Most Fair-minded readers of this blawg will no doubt take me at my word when I say that a majority of Democrats in this country are out of their gourds.

But, on the off chance that a few cynics won’t take my word for it, I offer you data.

Rasmussen Reports, the public opinion outfit, recently asked voters whether President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The findings? Well, here’s how the research firm put it: "Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know and 26% are not sure."

So, 1 in 3 Democrats believe that Bush was in on it somehow, and a majority of Democrats either believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance or can’t quite make up their minds.

There are only three ways to respond to this finding: It’s absolutely true, in which case the paranoid style of American liberalism has reached a fevered crescendo. Or, option B, it’s not true and we can stop paying attention to these kinds of polls. Or there’s option C — it’s a little of both.

My vote is for C. But before we get there, we should work through the ramifications of A and B.

We don’t know what kind of motive respondents had in mind for Bush, but the most common version has Bush craftily enabling a terror attack as a way to whip up support for his foreign policy without too many questions.

The problem with rebutting this sort of allegation is that there are too many reasons why it’s so stupid. It’s like trying to explain to a 4-year-old why Superman isn’t real. You can spend all day talking about how kryptonite just wouldn’t work that way. Or you can just say, "It’s make-believe."

Similarly, why try to explain that it’s implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen — and clever enough to get away with it — yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he’s such a villainous super-genius to have paved the way for 9/11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more 9/11s and Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.

And, if Bush — who Democrats insist is a moron — is clever enough to greenlight one 9/11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some WMD?

No, the right response to the Rosie O’Donnell wing of the Democratic Party is "It’s just make-believe." But if they really believe it, then liberals must stop calling themselves the "reality-based" party and stop objecting to the suggestion that they have a problem with being called anti-American. Because when 61% of Democrats polled consider it plausible or certain that the U.S. government would let this happen, well, "blame America first" doesn’t really begin to cover it, does it?

So then there’s option B — the poll is just wrong. This is quite plausible. Indeed, the poll is surely partly wrong. Many Democrats are probably merely saying that Bush is incompetent or that he failed to connect the dots or that they’re just answering in a fit of pique. I’m game for option B. But if we’re going to throw this poll away, I think liberals need to offer the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to data that are more convenient for them. For example, liberals have been dining out on polls showing that Fox News viewers, or Republicans generally, are more likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Now, however flimsy, tendentious, equivocal or sparse you may think the evidence that Hussein had a hand in 9/11 may be, it’s ironclad compared with the nugatory proof that Bush somehow permitted or condoned those attacks.

And then there’s option C, which is most assuredly the reality. The poll is partly wrong or misleading, but it’s also partly right and accurate. So maybe it’s not 1 in 3 Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Maybe it’s only 1 in 5 , or 1 in 10. In other words, the problem isn’t as profound as the poll makes it sound. But that doesn’t mean the Democratic Party doesn’t have a serious problem.

As Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa returned to Los Angeles on Friday in hopes of quelling anger over the LAPD’s use of force at an immigration rally, he and other officials questioned why officers ignored rules established after a similar incident outside the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

The department ended up paying reporters and demonstrators more than $4 million for actions during the convention and agreed to a sweeping series of restrictions on how officers deal with large crowds.

The restrictions ban officers from using "less-than-lethal" weapons on individuals and crowds unless they are combative, require police to give protesters time to clear out of an area before force is used and establish "safe areas" where the media can operate without LAPD interference.

The department’s failure to adhere to the rules will be a major issue in what potentially could be dozens of lawsuits against the city, the first of which were filed Friday.

Teenagers text each other everywhere – in school, at home, on the bus, in movies, and especially while driving.

There are plenty of reasons, of course — with the ability to communicate covertly during a social-studies class high up the list.

In a widely publicized incident, a Mercer Island, Washington, man was accused of causing a five-car pileup after he was distracted by a message on his BlackBerry.

Last week, a bill gained final passage, and would make Washington the first state to impose a specific ban on reading or sending text messages while driving, according to the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures.

