Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and other luminaries tried last week, but it was Hugo Chavez who drew the lion's share of Opinion's modest traffic. Venezuela stories took two places in the top 10, including Number One. And two others — Michael Rowan and Douglas Schoen's "Will Chavez pull the trigger?" and the Bolivarian Republic's own argument that "Venezuela knows what it's doing" — barely missed making the list. With the can't-lose campaign slogan "Pax Americana, cyber-bullying and Earl Ofari Hutchinson too," we round out the list. And if you want to revive the old argument about the Times' alleged bias against women writers, this he-man woman-haters collection of bylines should give you a start:

1. "Venezuela's path to self-destruction" by William Ratliff

2. "Bush isn't the only decider" by Bruce Ackerman

3. "How to punish a cyber-bully" by Jonathan Turley

4. "My taco with Tancredo" by Joel Stein

5. "Bad for Huckabee, good for America" by Dan Gilgoff

6. "Unheralded military successes" by Robert D. Kaplan

7. "The black-Latino blame game" by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

8. "Ron Paul isn't that scary" by Jonah Goldberg

9. "Venezuela veers toward dictatorship" by the editorial board

10. "At peace with Pax Americana" by Jonah Goldberg

California voters, that is. That's according to the Sacramento Bee:

Since passage of a state law in 2002 allowing voters to sign up to cast their ballots by mail in every election, the number of permanent absentee voters has more than tripled.

According to a new Field Poll released Thursday, more than 4.2 million of the state's 15 million registered voters – 27.2 percent – have signed up to cast their ballots by mail. In the June 2006 state primary election, a record 47 percent of the ballots cast came from absentee voters.

Some in other states are even thinking about turning to a system like Oregon's, which is solely vote-by-mail. But that's not likely to happen in California until SoCal shapes up:

Twenty-nine percent of voters in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area and 20 percent of voters in the Central Valley have signed up as permanent absentee voters. But only 10 percent of voters in Los Angeles County and 11 percent in Orange County have chosen to vote permanently by mail.

Just one more reason the Bay Area rocks.

Most permanent absentee voters seem to be rich, white homeowners. The original drive to make "absentee voting" easier was led by Democrats trying to counteract higher turnout by Republicans. In the 1982 race for governor, the GOP turned the absentee vote around, however, and Republicans still hold a 1% edge over Democrats among the mail-in crowd. The San Francisco Chronicle takes this opportunity to hate on both Republicans and Los Angeles:

The mail ballot numbers are skewed, however, by Los Angeles County. Although the county has 25 percent of the state's registered voters, it includes only 10 percent of the state's permanent mail voters. Election officials in that county, concerned that a flood of mailed-in ballots could overwhelm the system, have been reluctant to encourage people to sign up for permanent mail status.

Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in Los Angeles County, which means the low number of permanent mail voters there gives the GOP a statewide boost. While Democrats outnumber Republicans 42 percent to 34 percent among all California voters, the GOP holds a 41 percent to 40 percent edge with permanent mail voters.

It's too bad LA hasn't really rolled out the mail-in vote. California's been trying (in vain) to increase its influence among the state presidential primaries, and this could be one way to up the ante. After all, with a month-long voting period, people could be voting as early as January.

The California Progress Report also tries to think positive:

The extended voting period also should reduce the effectiveness of last minute "hit pieces." Expect to be bombarded once those ballots arrive.... Field reports that some county registrar of voters are encouraging VBM "as a way of reducing election costs." It should take some of the pressure off of having to assemble a large army of Election Day workers at polling places. The downside, however, is fewer polling places at greater distances for voters.

Hey, don't knock the silver lining. What with our dashed dreams of primary influence, we'll take what we can get.

This frontpage La Opinion headline goes out to tireless commenter Mitchell Young, who spanks us whenever our love of border-jumpers becomes too clear:

No hablar ingles afecta a latinos

Here's the interesting Pew Hispanic Center report that generated that story, as well as coverage, with fairly different emphases, in the Times and the O.C. Register.

The editorial board considers whether it's time to let USC run the Coliseum:

The Times has long promoted the Coliseum as the best place for an NFL team. Still, we have to hand it to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for recognizing the truth: The NFL and the stadium broke up long ago and aren't getting back together. At least, not as long as the commission acts as a marriage broker.

USC, of course, wants everything: the ability to run the Coliseum for the next four decades, lucrative naming rights, power to bring much-needed seating, lighting and facility improvements. And it wants it for a very long time. Would USC be able to demolish part of the stadium or to alter the look and feel of the historic structure with renovations?

The board doesn't like the GOP's new compassionless conservatism, on display at Wednesday night's debate. And the board wonders whether Lebanon's new leader can bring in democracy.

The University of Richmond's Carl Tobias takes a look at the newest member of the 9th Circuit. Mansoor Ijaz thinks neither Nawaz Sharif nor Benazir Bhutto would make for good Musharraf replacements. Columnists Joel Stein plots world domination, one drink at a time. And columnist Ronald Brownstein says there's still some fight left in the GOP.

Readers react to USC's proposal to leave the Coliseum for the Rose Bowl. Calabasas' Jonathan Kotler notes a trend of teams leaving the Coliseum: "The Los Angeles Chargers: gone. The Los Angeles Rams: gone. The Los Angeles Raiders: gone. The Los Angeles Lakers: gone. The Los Angeles Kings: gone. UCLA football: gone. USC basketball: gone. USC football: one foot out the door."

Remember California's short-lived experiment with open primary elections? After Proposition 198 passed in 1996, Californians were allowed to vote for any presidential candidate in a primary election regardless of party registration. Understandably, partisans found this a headach. State Democratic, Republican and other parties sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court nixed the California open primary in 2000, ruling that Prop. 198 violated a party's freedom of association.

Virginia has its own version of an open primary, and it too is a thorn in the side of the party establishment. So how does the state GOP respond? Vote Republican in the primary, and promise to vote Republican in the general election:

If you're planning to vote in Virginia's February Republican presidential primary, be prepared to sign an oath swearing your Republican loyalty.

The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they'll vote for the party's presidential nominee next fall. There's no practical way to enforce the oath.

Virginia doesn't require voters to register by party, and for years the state's Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.

Tit for tat — very creative. Perhaps California could've come up with a similar solution to save its open primary: You get to violate parties' freedom of association in February, and parties get to violate yours in November. Everyone's rights are violated. Or upheld. It's a wash either way.

Hat tip to the New York Times' Opinionator.

Columnist Rosa Brooks notices an unusual turn of events:

Peace in our time?

All of a sudden, we're getting foreign affairs news that seems, well, good. The Israelis and Palestinians are restarting the long-stalled peace process. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has stepped down as army chief of staff and promises henceforth to serve only as a civilian leader. And violence in Iraq appears genuinely to be down.

After years of unremittingly bad news, no one seems quite sure what to do with good news. Should we cheer? Take back all those mean things we've said about George W. Bush? Or check to see if we still have our wallets, because it's probably some sort of trick?

Yale University's Bruce Ackerman says Bush isn't the only decider, and can't lock in a new Iraq treaty without congressional approval. Michael Fullilove, of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, explains what could happen now that one of Bush's staunchest allies has been ousted. And Jeffrey Korchek quits copywriting for detergent boxes, text messaging, and writing notes for his kids to skip P.E., all in solidarity with striking writers.

The editorial board objects to the unfair allocation of transportation bond funds, and OKs San Diego County's surprise walk-throughs of welfare applicants' homes. The board needles L.A. Unified for spending money on image instead of solutions.

Readers react to a city plan to speed up traffic along Olympic and Pico Boulevards. L.A.'s Ellen Smucker says, "We need to craft solutions that aren't focused on finding ways to move more cars more quickly past quiet residential neighborhoods."

Okay, so probably no public personality can compare in influence and power to Oprah, who has thrown in her lot with the unbelievably lucky Barack Obama. But 'tis the season for celebrity endorsements, and it seems like this year anyone and everyone is taking a primary interest in the candidates — who in turn are more than happy to take advantage.

Hillary's still standing tall, even though Oprah passed her over:

The Clinton campaign, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, said of Winfrey: ''We're fans and we think it's great she is participating in the process. Everyone has wonderful supporters, and we're proud of ours'' — such as Steven Spielberg, Magic Johnson and Barbra Streisand, who threw her support behind Sen Clinton on Tuesday.

Then again, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is siding with Obama. You're not out of the woods yet, Sen. Clinton.

It's got to be frustrating, what with so many political celebs shopping around. Earlier this year, the reverend and former White House candidate Jesse Jackson declared, "I reaffirm my commitment to vote for Sen. Barack Obama.... Any attempt to dilute my support for Sen. Obama will not succeed." But in a meeting with The Times' editorial board, he flip-flopped, admitting, "I have very strong feelings for Hillary because we've worked together 30 years." Now, he's even giving a nod to John Edwards, apparently at Obama's expense. In an op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times, he wrote,

"The Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country."

Your more garden-variety stars are also prone to sowing their political wild oats. According to the Huffington Post, before she settled on Hillary, Barbra Streisand "covered her bases and [gave] $2300 to Obama, Edwards and Clinton. "

On the Republican side, forget Pat Robertson backing Rudy Giuliani. Mike Huckabee is milking his Chuck Norris endorsement for all it's worth, even as he flaunts one of his most recent prizes — former pro-wrestler Ric Flair, aka The Nature Boy. Meanwhile, according to AP, brothel owner Dennis Hof decided to throw his lot in with Ron Paul, adding, "I'll get all the (working girls) together, and we can raise him some money...I'll put up a collection box outside the door. They can drop in $1, $5 contributions."

For all you pundits wondering what fueled the Huckabee and Paul surges, look no further.   

What to make of reports from Kenya that more and more (old, rich, white) women are traveling to the country solely to cavort with (young, poor, black) locals?

According to Reuters — which follows two white English women, aged 56 and 64, as they troll for “big young boys who like us older girls” — the country’s tourism board isn’t pleased with the “unwholesome” situation, wherein women exchange gifts for sex. Officials stopped short of condemning it in the way they have male sex tourism, however. And the women Reuters interviews seem to see it as a far lesser crime — comparing it to ordinary courtship rituals like a man buying his female date dinner.

It’s certainly not so tame, despite sugar-coated terms for the trade like “romance tourism” and a slew of films that neuter the sexual fantasies and fetishes which many female pleasure-seekers want to fulfill. Before “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” there was “Shirley Valentine,” a British housewife bored of preparing her husband’s meals, who wins a vacation and finds her groove with a Greek man. Even the gritty, straightforward “Vers le Sud” — featuring the ever-experimental Charlotte Rampling — explores what happens when the female sex tourist feels romantic and even falls in love. 

