What If The World Changed?

Glenn Reynolds points us to the following, which is either a cold fusion level con or world changing:

Israel to produce synthetic oil from low quality shale at $17 a barrel (Leah Krauss, UPI, 11/7/06)

The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third, and will serve as a guide for other countries with oil shale deposits, according to one company....

Oil shale is limestone rock that contains hydrocarbons, or fossil fuels -- about 20 percent of the amount of energy found in coal. Using the rock as a raw material and coating it with bitumen, a residue of the crude oil refining process, the company can produce natural gas, fuel, electricity, or a combination of the three.

I have to suspect that there's something shady about it -- news like this should be on the front pages in Second Coming type (hey, maybe this is how the media would cover the Messiah coming) -- but we'll know in a few short years.

Everyone Agrees They Should Charge More

WalMart has issued the following press release:

Former Senator John Edwards Turns to Wal-Mart for PlayStation3

Just like the millions of Americans who turn to their neighborhood Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) for their holiday shopping needs, Wal-Mart announced today that former Sen. John Edwards is seeking to be one of the first to get a Sony PlayStation3, one of the most coveted holiday gift items this Christmas season.

Yesterday, a staff person for former Sen. Edwards contacted a Wal-Mart electronics manager in Raleigh, North Carolina to obtain a Sony PlayStation3 on behalf of the Senator's family. Later that night, Sen. Edwards reportedly re-told a homespun story to participants of a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union-sponsored call about how his son had chided a fellow student for purchasing shoes at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart welcomes Sen. Edwards to visit his local Wal-Mart store and explore the extensive line of home electronics as well as the Metro7 line shoes for men and boys.

The Company noted the PlayStation3 is an extremely popular item this Christmas season, and while the rest of America's working families are waiting patiently in line, Senator Edwards wants to cut to the front. While, we cannot guarantee that Sen. Edwards will be among one of the first to obtain a PlayStation3, we are certain Sen. Edwards will be able to find great gifts for everyone on his Christmas list - many at Wal-Mart's "roll-back prices."

Best of the Web notes that Senator Edwards blames this on a overeager young volunteer who apparently didn't know of the Senator's strict policy against doing business with the anti-Christ.

Blame Brit

Skipping

Lileks writes about skipping today. I don't skip very often; actually, I haven't skipped in a while. (I think I'll try it when I go walk the dog today. I'm sure it will freak him out.) Whenever I do skip, I'm always amazed at the ground I cover for what seems like a surprisingly small energy output. Skipping is all about inertia. Why isn't skipping a socially acceptable way of getting around?

Anyway, my gift to you all today is the mental picture of an fat 44 year old skipping while walking his dog.

One Of Life's Enduring Mysteries

With the coming of the new PS3, the local paper runs a staple of "Ha, ha, look at the funny people" journalism:

But for the UMass students who have begun camping out on the sidewalk in front of Best Buy at the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, the highly touted next-generation game machine that also plays high-definition movies isn't primarily about movies or games.

It's an investment.

For $600 plus tax and two days of waiting, the enterprising young men and women waiting in front of the store plan to reap at least $1,400 in profit when they resell the machines between now and the holidays.

As of Wednesday afternoon, on eBay, PS3s were being sold for as much as $3,000, two days before they hit store shelves.

In fact, this is one of life's little enduring mysteries.

Sony, like Microsoft and Nintendo, underprices the first run of its new gaming system by thousands of dollars. They leave hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars on the table. Nor is this unexpected. It is as predictable as the tide.

While it is easy to come up with possible explanations, it is difficult to come up with an explanation that can explain walking away from massive revenues that would fall directly to the bottom line. To put this in context, Sony's 2006 net income was a little better than $1 billion. Estimates of how many games systems Sony will sell this year vary widely, but 500,000 seems to be a good conservative estimate. If Sony could realize just an additional $500 per system sold this year, that would be an extra $250 million in profit.

So why is Sony walking away from an amount equal to nearly a quarter of its profit for the whole of last year? What ever the reason is, it's got to be better than having at least $250 million in Sony's pocket now.

