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Jagdish Bhagwati: Keep Free Trade Free

As the world's preeminent globalization buff, Jagdish Bhagwati doesn't toe standard party lines. The Columbia University economist, 74, who has advised everyone from the Indian government to the World Trade Organization, is a rare nonpartisan in a field dominated by ideologues. A registered Democrat who is willing to face down the anti-free-trade wing of his own party, Bhagwati is also comfortable arguing against what he sees as the compassion-free laissez-faire attitude exhibited by many of his fellow globalization advocates. Below, Bhagwati explains why everything you thought you knew about free trade is wrong. The Truth About Globalization 1. The world isn't flat. Thomas Friedman's metaphor aside, we don't live in a 2-D world in which all countries compete for the same jobs. For instance, China may never be as innovative as the US, which has a stable venture-capital model and an entrepreneurial culture that promotes creativity. Globalization helps nations discover their unique strengths. 2. Free trade is green. Trade foes argue that it spurs the creation of cheap goods at the planet's expense. Bhagwati points out that undemocratic countries are often the worst environmental offenders. Since globalization promotes democracy, it should make the world more green, not less. 3. Nafta ain't free. Agreements like Nafta are for free trade among members but increased protection against nonmembers, Bhagwati says. Ultimately, such protectionism divides the world into exclusive trading zones, a return to the tit-for-tat alliances of the 1930s. 4. But intellectual property should be. Many globalization fans freak out when they see Indian patients buying generic drugs. But draconian copyright laws are protectionism in another form. The creation of knowledge often requires using previous knowledge, he says. Globalization isn't just about the free flow of labor and capital, but of ideas, too. Jagdish Bhagwati is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University.

Mitchell Joachim: Redesign Cities From Scratch

Dressed in architect black and sporting dreadlocks, Mitchell Joachim isn't your average Whole Foods envirogeek. For one thing, he speaks in an intense staccato punctuated with words like peristaltic and epiphetic. And don't get him started on sustainability. "I don't like the term," he says. "It's not evocative enough. You don't want your marriage to be sustainable. You want to be evolving, nurturing, learning." Efficiency doesn't cut it, either: "It just means less bad." Even zero emissions falls short. "This table does zero damage," he says, thumping the one in his office. "No VOCs, no carbons. Whatever. It doesn't do anything positive." Joachim spent a decade working with architect Michael Sorkin, followed by a short spell with Frank Gehry. He now teaches at Columbia University and is a partner at Terreform 1, a nonprofit focused on ecological design. A kind of Frederick Law Olmsted for the 21st century, he spends most of his time thinking about how to reduce the ecological footprint of cities. It's not a short-term project. "It took 15 to 20 years to get a hybrid car," he says. "To change the basic paradigm for how we make buildings, 40 to 50 years. To change a city? That's 100 to 150 years." If the next president is smart, he'll want to get started sooner rather than later. At the top of the agenda, Joachim says, is mobility and its inefficiencies. Citing US Department of Energy statistics, he says that while 29 percent of the nation's energy expenditure--what he calls "the suck"--now goes toward getting around, "in 50 years that will double." Among the biggest sources of waste, he argues, is the automobile--not only in energy but in the space it occupies (cars, he notes, spend more than 90 percent of the day parked). For nearly a century, Joachim says, "cities have been designed around cars. Why not design a car around a city?" So he did just that. One of his concept vehicles, the City Car , was named to Time magazine's Inventions of the Year list in 2007. His various cars would be less machine than Facebook on wheels. Instead of rpm gauges, there'd be social networking software telling drivers where their friends are and how to get there. Made from neoprene and other soft materials, cars would no longer suffer traffic-fouling fender benders, merely what he calls "gentle congestion"--picture a flock of urban sheep grazing against one other. Like Zipcar vehicles, the cars would be shared. They would "read" potholes and send warnings to nearby drivers and city repair crews. Urban parking would be eased by intelligent real-time supply and demand management, with people bidding remotely for available spots. Of course, there'd also be more spaces to begin with, since his cars could be folded and stacked like shopping carts. The average New York City block could handle 880 of the vehicles, he says. In this vision of downtown Atlanta (based on Joachim's renderings), the city is transformed by wind power and flooded parking lots. Illustration by Christoph Nieman For Joachim, reinventing the city doesn't stop at the curb; he's been reimagining just about every part of the modern urban landscape. To help cool Atlanta, Joachim suggests flooding an area of the city now filled with parking lots to create a "munificent pool"--a large pond filled with fish, plants, and algae, surrounded by trees. It would counteract the urban "heat island" effect and process gray water and sewage. The waterworks would be powered by wind turbines. Some of Joachim's ideas are more conceptual than practical: His vision for the future of New York City includes airborne public transit. He imagines low-hung blimps tethered to buildings, moving through the city 24/7. They would function like a ski lift, and commuters could hop on and off with relative ease. "We put the funk in functionalism," he says. Architecture needs radical reengineering, too, and Joachim envisions a retro-futurist alternative for home building: "Let's grow it onsite." That's the concept behind his Fab Tree Hab, currently on view at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Rather than cutting down a tree and transporting it from forest to mill to lumber-yard to building site, the house is the tree. It's the ancient art of "pleaching"--training and joining plants to create structures--with a 21st-century twist, using milling software to achieve precise geometries. "You can pregrow a village with no consequence on the land," he says. "In fact, with a positive carbon contribution." Or why not build cities out of garbage? Joachim notes that if you could somehow convert waste into construction material, you could make another Empire State Building out of what New Yorkers throw away in two weeks. There's enough trash in the city's

