Bin Reading November 11, 2004February 28, 2017 BIN LADEN SHOWS HIS CARDS If Al Gore or John Kerry had been President, I believe either 9/11 would have been averted (because the urgent warnings that began for Bush on January 7, 2001, would have been heeded) or else Bin Laden would today be dead. Possibly both. Well, spilt milk. But in thinking about what one’s long-term investment prospects, I was struck by Bin Laden’s game plan, as described here. So far, we seem to be playing right into it. In part: (CNN) — The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group’s goal is to force America into bankruptcy. Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday. “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin Laden said in the transcript. He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, “using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers.” “We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat,” bin Laden said. He also said al Qaeda has found it “easy for us to provoke and bait this administration.” “All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,” bin Laden said. TWO BOOKS WORTH READING Jim: ‘I just finished The Plot Against America, the fantastic new book by Philip Roth. Many parallels to today.’ Also, I just spent some time with Kitty Kelly’s excellent editor. He described the process by which her book about the Bush dynasty was vetted by the lawyers – and savaged by the White House, intimidating most national TV shows into canceling her appearance or (in the case of The Today Show, getting them to give her a very, very hard time). Consider that if you’re 44 today, by 2008 you will have lived with a Bush presidency for 12 of your 48 years – 25%, or or a third of your conscious life (I, at least, was barely aware of my surroundings before I turned 12) . . . so you might want to know more about the family. It’s an interesting story, well researched.
Tugging Les Voters November 10, 2004February 28, 2017 Still not caught up, but a couple of things. 1. Last week in responding to a suggestion for sea scallops and correcting my spelling of haricot vert, I said, ‘Chacon a son gout.’ Tom: ‘I’m sure I’m the thousandth person to point this out, but you misspelled chacun too. But I’ll forgive you…you were undoubtedly thinking about the Baroque musical form chaconne and got confused.’ ☞ Undoubtedly. (You know the old saying: ‘If it ain’t Baroque . . .’) But actually, what’s fun about the Internet is that, in checking things like this, you can usually find tons of web sites that misspell it just as you have, leading you to think you got it right. That, and my love of chaconne, are what led me astray. Aaron Stevens: ‘Chaqu’un a son gout.’ 2. Yesterday, I raised the topic of tugging jets back from their gates. Dale McConnell: ‘I remember reading an article several years ago in Car and Driver about what a big deal it is to move planes around. They actually tested a super tug that avoided some of the same costs that the electric motor you talked about today avoids. Click here to read it.’ 3. And as if that weren’t enough to fill your day, here is a column from the San Francisco Chronicle: We barely recognize each other By Joan Ryan Thursday, November 4, 2004 Like others in the Bay Area, I was huddled with friends around the television set Tuesday night, my son pressing a blue-donkey or red-elephant sticker on each state as the returns rolled in. As we held out hope for Ohio, one friend related a story that, in retrospect, helped me understand Bush’s convincing victory as well as any I have heard. A young man, my friend said, was walking door to door on her street a few weeks ago to raise money for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. When he knocked on the door of one house, the owner responded to the young man in a huff. “I’m a Republican!” she said. “Didn’t you see my flag?” That, in the end, is what it boiled down to. Somehow, as Bush and his party cut taxes to the rich, sent young Americans to their deaths in a war based on untruths (and managed with stunning incompetence), reneged on its financial commitment to education, and plunged the nation into crushing debt, they became symbols of morality and patriotism. They sold themselves as the party of God and country, offering comfort to people who wouldn’t need comforting if the Bush administration had not created the very problems for which it then offered spiritual refuge. Give them credit. They are like PG&E nabbing the candle concession for a blackout the company caused itself. It is a confounding time to live in a place like the Bay Area. Watching the returns Tuesday night, and listening to voters across the country, I saw that John Edwards was right about the two Americas. But the two Americas are not divided by money but by belief systems that have drifted so far apart we barely recognize each other anymore. In exit polls Tuesday, morals topped the list of voter concerns, and an overwhelming majority believed Bush is more moral than Kerry. Thus the resounding victory for the incumbent. Here in the Bay Area, we, too, place a high priority on values and morality. But clearly, many of us define morality differently from much of America. It is not about church membership. The evidence of morality is in one’s actions, not one’s Sunday-morning rituals. Morality means more than prayer and more than proclaiming a personal relationship with God. It is social as well as religious. Is it moral to wage war on a country that did not attack us, and to wage it on false pretenses? Is it moral to stuff more money into the pockets of the wealthy while teachers buy their own crayons and patch their own classroom walls, and while people with mental illness live on the streets and in prison cells for lack of services? Is it moral to deny two people the joy of committing their lives to one another in marriage? Is it moral to prevent scientists from pursuing cures to devastating diseases because of our leaders’ personal religious convictions? Our country has always included a mix of religious and political beliefs. But we shared a foundation of certain “truths to be self-evident” that allowed us to meet on common ground. Today, I don’t know. Our belief systems – – what is right and wrong, what is patriotic and what is not, what is truth and what is not — are so different and so dramatically shape how we interpret news and information that we seem no longer to be living within the same culture. I can’t for the life of me, for instance, figure out how anyone could watch those three presidential debates and even entertain the thought that Bush is qualified to lead the free world. I am puzzled, too, by the reaction to the bin Laden tape. When bin Laden showed up on a video just days before the election, I figured it would remind Americans that Bush had yet to capture the man responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, that he got us sidetracked in Iraq, which had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Instead, the tape seemed to deepen many Americans’ belief that … what? Bush is doing such a good job on terrorism that we should renew his contract? Some have suggested that the Democratic Party needs to reconnect with middle America and its values, that we should take a page from the Republican playbook and talk more about God and faith. Yes, the Democrats need to revamp their strategy. But I would hate to think we would try to win next time around by emulating politicians who get away with destructive and amoral acts by passing them off as directives from God. Faith and flags won this election. But I haven’t lost my belief in another f-word — facts. They’re bound to come back into fashion sooner or later. E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.
