OPINION

When the news came out last year that the city was fudging adjusting crime statistics to more closely conform to federal reporting standards, it looked an awful lot like maybe the city was trying to make its statistics look better than they actually were so we wouldn't be listed around the country as one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country. When the news came out, again, that police weren't registering certain property crimes (like a guy busting through the front door but running away without stealing anything), it looked even more fishy.

Even so, Police Chief David Kunkle's explanation seemed at least plausible. We cut him some slack.

But now it emerges, thanks to excellent reporting from Tanya Eiserer and Scott Goldstein, that the city has deliberately made it difficult, if not impossible, to locate certain embarrassing statistics, like murders, rape and aggravated assault, on the crime-statistics Web site.

Well, gosh, we believe in transparency. They should be there because people need to know what's going on in their communities, Kunkle and other police officials say. "We were asked, and we complied with a request to remove from the public site the ability to select the offenses of Murder and Rape," counters Leslie Delatte, president of the company that maintains the Web site.

The Police Department denies issuing such instructions. City officials explain that there are, um, well, certain filters necessary for, um, certain kinds of murders, and well, uh.

Please, folks, just admit it. You've been trying to alter public perceptions by hiding the bad numbers.

Victor Carrillo, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, blames his loss to an unknown challenger in Tuesday's GOP primary on voter bias against his last name. "Given the choice between 'Porter' and 'Carrillo,' unfortunately, the Hispanic surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover, although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias," he says.

The victor, David Porter, says he worked hard for this victory and writes off Carrillo's comments as "sour grapes."

That was my initial reaction until I also looked at the extremely narrow victory in the Democratic primary of Hector Uribe in the Texas land commissioner's race. Here was a guy who had strong backing from the Democratic Party. He had spent 12 years as a state senator and House member. He was well-versed in the workings of the Legislature. The most impressive experience the other Democratic candidate, Bill Burton, offered was a short tenure as a justice of the peace in Henderson County.

I talked to both candidates, and of the two, Uribe was clearly the better qualified. Uribe narrowly won, with a 20,000-vote lead out of more than 560,000 votes cast statewide.

I think Carrillo might be making more of an issue out of ethnicity than he should, but I do believe it deserves more thorough examination. For both parties, I doubt Hispanic voters were well represented in the polls, and without them to balance out the results, I do believe non-Hispanic voters who weren't familiar with the candidates chose the non-Hispanic surname more often.

While awaiting election results, I just saw Sarah Palin do a standup comedy routine on the Leno show.

She shouldn't quit her day job. Then again, neither should Leno.

As far as winter Olympics go, the Vancouver Games were some of the most exciting I've watched since the days of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Kudos to Canada for pulling it off under some extraordinarily difficult weather conditions.

Okay, I got my obligatory positive statement out there. Now for the real issue: Was anyone as annoyed as I was about the over-Canadianization of the closing ceremony? At first I thought they were just getting in a few plugs for tourism in Canada. But as the ceremony droned on and on and on, I started to worry about those people. Are they really that insecure that they need to promote themselves so heavily in front of an worldwide audience of millions looking to celebrate athleticism and international cooperation?

This is not bitterness about the USA's loss in hockey. That was a disappointment, but the last thing I expected from the Canadians was to be bashed over the head with everything Canada during the closing ceremony. I thought the routine by Catherine O'Hara was flat, unfunny and a little pathetic. Likewise with William Shatner. Michael J. Fox did much better than I expected, but they all spoke as if they were attending a Canadian AA meeting. "I'm Michael, and I'm a Canadian." I wanted to respond, "Hi Michael."

Look back at the Turin closing ceremonies four years ago, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a single plug for Italy's tourist attractions. Pavarotti didn't come out and say, "Hi, I'm Luciano, and I'm Italian." The entire ceremony stuck with the Olympic tradition of celebrating an international brotherhood. Why Canada felt that it needed to veer so radically from that time-honored tradition, I'll never know. I'm glad they're proud of their country. I'm proud of their country too, but I don't need them to beat me over the head with it.

I am a big fan of civility, and I've really enjoyed watching Republican and Democratic leaders get together today and discuss -- yes, discuss -- the pros and cons of health care reform. I had high hopes for at least a few small steps toward a meeting of the minds between the two sides. But at this point, sadly, I have to share the view of Politico that zero progress has been made on that front.

By the lunch break, it was growing clearer that the pre-summit pessimism on both sides - that there was little to no hope of grand bipartisan compromise - was on target. In fact, both sides spent the bulk of the first three hours of the session trying to score tactical points, rarely veering from their scripts to extend a hand to the other side.

Or, as Tennessee Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper just said, "We're all here. We're all dressed up. We're all on our best behavior." And?

Dang, everyone sure is being polite. But what good is this doing if everyone also remains completely dug in to his or her position? I badly want to see this lead to some real horse-trading and at least a little meeting of the minds. I don't think it's going to happen.

Goodbye compromise. Hello reconciliation.

When you can't get an actual human to endorse your candidacy, the next best thing is to get Simone to do it. Remember Simone, from the Al Pacino movie? She's a virtual robot who will pretty much say anything you type into her mouth. So Jerry Ray Hall, who is seeking to replace Rep. Ralph Hall in District 4 using an odd truth-be-damned campaign strategy, went to oddcast.com and, voila! Instant endorsement.

It's weird beyond weird. I think even the Tea Party that he claims to represent would be appalled if they were organized enough to know that he's out there claiming to represent them.

I tried to embed Hall's video here, but it doesn't embed properly. So go to Jerry Hall's campaign Web site and enjoy the new world of virtual endorsements, which meshes nicely with Hall's "virtual truth" description of his academic, business and charitable accomplishments.

(By the way, oddcast.com also allows you to be endorsed by that little baby boy who appears on those E-Trade commercials. Or you can have Flo from Progressive Insurance endorse you. I think you can even get someone from Avatar to endorse you from an entirely different planet. The sky galaxy's the limit! Go Jerry!

He also apparently believes in virtual identities and credentials (law degree, doctorate). Hall wrote me two emails this week under his own name, using his jerryhallforcongress.org email address. But the IP address on the email was exactly the same as a posting we received earlier this week from a commenter named "Bill" who used the fictitious email address texdt@gmail.com.

The Republican primary for the 4th congressional district, currently held by GOP Rep. Ralph Hall, contains some real characters. And I don't mean that in a flattering sense. At least two of these characters have lied in big ways about their backgrounds, and that's troubling. It just goes to show that voters owe it to themselves to know their candidates before casting a ballot.

First, let's briefly look at candidate Steve Clark, who told us in his candidate questionnaire that he had never been arrested. Oops. It turns out that, in fact, he was arrested in 1986 and charged with assaulting his ex-wife. Odd that he would forget that little detail.

Now let's look at Jerry Ray (Tea) Hall, aka "Dr." Jerry Hall (no relation to Ralph Hall). When you look at his candidate questionnaire, he claims to have built a "successful" business that apparently experienced some un-success at some point, and he said he was "forced" to sell it. He doesn't name the company. But some curious eager-beavers down in Panama, where Hall used to live, have really done their homework. The best work on this is being done by Don Winner at Panama-Guide.com, an online newspaper/chat room. Panama is a very small place, and there's no such thing as a secret there.

Here's one of the Big Concerns: Jerry Hall lists himself on the Board of Advisors of the International Association of Mediators and Arbitrators as "Jerry Hall, Ph.D." He claims to be a graduate of the "Harvard School of Law negotiations." I'll attach his full resume on the following page, but some of his claims are quite inventive. Mysteriously, nowhere in the background he filed with The Dallas Morning News does he claim to be a Ph.D or a graduate of Harvard Law School. It's also noteworthy that Hall is listed as owner of the IAMA's Web site, and the IAMA's address also is one of Hall's listed Houston addresses. So any mistakes on that site go straight to Hall's doorstep.

While we're on the subject of addresses: I can't find any evidence that Hall actually lives in District 4 or anywhere in Rockwall. The only address listed anywhere for him in Rockwall is a post office box. I tried to call Hall on the home phone he listed for us. The conversation started off fine, but when I got to these questions, he interrupted me with, "Hello? Hello? I can't hear you. I'm on a cellphone out in the country and the signal's going in and out." Then he hung up.

Holy cow. We had a lengthy interview with Debra Medina a few days ago, and in the middle of it, I felt like I was suffering from vertigo. Her rationalizations, her flawed logic, her easy fixes to very complex problems left me dumbfounded. And yet, I liked her underlying message of doing something radical to stop both the federal and state governments from spending money they don't have.

But now I feel a little stupid because I focused on her obsession with the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution (giving rights to the states when they're not explicitly given to the federal government). I just wanted to hear what she'd say, expecting some kind of verbal blunder that would hang her. I never thought of asking her about The 9/11 Conspiracy. (Honestly, I thought my brother was the only one who took that stuff seriously.)

So, journalistically, I'm really proud of Glenn Beck and impressed by his brilliance in asking that question. He must've had good intelligence on her and known that he could get her going if he asked it. And sure enough, she blabbed. And she ruined her political career in the process. My favorite quote from Beck was after he hung up the phone. "Wow. The fastest way back to 4%. Holy cow."

But here's another part of the interview that is just as telling about Medina and her "vision" about fixing our state's fiscal problems. Glenn Beck seems as nonplussed as I was when she offered the same solution to us.

The editorial board just finished an hour-long conversation with Gen. David Petraeus, chief of the U.S. Central Command and the mastermind behind the 2007-2009 turnaround in Iraq. It was interesting to hear his perspective, having been assigned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 to do an assessment of Afghanistan at a time when things were falling apart in Iraq.

"At that time, Afghanistan was the good war. It was the war we were winning, and it was just heading wonderfully in the right direction -- everybody thought," Petraeus recalled. "Of course, Iraq was the bad war, the war of choice, the war we were losing."

So imagine the joy in the room when Petraeus warned -- this is 2005, remember -- that his sense was "that Afghanistan is going to be the longest campaign of the long war."

Though he was trying to be upbeat, what Petraeus described to us over the course of an hour was an exceedingly grim picture of Afghanistan today. But he also reminded us of the exceedingly grim picture in Iraq at the time he made his 2005 assessment. During the month he arrived in Iraq in 2007, there were 230 attacks a day, and virtually no attacks in Afghanistan. The picture is completely reversed today.

So what happened? First of all, there were far too many assumptions made in Washington about security in Afghanistan. American forces were allowed to dwindle to the point that no one was minding the shop when the Taliban and al-Qaeda began reinfiltrating the country, stockpiling munitions and establishing links with Afghanistan's multibillion-dollar opium trafficking industry. What emerged was a far more economically powerful Taliban that now had the advantage of stealth, better weaponry and an ability to instill fear across the countryside -- but with no central command base that the United States could strike against.

I keep writing this phrase: "Southern Dallas deserves better." I keep reading it in other people's headlines and commentaries. And it strikes me at how hollow it is, especially considering the voting record of southern Dallas residents.

Let's look at one voter in particular: Gloria Hogg. She's the precinct chair in District 100. Here's her take on this week's events: "If Hodge's name is still on the ballot, then I will vote Terri. That doesn't mean I don't like Johnson. We don't know a lot about Mr. Johnson. Terri has been out here fighting for her constituents for 14 years. Until I hear further, Gloria Hogg supports Terri Hodge."

My god. And she's actually in a Democratic Party leadership position.

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You didn't ask, but I'll tell you: I'm not gay. You didn't ask, but I'll tell you: I'm not conservative. You didn't ask, but I'll tell you: I'm not Muslim. Not a single one of these statements has anything to do with the job of a soldier, sailor, Marine or airperson. In fact, the basis for the command structure of the U.S. military is to take the individuality out of the soldier specifically because there is no place for it in the military machine. That's why everyone gets a buzz cut. That's why everyone wears the same uniform. No one asks whether you have a preference for a blue helmet or green. Likewise, when you go into the military, no one asks you what your favorite sexual position is, or whether you prefer sex with farm animals.

It's not anyone's business, and when you go into the military, you keep your business to yourself. When a commander issues an order, the only thing that matters is that the command is obeyed. Why? Because the functioning of the entire military unit depends on it. The ability to carry out the mission depends on it. Yes, it's dehumanizing and mean, but it doesn't work any other way. And when you accept duty in the all-volunteer military, you accept the strictures that go along with it.

Somehow, the military got sidetracked. People started holding prayer meetings and deciding that they were doing God's work. Our post-9/11 mission in Afghanistan became a crusade. Contractors started putting biblical inscriptions on gunsights. Well before that, the issue of gays came up, and the solution was "don't ask, don't tell." And now that's being revised because it's been abused.

I propose a new policy: Shut up and do your job. Shut up and keep your religion, your sexual proclivities and your political inclinations to yourself. Stop trying to individualize your military service. In the military, you don't represent yourself. You represent your country.

I just got off the phone with Richard Allen, chief executive officer of The Allen Group, the biggest investor in the International Inland Port of Dallas. Allen says he has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will give him breathing space from his creditors while he reorganizes. Allen says he has faced a mountain of debt because of the 6,000 acres of land he bought and enormous warehouses he built in southern Dallas County, starting in 2005.

It was a huge undertaking and an enormous risk. Allen bet that he could turn his portion of the Inland Port, known as the Dallas Logistics Hub, into a profitable venture that would create tens of thousands of jobs for southern Dallas. But nobody could have predicted in 2005 what kinds of economic turmoil we would face in 2009-2010.

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I wanted to embed the video of Colonel Quaritch's speech to his new Avatar mercenary troops , but alas, James Cameron apparently won't let me. But it's the same speech I wish Obama had given during his inauguration. "Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. ... As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed."

Obama entered office a year ago with an impossible task. He inherited two badly managed wars. Unemployment was rising. Major banks were on the brink of collapse. All economic indicators were plummeting. Conservatives were waiting to eat his eyes for jujubes. And somehow, in all of this, most Americans thought he was going to work miracles. I wish he had promised us from day one: I will not succeed.

Well, he didn't say it. But he definitely hasn't succeeded, and the Senate vote in Massachusetts is at least in part a reflection of how badly things are going. No, this doesn't mean the Tea Party movement is sweeping the nation. It means Martha Coakley ran an awful campaign and Scott Brown outmaneuvered her. And the fact that the Democratic Party sat there and watched this happen means that they got caught wallowing in the same hubris that caused the Republicans' national domination to collapse after 2004. For some reason, images of Donald Rumsfeld keep popping into my head.

Well, this should be a great lesson for the Democrats, who lost a Senate seat that had remained squarely in their grasp since 1972. You can't just win a presidential election and think your work is done. It's only begun.

Anyone who's been to Haiti understands how difficult the next few days will be. Already, there are reports that the Port-au-Prince airport is so clogged with planes that aid flights are having to be turned away. That's because there's only one runway, no refueling facilities and no place to park planes.

The seaport is so small, it can only accommodate one or two small freighters at a time. There is another port south of Port-au-Prince in Jacmel, but the areas hardest hit by the earthquake lie between Jacmel and Port-au-Prince, which means roads will be impassable. The same is true of roads leading to the area from the neighboring Dominican Republic.

This quake has effectively cut Port-au-Prince off from the world. And as much as the world wants to dispatch supplies as quickly as possible, there are only a few heavily clogged routes that can be used for delivery.

The only thing I can compare this to is the situation in northern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 or in northern Afghanistan in 2002. People were starving, and there was no way to deliver aid to them. The United States wound up dropping food and water by air. The result was a mad rush of people scrambling to rip apart the air drops and get at what they needed. (In Afghanistan, the danger was considerable because supplies got dropped in the middle of mine fields.)

One of the greatest dangers for Port-au-Prince right now is looting and a breakdown of civil order. The tough question for outside aid agencies is this: if you start doing airdrops, will you create a mass frenzy that contributes to the breakdown of civil order? Or will people organize themselves and self-police? The latter outcome seems unlikely. My guess, considering the desperation I've seen in Haiti, is that some very troubling times are coming, regardless. But I think airdrops are the only short-term answer.

Our editorial today makes the case that, in spite of all the second-guessing and hand-wringing going on in Mexico and the United States about how (or whether) to fight the drug war in Mexico, the response from the drug lords themselves should be evidence enough of why the Mexican government must not give up.

The bound and beaten bodies of two Mexicans were hung execution style from an overpass in northern Mexico yesterday with a note attached to them, "This territory already has an owner." It was apparently from loyalists of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the major drug lord who was killed earlier this month in a raid. His group retaliated by killing the mother and three relatives of a marine who died while participating in the raid.

So the message is clear: Get out of here, Mexican government. This is our territory.

Lots of people will argue that the answer is to legalize drugs, which will get rid of the drug lords. Maybe that could happen over the decades it would take to legalize drugs. But back here on Planet Earth, there are people who will apparently stop at nothing to terrorize a nation into submission. How can anyone rationally argue that the answer is to give up, walk away and just let them have their turf? And American drug consumers who are funding these terrorists: How can you live with yourselves, knowing that this is what your money is going for?

This Christmas break has given me lots of time to watch my favorite cable channels late at night, like the History Channel and Speed. The programs are great, but what has really caught my attention are the ads that keep popping up everywhere from The Foundation for a Better Life/Values.com. The more I've seen them, the more I've realized that they were also catching my eye on billboards as I've driven between Dallas and Houston or Killeen.

These are simple messages. Click here to watch one of their inspirational videos about the value of hard work. I hope there's no hidden agenda behind them, because they really are useful, and if families and schools were to teach these messages regularly, particularly in southern Dallas, kids would start to get a completely different message about the choices they make in life. We're planning to make parental responsibility one of our big issues for 2010, and these messages go hand-in-hand with the ideas we want to convey.

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To follow up on Sharon's posting, I was really impressed with the strategy behind this police crackdown. Here's what appears to be behind it: All over southern Dallas where there are abandoned houses, drug gangs move in and take over. You would think that police could simply move in and arrest them for illegally occupying a house and dealing drugs out of it, but it's not that simple.

There are several reasons. First, houses are abandoned because their owners ...

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The thing about head injury is, you can't see it. A broken arm or ankle is immediately noticeable, but when it's a brain injury, it's invisible. The U.S. military has been very slow to acknowledge and address the rising rate of traumatic brain injury among troops exposed to powerful blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The NFL has been slow to acknowledge the effects of repeated blows to the head during the careers of its players. But now, they're all on board in acknowledging that the mindset has to change: Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there or that it's not serious.

Could someone please tell that to Texas Tech coach Mike Leach? His answer is to put receiver Adam James in a dark room for three hours with nothing to sit or lean on, according to ESPN. In other words, punish and stigmatize him. That's so-o-o adult.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon launched a major campaign to de-stigmatize the notion of brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Why? Because they realized that people with very serious injuries would not step forward and get help for fear that their commanders and fellow troops would make fun of them or ostracize them. The Pentagon set out to change the old mindset.

That's what has to happen immediately in the NCAA. We've been arguing about the suspension of Leach in our office as some question whether it was too harsh. I think Leach got what he deserves (and I'm a Tech graduate). His lawyer argues that Adam James "was a disgruntled student athlete that, like many, were not happy with their playing time." But think about it: You're unhappy that you're not playing enough, so you "fake" a brain injury so as to ensure that you will not get to play?

Right.

Going over my boss's notes from the mayor's Southern Dallas breakfast last week, I noticed that the Dallas Logistics Hub's president, Richard Allen, was present and accounted for. And the mayor mentioned Allen's hard work in developing the Logistics Hub as the key component of the International Inland Port of Dallas.

But that's it?

If you remember, this time last year there was quite a commotion over allegations that Allen had been the victim of a "shake-down" by three southern Dallas businessmen and two politicians, John Wiley Price and Sen. Royce West.

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The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. is trying a new reporting strategy. Despite some magnificent resources for ferreting out the news, its reporters and editors can't seem to figure out how former prime minister Tony Blair is making his money these days. They know he's making millions, but they're asking readers to help them explain how. And, more to the point, they need to know whether it's legal. So they're holding a contest. It's not clear what the winner will receive, but it's an interesting way to engage the public in the reporting process. The Guardian's web site gives you all the tools: documents, links, Blair's business history, his business associates, etc. You sift through it and explain it. Then report it.

Bizarre.

Obama's Afghanistan speech was more interesting for what he didn't say than what he did. Two key things he didn't specify: Is the 30,000-troop figure a cap or just the starting point? Unless I missed something, he didn't say that he was limiting the total deployment, only that he was sending these 30,000 beginning in early 2010. Also important was his reference to the 18-month withdrawal timetable. All he said was that the withdrawal would begin in July 2011. He never specified when the U.S. presence in Afghanistan would end.

Why is this important? I think Obama has deliberately left his options open. Yes, he will face criticism from John McCain and other hawks that the withdrawal timetable signals to our enemies that they only have to wait us out. McCain is correct on this point. However, I agree with Obama that he needs to make clear to the Afghans that the U.S. commitment is not open-ended, and that they need to take on a sense of urgency regarding their own training and preparation for the day when they will assume responsibility for their own security. This was exactly the argument we made regarding the need for Bush to get the Iraqis moving on their own training program. And the timetable worked.

At the same time, Obama has the flexibility to keep tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan for as long as it takes, even if he starts removing them slowly in mid-2011. So I'm not particularly troubled by this timetable.

Overall, I have to say, the speech didn't stray far from what we've advocated in our editorials, and it adhered to the reasoning behind our arguments that a troop increase is necessary. I am in Washington attending a Knight Center seminar on national security and foreign affairs. Tuesday night, I had the rare experience of watching the speech alongside John McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA, and an Afghan journalist, Najibullah Sharifi.

You might have noticed those little articles on the back pages of your newspaper talking about an election in Honduras over the weekend. Most people probably yawned and turned to Sports. Here's my take on why those elections were a really big deal.

Over the past decade, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been trying to rebuild a socialist base across Latin America after it collapsed in the late 1980s/early '90s, when Latin America got swept up in free-trade fervor and democratization. Right-wing military dictators were swept aside, and for the most part, Latin American voters opted for fireworks-free centrist leaderships. But around the time Chavez won the presidency in Venezuela, the enthusiasm about free trade was starting to die down across the region as blue-collar and middle-class workers saw precious few benefits from the end of the old protectionist ways. Chavez seized on this popular disaffection.

He helped engineer socialist election victories in Ecuador and Bolivia, then moved on to Honduras and Nicaragua. (Brazil's socialist government has charted its own course, steering clear of Chavez's hard-line confrontational tactics.) But things got pretty nasty in Honduras, especially when President Manuel Zelaya tried to adopt a Chavez tactic of re-engineering the electoral law to allow himself to run for re-election even though the constitution forbids any such tampering. That's what sparked a coup this summer and led to the past few months of turmoil.

The Obama administration was in a fix. Zelaya clearly was maneuvering to reshape his country in the Chavez mold. Combined with Daniel Ortega's resurgence in Nicaragua, it meant that Central America was on a dangerous track toward confrontation and military-backed coups. It showed how truly fragile everything remains in the region.

It turns out that we've got it all wrong in the Middle East. Despite the fact that every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter has recognized the damage done by Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, Sarah Palin says the solution is simply to butt out.

"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow," Palin told Barbara Walters in an interview. "I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

I guess she also disagreed with the Bush administration on that. Not just George W. Bush but his father. Oh, and Ronald Reagan.

Well, there you have it from the expert. Middle East problem solved.

