What is the best FlynnFiles blog entry of the past year? Nearly 1,000 posts graced FlynnFiles in 2005. Some were better than others. I need your help determining the best post. I've immodestly selected ten nominees. They're listed below. I encourage you to read them and pick out the best in the comments section. And the nominees are....

Unspinning the Armstrong Williams Apology 1/10/05

Unholy Week 3/24/05

The Story Behind the Campus Assault on Pat Buchanan 4/6/05

The Mighty Do Fall 8/24/05

Vatican Defrocks 7/31/05

An Open Letter To All Conservatives 10/4/05

Looters, Elected and Unelected 9/9/05

You May Kiss the Brides 9/30/05

Banned in Boston 5/22/05

Pluto, Invented in Flagstaff, Arizona, 75 Years Ago Today 3/13/05

Cast your vote in the comments section. The winning post will be presented with a "post of the year" sash, a scepter, and a jewel-encrusted tiara.

The last week of the regular season is upon us. Will the starters sit? What teams will mail it in? Will your picks have their playoff seeds wrapped up by kickoff? All of these questions loom large. Let's do it. All picks are against the spread. Home teams are in caps. Here are my selections: CHARGERS -10 over Broncos, RAIDERS +9 over Giants, COLTS -6.5 over Cardinals, BROWNS +3 over Ravens, Bills -1 over JETS, Panthers -4 over FALCONS, VIKINGS -4 over Bears, CHIEFS -7 over Bengals, STEELERS -13.5 over Lions, PATRIOTS -5.5 over Dolphins, Saints +14 over BUCS, NINERS +1.5 over Texans, JAGUARS -3.5 over Titans, PACKERS -3.5 over Seahawks, Redskins -7 over EAGLES, COWBOYS -12.5 over Rams. Make your picks below. Good luck.

Yeah, it's that time of the year again: the end. That's when we're supposed to reflect with nostalgia upon the past...twelve months, which feels more like the present than the past. Anyway, FlynnFiles will play along. In the first of several retrospective posts, I offer my ten favorite songs from 2005. If the spirit moves you, click on a link to purchase the album from which the song came. FlynnFiles gets a cut.

Songs released in 2005, or songs released in 2004 that got their day in the sun in 2005, qualify. Songs that made last year's list do not, even though several of them got more airplay in 2005 than 2004. Got a top-ten list? A top-five list? A top-three list? Let's see it in the comments section. Here's my list of 2005's ten best songs:

10. Be Yourself--Audioslave
9. Apply Some Pressure--Maximo Park
8. American Baby--Dave Matthews Band
7. Don't Fail Me Now--Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
6. Dakota--Stereophonics
5. Streets of Love--The Rolling Stones
4. Razor--Foo Fighters
3. Fix You--Coldplay
2. Devils & Dust--Bruce Springsteen
1. Best of You--Foo Fighters

Don't player hate. Player participate. Let's see your list.

"It is not enough for conservatives to repeat formulae or party-line positions," Jeffrey Hart writes on OpinionJournal.com. "The mind must possess the process that leads to conservative decisions. As a guide, the books, and the results of experience, may be the more difficult way--much more difficult in a given moment than pre-cooked dogma, which is always irresistible to the uneducated. Learning guards against having to reinvent the wheel in political theory from one generation to the next." Hart's piece reminds American conservatives that Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk are heroes in the conservative tradition while Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Woodrow Wilson are not. Hart's piece is provocative. It's eloquent as it picks fights. It provides a history lesson as it comments on current events. It's a must read.

The U.S. Census Bureau just released its annual state-by-state data on population trends. The statistics cover from mid-2004 to mid-2005. The five fastest growing states are Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Florida, Utah. The states losing population are Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and, if you bizarrely count DC as a state as the Census Bureau does, the District of Columbia. Notice something? The states growing the fastest are red states. All of the states declining in population are blue states.

I noticed something else. All of the states declining in population have high abortion rates. Save for Florida, the top five states gaining in population have among the lowest abortion rates. One of the reasons liberal hotbeds are getting smaller is that residents of such locales are more apt to abort their children than, say, residents of Utah or Idaho. High taxes and exorbitant housing prices certainly contribute to the shrinking populations of northeastern urban centers, but not as directly as abortion. If activist liberals truly want blue states to gain back political clout, a good strategy would include protesting the abortuaries that decimate the populations of such Democratic strongholds as Washington, DC and New York City. But I guess liberals would no longer be liberals if they did this. Such are the self-preservation dilemmas of cannibals.

Per Arnold Schwarzenegger's request, Graz, Austria has removed his name from a city soccer stadium. Officials in Schwarzenegger's hometown loudly threatened to take his name off the sports complex in response to his refusal to stay the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. But city officials very quietly removed the name on Christmas night. This is because Schwarzenegger called the Graz politicians on their grandstanding. They wanted to posture rather than to act. Arnold called their bluff.

Schwarzenegger wrote to Graz's mayor: "In order to spare the responsible politicians of the City of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium. You will receive related correspondence from my legal counsel shortly. I expect the lettering to be removed by the end of 2005, and in the future, the use of my name to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way is no longer allowed."

The Terminator continued: "I have also learned that a proposal has been proffered to rescind from me the city's ring of honor. It was a beautiful day in 1999 when I received the ring at City Hall and I assumed at the time that it would be a token of sincere friendship between my hometown and me. Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail."

Graz needed Schwarzenegger more than Schwarzenegger needed Graz. Now they can't use his name to promote their city. Now politicians can't abuse his name to promote their careers. To paraphrase a past politician who failed in his bid to win the office Arnold now holds: Graz won't have Arnold Schwarzenneger to kick around any longer--nor will the city have his name as a tourist magnet. John Matrix, Ben Richards, and Conan didn't lose on the big screen. Did you expect the real-life Arnold to lose to a bunch of Austrian girly-men?

Tarbash is your winner of the week sixteen AYRFSF pool. The underdog Bills, Ravens, and Lions helped Tarbash to an 11-4-1 record. Visitors went 8-7-1 against the spread, while favorites covered in 10 games with one push (Bucs-Falcons). Losers: offer your praise. Tarbash: grant us another victory speech.

No offense intended by the headline. I hope no offense taken. It's not as if I said, "play in traffic," or, "you remind me of Yoko Ono." But some people take "Merry Christmas" as an insult. The phrase doesn't pass their lips, and it irritates upon entering their ears.

Instead of "Merry Christmas," Scrooges insist on "Happy Holidays." It's supposedly more inclusive. But what's a "holiday"? It's a compound word for holy day. So even this phrase, supposedly inoccuous, excludes atheists and agnostics. And to what holiday does the phrase "Happy Holidays" refer? Christmas, of course. Christianity claims greater than three of four Americans. If Christmas were in, say, July, do you think anyone would be saying "Happy Holidays" in December? In this sense, "holidays," like x-mas, is a euphemism for Christmas. Let's stop being lame. Say it. Just say it: Christmas. Holiday Christmas card. Winter Christmas break. Seasonal Christmas tree.

"Happy Holidays" also distorts the importance of the holidays of non-Christian traditions. To a thinking non-Christian, "Happy Holidays" is more insidious than "Merry Christmas" because it Christianizes non-Christian holidays. Because of its nearness to Christmas, Hanukkah becomes in the collective mind the Jewish Christmas. But it's not as important to the Jewish tradition as Christmas is to the Christian tradition. It just appears close to Christmas on the calendar, which sparks the false equation among people ignorant of other faiths. Christmas, with the collusion of Hallmark, President Bush, and the U.S. Postal Service, gives the Islamic Eid holidays a promotion too. At least Eid and Hanukkah are legit holidays. Some guy just made up Kwanzaa. Fortunately for those who celebrate it, the guy had the foresight of placing Kwanzaa in proximity to Christmas. So Kwanzaa, like Christmas, gets its own stamp, presidential proclamation, and greeting cards.

Substituting "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas" is similar to the academic movement to replace BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) with BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). What separates BCE from CE? The same thing that separates BC from AD: Jesus Christ. Even when trying to hide Christ under the bed, he still pops his head up.

Christmas is a time for peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Just as there's no need to take offense at hearing "Merry Christmas," there's no need to intend offense at saying "Merry Christmas." Why wish a spinster "Happy Valentine's Day"? Christmas is a religious rather than a political season. But not for those whose politics are their religion. They'll have it no other way.

"Gwen Stefani, nominated for five Grammy Awards including album of the year for 'Love.Angel.Music.Baby.,' is pregnant with her first child," begins an Associated Press story. Stefani, like Madonna in "Papa Don't Preach," is keeping her baby. But what if she decided not to? Would the Associated Press still consider her pregnant with a "child"? Or would the child become a "fetus," a "glob of cells," or a "choice"?

Get your picks in before Saturday's slate of games. Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. Here are my selections: BENGALS -14 over Bills, BROWNS +7 over Steelers, CHIEFS -1.5 over Chargers, DOLPHINS -5.5 over Titans, TEXANS +6 over Jaguars, SAINTS -3 over Lions, PANTHERS -5 over Cowboys, Giants +3 over REDSKINS, BUCS -3 over Falcons, RAMS -9 over Niners, CARDINALS -1 over Eagles, SEAHAWKS -7 over Colts, BRONCOS -13 over Raiders, Bears -4.5 over PACKERS, RAVENS +2 over Vikings, and, on Monday Night Football, Patriots -4.5 over JETS. Make your picks in the comments section.

Whenever I saw articles in conservative publications on such topics as the free enterprise principles of Choctaw Indians, or how Puerto Rican statehood should be supported because it would create "another bastion for the religious right," it confused me. It doesn't confuse me as much anymore. First, Armstrong Williams gets outed for taking government money to parrot the Bush Administration line on No Child Left Behind. Then, columnist Peter Ferrara admitted to writing pieces favorable to the clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for money. Then, Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham confessed to taking bribes from government contractors. Now, Doug Bandow, a writer who I've enjoyed reading over the years, has admitted, like Ferrara, to taking payments from Abramoff to write columns favorable to his clients. While it doesn't appear that Bandow changed his position on any issue because of the money, as Williams appears to have, it is still disgraceful. He passed off advertising as independent commentary. He perpetrated a fraud. All of Jack Abramoff's money, all of ADCS Inc.'s money, all of the federal government's money can't buy back a man's integrity once it's gone.

DocMcG posted a dominant 13-3 record to take the AYRFSF pool for week fifteen. DocMcG won on the road--nine of his twelve road picks came through. This included the road-dog Jets, Eagles, Browns, Niners, and Chargers. Both visitors and favorites went 9-7 on the week. Saturday is this week's Sunday, as all but three NFL games will be played on Saturday. This means get your picks in early. Week sixteen spreads will be posted tomorrow. For now: congratulations for the champion and a proclamation from the champion.

President Bush addressed the nation Sunday night from the Oval Office. I address the FlynnFiles nation Sunday night from my office (which is also my living room and my dining room). Here are five points from President Bush's speech that deserve comment:

1. Good for Bush for changing his tone. He ran in 2000 on a foreign policy based on humility and not arrogance. His concession that the Iraq campaign was "more difficult than we expected," his admission that "we did not find" WMDs and that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," his inclusion of opposition concerns (Are we "creating more problems than we are solving"?), and his assessment that "some of my decisions have led to terrible loss" all represent a return to conciliation. He assumed responsibility. He was George W. Bush and not William Jefferson Clinton.

2. Bush divided the anti-war camp into "honest critics" and "defeatists." As someone who opposes both the president and the tone of the anti-war movement, I'm grateful President Bush made this distinction. I've written about the "defeatists" here, here, here, and elsewhere. In the midst of a heavy amount of criticism of the president, I've highlighted what's going right here, here, here, and elsewhere. I think of myself as an honest critic, but I'm sure all of the people I would throw into the "defeatist" camp think of themselves as "honest critics" too.

