Dennis Johnson died yesterday of a heart attack at 52 years young. Most people remember Dennis as a freckle-faced veteran guard for the Boston Celtics who spent seven years playing alongside Bird, McHale and Ainge during their dominant run in the eighties. To give you an idea of the kind of player DJ was, all you have to know is that Larry Bird once called him "the best teammate I've ever played with."

Those of us who grew up in Seattle, however, remember Johnson as a fresh-faced rookie drafted out of Pepperdine by the Sonics in 1976 who became an integral part of the one (and still only) world championship in Seattle sports history.

I turned 10 the year the Sonics won the NBA Finals (DJ was named MVP, by the way), and I can still name almost every member of the team from memory. Somewhere, stuffed inside a box of memorabilia from my younger days, I have a picture of the '79 Sonics that I kept on my bedroom wall for years, along with trading cards of all the players.

There's one other thing in there, too. The year after the Sonics won the NBA Championship my dad, who was a pilot, arrived at a hotel in Boston for a layover. Sitting there in the lobby was Dennis Johnson and a teammate who were in town to play the Celtics. And so, ironically enough, in the entire universe of celebrities and sports heroes, DJ is among the very tiny group of people whose autographs I have in my possession; his name scrawled in pencil across a torn gray envelope bearing the United Airlines logo.

Rest in peace, DJ. You may have retired a Celtic, but you'll always be a Sonic to me.

UPDATE: Bill Simmons has an excellent column on why DJ should have already made the Hall of Fame. Steve Kelley writes an appreciation in the Seattle Times, and Jackie MacMullan has another in the Boston Globe.

(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images)

In the days right after North Korea signed an agreement that would supposedly require its nuclear disarmament, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, made clear that he has no intention of giving up those weapons.

The consequences of that stance are likely to be far reaching. Politically, Presidents George W. Bush of the US and Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, both having labeled the agreement a step toward getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms, will most likely be shown to have been naïve or, worse, deceptive.

Then, no political leaders anywhere appear to have begun figuring out what they will do when forced to accept North Korea into that small circle of nations with nuclear arms, which will change the dynamics in the balance of power in Asia.

Nor has anyone confronted the crack that a nuclear North Korea will cause in the nuclear non-proliferation regime that has stood for four decades, even though weakened in recent years when India and Pakistan went nuclear. In particular, the example of North Korea will undoubtedly complicate negotiations with Iran on a similar nuclear issue.

The agreement that North Korea signed in Beijing in what is known as the Six Party talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the US on Feb. 13 says Pyongyang "will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment" its nuclear facilities and will provide the other five with "a list of all its nuclear programs."

On that same day, however, the North Koreans, through their official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said Pyongyang had agreed only to a "temporary suspension of the operation of its nuclear facilities." Further, North Korea ignored most of the other provisions of the agreement, such as denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

That began a steady drum roll of belligerent statements asserting Pyongyang's right and need for nuclear arms. An official newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, charged that the US sought to dominate Asia "through preemptive nuclear attack."

KCNA said North Korea's "status of a full-fledged nuclear weapons state successfully realized the long-cherished desire of the Korean nation to have matchless national power." In another dispatch, KCNA said that "Kim Jong Il punctured the arrogance of the US imperialists with a powerful nuclear deterrent."

On Kim Jong Il's birthday, a national holiday on Feb. 16, a Communist Party committee lauded him: "You have turned the homeland of Juche (Self-reliance) into a power having nuclear deterrent for self-defense and made the Korean nation emerge a nuclear weapons nation which no force can ever provoke."

At a banquet that evening, which was aired by the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, the president of the Supreme People's Assembly, Kim Yong Nam, toasted Kim Jong Il for, among other things, for turning North Korea into "a military power that even possesses a self-defensive nuclear deterrent."

Still more: The North Koreans fell back on the time warn argument -- the Americans made us do it. Using North Korea's proper name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, KCNA asserted: "US policy compelled the DPRK to have access to nuclear deterrence for self-defense."

Some observers question the value of statements from Communist officials. Experience has shown, however, that Communist leaders, when addressing their home audiences as in this case, tell the public what they really want their people to believe.

A former foreign minister of South Korea, Han Sung Joo, has published an assessment of the reasons the North Koreans want nuclear arms. Writing in Time magazine, Han said:

* "Nuclear status is a political trophy for Kim Jong Il."

* "The nuclear program is intended to deter a possible external attack."

* "North Korea's nuclear capability gives it an upper hand in relation to the South."

* "The nuclear program is seen as a key to survival-a way to block and prevent any outside attempts at regime change."

* "Nuclear weapons represent a powerful bargaining tool."

Han was politically correct in contending that this agreement was "better than no deal at all," which kept him reasonably in line with his government's position. He went on, however, to demolish any thought that Kim Jong Il will move toward abandoning his nuclear arms.

