When a Clinton denies something, bet on it: Hil takes a moment from her busy schedule to have breakfast with reporters in order to address the "absurd feat of imagination" concerning her running for president or spearheading Clark's campaign. While she uses a bit of hyperbole in describing Bush and how we can't have four more years, she doesn't do any worse than the rest of the candidates (not that she's a candidate!!). She also sounds fairly intelligent when asked about Iraq:

On Iraq, Clinton stood by her vote in favor of the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war and carefully distanced herself from recent charges by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that Bush and his advisers had cooked up the war in August 2002 and had foisted it upon the American people. "Based on what we knew and believed [about the Iraqi threat], it was merited," she said of the vote to back the war resolution.

Clinton said she had consulted with both Bush and former Clinton administration officials before the war about the Iraqi threat and said that U.S. intelligence "from Bush I to Clinton to Bush II was consistent" in concluding that there was "a continuing presence of biological and chemical programs" in Iraq and that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was continuing to seek to develop a capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

She also wisely brings up the new mantra of the dems, that Bush is employing a "preemption doctrine" that is dangerous, especially when the Iraq-WMD tie-in is looking all the more tenuous.

All in all, not a bad showing; not too shrill, and fairly concise. Still, no one believes her that she's not running. Funny.

Next up: Let's do away with Meghan's Law: An Oklahoma district court has blocked the Federal Do Not Call List. This is one of those weird circumstances where easily a majority of Americans are in favor of this law (based on my non-scientific polling) and yet, it would appear to be violative of the Constitution. So, let's amend the mutha! Maybe some sort of recall vote would be in order...

Dubai: There is a great article in October's Smithsonian about the small emirate. (Only the abstract is online currently.) Dubai is Islamic, but tolerant and liberal; it is technically an absolute monarchy, yet it shares chores with its fellow UAE principalities peacefully. It is decidedly not a democracy, but is nonetheless a haven for business, due to a self-consciously laissez-faire mindset and the rule of law.

If this sounds more than a little like Hong Kong, there's a reason for that. Dubai is imitating the model of Asia's powerhouse economy, and is mindful that it faces the same obstacles: few natural resources (the other principalities have the lion's share of UAE's oil wealth), the cultural currents of the Arab legacy of poverty, backwardness, and intolerance. Nevertheless, the article states, Dubai -- like Hong Kong -- is not without its own counter-influence on the Arab world. At a recent visit to Dubai, Jordan's King Abdullah called Dubai an economic model for Jordan.

The only American military leader with proven, consolidated victories in the Communist world may also be our best bet to conquer the Arab world: Colonel Sanders.

Nifty Debate: Two young lions debate the social and political costs of Bush hatred at TNR. On the left is Jon Chait, who is a sharp guy and good writer (even if he occasionally infuriates me); on the right is Ramesh Ponnuru, who is so smart that it hurts (and who is so conservative that you wonder if all that smarts is wasted on justifying the doctrinaire GOP). Have at it, gents.

Join the Club: WaPo headline: "Barbra Streisand Says She's Bored by Her Own Songs." As Chris Buckley says, this is low-hanging fruit.

(Via Drudge.)

The Recall: As usual, liberals love "democracy" until it threatens to bite them; thus can a Democrat argue for the right of felons to vote but think the recall is "just right-wing nonsense." I'm not a big fan of direct democracy. I think you can often find a majority of people who think X is a good idea, whether X equals free stuff for people who don't work, DMV forms translated into every language represented at the UN, or holiday parades that include large missile launchers rather than Snoopy balloons. In the immortal words of Rufus T. Firefly, "Whatever it is, I'm against it." I won't deny that the California recall is fun with a racing stripe, but if I actually lived there, I'd have to vote against it, vote for Gray Davis, who is undoubtedly the lowest snake in the state since Nixon left. There's enough conservative yang to my libertarian yin to be creeped out by a powerful electorate.

