Israel's assassination of Shiek Yassin may also be having the effect of taking out the biggest bully available. Ma'ariv is reporting that Arafat and the head of Hezbollah are worried that they may be next. Evidently, Israel isn't making any public commitments to keep them alive, and the US isn't forcing the issue. Arafat has long regarded himself as untouchable, but has been willing to use the fear of his assassination to dredge up support. This may be another move in that game, or he may really be getting nervous. In any case, it seems that both the US and Israel are now willing to engage in a little brinksmanship on the issue.

$613 million sounds like a lot of money. Certainly would be to me. Then again, I don't have $60 billion in current assets. If I did, $613 would be slightly over 1% of what I could get my hands on with minimal effort. Not really anything to sweat, and the general consensus is that Bill Gates isn't too worried about the fine itself.

What we should be worried about is the attempt to retard innovation in the name of innovation, and that the socialist bureaucrats who rule the roost in Brussels will just figure that every time they need to make good their lost oil-for-food money, or Arafat's latest audit doesn't look so good, they'll just go to the Microsoft ATM.

...to Run for the Senate. The Rocky is reporting that "Entrepreneur Dave Liniger - founder of real estate giant RE/MAX International" is considering a run for the Senate. I know this isn't going to make Clay happy, but it looks as though he may be getting encouragement from the state apparatus, which means from the White House:

Liniger talked to Owens about running over the weekend and said the governor encouraged him. He said Campbell invited him to come to Washington next week to meet with the senator and other Republicans.



Ted Halaby, Colorado Republican Party chairman, called Liniger a "remarkable individual."

This is a formula that's worked before: notably John Corzine from New Jersey. Rutt Bridges was considering the run on the Democratic side. For their part, the Democrats are professing concern about Liniger's deep pockets, but it's always smart to discount whatever the other side says. "No, Br'er Liniger, don't throw me in that briar patch..."

Both Schaffer and Halaby are claiming that a primary race would be good for the party. This is probably one of the most-true/least-believed statements in politics. John Kerry is going to suffer for not having been through a tough race. But you run a primary at the risk of appearing (or becoming) divided and wasting party resources. Tough call to make.

The other problem is that nobody knows anything about him. This, too, has advantages and disadvantages. Liniger seems to have a somewhat compelling story to tell. But the disadvantage of being a blank slate is that your opponent has an equal chance to define you. And lately, it's become fashionable, if risky, to try to influence the other party's selection process (see Grey Davis). Stay tuned. Things could still get interesting.

As the running commentary of Global Values continues, it's worth noting a little insertion in yesterday's discussion of the structure and origins of international law. Mr. Seawell suggested that he would like it if the US submitted "without reservation to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That way, someone can take us to court when the US goes to war illegally." Somehow, I don't think he was referring to the Mexican War. No doubt, the source of authority for any war would be the UN, particularly the Security Council.

In order to preserve my chances for an A, I refrained from asking whether or not the Hague would also have the authority to impeach, remove from power, fine, and jail those French, German, and Russian governmental officials who were on the take from the Oil-for-Food program, and based their Security Council positions in part on that light, sweet, crude arrangement.

Yesterday in class, Buie Seawell had a grand ol' time lampooning the Grand Old Party about the deficit. He wanted to show how many Americans no longer believe that they have ownership over the government, and he told a story about his 1990 run for the Senate. He was in a focus group, talking about the federal deficit, and the people in the group seemed to regard the federal debt as the federal government's problem, not their own. He was flabbergasted that people didn't realize that the federal debt was every bit as much theirs as their own credit card balance.

A fair point. So I wonder what he would make of Wayne Angell's column in today's WSJ arguing that it was Robert Rubin's attempt to pay down the federal debt that led to the recession. Mr. Angell is not to be trifled with. He's a former Fed governor, and former chief economist for Bear Stearns.

Essentially, Mr. Angell's analysis boils down to the relationship between debt and growth. In business, as in economics, there's a concept of "sustainable growth." Given a certain amount of debt, how fast can my company grow? Larger debt means a faster growth rate is possible, but it also means a faster growth rate is necessary in order to pay off the current debt and to make interest payments. As the business grows, its total debt will also grow, although not necessarily its debt as a percentage of sales.

For an economy, its debt is not just the federal debt, but also household and business debt. As in a business, for the economy to grow, its debt must grow, if not as a percentage of GDP. So if the federal debt declines, the only way the economy can continue to grow is if business debt and household debt make up the difference. The problem is that is household debt doesn't grow, businesses will have no reason (or ability) to acquire more debt of their own. Total debt as a percentage of the GDP will shrink, and economic growth will slow or reverse.

Mr. Angell's claim, bolstered by a raft of debt statistics, is that essentially this is what happened in 2000-01. He's not particularly concerned about the debt, but is concerned about spending, which will crowd out other, more productive spending. Moreover, the only way we can avoid deflation is by keeping interest rates low, allowing people to borrow at low rates against increasing real estate and stock prices.

I'm sure the Journal will give Mr. Rubin a chance to reply, but for the moment, it's worth acknowledging that Mr. Angell has a point. And next time Buie wants to ask a focus group about debt levels, he should be sure to include all debt, not just the federal debt.

Not too often anymore that you get to write that about a judicial ruling, especially from Boulder. A Boulder judge has decided to allow the Boulder District schools to poison the prairie dogs currently inhabiting runs on school grounds. The Rocky Mountain Animal Defense (Motto: "We R-MAD") had brought suit claiming that the State Constitution specifically forbade the poisoning of the animals, and of the collateral damage that would be caused to other animals in the runs and up the food chain.

Now I don't know about you, but I always figured that people were about as far up the food chain as it got. And the first time some budding Babe Ruth tore up a knee stepping in one of the holes, a legion of angry parents would show up with torches and subpoenas demanding to know what this rodent construction site was doing on school grounds.

More than that, prairie dogs carry a little something called r-a-b-i-e-s. My dog has to have a triennial rabies shot, which should tell you that the disease hasn't yet gone the way of smallpox and polio. The treatments for rabies are extremely painful, although effective, and since there's no human test for the disease, you have to catch and kill the animal involved to determine if it was infected. "Okay, son, settle down. Now can you give us a description of the animal?" Part of the reason we can kill prairie dogs without much second thought is that their genetic variation is, shall we say, somewhat limited. Probably nothing that a sketch artist could go on. Go out to a field, take a look at the cute little vermin, and then ask yourself if you could pick on out of a lineup. (This is different from picking one off from a lineup. That's a time-honored sport out here.) Which means that as soon as the first child, dog, cat, school science project, got bitten, they'd have to pretty much go in and wipe out the tunnel system, anyway.

The next time one of these guys tells you they're doing anything "for the kids," ask them why they didn't think of it sooner. See what happens when judges rule on the law?

Every day, hundreds, thousands of things move the market. Economic factors affect individual stocks, sectors, and eventually the market as a whole. Which is why the one-sentence analysis you get on the nightly news, or the radio news at the top of the hour is so facile.

Today, CNN Radio News announced confidently that the market had dropped, about 0.1%, because of the bomb discovered on the French railway tracks. They went on to state that the market recovered somewhat when the bomb was defused.

Do these writers actually spend more than about 10 seconds thinking about, maybe even listening to, what they write? The news is the bomb, not whether it went off. The news is that France, for all of its reversion to Vichy-ist tendencies, still found itself the victim of someone, we don't yet know who, decided to put a bomb on the French railways. That either has long-term implications or it doesn't. It certainly doesn't hinge on whether or not some French railway worker managed to stumble across it without having it kill him and derail a train.

The Denver Post this morning ran a wire service piece by Knight-Ridder. It seeks to present the warm, human, populist side of the inspiration to mass murder that was Sheik Yassin.

Yassin called for violent resistance to Israeli occupation, but he wasn't simply a Palestinian Osama bin Laden, as Israeli leaders prefer to cast him. The elderly, partially blind quadriplegic was the beloved leader of a popular movement to create an Islamic Palestinian state.

I'm sorry, come again? In what sense, exactly, is this different from Osama bin Laden? Doesn't bin Laden also call for violence against the West? Doesn't he also seek to establish a universal Islamic state? And for all we know, bin Laden may in fact now be a blind quadriplegic. Not like we've seen much of him lately. In any event, that just goes to show how much even the disabled can accomplish in today's society. (Okay, that's not a dig at the disabled. It's a dig at the politically correct who want to tell me that a disability really isn't, while then playing on my sympathy to get me to like a guy who thinks his religion wants me dead.)

Many world leaders didn't view him as an acceptable wartime target and were outraged over his assassination.

And many did. Naturally, the reporter makes no effort to look up what the laws of war actually say about these things. Look, wartime efforts were made to assassinate Hitler. The US killed Yamamoto during WWII. Political leadership is always a legitimate target during war, if you can count him as political leadership. The Europeans opposed this because it might make the Palestinians mad. They should have issued their communique from Stockholm.

He also spoke of a new, unusual role for Hamas in the event of an Israeli withdrawal, one in which the group might lay down its arms and participate in elections. "We will not allow chaos to take place" on Palestinian streets, the sheik said.

Tell me, what, exactly, about maintaining order has anything, anything at all, to do with elections. The fact that Hamas thinks it's ready to step up from street gang to police force doesn't mean that it's ready to lose an election. In fact, several days ago, Ma'ariv ran a report about PA security and leadership rats in Gaza who were fleeing the sinking ship and signing up with Hamas. This sounds like a declaration born of confidence, rather than conciliation.

Until his death, he lived for four decades in a single-story house with a roof made of corrugated steel and plastic sheeting. He raised 11 children there, including two sons who were injured in the attack that killed him.

Mao also lived in a simple house all his life. The fact that people have their eyes on something other than the material doesn't keep them from being evil, malicious, murdering tyrants. This equation of a monkish vow of poverty with other, spiritual values, is thoroghly misguided.

By the way, take a close look at the author's name.

Apparently, when it comes to the late Sheik Yassin, this means getting the views of both a traditional leftish academic, and a raging maniac from a Middle-East studies department. The Washington Post had two discussions today, one with Henry Siegman of the Council on Foreign Relations (known as the voice of the foreign policy establishment), and the other with Fawaz Gerges, chairman of the Middle-East studies department at Sarah Lawrence College. Apparently, getting a rational, although left-wing Jew, and an Arab who can't see straight when the Palestinians are involved, passes for diversity of opinion in the WaPo discussion room.

Gerges is easy. He alone is a one-man justification for Campus Watch and Martin Kramer. He said, prior to 9/11, that the US "terrorist industry," those thinkers who were concerned with this rising threat, were worrying too much about potential catastrophic scenarios. He also claimed that Iraq would become a symbol of Muslim resistance to invaders, much like Afghanistan under Soviet occupation. With a track record like that, it's obvious where the man's reputation for a seer comes from.

He has this to say about the oblique Hamas threats against the US:

Until now Hamas made it very clear that its struggle was internal and that it would not expand its attacks outside Palestinian territories.

The only way this struggle is "internal" is if Israel is part of the "Palestinian territories."

When one of the questioners suggested that Sharon is trying to precipitate a Palestinian civil war, Gerges says that:

My own instinct tells that the Palestinians have shown maturity and restraint. They have refused to plunge into the brink of civil strife.

Yes, they've been restrained because there's been an Israeli Army there keeping Palestinians not only from killing Israelis but also from killing each other. Moreover, it's that "restraint" that allowed the murders of "collaborators" by what passes for civil authority in the PA.

Sheikh Yassin did sanction sucide bombings against Israelis. And yes, suicide bombings do not serve the interests of either the Palestianians or Israelis. In particular, they have done considerable damage to the moral cause of the Palestinians. They have also diverted attention from the brutal Israeli occupation and the dismal plight of the Palestinians.

This is the closest Gerges comes to condemning suicide bombings. How sad that they've diverted attention from and discredit the Palestinian cause. Saying that suicide bombings don't serve the interests of Israelis is like saying that 9/11 is going to have a negative impact on United Airlines' on-time performance.

Gerges is a revolting spectacle, a man who has no sense of academic responsibility, objectivity, detachment from his subject. He's a man who, instead of placing his politics at a distance, has harnessed his academic position as a tool to advance his own murderous politics.

By comparison, Siegman is the soul of reason. Without going overboard, he merely reiterates that this killing won't make Israel secure, will just recruit more people for Hamas, blah blah blah. But having a run-of-the-mill leftist return to the tropes about the sanctity of a cease-fire line overrun in a later war is just normal.

Next time, the Post might consider actually getting a second point of view.

Last Sunday, the Denver Post reported on attitudes about the occupation in the smallish Colorado town of Trinidad. They included memories of American soldiers from one Linda Barron:

Though 53, Barron sees the nation's role in Iraq through the eyes of a child.

A daughter of North Vietnam, she remembers how the Communists tried to take her uncle's land. When he resisted, they ordered that a hole be dug. Her uncle was placed in the hole. Then, the Communists ordered that family and friends stone him to death.

She also remembers well the faces and actions of the Americans who arrived in her home country.

"Every time they received a letter or a small box from home, they are so happy to share it," she recalled. "You'd see them read the letter, put it in their pocket. An hour later, you'd see them reading it again."

She remembers the day a soldier received a plump red apple, then passed it around so all could have a bite. And the day the soldiers passed around the green Army helmet to collect money.

"I didn't know what it was for. I didn't know if they were gambling or going to the PX to buy candy and soda. One day, I followed. You know where they take it to? To the orphans, to the children," she said.

"I remember that they care," she said. "The American people are the greatest and kindest people on Earth, and I'm 53 years old and I still believe that.

"I hope that someday an Iraqi child can have a story to share like mine. Now, children in Vietnam have a chance to go to school, and now Iraq. You're there to open the door and give them a chance, and that's why they'll have a chance.

Sadly, thanks to the efforts of people like John Kerry, the Vietnamese had to go through a long perdiod of re-education before they could start their education.

The newscaster referred to the ongoing NCAA basketball tournament as the "NAACP Basketball Tournament." Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud.

The State Department consistently tries to distance the US from the more assertive Israeli actions. The notion is two-fold: first, we're the only ones with leverage over Israel, and second, they're trying to buy credibility with the Arab world. This quote from the Foxnews report on the assassination of Sheik Yassin:

The United States received a threat from Hamas for possibly the first time. The militant group warned in a fax to the Associated Press: "The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American Administration, and it must take responsibility for this crime."

That's the flipside of this policy. If Israel does anything, the assumption is that Washington must have approved it. If they don't believe this, then it's an effort to extract some sort of retribution from the Americans against Israel, or even stronger statements from their friend Mr. Boucher.

Mel Gibson is considering making a movie about the Maccabean Revolt, the historical rebellion behind the holiday of Hannukah. Naturally, Abe Foxman, having not learned much from recent events, is outraged. "The last thing we need is to turn our history into a Western."

Well, why not? Look, I know Gibson's a deeply religious Catholic who sees the Hebrew Bible mostly as the predecessor text to the New Testament. But if he can steer clear of that, well, why not? It's a great story, a great action picture, and if he plays the title role, for once he won't end up with his head on a pike. Exodus was a big hit in part because it showed Jews fighting for themselves, rather than cowering in a 19th-century ghetto.

