November 2007 Archives

The OC Weekly has "Ask a Mexican," so maybe we can have "Ask a Paki." With Pakistan more firmly planted in the news cycle than I could have imagined, I find that most folks still don't have a sense of context. Let me try to address that. (I shared some of this recently in the Orange County Register, but have expanded on it here.)

Q: Why is Pakistan an important ally?
A: Pakistan is important because it represents Washington’s bid to co-opt the very manner of country that it fears: A country that defied the international community to obtain nuclear weapons, a country run by a dictator, and country with many extremists who are close to its all-powerful army.

Q: Is Pakistan a true friend of the United States?
A: Most ordinary Pakistanis themselves aren't sure, because they are skeptical that America is a genuine friend.

The U.S. has often wooed Pakistan during its 60-year history. This was especially true during the Cold War, when its rival to the east, India, tilted toward the Soviet Union. Since the Cold War, Washington has alternated between being cold, bullying and generous toward Islamabad.

Ordinary Pakistanis long admired and envied America, but that envy turned to bitterness and resentment due to their feeling jilted. That has led to the sort of anti-Americanism among average citizens and the mixed messages from Islamabad that makes snide American pundits say, "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

Q: What caused the tensions in the U.S.-Pakistan alliance?
A: Washington overlooked Pakistan’s nuclear program while Islamabad was helping funnel support to an Afghan mujahideen resistance that pummeled the Soviets to an exhausted collapse. After the Soviet collapse, Washington found Pakistan’s nuke program less forgivable.

Q: What's Pakistan's side of the story?
A: Pakistan was seeking to catch up to its old rival India, which had already gone to war against it a few times in their short histories and which had a head start in developing its own nukes. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, whose daughter Benazir Bhutto also served as premier, declared that, ""if India develops nuclear weapons, Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry"" in order to get its own nukes.

Q: Was he right?
A: Yes. Most of his country ate grass or leaves, or went hungry, as Pakistan developed weapons that could counter those of India. Yet Pakistan felt betrayed by the U.S.

According to the latest Field Poll, I am one of a shrinking number of Californians who still votes the old-fashioned way -- by showing up at the polls. Since 2002, the number of absentee voters in the Golden State has tripled, and absentees cast 47 percent of the ballots in the last election.

But call me a young fogey (it won't be the first time), I just can't buy into the idea of mailing in my ballot. It feeds too many of my paranoias:

• What if my ballot gets lost in the mail? At least when you enter your choices into a machine, you know they've been received.
• What if I change my mind after I put my ballot in the mail? If I vote in person, I have up until the last minute to reconsider my decision.
• And what happens to that satisfaction of having completed one's civic duty? Do you really feel like you've participated in the great American experiment simply by licking the seal of an envelope and dropping it into a mailbox?

Never mind that I've never lost anything in the mail before, that I've never changed my mind about how to vote in the final weeks of an election, and that, really, my sense of civic fulfillment from voting ain't that grand in the first place. (I refuse to wear those "I voted" stickers; they just seem too self-congratulatory.)

Still, the mail-in thing's just not for me. Maybe it's generational. Growing up, only seniors and shut-ins sent in their ballots. Besides, in our paperless age, doing anything by mail seems so retro. Heck, I don't even deign to pay my electric bill through the USPS -- why in the world would I choose my president that way?

Now maybe if we could vote online, or text in our choice, I could get on board with that.

But till then, my poor precinct workers are going to have to put up with seeing me, Election Day after Election Day ...

Americans ought to be delighted that Rep. Jack Murtha -- a strong opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq -- reports that we're (finally) making some progress over there. Unlike administration officials, who have so discredited themselves in recent years as to make their own rosy assessments suspect, if Murtha says things are improving, they probably are.

So when Murtha says the "surge is working," we should all cheer -- this is a hopeful sign. But not, according to The Politico, in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office:

But Pelosi, who is scheduled to speak to a Democratic National Committee event in Virginia on Friday, will surely face tough questions from reporters regarding Murtha's statement on the surge.

"This could be a real headache for us," said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Pelosi is going to be furious."

What would she be furious about? That our troops are making some headway? That Murtha spoke plainly about what he saw in Iraq? That this could theoretically undermine a strong Democratic 2008 campaign issue?

Let's hope these are only the words of some young political hack, and not a reflection of what the Speaker really thinks. But it's not a good sign that Murtha has gone on to issue a clarification (read: flip-flop) on his remarks ...

So here is the third installment in my response to Michele's four-part query on immigration. (Click to see Parts I and II.) Michele writes:

3) I love Mexico. And spent lots of time there as a child. I would play with children who lived in thatched huts as my father scuba dived in the oceans. The country and the people are wonderful. So I wonder why we as a govt. and people do not talk more about why a geographically bountiful country such as Mexico can’t take care of its people? Why must they risk their lives? Why are we always told it’s our obligation? Why is it OK for our corporations to make money off their backs by paying them paltry salaries to come here?

I couldn't agree more about the backwardness of the Mexican government, and its dire need for reform, which would greatly improve life for the Mexican people and, secondarily, reduce immigration to the U.S. (This is why I am always amazed when people like Dante cite Mexico's laws as some sort of model we should emulate.)

That said, it is America's proud history and heritage to welcome motivated people from other countries, who usually come to escape corrupt governments and lack of opportunity. This, in my view, isn't an obligation, it's a privilege. It comes with the territory of being the freest, most prosperous country in the history. And newcomers who seek to work hard and contribute to our society are an asset (especially in an age when, absent migration, our domestic population would shrink, leading to a long-term collapse in our social-service structure).

Yes, let's talk about reforming Mexico. The U.S. should use the economic and foreign-policy tools at our disposal to help make change there possible. But while reforming Mexico would greatly reduce immigration, there's no reason to believe that reducing immigration would reform Mexico -- it would just create more poverty, of which Mexico already has plenty, and which has thus far never done a thing to spur change there.

Usually, Jonathan is the high-brow, erudite blogger in this group, but with his latest post about Rudy Giuliani's Mistress Chauffeuring Service, he has sunk us to a level of ...

Well, never mind. I write not to condemn, but to pile on. I can't help note that Jonathan's crack about the NYPD being forced to drive "around" a certain Rudy-cutie reminds me of one of the many classic yo-mama jokes from Eddie Murphy's remake of "The Nutty Professor": "Yo mama so fat, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house!" (rimshot)

But to make a serious point -- if that's still possible -- I find a few things funny about this story:

1. A married man -- mayor of America's biggest, most important city, no less -- ditches his wife and family for a Long Island mistress. And all that troubles the PuffHos at HuffPo is how he paid for the transportation?

2. If the PuffHos find this so outrageous, what do they think of all the times Bill Clinton was reportedly using Arkansas state troopers to help him pick up babes, or White House staff to arrange his important briefings (or perhaps we should say, "de-briefings") with interns?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending Rudy, not by a long shot. But it's amazing to see how heavily partisan interest here seems to stoke the moral outrage.

Giuliani Made NYC Police Drive Around His Mistress*…HuffingtonPost 11/29/07

Note to the headline writer at Huffington Post: How are we meant to understand your headline? Did the police drive her around? That would probably be misuse of the police, and the people should demand some form of repayment. The police should be protecting the mayor but not aiding and abetting him in his abedding his mistress.

On the other hand, if you are criticizing the police for driving around Rudy’s mistress, I cannot join in your implied condemnation. If you are saying she was so fat that she presented an obstacle that had to be avoided, I cannot fault them for not running her over. Let’s leave such draconian punishment for immorality up to God and the voters.
*As of 6pm pst, HuffPo changed text to read: Giuliani Made Police Drive His Mistress Around. Either kindness, miracle diet or tardy copy editing.

We in the U.S. are always wary about potential invasions of privacy. The Patriot Act, despite getting the vote of nearly every politician in Washington, is universally decried by nearly every politician in (or out of) Washington. Civil-liberties groups fret over the possibility of the NSA tapping into phone calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists overseas. We can't go a week without some hand-wringing news story about how our employers are monitoring our e-mail, or how Google's super-computers are keeping track of our surfing habits. Some folks don't even like using club cards at the local grocery store -- you never know what Ralphs could do with that information.

So I'm wondering why here, in this ever-progressive bastion of civil-liberties vigilance, no one seems to sweat about an annual, incredibly invasive bit of government information-gathering.

I've just completed Metro's annual "Commuter Transportation Survey Form" -- under duress from my employer, which is legally required to get these things from 90 percent of all its workers. The form forces me to chart where I begin each day, when and where I go to work, and how. It wants to know my work schedule, my vacation and sick time, if I carpool or telecommute.

Why this is any bureaucrat's business is beyond me. And while this may all seem innocuous, certainly such information could be abused if it fell into the wrong hands. Personally, I find much more troubling the thought of someone keeping records of when and for how long I leave my home than the possibility that the FBI might want to know what books I took out of the library.

Yet in a state where some won't even consent to putting gender on an ID card, this little bit of government intrusion into our private lives is treated as some civic duty. Somewhere out there our government maintains a stalker/burglar's dream database, but hey, that's OK, because somehow all this will encourage carpooling.

Who knew that Big Brother also came in shades of green?

A friend and I recently attended a Friday night Groundlings performance on Melrose.

At some point in the performance, a slow-witted person like myself realized that the small Groundlings rock band was following each sketch with a rendition of an appropriate or ironic song. (A sketch about two college roomies unsure of their sexuality was followed by the Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man," for example, and a sketch about a fading Lothario was followed by Springsteen's "Glory Days."

I then realized that my friend, a few years younger than I, probably didn't know what on earth the Spencer Davis Group was, much less that Stevie Winwood was involved. And, if the Groundlings band had played Radiohead songs instead, I'd have been as clued out as she was.

Culture is that quilt of shared symbols that holds people together. As an immigrant's son, I'm far more into assimilation than many liberals who think they'd be doing society a favor by jettisoning our shared symbols in favor of a multicultural stew of indecipherable symbols.

But we now face a challenge that is not only multicultural but multigenerational.

Daryl Cagle / MSNC

This one just strikes a little too close to home ...

So here is the second installment in my response to Michele's four-part query on immigration. (Click to see Part I.) Michele writes:

2) In my own life – even after having worked (sometimes) two jobs since the age of fifteen and having paid into the system – I have watched people whom I believe are illegal immigrants (I know I am assuming here, but they could only speak Spanish) who were helped when I wasn’t. One example: I just quit my job to start my own business at home so I could be home with my newborn. Due to bad planning and circumstances, this all occurred as my husband’s work slowed. We were struggling. I went to a clinic in Canoga Park to see if I could receive low-income vaccines for my baby. The answer: No. Apparently the whopping $600 bucks I made that month in my business meant I made too much. Meanwhile, the Spanish speaking ladies and their babies were helped. My mother, who worked in a hospital, has similar stories. But still, I had compassion for those people and didn’t let it bother me…at the time. Does this seem fair?

No, it doesn't seem fair, but it also doesn't seem to be a matter of immigration, but of the laws and/or policies governing social services. Nothing from the story you cite suggests that the Spanish-speaking ladies were given treatment because they were illegal immigrants (if indeed they were), but because they had no income. You were discriminated against, or denied subsidized care because you earned income (however small) -- not because you are a U.S. citizen.

I agree this is insane, as it penalizes hard work, and it needs correction. This is a travesty that infects all sorts of public-assistance programs, which can encourage idleness. (Although the situation has become considerably better since the GOP Congress and Bill Clinton enacted welfare reform.) But ending immigration, or deporting all the illegal immigrants (even if that were possible), wouldn't change the rules that discriminated against you.

Moreover, enacting the sort of comprehensive immigration reform I sketched out in Part I, wherein all immigrants would need to be documented, identified, and paying taxes, would greatly reduce the possibility of fraud from people who claim not to be earning an income, but who are in reality just getting paid under the table. It would also bring in more tax revenue to help offset the costs immigrants impose on social services, which would be lowered by the enactment of reasonable self-sufficiency requirements.

Jeff Jacoby over at The Boston Globe has this telling account of the contortions of both Messrs. Romney and Giuliani on immigration.

Here's what Romney told The Lowell Sun just 18 months ago:

"I don't believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country. With these 11 million people, let's have them registered, know who they are.... Those who are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process toward application for citizenship."

And here's Jacoby's catalog of some past Giuliani highlights:

"There are times when undocumented immigrants must have a substantial degree of protection," he told more than one audience. He denounced "the anti-immigration forces in Washington and elsewhere," and emphasized the "courage and ambition" it takes "to leave your native country and start a new life in a new land." He went so far as to say, in 1994: "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city."

Yet now both try to outdo each in playing to the GOP's anti-immigration base. The flip-flop shows not only a lack of intellectual integrity (what else is new in politics?), but also, Jacoby warns, a remarkably short-sighted perspective:

Giuliani and Romney are ... letting their hunger for power overwhelm their better judgment and decency. Recklessly bashing illegal immigrants may score them points with one angry segment in the GOP base. But what are they doing to their party's reputation? What are they doing to their own?

Oh look - it's Christmas in November!

I don't celebrate Christmas. I'm a God-fearing atheist which makes all religious holidays for me - complicated.

I just like to give presents. It's good for the economy and my interpersonal relations with my friends and well - relations.

What are they getting this year?

Paul Potts CD is going to all of my relatives that can still hear. Serious.

If you haven't seen his youtube audition on Britain's Got Talent, go now. Even if you hate opera, talent shows and Simon Cowell - you'll love Potts. His 1st audition brought me to tears. That's why its on the list.

Next:

Mark Penn's latest Microtrends:The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes.

My reasoning is that I have brought it up in conversation about 4 times since this past Sunday, so by my standards that makes it worth a page turn. It has to be my favorite book by an economist since Freakonomics. Not that I sit around reading books by economists...because that would make me a geek.

And last for the rest of the people I know, people I don't really know, people I don't really like, people that I someday might know, people that are people that know people and snarky media savvy types all - I give you (wait for it)....

The OJ Trial '08: the Juice is Loose in Sin City!

Did you ever in a million years think there would be ANOTHER Simpson Trial? Two wasn't enough? Did anyone see that coming? Think of all the jokes and quips and easy punchlines and lazy set-ups coupled with a collective deja vu that we are in for. Oh it's not just recycled Clinton jokes and reruns during the writers' strike. We have a pop culture/crime infotainment Groundhog's Day loop that we are all on together.

So hold on.

It's a gift. And just in time for Christmas.

I love this New York Post headline: MITT HITS RUDY OVER HEALTH 'FLIP-FLOP.'

Wow, Romney is accusing Giuliani of being a flip-flopper. Next thing you know, he'll be calling Rudy a Mormon!

I write this post -- especially with its headline and photo -- as a little bit of an experiment. To the best of my knowledge, just about everyone claims to disdain Britney Spears and, moreover, expresses zero interest in what she's up to. What's more, they resent that the media spend so much time reporting all-Britney all the time.

And yet ... and yet ... we in the media know what sells. We know that a front page with a picture of Brit will sell far more copies than one with a pic of Ehud Olmert. We know that posts with titles like "Britney Pregnancy Update" will generate far more Web traffic than, oh, "A Plan for Health Care Reform."

So even though, like everyone else, I have no interest in Britney, I can't help writing about her. And you, who could have stopped reading this post several sentences ago, can't help but paying attention. You don't want to care about Britney Spears, but for some reason you do.

That's not all bad.

For better or -- I would argue, for much, much -- worse, Britney Spears is a national icon. She represents a great swath of modern American culture: our fascinations with wealth, celebrity, sex, and gossip. Writing about Britney is, thus, a shorthand way of writing about a significant component of modern American life. What she does, and how we react, tells us a lot about who we are.

Which brings us to the latest Britney news. In Touch magazine reports that she is pregnant, again, via a new boyfriend. According to this report, the father has confirmed the story. But elsewhere, a Brit confidant denies it.

Meanwhile, for all our prurient fascination, there may or may not be another baby entering the world who, through no fault of his or her own, will live a life embroiled in this sordid soap opera's dysfunctionality. That makes three such children, the central players in this real-life saga, who are little more than props in the greater theatrics.

That's the downside of all-Britney all the time: This isn't merely frivolity; there are real victims. And in a society that's obsessed with wealth, celebrity, sex and gossip, children -- who can offer none of these things -- tend to be overlooked, under-appreciated and forgotten.

Yesterday, amid my various posts relating to immigration, reader Michele posted a long, thoughtful comment in which she outlined questions she has about the issue that lead her to fall, more or less, into the restrictionist camp. She stressed that she was open-minded, but wanted to see how those on the other side would respond. So here I go.

First, a little caveat: I'm no restrictionist, but I'm not an open-borders advocate, either. I also come to the pro-immigration position from a more conservative bent than many other immigration supporters. A thumbnail sketch of my "ideal" immigration policy would look something like this:

This is an excerpt from a book I'm writing. It is the true stroy of my time in a caravan on the Sahara. This brief piece speaks to the problems, even given good will and open minds, we encounter in trying to understand each other. It is not about a bear but a camel:

Riding my camel out across the North African Sahara, I tried to strike up a conversation with my guide. I asked him the name of his camel. He replied, “Camel.”

“No. No,” I responded, “What is his name? I’m Jonathan. You’re Salah. He’s Mustapha. What’s the camel’s name?” With a look that implied that I was too stupid to understand, a look of pure pity, he explained to me that you don’t give an animal a human name in his culture; the human would be highly insulted. Besides, most names are religiously based and an animal carrying such a holy name, a name often with one of God’s names in it, would be a great insult and even a sin.

Having thus gloriously stepped into a cultural divide with one simple question, I steered the conversation to another subject. “What’s the meaning of life?” I inquired innocently. Again, I got ‘that look.’

He explained, with some patience, that he was very busy trying to stay alive, that he journeyed from oasis to oasis and he tried very hard not to leave his bones parching in the sun. Life was a journey, a process, not an idea but a fact.

On his journey, he always carried God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, with him. “Where is God?” I asked. He gave me an answer from the Holy Qu’ran, “God is as far as the farthest star and as near as the vein of your neck.”

For him, God was not hidden, not hiding in the shadows or evading human searching. God was there, always present in each heartbeat, always present in all of creation.

For him questions about God were as incomprehensible and abstract as questions about meaning. God was present but not capturable in our words and philosophies. God was not behind the curtain in the Emerald City of Oz or behind the curtain in a holy of holies, not any more present in a wafer of bread blessed by a priest than in every morsel of bread. Every meal shared was communion and an act of thanksgiving for the opportunity to live and to know God through God’s creation.

It struck me that while we live in houses and pretty much stay put in our lives, we are actually the nomads. It is we who ask the difficult abstract questions; we who seek to find a God hidden by all our leisure time and loud lives, as the night stars are hidden by the ambient light from our cities. The stars are still there, day and night, but we only get a good look at them, only really appreciate them, when we are away from our homes, away from our cities, and in the peace, the quiet, and the darkness of the wilderness.

It is our egotism and solipsism that the stars are not present if we can’t see them. For my guide, it is we who wander from idea to idea and he, the physical wanderer, who, under the endless canopy of stars, is in a constant relationship with his ever-present deity.

Conventional wisdom assures of two certainties about campaign 2008: Hillary Clinton's victory is inevitable, and only Rudy Giuliani can beat her. Never mind that these two "certainties" are mutually exclusive. Conventional wisdom becomes accepted truth on the basis of authoritative reputation, not sound logic.

For the record, I have bought into the first of these two nuggets of conventional wisdom, while rejecting the second. I have more or less resigned myself to the inevitability of Clinton's election, largely because I suspect that the GOP will go ahead and nominate Giuliani -- who, I believe, actually stands the least chance of winning a general election among the Republicans' top contenders.