Joseph Stiglitz: How foreign governments are buying America

Big Think presents a short video of Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz explaining how foreign governments are buying America....

Fox's Williams falsely suggested Obama has changed position in now supporting ROTC on campuses

During Fox News' coverage of the September 11 presidential forum on national service at Columbia University, National Public Radio news analyst and Fox News contributing political analyst Juan Williams falsely suggested that during the Democratic primary campaign Sen. Barack Obama did not support allowing Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on college campuses. Citing Obama's comments that Columbia University should allow ROTC back on campus, Williams said: I thought that the comments about ROTC, and the fact that Obama is willing to take on, I think, the left of his party, which is represented by people at Columbia who are opposed to ROTC going back to the Vietnam era and think that it has no place in an intellectual, academic environment, the fact that he is willing to do that again suggests that he is willing now to sort of run to the middle. I don't think you would have heard that from Barack Obama earlier during the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. But Williams' suggestion that Obama has shifted his position on ROTC after the primary is false: When asked by moderator Tim Russert during the January 15 Democratic presidential debate, "Will you vigorously enforce a statute which says colleges must allow military recruiters on campus and provide ROTC programs?" Obama responded, "Yes," and further stated: One of the striking things, as you travel around the country, you go into rural communities and you see how disproportionally they are carrying the load in this war in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan. And it is not fair. [...] But I think that the obligation to serve exists for everybody, and that's why I've put forward a national service program that is tied to my tuition credit for students who want to go to college. You get $4000 every year to help you go to college. In return, you have to engage in some form of national service. Military service has to be an option. Asked by Time managing editor Rick Stengel during the September 11 presidential forum on service, "Should Columbia and elite universities that have excluded ROTC invite them back on campus?" Obama responded, "Yes. I think we've made a mistake on that." He continued: I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy. But the notion that young people here at Columbia or anywhere, in any university, aren't offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake. That does not mean that we disregard any potential differences in various issues that are raised by the students here, but it does mean that we should have an honest debate while still offering opportunities for everybody to serve, and that's something that I'm pretty clear about. From Fox News' coverage of the September 11 forum on national service: OBAMA: But it's also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it's important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some. STENGEL: To that end, to get the best and brightest into the military, this university, your alma mater, invited President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad of Iran to be here last year, but they haven't invited ROTC to be on campus since 1969. Should Columbia and elite universities that have excluded ROTC invite them back on campus? OBAMA: Yes. I think we've made a mistake on that. I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy. But the notion that young people here at Columbia or anywhere, in any university, aren't offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake. That does not mean that we disregard any potential differences in various issues that are raised by the students here, but it does mean that we should have an honest debate while still offering opportunities for everybody to serve, and that's something that I'm pretty clear about. [...] HUME: I think it's fair to say that, if we are looking for differences on the issues tonight between McCain and Obama, there were very few, if any, and indeed they seemed to be shaving the edges off of differences that they might have had on the role of government service versus service generated in the private sector or by individuals and private charities and so on. Indeed, both of them agreed on whether ROTC should return to Columbia University, one of the only moments that seemed to strike any real spark there, because we know that Columbia has had this policy of no ROTC -- no to ROTC, but yes to Ahmadinejad, which caused an enormous amount of controversy for Columbia president Lee Bollinger when all of that unfolded earlier. But tonight was a night when the two candidates seemed to agree on nearly everything and seemed perfectly comfortable with themselves -- with each other, I should say - as they did earlier when they encountered each other during the observances at Ground Zero in New York today. Nonetheless, it has been an eventful day. And we'll try to review this event and some of the others as well with our panel. First of all, let's go around the table here with people who are joining me tonight. Juan Williams, your thoughts on this panel, on this event. WILLIAMS: Well, you know, again, I thought there was no news here, but if you wanted to come down to the heart and soul of it, I thought that the comments about ROTC, and the fact that Obama is willing to take on, I think, the left of his party, which is represented by people at Columbia who are opposed to ROTC going back to the Vietnam era and think that it has no place in an intellectual, academic environment, the fact that he is willing to do that again suggests that he is willing now to sort of run to the middle. I don't think you would have heard that from Barack Obama earlier during the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Medals and rights: TNR debunks the myth of order in pre-Olympic China