Good News on Borealis? November 9, 2004February 28, 2017 I was planning to post Katie’s response to my response (and my response to that), along with several of your other good comments. But then I noticed this press release from a Borealis subsidiary . . . so let’s take a breather from politics (and from correcting my French) and talk once more about THE STOCK THAT IS SURELY GOING TO ZERO. Long-time readers will know I have been suggesting this wildly speculative stock for five years, starting at around $3.50 a share . . . and that it not only weathered the high-tech crash, it has, preposterously, doubled. But closing at $7.25 last night, the whole company was still valued at under $40 million (5 million slices of the pie at $7.25 each), and I have a friend with a private jet worth more than $40 million. So . . . well, first read the press release and then meet me down below: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BOEING PARTNERS WITH CHORUS MOTORS FOR DEMONSTRATION OF ON-BOARD ELECTRIC DRIVE FOR COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT Gibraltar, 8 November 2004 — Boeing Phantom Works, the aerospace company’s advanced research and development unit, has selected Chorus Motors plc to design, build, and operate a system that should eliminate the use of airport tow tugs and jet engines to move most commercial aircraft on the ground at airports. The use of on-board electric-drive motors would enable pilots to be in complete control of their aircraft from gate to gate. Chorus’ Meshcon™ motor and drive technology delivers unprecedented overload power density, which is ideal for this application. Benefits from on-board electric drive include faster flight turnarounds and increased fuel efficiency per trip, as well as reduced aircraft noise and emissions. It is envisioned that this solution would be applicable to both passenger and cargo aircraft. About Chorus Motors Chorus Motors plc (US OTC: CHOMF) is a majority-owned subsidiary of Borealis Exploration Limited (US OTC: BOREF). Chorus has developed the proprietary Chorus® Star™ and Chorus® Meshcon™ electric motor technologies, which offer substantial performance improvements over comparable motor and drive systems. The Chorus systems produce high torque at start-up speeds and are ideal for traction applications such as automobiles, trucks, locomotives, and ships. Their advantages enable several potentially innovative applications in aircraft. For more information, see www.chorusmotors.gi. About Boeing With a heritage that mirrors the first 100 years of flight, Boeing is the world’s leading aerospace company and a top U.S. exporter in terms of sales. Providing products and services to customers in 145 countries, Boeing is a global market leader in commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and launch systems and services. Boeing Phantom Works, the company’s advanced research and development unit, works with the company’s major business units to help determine their technology needs and collaborates with universities, research agencies and other technology companies worldwide to meet those needs. About Andy Andy is a sometime financial writer who has been unable to resist acquiring a ridiculous number of shares of this stock over the years, and who is now almost allowing himself to hope his ship is coming in, and that he will finally be able to afford a flat screen TV. For further information please contact: Chorus Motors plc Dr. Robert Carman Program Manager for Aerospace Applications Email: rcarman@chorusmotors.gi Tel: +1 805-496-2973 Cell: +1 805-908-1762 OK, that last little bit about me was not in the press release. But consider what this means (assuming some phantom at Boeing will actually confirm any of this): 1. This is the second or third time Boeing has allowed its name to be used in a Borealis press release. I don’t think they would do this lightly. And I think they know a thing or two about technology, because not more than three hours ago I was hurtling through the upper reaches of the atmosphere at 600 miles an hour sipping coffee and reading a magazine. And I don’t think I could have been doing that if they didn’t have a little technical expertise. 2. So before we get to the specifics of this press release, one might conclude from this that Borealis, as a company, may actually be real, and that its Chorus Motor technology may actually be something at least vaguely along the lines of what its parent company, Borealis, says it is. Which then leads one to imagine that there is at least a chance the astonishing claims for its three or four other subsidiaries might have some merit. 3. As suggested in an earlier column (use the SEARCH feature at lower left if you’re interested in finding previous columns), what Borealis is worth is a function of at least two wild guesses: First, the chance that this stuff is real and commercially viable – which years ago one might have put at 1% but now, with this press release, one might put at . . . what? 50%? Second, the value of this stuff if it is real – which one could surely put at $300 million for each of the four or five subsidiaries (and which the company, based on its wildly optimistic projections, would put much, much higher). So, bearing in mind that a 50% chance of success carries with it, as the half-fullness of a glass carries the unshakeable burden of half-emptiness, a 50% chance YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR MONEY . . . the student of mathematics would multiply the hoped for value ($1.5 billion) by the possibility of success (50%) and gets a risk-adjusted value of $750 million. Of course, if the company is “worth” $750 million, it might only really get interesting if you could buy it for a third what it’s worth – $250 million. With room to triple over a few years if it really were worth $750 million . . . and room to double again if the 50% chance we’ve assigned its being real turned out to be 100% . . . and to then multiply some more if it turns out that each of these subsidiaries is worth even more than $300 million. But – stressing with all the sincerity I can muster that these are just wild guesses I have pulled out of the air (garbage in/garbage out) – even at $250 million, that works out to $50 a share ($50 x 5 million shares) . . . and the stock closed last night at $7. And most of you paid $3 or $4, as did I. Have I mentioned that this is risky? And is it not evident that, just as I was horribly wrong in predicting the outcome of last week’s election, I could be the victim of similar wishful thinking here? Indeed, that in my weakened emotional state following Tuesday’s tragic outcome, I could be grasping at straws? All true. But now let’s go back to the press release. It seems to be saying that jets could just drive themselves around the airport like golf carts. That could save on the labor of towing them out of their gates, but more important, I’m guessing it could save a lot of jet fuel. Many is the time I’ve been on the tarmac, engines whining, for half an hour or more before taking off. One of you will do the numbers for us, but I’m guessing a deal like this could save $100 a day on fuel (and the less fuel you need to carry, the less the plane weighs and the less you need to fly it), plus some more on labor . . . so maybe $40,000 a year per plane? So what if the Borealis subsidiary could make a license fee of $5,000 a year per plane, leaving a $35,000 a year saving for the airlines. There are something like 10,000 commercial jets, I think. That’s $50 million a year. I know at least a few of you are being driven to distraction by this kind of wild thinking. So many things could go wrong! And my estimates could be so far off! But Boeing seems to think this is worth pursuing. And if it works for planes, could it work in some way for elevators? For forklifts? For electric golf carts or electric cars? And if this Borealis subsidiary actually proves to have value, might the others? It still seems way too good to be true. And there are so many weird things about the company (headquartered in Gibraltar, not subject to S.E.C. regulation) one’s head spins. You must never invest more in this speculation than you can truly afford to lose. But who knows? Maybe Boeing knows what it’s doing.
Notes From a Fundamentalist November 8, 2004February 28, 2017 SCALLOPS Frank Nash: ‘You say, ‘Turn the scallops over and push ’em around a little.’ Don’t turn them over. Cook on one side only. The result is a splendid golden crust on one side and a much juicier scallop – no need to upend the pan to drink the juice, the juice remains in the scallops.’ ☞ Chacon a son gout. (I don’t speak French and spelled haricot vert wrong yesterday, but I keep trying.) YES, BUSH CAN It seems the YES, BUSH CAN folks I’ve referred to a couple of times here didn’t really start out as Bushies and convert – they were anti-Bush all along. Sorry not to have caught that. Click here for their exploits. ARROGANCE Katie: ‘Your column beautifully illustrates why the Dems lost. You arrogantly assume that the people who voted for Bush were uninformed. The arrogance of the elites is why you lost this election. The majority of Americans can and do examine the facts and decide for themselves. That they choose to ignore you and the Dems does NOT make them uniformed. It means they disagree. But until you and your party can figure out that you do not know what’s best for the rest of us, you will continue to lose national elections.‘ ☞ If the surveys are right, 60% to 70% of Bush voters believe Iraq had a significant hand in attacking us. That’s just one of many examples, but not an unimportant one. Thomas Jefferson said, ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’ My fear is two-fold. First, that our citizenry does an only so-so job of staying informed. Second, that we are served by an increasingly consolidated, increasingly intimidated press. As to the arrogance of ‘knowing what’s best for the rest of us,’ there are places where, yes, we would intrude – for example, we wanted to extend the ban on the sale of assault weapons. But that’s an area where polls show most people agree with us. At the same time, there are so many areas where your elites believe they ‘know what’s best for the rest of us.’ For example: The Bush Administration says the people of California may not use medical marijuana to relieve their pain or reduce the nausea of chemotherapy – never mind the referendum by which they enacted this. The Bush Administration knows what’s best for them. The Bush Administration says terminally ill Oregonians may not choose assisted suicide, even though the people of Oregon twice passed this by referendum. The Bush Administration knows what’s best for them. The Bush team says abortion should be illegal. They know better than women and their doctors how to make this difficult choice – even though a majority of the country disagrees. The Bush team says that Charles and I should be denied equal rights – perhaps even jailed (as per the Texas law that Governor Bush supported but that, to his dismay, the Court struck down) – because they know better than we do whom it is okay for us to love. The Bush team says we cannot adopt, even if the trained social workers and family court judge believe it would be in the best interest of the child. The Bush Administration knows what’s best for the child. So I think it maybe works both ways. ONE FUNDAMENTALIST’S VIEW From John Leonarz: I write as a fundamentalist, born-again Christian, a Democrat and a strong Kerry supporter. I drove down to Jacksonville, FL, to give three days driving voters to the polls and do my bit to preclude a repeat of the debacle of 2000, when many thousands of votes (Dem.) were uncounted in Duval County. While at the Dem HQ a lady came in to ask for a bumper sticker which would say “Christians for Kerry.” There weren’t any. Apparently the campaign never made any of them up. The Black people I assisted were very strong Christians and had no difficulty seeing that God wanted them to support the Democratic Party. Mr. Kerry was a red (blue?) flag to these people – “liberal”, Catholic, anti-Vietnam war, pro-abortion, pro-Gay, from Massachusetts, and “nuanced.” If we expect to win, ever again, we will have to meet these people at least half way with someone who is a recognizable, sincere, biblically-literate Christian. This person need not be a gay-basher, nor one who wants to re-criminalize abortion (mostly the right-wing does not want actually to recriminalize abortion). The candidate would have to begin with a simple, consistent, pro-American, pro-gun, pro-conventional-marriage base. Strong support for a proper health care system, strong defense, strong anti-terror program. The person should be a church-attending, credible veteran free of antiwar notoriety, a person with stature as a leader and politician, probably a Governor. The person must be well-vetted because the Republicans will take any incident out of context and make up stuff to discredit the person. The person must have a record of making good decisions and staying with them. Decisions should be informed, but not marked by long periods of study. Bush would have been vulnerable to a charge that he made snap decisions made on guesswork and then let himself become the prisoner of his ego. We never said that in so many words. The gay marriage issue is answered for a concurrent majority of Christians by the appeal to fairness – i.e, advocacy of the civil union, together with the comment that “God knows who is married and who is not, and only God’s opinion counts.” The gun issue is answered by taking the position that one will respect the opinions of law enforcement organizations, and that therefore gun-owning, public spirited citizens have nothing to fear from the Democratic party. Christian voters abhor the idea of giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy, to be paid for by our children and grandchildren, but would not vote for Democrats because of the general fear of creating a massively secular, big-brotherly type of society, oriented to deterioration of the family and indulgent toward unconventional sexual mores. Bush’s comment that the majority of the tax cut went to low income citizens, was misunderstood by most. What he apparently based it on was the number of persons in the categories who received tax cuts, which was unquestionably highest among those of low income. [OK, but if you gave a $5 cut to each of 100 million low-income households and a $1 million cut to the top 10,000, that would be $500 million for the people at the bottom and $10 billion to the people at the top. Wouldn’t it be purposely deceptive to deny that such a scheme gave most of the benefit to the wealthy, as Gore suggested, and state flatly, as Bush did, that “by far the vast majority” of the tax cut would go to people “at the bottom end of the economic ladder”? – A.T.] Christian voters are not as stupid as many Democrats think they are. (Some of them, of course, are.) In general, Christians were greatly annoyed at the blatant lies put out by the Republicans, and appalled at the casual way in which they made stuff up as they went along. All things equal, a Christian will vote against that kind of tactic. In future we must adhere to a well-publicized effort toward truth and fair dealing in our campaign statements. When we slip from this standard we have to be prompt and full with our explanation and recognition of the truth, even apology, which can be even more devastating than any exaggeration we might have put forth. We must recognize that Republicans are not interested in facts, only in values and impressions. If the world divides between the nerds and the jocks, they are the jocks, and the jocks are more numerous. Did it matter whether Iraq played a role in 9-11? No. Or that Bush is a heartless scoundrel (the Tucker case, the suppression of photos of the returning caskets)? No. A decent regard for the heartland religion is key, because the heartland is where the electoral votes are. Karl Rove knows that, and that will still be true in 2008.
Haricot Vert November 5, 2004February 28, 2017 HOUSEKEEPING 1. Sorry about yesterday’s typos and garbles. I cleaned them up yesterday afternoon. 2. Sorry if you’ve me-mailed recently. I have more than 1,000 backed up and may for a brief time have to welsh on my normal practice of reading them all. 3. For those of you who may have come to this column because of the election, and thus not know what it’s about or how it works . . . it started in 1996, when Ameritrade asked me to write a daily comment for their web site. You can read about that here, on the occasion of my 750th and final column for Ameritrade . . . or here, on the occasion of the 2000th. (You don’t see the numbers, but today’s is #2154). I keep the subscription price low because I learn at least as much from my readers as they do from me. I often feel as if I should be paying YOU. (Predictably, the feeling passes.) But in return you have to suffer a lot of bad columns and a great deal of self-indulgence on my part (such as this parenthetical rumination on the topic of: ‘on who else’s part could self-indulgence be than one’s own?’) . . . with, I greatly hope, the reward of, here and there, from time to time, a thought on personal finance that makes you money. Or a thought on a political or economic issue that makes you think. (I particularly value those of you who come here who do not necessarily share my view of the world.) Or a thought that makes you smile. Or a recipe from my ongoing series, Cooking Like a Guy™, so fundamentally appalling that it makes you better appreciate your partner’s cooking. SEA SCALLOPS Sometimes my cooking is so good it dazzles even me. 1. Get rich enough so you can afford sea scallops, at $14 a pound, at the fresh fish counter of your supermarket. (They’re big white lumps, but not slimy. Be a man. Don’t be afraid to touch them.) Get half a pound for each of you. 2. Take your magic pan – everyone needs a little magic Teflon-coated pan – pour in a little olive oil and rub it around with your fingers so it coats the bottom of the pan. 3. Turn on the burner and, after a minute or two, when the pan is hot, drop in the scallops. This is far easier for the squeamish guy than lobster. The scallops are white lumps. They don’t scream little scallop screams the way lobsters do. 4. Sprinkle some interesting salt and ground pepper over top, sing a bawdy song . . . turn the scallops over and push ‘em around a little. Think about the Bears and the Bruins and the Bengals and the date you wish were watching you admiringly from the couch – guy stuff. 5. Stab fork into pan, lift sea scallop triumphantly, allow to cool a few seconds, and eat. 6. Is that not completely delicious? You’re telling me it is! 7. Now look skyward as you lift the pan above your mouth and drain the remaining olive-oily salt-and-peppery sea scallop juice down your gullet. Never in your life have you found a superior happiness. 8. Rinse out the pan and wipe dry with a rag. Elapsed time from commencement through consumption to completed cleanup – 7 minutes. If you do have a date on the couch, serve on plates instead, with some frozen green beans you tell her are “haricot vert” and microwaved before she came. Low light, a candle, and a bottle of Chardonay . . . man, are YOU ever going to score points. BLACK TUESDAY Professor David Kaiser began a blog last month that included this snippet from a long October 30 post, just before the election: The election pits two entirely different philosophies against one another. On the one hand, the Democrat John Kerry wants, essentially, to continue building upon the achievements of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, with a nod to Bill Clinton’s remarkable budget-balancing achievements. On the other, George W. Bush wants almost entirely to undo the work of the twentieth century, vastly reducing public services, effectively ending environmental regulation, reducing or eliminating progressive taxation, privatizing social security, and essentially substituting faith for reason as our guide. Abroad, meanwhile, he has already junked 60 years of multilateralism and commitment to international law in favor of a belief in the efficacy of unbridled American force. These changes are so dramatic that many in the major media refuse to believe they are taking place. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has expressed astonishment at his many friends who see catastrophe lurking if Bush should be reelected, and when Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind told Chris Matthews that many Bush supporters see the President as a messenger from God, Matthews exclaimed, “Oh, come on!” – prompting Suskind to exhort Matthews to get out of Washington and see what was happening in the rest of the country. The wholesale repudiation of the beliefs of our educated elite at the highest levels of our government—amply documented in Suskind’s recent New York Times Magazine article—does come as a shock, but Strauss and Howe’s historical scheme helps understand how it has happened. Nor is it without precedent in western history, as something quite similar happened in Great Britain at the end of the eighteenth century . . . ☞ If you have time, it’s worth reading the whole thing. Happy birthday, Marc!
Four More Years November 4, 2004February 28, 2017 You will assume the lack of a column yesterday was due to Despondency, Fatigue, or Alcohol. Yes, I was tired and despondent (if foolishly sober) by the time Charles and I got back to our room last night, but that was not the problem. We were staying in The Most Expensive Hotel Room Since Time Began – a ‘suite,’ truth to tell (on our dime, I should note, not yours, in case you contributed to the DNC) – and although it was at The Ritz, and beautiful, and cost enough money to put both your kids through college and law school (though I think you should gently nudge them toward the sciences) – there was no broadband access (even Courtyard By Marriott offers broadband) and, to my great surprise and that of the Ritz Hotel operator, there was no phone service. I could call her – and did, repeatedly – but I could not make a local or long-distance or toll-free call to connect to the Internet and post my column. ‘Would you like me to send up an engineer?’ the operator asked. I had already been informed that a bowl of clam chowder would take 40 minutes (and that alcoholic beverage service had ended, as prescribed by law, at 1:30am), so how long would it take to get an engineer? And what would he do, anyway? The problem pertained to all three of our phones (did I mention we were in a suite?), so clearly it was a problem ‘downstairs’ somewhere, not something a guy with a screwdriver could solve, least of all (and I mean here no disrespect to night-shift workers) the hotel engineer who would be on duty at 3am. ‘No,’ I whimpered, not entirely unhappy to have an excuse not to write anything yesterday. We had booked this preposterously expensive suite (I won’t tell you how much it was, I am too ashamed, except to say that the $100 they knocked off to apologize for the phone problem made barely a dent – and this was without ordering the soup) because we thought there was a very good chance that, after four years’ work, we would have something to celebrate . . . and because as an officer of Democratic National Committee, I might have occasion to invite people ‘up to the suite’ as a gesture of thanks for their support. So the first thing to say, of course (and leave it to these damnable parentheticals, which are my own form of Tourette’s Syndrome, to take me this long to get to the first thing I have to say) is that I was wrong. (Or, if you prefer, I was wrong. Okay?) Especially with regard to Florida. We did not win as I thought we would. Clearly, we are a divided nation. I just thought that, at the end of the day, a few million more of us would have come down on ‘our’ side than theirs. Well, our side needs to learn how to make its case better. And possibly we need to adjust our case. (That second part is far less clear. Yes, we have to find a way to make gun owners less reflexively Republican – to take just one example. That’s about making our case. But I’m not sure it means we should favor ready purchase of assault weapons. That’s about changing our position.) Core Bush voters apparently believe that the Christian way to approach the economy is to borrow from our children (who will inherit the debt) to give large tax cuts to the best off . . . and huge tax cuts to the very best off. We don’t know whether it’s Christian or not (blessed are the meek?), but we think it’s unfair, that it exaggerates the already staggering gulf between rich and everyone else in this country . . . and that that strains the social fabric. How awful was the 20% levy on long-term capital gains, anyway? (We also think it’s wrong to flat out lie about it – to say that ‘by far the vast majority’ of the tax cuts will go ‘to people at the bottom end of the economic ladder’ when in fact – and this is a point of indisputable mathematical fact – by far the vast majority of the tax cuts went to people at the top end of the economic ladder.) Or leave morality out of it – Bush voters seem to think that the best way to stimulate the economy is to give huge tax cuts to people who already have all the goods and services they need. Kerry voters think it would have been more stimulative to concentrate the bulk of the tax cuts on the great majority of people who can barely make ends meet. Bush voters see the average American voter with more after-tax money in his or her pocket (leaving aside rising local taxes, health care, tuition, heating oil and gas). And that’s accurate, but it includes in the average guys like Bill Gates. (Nothing against Bill, but he’s been paid more than $3 billion this year.) Kerry voters look at the median, not the average, and see that the family in the economic middle has less in its pocket. A majority of Bush voters believe Iraq played a significant role in the September 11 attacks. A majority of Kerry voters believe the report of the 9/11 Commission that Iraq played no significant role. Bush voters feel safer because we have captured or killed three-quarters of Al-Qaeda’s top leadership. Kerry voters feel less safe because Bin Laden is still at large planning to attack us, and because thousands of new terrorists have been recruited to Al-Qaeda’s cause . . . and because by the incompetent, arrogant way we ‘did Iraq’ – as opposed to the fact that we toppled Saddam Hussein – we have turned against us much of the rest of the world and made blood enemies of millions if not hundreds of millions of Arabs. Bush voters feel that children are better off in orphanages than adopted by loving, well-screened gay or lesbian parents. And that their own unions will be stronger or more meaningful if gay partners are denied equal economic and civil benefits (and responsibilities) for their own unions. Kerry voters disagree. Bush voters think we should drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and give tax incentives for the purchase of $100,000 Hummers. That we should deny or ignore the scientific consensus of global climate change, and the devastating effects it could have. Kerry voters think we should stress conservation and alternative energy – and that one look at the 400,000-year graph of CO2 content and global temperature change is evidence enough of a global crisis. (The graph is a predictable up-and-down pattern for 400,000 years, with temperature slightly lagging the CO2 content . . . until the last 100 years or so, when the CO2 content explodes, strongly suggesting that temperatures, which lag, are about to soar.) The Republican view seems to be that until there’s 100% certainty of disaster, we should not deal with this. My own view is that if there were only a 10% chance the threat is real – and the scientific community seems to feel 90% would be a better number – it’s worth doing something about. This is, after all, the only planet we have. Bush voters, whether they know it or not, have in effect affirmed the United States’ ongoing effort to ban embryonic stem cell research. (The thing Nancy Reagan, Ron Reagan, Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, among others, all support.) The U.S. managed to get 79 votes at the U.N. for a global ban on this research – just one shy of what was needed to declare the ban. Kerry voters weigh the interest of microscopic blastocysts against the interests of millions of people – perhaps even your own mom or dad or baby daughter – who will suffer terrible diseases that this research could one day cure, and they come down on the side of encouraging the research. Bush voters believe young girls should not be able to get abortions under any circumstances. Kerry voters think abortions should be ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ These – and so many more – differences of opinion are legitimate. One citizen / one vote. Where it gets tragic is if a Bush voter (or a Kerry voter, for that matter) formed his or her opinion without knowing the facts. As, or course, so many voters do. (I live and breathe this stuff, and I know I don’t know all the facts, though I’ll admit I am arrogant enough to think I know a fair share of the most important ones.) If the Bush voters really know what they’re voting for, then so be it. Part of the sadness I feel is that I think they don’t know – and don’t know, for example, that President Bush, as governor, executed Karl Fay Tucker, ignoring even a personal plea from the Pope (or that he then made jokes about it to a reporter). And on and on. My feeling is that if they had enough time to research it, many would come out of the process as the folks at YesBushCan.com did. You will recall from Monday that they began as a pro-Bush group driving around the country supporting the President in a bus they had decorated and equipped with confetti cannons – but ultimately switched and endorsed John Kerry. ”In the course of our travels, we ended up learning more about Bush’s policies than he wanted us to know,’ said Harmon Spellmeyer, one of the Yes, Bush Can team. ‘We came to see that this administration is a catastrophe for most people.” Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! Soon, back to lighter fare (or at least the clam chowder).
A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind November 2, 2004February 28, 2017 A decent respect to the opinions of mankind. Even in 1776 our founders knew that was important. It is far more important now that we are tied so tightly together; now that we are capable of destroying our shared environment; now that we owe mankind (foreign lenders) trillions of dollars; now that what we do is all on TV. Yes, I beg you to vote for John Kerry for domestic and social reasons. We will be a more prosperous, healthier, fairer society if you do. But I want to hand the mike to Andrew Tanenbaum for the final pitch. It turns out he is the anonymous ‘Votemaster’ at electoral-vote.com. He ‘came out’ yesterday. And while his whole story is fascinating – an MIT grad and author of five books translated into 22 languages, living temporarily in the Netherlands – it’s his motivation for doing the site that I want to leave you with: Why Did You Do This? In a nutshell, because living abroad I know first hand what the world thinks of America and it is not a pretty picture at the moment. I want people to think of America as the land of freedom and democracy, not the land of arrogance and blind revenge. I want to be proud of America again. The U.S. media do a spectacularly bad job of informing Americans about what is going on in rest of the world. After Sept. 11, the U.S. could do no wrong. The entire world was on America’s side. The invasion of Afghanistan was seen as completely justified. After all, the Al-Qaida leadership had to be decapitated. No one questioned that. But Iraq was a completely different matter. Bush, Cheney, and Powell said they had conclusive proof that Saddam had WMD and could attack at any instant. The rest of the world wanted to see the proof. No proof was forthcoming. The answer was “trust us.” We now know there were no WMD. There weren’t even factories or labs to produce them. Saddam was an evil dictator with evil fantasies but he was no threat to America. Yet former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said that the planning to invade Iraq began the day Bush was inaugurated. The administration simply misused the horror of Sept. 11 as a convenient excuse for doing something that was already in the works. Let me tell you a short story. When I was in elementary school, the school was plagued by a bully. He was the biggest, strongest kid around and would beat up anyone he didn’t like. We were all exceedingly polite to his face, but hated his guts behind his back. One day he was chasing some poor kid and he tripped and skidded a considerable distance, scraping his face on the rough asphalt of the playground. He was bleeding and in pain, screaming for help. But nobody came to help him. We all just walked away. George Bush is the world’s playground bully. The world sees him–and by inference, America–as arrogant, self-centered, and mean. I spoke to Americans from dozens of countries at the DA caucus. Everyone told the same story–the world hates America. When talking to foreigners, I can tell them about the Bill of Rights or freedom or World War II, or whatever I want, but all they see is this big, stupid, arrogant, playground bully and a stolen election in Florida last time. I think America deserves better. I want America to be respected in the world again, and John Kerry can restore the respect America deserves. . . . Now you might be thinking: Who the hell cares if America is the world’s pariah, along with, say, North Korea and Zimbabwe? Well, I care, for one, and I think most Americans want to be respected for being a democracy rather than simply being feared because we have more nuclear weapons than anybody else. You can’t make the world love you by running commercials full of snarling wolves on worldwide TV. But there are some practical matters to consider as well. If you look at British and Canadian publications, such as The BBC, The Guardian, The Economist, and The Globe and Mail, you get a picture not colored by partisan electoral considerations. You sometimes wonder if they are reporting the same war as the U.S. media. The situation in Iraq has deteriorated very badly. Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the war, mostly women and children. Well over 1000 American soldiers–many of them just kids who signed up for the National Guard and never expected to go to war–have been killed there and thousands more have been maimed for life. Americans are being killed daily in increasing numbers and unless there is a radical change, this will go on for years. Reenlistment rates are way down and manpower needs are way up. With a President Kerry, there is hope that other countries might contribute serious numbers of troops to help stabilize Iraq. With a second Bush administration they will just say: “You broke it, you fix it.” If other countries won’t help out, Bush is going to be faced with an unpleasant choice: accept another Vietnam-type quagmire lasting for years or reinstitute the draft. There is no way we can win in Iraq with current troop levels. Something has to change. More of the same won’t work. And it is an open secret that after the election, Bush is going to ask Congress for another $70 billion down payment on Iraq. Who is going to pay for it? We are. In addition, the U.S. needs the help of other countries to gather intelligence about terrorists, cut off their funding, and track them down. Trouble is, when the playground bully comes asking for help, everyone just walks away. A new president who shows respect for the world instead of arrogance will get a lot more help. And we need help, believe me. ☞ All along, John Kerry has had a simple slogan: STRONGER AT HOME, RESPECTED AGAIN IN THE WORLD. The world yearns for us to make a fresh start. Today we get to do it – to pay a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. JUST IN CASE YOU RUN INTO PROBLEMS Click here to print an Election Protection card.
Catholic? Born Again? Jewish? Fire the Confetti! November 1, 2004February 28, 2017 JUST IN CASE YOU RUN INTO PROBLEMS TOMORROW Click here to print an Election Protection card. (Thanks, David Bruce, for the suggestion.) THE CASE FOR BUSH Tod Lewis: ‘Your incessant Bush bashing and hatred is misguided. Pray tell, what did Clinton do to protect us during his 8 years in office? Answer. Nothing. Even after the first WTC bombing and Bin Laden’s declaration of war on America, the Clinton Administration did basically nothing.’ ☞ No hatred here, Tod. But tell me this: Even if Bill Clinton had been the worst president in history (he was one of the best), how would that be relevant to Bush’s performance? President Bush had the good will of the whole world Sept 12, 2001. Now we are widely disliked and distrusted – and the man who killed 3,000 Americans is alive and well and sending us videotapes. Tens of thousands have died, hundreds of billions have been spent, millions of potential new terrorists are ripe for recruiting, Colin Powell tells confidants we are losing the war . . . and you think this is okay why? I won’t repeat all the stuff I’ve been subjecting you to (you are a good man for reading it, given how much we disagree) . . . but for you to dismiss it as ‘hatred’ is to avoid the substance. If you don’t want scientists to be able to do stem cell research, present your case, I’ll present mine, and that’s how one or the other of us might learn something. Same with all the other issues. Please note that President Clinton, in handing the baton to President Bush, had identified Bin Laden as a ‘tremendous’ and ‘immediate’ threat to the United States, and Bush was urgently warned as early as January 7, 2001, in a face-to-face meeting with the head of the CIA, to pursue the counter-terrorism initiatives then in the works. Instead, the tremendous, immediate threat was ignored – all focus was on Iraq until September 11 – and most of the focus remained on Iraq even after September 11. You are okay with this why? DEAD OR WOUNDED? Clint Chaplin: ‘You use ‘deaths’ and ‘casualties’ interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Casualties includes wounded as well as dead. I’ve not seen the study, did they report on 100,000 civilian casualties, or 100,000 deaths? Many people make this mistake.’ ☞ Good question. This is what I was basing it on: Study Puts Iraqi Deaths of Civilians at 100,000 By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, International Herald Tribune Published: October 29, 2004 PARIS, Oct. 28 – An estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a direct or indirect consequence of the March 2003 United States-led invasion, according to a new study by a research team at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. . . . IF YOU’RE CATHOLIC A Prolife Case against Bush It’s about more than abortion by Sidney Callahan I voted for George W. Bush and I’m heartily sorry now. My support was motivated by prolife convictions, but so is my present dismay. I opted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he’d try to protect embryonic life in and out of the womb, and also support faith-based social initiatives. As for foreign policy, Bush’s promises of ‘humility’ were reassuring. Humility is, of course, a central Christian virtue, and Bush’s seemed to reflect his avowed identification with ‘Christ-because he changed my heart.’ Then came 9/11. U.S. military forces quickly engaged in retaliatory warfare; new policies and rationales justified preemptive military action. Yes, terrorism is a real threat that must be countered, and Saddam was a monster, but what was the administration leading us into? Our unilateral act of war against Iraq turned much of the world against us-and with good reason. First-strike attacks are a breach of moral principle and international law. Our present policies, now dubbed the Bush Doctrine, are morally suspect and prudentially disastrous. Billions of dollars are being spent, many lives are being lost, and Americans have tortured Iraqi prisoners. Islamic terrorists have been given renewed impetus for their crusade of hatred against the West. Has this kind of ‘war on terrorism’ really made us safer? At the same time, domestic troubles mount. Hopes for bettering the plight of the poor under Bush II seem blighted. New tax cuts favor the rich. Poor children are still left behind. Compassionate conservatism, we now know, is mostly directed toward the wealthy-those who will never need to worry about their health-care insurance, or the size of their Social Security checks. Fortunately, there has been some progress on the prolife front. The president signed the partial-birth abortion bill and has set up a bioethics commission, which advises him on the morality of unregulated biotechnical research. For these measures and his encouraging speeches, Bush is called the ‘Prolife President’ in the movement’s literature. Yet, for an advocate of a Catholic consistent ethic of life, Bush’s prolife credentials seem compromised, if not completely betrayed, by his pursuit of optional war. For Catholics, prolife advocacy must include peacemaking and social justice. Solving social problems through violent killing is a proabortion strategy, and a preemptive-war policy can be just as lethally prochoice. In international affairs, U.S. military might can never by itself make right, nor can it create democracy by force. Killing to create peace and coercion in the cause of freedom constitute a policy beset by internal contradictions. What happened to Bush’s avowed humility? His strong Christian faith apparently has a shadow side. Bush emphasizes his unique role in God’s plan and relies on gut religious intuitions. In referring to his conversion from drinking, he has said, ‘There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not in a bar. I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer.’ Well, yes, but this does not mean we can slight self-examination and critical testing of his understanding of God’s will. The president does not seem to recognize that conscience is not divine dictation, or the direct voice of God, but rather God’s voice ‘echoing’ in his depths (the Catechism). Individual conscience can be in error because it is a complex human capacity requiring reason and emotion. Moral decisions must be continually informed through dialogue and consultation with others. Inspired by a favorite Methodist hymn, ‘A Charge to Keep I Have,’-emphasis on the I-Bush seems content to go it alone. On the question of going to war in Iraq, the president found it easy to brush off the UN, reject the pope’s pleas for peace, and dismiss the U.S. bishops’ statement. He also ignored the admonitions of his own Methodist leaders-along with warnings from Jimmy Carter and senior Republican policy experts. Worst of all, the millions of antiwar demonstrators around the world were contemptuously pooh-poohed as irrelevant to him. OK, so maybe Bush has never heard of the ‘the grace of self-doubt,’ but surely somewhere in his Yale education he must have encountered the Greek concept of hubris. What good is it to declare oneself a humble sinner and remain so absolutely, supremely certain (or cocky) in one’s behavior? How many leaders in history have been brought down by similar gut-based moral certainties? Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, comes to mind. I thought of George W. Bush keeping to his charge when reading about Nicholas earlier this year. As a man of deep faith, Nicholas was convinced of his own inner moral guidance. In the midst of the wartime crisis, Nicholas calmly assured his prime minister, who was desperately reasoning with him to change course, ‘Despite most convincing arguments in favor of adopting a positive decision in this matter, an inner voice keeps on insisting more and more that I do not accept responsibility for it. So far my conscience has not deceived me.’ Nicholas went on to explain that ‘a czar’s heart is in God’s hands.’ This leader’s stubborn faith in his imperial and providential destiny led to disaster. Bush, too, appears superconfident, now promising to ‘rid the world of evildoers.’ He has had more than one Rasputin assuring him that his critics can be dismissed as enemies of the faith. Should those with the right stuff listen to weak sisters? True believers may be more dangerous than those who fake it. The mounting costs of a disaster can be interpreted by them as a test of courage. As the president declared in his State of the Union address, ‘We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory.’ (Sacrifices consisting of the lives of other people’s children are always easier to endorse.) As casualties and ‘collateral damage’ increase, it can become harder to admit error. In 2004, the Republicans will be a prowar party led by a would-be crusader. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and John Kerry will remain rigidly and dogmatically proabortion. In this sad dilemma I think the Catholic prolife agenda of peace and social justice for all is best served by a vote for Kerry and the Democrats. At least Kerry, a Catholic veteran and antiwar protester, will be committed to work for a foreign policy of international cooperation aimed at peacemaking. Protecting fetal lives is an all-important prolife goal, but every day my local paper runs pictures of young U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, and who’s counting the Iraqi civilian lives destroyed? Another reason to urge an anti-Bush vote by prolife advocates arises from reading the signs of the times. From my ‘feminist for life’ (prowoman, prolife) perspective I can see that it takes much time for education and moral persuasion to gradually change abortion laws. But from the perspective of peace and war, the world can get much worse fast. Disastrous miscalculations and conflict can enkindle violent wildfires. I am now ready to sign up for a ‘Prolifers against Bush’ campaign. The Catholic vote in 2004 should support the church’s imperative call for peacemaking abroad and justice for the poor at home. As Jesus says, all those who cry ‘Lord, Lord’ (however sincerely) may not be doing God’s work. Yet I am certainly no Bush hater. I find him genial as a person and welcome the good that he has done for the unborn. But I have become completely alienated by his foreign policy as well as frightened by his moral and religious views. Overconfidence in God’s direct guidance can be a good man’s fatal flaw. Who could have been nicer than Nicholas II? Sidney Callahan is a psychologist who has taught moral theology and is the author of In Good Conscience: Reason and Emotion in Moral Decision Making (HarperSanFrancisco). IF YOU’RE BORN AGAIN Bush is polling at 70% with evangelicals and born again Christians, down from 80% in 2000. Click here for the story. You’ll meet some interesting people. IF YOU’RE JEWISH A Message to the American Jewish Community from Professor Alan Dershowitz There are American Jews who have said recently that although they support John Kerry’s positions on every major domestic issue – – from the Supreme Court to women’s rights to gay rights – – they plan to vote for President Bush because they believe Bush would be better for Israel. Respectfully, I believe they are wrong for two reasons. First, I know personally how strongly John Kerry feels about a safe and secure Israel. I remember vividly when John went to Israel with our dear mutual friend, the late Lenny Zakim, the New England director of the ADL. On his return, that’s all John could talk about – – his admiration for Israel’s combination of strength and determination to make peace. He has a perfect pro-Israel voting record in the Senate and I have no doubt that, as president, John Kerry’s unwavering commitment to Israel will continue. President Bush, though well intentioned on Israel, has hurt the Jewish nation’s position in the world. The actions of the United States in Iraq, especially since President Bush prematurely declared “mission accomplished”, have been disastrous for Israel. The failures in Iraq have weakened the influence of the United States in the Middle East and have made it much more difficult for us to thwart Iran’s determination to develop nuclear weapons aimed at Israeli population centers. The Iranian mullahs know that Americans could not stomach another military action in Iran while the occupation of Iraq continues. This reality, confirmed by President Bush during the first debate, has emboldened them to speed up their nuclear program – – a program that poses the greatest existential threat to Israel, the Jewish people and ultimately America, since an Iranian nuclear program could result in terrorists with dirty bombs. The current Bush policy with regard to Iraq has weakened America’s war against terror by diverting military and other resources to a quagmire that is only getting worse. The second reason is that pro-Israel votes should not turn an American presidential election into a referendum on Israel. Our goal must be to keep support for Israel a bipartisan issue – – and in this we have succeeded. Pro-Israel voters are free in this election to vote based on other important issues, such as women’s rights, separation of church and state and the Supreme Court. These issues actually coalesce in practice. If President Bush is reelected, he will have as many as four Supreme Court vacancies in his first year: and he has told us exactly who he intends to fill them with: clones of his two favorite justices – – Scalia and Thomas. A Bush Supreme Court will put at risk a woman’s right to choose abortion. Equally important it will lower the wall of separation between church and state and increase the power of the religious right. Although the religious right has been very supportive of Israel – – especially in comparison with the Presbyterian and Episcopal branches of Protestantism – – their agenda for the American future poses considerable danger to the Jewish future in America. They envision a Christian state with Christian schools and a Christian Supreme court. Listen to the Texas Republican Party platform which “affirms that the United States is a Christian nation” and refers to the “myth of the separation of church and state.” Listen to Lou Sheldon, the founder of the “Traditional Values Coalition”: “We were here first. We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong.” And listen to Ralph Reed, the director of the Christian Coalition: “What Christians have to do is to take back the country. I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again governed by Christians and Christian values.” And to Jerry Falwell: “I hope to see the day when as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.” And to Pat Robertson: “The Constitution of the United States is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheist people, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that’s what’s been happening. If Christian people work together, they can succeed in winning back control of the institutions that have been taken from them over the past 70 years.” The Bush Administration supports the lowering of the wall of separation. Its prayer breakfasts, its faith-based programs, its Ashcroft Justice Department, and its evangelical rhetoric are all music to the ears of the proselytizing Religious Right. Remember President Bush’s inauguration, which was dedicated to “our savior Jesus Christ” and seemed more like a Christian prayer service than a national civic event? A Kerry-Edwards Administration would keep the wall high. Senator Edwards has warned that “faith should not be used to divide us.” Jews especially have an important stake in the separation of church and state. We are first class citizens of this great nation precisely because no religious tests may be required for holding office and because the state may not favor one religion over another or religion over non-religion. We must preserve that neutrality for the good of America, the good of Jews and the good of the world. Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. FIRE THE CONFETTI! Have you seen YesBushCan.com? It began as a pro-Bush group driving around the country supporting the President in a campaign bus they had decorated and equipped with confetti cannons. Well, last week, the group endorsed John Kerry. According to the web site: ”In the course of our travels, we ended up learning more about Bush’s policies than he wanted us to know,’ said Harmon Spellmeyer, one of the Yes, Bush Can team. ‘We came to see that this administration is a catastrophe for most people.” WE’RE GOING TO WIN Jon Bonesteel: ‘Looks like George W. Bush futures are cratering.’ ☞ Jon refers to this site, where speculators play with hypothetical money to win a trip to the Inauguration. Kerry futures now go for $890 – versus $410 for Bush. Kerry is now even with or slightly ahead of Bush in most polls. Zogby has him up a point at the exact same point – what was then four days out from the election – that Bush led Gore 46-42. In others words, Kerry is about 5 points ahead of where Gore was at this point in 2000. So instead of winning by 537,000, as Gore did, it could be more like 6 million. There’s much more good news I could recount (bad choice of words?), but it comes down to this: Go vote tomorrow, take a nap, and get ready for a long, happy night. Hope is on the way. Stronger – and fairer – at home. Respected again in the world. I know some of you don’t see it my way, and I am particularly grateful that you come to hear me out. Open minds are the hope of our country.