This is an ugly, smoggy, hot day in Seattle. Beautiful.

Web Sites That Shorten Long URLs: "The following free web sites can take a long URL and give you back a shorter URL without requiring registration. Any of these services will do a good job, but if you want to study them before you pick one, here is an informal survey of the competitive landscape."

Bob Hope one-liners on politics:

"Richard Carlson: 'A zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly, with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.'
Hope: 'You mean like Democrats?'
— from 'The Ghost Breakers' (1940)

Nydia Westman: 'Do you believe in reincarnation, you know, that dead people come back?'
Hope: 'You mean like Republicans?'
— from 'The Cat and the Canary' (1939) "

Poynter Online - The Design Desk: "Are you feeling uninspired? Maybe your work has become routine and doesn't hold your interest. It may be time to get back in touch with the things that first inspired you. The life you build and things you do outside the newsroom are key to being creatively charged in your job. "

Poynter Online - The Design Desk: "If you're still using the Web-safe color palette of 216 colors, here's a better solution -- More Crayons. More Crayons is a site developed by Kirk Franklin that expands the Web-safe palette to a 'Web-smart' palette of 4,096 colors. "

Newspapers should let reporters blog away, says OJR editor: "Online Journalism Review editor Michelle Nicolosi would love to see Orange County Register science reporter Gary Robbins get into blogging. 'He knows so much, he's finding things out all the time' and many items that don't get into the Register would make good blog entries. Nicolosi tells Dan Rohn: 'More papers should think about setting up reporters with blogs. Working on them should be optional -- not mandated -- and reporters should be given the freedom to have a little personality in their blog, to link offsite, to post pretty much as they see fit. If they do a bad job, cancel it.'"

“If hypertext really becomes available, especially in the fancy versions now being talked about -- where words, sounds, video, computer graphics, simulations and more are available at the touch of the screen -- well, it’s hard to imagine anyone capable of preparing the material. It will take teams of people. I predict there will be much experimentation, and much failure, before the dimensions of this new technology are fully explored and understood.” -- Donald A. Norman: The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

How to make a "Golden Section."

What's the "Golden Section"?

Mark Hollis (1998): "Before you play two notes learn how to play one note -- and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it." [via chim chim]

Yet another sharp observation from Robert Scoble: "This is business fundamentals 101. Tim Bray calls it 'sharecropping.' Dave Winer calls it 'building a trunk.' Macromedia calls it 'Flash.' Adobe calls it 'Acrobat.' Microsoft calls it 'Windows.' Intuit calls it 'Quicken.' Borland calls it 'Delphi.' Apple calls it 'iPod.' Sony calls it 'Playstation.' The SF Giants call it 'Barry Bonds.' Wall Street calls it 'revenues and profits.' Mom and dad call it 'stock price went up.'

"No matter what you call it, if you have a ton of happy customers using your stuff and paying you money, your shareholders (er, investors) get happy. So, show me how your requests will help me get more customers. And help me keep the ones I already have."

This war ain't over.

[Your choice] of mass destruction

Am I the only fan of "CBS News Sunday Morning," one of the last watchable news programs on free television? Sure, it's totally soft feature/human interest/arts stories, but isn't that about right on a Sunday morning? A perfect visual accompaniment to reading The New York Times every Sunday morning. The pace of the studio segments, the length of the features, and the quality of writing, all make for a great alternative to all the political talk show blather going on the rest of the morning.

This morning, there was a fascinating story about the Central Park "hawkwatchers," a passionate group of birdwatchers dedicated to following the exploits of one "Pale Male."

The "evil" drug companies:

My wife used to work for an executive at a very large pharmaceutical company during the 90s, and the same assaults were being made against them then. Doug Bandow has some interesting observations on the topic:

"This assault is not new. Drug companies have been under pressure for a decade. When the Clinton administration attempted to nationalize American health care, it sought to demonize the drugmakers as well as most doctors and hospitals.

"Unfortunately, years of demagoguery advanced for political profit are having an impact. Public opinions of the industry have been falling sharply....

"Yet new pharmaceuticals are responsible for almost half of the reduced mortality among different diseases between 1970 and 1991. Columbia University's Frank Lichtenberg figures that every new drug approved during that time saves over 11,000 life-years annually. And the benefits continue. He estimates that fully 40 percent of the increase in average lifespan between 1986 and 2000 is due to new drugs."

Clifford D. May continues: "Precisely which part of that statement isn't true? The British government did say that it believed Saddam had sought African uranium. Is it possible that the British government was mistaken? Sure. Is it possible that Her Majesty's government came by that belief based on an erroneous American intelligence report about a transaction between Iraq and Niger? Yes — but British Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of his Cabinet say that's not what happened.

"They say, according to Britain's liberal Guardian newspaper, that their claim was based on 'extra material, separate and independent from that of the US.'

"I suppose you can make the case that a British-government claim should not have made its way into the president's SOTU without further verification. But why is that the top of the TV news day after day? Why would even the most dyspeptic Bush-basher see in those 16 accurate words of President's Bush's 5,492-word SOTU an opportunity to persuade Americans that there's a scandal in the White House, another Watergate, grounds for impeachment? "

Byron York on Iraq & Democrats & WMDs on National Review Online: "The ad calls for a bipartisan investigation of the issue. It was produced by a group of veterans of the Clinton/Gore administration and several Democratic campaigns.

"The ad begins with the words, 'In his State of the Union address, George W. Bush told us of an imminent threat — ' It then cuts to a video clip of the president saying, 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'

"The ad omits the first words of Bush's statement, which read, in full, 'The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'

"The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it stands behind its intelligence assessment of the African uranium issue."

AP: Dean faces new challenges as campaign picks up momentum: "Raising $7.5 million for his Internet-fueled campaign was the easy part. Now Democrat Howard Dean says he must urgently expand his political machine, broaden his message and soften the rough edges of his personality.

"Although two of his rivals, John Kerry and John Edwards, have collected more money overall, and others have put more cash in reserve, Dean's fund-raising haul from April to June has shaken up a race that now has three distinct tiers of candidates - but no front-runners.

"His foes for the Democratic nomination are sharpening their rhetoric as Dean tries to ensure his momentum doesn't outstrip a relatively immature campaign based in Burlington, Vt."

Newsweek: "You’d think that Howard Dean’s rivals would start attacking him—big time—now that his Internet-based fund-raising prowess has elevated him to what amounts to front-runner status in the Democratic presidential race. But each leading contender has his own strategic reason for laying off, at least until the fall, if not beyond—a scenario that could backfire by allowing Dean a free ride until it’s too late to stop him."

Letter to the SF Chronicle: "Editor -- The constant loss of U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- after the war is 'won' -- is a tragedy. However, if this is what it takes to retire the Bush administration at the next election, the sacrifice is justified." --ARIE L. BLEICHER

Ann Coulter: "Columbia history professor Eric Foner claimed Radosh's book on the Rosenbergs violated the canons of historical scholarship. As any infant knows, one of the canons of historical scholarship is to mindlessly hold as an article of faith the manifestly absurd belief that the Rosenbergs were innocent. It is an affront to good scholarship to suggest otherwise. Most devastatingly, Foner – once president of the American Historical Association – accused Radosh of 'liberal anti-communism.' Other historians have even stooped so low as to call Radosh a 'conservative.' One editor said he believed Radosh was a CIA agent.

"American college students are learning history from people who believe the Rosenbergs were innocent idealists and Radosh is a CIA agent. (How are the grades for students who write term papers saying the Rosenbergs were guilty?)"

Dennis Miller's rant about Democratic presidential field: "And that brings us to Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, who would like nothing better than to mallet a maple syrup tap into the U.S. treasury and spot-weld the valve wide open. Dean can roll up his sleeves in public all he wants, but as long as that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlin's name in it is visible on his right forearm, he's never going to get off the pad. Please, please nominate Howard Dean. Because he'll get his ass handed to him quicker than somebody who just got outpatient liposuction surgery.

"Well, that's the view from the kid's table. Tune in and watch their next debate. The Dems say it's a big tent, and you'll be surprised how many clowns they can fit in that one little car. Got that? I'm Dennis Miller."

