The crowd at the Democratic Party's annual dinner in western Wisconsin's Vernon County was large, loud and longing for a little partisan passion.

Far from feeling beat down by the November presidential election result, the more than 100 rural Democrats who gathered in small city of Viroqua this week were ready to fight against the war in Iraq, against economic policies that favor big business over working people and family farmers and against the warping of the public discourse by a media that is more concerned about Scott Peterson's conviction than the future of Social Security.

... These rural Democrats even had a suggestion for the who should lead that opposition. And it wasn't Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. When I was describing what a serious opposition party would stand for at this moment in history ... a bearded fellow in the crowd shouted, "We've got someone who can do it -- the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act: Russ Feingold."

The crowd cheered.

And they aren't alone. While it might be predictable that Wisconsin Democrats would be excited by the prospect of their just-reelected senator seeking the presidency, the buzz about a possible Feingold for President campaign in 2008 is growing nationally.

... (Hotline) editors suggested that Wisconsin's junior senator -- who has been outspoken in his criticism not just of the Patriot Act but of the war in Iraq and the corporate free-trade agenda -- could be a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Noting that, against serious opposition, Feingold ran more than 140,000 votes ahead of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in Wisconsin, a source told Hotline, "He just accomplished an impressive victory in a heartland swing state in a year that wasn't so kind to (Democrats)." The source went on to suggest that Feingold "will be looked at as a new voice for the party as it moves forward."

... The interest in a Feingold candidacy has even sparked the development of a "Russ Feingold for President" Internet forum.

... As the jockeying begins for 2008 -- and, make no mistake, the jockeying has begun -- it is a safe bet that Feingold will again ponder a run. And with the unsolicited support that he's getting from his home state and elsewhere, he might well be inspired this time to do more than just explore a candidacy.

Why, then, are these (gay) men fighting so hard for it? The answer is, the right to legal marriage that they are demanding is not about them – it is about the rest of us. It is, and is meant to be, a spit in the eye of the way we live.

… It would be a shame, I think, if we had to tinker with so rare and precious an inheritance as our Constitution because people who hate the way we live storm the streets … this idea of creating a new level of marriage – call it whatever you want – smacks of the congenital passion of politicians to invent a compromise where none will serve.

For it is not a compromise that the homosexual rights movement is after. They are radicals. What they want is not a room of their own; they want to bring the whole damned house down … I will say it again, they do not want what the rest of us have – they want to bring the whole house down.

Astronomical quantities of arms and ammunition have poured into Darfur in the last two weeks and the government appears to be preparing for a major military offensive, the African Union said Friday.

"The quantity of arms and ammunition brought into Darfur to meet the present buildup of troops in the region is (so) astronomical that the issue is no longer whether there will be fighting or not, but when fighting will start," Nigerian Major-General Festus Okonkwo said in a briefing to African Union-sponsored peace talks in Nigeria.

Okonkwo, who heads the AU cease-fire monitors in Darfur, said his efforts to mediate had yielded minimal results and the region was now a "time bomb that could explode at any moment."

One thing is for certain: In all we do, we've got to make sure the economy grows. One of the reasons why we have a deficit is because the economy stopped growing. And as you can tell from the previous four years, I strongly believe that the role of government is to create an environment that encourages capital flows and job creation through wise fiscal policy. And as a result of the tax relief we passed, the economy is growing.

Bush warned the conference yesterday that in 2018, the Social Security system will begin paying out more in benefits than it receives in Social Security taxes. By 2042, the system will be able to pay beneficiaries no more than 75 percent of their promised benefits.

"Once that line in the red has been crossed, the shortfalls will grow larger with each passing year," he continued.

But those projections are based on a dire view of the nation's economic future, one in which the growth in economic productivity crashes from the 3.4 percent rate of last year to 1.6 percent from 2012 on. Economic growth is anticipated to be cut nearly in half from historic trends, to 1.8 percent between 2015 and 2080.

Many people want to see Sen. Hillary Clinton take on Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential race, a new national poll shows.

A new Quinnipiac University poll found 57% of voters like Clinton (D-N.Y.) and only 4% express anger toward her, though she is widely considered one of the most polarizing politicians in the country.

In a hypothetical matchup, Giuliani and Clinton are neck and neck: 45% to 43%.