3. The president noted that the terrorists "object to our deepest values and our way of life." But they also object to the billions we give in aid to Israel, the presence of the American military on Muslim soil, and repeated American military strikes and invasions in such places as Iran, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Sudan, and Afghanistan. This is not to suggest that we should change policy merely because someone with a bomb wants us to. It is to suggest that the terrorists do care less about how we live in the Western world than they do about how they live in the Islamic world.

4. A case can be made that two of the three "critical elements" of the president's plan aren't in the concrete interests of the United States. The first goal, "finding and clearing out the enemy," is the essential goal of any war. It's necessary to win. But goals two ("helping the Iraqi government establish the institutions of a unified and lasting democracy") and three ("a reconstruction plan to revive Iraq's economy and infrastructure") come at the expense of American lives and taxdollars. Goals two and three suggest a foreign policy based on altruism rather than national just interests, and they go against campaign promises of Governor Bush and the sentiments of the entire pre-9/11 conservative movement.

5. President Bush reminded the American people of the benefits of the campaign: the removal of a tyrant whose "power to harm a single man, woman, or child is gone forever" and ten million Iraqis choosing their own government. If the president hopes to win the public-relations war at home, accentuating the positives is necessary. But his definition of victory, "a democratic Iraq that can defend itself, that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists, and that will serve as a model of freedom for the Middle East," seems more in the hands of Iraqis than Americans. Basing an exit strategy on the progress of a third party is dangerous. Iraqis, not Americans, will determine whether a future Iraq is "free and democratic." We can help their future course. We can't determine it. Benjamin Franklin, 218 years ago, told a crowd of Americans that he and his fellow statesmen had given them "a republic, if you can keep it." In other words, Americans, not the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, would determine the ultimate fate of republican governance. America's current position is akin to Franklin's, while Iraq's is akin to the inquisitive crowd of Americans. Americans can help give Iraq a republic, but only Iraqis can ensure that they keep it.

With only six more shopping days until Christmas, let me take this crunch-time opportunity to advertise my two books as gifts. If you purchase Intellectual Morons or Why the Left Hates America in the next 24 hours, Amazon ensures delivery before Christmas. So what are you waiting for? And if you think neither of my books suits your gift recipient, I urge you to make other Amazon purchases through my site. It's no extra cost to you, and FlynnFiles gets a cut.

Time magazine honors Bono and Bill Gates for the wrong reasons. I like Bono and Bill Gates for how they made their money. Time likes Bono and Bill Gates for how they part with their money, or more accurately in Bono's case, how he makes governments part with their citizens' money. Time named the U2 singer, the Microsoft cofounder, and his wife (what???) as their "persons of the year" for "being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow."

Bono has written some of the best rock songs--"One," "Bad," "Stay," "With or Without You," "New Year's Day,"--of the last quarter century, and his band, U2, have been the most important rock band since Rolling Stone declared them the "band of the eighties" in 1985. As a writer and editor, my life has been made easier by Microsoft, and other computer companies. Microsoft saves me paper, saves me from spelling mistakes, saves me time. I'm sure accountants, lawyers, and stock brokers could detail how Microsoft has improved their lives. I'm also quite sure that nearly all impoverished Africans, the people Time believes Bono and Gates have helped, could not point to a single concrete way in which Bono and Gates have improved their lives. They're not listening to U2. They're not using computers. And with more than a half-billion sub-Saharan Africans, it's doubtful that the relief efforts of Gates and Bono are making much of a difference.

Let's call this Muhammad Ali syndrome. Muhammad Ali is arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer in history. But so many of his admirers could care less how he beat George Foreman by unconventionally leading with his right, brilliantly using the loose ropes to his advantage, and courageously letting his opponent punch himself out. What matters to them is that he opposed the Vietnam war. Millions of people did that. Only Muhammad Ali did what Muhammad Ali did in the ring. The same goes for Bono and Gates. Their philanthropic endeavors are pedestrian, and in some ways, not even philanthropic. Their accomplishments in computers and music, on the other hand, have enriched the lives of millions. Time magazine missed that. But that's okay. I missed what "person of the year" Melinda Gates has accomplished other than convincing the world's richest man to marry her.

In New Zealand, several dozen drunk Santa Clauses spraypainted buildings, urinated on moving cars from a highway overpass, knocked over trash cans, and nonchalantly stole beer from a convenience store. A spokesman for the Santas described the rampage as an act of protest against the commercialization of Christmas, but no sane person believes him. Some people find it fun to get drunk, break things, steal, and urinate on motorists. That's all. No word on if the real Santa Claus took part in the berserk revelry.

When Australians riot against Muslims, white racism is to blame. When Muslims riot against France, white racism is to blame.

It turns out George W. Bush doesn't hate black people after all. He hates white people. Hurricane Katrina killed New Orleans whites at a rate disproportionately higher than their percentage of the city's population. Blacks, on the other hand, didn't fare as poorly: African Americans constitute two-thirds of the Big Easy's population but just three-fifths of the hurricane's fatalities. "George Bush doesn't care about white people!" "[T]he world saw the effects of American-style anti-white racism in the drama as it was outplayed by the Katrina survivors." Bush blew up the levee "to destroy the white part of town and keep the black part dry." White people in Charleston, Miami, Houston, and other storm targets: Beware! Next time George Bush utilizes his super-secret White House hurricane-making machine (with the aid of his nefarious sidekick Dick Cheney), he may be coming for you!

It's not a good idea to get into a verbal food-fight with a comedian. The comedian does it for a living. He's better at insults. Anyone seeing an audience member attempt to take on the talent at a comedy club knows what I'm talking about. That, writ large, is what's happening in the public spat between Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays a character named Borat, and the government of Kazakhstan. Despite the entire force of the Kazakhstan governmental apparatus alligned against him, Cohen is winning in the cleverness front.

