Swingers and nudists

Oprah's "investigating" suburban swingers. Why is it that so many people who willingly shed their clothes in front of others are so physically unattractive?

Miscellany

Netroots Eleven" Viva Kos Vegas.

100 years old: Pure Food and Drug Act.

Movies they've seen the most: Filmmakers.

Mariah Carey's purple pledge.

An abomination: White chocolate peanut butter cups.

That must have been some bad date

Lawyer files defamation suit against website that allows users to post details about bad dates.

Pittsburgh lawyer Todd Hollis filed a complaint on Thursday after anonymous postings appeared on the website accusing him of passing on a sexually transmitted disease, bisexuality, and dating multiple woman at once -- accusations he said were untrue and damaging to his reputation.

''When you have to explain to someone that you don't have herpes or that you are not a dog or that these accusations are malicious and false it really bothers you,'' Hollis told The Miami Herald. ``You feel awkward when you are walking up and down the street. You don't know whether the whole world knows about it, or if someone is looking at you in a different light because of it.''

Hollis said he asked site owner Tasha Johnson to remove the entries, but she refused.

But someone, apparently, is feeling a little guilty about what she wrote about Hollis. I searched the site and got one post warning against dating Hollis and then this:

I would like to apologize to Todd Hollis and his family for a bio I wrote of him. The bio was untrue - it was meant to be a joke on a friend of mine. It was insensitive and very mean. TOdd is a respectable person and I hope anyone else posting untrue things about him corrects them.

Thanks to Lisa for the tip.

Previous: I wrote about the sitehere.)

They wouldn't call them terrorists

Now the BBC refuses to use the word "kidnap" in stories about Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry value judgements. Our job is to remain objective. By doing so, I hope we allow our audiences on radio and television to make their own assessment of the story. So we try to stick to the facts - civilians are "kidnapped", Cpl Shalit was "captured"; since troops don't usually make "arrests", the politicians were "detained". Doubtless some will disagree. But that's, in essence, the heart of the story - two competing narratives.

Ah! The horror of value judgments in the land of two competing narratives. Mustn't make that mistake.

The rich are not like you and me

They sleep more.

WSJ v. NYT on Swift

The Wall Street Journal reporter was approached by administration officials after it was clear that the Times was going to run the story.

We recount all this because more than a few commentators have tried to link the Journal and Times at the hip. On the left, the motive is to help shield the Times from political criticism. On the right, the goal is to tar everyone in the "mainstream media." But anyone who understands how publishing decisions are made knows that different newspapers make up their minds differently.

Some argue that the Journal should have still declined to run the antiterror story. However, at no point did Treasury officials tell us not to publish the information. And while Journal editors knew the Times was about to publish the story, Treasury officials did not tell our editors they had urged the Times not to publish. What Journal editors did know is that they had senior government officials providing news they didn't mind seeing in print. If this was a "leak," it was entirely authorized.

An important distinction, I think.

I don't know how you guys walk around with those things

Slate "explains" the penis pump in the wake of this trial.

Moth

Star struck

Lisa de Moraes delivers a delicious smackdown to Barbara Walters--hereafter to be known as B-Wa--for her behavior after Star Jones unexpectedly announced that she was leaving "The View."

One day after "The View" executive producer Barbara Walters billed and cooed over departing co-host Star Jones Reynolds, she opened the show by sticking a shiv in Star's gullet.

While this is way better TV than that treacly send-off Babs gave her other departing co-host, Meredith Vieira, earlier this month, it's unclear how this advances Babs's carefully constructed image as the Mother Abbess of TV journalism.

"Then there were three," B-Wa said at the top of the show, in re the fact that the tacky kitchen table around which the gals cheep, cheep, cheep at the start of each show was noticeably Star-less, sporting merely the aforementioned B-Wa, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

"This is truthfully a very difficult day for us and it is a sad day for us," B-Wa continued, her Sad Face now firmly screwed in place.

Difficult and sad because the day before, Star had upstaged what we're certain would have been a riveting Babs-led discussion on air conditioning to announce she was leaving the show on which she had vamped for nine years.

I have only one thing to say about this matter: Didn't Star Jones look better when she was fat?

When did al Qaeda sign the Geneva Convention?

Marty Lederman:

the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

This almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

If I'm right about this, it's enormously significant.

Not quite right

Fashionistas deplore the couture in The Devil Wears Prada.

"Where is the chic?" groused David Wolfe, a New York fashion and retail consultant well versed in the eccentricities of real-life magazine divas. In his assessment, the film's stylistic problems begin with Meryl Streep as the silver-coiffed Miranda, a character he thinks looks far too bland and bankerlike and ugh! — far too pretty — to be convincing as Runway's chilly commander in chief.

In fashion, "You've gotta have a gimmick, like the stripper said," Mr. Wolfe observed. Think, he urged, of the rigidly stylized signature look of magazine legends like Diana Vreeland, with her kabuki makeup and tar-colored hair, or celebrity editors like Anna Wintour, whose dark glasses and precision-cut bangs shield a profile of cut glass.

"In a world of 'fabulous,' " Mr. Wolfe pronounced, " 'pretty' just isn't good enough."

10 reasons why you're fat

Aside from being a junk-food eating couch potato.

Olmert to Annan: Sod off Kofi

Secretary General (yawn) urges restraint.

Olmert responded to Annan's request that Israel act with restraint by saying that Israel has lost patience and must act to release Shalit and prevent the firing of Kassam rockets at its citizens, the Israeli government said in an e-mailed statement. Israel is also taking ``all necessary steps not to harm civilians,'' the statement said.

More: Israel cannot afford to back down.

Israel has no other choice but to stand tough because every climb down and withdrawal is interpreted as weakness. Furthermore the word "compromise" is a foreign word in the Arab world. You either prevail or go down in a blaze of glory.

For this reason a "ceasefire" is the most Hamas is prepared to offer Israel, which the Europeans insist on misinterpreting as the first step towards recognition. Rather, it's merely a tactical pause in the war against Israel.

News about the new confrontation on the border between Gaza and Israel has largely displaced reports of the looming "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza. It's also important to find out how a government that can't even provide for its own people is getting the means to assemble, clothe and arm a new 3,000 man force. And who is arming and paying the salaries of these masked, hyper-agile young men who are storming the streets wielding bazookas? Is that what a "humanitarian catastrophe" looks like?

Well, they're both murderous scum

"Radical Muslim" rapper's new album likens Bin Laden to Che Guevara.

The album, All is War (The Benefits of G-had), contains one track which uses the words of Bin Laden issuing "a statement of reason and explanation of impending conflict" and equates him with Che Guevara. Another forensically recreates a suicide bomber at work. The opening song is a rejection of what Nawaz sees as the hypocrisy and immorality of the west. One supposedly dream-like track predicts the demise of America at the hands of Islam.

...

Nawaz describes the songs Che Bin Parts 1 and 2 as a discussion on resistance and terrorism. He uses the words of Bin Laden and Che Guevara to suggest that they have more in common than differences. Nawaz said he challenged anyone to disagree with the statement by Bin Laden that he uses.

My inner superhero

You are Wonder Woman

You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.



Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Miscellany

Haute hybrids: Customizable dogs.

I was Zawahiri's cameraman: Interview.

In any way, shape or form.

New perk for first class fliers: Tattoos.

Temple hair: Booming business in India.

Baghdad: Where a bad hair day can spell death

Sharon Behn reports that the wrong haircut can be lethal.

"The 'Marine' cut, or shaven head, is forbidden. It is considered to be something of the foreigners," said Mr. Saif, 52, who has been cutting hair and shaving beards in his small Mansour barber shop since he was a boy of 12.

Above all, he said, Iraqi barbers have given up "threading" -- a practice common in the Middle East and Asia that involves removing facial hair with two threads tied together, rather than with a razor.

For some, the punishment for doing so was death.

"I put a poster in the window of my shop, that I apologized for threading and I said we were not doing that anymore," Mr. Saif said. "This is terrorism. One day they attack bakers, the next day they attack barbers."

What's it like to be a Saudi woman?

It's no picnic--even if you're educated, wealthy and good-looking.

Her first shocking lesson came at an early age. The family promised to send her to medical school if she achieved A+ grade in high school. She did, but they changed their mind. That was her life’s dream and it was brutally shattered. Instead of becoming a heart surgeon, as she hoped, she is now a high school teacher. Why? Because this is a job where she doesn’t have to mix with men!

Later, there were more shocking lessons. Her suitors were turned away, one after another. Reasons varied, but mostly it was about their social and economic class. Since she inherited a fortune from her father and has a good salary, her brothers suspected that any man with lesser fortunes was after her money.

By the time the “right” suitor arrived, they had already soaked most of her savings. With promises of profitable investment and wiser management they divided her inheritance as well as that of their mother and sisters among themselves. If persuasion didn’t work, they applied social pressure. A woman who refuses to accommodate her own sons and brothers is called names and denied peace of mind.

Nope

I got nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. Goose eggs.

Suggestions, anyone?

America the gulag

Brian M. Carney gets a jolt upon visiting a traveling exhibition devoted to the Soviet gulag.

But then, abruptly, the spell is broken, and in a dispiriting if not alarming way. "Brutal systems have played a prominent role in many countries, including the United States," one of the exhibit's last panels tells visitors. By itself, that one clause--"including the United States"--would be bad enough. But the panel continues. "Although slavery ended after the American Civil War, its consequences persist. The repercussions of the Holocaust in Europe and apartheid in South Africa reverberate even today. Similarly, Russians face the legacy of the gulag. How can citizens in these countries face up to the horrors of the past?"

Just as it is the small details of the Gulag exhibit that lead one to consider the depth of the deprivation its captives endured, it is the word "similarly" that so effectively undermines what has just been shown. After all, if the Gulag is "similar" to anything in American life or history, does it teach us anything about the Soviet Union--or about anything at all? "If you cannot distinguish between levels of evil, you are a cause of evil." Such was the astute reaction of a man whose father spent a decade in the Gulag, when confronted with this moral equivalence in the paragraph above.

The monsoon of '06

It's been raining for five straight days here and word has it that the first day we can expect no rain is Monday. Aaarggh! The air is stifling, the pavement outside my apartment is awash with slugs and other disgusting creatures and I'm having nightmares of an evil fungus climbing up the three flights of stairs to chez Tinkerty Tonk and smothering me.

I knew it

You Are 85% New Jersey!

Wow, you're totally Jersey. There's no doubt about it. Congratulations, and always be proud to be Jersey--it's a great thing to be!

How New Jersey Are You?

Via Miriam.

When the moon is in the Seventh House

Al Qaeda's rise was in the stars.

NY Times editor hides behind the first amendment

In response to reader complaints about unveiling the administration's until-then-secret program of combing through international banking records to uncover terrorist activity.

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.

Yada, yada, yada.

Keller believes that "the press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in such cases," so, despite the administration's defense of the legality and effectiveness of the program, the onus is on George Bush and co. to defend itself against the "concerns" of anonymous leakers.

And the terrorists already knew the administration was going after their funding, anyway.

It has been widely reported — indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department — that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash.

So what's the big deal?

Through their eyes

Cathy Seipp has a nice piece on watching old movies with her daughter. When my son was little, I could never get him to watch old black and white movies with me. Color, perhaps. Black and white, never.

In fact, he thought that movies turned from color to black and white with age. I discovered this one day when we were getting ready to out someplace and my son was engrossed by some movie on TV. As I urged him to get his shoes on and get in the car, he begged me to let him finish watching the movie. "Please Mom, I never saw it before and who knows when it's going to be on again. I want to see it before it turns black and white!"

NJ rabbis ban Internet use

Rabbis tell parents of yeshiva students in Lakewood, NJ that they can no longer have Internet access at home.

While many, if not most, Orthodox Jews here eschewed the Internet -- and television, for that matter -- long before the edict, some with children in Lakewood's 43 yeshivas cut the cord or put a lock on the computer afterward.

Others have quietly defied the ban or, not so quietly, ridiculed it online in anonymous blogs. Community leaders say no one has been subject to the ban's ultimate penalty: expulsion from school for students whose parents have kept the Internet at home for nonbusiness reasons.

Most Orthodox Jews, interviewed recently almost nine months after the edict was issued, said they support the policy.

"It's a great idea. They should do it everywhere," said David Egert, an emergency medical technician.

RINO sightings

This week's edition, the Santayana Edition, can be found at Searchlight Crusade.

Unintentionally hilarious

This favorite memo ever, via pullquote, reminds me of an ordnance proposed by the city of Englewood, NJ to keep an erotic emporium out of the city's main shopping district. I suppose the lawmakers wanted to ensure that they had all bases covered so the ordnance listed all the prohibited items and their intended uses with hilarious results. Combining legalese with graphic sexual terminology is a surefire kneeslapper. I only wish I had it to post.

Out of the way everybody

Paris has to pee.

Why aren't we going after these leakers?

The blogosphere is rightly disgusted with the New York Times for exposing a secret administration plan that looks at international banking transactions.

Of course, the NYT's behavior is reprehensible; once again the Times has shown that it is objectively against the war on terror.

Considering its Chicken Little calls on "privacy" the last time it broke a national security secret about monitoring overseas communications, one would think the Times would back off. But the Times purpose is to drive the Bush administration out of power. The Times would rather have Mo Dowd in a burka than allow this president to do the job he was elected to do: Defend the nation and promote the general welfare.

But no one at the New York Times applied for and received a top secret security clearance. How about we focus our outrage on the administration insiders who leaked this stuff in the first place?

When reclusive Vanity Fair cover girl Valerie Plame was outed, there was outrage in the halls of Congress and in the nation's editorial pages. This lead to the appointment of a special investigator who's most notable for not indicting Karl Rove.

Where's the outrage now? Who's going to demand that we investigate the traitors who leaked this stuff to the Times?

Worst Wrong, egregiously stupid people

John Hawkins pays tribute to Keith Olbermann and asks bloggers to name the worst people in the world. Mass murderers and assorted other unsavory types are not included, which means we're left with Olbermann's definition: Wrong, egregiously stupid people who abuse their position.

Only one man can rise to the top in that category: Jimmy Carter. Carter's psalm-singing sanctimony would be annoying enough if he just confined his antics to housebuilding, instead he uses his position as an ex-president to preach against the war, belittle our current policies and stick his nose in where it doesn't belong by "certifying" elections that elevate the strongmen he so admires throughout the world. And because he's an ex-president, current presidents can't tell him to fuck off. And newspapers give him prominent space on their editorial pages.

(On a side note, the blogosphere is abuzz about the call from former Carterites to preemptively strike against the North Korean Taepodong missile. Of course, we mightn't be facing the North Korean threat if Jimmy Carter hadn't abused his position by flying off to North Korea to "help" the Clinton administration.)

Others who fit the definition (in no particular order):

Ted Kennedy
John Kerry
John Murtha
Al Gore

If you give birth to Christ, you're on your own

Insurance company drops policy that would have paid £1 million to one of three sisters if they conceived Jesus immaculately.

The burden of proof that it was Christ had rested with the women and any premium on the insurance was donated to charity, said Mr Burgess.

The siblings had paid £100 annually since 2000. If they had secured a payout, they stood to receive £1m.

He added: "The Catholic Church is up in arms about what we've been doing. We have withdrawn the cover because it was causing a furore.

"The three ladies have been informed."

Via Marc.

About time

Red Cross votes to admit Israel.

A day at the races

I love the fact that they still wear goofy hats at Ascot. Here's a slideshow of racegoers. And, below, the most smashing Ascot outfit ever, courtesy of Cecil Beaton.

Miscellany

What Jewish ties to Jerusalem? Arab revisionism.

Save the fluffernutter!

Where's the beef? Hindu revisionists.

Free comes with a price tag: Reality TV.

B&D for charity: See your boss get whipped with a cat o' nine tails.

Apocalypse now

ABC News wants to know how global warming is affecting your life.

We want to hear and see your stories. Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown? The differences can be large or small — altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property.

This introduces a whole new level of stupid in news coverage. But then, maybe that's a sign of the effects of global warming?

Redeploying redeploy

Lawrence F. Kaplan:

There's a new catchphrase in town. In coming days, the Senate will consider various Democratic resolutions calling for a "phased redeployment" of U.S. troops in Iraq. What exactly is a phased redeployment? "It's not a cut-and-run strategy," insists Senator Carl Levin. His fellow senators, John Kerry and Russell Feingold, agree, saying in a joint statement about their own resolution, "We need a deadline for the redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq." This, needless to say, would hardly be the first time a country has redeployed in the midst of wartime. Britain famously redeployed from its American colonies. France redeployed from Algeria. In 1975, the United States redeployed from Vietnam. And indeed, as a careful reading of the fine print makes clear, the architects of phased redeployment want the troops redeployed all the way back to Fort Bragg.

Just right

You Are 68% Lady

Overall, you are a refined lady with excellent manners. But you also know when to relax and not get too serious about etiquette

Are You A Lady?

Via Robert the gentleman, via Jen.

The glorious age of man flab

The fat roll replaces the six pack.

Our men are carrying an extra 10—hell, maybe 15—pounds in the midriff, haven’t even thought about the gym in months, and they are unashamed. Why should they be? The Hollywood box-office draws have stopped looking like the lithe and graceful Orlando Blooms of the world, delicate and emotive and who might possibly weigh less than an average female fan, and instead now look like guys you can recognize as being from the same planet you inhabit, who eat, drink, and smoke what they want, pack on the pounds and still get to regularly bed skinny actresses who can’t remember what carbs taste like. What’s more, the women don’t mind a bit—in fact, some prefer it.

“You don’t want a guy who’s too skinny,” said a young, sporty blonde named Adrienne Rochetti, who lives in the West Village and considers Vince Vaughn a hottie. “If a guy is skinnier than you, then you’re the one that has to go to the gym.”

Quartet money allows Hamas to pursue its anti-Israel agenda

Which seems pretty obvious to me, but what do I know?

If the mechanism manages to alleviate hardships suffered by innocent Palestinians - as a result, of course, of their government's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, commit to existing agreements and so on - then it is surely to be welcomed. One can't help noticing, however, that the introduction of the aid mechanism creates a strange, two-tier structure of financing for the Palestinian authority (PA). According to this structure, the international community will agree to pick up the tab on mundane daily matters. This, in turn, will leave the elected Islamist rulers of the authority free to pursue matters that they find of greater interest. They will be in the enviable situation among governing authorities of being free to pursue higher, historic tasks, safe in the knowledge that someone else - in this case the generous taxpayer of Europe and north America - has taken on the job of preventing famine and societal collapse in the areas under their control.

New Yorkers are the world's most polite people

According to a test by Reader's Digest.

The Big Apple scored 80 per cent in a series of tests, including dropping papers in a street in a busy area, seeing how long it took for someone to help, noting whether doors were held open and if shop assistants said thank you after making a sale.

Reader's Digest magazine carried out the tests by sending journalists to cities in 35 countries. London and Paris were in joint 15th place with a score of 57 per cent, while India's Mumbai came bottom with 32 per cent.

