Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Lott of Problems - Michelle Malkin pegs my misgivings about Trent Lott in his current situation.
My fellow conservatives, if you weren't already convinced that the Mississippi senator was a gutless, ineffective, self-preservationist sap before his remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party last week, this pandering to the race Mafiosi in the aftermath of his comments seals the deal."

The real danger is that Lott will give away the store to buy off the race-hustlers (i.e., Democrats):

"In interviews with Sean Hannity and Larry King, Lott cravenly pledged support for 'community renewal' (more minority set-asides); said he would 'put more money into education so no child is left behind' (more federal spending for failed urban programs); and boasted of his 'African-American interns' and appointments (more racial preferences).
That's my big worry. Even before he was in trouble, in his first stint as majority leader, he showed a frightening capacity to cave in to the Democrats, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Now that the pressure is on...

Well, Malkin's right.

(via Powerline)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/14/2002 11:35:45 AM

Friday, December 13, 2002

Commence Bombing - Sean Penn has arrived in Baghdad.
"By the invitation of the Institute for Public Accuracy, I have the privileged opportunity to pursue a deeper understanding of this frightening conflict," Penn said in a statement released in Washington and Baghdad on Friday. "I would hope that all Americans will embrace information available to them outside conventional channels.
Like Hollywood.
As a father, an actor, a filmmaker, and a patriot, my visit to Iraq is for me a natural extension of my obligation (at least attempt) to find my own voice on matters of conscience."
And that is the big obligation, isn't it? Finding one's voice?
posted by Mitch Berg 12/13/2002 08:31:27 AM

Earful? - Governor-elect Pawlenty spent two days on a "listening tour" of southern Minnesota. Here's what the Strib had to say about it.

All the media coverage has centered on this incident: A group of schol parents in Winona trying to shame Pawlenty into ditching his "no new taxes" pledge:
In Winona, about 30 parents of students at Bluffview Montessori, the first charter school in the nation, met Pawlenty outside as he arrived for a visit. Bearing signs that said, "Pawlenty: Please be everybody's governor" and "Taxes teach children," the parents said they were concerned that his no-tax-increase campaign pledge would hamstring his ability to solve the budget problem and still deliver quality education.

"We don't see why he has to adhere to an ideology like that," said parent Steve Leonhardi. "He should be more pragmatic about solving the problem."

But Pawlenty, a Republican, said he would not budge on his pledge, pointing to the disparities between government spending and revenues.

"It's a principle that is at the heart of the debate in Minnesota."

"We can't continue on that path," he said. "In government it takes a crisis to get things done. Well, we now have the crisis."
In 1980, Reagan inherited double-digit inflation and unemployment, a stagnant-yet-inflationary economy, and full-blown national malaise. He plotted a course that made the weak-kneed blanche, but was directed toward an overarching vision of what he wanted for America. And for two solid years, he followed that vision through incredible difficulty and intense criticism - and the results were spectacular.

Pawlenty needs to take a big hit from the Reaganbong, and keep that in mind. As Dick Armey says, "Freedom Works". So does tenacity.

And so, in fact, does the economic cycle.

In the Meantime - A number of Winona high school students took a shot at balancing the budget, and presented their results to Pawlenty.
Outside Bluffview, Winona high schoolers waited for a chance to put in their two cents' worth. It took them only two days, they said, to solve the budget crisis. Among their recommendations:

• Increase taxes on cigarettes and liquor.

• Take $500,000 from the tobacco settlement proceeds.

• Extend the sales tax to clothing (which they said would generate $300 million a year).

• Create a new tax bracket for those who earn $100,000 or more.

• Give the working poor a tax credit.

"We did it by the skin of our teeth, but it can be done," said Sarah Merchlewitz, a student at Winona High School who was elected governor of the Winona Model Legislature.
Two things:
No, Ms. Merchiewitz, you didn't "do it" by the skin of your teeth. You did it by the skin of the teeth of smokers, drinkers, and people who earned more money than you've been trained to believe is acceptable.
And what happens when the leglislature spends all of the money you raised via your "solution" and the special interests you're appeasing come back for more next year? And the year after that? More new tax brackets? Punish "sins" some more? Rescind the "working poor" tax credit?
And just how did the students get the idea to "solve" the deficit problem by raising taxes and attacking upper-middle-income earners?
Her government teacher, state Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona...
Ah, that would explain it.
...ran the numbers by the state Finance Department, and officials there said the students' plan worked.
So, I bet, would confiscating all income above $50,000.