So what are the possible explanations? Sony doesn't want to appear greedy. Is there anyone over 12 to whom this explanation applies? If this is really a worry, lead with the PS3 Premiere Addition. Throw in accessories that cost you $50 to make and include a gold-plated case. Sony is still ahead of the game.

The want to get the system into the hands of persuasive early adopters. This makes no sense at all. Identify the 1000 most persuasive players and give them systems. Sony would still be ahead of the game; it would hardly even notice that cost. Also, note that the current arrangement doesn't work that way. The systems are being snapped up by arbitrageurs, not by players.

Least Likely To Attack The New York Times

Upon review, I see that this is cryptic even by my standards. The key to understanding this post is that the New York Times Company has two different classes of common stock. One publicly available and one owned by the Sulzberger family. All of the power over the corporation is locked into the stock owned by the Sulzbergers to ensure that they remain in control. The company is currently being run by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., known as "Pinch" to his friends, of whom he has many, I'm sure. Although there are a lot of unhappy public shareholders, the best they can hope for is that the combination of bad financial results (which hits the Sulzbergers where it hurts) and public outcry forces the family to replace him with one of his cousins.

A mutual friend points me to this article in OpinionJournal about my good friend and college roommate:

[I]t's hard to resist the urge to cheer on Hassan Elmasry. He's the mutual fund manager who last spring organized 28% of the shares to withhold their votes from Times directors at the company's annual meeting and last week proposed to put before the next annual meeting the question of whether to end the special voting rights that allow the Sulzberger family to control the company while owning less than 5% of the shares.

Mr. Elmasry is a fund manager associated with Morgan Stanley's Van Kampen outfit, but he's based in London and began his campaign long before the Mack allegations emerged (so forget the idea that his motive is anything but to rescue his fund's long investment in the New York Times Co.). The selling point of his fund is its disciplined focus on buying a handful of companies (no more than 40) with unique franchises, holding them for the long term and watching them carefully. The New York Times Co. has been in his portfolio for a decade.

This hasn't stopped the usual kibitzers from suggesting that his Times campaign is just a "typical" Wall Street effort to squeeze out short-term profits at the expense of journalism. But Mr. Elmasry actually has a record of taking a dim view of companies that don't protect and burnish the long-term franchises that attracted him to invest in the first place. Thus when he writes to Times shareholders that the company's voting-rights rules are "eroding the foundations of the enterprise which they were created to protect," it's worth considering, in light of all the accidents the Times has inflicted on itself lately, whether he might be right.

I assume that no one will be amazed that my college friends at the University of Chicago tended to be rightwing or libertarian, but Hassan has always been a liberal
Democrat and moves farther left as he grows richer. He hates George Bush, that American Fuhrer. Nonetheless, he is a good guy and good American and a good human being -- and a very good fund manager. I could wish the Sulzbergers no better enemy.

Nonetheless, I don't expect much in the way of success. (I've never discussed this with Hassan, so none of this represents his views.) The Sulzbergers run the Times for the good of the Sulzbergers. The hold on the corporation is firm and I don't see the mechanism through which the public shareholders can leverage themselves into a position of power. There hope would seem to be to either shame the Sulzbergers into giving up total control or waiting until the paper is in such dire straits that they have no choice. By that time, the brand will not be worth anything.

You Go To War With The Senate You Have

It is now clear that the Republicans lost the House some months ago and they arguably managed to limit the damage. (On the other hand, the failure of the New Hampshire Republican incumbents to recognize the danger and run as if it were their last campaign calls even that conclusion into question.) But losing the Senate was a purely self-inflicted wound, brought to us thanks to the stupidest fringes of the Stupid Party; the people for whom National Review Online purports to speak. A little accommodation and we could easily have squeezed one more Senator out of the electorate.

How ever we got here, here we are. Fortunately, on the two most important questions likely to be decided by the Senate, conservatives have been more fortunate than we deserve. The Democrats have 51 Senators, but do not have a majority on either of the big two issue: the war in Iraq and Supreme Court Justices.