After first threatening to sue Cohen for his unflattering portrayal of a Kazakh journalist in the character Borat, Kazakhstan has taken down Borat's official ".kz" website. Sacha Baron Cohen, under the guise of Borat, has responded: "I support my government's decision to sue this Jew." Borat continued that since 2003 reforms, "Kazakhstan is as civilized as any country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus. Homosexuals have no longer to wear blue hats. And age of consent has been raised to eight years old."

Kazakhstan has unwittingly played into their comedic antagonist's hands. When Borat: The Movie comes out in 2006, where in Kazakhstan should Cohen send a royalty check in gratitude for the global publicity? "Please, captains of industry," Borat concluded in defense of his homeland, "I encourage you come to Kazakhstan where we have incredible natural resources, hard working labor, and some of the cleanest prostitutes in whole of Central Asia. Goodbye. Chenque!"

Iraqis elect a parliament today. Voting is one of the welcome developments of this war. But the act of dropping a ballot in a box matters less than the act of where one marks that ballot. In other words, how you vote matters more than that you vote. And in a nation where democracy has never grabbed root, and where 60 percent of the adult population can neither read nor write, the prospects of the populace making enlightened choices remain low. Ballots have placed in power George Washington. Ballots have placed in power Adolf Hitler. Let's hope that Iraqis elect representatives closer to the former than to the latter. Let's not, through a confusion of self-government for good government, assume that.

Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn't want Jews in the Middle East. He has proposed that various Western states, including Germany and Austria, give up land for Israeli Jews to settle. Living in Germany, Austria, and other central European states didn't work out for Jews in the 20th century, so I doubt that Mr. Ahmadinejad's proposal will spur 21st-century Jews to want move back.

But there is a proposal that Mr. Ahmadinejad should consider if he truly wants Jews to hand over Israel to the Palestinans: leave Iran so that its previous occupants, the Zoroastrians, can return. Zoroastrians, despite living in Persia for centuries, endured persecution at the hands of the newcomers. Zoroastrians have an ancestral claim to Iran, just as you say Palestinians have an ancestral claim to Israel. The Muslim extremists who rule Iran, on the other hand, took Persia by force. That history book that you're reading, the one that denies Hitler's mass-murder of European Jews, probably denies the Muslim conquest of Iran, too. But this, like the Holocaust, happened.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranian Muslims could return and assimilate into the Arabian peninsula whence the Muslims came fourteen centuries ago. This would certainly be easier than transplanting Israelis from the Middle East into European nations that speak different languages, practice different religions, and derive from a separate tribal stock. Sure, you'd have cultural obstacles to overcome by moving hundreds of miles from where you've lived your entire life. But would those burdens be as great as the ones you're proposing for Israelis, whom you wish to migrate to another continent thousands of miles away?

The Arabian conquest of Persia ultimately dispersed the Zoroastrians into numerous countries in which they form tiny minorities. Even the Palestinians have their own land. The Zoroastrians don't. But you can do something about this, Mr. Ahmadinejad. Encourage your coreligionists to migrate west and turn over your country to the 22,000 Zoroastrians still living there and the quarter-million or so living elsewhere.

By your example, you may inspire Jews to abandon the Middle East and hand over Israel to the Palestinians. Of course, giving up your country may not incite the Jews to give up theirs. But at least you'll sleep well knowing that you practice what you preach in regard to righting historic injustices and the like. And the rest of us will sleep better, too, knowing that Iran's nuclear program is in the hands of Zoroastrians and not Muslim lunatics. It's a win-win. What do you say?

Saturday games! Saturday games! Get your picks in early. Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. Here are my selections: PATRIOTS -4.5 over Bucs, GIANTS -3 over Chiefs, BILLS +9 over Broncos, Steelers -3 over VIKINGS, COLTS -7.5 over Chargers, JAGUARS -15.5 over Niners, TITANS +7 over Seahawks, Cardinals -1.5 over TEXANS, DOLPHINS -9 over Jets, SAINTS +9 over Panthers, REDSKINS -3 over Cowboys, Bengals -8 over LIONS, Browns +3 over RAIDERS, RAMS -3.5 over Eagles, BEARS -3 over Falcons, and, on Monday Night Football, Packers +3.5 over RAVENS. Make your picks in the comments section below.

"Vote often, Vote early, Vote James Michael Curley" went the Boston crime figure/mayor's unofficial campaign slogan. Nearly a half century after the rascal king's death, his election tactics have made their way to Iran. The Iraqi border patrol seized thousands of phony ballots on Tuesday that entered the country by way of Iran just two days prior to national elections. Might it be wise to hire these Iraqi gentlemen every November to keep watch in Chicago, New Orleans, and Detroit?

I'm thinking of adding a blogroll in the new year. What other blogs do FlynnFiles readers read? What blogs do you recommend? Why?

Tarbash repeats as the AYRFSF champion for week fourteen. Road dogs Detroit, Cleveland, Miami, and Baltimore came up big for Tarbash. He went 11-4-1 on the week (Cowboys-Chiefs pushed). Visitors (9-6-1) and underdogs (8-7-1) posted winning records. Remember: No college football means Saturday NFL games. Get your picks in early this week. Spreads will be posted later today. Losers: congratulate. Winner: victory speech.

When Ward Churchill, Ed Asner, and Al Sharpton are on your side, I'm not. It's time, quite literally, for capital punishment opponents to get a new posterchild. California executed Stanley "Tookie" Williams in the first minutes of today. Note to anti-death penalty activists: next time pick a more sympathetic character to spearhead your campaign. Tookie Williams, his mean visage, his imposing physique, his alleged role in founding the Crips, his prison rap sheet, his death-row residency for nearly a quarter century--all of this makes mainstream America want the death penalty more, not less. Society feels more comfortable seeing Tookie Williams strapped to a gurney than seeing Tookie Williams in a dark alley. Are Tookie's gang history and his scary look relevant to the case? No, they're not. But neither are his coauthorship of children's books, his prepostrous nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, and his role in a gang peace treaty. Image matters. Both sides of this debate understand this idea but don't always implement it. By selecting Mr. Williams as the cause du jour, death-penalty opponents harm rather than help their cause. In their defense, they don't have a lot to work with. Inhabitants of death row rarely lend themselves well to Madison Avenue-style public relations campaigns.