Stay tuned for her solution to global warming: Burn more coal.

It seems to me that the very definition of insanity is going into a crowded place and opening fire in an effort to kill as many people as possible. And, yes, it's terrorism. So even though Maj. Nidal Hasan's attorney is maneuvering to plea insanity in the Fort Hood case, I have to wonder why we even consider insanity a defense for acts that are obviously insane but nonetheless deserve the harshest punishments our legal system can mete out. I've never understood, for example, why John Hinckley Jr. was able to successfully argue insanity for trying to kill President Reagan and permanently maiming James Brady when the thought process that led him to that point was no less insane than other major acts of terrorist insanity.

So whether we're talking about the terrorist George Jo Hennard, who drove his pickup truck into a Luby's cafeteria in 1991 and shot and killed 22 people in Killeen before committing suicide; or terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who exploded a bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995 that killed 168 people, or terrorists Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who opened fire on classmates at Columbine High School in 1999 and killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide; or terrorist Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 before committing suicide; or terrorist Nadal Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded 42, what we're really talking about are acts of insanity. Pure insanity.

McVeigh was executed nonetheless. Hinckley remains in a mental institution. Hasan's trial will be long and dramatic and drawn out, and the nation will be outraged with every attempt by his lawyer to save his life and possibly have him committed.

But it begs the question: Why should our legal system even offer an insanity defense when the actions of the perpetrators -- insane or not -- are indefensible? When it's all said and done, what is the use of trying to mentally rehabilitate someone whose crimes are of such a heinous nature? Why even hold out the option that this person might recover and eventually become a productive and free member of our society? Because it's obvious in Hasan's case that this ain't gonna happen.

Upon the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran, and in view of recent incidents of mass arrests, torture, rape and extrajudicial punishments by the current illegitimate and corrupt regime, the Committee of the Original Defenders of Freedom in the Struggle Against Imperialist Intervention would like to make the following announcement:

The Martyrs Council of the Journal for the Furtherance of Iranian Revolutionary Virtue regrets to inform that, due to an editing error, the "great Satan" mentioned in our previous 13,302 communiques was misidentified. Upon further review, the council's Supreme Committee for the Fighting of Evil on Earth has determined that the words "United States" and "America" were inadvertently inserted in articles referring to the spies, subverters and abominable performers of Satan's work against the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In addition, references to the former embassy of Satan in Iran erroneously implied that America occupied the top position as Principle Committer of Evil in the world.

Upon further inspection, it is determined that the term "Great Satan" actually refers to the current oppressive Iranian leadership and its puppet master, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose soul should smolder in Hell for all eternity.

The Martyrs Council's Higher Directorship for Guidance in the Defense Against Unvirtuous Endeavors sincerely regrets any inconvenience these errors might have caused. A corrected version of our previous 13,302 communiques will be issued shortly.

Paul Quinn's president, Michael Sorrell, stopped in for a talk yesterday with the editorial board about his college's future. He faced a lot of skepticism. He dodged some important questions about academic quality and faculty-student ratios. I can't say everyone is convinced that Paul Quinn remains viable as an institution of higher learning. It almost seems more appropriate to describe it as a remedial learning center for kids who have higher aspirations. Paul Quinn is fighting for its life, having lost its accreditation and surviving only because of a court injunction that keeps its doors open.

Okay, I've succinctly expressed the views of some editorial board members who sat at the table. I'm not among the skeptics, although I respect their views. Here's what I heard from Sorrell's responses: Yes, Paul Quinn faces some enormous challenges. No, Paul Quinn will never compete -- and never hopes to compete -- with big universities in terms of academic rigor and producing students with specialty degrees. The mission of Paul Quinn is unlike anything we on the outside will ever know or understand without first gaining the perspective of the students attending classes there. And it's hard for folks from solidly middle-class or upper-middle-class backgrounds, who attended universities with student bodies ranging in sizes from 20,000 to 45,000, to understand the merits of a little college in southern Dallas with only 170 students.

Texas A&M, SMU or University of Texas have the luxury of drawing from the top-performing students in the country. Those students, by and large, have enjoyed the luxury of focusing on academics all their lives because their parents -- comparatively speaking -- have had the financial means to keep them fed, clothed and housed securely within a nurturing environment that propels them forward constantly. Most of Paul Quinn's applicants come from southern Dallas. The median family -- family -- income is $25,000 a year.

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I've stayed pretty quiet in the debate of health care reform because, quite frankly, I'm ambivalent about what the proper mix should be between government intervention and allowing the market to decide.

The more I look at the behavior of insurance companies, though, the more I'm convinced their abuses will only get worse unless someone steps in. I think insurance companies deserve to be treated the same way we treat public utilities. Let them be run privately but heavily regulated to halt them from committing the kinds of egregious abuses that we all know they commit. Ever been caught in the insurer's telephone maze? That's when you have a problem, and you call their toll-free number. They make you wait and wait, then when you finally speak to a human, they pass you to another person, who makes you wait some more. Then on to another, then another. They deliberately wear you down so you'll give up and just pay them what they're billing you.

Well, listen to this program, which aired two nights ago on The Story (KERA/American Public Media). I know, I know. All the conservatives out there will immediately attack anything on National Public Radio as a bastion of liberalism and therefore not worthy of consideration. But listen to this program, which tells the story of a couple who were expecting twins. Their insurance company -- United Healthcare -- had the nerve to cancel their insurance (after they had just paid their premium) because they had failed to notify the company that there was a change in their dependents' status. That is, United Healthcare claimed that the couple had failed to declare ahead of time that twins were on the way and, once born, would be covered as dependents under the couple's policy. But it gets worse: United made the cancellation retroactive, forcing the couple to pay all of their pre-natal bills, which included the usual visits a woman makes to the doctor once she knows she's pregnant. The total came to $450,000.

Skeptical about the need for health care reform? After you listen to this story, I'd be interested in your thoughts about how, exactly, market forces are supposed to correct abuses like this without some kind of government intervention.

When I read this story in the paper this morning, I felt a sudden burst of conflicting outrages. I wanted to be outraged at DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, but then the outrage at unelected District 9 trustee Ron Price overtook my Hinojosa outrage. The two outrages are still fighting with each other. I will notify you as soon as a winner is declared. But my guess is that Ron Price will simply declare himself the winner because he seems to enjoy being outrageous and cares not a whit about rules, processes and picky little details like "democracy."

Hinojosa knew perfectly well that the school board did not want to authorize a raise for Robin Ryan, a member of his staff who was recently promoted to an executive director position. The school board had specifically rejected Hinojosa's request that Ryan receive a raise to make his salary $188,295 a year.

When that effort failed, this week someone slipped it into the school board's consent agenda, which members approve or reject with a single yay or nay vote. Hinojosa knew it had been slipped into the agenda. He brought it to Price's attention. And the two of them together consciously decided to keep it there, knowing that none of the other school board members were aware that it had been placed on the agenda. It's about the sneakiest, most underhanded ...

For those of you who don't regularly tune in to the Gap Blog, you might have missed the daily conversation we've been having about the important issues behind our "Bridging the North-South Gap" project. Well, here's a quick way to catch up and then join us over on the Gap Blog. This Sunday, we're launching a special project that'll appear both online and in the print newspaper.

The project will be jam-packed with information, statistics and online features that will add to your base of resources on southern Dallas. Here's who to expect starting Sunday:

• In the print newspaper, an expanded Points section will contain thought-provoking essays, detailed graphics and maps full of measurements showing how specific neighborhoods in southern Dallas compare to the northern half of our city. We look at property values, educational attainment, poverty and income, employment, health and crime, among many other measurements.
• Online at dallasnews.com/opinion/northsouth, we'll offer interactive maps that you can customize to get a better idea of where the challenges lie. Want to know how many houses have peeling paint in our West Dallas Gateway neighborhood? What's the vacant land in Grand South Dallas? Or maybe where stray dogs are sighted in The Heart of Oak Cliff? These maps will help you visualize the challenges that southern Dallas residents face.
• Also online, we'll have virtual "helicopter tours" of greater southern Dallas and each of our five base neighborhoods. These videos allow you to tour an expanse of territory the size of Atlanta, hover over interesting landmarks, and get an overhead sense of how the southern Dallas puzzle fits together.
• An additional online feature is a full database and access to detailed "windshield maps" prepared by the University of Texas at Dallas' Institute for Urban Policy Research. You'll be able to download everything so you can access the maps and compare statistics from the comfort of your own computer.

The Dallas Morning News wants to push this discussion forward with an eye toward making real progress toward bridging the north-south gap. We hope you'll check out this Sunday's Points section, stay involved in our Gap Blog discussion and join forces with us in making our city whole.

Over on our Bridging the North-South Gap blog, I've posted an item about a new Centers for Disease Control survey reporting that the rate of unprotected sex among the nation's teens is increasing again after steady declines from 1991 to 2005.

The new study, which compares rates from 2002 to 2007, shows that teen pregnancy rates and infections of sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise. Particularly troubling are the rates of unprotected sex among black teens. These figures track closely with results we've seen in our five southern Dallas bases.

Check out the Gap blog for details, plus information about this weekend's 7th annual Black Film Festival in Fair Park.

I'm not shedding any tears over Michael Jackson's death, but dang, he sure was talented. This is one of the finest covers of Thriller that I've ever heard/seen. This guy sang Thriller and did all the "instrumentals" completely a capella. Watch each frame of this video and try to pick out the track that goes with the corresponding part in the song. This video is ingenious.

Over on the southern Dallas GapBlog today, we discuss the debate in the Latino community about whether illegal immigrants should boycott the 2010 Census. A national Latino church organization is calling on illegal immigrants to boycott as a means of pressuring Congress and the Obama administration into moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform.

I'm not so sure this is a smart strategy because participation in the census is required by law. Is it right to encourage people who already have broken the law by entering the country illegally to break the law again? And what about the group that is encouraging them to boycott? Are they guilty of incitement?

See the full discussion over at the GapBlog.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that a 15-year-old deserves the lifetime stigma of being termed a sex offender for getting caught having sex with his under-age girlfriend. I'm also not big on trying kids as adults. But something really irks me about the 10 years probation handed down yesterday to Kelvin Payne for putting a gun to a girl's head and forcing her to perform oral sex on him at a baseball field near John B. Hood Middle School in Pleasant Grove. The girl's younger brother had to watch. The trauma she suffered will probably last a liftetime, and it's compounded by the knowledge that Payne could continue to walk the streets without serving any time in prison. He was 15 when he and his friends did this crime. He's now 18.

The DNA evidence collected made absolutely clear that Payne did this crime. The fact that a gun was involved (along with multiple robberies witnesses said he committed) shows that there was nothing even remotely consensual in this. This isn't a case of "boys will be boys." This was a serious criminal act that needed serious prosecution.

Newsweek magazine's annual survey of the nation's top public high schools came out today, and two DISD schools hold the two top places: TAG and the Science and Engingeering magnet. North Hills Prep in Irving got No. 9, and Highland Park got No. 23.

Not bad for a school system that has been under such intense scrutiny and often deserved criticism over the past year. Still, it makes me wonder whether Dr. Hinojosa did the right thing by recommending cuts for the DISD magnet schools program, because that the one thing in the district that seems to be going consistently on the right track.

If you haven't checked out our new GapBlog, which focuses on southern Dallas, now's the time to do it. Our Gap Rap discussion is about Saturday's city council runoff election in Oak Cliff between Delia Jasso and Justin Epker. Today's Dallas Morning News has a story noting that some Oak Cliff Hispanics are pointedly not rallying around Jasso as they're candidate. Yes, she's Hispanic. Yes, she's bilingual and boasts the ability to speak to her constituents in whatever language they prefer. And, yes, something like 70 percent to 80 percent of Oak Cliff is Hispanic. But should ethnicity be the deciding factor in this election?

Some Hispanic voters don't think so, and they've decided that Epker, who doesn't speak Spanish, can do a better job representing their interests than Jasso. They're more concerned that Jasso represents the continuation of a dynasty begun by Oak Cliff attorney Domingo Garcia and continued by his wife, Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia, who is soon to vacate her city council seat. Our editorial board has spoken with both Jasso and Epker, along with three other candidates who sought election. A heavy undercurrent in our discussion was whether being Hispanic, or at least a Spanish-speaker, is a necessity or requirement for being the Oak Cliff council representative. Epker doesn't think so. Jasso thinks it's important. We think Jasso deserves election because she's smart, well informed and very active in the community.

Take a look at our GapBlog and you'll see why the rapid growth of the Hispanic population across southern Dallas suggests this election issue won't go away anytime soon. Whether you comment here or there, my question is: Should ethnicity and Spanish-speaking ability be voters' primary consideration?

Today, we're launching the GapBlog, a new interactive online forum for the exchange of news and viewpoints about southern Dallas and ways to bridge the North-South Gap.

Each day we'll offer up a major daily topic of discussion involving policy issues, developmental questions, crime, immigration, racial relations or other controversial topics involving the southern Dallas community. We also want to use this blog to get news and important announcements in front of as many people as possible.

We hope you'll join the GapBlog discussion so we can keep politicians, policymakers, the business community and others focused on the priority of improving the quality of life in southern Dallas.

A year ago Wednesday, The Bridge opened its doors to the thousands of homeless people living on the streets of Dallas. According to information I received this morning, over the past year, 660,770 meals (prepared by the Stewpot) have been served at The Bridge by 15,850 volunteers (organized by the Stewpot).

I had the opportunity to visit The Bridge today with my daughter and other volunteers from The Dallas Morning News. Although I've written lots about The Bridge and have driven past it, I have to admit, I had never been inside. We served breakfast to what seemed like hundreds of homeless men and women from all walks of life. As my colleague Steve Blow noted, they defied stereotyping. There was one man wore business attire. There were a few folks who looked like bikers. One guy looked like he'd fit in as a student on the campus of SMU.

From what we saw of the facilties at The Bridge, I have to say, I was thoroughly impressed with the value that taxpayers have received from the $21 million bond that paid for its construction. The Stewpot also deserves enormous credit for the meal service it has provided along with other Dallas non-profit groups. Put it this way: It was a lot nicer than the banana and peanut butter-on-toast that I scarfed down this morning.

I guess I shouldn't be amazed at the people who argue against efforts to control the smuggling of guns bound for Mexican drug lords. The item I posted yesterday led to quite a response from readers, many of whom don't seem to understand the source of the "90 percent" figure cited for the weapons captured from the drug cartels. The source is the Mexican government, based on their actual capture statistics of traceable weapons from about 18,000 seized over the previous two years. It's not made up. And it's not an Obama administration fabrication. The traces were conducted and the figures compiled before Obama took office.

But if you need further evidence, then consider statistics that came out in April based on actual U.S. court documents regarding seizures of weapons bound for Mexico. Click below to read the study from the Violence Policy Center.

Anyone who's interested in the history of the implosion at the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce should read these documents carefully (click on "toggle full screen" to read them). This is an exchange of letters between a representative of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the attorney representing a GDHCC board member who resigned in protest of pressure tactics used by some chamber members to get a specific person named to the vacant position of president/CEO of the chamber.

One candidate for the job was Hector Flores, former national president of LULAC, who acknowledges having no experience running a business. The board did not choose him as one of three finalists for the job.

The first letter below is from Edward Elizondo, a LULAC official, threatening a board member with potential legal action regarding the culling process that led to the rejection of Hector Flores. The second letter, from the board member's attorney, warns Elizondo and LULAC that they risk possible lawsuit for slander and libel for the allegations raised in the first letter.

This is fascinating reading and goes far to explain why so many business professionals resigned this month from the GDHCC board when confronted with LULAC's tactics. The blackened areas are redactions made by the chamber member who supplied them to us.

LULAC_GDHCC

I guess it wasn't enough for the gun lobby that they successfully cowed Congress into submission and won approval (in a rider to a credit-card reform bill) for people to carry assault weapons into national parks. They now believe that the Mexicans are lying when they report that 90 percent of guns seized from Mexican drug cartels are traceable to U.S. sellers.

They think this supposed distortion of the facts is just a ploy by the pro-terrorist, socialist, anti-freedom President Barack Obama to further undermine our constitutional rights by trying to restrict our freedom to send our weapons across the border to kill Mexicans. (These rights are clearly spelled out in the fine print of the Second Amendment.) This obviously is part of Obama's anti-employment agenda as well. By depriving American gun sellers of the right to sell their weapons to smugglers, he is denying gainful employment and income-generating opportunities to Americans. Obama is downright un-American.

Here's what the CCRKBA (Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) says about the real -- albeit unsourced -- facts: (click below to continue reading)

Okay, I think we can all agree from the start: Taxpayers do not need to be paying anything for fiberglass decorative peaches at the Farmer's Market. There are probably a thousand other little things we're paying for that we shouldn't, and yes, those things add up. We could eliminate them and still face our current $100 million budget shortfall. So, as our editorial in today's paper argues, it's time to get serious about trimming items in the budget that previously were regarded as untouchable: library hours, public swimming pool operations, utility pay stations.

"There are some things I cannot live without," says Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia. We might not have to do away with those things altogether, but if we have any hope of balancing the budget, we're going to have to trim them back.

Can you identify three city services that you previously regarded as untouchable but which, now, you'd be willing to reconsider for trims in order to balance the budget? Here are my candidates for cutbacks: 1. Twice-a-week garbage pickup. 2. Expanding the police force (I say, keep the force at the level it is now). 3. Eliminate new installations of decorative-brick intersections and crosswalks on city streets (these are really attractive, but hugely expensive to install and maintain).

What cuts would you make?

A group of travel bloggers is taking an online poll of the greatest places on earth. Okay, okay, I'm not suggesting anyone nominate Dallas, although I'm sure we'd come in ahead of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. But I'd be curious whether you think some places have been left off this list. I can think of at least five, including Green Cay in the British Virgin Islands, the Loire Valley in France, Churchill's boyhood home at Blenheim, in England, the Hearst Castle south of San Francisco, and Wengen, Switzerland. If not for landmines and the Taliban, there are also a few places I'd recommend in Afghanistan, including the Salang Tunnel. The photo above is from the Bahamas, but if I told you exactly where, it wouldn't be a very special place much longer, would it?

What would you nominate?

Our editorial today sums up the unfortunate situation engulfing the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Particularly noteworthy is the impression conveyed by activist Adelfa Callejo that it's somehow unfair to include members of the chamber's board of directors on the search committee that will choose the chamber's new president/CEO. I don't know of any private organization in the land that doesn't let its own directors choose the person they will charge with running the day-to-day business of that organization.

Anyway, that offers a bit of the flavor surrounding this controversy. Continue reading to view the resignation letters of the board members who were outraged by what happened.

There appears to be a growing number of racist incidents against blacks that civil rights groups in Dallas are attributing to white supremacist groups. We've heard reports of a white supremacist group setting up an office or residence in South Dallas, of all places. Yesterday, a group gathered at the Old Red Courthouse to draw attention to the distribution of Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers being distributed in Forney and racial and sexual graffiti being placed on a church bus in Bedford.

Well, Forrest Lee, imperial klazik and spokesman for the regional Klan, wants to make it clear that his group is no longer the bunch of supremacist thugs who engaged in midnight lynchings, cross-burnings, kidnappings and other terrorist activities across the South.

"We would never do anything like that," he said of the incident in Bedford. "We're not the Klan of the '60s and '70s. We do not practice hate."
I'm amazed this group still exists legally, with its own spokesman and phone number and everything. It's as if this nation has a double standard on terrorism. If the terrorist group conducted its activities against an oppressed racial minority, then it's all right. But if it conducts its activities against establishment people in business suits in big buildings, that's bad.

I wonder if, in a few years, people will be able to claim membership in al-Qaeda and proclaim, "Hey, we're not the al-Qaeda of the 1990s and 2000s. We don't practice beheadings and kidnappings and mass murders anymore. We do not practice hate."

Right.

It's wonderful when lawmakers do the right thing, and the Timothy Cole Act was the rightest of right things to do. There are few greater injustices in the world than sending people to prison for crimes they did not commit. Timothy Cole, a former Texas Tech student, was among them, and he died in prison an innocent man, exonerated by DNA evidence that proved he could not have committed the rape he was convicted of.

Other exonerees have been released from prison with little more than a handshake and a hearty goodbye. One of them, whose life was ruined by the experience, now is walking the streets of southern Dallas as a homeless person. This is shameful.

The Senate today passed the Timothy Cole Act (27-4 vote), following the House's approval last month. This measure will provide for increased compensation for exonerees, plus the option of financial-management annuities and 120 hours of paid vocational classes or college tuition to help exonerees rebuild the lives that prosecutors took from them. Kudos to the Texas Innocence Project and Rep. Rafael Anchia for pushing this measure through.

Take a look at this beer-swilling pit-bull owner as he giggles his way through a television interview. His two pit bulls had just mauled a letter carrier, nearly killing the man and inflicting more than 20 puncture wounds on his neck and thigh. He was saved by a neighbor who had to use a hammer against the dogs. (Thanks to dogsbite.org for alerting us.)

Rod tells us that City Council member Angela Hunt is latching onto this very issue like, well, a pit bull (continue reading)

As we continue our discussion of how to communicate respectfully on the blog, I'd like to alert readers to a letter written by Andrew C. McCarthy, of the National Review Institute, to Attorney General Eric Holder, explaining McCarthy's decision not to participate in a roundtable discussion of the president's detention policy for terrorism suspects. This is a scathing critique of the decision to shut down Guantanamo. McCarthy makes a persuasive argument, and while he strongly disagrees with the Obama administration's decisions, he does so in a way that doesn't completely shut down the discussion.

Worth considering as all of us search for ways to make this blog reader-friendly and engaging, rather than a place for angry people to denigrate each other.

Read McCarthy's letter by clicking below:

I was checking out different Web sites today and came across a site for, gosh, the elegant new Dallas Convention Center Hotel. Everything about it is first class. "Luxury and Elegance With The Bureaucracy You Would Expect." Even the engraved-looking lettering tells you, this is one Very Serious Hotel Web Site.

"From it's grand marble, steel and glass all the way to the hand-installed porcelain toilets, we want you to experience the grandeur that only a public project can bring you," the home page promises visitors.

Be sure to check out the Reservations link. And Directions from the new Trinity Tollway.

In case you're worried this is sponsored by Citizens Against Socialist Government or Harlan Crow's group, believe me, they're not capable of mustering this kind of humor. The creators tell you at the bottom of each page that they are "Nobody even remotely connected with the City, the Hotel or anybody else other than the miscreants at Dallas.Org." Trust them. They openly admit to being miscreants, as opposed to the other folks in this debate who are still in denial.

Residents of South Dallas gathered yesterday evening for a public meeting in which TxDOT presented its plans for a redesign of S.M. Wright freeway. That's the infamous highway that cuts through the heart of South Dallas, linking U.S. 175 and state highway 310 to the Central Expressway and I-45.

TxDOT officials were smart to acknowledge that the highway's current design was an urban-planning disaster. It created "Deadman's Curve," which is one of the most dangerous interchanges in the city. It divided South Dallas, creating an island of despair between Lamar and S.M. Wright that is now populated by poor families, liquor stores and abandoned buildings. Once-beautiful residential areas and stately homes now abut ugly freeway ramps and overpasses.

