Teach English in China Next Summer! September 29, 2006January 10, 2017 But first . . . BILL Landy Christensen: ‘I’m surprised that you would even consider printing that garbage.’ ☞ Once in a while I think it’s helpful. Both to remind those of us who disagree with Bill what passionate opposition we face . . . and perhaps to cause some of who disagree with us but are more thoughtful than Bill (as most are) to wonder why Bill agrees with them. Having Bill on their side obviously does not prove them wrong. And I would not suggest they are wrong on every single thing. But still. John Kasley: ‘It’s a potent reminder how important it is to vote. I’ll bet Bill votes.’ David: ‘I hope Bill does not count himself as a ‘compassionate’ conservative.’ George from Alabama: ‘I have to hear this mindset each workday. Actually, Bill’s political opinions are on no higher plane than a rabid sport fan’s: Conservatism is simply the ‘team’ he chose to cheer for.’ ☞ Go, Green Bay! Actually, you make a good point. The country is almost splitting into two increasingly antagonistic teams. We desperately need to find more common ground, conduct more civil, reasoned discourse. Chad: ‘Maybe it’s just me, but Bill seems angry.’ ☞ You want angry? How about Keith Olbermann on the Chris Wallace / Clinton interview. Click here to see it. It will make Bill’s head explode. But as angry as it is – and earnest – it’s clear that a lot of thought went into it. A DIFFERENT BILL A different Bill writes: ‘I voted for Bush, but I am now: Disappointed in my president. Disillusioned by the war in Iraq (I think we were mislead). Open minded, but still very nervous of depending on a Democrat to defend my family from terror threats. Yes, I voted for Bush – but don’t ridicule me; instead extend a hand and show me why the Democratic Party offers more. I was in favor of Iraq – don’t tell me how foolish I was – think about why I felt so strongly. Don’t just tell me what the Republicans are doing wrong; tell me what Democrats will do right. Don’t convince me I was wrong in the past; convince me you have a plan to go from this point forward, and you’ll be amazed. People like me (and not the closed-minded fringe like yesterday’s opposing point of view) are the voters that can make the difference in the next election – but I need to see less piling on and more substance to vote democratic.’ ☞ This Bill, I think, is dead on. We make a terrible mistake when we ridicule people who don’t see things our way. My sense is that we don’t actually do this as much as they think – they keep hearing, from Rush Limbaugh and others, that we ridicule them, yet I don’t remember Bill Clinton or Al Gore or John Kerry (or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi) doing a lot of ridiculing. And I hope my own continuous sharp criticism of the current Republican leadership does not often cross the line to ridicule of Republicans generally. (Ridiculing a few specific Republicans is all but irresistible. But Jon Stewart does it so much better than I ever could.) To the extent we do cross that line, it’s dumb and we need to do better. As to Different Bill’s specific points, I think most people actually do know the kinds of things Democrats favor domestically. Democrats will work much harder for affordable health care, college loans, safer coal mines, cleaner water, a hike in the minimum wage, a more effective FEMA, less government intrusion in personal decisions, a sustainable environment . . . all that. (And as Bill Winter, a marine running for Congress in Colorado, is fond of saying: think of some of the things we liberals gave America that you like – like weekends. And the 40-hour work week. And an end to slavery, and public education, and women’s suffrage, and Social Security, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Liberals did all that.) But Different Bill’s main concern seems to be terrorism. And my own view is that if Al Gore had been in the White House, he would have taken the ‘tremendous’ ‘immediate’ threat of Bin Laden with utmost seriousness and very possibly killed him before 9/11 could have happened. He would surely not have taken a month vacation after getting an August 6 briefing titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.’ I think the same kind of liberal Democrats who beat Hitler and took very tough action in Japan . . . the same kind who faced down Khrushchev over Cuba and Berlin . . . the same kind who deposed Slobodan Milosovich . . . and the same kind who were fighting terrorism only to see that effort ratcheted down and redirected toward Iraq – read Richard Clarke’s book, read Paul O’Neill’s book, read Bob Woodward’s book – those same kind of patriotic, tough Democrats would exercise better judgment than the current Administration has, and would find more effective ways to use what’s left of our strength to protect America. Strength is only as good as the strategic thinking behind it. The strategic thinking of this Administration has been abysmal, has weakened us terribly, and made us less safe. And one final thing. Just by not being the Republican Party, the Democrats will have a leg up in keeping us safe. That’s because, whether you think it is fair or not, much of the rest of the world yearns for America to ‘reboot.’ We will be stronger if we have more of the world back on our side. Even if we wound up doing exactly what the Bush team would have done, it would be better received and better supported coming from people who had worked hard to retire the Bush team. We need you, Different Bill, and will welcome you with open arms. And now, finally . . . TAKE A FEW WEEKS TO TEACH ENGLISH IN CHINA Jesse: ‘Just got back from a trip to China and wanted to catch up on the columns I missed. How come your archives don’t have anything later than June ’06?’ Me: ‘Because they are shown in European date format – 06 means 2006, not June. Thanks for your interest.’ Jesse: ‘Well, duh. Thanks.’ Me: ‘How was China?’ Jesse: ‘Memorable. Taught 140 Chinese grad students English for three weeks, for an outfit called Teach for Friendship. Wouldn’t trade the experience. If any of your readers want to work their butt off for a pittance, they might look into it. I got paid 5000 RMB and brought most of it home. My neighborhood Wells Fargo charged a mere 15% to change it into dollars.’
Bill’s View September 28, 2006March 5, 2017 A CONTRARY VIEW Bill: ‘It just amazes me that morons like yourself keep proving your stupidity by claiming the elections were stolen. Gore did his best to steal the 2000 election, and thank God he wasn’t successful (can you imagine that buffoon as president during and after 9/11; he probably would have chastised the terrorists for contributing to global warming with their attacks). And then you again prove what a piece of shit you are by referring to Robert Kennedy, Jr. and his drivel. Do you really believe that asshole has any credibility? The bottom line Andrew, you libs get infuriated when you are not in power. You will lie, slander or do whatever it takes to get back in power. So far it hasn’t worked. So go to hell you liberal piece of shit. If the terrorists strike in this country again, I hope you are the first one they take out.’ IS YOUR KID READY FOR AN ADVENTURE? Click here to trek across the North Pole with some British explorers – and more. It’s Adventure Ecology, from David de Mayer Rothschild and team. Pretty cool.
Inside September 27, 2006March 5, 2017 FMD Up another four bucks or so the past week, but guru says: don’t sell. TORTURE The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy. – George W. Bush, June 2003 To which, last week, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan responded: Let’s be clear here: it is the president’s belief that anyone who sanctions mistreatment of military prisoners under the definition of the U.N. Convention on Torture should be prosecuted as a war criminal. One simple question: how exactly does that now not apply to him? – Andrew Sullivan, September 2006 INSIDE AL-QAEDA Here, from the New Yorker a couple of weeks back, is the story of Junior, who loves women – and waffles – and was Bin Laden’s accountant, more or less, for several years before entering our federal witness protection plan. So that’s how we knew Bin Laden was a ‘tremendous’ and ‘immediate’ threat. If you can find the time, it could hardly be more absorbing. INSIDE JESUS CAMP ‘Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush’ – in case you missed this documentary (and weren’t already worried enough).
