I haven't commented on the whole Perle/Blitzer/Hersh incident. Everything's been hashed out fairly well. But I did see an amusing quote from JMM that I thought was worth repeating. Here goes:

Trust me, if lacking a theme in your articles made you close to a terrorist most of my friends and I would be down in Guantanamo with burlap sacks over our heads.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Yes, it's another post about fast food. Laugh it up, guys: I'm hobbling around like a sixty year-old after the midnight indoor soccer game last night, so I don't care. I went to lunch with the notion that I'd pick up a shamrock shake from McDonald's. Only trouble is: they didn't know what I was talking about. Every year around this time I'm baffled that only 25% of McDonalds seem to serve this particular delicacy. Grr. Now I've got a craving I can't satisfy.

first off, excuse the case and any errors. i'm typing with one hand, because my other is holding an ice pack to my knee, which is only mildly sore. my ankle is more sore, so it gets the larger ice pack and an ace bandage.

tomorrow, i'm sure, i'll remember the days in high school when i'd wake up sore and think to myself that i had a few hours of classes to rest before i ran again. hopefully it wouldn't be mile repeats. there was always something hurting. college had its share of injuries but 9 times out of 10 they were due to a crash rather than simply being sore. (unless we'd done a particularly hard ride the day before...but even then cycling seemed to simply suck your energy away rather than leaving your ankles swollen or your joints creaking. low impact, you know? except when you'd crash. i guess cycling left more scars.

i am getting back to my chicken catching days, though, which feels good. two indoor games ago i could barely breathe after the first half. now i just want to keep playing. as long as i stay injury free i'll be good. time to tske some drugs, turn down my glowing blue music box, drink some h2o, (my full glass is currently chillin' in the freezer) and remove the contacts. if i keep this up i'll get pretty good at typing with my left hand. i'm already better than some people who hunt and peck. if i could just get the case thing to work i'd be set.

goodnight gracie.

Reading this sure took me back. Back to the days of playing "gunship" on an old PC. You always wanted to go with the hellfires when you were arming up your apache...the sidewinders, while good for hitting fast moving aircraft, were simply too expensive and useless for ground targets, and the default rockets were unguided with not enough punch to take out any heavily armored vehicles. Hellfires hit the sweet spot, and with clear skies you could lock onto multiple targets that were near each other, fire several hellfires (with a few seconds delay between each shot) and as each target was hit, switch the next missile to the next target. Four shots, four kills.

The Longbox even let you perform the neat trick of hiding behind a hill, using the top mounted radar dome (which sits above the rotors) to track targets. So you can fire multiple shots and then move 90% of the helicopter to a secure space, with only the radar dome exposed. (The massive engines are also hidden, helping confuse any incoming IR guided missiles). Boom. Boom. Boom.

I can only imagine that, some ten years from now, I'll be reading about the new advanced "Comanche" helicopters which are revolutionizing warfare. That game was fun as well, with better graphics...

After a relaxing weekend of sun and skiing, it's time to get back to work. First, though, there have been a number of pro-Dean articles in the press of late. First here this newsday article which is positive. Then there's this piece in the Burlington Free Press. Finally, there's this Ryan Lizza story in The New Republic. The last, more than the others, underscores Dean's strength: the other candidates keep confusing themselves about Dean's actual political record. Instead of attacking him from the right for supporting gun owner's rights, they're attacking his stance on Iraq as being too dovish. Implying that he is too far left to be a credible candidate in the primaries is sure to backfire, because it will attract support from the very people who vote in primaries. And when the general election rolls around, most people will be surprised to learn of Dean's fiscal conservatism and overall moderate nature. This is much like 43's strategy in the 2000 primaries: he emphasized his (relatively short) conservative credentials to begin with, helping him defeat the other challengers despite not having a more principled conservative stand than any of them. Yet by the time the general election rolled around, 43 was able to seamlessly transition to the center, claiming he had never left and that he was a "compassionate conservative".

Dean, by contrast, really isn't the uber-left candidate most have made him out to be. So his transition back to the center is an easy one to make. Unlike Gore in the 2000 elections, no credible candidate is considered "to the left" of Dean, despite his policies which place him more squarely in the center than candidates like Gephardt, Sharpton or Braun. By winning over the base so quickly, Dean can concentrate on his real strengths: fiscal conservatism (he's all for balanced budgets), healthcare issues (who could argue with a doctor?) and education. He won't have to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure he's pleasing the left-leaning folks: they're already on board. The fact that they may have embraced a candidate whose views don't parallel their own is good for the party today, and good for the nation in 2004. Let's just hope he picks up some more money along the way, scores a few upsets and then knocks 43 out of the ring next fall.

Wow. I guess Taco Bell should rework that mildly amusing commercial involving a guy walking down the street with fajitas. Instead, he could walk out of a bar and find himself confronted by angry police officers who demand that he hand over his tasty dinner. Truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

At some point, someone in the administration is going to wake up and think, "my god, what have we let happen" with respect to North Korea. The latest? North Korea is going to launch another missile. This after the top-gun style flyby and the previous missile launch and the restarting of the nuclear reactor. As someone who's always thought we needed to deal with the NK issue head-on, the silence from the White House is deafening. Just look at the press conference from March 5:

Q Is the United States now resigned to seeing North Korea develop a nuclear arsenal?

MR. FLEISCHER: No. The position of the United States, along with our allies in the region, is just the opposite, that it's important to make certain that there is a denuclearized Peninsula. And that's why we're working so hard on this, and why we have called directly and publicly for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs.

