As a yellow dog Dem, I'm not the biggest fan of the blue dogs, but they have their heads screwed on right, especially when it comes to fiscal affairs and this is the latest example. It's about time that a group of Dems got up, said "this is idiotic" and made a plea for fiscal sanity. With projections of $6 trillion surpluses, it's difficult to keep everyone's hands out of the cookie jar (even though I still think Bush's first round of tax cuts was idiotic, even if it was politically difficult to fight), but now that deficits are back, someone has to draw the line. So three cheers for the blue dogs! I just hope they keep fighting strong.

I don't know why the last two days have taken a decidedly fark-like turn in the state of Texas, but the latest thing I've heard of is this man who is now serving time in a doghouse. Read the article. Makes you wonder what the punishment for the guy in Denton would have been had they caught him before he died. Either way, doesn't this at least count as "unusual" punishment, as in "cruel and unusual punishment"? Regardless of the crime, this guy should have to go to jail or pay a fine. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to happen overseas, not in America.

I was somewhat surprised to find the list of consular services for the Mexican Consulate, quite so...broad. Included is the always helpful question: how do I send a corpse to Mexico? Finally, the question that's been on everyone's minds has been answered. And yes, there are strict regulations on embalming, caskets and papers.

As an aside, I attempted to find the instructions to send dead people to France and Italy, but neither featured said info prominently. And those Italians...well, let's just say they need to work on their website. The French are way ahead of them.

What do I make of this story of a pair of really really bad neighbors? Well, let's take the final two paragraphs:

Kyla Welch, whose house backs up to the side of the Mack house, told the Denton Record-Chronicle that her neighbor did not appear to work and was a bit eccentric. But she said both were friendly enough to wave or speak when she saw them in the yard in the past eight years they have been neighbors. Welch said she had noticed recently that when she looked into the yard, Mack was sitting in the van.

"We did kind of notice they were out there all the time with the engine running. I just thought he was smoking in the van because of his mother's health," she said. "You never saw any lights in the house, but I thought they stayed in the back. You never saw anyone visiting," Welch said. "They were kind of odd, but they never bothered anybody."

Um, the van was parked in their front yard. And the engine was running. That's a little bit stranger than "eccentric". One neighbor even brought the man gas for his van so that he could continue to run the engine, yet go nowhere. Yet no one heard from the starving dogs who were so hungry they ate part of the dead mother's arm off, yet couldn't get anyone to let them out of the van. It's a sick, sick world, sometimes.

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.