Responses to the female sex tourism trend vary from disgust to vague unease. No one’s willing to make this out as a victory for feminism, even if it’s a case of women acknowledging sexual desires and having purses of their own to gratify them. (Heidi Fleiss would be proud, and possibly annoyed that her future clientele can find the frisson they seek for cheap overseas.) And it's older women at that—not the ones who are usually chided for "having sex like men."

What’s in a name? Rich material for feature writers. On a Thanksgiving visit to my home town, I enjoyed an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that put a local spin on that perennial trend story: fads in baby names.

Not surprisingly, in a town in which pro football is the official religion, the most cringe-making name in the story derived from our storied NFL team:  a boy named Steeler Gerard Petrocky. The grandson of a season ticket holder, little Steeler was born Nov. 19, 2006, “nine months after the Steelers won a fifth Super Bowl.” Maybe he’ll get to share a tailgate party (or an analyst) with Tré Rivers Kemerer, whose name is a Romance language play on the Steelers’ former home field, Three Rivers Stadium. And we laughed when George on Seinfeld wanted to name his hypothetical baby “Seven”!

Steelers monikers aside, Pittsburghers seem to be in the thrall of the same trends evident in baby names across the nation, including the fashion for place-names (Dakota, Montana, etc.)

When I attended my nephew’s graduation from my old high school last year, I noted that the roll call included all the trendy names that were unknown to my generation but ubiquitous on Facebook. You know: Ethan, Jared, Kyle, Joshua, Ryan. The kids I grew up with were named John and James and Robert and William. I did know some kids named Ryan — but that was their last name.

Some things do remain constant, though. Michael, a familiar name in the 1950s,  is still popular, finishing second (behind Jacob but ahead of Joshua) in the Social Security administration’s 2006 hit parade of baby names. I just hope some of those Michaels aren’t spelled “Mykal.” I wouldn’t want to win that way.

A few years back I was working on a story about gay asylum that never came to anything, partly because I couldn't get any documentation for the juiciest bits I was hearing about — tall tales of immigration bed checks, pamphlets circulating in the "community" that instructed asylum seekers about how to femme up their performances for credulous ICE and CIS agents, and so on. But the bigger problem was that what the story really wanted to be was not a trend piece but a sitcom: A pair of Saudi terrorists pose as a committed couple to get into the United States and blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. They settle in the Castro; a series of ludicrous mishaps keeps thwarting their terror scheme; Andy Dick shows up as a wacky neighbor; Kathy Najima puts in an electrifying performance as the anti-heroes' flamboyant "gal pal;" the two earn the enmity of a fire-breathing, gay-hating local Imam; and so on. In short, wackiness ensues.

Art, life, imitation, etc. CNN reports on how a group of alert soldiers manning a checkpoint near the Iraqi capital foiled the Cary Grant/Ann Sheridan routine of a group of insurgents:

Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride's dress and veil.

Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.

Are we getting punked by CNN? The photos of the ill-shaven Bahadli (credited to the Iraq Defense Ministry) are ludicrous enough to make you think so. Why didn't he shave? What kind of lazy terrorist would put up such a halfhearted effort? I'm no expert on terrorism, but I know one thing: Men are always finding plenty of pressing, important reasons why they really need to wear women's clothes, and that's because men want to wear women's clothes. Even in Iraq, where the fashion options are so much narrower, and the opportunities for two men to follow their bliss are so few.

Courtesy of Radley Balko.

Richard Perle biographer Alan Weisman says Perle is back to puppet-mastering the Middle East, looking for the next Ahmed Chalabi:

Perle, of course, was the most prominent and aggressive advocate of Chalabi, dubbed the "Jay Gatsby of Iraq" for his social life and financial scandals, as the leader of a new Iraq. That effort collapsed when the Iraqi people, finally given a chance to vote in January 2005, did not award Chalabi's party a single seat in the new parliament.

Perle insists that his man, who has a new job with the Baghdad government, was the victim of a smear campaign led by the State Department and the CIA. The Chalabi experience has not muted Perle's unabashed affection for dissidents. "I think the best way to bring about regime change," he told me, "is to help decent people who are powerless without outside help."

State Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) explains how easy fixes got California into a budget mess. And Angelo Rivero Santos, deputy chief of mission of the Venezuelan Embassy, says that those who oppose upcoming reforms are opposing democratic change.

One of those opponents happens to be the editorial board, which says Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez wants a government like Cuba's, and may get it. The board is optimistic about the Annapolis Middle East summit, which seems to have surpassed (admittedly low) expectations. And the board isn't surprised that law enforcement agencies can't enforce Jessica's Law, a wishful-thinking ballot initiative passed last fall.

Readers discuss a Times analysis of Mitt Romney. Irvine's Jean Anne Turner writes, "The article characterizes Romney and his family as a throwback to another era without acknowledging how successfully they are managing to live family values in these turbulent times.... [H]e deserves better than Mitt-picking."

With the Dec. 14 cutoff for temporary funding looming, it's time to take another look at what's happening to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, since President Bush refuses to sign Congress' reauthorization bills. Remember those worst-case scenarios? Looks like they're close to becoming reality.

According to Congressional Quarterly:

The Congressional Research Service reported Oct. 25 that 21 states face combined shortfalls of $1.6 billion in their children’s health insurance programs this year. The first of those states will run out of money in March. 

