In an audiotape broadcast Thursday on al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden said al Qaeda is preparing to strike the United States again. Last month Italian authorities arrested three Algerians with al Qaeda connections. They were plotting attacks on ships, railway stations and stadiums in the United States, said Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu. Some Democrats think President Bush should be impeached for trying to keep them from succeeding. Like Al Gore.

Here’s a question: Would you go shopping for shoes at a grocery store? Why not? Oh, yes, grocery stores don’t sell shoes. You only go to a particular store because it’s selling what you want to buy. You don’t go to a store that doesn’t sell what you want to buy. Right, boys and girls? This Kindergarten lesson came to mind when I saw the Democrats over at the Library of Congress yesterday (January 18) ostentatiously signing what they called their “Declaration of Honest Leadership and Open Government.”

I'm far more restrained than many experts who see security problems getting worse, not better, even though new, better and more powerful security tools are being developed all the time. But, like modern government, Windows is not going anywhere. To expect masses of computer users to pick up and move en masse to other operating systems like Linux is unrealistic; Microsoft's domination of operating systems and Windows software is too entrenched, and most people have enough to do without reorienting their computing skills, too. In any case, competing operating systems have their own security problems. The greater their market share gets, the more hackers will concentrate on them. And since Linux is based on open source code, it is that much easier to find and exploit flaws. Does that mean that Windows users will forever be subjected to endless barrages of viruses, "exploits" and Registry "holes"? The Microsoft folks say no, but in the meantime there does seem no end to their issuing “patches” to fix their bugs. There has to be a better way – and now there is. If Obi-Wan Kenobe were a computer programmer, he would say, “May the Core Force be with you.”

The good news is we're unlikely to be as obsessed with the war in Iraq in 2006 as we were in 2005. The bad news is we may soon have much more to worry about. Mahmoud Amadinejad is the president of Iran, picked by the aging mullahs of the Guardian Council who hold the real power in the land. Since his election last August, Mr. Amadinejad has been replacing elderly clerics in senior government positions with colleagues from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Iranian version of the Nazi SS, which he once commanded. Mr. Amadinejad is a thug, a religious lunatic, and may soon be armed with nukes.

“The latest Service Pack for Windows XP - Service Pack 2 (SP2) - is all about security.” So began the blurb Microsoft sent out in 2004 urging users to install their latest security innovation. Tired of ever-repeating mini-scandals in which hackers discovered security holes in Windows that could be exploited by viruses, the company developed a “super secure” package for Windows XP that would make it nigh impossible for pimply faced kids to remotely take over your machine for their nefarious slacker purposes. And it worked, at least for a while. Now your computer is vulnerable to the “WMF bug,” which can give a hacker total access to your computer if you click on an image in an email.

The Jade Steps Chapter Nineteen: The Marriage of Teculehuatzin For more than two weeks, every day in Tlaxcala seemed more enjoyable to the Spaniards than the previous. The friendship shown to them by the Tlaxcalans was overwhelming. Children were constantly giving them flowers. Everywhere they went in the city, they would be invited into homes to share a meal. Older women, Señoras, were always bringing them food in their quarters, and there seemed to be a never-ending number of young ladies, Señoritas, desiring to share their quarters with them. One reason for such an abundance of hospitality was the Spaniards’ strict obedience to Cortez’s stern command to take nothing – nothing – from the Tlaxcalans except what was given to them. They vividly remembered when Cortez caught a soldier named Mora stealing a turkey from a village on the way to Tlaxcala and ordered him hung. Mora would have died had not Pedro de Alvarado cut the rope with his sword at the last moment. While the men were enjoying themselves, Cortez spent as much time as possible with King Xicotencatl and Chief Maxixcatzin teaching them about Christianity.

First, a news bulletin:According to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden gave the world the most marvelous Christmas present he could possibly give by departing from it in mid-December. The Al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year's message in conjunction with the Moslem Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time.Now on to the subject at hand.Of all the confusions surrounding the war in Iraq, perhaps none has clouded so many minds as the phony question, "Are we fighting domestic insurgents or foreign terrorists?" The people who purport to answer this question with "data," should look again at the demographics of Iraq, Syria, and Iran, and they can start by asking themselves, "Who's an Iraqi"?That question is surprisingly difficult to answer...