[O]nly 4 percent of American voters, including 9 percent of Republicans, are angry with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. The 57 percent of all voters who like her a lot or a little includes 91 percent of Democrats.

[edit]

In a long look at the 2008 campaign, voters say 50 - 43 percent that they would not like to see Sen. Clinton run for president. Voters say 45 - 41 percent that they would like to see former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani run.

In a hypothetical matchup, Giuliani gets 45 percent to 43 percent for Clinton.

Diplomats warn an unseemly clash of ideologies could ensue. "Sudan is coming down the road towards us. Chances are this inquiry will make a recommendation that goes directly against US policy," said one UN diplomat. "The crunch is going to come on Sudan," said another.

So far the Security Council has resisted open hostilities over the issue, although there was disagreement over an investigation into massacres in Burundi. But diplomats suggest Europe could take a tougher stance over Sudan, including forcing a vote.

That could leave the US with the difficult choice of abandoning its position, or vetoing international justice for Sudan.

For the time being, after this new heightened tension, a lot of countries have been appealing to us to exercise restraint, telling us that they are consulting to develop the appropriate response to this problem of ex-FAR/Interahamwe, either by changing the UN mandate and having a stronger mandate that will enable MONUC to disarm these forces forcefully or by creating an African force under chapter 8, that would go there with the blessing of the UN to do the job. We are allowing these consultations to go on with the hope that they will end up providing us a solution, because we do not desire to go into the DRC. We do not desire to have a unilateral operation there. Actually, at one point I told President Kabila and even some of his vice presidents that what we are asking you is to have this problem resolved. I don't care the manner you are going to do it. If you can implore God to send some angels to do it or if you can implore Satan to send a legion of demons to do it, the bottom line is that it has to be done. So that is the situation.

[edit]

So it is as if, on behalf of the international community, there is a strategy to preserve this force and on behalf of the DRC the same strategy exists, and we are only expected to fold our hands and wait for these forces to come and finish the genocide they started. That is not an option we shall contemplate.

When the Mets signed Kris Benson for $22.5 million over three years last month, they might not have fully factored in the Anna Benson factor. On Tuesday's Howard Stern Show, Kris' wife Anna made it clear that she would get more than even with her husband if he slept with a baseball groupie. "I told him -- because that's the biggest thing in athletics, they cheat all the time -- I told him, cheat on me all you want," she said. "If you get caught, I'm going to screw everybody on your entire team, coaches, trainers, players. I would do everybody on his whole team." Anna also took credit for his contract negotiations.

"I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld," Lott, R-Mississippi, told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday morning. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers."
...
Lott said the United States needs more troops to help with the war. The country also needs a plan to leave Iraq once elections are over at the end of January.

Lott doesn't think Rumsfeld is necessarily the person to carry out that plan.

"I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so," Lott said. "I'm not calling for his resignation, but I think we do need a change at some point."

Americans will soon have high-speed internet access on commercial flights. Regulators agreed plans to allow operators to provide web access. More worryingly, regulators will consider allowing the use of mobile phones on flights too, so destroying one of the last remaining havens from other people's inane chatter.

One of the reasons why we have a deficit is because the economy stopped growing.

If the deficit is an issue -- which it is -- therefore, it's going to require some tough choices on the spending side. In other words, the strategy is going to be to grow the economy through reasonable tax policy, but to make sure the deficit is dealt with by being wise about how we spend money. That's where Josh comes in -- he's the -- as the Director of the OMB, he gets to help us decide where the tough choices will be made. I look forward to working with Congress on fiscal restraint. And it's not going to be easy. It turns out appropriators take their titles seriously.

I've got some principles that I've laid out. And, first, on Social Security, it's very important for seniors to understand nothing will change. In other words, nobody is going to take away your check. You'll receive that which has been promised. Secondly, I do not believe we ought to be raising payroll taxes to achieve the objective of a sound Social Security system. Thirdly, I believe younger workers ought to be able to take some of their own payroll taxes and set them up in a personal savings account, which will earn a better rate of return, encourage ownership and savings, and provide a new way of -- let me just say, reforming -- modernizing the system to reflect what many workers are already experiencing in America, the capacity to manage your own asset base that government cannot take away.

So with those principles in mind, I'm open-minded -- (laughter) -- with the members of Congress.