In An Alternate Universe - this is how the story above would read, in part:
Outside Reaganview, St. Paul high schoolers waited for a chance to put in their two cents' worth. It took them only two days, they said, to solve the budget crisis. Among their recommendations:

• Retroactively cut every appropriation that had started as expenditures of budget surpluses in the past five years. .

• Give every dime of the tobacco settlement proceeds to the insurers that were the alleged reasons for the suit in the first place.

• Extend the sales tax to clothing, but cut sales taxes across the board by a percentage point.

• Mercilessly ridicule the dorks who proposed a new tax bracket for those who earn $100,000 or more.

• Start making the "working poor" pay more of their share for state government. Most people who make less than $30,000 pay virtually nothing to the state. If they did, perhaps they'd be less enthusiastic about the efforts made to tax them and everyone else.

"We did it - hell, we knocked it out of the park," said Raheem Jinkins, a student at Reagan High School who was elected governor of the St. Paul Model Legislature.

His government teacher, state Rep. Mitch Berg, GOP-Da Midway!, ran the numbers by the state Finance Department, and officials there tried to destroy all existing copies.
A guy can dream.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/13/2002 06:53:10 AM

Thursday, December 12, 2002

Showdown - Pejman Yousefzadeh on the upcoming showdown between the Fifth and Ninth US Circuits on the Second Amendment, and the role Blogs have played in this dispute so far.
Thus, once again, it appears that Judge Reinhardt did not allow the historical facts so important to a correct ruling on the Second Amendment to get in the way of his zeal to argue that the Second Amendment confers a collective, not an individual right.

In writing about the ruling, Professor Volokh stated that he found it "disappointing." Considering how many aspects of Second Amendment law and scholarship Judge Reinhardt got wrong, characterizing the opinion as "disappointing" would perhaps constitute a monumental understatement.
We'll be watching this one closely.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/12/2002 07:53:54 PM

I'd Get Mad - But I'm Too Tired - Michelle Cottle of the New Republic writes about the newest trendy affliction: Harried Woman Syndrome.

This part's absolutely rich - so rich I gag on it:
Gag. Must we medicalize everything in order for it to be real? I'll tell you what's wrong with women: We have stupidly agreed to do it all. We bought into that "you can do anything a man can do" line, without pushing the reciprocal expectation that men will do much of what we were originally doing. This is why many dads still expect a ticker-tape parade when they change a diaper or wash a dish.
Oh, good lord, woman - quit channelling Barbara Billingsley. Even when I was married, I did all of that without so much as a Distringuished Service medal. Believe it or not.
It's also why, when women come home from ten hours at the office, their brains immediately shift into life maintenance mode, spinning through a mental checklist of thousands of chores yet to be done. It's not that men won't help when asked--repeatedly; it's that most never look around for what needs to be done without being asked--repeatedly. (When's the last time a man spontaneously checked to see if the house was low on toilet paper or Saran Wrap?)
Every blessed day, Martha Stewart.

Here was my day today, Ms. Cottle: Up at 5:45. One load in the wash, fold the load from the dryer. Wake the kids. Take a bath. Wake the kids again. Get 'em dressed, and out to the bus. Oops, son's been suspended from the bus - drive him to school. Drive to work (30 miles). Work. Get call that ex can't pick up son from school - race back through rush-hour to get son. Home. Cook dinner. Homework. Basketball practices for both kids. Home, baths, bedtime stories, to bed - and the maybe an hour for me.

And that routine is not that much different than when I was married, maam.

I'm not here to whine about life as a single dad. I love my life, and all that comes with it. But men today - married or not - are every bit as harried as Ms. Cottle's benighted broads. If Warren Farrell, author of Myth of Male Power is to be believed, harried to death. The whole book is worth a read.

But thanks for reminding me - I gotta get toilet paper and Saran Wrap.
That said, women do not need some trendy medical diagnosis to legitimize their fatigue and low libidos. (Speaking of which, maybe if you guys would get up off your asses and empty the dishwasher occasionally without being asked, your honeys would have more energy for a quick snog.)
Ms. Cottle, I have forgotten where my libido goes.