Last month, The New Republic had a fascinating piece by Columbia University China expert Andy Nathan that explained the sticky political situation and human rights violations that went on behind-the-scenes at the dawn of the Olympics. The efflorescence of creativity that foreign visitors will see in Beijing in August is not a challenge to Party control. It enables that control....the energetic new Chinese art that has caught the imagination of Western buyers, with its pictorial irony and cynicism, repudiation of history, detachment from the world, and love of stunts, is not the challenge to those in power it is sometimes construed to be. Rather, it is a secret joke that the regime shares with the artists and their audience--part of a new social contract that allows the children to have their sly fun so long as the grown-ups run the house. I interviewed Nathan for my last MangoBot feature about China's future. Medals and Rights (The New Republic) ( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)...

Cavuto hosted "anti-feminist attorney" Den Hollander, who advocated "cut[ting] out the feminazi, feminist women's studies programs" at Columbia

On the August 20 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto interviewed "anti-feminist attorney" Roy Den Hollander, who discussed his lawsuit against Columbia University for offering a women's studies program "but not a men's studies program." During the segment, after referring to the previous segment's guest, Fox Business Network host Dave Ramsey, who discussed the high costs of today's colleges and universities, Den Hollander said: "[C]ut out the feminazi, feminist women's studies programs and bring back varsity sports, and you're going to do a lot better for the university." Den Hollander also stated, "If a guy takes a women's studies course, what's going to happen to him? The girls in the class are basically going to walk all over them in their stiletto heels, which may not be too bad," and later said that women "are a suspect class. Every time they open their mouths, I begin to suspect something." As Media Matters for America has documented, Den Hollander is only the latest guest to make overtly sexist comments on Cavuto's program. Indeed, on the April 10 edition of Your World, Cavuto and Marc Rudov, radio host and author of The Man's No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth (MHR Enterprises, 2004) and Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (MHR Enterprises, 2007), discussed comments by Sir Elton John at an April 9 fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Clinton during which John stated that he was "amazed by the misogynistic attitudes of some of the people in this country." Rudov stated, "Hillary Clinton, who's living by the gender sword, is going to be dying by the gender sword. She sends in Elton John to do her hissing when she's having a catfight with America." Rudov further stated, "This is a gynocracy. ... The reason that Hillary is losing is because people don't like her. That's all it is." Fox News legal analyst and University of Washington associate professor of law Lis Wiehl responded: "It's the old thing, Marc, of if a woman is aggressive, then she's, again, the B-word. If a man is aggressive, he's just assertive and claiming his own." Rudov later said: "The woman is not called a B-word because she's assertive and aggressive; she's called a B-word because she acts like one." On his website, Den Hollander explains that the purpose of his lawsuit against Columbia University