After two years of fragile peace, one of Africa's most volatile regions -- the border area of Rwanda and Congo -- has been pushed back to the brink of war with Rwandan soldiers reportedly staging raids in eastern Congo and Congolese militias clashing separately with each other.

Fighting broke out Wednesday for the fourth successive day between Rwandan-backed rebels and Congolese government troops, the Reuters news agency reported. The fighting, near the Rwanda border, came as a spokesman for President Joseph Kabila of Congo declared his country "at war" with Rwanda.

[edit]

"I would say there's a new war brewing up there," said Felix Bamezon, the top official for the U.N. World Food Program in Congo. "People are really gearing up for a major confrontation."

Democrats had great success in state legislative races this year, even as they performed poorly in the presidential race and campaigns for Congress. Many Democratic gains came in the heart of Republican territory.

Colorado Democrats took control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1974. Montana Democrats won the state Senate and could control the state House, depending on the outcome of a legislative race that finished in a tie and is the subject of a court battle.

Overall, Democrats took power in seven legislatures and earned a tie in the Iowa Senate. Republicans won control in four chambers and added legislators in southern states that have been shifting to the party for 20 years.

Nationwide, Democrats added more than 60 legislative seats, reversing the 2002 results that gave Republicans more state legislators than Democrats for the first time in a half century.

Democratic state legislators now outnumber Republicans by two: 3,658 to 3,656. A pair of undecided races could leave it tied.

"It was like a hidden election," says Tim Storey, political analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "The result was remarkable and not easy to explain."

Dutch doctors should be allowed — under very strict conditions — to help with mercy killings or euthanasia of patients who are not ill, but who are suffering from life, a special commission has advised.

Dutch doctors' organisation KNMG published the Dijkhuis Commission report Lijden aan het Leven (Suffering from Life)* on Wednesday.

The KNMG set up the Dijkhuis Commission in 2001 following the prosecution of a doctor for helping former Dutch senator Edward Brongersma die in 1998.

Brongersma, 86, was in good health, but no longer had any family or friends to care for him and claimed he was tired of life itself. A controversial figure, Brongersma was an outspoken advocate for paedophilia. He wrote a number of books and articles defending male homosexual paedophilia.

His doctor Philip Sutorius was prosecuted for providing the drugs used to end the senator's life. The trial court in Haarlem acquitted the doctor after accepting Brongersma's tiredness of life were sufficient grounds for euthanasia.

But a higher court later overturned the verdict and convicted Sutoruis. Nonetheless, the appeals court also considered that his violation of the assisted suicide law was "so minor that any form of punishment would be inappropriate."

The KNMG said on Thursday the medical profession would debate the commission's advice in 2005.

The Moroccan consulate in the Netherlands has refused permission for a baby girl, born into a Dutch-Moroccan family in Amsterdam, to be given the name Jihad, which means holy war. The girl was born on 27 November in De Baarsjes district of the Dutch capital* and a city council public servant accepted the registration of the name without question. But because the girl has dual nationality, the Moroccan consulate was also asked to give permission for the name. It refused. The council has since sent a letter to the parents asking them to respond.

The record of the U.N. General Assembly, which includes all U.N. member states, is instructive. Just two weeks ago, the General Assembly's human rights committee rejected a resolution condemning violations in Darfur. Ninety-one countries voted in favor of the "no action" motion that killed the resolution, while only 74 voted against it.

Bush View of Economy at Odds With Forecast
Bush Paints Rosy Picture of U.S. Economy at Odds With Second-Term Forecasts at Forum

(AP) Dec. 15, 2004 - An economy with blue skies, happy workers and prosperity for all, just around the corner. That's the sunny picture painted Wednesday at President Bush's economic conference, where nary a discouraging word was uttered and Bush's second-term priorities were resoundingly praised. In reality, Bush will have a hard time getting any of his major proposals through a skeptical Congress.

Bush's plans to overhaul the tax code and Social Security and to limit lawsuit liability awards are generating stiff opposition, even among some groups that supported his earlier economic endeavors.

On the opening day of Bush's choreographed two-day economic conference, moderators and participants alike sang praises to his first-term accomplishments and second-term agenda. His proposals many still being formulated were hailed as the remedy for what still needs to be fixed.

Vice President Dick Cheney: "If we stay on that path, the years ahead will bring even greater progress and prosperity."

