in the paragraph that begins "If the White House is serious about its war plans for Iran -- or even if it just wants to present a credible threat that it is -- the president and his supporters are going to need to make the case to the American public that Iran is the "gathering threat" that Iraq was supposed to have been."

True, I think there would be more opposition to a war this time around, but so what? These clowns have demonstrated their willingness to charge right in and do the worst thing you can imagine. Will they really pay any attention to public opinion or even to Congress short of a serious impeachment threat? The question is, how do we stop them?

I think Rove the Brain believes another war against someone scary is the best way to recover public and congressional support.

and I too would be very curious about how they measured it. Bottom of the list in the report was Japan, which bears strong resemblances in many respects to Korea, where my wife is from and where I was in the Peace Corps. It seems an easy target - pay is unequal, there are expectations that only unmarried or at least childless women hold jobs, the people who run companies and government tend to be male type, and the male attitude towards women often is demeaning.

_But_.....women when they marry retain their family names in East Asian cultures, a big sign in US society of equality. Even doing the household thing, women have a lot of power - especially as they age. Under the current system of government, which is a sort of parliamentary democracy replacing military rule, women are moving into significant power. A woman is currently being considered for appointment as prime minister, and the opposition party leader is a woman. Historically, under the Japanese occupation, an important part of the resistance movement was in Harbin, Manchuria, led by women. And under the monarchy, although ruling queens were unusual, they did happen, and kings were almost always selected by the dowager queens.

So it's a mixed bag - I would bet the people doing the study used the usual economic power indicators. It's fast and simple, and there does appear to be a certain amount of validity to it. But nuanced it is not.

I thought I'd made it clear I was talking mostly about Korea, and I see that I didn't. Ooops. That's interesting, that Japanese women changed their names when Korea and China did not. Wonder how that happened. Your description of spheres on influence is spot on for Korea as well, although in Korea at least the spheres are beginning to overlap more.

One minor point of interest - your comment that Japan at one point was matrilineal. Although I don't know if it's ackonowledged in histories, the written language suggests the same for China, in that the character for "family name" has for its root the character for "mother". Put that together with the composition of the character meaning "beautuful", i.e. "big" and "sheep", and you get a bunch of matriarchal nomadic sheep herders. Descending rapidly into obscure pedantry here; I'd better stop while I'm ahead.

and I may be tinfoilhatting here (is that a verb? a word? anyway...) but try this on - High pump prices now and maybe through the summer months, then drop them strategically before the elections, thereby, as you pointed out, restoring Bush's popularity. Accompany dropping pump prices by tough talk about how Bush leaned on the oil-producng nations and they backed down and opened spigots.

in my humble opinion. I'm basing this on my 11 years spent living in Omaha, a very traditional city in a traditional state, where _the_ sport is football. Nevertheless, I can readily recall three girls who played high school football in Nebraska - one a kicker, one a wide receiver (and starter), and I think I remember a q-back as well, of the passing variety. There were also a couple who wrestled. These girls were noted in the papers, in short articles (nothing like today's very good LA Times article) as slightly unusual, but no big fuss was made. I suspect this was because it didn't really mean much or challenge that culture. And I believe there was a college woman who was a placekicker for the Cornhuskers, but I could be misremembering.

about how Coach Phil does in playoffs when caught one down, etc. He seemingly can defy the usual trends, although his history includes a cast of players like no others, so what was he doing being one or two down to begin with. Anyway, it's a bit deeper than the usual LA TImes rah-rah Lakers stuff.

although for us guys over 50 there's the famous DRE - which is, granted, a fairly quick business even if slightly messy. But the place I'd like to see something on the ceiling is my dentist's office. There's a place where you can't talk, it usually takes a while, and acoustical tile is just so boring.

I've made about USA Today over the years since it started. I wonder who owns it? And how come it's not toeing the usual line?

but I know a lot about Parkinson's in general - and one effect is a 'mask' - a lack of facial expressiveness. This carries over into emotional affect as well - PD patients are almost invariably seen as very reserved. This is regardless of how well their minds are fucntioning.