Is President Bush's proposal to expand the space program a good idea?

A major reason why Americans value the space program is that the sight of human achievement--especially as embodied in the technological prowess of space exploration--inspires them to realize their own dreams here on earth. But by proposing a massive new government program that threatens increased taxes, greater deficits and inflation, Bush is robbing American taxpayers of their ability to realize their earthly ambitions. If Bush wants to encourage achievement, he should concentrate on eliminating the plethora of government regulations, taxes and bureaucracies that are strangling American producers.

If Americans were once again free to keep more of what is rightfully theirs and to invest more in their own ambitions, there is no telling how many would be inspired to achieve their dreams here on earth.

• Privatize the Space Program

"You keep talking about race," the former street activist [Al Sharpton] chided Dean when he had a turn to ask a question. He said that not one "black or brown held a senior position, not one...It seems as though you've discovered blacks and browns in this campaign," he said. Dean bristled at that and said it was untrue. He said he had had "senior members" of his staff who were minorities, but Sharpton cut him off and said he was asking about his Cabinet, which has fewer members. "No, we did not," conceded Dean, whose state has a population that is nearly 98 percent white.

Reformists in Iran's parliament said yesterday that they were encouraged by "positive" signs from the theocracy's supreme leader [Ali Khamenei], but would continue their daily sit-ins in the parliament building until a sweeping ban on moderate electoral candidates was lifted. [...] Adopting a more subdued tone after several days of angry speeches, the [reformist Members of Parliament] are waiting to see how the conservative Guardian Council carries out the supreme leader's orders.

[W]hat are the key points of difference between the two sides? The short answer is: not much. For purposes of simplification, the Western media refer to the two sides in Iran as "reformists," supposedly led by President Mohammad Khatami, and "conservatives" whose leader is identified as another mullah, Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide." The terms "reformist" and "conservative," however, mean little, if anything, in the current context of Iranian politics. The supposedly "reformist" bloc has controlled the presidency for the past six years and the parliament for the past four years. And yet, it has implemented absolutely no reforms of any significance. Nor has it even proposed such reform. For its part the "conservative" faction bases its ideology not on the need to conserve anything, but on the necessity of exporting the Khomeinist revolution first to other Muslim countries, and then to the entire world. [...]

What is happening in Iran today is a power struggle between two factions within the same Khomeinist establishment. The so-called "reformist" faction is not objecting to the principle of vetoing candidacies by the "guardian angels" [i.e., the Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, which is a 12-man, mullah-dominated organ appointed by the "Supreme Guide" and answerable to him.] It is objecting to the fact that its own members are vetoed.

Beyond this scrum between competing factions, it's worth noting that the ground under the feet of Iran's ruling mullahs appears increasingly unstable. In June they faced student demonstrations demanding reforms to separate mosque and state, and in November the world discovered the mullahs had been lying about their nuclear program for 18 years. Last month the Bam earthquake took thousands of lives, and left the country's backwardness and the slowness of relief exposed for all to see. Iran's under-30-year-olds -- who comprise a majority of the population -- have been leading the calls for a more liberal Muslim society. These are Iran's real reformers. But there is as yet no sign that their voices are being heard.

A Palestinian homicide bomber -- and mother of two -- blew herself up Wednesday at the main crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing four people and injuring seven, emergency officials said. Authorities believe this was the first mother to act as a homicide or suicide bomber. She was identified as Hamas member Reem Al-Reyashi, 22, of Gaza. Family members said she had a 3-year-old boy and 1-year-old girl. [...]

The Islamic militant group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, issued a joint claim of responsibility, according to Lebanon's Al-Manar satellite television station.

The two groups said they worked together to carry out this attack.

Hamas said it sent a woman for the first time because of growing Israeli security "obstacles" facing its male bombers, Reuters reported. Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said the use of a female bomber was unique, but added that holy war "is an obligation of all Muslims, men and women."

Smiling at times in a videotape that showed her cradling a rifle, Al-Reyashi said she had dreamed since she was 13 of "becoming a martyr" and dying for her people. "It was always my wish to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and to knock on the doors of heaven with the skulls of Zionists," said Reyashi, wearing combat fatigues with a Hamas sash across her chest.

What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice -- which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction -- which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of good.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia declined to condemn the bombing, saying continued Israeli attacks and restrictions on the Palestinians are leading "to more escalation on both sides."

It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

...Gov. Gary Locke hopes to see race as a factor in Washington's state university admissions process. "I support modifying I-200 to allow for consideration of race without set-asides or quotas," Locke said at his first news conference of the planned 60-day legislative session that started Monday. Washington state voters passed I-200 in 1998, prohibiting government entities from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

...Locke wants to change the law to make it consistent with the high court ruling and because he believes diversity is important to education. [Daily Herald]

Governor Locke said he's against quotas, and wants a more 'qualitative' approach. Apparantly 'qualitative' apartheid is OK with Democrats like Locke.

Mr. O'Neill would have us believe that he was the only honest man in an administration of sycophants. Another interpretation would be that he was simply ill-suited to the job he had been given, too used to being the boss and incapable of taking direction, too interested in doing things his own way instead of the way his boss wanted them done, and too easily led to believe that outspokenness is the same thing as honesty. Even without the details made public in this book, we know that Paul O'Neill was not a very effective Treasury secretary. Looking through my files I find headlines like these from his tenure:

"All Thumbs at Treasury," Washington Post (5-20-01)
"Mr. O'Neill's Gaffes," Washington Post (8-1-02)
"Treasury Secretary Gets Into Hot Water On U.S. Cuba Policy," Wall Street Journal (3-15-02)
"O'Neill Solidifies Maverick Status With Public Jabs at Bush Policies," Wall Street Journal (3-18-02)

On Oct. 2, 2001, the New York Times had this to say: "Mr. O'Neill's erratic statements have sometimes rattled investors and "marginalized him as a policymaker and spokesman." You get the idea. Yet O'Neill never improved. He continued to go out of his way to be out of step with the Bush Administration, both substantively and stylistically, right up until the end. The only question is why he wasn't fired sooner. Mr. O'Neill may think he is getting revenge on a president he believes treated him shabbily. But I think that all he has really done is remind people of why he never should have been named Treasury secretary in the first place.

• How a miner's strike could cripple Britain in the 1970s but not the U.S. owing to the influence of public-sector unions
• Why, when an ice storm hit the Eastern Seaboard, the power came back on in days in the U.S., but on the Quebec side some people had no power for months
• How rescuers in the World Trade Center tried to get people out, while in Saudi Arabia the authorities pushed girls back into a burning building lest they come out without headscarves
• Why the recent earthquake in California, stronger than the one in Iran, caused only 2 deaths
• How the Chinese government enabled the SARS breakout
• Why the heatwave killed so many in France but not in the US

He had been unable to obtain permission for his wife and children to join him in Iraq, and his wife had recently been visited by Iranian security agents who told her,"if your children suddenly die in the streets, you must know that it was not our doing."

His grandmother sent him a message a few days ago, which stressed the importance "for the family" for him to return, warned of the danger to his children, and contained a promise from the regime that no harm would be done to him. [January 6, 2004]

• Death to Theocracy: America Must Act Now to Bring Down Iran's Regime
• The Real Revolutionaries
• The Road to Victory Goes Through Tehran
• Turning Iraq Into Another Iran

In 1997, [Santos] Reyes was caught at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in San Bernardino, using a cheat sheet to complete the written portion of a driver's test.

At trial, where his limited English skills required the use of translator, Reyes freely admitted he was trying to help get a license for one of his cousins, who knows how to drive but is illiterate. What Reyes didn't know--and what his court-appointed attorney apparently failed to explain--is that lying on a DMV application constitutes perjury.

Reyes was convicted of perjury, and the court found two prior strikes: a robbery committed 10 years earlier, and a burglary committed in 1981, when Reyes was a juvenile. He was duly sentenced to 26-to-life....

[A] heroin addict named Leandro Andrade [was sentenced] to prison for 50 years. The final two of that wretched thief's three strikes occurred when he stole a few videotapes from a K-Mart, then returned two weeks later to shoplift another five tapes from the same store (estimated value: $84.70)....

[A] concerted political drive to make American law more conservative resulted in a one-vote majority in support of the view, advanced by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, that "cruel and unusual" means only what the 18th-century framers of the Constitution would consider cruel and unusual

MoveOn.org is "using the memory of that genocide as a political prop," American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, referring to the Holocaust. "President Bush has shown us leadership in Iraq, and our troops have liberated a people who were oppressed by another murderous dictator … comparing the commander-in-chief of a democratic nation to the murderous tyrant Hitler is not only historically specious, it is morally outrageous," Rosen continued.

Mr. Hitchens... came to Manhattan in November determined to participate in "an orgy of lawlessness," while exploring "the shriveled core of the tiny Bloombergian mind." He took up two seats on the subway (Fine: $50); fired up a cigarette where one is not allowed to smoke (Fine: $200 to $2,000), and (gasp) engaged in such disorderly conduct as sitting on a milk crate on subway stairs. He rode a bicycle (sans bell) and coasted through Central Park without his feet on the pedals (a double offense)...."Under current New York City law," [Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter] writes, "it is acceptable to have a loaded handgun in your place of work, but not an empty ashtray." [NY Sun]

GOP Demands Censorship of Moveon Ad Comparing Bush with Hitler Once again, the comparison of Bush with Hitler strikes terror in the hearts of Republicans - because they know how close it cuts to the truth. A proposed TV ad submitted by a Moveon member had RNC chair Ed Gillespie spitting bullets. According to Drudge, Moveon removed the ad from its contest - one more victory for GOP censorship, bringing us ever closer to a Nazi dictatorship.

"We hate the arrogance of the Americans and we are sure that they haven't come for humanitarian reasons, but for other things like spying," said Abdullah Irani, a mullah from Qum, the main center for Shiite clerics in Iran.

Ordinary Iranians are cheering a warming of diplomatic ties between Tehran and the United States brought on by the Bam quake, and hope an end is in sight to a quarter century of isolation from a country many openly admire. Even though conservative Tehran newspapers may rail at "earthquake diplomacy" by George W. Bush, many average Iranians on the capital's streets Sunday said they welcomed the American president's overtures that may rebuild severed ties. "I was overjoyed when I first heard America planes were going to fly in to help Bam," said Hassan Tayebi, 51, a retired civil servant, referring to the Dec. 26 earthquake that destroyed the southeastern city. "I really like Americans. They are really kind people and I hope the aid offer leads to better relations." Many Iranians show a more favorable attitude to the United States than their own government does.

[A]s we are reminded every day by the wonderful dentist in Baghdad who bravely blogs away at www.healingiraq.com, in the words of Jonathan Swift, "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." The regime in Tehran is not reasonable, it is fanatical. It has waged war against us for a quarter century and it intends to destroy us. It claims to act in the name of all Islam, and views us as the greatest Satanic force on earth. It will not come to terms with us, because its very essence is hatred of us and of everything we represent. Knowing that the vast majority of its own people hate the regime and loves America, it murders, tortures, and oppresses them. When the mullahs appear to be acting reasonably and tell us they wish to help us fight terrorism, it is a deception, not an expression of their real desires. Yet many of our leaders, fine men and women all, continue to believe that the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan suffice to let us return to diplomacy as usual, even as the entire Western world ties itself in knots to protect against the next assault from the terror masters. [...]

Look at the many reports on the awful degradation of Iranian society, now leading the region in suicide and teenage prostitution, its standard of living a pitiful shadow of what it was before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, its infrastructure in tatters, its armed forces distrusted by the country's leaders, its students under virtual house arrest, its newspapers and magazines silenced, its talented moviemakers and writers and scientists and artists fleeing to the West whenever they see a crack in the nation's walls. Look at the damning human-rights reports. Read the harsh condemnation of the mullahs' relentless censorship from Reporters sans Frontières," which calls Iran the world's greatest predator of free press. And listen to the cries of the Bam survivors as they ask why this had to happen, why no help arrived until long after the disaster struck, and why the mullahs preferred to see thousands of them die, rather than accept humanitarian assistance from the Jews.

And then ask our leaders what in the world we are waiting for, and why we insist on believing that a regime so demonstrably evil deserves to have good relations with the United States, and why a people so demonstrably on our side, and so demonstrably worthy of freedom, does not deserve our full support.

The deaths in Iran have been counted in the tens of thousands. In California, the deaths did not reach double digits. Why the difference? In one word, wealth. Wealth enables homes, buildings and other structures to be built to withstand greater stresses. Wealth permits the creation of modern transportation that can quickly carry people to medical facilities. It enables those facilities to be equipped with more advanced medical apparatus and supplies, and amply staffed with highly trained doctors and support staff.

Those who disdain wealth as crass materialism need to understand that wealth is one of the biggest life-saving factors in the world. As an economist in India has pointed out, "95 percent of deaths from natural hazards occur in poor countries."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today said it was deeply troubled that MoveOn.org had allowed an outrageous and highly offensive political ad that directly compared President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler to be posted on its Web site.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director and author of "Never Again: The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism," issued the following statement:

"It is shocking that a mainstream political group like MoveOn.org not only allowed this vile and outrageous comparison of the American President to Adolf Hitler to be entered into its "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest in the first place, but that they even went so far as to make it available to the public on the Internet. Those responsible for this contest at MoveOn.org should have immediately identified this advertisement as one going far beyond legitimate criticism and rejected it out of hand. Instead, they made an irresponsible decision that has given legitimacy to the exploitative manipulation of images in a campaign season.

"MoveOn.org clearly would not have accepted a pornographic ad as legitimate criticism of a candidate. Why did they think that images of Hitler, the Nazi whose evil regime was responsible for the slaughter of millions of people during the Holocaust, was a fitting and credible expression of criticism of President Bush and his policies? Their lack of discretion cheapens the level of political discourse in America, and their comments explaining it were hardly comforting."

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.