That's why we're working so hard on this? So hard on this? How delusional could these guys be? Let's roll the tape from last night:

Q: Mr. President, thank you. Another hot spot is North Korea. If North Korea restarts their plutonium plant, will that change your thinking about how to handle this crisis, or are you resigned to North Korea becoming a nuclear power?

Bush: This is a regional issue. I say regional issue because there's a lot of countries that have got a direct stake in whether or not North Korea has nuclear weapons.

We've got a stake as to whether North Korea has any nuclear weapon. China clearly has a stake as to whether or not North Korea has a nuclear weapon. South Korea, of course, has a stake. Japan has got a significant stake as to whether or not North Korea has a nuclear weapon. Russia has a stake.

So therefore I think the best way to deal with this is in multilateral fashion by convincing those nations that they must stand up to their responsibility along with the United States to convince Kim Jong Il that the development of a nuclear arsenal is not in his nation's interests, and that should he want help in easing the suffering of the North Korean people, the best way to achieve that help is to not proceed forward.

We've tried bilateral negotiations with North Korea. My predecessor in a good-faith effort entered into a framework agreement. The United States honored its side of the agreement; North Korea didn't. While we felt the agreement was enforced, North Korea was enriching uranium. In my judgment, the best way to deal with North Korea is to convince parties to assume their responsibility.

I was heartened by the fact that Jiang Zemin, when he came to Crawford, Texas, made it very clear to me and publicly as well that a nuclear-weapons-free peninsula was in China's interest.

And so we're working with China and the other nations I mentioned to bring multilateral pressure and to convince Kim Jong Il that the development of a nuclear arsenal is not in his interests.

That's not a policy. That's not even an appropriate answer to a question asked about whether we are resigned to North Korea becoming a nuclear power. So the answer, I suppose, is yes. And that's a big problem. And one that can't be blown away in a unilateral action, like Iraq. Where is the red line, and what are we going to do when we reach it?

For the past few weeks, after I discovered that my office had an official "drug cabinet" for the relief of headaches, etc. I've been popping a couple aspirin a day. Why? Well, every year or so some study comes out which shows that people who take one to two aspirin a day have reduced risk of something. Cancer, heart attacks, you name it. So today, after I took my two, I looked at the bottle and was surprised to find that the expiration date was 6/99. That's right. Almost four years old. Needless to say, I'll be taking my own aspirin from now on.

Here's a great thought. I remember back to the days immediately following September 11, and having discussions with people over this very subject. The thought was always the same: if the terrorists get us to change the way we view our country, they've already won. In many ways, the current dismantling of our liberties can be traced to John Ashcroft, but I'm not convinced that, in the absence of a horrible terrorist attack, he would have behaved any differently. The main problem is that the idea of America, of freedom and justice for all, is not a pragmatic one. It would be far easier to require everyone to have an id card that tracked where they went and conversations they had so that we could quickly identify "trouble-makers" and deal with them accordingly. Terrorism couldn't survive in such an environment. Free speech couldn't either.

The trouble isn't how far down the slope of the repression of civil liberties we slide. The trouble is sliding in the first place. The fact that some Americans would consider torture to be a viable option for people we "don't like" is disturbing. I don't have a problem with a national ID card system, for instance. ID card used to show someone's age are a good thing. That said, using ID cards to track people and to profile them is simply wrong. Libertarians attack the method (ID cards) because they can smell the potential for abuse. The problem, however, is the abuse itself. When we have representatives in the government who believe profiling is good, who believe that internment of citizens was fine and who think that we should be able to revoke someone's citizenship without their say-so, that's a problem. It's un-American.

Sure, such a system is ripe for exploitation. But that's not the point. America isn't about efficiency, or pragmatism: it's about freedom. If problems occur, we can deal with them. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. But now, more than ever, we need to be vigilant about the restrictions our own government is placing upon our liberties. Liberty demands nothing less.

I picked up a copy of the AP stylebook yesterday for work. I had been growing tired of attempting to recall obscure facts from 4-5 years ago when I used to edit my college newspaper. Nicely, though, several of the facts I'd recited in past days were correct, when I flipped through the book. Nothing used to give me greater satisfaction than to challenge an especially arrogant writer who'd claim "this is how it's done in...(insert name of other stylebook like MLA, Strunk & White, etc.).." and then slap them with the AP stylebook, icing it off with a comment that we weren't an English professor, we were a newspaper.

Flipping through it takes me back...Bat proved too elusive for all concerned.

I told some friends and family the other day that Ohio has just ratified the 14th amendment. I spoke too soon, perhaps. From the article:

It seemed like a slam-dunk resolution to fix an embarrassing, 135-year-old blemish on Ohio's record, said state Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati.

After all, who would oppose finally ratifying the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens? Mallory got the entire 33-member Ohio Senate to vote for the resolution and sign on as co-sponsors Feb. 25.

In the Ohio House, it's quite a different story.

There, a handful of conservative Republicans say they're all for equal rights but don't like how judges have used the 14th Amendment in cases such as Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing a woman's access to abortion, or in a federal court ruling last year that said reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in California schools was unconstitutional because it includes the words "under God."

Later in the piece, the ultimate irony is revealed:

Ohio ratified it in 1867, but in the next election, Democrats, who had campaigned against the amendment, won a majority in the legislature, and in 1868, the legislature rescinded its ratification.

Ohio is the only state that has not ratified it.

So, although Democrats fought tooth and nail in the mid 19th century to prevent the ratification, now Republicans are the ones (the party of Lincoln, remember?) who feel it's not a good idea. This in the state that was the setting for Uncle Tom's Cabin...wow. Talk about a national black-eye. I'm glad I don't live there.