HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YA

Rather than sift through all of this past year's stuff to see if I wrote anything worthwhile, I thought I'd survey where we stand as we enter 2003.

Good news for the GOP--the Democrats are still clueless. They really think Rush Limbaugh cost them the 2002 midterms, and have set out as a party to find a counter to him. They also want to counter Fox News, the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal, unaware that they already have counters to all of those in CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Big Three network news operations. Their problem isn't a lack of voices, but a lack of ideas and the implosion of their own credibility. Read the linked article about the Donks' efforts to find a bizarro Limbaugh--it's hilarious. They seem to think that just being whinier and more anti-American in their issues approach will get them back in the political driver's seat. Good luck to 'em, but this effort is destined to fail. If they were the type to self-criticize (which their silence on Sen Murray proves they aren't), they might ponder why Phil Donahue is such a stinker, and why so few liberal radio talk shows go anywhere. Hint: it's not because their hosts are "too civilized." James Carville is hardly civilized, yet if you put him up against Rush or Sean Hannity he'd get his Neilsen clocked cleaned pretty fast. Liberals would do well to ponder why that is. But they won't.

In more important issues, we're still headed for war with Iraq in spite of what Kofi Annan says. The fact is Iraq's weapons dossier already constitutes material breach, as the US and UK have stated with France and even Annan himself concurring. Blix will report on January 27th whatever he and his team have or haven't found, and the gloves come off after that. I don't say this joyfully--war is a terrible business. But I say it resolutely--Iraq must be disarmed. It is the "low hanging fruit" in the war on terror, an obvious terror state with obvious intentions that we have conquered before. Taking its nasty regime out makes our case loudly to other similar states--mess with us and you get crushed.

The North Korea situtation is still deteriorating. The Kim cult may finally have its hands on a few nukes, and its tacit alliance with Iraq has it brandishing those weapons to blackmail us out of some food and oil and possibly to deflect us from taking Baghdad. What Kim is doing is confirming the wisdom of the bellicose approach to Saddam, though--playing nice like we did in 1994 has produced exactly what we realists expected, which is a nuclear-armed rogue state with a diabloically mad leader. Let Saddam off the hook now, and we'll have two nuclear-armed rogue states with diabolically mad leaders in a year or two. Even then the doves will somehow blame Bush, and it may take the loss of a US city to get their heads right. The world is a dangerous, brutal place folks, and sometimes the peace-loving nations have to rattle and even use their sabres to make and keep peace.

The NK situation is particularly dangerous given the progress it has made in its missile program over the past few years. It's not at the point yet where it can threaten us directly, as whatever nukes it has aren't likely launchable yet, but it can threaten our considerable assets in the region and can cow South Korea by waving its nukes around. I think that't the reason the South has lately been so relunctant to threaten force against Pyongyang lately. The South lacks nukes and is ultimately unsure of our resolve and ability to defend them should all-out war break out. Iraqi tensions do nothing to help here, but serve to give the South the impression that if he had to choose wars, we'd probably choose Iraq and leave the North to fester. It's probably a valid assessment on the whole, so with that in mind the South proposes "dialogue" and "engagement" for now. In a post-Saddam world, though, I believe the South will see things more in line with our own view. I also think this situation is creating a sea change in Japanese thinking concerning the nature of its neighborhood. Look for a slow move toward re-arming the Land of the Rising Sun, which given its post-Shinto political structure won't be a bad thing.

The struggling economy will come back this year, modestly. I don't see it setting growth records with so much uncertainty in the world, but it'll come back providing we don't take another large-scale terror attack this year. You won't hear them admit it, but a rebounding economy is bad news for liberals, so privately they'll be cheering for it to keep hurting. Think about that, and then read the part up top about why liberals don't fare well as talk show hosts. It's difficult to attract big audiences when you don't really want things to go well for the average American apart from some government handout.

In 2003, Hollywood will continue to churn out schlock for entertainment and idiots for political pundits. It'll continue to oversex our children but accept no blame for any of the consequences, and will continue to dumb down its product in ways that haven't shocked anyone for decades. Once in a while it'll surprise us with something worth a darn, but for the most part it'll still turn out meaningless crap that we'll all pay too much to see while a director from New Zealand will make the best movie of the year. For the third year in a row. The music business will continue to suffer, and deservedly so.

I sports, I like the Raiders and the Packers for the Super Bowl. Last year I was spectacularly wrong in nearly all my playoff picks, so don't wager based on my picks now. I like the Dallas Mavericks to win the NBA, though I haven't followed pro basketball since the early 90s and don't much care about it now. In baseball, the Yankees will be good, the Orioles will be bad, some other team will win it all, and the sport's fan base will continue to erode. Football and hockey are where it's at in 2003.

This site will continue to operate throughout the year, or until it's no longer fun. Since it gets more fun everyday, I expect to still be here churning out pixels long after the last reader has clicked over to something else.

Have a great 2003. Being an optimist, I know I will.