But I'll use the last of my energy before starting supper and homework and hoops to urge you to put down the rampaging sense of victimhood and step away from the keyboard.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/12/2002 06:18:22 PM

Hypocrisy.com - Democrats.com - a Democrat hate site - is collecing a specious online petition for Trent Lott's resignation.

I wrote to ask them "what about Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings, Al Sharpton...". Still no answer.

By the way, note two things about this page:
The scan of the 1948 ballot featuring Strom Thurmond running for president is a Democrat production, and
the headling is helpfully labelled ".comedy". In case you needed the help figuring it out.
I know I did.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/12/2002 07:55:33 AM

Ambush! - Many on the left are trying to portray the denouement of the Missile Saga as an embarassment for the administration.

The London Times' Daniel McGrory disagrees.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/12/2002 07:51:51 AM

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Merry Kwanzaa, courtesy Minneapolis Public Schools - The Minneapolis Public Schools have been scrubbed clean of crucifixes, Stars of David, creches, nativity scenes...

...but by golly, there will be a Kwanzaa celebration.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 06:14:36 PM

Watching the Defectives - It had to happen; a weblog entirely devoted to fact-checking the fact-challenged Michael Moore.

(via Rachel Lucas)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 04:48:12 PM

Trent Lott as Diversion - Stay with me on this one:

The Dems got clobbered in this last election because they didn't run for anything - all they did was run against Republicans - their candidates and ideals.

What is the only topic among Democrats today? Trent Lott.

Could Trent Lott's slip of the lip be the best smokescreen the Administration's had?

Think about it: with the GOP back in the majority in the Senate, and Dick Cheney in his customary role as Congressional überwhip, why not keep Lott in the majority seat, as an infuriating, diversionary Trojan Horse?

I wouldn't be sorry to see him step down as Majority leader - as Jason Lewis points out, he's way too cozy with the opposition when the chips are down. But if he stayed, he could eat up a lot of the Dems' mind-share and air time, and create a big foggy screen behind which the Adminstration could maneuver.

Thoughts?
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 04:34:36 PM

Fiasco, Eh? - This article, from the Toronto Globe and Mail, is interesting on so many different levels:
As a critique of the lunacy of gun registration. Even in Canada, where the majority population (Ontarians and Quebequois) is docile and coalesces easily with big government initiatives, the attempt to register firearms has been a notable boondoggle.
It shows in Technicolor the deep, seething contempt the gun control movement, here and there, feels for its nemeses and their collective intelligence:
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon found time to drop in on a Dec. 6 memorial service attended by grieving relatives. Former justice minister Anne McLellan accused the nasty provinces and the gun nuts of sabotage. Allan Rock, who presided over the launch of the blighted registry, blasted away at rival Paul Martin for "playing into the hands of the gun lobby" because Mr. Martin had dared to say something bad about it. Then he presciently claimed that the gun registry will save 1,240 lives by the time it's up and running. "You have to ask yourself, what are 1,240 lives worth?" he said."
It says much, also, about Canada's prospects as a nation. The populous eastern provinces, controlled by liberal machines and given extremely broad sway over policy at the federal level by a federal government system that rewards population, rams gigantistic statist initiatives down the rural, conservative West's throat with a healthy dose of contempt - and the West has had about enough!?
Very much worth following.

(via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 04:23:02 PM

Evil - Andrew Sullivan covers the two big "axis of Evil" stories today - the interception of the Scud-like missiles being sent to Yemen, and the American media's continual spiking of the gathering, anti-theocrat revolution in Iran.

Regarding the interception of the missiles:
A North Korean cargo vessel flying no flag was halted on Monday in the Gulf of Aden by two Spanish warships, and a search revealed Scud missiles hidden beneath sacks of concrete, senior administration and Pentagon officials said today.

American military explosives experts were summoned, and the ordnance crews were still working tonight to identify and tally the contraband cargo and to stabilize any explosive warheads or volatile missile fuel, officials said.
Officials went on to say they saw no link between the missiles, bound for Yemen and Al Quaeda. Sure. Think about it. Yemen - a nation with a tiny, putative military and a reputation for pragmatism in dealing with its neighbors - needs SCUD missiles precisely why? .

In the meantime, the major media continue to sit on the big story - the crumbling of the Iranian theocracy.
Tensions over weeks of student protests have reached into Parliament here, with hard-liners leaving the floor in protest on Sunday as a reformist member called for a referendum on the current government. It was the first such scene in recent years.

The popularity of the protests, which began over a death sentence for a reformist scholar, is also broadening. Several hundred people broke through the gates at Amir Kabir University here today to join student protesters, witnesses said.
Does Dan rather cover this?
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 06:37:32 AM

Celebs For Love - Mark Levine parodies the all-"star" antiwar letter.
And war is always bad for our industry. The 24-hour news cycle preempts some of us best programming. The Gulf War forced the premature cancellation of such television classics as Doogie Howser, M.D., Blossom, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, and Jake and the Fatman.
Mike Farrell?

No News is Good News - There was just very little news yesterday!...

Sigh.

OK. Rough day at work, feeling like bilge when I got home. I'll try to make up for it this morning and this evening.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/11/2002 06:25:05 AM

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Solipsistic Fops - the Next Generation - Slate rings up a new Rhodes Scholar - the son of a couple of Weathermen terrorists - and discusses not only his preening self-obsession, but the vast and morally-decrepit gaps in the New York Times' coverage of this "event".

(Via Andrew Sullivan)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/10/2002 06:37:49 AM

Monday, December 09, 2002

A Blogger's Christmas Wish - All I want for Christmas is:
To get on Instapundit's Blogroll
To get a copy of Virginia Postrel's book. Or at least the cover art. (Hey! Go there and vote for your favorite picture!)
Enough of a social life so that I can pretend that all the blogging I end up doing some nights actually displaces something fun
I've been a good boy.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 06:11:06 PM

Islam - Is It, or Is It Not? - This is a very long piece on Isntapundit - and it's fascinating. Probably the most concise detailed explication of the whole Moslem schism I've ever read.

Very highly recommended.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 04:46:09 PM

The Pro-Saddam Rally - Back during the Gulf War, about the time the bombing started, I wanted very desperately, to go down to the U of M with a fire extinguisher to put out burning American flags.

This guy had a better idea.

(via Fraters Libertas)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 04:35:34 PM

Whole Lott o' Trouble, Part III - the Thurmond Years - There are some very articulate and persuasive Trent Lott fans reading this blog, and I'll post some of their comments later.

But Powerline made a great observation today:
To listen to Trent Lott (and others), it would appear that Thurmond's career was, from beginning to end, a credit to himself and his native state. This simply isn't true. Thurmond's early career, viewed from the perspective shared by nearly all twenty-first century Americans, was a disgrace. His political rehabilitation coincides more or less with his leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a Republican. For the Republicans to be seen as unqualifiedly embracing Thurmond is a needless tactical blunder. It exposes the Republicans to the slander that, as the party now supported by the majority of Southern whites, they have merely inherited the racist mantle once worn by the Democrats--thus leaving the Republicans holding the bag for the Democrats' embarrassing past. The truth is the opposite: the ascendancy of the Republican Party in the South has largely coincided with white Southerners' rejection of their region's segregationist past, and their desire to create a "New South" unsullied by the unsavory aspects of the region's history. For Republicans to give up this moral high ground by failing to take the opportunity to distinguish between Thurmond's inglorious past as a Democrat and his mainstream present as a Republican was unforgivably stupid.
So the GOPers bobbled the ball on that one. Doesn't change any facts - but it doesn't help the spin war, either.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 01:34:00 PM

Talking Turkey - James Bennett of UPI discusses Turkey, and their misguided goal - perhaps obsession - of getting into the EU.
What's wrong with these hopes and dreams, even assuming the EU would ever fulfill them, is that the price of EU entry has risen higher and higher, while the potential benefits are becoming more and more meager. With the potential entry of poor Eastern European nations, the claims on EU transfer payments increase, while the budget-pressed rich members grow more and more unwilling to increase spending.

Most critically, however, the EU grows more and more burdensome each day. The requirement that each new member adopt the crushing load of EU regulations, uncompetitive and archaic labor practices, and the one-size-doesn't-fit-anybody single currency would be a disaster for a still-developing nation like Turkey. These practices drag down highly developed economies like Germany's and France's. To impose them on a much poorer economy may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Still, Turkey has come to view EU membership as a sort of validation, and the American State Department has become the loyal friend that keeps trying to help fulfill that dream. The problem is that the U.S. ends up expending political capital with the Europeans in helping Turkey, in a quest that will probably disappoint by failing, and still disappoint if it succeeds.
The article confirms some truths - that Turkey's membership in NATO helped it become the closest thing to a genuine liberal democracy in the Moslem world.

But the nation's history of "Westernization by decree", going back to Ataturk, is rife with examples of clinging to the letter of some key western ideas while ignoring their spirit. Ataturk's secularization policy - which to be fair has so far helped Turkey avoid most of the problems of its Islamist neighbors - adopted the full rigor of western liberal "separation of church and state" with none of the tolerance the civilizes that drive.

Similarly, the drive to join the EU takes what is an admirable attempt to focus outward - and combines it with a stultifying, top-down regulatory bureaucracy of the exact type that has proven to be a destroyer of developing economies over the last seventy years.

Read the article!
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 11:44:59 AM

MADD About You - One group whose influence has always frightened me is Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Their absolutist views combined with their incredibly coercive philosophy on engineering society through their emotional - but often fact-challenged - approach to policy makes them both a dangerous and intractable opponent.

Instapundit links to some excellent articles on MADD's rather selective indignation, as well as some of their fuzzy statistics:
It cited increases in "alcohol-related traffic deaths" as its explanation for the low grade. The language that MADD used is important. "Alcohol-related" statistics include every accident in which someone involved had something to drink. That includes, for example, accidents in which a sober driver runs a red light and strikes a driver who had two beers and those in which a drunk stumbles out of a bar and into the path of a bus.
And this article on TalkLeft steered me toward this fascinating, angry, info-stuffed site that pokes at some of the myths MADD is spreading.

Moore Problems - Andrew Sullivan's column in yesterday's Sunday Times of London sums up the current body of work devoted to fact-checking Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine - and the database of misleading and hyperbolic claims that's come from it.

(Via Talkleft and Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 10:31:36 AM

When Courts Collide - Last year, in US v. Emerson, the US Fifth Circuit held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms.

Last week, the ultraliberal Judge Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit in Silveira v. Lockyear has reached the opposite conclusion.

Next stop - the Supremes?

Eugene Volokh - an überblogger and UCLA law professor with a long rap sheet on Second Amendment issues - tells us where Reinhardt got it wrong.

Now Iss ze Time on Shprockets Ven Ve Kill Ourselves - Berlin avant garde art fans mistake a suicide for a performance installation.
"A group of visitors to the center at first thought the body lying on the ground at the art center was part of an art performance," said police spokeswoman Christine Rother. "It took a while before anyone realized it was not an act but a suicide."

posted by Mitch Berg 12/9/2002 06:34:47 AM

Sunday, December 08, 2002

Courage - Eric Raymond has a fascinating analysis on the resurgence of male, physical and moral courage - and its detractors.
Before 9/11, we were in serious danger of forgetting that courage is a functional virtue in ordinary men. But Todd Beamer reminded us of that — and now, awkwardly, we are rediscovering some of the forms that humans have always used to nurture and reward male courage. Remember that rash of news stories from New York about Upper-East-Side socialites cruising firemen's bars? Biology tells; medals and tickertape parades and bounties have their place, but the hero's most natural and strongest reward is willing women.

Manifestations like this absolutely appall and disgust the sort of people who think that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a judgment on American sins; — the multiculturalists, the postmodernists, the transnational progressives, radical feminists, the academic political-correctness brigades, the Bush-is-a-moron elitists, and the plain old-fashioned loony left. By and large these people never liked or trusted physical courage, and it's worth taking a hard look at why that is.
More on this in coming days.

posted by Mitch Berg 12/8/2002 08:01:19 PM

Unassimilated Immigrants - Not Just for Europeans Anymore - Last summer, around the time of Pim Fortuyn's assassination, we noted how unassimilated immigrants were going to be a growing problem in Europe. European culture makes it pretty much impossible for immigrants to be fully accepted into society - "Frenchness" is a matter of birth and language, not choice. America is supposed to be different. And thus, we've managed to avoid the problems that immigrants bring to other countries.