Democracy and Aldabra September 26, 2006January 10, 2017 AND IF VOTER SUPPRESSION (yesterday‘s column) DOESN’T WORK . . . How about election fraud? Robert Kennedy, Jr. has a new piece in Rolling Stone. His previous piece detailed how the Republicans kept 350,000 votes from being cast or counted in Ohio, which likely determined the outcome of the 2004 election. This one makes the case that electronic voting machines can’t be trusted. These pieces are painful to read because it is almost paralyzing to imagine how much better off the world would have been if the 2000 election had not been systematically stolen in Florida (in large part by the Florida Secretary of State, who simultaneously co-chaired Bush’s Florida campaign committee) or if the 2004 election had not arguably have been stolen, too (in large part by the Ohio Secretary of State, who simultaneously co-chaired Bush’s Ohio campaign committee). But those – of either party – who care about democracy should read these pieces and work for reform, because without verifiable elections, there is no democracy. ALBAW Yesterday the Aldabra warrants closed up 7 cents, at 92 cents, with three quarters of a million of them trading hands, while the underlying stock closed down 3 cents at $5.67 on volume of just 9,200 shares. Someone apparently agrees with us that the warrants were priced too low relative to the stock. Even now, buying the warrants at 92 cents means paying only a 25-cent premium over their intrinsic value. (The warrants, you will recall, allow you to buy the stock for $5 any time between now and February, 2009.) It’s great to see interest in the warrants, but over the long run, for this to work out, the stock has to go up too. Indeed, for now, the bargain-priced warrants may actually be sapping demand for the stock. Right? If you liked the stock, why would you buy it? Might you not buy the warrants instead? Yes, you pay an extra 25 cents over their intrinsic value to buy the warrants. But instead of risking, say, $56,700 to buy 10,000 shares, you would risk $9,200 to control 10,000 shares, getting to keep all but $2,500 of any profit that might accrue. Your loss, in case this goes south, is limited to 92 cents instead of $5.67; and you can control a lot more shares, for a given investment, in case it should happen to go north. Not to say this speculation is in any way foolproof. If the stock fell to $5 by the time the warrants expired, they would expire worthless (the right to buy a $5 stock for $5 is worth nothing) – a 100% loss. And as February, 2009, looms, if a zillion warrants are exercised with the idea that their holders will immediately turn around and sell the stock to take their profit, that won’t work out so well, either – a ton of selling would presumably depress the price of the stock. In fact, even if the warrant-exercisers don’t rush to sell, the company’s earnings per share will be diluted by all those newly issued shares. (Silver lining: the company would be taking in $5 for each warrant exercised, a nice boost to its liquidity.) If we’re lucky, the premium on the warrants will widen to the point that people who like the stock will decide to just buy the stock, rather than pay a wide premium to buy the warrants. And if we’re lucky, the fundamentals of the company will be such that, in 2009, no one who does own shares will want to part with them for less than $7 or $8 (or more?) per share. I have zero expertise to make the case this will happen – but it could. So I’m hanging on. Now go read that Rolling Stone article. If democracy is worth so much blood and treasure fighting for in Iraq, it’s worth a few minutes reading about in America.
Gas Prices September 25, 2006January 10, 2017 Warren Spieker: ‘While I’m no fan of oil companies or high gas prices, doesn’t it sound a little too conspiratorial (is that a word?) to suggest that gas prices are being manipulated around the election? After all, oil prices have declined roughly 23% from their peak while gas prices have declined significantly less. And you aren’t suggesting that oil companies control the worldwide market for oil are you? If there really were a conspiracy, wouldn’t the gas prices decline MORE than the oil price?’ ☞ Yes, conspiratorial is a word, and, yes, Friday’s suggestion may be just that. But I no longer dismiss such things out of hand as I would have before we became a nation that does not torture (we just waterboard) and a nation that does not go to war under false pretenses (we just ‘fix the intelligence around the policy’). It’s may be far-fetched – but maybe not. On the drop in gas prices, remember that the gas taxes of roughly 45 cents a gallon don’t change when the world oil price drops, and neither does the cost of moving that oil from the wellhead to the gas pump or the cost of running the gas station, so you wouldn’t expect gas prices to fall by the same percentage as oil prices. (Imagine that the world oil price fell by 100%, to zero. The price of gasoline would not fall by 100%. After the 45-cent tax, the cost of transmission, and the cost of running gas stations, gasoline might still cost close to a buck.) Warren also asks whether, with summer driving over, prices don’t always decline this time of year. And ‘James’ writes in to say ‘oil prices fell 17% last year and 18% the year before during this time.’ If that’s true, the TV reporters should have said so. (‘Motorists are happy to see that, right on schedule, the annual sharp drop in gasoline prices has shown up at the pump, Brian. Of course, they had best not get smug – if history is a guide, prices will be back up as the heating oil season kicks in.’) But I didn’t hear them say that, perhaps because it’s not true. A too-quick Google search brings me to this (scroll down to the 8th of 17 pages), showing that in 2003 gasoline prices went up sharply from July to September, stayed flat in that period of 2004 (an election year, by the way), and went up sharply in 2005. I do believe that, between the oil industry and the Saudis and other friends of the Bush Administration*, there are ways the gasoline price, and even the world oil price, could be affected for a few weeks before the election. * E.g., the membership list of Dick Cheney’s energy task force. Except, oh, wait, I forgot – even a lawsuit by the Government Accountability Office could not pry loose that secret list. I don’t know – or claim – this has been done. But we have been taught by this Administration – ‘by far the vast majority’ of whose tax cuts would go to ‘benefit those at the bottom end of the economic ladder’ – to be skeptical. We have been taught by this Administration – in its promise to invade Iraq only as a ‘last resort,’ for our self defense – to be wary. We have been taught by this Administration – that would not exercise its clear authority to keep the California ‘energy crisis’ from draining billions of dollars from California to Texas – to wonder what’s really going on. We have been taught by this Administration – and the Republican Secretaries of State in Florida and Ohio who simultaneously chaired their states’ Bush election efforts – that this crowd will do almost anything to win. Which brings us to . . . VOTER SUPPRESSION From Thursday’s New York Times, in part: One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party’s strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic. The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy. The bill the House passed yesterday would require people to show photo ID to vote in 2008. Starting in 2010, that photo ID would have to be something like a passport, or an enhanced kind of driver’s license or non-driver’s identification, containing proof of citizenship. This is a level of identification that many Americans simply do not have. The bill was sold as a means of deterring vote fraud, but that is a phony argument. There is no evidence that a significant number of people are showing up at the polls pretending to be other people, or that a significant number of noncitizens are voting. Noncitizens, particularly undocumented ones, are so wary of getting into trouble with the law that it is hard to imagine them showing up in any numbers and trying to vote. The real threat of voter fraud on a large scale lies with electronic voting, a threat Congress has refused to do anything about. The actual reason for this bill is the political calculus that certain kinds of people – the poor, minorities, disabled people and the elderly – are less likely to have valid ID. They are less likely to have cars, and therefore to have drivers’ licenses. There are ways for nondrivers to get special ID cards, but the bill’s supporters know that many people will not go to the effort if they don’t need them to drive. If this bill passed the Senate and became law, the electorate would likely become more middle-aged, whiter and richer – and, its sponsors are anticipating, more Republican. Court after court has held that voter ID laws of this kind are unconstitutional. This week, yet another judge in Georgia struck down that state’s voter ID law. Last week, a judge in Missouri held its voter ID law to be unconstitutional. Supporters of the House bill are no doubt hoping that they may get lucky, and that the current conservative Supreme Court might uphold their plan. America has a proud tradition of opening up the franchise to new groups, notably women and blacks, who were once denied it. It is disgraceful that, for partisan political reasons, some people are trying to reverse the tide, and standing in the way of people who have every right to vote. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company ☞ Which brings us here, to find out how to find out whether you’re registered – and where to vote if you are, what kind of ID you’ll need when you get there, and how to become a poll worker. And here to find your state’s deadline for registering. Spread the word.