The milestone is not quite as singular as it sounds: Three states — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — and Washington, D.C., all have de facto bans on "DWT" under broader laws that prohibit drivers from using a cellphone in any fashion, other than talking on it via a hands-free speaker device.

California is imposing a similarly broad ban, effective in July 2008.

Nonetheless, Washington state’s measure, which the governor is expected to sign into law, brings attention to the practice of texting while driving, which many lawmakers say is more dangerous than talking while driving.

In Arizona, a Democratic state representative has proposed a bill to ban DWT.

The representative said the motivation was an incident last summer in Phoenix, when a teenage driver who was reportedly texting slammed into a stalled truck. The driver was OK, but two of his passengers suffered severe brain and spinal injuries.

At least one other state, Connecticut, has a DWT bill under consideration. The state already has a ban on any hand-held cellphone use while driving, but the new measure would impose a $500 fine.

Under the California law, state residents will risk receiving a minimum $20 fine for using a cellphone, unless they have a speakerphone or an in-ear device that keeps both hands free.

Many states have debated broad bans on cellphone use, but have rejected them in favor of bans for young drivers only. At least 13 prohibit teens or any new drivers from using cellphones.

There are no reliable statistics on how many accidents have been caused by people attempting to send or receive text messages while driving. But it is clear that plenty of people do it.

According to a study released in January by Nationwide Mutual Insurance, about 37% of drivers in their late teens or 20s admitted to having sent or read text messages while driving. By comparison, 17% of drivers in their 30s and 40s admitted doing so; 2% of drivers in their 50s and 60s did.

In California, the state that came up with the idea of putting sprouts in sandwiches, and where more than half of all its residents are overweight, including 28% of the children, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy conducted a test at McDonald’s to determine which of the following had the most calories:

A. 2 Big Macs

B. 2 Egg McMuffins

C. 1 large chocolate shake

D. 4 regular hamburgers

and two-thirds of the test  takers got the answer wrong. This was strange considering the risks of not knowing the correct answer.

Given the huge rates of heart disease and diabetes associated with obesity, U.S. children born in 2000 could become the first generation in recent history with a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Most went with the 2 Big Macs, but does this mean there are actually people who go to McDonald’s and eat two of those sinkers at one sitting? If so, wouldn’t it be thriftier to jump naked into a tub of cooking grease and count backward from 1,000 until the heart stops cold?

The correct answer is the chocolate shake, a frosty and quickly regrettable 1,160 calories.

While there are no food police, many, and I am one, believe there is no greater fraud than the multibillion-dollar diet industry, which preys on the epic lack of common sense in the U.S.

If you want to lose weight, my revolutionary program — available for just $29.99 monthly and GUARANTEED to begin shaving pounds INSTANTLY if not sooner! — involves exercising just a bit more and eating just a tad less.

Moderation. Only the most iron-willed among us — in other words, people who have taken all the fun out of their lives — can resist the occasional taco or pizza.

After a series of violent incidents on school campuses, public school officials here are considering the use of flexible plastic handcuffs on out-of-control students — from kindergarteners on up.

The Milwaukee School Board voted Thursday to begin training security staff members to use the plastic handcuffs, but the issue has provoked a heated debate between parents and administrators over how to provide a safe learning environment.

In October, a 15-year-old female student reportedly attacked the principal at Milwaukee’s Ronald Wilson Reagan College Preparatory High School. The principal sustained a compression fracture in her back and a concussion when her head was slammed against a wall.

In November, a 17-year-old male student allegedly sexually assaulted a female teacher in front of a class at Madison High School. And earlier in the school year, an assistant principal was assaulted by a student.

The issue of violence on school grounds took on an urgent tone this week with the Virginia Tech shooting rampage that left 33 people dead.

Critics of such handcuffing often cite injury risks: A student might accidentally be choked while being restrained, and the cuffs used too tightly might interfere with blood circulation or cut the skin.

In Milwaukee, discussion on whether to use cuffs on K-12 campuses began months ago, said Supt. William G. Andrekopoulos.

