I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more Rumsfeld. Asked by a Palestinian thug at the Munich Conference as to why Israel was not placed under the same judgment as Iran or North Korea:

You know the answer before I give it, I’m sure. The world knows the answer. We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It’s a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood that in many — over a period of time has opined from time to time that they’d prefer it not be there and they’d like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn’t been put in the sea.

Thank you very much.

Why don't these gems receive more press? No, Mister Secretary: thank you.

I conducted my first meeting as president of the local Republican organization last night. Our agenda was packed solid: four candidates for Dennis Kucinich's seat, two for our state senate seat; an advocate speaking in support for the county library's levy renewal and a nearby city's mayor trying to cull volunteers for the Bush-Cheney campaign. A guest speaker addressing prescription drug coverage followed, sparking off a brief but heated debate. Then - finally - the group barreled through our business items. Three hours after I made a call to order, I banged the gavel for dismissal. Tiring, but gratifying. I almost feel solidarity with marathon runners.

What's in the news? A flurry of stories, but far too many of them inflated by the press for the sake of longevity. Reading these splendid remarks by Oliver Kamm, I miraculously found a prescient quote of mine from June of last year: "Making weapons the major argument is Bush and Blair's own trap out of which to wriggle; but that by no means diminishes the power of the true argument." That's relevant even more so today, with the focus having been temporarily stuck on weapons, not the polity of Iraq. As I've always maintained, authoritarianism is what endangers the free world; weapons - the worst of them being WMDs - are simply means to an end, that end being domination. Democracies don't seek those ends; dictatorships always will. President Bush is certainly strengthening his hand by organizing cooperatives and issuing warnings against weapons proliferation; but while the diplomatic gestures made by Libya, and to a far lesser extent Iran and North Korea, are better than silence or open conflict, the only reliable and permanent solution is the one the Allies meted out to the Taliban and the Ba'athists.

Incidentally, the quote is part of an entry criticizing the largely baseless questions and doubt that had cropped up even at that early point; I'm proud to say that before the insurgency's destructiveness and American second thoughts had reached their high points, I kept my optimism while making no underestimation of the difficulty and frustration of the coming months and years.

And speaking of the president's initiative, I caught Brit Hume's interview with Condoleezza Rice during a quick dinner last night. She passed the Executive Test: I distracted myself with forkfuls and glanced back at the television, suggesting to myself, "Oh, there's President Rice." Poise, confidence, class; I've tried the experiment with many pols, and very few fit the part. President Giuliani? Biden? Hagel? Kerry? Nah.

Last month I noted the addition of four musical recommendations in my right-hand column which, as you can see, have been replaced with four more. I've created a new, aptly named category called Four on the First, under which I'll promote a quartet of compact discs every month. Each month's list will be comprised of music I've enjoyed for years, music I happened upon recently in the library or a long-overlooked gem I finally gave a spin the day before (as is the case with the Pretenders' "Learning to Crawl," see below). Choices will be somewhat seasonal: I tend to wrap myself up with orchestral and electronic works in autumn and winter, while preferring energy in spring and summer. You're certain to get variety. Are my tastes eclectic? Colorful? Interesting? Worth a sliver of your tax refund? Reviews from someone you've come to trust are worth their weight in Tower Records purchases, so I'll write a small paragraph for each record to better describe its appeal (which I haven't done for January or February, to be completed when time permits).

And there we are. As Casey Kasem would say, "back to the countdown."

REVERSE-MIDAS TOUCH: I so much as mention Tower Records and it declares Chapter 11. Does this work elsewhere? Let's try: Kim Jong Il! Iran's mullahs! Drop dead, you bums!

Chicks dig bloggers. Rather, erudite bloggers who lead prosperous careers as law professors and currently reign as preeminent internet opinion-makers. Who live in Tennessee. Named Glenn Reynolds.

"Revision: "Chick digs Glenn Reynolds." Cancel theory. Never mind.

The New Hampshire primary has begun. We'll have answers tonight [the page had been fed vote results earlier, but has since been reset].

I woke up to catch an explosion of lightning across the western horizon, followed by a quick burst of thunder. It's raining at the moment, before precipitation changes to freezing rain and sleet, and then finally settles back into snow. Can your local climate produce all four seasons in one day?

Humor, they say, is an acute appreciation for the ludicrous. Enter classic Mr. Overbrooke.

"Hello, Ohio," said winter, and beat the northern half of the state over the head with a white, frozen truncheon.

Artist, writer, actor and director Vincent Gallo is a Republican. I take back one or two of the things I said about Buffalo 66. But then Gallo's joined by Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister, so variety isn't so strange a thing on the right.

Today's blogging wasn't intended to converge as wall-to-wall Sullivan-carping; it just seemed to fall into place.

Scroll down for the second celebrated instance of guest blogging - from none other than Patrick Woods.

[I thought it'd be interesting/fun/useful to identify Patrick's posts as posted by Patrick. Unfortunately, I've already blogged under Patrick's name when I meant to blog under my own. So bear with me.]

Well done, Google.