Oldest stuff first.

Raoul Lowery Contreras' "Obama's delusional foreign policy" draws a late hit from the ether:

Your delusional.  He has specifically said he will NOT meet with Hamas.  I guess you missed that.  Unfortunately I am stuck at home at the present and see endless cable news programs.  He has said he will NOT MEET with Hamas unless they recognize Israel, etc. several times.  You really should correct this.

Robert Greene's Opinion Daily "The two Henry T. Nicholases" enthralled some and infuriated others, but a reader in San Diego saw it as a call for the Golden State to bring in higher-quality sex scandals:

A lot of men seem incapable of handling women, power, and money.  It's about time that we have a West coast Elliot Spitzer; Kobe was getting lonesome.

Regards,

Roger Newell
San Diego, CA

Kurt Christiansen's Blowback "Start small on climate change" brought in a response arguing that, well... we're not really sure. But we always respect clergy members:

Men reading fashion magazines, oh what a world it seems we live in, where stories about straight men who wear skirts and a holy man who wears flowing gowns dominate our most popular stories of the week. Here are the Top 10:

1. The Scots show their true colors, by Sean Connery
2. The prophetic anger of MLK, by Michael Eric Dyson
3. Papal dress code, by Michael McGough
4. The day the beer flowed again, by Maureen Ogle
5. 'Allah' vs. 'God' by Rabih Alameddine
6. Resist the urge to leave Iraq, by Max Boot
7. The GOP, a casualty of war, by Rosa Brooks
8. Disney, we are not amused, by the editorial board
9. The genocide loophole, by Jonah Goldberg
10. Washington s $4-billion land grab, by Paul Thornton

As always, thanks for reading Opinion L.A.

Some recent web stuff:

Paul Thornton wants to score some of that $4 billion Uncle Sam is spending to keep real estate prices up.

Standard & Poor's says don't blame us for the tough times in municipal budgeting.

And three Turkey-related bits have commenters hot and bothered:

Assembly of Turkish American Associations says there was no  genocide and there is no Kurdistan.

Robert Ellis says the AKP is corrupting Turkey's secular character.

And Cüneyt M. Serdar says the United States is watching a democracy disintegrate.

Thanks for reading!

Slaves drivers, racists, greedy farmers, deluded business people and libertarians: The Opinion section was a real rogues’ gallery last week as the continuing history of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Stonehenge-like resurrection of a year-old David Ehrenstein piece proved, um, something about, uh... Well it proved something we already knew — Barack Obama has been very, very good to our traffic.

Thanks for reading the Los Angeles Times. Here are the winners:

1. Obama blew it, by Michael Meyers
2. Someone give Ben Bernanke a hug, by Joel Stein
3. Old Hickory's slaves, by Carl Byker
4. Obama the Magic Negro, by David Ehrenstein
5. Farm bill feeds greed, by the editorial board
6. Where the votes are, by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
7. Welcome to the right, Mr. Mamet, by Andrew Klavan 
8. Equal justice, by the editorial board
9. Obama's Lincoln moment, by Tim Rutten
10. How to get ahead in webcasting, by Jon Healey

Paul Leonard goes toe to toe with Christopher Thornberg on forcing lenders to renegotiate with defaulters. More to come later today.

You don't believe FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and LAPD Chief Edward M. Davis were uncredited script doctors on the All In the Family pilot? We've got evidence!

Robert Ellis laments what the ruling party is doing to Turkey.

In our most recent installment of the inaptly named Opinion Daily, Jon Healey lays odds on Jango's race to survive in an imploding market for webcasting.

The editorial board sees a post-Bhutto future as a chance for White House policy to "get on the right side of history," and writes an open letter to her son on his, and Pakistan's, future:

If you truly wish to struggle for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan, you need to make your own way. Identify worthy candidates with the values, skills and experience you believe are needed to run Pakistan, and work for their election. Or start your own NGO. Or go to graduate school and decide for yourself which policies will help your country. Or run for parliament. In 2008, legitimacy cannot be inherited. It must be won with ballots.

Please learn to be the democratic and wise leader your country yearns for. Pakistan will need you — just not now, not in this role. We wish you luck.

The board also tells the city to mind its own business and stop meddling in private labor disputes.

On the Op-Ed page, historian Joseph J. Ellis waxes skeptical about presidential campaign promises, and Manhattan Institute fellow Tamar Jacoby warns that when it comes to anti-immigration sentiment, don't believe the hype. Author Eric Weiner kicks off the New Year by tossing out his self-help books:

Social scientists studying happiness (or subjective well-being, to use the academic term) have found that external factors — quality of government, social interactions and, to an extent, money — determine our happiness more than anything else. In other words, happiness does not reside inside of you. Happiness is out there.

Readers take sides on current state malpractice law. "To put it more bluntly," writes John Fortman, "we need the doctors more than we need the lawyers." Lisa Smock, who describes the fallout from her mother's botched surgery, points out, "to use a 1975 dollar amount for malpractice awards today is a disgrace to the ones who have put their trust in doctors but have been injured by them."

Today is the annual Great American Smokeout, the 24-hour period of the year when all bets are off on anti-smoking pontification. Newspaper editorial pages get into the act, and why shouldn't they? The anti-tobacco editorial practically writes itself: Establish that "everyone knows" smoking is bad for you, acknowledge the "progress" in reducing smoking rates yet point out that current regulations and programs are clearly "not enough," call for people to kick their addiction and/or some government body to do something about it, and if you're really on a roll, shame the great unwashed who still do smoke despite mountains of evidence proving the habit's deadliness.  Check out a few examples from smaller newspapers.

But an especially offensive editorial in a big Chicago newspaper? Isn't Chicago the city of fat waistlines, bratwurst sausage, beer and a team of fictional smoking, suds-guzzling "Superfans"? Indeed, the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday decried the historically low smoking rate as not low enough, called for the mother of all "do somethings" — federal regulation — then expressed annoyance that people would even choose to smoke at all, calling them "fooled":

Smoking is very, very bad for you. After more than 40 years of surgeon generals' warnings, reams of research and scores of public awareness campaigns, you'd think we wouldn't have to state the obvious. But just before Thursday's "Great American Smokeout" — the annual effort to get smokers to quit — along comes discouraging news that the message still isn't getting through ...

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the issue, part of larger congressional efforts that would for the first time allow federal regulation of cigarettes. It can't happen soon enough.

It's amazing smokers still are fooled by light cigarettes. Then again, it's amazing people still smoke, given all we know about the health risks.

Up the coast, the Ventura County Star contributed its own anti-smoking editorial, and though it doesn't call for more regulation (we have more than enough of that in California), it expresses a bewildered sentiment similar to the Sun-Times':

Today is the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society. It has only one goal: to show smokers the benefits of quitting. The only question to ask, then, is why haven't all smokers quit? ...

The effort to prevent smoking deaths comes down to those who smoke — they must want to stop. Yet, despite all the warnings, some 63 million people, or 21 percent of the population, in the United States still smoke. In 1965, a year after the first surgeon general's warning, 81 million people, 42 percent of the population, smoked.

Good progress, but not enough.

Particularly striking was that neither the Star nor the Sun-Times made any mention of second-hand smoke, the great menace to which anti-tobacco activists often point to justify government intervention. Instead, both editorials were most annoyed by the very fact that people who smoke have made that choice. At that point, the anti-smoking argument becomes one of personal preference, not of public safety and policy.

I used the occasion today to assess the sad state of smokers' rights and remind you that, yes, you still have a choice whether to smoke. Read the Opinion Daily here.

The mailbag's full of fiery reaction to Paul Thornton's recent Opinion Daily "Stalin was an atheist — so am I"...

From the Holy Land, 24-year-old guy Lior Amsterdamski is relieved by the sanity:

Hello..

my name is Lior, and I'm a 24 year old guy Israel.

i just wanted to thank you, for the wonderful column you wrote about atheism. i read it first thing on Thursday morning, and it really made my day :)

it's great to hear such good arguments, and so well written as well.

I apologise upfront for my horrible English, but as you've probably guessed English is not my native language.  anyway, i wanted to let you know that your article meant a lot to me.

I've heard that in the united states there is a wide spreading open discussion about religion these days, but i must say that in Israel atheists remain a quiet majority.
ironically, in a country torn apart by religion, and threatened daily by religious fanatics, most secular people think they should mind their own business and hope that everything will turn up OK, and religion remains a taboo.

since being Jewish is also a nationality for Israelis, one shouldn't even mention religion if he doesn't want to hurt the status Que.

strange place to be living in, i guess.

anyway,

thanks for an island of reason and logic, in the sea of superstitious lunacy that is out there,

sincerely yours,

Lior.

In the biggest feat of overpromising since Jesus told an audience at the Bellagio that he could get a camel through the eye of a needle, Robert Landbeck says he's got a piece of writing worth waiting 2,000 years for:

The players of contemporary God wars now have something to really worrry about. Apodictic Certainty which could blow them all right out of the water. The first new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teaching of Christ is spreading on the web and it has teeth. Check the link.

Did someone say Hitler? Unfortunately yes, and Judith Abeles replies:

Hitler was not, in fact, an atheist. "Mein Kampf" contains Hitler's declaration that his mission of destroying the Jews is in the name of god. I don't have the exact cite handy, but it is easy enough to find.

Cordially,

Judith Abeles

Finally, Sharon says don't just remember Hitler for the bad stuff:

How I feel?

After learning what atheists did, murdering 110,000,000 in the past century. Their opinion means nothing to me anymore. Their belief system is dirt.

It was these murderers and monsters who stood in judgment of their enemy -- the one which could have brought Communism to an end: Hitler.

I have no respect for Communism and its decades of lies, deceits, frauds, bloodshed, rape (6 year olds - 80 year olds raped as Red Army poured into Germany, -- est. 2 million women raped.)

Don't ask me to "hate" Hitler ever again.

THAT is my opinion.

Sharon

Two views of Swati Pandey's recent Opinion Daily "Tancredo moves the lethal center."

Citing that hypothetical but remarkably popular suicide bomber from Mexico, Richard Eide says one o' these days...

Regarding your article on Tancredo's politics about illegal immigration, everything you said, and everything anybody else has said all goes out the window the moment we have a suicide bombing in this country. If the bomber is found to have come across the southern border the argument is over. The wall will go up ASAP along with the military on the border. Congress will be down there digging the fence post holes themselves, anything to keep their jobs in the face of a furious voter revolt. One suicide bomber and the immigration battle is over.

The tersely named "Raj," on the other hand, feels Pandey is just helping Tancredo demonize poor undocumented workers:

"But if Tancredo's ad — and Barack Obama's speculation — are to be believed, immigration will be a major issue in 2008, along with terrorism. And recent numbers suggest that voters are leaning toward tough-on-illegal-immigrant positions."

Swati Pandey needs to do more research before printing this garbage. This is not what we heard from the voters in Virginia and Kentucky two states where the Dems won handily instead of being a mouthpiece for anti-immigratn folks. For a reality check read Anita Kumar's article in Washington Post...

Swati's is garbage in garbage out, a kind of reporter that Tancredo relies on to spread his lies.

Regards

Raj

Here's what we've had at Opinion L.A. over the past few days:

Pakistan's and the stock market's unhappy upheavals prompt some digging through the old archives.

Past boards on healthy international relationships:

It comes hard to blame the Pakistanis for breaking off their affair with the United States.

Pakistan has given the United States whole-hearted support from Korea on, siding with us in hot and cold crises.

We have failed to back Pakistan as stoutly in the dispute with India over Kashmir. India's Nehru has broken his pledged word to allow a decision by plebiscite in Kashmir. He has temporized, brushed off the recommendations of neutral commissions, and still hangs on to the province.

On nationwide money woes:

This country has withstood graver dangers than the present, and when it was not half as strong. Stand fast! The Republic lives! Long live the Republic!

Catholic author Gregory Popcak objects to Garry Wills' argument that religion has nothing to say about abortion:

Scripturally, the basis of Christian condemnation of abortion comes not only from the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" as Wills asserts, but from the fact that the Bible considers children a supreme gift and blessing from God. One does not reject a gift from God lightly. Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knew us in the womb, and Exodus 21:22-23 imposes a penalty for those who cause the miscarriage of a fetus.

Web editor Tim Cavanaugh, in a Swift turn of logic, argues for restrictions on problem-breeders like himself. Editorial researcher Paul Thornton, meanwhile, bonds with Stalin over their shared atheism.

Finally, LAPD superstar Chief William Bratton joins the editorial board to chat about overtime, drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and, or course, crime. Some candid remarks on that last topic:

I don't think it has anything to do with warmer weather, it has nothing to do with lead poisoning, it has nothing to do with abortions, and if it does those are very minor influences on the crime rate. What does influence crime is people deciding to break the law, or unintentionally finding themselves in violation of the law.

Tell it like it is, Chief.

Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani has won the endorsement of televangelist and Moral Majority founder Pat Robertson. Robertson, who recently made the news for his suggestion that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez needed assassinatin', becomes the most prominent social conservative to back a candidate so far (though Mitt Romney got an important backer yesterday).

It's a big deal for Giuliani, whose pro-choice stance remains anathema for many a values voter. Indeed, the editorial board recently asked if those voters would throw their weight behind a third party rather than back Giuliani. But as senior editorial writer Michael McGough noted, Giuliani's abortion position seems less and less pro-choice the more campaign speeches he gives.

Back in May, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly admonished young folks for thinking of work as a "four-letter word," prompting a shaming from her own overachieving 27-year-old daughter. Six and a half months closer to the election, it appears Clinton now thinks it strategically unwise to insult an entire voting bloc that leans Democratic. From the Clinton campaign's "Students For Hillary" press release:

During her remarks at each event, Clinton honored the activism and public service of students and recent graduates. In particular, she noted that between 2000 and 2006, applications to Teach for America nearly tripled and that between 2004 and 2006, applications to the AmeriCorps VISTA program jumped 50%.

"So to those who say your generation is disengaged -- that you're not as passionate and committed as we were -- I say, come out to Providence and Keene and Durham and Wellesley. See how every day, young people here and across America are standing up, taking charge and making the impossible possible," said Clinton.

So what's happened over the past six-plus months? Have we sub-30ers been so driven to prove Clinton's youth-shaming wrong that we've signed up by the millions with AmeriCorps and Teach for America? Most likely, Clinton's flip-flop on Generation Lazy has more to do with her and other presidential candidates' views on what constitutes proper and praiseworthy youth. To them (and many others in their age group), young folks are at their best when they perform tough work on the cheap or for free, and at their worst when they look for gratifying jobs that pay competitive salaries. Indeed, in that May speech in which Hillary bemoaned lazy youth, she decried the supposed "culture that has a premium on instant gratification," of which young people are supposedly a product.

In fairness, Clinton is a lamb on youth voluntarism compared to other candidates. Getting young-uns off their butts and putting them to work has become a fashionable issue in Campaign '08. Former Peace Corps volunteer and Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd has made national service one of his campaign pillars. Both he and fellow Democrat John Edwards want to make community service mandatory for high school graduation. Republican candidate Mike Huckabee has also started singing the praises of expanding national service programs.

It must be easy to praise voluntarism and call for a lot more of it, especially when it's some other group of people who will do the work for a pittance or nothing at all. In September, I wrote about campaign-season calls for youth national service programs. For a convincing read on the impracticality and moral repugnance of national service, click here.

Still reeling from the brilliance of Michael McGough's recent Opinion Daily on anti-discrimination discrimination? So are McGough's old fans back in the City of Bridges, who remember his work for the Post-Gazette with affection. One Pittsburgher writes:

Mr. McGough,

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's loss is the Times gain and we in Pittsburgh are the losers.  But, we are still fortunate that we can continue to read your work. I want to relay to you that your discrimination column was discussed at length yesterday during Lynn Cullen's WPTT talk show.   

Thanks, Pat Lhota, Pittsburgh

It's been a while since we hit the mailbag. Some recent correspondence from you, the fabulous little people:

If you go weak in the knees anytime somebody uses the magic words "Looney Left," you'll love Delta Max president Robert Swanson's salty rejoinder to "Boys, girls and 9/11," my take on Susan Faludi's new book:

Why do some pundits yearn to seek "meaning" in an event beyond the obvious?

The USA was attacked by religious extremists who want to bring our country and culture down, nothing more nor less.

The most shocked among us were those to whom the idea of another culture hating ours simply because of who we are, goes against all of their idiotic Pollyanna platitudes that "...we are all the same...!"

In other words, the Multi-culturist, Citizen of Planet Earth, Looney lefties.

Robert Swanson
President
Delta Max

Newport Beach

R. Stephen White's Blowback "Nukes still work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow" gets another reader's reactor core leaking:

To the Editors:

Regarding R. Stephen White's opinion, Nukes still work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, the point is not if renewable energy is intermittant.  Obviously, it is.  The point is that renewable energy is desirable and, arguably, nuclear energy isn't.  In fact, one produces horribly toxic byproducts and the other doesn't.  One mankind could use forever with few consequences, the other leaves perpetual poison.  One is, potentially, available to everyone, the other is extremely expensive and, potentially, deadly.  Take your pick.

David Sears

Robert Greene writes about the "Return of the Westside lefty" and everybody's favorite nun in the Federal Reserve says Amen:

It is refreshing and consoling to read Robert Greene's cogent and concise analysis of the "pragmatic-left development of Los Angeles on the part of builders and politicians pursuing complementary interest"

This may be the beginning of real down to earth housing.

Thank you!

Sister Diane Donoghue

Why will we miss the opinion stylings of Ronald Brownstein? Because he got people talking! In response to Brownstein's "Republicans run right," one reader appeals to a higher authority:

Enjoyed your article.

However, you are, once again, neglecting the importance of Family and Moral Values.

Conservatives have the formula for real peace in the world--"Listen to, and obey, the Word of God."

The Word of God emphasizes strong family and moral values--conservative values.  Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe in one God, the same ONE AND ONLY GOD; and all  try to live up to these family and moral values. Many fail!

When they fail, they sin; and the wages of sin is death!

They fail when they tolerate, promote or commit the deadly, and equally abhorrent, sins of Abortion, Homosexuality, Euthanasia, and cold-blooded murder of innocents by means of terrorism.  Unless we can all agree to stop all of these violent and atrocious sins, there will never be peace in the world.

This is why all Americans must, and will, make Family and Moral Values the most important issue in the Presidential Race of 2008.

Tom Balish

Another reader finds it is possible to be less popular than President Bush:

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, law professor Ilya Somin lays an eight-post smack-down on an issue near and dear to my 25-year-old heart -- forced or induced government labor of young citizens, otherwise known as its more politically appetizing title of "national service." In an Opinion Daily column last week, I wondered exactly what it is about we sub-30ers that inspires presidential candidates to call for our government servitude. Somin answers:

Why then the focus on the young? I suspect it is because they are politically weak. Research shows that 18-21 year olds are less likely to vote, less likely to engage in political activism, and have lower political knowledge levels than any other age group (see e.g. - this book). Obviously, they also have less money, make fewer campaign contributions, and are least likely to actually hold positions of power in government. The AARP would crucify any politician who had the temerity to suggest that the elderly be required to do forced labor. Unfortunately, the young lack that kind of power.

Somin also points out the obvious moral repugnance of national service:

It would still strike at the heart of the liberal idea that each person owns his or her own body, and cannot justly be compelled to work for others merely because it might be convenient to do so. Short of outright slavery or the murder of innocent people, it is hard to think of anything that violates individual liberty more clearly than forced labor.

The rhetoric of "national service" obscures the true nature of the idea, perhaps intentionally. It suggests that forced labor at the orders of the government ("national service") is somehow morally different from forced labor at the behest of other private individuals. But there is no intrinsic moral difference between the two. Yes, forced labor for the government might benefit the nation (though that result is by no means guaranteed). But so could forced labor for a private enterprise. Indeed, even outright slavery was regularly defended on the grounds that the labor of slaves produced valuable benefits to society as a whole.

In my Opinion Daily from last night about the Dodgers' bullying P.R. and the organizational incoherence underlying it, I made passing comparative reference to the on-the-same-page success of the Los Angeles Angels of not-Los Angeles.

As if by magic, The Times' Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan, an original-Angels beat writer and author of the only quality book-length history of the team, penned a fine feature that describes an Angels organization meeting in the fall of 1999 introducing then-newbie General Manager Bill Stoneman and Manager Mike Scioscia to, among other people, the team's P.R. staff:

Stoneman and Scioscia heatedly and pointedly declar[ed] the need for an overhaul of focus and direction in an organization that had known mostly failure, frustration and frequent fluctuations in personnel and philosophy during the 45 years Gene Autry owned the team and the four that Disney had.

"What happened," said a person who was in the meeting, "is that Bill and Mike kept getting peppered by questions from the marketing staff as to which of the players they would build an advertising campaign around since, as one of the marketers said, they were not going to win a World Series and it would be foolish to build a campaign around the team.

"Bill and Mike looked at each other incredulously. I thought they were going to come out of their chairs. They'd been on the job for only two weeks and they were being told that the organization's expectations didn't include a World Series. Well, both of them laid it out right there, saying that every day they came to work the goal from top to bottom should be and would be to reach the postseason and to win the Series."

Like a lot of good management stories, this sounds both trite and right (and is pure crack to us management-by-baseball fanatics).

Some reaction to my column at an Angels site, and at a non-Angels site.

Readers give Michael McGough whatfor over his recent Opinion Daily "If Gore had won ... "

Robert Land goes to Godwin's Law hell and back, and becomes the umpteenth person to discover the stunning Moe Howard/Hitler connection:

Clinton was wrong in signing the republicanazi bill 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, under pressure from the Republcanazi Concress.

Bush and his fellow Republicanazi's, supported by stooges like the Times' senior editorial writer. who shamelessly finds ways to excuse the excesses of a government not dedicated to the well being of her citizens, but dedicated to consolidating control over those citizens, are simple profiteers bleeding the USA dry and attempting to establish a HOMELAND like DER FATHERLAND.

Just like a fellow with a funny mustashe did a few decades ago in a small European country, assisted and enabled by people like The Times' senior editorial writer.

Ziggy Heil to you and your new Fuher.

Robert Land

From the Volunteer State, Todd and Deb and Ricky and Tom and Diane, with Carol and Ted and Alice abstaining, vote against revenge:

Dear Mr. Michael McGough,

If Gore had become Prez. instead of the Texacutioner, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. It's as simple as that.

The Dow would be at 15 and the NASDAQ would be a 6.

Everyone knows it. Everyone sees the con, just as we have for the past 7 years.

So let's not screw up and vote for revenge again.

Have a great day...!

Todd/Deb/Ricky/Tom/Diane

Nashville Memphis TN

Jim Hassinger makes it hurt:

In order to come to your conclusions, you just have to ignore every single word that Gore has spoken since 2000. Must hurt to be a Bush apologist when your guy is a complete psychopath.

---

"... the bulk of your natives [are] the most pernicious race of  little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." Jonathan Swift

Jim Hassinger

From Oak Park, Ill., city of wide lawns and narrow minds, Benjamin Iglar-Mobley gets the restore-Gore movement underway:

Michael McGough stretches credulity to the breaking point in trying to equate a President Gore with our current White House occupant. The very domestic spying programs McGough claims Gore would have sought had he gained the presidency in 2000 are the ones Gore denounces in his book 'The Assault On Reason.'

I feel sorry for those like Michael McGough trying to come up with excuses for the worst president in US history; they have an impossible task. However, he concludes with "We'll never know for sure" how Al Gore would have conducted himself as president. There's a fairly obvious way we can find out: restore Gore to his rightful office in 2008.

Benjamin Iglar-Mobley

Gretchen Kranch says the dead don't need civil liberties:

In response to your article about whether our civil liberties would still have been intact after 09/11 if Gore had won the election. Yes.... of course they would have been. I believe this to be the case since I have no doubt at all that President Gore's work day on 09/12/01 would have been no different from his work day on 09/10/01. Like Mr. Clinton after the first World Trade Center attack he would have responded by telling the nation not to be alarmed since this was no big deal. Then he would have resumed dialing for Buddhist dollars.

Since a Gore Administration would have been loath to term what happened on 09/11/07 as an attack there would have been no follow-up action taken to prevent more of them. Therefore there would have been no resulting 'assault on civil liberties'.

And please don't insult my intelligence by asserting that President Gore would have invaded Afghanistan. At the time, the Democrats were opposed to even doing that much.

Of course, this would only have emboldened the terrorists to level more attacks at us leading to thousands more deaths and injuries. But at least the civil liberties of the dead would have been protected. I'm sure their families would have appreciated that.

g.kranch

An Al Gore fan takes issue with my Opinion Daily asking what if Gore had been elected in 2000 and 9/11 had happened? I floated the possibility, based on the Clinton administration's anti-terror initiatives, that a Gore administration might not have been the diametric opposite of the Bush administration when it came to wiretapping and other controversial techniques in the "war on terror."

Unfair, suggested my correspondent. Hadn't I read The Assault on Reason, in which Gore lambastes the Bush administration for, among other sins, subverting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? In the same vein, Media Matters took me to task for not quoting Gore's voluminous criticisms of Bush's surveillance/security policies.

I have read Gore's critiques of Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program, in his books and elsewhere. (They read as if they were cribbed from L.A. Times editorials!) But the answer to my "What if?" is still blowin' in the wind, because Al Gore the would-be president and Al Gore the actual president are still two different entities.

A President Gore might well have sought congressional approval of NSA wiretapping, but he might also have been moved to the right on this issue by the arguments of intelligence professionals (not to mention Vice President Joe Lieberman). We'll never know for sure. That said, I should have cited non-President Gore's criticism of Bush's policies. 

Elections do matter, and I don't accept Mort Kondracke's dictum that, no matter who wins, the president is always Gerald Ford. But holding office does make a difference, which is why no one pays attention when presidential candidates promise to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Oh, and remember how candidate George W. Bush trashed nation-building?

Not since Frank Gorshin and some other guy played the black/white, white/black haters on Star Trek have space people been as fired-up as they are over Paul Thornton's Opinion Daily "Space program lunacy." And some of the rage is warranted: Our gaffe in the original story about the connections and lack thereof between NOAA, NASA and the QuikSCAT satellite has been corrected, and we apologize for the error. Paul knows he's made some very poor decisions recently, but he can give you his complete assurance that his work will be back to normal. He's still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.

Wendy Dunham gives Paul a Gopher State whuppin':

Yeah, and I can write an article that reports what NASA actually HAS done for the Earth that would blow this article out of the water. Obviously, a good word smith can spin a story like this any way you like, talk about the million dollar toilet, etc, focus on the seeming  wastes, but if you dug down into the facts and saw all the stuff that HAS come from NASA that is improving the real world (and it's a lot more than pens that write upside down or Tang), that list that would eclipse any further "what have they done" articles. Dig, people, dig, The truth is out there.

Wendy Dunham
Minneapolis, MN

Eric LP notes that the budget for NASA is even smaller than Eric LP's last name:

But NASA's idealism is seriously endangering the world's ability to track its own changing and more dangerous climate. Indeed, one of the most popular complaints about space exploration is that it wastes billions of dollars that could be better spent on problems here. With global warming an increasing threat, NASA has a chance to prove what it has long asserted — that a space program provides practical benefits to Earth-bound humanoids.

Yeah, we could spend it here on earth, like in Iraq!  you know the money would be going towards Iraq if any was available.   Global Warming?   GET REAL!!!!!!!!   Bush doesn't even think Global Warming is man made.   What the hell?   We do need to address GW.  But, the budget for NASA compared to Iraq is like a drop in the bucket.  The whitehouse doesn't even have GW in it's vocabulary....

Meanwhile we are at 9 TRILLION with a "T" in debt... Housing market is taking a dump....  Uh.......  We are still sending bush blank checks so that he can do what he wants.   Let's pull this into perspective a bit eh?   I'd much rather see money spent on Science and Research...  It's gonna take a lot of it to fix the GW problem. Problem is where are going to find the scientist?  I guess you didn't get the memo... Science and Math is uncool...  No one wants to look like a dork / geek in school anymore...  They all want to be football hero's and lawyers....   Who has time to be scientist or a computer programmer / engineer?  Those are low paying jobs and get you no where fast.

So back to your dream... While I think we should have a moon base... I think we should be spending the money on a shuttle replacement.... Lets just be happy they don't take all the $$ away and send it to Iraq...

Bruce Bales says Mars ain't the kinda place to raise your kids:

YES! Get NASA back on track toward important things, like Earth.

If Mars and deep space need to be explored, it can be  done much more economically with robots like the Rovers.  A one-way ticket costs only a fraction of a round-trip ticket.  Spend the money on understanding weather and global warming.

