After a Weekend Away in the Poconos

Skiing falling down what we East Coasters charmingly refer to as a "mountain". I'm recovering by applying ice packs to assorted portions of my muscle structure and pretending to get things done here at work. As part of this ruse, I will refrain from commenting on the couple of items that struck me in the news until I get home from work (which may take a while given the Nome-like snowfall we're getting), but in the meantime, read this good take out of Mark Steyn. One thing, though, Mark. I think it's time to start using the word "Western" as a prefix to "Europe" when referring to the nations of France, Germany, Belgium, etc. There's a whole other half of the continent with a distinctly different political situation, and it deserves to be approached as such.

I am particularly fond of this passage, wherein Mark points out the general ignorance people have about the early period of our country's development.

The new EU ''constitution,'' for example, would be unrecognizable as such to any American. I had the opportunity to talk with former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing on a couple of occasions during his long labors as the self-declared and strictly single Founding Father. He called himself ''Europe's Jefferson,'' and I didn't like to quibble that, constitution-wise, Jefferson was Europe's Jefferson -- that's to say, at the time the U.S. Constitution was drawn up, Thomas Jefferson was living in France. Thus, for Giscard to be Europe's Jefferson, he'd have to be in Des Moines, where he'd be doing far less damage.