is "to find the Columbia University Women's Studies program unconstitutional for using government aid to preach the religious belief system 'Feminism' and for discriminating against men." Also on his website, Den Hollander describes the Violence Against Women Act as the "Female Fraud Act." From the August 20 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto: CAVUTO: All right, so are women's studies courses spreading prejudice and bigotry toward men? Well, my next guest thinks so -- so much so that he is suing Columbia University. He's anti-feminist attorney Roy Den Hollander. Why Columbia? DEN HOLLANDER: 'Cause I went there. I graduated there, and so that gives me standing. But going back to what your past guest said, cut out the feminazi, feminist women's studies programs and bring back varsity sports, and you're going to do a lot better for the university. CAVUTO: But what is Columbia doing that ticks you off? DEN HOLLANDER: Well, what Columbia is doing is it's presenting a women's studies program but not a men's studies program. So what the complaint charges is that women's studies is really -- which teaches feminism, they state that they're teaching feminism -- and so the teaching of feminism -- I'm arguing that feminism is a religion. Now, religion doesn't require a god. CAVUTO: And what have they told you? Where is this going? DEN HOLLANDER: Well, it hasn't -- it just started. I just filed the case, so -- CAVUTO: You want to cancel that course? DEN HOLLANDER: Well, it's appropriate -- CAVUTO: What if there's a sort of 'men-ism' course? You be OK with it? DEN HOLLANDER: No, it's a program. It's not just courses, you understand, it's a program -- CAVUTO: Oh, it's part of a whole mindset -- DEN HOLLANDER: It's a network situation. It's a way for girls to acquire jobs, it's a training [unintelligible] -- CAVUTO: We should say we tried to get a statement from Columbia on this, and we couldn't get one from them. But your point is that it's showing an inherent kind of a bias. DEN HOLLANDER: A definite bias. Because girls can benefit from women's studies, but guys aren't going to benefit. If a guy takes a women's studies course, what's going to happen to him? The girls in the class are gonna basically walk all over him in their stiletto heels, which may not be too bad -- CAVUTO: Stop, stop, stop. All right, so you're saying that it's unfair for women who, you know, for years and even up to now, have not earned as much or gotten ahead as much, to get a little bit more exposure in school, that's too bad? DEN HOLLANDER: That's not -- no, that's not -- what you're talking about is affirmative action. And what legally, that says that girls are a suspect class. And yes, they are a suspect class. Every time they open their mouths, I begin to suspect something. The point is -- CAVUTO: You have issues, don't you? DEN HOLLANDER: No, the point is, if you look at equal pay per unit of time, or equal pay, or pay per unit of risk, girls are making more than guys. CAVUTO: Are they really? DEN HOLLANDER: Girls control nearly 60 percent of the wealth in this country. And if you want to look at the real oppressors, you look at who lives longer, who -- on whom most of the health dollars are spent -- CAVUTO: Roy, you're angry. You're very angry. DEN HOLLANDER: -- and who eats more. Oh, absolutely. But only against the feminists. CAVUTO: All right. And Columbia. All right, Roy, thank you. I want to keep track of this, my friend. Thank you very much. DEN HOLLANDER: I'll keep you up to date. Thank you.