Instead, he points to "what North Korea sees as compelling motives to possess nuclear weapons." He doubts that Kim Jong Il's regime will "agree to completely rid itself of nuclear equipment and material," including the 8 to 12 nuclear warheads it is thought to have already produced.

The personal saving rate was negative 1% in 2006 (equal to negative $92 billion), the second straight negative year and the lowest since at least 1947. What this means is that for every $100 in after-tax "income," US consumers spent $101. To some, this proves that Americans are living beyond their means and that calamity is virtually assured unless something changes.

We could not disagree more. The so-called personal saving rate is a highly misleading indicator of the consumer balance sheet. Other, much better measures show that the American consumer is in excellent financial health.

To calculate the personal saving rate, government statisticians subtract taxes and spending from personal income. Income includes wages, salaries, interest, dividends, rent received, small-business profits, and some government benefits. Excluded are withdrawals from IRAs and 401ks, as well as capital gains. This is inconsistent with how most people measure their private fiscal health.

For example, a retiree with no wage (or other) income, who withdraws $40,000 each year from her IRA to spend on living expenses, would drag down the savings rate. Or, as Bear Stearns economist David Malpass pointed out, the $30 billion in appreciated Berkshire Hathaway stock Warren Buffett has pledged to the Gates Foundation was never counted as income. But when that money eventually gets spent it will count as consumption and reduce "personal saving."

A basic problem with the often quoted personal saving rate is that it mixes together current workers with retirees who should be expected to spend much more than they earn. One academic economist has calculated that excluding retirees from the figures would add about 4 percentage points to the saving rate. Moreover, this error should grow over time as the US ages and healthcare costs (a major purchase for retirees) continue to grow.

Another problem with the saving rate is that when consumers buy durables - think cars, furniture and appliances - the spending is counted right away even though payments will be made over time. Amortizing these purchases would push up the saving rate another 2 percentage points. Interestingly, despite this treatment of durable goods, the government does subtract housing depreciation from income. And because home prices have climbed dramatically in recent years, depreciation has climbed. In 2006, this depreciation subtracted $226 billion from saving - it did not affect consumer cash flows, but pushed the "official" saving rate into negative territory.

In the end the saving rate, as it is currently calculated is a useless measure of household balance sheets. A much better measure of true savings is the net worth of households, a statistic calculated by the Federal Reserve. As of September 2006 (the latest data available) US households had $54 trillion more in assets than liabilities, an all-time high. Moreover, total net worth had increased by $3.5 trillion from the year before. If this $3.5 trillion increase in net worth were used as the appropriate measure of personal saving, the saving rate was 37% last year and has averaged 33% the past ten years, a far cry from the "negative saving rate" which so many pessimists decry.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that Brit Tim Montgomerie was spearheading an advertising campaign around the theme of "A World Without America" - a concept derived from this excellent Peter Brookes column last year. Well, the first ad just launched:

I'm interested to hear what people think of the ad. Email comments here.

Earlier today I posted the YouTube of McCain speaking about abortion that had been selectively edited and distributed (it appears)by an operative of a rival campaign. So, to be fair, here is the full, unedited clip of McCain's statement:

My, my, how quickly it starts. Last week I wrote about the perils of Barack Obama going negative:

As anyone not living in a cave surely knows, Obama launched his campaign for president last weekend by deriding the "smallness of our politics" and promising to change the tone of political discourse in America. But with Hillary Clinton leading Obama by an average of nearly 20 points in the six major polls taken so far this year, will Obama be able to close the gap over the coming year without playing hardball? And how can he attack Clinton without looking small himself and undermining the core rationale for his candidacy?

And now we have David Geffen, with a gleeful assist from Maureen Dowd, slicing and dicing the Clintons in the New York Times, just days after Obama once again denounced "slash and burn politics."

The Clinton camp jumped on the contradiction, as they will every time anyone associated with Obama's campaign says anything remotely negative about them.

I'm sure the left is willing to give Obama a pass, but you can see the inherent problem this poses for his candidacy. Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, has said that a positive campaign is "the only kind of campaign that he [Obama] really can run" and that they won't be engaging in a strategy to tear other people down. Given that Obama has made changing "smallness of our politics" the clarion call of his candidacy, he's almost obliged to denounce Geffen or else look like a hypocrite.

Obama's attacks, and those of his surrogates, have to stay focused on issues. I've been having a back and forth with a left-leaning reader on what those attacks might look like. Here is what he wrote:

I'm waiting for a version of this devastating remark from Obama to Hillary if it comes down to a one on one debate between them down the homestretch. It would come in response to her touting her supposed trump card over him: her "experience."

Senator, I think you're an able colleague, and an important leader of our Party. But let's recall that your "experience" hasn't helped you when you needed it most: In dealing with the most important domestic issue of our time, and the most important foreign policy issue of our time. When in President's Clinton's White House, you headed the administration's botched effort to bring all Americans national health insurance--that set back that project for 15 years. And, when faced with the fateful decision as to whether to give President Bush the authority to go to war against Iraq, you voted to do so. Senators can make those kinds of mistakes every so often, but I don't think the American people can afford to risk putting you and your "experience" in the Oval Office.

