I remember reading a book review of the memoirs of a Secret Service agent who said that whenever the President dines abroad, he doesn't actually eat the food prepared on site. The White House staff finds out ahead of time what's going to be served, prepares as close of a replica to it as they can, and the food is flown to the President's table.

That seemed kind of farfetched and still does. On the other hand, why would he lie?

...is that someday you'll have to live under the same conditions as those Latino kids. See how far your puerile sarcasm gets you then.

There was a series in the Chicago Tribune a few years ago about the perfectly horrendous living conditions that Latino kids were forced into in the Caribbean and South American equivalents of A-ball. Twenty guys in a Quonset hut with one bathroom, fields that were little better than goat tracks, that kind of thing.

It's a microcosm of the labor situation with Latinos in general. Keep 'em scared and you can exploit them six ways from Sunday.

Pundits kept saying how we couldn't expect the South Vietnamese government to get its act together unless we provided them with "security." Theodore Draper pointed out the hole in this reasoning: The more "secure" the South Vietnamese leaders felt, the less motivated they would be to reform.

..."Hey, you big bully. Why are you picking on that little bully?"

How are defenders supposed to defend if no one calls charging? It sounds a lot like King and those who agree with him want to do away with offensive fouls altogether. If there were no charging, every ballhandler could bull-rush his way to the basket and be guaranteed of either a bucket or a trip to the foul line (or both).

The reason a lot of people think they're seeing "flopping" when a defender takes a charge is because the defender has to set his feet and not take a step back to try to keep from going to the floor. This is an unnatural reaction; if someone bumps into you anywhere in the world but on a basketball court, you're going to take a step back to keep from hitting the floor. It's an easy leap for people who don't know what they're looking at to conclude that because this is an unnatural reaction, it's some sort of evil act.

If you stop smoking, you're left with clear lungs, cleaner clothes and hair, and more pocket money. If you forgo abortion, you're left with a baby. (And that's all, if you're lucky.) Anyone else have a problem with the analogy?

Reagan put a sunny, congenial face on bigotry, greed and contempt for the less fortunate. He was, in many ways, worse than Bush.

His interest is in helping his fellow owners wring as much money out of MLB as possible. Period. Anything else is a nuisance to him. The only reason he's dithering over steroids is because he isn't sure yet what will cost more money: acknowledging the problem or ignoring it.

They're a bunch of fat old guys who sit around guzzling beer and haven't done jack for anyone under the age of 55.

...who got fat off of Clinton-bashing. (See Maureen Dowd, Louis Freeh, etc.)

As for Broder, I've tried to read him maybe a dozen times over the years, and I've never been able to make it to the end of one of his columns.

Wasn't Reagan enough? Are we as an electorate so infantile that we need a professional illusionist as our head of state?

It's not just oil, by any means. British journalist Michela Wrong, a specialist in Africa, called it the "paradox of sub-Saharan Africa":

[C]ountries with the greatest natural assets are doomed to war and stagnation, while nations with almost nothing somehow prove better at building contented societies.

The fact that these academics based their "study" on collective data for three-man crews, without any way to distinguish the race of individual officials, means their conclusions are fatally flawed.

Kaufman seems to think the NBA's refusal to release data on individual officials is some kind of cover-up. Nonsense. The NBA is trying to protect its employees' privacy. Why should they release what amounts to personnel files to any bozo who wants them? Would Kaufman like it if Salon released his HR files to some jerk who wanted to "prove" his bias on race or whatever?

This stuff belongs in the same place as those conspiracy theories about "The officials are favoring the Bulls/Knicks/Lakers/whoever because the league wants the best ratings for the finals." In other words, in the garbage.

We're all going to be "worm dirt" sooner or later. Deal with it.

So Republican politicians in South Carolina go around accusing each other of having spoken or voted wrong and casting themselves in the best possible light. I thought that's how democracy is supposed to work. Like a cynical Chicago pol said generations ago, "Politics ain't beanbag."

It never ceases to amaze me that people who would know much better than to talk about, say, "natural rhythm" with blacks see no problem in talking to Jews about what "good businesspeople" they are. Do they have even the slightest glimmering of why that would be offensive?

I meant 1996 for Dole, of course.

I saw snarky, tendentious criticisms of the war records of both George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Bob Dole in 1992. The difference is that those were isolated and obscure, while the anti-Kerry efforts were well organized and financed, and had infinitely more impact.

The point is not who's right and wrong. The point is that in American politics, anyone's record is fair game. If Rudy takes it in the shorts over his 9/11 record, boo-frickin'-hoo.

Patrick Smith is a waste of bandwidth. I don't read Salon for descriptions of how multibillion-dollar corporations are entitled to screw over their customers. There's plenty of other places for that. Get rid of him.