with transportation; and kick-start, through the wise use of market incentives, the journey toward a future beyond oil. Years of relatively cheap oil-and low gasoline taxes-have allowed the U.S. to get away with being extraordinarily inefficient in our use of energy; we don't get nearly as much economic activity out of a barrel as our economic peers. The U.S. will never be self-sufficient in oil, even if we pave Alaska and drain the Gulf. But we can, and should, get more for our oil bucks. The U.S. is vulnerable to oil tremblors like the kind we are experiencing now because we have made a series of decisions-about taxes, subsidies, housing, transport, lifestyles-that have led precisely to this point. With the Gulf still damp from Katrina, it's time to ask if we can do it better.

Hurricane

Al Gore, weighed in last week, notes Bob Tyrrell http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8746 :

"He urged that "the leaders of our country be held accountable" for the flooding of New Orleans. Unfortunately he was addressing the Sierra Club, which was not the best place to bring up the flooding of New Orleans. The very day he spoke a congressional task force reported that the levees that failed in New Orleans would have been raised higher and strengthened in 1996 by the Army Corps of Engineers were it not for a lawsuit filed by environmentalist [sic] led by who else but the Sierra Club."

Among those "leaders of our country" to "be held accountable" for the flooding of New Orleans, would Al include the Sierra Club?

Hitchens debate

CSPAN2 running it Saturday 7:00 CST as is CSPAN BookTV Saturday, September 17 at 9:00 pm EST and Sunday, September 18 at 12:00 pm and Monday, September 19 at 5:30 am

-I have to watch it.

Great

The terrorist “president” of Iran is currently at the United Nations (with a visa granted by the State Department in an exception to their own rules), and he’s promising to share Iran’s nuclear knowledge with the Islamic world.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology, considered to be a front for bomb-making by Washington, with other Islamic countries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Thursday.
The comments were likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program just ahead of a key meeting of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog this month which could decide to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for punitive action.
“The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
The remarks were made during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, IRNA said.

Life imitates Onion

Gillette unveils 5-bladed razor
September 14, 2005: 3:35 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Gillette has escalated the razor wars yet again, unveiling a new line of razors on Wednesday with five blades and a lubricating strip on both the front and back.
The razor, known as the Fusion, has blades spaced 30 percent closer than Gillette's current MACH3Turbo system. It also has a single blade on the back of the cartridge for shaving sideburns or trimming under the nose. The move renews an ongoing blade battle with Schick, the shaving unit of Energerizer (Research), which launched a four-blade razor, the Quattro, last year. The move ate into Gillette sales and sparked a legal battle between the two companies.
Schick is adding a battery-powered Quattro to its lineup this month, while Gillette's Fusion -- in both manual and battery-powered models -- won't hit North American stores until early next year. "The Schick launch has nothing to do with this, it's like comparing a Ferrari to a Volkswagen as far as we're concerned," Chairman, President and Chief Executive James Kilts, told Reuters.

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades
February 18, 2004
Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened - the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.