Liberal Democrats' Perverse Foreign Policy (Krauthammer in the WPost): "There are the usual suspects, Jesse Jackson and the New York Times, but the most unapologetic proponent of the no-Iraq/yes-Liberia school is Howard Dean, Democratic flavor of the month. 'I opposed the war in Iraq because it was the wrong war at the wrong time,' says Dean, but 'military intervention in Liberia represents an appropriate use of American power.'

Why? In terms of brutality, systematic repression, number of killings, relish for torture and sum total of human misery caused, Charles Taylor is a piker next to Saddam Hussein. That is not to say that Taylor is a better man. It is only to say that in his tiny corner of the world with no oil resources and no scientific infrastructure for developing instruments of mass murder, Taylor has neither the reach nor the power to wreak Hussein-class havoc. What is it that makes liberals such as Dean, preening their humanitarianism, so antiwar in Iraq and so pro-intervention in Liberia?"

Gizmodo : Bone conduction headphones: "You might recall those swimming goggles with a built-in MP3 player we mentioned a few weeks ago that worked by vibrating the sound directly into the skull. Now there's a line of headphones from GrabIT called Vonia that do the same thing using special bone conduction transducers. Looks promising, though they're going to have to change the name of the technology; we'd guess that 'bone conduction' will just sound way too freaky for most people to feel comfortable using it."

Blogs in the Workplace: "For several years Mr. Tang viewed this daily surge of e-mail messages as an unpleasant but necessary part of his job managing a team of eight engineers. Then, a few months ago, he began using an alternative to e-mail, a Web log."

Four-thirds aspect ratio and the new Olympus E-1:

"Four-thirds is a measurement standard used to describe the sizes of 'Vidicon' tubes first used in video cameras. This style of measurement is now used to describe many of the CCDs used in digital cameras, like 1/2, 2/3, and now 4/3. Using this measurement, for example, a 1-inch tube (24.5 mm) will have an imaging area with a diagonal of about 16mm. Using this formula, a chip with a diagonal measurement of about 22.3mm would be a 4/3-type image sensor.

"Explaining their four-thirds choice, Olympus research found that the Four Thirds concept offered the best size-to-performance benefits of any format. Standardizing on this size allows Olympus to develop a total digital-specific system with digital-specific lenses, flashes, and bodies. By contrast, APS and 35mm-size sensors would require larger lens mounts and lenses. For example, on a 35mm, the lens mount would need to be about the size of one required for a medium format camera, which would make the 35mm a less usable field camera for professionals."

"Why do I say these things?" [Howard] Dean asked a press aide.

--WashPost

Yesterday, whilst waiting to get a haircut at my new favorite retro-style barbershop, I ran into Steve Kilisky, an Adobe buddy from the old days (he's still managing Adobe After Effects), and he mentioned that Acrobat is the biggest moneymaker these days. Sure 'nuff:

"This month marks the 10th anniversary of when that idea, Adobe Acrobat, became a reality. Its effect on the San Jose company has been staggering, and it has become clear that Adobe's future rests on its ability to sell companies on a new way of doing paperwork -- largely without the paper."

Seems as though it's always a bad time to buy a new TV: "Not since the first commercial cathode ray tube TV was developed seven decades ago has here been so much choice in televisions."

Seattle PI: Coalition presses on to save woodland: "The view from this ghost town is a crazy quilt of clearcuts etched across the surrounding hills, as if some giant barber had gone mad with his shears.

"Below, invasive weeds creep across the valley. High-tension wires slice the flank of Bald Mountain, which, true to its name, is mowed nearly treeless. Decrepit buildings mark what's left of this former railroad company town.

"What could environmentalists possibly want to save?"

Tinfoil Hats Uncover the Wellstone Conspiracy: "The most detrimental aspect of conspiracy theories surrounding the deaths of prominent politicians, particularly Democrats like JFK or Wellstone, is the inflation of their actual achievements plus the vast inflation of what they might have done had they lived that invariably follows their untimely deaths."

