The good and the bad from the back page of today's SF Chronicle "Datebook" section
Two columns, one or both of which may be here on-line.

Choice quote from Jon Carroll: "We are facing a new century, and the two biggest questions are: Which band of fundamentalists will do the most damage (Muslims have the early lead) and will the U.S. and China learn to play nice after the battle of Taiwan?"

Excellent: In one line, manages moral analogy without false moral equivalence.

On the uglier side, Dave Ford wants sensitivity training for 49er players etc. because apparently Garrison Hearst doesn't "want any faggots on this team."

An unfortunate comment to be sure but last time I checked there's such a thing as freedom of conscience in this country. If you want people who disagree with you (with us) about gay people then you won't win them over by being confrontational. Quoth Ford:

"I think Hearst should have been fired. The 49ers and other teams and all sports leagues should have a zero tolerance attitude towards homophobia and all other forms of discrimination." Yeah, you can think that. Ain't gonna happen, so get over yourself, Mr. I Owe My Column To Wearing My Dick On My Sleeve.

"Sports teams should hold mandatory sensitivity training." (Full disclosure: That right there is the one line that set me off.) "But they'd be called 'say these words and you'll be out of pro sports forever' training. [blab blab] comments that suggest to young males it's acceptable to bash gays."

hint to Ford (who makes a similarly snide comment about homophobes in the shower): NOBODY CARES ENOUGH TO BEAT YOU UP. Or if they do it won't be because of what Hearst said. Show me the CONNECTION between words and actions or else stop using the gay-bash strawmen to silence people.

Best pop-psychology political analysis I've seen in months
This sounds like something Maureen Dowd would write if she were a little more conservative and a lot more insightful:
What got me was this paragraph in a New York Observer interview:

For now, Mr. Gore can only attempt to explain what motivates the ceaseless lampooning he continues to face from America’s columnists and commentators. "That’s postmodernism," he offered. "It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism, and that’s another interview for another time, if you’re interested in it.

I can't imagine George W. Bush using narcissism, nihilism and postmodernism in a sentence. But I can't imagine he'd need to.

Gore needs a fancy theory to explain why people make fun of a powerful public man who takes himself very seriously. That's very Gore-like.
--Joanne Jacobs

Bill Moyers, Welfare Queen
As much as I hate to quote Bill O'Reilly, I'm afraid I must.

Here's the crux of the matter: I wouldn't mind him being a left-wing blowhard (the world is full of them, both left and right), but he's on the dole for it. Public broadcasting is his Enron -- no, it's his bitch. (Pardon the language, but it's true. Follow the money; that's basically what O'Reilly seems to have done.)

My taxes may or may not be too high; yours may or may not be too high. To the extent that Moyers gets any of my money or your money to be who he is, it stinks.

Proving the negative
[Blix] responded with a curt warning that if Iraq was going to claim to be clean, it would have to provide convincing evidence.
--NY Times

I'll point this out so that you don't have to. It's an interesting position; as far as I call tell, Iraqi arrogance helped them get where they are now.

"if you don't solve it, we will"
I like this position. Our friends the Saudis will show their true colors one way or the other.

Instapundit is really feisty today
Instead of the individual links you can always go here and scroll down.

On the democracy movement in Iran:
I'm almost ready to conclude that the Administration is deliberately downplaying it, because they think the mullahs are on their way out anyway, and that (visible) U.S. support for the revolution will do more harm than good. (There is, I strongly suspect, some invisible support.) Either that, or they're just idiots.

In response to the bin Laden letter:
Dear Osama:

Why do we hate you? Because you killed 3,000 Americans and want to kill more. And when you kill Americans, you're dead meat -- and so is anyone who helps you, and maybe anyone who sympathizes too loudly. The question now isn't whether you will win. It's whether the Bush Administration will succeed in disposing of you and your cause before you provoke a response that will cause Arab civilization, such as it is, to join the Aztecs, the Carthaginians, and others who overplayed their brutal hand against a superior foe.

On flagrant errors in Bowling for Columbine:
If a big corporation were this dishonest, [Michael] Moore would be making fun of it.

On a Saudi al Qaeda sympathizer:
[T]his is a guy getting money from the Saudi royal family, one with a number of connections that suggest he's some sort of an operative. This tells us all we need to know about the Saudis' attitude. And, as far as I'm concerned, there's plenty of justification for our next attack to land on Saudi Arabia instead of (or as well as) Iraq.