More than 150 nations agreed to pursue a second round of Kyoto Protocol emissions cuts at the United Nations climate conference that ended last week in Montreal. The United States declined at the conference to participate in the negotiations of this next wave of forced cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. "It's something else that's driving this," Eileen Claussen, a former Clinton administration official and environmentalist, said of the Bush administration's contrarian position, "and it's not rational. I think it's ideology."

What's that cliche about a stovetop item calling another cooking implement black? Perhaps the Bush administration believes the restrictions would hurt the U.S. economy, or are based on bad science, or won't alleviate global warming, or are heavy-handed in mandating one standard for the entire world, or more accurately the entire First World. There are any number of reasons not to follow the pack that have nothing to do with ideology.

The southern polar ice cap has been melting on Mars for at least three years. The Earth has been in a period of global cooling, some scientists refer to it as an ice age, for tens of millions of years. Call me a neanderthal, but I don't blame sport-utility vehicles, factory smokestacks, or hairspray for these instances of climate change. Solar activity, variation in Earth's orbit, interstellar dust, volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and ocean currents have all traditionally played a greater role in climate change than, say, the Ford Explorer. To the extent that global warming is taking place, might these natural phenomenon, rather than human activity, be the main cause?

President Bush seeks to overhaul American foreign aid to promote democratization and reform in recipient states. Liberal critics fear that need will be subordinated to politics if Bush gets his way. This is a debate about how to spend the money. There is a third position, the conservative position, which is to not spend the money, i.e., to end foreign aid.

Lord Peter Bauer derided foreign aid as "transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries." Apart from this notion that it doesn't help those intended, government-to-government aid is often counterproductive in that it breeds contempt. It is just as common, after all, to resent rather than to love your benefactors. Do Koreans and Egyptians love or resent us? Propping up economies and governments that are systemically flawed pours money down a hole. It's wasteful. On the list of voter priorities, foreign aid rightfully ranks quite low. Hurricane Katrina relief, paying down the debt, and a thousand other concerns would fare better at persuading taxpayers to part with their money than, say, giving more than a half-billion dollars to Pervez Musharraf. There are scores of good arguments against foreign aid, but the best argument is the one that's in, or rather not in, the Constitution.

Before Dave Chappelle, before Chris Rock, before Eddie Murphy there was Richard Pryor. Pryor starred in a series of movies with Gene Wilder (establishing the black comedian/white sidekick film genre), but was mainly known for his live comedy act. In 2004, for instance, Comedy Central named him the greatest stand-up comic ever. Pryor introduced scores of young people to four-letter words of varying lengths just as he introduced the nation to the concept of smoking, or freebasing, cocaine when he nearly killed himself in 1980 during what was described as a freebasing session gone bad. Hard living gave way to hard dying. After hitting his peak in the late '70s/early '80s, Pryor was scarcely heard or seen. Sidelined by self-immolation, drug problems, heart ailments, multiple sclerosis, and other maladies, it is amazing that Pryor ever became a senior citizen. Richard Pryor, 65, rest in peace.

After a five-week hiatus, open-thread Friday is back!!! Say anything about anything in the comments section below.

Twenty-five years ago today, a lunatic named Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon. "I'll probably be popped off by some loony," Lennon predicted in the 1960s. He was right. Throughout the day I'll be listening to "I'm So Tired," "God," "Norwegian Wood," "Mind Games," "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," and other John tunes. FlynnFiles doesn't do audio, but here are some of John Lennon's words:

John Lennon would have embraced downloads supplanting albums...
"I'm still a record man. There's nobody--including meself--on earth that I can sit down and listen to a whole album. Nobody. The same voice going on . . . Nobody can sustain it. Even as a rock & roll fan of fifteen, there were very few albums I could sit through. Even Elvis, and I adored him, or Carl Perkins or Little Richard. There were always a couple of tracks to miss and go on to the next ones. So I don't sit 'round and listen to artists' albums. Unless they're friends of mine. I like records. I like 'Shame, Shame, Shame.' Shirley and the gang. Some of this disco stuff. Great. I like just individual records. One of me favorites last year was 'I Can Help.' Billy Swan. A real old Elvis imitation kind of record. I like singles. I like jukebox music. That was the thing that turned me on. That's the thing I like."

John Lennon on being different...
"The class thing is just as snobby as it ever was. People like us can break through a little--but only a little. Once, we went into this restaurant and nearly got thrown out for looking like we looked until they saw who it was. 'What do you want? What do you want?' the headwaiter said, 'We've come to bloody eat, that's what we want,' we said. The owner spotted us and said, 'Ah, a table sir, over here, sir.' It just took me back to when I was 19, and I couldn't get anywhere without being stared at or remarked about. It's only since I've been a Beatle that people have said, 'Oh, wonderful, come in, come in,' and I've forgotten a bit about what they're really thinking. They see the shining star, but when there's no glow about you, they only see the clothes and the haircut again."

