�The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile," Ramon said. "The atmosphere is so thin and fragile, and I think all of us have to keep it clean and good. It saves our life and gives our life."

After a 2:39 p.m. CST Blue Team wake-up to the sounds of John Lennon singing �Imagine,� McCool and Ramon said their observations from orbit reveal no borders on the Earth below and reiterated in both English and Hebrew their hopes for peace in the world.

Intergenerational Cross-Dressing In The News

Moreover, the AEI resident scholar [John Lott] acknowledged on Friday that he permitted his 13-year-old son to write an effusive review of "More Guns, Less Crime" and then post it on the Amazon.com Web site. It was signed "Maryrosh."

His son gave the book five stars -- the highest possible rating.

"If you want to learn about what can stop crime or if you want to learn about many of the myths involving crime that endanger people's lives, this is the book to get," the review stated. "It was very interesting reading and Lott writes very well. He explains things in an understandable commonsense way. I have loaned out my copy a dozen times and while it may have taken some effort to get people started on the book, once they read it no one was disappointed."

Lott denied that he was the author of the review, an assertion made on various Web sites that have been tracking the controversy. He said his son wrote it, with some help from his wife. "They told me they had done it. They showed it to me. I wasn't going to tell them not to do it. Should I have?"

Should you tell your 13-year-old son not to lie? Now, there's a poser. Obviously not if you want him to have a future at the American Enterprise Institute.

Turns out that Larry King Live viewers aren't the types who need legal services to build and grow their business or to protect and defend their assets.

And, ironically, that Brobeck wasn't really the best place to go "when your future is at stake."

Popular opposition to apartheid, not just in the United States, but in the many parts of the world, and in the United Nations, had a positive influence in ending racist rule in South Africa. The United States' decrease of financial support for South Africa's racist regime -- a policy which was opposed by Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Dick Cheney, of course -- also had an impact, of course. But to give the American "government" credit -- particularly when that government was led by apartheid apologists Reagan and Bush -- is pure fantasy.

The Butcher of Bradenton

Dr. Denise Baker of Bradenton sat behind first lady Laura Bush Tuesday night as President Bush asked Congress to limit medical malpractice awards in "frivolous lawsuits."

Baker said lawsuits against her were partially to blame for higher insurance rates that forced her to quit delivering babies. She has settled four malpractice claims since 1998, totaling more than $600,000.

Bradenton resident Bill Bartram and his wife, Phyllis, filed one of those lawsuits.

"Frivolous? (My wife) almost died," said Bartram, 61. He and his 55-year-old wife settled their suit in December 2000.

"My wife has a scar on her stomach as big as a fist," after an operation in 1998 in which her bowel was punctured, Bartram said. Bartram said he saw Baker's picture in the paper Wednesday and was outraged.

Sounds like the system works the way it should. To paraphrase the old adage, no one is safe when Denise Baker is in surgery or Laura Bush is behind the driver's wheel.

(Inspired by a true story at Eschaton.)

Given the views Bush Sr. and Dick Cheney toward the apartheid regime, one could ask why Mandela was so charitable toward the current administration.

State of Shock and Awe

Tom Spencer links to this CBS report about Pentagon plans to launch 300 to 400 cruise missles on Iraq on the second day of the war, sometime in March. Guess that comment to the Iraqis that their enemy was not surrounding their country was a bit of a stretcher. Sure, "the day [Saddam] and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation" -- you should only live so long.

As for Bush's claim that Saddam has "already used [the worlds most dangerous weapons] on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured," former CIA Iraq specialist Stephen Pelletiere has called that allegation into question. Pelletiere claims that the gassing incident occurred during a border battle in the Iran-Iraq war in which both sides used chemical weapons, and that "after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report" which "asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas." This certainly warrants further investigation, particularly given Bush's track record for inaccuracy on many important matters.