That said, Bill Maher was on Imus this morning, and he made a wonderfully revealing analogy. He said the problem in California is like the problem that comes up when splitting a check among numerous people at a restaurant table -- you know, when everyone chips in, but there's never enough to cover the bill. The guy holding the check, and the wad of bills incidentally, always says, "Everybody cough up a couple more dollars." Says Maher (rough paraphrase), "We don't need a recall; we just need to reach into our wallets again to solve California's problem."

Yeah, I thought you'd get this one. You're probably like me: You're the guy who had the crocque monsieur and a cup of coffee, not yet finished wondering how it was that you got about $5 back from that twenty you offered to the brother of the college roommate of your best friend's fiancee (who has so kindly offered to "do the math" on the table check), and now you're being asked to dig in for a little more cake -- you know, so the waitress doesn't end up getting too small a tip (or something; it's always something) -- and you're thinking, "How the f*ck is this snack going to end up costing $20?"

Welcome to California.

Dubya, Live in Turtle Bay: I didn't see the speech, but I read it. The first thing worth noting is that Bush offered little in the way of conciliatory gestures. In fact, he said rather bluntly that the "coalition" was forced to pick up for the slacking UN:

The Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply. And because there were consequences, because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace and the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free.

Far from being a crawling-back-home speech, this was more of a "Isn't it about time you got off your diplomatic asses?" speech.

As an original signer of the U.N. Charter, the United States of America is committed to the United Nations. [Unsaid, but clearly implied: "Even if the UN itself is not." --Eno] And we show that commitment by working to fulfill the U.N.'s stated purposes and giving meaning to its ideals.

My best guess is that France will have a brief fit of ugly, repugnant pique, but we will get a new resolution over a silent veto -- that is, France will not actually veto, but will stand around and look haughty while it abstains. Who cares? The resolution will be essentially meaningless, and will inspire few to join us who are not already with us, at least not in any serious way.

Oh, wait: Dubya will come out with a symbolic victory, a small shred of evidence -- in the form of a resolution -- that he can play nice with others. This and $3.50 will buy him a cappuccino in 2004.

Clark: Clark is in front precisely because no one knows who he is, what he stands for, and what he proposes to do. Like Ahnuld who polled very high before registering, Clark is simply the new face on the block. Yes, he's a four-star general, but for God's sake, his claim to fame is Kosovo. Now THAT will get the electorate energized - peace-keeping. Yes, he's got the street cred to take on Bush the Elite Fighter Pilot, but what else? More likely, the swell of opinion is being generated from the Clinton's ground team. However, I still don't see Hil on the ticket with Clark this year. I mean, if Clinton is supporting him it's because they know he can't win, which means they know something the rest of us don't ... yet. If she does want to get on board, it's to use Clark as a test balloon of her ideas, with the understanding that he will drop down to second chair when she announces. Maybe that flys, but she did pledge to server her Senatorial term. With the Clintons, their word is bond.

More Random Than Usual Thoughts: If breastfed kids are so flameproof, why do we need those tags on baby pjs warming us that they are non/inflammable? Is this some kind of quasi-Nazi experiment to breed flame-retardant super soldiers by infiltrating our bodies from a young age with this chemical?

Let's say you're hammering some nails, and by accident, you hit your thumb. How many of you say "ouch"? How many of you say "&&$#$)$&&(*#(*# !!!!" Thought so. I was listening to NPR by this guy who is some professor of language, and he was commenting on the increase in profanity in t.v. He actually was in favor of it, b/c it's more real, while at the same time professing to be one of the few remaining people who doesn't curse in real life. Anyway, I bet you see "ouch" in books more than you would hear it in real life. There's some metaphysical point to be made, but I leave those to Eno, who will find the opportunity to throw in a Kerry insult while he's at it. Just you wait.

My fantasy football team (well one of them): I had one player going last night. A good performance by him vaults me into first. His name, Rod Smith of Denver. First Quarter: a kick return for 15yds. Good. A fancy run for negative-five. Bad. A catch for seven and first down. Good. Ensuing punch of referee. Bad. Ensuing ejection. Horrible. Needless to say, I'm still in second place.