You Are Cordially Invited to Breakfast with Bishop Tutu, President Karzai and Queen Rania With Lunch to Follow September 22, 2006March 5, 2017 So gasoline prices have come down and people are happy again – just in time for the mid-term election. What a stroke of luck for the oil companies! What a further stroke of luck it would be if prices then went back up after the election. Of course, there’s that old expression about ‘making your own luck.’ But only a cynic would suggest that oil companies have any influence over the price of gasoline. Or that, even if they did, they would ever try to use their influence to help the Administration retain unchecked power (other than with political contributions, which thus far in 2006 exceed $12.5 million, 83% to Republicans). So enough of that. Let us turn to something wonderful: BREAKFAST IS SERVED Yesterday morning, the Clinton Global Initiative in New York featured a breakfast panel with Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Queen Rania of Jordan – moderated by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek. The topic, basically: can we ever learn to live with each other? You can watch it yourself right now (click ‘watch archived video). I watched and found it extraordinary. Informative, hopeful, and moving. Bishop Tutu says, ‘You and I are ultimately made for goodness – and that is what is going to prevail.’ It’s worth taking an hour of your weekend to watch. LUNCH, TOO And then come back for lunch with the CEO of Cisco, the President of Siemens, the (amazing) founder of the Grameen Bank, and a well known former U.S. Vice President. This hour, too, was compelling – and hopeful. Bon appetit.
My Sediments, Exactly September 21, 2006January 10, 2017 ALDABRA For those who may have bought the warrants – around 70 cents when I first suggested them or 36 cents when I next suggested them (‘AL-BA You Dinner If This Works’) – they closed last night at 84 cents and continue to give you the right to buy the underlying stock, ALBA, a dredging company, at $5 a share any time between now and February, 2009. With the stock closing at $5.67 yesterday, that meant people were paying a 17-cent premium over the warrant’s intrinsic value (the right to pay $5 for something worth $5.67 is intrinsically worth 67 cents). In return, they get 29 months to decide whether to exercise their warrants. If the stock craters, they lose 84 cents. If it doubles (and I’m certainly not expecting it to – most stocks don’t double in 29 months), their warrants would be worth about $6.34 each. Reading this extensive Aldabra presentation didn’t help me guess where the stock might go. And, a day or two later, reading this in the New York Times about the need to move the Mississippi River – ‘there would be tremendous engineering challenges, particularly in finding a new way for freighters to make their way into the Mississippi’s shipping channel’ – left me skeptical (they’re going to move the Mississippi river?) . . . but hopeful that it could involve a lot of dredging. THE BILL PRESS SHOW Hey, progressives (and ditto heads who want to get their blood pressure up) – the fledgling Bill Press morning drive-time radio show got a tenfold potential audience boost this week, as it began airing in Chicago (WCPT, 850 AM), San Francisco (KQKE, 960 AM), Minneapolis (KTNF, 950 AM), New Orleans (WSMB, 1350 AM), and elsewhere (Charlottesville, Ithaca, Brattleboro . . .). You know Bill Press from Crossfire, and I know him to be a thoroughly decent guy, standing up for truth, justice, and the American way. (Look! Up in the sky!!!) Probably too decent, in fact, for his show to become a megahit – one seems to need a freakishly large ego and a shameless attraction to the outrageous to score big on radio – but, full disclosure, I will make a buck or two if he does. (So please spend your days sipping Honest Tea, listening to Bill Press – and (switching now from dredging to Borealis) using lots of steel to keep the world price high for when we start mining vast quantities of iron ore, please God, touch wood, feh, feh.)
Is Your Brain Big Enough to Drive a Hydrogen Car? September 20, 2006March 5, 2017 WHO KILLED THE HYDROGEN CAR? Well, this video sure paints a hopeful picture . . . I doubt you will regret the six minutes spent watching it. But this link – the first I happened to hit Googling ‘whats wrong with the hydrogen car’ – suggests what I’ve heard from a lot of folks: that hydrogen is not the answer after all: Have you questioned anyone how much energy is needed to produce a hydrogen you’re going to pay for? You need electricity to run the equipment reforming hydrogen to the useable for FC form. And then, the hydrogen is going to be used to get back electricity to run a vehicle propulsion motor. What’s wrong with this picture? Isn’t it simpler, cheaper, more efficient and just plain makes more sense to just store initial electricity directly in a car’s battery in the first place? Hydrogen is an extremely clever scam. When you step back and ask, “Where will the hydrogen come from?” the house of cards falls apart. You will get hydrogen from fossil fuels. The most economic way to get hydrogen is to catalyze natural gas. When you do this, you throw away 50% of the fuel value. If you were to put that hydrogen into a fuel-cell car, it would only go 50% the distance (at best) that a hybrid car would, if fueled from the natural gas directly. The oil company loves it. They get to sell twice as much per mile driven. It is also twice as much CO2 per mile driven . . . I don’t know – though I hope to learn more this week, and report to you if I do. YOUR BIG BRAIN It must be big if you’re smart enough to come here every morning. Then again, I read that Einstein’s brain was 10% smaller than average. [Insert your own size-matters cleverness here.] But my point is that we are all probably a little interested in how we can keep from becoming really stupid. [Insert your own political jibe here.] Which is why you might want to receive Posit Science‘s monthly Brain Fitness News. [Click ‘join our mailing list.’] The latest letter reveals that mice that drink apple juice seem less likely to suffer from mouse Alzheimer’s . . . that getting out in the sun in the morning makes you brighter all day . . . and that the Finns have developed a screen to help determine the likelihood of developing dementia (step number one: do you live in a country where it’s practically pitch black six months of the year?). There are links to take a Brain Speed Test or to become a brain-fitness design consultant. And a special link between your wallet and mine if you wind up buying the product.
Hey Kids: Stay in School and Don’t Smoke September 19, 2006March 5, 2017 YOUR HOUSE – II Michael Nystrom: ‘Thanks for putting up a link to my article – the one about my uncle in Japan who overpaid for his house. I checked out the house next door that’s for sale and, in spite of what happened to my uncle in Japan, I walked away from the house thinking I should buy it! I guess this is the definition of irrational exuberance.’ ☞ Click here for the sequel. KEEPING YOUR HOUSE CLEAN This is beyond silly, of course – we are more than happy with Renee, who comes on Wednesdays – but imagine a few years ago (in geological time), when our ancestors were huddled in caves, dreaming of meat (I don’t think at that point they could imagine much more, except maybe the ability to fly like birds) . . . or, better for the purposes of the point I’m lurching toward, imagine a family in Sweeney Todd’s London trying to keep clean . . . or a family trying to make ends meet even in today’s increasingly squeezed America . . . okay? . . . and now click here. Ah, brave new world, for which now even Ajax and Fantastic and a first generation legal immigrant are no longer enough. A VIDEO FOR THE KIDS In keeping with my theory that the very most serious stuff on television these days is found on Comedy Central – specifically, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert – now comes this video from that same network and ‘The Mind of Mencia.’ (Thanks, Bill Spaced, for the link.) Chances are, you don’t know any kids who’d need to see it. Charles’ and my nieces and nephews certainly don’t need to see it. But there are about 50 million other kids I hope will find it somehow.
