No one likes a sore loser.

Don't let them get away with calling this narrow victory any sort of mandate for their agenda.

A new car built by my company leave somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field (A) multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B) then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of the recall, we don't do one.

General Motors Corp. is recalling 717,302 minivans because passengers could injure their wrists or arms on the power sliding door, the automaker and federal government said Thursday.

The vehicles affected are 1997-2005 model Chevrolet Venture, 1997-1999 Pontiac Transport/Montana, 2000-2005 Pontiac Montana and 1997-2004 Oldsmobile Silhouette.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Power Exchange house, all the creatures were stirring, one doffing her blouse.

The stockings were hung some by garter belts with care, in hopes that attention would soon be directed there.

[ . . . ]

Just then, the woman there for the first time came into the dungeon with her boyfriend, another woman and a small red flogger. She was there to check out everything the Power Exchange had to offer.

"Can I use this on you?" she asked, holding up the flogger.

"No thanks," I said. "I think it's better to give than to receive."

Murder suggests deeper psychological trouble, as illustrated by several cases in which women have killed expectant mothers and taken infants. In 1987, an Oregon woman named Darci Pierce killed a pregnant woman and performed a Caesarean section on her with a car key.

Now, after a year of continued strife in Iraq, comes word that the commander of forces in the region is seeking options to increase the number of U.S. troops on the ground if necessary. Surely I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development.

Much of the population sees the United States as an occupier. A violent insurgency develops, undermining the new institutions. The United States is unable to win over the hearts and minds of the people, or crush the insurgency. Finally, after more than a decade, with both Washington and the nation losing interest, the effort is abandoned. Troops are withdrawn, the new institutions collapse, and an evil, repressive regime emerges in its place.

A vision of Iraq's future? No. Not yet.

It's a short history of a previous U.S. effort to introduce democracy to a defeated but restive population in the American South, after the Civil War.[ ]

[ . . . ]

Iraq wasn't a slave society, but clearly Sunni Arabs, who benefited from Saddam Hussein's repression of the Kurds and Shiite Arabs, are the most resistant to the U.S. presence and the interim government. And finally, although the Iraq insurgency is far more violent, the insurgents are quite similar to the well-organized, militant, hate-filled ideologues of the post- Civil War South: the Ku Klux Klan, the Sons of Midnight, the Knights of the White Camellia. Like today's insurgents, these groups sought to disrupt daily life through acts of terror. And one of their favorites was kidnapping and murdering -- occasionally even beheading -- ex-slaves and whites who cooperated with the U.S.-imposed state governments.

In their violent, anti-democratic nature, Southern night riders and today's radical Muslim terrorists in Iraq have much in common. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general who founded the Klan, and Abu Musab al- Zarqawi are virtual twins in their fanaticism, hatred of the United States and love of brutality.

What was the outcome of 11 years of nation building in the South? It failed.

"It's just disgusting -- our parks are covered with cigarette butts," Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier told her colleagues in introducing the legislation at their weekly meeting.

"Not to mention the fact that children are subject to secondhand smoke when they take a water break while playing micro-soccer," an initiation into the sport for 5- and 6-year-olds.

Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, one of five supervisors who signed off on placing the proposed law on the next ballot, said it was concern about guns' falling into the wrong hands that motivated her.

"You have to keep guns away from kids," said Alioto-Pier, the mother of young children. "We're not taking away people's constitutional rights. This is about ensuring the safety of people who live here."

[emphasis added]

San Francisco supervisors want voters to approve a sweeping handgun ban that would prohibit almost everyone except law enforcement officers, security guards and military members from possessing firearms in the city.

The measure, which will appear on the municipal ballot next year, would bar residents from keeping guns in their homes or businesses, Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly, said Wednesday. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of handguns and ammunition in San Francisco, as well as the transfer of gun licenses.

Barnes said the initiative is a response to San Francisco's skyrocketing homicide rate, as well as other social ills. There have been 86 murders in the city so far this year compared to 70 in all of 2003.

"The hope is twofold, that officers will have an opportunity to interact with folks and if they have a handgun, that will be reason enough to confiscate it," he said. "Second, we know that for even law-abiding folks who own guns, the rates of suicide and mortality are substantially higher. So while just perceived to be a crime thing, we think there is a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city."

[ . . . ]

Washington, D.C. is the only major American city that currently bans handgun possession by private citizens. Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association, said San Francisco officials are remiss to use the District of Columbia's experience as a model.

"If gun control worked, Washington, D.C. would be the beacon. However, it's the murder capital of the United States," Arulanandam said.

"Between 8 and 10 percent of North Korea's population is dying of hunger, but the whole world is just sitting and watching," [Christine Ahn of Food First] said, adding, "Where was the international human rights movement when North Korea was begging the international community for humanitarian assistance and development aid?"

[OhMyNews:] How is the discourse on North Korean human rights formed in the United States? Could you explain about the process?

[Ahn:] "At the center are conservative NGOs. I think the U.S. and Korean understanding of North Korean human rights is problematic. One must view political repression and starvation separately. Only 20 percent of North Korea's land is good for farming. That's how barren it is. Americans farm for profit, but not North Koreans. There is a fundamental difference in understanding."

[emphasis added]

While there is no great practical difficulty in organizing effective measures for famine prevention, provided the problems are correctly diagnosed and addressed, one reason why this does not occur adequately - or at all - in many parts of the world is that the penalty of the famines are borne only by the suffering public and not by the ruling government. If the government were to be accountable to the public, through elections, free news reporting and uncensored public criticism, then the government too would have good reasons - to avoid condemnation and ultimately rejection - to do its best to eradicate famines.

It is not, in fact, surprising that in the terrible history of famines in the world, there is hardly any case in which a famine has occurred in a country that is independent and democratic with an uncensored press. This absence of famines applies not only to the rich economies, but also to poor but relatively democratic countries, such as post-independence India, or Botswana, or Zimbabwe.

[ . . . ]

The issue relates also to the Chinese famines of 1958-61 in which, as was mentioned earlier, possibly up to 30 million people died. The Chinese government, despite being politically very committed to eliminating hunger in general, did not substantially revise its disastrous policies associated with the failed "great leap forward", during the three famine years. The lack of a free system of news distribution misled the government itself, fed by its own propaganda and by rosy reports of local party officials competing for credit in Beijing. Indeed, there is evidence that just as the famine was moving towards its peak, the Chinese authorities mistakenly believed that they had 100 million more metric tons of grain than they actually did.

No less importantly, the lack of a free news media and the absence of opposition parties entailed that the government was not subjected to adversarial critique for its disastrous failure to save its population from starvation and famine. During that terrible calamity the government faced no pressure from newspapers, which were controlled, or from opposition parties, which were absent. Perhaps the most important reform that can contribute to the elimination of famines, in Africa as well as in Asia, is the enhancement of democratic practice, unfettered newspapers and - more generally - adversarial politics.

Giant waves crashed along the North Shore of Oahu Wednesday, leaving sand and debris on roadways and prompting officials to close beaches as waves reached 40 feet and higher.

But amid the debris, world-class surfers gathered for a rare big-wave surfing competition that occurs only when such enormous waves sweep the island's coast.

[ . . . ]

The competition is held only when the waves reach giant proportions -- only six times in the last 19 years.

Wave heights were reported to peak Wednesday morning between 30 and 40 feet at Waimea Bay. Forecasters had earlier predicted 50 foot faces.

[ . . . ]

Capt. George Ku of the Sunset Beach fire station said his crew had not been called out on a single surf-related emergency as of 8 a.m., two hours after the peak.

Here is how we decided to publish secret testimony: We don't believe that it's our responsibility to enforce federal secrecy provisions surrounding grand jury proceedings.

However, government -- any government, at any level -- tends to prefer to work in secret. Sometimes that secrecy is intended to hide abuse by public officials -- Watergate being perhaps the most famous example, though hardly the only one -- and sometimes not. But the press sees its role this way: We are the institution through which people can get the most transparent view of what its government is doing in the name of the people it's supposed to serve.

[ . . . ]

And, again, with all its flaws and excesses, the press is part of the system of checks and balances on powerful institutions. Is it important to know that some highly paid, elite athletes are taking illegal steroids? While reader Grindahl was happy that newspapers in 1971 published the Pentagon Papers, a secret government report on the Vietnam War that officials said was leaked, he believes steroid use by an athlete "simply does not rise to that level."

The press, at its best, looks for some reality, if not some truth. Our job is different from the government's and the courts'. It's not about hostility or taking cheap shots. There are times, however, when doing our job will mean having adversarial relationships with elected officials and public and private institutions. Or with someone's interpretation of the law and how and where it applies.

But none of this is to say we have a corner on wisdom. We're fallible; just check out our corrections every day on page A2. The press needs to pay attention to being honest and straightforward ourselves -- a notion that hasn't seemed all that easy amid the media disgraces and scandals of the past few years. And we have to guard against the sins of the press in our modern era: sanctimony, self-righteousness and arrogance.

[emphasis added]

A Berkeley scientist, an Albany biotechnology startup and a unique San Francisco nonprofit drug company will announce today they have received a $43 million grant to develop a cheaper version of a Chinese herbal drug that is considered the most effective cure for malaria [by using genetically engineered E. coli bacteria].

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of Seattle will provide the money to speed the development of a genetically engineered form of artemisinin, an herbal medicine derived from the dried leaves of the wormwood plant.

Artemisinin, which has been used in China to treat fevers since A.D. 150, came into vogue as a modern malaria treatment after studies in Vietnam showed it reduced deaths from the illness by 97 percent.

A parasitic blood disease responsible for 1.5 million deaths each year, malaria strikes up to 500 million annually and has grown increasingly resistant to a variety of medicines that have been used to control it. The World Health Organization now recognizes that drugs combining antibiotics with the herbal extract provide the most rapid defense against malaria and are the only ones to which the parasite has not developed resistance.

A three-day course of drugs containing artemisinin can cure malaria for about $2.40 -- inexpensive by Western standards, but out of reach in many of the Asian and African nations where the disease is taking its biggest toll.

[ . . . ]

Currently, artemisinin production relies on a network of farmers in Vietnam and China who raise wormwood during an eight-month crop cycle. Shortages of the plant help keep the price of the drug high.

As the search for someone to replace Treasury Secretary John Snow dragged on, Republicans close to the White House openly dissed him. Then, on Wednesday, the president reappointed Mr. Snow. To justify the surprise decision, a senior administration official said, "This was no time to send a signal of uncertainty."

[emphasis added]

In the eight decades since the New York Court of Appeals in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad outlined the two competing theories of proximate cause, a branch of the Palsgraf family has been beset by bad luck, serious injuries and losing lawsuits, just like their matriarch, Helen Palsgraf.

"It's a curse, I'm telling you. It's a Palsgraf Curse," Barbara Palsgraf [who lost a left thumb in an accident], the wife of Helen's grandson William Jr. [who permanently suffered reduced arm function due to an accident with an allegedly defective ladder], said by phone from her home in Deerfield Beach, Fla. "Everyone I know in the family has had an accident and didn't get what they deserved."

[ . . . ]

William Jr.'s sister, Carol, 65, a retired office manager who lives in Woodhaven, said she does not believe in a curse. She does, however, get hounded by attorneys and judges about her name.

"Every time I go to jury duty I get this nonsense," she said in an interview.

A discussion of Santa [by Maria Shriver, whose husband, Governor Schwarzenegger, changed former Gov.'s Gray Davis's "holiday tree" to "Christmas tree"] ensued in a public school? Obviously, the Schwarzenegger-Shriver clan is blissfully unaware of the raging effort each December to rid schools and public spots of people exactly like them.

In recent years, various California schools have banned the hideous "Silent Night" (in Sacramento's San Juan School District), banned "Jingle Bells" because of offensive religiousness (in Fresno, where outraged parents quickly overturned the ban) and removed red-and-green lights that were seen as a "provocation" (in a Newport Beach school). One pundit questioned whether upscale Newport Beach should also take down traffic signals.