And both are right when they disagree with me for characterizing Laurie Mylroie as an "idiot" who lacks credibility. I haven't read Mylroie's writings on the subject and shouldn't have lumped her in with Gaffney and Davis based solely on Gaffney's endorsement of her work. (I have read Gaffney and Davis, after having read an earlier Gaffney column on the subject last October or November.) What I should have said is that the claim that there are ties between the Oklahoma City Bombing and Hussein lacks credibility.

On the other hand, Mylroie's credibility isn't bolstered by this article from Insight magazine. Mylroie's case (as reported by the Moonie mag) doesn't amount to much more than saying Clinton failed to investigate the matter because he was "in deep political trouble," and mocking "Clinton's tremendous capacity to feel everyone's pain." Not very compelling stuff. Mylroie further asserts that "Ramzi Yousef was in the Philippines at the same time as Nichols and visited the same city out of which the Oklahoma City bombing was planned." What's the proof for that assertion? It sure isn't the statements of McVeigh, Nichols or Yousef. (And is Mylroie saying the OKC Boming was planned in the Phillipines?) Mylroie is also quoted as saying "I doubt that Nichols has ever been asked about his connections to Yousef because the government didn't want to know. It wanted to say, 'Here are the perpetrators; we arrested them and we brought them to justice. Case closed.'" More speculation and insinuations of ill motive, but no proof. And maybe the privilege against self-incrimination had something to do with why "the government" hasn't asked Nichols about Yousef.

If Mylroie actually attempts to make a credible case for the connection elsewhere, I'd be happy to read it and comment further.

Buckley v. Woelfle-o

Another Buckley whose donations have run afoul of the law.

I'm sure John Derbyshire will be voicing his disapproval in no uncertain terms.

(from MWO.)

White-faced circus clown Tucker Carlson made the following statement on Thursday's Crossfire:

CARLSON: Without the American government, apartheid would still be in South Africa, just so we can get that straight.

Let's go to the videotape:

Sept. 29, 1986

U.S. Congress overrides President Ronald Reagan's veto and imposes strict economic sanctions against South Africa.

....

July 10, 1991

President George Bush lifts most U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa.

...

July 2, 1993

A date is confirmed for the country's first universal suffrage elections.

...

Nov. 18-23, 1993

Twenty-one of South Africa's black and white political parties approve a majority-rule constitution that provides fundamental rights to blacks. The document calls for the election of a coalition government that would remain in office for five years after the elections, and for the dissolution of the country's 10 black self-governing homelands. The U.S. repeals sanctions against South Africa.

Sorry, Tucker, you're incorrect, as always.

(Thanks to Jim for the heads up.)

God Must Love The California Democratic Party

Politics in the Golden State may be about to turn on its head and then some. First, we hear that Michael Reagan, former President Ronald Reagan's son with his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, may be considering a bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Barbara Boxer. In addition to a famous name, Reagan has a large national following thanks to the issue-oriented talk radio program he hosts for three hours every day, Monday through Friday. -- United Press International

It doesn't get any better than this.

LAUGH RIOT: Washington�s Funniest Celebrity? Daschle finished second, Cal Thomas third.

Cal did his Ministry of Silly Goosesteps skit (or did he just read from this column?); Daschle announced his presidential bid.

Meet Your Liberal Media

We already knew about the president's opening quip to the former Bill Clinton aide -- "Welcome back to the White House, George. We'll have to make sure that we count the silverware" -- but Brokaw recounted an even sharper jape. Discussing his upcoming State of the Union address, Bush told the assembled media heavies: "I'm prepared. I'm not the kind of guy who's going to sit in the back of the limo on the way to the Capitol and rewrite my speech. Know what I mean, George?"

Yesterday, Stephanopoulos told us: "If I'm going to go through my rookie hazing, it might as well be from the commander in chief."

Good boy, George. Now fetch.

I don't know either.

Peddling the shameful theory that Saddam Huessin was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, Gaffney can't even get the year of the massacre right. It occurred on April 19, 1995. Gaffney should be ashamed of his gross insult to the victims' families.

The he wipes up the floor with G.O.P.

"RAINES SCORES: New York Times Co. posts 45% profit rise in quarter..."