The debate reached a feverish peak Thursday when the Milwaukee School Board argued for nearly five hours over the handcuff resolution, which had been approved in committee.

Closing a painful chapter of public condemnation and racial recriminations in a Southern city with an elite university, North Carolina’s attorney general dropped all charges Wednesday against three white former Duke University athletes accused by a black stripper of raping her at a house party 13 months ago.

Atty. Gen. Roy Cooper, condemning Durham Dist. Atty. Mike Nifong for "a rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations," said there was "no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house that night."

Calling the men victims of "a rush to condemn," Cooper said flatly: "We believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges." Several North Carolina lawyers said they could recall no case in which a sitting district attorney was so harshly and publicly rebuked by a fellow prosecutor.

After a 12-week reexamination of the highly charged case, Cooper said accusations by the stripper, 28, who attended historically black North Carolina Central University in Durham, were inconsistent and contradictory. The woman identified the athletes at what Cooper said were deeply flawed photo lineups approved by Nifong.

"No other witness confirms her story," Cooper said at a crowded news conference. "Other evidence contradicts her story. She contradicts herself."

The case exposed racial and socioeconomic fault lines in Durham, a working-class city that has a black population of 40% and is home to a highly selective university. It also prompted bitter discord within Duke, a school with a national reputation for academic excellence — and one supporters say has been unfairly portrayed as preppy and snobbish.

Inflamed by Nifong’s public charges that the supposed rape was racially motivated, some African Americans — joined by some Duke professors — accused the university of tolerating racists and misogynists. Durham City Council members called the lacrosse team "a ticking time bomb that has not been dismantled."

Details of the purported rape, based solely on the allegations of a party stripper, were amplified by wall-to-wall national news coverage. The woman’s story was shocking: Drunken young white men forced her into a bathroom, choked her and repeatedly penetrated her while screaming racial slurs.

Adding to the graphic and sensational allegations were statements by a second stripper hired for a team party that one man — not one of the accused — threatened to sodomize the women with a broomstick. That stripper also said partygoers shouted racial slurs as she left.

Evans’ lawyer, Joseph B. Cheshire, said Nifong "tore his own city apart in a race-class divide … and his acts hurt the reputation of one of the great universities in this country. What this man reaped is unconscionable."

Cheshire also chastised the news media for fanning both the woman’s accusations and Nifong’s incendiary quotes. He said reporters failed to carry out dogged reporting that could have exposed holes in the case early on.

Cooper called Nifong a "rogue prosecutor" and said the case highlighted "the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor." He proposed a law that would allow the state Supreme Court to remove a prosecutor from a case in certain circumstances.

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," Cooper said.

Asked whether Nifong should apologize to the three men, Cooper replied: "I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to other people. I think those people ought to consider doing that."

Nifong, an appointed district attorney then making his first race for elective office, last spring called the defendants "a bunch of hooligans." He said they had shown "a deep racial motivation" and "contempt … for the victim, based on her race."

Nifong faces ethics charges filed by the state bar association for his actions, which included withholding DNA evidence that showed the three defendants were not the sources of genetic material found on the accuser’s underwear and body; the DNA came instead from several unidentified males. Nifong could be disbarred.

Cooper said he had not ruled out filing criminal charges against Nifong after the bar association case is completed. Defense lawyers said they might file civil suits against the district attorney.

The actions of Nifong have smeared the legal community and it is likely more heads will roll as Nifong’s supporters in the DAs office and on the bench have their actions more closely examined.

Jerry Garrett roams Atlanta in a Ford Ranger, stopping frequently at the side of the road to pick up old lumber, metal and junk. It is a routine that does not involve the fastening or unfastening of a seat belt.

"I ain’t never liked seat belts," the 55-year-old construction worker said as he pulled into a Lowe’s parking lot in Atlanta. "I don’t believe the government should force working men to wear them."

Garrett is thankful to live in Georgia, where legislators until now have not supported laws requiring pickup drivers to buckle up. Yet lawmakers are considering a bill that would remove pickup trucks from their exemption in the state’s seat belt law.

