Gosh, I really do have to be more diligent about keeping up with the Weekly World News. A time traveler informs us in today’s issue that by the year 2028, America will be overrun with, and ruled by, hideous mutants and freaks.

And Bat Boy will be president.

Also, “Humans become second- class citizens,” he wailed, “forced to do the bidding of their evil, mutant captors. President Boy himself has a dozen young women brought into the Lincoln Bedroom every week for God only knows what!”

My question is, in what significant way will this differ from the 1990’s?

I was undecided and wavering about whether or not Mr. Moussaoui’s trial should be televised, but now my mind is made up. According to today’s print version of the LA Times (sorry, can’t find a link), Bill Press thinks it should be.

That’s good enough for me. It shouldn’t.

Russert had whiny and reasonable-sounding Democrat Joe Lieberman and sometime-Republican, “straight-talkin'” John McCain on today. (Translation: “straight talk” means that he says things that his constituency, the mainstream press, likes to hear, such as his continuing support for campaign-finance “reform,” which will help them maintain their virtual monopoly on political speech.) Also note that, as in the case of Tom Daschle, “reasonable-sounding” is not the same as reasonable, or sensible.

While he got both of them to say that the Bush tax cut was a mistake, it was obvious that he was almost wetting his pants in anticipation of getting one or both of them to say that it should be repealed. They didn’t take the bait.

But I am astounded by the pervasive economic ignorance being flaunted by the Democrats and their press stenographers. Daschle’s story (and so far, he’s sticking with it), is that the recession is Bush’s fault, and that it was caused by his “gargantuan tax cut.”

Well, number one, the tax cut is not all that big, in the context of the economy. Number two, it hasn’t even taken effect yet. Number three, even when it does take effect, it will be phased in slowly and ineffectively, over many years. Number four, the economy was already sliding downhill before Bush was even elected, when tax cuts were nothing but a campaign promise.

Number five, THERE HAS NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE BEEN A RECESSION CAUSED BY A TAX CUT, PROSPECTIVE, RETROACTIVE, OR OTHERWISE. Tax cuts have many effects, but recessions are never one of them. Even most liberal economists agree with that, or at least they used to.

I’m still waiting for some kind of explanation, cogent or otherwise, for the Democrats’ position. The reality of course, is that they do know better, but think that the American people are stupid. They really want to get the money back for their pet programs, and they don’t really, in their hearts, mind deficits, but they can’t say that, so they come up with this cockamamie economic fairy tale instead.

I was glad to see Bush being so emphatic on the subject in Ontario yesterday. “Over my dead body” (even with the accidental negative) sounds stronger than “read my lips,” and I suspect that he’s learned the lesson from his father’s wet betrayal of one of the tenets of the Republican Party.

Russert had whiny and reasonable-sounding Democrat Joe Lieberman and sometime-Republican, “straight-talkin'” John McCain on today. (Translation: “straight talk” means that he says things that his constituency, the mainstream press, likes to hear, such as his continuing support for campaign-finance “reform,” which will help them maintain their virtual monopoly on political speech.) Also note that, as in the case of Tom Daschle, “reasonable-sounding” is not the same as reasonable, or sensible.

While he got both of them to say that the Bush tax cut was a mistake, it was obvious that he was almost wetting his pants in anticipation of getting one or both of them to say that it should be repealed. They didn’t take the bait.

But I am astounded by the pervasive economic ignorance being flaunted by the Democrats and their press stenographers. Daschle’s story (and so far, he’s sticking with it), is that the recession is Bush’s fault, and that it was caused by his “gargantuan tax cut.”

Well, number one, the tax cut is not all that big, in the context of the economy. Number two, it hasn’t even taken effect yet. Number three, even when it does take effect, it will be phased in slowly and ineffectively, over many years. Number four, the economy was already sliding downhill before Bush was even elected, when tax cuts were nothing but a campaign promise.

Number five, THERE HAS NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE BEEN A RECESSION CAUSED BY A TAX CUT, PROSPECTIVE, RETROACTIVE, OR OTHERWISE. Tax cuts have many effects, but recessions are never one of them. Even most liberal economists agree with that, or at least they used to.