Listening to Howard Stern on free radio this morning. Topic: movies/events you've cried over and are ashamed to admit it. So, animal movies and Holocaust movies (i.e. "Life is Beautiful") don't count - everyone cries over them. We're talking the movie you're ashamed to admit you've even watched, much less cried over. Or to skip genres, if you're moved to tears over Bennifer's non-marriage. That would be bad. Okay, I cried when listening to Poison's "Every Rose Has its Thorn". I may have posted on this before. I forget. Anyway, it was a very tough time for me, junior year (?) in high school . I'd prefer not to go there.

Up In Flames: USA Today's above-the-fold story today is about traces of flame-retardent polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in breastmilk. A cause for concern, no doubt:

But "this is another wake-up call," says Linda Birnbaum, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's experimental toxicology lab.

Er, Mr. Left Hand, meet Mr. Right Hand: America has the highest standards in the world for flame-proofing consumer products. Thus, what the EPA is bitching about Americans being exposed to is a direct result of the state trying to protect us.

Further on in the story, there is this amusing tidbit:

Though the USA has the world's toughest flame retardancy standards, 3,000 people die in fires each year. The Chemical Manufacturers Association estimates the number would be up to 960 higher without such flame retardants.

Got that? 960 times higher! So without such flame retardents, three million people would die every year, more than 1% of the population. Within a single generation, we'd lose 60 million Americans. I smell Congressional-testimony-grade bullshit in that statistic. If the danger is that great, shouldn't we be hosing down our furniture once a day?

Speaking of environmental damage, don't even get me started on the dangers of DHMO.

Spain: I was clearing out some old WSJs today and I came across an ad I'd meant to comment on weeks ago. "Spain -- A Friend from Europe" is the theme of the half-page "Do business in Spain" ad, featuring a handsome (and not too swarthy! Spaniard making a welcoming gesture next to a Spanish high-speed train. Here's the NY Post on the campaign:

The ad taps into a current trend among U.S. consumers, who are turning away from French wines, industry observers said.

Rich Cartiere, editor and publisher of Wine Market Report in Calistoga, California, said wine retailers and restaurant owners have become wary of keeping many French wines on their lists because they are afraid consumers will want alternatives . . . When measured by volume, French wines sold in U.S. supermarkets fell 15.5 percent in the first half of the year from a year earlier, according to Cartiere. By contrast, Spanish wine sales rose 20.5 percent in the first half from a year earlier, he said.

Smart for the Spaniards to take advantage of this. Even the catchphrase "A Friend from Europe" seems like a slap at the French, noting, perhaps, that some in Europe are not friendly. And, in a sly tip toward the Aznar government's steadfast support of our Iraq policy, the feature copy reads, "Friends will always give their best." (Is the Spanish train a dig at France, too? Remember how France got such a big charge out of having the TGV? Never mind that the damn thing did laps at 300 kph with nowhere to go but Lyon or Marseille or Brussels -- woohoo! -- and still took nearly as long as driving your Peugeot.)

The Clark Effect: General Wes jumps in the race and immediately vaults over the pack. Obviously, this says more about the Democrats than about Clark himself. Sullivan links to Clark's web site, where the "Issues" page is, tellingly, under construction. He doesn't support the war, but he would have voted for it. Or maybe not. But that's okay, since he no doubt supports traditional Democratic positions, right? Howard Fineman reports:

Last January, at a conference in Switzerland, he happened to chat with two prominent Republicans, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Marc Holtzman, now president of the University of Denver. “I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls.”