But perhaps the other side of the coin may be happening here in the US. FrontPage magazine reports that many Mexicans in America are acting more aggressively Mexican every day, and it's not a pretty sight.
In Los Angeles last year, cars were seen bearing illuminated signs that read “F--- you, this is still Mexico.” Not just a few cars. Thousands. This is but one sign of the hostility towards the United States that is growing among Mexicans living in this country.

As the number of Mexicans living in the U.S. has ballooned (growing from 2 million to 23 million over the past thirty years), so have the feelings of anti-Americanism among them. While the many Mexicans living in the U.S. are still law-abiding and loyal, there are disturbing signs that anti-Americanism is on the increase. Worse, it is being aided and abetted by the anti-Americanism of native American leftists.

When the Mexican national soccer team came to Los Angeles to play a match against the U.S. team in the summer of 2002, the loyalty of the fans was clear, as demonstrated by the number of Mexican flags waving across the city. Similar attitudes were shown at a 1998 match, with even more repulsive behavior by the Mexican fans. White members of the crowd were jeered at, cursed, soaked with beer, and otherwise harassed. Some in attendance even reported that the United States Marine Band was doused with urine.
Time bomb? We'll see soon.

In the meantime - grassroots efforts to control immigration so far are having mixed results.

(Via Kim DuToit)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/8/2002 06:57:09 PM

Self, Nation, Service - In the past, I've written about the notion of National Service - the concept of citizens spending six months to a year in the military (or some similar national or civil defense job), and then serving in the reserves for some period (in Switzerland, it's from 21 to 50 years of age).

There's more commentary on this issue lately: Nicholas Provenzo writes in Initium last week, dissenting from the idea. He makes the usual points, all good ones. Here's an important one:
So why then do many conservatives support something that is tantamount to part-time slavery?
Question for people like Provenzo and Jason Lewis: Is jury duty "part time slavery?" Or is it something that citizens in this country do to provide each other with a basic right, a jury trial?

Obviously, in a conservative, capitalist system the primary motivation is and should be enlightened self-interest. Altruism - sacrifice of one's self for others - is a great thing, but purely voluntary (as Provenzo says).

But just as sitting on a jury for a week every four years is less "slavery" than something we do as citizens to help support one of our founding ideals, national military service (NOT the draft) protects our "liberty and property" as well as everyone else's (and, by extension, everyone else is doing the same). It's not pure self-interest - but it's not slavery, either.

There are reasons to oppose national service. The best are military.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/8/2002 01:07:51 PM

Whole Lott o' Trouble, Part II - More conservative voices calling for the ouster of Trent Lott.

(via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 12/8/2002 12:42:17 PM

Winter. Sorta - It's freezing out. Thank God.

I've had this theory since I was a kid: People are best adapted to, and prefer, the weather they were first exposed to.

Example: I was born in the middle of winter. When my parents took me out of the hospital, it was 25 below, with a howling wind. I don't button my jacket if it's above ten degrees. But if it gets above 85 humid degrees, I'm a sodden mess.

My father was born in the summer of 1936 - the hottest in history. It was over 100 degrees in the house when he was born. He can shoot 200 holes of golf on a 90 degree day, have a cup of iced tea, and shoot 200 more, but if it gets below 40, he starts like a Fiat Spyder in a blizzard.

So I love winter. Oh, not commuting to Chanhassen through snow-sclerosed freeways full of morons who think signalling a rude imposition on their space. No, I'm talking about snow, the bite on your nose, the warm feeling you get cuddling up on the sofa as the cold outside makes the air itself crispy, the fuzzy well-being you get being in a warm car on a cold night.

There's a Norwegian saying: "There's no such thing as cold, just inadequate clothes".

All I know is, I get the opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think I feel better in the winter. Heat and mosquitos and humidity drag me down. Cold and snow and columns of white smoke in the darkness rejuvenate me enough that I can ignore the early sunsets.

Apropos not much.
posted by Mitch Berg 12/8/2002 04:05:35 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive