BUGS BREATHE Sure, whatever, no big deal. Says you. But since the time of our long-dead friend Aristotle, no one has ever really understood the mechanics of a bug's breath. In fact, we weren't even sure they breathed. But, by "exposing insects to X-ray beams a billion times more powerful than the ones doctors use, researchers have settled one of the longest-running -- if lesser-known -- controversies in science: Bugs, it turns out, do breathe." Okay, so I've got the edgy dork thing going on here. This is a must-read.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW In honor of next week's Rhett Miller show at The 9:30 Club in D.C. (Oh yeah, that Crowded House fellow will be there, too.)

WHO I LIKE IN 2004 [Editor's Note: Favoritism is subject to change.] Gary Hart looks good. He sounds good. He makes sense. Today, I would like him to win the Democratic nomination. Here's why. "Security is the product of intelligent response to strategic realities. A nation that cannot articulate its strategy is bound to become a victim of confusion in constructing its security... we are swept up in at least four historic revolutions. They are: first, globalization, or the internationalization of commerce, finance, and markets; second, the information revolution, now creating a "digital divide" between computer literates and computer illiterates; third, the erosion of the sovereignty or authority of the nation-state; and fourth, a fundamental change in the nature of conflict. Without understanding the impact of these four simultaneous revolutions, a search for national security is futile. To respond to the first two revolutions requires foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East and elsewhere as bold as the Marshall Plan and as encompassing as energy security. To create a national security strategy requires an understanding of the changing nature of conflict in particular, and that requires an understanding of the erosion of the sovereignty of nation-states."

MAD SKILZ Says The Note: "All the Terry McAuliffe strategy meetings and technological improvements, all the Doug Sosnik and Harold Ickes conference calls, and all the Judy Lichtman organizing drives won't amount to a hill of beans to the party and the Left until and unless Democrats find someone to nominate for president who can put together 270 electoral votes." Yep. It's sadly true -- the candidate matters, and the Dems are scraping bottom again.

A USER'S GUIDE TO SNOW You've got to hand it to those Brits, creators of hardtack and IPA. Confronted by a natural mystery, and they go right for the manual. In this case, it happens to be snow -- "Puzzled by that white stuff that's been falling out of the sky over the past few days? Our older readers may remember it; it's called snow. Tim Dowling explains -- and shows you how to create an angel in your garden ."

FROM THE FEW, MUCH IS ASKED A quick glance at how six companies control your life. In the spirit of full disclosure, Buttermilk & Molasses is a fully owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG.

EDITING THE PRESIDENT This is a hillarious edit of last year's State of the Union address.

SHOW ME THE MONEY Some interesting snapshots of how money makes the Congress go around. The enlarged poster is impossible to read, but if you scroll down to the "Charts and Graphs" you can see some clear breakdowns of what, for instance, $90 million in campaign contributions got for the phramaceutical industry in new legislation.

SEPTEMBER 11 CREATES A MILESTONE IN GAY RIGHTS The federal fund established to compensate victims of the September 11 attacks has awarded more than $500,000 to the lesbian partner of a woman killed when the World Trade Center collapsed. The woman was not eligible for aid from Virginia (which unlike New York limits benefts to just about any relation under the sun who isn't gay) by the manager of the federal fund determined she was entitled to compensation from the federal government. This is the first time the federal government has provided compensation to someone in a gay relationship.

IT'S NOT ALL BAD, BUT... A Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years by the Federal Reserve, isn't all bad news -- family incomes rose in the 1990s, and the debt-to-asset ration declined. On the other hand, credit card debt rose and -- perhaps most significantly -- the gap between the rich and poor climbed; in fact, the top 10 percent (in income) saw their wealth increase almost twice as much as the average family. This growing gap between the richest and poorest Americans, which has almost reached its highest level in history (1929 was the peak year), is an issue we can't afford to ignore.

CHOICES, CHOICES On the one hand, Jerry Thacker's appointment to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS makes some sense -- Thacker and his wife contracted the AIDS virus after a blood transfusion. On the other hand, what a slap in the face to the millions of Americans -- and tens of millions worldwide -- affected by the disease. Thacker's website, which has recently been modified according to the Post, calls AIDS the "gay plague," and he is a graduate of and former faculty member at Bob Jones University, that bastion of free thinking in South Carolina. Thacker's appointment is certainly a delicate issue in the sense that he certainly will bring a different perspective to the 35-member commission that makes recommendations to the White House on AIDS prevention. And while it's a disappointing message from the White House, it's not much of a surprise, sadly enough. Fortunately, there are 34 other -- and hopefully wiser -- voices on the commission. [Update: Thacker submitted a letter on the afternoon of January 23 turning down the appointment.]

SPIKE THE PUNCH Punchline has hit the hay, though they promise to return. Hell, they lasted five years longer than Caffeine Magazine.

NO CLICHES WITH THE NAME "KAINE" Virginia's Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine is raising high the roofbeams and looking at paint swatches for the state's Executive Mansion. But can the state's most visible liberal politico walk the fine line between politics and public service, and still win the votes of the stodgy, white establishment?

A NOBLE ARCHIVE The Nobel Prize Internet Archive is what the World Wide Web does best. It's a cheaply designed site that is CHOCKFUL of links and missives and screeds and details about every single, friggin' Nobel Prize winner of the past 101 years. I went there specifically to get some information on prize winners in the Literature and Peace categories, and I never left. It's laden with what you want to know, even if you haven't realized it yet.

STATE OF THE NATION (TRAGIC DANCE MIX) David Broder uses the latest outstanding issue of the Atlantic Monthly to deliver the message that the lay of the American social landscape is rocky at best. The Atlantic Monthly reports on the state of the American union through 15 essays that explore some serious challenges emerging in the national dynamic. It's easy to look at the macro issues of foreign affairs, terrorism and the economy and craft broad prescriptives. But, as the Atlantic Monthly and Broder note, doing so has created significant gaps deeper in the fabric of American life. Broder says of the essays that "...the message ... is that this gap not only threatens the growth of a healthy middle class but also contributes to the worrisome loss of social trust among Americans. Republicans continually decry 'class warfare' rhetoric from their opponents, but the Atlantic Monthly essays show how current and proposed tax policies are sharpening class lines. In the final essay, Ted Halstead, the founder and head of the New America Foundation, describes 'the American paradox' -- the richest, most powerful nation suffering from 'higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, homicide and HIV infection, and from greater income inequality, than other advanced democracies.' Rebuilding a solid center for such a nation, he says, will require a new 'social contract,' protecting economic freedom and flexibility but seeking social fairness."

TWEAKING THE NUMBERS The funny thing about public opinion and democracies is how the democratic process -- when coupled with a free flow of information -- can deflame passions. Obviously, it works the other way, too, but recent polls are showing that cracks are beginning to appear in the Bush administration's Iraq shield. While support for Bush has fallen, he remains at a healthy 59 percent approval. Yet, on questions around Iraq and the economy, the numbers force some interesting choices upon an administration that once disdained polling. "Seven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq," says a new Washington Post - ABC News poll. And "the number of Americans who regard the economy as healthy has not been lower in the past nine years, and fewer than half supported the tax cut plan Bush has proposed as a remedy." The State of the Union address next week will force some tough decisions for the administration, but one thing is clear: whatever good will and support the administration enjoyed as a result of the September 11 attacks has faded, and the Bush team has done a poor job of spending it while it was in the bank.

BEFORE AND AFTER BUSH The ABC news political trio at The Note toss out a few worthy niblets this week -- we're finally at a point where it doesn't sound stupid to say that Bush might just lose a re-election bid; the Democratic presidential herd is already beginning to thin; and John Kerry wowed 'em in Richmond yesterday. Here's The Note's spin on a few of our favorite Dems -- "Kerry: If Kerry winds up being the Democratic nominee, he will likely have won the contest in late 2002... Kerry's Saturday morning breakfast with 20-or-so reporters, followed by one of the best attended pre-caucus events anybody can remember, was a three-hour period that was representative of, and reflective of the surprisingly strong place in which the guy finds himself... Dean: If you saw the reaction to Dean's Saturday night speech and you still don't think he can be a serious player in the Iowa caucuses (and maybe win them), you need to recalibrate your brain." And Gary Hart looked good on the Sunday news shows this week, too.

BASS FRAU In my gangly, geeky teenage punk rock days, I interviewed a local band that straddled the punk-hardcore-metal divide rather successfully -- an impressive feat in 1980s Richmond. That they did it with a ass-kicking bass player named Greta, well, that was even more impressive in the "boy's school" world of the Richmond punk scene. Greta has gone on to plunk strings with Blondie and Moby, and about 40 other bands.

THE FORGOTTEN KING Tom Tomorrow's site nudged me in this direction, where Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon remind folk that yesterday, when many of us took a moment to remember Martin Luther King Jr., was predictable. It was predictable, they say, in that most celebrations revolved around King's early years, when his focus was civil rights, and on his tragic death. What was missing was the Martin Luther King Jr. circa 1965-68, the man whose vision of rights expanded after the March on Washington, and the man who struggled with reconciling his regional view of civil rights into a human view of economic and social rights. Cohen and Solomon note that "...after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without 'human rights' -- including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow. Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for 'radical changes in the structure of our society' to redistribute wealth and power. 'True compassion,' King declared, 'is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.' "

GOOD FENCES, GOOD NEIGHBORS MAKE David Ignatius turns his gaze back to inter-agency politics within the U.S. government, but this time between Defense and the CIA. It's becoming clear that the Defense Department is beginning to create its own batch of field agents -- running counter-propoganda, training Iraqi dissidents in combat techniques. And the lines between those activities and the work of the CIA is beginning to blur. This happened, Ignatius notes, in the 1960s. It also happened during the Reagan administration. It leads to a blurring of accountability, and an increased desire to keep activities under wraps. It's no game, Ignatius says. "Personally, I've never believed the plots you see in spy movies, where murder-for-hire operatives for super-secret Defense or CIA cells karate-chop their way around the world. The real world has too many lawyers for that kind of thing to happen, I always thought. But the lawyers are in retreat. And these new turf wars aren't like the Customs Service fighting the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This stuff is dangerous."

WHAT TO CELEBRATE In case you're at home, or at work, or reading this weeks after the national holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth." From his Letter from Birmingham Jail, found in its entirety at the above link.

IN THE NAME OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, SING I thought it appropriate to let The Arizona Republic be the commemorating link on this national Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, since Arizona had the distinction of being the last state to sign the holiday into law. The Republic reminds us that King had a dream, and while some of it has been achieved, much has not. We still need dreams.

WAR ROCKS Kate Sullivan is distressed because the war is interupting her rock -- the Libertines can't get their visas approved. Still, she finds the sunny side. "...I don't blame the Libertines but the enemies of rock in Washington the so-called president and his oil-based cabinet who are oily in more than one way but also they are secret friends of rock because everyone knows rock gets better in difficult times just look at the war-torn Sixties and the miserable Seventies and the oppressive Eighties I mean in fact we've had great rock ever since it started because we've been through some bad shit pretty much nonstop and only the 1990s were a little better and look what happened to rock it sucked."

A DIFFERENT LEFT-HANDED VIEW Christopher Hitchens is large, British and usually bats in the editorial neighborhood of .310. This piece in the Seattle Stranger is addressed to the anti-warniks in that rainy city, and provides a different liberal perspective on the issue of Iraq, or from the perspective of the Left what might be a more conservative view from a liberal. Hitchens makes numerous points, but the more compelling for me is a reminder of what lines are really being drawn here -- and by here I mean around the world, not just in Iraq. He says, "The United States finds itself at war with the forces of reaction. Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women? The massacre of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan? Or what about the latest boast of al Qaeda--that the bomb in Bali, massacring so many Australian holidaymakers, was a deliberate revenge for Australia's belated help in securing independence for East Timor? (Never forget that the Muslim fundamentalists are not against "empire." They fight proudly for the restoration of their own lost caliphate.)" What I fail to see in most of the anti-war rhetoric (or, for that matter, in the pro-war rhetoric) are arguments in support of something -- where are the sincere efforts to reduce our dependency on oil from the "No war for oil" crowd, or the "End sanctions and lift the illegal no-fly zone" demands from the anti-imperialists, or the "Screw the Kurds" pamphlets from the protesters who think Saddam Hussein can do whatever he wants within his own borders? None of these are meant to be arguments on my part for a war, but when, oh when, will liberalism stop being a force of protest against everything and start standing for something? Here are some starting points -- energy alternatives to reduce global dependency on oil; a complete overhaul of the UN and other international agencies; right of return for Palestinians and Kurds; a U.S. foreign policy position on human rights abuses in Iraq, Burma, China, North Korea...

WRYLY AGAINST WAR Pointed toward this account of Saturday's protest in DC by Tom Tomorrow. Crowd estimates ranged from 30,000 to 500,000 -- with the DC police, some organizers and the Washington Post all getting in on the 150,000-200,000 estimate, which still makes it the largest anti-war gathering since the Vietnam War. Not bad considering no one's at war yet (or that we've been at war with Iraq since 1991, depending on your perspective).

COUNTING THE DAYS 'til "The Nitrate Hymnal" makes its debut in Washington. The Post's Philip Kennicott does a keen job of putting Bob Massey's production into some semblance of context. What is it exactly? To answer that, you need to know Bob Massey and the 20-odd talented musicians and set designers and artists who helped him pull this world together. It's in his blood, apparently, this bringing together. Kennicott writes, "Massey, a local musician who for years has run a salon devoted to bringing musicians and composers of all stripes together, comes out of the DIY, or do it yourself, post-punk scene -- which, he explains, means, "I'll be damned if anyone tells me I can't do an opera." He has created around himself a not-so-underground music world that lives the boundary-less, non-hierarchical ethic of communal musicmaking, an ethic that some classical opera composers might hold up as an ideal but have rarely put into practice with any success. His "Nitrate Hymnal" is described by the Washington Performing Arts Society (which is presenting it through Saturday) as multimedia, interactive, post-punk, hybrid and several other things as well, which adds up to: You have to see it to know what it's about." The Washington Times takes a look at it from a musical perspective here. And The Nitrate Hymnal website includes press clippings from The Senior Beacon and the Washington City Paper, as well as information on this weekend's performances.