Mumbai is the rudest city in the world, according to the study.

If they test their missile, should we test our missile defense system?

Definitely, says the Wall Street Journal.

North Korea clearly intends any launch as an act of intimidation, part of its long-held belief that nuclear threats give it political leverage. Knocking the missile out of the sky, or even trying to, would tell the North that it can't succeed with such tactics. It would also reassure Japan and other U.S. allies that we have the will to protect them from rogue madmen. The demonstration effect would be useful around the world, not least in Iran.

As North Korea weighs a launch, it's a useful moment to recall how we got to this pass: Amid the arms-control era of the Cold War, the U.S. chose to defend itself against attack by plane or ship or ground but not by missile. One reason North Korea--and Iran--decided to invest scarce resources into developing nuclear weapons and ballistic-missiles is simply this: The U.S. was vulnerable.

The emerging missile defense system is making that less true, and a North Korean test launch is an ideal time to demonstrate that we are willing and able to defend ourselves.

It sounds good to me. James Joyner and Blue Crab Boulevard anticipate problems.

UPDATE: Another proponent of activating missile defense.

When heroes stood tall

Brainster links to this NYT story on efforts to uncover the "real" story of World War I hero Sgt. York.

Their heated examinations do not challenge the essential heroism of Sergeant York, yet such scrutiny helps explain why it is hard to be a hero these days.

There are other reasons, too, of course. Wars are often unpopular clashes fraught with moral ambiguity, and while the news media are often attracted to heroism, they also like to challenge myth building.
...

Military abuses now have a longer shelf life than acts of derring-do.

As far as the shelf life of any story is concerned, it depends on how much shelf space you devote to the story and where those shelves are situated. If you stock your abuse stories at the cash register and your hero stories in the backroom, it's likely the abuse stories will generate more interest.

According to the piece, York probably didn't single-handedly force 132 Germans to surrender, but the press seized on his story because it made better copy. By the time the press was done with him, Sgt. York had "single-handedly silenced 35 German machine gun nests and killed 25 enemy soldiers" even though he was not alone at the time.

Seems to me we've exchanged one form of press cynicism for another. The narrative of 1918 highlighted "uplifting tales of uncomplicated bravery." One backwoods Tennessean served as a stand-in for every American soldier; he made us feel good about ourselves and justified our involvement in the war.

The narrative of this war focuses obsessively on a handful of wrongdoers. They too serve as stand ins for everything that's wrong with us and with the war.

After 88 years and a classic movie, it's probably too late to put the Sgt. York genie back in the bottle. I'd hate to think that 88 years from today, researchers will have to "prove" that not all American soldiers were vicious psychopathic killers.

Miscellany

Best tattoo ever?

And it's reusable: World's oldest condom, via Sam.

Diet soda: A history.

The truth about polygraphs: They're not very reliable.

The Gutfield interview.

Everybody gets a prize

Terry Teachout on prizes in the arts.

Looking back over the long history of such prizes, it strikes me that even the best-laid and most idealistic institutional plans are inevitably subverted over time by non-artistic considerations. Sooner or later the temptation to inflate the currency in one way or another becomes irresistible, and before you know it you're either out of business (the Leventritt Competition) or no longer taken seriously (the Kennedy Center Honors).

Ann Althouse on the school with 41 valedictorians:

The title of valedictorian is a terrific prize, and it becomes meaningless if every great student wins it.

Ya think?

The odalisque wears Prada

Underneath her burqa. Elle launches a Middle Eastern version.

Women in most Muslim countries cover their heads and bodies in public in keeping with religious tradition. But underneath, a growing number of them are wearing elegant, fashionable and often-revealing attire. In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, social calendars are filled with women-only parties in lavish homes, featuring buffets, music, dancing and karaoke. Camera phones click madly, and photos of women in slinky dresses and glimmering tube tops are zapped to boyfriends and suitors.

"Young women have a globalized understanding of beauty," says Abu Baker Bagader, sociology professor at King Abul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this whole notion strangely offensive. But maybe I'm wrong: Maybe what Saudi Arabian women need is a magazine like Elle to lift them out of second class citizenship.

Not feeling very bloggy

Not sure what to do about it, either.

Trading spouses: Faculty edition

Producers of the Fox reality series are seeking academics to participate.

“Our show is about celebrating families from eclectic backgrounds,” explains Brooke Krinsky, a casting associate with the company. “One reason we’re going after higher education professionals is that they tend to lead amazing lives and do amazing things.” She says she could picture an archaeologist mom or dad taking families on new adventures that they could never imagine.

“We could have a dad who’s a science professor and a mom who manages a punk band,” gushes Krinsky. “It’s a fun experiment.”

Hope of future rewards behind NORK missile threat

Frank J. Gaffney Jr.:

While to some, North Korea’s behavior at the moment is a puzzlement, it is actually a perfectly logical response to recent international actions with respect to other pariah states. Call it “the squeaking wheel” syndrome.

In particular, the other remaining member of the original “Axis of Evil,” Islamofascist Iran, has lately been systematically rewarded for its misbehavior. The more belligerent the rhetoric from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, the more imminent the completion of Iran’s ominous nuclear weapons program, the more the U.S. and other Western powers have tried to appease Tehran.

Should we be surprised then that the Iranian regime’s partner in terror, nuclear weaponry, and ballistic-missile developments, North Korea, would be redoubling its threatening behavior — confident that the result would be, not sanctions and isolation, but fresh rewards?

RINO sightings

The Father's Day edition is up at Inside Larry's Head.

Listmania

Top 10 Hybrid Animals.

10 Greatest Countries in the History of the World.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams' favorite TV shows. Adams asserts that TV is better than movies because of censorship.

Of the kid-oriented movies that I’ve seen in the past year, I’d say I enjoyed 90% of them. When you make a movie without sex and violence and car chases and infidelity, it turns out that you have to use actual creativity. Kid movies are great.

I enjoy R-rated movies only about 10% of the time. The other 90% are filled with movie cliché revenge violence, unnecessary sex, and themes that make me feel bad. But television, on the other hand, has a zillion channels and just enough censorship to make the creators act creatively. If you can’t find several shows on TV that you love, you aren’t even trying.

What do you think?

The emperor's new clothes

Yes, but is it art?

New all-purpose insult

Neocon. See this piece by Simon Jenkins about the modernism show at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in which devotees of Mies et al are compared to neocons, to wit:

The modernists were the neocons of 20th-century art. They took a sound methodology - the questioning of conventional wisdom - and made it a dogma that brooked no opposition, even from reality.

Which is kind of at variance with the rest of the article which, rightfully, links modernist thought--such as it is--with the totalitarianism of the 20th Century. Indeed the sentence after the one quoted is:

They turned a fad into a political programme, asserting "we" as sovereign over "them". Though Hitler closed the Bauhaus and Stalin loved Corinthian columns, the modernist utopia fuelled fascism and communism and bred a tradition of stylistic authority still alive today.

What to do about Garrison Keillor?

Jessa Crispin issues a call to arms. More here.

Favorite chick flicks

Following in the footsteps of Dean and Michael, mine are--in no particular order:

Legally Blonde
Miss Congeniality
Bridget Jones' Diary
When Harry Met Sally
As Good as It Gets
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Something's Gotta Give

Where chick flicks are concerned, it's all about the leading lady and Reese Witherspoon, Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan are all super adorable. Bridget Jones had some help from the super hunky Colin Firth, the best Mr. Darcy ever, and Hugh Grant; although I liked Renee Zellwegger, too. I didn't like the sequel, however, in which Bridget went from being a cute, slightly chubby but sexy girl to being a fat slob. Ah well, sequels almost invariably suck.

As Good as it Gets was really an ensemble piece, but Helen Hunt was fabulous as the waitress that helped Jack Nicolson's character rediscover his humanity.

The last two are really wish fulfillment fantasies: Overweight ethnic girl finds love with hunky all-American and older woman wins womanizer over more youthful competition and snags a younger superfantastic man (and a doctor!) before settling down.

Happy Father's Day

Miscellany

World's largest Koran.

Ars moriendi: The art of dying.

Brush up your Shakespeare: Google it.

Tangoal! Arabic World Cup coverage.

Confucious says: DNA test.

Namibia finds its economic niche

Birthplace of the spawn of stars.

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) -- Following in the steps of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Britney Spears is considering a Namibian birth for her next baby, a government official said Friday.

Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Leon Jooste said officials have received an inquiry on behalf of the 24-year-old pop star, who has a 9-month-old son, Sean Preston, with husband Kevin Federline.

You say you support the troops but not the war?

Then you're full of shit. First of all, all our troops are volunteers so how is it possible for someone to support the troops but not the war?

AndyB sends this letter from a Marine serving in Fallujah, who's not impressed with antiwar activists from his hometown who claim to support the troops.

It boggles my mind that this logic is actually utilized on a large scale. Supporting the troops but not the war is like saying that you support filmmakers but not making films. One cannot claim to support an individual in a given profession but not support what the said profession entails. This is essentially a slap in the face to those in the service.

How protesting the job we are doing in Iraq while demanding our withdrawal constitutes supporting us is beyond me.

Furthermore, I am particularly interested in how these people support us, specifically. I have never once received a letter from an individual who claims to “support the troops, not the war.” Not a single Marine I know has received anything that could be considered remotely supportive from any of these people or the groups they represent. We have received phone cards, hygiene supplies, food, etc. from members of state and local government, radio stations, schools, private individuals and organizations, but never once from any group claiming to “support the troops, but not the war.”
I ask again: How can these groups claim to support our troops while telling us that what we are participating in is wrong?
How can they support us if they are essentially saying that our blood and sacrifices have all been given in vain?
How can they support us if they say that our comrades and brothers who have been wounded or killed in action have done so for a hopeless and morally questionable cause?

More fuel: John Hawkins links to a Daily Kos post that compares American soldiers and service people to Nazis.

I beg the young people of this nation to consider the ominous proposition that, as it was in the days of Nuremberg when the Nazis were held responsible for crimes against humanity, when the leaders of the German nation dressed their children "in brown shirts" reminding that they had a moral obligation (a national duty) to fight for the Fatherland, it will be the same for the leaders of our nation, as well as for those who blindly allow themselves to be coerced into fighting for our country, a nation having come under the nefarious control of malefactors convinced that our nation has been given the right, the God-ordained responsibility, to oversee the planet, to, in fact, rule the world."

Blog naked day

For those of you so inclined, today is also the second anniversary of Blog Naked Day. Participants include:

AirForceWife
Miriam
Gail
Shinobi
Carin
Diana
Loopy Libertarian

Happy Bloomsday

Today's the 102nd anniversary of Bloomsday, the day Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom wandered around Dublin in Ulysses. In Dublin, Bloomsday has been cancelled because it coincides with the funeral of former Irish Prime Minister Charles J. Haughey.

Here are some related links:

The Internet Ulysses.

The publishing history of Ulysses.

Ulysses for Dummies: Cartoon version.

Portait of the artist as an old pervert: Book claims Joyce molested his daughter.

Stephen Joyce v. Joyce scholars.

An Anti-Bloomsday Opinion.

How well do you know James Joyce? Quiz.

The gay bomb

And other weapons that didn't make it.

And they didn't vote for George Bush either!

Jonah Goldberg on why terrorists would want to attack a nice country like Canada.

Indeed, there’s good reason to believe that niceness is part of the problem, not the solution. Many Canadians (and Americans and Europeans) cling to a deep-seated belief that more multiculturalism, more interfaith dialogue, more “understanding,” more Western apologies, more acceptance of Sharia, more “niceness” will fix the problem.

As the American Enterprise Institute’s Reuel Marc Gerecht and the French intellectual Olivier Roy have suggested, multiculturalism in many ways breeds Islamic radicalism among deracinated “born-again” Muslims in the West. It foments the climate of grievance and honors the quest for radical authenticity. Indeed, jihadism imports any number of Marxist and anti-colonial bugaboos into its worldview and then spits them back out at the West. “This militant evolution is happening, in situ, on our territory. It partakes henceforth of the internal history of the West,” Roy observed. The 9/11 hijackers were Westernized, educated, and cosmopolitan. Nearly all of the alleged Canadian plotters were raised in Canada and attended Canadian public schools. They were indeed homegrown.

Plus they're a bunch of evil bastards.

Miscellany

Fun global warming facts.

Back fat and turkey wattles: Liposuction for skinny people.

To my beloved bitch-of-an-ex wife: Dedications.

Jimmy Jimmy BoBo: Birthday party.

How I spent my summer vacation: North Korea, via Barry.

Perverting the course of justice

In an effort to beat a speeding ticket, a UK man moves a speed-limit sign. Personally, I think he should get points for creativity. Unfortunately, it looks like he'll end up in jail.

She parachuted behind enemy lines with her wooden leg in a knapsack

Virginia Hall, our greatest female spy. Via Arts & Letters Daily, a review of Judith L. Pearson's biography of Hall.

The Wolves at the Door does more than chronicle Hall’s extraordinary career. Pearson gives vivid detail about Hall driving a crude ambulance loaded with wounded while under fire; how she twice escaped the continent; how she got through SOE training with her artificial leg (which she called Cuthbert); the agent problems she dealt with, including the discovery of a Gestapo double-agent; her disguises and her cover work as a milkmaid and farmer’s helper; and how she arranged the escape of several of her agents from a Gestapo prison. We also see something of this remarkable woman’s managerial abilities when Pearson tells how she overcame the reluctance of the French resistance to follow orders from a woman. After the war, Hall’s achievements were to be publicly recognized with the presentation of the Distinguished Service Cross by President Harry Truman. She declined the honor, however, preferring to receive the award without publicity from OSS chief Gen. William Donovan, and thus preserve her cover for clandestine work in the postwar era.

Bloggers in pajamas

What do you wear to bed? I have a ton of pajamas--flannel, silk and cotton, along with a variety of nightgowns of every description. These days what I most like to sleep in are huge men's XXXL cotton t-shirts washed within an inch of their life for premium softness.

But my real weakness is robes. I've got soft, fleecy ones; silk kimonos; suber-absorbent terry cloth robes; and a quilted satin bed jacket. So that's what I'm most likely to be wearing when other bloggers are in their pajamas.

Via James Joyner.

New charitable organization

Patriotic Americans for Peace, Justice, Sustainable Living, Human Rights and Children.

I've noticed that organizations are given credibility in accordance with their title. Call you organization the Arab Anti-Zionist League, and everyone will sneer. Call it Arab Human Rights Organization Chowder and Marching Society, and you will get respectful attention in the press.

You don't have to have a fancy building. You don't even need a phone. You sure don't need a lot of members. The Hammurabi Society, which started all this carry-on about Haditha, consists of two guys. But that's good enough for Time magazine. Hammurabi! It has a ring to it! It must be important!

Next thing you know, bottle feeders will be thrown in jail

Public health campaign likens bottle-feeding to smoking during pregnancy.

"Just like it's risky to smoke during pregnancy, it's risky not to breast-feed after," said Suzanne Haynes, senior scientific adviser to the Office on Women's Health in the Department of Health and Human Services. "The whole notion of talking about risk is new in this field, but it's the only field of public health, except perhaps physical activity, where there is never talk about the risk."

A two-year national breast-feeding awareness campaign that culminated this spring ran television announcements showing a pregnant woman clutching her belly as she was thrown off a mechanical bull during ladies' night at a bar — and compared the behavior to failing to breast-feed.

"You wouldn't take risks before your baby's born," the advertisement says. "Why start after?"

How long before people start turning in their neighbors for bottle-feeding?

And, while we're on the subject of public health scolds, since when are trans fats illegal?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said it has filed a class-action lawsuit against Yum Brands' KFC unit for cooking chicken in oil that contains artery-clogging trans fat.

CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson said the chain's use of partially hydrogenated oils turns healthy food into something that can take years off your life.

The consumer group wants the court to either stop KFC from using oils containing trans fat or to require signs to warn customers.

Heroes in the War on Terror

Stars and Stripes honors medal of valor winners. A sample:

[Master Sgt. Suran Sar] calls the Army “his home,” and considering his family history, its no empty sentiment.

As a boy in Cambodia, he grew up during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and suffered through his father’s imprisonment and the execution of his older brother. His mother and two other brothers died from starvation. Sar said when he arrived in the United States in 1981, he had no family and no money.

He joined the Army in 1986, planning to spend a few years to earn money for college, but said his commanders quickly became his close friends and convinced him to stay in. They pushed him toward the special forces, and he had conducted operations in Africa, Kosovo and Afghanistan before last spring’s second tour in Asia.

UN seal of approval gives NGOs a chance to spread the hate

Accreditation from United Nations gives NGOs free publicity via a link to the UN webpage and free ads in NGO Action News, a biweekly newsletter published by the UN.

The latest edition of the UN's NGO Action News (April-May 2006) advertises, free of charge, a campaign to object to the then proposed Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 (which was subsequently adopted). The November 2005 NGO Action News advertised an international seminar by Health Work Committees, the Alternative Information Center, and the Alternative Group which included a workshop called "Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment," and a paper on "Local and International Perspectives on a One State Solution."

The October-November 2005 NGO Action News announced a conference organized by The Palestine Center promising to discuss "Churches and Divestment: A Third Party Intervention."

Miscellany

Whatever happened to? Maddox Jolie-Pitt.

Kos saved my life!

Say it with pictures: Editorializing can take many forms.

Call me Ishmael: Fishing.

Civil servants jumping naked off filing cabinets!

Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

My candidate for '08 speaks in favor of nuclear energy and school choice.

Drawing on his experience managing New York City's power problems, Giuliani spoke of the government red tape that makes it virtually impossible to build power plants, oil refineries and (especially) nuclear-power facilities.

Summing up U.S. energy policy since the 1970s, he was blunt: "We haven't done anything." We haven't drilled in Alaska. We haven't built oil refineries. We haven't ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978.

We need to start doing these things, he said, to diversify. Energy independence, he said, is simply the "wrong paradigm," despite the idea's popularity in quarters of both the Left and the Right. Instead, in a global economy, "We have to diversify, that's our strength . . . You can be independent by being diversified."

And here I thought she couldn't even get herself arrested

Daryl Hannah from her jail cell.

"I spent the last 23 days down at the South Central farm, which is the largest urban farm in the nation and provides food for hundreds of families," Hannah tells PEOPLE. "The subsistence farmers are from one of the poorest communities. This farm should be a model for sustainable urban agriculture. It needs to be replicated, not eradicated."

For the past three weeks, Hannah and protest organizer John Quigley had been sitting 40 feet above the ground in a large walnut tree. Folk singer Joan Baez and anti-logging activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill had also taken shifts in the tree, although neither was present when the arrests were made.

I'm glad he's on our side

And that I didn't live next door to him when he was conducting his experiment. Thanks, Andy, for pointing me to The Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout.

But you can't quit

Japanese employers seek compensation from resigning employees--or else.

[A] 29-year-old man who works for a computer system development company offered to resign in March. But an official of the firm told him, "We won't allow you to quit until the system development job finishes in September. If you quit now, you have to pay several million yen in compensation."

An executive then shouted at him, "(If you quit) I will tell your next employer that you have left this job unfinished." Under pressure, he decided to stay with the system development company.

Thieving gummint revenooers, part IV

Comptroller of Maryland
Case Number XXXXXX

Dear Ms. Tonk:

Thank you for your response to our notice regarding the above compliance case.

The information that was supplied to us is sufficient to close the case. We now consider the matter resolved.

Sincerely,
XXX

Dear Comptroller:

I cannot tell you how pleased I am to know that I have played a part, however small, in lightening your load. And it only cost me $8 in postage!

However, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, there is still the matter of $667.86 in state and local refunds due me. I know some would quibble about such a paltry amount, and I do hate to spoil the mood, but I'm afraid I have to insist. I figure that, since I helped you close a case, it's only fair that you reciprocate.

Yours in closure,
Tinkerty Tonk

What drag queen?

The New York Times ties itself in knots.

The paper has avoided using the phrase to describe flamboyant gay performer Kevin Aviance in its coverage of his brutal beating in the Village. Even though Aviance describes himself as a "drag queen," the ever-politically correct Times refers to him as a "dance recording artist," a "Manhattan singer" and part of a "group of like-minded people." Blogger Eric Umansky asks: "Who does the Times think it's protecting? Does it think Aviance is ashamed of being a drag queen? Does it think readers can't handle the fact that some men occasionally dress as women?" The Times also balks at the word "panties" because it is offensive to some feminists.

Skipping grades is good for you

Ann Althouse would have loved to have skipped a grade of school, but her mother wouldn't let her.

I remember when grade-skipping went out of fashion. It was right around the time when I was in grade school. My mother told me later that they wanted me to skip, and she was adamantly against it. I was outraged that I wasn't asked and that I was stuck with a whole extra year of sitting in a classroom. She knew better. She had been skipped back in the old days, during the Depression. (She went to college at 16.) Based on her experience, she felt sure she knew skipping was bad.

My mother also went to college at 16 and spoke vehemently against the practice. I think Mom felt that her high school years were miserable because she was so much younger than anyone else there. She was bound and determined that her children wouldn't be put through the same hell.

By the time I went to school, the practice of putting fast learners into gifted programs was the norm and there was little danger that I'd enter high school at age 12. But in between my sophomore and junior years I moved from New York to Florida. Somehow, I tested out of a bunch of things and had already completed a lot of requirements for graduation so I was offered a chance to graduate early provided I spend my last semester taking nothing but gym. (I actually failed gym in 10th grade because of all my absences.) I jumped at the chance.

What Mom didn't realize was that high school is miserable, period. It all worked out the same in the end, though; It took me five years to get through college.

Women join Iraqi police

Outside of Israel, how many other countries in the Middle East have female police officers?

IRBIL , Iraq — Women's rights might not be the first thing one thinks of when someone mentions Iraq , however, some officials in the Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq would like it to be.

According to Irbil Minister of Interior Karim Sinjari, equality is very important for the residents of the Kurdish provinces.

“We are working very hard to be progressive and set the standard for human rights in Iraq ,” he said.

According to Sinjari, changing the country's view of women is an important step to separate themselves from the old way of thinking.

Although women throughout Iraq have been given the right to vote and are accepted in the army and police academies, the city of Irbil was the first city to allow women to hold positions of power.

Iraqi Police Lt. Narseed, is one of the first female officers in the city.

She wanted to be a police officer at a very young age but thought that the career field would not be open within her lifetime. That all changed when the Coalition removed Saddam from power. She said she had already graduated college and was becoming a lawyer when she made the decision to become a police officer. “When I heard that the doors had opened for women to become officers, I jumped at the chance and then went to the police academy.”

She said that she has no issue with men following orders or accepting her as an authoritative figure. “Here, there is no difference between male officers and female officers. If I tell the men to do something, they do it. There is no hesitation on their part.”

Via Fausta.

It's official: I'm old

I can't hear this damn ringtone at all. Can you? Details here.

UPDATE: All right, I heard it on a different computer. And damned unpleasant it is, too.

Boys will be boys

The Dangerous Book For Boys is a bestseller in the UK.

The very thought of an educational volume that sets out both to exclude a specific gender and to promote activities with questionable health and safety implications is enough to bring the ultimate condemnation that the world of mealy-mouthdom has to offer - that of being "inappropriate".

Just a glance down the contents page gives a pretty good clue of the direction in which the authors' minds are heading. Even before page 100, chaps will have learnt how to decipher enemy code, make a bow and arrow and plant a tripwire that will alert them to the imminent arrival of baddies in the camp.

"It is the kind of book we would have given the cat away to get when we were young," say its creators Hal and Conn Iggulden, two brothers who grew up not in the Fifties, as the book's self-consciously retro Boys' Own presentation might suggest, but in the Seventies and early Eighties.

Miscellany

The Mail-In Rebate: A Jacobean Tragedy in Five Acts.

Wanted: Dangerous Jordanians.

Say it with shrubbery: Topiary.

Satanic hand gestures and more: 9/11 conspiracy trading cards.

At least Zarqawi died quickly.

Ann Coulter by TKO

MoDo v. Coulter

Woman: Who do you think would win a fight between Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd?
Man: A fight?
Woman: Yeah, you know, a death match.
Man: I'm gonna go with Ann Coulter.
Woman: You think? They both wear long, spikey heels. They could put each other's eyes out pretty fast.
Man: But Ann Coulter would be like, "Rock on, I'm in a death cage!" And Maureen Dowd would be like, "Wait, what am I doing in a death cage?"

--Alt.Coffee, Avenue A

via Overheard in New York, Jun 12, 2006

When the initials NRA didn't refer to guns

Huey Long's spectacular 1935 filibuster.

“I can’t remember back to a time,” Huey Long once said, “when my mouth wasn’t open whenever there was a chance to make a speech.” In June 1935 the Kingfish, as he was called, performed one of the most spectacular feats of speechifying by anyone ever, holding forth in the U.S. Senate from just after noon on the 12th until almost four the following morning about everything from the United States Constitution to how to make salad dressing. The New York Times, in awe of the “apparently inexhaustible speaking powers of the man from the Louisiana canebrakes,” called his performance “one of the greatest feats of physical endurance the [Senate] chamber had ever seen.”

More on Huey Long here.

Hell on earth

Scientist renounces technology to create his own Utopia.

Dylan Evans used to think that technology would deliver paradise on Earth: “We’d be in this magical world predicted by H. G. Wells, where robots did the dirty work and people had masses of leisure time.” Which is why he ended up at the University of the West of England building clever robots capable of recognising human emotions.

But the closer he came to crafting this perfect future, the less attractive it seemed. Now he is renouncing his university career — and technology — to fashion his own primitive paradise. Next month, he will head to a secret location in Scotland to prepare the groundwork for the Utopia experiment, in which he and others will imagine themselves to be survivors of an apocalypse. They will grow and kill their own food, shun television, draw water from a nearby stream and ration their use of electricity.

Not too hard--for me, at least--to believe that someone would exchange one notion of paradise on earth for another. The key here isn't Evans' renunciation of technology. It's his belief that man can create an "ideal" community.

Don't hate me because my boobs are so big

Dancer claims she was fired after she went from a C-cup to a D-cup. According to Alice Alyse, after she returned from leave to the show "Movin' Out" she needed new bras sewn into her costumes although she'd neither gained weight nor gotten implants.

I'll leave aside the question of whether Alyse's suit against the production company is justified. But I'm here to tell you: Your breasts can grow after puberty, whether you gain weight or not. I know. It happened to me. Sometime after the age of 30, my breasts took on a life of their own. Like Alyse ("When they hired me I wasn't flat-chested. I mean, a C means -- ya got boobs.") I was by no means flat-chested. But apparently my boobs weren't satisfied with their preeminence and whether I gained or lost weight was immaterial: They were growing.

Of course you can't go by bra size. I'm pretty sure they've monkeyed with cup size over the past decade or so, changing a traditional A to a B, a B to a C, etc. They did the same thing with women's clothing size in reverse. Feeling great about wearing a size 6 for the past 20 years? Better step on a scale cuz that size 6 is more akin to the size 10 of a decade ago.

I guess manufacturers have been doing this to make women feel better about themselves. Flat-chested women can now console themselves with a B-cup. However, I think I can speak for those of us on the other end of the spectrum when I say that we have no desire to advance beyond the fourth letter of the alphabet.

RINO sightings: You've got questions, we've got answers

The world these days is a very complicated place with many competing sources of information. So where can you turn for answers to the most pressing issues of the day? For answers, we've consulted the Raging RINOs--that's Republicans / Independents Not Overdosed (on the Party Kool Aid). They may not have all the answers. But they certainly have opinions.



Question: I'm running a Third World country and I'd like for it to remain a political backwater. What's the best way to achieve this?

Treat its corporations like your personal fiefdom and harass high level employees who don't belong to your tribe. Jane at Armies of Liberation demonstrates with the story of an aviation expert who's being terrorized by his employers at al-Yemenia Airlines.

Question: Each day brings news that makes the rape case against Duke University's LaCrosse players look weaker, yet District Attorney Mike Nifong becomes more adamant. What's behind this attitude?

Eric at Classical Values has some suggestions.

Question: What should we do about global warming?

Absolutely nothing, says Andrew at Cardinal Martini.

Question: President Bush has got a lot on his plate. So why the obsession with gay marriage?

Barry at enrevanche looks to the Bible to explain Bush's behavior.

Question: Who will speak for the dead?

Don Surber reports on an alarming state of affairs in West Virginia.

Question: Guess who's going to the World Cup?

Piglito says ...

Question: Michael Yon is fighting against the publisher of a magazine who used one of his photos without authorization. How can I help?

BloodSpite has the details.

Question: What's the deal with net neutrality?

Richard reports on the Markey amendment.

Question: Did Bush steal the 2004 election?

The better question might be: Can RFK Jr. ever be trusted? Orac thinks not. And, unlike Kennedy, he's got the data to prove it.

Question: Is the death of Zarqawi was the best news to come out of Iraq in months?

Not necessarily, says the Commissar. The emergence of Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, may be a more substantive development. Al-Mailiki's shown himself to be both tough and independent.

Question: How come so many people swallow conspiracies like The DaVinci Code, yet they refuse to treat the Islamists as a threat?

Put it down to a failure of imagination, says Dan Melson. And a refusal to alter their worldview to accommodate the facts.

Question: Want to show your support for our military?

Support Project Valor IT, which provides voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations. The organization has run out of funds, reports John of Argghhh!

Tinkerty Tonk Jr.

In the halcyon days before he had a driver's license.

Getting started

Today's the day I was going to get started scanning my photos. I've got a million of them--some in albums, some in boxes and some just shoved in nooks and crannies. Naturally I wanted to gather them together before I got started. So I went to the hall closet.

Big mistake.

The hall closet, in addition to being the repository for coats, is where the wrapping paper is stored. It also houses random financial records, photos, out-of-season shoes, scarves, miscellaneous decorations, computer cables, picture frames and whatever else I can cram in there that doesn't fit anywhere else. It's literally packed to the ceiling and packed so tightly that to remove one object requires rejiggering everything in there. So. I pulled out the albums and some boxes of pictures, pulled out two cubes of paperwork and started going through everything.

First I discarded about two years worth of paperwork I no longer need. Then I went through all the pictures I could find one by one. Now I'm sick of the whole enterprise.

Maybe I'll start scanning tomorrow.

A French defense of Guanatamo

Yves Roucaute decries the "poison of anti-Americanism."

The prevalent anti-American propaganda orders us to turn our gaze toward Cuba. Not the actual Cuba, Castro's Cuba - who after having murdered over 100,000 Cubans over a half century, now rules through terror. Not Castro's infamous prisons, where several thousand political prisoners rot away (the officially number is 336). In the scenic program of the politically correct: "the gulag of our times" is American, and Castro's Cuba consists of warm sandy beaches.

...

With every passing day, anti-Americanism looks more like the opium of the people. The heart of a soulless world from which morality is excluded, the odd reference point for a consciousness lost after the fall of the Berlin wall. If the true power of a Republic resides in its virtue, as Montesquieu once stated, these virtues are measured by the courage to fight for them. Guantanamo represents this courage.

Miscellany

What Dr. Phil doesn't tell you: Dating.

"Kind of like when The Facts of Life went to Paris!" 24, the movie.

Politicians and football: The English kind.

Great expectations.

Blogging convention: Suggested topics. I prefer a cruise.

Smelly Brits and their filthy hair

There's apparently a very small movement afoot to stop hair washing. Others eschew deodorant and suggest we've gone overboard by bathing our babies every day.

Miscellaneous Zarqawi links

Heh. And heh.

Zarqawi's toll of atrocities.

Death of a monster.

Germans on the lookout for English soccer hooligans

All well and good, but possibly misplaced given the severe toilet shortage.

Al Qaeda the hydra-headed monster

That seems to be the theme of NPR's coverage of the death of Zarqawi. Others have also taken that tack.

According to them, Zarqawi's killing is a symbolic rather than a strategic victory as someone will emerge to take his place.

Are these the same people who have been complaining since 9/11 that we've yet to catch Osama bin Laden?

The wonders of science: Hypoallergenic cats

Bioengineered kitties are available for $3,950.

The world's first genetically engineered, hypo-allergenic cats are now a reality, according to Allerca Inc., a San Diego-based biotechnology research group that announced yesterday that it had bred a cat that does not cause wheezing and hives among the allergy-prone.

The kitties are a true "scientific breakthrough," said chief executive Megan Young.

...

The company has conducted trials, exposing cat allergy sufferers to the newfangled anti-itch cats and "non-GD cats," and found that the latter brought on an immediate attack of hives, breathing difficulties and swollen eyes in the test subjects. The 12-week-old kitties -- which arrive by private jet with cat toys -- will be available next April.

Zarqawi dead

Now that's good news from Iraq. The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was killed in an airstrike on a safe house north of Baghdad.

At a joint news conference with Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Zarqawi's body had been positively identified by fingerprints, "facial recognition" and other indicators. He said seven of Zarqawi's associates had also been killed in the strike.

The announcement of Zarqawi's death, shortly before noon on Thursday in Baghdad, appeared to mark a major watershed in the war. With a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, the Jordan-born Zarqawi has been the most wanted man in Iraq for his leadership of Islamic terrorist groups that have carried out many of the most brutal attacks of the war, including scores of suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

Dancers cry a lot

That's what I've learned tonight watching So You Think You Can Dance. I never saw such copious weeping. Kind of fun, though. It's hard to believe there's much of a market for dancers these days. I mean, they can't all marry Britney Spears.

More religious hair meshugaas

Kosher wigs.

Khomeni's grandson: Bush should occupy Iran

And he's not a huge fan of the mandatory hijab.

Khomeini also said that he opposes the Al-Fakih rule and would never accept the authority of a ruler under Al-Fakih. He added that if he came to power, the first law that he would implement would make wearing of hijab [headscarf] a personal decision for women.

He said, "by forcing women to wear the strictest, black-colored hajibs, instead of allowing those of different colors, the religious authorities in Iran are unduly restricting women. Even though I personally support the wearing of some form of hijab, when female students come out of schools and colleges covered in black, it just makes your heart sick. The hijab issue is a personal matter. If a woman wants it she can wear it, and if she refuses it, she doesn't have to. My grandfather Khomeini had lots of relatives that didn't wear the hijab."

'He needs to go away'

Tom Cruise, that is.

The idea is that Cruise should stay out of sight for at least a year, allowing time to get over what one prominent agent calls "the cootie factor."

Apparently Cruise does not grasp the cootie factor and has no plans to take a break. And the agent says it would be very hard for his reps, at this delicate moment, to explain the situation to him. "He's in a zone that he's never been in and it's their job to make sure he feels the positive light," he says. Another source close to the star agrees. "You've got to be very careful in conversations with him," he says. "Tom is not ever going to face facts."

More on Bush the abortionist

Attorney Dana L was apparently so darned mad at Bush that she forgot to call Planned Parenthood for her morning after pill.* She also compares herself to a rape victim. Even the most pro- of the pro-choicers aren't buying what Dana's selling.

Seems to me you blame everyone but yourself for your abortion. (Conservative policies of Bush, your doctor, your midwife, your internist, the FDA top Brass, even Religion). I am pro-choice - even more so than you - because I respect your choice to have unprotected sex with your husband - knowing the risks. What I don't respect is your reaction to the consequences. Basically you didn't care to be inconvenienced by your own unborn son or daughter - a child that could have found a loving home with your infertile college friend.

Via The Corner.

Seduced by Russell Crowe

Via Tim Blair, A bizarre--if overlong--story of one journalist's encounters with a big-time movie star.

Miscellany

When molasses kills.

Not just Garcia: Greatest comebacks.

Credit or debit? Cash is out of the question.

He coulda been in pictures: The Devil Wears Prada.

World Chess Beauty Contest.

Celebrate the destruction of Osirak

Israel bombed Saddam Hussein's nuclear plant 25 years ago today.

Early in the afternoon 25 years ago today, eight first-rate pilots took off from a base in the Sinai. Among them was Ilan Ramon, who later became an astronaut and was killed in the Columbia shuttle disaster. To avoid radar detection their F-16s flew just a hundred feet above the deserts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The jets reached Osirak while Iraqi antiaircraft gunners and surface-to-air missile operators were eating dinner. They flattened the reactor’s large dome and destroyed its complex machinery. At least eight people were killed, including a French advisor. The pilots then sped back home without taking a single round of antiaircraft fire. The raid was so sudden and successful that for days few believed it had actually happened.

CIA knew where Eichmann was

But failed to tell the Israelis.

Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and member of the panel, the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, said the documents showed that the C.I.A "failed to lift a finger" to hunt Eichmann and "force us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm" of relying on intelligence from ex-Nazis.

The United States government, preoccupied with the cold war, had no policy at the time of pursuing Nazi war criminals. The records also show that American intelligence officials protected many former Nazis for their perceived value in combating the Soviet threat.

But Ms. Holtzman, speaking at a news briefing at the National Archives on Tuesday, said information from the former Nazis was often tainted both by their "personal agendas" and their vulnerability to blackmail. "Using bad people can have very bad consequences," Ms. Holtzman said. She and other group members suggested that the findings should be a cautionary tale for intelligence agencies today.

Patrick Kennedy: He's Black and he's proud

Or something like that.

Fresh from rehab, Rep. Patrick Kennedy said yesterday he wants to be treated like an African-American from Washington if and when he gets charged for crashing his car on Capitol Hill.

Denying that he was drunk and or that he asked the Capitol Police for preferential treatment, Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman, said he's prepared "in terms of bookings, in terms of mug shots, fingerprints, whatever they might have me do."

"It's what anyone else would have done to them if they were an African-American in Anacostia," Kennedy said in a shaky voice, referring to the mostly minority neighborhood in southeastern Washington.