This has so much to do with the mess that southern Dallas has become. (continue reading)

Thick skin is probably the number one requirement for anyone who gets into politics. But with the blogging community bringing everyone into the daily political discussion, a lot of folks with thinner skin and easily hurt feelings are finding themselves offended by the harsh rhetoric that now passes for political banter these days. This blog is no exception. I'm shocked at how easily readers fly off the handle or launch into angry tirades, often about racial issues, when they could easily tone it down.

But it's not just here. I was accused recently of resorting to "racist journalism" because I posted an item on a Latino site in which I used the phrase "illegal immigrant." On another site, I've seen tennis players -- tennis players! -- deploy the race card because they're upset about a team from an East Dallas public court dominating a bunch of rich private clubs from the north in USTA league competition. A news story about legislation to punish people who run over pedestrians somehow prompted an angry discussion of illegal immigrants. This trend is exacerbated by politicians like John Wiley Price labeling as racists those who oppose a city-funded convention center hotel.

Continue reading:

Tomorrow, the state House will vote on a bill to dramatically increase the compensation given to exonerees. Currently, the state pays $50,000 for every year that a wrongfully convicted prisoner spends behind bars. That's not even close to handling the needs of these exonerees, especially considering the huge amounts that they must pay to their lawyers for getting them out.

This bill, sponsored by Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, is named for Timothy Cole, whom we've written about on our editorial page. Cole died in prison in 1999 while serving a 25 year sentence after being wrongfully convicted for the rape of a Texas Tech student in 1985. Another man confessed to the crime and subsequent DNA tests confirmed that Cole could not possibly have been the rapist. It was the very definition of a travesty of justice.

Anchia's bill would increase the lump sum compensation paid to victims of wrongful imprisonment from $50,000 to $80,000 for each year of imprisonment. In addition to the lump sum payment, the bill also requires the State of Texas to make monthly payments to the exonerated individual for life plus pay health insurance and provide up to 120 hours of free tuition at a career center, community college or state university.

This is one bill that deserves quick approval so we can at least partially compensate individuals who, largely because of prosecutorial overzealousness, served prison time for offenses they didn't commit.

I actually listened to K.C. and the Sunshine Band this morning while driving to work. For the rest of the day, the words, "That's the way, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh," will be bouncing around in my head. Why would I subject myself to such torture? Because that -- and possibly even waterboarding -- is preferable to listening to the constant, droaning, unrelenting interruptions of NPR programming so that KERA can raise funds during its spring Annoyathon.

They advertise KERA as listener-supported radio, and I'm one of those listeners and supporters. The implication is that this is advertisement-free radio. But if you calculate how many hours KERA spends each year on its quarterly fund-raising drives, it probably comes out to the same amount of time that normal radio stations devote to "McDonalds Special Happy Fun Meal Deals" and "Amazing Strips That'll Improve Your Sex Life!" ads.

So, once again, I humbly appeal to the powers that be at KERA: Change your fund-raising formula. Stop nagging your listeners and driving them away from you. Do not make it a choice between a whiny appeal for donations and K.C. and the Sunshine Band. The rest of us here in MediaLand are rapidly becoming advertisement-free as well. We are learning very quickly that we have to change our financing formula in order to survive. It's time for you to change yours as well.

In the meantime, sigh, support KERA. It's a really great radio station ... most of the time.

It seems that no matter what the City of Dallas does to resolve the street-renaming controversy over Cesar Chavez, someone is going to be upset about it. This issue hasn't died down, particularly in the Latino community, because lots of people feel the city should have honored the results of their online/telephone vote that overwhelmingly favored renaming Industrial for Cesar Chavez. Never mind that the city's "poll" was a really bad idea that had no validity in terms of providing an accurate measure of popular support. The Latino community feels it has been ignored. Not once but twice, because of failed efforts (so far) to rename Ross Ave. for Cesar Chavez.

New York City faces these kinds of street-renaming debates on an almost monthly basis, with much the same result as we have in Dallas. People get angry when street names change. New York's solution is to allow some streets to have two names. So portions of W 66th St are also named Peter Jennings Way, in honor of the late ABC News anchor. Cathedral Pkwy is the honorary name for part of 110th St. Another part is named Tito Puente Way.

Instead of looking for either/or solutions to the renaming problem, why not consider double-naming?

I know that FoxNews tried to make the Tax Day tea parties look like a huge outpouring of national anger over taxation and government debt (mislabeled as Obama's fault even though the record is clear that he inherited this problem from the Bush administration). Granted, outside City Hall in downtown Dallas, the traffic was slightly snarled yesterday evening, and there must've been, gosh, hundreds of people standing on the grass waving protest posters.

I'd be curious to hear from those who attended: Did you meet any disgruntled Democrats? Or was this, as expected, a gathering of outraged conservatives who have yet to get the message that these political ploys didn't work in the election, and they aren't going to work now?

I've never been a fan of manufactured-for-TV marches and protests. The contrived nature of it belies the supposedly "grassroots" outrage it's supposed to convey. Am I happy about the administration's $3.5 trillion budget? No way. It really is outrageous. But where was the outrage when all this spending first started -- under the Bush administration? It's only when the Democrats got into power that the Republicans started questioning the wisdom of massive deficit spending that will be the job of our grandchildren to repay.

The Sunday story about the Inland Port, by Kevin Krause and Gromer Jeffers, really left me disturbed. If nothing else, it underscored how bad racial relations still are in this city. There remains a high level of tension and defensiveness that, in my opinion, poses a major impediment to development in southern Dallas. Some black residents are suspicious of anyone who comes from outside their community to invest there. The concern is that outsiders only want to milk southern Dallas for profits and give nothing back to the community. But among white developers, apparently there is a concern that to do business in southern Dallas, you have to "play ball" (submit to a shakedown).

In spite of their denials about setting up roadblocks when Inland Port developer Richard Allen came to do business here, County Commissioner John Wiley Price and Sen. Royce West have not helped improve our city's image with their behavior. After reviewing Sen. West's behavior in this affair, especially his attempts to be part of a $1.5 million contract solicitation to Richard Allen, I'm convinced his motives are particularly suspect. When the contract was rejected, as a state senator, West subsequently started throwing roadblocks in Allen's way. That's a shocking use of his official powers for a matter in which he tried to have a personal stake.

As for the misperceptions, both sides are way off base. I sure hope southern Dallas doesn't have to wait for another generation to pass, and bygone memories to fade, before something good happens to make these misperceptions a thing of the past.

I just finished reading through various entries on the RedLatinaDFW online discussion group, and I have to admit, I was shocked at several entries. There is, I'm afraid, a very skewed, unwarranted and un-factual understanding of how hiring, firing, coverage and editorial decisions are made at this newspaper. Some entries suggest we are anti-Latino. They suggest there were racial motivations behind decisions regarding this week's layoffs in our company.

I've invited those readers to broaden their horizons a bit by joining our discussions here. They do little to promote their cause by restricting their discussion to a small and relatively insular group. Some of their complaints are legitimate. Others are misunderstandings based on wrong information or bad interpretations of events. Whatever they are, they deserved to be aired in a more public forum where everyone can join the debate and exchange views. I think this is the perfect place to do it. But, as always when we disagree, we need to keep it respectful -- and factual.

So, our new president just made a surprise trip to Baghdad. In Turkey earlier, he held a town hall meeting dominated by a talk with Turkish youth, in which he urged them to be involved in issues of peace and diplomacy because, he said, the future of the Middle East is in their hands.

These all strike me as fantastic themes and very well times. His trip to Baghdad was, at this point, almost obligatory. I was in Baghdad for President Bush's first trip there, and it was a real shocker when it happened. Now, it's almost like a space shuttle launch -- interesting, almost commonplace, but always tinged with a sense of danger if things suddenly go wrong.

Here's the issue that's worthy of considerable debate: In Turkey, Obama for the first time went to lengths to stress his Muslim heritage and the fact that his middle name is Hussein. Whereas it was a liability and a point of attack by his critics during the campaign, he is now trying to turn it into an asset as he travels in a part of the world that badly needs to see America as something other than a bastion of white Christian crusaders bent on world domination.

What do you think? Is this the right approach, and will it ultimately be successful? If you're a skeptic, how do you think it could backfire on him? Remember folks: It's all right to disagree, but keep it respectful.

State Sen. Royce West of Dallas seems to be a jack of all trades. He's a senator. He's a lawyer. He's a businessman. One thing he doesn't do well, though, is draw the line between his legislative duties and his money-making activities. Two cases come to mind. His name has popped up very, very often in connection with the Dallas Logistics Hub/Inland Port in southern Dallas County. According to various people involved in the project, Sen. West contacted members of the SALT Group -- Jon Edmonds, Willis Johnson and Pettis Norman -- and asked to be included as a member of their high-priced consulting team in late 2005 as they sought a $1.5 million contract with Inland Port developer Richard Allen.

After the SALT Group was rejected for their contract (and West was rejected from being on the consulting team), West joined County Commissioner John Wiley Price in throwing a long series of legislative roadblocks in Richard Allen's way, resulting in costly delays for his project. Sen. West didn't seem to understand that he can't be a businessman and a legislator at the same time, overseeing the same business that he seeks to be involved in.

Now, Sen. West's name emerges as an attorney representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Southern Methodist University who are seeking former President George W. Bush's testimony regarding how land was acquired for his presidential library.

I don't know how often Sen. West's legislative duties involve SMU, but I do know that he is heavily involved in higher education in Texas. Here are a few lines from his online resume: (continue reading)

I would be the last to compare Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in terms of human rights and abiding by the Geneva Conventions. Hamas fighters ride around in ambulances. They take up fighting positions in hospitals and booby trap schools. Their suicide attackers have wantonly killed civilians without regard to which ones are non-combatants, elderly, pregnant women or school children.

But this is not to suggest that Israeli troops are exemplary when it comes to human rights. Far too many times, we receive stories of them gunning down little girls in Gaza who happen to cross into a "forbidden zone" on their way home from school. The record is replete with instances in which Israeli troops have shot and killed journalists, elderly people and others who obviously were not combatants. Recent reports in the newspaper Haaretz suggest these might be no mere accidents and that, in fact, Israeli troops might be receiving instruction on the importance of killing non-combatants. Now, Israeli troops are wearing T-shirts with cartoons showing a pregnant woman in the crosshairs with the title underneath reading: "1 Shot, 2 Kills."

This has to stop. Israel receives roughly $3 billion a year in aid from U.S. taxpayers. Not even one penny of our money should go to support this kind of behavior. Read on:

I found myself cringing as I watched Barack Obama on the Tonight Show last night. Leno kept skating dangerously toward the edges with talk of throwing people in jail, installing basketball hoops on the White House grounds and how neat it must be to ride in Air Force One. Obama clearly blew it by comparing his bowling to watching the Special Olympics.

I understand why Obama wanted a conversational format, especially having a live audience to laugh at the jokes. But this confirmed all of my worst fears about what it means for a sitting U.S. president to appear on a late-night talk show.

While Leno was doing his opening routine, all I could think about was the President of the the United States, Leader of the Free World, cooling his heels in the Green Room, being forced to wait while Leno made jokes about the weird stuff you find in a 99-cent store. Then, the President of the United States, Leader of the Free World, walked onto the set, talked for awhile, and was forced to just sit there while we broke for a few commercial messages. Not once, but twice.

I'm sorry, but this is a sad statement. I like Obama a lot, but he's got to remember that he is the president, and when the president of the United States is talking, we do not take a commercial break to sell cars and deodorant and laxatives. NBC, out of respect for the presidency, could have delayed the commercials. Or Obama, out of respect for the presidency, could have insisted that there would be no commercial interruptions during his appearance.

It wasn't an awful performance by any means, but I turned off the TV afterwards thinking, this is a sad day for America.