Larry Mocha, a Tulsa, Okla., manufacturer of truck air brake systems: "I want to thank the administration for all the positive things you've done for our economy. ... It hasn't always been this good."

Treasury Secretary John Snow: "We are the envy of the world."

Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein: "I'm pleased to say the economy is now in very good shape."

"It's not exactly `Crossfire,'" joked American University political scientist Alan J. Lichtman.

Lichtman said the administration was clearly using the forum to pitch the president's program, not gather new ideas. "The jury is still out" on how effective the tactic will prove, he said.

The forum kicked off an intense White House public relations effort to win public support. It may take a lot of salesmanship.

Bush's proposal to let younger workers invest some of their Social Security withholdings in the stock market has drawn substantial opposition. Proponents say such a system promises higher long-term returns, allowing the government to spend less. But opponents say it could leave retirees holding the bag in times of prolonged market downturns.

"This is not a recipe for strengthening the system," said Henry J. Aaron, an economic analyst at the Brookings Institution, not among those invited to the forum.

The AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, opposes any diversion of money from the current system into personal accounts. Last week, it told its 35 million members Bush's proposal would "make the problem worse." The AARP supported Bush's legislation last year that created a Medicare prescription-drug benefit.

Bush's still-undefined tax restructuring has drawn fire from powerful interest groups. The National Retail Federation opposes any overhaul that moves in the direction of a national sales tax. Other organizations have pleaded for retaining particular tax breaks. The Tax Relief Coalition, which supported the president's earlier tax cuts, has been noncommittal.

Trial lawyer groups oppose limits on jury verdicts, while deficit hawks are wary of Bush's proposal to make his first-term tax cuts permanent.

None of those groups, nor their concerns, were represented at Bush's forum.

While the economy does appear to be recovering, things are not as bright as participants suggested. Job creation remains anemic, budget and trade deficits are at record highs, and a long-slumping dollar threatens to drive up interest rates.

The only time participants painted a dark picture was when they talked about financial burdens suffered because of large legal judgments or because of estate taxes, echoing Bush's invocation of a "death tax." Bush would permanently eliminate estate taxes and put limits on jury awards in medical malpractice and asbestos lawsuits.

"If we can achieve legal reform in America, it'll make it a better place for people to either start a business and-or find work," Bush said Wednesday, participating in a panel on limiting lawsuits.

"All we're asking for is fairness, Mr. President just as you've said," said Home Depot Chairman Bob Nardelli, who hosted a $3 million fund-raiser for Bush at his Atlanta home during the campaign.

Sen. Zell Miller, the fire-and-brimstone-preaching Dixiecrat who tried to challenge MSNBC's Chris Matthews to a duel after delivering the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, has been welcomed with open arms by Fox News Channel.

The cable network announced yesterday it has signed the departing Georgia Democrat as a contributor, beginning in January.

Details were scant. Kevin Magee, FNC's vice president of programming, told The TV Column, "We will plug him in wherever we can use him."

It may be wiser to insist on political accountability for filibusters of judicial nominees than to change the rules to prevent them. In the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans took Senate seats from the Democrats. The Democrats' filibusters against Bush's judge picks were an issue in all of them.

The consequences might be worse for the Democrats in the case of a Supreme Court vacancy. Only small portions of the electorate have paid attention to the political battles over appellate-court nominations. The public will be paying attention during a Supreme Court fight. Many voters will root for Bush's nominee and many will root against. But it is unlikely that middle-of-the-road voters will have much tolerance for attempts to block a vote.

The Democrats will probably not be able to resist the liberal pressure to wage a filibuster when a Supreme Court vacancy arises. But at some point, we strongly suspect that the filibuster would collapse. That collapse would do more for Republicans - and for the cause of confirming conservative judges - than a rules change. (A rules change might demoralize Democrats, but it would also enrage them. An unsuccessful filibuster would just be demoralizing.)

And these are the judgments...which thou shalt set before them. It should have stated: which thou shalt teach them. R. Jeremiah, or according to some, R. Hiyya b. Aha, said: This refers to the insignia of the judges [which they have to set before the public]. R. Huna, before entering the Court, used to say: Bring forth the implements of my office: the rod; the lash; the horn; and the sandal. [Bab. Talmud, Tr. Sanhedrin 7b]

Furious that Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) voted with Democrats on a controversial bill, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is pushing to get her removed from his powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

On Sept. 30, nearly five weeks before Election Day, Wilson was the only Republican committee member to vote for a motion that would have forced the Bush administration to release internal cost estimates of the Medicare prescription-drug law.

A House GOP source said Barton is doing what he has to do, suggesting that the chairman needs to get rid of Wilson to send a message to the rest of his panel members that he expects them to be loyal.

Apparently Kerik had at least one affair (the Daily News says two simultaneous ones) in an apartment that was originally donated...for use by weary Ground Zero workers. Kerik later requested to rent the apartment, though it's not clear for how much, or at which stage he started using it for his tryst(s). One building resident recalled seeing the former chief, "I said to myself, 'Hey, that's Bernie Kerik!' It was surprising. But then I thought, well, maybe he keeps a place down here because he's involved with security and 9/11."

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge—to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under attack from Republican Sen. John McCain and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf over his handling of the Iraq war.

In separate interviews, McCain, of Arizona, said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld, citing his handling of the war in Iraq and the failure of the Pentagon to send more troops, while Schwarzkopf, the allied commander in the first Gulf War, said Rumsfeld seemed to be passing the buck when quizzed last week about the armor supply for troops on the ground.

... Asked about his confidence in the secretary’s leadership, McCain recalled fielding a similar question a couple weeks ago. “I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence,” McCain said. He estimated that 80,000 more Army personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 more Marines would be needed to secure Iraq.

“I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops — linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.,” McCain said. “There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue.”

... Schwarzkopf, interviewed on MSNBC-TV’s “Hardball,” chided Rumsfeld for his reply to a soldier in Kuwait over the lack of armor on many military vehicles used in Iraq.

“I was very, very disappointed — no, let me put it stronger — I was angry by the words of the secretary of defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, as the secretary of defense, didn’t have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up,” Schwarzkopf said.

Schwarzkopf, a registered independent who campaigned for Bush in the last two presidential elections, has previously criticized Rumsfeld on several occasions as arrogant and out of touch with troops on the ground.

While Texas authorities dismissed his protests, a Tribune investigation of his case shows that Willingham was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to four fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental.

[edit]

"There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire," said Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist who has investigated scores of fires in his career. "It was just a fire."

[edit]

When he could not, he said, it "made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation. ... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea--at least not scientifically--if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set."

Third, whatever the merits of tit for tat about the Clinton years -- for example, more nominees were left dangling at the end of President George H.W. Bush's single term than at the end of Clinton's two -- it is undeniable that he was an all-time judicial confirmations champion, despite a Republican majority during six of his eight years.

First, up front the Post reports that 10 of the President's 229 judicial nominees have been filibustered. This ratio includes district court confirmations and is therefore greatly inflated. Since the filibuster strategy was inaugurated in the 108th Congress, the Democratic minority has blocked 10 of 34 total appellate nominees -- almost one-third.

Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection.

At a time when a number of Triangle Christian schools have lost enrollment and even closed, Cary Christian has seen rapid growth since it opened in 1996.

"It's like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn't want to go," she added. "I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don't want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we're going to take it back."

The nations of the world must demand that the UN Security Council authorize a much larger African Union force for Darfur, one with a mandate to protect and resettle the potential victims of genocide in their home villages. There should be no international power failure when it comes to ending a genocide.

[Maigstrate Judge] Muirhead threatened to jail Tobin if he gets so much as a speeding ticket before his trial begins Feb. 1.

"He’s no different than a street hooker in Manchester," Muirhead said. "If he’s guilty, then I find his crime as offensive as any other crime."

American author and journalist Tom Wolfe won one of the world's most dreaded literary accolades on Monday -- the British prize for bad sex in fiction.

The prize is awarded each year "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel."
...
"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!"

Judges described Wolfe's prose as "ghastly and boring." Wolfe has said in interviews he intended the book's sexual descriptions to be dry and clinical.

A protester has attacked a controversial waxwork Nativity scene featuring England soccer captain David Beckham as Joseph and his pop star wife "Posh Spice" Victoria as the Virgin Mary.

"He pushed Posh and Becks over. It caused some damage but we don't know how much. The baby Jesus is fine," said a spokeswoman for Madame Tussaud's waxwork museum in London on Monday.

Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians have united in calling the exhibit a new low in the cult of celebrity worship. But Madame Tussaud's said it was popular with the public, who were outraged at Sunday's vandalism.

"People were appalled. We had members of the public complaining that the Nativity was the only reason they were coming in today," the spokeswoman said. "Staff gave chase but the attacker managed to escape. We are hoping to reopen the exhibit as soon as possible."

I want to take one-half of the surplus and dedicate it to Social Security.

Republicans counter that, even though the number of filibustered nominations is small, the Democrats are trampling on the Constitution by denying a straight up-or-down vote for even a single nomination. The Constitution, they note, requires two-thirds majorities for treaties, constitutional amendments and other specific matters but calls for only the "advice and consent" of the Senate on judicial choices, with no reference to any super-majority for confirmation.

I hate to get your panties in a wad, you pomosexual gender-line-blurrers , you, but the vast, vast majority of American men want to be more like William Wallace and less like Will and Grace.

Oooh, edgy. And he's cracked our lefty language code. Now we can't use "pomosexual." Curse you, Giles! See if you can make any sense out of the middle part. I can't, but maybe I was distracted by the subconscious homoerotic images. We pomosexuals are like that.

Traditionally, men have prized their autonomy more than Clay Aiken does his gale-force-wind-proof hair gel and his chartreuse neckerchief. Men, at least those who have not been morphed into obedient stooges of contemporary society, do not like to be confined, corralled, curbed, interfered with, or domesticated by anyone.

Y’know it is right for a man while he is a boy to be dependant upon mummy … petted and cajoled … flattered and fattened … by mother’s you-can-do-no-wrong-honey loving touch. But come on, America … somehow we have developed today a race of Nancy-boys, absolute caricatures of the classic male imago, who have extended their mommy’s breast feeding, culture’s coddling and government’s hand holding into their 30’s and beyond!

At the hub of man’s constituent make up is the natural and spiritual resistance to hanging on to any mortal or institution too long for subsistence. By natural command, man is to be independent and is hard wired to go and get a life apart from the nurturing and supportive arms of anyone … and that includes the government.

In ancient cultures, the young male was made to be sovereign, separated from the safe arms of the feminine touch usually at the ripe old age of … twelve. Young men were expected to separate, never to return to a codependent existence.

Traditionally, young men fled from getting in touch with their supposed “feminine side” and instead they tapped into the gritty and grubby competitive “real world” where you thrive or die. (By the way … if I want to get in touch with my feminine side … I’ll grab my wife.)

Look, our times demand strong men more than Mariah Carey does Evian … and only Evian water for her Pekinese. It is up to us middle-aged old boys to preserve and perpetuate the grand testosterone fog God created us to live in for the next generation of young warriors.

They stand at my taxi window, scrawny and unwashed, holding up empty tomato tin cans. They scratch their scabby arms. They wipe their running noses. Listlessly, they chant verses from the Koran. More often, they dispense with the formalities and beg: "Cent francs, ma tante, cent francs, cent francs."

These are the talibes, or beggar boys, of Senegal, dispatched onto the streets by religious leaders, called marabouts, and ordered to collect a daily quota ranging from 250 francs to 650 francs (50 cents to $1.30), along with whatever else is dropped in their tin cans: sugar cubes, biscuits, milk powder, kola nuts. If they fail, they face a beating.

... Unicef reported last week that half the world's children, a billion people, face extreme deprivation. But there are degrees of misery even among the miserable, and the talibes who greet me every time I return home to Dakar are a troubling reminder that West and Central Africa, which I am leaving after two years, can be an appalling place to be a child.

Of the 27 countries with the worst child mortality rates, 26 are in Africa, most in this part of Africa. Children here not only reflect all that ails their countries, but they also pay the dearest price. AIDS has orphaned them, poverty has driven parents to sell them as cheap labor. And everywhere, warlords turn them into soldiers.

... Richard Maki, whom I hired as a translator in eastern Congo because he spoke four languages by the age of 18, had not taken the bait to fight, but other fighters ruined his chances for a college education. The cattle his father had set aside for his tuition were stolen when rival militias battled for control of his hometown.

... I have met girls who will never go to school because their mothers rely on them to fetch water and firewood, one reason girls' education rates in sub-Saharan Africa remain the lowest in the world. Only 56 percent of girls were attending school between 1996 and 2003, according to Unicef.