Fact is, nobody knows where Clark stands on anything. So why are so many Democrats ready to throw their support to an unknown quantity so quickly? Sure, they want to beat Bush. But USA Today's latest poll shows all of the major Dem candidates within the margin of error when placed head to head against Bush. (Interestingly, it also shows that the "most hated man in America," John Ashcroft, has a negative rating among Americans of (a steady) 31%. Hillary is at 40%, her lowest rating since last year. America, it seems, knows its real enemies.) If any of the front runners has roughly the same chance of winning, what's the reason for further contesting the primary?

Note to Razor: As long as you don't mind listening to 44,000 snapshots of your music per second, I suppose CD audio is fine. Digital audio -- as you well know -- works on the same principle as the motion picture: if I show you still pictures quick enough, I can fool your brain. I doubt, though, that you've ever mistaken film for real life.

That said, next time you think you see me, don't be surprised if it's not really me. I may instead send someone to test you by showing you thousands of pictures of me very quickly.

Actually, I do have a CD player in my new car, and when I bought it I checked out XM. I can't say I'm terribly interested. Tons of options is really nice sometimes, but sometimes it's just a drag, like the restaurant with the 40-page wine list: Yeah, yeah, I see you have lots of wine. Now quit wasting my goddamn time; I'm paying you in part to weed out the crap and present me with the short list. Not so easy with music, I suppose, but perhaps just as well. I'll have to live with toting a bunch of CDs around in my street bag.

How Much Would You Pay Not To Listen To Commercials?: Certainly no one would argue that radio today is worth a farthing. Oh, I guess that's because it's free. Not free in the sense that you don't pay a increasingly high price with your ears, listening to nameless/personality-less "DJ's" interrupt the studio engineer/computer, in order to relay the latest traffic jam. Not in the sense that you don't waste countless minutes hitting all your pre-sets, then going manual to find the one Foo Fighter song you haven't heard three times that day for some "variety". Not that you don't pay with every fiber of your sanity to avoid the quick-twitch reflex to go to talk radio, because anything...anything...is better than the latest packaged Michelle Branch "song".

No, it's free only because you only need buy a radio to listen in. Of course, today, even in your car, you don't have to turn on the radio. Sure, you can always burn a CD, or quaintly, dub a tabe; or even sing your own song, but unless you're addicted to Kazaa, even those faves will get old. And, unless you never have a passenger, let's hope you're not singing Michael Bolton - actually, let's just hope that regardless.

So, would you pay around $10.00/month to get hundreds of channels, no commercials, and variety out the wazoo? Well, that's the test before you. You can now have a digital receiver installed in your car, and many manufacturers are giving you the option to have a player put in you car upon delivery.

I don't see how "free" radio has a chance. For the price of one-half of a CD a month, you can get nearly limitless radio. I would concede that it will take probably a few more years for the technology to catch up to our national consciousness, but especially for those who drive a great deal, having the ability to never hear another commercial again, is simply priceless.

Note to Eno: a "CD" is like an "record", but smaller in diamater, made of space-age plastic, and knows only one speed - the speed of light baby.

Philanthropy: Jesse Walker, who's forgotten more about radio than most of us know, noticed this story about a commercial-free radio station in Southern Arizona, playing the kind of classic rock and roll that has been programmed off commercial radio. Says the reclusive man behind the music:

I'm doing what I want to do. I don't have anybody yelling in my ear, telling me what to play, or what not to play. People are free to listen to it if they want to, but I'm not concerned if they don't. I want the station on the air because I love all this music and nobody's playing it on the radio. It's really that simple.

I don't want to go off like I know the radio, but I did grow up within the radio reach of Dave Herman, who was never allergic to going deep on an album; of Scott Muni, who was cut off at the knees by corporate radio and ended up struggling to get an hour a day on a name station; of Vin Scelza, the only fellow I ever heard play a song twice in a row, just because he liked it (imagine doing that on a Clear Channel station and not meeting you pink slip immediately). It's an old bitch now to say that radio all sounds the same; but I can, with some accuracy, predict exactly what will be playing on my ride home from work. Even the independent station in town (the blues/worldbeat/alt-rock station that every college town has) will play the crap outta some goofy Moroccan disco tune that somebody heard during a break on NPR and has now become the must-have name among the college set, but won't dig a whole lot deeper into the vinyl than something like "Instant Karma." (Plus, it's all so damned left-wing.)

