Palestinians in Israel

This piece says Israel needs the Palestinians who work in its borders, but I can't help wonder if Britain could have survived if it had thousands of German laborers coming in and out every day.

What would America do if we had repeated incidents of Mexicans blowing themselves up to kill Gringos? Would all those undocumented workers getting less-than-minimum wages still be welcome?

Glenn Reynolds is being urged to run for Senator Thompson's seat. I hope he'd run as a Republican, but he'll have to tone down his libertarianism, i. e. sell his soul.

There's an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today that should be published without requiring a subscription. It details how the EPA has funneled money to environmental activists and destroyed evidence to thwart discovery in court cases.

For the dirty little secret of the Environmental Protection Agency is that it has morphed into a funding farm. From 1993 to 2001, tax-exempt non-profit organizations soaked the EPA for $2 billion, according to documents unearthed by the Landmark Legal Foundation.

Many millions went to causes with little to do with cleaner air or water. The EPA's top six non-profit recipients weren't even environmental organizations but senior-citizen groups, such as AARP, whose foundation got $99 million.

I keep getting AARP recruiting letters in the mail, and always throw them away. Maybe I'd better join up so I can get some benefit from my taxes. Not!

Indian Nicknames and Mascots turn out to be far less obnoxious to actual Native Americans than we have been told by activists.

Just another example of self-appointed jerks stirring up controversy for their own ego/interests. These groups are out of control and threaten our democracy. They splinter America into single issue constituencies, seeking to get their way through non-political means, generally via lawsuits and threats against businesses. Their idea of tolerance is "Give us what we want, and to hell with you!"

It started with the Civil Rights movement, which was completely appropriate, as were Ghandi's struggles in South Africa and India. But, the success of the nonviolent protests of blacks in the South showed that demonstrations could get media attention from journalists who are looking for injustices. And which of us cannot find some injustice in our own lives?

From valid struggles to right bona fide wrongs, we have come to struggles over hypersensitivity.
New groups are born and older groups are redirected to attack every imperfection in an imperfect world, and with religious zeal. So we have activists against the "evil" of fur coats, against noticing that fat people are fat, against calling your sports team the Braves or the Redskins, against pluralism that doesn't give top billing to your particular ethnic group.

Maybe we're just too rich and have too much time on our hands, or maybe we've lost our understanding of "E Pluribus Unum."

MATT DRUDGE // When do we get "A Day in the Life of Aaron Sorkin? Or would it be blocked for showing drug abuse in a favorable light?

This could be a new anti-drug commercial. An egg and Aaron Sorkin, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs."

The real issue over CAFE standards

This piece from Opinion Journal points out something I thought was obvious: One of the reasons people buy SUVs is that they are safer in a crash. The number of lives saved needs to be weighed against the savings from increased CAFE standards.

Occupants of small cars are obviously at higher risk if they collide with a bigger vehicle, but Mr. Evans contends that society is still better off with larger, heavier vehicles. A major reason is that crashes between two passenger vehicles are actually a minority of all fatal crashes--only about 22% in the 1988 data Mr. Evans used in his book. Single-car crashes--in which a passenger vehicles roll over or collide with another object such as a tree, bridge or light pole--account for about 45% of fatalities. Drivers of those 4,000-pound vehicles are more than twice as likely to survive as drivers of 2,000-pound cars. Think of it this way: When you are headed for an immovable object at 35 miles an hour, which would you rather be driving: a hulking Chevy Suburban or a dinky Honda Civic?

This is a good reason for supporting the movement toward fuel cells rather than promoting higher CAFE standards.

Be Afraid. Be very afraid.

I just heard a story on NPR that the next combat units the US Army is fielding will be equipped with laptops with Windows NT. Yikes!

Palestinians Say 16 Killed by Israeli Reprisals

This is from the NYTimes. I wonder how long this game can go on. Do the Israelis have enough people to trade their lives one for one with the Palestinians?

I think the only solution is to go after all the Arab nations that are financing and providing arms to Arafat's regime and the terrorist groups. Make Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya and any others pay a price for feeding this fire and eventually it'll die, but a lot of people are going to die first.

Ben Wattenberg has a piece in the Wall St. Journal (can't link, you have to be a subscriber) about the vastly underreported fact that the World's population is not the Malthusian nightmare the Left and the Greens would have us believe. Citing a report from the United Nations Population Division titled "The Future of Fertility in Intermediate-Fertility Countries," he reports that in "this century we can expect a 'slowing of population growth rates' followed by 'slow reductions in the size of world population.'"

I just read the same general statistics in Hard Green by Peter Huber, so they've been around awhile.

The reason this is important is that it cuts the legs out from under a lot of environmentalist arguments, but, more importantly it has dire ramifications for Social Security programs which depend on an increasing work force.

Clinton's speeches since leaving office are breathtakingly stupid, especially for a man who was so good at keying his every word and move to public opinion.

It must be wonderful to be able at last to say whatever you think, without paying any political cost, especially when you're getting six figures for doing so.