I’m still waiting for some kind of explanation, cogent or otherwise, for the Democrats’ position. The reality of course, is that they do know better, but think that the American people are stupid. They really want to get the money back for their pet programs, and they don’t really, in their hearts, mind deficits, but they can’t say that, so they come up with this cockamamie economic fairy tale instead.

I was glad to see Bush being so emphatic on the subject in Ontario yesterday. “Over my dead body” (even with the accidental negative) sounds stronger than “read my lips,” and I suspect that he’s learned the lesson from his father’s wet betrayal of one of the tenets of the Republican Party.

Russert had whiny and reasonable-sounding Democrat Joe Lieberman and sometime-Republican, “straight-talkin'” John McCain on today. (Translation: “straight talk” means that he says things that his constituency, the mainstream press, likes to hear, such as his continuing support for campaign-finance “reform,” which will help them maintain their virtual monopoly on political speech.) Also note that, as in the case of Tom Daschle, “reasonable-sounding” is not the same as reasonable, or sensible.

While he got both of them to say that the Bush tax cut was a mistake, it was obvious that he was almost wetting his pants in anticipation of getting one or both of them to say that it should be repealed. They didn’t take the bait.

But I am astounded by the pervasive economic ignorance being flaunted by the Democrats and their press stenographers. Daschle’s story (and so far, he’s sticking with it), is that the recession is Bush’s fault, and that it was caused by his “gargantuan tax cut.”

Well, number one, the tax cut is not all that big, in the context of the economy. Number two, it hasn’t even taken effect yet. Number three, even when it does take effect, it will be phased in slowly and ineffectively, over many years. Number four, the economy was already sliding downhill before Bush was even elected, when tax cuts were nothing but a campaign promise.

Number five, THERE HAS NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE BEEN A RECESSION CAUSED BY A TAX CUT, PROSPECTIVE, RETROACTIVE, OR OTHERWISE. Tax cuts have many effects, but recessions are never one of them. Even most liberal economists agree with that, or at least they used to.

I’m still waiting for some kind of explanation, cogent or otherwise, for the Democrats’ position. The reality of course, is that they do know better, but think that the American people are stupid. They really want to get the money back for their pet programs, and they don’t really, in their hearts, mind deficits, but they can’t say that, so they come up with this cockamamie economic fairy tale instead.

I was glad to see Bush being so emphatic on the subject in Ontario yesterday. “Over my dead body” (even with the accidental negative) sounds stronger than “read my lips,” and I suspect that he’s learned the lesson from his father’s wet betrayal of one of the tenets of the Republican Party.

Remember the Saudi “Princess” who was abusing her maid? According the the Old Gray Lady, she was actually holding her in involuntary servitude. Hey, if that slavery thing’s good enough for across the Atlantic, why not here?

I didn’t catch this earlier, but apparently earlier this week, in a comment on a NYT article, Josh Marshall claims that “Bush is winning the war with Clinton’s military.”

Well, not exactly. It would be just as, and possibly more, accurate to say that he’s doing it despite Clinton’s military (e.g., the JAG who vetoed taking out the cyclops early on). Even more to the point, we quite likely would have been moving out more quickly, on more fronts, if the arsenal (e.g., cruise missiles) hadn’t been so depleted by various ineffective usages over the past eight years, and not replaced.

The fact that we’re winning the war with “Clinton’s military” is really not very meaningful, since we can’t run a controlled experiment to see how much better or worse we’d be doing with, say, “Dole’s military.”

I didn’t catch this earlier, but apparently earlier this week, in a comment on a NYT article, Josh Marshall claims that “Bush is winning the war with Clinton’s military.”

Well, not exactly. It would be just as, and possibly more, accurate to say that he’s doing it despite Clinton’s military (e.g., the JAG who vetoed taking out the cyclops early on). Even more to the point, we quite likely would have been moving out more quickly, on more fronts, if the arsenal (e.g., cruise missiles) hadn’t been so depleted by various ineffective usages over the past eight years, and not replaced.

The fact that we’re winning the war with “Clinton’s military” is really not very meaningful, since we can’t run a controlled experiment to see how much better or worse we’d be doing with, say, “Dole’s military.”