The end of affirmative action, continued.

Update: Ivan Kirigin, who works in robotics, has some useful comments  on the "real" vs. "virtual" fence issue:

[A] wall is much cheaper and more effective solution than an array of cameras. They aren't mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. ... [A] camera system is pretty ineffective without proper enforcement or actual barriers ...[snip] [A] wall without a camera system would work pretty well. A camera network without a wall wouldn't.

Kirigin seems to assume the Bushies want a border barrier that works. I'm not so sure. Hence, the "virtual" fence. (The Border Patrol, meanwhile, will always support a complicated "virtual" monitoriing system that requires a big increase in the budget of ...  the Border Patrol). ... 11:35 P.M.  link

Report from the field: My mother says her garden is "absolutely buzzing" with bees. So they haven't all disappeared. ... 12:48 A.M.

Saturday, Ap ril 28, 2007

Put a tail on us, go ahead: DNC Chairman Howard Dean has told CNN's Wolf Blitzer  that Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani

has a lot of character issues that he has to answer for. ... His personal life is a serious problem for him.

Dean refused to specify Giuliani's "problem." ... Questions! Is this a subject the Democrats' chairman really wants to open up? Bill ("I guess I hug people sometimes") Richardson and Mrs. Bill Clinton--to name two Democratic presidential candidates--might disagree. ... If Dean knows this, as he should, was his comment actually a malicious bank shot designed to make the campaign harder for Hillary, Richardson, or another Dem candidate--one with a "personal" problem? ... 12:03 A.M.  link

Friday, Ap ril 27, 2007

The Gravel Road: Don't the crowded Democratic debates need at least one more candidate--a conservative dark horse who can sharpen the debate from the right the way Kucinich sharpened it from the left? I would have liked someone to question, for example, Gov. Richardson's claim that he would withdraw all troops by the end of this year and "use the leverage of that withdrawal" to negotiate a regional peace with Iran and Syria. Richardson's boast may not be as crazy as it sounds--the threat of chaos produced by withdrawal is at least a possible source of leverage. But the very threat acknowledges that chaos is what would, absent a deal, follow withdrawal, no? And don't we always have the threat of withdrawal, even if we don't withdraw? But if we do withdraw we lose the threat of not withdrawing, and whatever leverage it gives. ... In any case, a critique from the right would have provoked a useful discussion, and sharpened the Dem nominee to face a similar critique from the GOP's candidate. ... P.S.: If you know any conservative Democratic pols with lots of time on their hands, encourage them to run. They can live large like Mike Gravel! ... 2:55 P.M.

'And it's a pretty nice haircut':The Politico'sRoger Simon did John Edwards a big favor when he wrote, in a passage Brian Williams read during yesterday's debate: