Elizabeth Dole, of all people, seems to be the first target of the Democrats to slime Republicans with the Enron mess. Dole, who is running for the Senate, will soon be the target of campaign ads suggesting that she shouldn't have allowed an Enron sponsered fund raiser on her behalf to take place.

This, in my humble opinion, is so pathetic. First of all, Democrats took plenty of money from Enron too. Second of all, the American voters, who looked ascance at scandal politics when Clinton was in office, are not going to be very moved by the same now that Bush is President. I think people are going to find the sight of politicians pointing fingers at each other over a scandal where it is unclear any politician actually did anything wrong to be tiresome and unedifying. This is a case of the Democrats grasping for straws and maybe getting a hold of a razor blade.

One of my favorite SF series, The Lost Regiment, is being developed as a film project. The premise is that a Civil War Union regiment is sucked into a parallel universe where communities of humans are oppressed by nomadic aliens who roam about and literally treat the humans as cattle.

Aviation Week and Space Technology is reporting that the next NASA budget from the Bush administration will include money to build nuclear powered rockets. That's the kind of technology that could really open up the Solar System. A human expedition to Mars, for example, would take nine months round trip, instead of two and a half years with chemical rockets.

Also Drudge is reporting that DNC Chairman Terry Mcauliffe was up to his eyes involved in the bankruptcy of a company called Global Crossing. Global Crossing's Chairman helped Mcauliffe in a stock deal which turned $100,000 unto $18 million, which sort of makes Hillary's cattle futures scam pale by comparison. Global Crossing bought a lot of access to Bill Clinton for its generosity.

The GOP is supposed to be the party of big business. But Democrat Senator Chris Dodd helped Arthur Anderson a great deal and was well paid for his help.

The Weekly Standard has a good suggestion of what ought to be done with Jihad Johney and the rest of those merry Taliban killers. I suspect that the author may have read Kipling about the tender mercies of Afghan women:

"When you're laying on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come down to cut up your remains,
Roll over to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier!"

The notion of paying Black Americans money in the form of reparations for the evils of slavery is racist, fraudulent, and unworkable. But that fact doesn't prevent the unscrupulous from attempting to profit politically from furthering the cause. Or, as this story suggests, from profiting financially.

Looks like NASA is doing a little marketing research for the future of the planetary exploration program. Some of the options (search for suitable sites for human colonies) are rather interesting:

Looks like Campaign Finance Reform might pass after all, because they say of Enron. Why this is so is somewhat hard to explain, but we'll make an attempt.

Campaign Finance Reform must pass because the political class is tired of all those people trying to affect the political process. Of course it would be indecorous to say so, thus we have to come up with any excuse that even sounds plausiable.

So, had Bush tried to save Enron, that would be proof that CFR was necessary because Enron would have been seen as having bought and paid for that service. However, since Bush did not save Enron, the proponents of CFR have come up with a new one. Bush should have saved Enron but did not because he was afraid of the appearence of corruption. If Enron had not "bought access", then Bush would have felt free to help Enron "based on the merits."

Dick Gephardt, who thinks he wants to be President, actually said that.

Civilized states such as Texas have laws allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. Despite the huffing and puffing of gun control fanatics, these laws have proven to be a remarkable deterent to crime. One thinks twice, after all, about mugging or raping someone if one doesn't know if one's victem will pull a Glock.

Now it seems that a surprising icon of liberalism recognized the utility of carrying a pistol. She did so while campaigning in the south for the civil rights of blacks. Her name was Eleanor Roosevelt.

I wonder if she ever told Hillary Clinton about this during the Senator's many seances.

Democrats got all huffy when Karl Rove suggested that Republicans are seen as better able to handle issues of war and national defense. But now at least some Democrats seem bent on proving Rove right by actually opposing the President's proposed defense buildup. Is it any wonder why polls are showing that there's an electoral reallignment toward the GOP? What sort of idiot opposes defense spending in the middle of a war?

George Will talks about election reform born of a horrible case of fraud in the last election. Only the fraud took place in Missouri, not Florida.

Newt Gingrich suggests that the government offer cash prices to promote technological innovation. His most interesting idea along these lines is to give a billion dollars to the person or entity which comes up with a way to get people and material into Earth orbit at ten percent of the current cost.

John Podhoretz informs us that Enron is still dead as a political scandal a week after he first declared it so, despite the wishes of Bush haters.

Looks like Doris Kerns Goodwin, liberalism's most telegenic historian, also has a problem with using other people's material without attribution.

Drudge is reporting that Rush Limbaugh has regained eighty percent of his hearing. Some times medical science has the power not only to amaze, but to incite awe.

So that group of inbred degenerates known as the Saudi royal family thinks that America troops have become a "liability" in the Arab world and are thinking that those troops, which have kept the Iraqis and Iranians off of them for ten years, might have to leave.

Seems to me that it might be time to dust off those plans from the 1973 oil embargo to seize the oil fields. If that is too ungentle a solution, how about the following:

(1) Pass the Bush energy policy immediately. If this development is not sufficient evidence to Daschle and the other weird lefties in Congress that dependance on Arab oil has liabilities, then there is no hope for them.
(2) Seize territory in southern and/or nothern Iraq and use that as bases for American troops to finish off Saddem.
(3) Actively encourage dissidents in Iran to overthrow the iron rule of the mullahs.
(4) Tell Sharon that he may now take out that toy kingdom of Yassir Arafat's as well as Arafat himself. That will really torque the Saudis. It might even improve the chances for peace, however, by teaching the Palestinians the folly of war.

Looks like Geraldo got shot at again, this time in Somalia. Fortunately for bad journalism, the bad guys keep missing.

Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth offers a devestating critique of Teddy Kennedy's view of how to end a recession. One of the more fascinating facts is that John Kennedy, unlike his little brother, understood the utility of tax cuts-even for the rich-in fostering economic growth.

Indeed, if JFK-who not only believed in tax cuts, but a strong military, an agressive foreign policy against tyrants and terrorists, and the space program-were to come back, would he not be condemned as an extreme right winger?

Teddy Kennedy wants to raise your taxes. He just told you. Now so have I.