Stupid Excel Question

I know there's a way to copy calculations... but I don't know what it is.

Basically, I have a spreadsheet. Col. A + Col. B = Col. C Col. D + Col. E = Col. F

There is a way to set the sum =SUM(A1+B1) at the top of column C, and then to select the rest of column C and hit a couple of keys so that it will fill in the rest of the sums so that the next row will have =SUM(A2+B2) and then A3+B3 all the way down.

But I can't for the life of me remember those keystrokes. HEEEEELLLLP! Handcoding those buggers will take an unnecessary forever!

Special Privileges

Warning - liberal ranting below.

(Waits, waves goodbye to a couple of friends heading to the next entry on their friends list.)

This post isn't going to be about the torture memos per se. There's nothing I can say on the matter that that Molly Ivans hasn't said better anyway.

No, this post is about Alberto R. Gonzales' op-ed piece in today's USA Today (text below under cut tag, so it will last more than 24 hours). Most specifically, it is about the footline attached to it.

Mr. Gonzales is one of the White House councils. In his article denying that the US has broken any written or moral laws in the war on terror, he tells us that "Members of al-Qaeda, Taliban do not qualify for special privileges."

Special privileges.

Special privileges.

Special privileges.

And suddenly it all became clear. I'm not being sarcastic here, there really was an epiphany. Like a choir of angels singing, like a heavy drapery being swept off a window, it all became so very brutally clear:

There is a set of people, currently in power at state and federal levels, who consider equal coverage under the law for the people they don't like a special privilege. Gay marriage? Why should those people ruin society with their demand for "special privileges"? Liberal counter-time on radio? Nothing but a whiney lie-beral demand for "special privileges." Democrats trying to stop an illegal redistricting? No "special privileges" for those losers! Atheists demanding an end to "under God" in the pledge? How dare they demand "special privileges" and call it separation of church and state!

For quite some time, the far right has been fighting liberalism and social change by painting it all with the brush of "special privileges," as if custom alone decreed law. (After all, Massachusetts allows gay marriage right now because the actual law does not discriminate on the basis of gender. They didn't write a new law for this, they equally enforced the old one. And it's being called a special privilege.)

So is it a surprise that other things become "special priviliges" as well?

I direct your attention to this paragraph of Mr. Gonzales' argument, with added emphasis on one line:
Gathering intelligence about the plans of these mass murderers is critical to defending America. To confer the special privileges of POW status upon terrorists would reward those who, by hiding among civilian populations, undermine the convention's basic objective of protecting innocent citizens, and it would only encourage terrorists to continue to violate the laws of war.

Get that? Prisoner of War status - something that, last time I looked, was regarded as a horror - is now a special privilege. A reward even. Has anyone told John McCain how special he is? Do the families of POWs pop champagne celebrating the day their fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters achieve that wonderful reward? "My brother got listed as a POW!" "What a privilege! Mazel tov!"

Orwell must be applauding from the grave.

( Terrorists are different, by Alberto R. Gonzales, USA Today 6/10/04 page 14A )