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Unless there's an infusion of cash - and quickly - California will run out of federal money to pay for its program in June. To prepare for the shortfall, state officials will decide in the next two weeks whether to stop enrolling new children and send letters to 56,600 families telling them their children will lose health coverage on Dec. 31.

"These are horrible options," said Lesley Cummings, who manages the state's Healthy Families insurance program for low-income kids. "We never thought we were going to be in this place."

And if you think this state is screwed?

California isn't alone. The Congressional Research Service estimates that 21 states will exhaust their federal money next year - nine will run out of money in March - if Congress simply keeps the program funded at the current levels.

Georgia's program is already running a deficit, and is surviving only with a temporary grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. ...The state is pulling the medical records of kids to determine who are the sickest, so if they have to drop children from the program they'll start with healthier children.

"Georgia is on the edge of the cliff," said Dr. Rhonda Medows, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health. "We don't want to think about kids having cancer, but how do you schedule someone for six weeks of chemotherapy if they only have four weeks left in the program? Does the oncologist start the therapy or do they wait? How do you plan? You can't."

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Wirkkalas, with an income that for five years has hovered around $70,000 and a home they bought in 2004 for $535,000, are a family many would call middle class. But they have been priced out of the private health insurance market, and their circumstances illustrate the core of a political battle over how much a family can earn for their children to qualify for a federal-state partnership called the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. If the outcome of Washington politics goes one way, the children could remain uninsured. If it goes the other way, the children might get health insurance.

On a larger scale,

If Congress fails to act, or even if funding is held to present levels, or increased to administration-recommended levels, the California HealthCare Foundation estimates that up to 600,000 children in California could lose their health insurance beginning in 2008. Because of healthcare inflation, California and many other states would have to begin closing off new enrollments and disenrolling some insured children, according to the foundation's projections. "The funding wouldn't allow California to maintain its present caseload, and keep up with inflation," Finocchio says.

As The Times' editorial board said last month,

This bears repeating: President Bush's bullheaded insistence on sabotaging reauthorization of the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, better known as SCHIP, will hurt the very people -- poor and middle-class Americans -- he claims he wants to protect.

I'd hope that the bitter realities starting to hit many American families would finally bring Bush around, but seeing as stories of children saved by SCHIP don't seem to have moved many Republicans, I doubt that a few million more kids will make a difference.

The Times reports today on the passing of Homer Broome, groundbreaking Los Angeles Police Department commander. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors adjourned today in Broome's memory, prompting Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to recall that he and Broome first met when Yaroslavsky was in the clink.

In his college days Zev — once quite the agitator, most often on behalf of Soviet Jews — was arrested at a demonstration for disturbing the peace and, he told the board, was sitting in the holding tank at the LAPD's Southwest Division when he met Commander Broome. "And we hit it off," Yaroslavsky said.

That station is now named for Broome.

Three big papers report this week on three new local studies challenging assumptions about the cost of illegal immigration. The Times writes up a UCLA study finding that in California, Latino illegal immigrants are less likely to visit doctors, clinics, and even emergency rooms compared to U.S.-born Latinos. (That doesn't mean that illegal immigrants healthcare is low-cost, however, particularly because they're less likely to have health insurance than native Latinos — some studies put the cost well over $1 billion.)

The New York Times noted that immigrants (legal and illegal) contribute nearly a quarter of the state's economy (and make up 21% of the state population). The study also found that immigrants pay proportionate federal and state taxes.

And the Washington Post comes in with a report from Fairfax County that shrugs and says it's impossible to figure out the cost of illegal immigration, anyway, because some services illegal immigrants use — particularly public infrastructure like roads and parks — aren't tailored specifically to them. A county official offers a sage and no doubt well-documented explanation for why we don't need to worry about the burden illegal immigrants pose to libraries: "Our libraries are not being rushed by undocumented aliens looking for bestsellers."

Amazon, that fearsome Internet peddler of all things — particularly all things media — has consistently led the pack in marketing and distributing products, whether it's selling eBooks or digital movies through Amazon Unbox.

But eBooks never really took off, partly because there's never been an appealing reader. Now, according to Larry Magid of the Mercury News, the online store has taken matters into its own hands:

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos wants it both ways: He wants to change the way we read without making us feel that we have to change the way we read. The manifestation of this lofty goal is the Kindle - the company's first electronic book reader.

Wall Street seems to think Amazon's new venture is a winner, judging by the way the company's stock rose after the announcement. It's not too surprising: The handheld Kindle has a number of advantages over previous attempts. It's not backlit; the battery lasts for days; and it has a built-in receiver that allows you not only to download books but also surf the Web. And of course, choice and cost don't hurt:

...Amazon has something none of the other players can match - the world's largest online bookstore and a powerful position with the publishing community. Its library of 90,000 e-books includes almost all the bestsellers. And, unlike typical e-book pricing, Amazon is selling electronic books at a very reasonable price - $9.99 for most new books and as little as $3 for older titles. I was on the verge of spending $18 for "Boom," Tom Brokaw's new book about the '60s but am instead reading an electronic version that I bought for $9.99.

And the two-ton gorilla lurking around this blogpost: If it ignited a real change for print media, how would the Kindle affect the newspaper industry?

Right now, newspaper readers can be pretty firmly placed into overwhelmingly online consumers, or dogged print readers. There's something to be said for being able to take in a whole page, complete in its design, providing you information you wouldn't necessarily know to look for. Then again, there's also a whole lot going for the efficient, updateable and individually tailored digests you can get from the Web.

If used for newspapers, the Kindle could change that. When you downloaded the day's paper, what would you see? A page from the print edition? The Web-based news feed? Or would it be some hybrid, an apparently print page featuring clickable ads and active links? Nothing so exciting yet, unfortunately. The current format gets lukewarm praise from Newsweek's Steven Levy:

It's also exciting to get a daily dose of The New York Times and other papers. But the interface for newspaper reading is disappointing—you have to painstakingly go through article lists, and often the stories are insufficiently described. Still, getting the Times in one burst on a daily basis, no matter where you are, is closer to getting a hard-copy delivery than picking out articles on the Web, and it costs $13.99 a month, compared with the $50-plus I pay for home delivery. Do the math.

Then again, not much is likely to happen with the price tag sitting at a pretty $399. Granted, Amazon's first run sold out. But if they really want the Kindle to catch fire, they'll market it less as a luxury item and more as a convenience. Intriguing as this new device is, novels will never rival music in sheer sex appeal and consumer attraction. The Kindle is no iPod. It can't rely on the pop-culture-chic to get people to pay up. Though perhaps they can tap into the Prius effect and market it primarily as a paper-saver. Green is the new cool, after all.

Speaking of iPods, they'd better do it fast, before Steve Jobs works out the kinks and makes a real bestseller out of Amazon's idea. As Magid points out, "It wouldn't take too many Apple programmers to turn an iPhone and an iPod into an iReader."

The editorial board responds to Sen. Trent Lott's (R-Miss.) decision to leave the Senate just before new "revolving door" rules take effect:

Lott voted against the ethics bill and was a vocal opponent of the provision that forbids lawmakers from accepting rides on corporate jets. Surely a senior senator wouldn't resign because he was forced to fly commercial? However, if Lott were now to join, say, the former lobbying firm of his friend and current Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, he could move from the Capitol right over to the K Street corridor, where his skills as one of Washington's preeminent political deal makers could fetch a salary in the high six figures. It's a safe bet that it's not the national interest he would be advancing.

The board urges California Secretary of State Debra  Bowen to act quickly and review InkaVote Plus voting machines. And the board says AIDS is still a major problem, despite the U.N.'s downward revision of numbers.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg says Pax American is a-ok. Author Zev Chafets argues that the Annapolis summit on the Middle East, whether or not it brings about a new peace plan, is already a winner for Bush. Dan Gilgoff, editor of Beliefnet's God-o-meter, thinks evangelicals are showing flexibility by backing unexpected GOP candidates.

Readers discuss the Middle East summit. See why Stephen Goldberg, national vice president of the Zionist Organization of America, says Annapolis is "destined to fail."

The L.A. Times employee formerly known as Matt Welch goes directly to the competition to scream "Go Ron Paul!" before hanging up. In a Washington Post Op-Ed, Welch and Reason editor Nick Gillespie explain Dr. No's cross-cultural appeal. No report on the Ron Paul phenomenon would be complete without swipes at the mainstream media's long silence on his campaign (to which there were some honorable early exceptions) and the really loathsome terms with which the new right has attacked this avatar of the old right:

Yet Paul's success has mostly left the mainstream media and pundits flustered, if not openly hostile. The Associated Press recently treated the Paul phenomenon like an alien life form: "The Texas libertarian's rise in the polls and in fundraising proves that a small but passionate number of Americans can be drawn to an advocate of unorthodox proposals." Republican pollster Frank Luntz has denounced Paul's supporters as "the equivalent of crabgrass . . . not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff." And conservative syndicated columnist Mona Charen said out loud what many campaign reporters have no doubt been thinking all along: "He might make a dandy new leader for the Branch Davidians."

When conservatives feel comfortable mocking the victims gunned down by Clinton-era attorney general Janet Reno's FBI in Waco, Tex., in 1993, it suggests that a complacent and increasingly authoritarian establishment feels threatened.

And little wonder. In the 1990s, conservative Republicans rose to power by relentlessly attacking Big Government. Yet the minute they took control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, they kicked out the jams on even a semblance of fiscal responsibility, signing off on the Medicare prescription drug benefit and building literal and figurative bridges to nowhere. From 2001 to 2008, federal outlays will have grown by an estimated 29 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The biggest Big Government expansion during the Bush era is the one that Americans now despise most: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose direct costs are already an estimated $800 billion, plus 4,000 American lives. Paul's steadfast bring-the-troops-home stance -- not just from Iraq, but Korea and Japan as well -- is the major engine powering his grass-roots success as ostensibly antiwar Democrats in the majority can't or won't do anything on Capitol Hill.

But if war were the only answer for his improbable run, why Ron Paul instead of the perennial peacenik Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic congressman from Ohio whose apparent belief in UFOs is only slightly less kooky than his belief in the efficacy of socialized health care?

The answer, and the rest of the article, here.

For those of you who think the few dozen 747 jumbo jets that come to Los Angeles International Airport every day are lacking in size, the Texas-size plane from Old Europe will make its second-ever visit to LAX this week. Australian carrier Qantas will land a fully furnished Airbus A380 on Wednesday to conduct a demonstration flight carrying passengers over Southern California later in the week. This time, airport officials will dispose of the pomp and circumstance of last March's A380 visit:

After landing on Runway 25 Left on the south side of LAX, the aircraft will taxi to the Flight Path Learning Center in the LAX Imperial Terminal at 6661 West Imperial Highway. NO ceremony is scheduled for the arrival. This is a media opportunity only.

No parties — and thank God for that. I dropped in on the celebration that accompanied last March's A380 visit, which ended up being a surreal celebration of cognitive dissonance: airport officials on their facility's readiness to handle the massive bird, and Airbus and airline folks on how wonderfully suited and unimposing the 1.2 million-pound A380 would be on airports like LAX. I still remember a few of the more perplexing howlers: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that large planes like the A380 are "better for our airports," and Airbus North America Chairman T. Allen McArtor remarked that the A380 was "perfectly designed "for LAX.

At that time last March, not a single gate at LAX could handle such a massive plane — even though the airport has long been recognized as the one that will draw the most A380 traffic in the U.S. On Airbus' end, the celebration was for a plane slated to go into service two years behind schedule. Stripped of the the gushing praise and festivities, all that was left was a plane that symbolized the folly of the pan-European industrial policy and the ill-equipped airport that's an embarrassment to Los Angeles. Click here to read a piece I wrote in March about the experience.

So kudos to LAX for holding off on the champagne and caviar this time around. Perhaps it's a testament to how much more seriously L.A. officials have been handling the airport's shortcomings lately. In fact, the last few months have been the most productive in readying LAX for its role as the A380 hub of the United States. In August, the L.A. City Council OK'd the construction of 10 gates in a brand new concourse that will be designed to handle planes the size of the A380. Breaking ground on gleaming new facility sure beats popping champagne corks while your airport chokes.

As for Wednesday, I'd recommend making the trip to LAX to spot the bird if you have time. For all the headaches it has caused, the A380 is indeed an engineering marvel and magnificent sight. The plane will land on LAX's southernmost runway at 11:45 a.m. Click here for a list of locations that afford decent views of LAX's airfields.

It was Malibu that everyone was watching, Malibu where the fires chewed through hills and houses alike.

But when the winds blow off the desert and the humidity is lower than the interest on a T-bill, millions of others across the neighborhoods of Los Angeles are on enforced alert -- the dreaded red flag parking restriction.

The mountains and hills that make Los Angeles beautiful also create a bowl for smog, as well as gullies and canyons for vast watersheds -- and a perfect playground for the wild hot winds. So when Malibu is a tinderbox, people who live in the hills 10, 20, 30 miles away find themselves under "red flag alert." Parking is banned on narrow hillside streets to allow fire trucks to pass. This means that uphill residents without garages have to park downhill, where streets widen, and either trudge or find a lift back up to their homes.

For downhill residents who don’t have garages either, this turns the canyons of Los Angeles into the canyons of New York. Parking -- never easy -- becomes a free-for-all. It’s compounded by the fact that so many residents have converted their two-car garages to gyms or offices or play-rooms, and they too park in the scarce spots on the street. During this Thanksgiving’s red flag alert, dozens of cars ordinarily parked on narrow, uphill streets got squeezed downhill. Someone parked a large, shiny black BMW -- playing perfectly into every Bimmer cliche -- in front of my stairs, and left it there all weekend. I practically had to clamber over the hood to get to my own steps. Thank goodness the piano wasn’t being delivered this weekend -- getting the groceries past that mirror-bright paint job was tricky enough.

Here’s where the New York part comes in: When I finally found a parking spot far below my house, I felt like the hero of Calvin Trillin’s little novel, "Tepper Isn’t Going Out." Tepper is a New Yorker who finds a fabulous parking spot -- and parks. And parks. And parks. He reads the paper in his car. He luxuriates in his own private bit of public property. Drivers scouring for a parking space brake, and wait, and wait -- and are infuriated at the stationary Tepper. The matter at last reaches the mayor’s desk. Who does this Tepper think he is, anyway?

Once I had found a below-the-red-flag-line parking spot, I offloaded groceries and dry cleaning, lugged them uphill, and made several trips back for more. I tidied the interior, as I do every weekend. People drove by, slowed, hopefully, cruising for a spot. Like Tepper, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Now that the red flags have gone back to green, the BMW has gone back up the hill. He’ll be back, but before he is, this red flag thing requires a lot of fixing. LA city and county need something more refined than a blanket, hundreds-of-square-miles alert when the risk isn’t nearly so uniform. And they need to set better priorities than a race that amounts to first-come, first-served. I’d vote for giving cars with the best gas mileage the pole position. The BMW may have the HP for the checkered flag, but my Prius has the MPG to beat the red flag.

-- Patt Morrison

The editorial board continues its "A Warming World" series with a piece on energy efficiency:

Energy efficiency is the fastest, safest and cheapest method currently available for cutting carbon emissions. It's also one of the least understood, because it involves a lot more than adding insulation to buildings or installing power-sipping air conditioners. To make really hefty efficiency gains, the U.S. must follow California's lead in restructuring incentives for utilities, and regulatory agencies should do much more to encourage important innovations such as cogeneration plants.

The University of Nebraska's Eric Berger notes that states defend lethal injection procedures, even if they know it causes excruciating pain. Columnist Gregory Rodriguez goes to Wilmington Middle School to see how students are improving their vocabulary during P.E. And the Woodrow Wilson Center's Aaron David Miller says the Annapolis Middle East summit is just the first step to peace.

Readers react to Jonah Goldberg's column saying Ron Paul isn't scary. Pittsburgh's Kris Sanders disagrees: "Wouldn't any candidate who supported the freedom to kill the innocent be truly scary?"

Here's what you read last week between feasts and football. Our columnists lead the pack, followed closely by a famous niece and the op-ed that never quits, Craig Childs' piece on Stonehenge.

1. Ron Paul isn't that scary, by Jonah Goldberg
2. Obama as the red-blue uniter, by Ronald Brownstein
3. In Musharraf, Bush made the wrong friend, by Rosa Brooks
4. Blackwater's loopholes, by Jeremy Scahill
5. Aunt Benazir's false promises, by Fatima Bhutto
6. Stay or go in Iraq?, dust-up between David Rivkin and Brian Katulis
7. Stonehenges all around us, by Craig Childs
8. What's ugly?, by Umberto Eco
9. Don't bow to the 'Muslim street', by James Kirchick
10. A powder keg in Lebanon, by Milton Viorst

Columnist Joel Stein has a taco with Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.):

Carlos O'Kelly's makes the finest Mexican food with an Irish flair of any chain restaurant in Iowa. The enchiladas came with a sort of hollandaise sauce that constituted a greater insult to Mexicans than anything Tancredo has ever said. Tancredo, who is a very likable, polite man, gave the food a very generous C+. "I was sick we couldn't go to Mami's. I heard it was good," he said. "But if they're going to boycott America, I'm going to boycott Mami's." Looking at my enchiladas, he sighed. "For all I know, this place is owned by a big liberal." A big liberal who hates food.

Our waiter, Josh, was one of the nicest, most incompetent servers either of us had ever encountered. He kept running away in the middle of our orders, apparently distracted by either Mexican or Irish things. I told Tancredo that I wished we were at an L.A. restaurant with a Mexican waiter filling our chip basket every two minutes. "I'm with you," he said. "These people that come to our country are generally hard workers, and bless them for it."

British designer Jonathan Barnbrook says there's no purchase necessary on Black Friday.

The editorial board laments the impact of Alzheimer's on Sandra Day O'Connor, and on the country. It also asks who Rudy Giuliani would nominate to the Supreme Court bench. And editorial researcher Swati Pandey wants a louder honk.

Readers discuss the upcoming Middle East talks. Anaheim's Phil Karmelich says, "[Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert is engaging in a propaganda campaign to keep Americans believing that Israel wants peace."

It's a day early, I know, but tomorrow we'll all be too busy prepping and cooking birds to read (or write) about them. If you haven't heard, President Bush pardoned two turkeys today in what is an annual ceremony dating back to Harry Truman (though some say the tradition goes back to Abraham Lincoln's time). Never mind that no records can be found of any turkey pardoning happening under Truman's watch; in fact according to the Austin American-Statesman's Window on Washington blog,

Truman, it seems, was more interested in turkey dinner than poultry mercy.

From the Truman Library website: “The library’s staff has found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his presidency. Truman sometimes indicated to reporters that the turkeys he received were destined for the family dinner table.”

Gulp.

That hasn't stopped the last two administrations from turning it into a bipartisan tradition. This year's delectable duo's names are May and Flower. Last year it was Flyer and Fryer, and in 2003, Stars and Stripes. We only have ourselves to blame: The American people get to christen the turkeys online.

That's not to say all presidents love this annual ceremony: Richard Nixon avoided the tradition, while defendants of unpardoned Ginny the Pig cry fowl: After all, it was oinkers, not gobblers, that ended up joining Pilgrims and Indians for dinner on that pseudo-historic first feast.

None of this answers the question, what crime did these birds commit? Was it the sin of their fathers, AWOL from the original meal? Or just having delicious thighs laced with tryptophan? (FYI: When it comes to sleep-inducing amino acids, turkeys are totally within the legal limit.)

It was supposed to be the moment those of us who passed up on buying overvalued houses were waiting for — when the low introductory rates on hundreds of thousands of sub-prime mortgages would jump higher, resulting in mass foreclosures and downward pressure on already falling home prices. In other words, more affordable homes. Thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a few lenders who fear foreclosure costs and having to write off thousands of unpaid loans, that day may never come:

Four major sub-prime lenders promised to give a break to California homeowners who cannot afford escalating mortgage payments, under a plan announced Tuesday by the lenders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Countrywide, GMAC, Litton and HomeEq — which collectively service more than one quarter of sub-prime loans to people with poor credit — agreed to maintain the initial, lower interest rate for some sub-prime borrowers whose rates are scheduled to jump significantly higher. To qualify, borrowers must occupy their homes, have made their payments on time and prove they cannot afford payments with the higher interest rate.

The voluntary program is designed to stem a huge wave of foreclosures. Half a million homeowners in the state have sub-prime mortgages that are scheduled to jump higher within the next two years after their introductory period elapses. Such loan resets, in combination with a slumping real estate market, already have led to a record number of foreclosures across California and the nation.

More on the deferred judgment day — and why it may be more of a problem than an actual judgment day — after the jump.

The New Republic mentions a recent study of those coveted independent voters. What's their top concern for the country? Immigration.

Democracy Corps. asked about a thousand likely voters why the country is going in the wrong direction. Forty-one percent responded that it's because "our borders have been left unprotected and illegal immigration is growing."

The New Republic says that commentators think this is problematic for Democrats; but it could be just as bad for Republicans. After all, it's the Republican president who has sought immigration reform -- including a controversial guest-worker program and legalization -- since early in his tenure. And at least a few candidates have to justify their liberal past positions on illegal immigration. Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani took a practical approach when he was in charge of the city. He noted in one presidential debate, regarding protecting illegal immigrants from scrutiny by local law enforcement, "If you are an illegal immigrant in New York City, and a crime is committed against you, I want you to report that, because . . . the next time a crime is committed, it could be against a citizen or a legal immigrant." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reportedly employed illegal immigrants, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee wanted to make it easier for them to go to college. (And there's been some infighting between those three lately.)

Well, at least some candidates have always been consistent on immigration, regardless of their love of tacos. And at least some voters don't seem to worry much about the subject at all.

Nobody ever calls San Francisco the place where boys will be boys, but the Fog City's board of supervisors has decided to spare Mayor Gavin Newsom an umpteenth public humiliation for his affair with a subordinate earlier this year. Reports the S.F. Chron:

San Francisco supervisors voted down a measure Tuesday that would have barred city managers from engaging in sexual relationships with their employees — a thinly veiled swipe at Mayor Gavin Newsom's admitted affair with a staffer, who also was his campaign manager's wife.

The measure failed with an overwhelming 10-1 vote, with only Supervisor Chris Daly, the legislation's sponsor, voting in favor of it.

"It is common practice in the corporate work setting where managers ... are held accountable and these types of relationships are not tolerated," Daly said.

Let the record show that Chris Daly has at least once in his life alluded to the "corporate" model as the right way of doing anything. But he's onto something interesting with his comment. In fact, the private-sector non-toleration of these types of relationships is a custom more honored in the breach, though employers are probably more attentive to and scrupulous about such matters now than ever before in history. And since political office involves tools of coercion the rest of us can only dream about, there's an argument for holding city officials to the strictest possible standard.

But Daly's stunt — a fun flipside to the old, equally valid, argument that Bill Clinton was guilty of a workplace indiscretion that would have ended the career of any private-sector chief executive — mainly reminds us that the culture has settled into a pretty sane groove with regard to workplace sex. In the early days of sexual harassment awareness (which, lacking any solid marker, I date to the recording of Frank Zappa's "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace" in 1981), quid pro quo and hostile-work-environment categories both got a lot of criticism — the former because, as Paul Wolfowitz most recently discovered, it can be hard to define in a consensual relationship; the latter because male hysterics like David Mamet terrorized the nation with visions of men devoured by shrieking, frantic womenfolk — but both are bright lines that have held up pretty well. You and I may differ on whether we think such behavior ought to be illegal, but that it's frowned upon (and in some respects always was frowned upon) is a sign of mental health.

In a strictly legal sense, Daly's on the right track: the policing of sexual behavior under asymmetrical power dynamics is a potentially boundless pursuit, and Newsom is as good an experimental subject as any. (An affair with a subordinate is an indiscretion; an affair with a subordinate who's also the wife of your friend and campaign manager, well, that's the mark of a man who's really trying.) In reality, Americans, and not just San Franciscans, have stopped far short of the absurdum, and still prefer to leave latitude in cases where neither party is objecting to the encounter.

Read our Mayor Newsom transcript.

George Washington Law School's Jonathan Turley wonders how to punish a cruel cyber bully:

Megan was contacted on MySpace by a boy named Josh Evans.... Josh went into detail about his own difficult life and immediately struck a chord with Megan. For six weeks they corresponded. Then, when her infatuation was at its peak, Megan received a well-planned, well-timed blow. Josh suddenly told her, "I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I heard you're not a very nice friend".... However, according to her father, the last message from Josh was the worst: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a s----y rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."

Megan fell apart. She went to her room, tied a cloth belt around a support beam in her closet and hanged herself.

Perhaps the only shock that could rival Megan's death was the news (given to her parents by a neighbor) that Josh had never existed -- he had been created by adults who lived nearby.

"Shock Doctrine" author Naomi Klein explains how global economic jolts push people out of the picture. And Milton Viorst writes in from Beirut to say that U.S. policy could push Lebanon into another civil war.

The editorial board asks Wal-Mart why it pursued a lawsuit against a severely disabled former employee for a relatively small sum. The board also advocates a shift in LAPD schedules from a three-day to a four-day work week. Finally the board remembers a time before Arnold Schwarzenegger set the fundraising record, when he promised to spend his own cash and avoid special interests.

Hillary Clinton, perhaps still smarting after Barack Obama trumped her (played) gender card with an (unplayed) race card, tried a new way to get at him — through his Indonesian years.

Clinton naturally avoided the more personal attacks that some anti-Obama types have waged, worrying about where Obama's sympathies lie since he spent four years amid the world's largest Muslim population. (In fact, Obama is not and has never been a Communist. Er, Muslim.) Instead, Clinton went the upstanding route by saying he's too green when it comes to foreign affairs. Four years abroad as a kid doesn't cut it, even if Obama said it was his most valuable foreign policy-related experience.

It's debatable what matters more — scores of official visits, or residency at a formative age; excessive formality or excessive sentamentality — when it comes to making foreign policy. And it opens up an interesting line of inquiry, that of youthful personal experience, and whether it's worth mining for campaign points or demerits. What about John McCain's hopping from school to school as a Navy brat? Mitt Romney's missionary work in France? Dennis Kucinich's time living in a car? Clinton's brief fling with Republicanism (can she get inside the enemy's mind)?