Actually, Drudge's link points out that it's the NYT corporation which had the profitable fourth quarter, not just the New York Times itself. But circulation and ad revenue at the Times somehow managed to grow over the last year, even though the paper was deprived of Sully's invaluable services.

John Ashcroft was kept away from the Capitol Building during the State of the Union Address, allegedly as a security measure.

Any ideas as to his whereabouts?

Fortified bunker beneath Bob Jones University? Posing for his Museum of the Confederacy portrait? On his knees in prayer with Virginia Thomas?

Saddam Fools

Moonie Times contributing nutbag Frank Gaffney is still trying to peddle the theory that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. There's nothing that irritates right-wing haters more than the fact their ideological (not to mention religious and racial) brethern are terrorists. As a result, fools like Gaffney will don any old tin-foil hat rather than acknowledge the simple truth.

In his latest column, Gaffney proposed that Bush link Oklahoma City to Saddam during his State of the Union Address. The Gaffer urged Bush to say:

The case for implicating Saddam and his operatives in the latest and most deadly attack upon us is even more compelling, though, when added to evidence that points to his complicity in earlier terrorist acts � the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1996 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Tonight, sitting with the first lady, are two intrepid women who have done pioneering work ferreting out and calling attention to this evidence: an internationally recognized specialist on Iraq and best-selling author, Dr. Laurie Mylroie, and television-reporter-turned-independent investigator, Jayna Davis of Oklahoma City. I would ask you to join me in saluting them for pursuing leads that neither the federal government, prosecutors or the media have done enough to date to investigate.

Sorry, Frank. The empty chair had more credibility than you and those other two idiots combined.

The axis of evil has shrunk to Saddam, evil incarnate. Iran and North Korea were put aside with the dismissive comment: "Different threats require different strategies."

She left out bin Laden and al Queda.

Best Commentary, Hands Down

and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.

with equivication, obfuscation and barefaced lies.

In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident.

because it's no skin off our asses.

...

After recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and stock market declines, our economy is recovering. Yet it is not growing fast enough, or strongly enough.

or at all.

Traitors Day

Newt vs. Big Pussy

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in one op-ed column last week in the Los Angeles Times, said "thanks to Tony Soprano, 'Sex and the City' and young pop divas, Hollywood has given us our unflattering image."

Mr. Gingrich labeled "astounding" what Boston University professors Melvin and Margaret DeFleur found when surveying 1,259 teenagers from 12 countries about their attitudes toward Americans.

"Few of those surveyed had any direct contact with Americans � only 12 percent had visited the U.S.," he noted. "But they did have access to American television programs, movies and pop music, and based on that exposure, most of these teens considered Americans to be violent, prone to criminal activity and sexually immoral."

Maybe they've just been reading your deposition transcripts, Newt.

Cowards and Victims

A coward is "one who shows ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain." Being a newspaper, owned by a corporation, the New York Times can face neither danger nor pain. (Its individual employees can face both, from the likes of lunatics such as Ann Coulter and her supporters, but that's another story.) A newspaper can neither engage in combat or flee from it. Thus, when talking whether America should engage in a war, a newspaper cannot display cowardice.

One suspects the real reason for Sully's characterization of the Times as cowardly is Sully's desire to portray himself, by contrast, as courageous. Sully has done nothing and will do nothing in the "war against Iraq" except write self-congratulatory columns and preening blog entries on the subject. Sitting on your ass in front of a computer screen is not an act of courage. For that matter, I'm not aware that Sully has sacrificed anything -- including time or effort -- since September 2001 unless it was forced upon him (such as airport delays). And until Sully starts making such sacrifices, he's as much as coward as the New York Times.

Pitt Stains

Remember Harvey Pitt, the deposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman? The onetime lawyer for big accounting firms resigned last November following criticism that his relationship with former clients was keeping him from cracking down on corporate scandal. President Bush appointed a successor, former brokerage and insurance executive William Donaldson. But with Donaldson's nomination not yet approved by the Senate, Pitt is still at the helm � and wielding more power than ever.