Ron Kirk won Senate approval today to become the 16th U.S. trade representative. He has pledged to begin promoting a free trade accord with Panama as one of his top agenda items. That's great, because Panama plays a key role in our city's future, considering the massive Inland Port development unfolding in southern Dallas and Dallas County. The expansion of the Panama Canal is expected to bring a big surge in cargo business to our city because of its unique crossroads positioning.

Having said that, Kirk needs to slow down. Panama is in the midst of a contentious campaign ahead of May 3 presidential elections, and the Obama administration is getting ready to meddle in it by putting the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) in the position as the party that muscled this agreement to fruition. Regular readers might be aware that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has a long and very fruitful relationship with the PRD, having provided legal representation and lobbying services in Washington for some of the party's most notorious thugs, including Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, a top politician accused of murdering a U.S. soldier.

Read on for more ...

After Tracey Scott Wilson's original play, "The Good Negro" premiered in Dallas to packed audiences last fall, it has moved on to the national stage. Today's New York Times has a review of the performance at the Public Theatre in New York, with co-artistic director credits going to the Dallas Theatre Center's own Kevin Moriarty.

The Dallas theatre scene doesn't get a lot of front-page attention in this town, but it's important from time to time for us to sit up and take notice of our city's important role on the national arts scene. In the past year, Dallas has premiered several important works that went on to have successful off-Broadway runs. They include Bruce DuBose's adaptation of Neil Young's "Greendale," which premiered at the Undermain and then moved to the Ice Factory in New York, and Tom Sime's "Bloodletters."

Although all of these works originated during better economic times, Rebecca Young of TACA in Dallas says that bad economic times also have a way of stimulating some of the greatest works of art and literature our nation has known.

No action necessary here. I just thought people might like to know what's going on in their city.

While the Texas attorney general decides on the constitutionality of breed-specific legislation, U.S. Army officials, following the lead of Fort Hood, have decided on their own that breed-specific rules are a sensible way to address breed-specific problems. Fort Hood banned pit bulls from all on-base housing two months ago. Now, according to this story in the Killeen Daily Herald the U.S. Army has expanded the pit bull ban to other bases -- specifically for American Staffordshire bull terriers and English Staffordshire bull terriers -- and gone one step better by adding Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, chows, wolf hybrids and any others that display a dominant or aggressive behavior.

What I like about this rule is that it will not require existing owners to give up their dogs. All it says is that new residents will be barred from bringing those dogs into base housing, nor will existing residents be allowed to bring new pets from these breeds onto bases. If there's any question about whether a mixed-breed dog falls into one of these categories, the base veterinarian will make the call.

This rule doesn't just look at dogs that bite, it distinguishes between those that bite and those that maim because, when they attack, their bite is so powerful that it often leads to severe maiming or death. Of course, military bases are governed by federal law, not state law. But it's nice to know that officials at the federal level see this problem for what it is. I hope the attorney general takes note.

Take a look at this Gallup Poll-Healthways index of well being across the United States. Once you generate the map and play with all of the different indices, a picture of Texas emerges that suggests, in spite or our state's wealth and high employment rates, we are not doing so well in terms of our basic access to health care, healthy lifestyles or our emotional health. Overall, we're right about in the middle of all states.

There's no question that we work hard in Texas. But are we missing something that people in other states have found? Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Washington and California have something we don't, and I don't think it's just mountains and skiing.

I wonder whether we take ourselves too seriously and whether we work so hard that we don't leave ourselves enough time to simply enjoy life. Or maybe it's just too danged hot in Texas. What do you think?

Read further for information about the way the poll is conducted.

I'm amazed that Rush Limbaugh thinks he's so perfect, so incapable of speaking in error, that he thinks he doesn't need a TelePromTer for what's probably the most widely broadcast speech of his lifetime. Well, like so much else in the World According to Rush, he's wrong. And badly so.

His speech before the only true conservatives in America sorry, the only true Americans in America, contains the following:

For those of you in the Drive-By Media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I've said. [Cheers and Applause ] And nor do any of us need a teleprompter, because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances. Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology. Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don't have to make notes about what we believe. We don't have to write down, oh do I believe it do I believe that we can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads and we can do it with passion and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively.

Well, Rush, tell us about your beliefs, then. What are the beliefs that are so strong, so core to your existence in Your America, that you don't need a TelePromTer in order to pronounce them?

We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

No, Rush. Thank YOU for that constitutional clarification.

So, in the middle of all the applause over the demise of American newspapers and collapse of American values, the CPAC convention trots out the NRA's Wayne LaPierre to offer yet another frightening interpretation American democracy and the Bill of Rights. A taste:

"I don't care if it makes their butts pucker from here to the Potomac, the Founding Fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules."

I'm still rifling (pardon the pun) through my copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to see exactly where that wording is. Hmmm, can't seem to find it.

If anyone wants to review Wayne LaPierre's understanding of civil rights, read his 2002 speech for starters. Now I know how to frighten the kids when they come to my door next Halloween.

National Public Radio's This American Life had an excellent program at noon on Saturday (which gives you a taste of the whooping good times I have on weekends) about how our current economic crisis developed and how, really, we are all to blame for it. We like to rant and rave about bankers and bailouts and irresponsible lending. We also like to rant about how the banks got all this bailout money and, yet, they still won't loan it to anyone so that our econonmy can get going again.

This innocuous, boring little graph shows the real problem and helps explain why bank should not be loaning out gobs of money and why Americans need badly to stop borrowing immediately. This graph shows the level of household debt in America as a percentage of GDP. In other words, it's the amount we all owe versus the total value of goods and services we produce. Guess what: We are at 100 percent. In other words, we have borrowed so much as a nation that we are at the point where all of the work we do will only cover our debt payments. It won't allow us to put any money into savings or investments. When the stock market knows that Americans cannot invest any more (which means that stock index will not be going up), then it's time to sell, sell, sell. And that's exactly what's happening.

The only other time when America's debt-to-GDP ratio was at this level was 1929. If that doesn't send a chill up your spine, I don't know what will.

Choose Woodrow, Part II. A story in today's paper draws attention to the financial problems being experienced by Dallas-area private schools. The economic crisis is hitting them too, and it appears that more and more parents are opting to pull their children out of expensive privates schools because their money can be better spent elsewhere.

The problem with private school is that, like it or not, you still have to pay your public school taxes on top of your private expenses. So you're paying twice to educate your child. As I wrote last year, parents in some very affluent areas of Lakewood are choosing to send their children to the area's public high school, Woodrow Wilson. They do it not because they can't afford private school but because Woodrow offers a fabulous educational and cultural experience for their kids. There's nothing wrong with that.

Well, it looks like a lot of other parents from wealthier backgrounds are going to opt for public school, which I hope will provide a big boost for public education. Your tax dollars are going to fund it either way. Might as well take advantage of it.

Some people suggest that racism is a thing of the past and that the nation has moved beyond its old ways. They suggest that blacks and Hispanics "get over it" when minorities complain about the lingering effects of racism. The reason sensitivity is so high regarding incidents such as the bullet-riddled chimp cartoon, published in the New York Post, is that minorities justifiably believe that racism is alive and well in this country.

Pshaw, say the defenders of the New York Post. Nothing of the sort. I wonder what the "get over it" crowd would suggest the blacks of Paris, Texas do to get over this:

PARIS, Texas (AP) - A factory worker at a Northeast Texas pipe fabrication plant says hangman's nooses, Confederate flags and racist graffiti have been appearing in the workplace for several months.

Karl Mitchell, who is black, filed a complaint last week with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Black employees make up about 11% of the 660 employees at Louisiana-based Turner Industries' plant in Paris, and Mitchell said "Somebody had to step forward."

Turner general counsel John Fenner says the company learned of the allegations last week. He says a noose and other graffiti have been removed and the company is investigating the incidents.

Once again, Dallas-area residents have been maimed in unprovoked attacks by dogs running free. And once again, the offending dogs are pit bulls. In one attack this weekend (there were two, on opposite sides of the city, but one attack could be regarded as slightly provoked), the maiming was so bad that two people each might lose an eye. These dogs didn't just nip and run. They attacked two people in a parking lot. They went for the face, head and upper torso, and their intention clearly was to kill.

Whenever I encounter loose dogs on the street, I rarely have problems reasoning with them and either getting them to back off and go home. For some reason, there's no reasoning with pit bulls. And if you haven't felt a pit bull's teeth sink through your skin, let me tell you, it hurts. I know, I know, pit bull owners from around the country will email me to insist that it's not the dog, it's the owner. I'm sorry, but no, it's the dog.

I don't want to take away anyone's pet. But I do think the Texas Legislature needs to pass a law banning all future breeding, sales and new ownership of pit bulls. Let existing owners keep their dogs, but don't allow the pit bull population to continue growing as it is. The idea is under review in Austin, and I think the Legislature needs reminding: There is a precedent for passing breed-specific bans. Texas law bans ownership of dingo dogs. Why? Because they have a tendency to be vicious and unpredictable. Sound familiar?

There's a good conversation going on right now on khvnam radio about this. It's time for the Legislature to take action..

Sorry to violate blog policy by posting my own separate entry when there's already one about the same subject today, but both Mike and Rod violated it by failing to respond to my original posting on this subject two days ago, and now they are prominently misconstruing what I wrote.

So, to set the record straight: I never suggested or implied that Irving needs to draw a Hispanic district or somehow mandate the inclusion of Hispanics on the city council. What I did write is that Hispanics currently outnumber whites in Irving, yet there are no Hispanics on the city council. That is a fact, no matter how Rod and Mike try to avoid it.

Rod and Mike give an impassioned defense of maintaining the status quo at Irving city hall. Some people think we should return to the old at-large, unrepresentative system we had in Dallas. (And I'm sure that old system had nothing to do with the developmental disparities between northern and southern Dallas.) All I'm saying is that, by changing to a district system, Irving would at least give Hispanics a chance to be represented. There is no mandate, nor should there be.

District representation is the norm at all other levels of legislative government, so why shouldn't it apply at the local level? Perhaps Rod and Mike would prefer that Texas go to a completely at-large system of representation at the Legislature. I'm sure representatives from Houston and San Antonio would do a great job representing our interests in Austin. Heck, why don't we adopt it at a national level too? California and New York can represent Texas in the House and Senate. Yeah, that's fair.

In 2007, Irving had a 35.6 percent white population, whereas Hispanics made up 40.6 percent of the population. But if you look at the racial makeup of the city council, it's 100 percent white. There is no question that Hispanics are under-represented by Irving's at-large election system. The city is now having to defend its current system in federal court, when it would be far easier and less expensive -- and more representative -- to adopt the council-district system that Dallas adopted years ago for similar reasons.

Just because whites have a record of turning out in city-wide elections in higher numbers (and tend to vote for white candidates, or specifically against minority candidates) in Irving does not justify the current system as representative and therefore sustainable. A council-district system ensures representation at the neighborhood level, which is far more fair when you have a diverse population like Irving has.

That said, Irving's Hispanics have two major hurdles to clear. First, they must encourage Hispanic voters to vote. It's not good enough just to be present. You must participate. Second, they must prove that their high numbers represent legal citizens with voting rights. I don't buy the argument that even illegal immigrants pay taxes and therefore deserve representation in government. Paying taxes is a way of covering the expense of giving citizens sidewalks, roads, street lights and police protection. It is an obligation of all residents -- legal or illegal.

Being a legal citizen is the only way to gain the right and privilege of voting in an election and being represented in government.

Even if Irving were to switch to a district voting system, it wouldn't guarantee Hispanic representation on the city council. But it shouldn't take a lawsuit in federal court for Irving to see that its current system doesn't work.

For a while there, things seemed to be going fairly well in Afghanistan. Violence had subsided, unemployment was dropping, construction was booming and militias appeared to be disbanding. But now it's all falling apart, and before we set about fixing it with a surge strategy like we pursued in Iraq, we should ask whether this is the right approach for Afghanistan.

i don't think it is, for lots of reasons. First of all, Iraq's insurgency was sparked by a mixture of angry Sunnis who had formed an uneasy alliance with a few hundred al-Qaeda imports from neighboring countries. The Shiite insurgency was a response to the Sunni insurgency. But the Sunni insurgency collapsed when the United States bribed Sunni tribal leaders into submission at the same time they were getting tired of the strict Islamism imposed by al-Qaeda. When the Sunni insurgency died out, the Shiite insurgency soon followed.

Afghanistan isn't the same beast. Afghanistan's insurgency involves a vastly more complex tribal network. The Taliban numbers in the tens of thousands, and it is everywhere, including in Kabul. The insurgency draws independent funding from billions of dollars in opium sales. A few hundred dollars in U.S. bribes will not persuade Afghan militiamen to give up their guns when the Taliban, funded with drug sales, is paying much better prices.

Sunday's New York Times devotes almost an entire page worth of space to the growing popularity of recreational drugs in Latin America and the growing advocacy among leaders for legalizing drug use. I'm amazed whenever I check out the list of famous politicians and businessmen around the world who have concluded that legalization is the answer because the war on drugs simply is not working. Advocates say that with legalization we would dramaticaly reduce our prison populations, cut a major source of funding for organized crime and de-fang the armed drug gangs that are terrorizing Mexico.

Possibly. But there are some enormous gaps in this argument. First, the legalization movement focuses on decriminalizing private drug use -- not on the manufacture and sale of those substances. Second, laws would presumably remain in effect making the legal age for consumption the same as for alcohol -- 21 -- which means there would still be a big market for supplying drugs to underage users. Again, you're not erasing the illegal element of it, you're only modifying it. Third, the costs we save on enforcement and imprisonment could be offset by a big increase in addiction treatment.

Every time I blog or write about drug users funding terrorists and drug gangs, I get inundated with angry emails from legalization advocates who say the blame for all of the world's drug-related violence falls on those who pass laws prohibiting recreational drug use. So here's your opportunity: Can you devise a workable and realistic plan to legalize drugs while answering the questions above about underage users, unlicensed sellers and addiction treatment? Repeat: You cannot be pie-in-the-sky about this. You must be realistic about how it would work here in the Real World.

Keep it serious, and keep it respectful.

Look at the circumstances surrounding Judd Gregg's withdrawal as Commerce Secretary nominee. Look at his absurd explanation for his decision. This stinks. Grante, the Obama administration has gotten off to a disastrous start with three Cabinet nominations derailed or sidetracked by ethics problems. There is no minimizing the seriousness of these problems and the fact that the Obama transition team failed to properly investigate the backgrounds of the nominees.

But Obama has been extraordinary in reaching out to Republicans and carrying through on his promise to include Republicans in his administration and heal Washington's partisan divide. How could Gregg claim that he was even slightly surprised by the Obama stimulus package? He's known what the plan was going to involve. He's also known for a long time that controversy would surround his nomination regarding the management of the census. But Obama stood by him and refused to listen to Gregg's critics.

Gregg says he couldn't take the heat. I'm sorry, but it looks an awful lot like the Republicans smelled blood. They saw disarray and vulnerability over the stimulus package, and they timed this withdrawal specifically to embarass Obama at a time when it would inflict the maximum damage. Karl Rove lives!

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg has withdrawn his nomination as Commerce secretary, citing irreconcilable differences with his boss-to-be over the stimulus package and other items. This is a significant blow to President Obama, especially considering that his previous nominee, Bill Richardson, withdrew his nomination because of a grand jury corruption investigation. Not to mention that three other nominees have faced scrutiny over their taxes, with two of them quitting.

But what does this mean for the Republicans? If they can't get over their partisan ways and learn to work with what they've got, we're going to have four very long and cold years ahead of us. The Republicans have to accept the fact that they created this economic mess, and they have to come up with more than "free market solutions" to fix it. It'll involve compromise and cooperation. If they can't muster that much goodwill, well, American voters will have another chance in two years to boot more of their butts out of Washington. But it's exactly this kind of behavior that lost the Republicans the 2008 election. Is it so outrageous to expect people to learn from their mistakes instead of constantly repeating them?

Last week, our pages focused attention on the dumb decision by Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps to smoke pot out of a bong while someone snapped a photo. It will cost him millions of dollars in endorsements. But what's even dumber is the attitude that prevails among pot smokers that they partake in a mellow, peaceful pasttime that harms no one. Some people very close to me have that attitude, and while I love them dearly, they are living in la-la land. You only buy locally grown stuff? Well, you're not off the hook.

As the New York Times reported last week, Mexico's biggest drug cartels -- you know, the guys who behead people, hang them from overpasses, dip people's hands in acid and other fun stuff -- have realized how much money is at stake in the marijuana trade. Having largely bypassed pot for the bigger-dollar trade in cocaine and heroin, they are now seizing Mexico's marijuana-growing operations and are moving into scores of major U.S. cities with it. These guys are terrorists, and American pot smokers are funding them.

I know that, as soon as our drug-activist friends in the blogosphere read this, they will hammer me with messages saying that the cartels wouldn't exist and that none of this violence would be happening if the United States didn't have prohibition-style restrictions on recreational drug use. That's a valid point, and we should have a vigorous discussion about legalizing pot. But here in the real world, right now, it's against the law, and it's a very, very bloody business that costs thousands of Mexican and Colombian lives each year. It's not mellow. It's not cool. It's deadly serious, and it makes people's lives miserable. And the fact that Michael Phelps has probably inspired lots of kids to smoke pot makes his bong photo seem dumber than ever.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a wonderful guy. Affable, charming, intelligent. Since he sits atop a powderkeg, and because his failure as president could cause the entire U.S. military effort in Afghanistan to come crashing down, our leaders have tended to treat him like a delicate piece of china. We've excused his leadership weaknesses. We've ignored the corruption that permeates his entire government. And we've minimized that fact that, after eight years in power, he still doesn't control much of anything outside of Kabul.

So it was refreshing to read over the weekend that Vice President Joe Biden cut short a dinner with Karzai, threw his napkin on the table and basically walked out after he'd heard Karzai's usual list of excuses about corruption in his government.

The problem in Afghanistan is the same problem that the Lebanese and the Palestinians face. Voters face a choice between corrupt, entrenched leaders who use militias to strongarm people into submission, or they can choose harshly Islamist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban, who threaten to restrict freedoms but who have clear records of governing cleanly. The United States risks further tarnishing its image in Afghanistan by continuing to support Karzai, especially when his standing in public opinion polls is worse than George Bush's was here. It's time to look for better alternatives in the hope that someone else can offer voters a viable, clean-government alternative to the Taliban.

I share the view of Israeli ballistics expert Yiftah Shapir that Iran's launching of a rocket and deploying of its first satellite was not reason to start practicing your duck-and-cover drills in the closet.

This launching was more show biz than anything else. Iran wanted to create news in the West, which is why it printed the words "Safir Omid" (ambassador of hope) on the rocket using Roman lettering rather than Farsi script. Shapir told the New York Times that the Iranians "already have missiles that can reach Israel." This launch, he said, was "nothing new." (click here if you want to track the satellite on Google)

Yes, it's possible that someday way in the future, Iran could develop a bigger rocket capable of delivering a nuclear bomb, but we are talking many years away. Gary Samore, the man likely to become the Obama administration's nonproliferation czar and an expert on Iran's nuclear program, says Iran is getting better but is stil far away from achieving the ability to build a nuclear bomb. He is one of the most level-headed guys I've ever met, and I hope Obama listens to him carefully when he says that the existing approach to Iran has failed and that new strategies are needed.

Iran didn't help things today when it denied entry visas to the U.S. women's badminton team, whom Iran invited for a tournament in an effort to build better relations with the United States. Both countries badly need a few rounds of badminton diplomacy, followed by the opening of a U.S. interests section in Iran. They need to start talking. Freezing Iran out is not going to get us anywhere.

Iran is trying to get America's attention. The words were written on the rocket in a way that we could decipher without reading Farsi. It's time to engage.

The major oil refineries in Houston and along the Gulf Coast are in intense union negotiations to avert a walkout of 24,000 workers. The walkout would shut down refineries and almost certainly lead to a big spike in prices at the pump -- just what the economy needs. This seems like a very badly timed strike, at a time when 4.78 milliion people are jobless. The refineries are in a good position to break the strike with scabs.

The unions will argue that they provide highly skilled services that cannot be easily substituted without risking the safe operation of the refineries. That's the exact argument that oil workers made in Venezuela a few years ago. They all lost their jobs, and Venezuela's oil production continued apace without major problems. Air traffic controllers made that argument in the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan fired them all, and I don't recall a single plane crashing as a result.

You won't often hear me cheering big oil companies like Exxon, especially after that company just posted obscene record profits. But the union leaders are insane if they think, in this economic environment, that they'll garner widespread public support for their plight as cash-conscious consumers are forced to buy $4-a-gallon gasoline.

Western journalists cannot win in the Middle East. No matter how scrupulous you are in maintaining balance, one side or the other will eventually blast you. The Gaza conflict is a great example. Should Israel have been more careful to minimize civilian casualties? Absolutely. And it wasn't a sign of bias on the part of the Western media for reporting on the very high number of Palestinian civilians killed or wounded or left homeless from Israeli bombardments. (Already, thousands of Israeli supporters are writing hate mail to me for writing this.)

Were Palestinians to blame for their own civilian casualties? Absolutely. (Now the pro-Arab groups will start churning out the hate mail.) And Western reporters aren't biased just because they report that Hamas gunmen were deliberately hiding out in schools, mosques, hospitals, government buildings and civilian apartment buildings. Their fighting tactics -- which mirror exactly the kinds of tactics Yasser Arafat employed when the PLO was fighting in Lebanon -- were designed to force Israel into a hard choice: Minimize the public fallout from attacking civilian venues, or ignore the fallout and go after the enemy. Israel chose the latter.

The BBC is among the most harshly criticized news organizations covering the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its reporters are targeted constantly by critics in Israel and Jewish constituency groups in the UK. Which is why it's so sad, even while it's funny, that now thousands of protesters are picketing the BBC in London, accusing it of having a pro-Israel bias for refusing to run a series of public announcements to attract donations for relief in Gaza.

My old standard when reporting the Middle East was this: If both sides are attacking you equally and accusing you of bias, you're probably doing your job exactly right.

President Obama clearly has his hands full these days, and he's had to take a lot of quick action on several different fronts. But one area where he hasn't paid much attention, either in the campaign or post-election phase, is Mexico. And Mexico is in a heap o' trouble. Drug cartels are behaving like al-Qaeda on steroids, terrorizing Mexicans into mass submission. Politicians are running scared and talking about reaching an accommodation with drug dealers in order to bring peace to the streets. Police are frightened. Newspaper editors have to be careful of every word they publish for fear of incurring the drug lords' wrath.

President Felipe Calderon needs to start showing some successes in his effort to regain control of major border cities. He's yet to receive the strong show of public support from the new U.S. administration that he needs. First and foremost, Obama needs to name a high-profile U.S. ambassador quickly. The top diplomat needs to be someone who can quickly garner confidence and respect in Mexico but also can show he has direct access to Obama.

The big question (and our topic of the day) is: Whom should Obama name? Federico Pena, Clinton's former transportation secretary, is one possible candidate, although this option strikes me as inside-the-box thinking. I'm wondering who else is out there who would fit the bill. I'll throw out one idea: David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney who was among those fired by the Bush administration when he refused orders to engage in targeted prosecutions of Democratic political figures. Iglesias is conservative. He's absolutely law-and-order. He is a man of principle and high integrity. But he's not a political insider, which is a drawback.

Any other, better options?