John Lennon on The Beatles staying together...
"They want to hold on to something they never had in the first place. Anybody who claims to have some interest in me as an individual artist or even as part of the Beatles has absolutely misunderstood everything I ever said if they can't see why I'm with Yoko. And if they can't see that, they don't see anything. They're just jacking off to--it could be anybody. Mick Jagger or somebody else. Let them go jack off to Mick Jagger, OK? I don't need it.... I absolutely don't need it. Let them chase Wings. Just forget about me. If that's what you want, go after Paul or Mick. I ain't here for that. If that's not apparent in my past, I'm saying it in black and green, next to all the tits and asses on page 196. Go play with the other boys. Don't bother me. Go play with the Rolling Wings.... No, wait a minute. Let's stay with this a second; sometimes I can't let go of it. [He is on his feet, climbing up the refrigerator] Nobody ever said anything about Paul's having a spell on me or my having one on Paul! They never thought that was abnormal in those days, two guys together, or four guys together! Why didn't they ever say, 'How come those guys don't split up? I mean, what's going on backstage? What is this Paul and John business? How can they be together so long?' We spent more time together in the early days than John and Yoko: the four of us sleeping in the same room, practically in the same bed, in the same truck, living together night and day, eating, shitting and pissing together! All right? Doing everything together! Nobody said a damn thing about being under a spell. Maybe they said we were under the spell of Brian Epstein or George Martin [the Beatles' first manager and producer, respectively]. There's always somebody who has to be doing something to you. You know, they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years. Whoooopee! At least Charlie and Bill still got their families. In the Eighties, they'll be asking, 'Why are those guys still together? Can't they hack it on their own? Why do they have to be surrounded by a gang? Is the little leader scared somebody's gonna knife him in the back?' That's gonna be the question. That's-a-gonna be the question! They're gonna look back at the Beatles and the Stones and all those guys are relics. The days when those bands were just all men will be on the newsreels, you know. They will be showing pictures of the guy with lipstick wriggling his ass and the four guys with the evil black make-up on their eyes trying to look raunchy. That's gonna be the joke in the future, not a couple singing together or living and working together. It's all right when you're 16, 17, 18 to have male companions and idols, OK? It's tribal and it's gang and it's fine. But when it continues and you're still doing it when you're 40, that means you're still 16 in the head."

John Lennon on the prospect of reuniting The Beatles on Saturday Night Live...
"Oh, yeah. Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired.... That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door. . . . But, anyway, back on that night, he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, 'Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?' but we didn't."

John Lennon on benefit concerts...
"Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway."

John Lennon on the influence of radicalism on his songwriting...
"It almost ruined it, in a way. It became journalism and not poetry. And I basically feel that I'm a poet. Even if it does go ba-deeble, eedle, eedle, it, da-deedle, deedle, it. I'm not a formalized poet, I have no education, so I have to write in the simplest forms usually. And I realized that over a period of time--and not just 'cause I met Jerry Rubin off the plane--but that was like a culmination. I realized that we were poets but we were really folk poets, and rock & roll was folk poetry--I've always felt that. Rock & roll was folk music. Then I began to take it seriously on another level, saying, 'Well, I am reflecting what is going on, right?' And then I was making an effort to reflect what was going on. Well, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work as pop music or what I want to do. It just doesn't make sense. You get into that bit where you can't talk about trees, 'cause, y'know, y'gotta talk about Corruption on Fifty-fourth Street! It's nothing to do with that. It's a bit larger than that. It's the usual lesson that I've learned in me little thirty-four years: As soon as you've clutched onto something, you think--you're always clutchin' at straws--this is what life is all about. I think artists are lucky because the straws are always blowin' out of their hands. But the unfortunate thing is that most people find the straw hat and hang on to it, like your best friend that got the job at the bank when he was fifteen and looked twenty-eight before he was twenty. 'Oh, this is it! Now I know what I'm doing! Right? Down this road for the next hundred years . . .' and it ain't never that. Whether it's a religious hat or a political hat or a no-political hat: whatever hat it was, always looking for these straw hats. I think I found out it's a waste of time. There is no hat to wear. Just keep moving around and changing clothes is the best. That's all that goes on: change."

John Lennon on death...
"I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison--it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer--he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that -- I'm sorry for his family -- but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean [Lennon] worshiping John Wayne or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage, you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy."

With The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe coming out in theaters tomorrow, the fiction of C.S. Lewis will draw massive amounts of media attention. But what about Lewis's non-fiction? Narnia's Lion is a Christ-like figure, but Lewis's non-fiction deals with Christ in a manner less open to interpretation.

In his essay "Miracles" in God in the Dock (buy it here), Lewis grapples with the anti-Christian fixation on the virgin birth. He asks, "is it that they see in this miracle a slur upon sexual intercourse which is rapidly becoming the one thing venerated in a world without veneration?" Lewis's explanation of the virgin birth demonstrates, despite what you may see on the silver-screen this weekend, the superiority of his non-fiction over his fiction. Lewis's take on this subject is especially relevant for the Christmas season. Lewis, in 1942, preached from St. Jude on the Hill Church, London:

"There is a vulgar anti-God paper which some anonymous donor sends me every week. In it recently I saw the taunt that we Christians believe in a God who committed adultery with the wife of a Jewish carpenter. The answer to that is that if you describe the action of God in fertilizing Mary as 'adultery' then, in that sense, God would have committed adultery with every woman who ever had a baby. For what He did once without a human father, He does always even when He uses a human father as His instrument. For the human father in ordinary generation is only a carrier, sometimes an unwilling carrier, always the last in a long line of carriers, of life that comes from the supreme life. Thus the filth that our poor, muddled, sincere, resentful enemies fling at the Holy One, either does not stick, or, sticking, turns into glory."

Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. My picks are as follows: PANTHERS -5 over Bucs, Pats -3 over BILLS, Rams +6.5 over VIKINGS, Bears +5.5 over STEELERS, Raiders -3 over JETS, JAGUARS +7.5 over Colts, TITANS -6.5 over Texans, BENGALS -12 over Browns, Redskins -3 over CARDS, Giants -7 over EAGLES, Niners +16 over SEAHAWKS, Dolphins +13.5 over CHARGERS, BRONCOS -14 over Ravens, COWBOYS -3 over Chiefs, PACKERS -5.5 over Lions, and, on Monday Night Football, Saints -10 over FALCONS. Make your selections in the comments section below.

The United Nations conference on climate change, an annual follow-up to Kyoto, is right now taking place in Montreal, where it's 19 degrees and snowing. The delegate from Ghana can't be pleased. If climate change were put to a vote at the Montreal conference, I dare say that the "yeas" would win the day. It might be better from a message standpoint to hold next year's event in the Mojave Desert or downtown Calcutta.

