Mustang memories for sale on E-bay

Nevada Appeal - Region:
"Items in his collection include the front sign frame of the Mustang I building, ornamental lights that once graced the front entrance and etched- glass panels." Minimum bid - $25,000.

The Mustang Ranch property and its name were sold previously on E-bay by the government for $145,000. Now a collector is offering as a single lot 13 items, most of which he bought in a government auction in 2002.

Considering the way our government operates, you might think they should have kept the doors open on the Mustang Ranch, America's most famous whorehouse. Then again, doing so might have given rise to unfavorable comparisons to other government activities in which the customer also pays a lot of money but the direction of penetration is reversed.

Popular unrest in the leading people's paradise

For the Chinese masses, an increasingly short fuse:
"Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou's central square, where they toppled official vehicles, pummeled police officers and torched City Hall."

Just another day in the People's Republic of China according to this article from the International Herald Tribune online version. According to official statistics reported in the IHT, there were nearly 60,000 such incidents in 2003, although most were smaller. The 2003 figure was 15 percent higher than the year before.

Here's a description of another recent incident:
"In November, up to 100,000 farmers in Sichuan Province, frustrated by months of fruitless appeals against a dam project that claimed their land, seized Hanyuan County government offices and barred work on the dam site for days. It took 10,000 paramilitary troops to quell the unrest."

There are a number of others described in the article including one where police beat to death a suspect in a bicycle robbery and another where rioters killed two police officers over a traffic dispute. Maybe the Chinese Communist Party has good reason to be paranoid.

This sort of boiling discontent provides an important clue, I think to the seeming excessive zeal in suppressing some forms of internet activity, Falun Gong, and unlicensed Christian churches. Most of these incidents are uncoordinated, local eruptions which blow over quickly. Any unofficial line of communication that runs from one end of the country to the other poses the danger of coordinated uprisings across the country which could overwhelm the ability of authorities to restore control promptly.

Good things come in small packages? Not much smaller than these!

Betterhumans > Mouse Testicles Yield Potent Stem Cells:
"They have molecular markers in common with embryonic stem cells and can transform into blood-forming cells, vascular cells and beating heart muscle cells."

From Japan, the country that gave the world radios so small you could put one in a shirt pocket (I'm showing my age now), comes word that the testicles of newborn mice contain cells that would normally develop into sperm but can be coached to become multi-potent stem cells. Just how big is the testicle of a newborn mouse? More to the point, what ever possessed these guys to look there? A promising development from an unlikely source.

2004 election debacle in North Carolina

newsobserver.com | Opinion:
"'NC has the worst election problem in the country right now.' -- Computer scientist Dr. David L. Dill of Stanford University
"'A Florida-style nightmare has unfolded in North Carolina in the days since Election Day, with thousands of votes missing and the outcome of two statewide races still up in the air.' -- AP Newswire, Nov 13"

This is a story which has gotten surprisingly little attention. Most post-election stories have focused on attempts to question the validity of Bush's win in Ohio and the perpetual recounting of the votes in the very tight gubernatorial election in Washington.

What brought this to my attention was the report today that the NC state election board's 3-2 Democrat majority had - on a straight party-line vote - ordered a new statewide election for the post of agriculture commissioner because over 4,000 votes are missing due to computer problems in Carteret County and the Republican candidate's margin at the end of counting was substantially less. Republicans had argued for a new vote in Carteret only, and the election board appears to have violated the law which requires four votes to order an entire new election. The statewide re-vote is expected to cost the state about $3 million.

But, in researching that story, I turned up this op-ed from the newsobserver.com website published a month ago which indicates significant problems in several counties. The problems reportedly include:
Gaston County - one entire precinct of 1,209 votes missing and 12,000 more votes not reported.
Guilford County - 22,000 vote discrepancy in presidential race.
Craven County - 11,283 more votes cast for president than there were voters voting (same election software as used in Guilford).

The truly scary thing about this is that, so long as we rely on computers, having the number of voters on the machine match the pollbooks and all the totals looking reasonable won't mean that the results are correct. If I was inclined to a more pessimistic view of life, I might think there was a conspiracy afoot to make elections meaningless exercises. I don't, yet; but for those so inclined, there is plenty of evidence.

Computers never make mistakes - LOL

Snowed-in code blamed for Comair's Xmas flight collapse | The Register :
"Comair last week said that winter storms had affected its computer systems responsible for scheduling flight crews. At the time, however, the carrier - a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines - did not say exactly how inclement weather had brought down its boxes. It now turns out that a dinosaur of a system was only capable of handling 32,000 scheduling changes in a month ..."

This story reminds me of the early days of pocket calculators (I was in college then) where the instructions would mention some situations (stuff you could do with pencil and paper, back when people still knew how) where the gizmos would only return hash because of rounding errors (from using log functions, I think).

Anyway, it seems something called the 16-bit conundrum (there is a link in the story to a technical discussion, but if you can follow it you probably already know it) which boils down to this - the largest positive integer the system can handle is 32,767. That means their software could only track that many crew changes in any one month. With 1,100 daily flights and about 3 crew members each, the snowstorm forced so many crew changes that the system reached its limit and shut down. Ironically, the software was due to be replaced in January anyway.

Another threat to airline travel?

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US probes 'laser-tracked' flights:
"US investigators are examining a spate of cases in which laser beams have been shone into the cockpits of aircraft."

A total of six complaints have reached the FBI, including incidents in Cleveland and Colorado Springs. The latter location may be particularly significant since Colorado Springs is the location of the US Air Force Academy.

Even if the work of pranksters rather than terrorists, this is a serious issue. In 1997, Lt. Cmdr. Jack Daly, USN suffered permanent eye damage in an incident where a laser was allegedly used by the Far East Shipping Company vessel Kapitan Man while it was believed to be surveilling US submarine activity in the vicinity of the US sub base in Bremerton, Washington. Daly as the intel officer was riding in a Canadian helicopter on a routine joint patrol when he and his Canadian pilot were illuminated by a laser while tracking the activities of the Kapitan Man. Both men were injured. You can find an AP story with more details on the incident here. The US government has been distinctly unhelpful in getting justice for Daly - here is a link to Bill Gertz' website item titled Navy roadblock.

If it is terrorists, they have not yet succeeded in bringing down a plane in this way, but that may not be their intention. A laser attack on the flight deck would give terrorists several advantages: 1) No need to gain entry to a plane, or even an airport; 2) Works at a distance which facilitates escape; 3) Likely to leave little or no physical evidence. But, you wouldn't want to do a lot of practicing because it increases the chance something will go wrong and get them caught. On the other hand, these might be range-finding exercises carried out as part of the planning for an attack with some sort of a projectile - anything from a sniper rifle to an RPG or missile.

Broad coalition to take office in Israel, if only they had someone to negotiate with

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Sharon seals new Israel coalition:
"Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and opposition leader Shimon Peres have agreed a compromise deal which paves the way for a new coalition government."

Today's news brings Labor into the current minority government led by Likud. This is good news for those who see the withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza as an important step in resolving the Palestinian question. This is an Israeli government uniquely empowered to make bold moves to acheive peace. It remains to be seen whether the post-Arafat Palestinian leadership will have either the desire or the will to bargain in good faith. I doubt it.

The withdrawal from Gaza will be a benefit to Israel in any event. But, if it goes through now without an acknowledgement from the Palestinian side that it is a part of the quid pro quo, it may not enhance Israel's bargaining position. Such is the unfortunate dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it often actually delays policies tending toward peace until they can be incorporated in a new bargain, by which time the opportunity may be lost.

America's fifth column - a bit of history from Horowitz

The McGovern Syndrome: A Surrender Is Not a Peace:
"The leftward slide of the Democratic Party, which has made it an uncertain trumpet in matters of war and peace, may be said to have begun with the McGovern presidential campaign of 1972, whose slogan was “Come Home, America” – as though America was the problem and not the aggression of the Communist bloc."

So writes prominent ex-Marxist David Horowitz in a very informative column on NewsMax.com. Horowitz brings to such subjects his own first-person recollections of events as one who was in his early years a second-generation revolutionary collectivist (aka "red diaper baby") and leader of the anti-American movement that called itself, with the help of the MSM, the anti-war movement, the campaign for peace and brotherhood, etc.

As one who was active on the pro-American side in those days, it is refreshing to see someone like Horowitz make the case against the left. For some reason, they get a fairer hearing, perhaps because they are so willing to cut their erstwhile colleagues a bit of slack. I tend to call the leaders of that movement - Tom Hayden, John Kerry, Jerry Rubin, etc. - traitors rather than deluded idealists.

In a relatively short space, Horowitz does trace the anti-war movement from the 1948 Progressive Party presidential campaign of Henry Wallace (FDR's third term VP), through the 1968 Democrat National Convention riots, and the 1972 McGovern campaign, down to the present call from McGovern to surrender in Iraq just as he had wished us to surrender in Vietnam. The article is worth reading as a refresher on this bit of history.

Personally, I am conflicted now as I was in the 60s. Iraq is not the war I would have chosen in 2003, just as Vietnam was not the war I would have chosen in 1965. But, once in, there is no substitute for victory.

