What do you think was the most costly intelligence failure of all time?  No, was is not the world's leading intelligence agencies' failure to notice that Saddam had few, if any, weapons of mass destruction. It was the failure of many leading climate model builders to be modest enough about their predictions, and the politicians' and media's failure to ask the tough questions of these climate experts. As a consequence of what we now know was an overblown global-warming scare, everyone on the planet is paying substantially more for food and fuel than is necessary.  And Democrats in Congress are doing everything they can to keep it that way.

Few foreign leaders have received as favorable news coverage in the United States as has the Moqtada al Sadr, with less factual basis for it. Mookie, as our troops call him, is the nominal head of the Mahdi Army, a radical Shia militia, and of the Sadrist political movement, which holds 30 seats (of 275) in the Iraqi parliament.   His patron is Iran, which provides him with money, arms and military training. The last couple of months have been dreadful for Mookie everywhere except on the pages of American newspapers and magazines.

Berlin, Germany. If you were asked to name one person who has enabled more people to gain wealth and security than any other person on the globe, who would you name? In 1881, here in Berlin, Otto von Bismarck started the world's first modern pay-as-you-go social security system which served as the model for the U.S. Social Security system and that of many other countries, including setting the retirement age at 65. No, Bismarck is not the answer to the opening question.   The answer is a fellow named José Piñera , for he has made life more secure and prosperous for millions, and with luck it will soon be billions of people. Here is how.

A message from Mississippi has interrupted the leisurely cruise Republicans in Congress have been taking up the river De Nile.  Democrat Travis Childers soundly defeated Republican Greg Davis in a special election in a House district that President Bush carried by 25 percentage points in 2004.   Mr. Childers' victory completes a trifecta for Democrats in once heavily Republican districts. You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.  The Republican brand today is as popular as Tylenol's was during the cyanide poison scare. The bitter wind from Mississippi has replaced complacency with panic, but many Republicans don't know what to do about it.  Many blame President Bush, with good reason.  But the larger reason for the troubles of congressional Republicans is that they are viewed (alas, correctly) as being motivated by little else than self enrichment.