Last month, much to the chagrin of the French government, France's public broadcasting regulating agency granted Al Manar a license to continue its operations in France as long as it abides by French law.

The agency, known as the Audio-Visual Higher Council, functions like the [FCC] in the United States.

But four days later, the channel, which regularly transmits anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-Israeli broadcasts, broke its agreement, French officials said. It broadcast a report claiming that Israel for years had spread H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and other diseases throughout the Arab world.

When they start pushing the panic button over "moral values" at the bluest of TV channels, public broadcasting's WNET, in the bluest of cities, New York, you know this country has entered a new cultural twilight zone.

Just three weeks after the election, Channel 13 killed a spot for the acclaimed movie "Kinsey," in which Liam Neeson stars as the pioneering Indiana University sex researcher ...

At first WNET said it had killed the spot because it was "too commercial and too provocative" -- a tough case to make about a routine pseudo-ad interchangeable with all the other pseudo-ads that run on "commercial-free" PBS. That explanation quickly became inoperative anyway.

The "Kinsey" distributor, Fox Searchlight, let the press see an e-mail from a National Public Broadcasting media manager stating that the real problem was "the content of this movie" and ... (potential) "viewer complaints."

Maybe in the end Channel 13 got too many complaints about its own cowardice because by last week, in response to my inquiries, it had a new story: that e-mail was all a big mistake -- an "unfortunate" miscommunication hatched by some poor unnamed flunky in marketing.

... even as the "Kinsey" spot was barred in New York, a public radio station in North Carolina, WUNC-FM, told an international women's rights organization based in Chapel Hill that it could not use the phrase "reproductive rights" in an on-air announcement. In Los Angeles, five commercial TV channels, fearing indecency penalties, refused to broadcast a public service spot created by Los Angeles county's own public health agency to counteract a rising tide of syphilis.

Such rapid-fire postelection events are conspiring to make "Kinsey" a bellwether cultural event of this year.

... As for the right-wing groups that have targeted the movie (with or without seeing it), they are the usual suspects, many of them determined to recycle false accusations that Kinsey was a pedophile, as if that might somehow make the actual pedophilia scandal in one church go away.

... Empowered by that Election Day "moral values" poll result, it is pressing for a whole host of second-term gifts from the Bush administration ... "If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them," wrote Bob Jones III, president of the eponymous South Carolina university, to President Bush after the election. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil."

Such is the perceived clout of this Republican base at government agencies like the F.C.C. that it need only burp and 66 frightened ABC affiliates instantly dump their network's broadcast of that indecent movie "Saving Private Ryan" on Veterans Day.

... "Kinsey" is an almost uncannily helpful guide to how these old cultural fault lines have re-emerged from their tomb, virtually unchanged .... in "Kinsey," we watch desperate students pepper their professor with a series of uninformed questions: "Can too much sex cause cancer? Does suppressing sex lead to stuttering? Does too much masturbation cause premature ejaculation?"

Though that (question) sequence takes place in 1939, you can turn on CNN in December 2004 and watch Genevieve Wood of the Family Research Council repeatedly refuse -- five times, according to the transcript -- to disown the idea that masturbation can cause pregnancy.

Foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail has angrily responded to the statement made by his German counterpart Joschka Fischer, who said that what is happening in Darfur is the worst kind of Human Rights violation in the world.

The Sudanese minister of foreign affairs said the Darfur situation is never in anyway worse than the Nazi situation and the holocaust of Jews.

He called upon the Germany to remember that holocaust is now part of their history.

Mexico's lawyer, Sandra Babcock, told justices in its filing that Medellin's lawyer was suspended from practicing law for ethics violations during the case. Mexico, she said, would have made sure that Medellin had a competent lawyer and money for experts and investigators if it had known about the 1994 trial.

There's also an ulterior motive to the Supreme Court betting. The U.S. Department of Justice argues that Internet gambling, which is unregulated, is illegal, and it has moved to block major media outlets from accepting advertisements from Betcom.com and its competitors.

Evans said the issue could eventually wind up in the high court itself, so he thought he'd drum up a little publicity by making the court itself the subject of wagers.

Like a true gambler, Evans expressed Betcom.com's motives in numbers: 80 percent is due to public interest in the Supreme Court, 20 percent because "of what our industry is up against."