Later, Kennedy fretted that "there are probably people who want to throw the book at me a little more to prove that they're not treating me special."

Would you like it if Oprah crashed your wedding?

Oprah shows up uninvited to two weddings in Tulsa. Apparently the brides and grooms were thrilled. I'm not so sure I would be. Isn't your wedding supposed to be your big day? Who wants to be a second banana on their wedding?

Behind the wheel with Tinkerty Tonk

Via Robert, who got it here.

1. Driver's seat or passenger seat? Driver's. I hate being a passenger. Furthermore, if I am riding in your car, I must sit in the front: I get carsick.

2. What was the first car you owned (could have been purchased by someone else)? A 1970-something Chevy Nova wagon, with a stick shift.

3. What is the first car you paid for yourself? A Dodge Colt.

4. How many cars are currently housed in your place of residence? How many are still operable? Two and two.

5. If money were not a factor, what kind of car would you own? This:




6. If a police investigation was not a factor, what kind of car would you destroy any time you see it? Why? Here, I'll crib directly from Robbo:

All in all, though, I'd most like to set phasers on kill every time I come across another car with its bass cranked up to maximum thumpa-thumpa mode, regardless of its make and model.

If I'm at home with my windows closed I should not be able to hear your music playing five blocks away.

7. Does driving in big city traffic fill your veins with adrenaline or your pants with something a bit worse? As long as traffic is moving, I'm fine. I consider myself to be the calm one in the family when it comes to city driving: I neither swear (too much), nor do my knuckles turn white.

8. What is your biggest pet peeve regarding driving and/or your fellow drivers? The apparent inability of my fellow drivers to see me on the highway. Am I invisible? I see you from a mile away, waiting to enter the highway. Why, then, do you wait until I'm five feet away to get going?

9. What's the most expensive traffic ticket you've ever received (could be monetary or jailtime)? Maybe around $60. My worst traffic/cop experience, though, involved massive parking tickets, a stolen license plate, the city of Newark's finest and a bench warrant.

10. What is the name you've given to your current vehicle (be honest, everyone names their car)? Honestly? I don't.

Revenge and the short attention span

I'm coming to the end of The Count of Monte Cristo; Edmond's enemies are dropping like flies and it only remains to see how Dumas wraps it all up.

I think everyone has dreamed about retaliating against someone who done him wrong, but how many would spend decades plotting to bring the wrongoers down? Not me. It depends upon the severity of the infraction, but I can only manage to nurse vengeful thoughts for about three months on the outside. And if I also got my hands on buried treasure worth millions, well, living well is the best revenge.

Speaking of windfalls, I saw a commercial for this show the other day. It's about a group of good looking 20- and 30-somethings who win $400 million in the lottery. How much better--and more realistic--would it be if it concerned a group of middle-aged factory workers?

George Bush forced me to have an abortion

Advanced BDS.

Miscellany

Iraqis scream for ice cream.

Food fit for a convict: Ramen, via Ilyka.

Stupid people tricks.

Bobos v. Boorbos: Organic wannabes.

Conservatives Against Intelligent Design: Don't teach it in school.

It's good to be king

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej marks the 60th anniversary of his reign.

For the Thai people, the world’s longest-reigning monarch remains the most revered figure in their lives, save for Lord Buddha himself.

Thailand’s strict laws forbidding criticism of the King are hardly necessary. An accomplished jazz musician, yachtsman, artist and author, the 79-year-old monarch also devotes great energy to helping his country’s poor and has repeatedly used his immense moral authority to save his country from turmoil.

King Bhumibol, the great-grandson of King Mongkut, of The King and I fame, was born in Massachusetts in 1927. He was thrust upon the throne in 1946 after his brother, Ananda, was murdered in the palace in Bangkok with his own pearl-handled revolver.

Etc., etc.

Newsflash: Yale has some standards

A Taliban spokesman may be OK, but Juan Cole--apparently--isn't. Insert outrage about the assault on academic freedom here.

Islam: All or nothing?

Theodore Dalrymple suspects that Islam is incapable of reform.

The fundamental question is whether Islam as a private faith would still be Islam, or whether such privatization would spell its doom. I think it would spell its doom. In this sense, I am an Islamic fundamentalist. The choice is between all and nothing.

Since 9/11 there's been much talk about the need for an Islamic reformation and I've gotta ask: Do we care whether Islam survives the GWOT and morphs into a "private" religion? I certainly don't. I only care about our survival. If Islam can't survive, then let it take its place in history's ash heap.

There's such a thing as too much democracy

A democracy activist in Zimbabwe strong arms his way into a third term as head of a German-funded NGO.

[T]here is a sick joke going around Harare about the human rights community, the good guys against Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship, who are funded by western democracies.

They failed to condemn or isolate or discipline one of their own who last month changed the constitution of his non governmental organisation so he could have a third term as chairman when only two are allowed.

To be sure he got his way Lovemore Madhuku, who is also a constitutional lawyer at the University of Zimbabwe, brought a bunch of thugs to the meeting to beat up anyone who disagreed with him.

Mr Madhuku’s NGO, the National Constitutional Assembly, funded by German money, claims to be campaigning for a new constitution for a more democratic Zimbabwe.

Love and marriage after 40

So Newsweek has retracted its infamous 1986 claim that a 40-year-old, single, white, college-educated woman was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to marry.

In its cover story last week, Newsweek acknowledged that its original article was a reaction to — or a misreading of — the large-scale social changes at the time: women were staying single longer, rising further in their careers and having children later or even not at all.

"The women's movement wrought enormous change in intimate life," said Suzanna Danuta Walters, who is chairwoman of the gender studies department at Indiana University. "We shouldn't have been surprised women were chastised for creating this situation. The panic was a socially and culturally constructed panic."

For some, the panic hasn't died. Liz Tuccillo, the co-author of the acerbic dating guide, "He's Just Not That Into You," is single and in her 40's.

Ms. Tuccillo said she believed the statistics were an attack on women's independence, but said they still reflected her experience.

But then she was told that Newsweek's 1986 claim — that a 35-year-old single woman had a 5 percent chance of getting married — was drastically wrong. Instead, the latest figures, from 1996, showed that a 40-year-old single woman had better than a 40 percent chance of marrying; today, the magazine said, her chances are probably higher.

Ms. Tuccillo was momentarily silent, then said: "That new statistic needs to have its own parade. There need to be banners and virus e-mailing and a national holiday."

Now the question is: Since 9/11 how much more likely is it for said theoretical woman to become the victim of a terrorist attack? I suppose you can't have everything.

Here's a nice story about a woman who found love after 40.

French mayor stands up to 'disaffected' yout's

Xavier Lemoine, a self-proclaimed disciple of Margaret Thatcher, seems to also embrace Rudy Guiliani's "broken windows" theory.

Faced with widespread delinquency, he said, his choice was between doing nothing and seeking ways to make his town safer by using the exceptional powers of executive action given to mayors in France. His most controversial move, forbidding teenagers from assembling in groups of more than three, has caused anger on the sprawling Les Bosquets estate.

The law was suspended after a legal challenge by left-wing opponents, but Mr. Lemoine then enraged criminal elements by making a witness statement leading to the arrest of a youth for assaulting a bus driver.

That arrest, and the detention of a burglary suspect's mother during a police raid, provided sparks for the eruption of rioting in Montfermeil on Monday.

SHOCKing behavior

New magazine uses a Michael Yon photo on the cover without his permission.

And they use the photo to compare Iraq to Vietnam.

[W]hen I learned of this blatant infringement of my copyright on that photograph, I issued an immediate statement clarifying that I had not given anyone authorization for this use, and never would have allowed an image which I’ve called ‘sacred to me’ to be used in a flagrant attempt to profit from discrediting and demonizing American soldiers. What outraged me the most is how the timing of this launch coincided with the Memorial Day weekend, putting 300,000 copies of a slick attack on the very same soldiers Americans were honoring across the country. I am so disgusted with what they did with that image, which to me symbolizes the true nature of our military, that I demanded the publisher take it off the shelves.

Far from taking it off the shelves, the magazine publisher is now suing Yon for defamation. It looks to be a long, ugly fight.

These infernal computing machines

It's taken me the entire afternoon to publish the previous post and edit the one previous to that. This time Blogger's the culprit. Yesterday, it was Firefox. When will it end? And will this post get published?

The real breeding ground for terrorists

The gym:

Perhaps the ringleaders of 9/11, like one of the prime suspects in Madrid and three of the four 7/7 bombers, had a penchant for healthy living. Certainly Atta seemed to be obsessed with bodily appearance. He advised his team of hijackers to shave off their pubic hair and to douse themselves in cologne the night before the attacks, to ready themselves for arrival in paradise. Islamic scholars have pointed out that these stipulations have little grounding in Quranic law. But they do reflect our keep-fit age. Bodybuilders, among others, are known to shave off their body hair in order to make the contours of their bodies look more impressive.

Today's gym culture seems like the perfect vehicle for nurturing the combination of narcissism and loathing of the masses necessary to carry out a terrorist suicide mission. If some of these attackers viewed their own bodies as pure instruments, and everyone else as wasteful and deserving of punishment, they could just as well have come to that conclusion through absorbing the healthy-living agenda of the gym as by reading the Quran. At the gym, Atta, Khan, and the others could focus on perfecting the self, the body, as a pure and righteous thing—and hone their disdain for others.

What not to wear

Submitted for discussion:

• A couple weeks ago while people watching in downtown Philadelphia I saw a girl walking down the street wearing a silky short halter dress. She had the legs for it: long, glossy and tanned. But at the end of those legs were a pair of drugstore flipflops and the filthiest feet I've ever seen, absolutely black with hideous, thick, unclipped toenails. I nearly gagged.
  