Safety statistics and lost federal highway grants are increasing the pressure for change in the few states that don’t require universal seat belt use, including Indiana and New Hampshire. But as the battle in Georgia demonstrates, it is not an easily resolved matter.

There, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Don Thomas, says requiring Georgia pickup drivers to wear seat belts would save lives.

But the proposal has serious opposition in the Georgia Legislature: Some say it would inconvenience farmers — and some believe it would be a small, but symbolic, sign of diminishing freedom on American roads.

In Georgia, the pickup is an icon of traditional, rugged independence — so much so, the vehicle made a star appearance in the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. And some drivers are so galled by the notion of seat belts — or harnesses, as they call them — that they cut them out of the vehicle or disable the audio alert.

Georgia pickup drivers were exempted from the state’s law requiring the wearing of seat belts after rural lawmakers argued it would encumber farmers on back roads.

Over the years, the seat-belts-in-pickups debate has become something of a regular political fixture here as legislators have attempted — but failed — to modify the law.

Yet, as pickups have established themselves as urban and suburban vehicles, safety has become a growing concern.

In late March, legislators in Indiana, which exempts passengers and vehicles plated as trucks, approved a bill that would require wearing seat belts — though the House and Senate have not yet reconciled their versions of the bill.

New Hampshire requires children up to age 18 to wear restraints, but not adults. On Thursday, the state’s House voted to insist adults buckle up too. That bill now goes to the Senate.

When renowned metallurgist Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed on TV on Thursday that Sept. 11, 2001, was a more significant date than most of us realized. It was, in her words, "the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel."

This, of course, came as news to steelworkers, blacksmiths, firefighters, manufacturers of samurai swords and other fools who hadn’t realized that steel is forged in magic furnaces using dragon breath and pixie dust.

O’Donnell made this and other profoundly stupid comments on the daytime talk show "The View," ABC’s update of the ancient practice of women chattering around the village well.

The former "queen of nice" seems to think that the show is the perfect venue to audition as grand marshal for the next tinfoil hat parade. And if you visit O’Donnell’s website (www.rosie.com), you’ll find her application’s supporting materials: all sorts of unadulterated moonbattery presented in the Esperanto of global derangement — a form of instant-message-style free verse.

Some may not be unfamiliar with such psych-ward stylings. Perhaps if you believe the jackbooted thugs are at your door, it’s reasonable to think you don’t have time to spell out your words.

Anyway, in last week’s rant, O’Donnell focused on World Trade Center Building 7, which has become the grassy knoll for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Asked if the government was responsible for its collapse, she coyly replied that she didn’t know. All she knows is that it’s "impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved" and that, for the "first time in history, steel was melted by fire." Wink, wink. For the record, fire can melt steel, and buildings also collapse when heat weakens steel. But that misses the point. The point is we shouldn’t have to argue with crazy people.

Regardless, it appears that not even the heat of ridicule can weaken O’Donnell’s steely resolve to make an idiot of herself.

You know what? That’s fine. Normally we expect such outbursts from the poor souls who rage against unseen threats at bus stations and public libraries. But even the rich and famous have a right to mutter inanities, shout non sequiturs or shriek possum recipes.

But ABC isn’t obliged to give O’Donnell a nationally televised platform. Barbara Walters, the matriarch of "The View" and its executive producer, is supposed to be a titan of American journalism. She has all the awards any broadcast journalist could ever want. But today she knowingly gives a soapbox to a wacko.

Walters and ABC no doubt will seek comfort in any number of rationalizations, from gooey platitudes about free speech to the glories of diverse opinion to the fundamental unseriousness of Café Vienna-moment television. And yes, human train wrecks make for good ratings — which is why O’Donnell may get another $40 million before her "View" contract expires in June.

Granted, "The View" isn’t "60 Minutes," so why should we care that much if the girl talk gets a little silly? After all, Walters has spent much of her career muddying the distinction between entertainment and hard news, what with her saccharine "What kind of tree would you be?" interviews.