FEMALE seeking two roommates in 3br 1 ba house & garden, pet-friendly (berkeley) $650

Just secured SPACIOUS HOUSE with small front yard, completely enclosed, small porch, living room large with Depression Era fireplace and wall sconces, windows loking onto street and side; a dining room/study wuth possible for one to three computer stations. Diining room leads into kitchen with original linoleum and tiles, capacious storage including built-in hutch and BUILT IN BREAKFST NOOK Freshly painted in all rooms. DR leads into ba with clawtooth TUB. Leading off kitchen is small sun porch with wooden slats and windows all round. room presently with WASHER and DRYER and which will be converted into my bedroom. The backyard has shed used by owner, a covered concrete slab where which will house the washer and dryer, and a garden the size of two of the bedrooms, neglected plants.and lawn. Off street parking for one. I am in my fifties, once certified nurse midwife, RN, (B.S.R.N. at U.C.S.F. master's in maternal child health at Columbia University) a master's in counseling at Cal State for MFC license. Became selff-employed in 1991 as "The Zihuatanejo Connection." (Google) and have lived mostly there in "Casa Leigh y Loros." (Google) Work at home. Good cook but lack motivation. Fair housekeeper. Ideal roommates would be avid gardener (I like it but need direction,) doesn't need to be reminded to do chores. Irrreponsible, disrespecrful and/or ill-mannered roomies please don't come here! You characterize yourself as mellow to counter-balance my rather driven personality; as my psychiatrist said,"You run hot," I can be argumentative but am generous to a fault, kind and loyal. The intimacy of the household will depend on the chemistry that develops; I would be happier with sharing occasional dinner and movies, but get along alone just fine. Scientically educated with books all around me, graduate students, academics, health care providres especially welcome. Exra points if you are handy man and or you have furniture --I have some stashed away with friends The icing on the cake is that owner will permit cat and dog with pet deposit; I will have bonded pair of military macaws, female is blind, (google "The Rosie File") Public transportation is ACT #9, up Ashby at Sacramento -- where there is a convenience Store-- up to Ashby Bart, Walking is about 15 minutes. Taxi service runs about 4.00. A further 5 minute walk brings you to Berkeley's best food market, The Berkely Bowl. Around this area are several restaurants including with the best Japanese restaurant -- Kirala--and Crixis, one of the top bakeries. One block from the intersection Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Ashby is the well stocked South Branch of Berkeley Branch. It is under two miles by bike to UCB campu. I don't want a car but hope you will own one. Required to movve in is first, deposit of $1200 and animal deposit of $250.00. Property owner wishes to meet you and then if it is a go, you move into financial screening. Please read carefully, email me your response then give me your telephone number so I can call you. My cell is 510 7053562. House is available NOW.

Corsi: Critics of Obama might be "put ... in jail" if he's president

Appearing on the August 16 edition of C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Jerome Corsi, author of The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008), asserted that, if Sen. Barack Obama were elected president and someone were to write a book critical of him or to publish "a cartoon like The New Yorker," "Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail." Responding to a caller's assertion that "we cannot question Obama," Corsi stated: Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama. But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book. What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary [sic] dressed as a -- you know, a black militant. And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here? Also during the broadcast, Corsi continued to compound the falsehoods in his book by falsely claiming that he asks in his book for "definitive proof" -- such as "drug testing" -- that Obama has stopped using drugs. Corsi's claim came after host Pedro Echevarria pointed out that the Obama campaign and several major news outlets, such as The New York Times and Associated Press, have noted that Corsi's assertion that Obama "has yet to answer questions" concerning whether "he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug use extended into law school days or beyond," is false. Indeed, even before the book's official publication date, Media Matters for America documented this falsehood, noting that Obama wrote in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate, following two years at Occidental College -- a statement that contradicts Corsi's claim in Obama Nation that Obama has yet to say whether he stopped using drugs. On Washington Journal, Corsi said: What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign. In fact, Corsi did not ask about "drug testing," "other records," or "definitive proof" in any of the book's passages about Obama's past drug use. As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously mischaracterized the false claim he made about Obama's answers to questions about his drug use on at least two occasions and has issued other additional falsehoods while promoting his falsehood-laden book. From the August 16 edition of CSPAN's Washington Journal: ECHEVARRIA: You write on Page 77 of the book, looking at various aspects of Senator Obama -- CORSI: Sure, go right ahead. ECHEVARRIA: This about drug use. You say that "[s]till, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond." The Obama campaign, from what it put out, came out with this, it said -- and you can find this also on the senator's website -- that "Obama has made clear repeatedly that he stopped using marijuana in college, which peers have affirmed." Went on to go on to quote statements from The State Journal Register of the Springfield [Illinois], The New York Times, the Associated Press and the Politico. Again, an example of your claim against what they say is false. CORSI: Well, you know, first of all, let me point out The New York Times and many of these other sources were -- have also been wrong dramatically about Senator Edwards, so their sources saying that Obama quit using drugs is probably just repeating what they were told, and I doubt they really did their own independent investigative research into the subject. Notoriously, people who use drugs, especially heavily, and Senator Obama says at Occidental, the drug use in college -- was his first college -- the drug use had actually become really habitual. In fact, he discusses how much of a habit it had become. For people who use drugs like that, their self-reporting that they stopped using drugs is usually notoriously inaccurate. But they'll repeat that to many people, who then repeat it as well. What I'm asking in the book is where's the definitive proof? And I look for many uses of definitive proof. Where's the drug testing? Where's the other records? If Senator Obama wanted to establish this on the record, he could then or now do the drug testing and establish the issue. At least now it would establish it for now. Athletes are required to do this. They don't trust athletes to self-report on drug use. And, the questions that I'm asking now that the issue is on the table, put there by the senator himself, are questions I also say in the book, President Bush should himself have been forced to answer in 2000 and 2004 -- when he himself -- when the issue came up in his own campaign. ECHEVARRIA: We'll take a look at various aspects of the book, but first to your calls. [...] CALLER: Good morning. And thank you for the book, sir. Appreciate it. CORSI: Thank you. You're welcome. CALLER: And I bought it a couple of days ago, so I'm reading it now. CORSI: Deeply appreciate it, thank you. CALLER: Mm-hmm. I -- we need something like this, because we cannot question Obama. Even his ears, he says, I don't like people talking about my ears, so we don't talk about his ears. But we talk about McCain's age, right? You didn't hear him say, "I don't like people talking about my age." So we're told what we can say, how we can say it. And thank you, sir, because we need to know about this guy. He's left us -- they're hiding it. And I'm not sure how -- with the press like it is if you can do much good. And I'd love to talk to you for two hours. CORSI: Well, thank you, ma'am. The mainstream media did not do its job. It was asleep. The mainstream media was busy making up epithets to use in case I wrote a book. I guess that's what they spend all their time doing. Ma'am, you make some very interesting points. Senator Obama is now appearing to have the thinnest skin of anybody I've ever seen run for president. And, you know, it reminds me because -- if this is the reaction for writing a book, and remember, I did not commit a crime. I wrote the book. And under the First Amendment, that's supposed to be protected and allowed. And it's a critical evaluation of Senator Obama. But it has been pointed out, there has been many, many -- how many critical books of George Bush have there been? And George Bush doesn't come unglued at the people who write those books. It raises questions in my mind. If Senator Obama is reacting this ballistically -- this out of control, I mean, bouncing off the walls insanity, you know, concocting fake pictures of books that were never written attacking this -- 40 pages. Why didn't they write 140 pages? Because I wrote a book. What's -- how is Senator Obama going to sit in the Oval Office and handle a crisis? I mean, all an enemy of the United States has to do is write a book about him and he'll go insane -- or put a cartoon like The New Yorker with Senator Obama, Muslim garb -- and Hillary dressed as a -- you know, a black militant. And Senator Obama might just have to create a department of hate crimes and put them in jail. Where is the sense of humor here? I think that Senator McCain made a very appropriate comment yesterday when he said, "Let's just all keep our sense of humor." And I think that the criticism of me, the things that have been said have been over the top, and I've -- you know, my wife was calling me up trying to ask me to explain all the words I was being called on television. ECHEVARRIA: From our line, for those who support Senator Obama, Little Rock, Arkansas.