The war in Iraq is in the capable hands of Joe Lieberman. Senator Lieberman has asked to be identified as an "Independent Democrat" and, if that were not enough to give Harry Reid nightmares, has already suggested that he could possibly caucus with the Republicans. Lieberman is a liberal, he could never join the Republicans on, for example, confirming a real conservative to the Supreme Court, but he is absolutely trustworthy on the war. If he would going to cut and run, he would already have done so. Because he can, simply by abstaining, bring the entire Democratic Senate tumbling down, Lieberman owns any issue he cares about, and he cares about the war.

The fate of any Supreme Court nominations are less clear, but there is good reason to hope that a real conservative can be confirmed. Every Democratic Senator makes the difference here, but let's focus on James Webb. Webb is an odd duck on the Democratic side. He is more conservative than a number of Republicans. The President will have to worry more about satisfying Olympia Snowe than James Webb. I am assuming, however, that when it comes to the Supreme Court, the Democrats won't dare to either filibuster or lock up in committee an acceptable conservative nominee.

A Little On The Nose For An English Eccentric, Innit.

Apparently, England is about to drag us into an intergalactic war.

'Aliens could attack at any time' warns former MoD chief:

UFO sightings and alien visitors tend to be solely the reserve of sci-fi movies.

So when a former MoD chief warns that the country could be attacked by extraterrestrials at any time, you may be forgiven for feeling a little alarmed.

Well, That's Convincing

This profile wants to convince us that Nancy Pelosi and San Franciscans generally are just Mom and Pop (or Pop and Pop) America and not at all loopy moonbats. It doesn't necessarily succeed.

More recently, the San Francisco area's embrace of gay marriage, medical marijuana and the anti-war movement reinforced the city's image as a loopy place out of sync with the rest of America.

That's ironic, said Richard DeLeon, professor emeritus of political science at San Francisco State University.

'The values of the American creed - individuality, liberty, free speech, democracy and at least the aspiration of equality - can be expressed and experienced in San Francisco to an extent that's hard to find elsewhere,' said DeLeon, who first came here during the 1967 Summer of Love. 'San Francisco isn't un-American. America has become less American, with a retreat from civil liberties and, in the White House, suppressive policies and pre-emptive war.'

I know that the Left learned everything they need to know in Kindergarten, but in every argument do they have to go straight to "I know you are, but what am I?"

I'm Very Humerous, Whenever I Make You Laugh

The Corner points to a series of nice statements about Robert Gates from Democrats. I like this one:

Bobby R. Inman, Former CIA Deputy Director And National Security Agency Director: Gates is a "good listener" who, "after he makes up his mind, is very decisive." (Scott Shane, "Robert Gates, A Cautious Player From A Past Bush Team," The New York Times, 11/9/06)

The Presidency Is Still Relevant

In 1994, after the Republicans took the House, pundits started to write Bill Clinton's political obituary. He was powerless, he was irrelevant, he would be out the door in two short years. In fact, a popular Bill Clinton won an easy re-election victory over Bob Dole.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does have a tendency to rhyme. The Democrats won and they'll get a little bit of time to bask in the glory of that win. The assumption will be that they will get their way on every little thing and the Bush Era is over. But George Bush is not a moron, nor is he a bad politician. If he can't run for re-election, then he also doesn't have to worry as much as Clinton did about finding a productive relationship with the new Congress. Bill Clinton whined when he said it, but it is still true: the Presidency is still relevant.

This, Too, Shall Pass

A bad night for the Republican Party and a bad night for conservatives, but the Union continues to be strong. We shouldn't be too depressed: our enemies will rejoice, but they're foreigners and who cares what they think; two years will go by quickly and then we get to go again; and the nation has survived worse than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They are not the enemy; they are not even folk enemies. I've never seen either wear their baseball cap sideways.

We shouldn't be too optimistic: the nation is sick of the war in Iraq and that's not good; the next two years will probably see one or two Supreme Court resignations and this Senate will not give us a good conservative Justice; and while there may be more Blue Dog Democrats in the House, they're all going to vote to empower Pelosi, and Conyers, and Rangel. The House will hang the Administration up in committee for the next two years. That they might well overplay their hand won't change the fact that the administration will be distracted and disrupted for two years.

