One thing was absolutely clear from his press conference here.

If it comes to a choice between endless negotiation and conflict - what they used to call jaw-jaw or war-war - then you'd better believe it, it's going to be the second.

Something pretty substantial and serious is going to happen this winter.

How are you going to "Pepsi and McDonald-ize" your movement for maximum mass appeal? I?m not saying that you have to go politically correct but you might think twice before producing a short that shows neoconfederates, Hans Hoppe, and pictures of 19th century guys and gals.

If you go too edgy, then people say, "What the hell was that?" You want to make them at least think for a few minutes (or maybe just a minute) after it?s over. Plus you have the added burden of trying to sell "anarchy." Most average folk gravitate towards safety and security. Don?t blame the public education system for that, it?s just human nature. How do you turn that perception around?

If all you do is flash a picture of the Capitol in Washington with a middle finger pointing at the dome, you?re not going to get much of a reaction. All you?re doing in that case is saying "ha ha ha look at us" and then you dance and prance and congratulate each other. But you?re just preaching to the choir. You haven?t made the sale, instead you?ve sprayed graffiti under a bridge.

I?m sure some of you creative types might jump at the challenge of producing at least a storyboard that you could upload to your websites for the rest of us to take a gander.

Let?s see how you persuade the great-unwashed using imagery or do you just want to be an isolated, stale country club?

On most matters, I'm on the same page as Rockwell. I?m enough of a libertarian to agree that we're over-taxed, over-manipulated, over-sued and over-regulated, and enough of a libertarian, in fact, to have been published a dozen or so times by Rockwell's Mises Institute. But on this one, I've got to break rank.

Let?s start at the bottom and work our way up. First, it?s my bet that Taliban John won't be killed in a gun battle with Dick Cheney. Second, after we won, did the U.S. "war machine" turn the Japanese, Germans or Russians into hostages? Third, after decades of holding our fire while under attack, how much "peace" did we get on September 11? Fourth, it?s not about whether they "like us"; it?s about people who want to kill us. Fifth, Iraq was impoverished by Iraq's policies. And sixth, the business at hand is to stop the killing, to stop a nutcase from delivering a suitcase nuke to Manhattan.

But today the Democrats reached a new low as they rejected the appointment of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens to a seat on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for just one reason: she is insufficiently pro-abortion. Democrats are now so captive to the extremist pro-abortion forces that any limitation whatsoever on the killing of a fetus is unacceptable to them. Democrats voted against Ms Owens because of one single court case in which it was her opinion that a minor did not have an absolute right to abort her child. Period. End of story.


Having reached a point in our politics where the attempt to limit abortion in any way shape or form makes a persion unfit for the bench in the eyes of every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, it is sad but true that the Democrats have become the party of death.

CBS News anchorman Dan Rather hijacked a Boeing 757 over the weekend and flew it to an undisclosed location in "the Dakotas". The hijacking was part of an "up close and personal" investigative piece about flaws in the transportation security system. No one was harmed in the incident.

If it were up to me, I'd devote the entire 16 acres to the memorial. A soaring structure should dominate the site, taking its place along New York City's wonderful skyline. It should be visible for miles to demonstrate the spirit of those who gave their lives to defend freedom. There should be a museum and a library. Those who visit should be able to relive the experience in a way that does justice to the enormity of the events. The memorial should echo the goals of the city's Museum of Jewish Heritage, which sits a stone's throw away. The purpose of that museum is to demonstrate the horror of the Holocaust as well as celebrate the survival and strength of the Jewish people. Done correctly, the memorial at ground zero will commemorate the horror and the heroism of Sept. 11.