In the past two weeks, the SEC has issued a spate of new rules intended to prevent future Enron-style scandals. But under intense lobbying pressure from Wall Street as well as the accounting and legal professions, the commission has watered down or delayed some of these rules. For example, the SEC voted to allow accounting firms to continue to earn fat consulting fees from the companies they audit. And lawyers will be required to report any wrongdoing they witness to senior company executives but not to the SEC � as the SEC had initially proposed.

Molly Ivins has more.

Ill Will

George Fwill is hopping mad about the lack of ideological diversity among students currently attending the University of Michigan. And what's his proof that conservatives are under-represented among the U of M student body? Why, because Ann Arbor "voted for George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984."

Not only that, George, I hear some fresh Michigan frosh once shouted "Nertz to you, Silent Cal!" from the rumble seat of his flivver, on his way to the big Charleston contest.

Undoubtedly 90 percent of Michigan undergrads weren't old enough to vote Mondale in 1984, and the same percentage weren't even born when McGovern ran for President in 1972. Will doesn't know the ideological makeup of the Michigan campus and he barely bothers to pretend otherwise.

But that's just padding, leading up to the belabored, space-filling gimmick of Will's latest column: A gag questionnaire designed to identify conservatives in order to give them the same alleged preference that the evil university bestows on students of color. Sample question, "Do you wish to enroll in UM's ROTC program?" Answer yes, get 10 bonus points. What a wag!

But I'll play along. Here are some more questions designed to help create an ideologically-diverse campus:

1. Adultery is: (a) a sin, (b) destructive and harmful to your children, or (c) the only way a four-eyed, chinless pratt like me can feel like a man.

2. The draft is reinstated. Do you, being a militaristic patriot who fervently wishes to "pave over" Iraq: (a) volunteer for the armed services, (b) join the ROTC, (c) hide your sorry ass in divinity school, or (d) c., but also start shopping for bra-and-panty sets in case that doesn't work.

3. Bow ties are: (a) for clowns, (b) beneath even clowns, or (c) erotic.

4. Someone tells you he's stolen property belonging to a competitor. Do you? (a) Report the crime to the police, (b) Tell him to return it, or (c) use it against the competitor and then repeatedly lie about your complicity.

Answer "c" to all four questions and you too can be a failed professor at Michigan...or at least at Michigan State.

Update: More from Peter Dreier.

The Old Snitchin' Post

In today's Slate, Chris Hitchens 'fesses up that he's a-hankerin' to play Maureen O'Hara to Dubya's "Duke" Wayne, McClintock-style.

Deputy Hitch is so taken by the pistol-packin' pretender that he drops his claimed opposition to the death penalty to fantasize about Bush fashioning a frontier gallows. "One could almost see the noose snaking over the limb of the tree," writes Hitch, in the throes of Otto Reich-otic ecstasy.

Chris also blasts those "sissies" at the U.N., just so we'll know he's a real butch Cassidy. If that don't put a Snitch in your giddy-up, nothing will.

Breach of Contract With America

One of the provisions of the G.O.P.'s Contract With America was enforcement of child support laws. Newt Gingrich, the man who made the Contract famous, and who in turn got rich off of the Contract, was himself a child support deadbeat.

Democratic Underground (via Yahoo) now reports that Bush Treasury Secretary nominee John Snow was sued in 1988 for failure to pay child support. A Maryland court "found Snow failed to pay child support for his son Ian over a 19-month period, and failed to pay Ian's transportation and allowance costs at college." At the time, Snow was President and CEO of CSX Transportation, so he probably couldn't afford to pony up for such luxuries in the midst of the Reagan-Bush recession.

Speaking through the Talking Penis, Ari Fleischer, Snow is now insinuating that he was railroaded (pun intended). I guess he couldn't afford competent counsel to defend the support enforcement action, and couldn't understand his obligations in the first instance, what with only a Ph.D. in economics and a law degree to assist him.

You gotta love the Party of Personal Responsibility.

Says he could just snort him up with a spoon.