Bruce Bales
Andover, KS

Dr. Irv Loh uses the old blame-Ryan-Seacrest trick:

Opinion LA:

As a product of the Sputnik era who educationally benefited from the paranoia that resulted, I could not agree more with Mr. Thornton's assessment.  The cost of redundancy in manned space exploration multiplies the cost to achieve similar benefit with unmanned vehicles, and results in the unavailability of those finite resources for the other projects to which he referred.  Planet earth and all of her inhabitants are in dire shape, and although there is little drama to match manned exploration, we need to refocus our attention to things that truly matter.

Similarly, the tax dollars going out of this country on folly could be so much better spent on obtaining healthcare for our citizens and refurbishing our transportation infrastructure.  Yet none of this will occur until Americans wake up and start to pay more attention to who's at the helm of this country than who's winning on American Idol.

Irv Loh MD
Thousand Oaks, CA

C.P. Shields turns on the light on his miner's helmet and finds some of the overlooked riches of space:

Where to start; A lot of good has come out of the space program, that being said we need to spend our money a little better.

1) I would take 50% of the NASA budget and contract with scaled composites for a new lift vehicle. 

2) More probe work (Remote probes are producing valuable scientific data and it is the part of NASA worth keeping and funding).

3) Partnerships with other nations (except France, I just hate the French) in manned missions.

Justification:

Well here's one: Ore processing and off planet mining, we can do unsafe processes that would contaminate our  atmosphere but not in the vacuum of space and ship processed metal and zero G products earth side and another Medical research  drug production in sterile zero G environment. and last why not reach for the stars?

CPSHIELDS1@aol.com

And speaking of out-of-this-world riches, Brian Topping writes to us from that great city to the north, with greetings for all earth people:

Greetings,

I just read Paul Thronton's opinion about the space program and noted his observation of the apparently misguided trip back to the moon.  I also used to think this was lunacy until I saw something on PBS that was talking about the Helium-3 content of moon rocks.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 has a pretty good spread of the information.

What bothers me immensely is that Bush didn't say anything about this when he was signing all that crap with so much fanfare.  What was he thinking?  That people were too stupid to understand that the moon might be an excellent fuel source?  Or was he hiding something about the program so it could be privatized once the government got the program set up?

This latter point may be the bigger story.

Peace,

Brian Topping
San Francisco, CA

The Department of Homeland Security to exception to my gloomy column of earlier this week whining about how U.S. citizens are suddenly being required to show their passports all over the damned place, except if they are deemed to owe $2,500 in child support, in which case they can't have one. Let's print the letter in full:

Dear Editor,

In an August 21 editorial, Matt Welch misstates the implementation date for new travel document requirements under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Passport requirements at our land and sea borders do not take immediate effect in January 2008. Initially, a government-issued photo ID and proof of citizenship will be required. Requirements for passports or other approved documents will take full effect next summer.

Even more problematic, Mr. Welch fails to grasp the fundamental reason why our nation is taking steps to strengthen travel document security at our borders and why we are working with states to create secure driver's licenses under the REAL ID Act.

Identification documents are as important as weapons for terrorists. They enable terrorist travel and plotting. Shutting down this known vulnerability was a core recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, and it was mandated by Congress.

Admittedly, these measures involve some modest individual inconvenience. But, that far outweighs increases in identity theft, or having to explain to a future 9/11 commission why terrorists were able to use fraudulent identification to enter the United States and carry out an attack.

Sincerely,
Russ Knocke
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Department of Homeland Security

There's a clarification now on the original piece.

There was also plenty of feedback from that minority-within-a-minority of the population aware of how the wheels of the System can overrun men falsely accused by the government of fathering a child. Click on the link to read a whole lot more.

Thanks to many readers for informing us that the [Republican Rep. Ron Paul] link in Ronald Brownstein's Friday Opinion Daily column "YouWho?" was actually a repeat-link to the Obama Girl video. The fault is entirely mine, both for incautious pasting and for the crush on Obama Girl my typing slip revealed. Ron had no part in the snafu, but he still takes a shellacking from readers. Read the results:

Nay, nay Mr. Brownstein.  The "uninformed voter" doesn't exist.  He's the one who has been ass-kickin' liberal extemism to death ... including that of the L.A. Times.  He is the one of common sense thought, but why do I continue; you wouldn't understand.

Reg Laite

---

In his latest column, Ronald Brownstein ponders why Republican candidates are narrowcasting their primary-season advertisements and media appearances to Fox News and YouTube. Which has left the Sabbath-gasbag shows gasping:

Perhaps even more revealing of the campaigns' growing desire for control is their bipartisan caution about dealing with the broadcast networks — which, as Pew found, maintain substantial audiences in both parties. Candidates from both parties are making themselves available for interviews on the morning news programs — which provide broad exposure while subjecting the candidates to relatively brief questioning — and, to some extent, the evening news broadcasts as well. But with the exceptions of Democrat John Edwards and Republican John McCain, the leading contenders so far have ducked the Sunday interview shows traditionally considered a rite of passage for presidential candidates. Clinton and Giuliani have not yet appeared on "Face the Nation," "Meet the Press" or "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," while Romney has only submitted to one of Stephanopoulos' somewhat more informal "on the trail" interview segments. [...]

Jim Dyke, who was the communications director of the Republican National Committee and is now advising Giuliani, says the relative blackout reflects a straightforward cost-and-benefit calculation by the candidates as their options for reaching the public expand. "If you do a Sunday show and you get through it unscathed...then nobody cares," Dyke said. "Maybe the inside-the-Beltway types notice a little bit, but it's not going to change the narrative of what you're doing...that week. But let's say you go on and you have to face all this 'gotcha' stuff and you don't get through it very well, you have at least a day's worth of stories about how you're...not ready for prime time. They used to be big because they defined the commentary and punditry so much. I'm not sure they do that anymore. Plus it was an opportunity to reach so many people, which you have so many ways of doing now."

Whole column here; Brownstein archive here.

Also, in case you missed our previous Opinion Daily, Swati Pandey assessed India's 60th birthday.

You spoke up; we heard...

I get clawed up like a fieldmouse for my daily "Let the mighty liberal hawks soar"...

From Concordia, MO, Penelope Kuhn delivers a Show-me State dose of skepticism about my terms:

What's the score?

In your article about "liberal hawks" you are STILL talking about victory and defeat, win and lose, as though Iraq and the U.S. were high-school football teams.  They are not.  They are places whose inhabitants' lives -- physical and/or economic and/or moral and/or emotional and/or spiritual lives -- are endangered by this goal-less, show-off war.  Shock and awe, indeed!

To me, "win" is a transitive verb.  Win what?  A medal?  a nice bouquet of flowers to take home to wifey?  a round of applause from everyone who stayed safe at home? 

As long as writers like you insist on throwing around nebulous terms like "victory", there is a danger that people will believe that "victory" is a goal.  Then the carousel stops and we all live happily ever after?  "Stability" would serve us a bit better if anyone could describe, clearly, what it entails.

Penelope Kuhn

From Eugene, Oregon  Patrick G. Gardner says make the madness stop:

You can speak of win and lose in Iraq all you want but it means little to those of us who just want the trillion dollar boondoggle to stop...The best way to stop the mess is to just do that...There was no honor going into this fiasco so why is it so important getting out...If the Iraqis want to find resolution they will...one way or the other...with or without us.