  
• On Mother's Day, I saw the couple downstairs leaving in their Sunday finest. He wore a tie and sportjacket. She wore a dress that stopped about half a foot north of her knees. Trouble was: Her legs were like tree trunks.
  
  
• Standing on line at a gas station convenience store behind a teenager who was buying a huge assortment of junk food. A friend of hers stood outside the glass door signalling the girl to hurry up. She was wearing sweatpants rolled down below her pubic bone and a shirt ending way above her bellybutton. She emphasized this arrangement by leaning her elbows against the door and pushing her tummy forward. I've seen mothers of eight who had better looking abs.

Don't these people have a mirror available? Or a kind friend or mother who will steer them gently toward more appropriate clothing?

Robin Givhan discusses these sorts of sartorial mishaps, which are all too frequent when the thermometer rises. And the reemergence of the legging adds another worry.

Anyone who recalls the fashions of the '80s will remember that stretch leggings were embraced by a significant portion of the population. They were attracted by the comfort and -- thanks to a high percentage of spandex -- an easy fit. This democratization of a trend resulted in the unpleasant sight of chunky legs tightly swaddled in spandex. Telling a woman of a certain girth not to wear leggings is a delicate proposition because, in so doing, one has to wade into issues of self-esteem, body image and discrimination. One would be committing the politically incorrect sin of pulling certain people aside and saying, "You shouldn't. You can't. Don't." But there it is. The truth stings.

Can there be such a thing as too much self-confidence? One must consider that question regularly. So often women embrace a trend that is by all measures unflattering on them -- low-rise trousers, shrugs, miniskirts -- and yet they still strut proudly along the street, head held high, shoulders back. Is it petty and mean for a dear friend to pull such a woman aside and explain that today, at this moment, she is a blight on the scenery? Is that the duty of a true, honest pal? The renaissance of leggings may force more than a few friends to ponder that very dilemma.

Whatever happened to shame?

Is there nothing a politician won't say? First we have George Galloway discussing, approvingly, the assassination of Tony Blair. Now NYS Comptroller Alan Hevesi is apologizing for his "beyond dumb" remark in which he imagined that Senator Chuck Schumer would "put a bullet between the president's eyes if he could get away with it." Again, this was a desired outcome. It's Mr. Hevesi's opinion that putting a bullet between the elected president's eyes is a good thing.

At one time, I'd like to think, such a remark would be considered so beyond the pale that Hevesi--an elected official--would be shamed into resigning. But we've moved beyond shame these days. Now actions have no consequences. It doesn't matter what a politician says or does.

These days, elected officials hit cops and then turn around and accuse the cops of inappropriate touching. If a public outcry ensues after misbehavior by an official, she plays the race card, or confesses to an addiction. And if someone says something he shouldn't: Issue a blanket apology or use the old standby of being quoted out of context.

Muggy, muggy, muggy

Now there's a word that sounds like what it means. It's one of those days where wiping the sweat off your brow causes a new outbreak of perspiration. We've been promised rain and a break in the weather. But I've heard this kind of talk before.

Miscellany

The lost insanity letters of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Why Bush beat Kerry: Photo essay, via MeaninglessHotAir.

The Jesus Pan.

Like a sheep with a secret sorrow: Wodehouse similes wanted.

Boob job-less.

Firefox continues to torment me

After my last problem, I deleted and reinstalled it half a dozen times and managed to get it working. Now it reverted to the Firefox homepage instead of my own, which (I now know from experience) is a harbinger of bad things to come. I'm beginning to wonder if all this rejiggering is worth it--the glories of tabbed browsing notwithstanding.

Fashion call to action

Neo-neocon observes that certain upscale department stores are eliminating their petite departments. It seems customers weren't going for the dowdy looks offered for those 5' 4" and under so they're getting rid of them. Problem is, many women can't wear regular misses sizes without significant alterations.

I never could figure out the reason the styles were so old-fashioned and old-ladyish, until I looked around one day while shopping in the petite department and noticed that a great many of the other customers were elderly women who appeared to have shrunk.

That's not me, fortunately; I'm merely middle-aged, and I'm the same height I always was. And don't tell me to go to the junior department--not any more, although every now and then I do venture in there. But even though I'm not a frump (or, at least, I try not to be), jeans that end an inch above the top of my thighs and tops that end many inches above that are not exactly what I'm looking for.

There's money to be made here.

In other fashion news, white jeans are apparently the biggest fashion trend of the summer and this woman is a little bit too alarmed about the trend.

A bitter anniversary

The Farhud, Iraq's Jewish Pogrom, took place 65 years ago today.

[T]he Jews of Baghdad found themselves caught between Hitler's master plan to dominate Europe and the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. At stake was the oil Hitler needed to succeed.

That day in 1941, on the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the sight of Jews returning from the Baghdad airport to greet the returning Regent Abdul al-Ilah, ruler of Iraq, was all the excuse an Iraqi mob needed to unleash its vengeance.

The attack began at 3 PM, as the Jewish delegation crossed Baghdad's Al Khurr Bridge. Violence quickly spread to the Al Rusafa and Abu Sifyan districts. The frenzied mob murdered Jews openly on the streets. Women were raped and infants were killed as their horrified families looked on. Torture and mutilation followed. Jewish shops were looted and torched. A synagogue was invaded, burned, and its Torahs destroyed in classic Nazi fashion.

...

It was the beginning of the end. From that moment, Iraq's approximate 125,000 Jews would be systematically targeted for violence, persecution, commercial boycott, confiscation and eventually, in 1951, complete expulsion.

For 2,600 years, the Jews of Iraq had dwelled successfully in the land of Babylon, achieving as much acceptance and financial success as any non-Muslim group could in an Islamic society that despised infidels. In 1941, Iraqi Jews were well entrenched at all levels of farming, banking, commerce and the government bureaucracy.

More here.

Money can't buy you love

But a $2.1 million settlement against a matchmaker can help ease the pain.

Majerik, 60, a social worker who lives in Erie, Pa., signed up for Orly's service in December 2002. Her lawsuit claims she paid an initial fee of $50,000 for which she was led to believe she would receive "three years of introductions" to "extremely successful and highly educated, charismatic, kind, down-to-earth romantics who enjoy a life of fine dining, traveling and leisure." She was also told that these men were "focused on having a monogamous relationship" and "earn way above $1 million per year and have an estate of up to $20 million."

In an interview, Majerik, a grandmother whose husband died of a heart attack in 1999, said she was "looking for an efficient manner in which to meet people, pre-screened."

But she said she quickly became put off by the men Orly was finding for her.

The matchmaker's "international banker," for example, turned out to be "an interpreter that worked in a bank," according to the suit.

I once interviewed a matchmaker--coincidentally, an Israeli like the woman here--for a local paper. Helena also boasted about her list of fabulous bachelors and bachelorettes with high-powered careers and well-padded bank accounts.

She had a good schtick: Picture Eva Gabor in Green Acres with her feather boas and sequin-encrusted gowns, many "dah-lings," and much flattery. She offered me her services for free. After much cajoling, I gave in. I recall meeting some guy in a coffee shop and not much else. Oh, and an invitation to an event for "New York singles." I stopped by, stayed for about 15 painful minutes and then hightailed it out of there.

Years later Helena was convicted of making false promises to clients.

Let's hear it for Cher

The singer's made it her mission to support helmet upgrades for our troops.

The legendary singer called into "Washington Journal" early Sunday morning -- 4:20 a.m. her time, to be exact.

"Hello? This is Malibu, California. I'm going to try to be really calm while I'm talking about this . . ." and she launched into a passionate argument for helmet safety upgrades for troops and her frustration with the government for not providing them to every soldier. Host Steve Scully recognized her famously husky voice.

"Is this Cher?" he asked.

Hans Brinker, call your office

An EU directive will flood farms in the Netherlands.

Some 230 years after its flat pastures were wrested from the waters, the de Feijters' farm -- their home for 33 years -- is to be reflooded to reverse the disappearance of Zeeland's mudflats and salt marshes.

For the family -- raised in a province that owes its very existence to dike systems dating from the Middle Ages -- the plan is "un-Dutch."

Breaching dikes is behavior associated with invading armies, Mr. de Feijter said.

Flooding a "polder," as land enclosed by a dike is known, "has always been an act of war," he said. "In the Second World War, they did it."

...

The final decision must be ratified by parliament next year, but chances of a reprieve look slim. Dutch officials support the project, part of a scheme to reflood 1,500 acres of land on the banks of the Western Schelde estuary.

In any case, the officials have little say in the matter. The reflooding has been imposed by the EU Habitats directive and the EU Birds directive.

All right you've got me

Rabin assassin retracts denial of semen-smuggling charges.

A video tape showing Yigal Amir attempting to smuggle a plastic bag containing his own semen out of prison to his fiance, Larisa Trimbobler, was screened Wednesday during a retrial over the decision recommending he stand trial for the attempt.

...

Amir has been fighting for his right to marry and have children for the last two years. The murder convict married Trimbobler by proxy after the Israel Prisons Service (IPS), backed by the attorney general, forbade holding the ceremony in prison.

There seems to be an unlimited supply of women who want to marry prisoners--murderers are especially popular. What's that about?

Thanks to SMP for the link.

New life for old slides

Ah, the joys of the digital age. For Mother's Day my sister got a lot of the old family slides, which had been languishing in a closet, scanned and put on CD. Above is me at around age 6. For whatever reason, the copies I got seem to cover my 6th year and skip to age 16. It's as if I'd been abducted by aliens for 10 years. Oh wait ...