REINSTALL WINDOWS EASILY
The first thing to do is start saving Windows Updates locally for faster reinstalls. You can download XP updates as program files, save them on your hard drive, reload them when you need to, and even share them between computers. Begin with downloading Windows XP Service Pack 2. Keeping a reinstallable version of SP2 handy will save you more download time than all the other XP updates put together. Download SP2, or order the update on CD (note that the first of these two links begins the download automatically)
THE WORST EX-PRESIDENT
The State Department has granted a visa to Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, to visit the United States. Mr. Khatami is coming this week chiefly to attend meetings at the United Nations. He also will speak at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; at a function sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Arlington, Virginia, and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. And he will meet with former president Jimmy Carter. Mr. Khatami requested the meeting with Mr. Carter. Perhaps to say "thank you." Thanks to James Buchanan (1791-1868), Pennsylvania's unfortunate contribution to the presidency (1857-1861), Jimmy Carter can claim not to have been the worst president in U.S. history. But he is unquestionably the worst ex-president, snuggling up to every tyrant who will allow his buttocks to be smooched.
DEMOCRACY IN LIBYA?
Muamar Qadaffi has run Libya as an Islamic dictatorship since 1969. The history of his oppression and sponsorship of terrorism is long. Ronald Reagan called him "The Mad Dog of the Middle East." It took George W. Bush to bring Qadaffi to heel. After Bush chased Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad and into a spider hole, Qadaffi called up Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and told him he didn't want to end up like Saddam. So Qadaffi came clean on his WMD program, the extent of which stunned the clueless CIA. He invited international inspectors to Libya, where they removed several tons of chemical weaponry, and dismantled an active nuclear weapons program. As a result, this past May 15, the State Department announced the US was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya. Hotels in Tripoli and Benghazi are full of US oil execs and other businessfolk making deals. Yet Qadaffi remains a dictator and Libya the antithesis of a democracy. Until this week.
WHY LIBERALS ARE FASCISTS
Doesn't it seem odd that the kids who started the 60s anti-establishment protest riots on college campuses with the Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, 1964) are the college professors or politicians today who most vehemently suppress free speech among their students or constituents in the name of political correctness? How can this be? How can worshipping at the shrines of Diversity, Tolerance, and Multiculturalism result in trials and expulsions for students, or jail for citizens, who express ideas with which the worshippers are not in agreement? The answer is the intimate connection between Subjectivism and Fascism. And nowhere was this on display more than in California this week.
THE UNSUNG JEWISH NAVY
The Israeli navy rarely gets the spotlight, but it briefly drew attention in July when a Hezbollah anti-ship missile surprised a command vessel, killing four sailors. Then the coverage turned back to the war in the air and on the ground. Hearing only about what went wrong at sea, we missed a terrific, positive story. We've been missing it for years. The Israeli navy is the state's smallest military arm, with only 1,500 personnel on active duty and reservists rounding out crews. But the service has an enormous mission - which it's been executing quietly and superbly for decades. Which brings me to terrorists on jet skis...
APPRECIATING AMERICA
Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today, We just touched ground on an international runway Jet propelled back home, from overseas to the USA. Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeway? From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay You can bet your life I did, ‘till I got back to the USA. Looking hard for a drive-in, searchin' for a corner café Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day Yeah, and a juke-box jumpin' with records like in the USA. Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA. Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA. Anything you want, we got right here in the USA. --Chuck Berry, "Back In The USA," 1962.Two months traveling around the world through 15 countries. Back home at last.
THE DEMOCRAT DANGER TO AMERICA
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor illustrates why Democrats cannot be trusted with political power in time of war. Ms. Taylor, who is the chief judge of the federal district court in Detroit, ruled Aug. 17 that it is unconstitutional for the National Security Agency to listen in, without warrants, on telephone conversations between terror suspects abroad and people in the United States. Her ruling was praised by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent Democrats. Then it was discovered that Judge Taylor served on the board of a foundation which gave $125,000 to the Michigan ACLU, the lead plaintiff in the case, and did not disclose this apparent conflict of interest.
NO GOOD OPTIONS IN LEBANON
The U.N.-backed cease-fire has stopped the killing in Lebanon and Israel. Now a United Nations peacekeeping force, coupled with the fractured Lebanese army, faces the daunting task of disarming Hezbollah. A realistic appraisal of this "A-Team" of terrorist organizations has this cease-fire looking more like a Hezbollah tactical pause, not a lasting commitment to peace with Israel. In Israel last week, the speaker of its Knesset told me "we closed our eyes" to the growing threat of Hezbollah, which started building its military capabilities in southern Lebanon the day Israeli soldiers departed six years ago. The threat continues to grow and Israel is in deep crisis.
THREE STRIKES FOR LIBERALS ON TAX CUTS
Many in the Washington establishment were shocked Aug. 17, when the Congressional Budget Office reported a surge of "unanticipated tax receipts" that will sharply push down this year's deficit. Those who had been proclaiming the Bush tax rate cuts would result in a big reduction in tax revenues tried to hide their disappointment. It was tough being proved wrong again after having said the same thing when Ronald Reagan cut tax rates in the early 1980s. We have now had three major experiments with tax rate reduction in the last half-century, and each time both economic growth and tax revenues have surged, despite the fears and cries of the anti-tax-cut crowd. How much more evidence will they need to understand the difference between tax rates and tax revenues?
IF BUSH GIVES UP
We are all aware of the dangerous Middle East conditions the United States faces today after five and a half years of President Bush's leadership. So let's consider what the world might well look like if, in his remaining two and a half years, he were to follow the recommendations of his critics. First: America out of Iraq by the end of 2007. We warn the Iraqis to get off their duffs and prepare to be in charge by Dec. 31, 2007. We depart (leaving a couple of divisions in a desert base somewhere in Kuwait - per John Murtha's over the horizon strategy). The Iraqi military and police are still not able to manage. Full scale civil war breaks out. The Iranians enter to give help to the Shias. The Egyptians, Saudis and other Sunni states lend a hand to help the Iraqi Sunnis. The Kurds declare an independent Kurdistan. Kuwait demands our two divisions immediately leave, as it is arousing the hostility of its population. Qatar makes the same demand, for same reason, of our naval base. The United States complies.