Still, everyone's looking for the silver lining (you can barely hear for all the whistling past the graveyard in the Corner) and here's mine: once again, anti-immigrationism proves to be perfectly irrelevant in American politics.

A Hat Tip To OJ

OJ says "voting is fun" better than I did:

All too many people will vote today with a mad on, when it should instead be a joyous occasion. After all, we are about to elect the 110th Congress of the United States of America, a representative legislature that has served without interruption for longer than any other in the history of human affairs. If it sometimes seems less an august body than an Augean stable, it has nonetheless served us remarkably well, regardless of which party was in power and irrespective of peace, war, plenty or poverty. Sure, each of us imagines that if we had absolute personal power we could make it run more efficiently and accomplish greater things, but each of us would run it differently and seek to do different things, which is why we have it in the first place. That's why, while there's never a bad time, this is an especially good time to recall the words of Eric Hoffer, that most American of creatures, a longshoreman who's one of the few significant philosophers of the 20th century:

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

So, when you head over to your local school or wherever you happen to vote, don't just trudge dutifully past the gaggle of folks with signs and the candidates hoping to shake your hand or the pollster begging you to answer a few questions. Soak it all in and enjoy it.

Election Day is one big pageant and you are just as much a part of it as every single one of your fellow citizens. Today should be as fun as your favorite holiday, with that same touch of solemnity for leavening. Feel a bit sorry for the folks who voted by mail, who won't get to take their full part in the civil ceremony. Pity the folks who choose not to vote at all, who do not even grasp the great gift our forbears have handed us. And shed a discrete tear for the many in other lands who either don't get to choose their leaders or whose choices make the blood run cold.

You will naturally prefer your candidate, Mr. Smith, to his opponent, Mr. Jones, but in just about every other country on Earth, in nearly every other year of human existence, government by 500 Mr. Joneses would be the best that nation had ever experienced. Despite working on two losing campaigns, the one election that I recall least fondly was 1992. We were living in Chicago and, despite my vote, Bill Clinton carried Illinois, Carol Mosely-Braun was elected to the Senate, and Dan Rostenkowski was returned to the House. But, you know what, the Republic didn't skip a beat. The simple truth, which both parties would rather we lose track of at election time, is that America has, and has generally had, a broad enough consensus on the things that matter that whoever wins today is unlikely to mess things up too badly and whoever wins isn't going to rock the ship of state overmuch. And, best of all, in just two years we get to do it all over again....

Go vote. Think of how much more others have paid to vote. Think of how much more you would pay, if you had to. Most of all: Enjoy it.

An Educated Voter Is A Democrat's Nightmare

Instapundit, Captain Ed and a bunch of other bloggers are having fun with Michael Kinsley's Michael Kinsley's latest WaPo op-ed noting that the Democrat plan for Iraq is defeat.

Older readers may recognize this formula. It's Vietnamization -- the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a previous mistake. But Vietnamization was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called 'peace with honor' and is now known as 'defeat.'

But I haven't seen any focus on the truly astonishing Kinsleyesque gaffe: when Kinsley points to Nancy Pelosi's election manifesto, but says "By all means read it. But do me a favor and vote first."

In other words, elect the Democrats despite their awful tax and spend plans, despite their disingenuousness and despite their plan to lose the Iraq war. I think of myself as partisan, but I'm a piker. That's real partisanship.

Economists Don't Get That Voting Is Like Gambling, Which They Also Don't Get

The Economist's new Democracy in America blog notes that "Economists tend to agree that voting is irrational act; the odds of one's vote affecting the outcome are tiny. What, then, does this suggest about the thought processes of those who vote?" One of my professors doesn't vote because his chance of being killed on the way to vote was greater than his chance of effecting the election. (This was, though, well before the 2000 election, in which George Bush won the presidency because 500 people decided to risk their lives by voting.) In other countries, people run much greater risks to vote. Why?