NYTimes (free reg required): The Corporate Blog Is Catching On: "Once you get to the point where lawyers review everything in a blog, it ain't a blog anymore"

Harry Haun:

“Gregory Peck, in the last almost-60 years, gave us a lot to watch, and, lucky for us, he left a lot of it on film. Throughout, he remained true to his credo — which was advice that Walter Huston had given him early on: “Give ’em a good show, and always travel first class.

“That surely was Gregory Peck: a class actor.”

Christ.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Sometimes, of course, a business lunch is a bad idea to begin with.

Joshua Allen: Behind the Retro Curve

Why do the anti-war, anti-Bush protesters have such a hard time getting anything to stick?

In my opinion, they fail because they have failed to recognize the diminishing subliminal effectiveness of 60's and 70's pop-culture messages, and the Bush team has effectively marshalled 80's pop-culture engrams to appeal to today's young adults.

First, watch any video footage of George W. Bush walking -- notice how his chest rises and his arms hang a bit away from his sides when he walks, as if he has just been pumping iron and has too much muscle for his arms to fit flush to his sides. Notice how his shoulders never move independently of one another, like a plastic action hero.  Now look at the pictures below, and tell me the resemblence is not deliberate and calculated.

Today's young adults don't see anything wrong with the fact that Saddam and Bin Laden haven't yet turned up dead. If He-Man had ever killed Skeletor for good, what would we do for the next episode? You see, a good He-Man always wins, but he doesn't need no stinkin' DNA to prove it!

This is truly the dullest blog in the World.

Mark Simonson: The Scourge of Arial

Arial is everywhere. If you don't know what it is, you don't use a modern personal computer. Arial is a font that is familiar to anyone who uses Microsoft products, whether on a PC or a Mac. It has spread like a virus through the typographic landscape and illustrates the pervasiveness of Microsoft's influence in the world.

Common Sense and Wonder

Mark Steyn on the looting of the Iraqi National Museum:

The National Museum fell victim not to general looting but to a heist, if not an inside job, for which the general lawlessness provided cover. Am I sorry it happened? Yes, because it has given the naysayers, who were wrong about the millions of dead civilians, humanitarian catastrophe, environmental devastation, regional confla-gration, etc., one solitary surviving itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny twig from their petrified forest with which to whack Rumsfeld and Co. The retrospective armchair generals are now complaining the generals didn't devote enough thought to saving armchairs from the early Calcholithic age. It isn't enough for America to kill hardly any civilians or even terribly many enemy combatants or bomb any buildings or unduly disrupt the water or electric supply, it also has to protect Iraq's heritage from Iraqis. That assumption speaks volumes.

It is rather interesting that the left is more interested with the survival of ancient pieces of wood, clay and gold than it is in the freedom of living and breathing individuals.

Nicole Kidman sees the light, is steering clear of Scientology

Well, well. It seems that along with divorcing Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman also divorced the Church of Scientology. MSN.com reports that church members haven't seen the Oscar-winning mama in quite some time.

"Actually, when I knew Nicole, she seemed to think there was nothing better than Scientology," said Kelly Preston, wife of John Travolta. The couple is among the higher-profile Hollywood Scientologists.

But since her 2001 split from Cruise, who is still rather active in the church, Nicole doesn't even hang out with other Scientologists, much less participate.

Associated Press: Saddam's Family Lifestyles Shock Iraqis

The blacksmith paused from his looting of the palace to gape at a door a foot thick, and at the empty, marble-lined safe inside.

"This safe is as big as the room I rent, and I live there with my wife and two children," said Ahmed Hamza, 28. "I thought the rumors were exaggerated, but these people lived in a different world."

This house was owned by Hala Hussein, Saddam's thirtysomething daughter, whereabouts currently unknown. She had two more across the street, several across the river, and even more scattered around the city. And that was just Baghdad.

With the Saddam family driven into hiding, Iraqis have begun to explore its secret world -- one they always knew existed in their midst, but whose luxury and debauchery are nonetheless causing shock and anger.

David Horowitz: The Anti-American Times

The battle to topple Saddam Hussein is over; the war for Iraq and the Middle East is just beginning. And it is clear already that the political left and the institutions it dominates, the university and the media, are going to tilt to the other side. Today's top story in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times is about a demonstration in Baghdad of anti-American Iraqis who want an Islamic state. Every free citizen of this country and indeed of the world has a stake in the new Iraq being a secular state in the first place and a democratic state if possible. An Islamic state is by its very nature a state that is intolerant, unjust and bound to preside over an impoverished nation. There is no example of an Islamic state that is anything else. An Islamic state is also potentially a state that will join the Islamicist camp and become a harbor for terrorists conducting a jihad against the infidel world. Yet two of the most powerful media institutions in the United States -- the nation that stands between the world and Islamic empire -- are using their considerable influence to promote the enemy camp.

Andrew Sullivan on the BBC

This passage from the BBC about Abu Abbas simply defies belief. No use of the term "terrorist," of course:

A wanted Palestinian fugitive, Abu Abbas, has been detained by US forces in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. He led the Palestinian Liberation Front, which hijacked a US cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in 1985. During the hijack, an elderly American passenger died. Abu Abbas had been mentioned by US President George W Bush as an example of the kind of figure given refuge by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

In subsequent versions, the BBC seems to have substituted the term "was killed" for "died." I guess even they have their limits in terrorism apologetics.

Newsweek: The Saddam Files

Kubba’s money insulated his family from mayhem, but it did not shield him from witnessing the almost casual slaughter of his people. Last week he recalled a “scene that haunts me still.” Kubba was driving his Mercedes through Basra’s Saad Square when he came upon some 600 men who had been detained while police checked their IDs. According to Kubba, “Chemical Ali” Hassan al-Majid, Saddam’s half brother and the tyrant of southern Iraq, stopped and inquired, “No IDs? Just shoot them all.” Kubba watched as “they shot over 600 people in front of me.”

Common Sense and Wonder

Signs That You've Already Grown Up


Your potted plants stay alive.

Fooling around in a twin-sized bed is absurd.

You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to sleep.

You hear your favourite song on an elevator.

You carry an umbrella. You watch the Weather Channel.

Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook-up and break-up.

You go from 130 days of vacation time to 7.

Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as 'dressed up'.

You're the one calling the police because those darn kids next door don't know how to turn down the stereo.

Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

You don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.

Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.

You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald's.

Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

You no longer take naps from noon to 6 p.m.

Dinner and a movie the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

MTV News is no longer your primary source for information.

You go to the drugstore for Ibuprofen and antacids, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer 'pretty good stuff'.

You actually eat breakfast foods at breakfast time.

Grocery lists are longer than macaroni & cheese, diet Pepsi & Ho-Ho's.

"I just can't drink the way I used to" replaces "I'm never going to drink that much again."

Over 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

You don't drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

Memo to Nancy Pelosi:

In a message dated 4/15/2003 4:18:27 PM Pacific Standard Time, JAGudehus writes:

A Failed Plan?

1. We took Iraq in less time than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
2. It took less time to find evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
3. It took Teddy Kennedy longer to call the police after his Oldsmobile sunk at Chappaquiddick than it took the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard.
4. We took Iraq in less time than it took to count the votes in Florida in the year 2000!

Nancy, you and other Democratic leaders sure have a strange concept of failure.

Building a Democratic Iraq, Adeed Dawisha and Karen Dawisha, in the 1 May 2003 issue of Foreign Affairs

For the sake of all parties involved, the American endeavor in Iraq must not end in a more agreeable dictatorship or a successor regime that promises nothing beyond greater cooperation with Washington. The United States' standing in the world rests not only on its might, but also on the democratic values that it espouses and propagates. The country and its allies therefore cannot shrink from setting Iraq on a democratic path. Not only will Arab and international opposition to regime change be assuaged if a democracy results; building democracy in Baghdad is also the best way to eliminate the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Restructuring Iraq's political system will be laden with difficulties, but it will certainly be feasible. At the same time, the blueprint for Iraq's democracy must reflect the unique features of Iraqi society. Once the system is in place, its benefits will quickly become evident to Iraq's various communities; if it brings economic prosperity (hardly unlikely given the country's wealth), the postwar structure will gradually, yet surely, acquire legitimacy. As is shown by the eastern European example, where ex-communist dictatorships have now lined up to join NATO and the European Union, putting in place democratic political institutions that function properly, meet the particular needs of a given society, and deliver the goods can rather quickly produce "habituation" -- that is, inculcate democratic habits in the population that become well entrenched and resilient. A democratic federal system would turn Iraq into the standard against which other Arab governments are judged, and make the country a natural ally of the West. Such an outcome would benefit everyone -- but especially the people of Iraq, who, after suffering for so long, deserve no less.

[via AndrewSullivan.com]

"Perhaps we cannot make this a world in which children are no longer tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children," -- Albert Camus.

William Saletan's Slate Blog: Syria is undemocratic, supports terrorism, has weapons of mass destruction, violates human rights, has invaded its neighbors, and has violated a biological weapons treaty. Now evidence of its complicity in Iraq's defense is growing. I don't want a war with Syria. But Syria sure is acting as though it wants a war with us.

What a surprise! AP: Shooting at LA airport El Al counter ruled terrorist act.

LOS ANGELES - An Egyptian immigrant's deadly attack on an Israeli airline ticket counter last year has been ruled a terrorist attack related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an FBI spokesman said Friday.

"Given his political views and the fact that El Al is an Israeli government-owned airline, that met the criteria for a terrorist attack," said Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Los Angeles field office of the FBI.

Common Sense and Wonder: The anti war crowd is anti free choice.

As these nitwits from International ANSWER and Voices in the Wilderness explain Iraq and the rest of the world must not be able to choose what kind of life they wish to live but must be protected from American style liberty. Did they ever complain about the destruction of the Marsh Arabs habitat by Saddam. Of course not, it was done by a so-called "socialist" dictator. But KFC and McDonalds that's real evil to them. These people are totalitarian to the core as well as racist I bet if you question them they would rather the North Koreans continue to starve under their psychopathic dictator than allow in western style food or heaven forbid GM grains.

The Weekly Standard: The Tempting of the President

The president will be under enormous pressure from Europeans, Middle East leaders, and top advisers in Washington to withdraw American troops and civilian officials from Iraq within months, not years. He shouldn't. The military occupation of Japan after World War II lasted seven years, and Japan is homogenous, not divided as Iraq is among three often hostile ethnic groups. American forces won't need to stay that long, but it will take at least a year, maybe two or more, to restore order, foster a viable economy, and establish democratic institutions with roots deep enough to survive.

The Weekly Standard: Beyond Baghdad

On September 24, 2002, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned his readers about a "definite whiff of imperial ambition in the air." The next month he was certain about the coming occupation of Iraq. "The administration has offered many different explanations, some of them mutually contradictory, for its determination to occupy Baghdad."

Effective with the fall of Baghdad last week, Krugman inverted his critique, in the process establishing his own impeccable credentials when it comes to "mutually contradictory" arguments. "There is a pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does not bode well for the future--a pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect," Krugman wrote April 11. "After the triumph," he wrote of the Bush administration, "when it comes time to take care of what they've won, their attention wanders, and things go to pot."

It's hard to predict the future, but there's no sign yet that the administration is suffering from attention deficit disorder. Indeed, postwar planning continues apace in Washington and Kuwait.

Andrew Sullivan: THE ME GENERATION'S PROTEST: Julie Burchill does her best Camille Paglia impression today (before Camille went soft on the war). Man, does she nail it:

"I've just heard a snippet of the most disgustingly me-me-me anti-war advert by Susan Sarandon, in which she intones, "Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags, and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know - what did Iraq do to us?" Well, if you mean what did Saddam do to America The Beautiful, not an awful lot - but to millions of his own people, torture and murder for a start. Don't they count?

"Surely this is the most self-obsessed anti-war protest ever. NOT IN MY NAME! That's the giveaway. Who gives a stuff about their wet, white, western names? See how they write them so solemnly in a list on the bottom of the letters they send to the papers. And the ones that add their brats' names are the worst - a grotesque spin on Baby On Board, except they think that this gives them extra humanity points not just on the motorway, but in the whole wide weeping, striving, yearning world. We don't know the precious names of the countless numbers Saddam has killed. We're talking about a people - lots of them parents - subjected to an endless vista of death and torture, a country in which freedom can never be won without help from outside."