Most parents don't realize Christmas is being banned at their school because the media don't really give a rip.

Yet blacklisting of angels and stars of Bethlehem and Christmas trees is not required by any law, anywhere. I am a secular humanist with no religion. But I wince each year as my intolerant secular humanist brethren increasingly shame teachers into stamping out Christmas.

The courts say the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause can't be used to promote hostility to a religion, such as Christianity, in schools. Religious expression is allowed if there's a legitimate secular purpose -- such as, oh I don't know, perhaps explaining to children the most widespread cultural holiday in America, observed even by many nonbelievers?

Later in the day, he was scheduled to meet with 115 members of families of 47 division soldiers who have fallen in Iraq since the invasion. [General David] Petraeus [commanding 101st Airborne Division] said Bush had twice extended — to 2 hors [sic] — the amount of time he planned to spend in private with survivors of the fallen soldiers.

After the speech, Bush met for nearly two hours with families of soldiers who had died in Iraq.

The second [reason for the visit] - and I believe far more important - was to meet privately with 170 family members who had lost a loved one. He forbade the press corps from viewing or photographing any of it.

The Plt Sgt Mitchell Paige Fieldhouse (a brand new $12.5m facility) has two basketball courts. One was curtained off and decks covered where he met with them together. Then, he met with the family members of each fallen Marine in the other gym individually. Having had the duty of a Casualty Assistance and Notification Officer many times in the past, I know how emotionally draining it is to talk to even one family at a time. When we put the President back on Marine One some three hours later, he was as somber and drained as I've ever seen him. It took an emotional toll on everyone involved.

Troops confront Rumsfeld, ask for better battle gear

Challenges from National Guardsmen bound for combat unnerve Pentagon chief

Camp Buehring, Kuwait -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came here Wednesday to lead a morale-lifting town hall discussion with Iraq-bound troops. Instead, he found himself on the defensive, fielding pointed questions from soldiers complaining about aging vehicles that lacked armor for protection against roadside bombs.

Rumsfeld, seemingly caught off guard by the sharp questioning, responded that the military was producing extra armor for humvees and trucks as quickly as possible but that the soldiers would have to cope with equipment shortages. "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time," he said.

Q [note: from Spec. Thomas Wilson, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (official site), Tennessee Army National Guard]: Yes, Mr. Secretary. My question is more logistical. We’ve had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we’ve always staged here out of Kuwait. Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us? [Applause]

SEC. RUMSFELD: I missed the first part of your question. And could you repeat it for me?

Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years. A lot of us are getting ready to move north relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I’m told that they are being – the Army is – I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done. And it’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.

As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe – it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.

I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they’re working at it at a good clip. It’s interesting, I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who’ve been working on it hard at the Pentagon. And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on.

And General Whitcomb, is there anything you’d want to add to that?

GEN. WHITCOMB: Nothing. [Laughter] Mr. Secretary, I’d be happy to. That is a focus on what we do here in Kuwait and what is done up in the theater, both in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. As the secretary has said, it’s not a matter of money or desire; it is a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it. The 699th, the team that we’ve got here in Kuwait has done [Cheers] a tremendous effort to take that steel that they have and cut it, prefab it and put it on vehicles. But there is nobody from the president on down that is not aware that this is a challenge for us and this is a desire for us to accomplish.

SEC. RUMSFELD: The other day, after there was a big threat alert in Washington, D.C. in connection with the elections, as I recall, I looked outside the Pentagon and there were six or eight up-armored humvees. They’re not there anymore. [Cheers] [Applause] They’re en route out here, I can assure you. Next. Way in the back. Yes.