The DC city council voted Tuesday to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. Alcohol isn't healthy either. Will the elected officials of my city vote to ban booze in bars next? How about deleting bacon double-cheeseburgers and baby-back ribs from restaurant menus? "Any bar or restaurant in this city may voluntarily go smoke free, and smokers would have no claim against them, except to take their business elsewhere," the Cato Institute's Radley Balko told the city council six months ago. "Indeed, more than 200 businesses in Washington, D.C. have done exactly that.... You don't have the right to walk onto someone else's property, demand to be served food or drink someone else has bought, and demand that they serve you on your terms. Free societies don't work that way."

Sixty-four years ago today, Japan launched a preemptive strike against the United States at Pearl Harbor. What they were preempting is anyone's guess, but that's the rationalization that some writers hostile to America still make. Thankfully, the Congress, at President Roosevelt's request, responded on December 8 by declaring war on Japan rather than authorizing military force on some other country in the region, say, Mongolia, that had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.

Tarbash and Potato Man are co-champions at 11-5 for week thirteen's AYRFSF pool. Road victors Texans, Seahawks, Vikings, and Redskins put Tarbash over the top, while Potato Man benefited from road favorites Vikings, Seahawks, Cardinals, and Redskins. Road and home teams split the week's games, while favorites destroyed underdogs by covering in 12 out of 16 games. Winners: share your wisdom. Losers: humble yourselves before greatness.

World Wrestling Federation Entertainment (Were they on drugs when they changed their name?) announced on Monday a policy of random drug tests for performers. The shift comes in the wake of the death of Eddie Guerrero, a former WWE world champion. What took you guys so long?

In my interview with the Ultimate Warrior last year, he noted that road fatigue and the willingness of doctors to write pain-killer prescriptions contribute to the drug problems in wrestling. "There are ways other than hard work, diet, and discipline to achieve a healthy look on the outside, yet be messed up and damaged on the inside," Warrior explained. "This is what definitely happened to some of the guys I worked with who have since died. They get some juice and keep taking it and continue, as they always have, to practice unhealthy dietary habits. None of them really exercised hard. When they were young they could getaway with it. At 40-50 years of age, you throw in a bit of slimy street drugs and the fact you haven’t consistently practiced healthy exercise and diet habits and BAM!—the body says, 'No more.'"

Sometimes the picture of health is just that. Wrestlers sport impressive physiques that hide damaged organs. Drugs, performance enhancing and performance inhibiting, kill. They don't just kill 110-pound junkies and overweight comedians. They kill athletes with five percent body fat. They've killed an extraordinary number of wrestlers, giving the profession "wrestler" slightly more drug-related deaths than the profession "rock star" and slightly less drug-related deaths than the profession "drug dealer."

Did anyone catch Jake "the Snake" Roberts in the documentary Beyond the Mat or Chyna in The Surreal Life? Do you remember the cartoonish muscles of Superstar Billy Graham, Paul Orndorff, or Scott Steiner? How about the truly disturbing number of drug-related deaths in wrestling? In addition to the recent passing of Eddie Guerrero, the wrestling world has mourned the deaths of Rick Rude, Bobby Duncam, Jr., "Quickdraw" Rick McGraw, Kerry von Erich, Curt Hennig, Miss Elizabeth, Crash Holly, Road Warrior Hawk, the British Bulldog, and Brian Pillman, to name a few that come to mind. Their death certificates told different stories--overdoses, suicides, heart disease--but their lives had this in common: years of substance abuse.

10. Simon and Garfunkel, "Silent Night/7 O'Clock News"--Brilliant. Juxtaposing the serene and mellow sounds of Simon and Garfunkel singing the best known Christmas song to the reading of the nightly news--murder, war, racism, drug overdoses, etc.

9. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, "I Believe in Father Christmas"--Atheists sing Christmas songs too, just with bitterness and contempt. The reason is the season.

8. The Ronettes, "Frosty the Snowman"--This appeared on Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas album (buy it here), where most of the memorable Christmas songs of the 1960s appear.

7. U2, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"--A cover of a song from Phil Spector's Christmas album, "Baby Please Come Home" proves that U2 can do Christmas in addition to New Year's Day.

6. The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"--A quirky, new-wave Christmas song that chronicles a busy year of an English lass who meets her lad at a grocery store on Christmas eve. "You mean you forgot cranberries too?"

5. John Lennon, "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)"--The two biggest Beatles each released a famous Christmas song, and, at least in this instance, preachy beat silly (Paul McCartney's "A Wonderful Christmas Time").

4. The Pretenders, "2000 Miles"--Chrissie Hynde, who bore a child to the man who sings the top song on this list, sang an awesome version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in addition to this original contribution.

3. Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"--The first and best of the massive '80s charity singles, Bono's "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you" still sends chills down the spine. The extended version with Paul McCartney, David Bowie, and others talking is really cool.

2. The Pogues, "A Fairytale of New York"--In probably the only Christmas song that gets heavy airplay on St. Patrick's Day, the Pogues and the late Kirsty MacColl explore the negative emotions the holiday season can evoke. "You scumbag, you maggot/You cheap lousy faggot/Happy Christmas your arse/I pray God it's our last." Tell me how you really feel. Check out a Matt Dillon cameo as one of NYC's finest in the video.

1. The Kinks, "Father Christmas"--A class conscious, heart-tugging holiday song about robbing Santa Claus. "Have yourself a merry merry christmas/Have yourself a good time/But remember the kids who got nothin’/While you’re drinkin’ down your wine."

Straussians are closer to postmodernists than to conservatives. Saying this in Intellectual Morons annoyed some conservatives (and perhaps a few postmodernists as well). Rather than take the word of a critic of Leo Strauss on this point, why don't you read what a leading Straussian believes? "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," Irving Kristol is quoted in Reason magazine a few years back. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work." John Derbyshire reacts on NRO's Corner: "This line of thinking seems to me to be unspeakably horrible and inhuman, though, yes, I am aware that it has a long pedigree. If that's conservatism, I want out." Ditto.