The left shows their utter contempt for American interests by continuing to argue why we should never have gone into Iraq long after that has ceased to be a useful subject for debate. They do this as if leaving Iraq precipatately now would be equivalent to never having gone in. But that is like trying to unring a bell. We are in Iraq, and we now have no choice but to see it through. If Kerry had said that during the campaign - we shouldn't have gone in, but we are in, and must win, and I will lead that fight to its successful conclusion - he might be preparing to take office in three weeks instead of making trouble for the country with his stealth backing of attempts to overturn the Ohio election results.

People like McGovern and Kerry are not entitled to have anyone cut them some slack. Both know something of war (McGovern in the Army Air Force in WW2 and Kerry in the Navy in Vietnam), both are certifiably smart and well-educated (McGovern was a college professor, Kerry a lawyer), both served in the US Senate. Since their anti-war efforts were so central to their careers, we are entitled to assume that they gave it considerable thought. Smart, experienced people who advocate policies which can only inure to the harm of the nation are not entitled to be called fools, they show themselves to be our enemies.

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good

Rural Emergency Crews Fear Proposed Federal Rules

The link above is to an AP story on NewsMax.com discussing proposed new national training standards for emergency medical technicians (EMTs). This is a subject dear to my heart since I served for over two years as an ambulance driver in what was then an all-volunteer basic EMS service in a rural and small town area of northern Berks County, Pennsylvania. At that time, most of the EMS services in the county were volunteers, and even some of the paramedics (EMT-P).

Before anyone reflexively says, oh yes, I want the most highly trained responders, consider what you are really saying. Do you think EMS ought to roll up on the scene of your emergency with an orthopedic surgeon, a cardiologist, an anesthesiologist and nurses in truck fitted out with a mobile operating room? That would be a high standard of care, but how much of it could we afford? On the other extreme you would prefer not to see the coroner's van pull up on scene. Somewhere in between we have to balance capabilities with availability.

In some locales, all EMS runs might be made by paid paramedics. This is a high level of care, but it can only be justified where there are high utilization rates and and a need for paramedic skills on a high proportion of calls, or where the taxpayers are relatively wealthy. In most places, what you get is EMTs on scene for all calls and paramedics sent only to the more serious trauma and respiratory or cardiac cases. The proposed new DOT (the origin of federal involvement was highway safety, not public health, so the standards fall under the Department of Transportation and not the Department of Health and Human Services) rules are designed to extend the skill set of basic EMTs. That is a desirable goal in general, but it will increase costs.

Some of the pressure for higher standards is motivated by concern for patients, but some is also motivated by the desire of those in paid services for higher wages to reflect their greater responsibilities. Also, every addition to the skill set adds skills that are less often used than most of those in the existing skill set. Skills you don't use often require more training time to maintain proficiency. Increased training commitments will also drive up costs for the many fire and some police services that require cross-training of some or all their personnel as basic EMTs. Expanded skills will likely also result in higher insurance premiums for EMS providers.

For volunteer services which are vital in vast rural reaches of the country, the higher initial training and the increased need for refresher training will put a serious crimp in the ability to recruit and train personnel. Not only that, but to the extent that we shift to paid services, we usually end up with fewer stations and that can increase response times significantly. There is a reason we put lights and sirens on those buses, it is because minutes count. In most cases, a basic EMT on the spot quickly is of more use to the patient than a paramedic by-and-by.

There is another reason to prefer volunteer to paid services which was not mentioned in the AP story. A community with 30 volunteers instead of a half dozen paid EMTs is one in which your chances of getting help quickly are actually enhanced. In my experience, most volunteers carried their own crash bags in their personal vehicles and might, while off duty, happen upon an accident before it was reported, or they might monitor the radio dispatch and respond directly when they were closer to the scene than the responding squad. I did both on several occasions. I also recall a mass casualty incident - a bus wreck on the Interstate - where many off-duty volunteers arrived long before the second, third, and fourth due squads could get to the scene. You can't get that kind of surge capacity out of an all paid service structure and you end up calling in back up from even farther away. And when you have a more general crisis like a blizzard or recovery from ice or wind storms, all your back-up services are likely in the same boat and have no extra capacity to offer to you. In blizzards in our area, I have seen volunteers responding to calls using their personal snowmobiles where no other vehicles could travel.

This is a prime example of how "one size fits all" federal regulation ends up serving many people very poorly indeed. There is an old saying that is very appropriate to keep in mind in any public policy debate, and it fits this case very well - Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. It means not letting pursuit of the very best standard which is actually unobtainable get in the way of a good standard which can be acheived.

Many communities rely on volunteers, not only in EMS, but in the fire service, auxiliary police, hazmat teams, emergency management and other essential roles. We ought to make it easier for people to volunteer, not harder.

Frisco FED crunches the numbers on SS tax bite - Ouch!

Suppressed News: News for America:
"Social Security is robbing Americans of their future, because it forces all workers to paying into a socialist program that promises a very dismal return. This is a promise that will not be met for younger Americans if the system is not fixed."

This article reproduces a very interesting graph showing rate of return to retirees on their SS "contributions" by year of birth for the top, middle and bottom income quintiles. For a worker born in 1970 or later, the rate of return for workers with incomes in the bottom quintile is a barely adequate 4%, for the middle quintile a dismal 1.5%, and for the filthy capitalists in the top quintile approximately 0%. Click here for the full SF Federal Reserve Bank study.

Pipes' depths plumbed

Militant about "Islamism":
"'It's a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution.'
~Daniel Pipes"

A very good review of the career and controversies of Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia, from the Harvard Magazine. It is a useful introduction to the life and work of one of the clearest thinkers in the US on the subject of militant Islam. Highly recommended.

Are progressives losing the PR war in Ohio recount?

The Village Voice: Nation: The Case of the Ohio Recount by Rick Perlstein

In a piece that goes a long way to undermine some of the most widely mentioned allegations of vote fraud in various Ohio locales, Perlstein points out that the lack of anything resembling proof of GOP fraud is taxing the public credibility of the various progressive groups shouting fraud from the rooftops.

In conclusion, he notes that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) is proposing a constitutional amendment to create a uniform electoral machinery across the country. This strategy, he says, has the merit of preventing future abuses rather than investigating them after the fact and will put the GOP in the position of having to oppose it to keep their election fraud machinery working. More on this constitutional amendment business later this week.

Mutinous military frustrates Pakistan's efforts against Al Qaeda

30 More Pakistani Troops to Get Death Penalty for Indiscipline:
"The Army prosecutors who did not want to publicly admit that largescale defiance had taken place in South Waziristan where the Army had been deployed against the tribesmen, merged the indiscipline charges against these troops with the assassination attempts on General Musharraf and sought death sentences for the accused.
"According to these sources the South Waziristan operation had turned out to be biggest dent in Army discipline when several units declined to be posted in South Waziristan and dozens of troops refused to continue the fight against tribes. The Army top brass was shaken and most of these troops were recalled from the front line."

So reports MT Butt writing in the online South Asia Tribune published in London. Previously, the head of armed forces public relations had confirmed to Asia Times that one sepoy had been sentenced to death and another to ten years imprisonment in courts martial in October related to the assassination attempt against Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Now it appears that there are a further 30 soldiers awaiting trial on similar charges and that the offenses primarily concern refusal to fight in the tribal areas of South Waziristan and have only a tenuous connection to the assassination plot.

South Waziristan is one of the areas where it is thought Al Qaeda leaders, perhaps including UBL himself, may have found refuge. Gen. Musharraf has been walking a tightrope knowing that these people are his enemies as well as ours, but fearful of losing support at home if he appears to be acting as a tool of US policy. This story gives us new insight into the difficulties he faces.

Follow the link to read the full list of charges against the man who was convicted and sentenced to death on October 20.

Robots teaching their creators - sounds backwards to me

Welcome to Technology Review :
"[Mitsuo] Kawato [director, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto] loves robots not because they are cool, but because he believes they can teach him how the human brain works. 'Only when we try to reproduce brain functions in artificial machines can we understand the information processing of the brain,' he says. It’s what he calls 'understanding the brain by creating the brain.' By programming a robot to reach out and grasp an object, for instance, Kawato hopes to learn the patterns in which electrical signals flow among neurons in the brain to control a human arm."

This rather lengthy piece on MIT's TechnologyReview.com manages to miss the really interesting questions. The robot teaches Kawato nothing, Kawato builds his robot, observes its behavior, and teaches himself. Also, there is only a passing reference to the fact that the robot's manufactured brain and body are very imperfect as models of the structures of our own bodies. Control of a set of hydraulic cylinders to move robotic arms and hands for a robot has to be a fundamentally different thing from controlling a series of muscles to do similar things with a human body. Why should we assume there is close correspondence between a digital computer and our analog brains?

Entirely overlooked in this discussion is the problem of intention. The robot has its intentions programmed by its creator. Where do the intentions of human actions come from? If one takes the atheistic evolutionary view, what appear to be intentions are nothing more than the potentials for action which have been developed through natural selection magnifying useful adaptations and weeding out those which are not useful. In this model, the robot is fundamentally different because we have no idea how such spontaneous intentionality would arise in a robot.

On the other hand, suppose one takes the theistic creation view. Here we have two possibilities, all intentions are pre-programmed - we are mere automata - in which case the robot looks like a useful metaphor. Or, we are created with a suite of intentional possibilities from which we choose - what theologians call free will, or free moral agency - in which case the robot model won't work very well.

Why, you may well ask, do I raise this issue of intentions when all that Kawato and his colleagues are trying to do is understand how the brain moves the arm? Because the brain moves the arm for a reason and changing the reason for which the arm is moved will change the way it is moved. The speed of the movement, the force behind it, how much of the body is involved in the movement - all these depend not only on the specific goal but even on our mood.

Consider picking up a glass from your desk and bringing it to your mouth to drink. The robot calculates distances and force needed and an efficient route the glass will travel. But is that really what we do? Maybe you have a cough or a tickle in your throat, you want that glass of water brought to your lips quickly - even at the risk of spilling some of it. Maybe you are in a thoughtful mood and having thought of sipping a bit of that gibson, you pick up the glass slowly, gently turn it a bit from side to side, watch the little onions roll about, and then take a sip. Maybe you're checking your email and working on your morning caffeine fix at the same time; you might pick up the coffee, take a sip, and put it back down without ever looking at it, hardly even noticing that you have done it. Even a simple thing like raising a cup to the lips has a lot going on, not all of it conscious, and that isn't anything like what goes on with the robot.

Another issue overlooked here has to do with how we learn to control our bodies. In some experiments made famous by Maltz in his book Psychocybernetics, subjects were tested on their ability to shoot free throws on a basketball court. Then they were divided into two groups who practiced equal amounts of time, but one group practiced by actually throwing the ball at the hoop and the other by visualizing the process. They were then tested to see if their performance improved. Both groups improved, and the visualization group improved more. I'd like to see someone explain this in terms of the robot model.

Unfortunately, we are not likely to get definitive answers anytime soon. Kawato, who is in the midst of a five-year and $8 million project to upgrade his current robot, wants a program costing a half billion dollars a year for 30 years just to get a robot with the capabilities of a five-year old child.

To anyone contemplating spending that much money for such a modest goal, I remind you of an old joke from India. Two brothers have not seen each other for over twenty years. One became a holy man to learn to overcome the physical world and owns nothing but his loincloth and rice bowl, the other has become a rich merchant. They meet at the ferry crossing the river to their hometown. The poor holy man walks across the river while his brother pays his fare and crosses on the ferry. When they meet again on the other side, the merchant asks how long it took to learn to walk on water and the holy man says it has taken all of the twenty years since they parted. The merchant says, "it takes me less time than the ferry crossing took to earn the money to pay the fare, which of us has made the best use of his time?"

Welcome to America. Thank you for entering unlawfully. Please pass on into our country and show up for a deportation hearing if you feel inclined.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion:
"Every week, agents in the border patrol's Swanton sector [Vermont and part of New York] catch Middle Easterners and North Africans sneaking into Vermont. And every week, they immediately release those trespassers with a polite request to return for a deportation hearing. Why? The Department of Homeland Security failed to budget enough funding for sufficient detention space for lawbreakers."

This is one of several interesting tidbits in a NY Post opinion column by Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute. Here is another:
" In 2003, authorities busted Mexico's consul in Lebanon for selling fake visas for up to $4,500. Her ring had smuggled about 300 Lebanese into the U.S. from Tijuana from 1999 to November 2002."

The borders are sieves, "catch and release" (the policy that turned young Malvo, the junior partner of the Beltway sniper team loose on America) is a cruel joke, the administration has no interest whatsoever in enforcing our border controls. That last may sound extreme, but Ms. MacDonald notes that the government has asked for only 117 new detention spaces in 2005 while it may lose as many as 1,400 beds for failure to pay promptly or adequately for rented space in local jails across the country.

Beware moderates advising conservatives on what's good for us

WorldNetDaily: Beware of changing cloture:
"The nation will not tolerate seeing an electoral victory impelled by terrorism hijacked to put another William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas on the court. If Bush tries it, he will not be able to govern effectively for the balance of his term."

So writes Dick Morris, the architect of Bill Clinton's "triangulation" strategy, in a commentary on WorldNetDaily.com. He follows this up by making an analogy to FDR's court-packing plan of the 1930s. Like all analogies, this one is of limited utility - in fact, a great deal less utility than most.

Morris intends us to believe that since voters trusted Bush over Kerry on the GWOT issue, Bush has no mandate to do anything effective on the social issues except, perhaps, on gay marriage. Now this is a breathtakingly obtuse position to take considering how many people on both the left and right saw the defining difference between Bush and Kerry as the character of the men and women each would nominate to the federal bench, especially the Supreme Court. Moreover, it would be particularly difficult, as a practical matter, to find a judicial nominee who saw the constitution requiring deference to the states on the issue of defining marriage but not requiring similar deference on the issue of abortion.

The absurd logic of Griswold v. Connecticut underlies so much of the flawed constitutional jurisprudence of the last forty years. Griswold, you may recall, claimed to find emanations from a penumbra (literally light from shadow) of privacy to overturn the State of Connecticut's ban on the sale of condoms. Now, one may object to the Connecticut statute (as I would) on grounds that it is an unwise policy. But the idea that, because condoms are used in bedrooms, and we have a privacy right to be undisturbed in the peaceful enjoyment of our homes, the US constitution forbids Connecticut to legislate in this way is absurd. And it is Griswold that underpins the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions (both of which, we now know, were fraudulently presented to the Court). That logic also was used to overturn a Texas statute against sodomy. And by that reading of the constitution, state definitions of marriage that exclude homosexual unions are bound to fall as well. From the standpoint of federal constitutional jurisprudence, when one falls, it will be nearly impossible to hold the other way on the rest.

Of course, a court that would re-examine the concept of privacy that begins with Griswold would not, on that account, outlaw abortion. That is the scare tactic used by the abortion industry which constantly works to plant such absurd notions with the public to protect their multi-billion dollar rice bowl. When Roe was decided, nearly a third of the states permitted abortion. Overturn Roe and most, likely all, states will permit abortion with varying degrees of sensible restrictions. Far from "defying popular views on choice," as Morris says, this would respect the views of the public that young teenagers should not be routinely seeking medical treatment without their parents' knowledge, or that healthy full-term babies should not be murdered at the moment of birth.

Morris says Republicans will ill-serve their own interests if they indulge Bush's desire to pack the court with extremists. The truth is, that if the right wing doesn't get something out of this second Bush administration some of them might just give up on the GOP. We know we are not going to get fiscal responsibility. We are not going to get local control of education. We are not going to get control of our borders. If we don't get some very sound judges, we will have every reason to conclude that we have no stake in the fortunes of the Republican Party. We may sit at home, or we might throw our votes away on the Constitution Party, but we will no longer line up to blindly follow the GOP off a cliff.

Secession or federalism in Iraq?

Times Online - Sunday Times:
"Peter Galbraith, the former American ambassador to Croatia, with his vantage point in Zagreb during the bloodbath in Bosnia, was able to see how a country cobbled together by the allies was failing to work. When he visited Iraq after the American conquest last year he was struck by how similar the equally artificial British-created country was to what he had witnessed in the Balkans."

This article makes a case, based on a flawed analogy to the former Yugoslavia, for dividing Iraq into three countries. Having gotten to the point where the creation of an independent Kurdistan would be intolerable to Turkey and Iran with their substantial Kurdish minorities (There are Kurds in Syria, as well, but Hafez Assad kept down their numbers by using their villages as practice bombing ranges for his air force.), it shifts gears to consider a "cantonal" solution that would include making the Sadr City area of Baghdad a Shia enclave within the Sunni heartland. Curiously, this is precisely what apartheid (the literal translation is "separate development") was intended to be when first proposed in the 1950s - a system for allowing different ethnic communities (Zulu, Xhosa, Dutch, English, etc.) to follow their own courses on domestic policies within the artificial constructs of colonial era borders.

PC obscures truth even for those who ought to know better

Osama's New Strategy:
"Bin Laden's new strategy appears designed to (1) further detach the United States from its European allies – much the way the Soviet Union unsuccessfully tried to do throughout the Cold War; (2) assist the insurgency in Iraq by encouraging more jihadis to volunteer for suicide duty; (3) stoke public opinion against the royals in Saudi Arabia; (4) stoke public opinion against Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan."

Thus, Washington Times editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave sums up UBL's current strategy. I would like to comment on something else de Borchgrave said in that article:
"Europe's Muslims – about 20 million of them – are for the most part moderate and good citizens of their country of adoption. But the silent majority has been cowed into silence by growing numbers of unemployed who are alienated, angry and refuse to integrate into European societies. They are also vocal in favor of bin Laden as the new pinup who rivals Che Guevara on university campuses."

This hits the appropriate note of sympathy for the "silent majority" of Muslims who are just good citizens of their adoptive countries. It is, however, utterly dishonest. Citizenship in a free society is not a mere passive accomplishment, it takes more than going to work, paying your taxes and not getting caught robbing a bank. It includes reporting crimes, coming forward as a witness, and generally standing up for the safety of the society you live in. To say, as de Borchgrave does here, that "the silent majority has been cowed into silence by growing numbers of unemployed who are alienated, angry and refuse to integrate into European societies" is to say that they are, on the whole, not good citizens. It is, in fact, to condemn that majority as silent enablers of Islamofascist terrorism.

We see this dynamic at work here in the US, not only in Muslim communities, but many other minority enclaves in cities large and small where it is virtually impossible to fight drugs and other organized crime activity effectively because the perpetrators are protected by their ethnic cohorts. The motive may be fear, admiration, or a share of the criminal proceeds, but the result is the same, whatever the motive.

It is fashionable in some quarters to say that this is a reflection of the illegal status of so many immigrants in the US and that waving a magic wand of amnesty over them as the president proposes will solve the problem. Well, those Muslim communities in Europe are overwhelmingly composed of legal immigrants and that hasn't prevented the same problem from surfacing there.

Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq - the troops seem to like him, and so do I

Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq :
"'There's no doubt in my mind, this is achievable,' he told troops in Mosul just three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here.
"'When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't be done, and that we're in a quagmire here,' one should recall that there have been such doubters 'throughout every conflict in the history of the world,' he told about 200 soldiers of the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander's headquarters."

I saw the tapes of the SecDef's whistlestop tour of Iraq on Fox News Channel as they were released. Rummy was in fine form. Witty when possible, serious when needed, always upbeat and confident.

Bush should keep Rumsfeld on the job for years to come, and not just for his handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which, despite some glitches, have gone reasonably well. For all the complaining one hears, and the very serious challenges posed by the ongoing revolt against the interim Iraqi government, we have made some signal achievements. Iraqi civilians are using the hotline to turn in terrorists, hospitals and schools are functioning, electricity is being restored, plans have been made to build water and sewer systems better than they were before the war.

But the other essential function which this SecDef is handling with considerable skill and persistence is the transformation of the armed forces for 21st century warfare. The heavy armor and artillery model of warfare which dominated from WW2 through the Cold War had been recognized as obsolete for some time. The 1991 US campaign against Iraq may well have been the world's last great tank battle involving a major power. The main battle tank and massed heavy artillery was well-suited to the static defense of the Fulda Gap, but that battle never came. The only place left in the world where such a thing might be seen again would be a new inter-Korean war.

The new model is not static defense, as dictated by the Cold War policy of containment, but the projection of significant force to take and hold ground anywhere in the world on short notice. The recent campaigns against Iraq (1991 and 2003) were somewhat unusual in that a total control of the air and major airfields in close proximity to the assembly areas made it possible to assemble significant heavy forces including main battle tanks literally under the nose of the enemy. This is not a scenario that will often be repeated. The Abrams tank can only be lifted by our largest Air Force cargo plane and only one at a time. These planes are so expensive and in such short supply that the Air Force cannot allow them to be operated in close proximity to hostile fire.

During the previous administration, the emphasis had been on air power to such a degree that the question of how to put boots on the ground in the face of hostile fire was not high on the DOD's list of priorities. Rumsfeld and his team have made this issue a top priority. I don't necessarily agree with every move they have made, but at least they are working on it. Cancellation of the Crusader artillery system was probably the right decision. Adopting the Stryker vehicle was, in my view, a mistake - but it is in service now and we will see how it works out. Placing the forward support companies under the commanders of the combat units they support makes good sense, although it causes difficulties for the congressional restriction on women in combat to co-locate these units which include women with the combatant units they support.

To replace Rumsfeld and his team now might appear to offer a chance to placate some of the president's critics about the handling of the current war, but I suspect the criticism would go on unabated. In fact, sacking Rumsfeld might be spun as an admission of even greater errors by the administration and aggravate its PR problems. The only certain outcome of Rumsfeld's removal would be to seriously set back the timetable on transformation while a new team came in and got up to speed on the complex issues involved.

Chess champ warns of Putin dictatorship

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story:
"'Perhaps Western leaders agree with last week's New York Times editorial that made the stunning assertion that 'a fascist Russia is a much better thing than a Communist Russia,' [Garry] Kasparov wrote [in the WSJ]. 'I hope I am allowed to order something not on that menu.'"

It may be too late to do much about the consolidation of dictatorship in Russia. We have gone a long way to alienate Putin by our stands on the Ukranian election and the re-nationalization of the Russian oil industry. While the former was the only principled position to take, the latter was not worth making more enemies in the Kremlin. It is Russia's unhappy fate to be torn between seeing itself as the bringer on Western culture to the East and being seen by Europe as an eastern dagger pointed at Europe's heart.

While we must take Kasparov's warning seriously for our own safety as well as the interests of the Russian people, it is not likely that there is much we can do to alter the course of events in a favorable direction.

Intelligent thoughts on dumbing down

spiked-essays | Essay | Dumbing down? Don't blame the media:
"Blaming the media for dumbing down confuses one symptom of the problem with its cause. The problem today is not the growth of stupefying television but the lack of cultural and institutional support for the promotion of artistic and intellectual standards.It is easy to react against the inane spectacle of reality TV. But banal entertainment is the least of our problems. We should be far more concerned with the powerful trends that work towards the dumbing down of education, academia, the arts and politics. The pressure to devalue content exercises a destructive impact on contemporary culture. That is why we need to overcome our estrangement from cultural standards, and affirm the fact that content really counts."

So concludes Frank Furedi in an excellent essay on the decline of standards which underlies the dumbing down of contemporary culture. Well worth reading.

Spanish imam jailed for advising husbands not to leave scars when dealing with rebellious wives

Spain's deputy PM atttacks release of controversial imam after only 20 days in jail:
"The court heard how the book talks about how men should treat women 'rebels'.
"Mustafa wrote that men should strike their women 'on the hands and feet, making sure to use a cudgel that is not too thick so as not to leave permanent scar tissue'.
"'Inflict blows that are not too strong nor too hard, because the aim is to make them suffer psychologically and not to humiliate them or mistreat them physically,' he said."

Compared to some mainstream Muslim writings on the status of women, this could almost be labeled a moderate position. Still, I understand that this is considered very rude behavior nowadays. But the man only wrote a book, nothing in the story indicates he actually did these acts. For publishing the book The Islamic Woman in 2000, his punishment included having all extant copies of his book seized by the government, paying a fine of over $2,000, and a sentence of two years in prison. In Spain, the article points out, first offenders sentenced to two years or less are routinely placed on probation with no prison time. The imam will serve probation including mandatory sensitivity training on human rights.

An interesting case. It shows how dangerous it can be to say or publish unpopular opinions in countries where human rights do not include free speech. Should authors of true crime stories be prosecuted because someone might act on their writings in contravention of the law? This case also shows that Spain's criminal justice system is even more sclerotic than ours if it takes four years for a relatively minor (as measured by the sentence) case like this to make its way through the courts.

Kentucky school gives "fashion police" a whole new meaning

WorldNetDaily: Uncivil war over girl's Confederate prom dress:
"The lawsuit claims the principal, Sean Howard, and two police officers met [Jacqueline] Duty outside the school.
"'Howard intimidated (Duty) by physically striking the vehicle in which she was sitting,' the lawsuit said.
"Duty says she was surprised by the tough stance taken against her.
"'We've all worn Confederate flags to school before,' she told the paper."

Miss Duty, a buxom, white lass of 19, is pictured in a red, strapless, sequined, floor-length gown with the cross of St. Andrew extending from under her left arm around her ample torso to the hem on the left side, the two arms intersecting low on her right hip. It may not be the height of fashion, but it's only a dress.

No doubt some would find the Confederate reference offensive. But, would the school tell an African American student she couldn't wear a dress in the colors of an African liberation movement even though that might offend some other people? Of course not. It's only a dress. We ought to have better things to do than clutter court calendars with lawsuits over the intersection of politics and fashion.

Congratulations to Ms. Duty for having the courage to wear red. Why should the skinny chicks have all the fun colors to themselves?

For other Confederate belles looking for a less obvious fashion statement, I suggest the "Bonnie Blue Flag" - a single white, five-pointed star on a blue field. A plain blue dress (No Monica jokes, please.) with a white star centered on the right side-seam would send a clear signal to your fellow Rebels while most of the others would have no idea what it meant.

History of the Bonnie Blue Flag

Hoorah! Hoorah! For Southron rights, hoorah!
Hoorah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears the single star!

Hear the tune and read the words to The Bonnie Blue Flag

Is GOP captive to a pact with the devil?

The Gadflyer: Tear Down the Cross:
"Last week, leaders in this radical cause presided over a Washington prayer breakfast featuring messages of thanks from the presidents [Bush pere et fils]. Former Senator Bob Dole came in person."

So writes John Gorenfeld on gadflyer.com - website of the New Progressive Institute, Inc. - describing an event sponsored by affiliates of "Rev." Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Gorenfeld goes on to cite some of the activities of Moon's various front groups including an Easter 2003 program to get churches to throw away the crosses in their sanctuaries and the symbolic burial of a cross in Israel.

Most astounding was the March 23, 2004 ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building where various members of Congress participated in Moon's coronation as America's king. Leaving aside the religious aspect for a moment, didn't we fight a war to get rid of monarchy?

Participants in the ceremony are alleged to have included Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL) who were among the six House members listed as "Congressional Co-Chairs" of the coronation sponsored by the Interreligious and International Peace Council whose address is the same as that of the Moon-owned Washington Times newspaper. The program also shows 17 individuals as a partial listing of the "Invitational Committee" which included one current and one former US senator, three more House members, one former and three current state senators, a former ambassador and a deposed Catholic bishop. I regret to say that I knew at least two of these people when I was active in GOP politics in Virginia about 30 years ago and that I have met at least two others. See how many you know: Host Committee

Ever since the founding of the Washington Times, I have had qualms about the fact that it is owned, even subsidized, by the Moonies. Early on though, I was assured by conservatives whom I trusted that the cult, whose billionaire leader had been variously described as a megalomaniac and a Korean Central Intelligence Agency operative, was not slanting the general news coverage of the paper. If Gorenfeld is correct in the charges he levels, including that over a million dollars has flowed into Bush 41's pockets as a result of Moon's beneficence and that one of his fronts got a half million dollar grant from the US government under Bush 43, I will never be able to look at that paper in the same way.

Moon's fronts are poised to ride high on the general public revulsion toward gay marriage by trying to get out in front of the parade to pretend to lead it. They also make hay out of their alleged commitment to strong marriages, although among their members all marriages are arranged by the cult. As with Scientology, there have been ex-members complaining of psychological coercion and even unlawful detention of would-be defecters.

War takes its toll on civic virtue, youth express little commitment to democratic values in Israel

Haaretz - Israel News - Young, restless and not very democratic:
"The Jews and the Arabs are united in not seeing freedom of speech and true debate as basic values. Apparently the lack of a written and detailed constitution, which includes the recognition of civil, political and social rights, makes it difficult to instill democratic values. And with all this, it appears that until now, little has been done to instill the values of democracy in young people.
"In the schools, civics is a subject of secondary importance, that in many cases is taught by teachers who lack sufficient training. Most schools do not invest the appropriate resources in breathing life into a subject that could be fascinating if taught through open debates, mock trials, the screening of films that present dilemmas of democratic values, visits to the Independence Museum in Tel Aviv and to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, and the like. If the matriculation exam in civics is indeed eliminated, it will be a death blow to the subject."

The concern about the lack of a written Bill of Rights is interesting, but we have one and yet the second paragraph quoted above sounds very like something that could be said of our own educational system. I'd wager a similar survey in the Ukraine, or even Iran, would show a profound commitment to democratic values among young people. I'm not so sure what the results would be here.

Israel has its own bracero program, who knew?

Haaretz - Israel News:
"The ministerial committee for foreign workers rejected Monday a request from Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) to bring an additional 1,200 Thai laborers into the country, Israel Radio reported."

I had been under the mistaken impression that Arabs did all the low-paying jobs in Israel; but from this story in Haaretz I learn that, just as in the Gulf monarchies, Asian guest workers have a key role to play in the economy of Israel. Israeli farmers in Gaza are fighting to keep enough labor, mostly from Thailand, while the Thai government is busy encouraging its people, three of whom have been killed in Arab attacks this year, to go home. I wonder why they aren't recruiting farm workers from Mexico or Guatemala.

Free speech shot down down under

WorldNetDaily: Pastors guilty of hating Muslims:
"'It was done, not in the context of a serious discussion of Muslims' religious beliefs,' the judge said, according to The Australian
"'It was presented in a way which is essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god, Allah, the prophet Muhammad and in general Muslim religious beliefs and practices,' he said."

Two pastors and the ministry employing them were found guilty under Australia's version of ethnic intimidation laws. Although such codes have become fixtures on college campuses in the US, so far the First Amendment has shielded Christians from this new form of persecution. Curiously, the defendants in this case tried to invoke Australia's blasphemy laws (no longer enforced, but still on the books) to argue that their Muslim accusers engage in prohibited speech by preaching their religion.

The seminar and website article objected to seem to have been conceived in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and may have been a bit intemperate in tone. But, as Thomas Jefferson said, we should not fear to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

Havana-Caracas Axis

WorldNetDaily: New Cuba-Venezuela alliance:
"Cuba's Fidel Castro welcomed Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to the Karl Marx Theater in Havana and signed an agreement of unity that is designed to be an alternative to the North American Free Trade Agreement."

Actually, as a quote from Cuban announcement later in this story makes clear, this Bolivarian Alliance for Latin America (ALBA in Spanish) is intended as a counterpoise to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) rather than NAFTA.

If you find this development troubling, be sure to thank the US State Department and other elements of our government which worked to ensure that Hugo Chavez was not ousted in a coup.

And, just in case someone thinks my recent defense of Gen. Augusto Pinochet was inappropriate, note this part of the news item: "Chavez praised Castro, Che Guevara and Salvador Allende, the deposed leader of Chile."

The significance of the term "Bolivarian" may be lost on Norte Americano audiences. Simon Bolivar led the revolution of the creoles against the Spanish crown and its Spanish-born colonial officialdom in the early 1800s. His dream was to create a single republic in all the lands colonized by Spain in South America. While he and his fellow revolutionaries succeeded in ridding the continent of Spanish colonial control (due in no small part to the Monroe Doctrine in which Britain was a silent partner with the US), local rivalries prevented the fulfillment of his dream of uniting the former Spanish colonies. What Castro and Chavez are signalling is the revival of Bolivar's unification project to create a single communist state covering the continent.

Waiting for the fat lady to sing - Ohio still in dispute

Ohio Justice Throws Out Election Challenge:
"Without listing specific evidence, the complaint alleges that 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket. The allegations are based on an analysis comparing the presidential race to Moyer's Supreme Court race against a Cleveland municipal judge."

The suit was rejected on a technicality unrelated to its merits and will be reinstated shortly, so don't break out the champagne just yet.

This suit appears to be based largely on the idea that the exit polling is inherently more accurate than the counting of the votes. Since the exit polling is non-random - that is, there is no reason to believe that people who refuse to answer would answer the same way as those who agree to participate - it ought to be laughed out of court for its utter lack of merit. Of course, it won't be.

Sex beats baseball in DC

WTOPNEWS.com:
"... WTOP Radio has learned up to 20 percent of the $50,000 came from Robert Siegel, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner whose business would have to move to make way for the stadium.
"Siegel is a major landowner on the South Capitol stadium site, an area that Siegel calls 'D.C.'s unofficial Red Light district.'
"He owns 11 properties, several of which house gay nightclubs. He also owns a gay porn shop and adult theaters."

The most remarkable thing about this story is that a pornographer, some environmentalists and a few other folks with less than a $100,000 stopped the great stadium boondoggle in its tracks. Now that the City Council has balked, Major League Baseball has announced that the plan to bring the former Montreal Expos to DC is dead and the store selling MLB licensed sportswear and collectibles for the Washington Nationals has been closed.

Other contestants are now back in the hunt including a group who wants the team to play in the Virginia suburbs of DC. I hate baseball as much as the next guy, so why is it that so many chamber of commerce types and politicians think people ought to be paying higher taxes for the privilege of having a baseball team playing in their town at ticket prices they can't afford? If it's going to be a taxpayer-subsidized business, the games ought to be free for the locals.

Hoist by their own petard ... or, what goes around, comes around

The New York Times > National > A.C.L.U.'s Search for Data on Donors Stirs Privacy Fears:
"Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of New York appears to be asking the same questions. In a Dec. 3 letter, Mr. Spitzer's office informed the A.C.L.U. that it was conducting an inquiry into whether the group had violated its promises to protect the privacy of donors and members."

It seems the ACLU staff decided to do some data mining on their own members and donors to try to boost their finances and have run afoul of their own published privacy policy, or at least that is what NY AG Spitzer is looking into.

It is always fun to see some liberal outfit caught in a web of its own hypocrisy. I haven't enjoyed such a display so much since a union of office workers went on strike against their unfair employer - the Central Labor Council of Chicago.

A world unglued - Washington Times editor scries the crystal balls of several futurists.

Coming geopolitical quakes - The Washington Times: Commentary - December 15, 2004:
"Movers and shakers as well as long-range thinkers and planners meet in a wide variety of intelligence and think-tank huddles. These over-the-horizon, out-of-the-box appraisals range from good news scenarios (the minority) to the kind of global unraveling funk whose only antidote would be a desert island."

Arnaud de Borchgrave, the always entertaining and informative editor of the Washington Times, here reports on some of the scenarios for the future development of world politics. Food for thought and well worth reading.

Drugs, Terrorists, White Slaving, and Tropical Diseases - all parts of the culture of lawlessness permeating through our porous southern border

The Rutherford Institute - Commentary:
" There is the sad, continuing story, writes George Putnam (Newsmax.com), 'particularly in those states that border Mexico, where there is a steady, silent, pervasive invasion of the United States by an unarmed army carrying an assembly line of diseases into the heart of America.' Further details can be found in a report entitled 'Immigration’s Silent Invasion, Deadly Consequences' where the authors state: 'The invasion of illegal aliens pouring over the borders of the United States is taking an ominous turn. They are not alone! Their bodies may carry Hepatitis A, B & C, tuberculosis, leprosy and Chagas Disease. Chagas is a nasty parasitic bug common in Latin America where 18 million people are infected and 50,000 deaths occur annually.'”

So writes John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute in a commentary on WorldNetDaily.com.

This problem has been building for a long time. A generation ago public health officials were noting the increasing incidence of TB and some other diseases in places like Fairfax County, Virginia which received large numbers of refugees from Indochina. Now we are adding South American and African diseases to the mix of medical problems we face.

Tort Reform another smokescreen for the Constitution destroyers

Tort Reform a Great New Year's Resolution:
"We need to stop these frivolous lawsuits and put caps on disproportionate punitive damages. Or even better yet, move to the English model. There, if you sue somebody and lose, you pay the legal fees for the other side. This might be a simple solution to a complicated problem."

There is a lot of nonsense floating around surrounding the commendable notion of "tort reform" but very few good ideas. This commentary from NewsMax.com consists of lots of evidence that there is a problem and precious little in the way of actual reforms, mostly bad.

To start with the last bad idea of the piece, what are the implications of "loser pays" in the civil courts? One thing it means is that very few suits will be filed on behalf of consumers against businesses and insurance companies. Since the defendants' bar is thickly populated with attorneys with high billing rates, the victim contemplating a suit sees the choice as a small chance of winning damages and large chance of going bankrupt. If a suit under such a system has merit, it might be settled on slightly more favorable terms or perhaps on much worse terms, no one can be sure. In a curious sort of reversal, a "loser pays" system might continue to encourage lawsuit roulette by very poor clients who are judgment proof while discouraging suits by middle class consumers, professional persons and small businesses.

Nathan Tabor, the author of the piece, offers this in his second paragraph: "But like President Bush, I still believe that we must make reforming our system of civil litigation a top priority in 2005. We need commonsense reforms that will restrict frivolous lawsuits, abolish joint and several liability provisions, and limit outrageous punitive damage awards that are completely out of proportion to actual losses."

Let's skip the invocation of the president's name and take up his suggestions seriatum:
1) Judges already have the duty to determine whether a suit is "frivolous" before allowing it to proceed. Some don't seem to recognize frivolity when they see it, others define it differently than some of us might like, and a sometimes suits judged frivolous on first view are remanded for trial after appeal to a higher court. To change this, you have to change the judges, not the laws.
2) Tabor wants to "abolish joint and several liability provisions." For the benefit of non-specialists, when two or more distinct actors are found to have contributed to the commission of a tort, they may be held "jointly and severally liable" which means that each party can be pursued for damages in any amount until the plaintiff has collected the full amount of the judgment. If one or more defendants paid more than their fair share of the total, they may attempt to collect from the others in a separate action. The abuse comes when, for example, a manufacturer is found to be 70% responsible, a distributor, 20% responsible and the store that sold the defective item 10% responsible - but the manufacturer is in China and has no US assets, the distributor has gone bankrupt and the retailer is left paying the entire judgment. These things do happen. It also happens that some entity with deep pockets is dragged into the mix on the basis of a very tenuous connection to the harm in order that the plaintiff has somebody in court with money. There are clearly some circumstances where joint and several liability is appropriate and some where it is not. Tabor just wants to end it. Now, suppose three men work together to design and build a patently defective and unsafe product and sell it to someone who is injured by it, but in the meantime one of the three has died. Should the two remaining partners each pay only 1/3 of the damages leaving the plaintiff out 1/3?
3) Finally, Tabor wants to "limit outrageous punitive damage awards that are completely out of proportion to actual losses." Except for some statutory causes of action which specify double or treble damages, there is no reason why punitive or exemplary damages should be related to actual damages. The purpose of punitive damages is to punish or make an example of the defendant, to hit him hard enough to hurt. If punitive damages are to exist at all, there is no reason why they should bear any fixed relation to the actual damages.

So, Mr. Critic (that's me), what's your solution? First, remember that for every problem, there is a solution that is easy, cheap, ... and wrong! Second, remember the Constitution.

The constitutional problem is that there is all this clamor being orchestrated for Congress to "do something" when Congress only has authority over federal courts and not much of that. Any attempt to reform liability law for the whole nation may be popular, but it would be wrong in principal and void in effect.

What might Congress do to reform the federal system that would be helpful? One obvious reform that I have advocated for a long time addresses the punitive damage problem in a very straightforward way. Since the purpose of punitive damages is to punish the defendant for harm to society generally, there is no reason why that money should go to the plaintiff or his lawyers. All punitive damages should be paid to the government with no contingency fees for the plaintiff's attorneys. Or, we might eliminate punitive damages altogether.

How about excessive awards? We might want to adapt the ancient Anglo-Saxon custom of thane-geld where the law fixed the amount of damages based on the status of the deceased. We could simply specify a system for estimating the future earnings of deceased victims and percentages for lesser injuries like loss of a limb, sight, or consortium (ask your mommy what it means) varying as to whether the injury is permanent or temporary and adding medical costs. In fact, we might establish a commission to do this leaving to the trier of fact only the question of what injuries were suffered as the result whose actions. Pain and suffering are entirely subjective and ought not to figure in the process - a level of pain that is incapacitating would necessitate compensation for the incapacitation, which is in principle quantifiable, and not for the pain itself.

History is written by the winners, Pinochet has outlived his victory

Judge in Chile Indicts Former Dictator Pinochet

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the 89-year old former ruler of Chile, has been placed under house arrest and is awaiting trial in a case involving the alleged "kidnapping" of nine "dissidents" and killing one of them. Translation: Nine communists were arrested and eight of them did not get what they deserved.

There is little doubt that Gen. Pinochet saved Chile from a communist coup d'etat that would have killed far more people, just different ones. That is why the man is so hated; he stood astride the progress of tyranny and said, "not in my country." This is an intolerable affront to all progressives and he must be made an example of. Gen. Francisco Franco, the savior of Spain from bolshevism, clung to power to the end of his days and incurred much justified criticism for not returning Spain to democratic rule earlier, but it saved him from the humiliation which is now being heaped upon Pinochet. Pinochet followed a more lenient path, subjecting the continuation of his personal rule to a referendum and, when he lost, setting out to return Chile to democracy in an orderly fashion; and for this he should have been praised. And he should be honored now in the twilight of his years.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen - Already a saint in my book

St. Fultie, The Next American Saint?:
"Best known for his TV appearances in his Emmy Award winning half-hour program, 'Life is Worth Living,' the archbishop regularly drew an astounding 25 million viewers of all faiths, getting higher ratings than Milton Berle, then host of one of one of the most popular TV shows of the times."

I remember watching Bishop Sheen, as he then was, on his television show when I was a child. He ranked with Billy Graham as one of the most respected and admired men in America. And, despite the differences of the faith traditions they represented (which Graham still does, of course), they had something very important in common. They focused their public ministries on meeting the spiritual needs of people in their daily lives. Neither man ever publicly questioned or denigrated the distinctives of his own faith, but both recognized that it wasn't "total immersion" of "papal infallability" that could comfort someone dealing with a seriously ill child, a dying parent, an unfaithful spouse or some other tragedy in their lives. They brought the message of Love and Hope that is available to all because Christ died for our sins.

The article does not mention it, but Sheen also acquired the title of Vicar of the American Armed Forces, even travelling to Vietnam to bring a message of comfort and concern to our troops.

I am more than a little uncomfortable with the whole business of canonization in the Roman church. I believe in miracles, but the credit must always go to Christ. So, I have no position on whether Fulton Sheen should be named by the Bishop of Rome as a saint.

But, by nearly any standard, Fulton Sheen was a great American. And, in the way in which St. Paul spoke in his letters of his fellow workers as saints, Sheen was a saint as well. And so is Billy Graham.

Clinton highly qualified for UN Secretary General

New York Post Online Edition: news:
"In January 2001, in the final hours his presidency, [Bill] Clinton bypassed law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to wipe the books clean for [fugitive billionaire Marc] Rich after being subjected to intense lobbying from former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Rich's jet-setting ex-wife, Denise, who donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns — including Sen. Hillary Rodham's first Senate race — along with an additional $450,000 to Clinton's library fund."

Thus the tangled web of Bill Clinton's finances intersects the tangled web of Middle East politics. I had been wondering why the boomlet for Clinton to become secretary general of the UN after Kofi Annan; it didn't seem to make sense. Now it becomes clearer. It seems that the requisite qualifications these days are not a dreamy commitment to dreary world socialism in the tradition of Trygve Lie, Dag Hammarskold and U Thant. Now it seems the qualifications in the 21st century are a plausible connection to mass murder and helping to spread dirty money around in all the right places.

According to this article, Marc Rich has been at the center of Saddam Hussein's financial manipulations, to the extent of loaning money to the Iraqi butcher in the early 90s in return for a pledge of future favors in what became the now-infamous UN oil for food program that amounted to $20 Billion or more in graft.

But the Marc Rich story gets better. It seems he was also involved in oil deals with Iran despite US sanctions against that country, and he had lucrative dealings with the Russian mafia dons who controlled the Russian oil business. The puzzle is figuring out why the Israeli government at one point make the Rich pardon a priority on a par with the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.

Recruiting problems for US Army may be worse than feared

Report leans toward women in combat - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - December 13, 2004:
"All-male FSCs [Forward Support Companies], the paper states, 'creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force.'"

This article by Pentagon correspondent Rowan Scarborough examines Army efforts to sidestep a legal requirement to notify the Congress if it changes the policy that forbids putting support units containing women in the same location as all-male combat units, known to bureaucrats as collocation. This is precisely what the Army wants to do, placing FSCs as part of the headquartes of each combat brigade.

The issue is not whether it makes sense to collocate FSCs with the combat brigades they serve, It probably is a good idea to bring those support function under the brigade commander's direct authority since timely logistics is a key element of the fast-moving style of he modern Army. The question is whether we should have women in forward areas during combat. So far the Congress has said no; so, how can the Army say yes?

The sentence I quoted above is the real surprise here. It seems to contradict the airy assurances that we have no serious recruiting problems as we move into year four of the global war on terror.

Russia and China plan joint military exercise next year

My Way News:
"They are partners of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, formed to combat what they consider the common threat of Islamic extremism and separatism. The other members are the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan."

In case you were wondering what China does with all those dollars they get from filling up the shelves at WalMart, Target, etc., the answer is that they spend about $2 Billion per year buying everything from Sukhoi-27 fighter aircraft to Sovremeny class destroyers from the Russians. When war comes over Taiwan, you will be proud to know that Americans paid for the destruction of the last vestige of free China.

How ironic this all is. The US got itself into war with Japan largely over our defense of China. The Chinese Empire was overthrown by Sun Yat-Sen who founded the Republic of China in 1911. When Mao Tse-Tung, backed by Stalin and the Comintern, launched the communist civil war against the Republic of China in the 1920s, the Japanese stepped up their efforts to seize coice bits of China. The Chinese government was fighting both the Japanese and the communists who seldom fought each other. The US claimed to support an independent China and that determined the Japanese on the necessity to attack the US.

Once we were into the war and the Soviets became our "ally" the US subtly shifted to support for the communists in China. For example, Roosevelt and Churchill made a show of meeting with Chiang Kai-Shek at Cairo for a photo-op, then flew on to Yalta where Stalin presented the post-war concessions he demanded for his cooperation against Germany. The US and Britain supplied Chiang with just enough materiel to keep a large body of Japanese troops pinned down in China, while Stalin and the Japanese maintained their non-aggression pact.

Stalin maintained he could do nothing in Asia until the European war was concluded, which happened in May 1945. Stalin still continued to respect the Soviet-Japanese non-aggression treaty until after we dropped the first A-bomb on Hiroshima in August. Stalin then declared war on Japan and demanded that the Soviets, not the Republic of China or any of the allies who had actually fought against Japan, accept the surrender of Japanese troops in Manchuria and North Korea. Captured Japanese arms were then turned over to Mao to make the final push to win the civil war.

Meanwhile, the US government slowed aid to the Republic of China to a trickle, claimed that the US was the friend of the Chinese people and not committed to support the government which had fought on the same side in the war. Talks were held with Mao and the US urged compromise and power-sharing which are always mere ruses by the communists. Then we even withdrew the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction from the mainland. Even when Chiang had evacuated government forces from the mainland, we offered no help in holding on to Hainan. Once the Republic of China was limited to the island of Formosa, there was no longer any serious hope of returning to the mainland.

It was at this point that the Reds claimed the right to occupy Tibet (so did the Republic of China) and Tibet's pleas to Britain as the suzerain power over Tibet by longstanding treaty and to the UN were rejected. Seeing no backbone in the West, the Reds gave the green light to Kim Il-Sung to attack South Korea. Over 50,000 Americans plus thousands more Brits, Aussies, Turks and others were killed in the ensuing conflict which saw the eventual use of about three million Chinese soldiers and laborers on the communist side. It would have been a lot cheaper in American lives and treasure to have stood by the Republic of China and said "no" to Stalin.

Another land use case where even the good news is bad

Maui church prevails in battle over land use - The Honolulu Advertiser - Hawaii's Newspaper:
"But the Planning Commission twice denied a special-use permit that would have allowed construction of a sanctuary, fellowship hall and use of the land. The commission instead agreed with neighbors who claimed that the church would lead to increased traffic and noise, added burden to county services and a deterioration of the rural atmosphere."

This is another one of those stories that pulls me in several directions at once. Certainly it is heartening that the Hale O Kaula congregation will, after more than a decade, be permitted to build and sanctuary, fellowship hall, etc. on its six acre site. And the fact that Maui County's insurance company will pony up $700,000 in compensation for the delay is clearly good news for the church. On the other hand, the settlement of the lawsuit requires the church to submit to limits on the times and duration of activities at the site.

However, anyone who loves the Constitution has to be disappointed that even this ambiguous victory was only obtained by the invocation of a suit under a federal statute (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) which pretends to control local planning and land use activities even though the Congress has no power whatsoever to legislate in that area except with regard to the District of Columbia and a few territories.

Newsday.com: Inside the Kerik mess

Newsday.com: Inside the Kerik mess:
"On Thursday, the day before he took his name from contention, Kerik, 49, was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate."

When did the Bush White House decide to become The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight?

This story reminded me of Gary Aldrich's book Unlimited Access. For those who don't recall, Aldrich was one of two FBI agents assigned, at the time Clinton came into office, to the White House as liaison officers to the bureau. One of their primary missions was shuffling the papers regarding background checks on presidential appointees. This was an arrangement that went back through several administrations of both parties to give the president timely information about problems with potential nominees before they were announced. Where other administrations had viewed this arrangement as a way to avoid embarrassment to the president, Clinton's White House chose to see it as an barrier to nominating the unsuitable personnel they wanted.

Aldrich has described, in Unlimited Access and other writing since, how the Clintons systematically dismantled the safeguards in the vetting process. One has to wonder if the Bush team has succumbed to the Clintonian hubris on this issue. Remember that Clinton put up two candidates for attorney general who had to be withdrawn because they employed "undocumented" domestics and/or evaded payroll taxes on them - just like Kerik.

Congress strikes another blow against private enterprise

Intel Bill Add On - Treasury Could Print Other People's Money:
"The Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing has gotten the go-ahead from Congress to print other countries' currencies."

This sounds so reasonable until you understand that it means our government is going into competition with private firms in the US and elsewhere which already provide this service to foreign countries. The most famous name in this industry is the American Bank Note Co. which traces the roots of its business to 1795.

Family values includes valuing family - Republicans outbreeding Democrats

NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story:
"David Brooks, one of the few voices of sanity at the New York Times, summarizes the issue: 'They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.'"

Carl Limbacher of NewsMax.com notes that the latest scary idea the Dems have to deal with is that the Republican heartland is growing faster than the Democrat urban corridors of the Northeast and West Coast. He reports that Brooks' article in the NYT noted a finding by Steve Sailer writing in The American Conservative that Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates while Kerry took the 16 lowest.

Limbacher also offers this interesting fact: "USA Today notes that President Bush won 474 of the nation's 573 fast-growing micropolitan areas (places too urban to be rural but too small to be metropolitan)."

Demographics is too often overlooked in politics because of unfortunate associations with racism and ethnocentrism. But it played a key role in the collapse of the power-sharing agreement between Christian (mostly Maronite Catholic), Muslim and Druze communities that allowed Lebanon to flourish for a generation after WW2 as the banking and cultural center of the Middle East. I have written elsewhere on the role of differential fertility rates between Arabs and Jews within Israel (not Palestine, just the present borders of Israel proper) in supplying a motivation to negotiate peace now rather than later. The rapid rise of the Muslim population in Europe is only partly a result of Muslim immigration per se, but also of the differential fertility rates of Muslims and Christians (in several EU countries, the overall fertility rate is as low as 1.3 or 1.6 which is well below the replacement rate of 2.1).

The uncurious press, even regarding sex

My Way News:
"'There is much good news in these results,' Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said in a statement. 'More teenagers are avoiding or postponing sexual activity, which can lead to sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy or emotional and societal responsibilities for which they are not prepared.'"

Outgoing HHS secretary Thompson points out the good things that would be expected to follow from the reductions in teen sexual activity. But that is the only mention of unwanted pregnancies and STDs in the article. In a story of about 300 words that finds room to tell us the favored contraceptive methods for women generally, not just teens, you ought to find some reference to changes, if any, in these closely related issues.

Dutch deal with far-reaching terror plots in wake of assassination

:
"... De Telegraaf described him as a 'radical Moroccan pizza deliverer'."

In the weeks since the assassination of leftist filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Islamofascist terrorists, the Netherlands has been at the forefront of EU countries in conducting counter-terror operations. Plots have been uncovered against a range of targets from the parliament and defense buildings in The Hague to the red light district of Amsterdam.

WorldNetDaily: U.S. 'a welcoming society'

WorldNetDaily: U.S. 'a welcoming society':
"But the president, what he is working to do is to strengthen our border security and to strengthen our controls along the border to prevent people who should not be entering the country, like terrorists or criminals, from coming into the country, while also making sure that we remain a welcoming society."

So said White House spokesman Scott McClellan in response to a question from WorldNetDaily.com's Les Kinsolving. Note that stopping illegals was not one of the administration's priorities. McClellan also low-balled an estimate of the number of illegals in the US offering that it might be 8 million, but that Kinsolving should ask immigration officials. Well the Census Bureau says they counted 9 million and missed another 10% for a total of 9.9 million in 2000. McClellan concluded his answer by reiterating the administration's amnesty plan.

More judicial interference with parenting

Yahoo! News - Court: Mom's Eavesdropping Violated Law :
"Sheriff Bill Cumming asked [Carmen] Dixon, whose daughter was friends with [Oliver] Christensen [then 17], to be alert for any possible evidence. When Christensen called the Dixon house later, Lacey Dixon, then 14, took the cordless phone into her bedroom and shut the door. The mother hit the "speakerphone" button and took notes on the conversation — in which Christensen said he knew where the purloined purse was."

The state supreme court in Washinton has ruled that the Christensen must get a new trial because it was illegal for his 14-year old girlfriend's mother to listen in on their conversation. On the plus side, authorities do not plan to prosecute Mrs. Dixon for violating the state's wiretap statute.

Washington, like my own state of Pennsylvania and several others, requires all parties to consent to monitoring of phone conversations. Federal law only requires the consent of one party. The crazy idea here is that anyone has a right to an expectation of privacy in communicating with a child of 14 in that child's home, a privacy right that defeats the right of parents to supervise their children.

This case involved the strong-arm robbery of an elderly woman. But this case can have far-reaching implications for those who would involve children in criminal activities including sex crimes, drugs, and other offenses. I favor the federal rule and it should be clear that the parent of an unemancipated minor has the right to monitor telecommunications as if explicitly a party and the power to consent to monitoring on behalf of the minor child.

If criminals wish to hold private phone conversations about their crimes, they should only discuss those crimes with adults.

Driving drugged may be more common than you think

This is London, Evening Standard :
"Drug-driving may be more of a problem than drink-driving, it is claimed, after more than half of the motorists killed in accidents in one police area were found to have taken drugs."

This story is from England, but there is good reason to believe the problem may be serious on this side of the pond as well. In the 90s (if memory serves) NHTSA ran a survey of drivers stopped for reckless driving not involving accidents on an interstate highway in a metro area in the southeast. Drivers were given immunity if they agreed to submit a blood sample. A high proportion tested positive for one or more illegal drugs.

And the problem is not limited to illegal drugs. Many drivers are impaired by various legal prescription or over-the-counter medications, particularly anti-histamines. Something to think about as you head out your driveway in the morning, especially in ragweed season.

Democrats again seek to undermine US security

Lawmaker: Spy Project Threatens Security:
"In an unusual rebuke, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, complained Wednesday that the spy project was 'totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security.' He called the program 'stunningly expensive.'"

Joined by fellow Dems Durbin (IL), Levin (MI) and Wyden (OR), Rockefeller appears to be objecting to a space-based weapons system designed to protect our spy satellites from enemy attack. The rap on the idea being that it will lead to an arms race in space.

Earth to Dems ... Earth to Dems ... there is already an arms race in space; it can only end if we pre-emptively surrender, and that is not an option the American people would accept if anybody bothered to ask them. We'd better be in this race and we'd better win it.

It's not about the internet and it's not about wine. It's about the Constitution.

NARA | The National Archives Experience:

AMENDMENT XXI

Passed by Congress February 20, 1933. Ratified December 5, 1933.

Section 1.
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2.
The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3.
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
__________

Today's news reports indicate that, based questions asked by the justices on oral argument, the Supreme Court may be prepared to legalize internet wine sales. Of course, regardless of what the court or the press thinks, this a constitutional case involving one of the clearest sentences in the whole document.

Section 2 of the 21st Amendment clearly states that the States have the entire power to regulate the sale of "intoxicating liquors" within their borders. If a state wishes to require that alcoholic beverages sold for consumption in that state be sold only through state-licensed wholesalers or retailers they have that power, and most states do to assure that state taxes are collected and sales to minors are prevented.

The justices appear to be swayed by arguments that the "commerce clause" gives the Congress exclusive jurisdiction over all questions respecting interstate commerce. If that were so, no state could forbid the importation of any product without Congressional approval. That would mean, for example, that Pennsylvania's ban on the sale of bottle rockets and other explosive fireworks could be defeated by importing them from a state like South Carolina where they are legal. The commerce clause forbids the imposition of duties for the transit of goods from one state into another and requires each state to treat legal articles of commerce from within and outside the state on an equal footing, but it does not give Congress a plenary power to declare what are to be legal articles of commerce in all the states.

Before passage of the 18th Amendment, some states already prohibited the manufacture or sale of intoxicating beverages. This was not considered a violation of the Constitution at that time. But under the plaintiffs' theory in the present case, those pre-19th Amendment state statutes must have been unconstitutional. But, even if you take that view, the 21st Amendment does not merely restore the status quo ante which it would have done if only the language of Section 1 had been submitted to the states. The 21st includes Section 2 which explicitly gives to the States (and Territories and Possessions - including the Congress in its constitutional role as the exclusive legislator for the District of Columbia) the sole power to regulate the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages within their borders; whereas, the 18th Amendment had given Congress and the States concurrent jurisdiction to legislate the enforcement of alcohol prohibition. Perhaps most tellingly, the phrase "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation" which, with minor variations, occurs in a majority of the post-Bill of Rights amendments, is not included in the 21st Amendment.

Personally, I would scrap virtually all alcohol regulation and taxation. But I am rather libertarian philosophically. As a constitutionalist in practical affairs, it seems clear to me that the answer to this case is to leave the matter to the states no matter how badly some of them may mess it up. And, some of them mess things up pretty thoroughly. I have spent most of my drinking life in Virginia and Pennsylvania, two states where the government operates the liquor stores; and I have a home in South Carolina where the private liquor stores are marked with a large "red dot" to warn the good people to stay away. Let the courts and Congress in the act and all you get is the same mess everywhere.

A match made in the heavens (Uranus?) - Rael & Eminem

SouthFlorida.com | CELEBRITY NEWS :
"Rael [the retired French racing car driver formerly known as Claude Vorilhon] founded the controversial movement -- whose followers believe they're descendants of aliens -- in 1973, after he claimed to have had a UFO encounter."

Biblical Greek scholars will recall that the Greek word commonly rendered as "heavens" in the New Testament is ouranos from which the planet Uranus takes its name. I don't know if Rael's space pals came from Uranus, maybe they came from his. Anyway, it is remarkably appropriate that Detroit rapper Eminem (the artist formerly known as Marshall Mathers before he was known at all) has been declared by Rael to be an honorary priest of his UFO cult in recognition of the rapper's work for world peace.

With this sort of endorsement, what's next for Eminem? The Nobel Peace Prize? A place in the Miss Universe pageant?

The Raelians have made headlines in 2002 by claiming to have cloned a human being in search of "eternal life and perpetual orgasms through cloning" (Sounds oxymoronic to me.), frequently going topless in public to protest for peace, and three Raelian females even stripped totally naked at a federal office building in the Westwood section of LA in March 2003 to protest the war in Iraq. In October 2004, Rael appeared in Playboy with three nude female followers. This campaigning for peace is hard work, how does the man keep it up?

WARNING: Rael the topless cultist should not be confused with Rael the topless model, $50 (Australian) per hour - nude 50% higher fee: Rael the Aussie model

Nasal stem cells: a real therapy, not just hype

Telegraph | News | New hope for paralysed woman :
"Another approach being studied by scientists is to create nerve stem cells from embryonic tissue. Pro-life groups reject the use of embryos and promote the use of adult tissue, as in this case. Dr Lima does not like the use of embryonic stem cells: 'I am opposed but not only for ethical reasons. Mother Nature made embryonic stem cells to proliferate and adult stem cells to replace and repair. To defy Mother Nature's laws is, at least, dangerous.'"

Thus says a Portuguese physician who has been having very encouraging small successes using stem cells from the patient's own nose to repair spinal cord injury. It seems the olfactory nerves need to be replenished and repaired throughout our adult lives and the nose contains neurologically tuned stem cells for this purpose. Dr. Lima has pioneered the technique of harvesting some of these cells from the patient's nose and implanting them at the site of the spinal cord injury.

While the doctor cautions that full recovery for paralysis victims is highly unlikely, patients who were once bound to wheelchairs have been enabled to get about with leg braces and a walker. There is also some recovery of bowel and bladder control. These are tremendous quality of life improvements. And there are no ethical and technical complications introduced by use of fetal tissue.

The fetal tissue debate has been a red herring from the beginning. There has been almost no demonstration that fetal stem cells are better suited than stem cells from placentas, umbilical cord blood, or the patients themselves and much evidence that fetal cells are less suitable.

In other news on the spinal cord injury front, there is encouraging news on the use of polyethylene glycol injections in repairing spinal cord injuries in dogs. The procedure had previously shown promise in guinea pigs, and preparations are underway for human trials. One serious difficulty will be that the injections seem to work only when given within a few days of the injury.