THE PORKSTERS HAVE IT: In an act of supreme cajones-deficiency our Congress have decided to show the rest of the world how to do farm subsidies right. Never mind the cost to the concept of free markets and to the taxpayers

THE GENIUS OF GEORGE BUSH: Orrin Judd uses Bush's handling of the education legislation as an example of how W is being effective. It seems he may have actually learned something in his educational and business career.

As governor of Texas and now as President, George W. Bush has pursued a strategy that has been quite consistent : he proposes ideas; he lets the legislature shape them into bills, intervening only at the end of the process to make sure the final product becomes law; and then, as executive, he's administered the programs, to the greatest extent possible, along the lines he originally envisioned. And when he hasn't gotten everything he's wanted, he's not hesitated to go right back and start the process all over again. Thus, he got as much of his tax proposal passed as possible, then turned right around and asked for more (or, according to this story in The Hill, just used executive orders to create more). With everyone squawking about the need for a Security Czar, he acceded by appointing Tom Ridge, but then gave him no actual power. When everyone demanded he get involved in Middle East peace talks, he sent Colin Powell, knowing he'd fail miserably. Etc., etc., etc. And so, we get a horrible Education Bill, one that Democrats in the Senate thought they'd beaten him on, and he only orders his administration to push the parts of it he wanted. Why are folks still surprised?
I agree with Mr. Judd that the press needs to get up to speed on these tactics or all may be lost and no one will know how it happened. With this in mind we can now make much more sense out of the hidden Bush agenda and the tactics with which he has been successful so far.

JOHN BOLTON, JESSE HELMS MAN IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT: Salon's Ian Williams has a piece on the fox the conservatives have in the State henhouse. He has no use for the UN, no respect for the EU, believes treaties are to be broken if they make it difficult to pursue national interests, and does all he can to advance American unilateral foreign policy. I'm sure Colin Powell would fire him if the W White House would let him.

BUSH AND CALIFORNIA: Here's an idea. Let's let our friends in the energy business gouge California for tons of money for electricity and they can put a big chunk of that money into our campaign coffers. How sweet it is to get those Democrats to help the Republicans. And while we are at it we will stop helping hospitals and trauma rooms care for uninsured Californians and maybe there just will be fewer Democratic voters in the next election.

A DIRTY JOB: Nation building is not the kind of thing that is easy or fun to do. So it is understandable that the Bush administration and many Americans are reluctant to get involved. But the real problem is that all the alternatives are even worse. The question is whether in the end will Bush be man enough to do this right or will he look for someone to bail us out. How can we have a prayer of succeeding in Iraq if we fail in Afghanistan?

WHY JEB BUSH SHOULDN'T GET RE-ELECTED: Despite promises to the contrary, he has utterly failed to accomplish any significant reform of the Department of Children and Families. The poster child for this is a missing 5-year-old who has been missing for 15 months before anyone knew. This is not an unusual case. The department was in bad shape before Jeb and it has failed to improve.

BUSH'S JUDGES: There is a way out of the impasse. If the Democrats would approve a few of the least objectionable they could recover the high ground and force W to withdraw the names of the worst candidates.

DARWINISM: Michael Ruse thinks he can reconcile Darwinism and Conservative Christianity. I think any success he may have is coincidental because of one basic problem. The world-view of the conservative Christian is one in which God is quick to abrogate natural laws to show his power. To a conservative Christian religion is a method to get around inconvenient natural laws by joining up with a God that does that sort of thing all the time. In Darwinism the natural laws such as the principle of universality reign supreme and govern all interactions. The traditions and dogma of conservative Christianity arose over the millennia with little regard for the limitations of natural law so any system than reconciles the two has its work cut out.

On the other hand I think it imperative that some form of Christianity be reconciled with Darwinism in particular and natural law in general. A religion can not make a claim to embodying divine truth unless can also handle natural truth which itself is the most objective expression of divine truth we have.