Santa Claus Bailout Hearings Somehow we missed this during all of our coverage of the Big 3 testimony and other assorted economic-disaster developments. But it's big news. Really, if you think about it, Santa is simply too big to fail. If we let Santa fail, we might as well start wrapping up rocks and dirt and putting them under the tree for kids.

Look at the worried face on the elf to the left. He's envisioning unemployment, job retraining, unrelenting short-guy jokes.

I say: $25 Billion is not too high a price to keep Santa solvent.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of other top administration officials insisted for years that America does not torture. Well, that's simply not true. We've done it, and it was officially sanctioned from the top levels of the administration. Read this bipartisan report from the Senate Armed Services Committee for a taste of what went on and who approved it. Why shouldn't Donald Rumsfeld and others, possibly including Cheney, be subjected to a probe by a special prosecutor -- especially considering what Bill Clinton had to endure simply for lying about having sex with an intern in the Oval Office?

The U.S. government spent untold millions of dollars and seven years investigating and prosecuting the Holy Land case here in Dallas. Even though the Holy Land funds were allegedly benefiting a group that doesn't target Americans and doesn't stage attacks in this country, the government believed that the funders of terrorist activities needed to be halted.

Just on the other side of the border, terrorists are running wild. They chop off heads, explode bombs, hang corpses from bridges, rape women, threaten to kill students if teachers don't pay extortion money. They make the Taliban look like a bunch of amateurs. They kill more people in a year than Hamas has killed since its founding. And, even worse, their activities are funded by Americans. Americans are supplying the arms that keep this terrorist network thriving. And yet, the U.S. government treats this situation as if it's less serious because, heck, it's just a bunch of drug traffickers.

No, these are terrorists. Everything they do fits the profile exactly. Regardless of the differences in ideology between Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Mexican drug gangs, the motive of their actions and the effect on people is the same: terror designed to force people into submission.

Why shouldn't the U.S. government treat this the same as the Holy Land case or any other terrorism prosecution? Why shouldn't we treat it more seriously, since it's happening right here in Texas and along the border? And why shouldn't the people who are funding and arming Mexican terrorists -- U.S. drug users -- be prosecuted for aiding and abetting terrorism?

I just think the government should be consistent with its standards.

Not that we're hurting financially (heck, we actually border on two of the richest cities in America), but as long as the federal government is talking about handing out money, why shouldn't Dallas put in a pitch for some financial aid? Mayor Tom Leppert's wish list includes federal funds for the Calatrava bridge over the Trinity, the Convention Center hotel, water infrastructure, roads, etc.

Did he leave anything important off the list? I would have liked to see a well-organized plan for boosting employment in southern Dallas and a request for funds to redevelop Fair Park.

Also, do you think it's appropriate for our city (or any other) to be asking for additional federal help at this time, whether it provides an economic stimulus or not?

What do Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Idi Amin's Uganda and DISD have in common? All of them are (or have been) ruled by autocratic leaders who got into office (some through democratic means), then altered the political system through extra-legal means to extend their own terms in office. Oh, wait, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez actually did it by legal means, even though it was sneaky and manipulative.

DISD? Not quite up to Hugo Chavez's legal standards. You see, when voters elected the current school board trustees, they did so with the knowledge that they would be serving three-year terms. But under what legal code are they permitted to extend their own terms to four years? And what restricts them to four? Why not 10 years? Or life, like Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein?

I could understand them voting a term extension for future members, after voters have been fully apprised of the change and go to the ballot box knowing that these are the new conditions. But to vote the extension for themselves is the most egregious example of democratic abuse that I've witnessed in ... well, at least a few days. This is outrageous.

For years, I've been telling my friends in journalism that we would eventually sell our product on a lightweight, flexible LCD screen that people could easily carry with them but hold in their hands like a regular newspaper. Eventually, it would be foldable. So I was delighted when news broke this week of the new product by Plastic Logic which is the fulfillment of my dreams.

We could see a day when newspapers are no longer purveyors of dead trees and huge amounts of waste. But we can continue to sell our product in a format that allows us to control the content in an easily accessible and readable way. No flashing ads and distractions, like the Internet. Just your normal, traditional newspaper, on a portable flat plastic screen. Let's be honest, reading the newspaper on a computer screen is not the same -- and never will be -- as sitting down and holding the newspaper in your hand and maintaining control over what you read and when you read it. And newspapers would maintain the ability to sell subcriptions and control fixed ad content in a traditional format.

But if you read this blog, you are an active consumer of news. So you be the judge: Will it sell? Would you buy it? Is this the product that will save our industry from extinction?

I guess it wasn't enough that Blackwater gunmen slaughtered Iraqi civilians on the streets of Baghdad and helped undermine the U.S. war effort in Iraq. They continued to participate in multibillion-dollar Pentagon and State Department contracts. Now Blackwater is confirmed to have smuggled hundreds of automatic weapons into Iraq. When un-permitted, unregistered weapons are smuggled into Iraq, they typically are sold for profit on the black market. Anyone can buy them, including members of al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army or any of the other groups currently trying to kill U.S. soldiers. The State Department is weighing multimillion-dollar fines against Blackwater, which is under criminal investigation.

And yet, its current $1.2 billion in federal contracts curiously seem unaffected. If the American public only knew how cozy the relationship is between State Department personnel and its biggest contractors, they'd be appalled. One can only hope that the Obama administration will put an end to this nonsense.

The proponents for changing Industrial's name to Cesar Chavez Boulevard lost their case before the City Council yesterday, and they lost it not because their cause isn't worthy but because they had poor representation. Take, for example, the declaration that the youthful spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Task Force, Alberto Ruiz, made to Al Dia yesterday (translating from Spanish): "Today we see discrimination at its highest level. The three Hispanic City Council members voted one way while the other members of the council voted another way."

This type of explosive, divisive rhetoric is typical of Alberto Ruiz. Just because you lose your argument doesn't mean the winners have discriminated against you. When he met with our editorial board several weeks ago, along with Elba Garcia, Pauline Medrano and Steve Salazar, Ruiz could not have been more insulting and abrasive. Their effort was to convince us of the merits of their cause, but Alberto Ruiz helped undermine it with his confrontational style.

This isn't about beating people over the head, or guilting them with accusations of "discrimination." It's about being persuasive. Anyone who succeeds in politics will tell you that diplomacy is a key ingredient -- and Alberto Ruiz lacks it. Here are some further observations from our meeting about why their effort failed:

For a guy who spent so many years using a weird kind of code language whenever he spoke in public, Alan Greenspan now is about as blunt as he can be about where we're heading. In Toronto today, he had a pretty bleak assessment.

The good news: the economy isn't in a freefall, he said.
The bad news: but we're close to it.

"That we are in a recession, very severe, there's no question. Gross domestic product in the United States in the fourth quarter is going to be down significantly." (The former Fed chairman said early data for October show the GDP in a severe contraction that could top a 3 percent annual rate of decline.)
"We know we are going down and there's very little we can do about that,. ... It's important to recognize we are not in quite a free fall but something close to it. This economy, and indeed the world economy, has tilted over and is moving down fairly aggressively, pretty much across the board."

First of all, let the record show that the U.S. "retreat" from Iraq began with the Bush administration. Talks with the Iraqi government to end the U.S. presence in Iraq by 2011 began with the Bush administration. There will be some grumbling, seething Republicans, like Mark Davis, who will do everything possible to blame Barack Obama for whatever happens in Iraq. In fact, they're already trying to do that. So let the record show: Your arguments are already ahistorical. And your philosophies are anachronistic. Try a new approach.

Remember Sara Silverman's campaign to get young Jews to travel to southern Florida and talk their elderly parents into voting for Obama? The big fear was that Florida would vote for McCain because Jews would be particularly sensitive to the scare tactics focusing on Obama's Muslim heritage and the fact that he eats breakfast every day with at least one or two terrorists so they can plot how to destroy America and Israel.

Maybe it was the perfect storm for John McCain. A Republican incumbent president with abysmally low approval ratings, a running mate who was regarded as a joke, and a financial crisis the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

But I remain convinced John McCain could have won this election. All he needed to do was appeal to the political center of this country -- both moderate Republicans and Hillary-leaning Democrats who weren't quite sure Barack Obama was their man. Instead, McCain veered sharply to the right. He went weirdly conservative and offended people whom he should have regarded as his true base.

I'm not saying it would have been easy. But this election should have been much closer than it wound up being. John McCain blew it, and this should serve as an important message to the Republican Party about the proper way to campaign in the future.

Sarah Palin pre-recorded a message for Saturday Night Live's special Election Eve program last night. It was dry, uncomfortably un-funny, and loaded with dead pauses that apparently were designed to give the audience time to laugh before she continued speaking. Except, there wasn't anything to laugh at.

It was particularly not funny to hear her threaten to yank NBC's broadcast license if she becomes vice president. She did it with a straight face, which made it seem as if she wasn't joking. Considering the recent accusations that she abused her powers as governor for a personal vendetta, and previous inquiries as mayor of Wasilla about the procedures and possibilities for banning books, the effect of her "humor" was chilling. Another bad move by a woman who, amazingly, still entertains bigger political aspirations now that this campaign is over.

She should leave comedy writing to the pros.

A new University of Texas poll released today indicates that nearly a quarter of Texans think Barack Obama is a Muslim. This is worrisome because it underscores how uninformed or misinformed people are about some of the easiest and most accessible facts about the presidential campaign. I mean, if voters can't even get his religion right, how in the world are they going to understand his position on more complex issues like health care, taxes, Iraq or urban policy?

They won't. They won't even attempt to understand it or read more so they'll be better informed. This is an indication of how lazy people are. Or, more accurately, how lazy nearly one-quarter of Texans are.

For those of you who can read and who care about being properly informed, let's start with the basics: Barack Obama is a Christian. He is not a Muslim. It's a simple matter of fact.

Pit bulls, lipstick, Joe the Plumber, guns and religion, $150,000 clothes bills, Muslim terrorists in the White House, socialism and Real Americans.

In the past few weeks, these are the topics that have dominated the presidential campaign at a time when America is fighting two wars, facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depresssion, and confronting enormous challenges both domestically and abroad. Both candidates promised a clean campaign, devoid of personal attacks. And yet, all we've gotten, it seems, is a campaign full of personal attacks and devoid of serious discussion or innovation regarding the real problems our next president will face.

What went wrong here? What will it take to get our national politics back on track toward civility and productive discussion of things that really matter to voters? Or are we doomed to this campaign style of accusation, bickering and personal attack as long as we have a political system dominated by two parties?

Sen. Stevens's claims of ignorance didn't work for the jury in his corruption trial. Jurors found him guilty on all seven counts of receiving gifts that he failed to report on his disclosure forms. Considering this and the Anchorage Daily News's endorsement of Barack Obama, it's not looking very good for Alaska's two most prominent Republicans right now.

So, how should the Republicans spin the Stevens conviction? Do they defend the longest-serving Republican senator? Do they condemn him and go for a law-and-order, zero-tolerance stand against corruption? Or do they ignore it?

My guess is that the Republican Party will find some way to blame this on the Democrats.

Boy, what a day. I was trying to get a simple answer to a simple question: What is the permitting process for people in South Dallas-Fair Park who want to turn their front lawns into a parking lot? I decided Code Compliance was the easiest place to go for an answer, since it's a code violation if you park your car on any unimproved surface on your property. That was at 10:30 this morning.

It's now 4:55 p.m. and I still don't have an answer. Code Compliance told me to call Building and Permits. Building and Permits told me to call Transportation Regulation. Transportation Regulation told me to call Parking Enforcement. The woman at Parking Enforcement who has my answers (allegedly) is not answering her phone and is not checking her voicemail.

Considering the runaround I'm getting, I don't think anyone at City Hall wants to touch this with a ten-foot-pole. Given their appalling response to the victims of the parking scam over the weekend, I'm hardly surprised they're now in full pass-the-buck mode.