"The current system of determining who's No. 1 appears deeply flawed," Texas Congressman Joe Barton believes. He's speaking of that huge state interest(!) the federal government has in college football, something that escaped the notice of the Founding Fathers. It hasn't escaped the notice of Barton's constituents--Longhorn fans no doubt--so he will hold hearings next week. That this occurs when interest in potential Bowl matchups is at its height, and not, say, next April, is also no coincidence. What a joke.

I perfer the old system, which was perhaps more "deeply flawed" at determining a number one team. Bowl games, at least in my lifetime, pitted regional conference champions against regional conference champions. Doesn't it strike you as a sacrilidge for the Big 10 and Pac 10 champs not to meet in the Rose Bowl? It's too bad the NCAA scrapped tradition, but the advent of the designated hitter, NFL instant replay, the three-point shot, hockey two-line passes, and the BCS are no cause for a congressional investigation.

"Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver’s licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996," Amanda Carpenter writes at HumanEventsOnline. The political advocacy group receiving the $4 million is La Raza, which, if you speak Spanish, you know means the "the race." If this were a white group called "the race," might this be a lot more controversial? And how about if instead of groups like La Raza and Planned Parenthood getting fat on the dole, the National Right to Life or Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Initiative were granted millions of dollars? There are many far more substantial programs that should be cut. But when the Congress rubber-stamps something so obviously crooked as millions for groups that lobby the government, it's easy to see why congressmen make so little progress cutting the billions from the more mammoth programs that are wasteful, against majority interests, and blatantly unconstitutional.

I am my own boss, and lately my conduct has been ruinous to company spirit. I've been arriving to work in the p.m. hours. My office, which also doubles as my living room, is a mess littered with books, overstuffed file folders, and yellow legal pads. It's bad enough that I show up to work every day in sweat pants and a flannel shirt. Now I frequently show up to work in the same sweat pants and flannel shirt. On the positive side, I rarely leave the office and don't complain when I don't get paid. But I surf the web, smoke cigars, and listen to loud music on company time. I don't shave. Earlier this week, I strongly considered firing myself. I'm glad, for my sake, that I didn't. On Wednesday, I began to turn things around. I made serious progress on the third chapter of my forthcoming book. By Thursday, I reached that crest-of-the-hill point. That's where the upward snail's pace transforms into a downward glide. A paragraph a day yields to thousand-word days. It is the viral effect but with words. They replicate. Words beget words. What seemed daunting now seems a cinch. I'm glad I stuck by me. I may even look the other way when I drink on the job later tonight. But this is just chapter three, so, as the great philosopher Yogi Berra put it, it will feel like deja vu all over again. My boss will give me schoolmarmish lectures, castigating me to snap out of it. My job security will seem precarious. Then I'll get on a roll. And I'll repeat the process again and again until next November. With luck, I'll have a book.

Let's get it on! Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. My picks for week thirteen's games are as follows: Bills +4 over DOLPHINS, Bengals +3 over STEELERS, RAVENS -7.5 over Texans, COLTS -15 over Titans, BROWNS +3 over Jaguars, Cowboys +3 over GIANTS, Packers +7 over BEARS, LIONS +2.5 over Vikings, PANTHERS -3 over Falcons, Bucs -3.5 over SAINTS, NINERS +3 over Cardinals, RAMS +3 over Redskins, PATRIOTS -10 over Jets, CHIEFS +1 over Broncos, Raiders +11 over CHARGERS, and, in the Monday night game, Seahawks -3.5 over EAGLES. Make your picks below.

North Carolina is set to execute the 1,000th person since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Kenneth Boyd, who murdered his wife and father in law in 1988, will die by lethal injection tonight at 2 a.m. barring any 11th-hour intervention. Since 1976, 35 states have executed convicted murderers, with Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma utilizing capital punishment the most. The ten states that currently have the lowest murder rates have executed just three people since 1976. The ten states that currently have the highest murder rates have executed 188 people since 1976. Last year, 16,137 murders were committed in America. U.S. states executed just 59 convicted murderers. More Americans have been killed in Iraq since last October than have been executed since 1976. More unborn children have already been aborted today than convicted murderers have been executed since 1976. More Americans will die in car accidents in the next nine days than have been executed since 1976. About 575 times the number of Americans have been murdered since 1976 than have been executed since 1976.

Chuck Berry got arrested for having hidden cameras in the ladies' room of his restaurant. A group of Georgia eighth-graders have been suspended for removing a hidden camera in the boys' room of their school. The principal of the school who installed the camera--to, ummmm, combat vandalism, yeah, combat vandalism--need not worry. Educators regularly discuss lewd acts with grade-schoolers and occassionally strip-search children. Teachers, for whatever reason, are immune from prosecution for offenses that would land anyone else in the back of a police cruiser.

"It's the economy, stupid!" That mantra of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign is no longer valid. After a couple of rough years to start his term, George Bush has since presided over a booming economy. The U.S. gross domestic product grew at a rate of 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2005. Its quarterly growth has not slipped below 3.3 percent since the first quarter of 2003. In fact, GDP growth under Bush has not differed significantly (particularly from 2003 onwards) from the GDP growth under Clinton--save for the fact that no one seems to have noticed. The New York Times noticed, sort of, earlier this week when it reported that the "ecomony appears to be doing just fine" and cited a "seemingly upbeat report." The jist of the news article? The economy may look healthy today, but just wait until next year when the illusion ends.

Despite continued good news on the economy, Bush's approval ratings have fluctuated between 35 and 45 percent during the last three months. Paradoxically, the highest approval ratings of Bush's presidency occured during a weak economy and the lowest approval ratings of his presidency occurred during a strong economy. What's going on? "It's the economy, stupid!" applied during the Clinton years because the Cold War had ended and the War on Terror and the Iraq War hadn't begun. When the issues aren't all that important, the economy is the default top concern. Life-and-death issues, national security issues once again dominate politics. The economy, necessarily, is secondary. That hurts George W. Bush politically. President Bush presides over an economy that is not only growing, it's booming. You just wouldn't know it from his sagging poll numbers.