Amen, sister. The day of reckoning is not just coming for Saddam Hussein. It's coming for the anti-war movement.

George F. Will: Containment ‘Deadlier Than War’

Last week, Walter Russell Mead of the policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, writing in The Washington Post, argued that containment is "deadlier than war," especially for Iraqi children.

The 1991 Gulf War killed between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis. Between 1,000 and 5,000 were civilians.

But the United Nations itself estimates that the current U.N. policy of trying to contain Saddam with economic sanctions kills 5,000 Iraqi children under 5 years old — every month. Sixty thousand a year.

Mead says that some estimates are lower.

But, he says: "By any reasonable estimate containment kills about as many people every year as the Gulf War — and almost all the victims of containment are civilians, and two-thirds are children under five."

Saddam ‘Lets Babies Die’

Under the U.N. sanctions, Saddam is allowed to sell enough oil to purchase food and medicine to meet the basic needs if the Iraqi people.

But Saddam uses the money to fuel his war machine, and lets the babies die.

So another 10 years of containment would involve the slaughter of at least another 360,000 Iraqis — 240,000 of them children under five.

Mead says those are the low estimates.

If the United Nations' numbers are right, another decade of containment would kill one million Iraqi civilians, including 600,000 children.

So, as Americans debate the morality of the war against Iraq, remember these numbers — and remember a picture of an Iraqi child, suffering the effects of the current policy of "containment."

‘Time-Traveler’ Busted For Insider Trading

Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!

ZDNet UK: War has toppled sex as the most popular search term among Web users as the conflict in Iraq captures the attention and apparently lowers libidos of online Britons, top Internet service Freeserve says.

AndrewSullivan.com: WILL THE FRENCH VETO? No firm statement yet either way. TF1 declares that France is putting aside the idea of a veto for the moment. The Communists and Socialists urge a veto, but Chirac's party, officially repesented in the parliament by Alain Juppe, talks instead of looming "noises of mobilization." Meanwhile, we have this odd statement from the increasingly erratic Chirac, after meeting with Spanish prime minister, Aznar: "We oppose all new resolutions." Huh? I thought France was promoting a new one. Maybe Paris at this point just wants the whole issue to go away. I still don't have a clue what Chirac is up to; but I certainly think there are many subtle signs that the French don't want to veto - especially if the Russians and Chinese simply abstain. Solitary French isolation at the U.N., combined with encirclement of Anglospheric nations in the E.U. is becoming France's nightmare. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, could it?

Eject! Eject! Eject!: We are a strong nation. We’d damn well better be, because we carry the genes and mythologies of the most confident individuals on the planet, people unwilling to endure repression, persecution and enslavement by taking a chance on a place unknown to them, except perhaps in their dreams. We have come from every country in the world, from the free and prosperous, to the hellish and horrific. Each individual immigration, from the native Indians crossing the Bering Straight, through Plymouth Rock, Ellis Island and LAX – each one an act of optimism and hope for something better.

Common Sense and Wonder: And another Iraqi exile asks what will the protesters do if the liberation of Iraq is thwarted by their marches. I’ll side with Max in saying they really don’t give a hoot about the wellbeing of the Iraqis as long as they manage to diminish the U.S. in any way they can. They didn’t care about the people of the Soviet Union and its captive states. They never marched against Pol Pot or any of the other totalitarian murderers of the past 50 years. But they will gladly march with International ANSWER, a group that still proudly proclaims allegiance to the memory of Stalin, a mass murderer of stupefying enormity. A man who is credited with saying “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

NYTimes: “Mr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei cannot be left to play games of hide-and-seek. This is not like Washington’s unproved assertions about an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There is ample evidence that Iraq has produced highly toxic VX nerve gas and anthrax and has the capacity to produce a lot more. It has concealed these materials, lied about them, and more recently failed to account for them to the current inspectors. The Security Council doesn't need to sit through more months of inconclusive reports. It needs full and immediate Iraqi disarmament. It needs to say so, backed by the threat of military force.”

“People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

--Joseph Cambell, American mythologist