Fred Kaplan tells us what's wrong with the proposed missile-defense program. Bottom line: It's going to cost a staggering amount of money and there's no real reason to presume that the thing can ever be made to do what it's supposed to do.

I just read — but have no way of linking to — an article by lawyer Alan Dershowitz over on the Wall Street Journal site, beyond the portals through which only subscribers may pass. Like most Dershowitz articles, the subtext is, "I would have done a better job for her than the yutz she had defending her," but he makes a pretty strong case that Martha Stewart should not have been convicted. I'm sorry this piece is not more widely available because you'd enjoy reading it, and I'd enjoy seeing others read and discuss it. That is to say, I'd like to read a good rebuttal to it. I tend to respect Professor Dershowitz when he's not defending O.J. or promoting himself, but I find it hard to believe that the evidence of an unfair prosecution is as strong as he makes it out to be in this piece. Let me know if you see a good response somewhere, or even a means of linking to the article itself.

Speaking of Martha Stewart, I recommend you spend the time (a bit under seven minutes) it'll take you to watch this report on the verdict from The Daily Show With Jon (no relation) Stewart, especially the second part which shows highlights of CNBC's confused coverage. The Comedy Central series features some of the cleverest comedy writing done today but sometimes even their crew can't top just showing actual news footage and cutting to Jon's horrified expressions.

Victor Fox was one of the more colorful figures in the early days of comics. He had been involved in a wide array of shady, unsuccessful businesses.  One day, he happened to see the early sales figures on a new book that a named Harry Donenfeld was publishing called Action Comics featuring a character named Superman. Before Donenfeld even realized he had a hit, Fox had rented office space in the same building and begun publishing a comic book imitating Superman. Later, he ran a kind of sweatshop where young artists sat in long rows, cranking out comic book pages like galley slaves…and if you ever read any of those early Fox comics, you can almost tell. Good people worked for him, many of them doing their first-ever jobs in comics, but the material was generally sterile and lifeless, and it sold accordingly. Still, the history is worth recounting and it's well-told in this article by Jon Berk. The Comicartville site where it appears has also set up this gallery of Fox covers. Check out the story of this oft-neglected company.

Matthew Yglesias explains why Alan Greenspan is out there selling a pretty disastrous course for the American economy.

Based on recent e-mail, I feel I ought to remind readers of this site that I link to articles I find interesting, not to articles where I agree with every word. Well, sometimes I do agree with every word but then I say so.

That's my pal Dan Castellaneta above right as he appeared in the role of TV mogul Aaron Spelling last night in Behind The Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels, a tv-movie that I watched mainly for Dan. He was very good, striking the perfect note between serious and parody. One of the reasons I thought the original Charlie's Angels show worked (when it worked) was that the folks behind it knew it was a lightweight put-on, even if some of those in front of the camera did not always concur. That was one of the main sources of dramatic conflict in the tv-movie: Co-star Kate Jackson and show runner Barney Rosenzweig trying to make a statement that would improve the image of women while Spelling and other execs wanted more skin 'n' jiggle. Anyway, if you could get past the utter trivia of its topic, the tv-movie was fun.

The three ladies playing Farrah, Kate and Jaclyn were uncanny facsimiles…and I think that was Orson Bean doing a good off-camera impersonation of John Forsythe's off-camera Charlie voice. There were also enough in-jokes and tongues-in-cheek to keep it interesting…though if I were Farrah, or especially her then-husband Lee Majors, I don't think I'd have enjoyed it much. As it was, I enjoyed it more than the original show, which I could never quite bring myself to watch from start to finish.

It dawned on me as I watched last night's stirring docudrama — and I know Dan won't mind me saying this — that he seemed a bit young to be playing Aaron Spelling. Mid-movie, I looked it up and discovered that Dan is only eight years younger than Spelling was when Charlie's Angels went on the air. Okay, but he seemed a lot younger. Actors often belie their actual ages, usually (but not always) skewing younger than their actual years. I worked on a pilot once where they cast two people to play a couple and once they got them together in a rehearsal hall, they realized the man looked a good twenty years older than the woman. They were actually about the same age…in fact, I think the woman was older. But even with all the make-up assistance in the world, the actor seemed more like a father than a mate, and that undermined some key aspects of the script. The producers didn't want to make the actress look older so they paid off and dismissed the guy, replacing him with someone who was actually older but looked younger, if you follow me. Real age doesn't matter on screen. It's how you come across.

Actual years aside, Dan did come across a bit young as Spelling and I wonder if that wasn't deliberate on the part of whoever cast him. It's a little unbecoming for an older man to be ordering young women to wear bikinis and act out roles that might be called "male fantasies." I don't think Mr. Spelling (for whom — full disclosure — I briefly worked) ever had anything more on his mind with Charlie's Angels than concocting something that would win its time slot. Casting a guy with a young twinkle allowed the tv-movie to be about that and not about something more lecherous. So if that's what they had in mind in hiring Castellaneta, it was a good idea. If that's not what they had in mind, then it was a good idea, anyway. The guy's terrific and it's nice to see him flexing different muscles. Some of the best actors in Hollywood have always been people known mainly for animation voicing.

Tony Hendra, formerly of National Lampoon, Spy magazine and This is Spinal Tap, writes an apology to the right wing. But not really.

Harlan Ellison's obit for Julius Schwartz has finally been posted online. It's here.

I wrote the preceding item before reading the current entry in Leonard Maltin's Journal wherein he praises the commentary on the DVD of Catch 22. Great minds think alike and so do ours.

Leonard and I and a bunch of our friends are doing something Saturday night that ought to be a lot of fun. Check back here Sunday morning and I'll tell you about it.

Just re-watched the 1970 movie version of Joseph Heller's Catch 22, directed by Mike Nichols from a screenplay by Buck Henry. I first read the novel after the film was announced but shortly before it came out and I kept wondering, "How are they going to make a movie out of this?" A group of friends and I went to see the first matinee on the first day and emerged from a theater in Westwood, utterly confused as to whether or not they'd pulled it off. The only consensus was that a movie with Paula Prentiss naked in it couldn't be all bad.

For a long time, if you'd asked me if I liked the film, I would have said, "I don't know yet." I finally decided I did, as much for the amazing cast as for the clever way Henry pared down a sprawling book while still retaining its sense of sprawl. I'm not sure if it works for those who never read Heller's book…and in a sense, if you did, you don't need to see the movie. But I decided I liked the film, and I just watched the DVD to listen to the commentary, which has Steven Soderbergh interviewing Nichols. I find a lot of DVD commentaries tedious and worthless, largely because the filmmaker doesn't have a lot to say, and it's especially awkward for some to deliver a monologue in that context. But Soderbergh's chat with Nichols was fascinating, especially when the latter pointed out little things you might otherwise never notice — like intentional "mistakes" in continuity and one place where Buck Henry does an unbilled cameo, above and beyond his credited role. It was also interesting to contrast Nichols' recollections with things that Charles Grodin wrote in his autobiography.

Even if you didn't like the film, you might enjoy the commentary…so here's another link to buy it at Amazon along with my recommendation. It's a good movie, and not just because of Paula.

Let's see…Bill Clinton says that he has no interest in being John Kerry's running mate. Tom Brokaw says he's not interested in getting into politics…

John McCain, who I believe still is technically the head of the Bush campaign in Arizona, is hinting he might not say no to the job. Right-wing websites are filled with theories of how Hillary Clinton is planning to swoop in and grab it, perhaps elbowing Kerry aside while she's at it…

Pundits are tossing out names like John Edwards, Bob Graham, Dick Gephardt, Bill Nelson, Bill Richardson, Evan Bayh, Ed Rendell, Dianne Feinstein and Robert Rubin.

Logic, which often does not figure into these things, would tell us that Kerry should wait until just before the Democratic convention to make his pick. By then, there will be a lot more polling data to tell him where he may be weak and what states are still in play…and in the interim, he'll have most of those people out "auditioning" for the veep slot by campaigning for him.

On the other hand, if he waits that long, every single person in the country over the age of 35 who is not already part of the Bush administration will have been mentioned for the job. People will start saying, "What's wrong with Kerry? Can't he make a decision?" And then they'll start saying, "It's taking so long because no one wants to run with him." Which comedy series will be the first to do a sketch that parodies a current reality show with potential veeps being eliminated a la Fear Factor or Survivor? (Extra points if they actually get Donald Trump to come in and tell guys like Edwards and Nelson, "You're fired!")

So Kerry will fill out the ticket relatively soon. I'm guessing either someone from Florida or Dom DeLuise.

Martin Hutchinson offers his view of why, though the economy is coming back in certain ways, the jobs aren't.

Does John Kerry really take both sides of every issue? Here are both sides of that issue: An article that says he does and an article that says he doesn't. Take your pick.

Here's the kind of thing that amazes me. I guess it shouldn't but it does. It's the way a seemingly-intelligent human being — in this case, Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson — can leap from one position to the opposite in the blink of an eye. This is from today's episode of Crossfire on CNN, and I cut 'n' pasted this right out of the transcript. Carlson was talking about some allegations that are circling that John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airliners a few months before 9/11 because he had been tipped that terrorists had a plan to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Here's the relevant passage…

Strictly speaking, this charge is false. Ashcroft did stop flying commercial, but it was because of domestic, not terrorist threats. But it's worse than that. It is the ugliest possible conspiracy theory and it's a destructive one, too. If you don't like Ashcroft's policy, attack them, critique them. But don't accuse him or any other American of knowing about 9/11 in advance. It's just too much.

Okay, I agree with that. I don't care much for Mr. Ashcroft but that doesn't mean the charge is true. I certainly haven't heard of any evidence that would justify the charge. So good for Carlson. But then, less than 45 seconds later, he says…

…I knew a lot of perfectly decent smart people who actually became mentally ill thanks to Bill Clinton. And you're seeing the exact process happening on the other side…Paul Krugman has become so obsessed with Bush, he actually accused him of causing anti-Semitism in Malaysia. After that column, I have to say…As much as I thought he was smart once upon a time, he's gone crazy.

So much for civility in our political discourse.