But now comes along a new Zogby poll that turns both bits of conventional wisdom upside down: Hillary Clinton trails all of the top Republicans in a head-to-head contest, by 3 to 5 points.

So much for Hillary's inevitability. And so much for the myth that "only" Giuliani can beat her. According to the latest numbers, McCain, Romney, Thompson, and Huckabee all can, too.

A lot can and will change between now and election day 2008, of course, but this poll should be a reminder to all those tempted to play the odds at the polls, rather than vote with their hearts: Nothing is set in stone; why not try voting for the candidate you actually like?

My vote for headline of the day: Cheney's heart shocked back to normal (AP via Chicago Sun-Times)

If you're like me, and you've almost completely made the shift to a cashless existence, those red Salvation Army kettles that are ubiquitous this time of year can be vexing. I'd like to drop in some cash, really I would, but I almost never have any on me. Can't the bell ringers take plastic?

Well, it turns out they do. Here's a link to personal On-Line Red Kettle of my friend's daughter Amy. Now, with just a click and a few keystrokes, you can give to this worthy cause, and relieve yourself of that guilt you feel each time you walk past a bell-ringer without so much as dropping a quarter.

So go give to a worthy cause by way of Amy's e-kettle. Or go start an e-kettle of your own -- it sure beats standing out in the cold, ringing that bell!

A British teacher in Sudan is threatened with 40 lashes for insulting Islam. Her crime? Allowing her students to name a toy bear "Muhammad." This struck Sudanese authorities as a blasphemous attempt to a) depict the Prophet Muhammad, and b) depict him as a teddy bear, for Pete's sake. (Note: St. Peter shouldn't be offended by this).

Never mind that Muhammad is a common name in the Muslim world. Maybe it just can't be used for stuffed animals. Naming is such a tricky business. Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua was a common name in ancient times, and it's certainly common in Mexico, but just try naming your kid Jesus and sending him off to school in latter-day Thousand Oaks.

And this interminable, convoluted lede from a Washington Times story will tell you why:

More than 100 minutemen showed up en masse in Phoenix to counterprotest a pro-immigration group that sought to shut down a local furniture store for hiring off-duty deputies to keep illegal-alien day laborers off its property — and they have pledged to come back every weekend.

What is it about this debate that attracts the most obnoxious, crazed elements from all sides?

To begin, we have a furniture store in Phoenix that decided it doesn't want to be a pickup spot for day laborers (read: illegal immigrants looking for work). That seems entirely understandable -- what business wants its parking lot overrun by loiterers? So the store hired off-duty deputies, as is its right, to police its grounds.

This should not be a controversy. Private businesses are fully entitled to use their property for ... private business. They have no obligation to provide free organizing spaces for day laborers, skateboarders, petition-gatherers or anybody else.

But various pro-immigration activists, who seem to come endowed with an overwhelming sense of entitlement, apparently believe that illegal immigrants not only have an inalienable right to be in the U.S., but also to organize and gather wherever and whenever they please, even on private property. So, naturally, they're protesting the furniture store's decision to hire private security.

At which point enter the so-called minutemen, who are right in this instance, but can be downright scary in their view of every perceived slight as evidence of an "invasion." And now this poor store, which probably never wanted to do more than sell furniture in the first place, finds itself playing host to the screamers and shouters on both sides -- with no end in sight.

This incident calls to mind the insanity in Simi earlier this summer, when pro-immigration activists abused the notion of sanctuary by putting an illegal immigrant up in a church, and anti-immigration activists abused basic decency by marching upon the church in an effort to perform a "citizen's arrest."

Then as now, the wackos tend to dominate the debate -- which is why the debate never goes anywhere.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Two things will happen within forty eight hours of each other. One is infuriating. The other one should be cause for celebration and uplift. But both tell much about the state of race matters in America. The first is the return of nappy head ho’ shock jock, Don Imus to the airwaves. He’ll kick off his return to ABC’s flagship station, WABC, in New York City with a big townhall of the airwaves style shebang. Two days before Imus’s triumphal return, marks the date fifty two years ago, December 1, 1955, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.

Her courageous stand against segregation was a monumental turning point in the civil rights movement. It should have sent the lasting message that the fight against the horror of bigotry, intolerance, and racial hate must never cease. But that message has been lost, strayed, misplaced, or deliberately squashed. Imus's blaze of glory return is a huge sign that intolerance is not only alive and well in the media business, among Imus’s legions of fevered fans, but also among many more who cheered him on and ducked, dodged, deflected attention from, or flat out defended his bigoted remarks.

The spate of hanging nooses, the rise in hate crimes nationally, black and Latino gang hate violence in Los Angeles and other cities, and the resurgence of the use of racial epithets and vilification by public and private figures is more glaring evidence that intolerance and bigotry are still alive and kicking.

Re-enter Rosa Parks. What better way to kick back at these twin evils than to declare December 1, Rosa Parks Human Rights Day. Business leaders, school administrators, and elected officials should and could encourage students, workers, and residents to reaffirm in word and deed their commitment to tolerance and diversity. They in turn would urge others to honor and pay tribute to the spirit and memory of Rosa Parks

Friday I was shopping in TJs in far off Pasadena. Blasting on the speakers was not Frosty the Snowman, or Rudolf or those annoying chesnuts forever roasting on an open fire. It was the original head-banging, metal twisting "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath featuring Ozzy Osbourn. Ahhh, I never thought Iron Man would be a sweet relief to my carol-weary ears.

In case you can't remember it, here's a youtube clip. Now you can get the opening strains stuck in your head in perpetuity like Chris.

About a month ago, Jonathan asked, "Will (Mike) Huckabee’s humor and charm make both right and left forget his policies?" My smart-aleck one-word response: no.

At the moment, the right and the left seem to be bearing me out. That's because Gov. Huckabee has been the target of consecutive Washington Post op-ed hit pieces, first from Richard Cohen, and now from Robert Novak.

Although I never thought Huckabee had much of a chance, Washington officialdom wouldn't be targeting him if it weren't concerned. And the fact that he draws flak from the old standard-bearers, both left right, only makes him more intriguing in my book ...

Robert Saltzman needs to read his new business card. The Los Angeles BOPC does not the stand for Board of Political Correctness. It is the Board of Police Commissioners, and bears some of the greatest responsibilities in Southern California .

Saltzman is its newest member and his decisions will directly influence life or death situations that impact cops, crooks and citizens alike. Sadly, Mr. Saltzman's first comments on these responsibilities reflect a stunning lack of knowledge about the Los Angeles Police Department: "Diversifying the police force is a significant problem, perhaps the most significant problem facing the force," said the USC Law School Associate Dean, in a story in Friday's DN by Rachel Uranga.

Clearly, Mr. Saltzman has not studied the LAPD. Had he, his comments would reflect facts like these:

• 71% of the officers graduating from the LAPD's last four academy classes have been ethnic minorities. Many of the remaining 29% were caucasian women.
• More than 45% have been Hispanic
• Those classes averaged 17% female

Moreover, had Mr. Saltzman done his homework, he would know that "diversity" of the LAPD did nothing to prevent the problems in the Rampart CRASH squad. The primary perpetrators of the worst LAPD corruption in 50 years were Hispanic and Black. Changing the LAPD's "color" did no favors for Javier Ovando, who was shot by the very diverse Rafael Perez and Nino Durden. And it did nothing to prevent the MacArthur Park fiasco. Out of the three most senior folks directly involved - the two ground commanders and the Assistant Chief who signed off on the May 1 planning - there was uno gringo hombre.

Clearly a lack of diversity did not contribute to those problems.

More bothersome, Mr. Saltzman's comments came just hours after an undercover (and thus unnamed) Hollenbeck Division officer was run over and horribly injured by a fleeing suspect. This incident has already raised tremendous questions among LAPD rank-and-file as to whether the BOPC's new post-Devon Brown shooting policy (which essentially prohibits firing at moving vehicles) nearly got this officer killed.

Unfortunately, the attempted murder of a cop isn't on the radar of the LAPD's newest leader. For what it's worth, I'm told this officer is Hispanic - he's diverse!! - so it's politically correct for Commissioner Saltzman to care.

The officers I know - almost all beat coppers exclusively below the rank of lieutenant - would prefer that Mr. Saltzman devote his attention to addressing a few other issues that impact the day-to-day policing of Los Angeles. A sampling of the greater concerns:

• Officers (of all "diversities") are fleeing the LAPD. Why?
• The Consent Decree is tying cops hands and keeping hard charging cops out of choice assignments. How does that lower crime? How does it solve the above problem?
• Gang members are said to be getting through the LAPD hiring process - academy cadets have been caught throwing gang signs in the hallways. Is that just maybe a bad sign? Or is that the kind of diversity he strives for? After all, crooks are part of society. Perhaps the LAPD reflect them as well.
• I'm told of cadets re-cycled five and six times, who have been in training longer than a lot of their instructors have been at the Recruit Training Center . Is that the kind of diversity you want, Mr. Saltzman? Is that the cop you want coming to your door with a loaded gun?
• The revised Shooting Policy might have resulted in gruesome injuries to one cop already. Perhaps it should be changed before one gets killed? Maybe?
• The Department's ASTRO radios are falling apart and quite nearly useless. They are a threat to the safety of officers and citizens alike (calling 911 is useless if the dispatcher can't raise an officer). "If there's another Northridge Earthquake, the peole of Los Angeles will see just how bad the ASTROs are," one copper told me. Perhaps funding their replacements will save more lives than counting noses?

Yes, dealing with these issues will force a lefty like Mr. Saltzman to blame someone other than the LAPD for all the world's faults. But, it might just make LA a safer place for folks of all colors - even the ones in blue.

Over the weekend, the L.A. Times and others confirmed rumors that the adulterous affair between Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Mirthala Salinas had, at last, come to an end. And not coincidentally, the Times today has a story suggesting that the future political prospects for Villaraigosa -- once widely considered a lock to be California's next governor -- have dimmed considerably.

This is a personal and political tragedy on so many levels: Villaraigosa has lost his marriage of 20 years, his family, and, possibly, his political future. Salinas has lost her career and her professional reputation. Meanwhile, the suffering of Corina Villaraigosa and the Villaraigosas' children is incalculable.

And for what? Surely this is not what Antonio or Mirthala bargained for when they began their affair.

But life tends to work that way: The desired good sought through bad choices usually proves to be illusory. The false promise of happiness ultimately reveals itself as a cruel lie. At one point or another, we all allow ourselves to succumb to such deceptions. And in due time, we eventually learn that we have sown the seeds of our own destruction.

For Antonio and Mirthala, the lie has run its disastrous course. We can only hope and pray that it will be followed by real healing and reconciliation.

The soap opera has ended, but real life goes on.

Vice President Cheney is in the hospital suffering from cardiac arrhythmia. The good health of the Vice President, who has already suffered four heart attacks and several episodes of arrhythmia, is of concern to all. Democrats in particular, and not necessarily for humanitarian reasons of, uh, bleeding-heart liberalism, are worried.

Were the Vice President to resign for health reasons (more plausible than to spend more time with his family) this would create a great opportunity for mischief and distraction. Right now we are enjoying the mud-wrestling that comes from having no incumbent president or vice president running. A vacancy in the office of the vice president would create some real distractions and captivating sideshows.

President Bush could try to appoint one of the leading Republican candidates to fill in. The nominee would need Senate confirmation. Easy confirmation of an active candidate would be problematic. Bush could get great mileage over the Democrats filibustering an issue of true national concern—the absence of a vice president. He could say that the Democrats put partisan political advantage over the interests of our nation.

President Bush could also play it another way—and nominate someone not in the race. Then once this person takes office he, or she, (Condi Rice?) could then step in to rescue the party from its already mixed up and incoherent flock of candidates.

All of this is exceedingly unlikely, but speculation is fun stuff in an election year.

The title of this post is deliberately misleading. Yes, the story I'm about to quote is horrific, and it involves illegal immigration, but is a far cry from the "illegal immigration horror stories" we are used to hearing about shiftless foreigners who come here only to eat our food, take our jobs, and spit on our flag. Check out this story from the AP:

A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said.

The 45-year-old woman, who eventually died while awaiting help, had been driving on a U.S. Forest Service road in a remote area just north of the Mexican border when she lost control of her van on a curve on Thanksgiving, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said....

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help....

As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said...

"For a 9-year-old it has to be completely traumatic, being out there alone with his mother dead," Estrada said. "Fortunately for the kid, (Cordova) was there. That was his angel."

Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, who were the first to respond to the call for help.

Pretty amazing story, isn't it? Cordova gave up his quest to get to the U.S. -- and ultimately got nabbed by Border Patrol -- because he selflessly stopped to help the boy.

I don't mean to suggest all illegal immigrants are this heroic. They're human beings, after all, and as such have many of the same vices and flaws as the rest of us. But that's just the point: They're human beings -- a point too often lost amid rhetoric that paints all illegal immigrants as garden-variety criminals or freeloaders.

Are there gangbangers and welfare cheats among the illegal-immigrant population? Sure, but there are heroes, too. And it would be helpful if we could have laws and debates that distinguished between the two.

Let me introduce myself -- I'm a semi-regular contributor to the op-ed pages of the Daily News. Some more info on me can be found here. (You'll notice that the Daily News is mentioned before those cross-town people.)

I'm grateful to Mr. Weinkopf for the chance to be a part of Friendly Fire. I have immense admiration for Chris, the kind of honest, principled, yet intellectually supple writer who is too rare in our day. Okay, enough apple-polishing.

I grew up with one foot in America and one foot in Pakistan, which seemed a rather boring matter until Pakistan ended up becoming the key front in the war on terror (yeah, yeah, I know Iraq is the key front, but c'mon....). Now I spend a great deal of time trying to make sense of how my two homelands collided in such remarkable ways. As one who has lived in both places, I feel that precious few people on either side "get" the other side. And I see that as a huge challenge for us as Americans going forward. Yes, I do see my identity as fundamentally "American," although I'm also comfortable with the "Pakistani" hyphen.

I'm politically independent; but though I often criticize the president, I'm ultimately more of a libertarian than a liberal. And I look forward to being caught in the friendly fire here!

And not just because it comes from Berkeley.

Vindu Goel at the Mercury News wrote a column about a solar incentive program started by Berkeley that makes a lot of sense to me. I'd love to have a way to go solar. But I can't afford to outlay 20k in one chunk. And with interest rates going up and property rates down, who wants to charge it to a home-equity line of credit? Not me.

Cisco DeVries, chief of staff to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and a former official in the Clinton administration, ... crafted a plan, just approved in concept by the city council, to help Berkeley homeowners and businesses pay for solar electric systems, solar water heaters and other energy-efficiency improvements through a customized, voluntary surcharge on their property taxes.

Essentially, the city would use its access to cheap bond financing to offer residents low-cost home-improvement loans, repaid over 20 years by whoever owns the property. Homeowners paying the typical $15,000 for a solar-power system after federal and state rebates would owe an extra $100 to $115 a month in taxes, much of which would be offset by savings on their monthly electric bill.

Meanwhile, taxpayers who don't borrow anything wouldn't pay a dime. All administrative costs would be borne by participants.

But how would the city of L.A. keep its general fund afloat if DWP's revenue stream dried up by helping people to get off the grid?

It's not too late to reserve your free spot for the panel discussion on Wednesday all about L.A.'s (the Valley's really) most ignored industry: porn! I'm hosting this discussion, "Dirty Business: Should the Porn Industry Be Saved?" with great guests on November 28 at 7 PM at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.

Los Angeles' dirty little economic secret is its $12-billion-a-year pornography industry, located primarily in the San Fernando Valley. Competition from amateur porn on the Internet, piracy and other pressures are cutting into profits. The question is: Should we care? How much should the industry's health risks weigh against its economic value? And how important is the issue of morality when we're talking about jobs, sales receipts, and tax dollars? Zócalo brings together a panel of experts—porn producers and former actors Nina Hartley and Ira Levine, economist Jack Kyser, Sharon Mitchell of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, and Peter Kerndt of the Los Angeles County Department of Health—to discuss whether or not L.A.'s porn industry is a boon or a burden.

Go to the Zocalo L.A. website to register.

I'll be AWOL for a few days as I go under the knife to get impacted wisdom teeth yanked. But afterward, while recuperating at Chez Bridget, I plan to read Slash's autobiography -- and, as a colleague pointed out, it will probably be that much more interesting since I'll simultaneously be taking Vicodin.

Don't worry, Chris, I'll give you a full book report on the backstory of GNR after I get back! That which I remember, that is...

In Friday's paper, Daily News staff writer Dana Bartholomew wrote about the holiday family form letter: that annoying piece of paper tucked into greeting cards that hints at major dysfunctionality by painting one's family with an impossibly perfect brush. Nowadays, it's also known as the thing I don't read. In fact, the weight of a card can often indicate if there is a stiff, 8 1/2x11 sheet folded into fourths lurking within, thus giving the recipient adequate warning.

Really, when did a holiday greeting turn into an attempt to gloat mightily about all the attributes that make you and your kin so much better than the recipient? I don't buy the excuse that this is an opportunity to catch up on the year in review, considering that e-mail has made keeping in touch year-round so much easier. Why not just say Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah, let the recipient know that you're grateful to have him/her in your life, and sign the card? How about using the time that would have been spent crafting the family letter trotting the clan down to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and then resisting the urge to gloat about your charity later to everyone on your Christmas card list?

The fires are back, and your Daily News crew is busy gathering comprehensive coverage. We're up to 49 homes destroyed in the Corral Fire. According to an update just now on TMZ.com, the home of Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea, which was reported earlier as lost in the blaze, was in fact not burned down. Flea, a former member of the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra and Fairfax High grad, established the nonprofit Silverlake Conservatory of Music that gives a hand to young musicians. There are also reports that Axl Rose's house was damaged.

Stephen Yagman is the legal gadfly who has made a living filing countless lawsuits against law enforcement, some valid, some less so. Over the last several months, we have come to learn that he has made an especially good living off this practice, enjoying a lifestyle of Aspen vacations, fancy suits from from London, and very fine dining.

This is all made possible by the fact that, back in 1995, Yagman stopped paying taxes. And in June, he was convicted of money laundering, attempted tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud.

But now Yagman's lawyers are trying to keep him out of prison, claiming, among other things, that he's been asked to teach at UCLA's School of Law. The argument is that the state shouldn't keep Yagman behind bars, but put him on the public payroll -- to shape young legal minds, no less.

So, what subjects would Professor Yagman, convicted tax evader, money launderer, and defrauder, teach? Believe it or not, "law, morality and social justice."

Unbelievable. Maybe if Yagman can't do the job, Duke Cunningham could fill in for him ...

Well, neither did I. Her name is Latasha Norman, a 20-year-old Jackson (Miss.) State University student who went missing on Nov. 13 after leaving an afternoon class. This is obviously a crucial time period in the case: where if she's alive, she might be recovered; or if God forbid she's dead, important evidence would be fresh and suspects at hand.

The media is going ape today because of new searches about to begin in the two-year-old disappearance of Natalie Hollaway in Aruba, and sharing the attention is the case of missing Stacy Peterson and her creepy cop husband in Illinois. But what about Latasha? Today was the very first time I even heard of the case, just because the police chief in Mississippi was blunt enough, thank God, to say what we all know to be the case: Latasha's not getting national press because she's black. More:

"'As far as the interest by the national media in the story, I think race probably had an impact,' said Jackson Police Chief Malcolm McMillin, who is white. 'It's a small college in the South. It's the daughter of simple people who maybe are not important outside of their circle, and maybe we don't attach the same importance to them that we do for other people.'