FMD, AK-47, and Balance September 18, 2006January 10, 2017 FMD So Friday‘s column ended with, ‘Don’t sell your FMD’ – and by the end of the day we were glad we hadn’t, because FMD closed up nine bucks at $61.45, putting our gain since March at 61%. A bird in the hand, and all that, but I plan to hold on, because my First Marblehead guru says: ‘I still believe FMD is a multi-bagger from here, in a fairly short time frame (three years?). If you believe that they will earn $5.00-ish this fiscal year, and you believe that they have a very strong position (and getting stronger) in a market segment which is quite large and growing at 25-30% a year, then you have to believe that it should be selling for $150 or so right now. If this were an early stage retailer or tech firm (with nowhere near the barriers to entry that shield FMD’s position), there would be no question. Once the Street starts to get proof that the residuals are solid and that banks actually WANT to use FMD’s services (as opposed to compete with them), multiples should start to expand nicely. Layer on a few years of 35-40% earnings growth and a rapidly increasing dividend, and you come up with a pretty good, easy to understand story.’ Easy for him to understand, perhaps. And no investment is without risk. But I am happily holding on. R’S WILL KEEP US SAFER? MACACA! Consider sending this to your uncle who votes Republican because he’s a military man. It comes from vets who think Congress should have passed Senator Mary Landrieu’s 2003 amendment to better equip our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amendment was voted down unanimously by the Republicans (plus one nominal Democrat, Zell Miller). The ad shows two dummies, one with old body armor and one with new, with an Iraq vet shooting an AK 47 at each. It’s worth a look just to see just how powerful a simple 30-second spot can be. The Republicans are saying it’s unfair – that of course they favor adequate protection for the troops. And I’m sure that, in theory, they do – just as they favor health care for everybody, an end to poverty, clean air, well-protected ports, world peace and honest government. Who doesn’t? But it’s widely acknowledged that many of our troops did not have adequate body armor. And no one would dispute which party controlled these funding decisions or that the vote on that amendment was 52-47 against. The ad makes the consequences clear. If I’m missing some larger point, let me know what it is. Speaking of which . . . BALANCE Fred: ‘I have to write you again to plead with you to try to be balanced and consistent. several years ago you really lambasted CBS for not showing the Reagan mini-series even though everyone admitted that it was full of things that didn’t actually happen (fictionalized, I believe is the word). I believe you called it ‘kow-towing to the right wing’ or something like that. Now, you are calling for the 9/11 film to be pulled. Do you only believe in selective censorship? I know your response will be that the subject matter of the Reagan series was not nearly as important as the 9/11 series, but this doesn’t matter. Either you allow the networks to show what they want, or you support censorship from both sides.’ ☞ Balance is important and you are right to ask for it. But just because there are two sides to every story doesn’t mean that each side is 50% right. I thought – and still think – CBS was wrong to cancel the broadcast of the Reagan documentary, for the reasons I expressed here and here. But the right shouted, and the broadcaster caved. Now, with The Path to 9/11, the left* has shouted, joined even by a former President and a former Secretary of State . . . yet the broadcaster (Disney/ABC in this case), stood firm. * Which has largely become the center – you will not find a centrist in the Republican leadership. So already there seems to be a lack of balance, but not necessarily from me. More to the point, the two cases are different. For one thing, the Reagan docudrama was to be shown a year before the next national election – not mere weeks. For another, the Reagan docudrama was not explosive in the way the 9/11 film was. The biggest criticism of the earlier docudrama seemed to be that it portrayed Reagan as having been too long indifferent to the AIDS crisis. A harsh charge to be sure (and true!), but not the kind of topic that, in 2003, was likely to affect the 2004 election. But mainly, the complaints about the Reagan docudrama concerned matters of tone – for example, some were offended that President Reagan was portrayed as having been a second-rate actor when, to their mind, he had been a first-rate actor – rather than of fact. Knowingly fabricating crucial historical events, it seems to me, is quite different. And this was not done in the Reagan docudrama. So I agree with you on the importance of balance. But I hope it was not unfair to call for accuracy on a topic so central to the upcoming election. The program was broadcast over two nights without commercial interruption except for a 20-minute Presidential address sandwiched into the middle of the second night. I mean, come on. Footnote: Few would accuse Dallas-based American Airlines of being a left wing enterprise, but even they had a bone to pick: September 11, 2006 FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines today issued the following statement regarding the ABC-TV program The Path to 9/11: “The Disney/ABC television program, The Path to 9/11, which began airing last night, is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. “A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents. “This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11.” FINDING YEMEN Mark Willcox: ‘Spleen, heck! Where’s my brain?‘