Voting is, in this way, reminiscent of gambling. In gambling, we trade present value (the bet) for a lower expected value (the payoff). The odds favor the House, but we still bet. We even bet in state lotteries, in which the payoffs are ludicrously small. Gambling is particularly puzzling given the people are, otherwise, quite risk averse. Ordinarily, we don't trade present value for an expected value unless the expected value is either very safe, or very much higher than the present value.

With gambling, the answer is pretty obvious. Gambling is entertainment, and the House's cut is the amount we pay for the being entertained. We like our hearts to pound and a cold sweat on the back of our necks. We like to back our teams with our money. We will pay for that experience. It seems likely that the answer to why we vote is similar. The entire experience of voting is a benefit, not a cost. There is something of a sense of risk, there are important issues at stake, we can help our team -- and we also get to act as part of the community. They could charge us admission, and we'd still do it.
________________________________________________
I see that over at the Volokh conspiracy, they are also discussing whether voting is pleasurable. They seem to be missing the extent to which the act of voting is fun. I go to the neighborhood school, I invariably see some friends manning the bake sale, I get into line and see the ward workers, who I only see every other year, I fill out my little dots and feed the ballot through the counting machine. I never have to wait very long, I get a little thrill from grabbing hold of the passed democratic torch and I can walk out having done my citizenly duty. What's not to enjoy.

Useless Choices '06

The last curse of the Progressive Movement (the real one, not the ersatz "Progressivism" adopted by the socialists after they made "liberal" political poison) is the citizens initiative. As a Massachusetts conservative, I don't get much of a choice in choosing politicians. This year, however, I get to make the following decisions:

1. Should cities and towns be allowed to license food stores to sell wine?

2. Should candidates be able to run as the nominee of two or more parties, with their votes accumulated to determine the winner?

3. Should licensed child care givers be allowed to bargain collectively with the state subsidized child care program.

4. Should my state representative "be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon the President and Congress of the United States to end the war in Iraq immediately and bring all United States military forces home from Iraq?"

5. Should my state representative vote to petition Congress to amend the Constitution to provide Senators and Representatives for the District of Columbia?

Four and five are easy. Even if I weren't a war-mongering conservative, I would reject the idea of voting as symbolic gesture. Two easy nos.

Two is fine. One yes.

The other two are a little harder. On three, I'll probably vote no on the principle that no one should be able to collectively bargain for the state. My hesitation is based on a less creditable instinct: the state should have to suffer as it makes its citizens suffer. Amusingly, this initiative is opposed by the goo-goos, who usually scream at any attempt to stop unionization, because greater compensation for care-givers not matched by an increase in the total appropriation for childcare will decrease the availability of subsidized childcare in the Commonwealth.

Number one is the hardest decision for me. I'm sufficiently libertarian that I think that more freedom is better and people should be able to enter any legal business without interference. On the other hand, I'm conservative enough to regret the easier and less expensive availability of alcohol. Wine is less worrisome than either beer or liquor, but that is why wine was chosen. In a few years, barring disaster, they'll be back for beer.

You Call That Reforming The Military? I'll Show You Reforming The Military

The Army Times (and its sister trade journals for the armed forces) are running an editorial calling for Donald Rumsfeld to go:

Time for Rumsfeld to go

“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”

That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.

But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington.

One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.

Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.

Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.


But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.

For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.

Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.

And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.

Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.

This is a mistake. It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.

I have only a couple of points to make about the editorial. The first, and there has been some confusion on this point, is that the various Army/Navy etc. Times newspapers are not affiliated with the Defense Department or the US government. They're owned by Gannett, and thus are sister publications to USA Today. They are written by journalists, not soldiers, though some of the journalists used to be soldiers.

My second point is that the editorial's arguments are weak. They boil down to "We haven't won yet, and the Administration said we would win." Many of the statements the editorial makes, like "Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership" or "colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops," are not supported by the facts supplied. In any event, as long time readers know, I firmly reject the "more troops" position. It wouldn't have helped before and it certainly wouldn't help now. The only solution now is for an Iraqi government (or three) to stand up and bring peace. (If Iraq were broken up, either de jure or just de facto, two of three parts would probably have peace, more or less, from day one.)

My concern at this point -- and it has little to do with Rumsfeld or the Iraqi war -- is that the remaking of the military Rumsfeld has been pushing, while attacked as extreme, has been so moderate. It has been almost 60 years since a real shake up of the Pentagon, and another is past due. Here are five ideas for really shaking up the military.

First, and with all due respect for Colonel Guinn, we need to abolish the Air Force. Air power is just artillery writ large, and it should be part of the Army. Pilots should have to serve with infantry units for promotion to field grade. Both the US and Israel have been ill-served by having Air Force officers at the top of their general staffs. It is time to return the infantry to the center of our military thought. Similarly, Marine aviation should be turned over to the Navy, but Naval Officers should have to put in a tour with the Marines just as Army pilots will have to serve with the infantry.

Second, there should be a professional General Staff separate from the Army and Navy. Officers should be seconded to the General Staff for tours of duty, during which they should wear uniforms distinct from their branch of service. The Chairman of the General Staff should always have a CIB.

Third, the Quartermasters for all the services should be centralized into a single corps, and perhaps privatized.

Fourth, all special forces should be incorporated into a single centralized command.

Fifth, we should engage in a thorough review of foreign bases with the presumption that they should all be abandoned. Only a clearly positive cost-benefit should be allowed to save any foreign base. US troops should not be kept in an area as a "trip-wire" so that when they are wiped out, we will be forced to respond.

As a bonus, and only because I am a conservative, I'd love to rename the Defense Department the War Department.

Some Spam Is More Delicious Than Other Spam

From an email I received today:

Ooops, I forgot I said that!

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
-President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
-President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
-Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten time since 1983."
-Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998

"[WE] urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
-Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry( D - MA), and others Oct. 9,1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
-Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
-Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
-Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
-Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
-Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - -Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do"
-Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
-Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime .. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real"
-Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

If only I could tell you who I received it from...

Of Polls And Men

According to the polls, the Democrats have already won the mid-term election. All in all, there are 13 House seats that are already lost to the Republicans, and 20 seats more that are all-but-lost. At this point, holding the Democrats to a 20 point gain would be a moral victory. According to the same polls, the Democrats are likely to take the Senate, although that is not locked in place.

The narrative of this election has already been locked down, and nothing -- not John Kerry, not capturing Osama, not a stirred up Republican base -- is going to change it at this late date.

If the polls are right.

Now, I'm not one of those conservatives who believes that the fix is in for the Democrats in the polls. I don't believe that the polling companies or the media companies they work for are trying to present a story of Democratic dominance in order to keep conservatives at home. But I do believe that polls tacitly favor Democrats by one to two points, and that they are becoming less reliable over time for reasons that have nothing to do with the pollster's political bias. If the Republicans win on Tuesday by keeping control of both houses, the age of polls will have passed. That would make Tuesday a great day in history.

Polls have been bad for politics. The belief that every day brings immediate feedback, that every little decision is accurately judged as it happens against public opinion, is debilitating to representative government. Democracy is, at its heart, a magic show; the belief that the opinion of the mass of mankind, agglomerated, contains wisdom is based on faith, not reason. The moral case for democracy is strong but not so strong that it trumps the moral case for good government.* The wisdom and skill that the people bring to elections is not in knowing which policy will work best, but in judging which candidate is a better person. This has been particularly important in presidential elections, where we simply don't know what issue will suddenly become most pressing over the next four years. Choosing the person we most trust to face that issue, and craft the response, is what the people are best at.
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* But what about Jefferson, you ask. Jefferson's "consent of the governed" was given to the government as a whole, and is the opposite of rebellion. The form of government need not be democratic, so long as it has the actual consent of the governed.

Here's How You Tell That Joke

"Most important, congratulations to the class of 2001. To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students–I say, you, too, can be President of the United States."

Here's another good joke: You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you vote for the Iraq war before you vote against it.