McMillin said the nation's eyes have been on a Chicago case in which a former police officer, Drew Peterson, is suspected in the disappearance of his wife, Stacy. The couple is white.

'We need to show the same kind of concern for this,' McMillin said of Norman's disappearance, adding that heightened exposure could help develop leads in the case."

In a matter of speaking: Hugo Chavez thinks he is God, and is scared as hell of the Catholic leaders who continue to oppose him as he makes Venezuela more and more like Cuba. I write about this little-reported (in the U.S., that is) clash of the Chavez and the church on Pajamas Media:

"...Chavez has invoked the name of Christ so much lately you’d expect him to become the first communist televangelist. But as he refers to Jesus as 'the greatest socialist in history,' his invocations are hardly Christ-like as they usually involve spitting venom at his opponents.

Like how he recently took aim at Venezuela’s Catholic leader Cardinal Jorge Urosa and other opposition clergymen: 'If Christ were still alive and physically present, I’m completely sure he’d take them out with whippings,' he audaciously told a crowd of supporters.

On Nov. 11, Urosa told Globovision TV that Chavez’s slate of 69 constitutional amendments 'leads toward a single ideology and that, of course, is going to be discriminatory, it’s going to be exclusionary and it’s going to have terrible consequences for all liberties.'

Cue Hugo’s next un-Christian move: revenge.

Earlier this month, a pro-government student leader said that Chavistas were waiting for the call to 'take' Andres Bello Catholic University.

On Friday, El Universal reported that the National Assembly directed its committees on Domestic Policy and Education to launch an investigation into Venezuela’s Catholic schools for supposedly fomenting rebellion against Chavez’s constitutional reformation.

But the Church would be falling down on the job if it didn’t be a strong, good shepherd in the face of the wolf.

The archbishops and bishops of Venezuela issued a statement on Oct. 19 entitled 'Called to Live in Freedom,' taking such a stand against Chavez’s shameless initiative. 'The proposed Reform excludes political and social sectors not in agreement with a Socialist State, restricts freedom and represents a retrocession in the progress of respect for human rights,' the bishops’ conference wrote..."

Read the whole thing!

I have one more thing to say to Hugo: Por que no te callas?!??!???

K-Lo over at National Review Online asked my opinion on this year's best Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. Blending my two fortes -- shopping and current affairs -- I offered the following contribution to today's expert symposium:

"Tired of the People’s Republic feeding your kids date-rape drugs in their lead-laden toys? Perturbed that China sells us toxic pet food to poison our pooches and kitties? Think Beijing deserves to host the Olympics about as much as Kim Jong Il deserves to run the World Food Programme?

This Christmas and Hanukkah, give the anti-China gift package!

A vacation to Taiwan: Embrace the island that told China where to shove its Olympic torch! Don't forget to give mad props to Chen Shui-bian while generously spending your tourist dollars.

A little reading material: "My Land and My People: The Original Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet," by, of course, the Dalai Lama.

Non-Chinese-made toys: You can kill two birds with one stone here. Buy Danish-made Legos to avoid the toxins and roofies, and annoy jihadists still mad over Muhammad cartoons at the same time! Plus, Legos are the coolest thing ever.

Brand-new sports equipment: Why watch the Genocide Olympics in 2008? Instead, host a neighborhood Games to celebrate our right to play as we wish in a free nation. Tiki torches make a peachy substitute for China's flaming propaganda vehicle.

Manolo Blahniks: Hot shoes that come with those three little holiday-perfect words: Made in Italy."

The executive news editor just ran out to get our turkey from Koo-Koo Roo, and we're scrounging on spinach dip and a meat and cheese tray (my contribution!) as we simultaneously get the paper out. Considering we've taken the bold step of getting catered turkey this year, that means our dinner time was bumped up to 4 p.m. As someone who spends all holidays working, I can assure you that's not the best idea. We'll all stuff ourselves silly, then just want to lie down and sleep and bloat as we hit deadline. That's why newsroom potlucks are best done around 6 p.m. -- stories are filed, copy is in, pages are at least halfway done as the press awaits an early deadline. But who are any of us to turn away free food?

But speaking of Thanksgiving and journalism, I've prepared a couple of fun items for my About Journalism site on America's journalism pilgrims -- the first newspapers in the colonies:

America's first newspaper

Early American journalism -- a photo gallery!

It is both interesting and telling in terms of Mitt Romney’s character that he disapproves of Obama talking about past drug use. I could understand it if Romney thought that past drug use should disqualify Obama from seeking higher office, but that is not what he did. His objection was to the disclosure, to Obama telling the truth.

This goes straight to the perception and suspicion that Romney, if he has a moral core, is not willing to share it. It goes to the fear that Romney will say anything to be liked, accepted and to get votes. If you need a liberal to run in Massachusetts, why Mitt is your man. He ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy on gay rights when he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate. He was elected governor running as a strong pro-choice. He actually delivered a statewide healthcare plan that today he renounces. Through an amazing set of politically convenient epiphanies, Romney has reversed all of these views.

Strange world that Romney criticizes Obama for admitting his legal/moral transgressions with apparent candor while Romney runs away from his own accomplishments. Romney clearly believes it is better to lie or cover up and not tell the truth if the truth would be difficult, painful or controversial. This is not a conclusion of mine based on scant evidence. Here are Mitt’s own words: “It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States.’ I think that was a huge error by Barack Obama…it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world.”

Romney obviously thinks that admitting the truth sets a bad example for the youth of this country, and it is better to spare them our histories. (Note to George Washington: Deny cutting down that cherry tree. Claim it was a dirty trick played by Adam’s supporters.)

This is not an abstract issue. It is important. Do we have honest conversations with our own children and grandchildren about our past? Do we admit to our follies, our failings our humanity in the hope that we can teach them something, or do we sanitize our lives and set ourselves up as false and hypocritical paragons of rectitude?

Yes, I know I have not presented this even-handedly. By using the word “hypocrisy,” I’ve indicated my own perspective. Still, I do think we are better off not presenting ourselves as perfect and so are our families. If we claim perfection, they won’t believe us, and as we try to teach the young that credibility is an important asset for them, to model otherwise would not be wise.

Any parent or politician who claims never to have tried a controlled substance creates a credibility problem for me. Maybe such creatures exist. I’m not saying that it’s impossible—just highly unlikely. So, the question is how to respond when the subject comes up either for a public person or a parent. It is morally permissible to respond with no response, or to claim a zone of privacy. This, however, lets the questioner infer a positive. I do think there are legitimate privacy issues but they go to extent and details, not denial.

When asked about either sex or drugs, we are not obligated to go into details. Generalizations are just fine. Lying seems to me not to be okay.

Obama told a group of students, “I made some bad decisions that I’ve written about. There were times when I got into drinking and experimented with drugs.”

While I find his candor to be both refreshing and commendable, the euphemism in current use “ experimented,” I find problematic. Experimented has such a clinical sound. It implies that I had controlled substances under controlled circumstances. “Ah yes, there I was in the school’s medical lab and, while under a research doctor’s supervision, I smoked weed, I mean, er, experimented with cannabis.” Let’s knock off the cleaned up clinical circumlocutions and admit or not “trying, dabbling, using, enjoying or being totally bummed by a bad trip.” I can accept that it was a “phase.” It was not, however, a science project.

We are not electing saints. This much we know. Our electoral choices will be based on personality, philosophy, policy and character. Our sense of all these traits will derive from credibility. We must believe that we know our candidates. When one tells you that he will not tell you the truth, believe him.

There is much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving (just read today's Daily News editorial on the subject), but here at Friendly Fire, I am especially grateful for the following (in no particular order):

• Tina Dupuy
• Rob Asghar
• Robert C.J. Parry

If those names aren't familiar to you, they will be soon. That's because they belong to the three newest bloggers to join the FF family. Here we've labored to create a site where disparate opinions can appear in one place, but with a sense of collegiality and respect. And with these three talented writers joining the lineup, I'm confident we'll only come closer to achieving that goal.

To give you a brief bio of each one:

I first encountered Tina Dupuy a few years ago, when her friend and occasional Daily News contributor Phil Perrier suffered a nearly crippling surfing accident. Tina wrote an op-ed for us about Phil, how she had been helping him, and how readers could, too. Ever since then, she's been a DN op/ed regular. Tina is a also stand-up comic, an accomplished blogger, a newlywed, and marathon runner!

Although he's only written for us a handful of times in recent years, Rob Asghar is one of my favorite writers -- anywhere. He has a great way with words, a deft touch, and an admirable way of engaging issues without falling into the usual partisan/ideological pratfalls. His heritage is Pakistani, his nationality is proudly American, and his religious experience defies labels. As such, Rob brings a great depth of insight and wisdom to our humble work in progress.

Robert C.J. Parry is a keen observer of politics and local issues, especially the LAPD, who has written for the Daily News several times over the last few years. He's also a veteran of the Iraq war who is currently writing a book on the subject, thus bringing a unique insight into what's arguably the biggest issue of our day. Readers might also recognize Robert as something of a regular in the FF comboxes -- one who has earned his spot up on the front page!

A hearty welcome, and thanks, to all three!

Of course, I am also grateful for all of the "old" FF bloggers -- Bridget, Jonathan, Mariel, Earl, Patrick, and Mike!

Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving, to all!

This is terrific news to celebrate this Thanksgiving! We have the means to explore promising fields of medical research without wantonly destroying human life. The Faustian Bargain of the embryonic stem-cell debate -- destroy life so that life may be saved -- has been made obsolete!

Researchers in Japan and Wisconsin have discovered a way to make human skin cells act like embryonic stem cells, thus opening the door to potential therapeutic applications, without compromising basic scientific ethics, or requiring thousands of "donor" women to surrender their eggs. This is why Ian Wilmut, creator of Dolly the cloned sheep and pioneer of the technology that made embryonic stem-cell research possible, says he is going to quit the practice. It's time has passed, he reasons.

Whether you choose to thank science or thank God, thank something! A needless debate can be scrapped. Potentially life-saving research can be ethically pursued. And we no longer need be tempted to compromise our humanity for the benefit of humankind,

Everyone should celebrate this development. And everyone will, I suspect, expect for some unscrupulous politicos.

You see, with this discovery comes the end of the "need" for embryonic stem-cell research -- a dubious "need" in the the first place, given the paucity of results such research has produced. As even that bastion of right-wing Christian fundamentalism, The New York Times, concedes, "For all the hopes invested in it over the last decade, embryonic stem cell research has moved slowly, with no cures or major therapeutic discoveries in sight." The value of embryonic research was never so much medical, but political.

Indeed, embryonic stem cells were the classic "wedge" issue -- a way for Democrats to separate the GOP from pro-lifers by making it choose between a popular position or one that pleased its base. And it allowed for such effective political theater -- just trot out Ron Reagan, or Michael J. Fox, or promise, as John Edwards once did, that the Democratic Party could make Christopher Reeve walk again. That the supposed benefits of embryonic stem-cell research were ridiculously over-hyped, or that there was plenty of reason to believe the same potential could be achieved through more ethical means, didn't matter. As an issue, this one was campaign gold.

But now it's been made moot, and it will be interesting to see if embryonic stem-cell research's supporters will yield to the science, or cling to their myths for nakedly political reasons.

It will also be interesting to see what we here in California do, now that we have a multi-billion dollar state-backed research outfit charged specifically with funding embryonic stem-cell research. Will some honorable politician have the decency to try to amend Proposition 71? Will the celebrities and biotech interests who fought and spent heavily for its passage now seek to reform it? Or were their interests never so much about progress as politics?

We'll see. One way or the other, this discovery marks a giant leap for humanity. And for that, we can all be grateful.

Unsurprisingly San Francisco is issuing official ID cards to anyone who lives there—legal, illegal or of uncertain status. These cards will not reference the individual’s place of birth, citizenship, legal status or (are you ready?) gender. Gender will finally be recognized, not as the sin qua non of identification but as uncertain.

The card will indicate a name, a birthdate and it will have a photo. With this card the bearer will be able to open a bank account, get a library card and obtain municipal services. Presumably these would include Muni bus passes and BART cards, health, welfare and educational services. It is not clear if these cards would also serve to indemnify employers who hire workers so identified.

Also unsurprisingly, this card is raising a lot of ire amongst people concerned about illegal immigration. My major concern is that San Francisco makes the job of any satirist nearly impossible. This actual program, passed by the Board of Supes, is difficult to caricature. What does ID mean if basically nothing is identified?

You are identified as who you say you are because, of course, you don’t need ID in order to obtain this ID. All you need is “proof” that you live in the city. This can be established, proponents say, with a utility bill. This makes one wonder how they got utilities in their names in the first place. But let’s not go down that rabbit hole.

The kicker is the glaring absence of gender identification—long one of the major clues to identity. However, with our freedom to be who and whatever we say we are, gender has to go. It is no more a permanent marker than hair color or weight.

The thought behind leaving out gender was to avoid awkward situations for transgender people or cross-dressers. You can easily understand how someone presenting themselves to the world as Ralph might not want to show ID while cashing a check that identifies him as a her, or her as him—as the case may be and as the case may change.

Let’s skip a full analysis of the burning question of why the birth year is on the ID. Showing a birth year could well be a source of embarrassment in our ageist society. In fact nowhere is ageism a greater issue than in the gay community. If they are trying to prevent ID leading to embarrassment, they must get rid of it. Other than weight, and the promise to respect you in the morning, nothing is less likely to be true.

So, the great and burning question is just what this ID actually identifies? Frankly, I don’t know. The outrage, if one needs outrage, is why San Francisco is taking up presumably valuable time and money to create a card, a program and a bureaucracy that accomplishes nothing? Does this card, in any meaningful way, move the ball of liberty down the field? And how in San Francisco could we tell if liberty had a ball?

This seems to me to be about as valuable as a photo ID of a woman in a burka.

Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday. It is both religious and secular, with feelings of simple gratitude for the gifts we share—especially life. It is family and home centered. The holy altar from temple or church is moved into the heart of the home, and the dining room table hosts our great American holy day.

As with most holidays, and former holy days, some of the core message of Thanksgiving has been diluted by distractions. Yes, surely I know the call of the TV with the traditional football games, as well as the lure of the malls. Yes, Thanksgiving has become the opening day celebration of the Christmas Season. Still, at its great and hopeful heart is a message that can nourish us—body and soul.

The story of Thanksgiving, while mythologized and flawed factually, remains true. Its lessons, even if misremembered as history, can still inspire and teach. What is inarguable is that the Pilgrims cared enough about their religion to give up everything, including their lives, for the sake of freedom. Like the Hebrews out of Egypt, they had no assurance that they personally would benefit from their gamble and sacrifice. They did it for their children, the future and in order to have the chance of being free.

Their attrition was terrible. Every family bore losses of children, parents, husbands and wives. They were not decimated. They were ravaged. But did they ever lose faith or question Divine Providence? Yes, of course. They were religious, and they were also human. Suffering almost always brings cries of pain, questions of whether it is all worthwhile. From the recalcitrant Hebrews second-guessing Moses, to Jesus asking why G-d seemed to have abandoned him, even-handed equanimity is impossible to sustain against acute adversity. But to question or cry is not to give up.

When new ships arrived, they did not fight to board them in order to return to England or Holland. They didn’t even try to hijack them to take them to their original destination, Virginia. This does seem strange to me. I’d have wanted to move a couple of hundred miles towards the ultimate destination of the people of my tribe—Miami Beach.

Our national story has the original Pilgrims holding a three-day harvest feast of Thanksgiving with the Native Americans who helped them survive. This much is true. Today, we seem to find this simple truth to be too simple. Many apparently believe that later breaches of the peace and betrayal by the Pilgrims annul that first Thanksgiving. I do not hold this view.

Yes, certainly the promise was not kept. The possibilities and potentials were not realized. But bad ends do not erase, good beginnings. As a nation we forgot some of the facts and lived only with the myth. Saving and savoring Thanksgiving does not mean forgetting the sorry facts that followed, but capturing the original hopes that our first Thanksgiving created. For a moment, however transient, two peoples shared a table and a spirit of their common humanity. They celebrated the bounty of the earth, without denying just how hard they had to work to realize that bounty. They celebrated freedom. They thanked the Source of it all, knowing that they used different names and different stories in trying to understand and experience the precious wonder of the fragile miracle of life.

One of the many reasons—besides food, family and tradition—that I so love Thanksgiving is that it does not present me or any of my family and friends, with all our religious and theological diversity, any religious problems. There is to me nothing denominational, sectarian or even theological about Thanksgiving.

Yet, this last week, I a got a mailing about how hard Thanksgiving was for Humanists and atheists and how we must work hard not to exclude them from the celebration. This is the kind of exquisite sensitivity that though I know is well meaning makes me crazy. “What theological problem,” I want to cry?

From the most orthodox Theist who believes G-d created the universe and actively governs our lives, to the questioning Deist who believes G-d made it all, put everything into motion and is watching us try to figure it all out; from the Agnostic who is sure of nothing theological, to the hardcore Atheist who knows that there is no self-conscious entity called G-d, we all agree that we exist. Right? (If your answer is we do not exist then non-me doesn’t really have to worry about the concerns of the non-you.)

I do not need a systematic belief or certainty about the origins of life and the universe to feel a deep sense of gratitude and wonder at existence in general and life in particular. I do not need the science, though I want it, to be struck with awe that there is existence, when there could be nothing. Awe that of all the matter in the universe, a small portion is alive. And out of all that life a yet smaller part is awake with wonder, with joy, with fear and with appreciation for this light that we share for such a little while.

I do not need theological certainty, though I want it, to give thanks to the Source of All, for this feast that we share with family and friends, this hope that we can learn from that first Thanksgiving that we can open our arms and hearts yet wider to embrace a still larger family. The dream of that first Thanksgiving can be redeemed by us. This starts when we know, really know, that despite our different names and theologies we are all the children of the same mystery.

Back in my bomb-throwing, obnoxious youth (OK, a few years ago), I often described people who want to greatly reduce, suspend, or end immigration to the U.S. as "nativists." But many readers protested, as the term can connote racism, so I stopped using it.

I also have tried to avoid using the term "anti-immigration" to describe such people because, if you do, you will inevitably receive a mass of e-mail explaining that they aren't anti-immigration at all; they just oppose illegal immigration. So, since then, such as in my Sunday column, I've used the term "restrictionist," thinking that would mollify the, um, restrictionists.

No such luck.

Today, I get this happy little missive in my inbox:

Your use of the word "restrictionist" as applied in the piece, License issue a rocky road for Arnold (11/17) would be as appropriate as calling the architects of the water locks of the Panama Canal "ocean segregationists."

Not controlling the flow of water that would occur if not for those locks instead of a sea-level canal would be
disastrous on a global scale. And similarly, uncontrolled flow of people into our nation is proving disastrous in more ways than we can count.

Even if you don't care for my analogy you should know, without being reminded, that you'd be hard pressed to find an opponent of the uncontrolled flood of aliens across our borders that would also oppose controlled and orderly immigration. Indeed, the latter is precisely what the enormous majority of us want.

I think you ought to be ashamed of having been either as ignorant or unabashedly dishonest as to misapply that word as you did. I find it as offensive personally as I'd wager you'd find me calling you "propagandist."

Sincerely,
[Name Withheld]

Sigh. Where to begin?

"Restrictionist," it seems to me, is a fairly neutral way to describe people who want greater restrictions on our immigration policies. It doesn't connote any sense of judgment, nor does it try to guess at anyone's intentions. Indeed, many prominent -- excuse the term -- restrictionists, such as Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies and Rich Lowry of National Review have also used the term to describe themselves.

Quite frankly, I think "restrictionist" is rather kind. Our reader says that restrictionists (there's that word again!) merely support "controlled and orderly immigration." Wow, me too! Likewise, I haven't met a single supporter of comprehensive immigration reform who doesn't want that. But there's the rub: Whenever someone proposes a plan for reducing illegal immigration by increasing the controlled, legal kind, the restrictionists never seem to like that, either.

Sometimes it really does seem like "anti-immigration" would be more apt, but I resist using the term to avoid needless controversy. Still, you can't please everyone. And in this age, where people prefer to be victims than to actually make a case for anything, it gets ever harder to make any comment whatsoever without offending someone. I could start calling restrictionists "great patriots and champions of civilization," and don't doubt that some restrictionist, somewhere, would still write in to complain about it.

(For the record, restrictionists aren't the only ones with a penchant for word games. To cite just one example from the other side, there's that excruciatingly stupid euphemism ... "undocumented workers." Can't anyone use plain language to describe reality any more?)

In today's Daily News, all of the 18 city politicians getting pay raises -- the fourth in two years -- were polled about whether they plan to keep it, refuse it or do something else entirely.

Valley Councilmen Dennis Zine and Jose Huizar said they will give the extra money from their raises to charities in their district. Here's a suggested charity: the city's general fund.

It may not have the feel-benefit of turkeys for poor families but the city's general fund is looking pretty poor lately, what with an expected $75 million in costs is doesn't have the money to pay.

Check out my column today highlighting one little thing Americans can do to take a stand for human rights: Tell the San Francisco government how you feel about Beijing's propaganda torch relaying through the City by the Bay next April. The San Francisco Team Tibet Coalition is doing just that, but Mayor Gavin Newsom hasn't even acknowledged their concerns by agreeing to meet with the activists. I spent a month calling the mayor's office, e-mailing when directed to do so, receiving one phone message in return and unable to reach a live person after that, with my messages going unreturned. One man who answered in the phone in the communications office on one of my early calls told me I was calling about the "supposed boycott" of the Olympic torch.

This is a "progressive" city?

I hope a key point that readers take away from my column is that this is not a right or left issue; this is a cause that unifies all who believe in the dignity and freedom of all people. I'd also like to note than when I talked to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher about this issue, as he was on the shuttle to catch a flight at Dulles, I point-blank asked him if this was about San Francisco's liberal hypocrisy. And Rohrabacher responded quickly -- honestly -- that conservatives have also had a double standard with businesses that exploit the cheap human labor in China.

Let's not only support our friends in San Francisco who are trying to get their civic leaders to hear the cries of the Chinese and Tibetan people, but let's not be afraid to take all of our government and business leaders to task on pandering to the Chinese regime.

That is the real team spirit -- the Olympic spirit.

Despite his innocent appearance, Drew Peterson is suspected in the disappearance of his forth wife and death of his third wife. Imagine. Still, he may waltz free on the murder charge. That would not however make him a free man. Just as the Feds got Al Capone, not on murder but tax evasion, Police Sgt. Peterson is going down. And, he’s taking his lawyer, Joel Brodsky, with him.

With a legal and media strategy designed for an insanity plea, he and his lawyer were on the Today Show, spinning yarns. Peterson was telling jokes and later riffing with the press gaggle in front of his home. He may not hang for murder but he and his attorney are clearly dealing in bad humor and made up stories. They are—and I don’t want to rush to judgment here but the facts will bear me out—a bunch of no-good scabs and are violating the writers’ strike.

If you become a celebrity, maybe you can get away with murder but breaking a labor strike? No way. Peterson, we will hunt you, your mouthpiece and your writers down! You will not get away with this!

Bill Cavala, writing on California Progress Report scolds the news media for not reporting more on the benefits of the term limit ballot initiative.

The initiative would allow individuals to seek election and reelection to the same branch of the legislature for a period of 12 years. Currently they may seek election and reelection to different branches of the legislature for a total of 14 years. So the initiative limits the current lifetime ban on reelection to two fewer years.

That means the issue for voters is whether a trade of 12 possible years in one house of the legislature versus 14 years in two Houses (current law) is a good trade – and why?

No news story or editorial has focused on this fact.

Here's some more of his column:

Because the proposed change would allow the current leaders of the Senate and Assembly to seek additional time in office through the reelection process (which may explain their support for the initiative), the press corps obviously felt an obligation to explain that fact to voters.

But the next step was the manipulation of the issue by the Governor. Because Legislative leaders supported the initiative, Schwarzenegger attempted to use that fact to extort action from them on redistricting.

Well, good. Aren't we all for redistricting anyhow?

Mission Viejo may be the safest city in the US, but at least L.A. isn't the least safest.

Detroit is way, way more violent a city than L.A., according to FBI crime stats released today. In fact, it doesn't even make the top 10, which two cities in the San Francisco east bay did -- Richmond and Oakland. This excerpt from an AP story on the topic.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said.

Last year's crime leader, St. Louis, fell to No. 2. Another Michigan city, Flint, ranked third, followed by Oakland Calif.; Camden, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; and Cleveland.

The study ranked Mission Viejo, Calif., as the safest U.S. city, followed by Clarkstown, N.Y.; Brick Township, N.J.; Amherst, N.Y.; and Sugar Land, Texas.

Say it loud and proud: We're NOT No. 1! We're NOT No. 1!

Just in time for the holidays -- It's cute! it's phony! Its head wobbles in such as way as to say both "yes" and "no" to every question! It's ... the Antonio Villaraigosa bobble-head doll!

For just $30, one of these pint-sized politicos can be yours, courtesy of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, an organization that aims to "mobilize Latino leaders and voters around an agenda that reflects their values."

The doll also has some great special features:

• After taking over your toybox, Tiny Tony will try to take over your toy schoolhouse, too!
• The "MiniMayor" runs 24-7, with no recharging ever needed!
• Misplaced your camera? No worries! Just turn on the bobbling MAV, and it will position itself before your camera's lens within seconds! (Warning: Removing doll from camera can be extremely difficult.)

Hurry and order now while supplies last, and see what fun the anToyNio can bring your family! (Just don't let him get near "TV Reporter Barbie" ...)

Nope, sorry, it's not Van Nuys, but OC wonderland Mission Viejo, according to the latest crime survey that ranked Detroit the most dangerous city in the U.S. So what can the Motor City learn from Mission Viejo to drop its crime rate? Well, everyone going to bed by 7 p.m. is a start...

MTV Arabia launched over the weekend, bringing Ludacris into Middle Eastern homes to share the finest of Western culture.

"MTV is hoping hip-hop and reality television tailored and sanitized for a more conservative Middle East will draw young Arabs away from dozens of locally produced music video channels that already dominate the market.

MTV Arabia, which launched over the weekend, will feature 60 percent international music and 40 percent Arabic music, along with local adaptations of the channel's popular non-music shows."

And how exactly are they going to adapt "A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila" for that audience? As long as they have "The Real World: Turkish Prison."

In a way, though, I'm sort of jealous. The story notes that audiences will actually get to see music videos. I remember the days when MTV played music. Big, huge blocks of music videos. And back then, VH-1 was uncool. Now VH-1 is da bomb. But neither, come to think of it, really play music videos, except at 3 a.m...

Pakistan's new prime minister, Mohammedmian Soomro. Check out the chops on this bro'!

No "ho's" for Santa! In political correctness run amuck, Santas in Australia were told to stop using "Ho, Ho, Ho!" because it was derrogatory toward women. Now, ladies, when was the last time you were walking through the mall, heard Santa bellow "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and thought he was talking about you?

Good news: Santa rebellion is under way:

"Recruitment firm Westaff - which supplies hundreds of Santas across the country - has told its trainees that the 'ho ho ho' phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.

Two Santa hopefuls reportedly quit the course because of the hullabaloo of the ho, ho, ho.

One would-be Santa has told The Daily Telegraph he was taught not to use 'ho, ho, ho' because it was too close to the American slang for prostitute. He also quit.

Yesterday department stores David Jones and Myers and the Westfield shopping centre chain moved to reassure children, and their parents, that Santa and his customary greeting was part of Christmas's present as well as Christmas's past.

A David Jones spokeswoman said they had discussed the situation with Westaff and their Santas would not be silenced.

'Senior management have assured us that Santas provided to David Jones have not been censored in any way,' the spokeswoma said."

Brian De Palma's one-man anti-war mission and big-screen gang-rape epic "Redacted" opens in theaters today, and will be met with protesters tonight, 6 p.m. at Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theater at Sunset and Crescent Heights in Hollywood.

But did you know that it's already on the small screen -- for a price? They’re simultaneously offering this movie on Charter On Demand cable in the L.A. area right now. I stumbled across it while looking for “Knocked Up” earlier. “Redacted” has its own special little category called “Pre-Theatrical Run,” and costs a whopping $9.99 to rent for 24 hours (new releases run $3.99).

Being as in love with On Demand stations as I am, this is the first time I've seen a simultaneous release there. Not to mention for more than a matinee ticket. Does this mean Charter's going to offer other advance screenings besides De Palma propaganda? I missed the After Dark Horror Fest this past week -- will they offer those films right now on On Demand? Or do the ghouls and vampires need to protest the Iraq war first?

What good does it serve society or Lindsay Lohan to spend 84 minutes in county jail? The resources spent processing her entry into the women's detention center in Lynwood were wasted for a sentence that is meaningless.That's what happened Thursday when the 21-year-old starlet showed up for her one-day sentence, was booked, held and then almost immediately released. According to the Associated Press account:

She was searched, fingerprinted and placed in a holding cell in the inmate reception area but got to keep her street clothes, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

She was cooperative," he said.

Lohan was released at 11:54 a.m. Her original daylong sentence was reduced because she met criteria that took into account overcrowding at the lockup and the fact that her crime was nonviolent, Whitmore said.

The Washington Times has a story about Hollywood's closeted Republicans, and their quiet efforts to help GOP presidential candidates without exposing themselves before their "tolerant" Tinsel Town friends as -- gasp! -- right of center:

... not a single one of the dozen actors contacted for this story who have been identified as conservative leaning would comment publicly.

"Bo isn't available ... sorry," said Bo Derek's handler. "Mr. Costner is not available to be interviewed," said Kevin Costner's publicists. "I'm sorry, but unfortunately Mel is unavailable to contribute," said Mel Gibson's people.

While Democrats enjoy very public support from Hollywood's top actors and musicians, who often hold lavish events for their favorite candidates, Republican supporters in Hollywood try hard to keep their political views quiet.

"They learn very quickly, if they know what's good for them, to donate to the Democratic Party," said Andrew Breitbart, co-author of "Hollywood, Interrupted." "If they were to donate to the Republican Party, they would be exposed to career-ending ridicule, period."

Teri Hatcher, an actress on the television show "Desperate Housewives," even forwarded an interview request to her attorneys....

"Please be advised that Ms. Hatcher is not a Republican, but more importantly does not choose to have her political affiliation or viewpoints on any particular candidate or issue in the current presidential campaign included in your proposed article," lawyer Barry W. Tyerman said in an e-mail.

My oh my. What does it say that, in Hollywood, supporting John McCain can be a career-ending offense, while supporting Hugo Chavez is routine practice?

The whole world now knows the worst about Los Angeles' public schools, thanks to Matt Drudge, who has linked to this account of LAUSD from a substitute teacher:

There's no teaching going on at LAUSD – only confinement of the sort one may find in a penal colony, complete with walkie-talkie-carrying wardens and bullhorns. And I have "confined" at many different schools within central Los Angeles in the last six months. Many students scream "suuuuuuuub" when they see someone like me – a "guest teacher" – in their classroom and trample anyone and/or anything as they push and shove their way inside.

And it only gets worse from there ...

A good many Americans, including our own attorney general, Michael Mukasey, claim to be utterly baffled by the question: Is simulated execution by drowning -- AKA waterboarding -- torture?

Well, maybe this little bit of history, courtesy of an NPR report on the subject, will bring them some clarity:

In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor...

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

So, AG Mukasey, it seems our government has regarded waterboarding as torture in the past. The question now, then, is pretty clear: Do you plan to uphold American law, or continue living in willful denial of it?

It surprises no one, except for California's political leaders in Sacramento, that the state now faces a $10 billion deficit. This was entirely predictable only four months ago, when the legislature and governor signed off on an optimistic budget that assumed tax revenues would remain as high as ever -- even though the housing market was already plainly in decline.

For all his boasting about "blowing up boxes." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the uber-reformer, is looking ever more like the man he replaced -- Gray Davis. As we decribe in today's Daily News editorial, it's Grayja-vu: Arnold and Davis II:

In hindsight, it's only fitting that Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into office by recalling Gray Davis. Because the way things are going these days, we find ourselves recalling Davis all the time.

Davis, you might, er, recall, was given the boot for allowing California to run up a massive budget deficit. Under his watch, Sacramento locked itself into outrageous spending patterns based on the assumption that the dot-com boom would last forever.

It didn't, Gray got dumped, and along came Arnold, who has proved to be little more than a Davis sequel.

Read the whole thing here.

Can we please end war in our time? This is not a rhetorical question, but a plea for sanity and proportion. War as a metaphor for any conflict, great or trivial, diminishes the great issues and inflates the smaller ones.

I think we can probably blame LBJ for starting this with his War on Poverty. This was followed by the War on Drugs, the War on Illiteracy and the War on Teen Pregnancy. I do not believe that we can say that we won any of these wars.

The War on Christmas, the name of which we can most likely stick on Bill O’Reilly, has been going on for some years. It is doing about as well as all those other “wars.” It is a war that, were it actually happening, I’d be happy to lose.

As a Jew I am not offended by Christmas, Christmas trees, crèches and most Christmas songs—Grand Ma Got Run Over by a Reindeer being the exception, but that is based on esthetics not theology. Chris is right that there is nothing intrinsically offensive in people celebrating the holidays and holy days of their own traditions. It is even richer and better when we include each other—not in order to convert the other but simply to share our traditions and festivals.

Now apparently that arbiter elaganta, Pamela Anderson, doyen of all things tasteful, is trying to move us from those our traditional Thanksgiving bird to tofu. Has she no compassion for how the tofus suffer? Can she not hear the plaintive cries of the soy as it is harvested? I do think that I understand her strange and protective reaction to our domestic turkeys with their artificially enhanced and unnaturally large breasts. Well, it is kind of self-explanatory.

Once we get rid of war, can we please eliminate the over-used suffix of “Gate” for any error or scandal? Okay, that is rhetorical. But at this season of hope and Thanksgiving, I’m entitled to dream.

The Arizona Republic today features a story noting that, despite some efforts to bring driver's licenses to illegal immigrants (many of them Mexican) here in the U.S., Mexico is far less accommodating to its "undocumented workers":

All of Mexico's 31 states, along with Mexico City, require foreigners to present a valid visa if they want a driver's license, according to a survey of states by The Arizona Republic.

"When it comes to foreigners, we're a little more strict here," said Alejandro Ruíz, director of education at the Mexican Automobile Association....

Mexican officials said the application rules are strictly enforced, especially in southern states that have a problem with illegal immigrants from Central America.

"Last week a man came here (with a tourist visa) and said he was working as a deliveryman," said Denia Gurgua, manager of the driver's license office in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the southern state of Chiapas.

She said she denied him a license because he did not have a visa to work in Mexico.

"Our constitution has certain restrictions for foreigners," she said.

Naturally, this sort of story is red meat for immigration restrictionists, who cite it as some sort of example for why we should be equally hard on our illegal-immigrant population:

"The fact that all 31 states in Mexico would have such a common-sense position . . . shows to me a certain hypocrisy on the part of the Mexican government, because they are constantly criticizing those of us in Congress who want immigration laws to be tougher up here," said (Rep. Peter) King of New York.

OK, so the Mexican government is hypocritical -- no surprise there, seeing that it's also backward and corrupt. So what? How does that have any bearing on what American policies should be?

There's a reason why an estimated 6 million Mexicans have fled for this country, and the Mexican government is a big part of it. It's hardly a given that anything Mexico's lawmakers do is "common sense," let alone something we should emulate.

There may be some good arguments against giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but the policies of a kleptocratic Third World regime certainly aren't among them.

If Chris thinks the War on Christmas is worrisome, he should check out the War on Thanksgiving waged by Pamela Anderson and PETA who want to end this American tradition of slaughtering turkeys and eating them every fourth Thursday of November.

The holiday season can be especially hard for those who find themselves homeless," says Anderson. "And it's murder on turkeys. With so many healthy and delicious options nowadays, it's easy to have a holiday meal that gives even turkeys something to be thankful for."

Worse, still is Peta's video from a Butterball slaughterhouse here.

Surely the sinister people at Tofurkey are behind this.

This picture comes from the Lowe's holiday catalog. It's and ad for, um, "Family Trees." You know, those lovely firs (or synthetics) that people tend to put up sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day for, um, no reason in particular.

And with that, the annual debate can begin: Is there a 'War on Christmas?'

Well, not to sound Clintonian, but it depends on how you define "war." In some instances, such as when ACLU-types in Seattle fought to purge the airport of any holiday symbols, yes, I would say there is an aggressive sort of secularism at work, one that wants to rid the world of any and all public religious expression, especially the Christian kind.

That said, what's taking place at Lowe's and countless other stores is less an aggressive form of secularism than plain-old dumb capitalism. Retailers want it both ways, appealing to believers and the hyper-sensitive at the same time. They think they can do it by calling objects something other than their obvious names. ("Christians will keep buying the trees, and the perpetually offended won't notice!")

It's a silly approach, and a doomed one, too. Other stores have been burned by bad publicity from such decisions in the past, and Lowe's is the latest, now apologizing, while insisting that its catalog was a "mistake." Sure.

Rest assured, Lowe's won't make this "mistake" again. But even if the company responds by printing glorious pictures of the Nativity on the cover of next year's catalog, believers would be fools to think Lowe's has "come to Jesus." This is all about making bucks -- nothing less, nothing more -- and Christmas, like Memorial Day or any other event, is solely an opportunity to move product, as far as corporate America is concerned.

For the life of me, though, I can't understand why anyone would be offended by a Christmas tree, a creche, being wished a "merry Christmas" or any of the other benign occurrences that can become capital offenses this time of year. Isn't part of living in a pluralistic, diverse society being tolerant of people with different beliefs?

My last name, though Austrian in origin, is often mistake for Jewish. As such, every year, several Jews will wish me a happy New Year on Rosh Hashanah, mistaking me for a fellow Jew. This has never offended me in the least. Nor have the Hindu celebrations I've attended at my Indian friends' houses. I don't feel threatened by other faiths -- I am grateful for them, and grateful to live in a country where, for the most part, different sorts of people can get along nicely.

In my experience, the overwhelming majority of non-Christians -- be they Jews, agnostics, atheists, or anything else -- are very tolerant, and wouldn't be the least bit offended by the word "Christmas" in a Lowe's catalog. Unfortunately, the small group of hyper-secularists who wage the 'War on Christmas' tend to get an undue share of the public's attention -- and corporate America's, too.

Though my one-on-one sitdown with Giuliani is excerpted in today's paper, here is the full text of our chat:

Q (Bridget): California's early primary this year --

A (Rudy): Good! Good!

Q: Do you think you're going to get the Arnold voters, the ones who went more the moderate route --

A: I think I'm going to get all Republicans! I don't think of it that way. I think of it as reaching out to all Republicans. We have strong support among all different kinds of Republicans, meaning Republicans who would describe themselves a little differently. I think we have the broadest support among the widest group of Republicans of any of the Republican candidates.

Q: And how do you see the Republicans in California?

A: Just like the Republicans in New York. Just like the Republicans in New Hampshire. Republicans are Republicans because of a number of things. They believe in strong national defense, they believe in fiscal conservatism, they believe in social conservatism, social values, there are a whole group of things that make a Republican. I'm appealing to them by not changing the views that are deeply held by trying to be who I am, by being as honest about that as I can express. And then I ask them to take a look at the whole package and if they agree with it, even if they disagree with a few things, to vote for me, because I believe in the old Ronald Reagan view -- my 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy. And I think that will give us the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton. If we try to replicate the prior ways in which we nominated candidates the last three or four times when we get ourselves down to one state. Well, first of all, California will be counted out. And I think, of the Republicans, I'm the candidate that has the best chance of winning California -- the general (election). And also the best chance of winning New York, some of the big states. And I think it would be good for everything, including American politics, to have a real active Republican-Democratic campaign in California next year.

Q: Candidates usually don't have a very good track record of showing up in California or spending much time here.

A: I think I've exceeded this year the number of appearances that any Republican candidate has made in California in the year before an election -- since Ronald Reagan, I suspect. I've been here 10 or 11 times. This is one of the states we've been in the most. We've been in San Francisco, we've been up in Napa, we've been in the Central Valley, we've been down in San Diego, of course we've been in Orange County, Los Angeles, we've been virtually all over the state in an effort to lay the groundwork for winning the primary Feb. 5 which we focused on going back to January. And because I truly believe that we have as good a chance as Hillary Clinton to win this state in November. And I honestly can tell you, if any of my opponents as a Republican is nominated they will close down their office in California the day after they get nominated. And I'm going to expand my office the day after I'm nominated.

Q: Have you talked with Gov. Schwarzenegger at all about any type of endorsement?

A: I talk to Gov. Schwarzenegger all the time, but obviously when you talk about endorsements you keep that confidential. The governor has to make his own decision. He's a good friend and I talk to him quite a bit.

Need some help picking your candidate? Try VoteHelp.org, a nonpartisan calculator (and project of a USC poli sci grad student) that weighs your opinions on the issues, what importance those issues hold for you, and then ranks the candidates against your results.

My results? Fred Thompson, with Mike Huckabee a close second...

After muffing the question on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in last week's debate, Hillary Clinton has finally announced a definitive position: No. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has dropped the idea like a hot potato, and Clinton doesn't to be stuck all alone supporting an unpopular idea.

But in reversing her position yet again, Clinton makes life all to easy for the gag-writers in her opponents' campaings. The AP provides these two gems:

"When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it's easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them," said Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Colleen Flanagan, a spokesman for Chris Dodd, called Clinton's position "flip-flopping cubed. She was for it before she was against it, before she was for it, before she was against it."

Sometimes political spin is just too easy ...

Caption contest announcement:
Pecker to pecker...
One in the hand is worth two in the Bush...
Turkey to Turkey...
Bush given the bird...
Bush gets a bris...
Bill Clinton's revenge...At least he had Monica...
Okay readers, now it's your turn.

"You don't need a stethoscope to hear the heartbeat of the public on this one. There are some moments where emotions are simply too hot."

-- Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York

Remember those words. Arnold Schwarzenegger certainly will.

Those words tell you everything you need to know about why Schwarzenegger -- or any other California governor with a shred of political ambition left in him -- is not going to touch the issue of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants any time soon. Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, can get the legislation passed a thousand more times, and it won't make a difference. Schwarzenegger will always find a reason to say no.

Today, Spitzer has pulled the plug on his efforts to get driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in New York. And with that concession, we witness one of the most spectacular political defeats in recent memory.

To say Spitzer had his head figuratively handed to him would be an understatement. The rejection he experienced was so powerful, the opposition so intense, the defeat so conclusive that we could more safely say that Spitzer had not only his head, but also every other severable organ, grinded and fired back at him through a cannon.

This is a proposal that went wrong at every turn. At first the Empire State governor faced a wave of reasonable objections having to do with voting and national security. So he went to the Department of Homeland Security, and came up with a three-tiered plan designed to answer those concerns. No such luck. Immigration restrictionists still weren't going to countenance what they considered a giveaway to illegal immigrants, and immigration-advocacy groups resented what they perceived as unequal treatment.

Spitzer had succeeded only in riling up the opposition while deflating his allies.

Then came the bureaucrats who said they would refuse to cooperate -- a logistical nightmare -- as well as intense opposition from the New York legislature. Activist groups filed multiple lawsuits. And then, the coup de grace: The issue caused the first real problem in Hillary Clinton's campaign when she proved unable to talk about it coherently (or honestly) in a candidates' debate.

It was bad enough that this gambit was destroying Spitzer's political career (his approval rating fell from an impressive 75 percent to a horrific 33 percent). But when it began imperiling Hillary's, the party bigwigs weren't going to stand for it much longer.

And so now Spitzer begs off -- crushed and defeated.

Never mind that, from a practical standpoint, what Spitzer advocated was actually quite modest and sensible. Whatever one thinks about immigration, illegal-immigrant drivers on the roads are a reality that no state law is going to change. Better, Spitzer reasoned, to get those drivers licensed, insured, and identified, thus minimizing the threat to public safety -- and insurance rates -- that they pose.

New York, as bona-fide a "blue" state as you will find, save for a few red pockets upstate, wanted nothing to do with it. Polls showed the public opposed by a nearly three-to-one margin. Forget Social Security, immigration has become the new third rail in American politics -- an issue so contentious that, from a politician’s standpoint, it’s far safer to do nothing at all than to try anything.

One could argue that a California governor wouldn't face the same level of opposition, or vitriol, as Spitzer encountered in New York. After all, California has a much larger, and better-organized, Latino population. But California also has many more illegal immigrants. Here, the immigration issue is no abstraction; it touches on everyone’s lives, personally, on a daily basis. The passions run even deeper, making the issue even more potentially explosive.

Also, in retrospect, it’s worth asking how much illegal immigration played a role in the recall of Gov. Gray Davis back in 2003.

Typically, the economy, the budget, and Schwarzenegger’s sheer popularity are cited as the main reasons for Davis’ ouster. But it’s worth remembering that according to a Field Poll taken shortly before the recall, Californians opposed Davis’ decision to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants by a nearly two-to-one ratio. What’s more, among those who supported the recall, opposition reached 75 percent.

No wonder, then, that upon taking office, Schwarzenegger made overturning the Davis law one of his first priorities. And though he has always maintained that he is amenable to granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants under the right circumstances, the right circumstances never seem to arise.

Schwarzenegger has cleverly tried to play both sides on this issue, appeasing immigration advocates by saying he's open to the idea in theory, while satisfying restrictionists by always being opposed in reality.

And given what happened to Spitzer, can you blame him?

Yesterday I had a one-on-one interview scheduled with Rudy Giuliani, who visited his California campaign headquarters in Glendale. (Watch for the interview in tomorrow's Daily News.) I have to say that I've seen candidates running behind schedule time after time, but Giuliani was running ahead of schedule: I arrived at about 2:10 p.m., five minutes before he was scheduled to address supporters, but when I walked in the former New York City mayor was wrapping up his speech.

After he spent some time kibbitzing with cell-phone-camera-wielding fans, he was ready to sit down with me in a small office with a rectangular table, an office chair on each side. Rudy was already sitting in one of the chairs, just having wrapped up a phone-in interview with a radio station. I walked in, greeted him and shook his hand. And since I try to be a consummate professional, I'll note that the following dialogue is how I remember it, but I can't guarantee 100 percent accuracy as my digital recorder wasn't yet on.

"Have a seat, Bridget," Giuliani said as I sat in the rolling desk chair. Then, with a gesture to the side and an eye on the corner of the room, he said, "Move over a bit. You're blocking my three-pointer!"

I scooted to the side and looked over my shoulder to the small wastebasket in the sparsely furnished office. Giuliani decides he's going to go for the shot, pauses, then quickly chugs the rest of the water in the stout, half-size bottle he was drinking from. He replaced the cap, wound up for the pitch, had a last-minute change of heart, then grabbed a full, unopened half-size bottled water off the desk, where a handful of bottles were lined up. Giuliani pitches the full bottle at the trash can. It hits the wall with a THWACK and falls to the floor.

Undeterred, Giuliani, who may have ingested one too many Red Bulls, pitches the empty water bottle at the trash can. This time, the bank off the wall makes it in the trash can. Giuliani rejoices! Then, he was finally ready for the interview.

This story is much better, by the way, acted out to one's co-workers. But a few colleagues made interesting points: Was this something Giuliani did to look fly in front of a younger journalist? Was he worked up from his pep rally? Or was it an "I'm fun" moment like the cell phone call from his wife that he took while stumping to the NRA?

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer deserves some credit for trying to do his part to address the perennially unaddressed immigration question, but he was hopelessly naive about his efforts to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The effort has -- as anyone who's followed the immigration wars could have predicted -- created a firestorm of controversy. And Spitzer was totally unprepared for it, according to USA Today:

"I knew there would be opposition," he says. "I don't think anyone predicted quite this level of venom."

There's a reason why California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ducks this issue like buckshot. He knows that, politically, nothing good can come of it.

... when she writes:

These days, you can forget that old-style GOP rhetoric about "values," "human dignity" and the "culture of life." Because the GOP has a new litmus test for its nominees: Will you or will you not protect U.S. officials who order the torture of prisoners?

But I increasingly fear she's right. Especially when she cites examples like this:

As Scott Horton reports in his Harper's Magazine blog: "Several days before his first meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Michael Mukasey's Justice Department handlers arranged a private meeting for him with a number of 'movement conservatives.'... They pushed aggressively on the torture question. They wanted Mukasey to pledge that he would toe the administration's line" by not criticizing the administration's approval of waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques, and they wanted him to "protect those who authored the [interrogation] program" by issuing opinions that would keep those responsible for the program from facing criminal prosecution.

There's a lot at stake in next year's election, includuing the very soul of the GOP.

As Bridget has wryly observed, I'm not typically the first to come to Rudy Giuliani's defense. But on one issue I think he's getting a bum deal -- this flap over Bernard Kerik.

Kerik, you'll recall, was Giuliani's Police Commissioner in New York after a certain other PC by the name of William Bratton got the boot after it became clear that his and Rudy's egos could no longer fit in the same metropolis. Later, when Tom Ridge stepped aside as the nation's director of Homeland Security, Giuliani suggested that Bush pick Kerik as his replacement -- a suggestion Bush gladly accepted, until corruption charges surfaced against him.

Now Rudy's GOP presidential rival John McCain and some in the media have tried to use Kerik against him, as though Kerik's crimes have any bearing on Giuliani's leadership. But the truth is, his alleged corruption aside -- which neither Giuliani nor anyone else knew about at the time -- Kerik did an admirable job in NYC. That he seemingly turned out to be a crook is not something for which Giuliani bears any responsibility. (If he does, then let's see Hillary Clinton take responsibility for Sandy Berger.)

There are plenty of good reasons to fault Giuliani, but this isn't one of them. This is a cheap shot.

Friendly Fire's facelift is, the techies tell us, unintentional. (Apparently the "upgraded" blogging software wiped out our templates and replaced them with defaults.) Now the question is, is it reversible?

Let's hope ...

OK, I can live with the fact that our schools are some of the worst in the nation, and our homes are some of the most unfordable, and our air is pretty darn bad to boot. But if there is one thing in which California ranks tops in the USA, I would have sworn it was in personalized, vanity license plates.

Maybe it's just because I spend so much more of my time on the road here (sigh), but I've never seen so much vehicular personalization anywhere as I have in the Golden State. And it's not just the plates. It's also the license-plate frames (including such charmers as that classic, "I hate Barbie, that b---- has everything!"), window decals (the urinating Calvin seems to be ubiquitous in these parts), and, of course, bumper stickers (actual sticker I saw this morning: "My kid sold your honors student all the right answers to the test!").

For better and -- quite often -- for worse, Californians, ever an individualistic bunch, make vehicular expression an art form.

So I'm surprised -- and quite skeptical of -- this survey that finds that among all 50 states, California ranks only #22 it terms of the percentage of registered vehicles with personalized plates. Twenty-two? When has California ever ranked in the middle (and not the bottom or the top) of anything?

I blame East Coast bias for this faulty "study." This is an indignity, an affront, and an outrage. To the researchers who came up with this nonsense, the people of California have only one thing to say:

When we look at what made this nation great, what took people from all over the world and made them into Americans, no institution has been more important than our system of free universal secular education. No ideas transmitted in private schools or our religious institutions have been more decisive than putting children together to learn, to grow, yes sometimes to squabble and even fight, than our schools.

I can argue that our kids could learn more in more focused private schools and without the distractions of language, ethnicity and socioeconomic differences. What is paramount however is what they will not learn by just sticking to “their own kind.” They will not learn how to get along with people who are different. They will not learn how to work out difficulties in communications. They will not learn that stereotypes are not true pictures, and they will not experience just how much they have in common with the so-called “other.”

From all over the world people came to America with a dream. The dream was transformed into reality for many because they communicated over the old narrow sectarian lines of religion, ethnicity and language. They did not have to give up their native language, but learn a new one. They did not have to abandon their religions but tolerate those of others.

Yes, virtually every group experienced problems, friction and persecution, but we worked out a lot of these issues in our schools. The prejudices and fears of the parents were slowly replaced by the real life experiences of their children, their children who became Americans.

We look at the challenges facing us in terms of language and ethnicity today and may feel that the situation is hopeless. It is not. We have done this before, and we succeeded. During my lifetime our whole sense of what differences separated us has changed. Once upon a time, not long ago, a Polish-Italian wedding was a “mixed marriage.” Methodists and Catholics had to be careful about dating and introducing their intendeds to the family. Hispanic-White pairings were unusual. Asian-White weddings were problematic. Black-White weddings were scandalous. We obviously still have a lot of problems and these issues are not fully resolved but America has really changed and become more open.

Propinquity, just having our kids together and experiencing each other, is of great value in making one nation out of many people and many peoples.

This is why the abject failure of our L.A. Unified School District is an embarrassment, but more importantly a tragedy. As the Daily News reported on November 11, a UCLA study shows that California is failing as a State in public education, and Los Angeles is doing worse than the rest of California.

It is easy to place blame. It’s the multi-ethnic nature of our population. It’s the wide geography. It is those teachers and their union. It is a Superintendent who has no experience in education and comes from a military background where people tend to follow orders. The financial waste of Belmont, their recent notice that two schools, long in planning, were located next to pollution-spewing freeways, may make us weep. There are plenty of targets, reasons, and rationalizations, but so what? The issue isn’t blame. We cannot just throw our hands up in either anger or despair and walk away. As we say at time of war: “Failure is not an option.”

Parents with economic options and high motivation are abandoning our school systems across the nation and in Los Angeles in particular. They are seeking private schools in the hope of better education. They are going to religious schools in the hope of not only passing along their own religion, but putting a moral curriculum into the lives of their children. They are trying to flee the discord and danger they perceive in local education. They, understandably, want to feel that their children are physically and morally safe.

I understand. And not wanting to be caught out as a hypocrite, I will tell you that our three boys all had a mixture of private and public school. They went to private schools, including a Jewish school, in their early years and then to public high schools. It was important for them to encounter the wide spectrum of humanity with whom they will share their lives. Nothing could replace these experiences: Adam in the choral group with Blacks and Hispanics who became his closest friends. David in debate and forensics with Asians, Persians and Protestants (Hey, exotic is a relative concept). Daniel just hanging out with everyone—regardless of race, color or creed.

In the course of their public education they had to work out differences of culture of language, religion and socio-economic status. Maybe it would have been easier to stay in private schools. Maybe their already outstanding SAT scores would have been a few points higher but I like to concentrate on what they learned from all of those “different people, who were not really so different fundamentally, and also what they taught. While they experienced many people who were at first the “other” to them, they were also the “other” to many of their acquaintances. Together, they became friends. Together they taught each other, not in books, but in life, what it is to be American.

We could easily throw up our hands at the folly of our local schools. We could retreat to our private schools, our religious schools, our exclusive schools and rationalize it as being best for our kids. But if we do, we will be further weakening the most important institution and process for making Americans: our free universal secular education.

If America is worth fighting for, then our schools, flawed as they are, demand our caring attention and passionate commitment.

I love this non-denial denial from Hillary Clinton's campaign over the planted-question brouhaha:

A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, denied that Mrs. Clinton was aware of the planted question or that she was directed to call on Ms. Gallo-Chasanoff. But he confirmed that the campaign aide planted the question.

“It’s not something we do; it’s not an official campaign policy,” Mr. Elleithee said yesterday. “But it is now an official campaign policy that we will not do this moving forward.”

So the flak says 1) Yes, we planted the question, but 2) No, we don't plant questions. Positively Clintonian.

Then there's Clinton's own comments:

“It was news to me, and neither I nor my campaign approve of that, and it will certainly not be tolerated.”

Well, OK, maybe it really was news to you. But according to the college student/plant, she was one of about 200 people raising her hand, and only one of four to be called upon -- seems like quite a coincidence, at best, that Clinton would have chosen her. And if it's not a coincidence, then Clinton was in on the racket.

My favorite part of this amusing sideshow, though, is Hillary's response to the question itself:

"Well, I find as I travel around Iowa, it's usually young people who ask me about global warming."

Gee, maybe that's because your campaign keeps choosing young people to pose the question!

Still, almost as funny as the episode itself is other candidates' and some journalists' shocked response, as though staged campaign events and plants are something new. Please. The whole campaign charade is choreographed -- down to the chants that crowds "spontaneously" break into when the candidate arrives. Equally amusing was all the hand-wringing over FEMA's recent faux press conference.

Not that I approve of this dishonesty, but it is a fact of life in politics. And if you think only the "other side" does it, you're living in an ideological bubble.

I feel bad posting this with the comment system still screwed up here at Friendly Fire, but comments can also be posted at the pieces to which I'll be linking.

I've received some calls and letters from readers in the Armenian community who are concerned that my news article Sunday on my interview with the new Turkish consul general was one-sided. To explain, it was a one-on-one interview that did just feature my conversation with R. Hakan Tekin, just like our page one interview that day with LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer focused on the conversation with Brewer. In an hour and 15 minute interview with Tekin, we spoke about the PKK, relations with the U.S., Turkey's attempt to join the EU, secularism vs. Islamism, press freedom and the Hrant Dink murder, and, yes, the Armenian Genocide bill. We spent about the first 15 minutes talking about this legislation, and since this has been a topic of great interest to our readers we pulled out some of his statements on the genocide. The news hook of the story, though, is that Tekin is relatively new in town at a time of renewed tensions, and is under State Department special protection.

His comments should be discussed and debated, and that's what our great readers do. Just check out the heated discussion going on over at the article's page. However, I do want to stress that a) we've given readers great coverage of this issue over many months, drawing on reaction of the local Armenian community, and b) it is an interview piece for the reasons I previously mentioned. When I interview Rudy Giuliani, Chris' most favorite person in the whole wide world, tomorrow, I won't need to interview Hillary Clinton to make my article on our interview fair and balanced. It's understood that this is a sit-down interview with a newsmaker, a public official.

I also want to invite readers to check out some of the rest of what Tekin said on the myriad subjects we discussed, which I cover in my newest column. The intent of sitting down with the Turkish consul general was not to rah-rah for one side or the other, but to get that government's point of view on a volatile time in an uncertain region.

By the way, Jonathan, I even presented him with your posturing/stall tactic theory on the PKK. His response:

"As I said, the Turkish security forces have been dealing with PKK since 1984 and they have a lot of experience. They know what they do. And they won’t be intimated or they won’t care that we would have disproportionate losses or so. If a fight is necessary in their opinion they would fight it they wouldn’t think about, you know, other concerns."

