If you are very quiet, you can hear the knives coming out.

The 2010 census is just around the corner, and with it reapportionment wars and lawsuits. Costly -- very costly -- wars and lawsuits...

In these times of economic crisis, is there a way in which public energy and money -- your energy, your money -- can be saved for something else? Schools? Infrastructure? Social services? Law enforcement? Energy conservation and development? Health care?

There is a way.

There is a paradox in the one-person, one-vote principle.

Reapportioning solely on the basis of persons counted in the census makes district vote totals vary to an unacceptable degree.

But reapportioning solely on the basis of votes cast makes district populations vary to an unacceptable degree.

BOTH people and votes are needed to reapportion in a manner that truly implements the one-person, one-vote principle.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

-- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" (1916) --

September 13, 2007. So near and yet so far from 9/11. And many other things as well .

As I write these words, demonstrations and other events in Iran are unfolding by the hour, indeed by the minute.

Time and again, Mir Hussein Moussavi and other opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stress the importance of not pausing, much less stopping and waiting. Do they know something about how things work in Iran which the West needs to learn?

Ancient history provides a case that could not be more immediate:

In the year 363, the Roman Army under the valiant Emperor Julian marched on Persia (Iran).

A preliminary warning is in order. From Colorado to Cairo, Bali to Peru, data show that most terrorists come from the middle class. But if most terrorists are middle class rebels, most middle class rebels are not terrorists -- and should not be considered or reated as terrorists.

Perhaps the ultimate truth of the relationship is that a terrorist is a middle class rebel, albeit even more so.

Terrorists are not common criminals.

To be a criminal requires a conscious decision to be a criminal. The terrorist makes a decision, but not that particular decision.

Terrorists are not freedom fighters.

Unlike the terrorist, the French Resistance fighter retained in consciousness the ambiguity of his high intentions and illegal acts; he continued to judge, to decide.

To be a criminal requires a conscious decision to be a criminal. A terrorist does not make that decision; therefore, he is not a criminal.

Is the terrorist, then, a freedom fighter?

As do the criminal and the terrorist of today, the French Resistance member of the 1940s made a decision as a rite of passage. However, that decision differed from those of the criminal and the terrorist.

The use of uncertainty as a weapon is a defining characteristic of "terrorist"; terrorism does not exist without it.

By wielding uncertainty, the terrorist announces what for him is the worst thing possible, the ultimate hell. In this way, he is different from the French Resistance member for whom uncertainty had no special value as a thing in itself and who had precise intentions.

As I watched the turmoil in Iran, I wondered about something:

Did George W. Bush steal the 2000 election?

Nine years later, the question is still hanging around. Which means, if a fraudulent election took place, the perpetrators definitely were not naive and clumsy.

There may be a way to solve the riddle.

To my knowledge, the election scam I will disclose has never been revealed before.

Vice President Biden is in charge of a task force to strengthen the middle class.

Last month, he declared in Denver, "The president and I have set a very basic and measurable goal that we'll be held to...[W]hen middle-class incomes begin to grow, and when people aspiring to the middle class get a shot to become part of it -- that's the measure.

"Drugs are a very small part of it."

So said THE SOURCE, a veteran trainer and owner of horses. Eventually, he wrote off horseracing, and retired. "I got fed up with the drugs and the corruption." After some soul-searching, he decided to talk.

Generally, drugs are not as important in horseracing as the media claim. The big exception, THE SOURCE said, is quarter horse racing.

America's $40-billion horseracing industry has a $40 billion problem.

The sport's reception by the voting public is slightly less than cordial. Years ago, I conducted a poll that asked voters if they thought horse races are generally honest or dishonest. The results: 44% said dishonest, 31% honest, 23% not sure, and 2% refused to answer.

If who are thinking of running for public office -- or ran for one and had your head handed to you in basket and do not know why -- this article is for you.

Momentum in human affairs is conditioned socially, but its source is neurological -- how our brains are wired up. As such, momentum ultimately is not subject to moral or rational "correction.

My experience in political campaigns convinced me that momentum has musical qualities: rhythm, meter, and tempo.

There is something primitive, instinctual, about momentum. As with momentum and movement, momentum and power are inseparable.

He who has momentum is comparable to a key or root note in music toward which other notes gravitate.

How did he do it? Every politician would give his eyeteeth to learn the secret. Millions of adoring fans, the megabucks, the rush and crush of the media, the worldwide fame . . .

So, how did Michael Jackson do it? In life and in death, so much -- both "good" and "bad" -- gravitated his way.

His 1983 album "Thriller" sold more than the populations of California and New York City combined.

Who made the following threat? "If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth."

1. Osama bin Laden.
2. Shimon Perez.
3. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
4. Harry Truman.

The envelope, please.

Answer: Harry Truman, 16 hours after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.

Liberal? Conservative? Moderate? Pragmatist? New Democrat? What is Barack Obama anyway?

Here is his response after eight weeks in the White House:

"Asked if 'liberal' or 'progressive' better defined his philosophy, he said, 'I'm not going to engage in that.'"(1)

In refusing to be categorized, Obama categorically categorized himself.

Vice-President Biden called the middle class the "backbone" of America.

We agree. The middle class reconciles and moderates other classes.

Biden is in charge of a task force to get the middle class "up and running again."

We agree that the middle class is weakening. One indicator: its share of the national income pie fell from 52.

Vice President Joe Biden declares on the White House website, "A strong middle class equals a strong America. We can't have one without the other."

Biden created a task force "to get the middle class -- the backbone of this country -- up and running again."

Why is the middle class the "backbone" of America?

Since ancient Greece, the middle class has performed the indispensable role of moderating upper and lower classes.

Assuming that concentration of enterprise and specialization of labor continue to degrade the middle class, what does the future hold?

The first three of five fates:(1)

(1) A quiet, despotic state takes over the role of class reconciliation performed by the middle class. Other than working as bureaucrats, a meaningful middle class does not exist.