Q: Chaplain Malone (sp), the 642nd Aviation Support Battalion. Mr. Secretary, my job is to support the spiritual fitness of the soldiers that you see in the room today. I am also here to support the morale of these soldiers. And the soldiers that you see here today have asked me to ask you this question on their behalf. Would you be kind enough, sir, to put us on your aircraft today and take us to Disneyland? [Cheers]

SEC. RUMSFELD: [Laughter] Oh, Chaplain, you did it. [Laughter] You asked it, you knocked it right out of the park and the answer is sorry. [Laughter] We’ve got more important things for you to do [Laughter] and we appreciate it. We’ve got time for a couple more questions right here.

Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary, Specialist McCullough (sp), Alpha Company 1st of the 112th Infantry. There’s a lot of soldiers here from Western Pennsylvania and we were wondering if we were going to be given the opportunity to watch the Steelers win the Super Bowl this year? [Cheers] [Applause] [Note: Steelers are 11-1. That's right, 11-1!]

SEC. RUMSFELD: I can’t answer the question about outcomes [Laughter], but General, they’re going to have access to the…

GEN. WHITCOMB: Absolutely, sir.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Yes, you’ll have access to the television, but you’re going to have to figure out a way to encourage that to happen. [Laughter] Yes.

One more thing I would like to add is this, not one soldier present asked questions about why we were here, or expressed the sort of anti-war sentiment that Michael Moore led some to believe was prevalent in the military. Rather, the concern was about ensuring we would be supplied with all necessary equipment to accomplish the mission and return home safely. Let there be no doubt, this was not a hostile crowd eager to catch the Secretary of Defense off guard by grilling him with questions he has never had to answer. This was a group of truly admirable American's and patriots, receiving confirmation from the man who controls the Department of Defense, that we have the full fledged moral, financial and logistical support, to accomplish the mission.

Hitchens: Michael Moore openly says that he regards the murderers and torturers and beheaders in Iraq as the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers.

Vester: Which a number of people in this room take a dim view of.

Hitchens: I should hope.

Vester: Why do you in particular... I mean, you're tough on Michael Moore in your book. Why?

Hitchens: Well, because he's a scumbag.

'I'm not a prophylactic'

The replacement of the word "condom" with a Korean one has collapsed, with several people complaining that the new moniker was identical or similar to their own names.

The Korean Anti-AIDS Federation unveiled "aepil" last month in a campaign aimed at increasing condom use among Koreans [currently about 10 percent]. The word, which was chosen among 19,000 other submissions in a contest held by the KAAF, is derived from the Chinese characters for love and necessary.

"It turns out that there are people who are actually named 'aepil,'" said Kim Yoon-su, a spokesperson for KAAF said yesterday. "They were understandably very upset considering the sensitive nature of this subject. They thought it would have a negative impact on their lives and on the lives of their parents or children."

"I was asked, 'How would you feel if your mother was named condom?'" said Kim.

The federation checked with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, which holds a registry of Korean names, and found 10 people named "aepil."

Cal fan needs to stop acting like he/she has some kind of divine right to the Rose Bowl. Last time I checked, the traditional matchup was between the Pac-10 and Big Ten champions, and Cal was neither. How ironic is it that the same system that even gave Cal a chance to be in Pasadena in the first place, is the same one that ends up screwing them? Win your conference once every 50 years if you want to go to the Rose Bowl so damn bad.

Appearing at Bimbo's 365 Club on Sunday, human dynamo [Kevin] Spacey is doing a whirlwind, 10-city tour in time to whip up enthusiasm for his film, "Beyond the Sea," which opens in theaters Dec. 29.

No one knew exactly what to expect, but tickets to the show were snapped up as soon as they went on sale and, outside the club on Sunday, people were offering hundreds of dollars for a pair.

[ . . . ]

In a virtually flawless performance, Spacey miraculously channeled the sound, the spirit, the style of Bobby Darin, the neglected pop singing great who died at age 37 in 1973 after his heart, severely damaged by rheumatic fever as a child, finally gave out in the middle of an eight-hour surgery.

[ . . . ]

This extraordinary encomium is practically without precedent in Hollywood. The two-time Oscar-winning Spacey is a big enough star to make his Bobby Darin movie happen. But he could have easily stayed home afterward, done a few phone interviews and checked the grosses in Variety like every other movie star would have.