Foxman seems to forget that biblical epics were once all the rage in Hollywood. Aside from the Ten Commandments, we had Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, and probably a dozen others big-time efforts. And these were only the good ones. Bits of the Book of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and the Book of Daniel made it as an apparently awful film called "Slaves of Babylon," featuring, among others, Julie Newmar in a pre-Catwoman role as an assassin/dancer. I'm hoping for better things from a Mel Gibson movie.

Let Gibson make his film. It's just a shame it wouldn't be ready by this summer's Olympics.

Finally, the Israelis got a clear shot at Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, and they took it. Yassin, along with four bodyguards, were clear of their human shields long enough for an Israeli helicopter to fire a missle and kill them today. Naturally, the AP story, in the last paragraph, notes that "Israel blames Yassin for inspiring" the suicide murderers coming from Hamas. Again, it bears repeating that this is akin to Jews blaming Hitler for inspiring the Nazi movement said to be responsible for millions of Jewish deaths.

Yassin was taking time out from his acting career in Lord of the Rings to relax at his home in Gaza City, before taking up new projects:

The strength of Charlie Kaufman's scripts is that they start with a strong setting and overall structure, and insert a peculiar conceipt that he carries to its logical, and unrepeatable, conclusion. Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and not Eternal Sunshine all set up normal beginnings, warped by a single, surreal fact. In this case, it's the idea that each participant in a love affair gone south chooses to wipe his and her mind clean of the other.

Midway through the process, Joel decides he doesn't want to go through with it, and tries, unconscious, to protect his memories of Clementine. So much of the film takes place inside Joel's mind as the process regressively erases Clem from his memory. The movie graphically captures the associative, rather than linear, quality of memory. And as we wander through Joel's memory, we also see the way that we project ourselves-as-we-are-now back onto our memories of who we once were.

The name of the film comes from Alexander Pope's poem Eloisa to Abelard. The theme of the poem, like that of the movie, is the unattainable desire to forget. Unlike, "The Way We Were," we can't simply choose to forget. Even the external erasing process, the movie implies, is imperfect. I saw the movie in a multiplex, indicating a wide release targeting a more general audience. Much of the audience will be drawn in by the star power of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Will they know the difference between Alexander Pope and "Pope, Alexander?"

If I have one complaint, it would be the language. I'm not so much of a prude that I can't handle the worst of cursing, but I'd like for it to have a point. I found that I already cared enough about the characters, already sympathized with the intensity of their emotions, and the f--- and s--- words didn't make me any more empathetic. In fact, it detracted from my sympathy by giving the characters less class.

From the Indispensible MEMRI, a report on the official Palestinian sermon, broadcast over PA television. One suspects that they don't do this for educational value. The historical framework for the speech is the destruction of the Jews of Medinah by Muhammed.

"Mixing with the Arabs gave the Jews an Arab trait – courage. Praise Allah. Imagine – the Qaynuq'a Jews were the bravest Jews in Al-Madina because they mixed with the Arabs. They won this courage from their neighboring Arabs.

...

"The Jews today – there is no doubt – are avenging their ancient forefathers, the sons of apes and pigs. Some of the extremist Jews are demanding today their property in Al-Madina. There are even those who have requested to be buried at the southern edge of Palestine. When the one-eyed Dayan was on his deathbed, he instructed that he be buried at the southern edge of Palestine. When asked why, he said, 'So that I will be close to Al-Madina.' This is the extremist tendency of the Jews. They are the extremists, they are the terrorists. They deserve death, and we deserve life, because we are the people of Truth.

...

"We, the people of Truth, reach out our hand in peace. But they accuse us of being terrorists. Terrorists, because when the Palestinian mother welcomes her martyred son, she wishes to receive him as a corpse. She does not want him to be alive. But she does not want this corpse butchered. The wish of the Palestinian mother is to see the body of her son the martyr.

There's no logic here. There's only blind religious hatred. Does anyone with eyes think that much remains of the body of a suicide murderer?

As long as this sort of thing gets broadcast, it's important to report it. One hopes that, eventually, it has an effect. One also wonders where the EU Commission on Hate Speech, or whatever they call the tongue troopers over there, has its head.