Connect The Dots

In December, President Bush named Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, chairman of an independent commission examining the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But FORTUNE has learned that Kean appears to have a bizarre link to the very terror network he's investigating--al Qaeda.

Here's how the dots connect: Kean is a director of petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which in 1998 formed a joint venture--known as Delta Hess--with Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabian company, to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. One of Delta's backers is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a shadowy Saudi patriarch married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. Mahfouz, who is suspected of funding charities linked to al Qaeda, is even named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by families of Sept. 11 victims. True, Hess is hardly the only company to cross paths with Mahfouz: He has shown up in dealings with, among others, ultra-secretive investment firm Carlyle Group and BCCI, the lender toppled by fraud in 1992.

The article says that Amerada Hess has severed ties with Delta Oil. More importantly: have Mahfouz and the Carlyle Group severed ties?

Bulk Shit

Barney Gumble points out that the No. 1 ranking for Michael Weiner's Savage Nation on the New York Times Best Seller list is the product of bulk orders from persons unknown.

On The Media reported on the bulk order scam for inflating sales figures last March. Interestingly, OTM quoted a representative of Weiner's publisher, Thomas Nelson Publishers, who defended the scam: "I believe it is legitimate promotion where an author will arrange for a book store or a book store chain to be in the back of the room selling books to a large convention, quite often a thousands [sic] books or, or more in a single day are sold through that kind of event, but those all end up in the hands of legitimate consumers."

I didn't realize the National Association of Inbred Racist Cretins was convening this week.

Substantial Evidence, My Ass

What we know:

1. David M. Gross is an attorney, a former Minnesota county prosecutor now in private practice. He specializes in firearms law. (See MCCR Hardcore Members section. Note: there is another Minnesota attorney named David Gross, who is an IP attorney and who is not the same person.) Gross is very familiar with law schools and legal scholars, according to an e-mail from him quoted on this site.

2. John Lott says that David Gross told him that "he [Gross] remembers something about Chicago and possibly the student saying that he was from the University of Northwestern." (Emphasis added.)

3. Gross contacted Lott through Joseph Olson, a pro-gun professor of law at Hamline and leader of the MCCR group to which Gross belongs. (See also link No. 1.)

4. According to James Lindgren, "Gross in his post expressed his admiration for the work of Milton Friedman and his contacting Dan Polsby (a former Northwestern professor also known to support gun rights)." In fact, Polsby was the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Northwestern in 1995.

It's inconceivable that Gross, an attorney who has practiced and lived in the Midwest for almost 30 years, and someone who is familiar with the work of a former Northwestern law professor, would refer to NU as "the University of Northwestern." (NU and its law school have national reputations, they aren't jerkwater diploma mills from the internet or the southern states.) It's equally inconceiveable that Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago, would get the name wrong himself or misquote Gross on such a matter. It still sounds like some smart guys trying to play dumb in order to give themselves credibility, or at least hide the extent of their connections.

Even if Gross is accepted as true, his statements -- and the bookcase that fell on a computer -- are not "substantial evidence" of anything. Hard documentation of a survey project as large as the one Lott describes does not just disappear without any trace except for the unsworn claim of a single supporter.

P.S. to the functionally illiterate: a psuedonym is "[a] fictitious name, especially a pen name." It doesn't include the creation of fictitious academic career, gender, body weight, life history and relationships.

Update: G. Beato responds to Glenn (Not A Conservative Asshole) Reynolds. Reynolds' hostility to transgendered persons seems very unlibertarian. One might also point out that the issue of Lott's feminine side did not arise until after the phony survey allegation because Lott wasn't nailed on that particular act of dishonesty until he was caught using it to defend himself against the original charge.

Update II: David M. Gross also unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the NRA Board of Directors in 1998. He was beaten by, among others, Bob Barr, Lt. Criminal Oliver North, Jim Nicholson and show-biz phonies Chas. Heston, Susan Howard and Ted Nugent. And he lost again in 2000, to a field which included Grover Norquist and David Keene (proud father of David "the Beltway Gunman" Keene).