That he wanted to put himself through the grueling, taxing challenge of going out in the nightclubs -- Darin's reality -- and actually doing Darin's act is an amazing testament to his beautiful obsession. That he did it so completely, totally and lovingly makes it all the more beautiful. This guy Spacey is one for the books.

On patrol in Taliban-infested sectors of Afghanistan's Paktia province, Tillman's "Black Sheep" platoon, formally known as 2nd Platoon, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, became bogged down because of a broken Humvee. Lt. David Uthlaut, the platoon leader, recommended that his unit stay together, deliver the truck to a nearby road, then complete his mission. He was overruled by a superior officer monitoring his operations from distant Bagram, near Kabul, who ordered Uthlaut to split his platoon, with one section taking care of the Humvee and the other proceeding to a village, where the platoon was to search for enemy guerrillas.

Steep terrain and high canyon walls prevented the two platoon sections from communicating with each other at crucial moments. When one section unexpectedly changed its route and ran into an apparent Taliban ambush while trapped in a deep canyon, the other section from a nearby ridge began firing in support at the ambushers. As the ambushed group broke free from the canyon, machine guns blazing, one heavily armed vehicle mistook an allied Afghan militiaman for the enemy and poured hundreds of rounds at positions occupied by fellow Rangers, killing Pat Tillman and the Afghan.

It quickly became clear to the undercover agents in the crowd at Little Switzerland that there was more forbidden fruit than lederhosen at the German-style beer hall in Sonoma.

Just the fact that the rap group 2 Live Crew was performing instead of the club's regular polka band was suspicious. The scantily clad girls dancing suggestively on stage to raunchy lyrics might have been enough to trigger some kind of enforcement, even without the partial nudity.

Then the bananas came out.

[ . . . ]

Only vaguely familiar with the group's reputation for vulgar lyrics, Alina Garcia agreed to book a special event with them as the featured attraction. It was special in more ways than one, according to [Scott] Warnock [of the California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control], whose agents were there to watch for underage drinking at the request of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department.

[ . . . ]

"I only saw part of the beginning, then I was down at the bar helping with cover charge and security," [Alina Garcia, who is a co-owner with her husband] said, adding, with a sheepish pause, "There was a banana peel left on the stage when the band left."

Warnock said he would probably recommend a temporary suspension of Little Switzerland's liquor license, a ruling that is subject to appeal. In the meantime, the Garcias are trying to cope with a remarkable new interest in their once innocent little beer hall.

"It certainly has gotten us a lot of publicity, more than we ever imagined," Alina Garcia said. "I've been getting bananas as gifts. One of the jazz bands recently left a banana peel on stage. A lot of our customers are over 50 years of age, and some of them feel like they've missed out on something here."

[emphasis added]

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats' abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

[ . . . ]

Democrats must reconnect with the energy of our grass roots. One of the failures of the DLC was that its ideas never helped us build a grass-roots donor base. As a result, Democrats held a lead over Republicans in only one fundraising category before this election cycle: contributions over one million dollars. That shows how far the party had strayed from grassroots fundraising before the Dean campaign. We must build a base of at least seven million small donors by 2006. With the Internet it's possible. But it can't just be about the money, it also has to be about ideas.

[ . . . ]

The Democratic Party has to be the vehicle that empowers the American people to change our failed political system. We all know the damn thing is broken. Democrats should lead the way by placing stricter money restrictions on candidates than the toothless Federal Election Commission does. A party funded by contributions from the people can do this. A corrupted and corroded party cannot. The Democratic Party shouldn't wait for campaign-finance reform--it should be campaign-finance reform.

Finally, what is the purpose the party strives for today? What are our goals for the nation? You couldn't tell from the election. Very few good ideas come from the middle, and they tend to be mediocre. Consultants have become adept at keeping candidates in that safe zone. But the time has come to develop bold ideas and challenge people to sacrifice for the common good. Experts will tell you that you can't ask the American people to sacrifice individually for the common good. Those experts are wrong--it's just been so long since anyone has asked them.