My take on Mark Steyn's latest. His column was published in the Orange County Register. Summary:Airport measures taken since the Christmas terror attack have made things worse for passengers while not hindering more terror attacks. Quote:

First, the bureaucrats at the TSA swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses. Um, the Pantybomber didn't have a purse. He brought the bomb on board under his private parts, and his private parts weren't part of his carry-on. . . .

My Views: Valid point - National Security thinking needs to get away from all this politically correct, no profiling stuff. Clearly, the Fort Hood shooter should never have been promoted to Major in the US Army. It wasn't that his problems were unknown; it was the fear of official retribution if he was denied promotion - or (ahem!) kicked out of the army, entirely. Kicking him out of the country would have been too sensible. Not valid point - the criticisms of Obama. Yes, he ought not have allowed the Christmas Terrorist a civilian trial but once he did, his remarks couldn't prejudice the prosecution. So the reliance on the word "allegedly" and so on. More significant are the President's latest statements on how the system failed and how things need to be improved. Steyn's column is correct in critizing the President's actions; not so correct in criticizing the President's words. Sadly, actions still speak louder than words.

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Mark Steyn is a syndicated columnist from Canada. Here's his Wiki bio. His book got several Human Rights Commissions in Canada hot and bothered. With free speech under unprecedented attack, Mark Steyn managed to pull out a badly needed victory. This was the first time a Canadian Human Rights Commission found a defendant innocent.

Did you ever notice that in almost every great war in history, France has been involved in some way? The military history of France is most of the military history of the world. Here’s a list of the major French wars. Titles link to summaries of the wars. Since so much is happening this month, I’m backdating the summaries. (These also fill holes in my blog, too – grin!) Click on the map to see a detailed topographical map of France. Check back often as I work my way through this. ** = still unfinished.

WARS	DATES	REMARKS
Gaul **	58 – 51 BC	Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
Barbarian Invasions **	376 - 500	Fall of the Roman Empire
Rise of the Franks **	500 - 732	Including the Moslem Invasion
Charlemagne’s **	771 - 814	Constant warfare on the frontiers of France
The Vikings **	900 - 1066	Including the Norman Conquest of England
The Crusades **	1096 - 1270	France in the Middle East
The Plantagenets **	1200 - 1450	When the English controlled most of France
The 100 Yrs War **	1338 - 1453	Joan of Arc saves France
Invasions of Italy **	1495 - 1559	France tries to conquer Italy
The Religious Wars **	1562 - 1598	The French Civil War between Catholics and Protestants
The 30 Yrs War **	1618 - 1648	France enters late and decides the conflict
Louis XIV's **	1667 - 1714	Just like Charlemagne
Frederick the Great's **	1740 - 1763	Frederick the Great of Prussia plunged Europe into two more great wars.
The American Revolution **	1775 - 1783	France was key to victory
The French Revolution **	1793 - 1799	France versus the world
Napoleon's **	1799 - 1815	Like Charlemagne & Louis XIV
The Crimean **	1854 - 1856	France and Britain versus Russia
Italian Independence **	1859 - 1866	France versus Austria and then Italy
Franco-Prussian **	1870 - 1871	Napoleon III, Bismark, and the Commune
World War I **	1914 - 1918	The Western Front almost entirely within France.
World War II **	1939 - 1945	France conquered early; De Gaulle defends France’s status
The Suez Affair **	1956 - 1957	France and Europe retreat from Great Power status

Withdraw From Afghanistan

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George Will almost didn't make it as a syndicated columnist. His style was considered too erudite for a general audience. Whatever one thinks of his views, read his work for use of language and for how he marshals facts and uses logic. Here's his Wiki bio. www.jacklemoine.com

While I’ve lost interest in chess temporarily, I am still the Moderator at Susan Polgar’s Chess Discussion Blog (along with Paul Truong and Susan herself), so I think I ought to draw attention to this exchange.

Jack: I really can't comment on your own experiences with forum moderations. I will say that my experience with chess-discussion-moderators-not-named-Jack has occasionally been frustrating. See http://wduscf.blogspot.com/2009/04/adventures-at-chessdiscussioncom.html Unfortunately, Chess Discussion has turned into Alt.rants.Zarathustra.silly, so I haven't had much cause to post there recently.

1. For USCF politics, how about people looking more towards Wick’s Blog? Also, contact Chessvine, too.
2. There’s more to chess that USCF politics. The main thrust of Susan’s site as well as her main interest is pure chess: things like tournament news, strategy, tactics, openings – things like that. The source of problems and complaints have been near 100% on the USCF Politics section. How about people using Susan’s site more for those other things.

Finally, don’t forget the Chess Discussion Viewer – easily the best tool for chess discussion on the internet today. You can input games, positions, puzzles, together with variations and comments thereon and have that all visible from within the site. All that is needed for people to see the moves is to click the mouse – much as they maneuver through positions in ChessBase or Chess Assistant. They can then comment on it on the forum just like they can comment on politics. - Chess over politics – what a heresy!

I sent this message to Mark Weeks on Facebook tonight and I thought I would share it here.

Mark, thanks for connecting to me. I really like your blog. You should put a link to it here. I am just sick about what happened at the USCF Delegate's meeting last month. I don't think that Paul and Susan were treated right at all. I ...especially dislike not being able to talk about it. - And poor Gregory Alexander! I just don't know what to think about that! I bet when the facts come out - and someday they will - history will take a dim view about what happened. Even though I've become active in blogging again, is difficult for me to think of chess. It will take time for me to get over this.

. . . this SCHIP expansion is sensible -- if your goal is quickly to get as many people on public coverage as possible and to have children grow up thinking that it is normal for them to get their health insurance from the government. That is the goal.

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George Will almost didn't make it as a syndicated columnist. His style was considered too erudite for a general audience. Whatever one thinks of his views, read his work for use of language and for how he marshals facts and uses logic. Here's his Wiki bio.