Patrick G. Gardner

On the other hand, Jim Murray writes all the way from La Jolla, the jewel of the Pacific, to give a thumbs up:

Tim, thanks for your great editorial about the mighty liberal hawks. Keep pinching the bloviaters.

Jim Murray

Anne-Marie Slaughter also takes a drubbing for her Blowback item "Bipartisanship is good for both sides." From the city of brotherly love, Paul Lukasiak calls a word-count violation

Dear Editors

Imagine my surprise after reading that the “Blowback Guidelines” required responses to be no more than 700 words, only to find that Ann Marie Slaughter’s response to Matt Yglesias’s column was 879 words.

Now, if Slaughter had actually provided viable solutions and ideas in those 879 words, the exception to the Blowback rules would be understandable.  But Slaughter does nothing of the sort;  she simply repeats the same failed mantra of “bipartisanship” that got us into this war that she supported, and which results in continued bloodshed.

Slaughter needs to spend some time outside of academia, and in the real world, because we are not talking about a theoretical out-of-control executive and a theoretical GOP Congressional minority that marches in lockstep with that President.  We are talking about a very real crisis in this country that has cost us the lives of thousands of Americans, half a trillion dollars, and our reputation on the international stage.    Slaughter wants us to believe that there are actually 11 Republican Senators that are willing to defy George W. Bush, and force his hand on Iraq policy. 

But Slaughter can’t name them.  She lives in an academic fantasy world, rather than the very real world of domestic politics.   Unfortunately, Slaughter’s fantasy world continues to create torrents of very real blood being shed by Iraqis and Americans on a daily basis. 

Ultimately, Slaughter is completely unable to offer anything but bland generalities about the way forward through “bipartisanship”.   And its rather annoying that the Blowback rules were broken because she has an impressive resume, but offered nothing of substance despite being allow to blather on for 179 more words than the rest of us are allowed.   

And that’s all I have to say…and I said it in under 300 words.

Cordially

Paul Lukasiak

Philadelphia, PA

From the Gulf of Mexico, Mike Sweet says stay out the Bushes:

Whatever happened to the Liberal Hawks, that breed of opinion-slinging bird who urged war then shrieked when it didn't end in puppy dogs and rainbows? Tim Cavanaugh says they're back from the brink of extinction, thinking about doubling down on the surge, and reminding the rest of us why an anti-war country can only produce pro-war policies.

Editorial Board writer Robert Greene untangles the Jerry Brown backstory lurking behind Sacramento's great 2007 budget debate. The secret is in the enforcement of the California Environmental Quality Act. Excerpt:

CEQA was a landmark environmental law signed in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, who four years earlier ousted Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, father of the current attorney general, who then succeeded Reagan in 1974. Jerry Brown was a big proponent of CEQA -- then. A quarter century later, as mayor of Oakland, he railed against the law for slowing down construction of housing and redevelopment of his city.

Then, last November, he was elected attorney general and this year began sending letters to governments that produced regional plans which, in Brown's view, failed to account for global warming. In one case -- the plan for San Bernardino County -- he sued.

More here.

Sound off about recent web-only content from the folks at Opinion L.A.:

Opinion Daily: "Foreclosure heaven" Sometime house hunter Paul Thornton looks at all those defaulting borrowers and longs to give them a Rupert Pupkinesque "Tough luck, suckers; better luck next time." But will Democratic busybodies ruin his only chance to afford a home?

Dust-Up: "Golden state, gay marriage" Lorri L. Jean and Ron Prentice lock horns over same-sex nuptials.

Opinion Daily: "Was Ted Kennedy right about Scotus?" Michael McGough reviews the Roberts-Alito court's record and finds both more and less reason for concern than originally advertised.

Dust-Up: "Rumor romp" Luke Ford and Eric Spillman get to wrasslin' over blogs, ethics, gossip and the fall of the destination media.

Opinion Daily: "Torrent trackers get RAMmed" Jon Healey tracks the indexers, indexes the trackers, and finds a world of confusion in efforts to crack down on online copyright infringement.

Dust-Up: "Subprime players" Should the government bail out bad loans? How many people will lose their homes? Can Paul Thornton ever afford to buy a house? Robert Camerota and Paul Leonard to duke it out on these issues and more.

There's plenty more where those came from, and more coming every day. So make your opinion known in the comments, or email us at opinionla@latimes.com.

I wrote an Opinion Daily column last month about the lobbying surrounding the proposed XM-Sirius merger, and what motivates some interest groups that are, well, less than household names to weigh in -- mainly on the pro-merger side. In a nutshell, many groups throw in their 2 cents because they want to be seen as having influence, both by their constituents and by the Washington establishment.

The lobbying on this issue took a bizarre twist today, when none other than the Catholic Archbishop of New York, His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, threw his support behind the merger in an op-ed in the New York Post. The church is an interested observer here; it has channel on Sirius called, innovatively, "The Catholic Channel." According to Egan, the merger is "an unmatched opportunity to strengthen this new medium and position satellite radio to compete with the ever-growing list of audio entertainment providers." In addition, he wrote, the companies have promised to offer "more choice at lower prices" post-merger, along with the ability to block and not pay for channels with offensive content.

Say what you will about Cardinal Egan's grasp of communications regulation or antitrust law, but he certainly knows how to deliver the talking points.

Opinion L.A. gets people talking...

My recent daily "Funny-book funk briefly brightens" draws a Shakespearian zounds!:

Regarding Tim Cavanaugh's bitter, cynical "Funny-book funk briefly brightens" on July 17: Mr. Cavanaugh regards comic books, newspapers, movies and bound books as all breathing their last gasp.  Are there any media that AREN'T dying in his grim estimation?

David Moran
Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers
NYC

Our "Subprime players" has readers hopping mad. From the Grand Canyon State, Jenny Celli says out, damn spot:

So the president of the Mortgage Banker's Association wants to assure us that they are committed to homeowners and eliminating mortgage fraud... it's rather like asking the wolf to monitor the hen house.  The fact is, since the Association lobbied nationwide realtors to help repeal the 10% government rate ceiling on mortgage interest rates in 1979, they have been gouging the public willfully.

First, was the complete decimation of the market with home loans sporting interest rates in the high teens and early 20s in 1980.  Anyone remember that?  I do.  Then came the elimination of the fully assumable loan so if you wanted to buy a home, you would have to pay the new rates. 

Wait, it gets better... Realtors, that ever creative breed of commission paid enterpreneurs, begins to find the loop holes, so we get AITDs and contracts, even the swapping of properties and use of promissory notes for down payments.  The Assoication fires back, now they want proof of money down and they filed documents to ensure that if there was an AITD or a Contract, they'd be notified so they could call the loan.

By the time the reality would strike home that the market had killed itself- 1983, the rates came slowly back down; short term gains were no replacement for steady commissions.  The industry gets back on it's feet and dusts itself off and the realtors, like sharks smelling blood in the water after the stagnation, start selling at ever inflated values requesting that apprasiers meet the price - 1985.  They do.  The market inflates irrationally and by 1990, the market again bottoms out - time ot pay the piper. After all, what goes up artificially must come down.  No sales, no commissions; everyone suffers.  Updisde down borrowers walk away from the black hole that is sucking the life out them: home ownership. 

By the time the correction starts again, there needs to be new product and a way to qualify those that can no longer afford the American dream: enter the mortgage industry with a solution.  Their solution once again amounts to lining their own pockets at the expense of the average home owner.  Now they're asking for another opportunity to fix it.  It wasn't broken in 1979.  Their fixes have made owning a home almost impossible to the average American.

How do I know all this?  I worked in the industry.  I quit when it became apparent that although lawyers could be abhorrant, realtors/mortgage bokers were a sleaze that I couldn't wash off.

La Mirada's own Pete Alberini says Beshrew me much, MLM:

The amount of people who profit from Sub-prime loans is relatively small. The amount of people who will be hurt if the Sub-prime mortgages fail is very large. It is more then just the borrower and lender. Sub-prime lenders practice risk mitigation by utilizing Wall Street investment money in which loans are bought by Wall Street and then peddled to investors, i.e. the public. Maybe even your company’s retirement fund.

Sub-prime mortgages business is simply a legalized ponzi scheme. It is one of the reasons Corporate America had to have the Bankruptcy laws changed to mitigate risk. Many of the organization are institutions with taking in federally insured money. If the ripple effect falls that far back all America pays. As it is now only those with homes will pay when the housing mark collapse and your equity value fads away. Few winner and lots of losers, it doesn’t make sense to operate the way even if it makes a few people very rich.

Pete Alberini
La Mirada CA

They're still talking about Sonni Efron's "Dead reporters and the information gap." Reader Dana Victoria seems to be recollecting the death of Steven Vincent:

You, the FLP, continue to shower us with white-hot reactions to our Opinion Dailies:

Michael McGough's "Unions labeled" draws a flinty rejoinder from a man of the cloth in Chatsworth, CA:

Sir:

Michael McGough writes in "Unions Labeled" that the Employee Free Choice Act would ". . . give unions an unfair--one might even say un-American--advantage." Implicit in this statement is that unions and employers are on a level playing field.

The number of union-affiliated employed workers has fallen from one-third in 1945 to 14 percent in 1998. Although there are many suggestions for the decline, employer anti-union tactics--often illegal--have included: firing union activists, captive indoctrination of workers, showing anti-union videos, intimidating supervisor one-on-one meetings with workers, bribing of workers, open or veiled threats to close the business or facility, and actively supporting anti-union committees of workers. These tactics typically are designed, promoted, and managed by a growth-industry of high-powered anti-union consultants.

The facts are well-documented: the playing field is not level, and organized employer opposition to unions is the principal explanation for the decline in union membership. Much of this is true because of the incredible weakness of U.S. labor law and NLRB practices. Given this scenario, it's hardly unfair--or un-American!--to allow unions an advantage that would barely begin to level the playing field.

Rabbi Moshe ben Asher

Jon Healey's "Sirius, XM and American values" brings in some sound advice from a Phoenix, AZ student:

As a Sirius user...

I block any bad content. I just wish also that they get a dedicated fm channel. Even NPR overpowers them. Regular radio needs only one FM station just one not 2.

A reader in Afghanistan gives Sonni Efron a browbeating for "Dead reporters and the information gap"...

This article is a sad statement on the perverse and tortured logic that guides the thinking of the press.  All deaths caused by terrorists are lamentable.  The cost to society in the lost potential of those lives is incalculable.  However, to pretend that the information gap is caused by the deaths of reporters is simply journalistic narcissism in its most dangerous and deceptive form.

The true cause of the information gap in the United States and throughout the world is not the deaths of reporters on the front line in war zones.  The information gap is caused by the death of integrity in the reporters and editors in the news rooms thousands of miles behind the front the lines.  It is the fallacious concept that the newspeople have the ability and the duty to shape the news that is responsible for the information gap. 

The article refers to reporters asking impertinent questions of those in power as if this is an everyday occurrence.  The problem is that the media only questions those in power who disagree with their predetermined story line.  The public needs and deserves a media that will step back and report the story without the bias and backhanded remarks of the enlightened journalists. 

War is tragic and its toll in lost lives and suffering is enormous.  The only thing worse than having to fight a war against terrorists and fascists, be they Islamic, Nazi or any others, is to lose that war because the media undermined the Nation's will to win through its biased, one sided portrayal of the issues.  That is the only thing that can truly render the sacrifice and suffering of all the victims of this war meaningless.

Patrick D. Clonan
Police Advisor, Herat, Afghanistan

...while a reader in our nation's capital sees ominous similarities between being killed in Iraq and paid by Rupert Murdoch:

There are many disturbing points made in this article.  All made me cringe for the horror of possibilities.

As I read this I also thought of Rupert Murdoch’s probable takeover of Dow Jones.  The imminent launch of Fox News Channel?!  Where can you find the highly-regarded news sources (of the near-future)?  We seem to be racing toward a global society where pertinent, objective, reliable information will be available to fewer and fewer people—if it can be found (and recognized).

Is there anyplace left where the determination or the essential aspect is ruled by something other than the ability of the highest bidder? 

DJH in Washington D.C.

Finally, the eternal revolutionaries come out to denounce my own "Semper Fidel." Larry Maxcy provides some biting wit:

Hi,

You have to admit that Fidel and Hugo have quite a bit in common. The United States has failed on multiple occasions to kill them. I imagine this promotes a certain camaraderie.

All best,

Larry Maxcy

From Belize, bestselling author Cervantes sets quill to paper:

Dear Mr. Tim Cavanaugh,

I believe that the system that has not worked is the system that shamelessly left many poor and black people in New Orleans homeless and left to die like animals after hurricane Katrina.  Fidel's system has succeeded in giving every citizen of Cuba dignity and a decent life as human beings for almost 50 years consistently.  Of course, Fidel's system is very unlike the American capitalist system in which only a tiny portion of the population enjoy and control the greater mass of the wealth of a nation.  Katrina exposed the American system for what it is in its raw form.  And we, the whole world, saw it disappointedly and dejectedly.

People like Chavez, Morales and Correa are rightfully looking to Fidel for guidance because the his system puts the welfare of the society first, over the welfare of just one or a few privileged individuals.  The American system is based on money and the accumulation of wealth regardless of who is stepped on or at whose expense, as long as the victim is not an American.  America follows the doctrine of arrogance through power and right through might.  It is there for everyone to see.

Fortunately, the people in Latin America have realized that while they were being blinded by the glitters of the promised wealth through the capitalist system, they were being robbed of their nation's wealth and intelligence by the empire and its local collaborators.  Please realize that when you speak of Hugo Chavez, you are speaking of  man that is democratically supported by the popular will of 2/3 of Venezuela's population and a man that as fairly won about 8 elections and referendums in 8 years, so unlike George Bush and Felipe Calderon, who both had to cook and concoct many questionable deeds to beat Al Gore and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively.

Definitely, you, nor anyone high up in Washington, cannot deny the fact that those same leftists, that you criticize for investing the nation's wealth back into the development of its citizens, have the overwhelming support of the people of their nations.  After all, is this not true democracy?  The only thing wrong with these true democracies is that the fair and open democratic process did not deliver the preferred outcomes and results that the empire so much desired.

The people are speaking.  You must listen to us.  Any other way is definitely anti-democratic.

Sincerely,

Ramon Cervantes
Belize

And from the great white north, Heather manages to bring the subject around to why Canadians are better than Americans:

I was in Cuba three times in the past year Tim.  How many times have you been there?  I cycled from Santiago to Havana, three quarters of the island.  How much of Cuba have you really seen up close, Tim? How many real, everyday Cubans have you been able to speak with at length?  Get their heartfelt views, etc.  That sort of thing.

You didn't mean Canada in your reference to the "Cream of the Global Left", did you?  After all, we have stayed friends and invested in that brave little country these past 50 years or so." Google " Ian Delaney's recent comments about how much more money Sherritt International is going to invest there in the near future. Course he isn't allowed in the United States due to the Helms Burton Law.  He says it hasn't produced a dent in his lifestyle.  Some of us non-americans just have this chip on our shoulder about other nations trying to tell us who we can associate or do business with.  Go figure.

Want to know what is always surprising to most of your "socialist neighbours" up here in Canada? ( Yikes! We even have universal health care here, just like the Castro Regime!)  It's when you watch some television show and they are interviewing americans, and the interview subject says something like " I just don't know why the world is so angry at the United States...why bad things like 911 happened.  We americans are good people...",  etc., etc.  No one wishes bad things to happen. But anwser me this:

We in other countries just wonder why the average american, with a reasonable level of intelligence does not see what the rest of the world sees: that your government is run by big business and lobby groups like those folks down in Miami Dade who sponsor terrorism themselves.  You can make all the jokes about Fidel you want.  He will pass on one day. When he does the world will show their respect at his funeral.  No one from the US government had better dare show theirs.

Heather
Canada

That's it for this installment. Keep those cards and letters coming!

Michael McGough's Opinion Daily "Thomas marches to his own tune" draws heaping bags of mail:

From Westchester, Eric H. Potruch speaks over the roar of landing passenger planes:

As "dodgy" and "disingenuous" as McGough characterizes the arguments of those Supreme Court justices who formed much of the majority in the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" case, I believe Justice Clarence Thomas is just as dodgy and disingenuous.  By employing his originalist "technique" to interpret the Constitution, Thomas fails to acknowledge the given fact that societies and their mores change over time.  The framers of the Constitution never believed that slavery would be deemed unlawful, or that women would be allowed to vote, or that consuming wine or beer would be prohibited.  By Thomas' originalist barometer, he'd never have been able to learn to read, let alone attend law school and ascend to the highest court in the country.

Whatever we may think, schools are not parent substitutes.  While it's their job to teach and to provide order to their students during the day, it is not their job to regulate their speech to the point where it limits their ability to express themselves.  Justice Stevens was right that the "Bong Hits" banner was simply an attempt to grab attention.

Further, the First Amendment, as it has been interpreted for generations, clearly establishes that the federal or state governments may not be seen as having any bias toward any particular religious belief, or even religious belief at all.  Since public schools fall under local, state, and federal government oversight, any insertion of religious doctrine, such as those contained in the Pledge of Allegiance and inscribed on our currency, can be construed in a way that the government promotes religious faith, and is therefore unconstitutional.

Dr. Clinton J. Vickers steps forward with a prognosis that no slam is so old you can't use it one more time:

Someone please give Justice Thomas some pornography cases to ponder when the Court hears its next desegregation case.

From Houston, Texas, Ivory Crampton says we're full of tripe:

The article on Thomas is tripe. He is not a great thinker. He doesn't march to a different drummer. He is not a man in touch with who he is. He is not siding with the conservative majority because he shares their worldview. Thomas hates the fact that he is Black. He rejects what he is and thinks his actions on the court will blunt the fact that he hates what he sees in the mirror. To alleviate the obvious racial/self hate pathology he exhibits, he has taken against most things beneficial to minorities. Some of the decisions he has joined, from any point of view, would highlight that this guy would sell his soul to be a WASP. Since that isn't possible, he does what he considers to be the next best thing - to repudiate laws/policies for others that helped him get where he is now.

What idiot, who is a minority, could in any good conscience, vote that race cannot be a factor in where children go to school. Well documented studies with longevity to bolster and provide unassailable proof that most minority neighborhoods, especially those of Blacks and Latinos have basic, economic inequities in resources, facilities, teacher pay rates and tax bases render such a decision by the court as the one handed down today as beyond foolish to land in the ludicrous column. The years since the decisions in the 60's have not been that conducive to rectifying the injustices of the past. This majority is doing its best to ensure that corporate and conservative views on these matters prevail.

You can say say that race and economics on the part of the other four justices did not factor into their decision. I say you are wrong. Race is the greatest underlying factor in their decision and in Thomas's concurrence with economics a very close second. All the concurring justices have the same motivation, keep the minorities as a permanent underclass, using "ringer cases" that cannot be appealed to a higher power. The same strategy has been used throughout the long history of American jurisprudence in matters concerning race, class and economics. I hate that Thomas hates himself enough to pretend he is not like "those people" he is consigning to some difficult days. I agree, he isn't like us, he is worse.

This was a shoddy decision based on amost cavalier reasoning. Just find something to hold up a pre-planned decision.

You, the FLP, react to recent Opinion Dailies.

My daily "Semper Fidel" draws a hip-hip for Castro from Los Angeles' own Matthew Glesne:

Did I miss the larger point of today's broadside against Fidel Castro, or was it really just about calling the international left "pathetic" as well as naming and shaming those who dare visit Cuba? If so, one could be forgiven for having a different opinion about who is looking desperate and pathetic at this moment in time, particularly given the distortions and things left out of the piece.

As an opening salvo, you inexplicitly call the leaders of Vietnam, Venezuela and Bolivia a "murderous row of left-wing luminaries." While this sort of baseless name calling is not new in the US press, I would not expect it from an editorial page editor of the LA Times. The leaders of the dozens of other nations that have visited Cuba this year are apparently not as exciting to mention. Neither is the fact that Cuba was elected to head the Non-Aligned Movement - still the largest, most important bloc of developing countries in the world.

While you seem to certainly have some fascination with Cuba, it is a shame you apparently do not care to scratch the surface of the events you're commenting on. If so, you'd would have found that the Vietnam visit was long in planning, and from the way Fidel went on and on about their country's successes, it appears both countries see benefit from cavorting with the other. Ortega and Chavez on the other hand, were in Havana for working meetings based around the recent ALBA conference, whereby those country's comparative advantages are able to be put to use. Thousands have sight, health care and affordable energy supplies for the first time out of the deals.

Cuba is said to have produced a "catastrophic economic model." While this is certainly conventional wisdom, an actual glance at statistics might propel one to think otherwise. During the decades of great neo-liberalism, Cuba has been one of the best performing economies (even with a horrendous depression after the fall of the USSR). For three years in a row Cuba and Venezuela have had the top growing economies in the region (the CIA pegs it at 8%, using an outdated formula tailored for capitalist countries. Cuba says 12%).

You call Castro's writing "absurd and paranoid," apparently unimpressed by the US' sordid history on the island or that the US maintains a policy of regime change, has recently spent millions on creating a "plan for transformation" and created a new CIA office dedicated to Cuba and Venezuela. Never mind the illegal and immoral embargo that gets shot down at the UN by a new record landslide each year (184-4 this year I think).

Sincerely disappointed
Matthew Glesne
Los Angeles
aviewtothesouth.blogspot.com

Eric Root takes a gander at Michael McGough's "We're all scandal-plagued attorneys general now," and lays down the law:

Being Hispanic is not enough