Nobody else in either party can do it. Edwards can't because he voted yes on the war, too. Richardson can't because he was part of the Clinton administration. Rudy and McCain can't because they presumably supported the war from the start. Only Obama could deliver this death blow to the Clinton campaign. Game, set, match--but does Mr. Nice guy have the guts to do it?

And here is my reply:

Yes, and I'm waiting to see how Hillary attacks Obama when he starts threatening her. It will have to be very well calibrated so as not to offend, but will also have to be a devastating indictment of his inexperience. I think I've hit on how it might happen: Bill Clinton will come out and say something to the effect that Barack Obama would make a very able cabinet secretary in a future administration. Maybe he'll say VP.

But Bubba is the one who will have to bring Obama down with a velvet hammer. He's got the skill to do it, and responding to the attack also poses a dilemma for Obama: does he really want to get in a pissing match with Bill Clinton? I don't think so.

It's going to be fascinating to watch this drama between Clinton and Obama continue to play out. And we haven't even gotten started talking about how vicious and dramatic the fight on the other side is going to be.

Merck puts on the brakes:

Bowing to pressure from parents, physicians and consumer advocates, drug manufacturer Merck and Co. said Tuesday that it would suspend its campaign to implement mandatory vaccination against cervical cancer with the use of its drug, Gardasil.

The aggressive campaign undertaken by Merck was intended to hone in sales of the Gardasil -the vaccine received approval from the Food and Drug Administration last year and launched the drug in June.

Dr. Richard M. Haupt, Merck's medical director for vaccines, told the AP, "Our goal is about cervical cancer prevention, and we want to reach as many females as possible with Gardasil."

He added, "We're concerned that our role in supporting school requirements is a distraction from that goal, and as such have suspended our lobbying efforts."

In a related story, the Washington Times questions whether the push for mandatory Gardasil vaccinations is targeting the wrong age group:

Lawmakers looking to force preteen girls to take Gardasil, a new vaccine against a virus that causes cervical cancer, are targeting the wrong age group, cancer data shows.

Middle-school girls inoculated with the breakthrough vaccine will be no older than 18 when they pass Gardasil's five-year window of proven effectiveness -- more than a decade before the typical cancer patient contracts the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV).

I received a fascinating email along similar lines a while ago but can't print it until I verify some of the specifics, which I hope to do in the very near future.

Quinnipiac is out with a new national poll on '08:

Democrats
Clinton 38
Obama 23
Gore 11
Edwards 6
Undecided 13

(Updated RCP Average on Dem Nomination here)

Republicans
Giuliani 40
McCain 18
Gingrich 10
Romney 7
Undecided 15

(Updated RCP Average on GOP nomination here)

Head to Head Match Ups
Giuliani 48 - Clinton 43
Giuliani 47 - Obama 40
Giuliani 48 - Edwards 40

McCain 46 - Clinton 44
McCain 43 - Obama 43
McCain 43 - Edwards 42

Romney 37 - Clinton 49
Romney 29 - Obama 49
Romney 32 - Edwards 48

(Updated RCP Averages on Head to Head Match Ups here)

You have to read all the way to the end of this Washington Post article on the Justice Department's willful neglect in handling the Sandy Berger case before being confronted with this astonishing quote by Berger's attorney, Lanny Breuer:

"It never ceases to amaze me how the most trivial things can be politicized. It is the height of unfairness . . . for this poor guy, who clearly made a mistake," Breuer said.

Stealing highly classified documents from the National Archives is "trivial?" You've got to be kidding.

This is one of the most brazen violations of classified material in our lifetimes: Bill Clinton's former National Security Advisor went into the Archives to review documents at the former President's request, stuffed a number of reports and memos with information of potential value to the 9/11 commission down his pants, took them home and shredded them, and he's now being defended by a lawyer from Clinton's White House Counsel office who tells us "it is the height of unfairness" to want to know the truth about what Berger took and why he took it.

Poor Sandy Berger. He had to pay a $50,000 fine and pick up some garbage on the side of the road in Virginia. Meanwhile, Scooter Libby had to face trial and might go to jail for, at worst, telling "a dumb lie" (to use the words of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald) about a non-crime.

Now it's McCain's turn to face a YouTube clip of himself talking about abortion:

This doesn't seem very damning to me, especially given that, as The Hotline reports, this clip omits a couple of very important sentences at the beginning where McCain says, "I believe this issue of the repeal of Roe v. Wade is important. I favor the ultimate repeal of Roe v. Wade." That seems fairly consistent with what he said the other day.

Of course, McCain's political problem on abortion, in so far as he has one, stems from his 1999 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in which he stated quite explicitly:

"But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

But this is old news. I though McCain put the issue to bed for the most part during the 2000 campaign and it seems he's been consistent ever since, so I don't know how opponents are going to get much mileage out of it this time around.