Screw it. I'll just drag another 500 pounds of used LPs home from Championship Vinyl again, to play on my turntable that mysteriously switches from 33 rpm to 45 rpm mid-song.

More Clinton/Clark: Safire has a strong opinion.

G'wan, you say, the Clintons should be supporting Dean, a likely loser to Bush, thereby ensuring the Clinton Restoration in 2008. But plainly they are not. Their candidate is Clark. Either they are for him because (altruistic version) they think Clark would best lead the party and country for the next eight years, leaving them applauding on the sidelines, or (Machiavellian version) they think his muddy-the-waters candidacy is their ticket back to the White House in 2004 or 2008.

Which is more like the Clintons?

He said as much yesterday on Meet the Press. Safire's not a Clinton fan, true, but he's also wired, politically. He hears the whispers at the highest levels; you don't spin from the right for the Times unless you're a player.

WaPo in favor of vouchers: The vote for a D.C. voucher initiative should not be a victim of a Senate filibuster. This bipartisan bill is a step in the right direction. I just hope it doesn't get loaded down with any baggage or pork that give opponents an excuse to vote against it.

Props to Viking Pundit.

Primaries, Dean, Clark, and Clinton: John Ellis in TCS examines how the Primary race is all about being one of the annointed two candidates.

The iron rule of media bias was once explained to me years ago by Henry Griggs, a media and political consultant. He described it as an analog of what he called "Fiji math." "In Fiji," he said, "they used to count as follows: one, two and many. There was no "three" or "four" or "five." There was just one, two and then that third number; "many." That's how the media cover politics. They can only count to two."



This bias is exaggerated by the exorbitant cost of covering campaigns. Simply put, the major television networks, newsmagazines and newspapers can't afford to cover a "many" field. It's a budget buster inside a budget that already requires huge outlays for pre-primary coverage, primary and caucus Election Night broadcasts, party convention coverage, debate coverage, general election campaign coverage and Election Night broadcasts. As a matter of simple economics, the field must be reduced to two as quickly as possible.

It's an interesting take on primaries and the media, but Ellis sees it as supportive of the Clark/Clinton ticket hypothesis that won't go away.

Enter General Wesley Clark, a Clinton/McAuliffe production if there ever was one (Clark's advisors, almost to a person, are all veteran Clinton hacks). General Clark's candidacy is the Anybody But Dean campaign. With a twist. The twist is that Hillary Clinton's name will soon be floated as his running mate. The message will be that Clark-Clinton will unite the party. All of this has happened or will soon happen before a single vote has been cast. That's how much front-loading the primary schedule has exaggerated the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire and distorted the nomination process.

I still don't see this political odd couple geting together. Clark would wind up the first presidential nominee who couldn't get any airtime.

One More Thing: I'm sure the Ringo slam was at least partly tongue in cheek. I'll let it slide. But if you have Magical Mystery Tour, put on the headphones and dial up "Strawberry Fields Forever" for a listen. Note Ringo's tom-snare fills on the choruses and the reprise. And read this.

A Bit More: I suppose you're right, Razor, that McCartney could have somehow put his foot down back in 1970. The story goes that Lennon authorized the Spectorization, but nothing is clear from the time, really. My point is that, for artistic reasons, it's worth having the document. The point of Let It Be, as a project, was to cut live in the studio, to move away from using the studio as an instrument as they had in their later projects, particularly Sgt. Pepper. But there's no denying that the Beatles are something of a cottage industry now. As for who makes the money, doesn't Michael Jackson own the catalog now? Seems to me that he'll probably take the biggest cut. Thus I presume (perhaps unwisely) that McCartney's motivations are artistic (or a slap at Yoko, as you suggested, which is an art in itself).