Yet there is a difference between taking silly topics seriously and being silly about serious stuff. When you discuss hair-care products or lavish weddings, the subject telegraphs its own triviality. Walters may risk her journalistic reputation when she jibber-jabbers about such things, but that ship sailed long ago. It’s another thing entirely when ABC’s most venerated on-air journalist gives a megaphone to someone who frets that poor Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was railroaded, who insinuates that the U.S. government had a hand in any part of 9/11 and who insists Elvis Presley is alive and living on an island with Bruce Lee (OK, I made that last one up).

But so far, O’Donnell has gotten a pass because she isn’t a mere wacko but a left-wing wacko. If O’Donnell sounded like Pat Robertson, the network would call in the butterfly net almost immediately. But because O’Donnell’s crazy accusations are directed rightward at that evil George W. Bush, it’s considered forgivable excess.

So come on ABC, for your own credibility, send her someplace where she won’t be a harm to herself or anybody else, someplace with rubber sporks.

Los Angeles has declared war on street gangs and Los Angeles defense attorneys are protesting what they see as overzealous prosecutions that seek enhanced jail time for suspects swept up by police for nonviolent crime.

Cases that might have been charged as misdemeanors are being filed as felonies with enhancements that increase penalties and put bail out of reach, defense lawyers say.

In some cases, judges have agreed, rebuking prosecutors by throwing out excessive charges against alleged gang members.

Some defense attorneys are claiming to see a lot of aggressive prosecutions for relatively minor crimes such as vandalism and petty theft because the suspect is an alleged gang member.

Anecdotally, there do appear to be more cases with gang enhancements landing on the desks of public defenders, but that might be a function of hundreds of additional gang members being arrested in the crackdown.

Prosecutors say they are not handling gang cases any differently, but are simply enforcing existing laws that recognize the sinister grip that gang crime can have on a community.

Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California say they are watching with interest.

The LA Police Chief recently announced a crackdown on gangs in response to a 15.7% increase in gang crime last year in Los Angeles. Fifty-six percent of the 478 homicides in 2006 were gang-related.

Since then, gang enforcement officers have made more than 800 arrests, including 392 members of 11 gangs identified by the chief as the worst in the city.

However, many of those arrests have been for nonviolent crimes, including probation violation, drug possession, curfew violation and vandalism.

By using laws that allow longer jail and prison sentences if nonviolent crimes are committed to benefit a gang, police and prosecutors are keeping alleged gang members off the streets longer.

It appears to many observers that police put youths’ names into a gang database just because they dress in baggy pants and were seen talking to an alleged gang member, though the police say additional corroboration is required.

Ever wonder what goes into a bottle of wine? The story winemakers love to tell on the bottle label is one of a mystical alchemy of climate, soils, ancient practices and long traditions. Wine labels tend to focus on romance; the small amount of government-mandated information includes the percentage of alcohol, a warning against consuming wine when pregnant or driving, and a disclosure of sulfites.

It might be disenchanting if the label also listed the chicken, fish, milk and wheat products that are often used to process wine. And it would be hard to maintain the notion that wine is an ethereal elixir if, before uncorking, consumers read that their Pinot Noir or Syrah contained Mega Purple (a brand of concentrated wine color), oak chips or such additives as oak gall nuts, grape juice concentrate, tartaric acid, citric acid, dissolved oxygen, copper and water. The mention of bentonite, ammonium phosphate and the wide variety of active enzymes used to make some wines would end the romance.

Federal regulators are considering revamping the rules governing wine labels, and if changes are made, the information revealed may surprise many wine buyers. Additives that supplement what nature failed to provide in an individual wine — tricks of the trade that winemakers rarely talk about — could soon be listed in detail on the labels.

The wine industry, through the Wine Institute, the industry’s chief lobbying arm, is opposing the regulatory changes. But could new regulations be good news for consumers?

Wine industry consultants familiar with the subject are divided on the question.

Supporters say the best wines don’t rely on additives. If ingredients were listed on wine labels, the finer wines would stand out.

But critics of the federal initiatives say ingredients labels would make widely accepted winery practices unnecessarily controversial.