Rapper Kanye West's mother, Donda West, died at 58 after having plastic surgery of some sort in LA, according to this story from E!Online Sad because look at how beautiful Donda West was!

A spokeswoman for Donda West said the cause of death was complications stemming from a "cosmetic procedure."

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office confirmed Monday the death is under investigation, but initial indications are that she succumbed to complications from surgery. Lieutenant Fred Corral, the watch commander, declined to elaborate, only saying West was pronounced dead at Centinela Marina Hospital in Marina del Rey at 8:20 p.m. Saturday.

If this turns out to indeed be the cause of death, hopefully it will cause people to rethink going under the knife to try and reach and idealized version of feminine beauty that is really only accomplishable by nature or PhotoShop. There are things worth dying for, but fatter lips or thinner thighs ain't one of them.

Besides, as feminist Katha Politt pointed out on "Fresh Air" radio show last week, don't people who've had plastic surgery look exactly like people who have had plastic surgery? That's not a good look unless you're trick or treating.

Ahhhh! So scary!

... as presidential candidates, in which case, his 2008 pick should be obvious:

I have been bombarded by mail encouraging me to take a fresh look at candidate for the Republican nomination Ron Paul. My conservative friends think he is great and my antiwar liberal friends think he is interesting. He is, in fact, situated where liberals and conservatives can often meet and that is at a Libertarian position. This emphasizes personal freedom and takes a skeptical view of government. And there is no question that Paul is both interesting in himself and in the fans he has attracted. He is kind of this season's Howard Dean--with lots of young people and great web-based fund raising.

When I first started getting inundated with email, I was slightly confused. Why were they urging me to study the record of Ru Paul, I wondered? After getting the proper clarification that they were not, in fact, asking me to send money to a famous female impersonator, I began to re-think Ru Paul. What are better political traits than to be all things to all people? It was said of Julius Cesar that he was "a husband to every wife and a wife to every husband." Politicians often spend much of their time dressing as what they are not and speaking in different and largely inauthentic voices. Want me tough, I'll lower my voice and don my blue jeans. Want a sweet user-friendly pol and I can put on lace and talk sweet.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that cross-dressing and looking good both ways are important advantages in modern politics. A little sexual ambiguity is probably okay. An African American candidate is certainly appropriate. With Ru Paul we get it all. I'm forming a committee right away to draft Ru Paul.

As Bridget mentioned, we've been experiencing some technical difficulties with Friendly Fire these last few days, which is why posting has been so spotty. But it seems like we're finally up and running again! Thanks for your patience!

Stay tuned for regular programming ...

You may have noticed that Friendly Fire has been a bit of a lightweight over the weekend. That's because we upgraded the blog system here at the Daily News, and with that comes, well, gremlins. So bear with us as we get the bugs worked out and get back in da swing of things!

Norman Mailer was a bright, brilliant and difficult man. I'd love to write RIP (Rest in Peace) but he didn't live in peace and somehow it seems wrong for him to rest that way. He did, however, say one of my very favorite things.

Once upon a time he ran for mayor of New York City. He was, to put it mildly, a long shot. Someone from the press (what we used to call the media back then) asked him what he would do if he actually won the election. With unusual, yet becoming, modesty he said, "I'd demand a recount." Would that more of our egomaniacle politicians had such an appropriate sense of themselves.

For barking "Por que no te callas?" to a bumbling, interrupting, loudmouthed Hugo Chavez! It nearly brings a (sniff!) tear to my eye, it's so beautiful!!

According to the latest terrorist cyber-chatter, al-Qaida has its sites on L.A. this holiday season, our malls in particular. Should this be a surprise?

We all too easily forget that well before 9-11, Islamic terrorists tried to take out LAX in the fortuitously foiled "Millennium Bombing." Then there was the jihadist wannabe who shot up the El Al ticket counter at the very same airport. Clearly America's entertainment capital is a target, and what bigger bulls-eye could there be than one of our decadent mega-malls at the busiest time of year?

Not that there's much that can be done with these warnings. We have little choice but to keep on with whatever we're doing, while remaining "vigilant." But with or without the latest alert, it's no secret that Los Angeles needs to be on guard. And we must remember that America's war with radical Islam isn't just some faraway abstraction. Without so much as moment's notice, it could quickly come to dominate -- or end -- our very lives.

... apparently the drug does make you mellow. It so relaxed Scott Snow that the Danbury, Conn., man had no qualms about walking into the local police department puffing on a blunt. Quoth Fox News:

Capt. Robert Myles says Scott Snow walked into the station early Saturday and blew smoke from his cigar into a small opening in the bullet-resistant glass separating desk officers from the public.

Myles says the 24-year-old man was told there's no smoking inside the building and he allegedly stubbed out the cigar on the counter.

Officers came out and smelled the distinctive odor of marijuana and arrested Snow.

Police say they found more alleged marijuana in Snow's pants. He has been released after posting bond.

I love the term, "alleged marijuana." Hey, maybe it's just medicine!

Jonathan is right that conventional wisdom has a way of proving itself spectacularly wrong more often than not. Politics is far less predictable than we pundits and prognosticators like to imagine. But I think Jonathan is a little too quick to dismiss the conventional wisdom wrong on Rudy Giuliani. Jonathan writes:

By the standards of conventional wisdom in this presidential campaign cycle Rudy should have disappeared. His liberal social positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control, coupled with his super hawk position on the war(s) should reasonably have driven moderates, conservatives and evangelicals away. He’s like the bumblebee that shouldn’t be able to fly, but somehow does.

Or does he? While Giuliani continues to lead the national polls, his numbers have dropped considerably. What's more, he's doing worst in the places that matter most -- the states with early primaries. To quote a CNS News report:

Rudy Giuliani leads the pack of Republican contenders in almost every national poll, but he is running second place in New Hampshire and third place in Iowa, according to Real Clear Politics' polling average.

Winning candidates in those two states, which hold primary contests in early January, traditionally gain momentum in their quest for their party's nomination....

... (S)even states - including Wyoming, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida - will hold their nominating contests in January, with as many as 343 delegates to the Republican National Convention up for grabs....

Yet Giuliani is running ahead in just two states with January primaries ...

What that suggests to me is that Giuliani is doing worst in the states where voters are paying the most attention -- that is, the ones where campaign rallies and TV commercials are already a fact of everyday life. Elsewhere in America, where normal people have better things to do than pay attention to a far-away presidential election, Giuliani is still remembered fondly for his 9-11 glory days. But as in the states that hold the early primaries, it could be that when GOP voters nationwide finally start looking closely at Giuliani, they won't like what they see.

Of course, conventional wisdom could be disproved again: Maybe Giuliani can buck historical trends by winning the nomination without winning the early primaries. Who knows? As Jonathan notes, there are too many variables, which makes picking a presidential race this far out about as foolish as predicting the weather.

But Rudy the bumblebee still hasn't proven he can really fly -- at least not yet, anyway.

Maybe we humans should make a better effort to stop killing dolphins, since they seem to be the only creature in the ocean looking out for us. Consider this story out of Monterrey, Calif. which seems to be capital of surfers eaten by sharks:

Surfer Todd Endris needed a miracle. The shark — a monster great white that came out of nowhere — had hit him three times, peeling the skin off his back and mauling his right leg to the bone.

That’s when a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around Endris, allowing him to get to shore, where quick first aid provided by a friend saved his life.

“Truly a miracle,” Endris told TODAY’s Natalie Morales on Thursday.

Then consider this:

In this photo released by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, activists and supporters from the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd who paddle out on surfboards to approach trapped dolphins in a cove in the town of Taiji in southwestern Japan on Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 to interfere with the annual hunt. (AP Photo/Sea Shepherd Conservation Society/Icon Images, Peter Carrette).

And then consider this: (Note the dolphin blood in background)

I need to play a number for the distraught merchants along Rodeo Drive and other chi-chi shopping corridors, who face a new crisis in high-end retail: They're no longer able to tell which potential customers are rich. From the Wall Street Journal's Wealth Report:

I was talking to a Jaguar salesman last week and asked him what the hardest part of his job was.

“You can’t tell who’s rich anymore,” he said. “It used to be if someone walked in with jeans and a T-shirt I could ignore them or ask them to leave. Now that guy could be a billionaire. You have to be nice to everybody these days.”..

Identifying the rich used to be fairly simple: They dressed, talked and looked a certain way. They had iconic last names like Hutton or Hearst or Phipps, often with Roman numerals at the end.

Today, wealth has been democratized and individualized, and the rich come in all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities. People often ask me, “What do the rich wear? How can you tell by looking at someone today if they’re rich?” Such questioners are usually recalling old myths about watches and shoes, but my answer is that there is no way to tell. The rich don’t have a uniform anymore. Today, they all wear their wealth differently, from the dot-commers in T-shirts to the hedge-funders in khaki to the CEOs in classic pinstripes.

Oh, the indignity! The merchants now have to be ... "nice to everybody!" Capitalism can be so cruel.

(H/T Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant.)

On Tuesday, I broke down why California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez's plan to fund universal health care made for bad policy, but good politics. But now I'm wondering if I need to rethink my position: It's probably bad politics, too.

The reason for my second thoughts is the drubbing that another cigarette tax-hiking measure took this week. Measure 50 would have bumped the cigarette tax in Oregon (a state every bit as "blue" as California) up to just over $2 -- the amount Nunez is recommending for California. The measure failed, 60 percent to 40 percent.

That's because voters were able to see through the policy shortcomings of this approach, thanks to a big-bucks "no" campaign funded by the tobacco industry. And if big tobacco mobilized in Oregon, you can be sure it would mobilize here, too. Just last year, the industry spent $58 million in California defeating Proposition 86, the proposed $2.60-per-pack tax that would have funded emergency-room operations.

So to add to my list of reasons Nunez's plan is flawed, add this big one: It probably wouldn't pass.

Check out O'Connor Blog for all kinds of nifty stuff!

30 years ago... my, my, how some things never change!!

I love the political silly season. Since we now have 24-hour news cycles and 4-year long presidential campaigns, every day is lovable and wondrous. All the conventional wisdom of the punditocracy is wildly amusing. We don’t really know anything and like psychics in the Inquirer are not held to account for our record of off-base predictions.

“Conventional wisdom,” aside from probably being an oxymoron, really only reflects the self-enforcing conversations of the people who build and live in their own echo chambers.

By the standards of conventional wisdom in this presidential campaign cycle Rudy should have disappeared. His liberal social positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control, coupled with his super hawk position on the war(s) should reasonably have driven moderates, conservatives and evangelicals away. He’s like the bumblebee that shouldn’t be able to fly, but somehow does. There is just something Republicans like about him. As Bob Dole remarked about Bill Clinton, “Charisma is unfair. And I could use some affirmative action.” All the pundits have been waiting for the people to figure out who Rudy is. And by God the Rev. Pat Robertson thinks he’s figured him out and just endorsed him! Go know.

Logically Huckabee should have run much stronger earlier. He is a plausibly real conservative with a high likeability factor. So who attacks him? Not the wild-eyed lefties but super conservative Phyllis Schlafely! For true believers, left and right, the perfect is the enemy of the good. And the Rev. Huckabee is not a perfect fiscal conservative. Hmmm. Which is the conservative’s highest priority abortion or taxes?

The most logical candidate for the Republicans according to pundit standards should be Fred Thompson. He’s got that country boy charm, deep-voiced gravitas and the Ronald Reagan religiosity of deeply held convictions without the time-consuming disadvantage of actually going to church. He is comforting, unflappable and reminiscent of an older version of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Perhaps like Mr. Smith he lacks that fundamental drive and need for power. He is a diffident suitor of the American electorate, and we want ardor in our wooing.

There is no way that Mitt Romney should even be a contender. We know nothing about him except his looks. First, what kind of name is Mitt? Was Chip unavailable? As a card-carrying liberal governor of one of our most liberal states, he has held positions well to the left of Giuliani on abortion, gay rights and public financing of medicine. He is breaking the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction by trying to run on his record by distancing himself from it. A neat trick that seems to be working. But with the money he is spending, every vote will be expensive. Unlike with Rudy, we really have no idea what his core values are—other than his true belief and faith that he should be president. He has all the passion that Fred lacks.

We had our fling with McCain 8-years ago and the Straight Talk Express is on blocks with the wheels off. He has not worn well and lost his single most attractive feature—his credibility—when he knelt in the snow before Jerry Falwell. Still, according to the conventional wisdom a year ago, he should have done better, and those same wise ones believed he was dead and buried three months ago. He is broke but not broken.

Conventional wisdom had this as all over for the Democrats 2 weeks ago, with Hillary inevitable, triumphant and all but crowned. Those whom the gods of media would destroy, they first make inevitable. Her debate performance delighted all in the talking/writing class. No, it isn’t personal (either for or against her). It is, as in the God Father, “only business.” A horse race that is over is not worth covering. Hillary’s remarkable stumbles in the last debate breathed life into talking heads and typing fingers.

The last debate, that I call the Parse Farce, revealed Hillary as being unwilling to answer virtually any question in a clear manner. This really hurt her and conjured up the parsing of her husband’s administration and reminded us that no one named Clinton knows what the meaning of is is.

Democrats love the idea of a woman with a real chance to be president. But the reality of Hillary is different. She has high negatives—and that she could survive. What really hurts is the lack of positive passion for her. The idea of her is more attractive than Hillary herself.

The conventional wisdom said that Obama had to attack to get noticed. He promised to step it up. But he couldn’t perform. This raised the real question of if he can’t stand up to Hillary’s dodging, how would he do with Ahmadinejad? The conventional wisdom says that Edwards’ attacks will help Obama, because the nice people in Iowa don’t like people fighting and Edwards is hurting Edwards. This wisdom does not take into consideration that if Hillary is going to be stopped, it must be in Iowa. The only way Edwards stays alive is not necessarily by winning himself, but by playing Obama to block. Then he can come back in South Carolina.

All of this is to show that we really don’t know what we’re talking about. The conventional wisdom can cop a u-turn without signaling. A YouTube “macaca moment” and the universe shifts. A joke too mean, a look too dazed, a phrase inartfully expressed, an old scandal unearthed, and “inevitable” becomes “fatally flawed.”

We have miles to go, trees to fell, paper to make and ink to imprint our conventional wisdom before we sleep.

Every once in a while, some intrepid scholars labor to discover what should have been obvious in the first place. In the latest example, researchers at the University of Maryland have documented that the high-fat Atkins Diet -- eat all the cheese and meat you want, but hold the the bread -- can jeopardize your heart and raise your cholesterol. The New York Post reports:

The Atkins Diet raised the study subjects' bad cholesterol by an average of 16 points, and brought on symptoms of hardening of the arteries, a precursor to strokes or heart attacks.

Wow, whodathunk?

Well, to the UMD researchers' defense, this one wasn't so obvious to the millions of Americans who bought into the no-carb diet at its peak. Remember the Carl's Jr. burgers wrapped in lettuce? Because you know, the only thing dangerous about a fried, greasy bacon-double-cheeseburger is ... the bun.

I remember when my stepfather briefly tried this approach to dieting, and ended up in the emergency room with kidney failure days later. Sure, it could have been a coincidence, but ...

Moral of the story, of course, is that there's no such thing as an easy diet. Well, at least for now. I'm still holding out hope for the brownies-and-Diet Coke plan -- nobody's debunked that yet!

... comes by way of this Associated Press piece, which, unfortunately, found its way into today's Daily News. Let's start with the first 3 grafs:

WASHINGTON - Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.

"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.

The report, which was based on a review of research into teen sexual behavior, was being released today by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Anyone notice that the author makes sure to call the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy "nonpartisan" twice? "Nonpartisan" apparently being some sort of synonym for "objective."

But we have to get to the no-man's land of the bottom of the story before finding out:

The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiation of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.

Oh, the study "sought to debunk" one side of the debate's "myths." Gee, you would have thought from the lead that this was an objective attempt to wade through the facts, then arrive at a conclusion. Instead, we learn, there was an agenda from the get-go.

There's more:

The sponsors of the study praised Kirby for his "thorough research" and for being "fair and evenhanded," but they also acknowledged that ETR Associates developed and markets several of the sex education curricula reviewed in the report. Several of the previous studies that were reviewed also were written by Kirby.

So this is merely a study of previous studies, conducted by the author of many of those studies himself. Said author is also an employee of a company that publishes sex-ed curricula. And, amazingly, he seems to have found that his employer's curricula were highly successful, but its competitors' were not. Wow, what a shock. Next thing you know, the AP will be running stories like, "Coke Study Finds Americans Hate Pepsi," "NRA Research Shows Gun Laws Don't Work," or "Clinton Campaign Report Shows that Obama is a Doofus."

This is a textbook case of slanted journalism: Load the headline and the lead, and save the discrediting info for the bottom -- that way no one will see it, but no one can say you left it out, either.

For the record, I don't doubt that abstinence-only programs are of limited value -- there's only so much schools can do in the face of an entire culture sending exactly the opposite message. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the "comprehensive" approach to sex-ed is doing any good. If it were, one if five California youths wouldn't have an STD.

Toon of the day:

-- RJ Matson, Roll Call

Now we have conclusive proof!

I'm not sure whose sellout is more pathetic. On the one hand, you have a supposed leader of a sizable portion of conservative, evangelical Christians giving his imprimatur to a candidate whose positions most conservative, evangelical Christians would rightly find abhorrent. But on the other, you have a supposedly independent-minded candidate pandering to a crackpot religious leader with a long history of stupid statements.

For all the media hype, I don't think Robertson's endorsement will help Giuliani one bit.

Among Christians, Robertson's influence has been in steady decline for 20 years. I can't imagine very many would hold their noses and vote for Rudy just because Pat says so. Meanwhile, all the social liberals who find Rudy the most palatable of the Republicans might now be feeling a little less comfortable with him. So he easily stands to lose as many votes as he could gain.

The real effect of this endorsement probably won't be to make Giuliani seem more acceptable to conservative Christians, but to make Robertson seem less so. And that's a good thing.

Don't mean to join Mariel in a Steve Poizner lovefest, but it's hard not to be impressed with the battle our plucky insurance commissioner has gladly take on for himself.

A few weeks back, there was some speculation that Poizner -- who hopes to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in 2011 -- was looking for a campaign issue to create some buzz and excitement about himself. Back then, the thought was that he would try to increase access to auto insurance -- a bad idea, because it would have inevitably touched upon the third rail of immigration.

But in the meantime Poizner has come up with a far better cause. Rather than craft a popular ballot proposition that will excite voters, he's decided to fight an unpopular one that will enrage them.

Poizner has agreed to head up the campaign to stop Proposition 93 -- the anti-term limits initiative that state legislators crafted in a desperate attempt to remain in power. And not only will he be the "no" campaign's spokesman, he'll also put in an initial $1.5 million of his own money -- and perhaps more as the campaign winds on -- to defeat Fabian Nunez and Don Perata's job-protection scheme.

This is huge. Although Proposition 93 is the sort of politician-friendly legislation that usually offends voters, Sacramento has carefully labored to disguise its true purpose. Dishonest ballot language makes the measure look like it would strengthen term limits, when in it would really undermine them. If that sounds familiar, it's because Los Angeles' elected leaders pulled the same trick last year when they duped voters into approving Measure R.

Like Measure R, Proposition 93 was not only crafted to deceive, but it's also backed by a big-money campaign funded by every special interest imaginable. Nunez and Perata must have figured this would be easy. All they had to do was sow confusion through an expensive ad campaign -- expecting to face a nominal, penniless opposition -- and, voila, they would get to keep their offices for a few more years.

Now their victory is far from assured. If Poizner pours enough money into the "no" campaign, he'll be able to expose Proposition 93 for what it is. And the more the public knows about this measure, the more it's likely to oppose it.

Already, the failure of the legislature to accomplish much of anything this year has soured voters to 93 -- as has news about Nunez's lavish lifestyle, shady political relationships, and sketchy "charitable" endeavors. According to the latest Field Poll, support for Proposition 93 has dropped 10 points since August, falling below the majority necessary to win approval.

Give Poizner credit: He's shrewd, choosing just the right issue at just the right time, with high prospects for victory. He's also gutsy. By taking on Proposition 93, he makes himself persona non grata among all his peers in Sacramento. (Schwarzenegger, by contrast, has diplomatically yet to offer any position on the initiative.)

But isn't that what being a populist is all about -- standing strong against a self-serving establishment in support of the people? Here's what Poizner has to say about the pro-93 camp: "Instead of focusing on the issues Californians care about, like education, health care, jobs and the economy, these politicians are more concerned with protecting their political backsides."

Take that, Fabian and Don! Steve Poizner is about to become a California populist hero -- at the expense of your political careers.

See that bored Turkish soldier? He's just hanging out on the border with Iraq, waiting for the word to go in and rout the Kurdistan Workers' Party. It seems that word will come any moment, but there may have been far too many words -- at least public ones:

"...With the Turkish government talking openly for weeks about the likelihood of an attack, the official said intelligence information shows the guerrillas have been evacuating their camps and melting away into cities and other regions.

...In northern Iraq, Osman Ocalan, brother of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, told AP some fighters had moved toward Iran, and that there were now more PKK fighters there than in northern Iraq."

Well, that's a pain, huh? Is Turkey going to attack Iran?

Therein lies my problem with modern warfare, where plans are hashed out on cable news before the first tank even shifts into gear. If Turkey pulled off that rare thing nowadays known as a surprise attack, the rebels would still be tucked into their little border camps: Wham, bam, bye-bye. But extended, public discussion following Turkey's first statement of intent to attack has given the PKK militants the opportunity to blend into cities, where strikes would ensure civilian casualties. And you'd better believe they'd have safe haven in Iran until Turkey was finished attacking northern Iraq, ready to slip back -- and be poised for more border attacks on the Turks -- as soon as the coast is clear.

Turkey may want to open a can on the PKK, but their delays have just opened up new cans of worms.

He might be from that other valley up in the Bay Area, but Insurance Commissioner is acting the Valley boy. He clearly sees a way to make a name for himself -- by opposing nearly all the pols in Sacramento. According to this Sacramento Bee story, Poizner is going to lead the opposition to the February term limit initiative using some of his own personal fortune.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced Tuesday that he will lead the opposition to the term limits measure on the Feb. 5 ballot, including spending an initial $1.5 million of his own money.

Poizner, a Republican who spent millions of his own money to win election as insurance commissioner in 2006, made the announcement across the street from the Capitol.

Poizner's cash infusion and opposition to the term limits measure, known as Proposition 93, comes on the same day that the No on 93 campaign reported a $1.5 million contribution from U.S. Term Limits, a Virginia-based national term limits advocacy group.

Hard-pressed to raise the billions it would take to finance a statewide universal health benefit, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has retreated to that liberal favorite -- the cigarette tax. Legislative Democrats' newest health plan would raise taxes on smokes to $2 a pack. This is good politics, bad policy.

It's good politics because smokers make up a small, disliked minority for whom no one feels much sympathy. Oh sure, there are plenty of other groups engaged in risky behavior that carries a public health cost -- fatties, the sexually promiscuous, motorcyclists, football players, pornographers and speeders, to name just a few -- but too many of us fall into at least one of these categories. The politicians would have a hard time raising taxes on most other dangerous activities because the opposition would be too large and too fierce.

Smokers, on the other hand, make for an an easy target. There aren't many of them any more, and besides, they're a state-designated pariah -- one of a few groups of people we can still judge with impunity in this, our tolerant and non-judgmental society.

Besides, if we make cigarettes too expensive, people will quit smoking, right?

Well, perhaps, but you can rest assured that's not what Nunez has in mind. After all, if too many Californians quit smoking, there would be no cigarette-tax revenues to fund universal health care. That's why whenever government contemplates a hike in tobacco taxes, officials always choose exactly the amount that will produce the highest revenues -- not the most quitters.

Long-term, what happens when the state enacts an expensive entitlement that requires sizable portions of the population to engage in unhealthy behavior to pay for it? Will Sacramento want to rein in its anti-smoking education efforts? More likely, when there are no longer enough smokers around to pay the bills (they have a tendency to die off), the state will be desperate to come up with the funds elsewhere. And that will be a challenge, to say the least, given that Sacramento already struggles to balance its books. (Indeed, check out this sound clip, in which Nunez laments about how bad the state's budget situation is.)

What's funny is that throughout the legislature's health-care wrangling, the Democratic leadership has opposed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan because it ostensibly imposes too great a burden on the "poor" (broadly defined). But it's the poor who make up a disproportionate portion of smokers, and thus the poor who would carry a disproportionate share of the burden under Nunez's plan. (The poor would also have a much harder time shelling out an extra $2 a pack than, say, Nunez and his high-living pals.)

But somebody has to pay for free health care, darnit, and taxing smokers has always worked before.

So keep on smoking. And if you don't smoke, start. Your health depends on it.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. Look up in the sky. It’s a falling cow.

It’s just not safe to go anywhere, or be anywhere. Charles and Linda Everson were minding their own business when their minivan was struck by a falling cow. The cow had fallen (or was she pushed?) off a 200-foot high cliff. The cow weighed in at about 600 lbs. A more exact weight would have been difficult to ascertain, the cow having lost both liquid and solid weight as the result of the fall. Still, about 600 lbs of cow falling 200 ft can put a dent in your day in your van and in the cow.

This is what happens when cows jump over the moon but don’t think through their landing. Needless to say. The scene on the ground was udder chaos.

The Gravel at work. Democratic Presidential hopeful, former Alaska Sen Mike Gravel talks about his campaign in Concord, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007, after filing his declaration of candidacy papers to have his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire presidential primary.(AP Photo/Jim Cole)

I thought I was keeping up with the presidential primary races, until I took ABC's Match-o-matic, and online candidate quiz. According to the questions I asked, my first pick should be Mike Gravel, my second Dennis Kucinich and my third, John McCain. The obvious reaction is, WTF!!?? Who the heck is Mike Gravel and why does he sound made up?

Gravel, it turns out, is a real person. I know this because he has a Web site. And if it's on the internets, it's no doubt true. Plus, AP has photos of him, os that makes it official. Gravel, it turns out, is a former senator from Alaska, which explains why I'd never heard of him. He's running for the Democratic primary. You can read about him on his MySpace page, his Facebook profile, or his meetup.com page. Plus, he has some stuff on YouTube.

I'm not going to though. I don't are how much he stands for issue that I support, I can't ever imagine saying the words "President Gravel."

The news that City Councilman Bernie Parks wants to raid funding for his for his former department brings to mind this ediorial, which the Daily News ran back on June 15:

BERNIE, before we go any further, know that we're doing this because we respect you. You have too much to give (and the city has too many problems) to waste time and energy seeking personal vindication.

The problem, Bernie -- is it OK if we call you Bernie? OK, Chief Parks.

The problem, Chief -- scratch that. You're not chief of the Los Angeles Police Department any more. Haven't been for five years. You're now a member of the Los Angeles City Council, and that's a much better job, really. You were elected to this position by the people, not just appointed by a bunch of political hacks.

The problem, Councilman, is your obsession with Police Chief William Bratton.

Five years ago, Mayor James Hahn, acting gutlessly, refused to re-appoint you as chief and hired Bratton instead. And since you've joined the council, hardly a week has passed without your criticizing Bratton about something.

You blast the way he manages the department. You were indignant about the May Day melee. Whenever Bratton produces statistics showing how crime has dropped since you were chief, you quibble about the methodology....

The problem isn't your concerns, Councilman, it's -- well, it's you....

Let's be honest: You are not an objective party on this question. You have a personal stake in this issue. Getting dropped for Bratton had to smart, and it's understandable that you would want history to remember that move as a mistake.

But when we get consumed with history, we lose sight of the present.

When the public hears you criticizing Bratton, it thinks -- fairly or not -- sour grapes. In the court of public opinion, you've been deemed ineligible to sit on Bratton's jury, due to a conflict of interest....

You have much to offer Los Angeles, as a veteran of the LAPD and city politics, and now as a city councilman. There is too much good you can achieve to get bogged down in old battles.

So Councilman, do yourself and us all a favor, get over it. Let's get it on with the task of making L.A. work for the people.

National Review Online asked for my weirdest and wackiest (well, bravest, at least) prediction for the 2008 election, about a year from now, for today's expert symposium. Here was my response:

"Mike Huckabee wins over America’s hearts without a hundred million billion dollars in the bank. Huckabee also wins in a landslide a Gallup poll asking if voters would rather chug a brewski at a backyard barbecue with him or Hillary Clinton. Pervez Musharraf breathes a sigh of relief knowing that Barack Obama won’t be around to jack up his country any more than it already is; Iran weeps salty tears for their great loss. Dennis Kucinich moves to Roswell, New Mexico, to be closer to his peeps. Ron Paul becomes a greeter at Wal-Mart."

Let me add to that: "Bridget ducks and covers as the pissy Paul posse bombards her with ornery e-mails for daring to make a joke about their lord and master."

Check out my column today about carrots and sticks, Barack Obama's dunderheaded grasp of foreign policy, and the reality about a lil' regime called the Islamic Republic of Iran:

"Abbas Khorsandi has a dream of democracy.

In 2004, the economics professor in the Iranian town of Firouzkouh was arrested for helping form the Democratic Party of Iran, along with five other activists located in different cities around the country. Khorsandi was tortured and warned to stop his democracy activism, and was released on bail a few months later after suffering a heart attack.

Khorsandi On Sept. 17, the 50-year-old with two small children was arrested again, taken to the notorious Ward 209 of Evin Prison, where it is believed that those who go in stand a much slimmer chance of coming out alive. Charged with taking action against the security of the government and establishing an illegal organization (political party), Khorsandi has been allowed no legal representation and his wife, who has been told to stop coming to the courthouse to inquire about her husband, has only received information about him through another inmate, a human-rights activist who received a five-minute trial with no representation.

Khorsandi's situation, we're told, is 'grave,' and the only way to save the life of a man with no trial date and whose case is shrouded in morbid silence is to 'make noise.'

Iran has been on the lips of a bigger and richer Democratic Party, the one here in the U.S. Sen. Barack Obama last week expressed his eagerness to meet directly with Iranian leaders to 'engage in aggressive personal diplomacy.'

...'There are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior,' he said. These bribes could include membership in the World Trade Organization and backing off any aims of 'regime change' - in other words, hanging the Khorsandis out to dry.

Would Obama, swiftly becoming the master of confounding foreign policy, have the campfire singalong with Iran before or after he attacks Pakistan?..."

Read the whole thing!

Also worth noting: On the "Today" show last week, Obama lifted up China as a model example of the value of diplomatic gestures in ensuring progress. There was no indication of the senator believing we should hang our heads in shame for extending a hand to a regime that still leads the world in executions, political prisoners, forced re-education through labor, heinous violations of reproductive rights and religious rights, and the incarceration of journalists and bloggers for exercising free speech.

I find myself delighted by the hint that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg might just run for president after all, and that if he does, he's prepared to spend $1 billion on the effort. The reason isn't that I'm a big fan of Bloomberg -- I'm not -- but I'm intrigued by what could happen if we had a four-candidate race in November.

Yes, I said four (credible) candidates. Various Christian Republicans have already hinted at staging an independent bid should Rudy Giuliani get the GOP nod. And if that happened -- and Bloomberg entered the fray -- we could have four fairly big-name candidates.

Unlike previous third-party bigs -- think Ross Perot or Ralph Nader -- here the spoilers would likely offset each other. The pro-life candidate would probably siphon off GOP votes, but Bloomberg -- a longtime Democrat before becoming a Republican for purely practical reasons -- would likely take away Democrat votes (especially if Hillary Clinton is the Dems' choice). For that matter, Giuliani would also probably attract some moderate Democrats to his campaign, while scaring some moderate Republicans Hillary's way.

Which is to say, with four candidates, everything would be up for grabs. There would be far more in-play states. And the election, then, could just become more than the usual attempt to win over the narrow 10 percent that's undecided, but a wide, free-ranging debate on a host of issues.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

The San Francisco Chronicle has a wonderfully entertaining piece about two Berkeley 20-somethings who decided to open a "medical" marijuana business, which they named "Compassionate Collective of Alameda County."

Well, compassion has been good to these guys. Their business grossed $26.3 million in the first six months of this year alone. But dealing drugs is tricky business, as the Chronicle reports:

Two years ago, on Super Bowl Sunday, a team of armed hoods busted into the dispensary, tied everyone up and robbed the place of about $50,000.

Four months later, a masked gunman fired four shots into a dispensary worker's car as he pulled into the parking lot. The worker hit the gas and plowed through a fence to make his getaway.

In July of this year, one of the club's customers was ambushed and killed at a nearby gas station and his pot taken.

And this past February, the brothers themselves were involved in a shootout at a Fremont hotel.

"These girls lured them to a party through MySpace," Rosenthal said. "Six guys showed up heavily armed and the bullets started flying."

Both brothers were wounded, and both have had to undergo repeated operations.

I'm all in favor of giving marijuana to sick people who can truly use it, but with dopers getting rich, bogus prescriptions gladly written, and crime following, could it be any more clear that the medical-marijuana experiment in California has failed?

Long live the writers! I hardly ever disagree with Mariel Garza, but...The current strike may seem self-destructive, as so many writers probably seem to most civilians—or as the Trades call them “Non-pros.” However the strike is about something. I know it may seem to be adversarial, but It is really about continuing a partnership between writers and producers.

Now most writers—for papers, news and opinion don’t get residuals. We write. We sell. We reap our small rewards. Many papers and magazines do not even allow us to reprint our own materials or collect a new fee if a piece is collected in an anthology.

Fiction writers would seem to have all the luck—getting new fees when shows are re-run. But what about when a show is re-marketed in another medium? What should happen when the show written for ABC goes to cable, or to the internet or the iPod? The producers continue to sell the product and profit, but the writers get nothing. Does this seem fair?

The system of residuals creates a partnership that shares both risk and benefits between the producers and the writers. A single fee system does not distinguish between the flop and the meg-success. A large fee up-front would be a wasted investment in a flop. But a relatively modest fee up front and shared bounty of a hit makes writers work at their best, share the risk and share the rewards.

If the show doesn’t go to syndication, no residuals. If no one downloads it, no fee. Residuals really create the ultimate market-based meritocracy. Why if I had a nickel for everyone who read this, why, I’d have a nickel.

“I am sick and tired of people like you and the phony and fake Al Sharpton who go after white people who say something you don't like and then using the excuse...it degrades black women, etc.”

That was one of the tamer emails I got when I called for A&E Television to cancel outright the Dog the Bounty Hunter show. We all know by now what round em up and bring back alive Duane Chapman aka the Bounty Hunter did to get the temporary ax. He let fly a “B” and “N” word laced rant and borderline threatening oaths at his son for having the temerity to date a black woman. A&E “suspended” production of the show. That was a weak, tepid, and vacillating response. And I told why. Dog’s comments about black women are more than just gender and racially demeaning and hurtful to black women. They are a vicious attack on and call to end interracial relations, as well as an incitement to violence. Dog the Bounty Hunter’s’ statement was far more damaging than shock jock Don Imus’s.

I frontally challenged A&E and said that suspension of the show is not enough. A&E can send the strong message that the sentiments he expressed will not be tolerated by immediate cancellation of the show.

The suspension I also said is simply a cover your butt holding action by A& E that left the door wide open for Dog to climb back on the airwaves. That prospect was even more real and fresh in mind with the announcement the day before by Citadel Broadcasting that shock Jock Don Imus had cut a deal with the network and would be back on board December 3. A&E might and probably would do the same once the furor died down. The reason is simple. Dog tinkles the cash registers for A&E. It’s a network that in the past few years has transformed itself from a station that prided itself on high brow, educational faire into a channel that now routinely churns out reality type schlock to makes a buck.

But the near hysterical defense of Dog and the bile emails this writer got has nothing to do with A&E or even the hunt down the bad guys thrill and titillation of Dog the Bounty Hunter. It has everything to do with the blame the victim with a vengeance mania of far too many whites toward blacks. Think about it. If Dog were black and had unloosed a string of expletive laced white “B”s at his son for dating a white woman, there would have been a national outcry. A&E would have instantly and permanently pulled the plug on the show. And the Dog would have never in this life graced any studio in America.

There would have been no talk of forgiveness, or let by gones be by gones, and he’s suffered enough prattle.

He would have been the enduring fount of evil and eternal symbol of bigotry and intolerance. Just ask former Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington or ex NFL superstar Michael Vick.

Dog issues a contrite statement, and a belated apology, and his manic defenders wail that he’s touts Christian redemption. That’s more than enough for them to bestow total absolution on him if not make him into an honored figure that has suffered enough. Then in the even more perverse and bizarre twist, leap at the chance to fling the standard name calls of demagogue, race baiter and clown at perennial punching bag Al Sharpton for blasting Dog’s tirade.

Washington and Vick did the same tear jerk mea culpa as Dog but it didn’t soften any public hearts toward them. It shouldn’t with Dog either.

I support the right for Hollywood writers to go on strike. Hell, anyone has the right to go on strike if they feel like it. But it's hard to get too much sympathy for people who make six figures. I realize that comparative to other talent in the industry, it's peanuts. Still these aren't minimum wage workers just trying to put on the table for their two kids working for multi-national companies. They are mostly well-off white men who can afford to take six months off, lounge around with a sign and have celebrities bring you treats.

Amid the gaggle of news vans, TV crews and reporters, Jay Leno even rode up on his Harley to pass out Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

"The mood among us is good," said Peter Sears, a writer for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "The union is united. The public can sense that we're all together. It's for a very just cause."

At Sony Pictures in Culver City, Steve Skrovan, a writer for the sitcom, "Til Death," said that he didn't expect there to be much sympathy for writers, who he acknowledged do make good livings, with some earning triple digits, but he said he and others were fighting for future generations of writers.

"They can make it because others have fought," said the 50-year-old from La Crescenta. "We're trying to preserve middle class jobs."

He said he has money saved up and was was prepared to picket for several months.

Still, you gotta admire their grit to stand up to an imposing, powerful and imperious industry like Hollywood.

Got another defensive press release from California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez's office today, this one from a tax expert purporting to show that Nunez's money-laundering racket charitable efforts are on the up and up:

"Clearly, Speaker Nunez is involved in community charity events, as are virtually all political figures at the local, state or national level. The real question is whether the events truly benefited the children and the community. If the facts bear that out, then the IRS is unlikely to have a concern."

--Marcus S. Owens
Caplin & Drysdale
Washington, DC

Translation: "If Nunez's efforts were legal, then he didn't break the law!"

Sounds pretty equivocal to me ...

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Supermodel Naomi "Duck, I'm Armed with a Phone" Campbell, who's now up on the wall of shame with Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey and Sean Penn.

Meanwhile, thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets to protest Chavez's constitutional changes that could extend his rule indefinitely, nix the autonomy of universities, and shove socialism even more down everyone's throats by labeling land as community property. Naomi might better recognize these grass-roots demonstrators standing up for democracy as the "little people."

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's the best way to sum up the situation for Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan right now. Musharraf says he had to declare a state of emergency -- suspending the constitution, ousting the chief justice, blacking out independent media -- because Islamic extremists have spread across the country, infiltrated Islamabad and endanger national stability. Those reasons are all true, and dangerously so. But they're also not things that have happened in the past week. As I wrote back in a July column, Musharraf's containment policy of "see no evil, hear no evil" with the al-Qaida and Taliban sympathizers in the North West Frontier Province has been a miserable failure. But even then, when making the decisions that have come back to haunt him, he was pressured to not piss off the populace too much, because he risked driving Pakistanis into the arms of the anti-U.S. Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition that would enforce Sharia law with a vengeance.

Musharraf is heavy-handed and has no problem acting like a jackass. He's also mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore, particularly as his rule is threatened by the chief justice who, Musharraf states, has headed a court that's freed 61 terrorists. Again, that's not a stretch to believe. It's not easy to cast judgment on Musharraf in the middle of such a mess. After all, the alternative to Musharraf and Bhutto (who also recently narrowly escaped death in a bombing that killed scores) is havoc, oppression, and summer camp for terrorists -- not tucked away in Waziristan.

Ahhh, so California:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger learned the art of political negotiation in a setting that's oh so California — soaking in his backyard hot tub. Keynoting a gathering of Silicon Valley business leaders Friday, the Republican governor explained how his wife — former television news anchor Maria Shriver — came to support his 2003 gubernatorial bid.

'We were sitting in the Jacuzzi. I said, "Maria, here's an idea. What do you think about this, me running for governor?"' Schwarzenegger said to peals of laughter. 'I said, "There's a recall, there's only a 2-month campaign. I think we can work our way through this two months and then I'm governor — isn't that great?'"

After the laughter died down, Schwarzenegger turned solemn.

'In all seriousness, she had tears in her eyes. I had to work on her for 14 days,' Schwarzenegger said. 'That's where I learned to negotiate — bringing Democrats and Republicans together right there in the Jacuzzi.'"

Hot tub negotiations, of course, can be taken a few steps further beyond the bubbly water to solve all sorts of problems:

NEGOTIATING HEALTH CARE REFORM: Add a nice pinot noir and some fresh fruit.

BALANCING THE STATE BUDGET: Add some candles and Barry White music.

IMMIGRATION REFORM: A nice toe-tingling massage should do the trick.

This is an outrage. How dare the Democrats refuse to certify Stephen Colbert for the presidential primary in South Carolina? He had the money. He has the name recognition. On what basis do they rule him out?

You say because he’s a comedian. Well, okay but if he were a serious actor like Fred Thompson, Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger (Oh, bad example of serious actor), Colbert would be okay? Is this the usual prejudice against comics and why comedies seldom get Academy Awards?

If our political parties start deciding who gets on based on seriousness or intelligence, there will be no candidates. If they base this on Colbert revealing the process to be a sham and a farce and a mockery, they’ll get found out anyway.

If we start refusing to certify candidates who are clearly certifiable… Well, never mind, fill in your own joke here. Anyone who wants to run, needs to run and is willing to raise the money and submit to the public proctoscopy certainly ought to be certified.

You either surf, or you die. That'll have those landlocked trainees from Afghanistan singing like canaries!

First there was Scott Peterson bumping off pregnant wife Laci. Now there's 53-year-old Sgt. Drew Peterson, whose third wife mysteriously drowned in the bathtub in 2004 after leaving the telltale "just in case something happens to me" notes about her bad marriage, and whose 23-year-old (creepy, anyone?) fourth wife Stacy is now missing.

And speaking of Amber Frey's ex-boyfriend, now on Death Row, the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled this week that Scott Peterson cannot inherit Laci's $250,000 insurance policy. DUH!! How did this claim even get this high in the legal chain?

Apropos of, oh, nothing in particular, the office of California's own Public Official of the Year, Fabian Nunez, has released the following statement:

"As a community leader, I partner with dozens of charities in my district to enrich the lives of those in need. The only ones benefiting from these charitable contributions are the kids in my district."

So there you have it. That's why operations such as Zenith Insurance Co., AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc., the California Hospital Assn. (which also indirectly pays the salary of Nunez's wife) , the state prison guards union, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Blue Cross of California have all given money to events with names like "Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's Toy Drive," "Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's Soccerfest 2006," "Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's Inaugural Legislative Youth Conference" and "Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's Sacramento Student Summit."

Whatever you say, boss!

Al Jazeera reported today that Syria claims that they were bombed, not by Israel but by the United State. Israel, they said, only flew cover. Not only were they bombed by the U.S. but our planes were carrying tactical nuclear weapons.

This is another example of a plausible lie going one sentence too far and becoming a risible lie. The decision making process to put our air force at risk on a military mission over Syria would be involved. It would be a very major change in policy. But to put any kind of nuclear device into an operational war theatre would be monumental—and very unlikely not to leak.

Flying into battle with nukes is not done lightly. One would have to have a problem, an issue, a threat that could only be met by the use of nuclear weapons, where conventional big bombs and bunker-busters couldn’t work.

Syria posed no such challenge. You see the thing about making nuclear weapons operational is that you have to be ready and willing to use them. You don’t fly in with them just in case you might need them. Letting that horrible Genii out of the bottle will not be done lightly—not even by this government.

Safe Assumptions for understanding Arab State press releases.
1. They are lying in general.
2. They are lying about what happened.
3. They are lying about what they did.
4. They are lying about what their attackers did.
5. They are lying about what those who were not their attackers did.
6. They will claim that America did it.
7. They will claim that Israel operates America as a puppet master.
8. The world is run by AmericanZionistCrusaders. (n.b. This is one world like Valley Ohmygod!)

We can give Michael Mukasey this much credit: Unlike Alberto Gonzales, he isn't a liar. When it comes to the subject of torture, he's not lying -- he's just evasive. So, in at least this one respect, he would be an improvement at the Justice Department.

But that doesn't mean he's fit for the job.

Mukasey finds his nomination in peril because he has been trying to do before the Senate what the Bush Administration has done for years before the American public -- deny charges of torture by redefining the term. It's a Clintonian type of word-parsing with horrific implications: "We get to define the word 'torture.' Our definition excludes anything we do. Therefor, we do not torture."

If only we all could take such liberties with the language: "I wasn't speeding, officer. It was an enhanced driving technique!"

So Mukasey plays dumb on the question of waterboarding, pretending that he doesn't know whether simulated execution by drowning qualifies as torture. That way, should he get confirmed, the administration can keep on doing it, and he can say, with a straight face, "We don't commit (what I have on the record defined as) torture."

Lest anyone, like Mukasey (or Rudy Giuliani), harbor any doubt as to the morality of waterboarding, consider what Sen. John McCain -- who knows a thing or two about torture, has to say on the subject:

... if you gave people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating. The effects of most beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal. In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture, very exquisite torture

That Mukasey is unable or unwilling to say as much means he's unqualified for the office he seeks. It is the attorney general's job to define the application of the law. Mukasey's refusal to do so in this instance will only foster a climate of lawlessness, which is the last thing you want out of any elected official, let alone the nation's top lawyer.

And President Bush's defense of Mukasey -- "It doesn't make any sense to tell an enemy what we're doing" -- is preposterous. Bush says all the time that we don't torture. Is that telling the enemy "what we're doing"?

Well, in a sense, it cold be -- if Bush were actually telling the truth.

Irving, my father in law, just got a new credit card. Not such a big deal you say? Well, the fact that he has been dead for over thirty years, really got our attention. I know that both corporations and the Feds can pursue us beyond the grave to collect debts, but I didn’t realize that good credit could also call to corporate America from the grave.

Of course, we immediately called the card’s fraud division, fearing identity theft. They assured us that he was still a good and reliable customer with a faultless credit rating. He might even qualify for a higher credit limit with such a spotless record. No outstanding balance. No late charges for the late Irving. No charges at all. You’d think that after 30 years this might have gotten their attention. I guess they were too busy investing in bad loans.

When we asked for an explanation, they vamped that this was a converted account from an old charge card he’d had with Macy’s. We pointed out that at the time of his demise there was no Macy’s in Los Angeles and he never had a charge card—not even for gas.

We know that throughout this great country of ours the dead are so, well, dedicated that they still vote. But now we also know that they can still get a charge out of life.

When the furor over shock jock Don Imus rose to crescendo noise, and the calls for Imus’s scalp pouring in, and sponsors and CBS poised to jump the Imus ship, I predicted that Imus would not go. The prediction seemed wrong-headed and foolhardy, since within days afterwards Imus was indeed canned. I did not back away from my prediction. I knew that his presumed dismissal was little more than a cover your butt salve (by CBS executives), a cooling off period (for the sponsors), and a rest full hiatus for Imus. The moment the noise died down, so would the issue of Imus. I gave two reasons why, and those reasons are just as valid, maybe even more so with his return to the airwaves December 3, now, than at the time of his vacation. I’ll also add one more to the list.

The reasons tell much about why the Imus’s of radio land can prattle off foul remarks about gays, blacks, Latinos Asians, Muslims, and women and skip away with a caressing hand slap. The first reason is that these guys ramp up ratings and that makes the station’s cash registers jingle. Imus’s MSNBC show drew an average of more than 350,000 viewers. Nielson Media Research noted that it was a leap of nearly 40 percent over the same period in 2006. Citadel Broadcasting which will bring Imus back hungrily anticipates that Imus will do the same for it. Top execs at WABC, Citadel’s flagship New York radio station where Imus will resurface, were in delirium at getting Imus back in front of a mic.

Said WABC President and General Manager Steve Borneman. "We are ecstatic to bring Don Imus back to morning radio," "Don's unique brand of humor, knowledge of the issues and ability to attract big-name guests is unparalleled. The operative word is “attract.” That translates to this broadcast industry cash happy formula: Big names=more listeners=higher ratings=bigger sponsor fees=soaring profits.

The other reason why it’s virtually impossible to permanently muzzle Imus and others that talk race trash is the sphinx like silence of top politicians, broadcast industry leaders, and corporate sponsors. GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney and former Democratic presidential contender John Kerry bantered with Imus on his show. Romney never uttered a word condemning Imus. Kerry issued a tepid statement through a spokeswoman in which he merely branded it “a stupid comment” and praised him for owning up to it.

While Kerry and Romney were two of the better known politicians to cackle with and at Imus’s digs on the show, a steady parade of politicians and personalities trooped to Imus’s microphones over the years. And not all of them, as Kerry showed, are hard-line GOP conservatives. Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain leaped over each other to get a spot with Imus.

They’ll do it again. In fact, several of the top presidential contenders have already said that they will appear on his show. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were the only ones that said no—for now. But even that could change. After a few weeks on the air, the kinder gentler Imus that almost surely will emerge at least while the eyes and ears are on him may prove too irresistible for even them to resist gracing the studio with him. Both of them are locked in an intense dogfight for the Democratic presidential nomination, and the hunger for any media exposure is insatiable.

The other reason that Imus is back on the air is ironically due to the man that led the charge to get him off the air, the Reverend Al Sharpton. The prospect of an angry Sharpton descending on CBS corporate offices was too much. The reverend in effect energized and galvanized public opinion against Imus, terrified sponsors, and badly shook CBS executives. But during the cooling off period, whenever Sharpton was asked about a possible Imus return, he sounded less convincing that he’d still go to the barricades to keep him off the air permanently. He never said that he didn’t want him to make a living in broadcasting. That was taken as a tacit signal that it was OK for the broadcast moguls to deal with Imus again.

Now that Imus is back, here’s another prediction. Imus cut the deal to appear on WABC. There was no mention that he would be spread out over the Citadel’s broadcast map. But he will. It’s only a matter of a very short time before Imus’s show will be back in syndication on other stations, just like before.

I also said that it’s probably not a bad thing that Imus is back from vacation. In a perverse way, Imus is a sort of the O.J. Simpson of the airwaves. He’s a useful symbol of malfeasance in the industry and thus a constant reminder to others that if they cross the line of propriety they can be a target too. Welcome back Don!

Apparently when he's not busy calling guests down on "The Price Is Right," Drew Carey moonlights for the libertarian Reason Foundation, for which he has produced the following video in support of "medical" marijuana. (Local nerds take note: The video includes appearances from Sheriff Lee Baca's own personal flak, Steve Whitmore!)

What's funny about this video is that, once again, seriously ill people are trotted out in what is really just an effort to legalize pot wholesale. (The Reason libertarians would be happy to legalize all drugs for everyone, but of course the video makes no mention of that.) We are just shown sick, suffering people, and are told that these are the beneficiaries of "medicinal" marijuana.

But then we are taken into a marijuana bar, where we see the stuff doled on in a manner that's decidedly non-medicinal, with pot goodies and with the herb sold under brand names like "Friday Night Special." But really, this is just for sick people. It's medicine, we swear.

I write this, by the way, as someone who supports legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, and maybe even recreational ones, too. But I'm disgusted with how disingenuously this debate has played out, with the dopers using cancer patients as Trojan horses.

The dopers duped California, and it worked -- they got de-facto legalization. But in so doing, they squandered whatever credibility they ever once had.

(* "Let's Make a Dope Deal" is a classic Cheech & Chong bit. Listen to it here.)

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Attentive readers will know that I have been following with borderline obsession the controversy over driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in New York -- because I think we may well be looking at our future. Well, there' s a new wrinkle: JudicialWatch has filed a lawsuit to block Gov. Eliot Spitzer's program.

Don't roll your eyes. Californians know all too well about the power of a lawsuit to derail political action (remember Prop. 187?). And upon cursory reading, opponents seem to have a case. Current New York law requires those applying for a driver's license to provide an SSN. At issue in this case is whether the governor can override that law by way of a directive, or whether the law would need to be amended by the Legislature.

But the bigger story is that this is an issue arousing fierce passion -- and persistence. No number of defeats here in California has stopped state Sen. Gil Cedillo and his supporters from continuing to push for licenses for illegal immigrants. And in New York, opponents are throwing every roadblock they can think of to stop Gov. Spitzer from making it a reality.

The fight is only getting more fierce, and there's no end in sight.

I would not say that Hillary can’t win. I will say that she probably won’t.

The conventional wisdom (which is an oxymoron, wisdom seldom being conventional or popular) is that this election is going to the Democrats and is theirs and Hillary’s to lose. I disagree. Democrats are very likely to gain big numbers in the House and Senate. Incumbent Republicans are retiring in record number and in considerable despair. Bush has done for his party what he has done for America.

Hillary, if nominated, as at the moment seems likely, will lose—unless the Republicans run someone completely unacceptable to the center of the country. This is possible, and it is the key to the election.

I am not a Hillary hater. She is clearly bright, skilled and polished. I’ll let others rehearse her flaws. I like Hillary but not as a candidate.

She will not win—not because of the Hillary haters and the right-wingers who obsess over any and all Clintons. She will not win because of the elastic middle where our elections are won or lost.

Our presidential elections turn on two major factors. Who shows up to vote (or these days who mails it in). If the left sits on their hands, as we did 1964, Humphrey loses and Nixon wins. If the Evangelicals sit on their hands—never mind a third party—and just don’t show up, Hillary could win.

The second factor though is the critical one for Hillary and this election—and that is the middle. The party faithful Republicans and Democrats will vote for the nominee of their respective parties. This will represent about 85 to 90% of ballots cast. The middle: the undecided and unaffiliated usually breaks fairly evenly. They are truly the “deciders.”

With high negatives and some admiration, but without much affection, Hillary may not get her fair share of the middle. But the biggest factor influencing this very small number of people in the middle of the middle will be gender. The polls will not show this. People poll as better than they vote.

Senatorial candidate Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee was leading in the polls, but when push came to shove, too many voters did not vote for an African American. Race made a difference, not simply to conscious bigots but to the middle.

I am afraid that given a plausible social moderate on the Republican side, that in the moment of decision, there will be enough for whom gender makes the decisive difference.

This will come as no surprise to avid readers of Governing Magazine -- both of them -- but the wonky periodical has named California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez a public official of the year. It praises him for his deal-making, his pragmatism, and his all-around swell ways.

Of course, the magazine makes no mention of Nunez's penchant for living the high life on the special interests' dime, or the conflict of interest that is his wife's employment with a front group for the California Hospitals Association. Chances are, the editors put this one to bed well before these scandals broke -- that, or they think personal enrichment is just part of "governing" at its best.

One wonders whom the folks at Governing will choose to honor next. Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona?

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama is the latest to fan the myth that if Hillary Clinton bags the Democratic nomination she’ll drag the Dems down to a flaming defeat in the general election. Obama can be forgiven for fanning the myth. He’s way behind in his dog fight with her for the nomination. Clinton’s run neck and neck with him among black voters, trounces him with Latino voters, has got a bottomless campaign war chest, and the virtual imprimatur of the top cat Democratic Party regulars. Almost certainly barring a monumental bumble she will top him in Iowa, New Hampshire, and probably South Carolina. Obama banks that Hillary bashing will strike a chord with the avowed Hillary haters and doubters—and give him a bump up in the race.

But Obama can also be forgiven for fanning the Hillary can’t win myth for another reason. The myth has grown to near urban myth proportions, and Obama has bought into it. The myth goes like this. The hatred of Hillary and Bill by the gaggle of Republican hatchet men, hard line Christian fundamentalists and legions of veterans in the Bible thumping, flag waving south and the Midwest is near clinical. She’ll drag more heavy negative baggage into the campaign than any other candidate. That ultimately will seal her doom. The myth got an arm shot when Clinton’s former Hollywood pals and bank rollers jumped ship and called her “polarizing” and Christian fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell saber rattled her a couple years ago as the devil incarnate. The 2005 CNN poll that found more voters said they were “more likely” to cast a vote against Hillary than “more likely” to cast a vote for her, and a few early polls showed her getting creamed by Rudy Giuliani in a head to head match etched the myth in stone.

The problem with this pat scenario is that it’s all based solely on innuendo, speculation, and a healthy dose of hate Hillary hope and prayer. But forgotten is that Bill Clinton won four Southern states, twice, and that black and Latino voters make up a significant percent of the vote in North Carolina, Florida, and possibly Georgia. That puts those states in play this election.

Clinton’s prime nemesis, the Christian fundamentalists are fragmented, disillusioned with the Republican sex and corruption scandals, and the GOP’s flop in delivering on their morals agenda. The one man that could galvanize the anti- Hillary flock, and that’s Falwell, is among the dearly departed. No one with his stature and name identification has come remotely close to replacing him. The top gun Republican contenders carry nearly as much baggage as Hillary. Giuliani’s personal life is the stuff of endless gossip and jabs at him for being soft on morals issues are relentless. Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion doesn’t set well with a big swath of voters. Fred Thompson’s Johnny come lately entrance in the race, and muddle of the issues, tags him as a political work in progress

The same polls that show her floundering in popularity and likeability also show that a crushing majority of voters give her high marks on experience. She’s simply been there and been there longer than the other Democrats. Voters are in no mood for on the job training once in the White House. They got burned once with a certain president, and that’s not likely again.

Now there are the polls. They do show Clinton with high negatives. But her far higher popularity and favorability numbers among Democratic voters trumps that. This translates into big voter turnouts on Election Day. While a solid number of black voters will root their lungs out for Obama, if Hillary gets the nomination they will root just as hard for her, and that includes Obama as well as Richardson, and Edwards.

This pretty much renders Obama’s Hillary can’t win myth, just that a myth. But like all myths, especially self-serving ones, expect it to be endlessly recycled.