Dismal failure? Or spectacular success?

A Danish newspaper decided to test the limits of Muslim tolerance and/or free speech by publishing cartoons of Mohammed. Result: Massive protests.

But neither the Danish government nor the newspaper are backing down.

The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take "necessary steps" against the "defamation of Islam".

But Mr Rasmussen, the head of a centre-Right minority coalition dependent for its survival on support from an anti-foreigner party, called the cartoons a "necessary provocation" and refused to act.

"I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press," he said.

The Danish debate over how to integrate Muslims has raged for years, with nursery school menus and women-only opening hours for swimming pools particular battlegrounds. But the cartoons satirising the Prophet have injected a dangerous new element into the controversy.

"This is a pubescent demonstration of freedom of expression that consciously and totally without reason has trampled over the feelings of many people," said Uffe Ellemann Jensen, a former foreign minister and member of Mr Rasmussen's party.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, spurned demands that he apologise, saying he "would not dream" of saying sorry.

What, me worry?

Let Iran have nukes, says Paul Mervis. It'll be 10 years before they're able to produce them at a rate of one every two weeks. By that time maybe a homegrown form of democracy will have evolved and we won't have anything to worry about.

And that bit about wiping Israel off the map? Hyperbole. They're an extravagant people. And besides, President Ahmadinejad doesn't have that much power. Oh, and sanctions won't work either.

All righty then.

Royal banquet

Jack Shafer notes that WaPo managed to get 10 stories out of the non-event of the year: Charles and Camillia's American debut. He published too early, though, to get the final after-dinner drink: Robin Givhan's commentary on what the ladies wore to the White House dinner in Chaz and Cami's honor and other sartorial matters. The verdict:

Those who have met the duchess say that she is warm, intelligent and substantial. She is not a clotheshorse, they say. And that is wonderful. But she is also a public person about whom Americans know very little. (We are only just now learning about her work in fighting osteoporosis.) Mostly, she has been known as one of two leading characters in a tawdry, public affair. Now, that tale is being played as a love story. The leading man's love interest needs to get better costuming.

Laura Bush, on the other hand, looked smashing.

Spousal notification: A hypothetical question

Forget the morality of abortion, we'll take as a given that abortion-on-demand--within certain limits--is the law of the land. All things being equal, though, why shouldn't a spouse, or a sexual partner, be able to veto an abortion? After all, if a woman chooses to have a child the father is expected to support that child whether he wants it or not. So what if he wants a child and the woman doesn't?

Clarification: The reverse also holds true. What if a woman decides she wants a child and her partner does not. According to the deadbeat dad laws, he's still obligated to pay support. This hardly seems fair.

And to add further to the debate. Read this, in which a man agrees to donate his sperm to a lesbian couple, who later break up. The state forced the man to pay child support.

Alito, spousal notification and the left

Charles Krauthammer goes after the "dishonest, disreputable and disgraceful ... charge, trumpeted by just about every liberal interest group, that Alito is so extreme and insensitive to women's needs that he supports spousal notification for abortion."

Alito, he argues, was merely following precedent when he ruled that spousal notification was constitutional.

Alito's Casey opinion no more tells you whether he "supports" the policy of spousal notification than whether he likes foie gras with his pudding. The only thing it tells you is that based on scrupulous parsing of Supreme Court precedents -- or more particularly, of Sandra Day O'Connor's precedents on permissible restrictions on abortion -- he concluded that spousal notification met the court's own standard for constitutionality.

The O'Connor standard was that the law could not impose an "undue burden." What did that mean? She spelled it out and set the bar pretty high. A state regulation that "may 'inhibit' abortions to some degree" was not enough to create an "undue burden." It required more. It required "absolute obstacles or severe limitations on the abortion decision."

So how to apply this test? Alito said: Let's see how the Supreme Court applied it. The court had found in previous decisions that there was no undue burden when you require a minor to notify or get consent from both parents, or to get judicial authorization. So surely, spousal notification, which is obviously less burdensome, was also constitutional.

Meanwhile, William Saletan complains that Alito treats women like girls.

Now, I'm seeing two arguments there. One is that the woman has some kind of misperception about her marriage or her situation, and her husband can set her straight. And the other argument is that the husband has such a profound interest in keeping the fetus alive—and his wife has such a small interest in controlling what happens to her body—that the government can force her to consult him even if she's so afraid of him, or so certain she can't have this baby, that she won't talk to him unless we threaten her with criminal charges. And you implied that Justice O'Connor, the justice you're planning to replace on this court, would agree with you.

As Krauthammer points out, though, a wife who has reason to fear her husband is not obligated to inform him.

[U]nder the Pennsylvania law I draw my example from, she could even forgo notification if she claimed that (1) he was not the father, (2) he could not be found, (3) he raped her or (4) she had reason to believe he might physically harm her. What prosecutor would subsequently dare try to prove to a jury that, say, she actually had no such fear of harm?

UPDATE: Why not spousal notification?

Miscellany

Benny's postcards: Collection from 1906-1918.

Tell me why: Video, via Air Force Wife.

"I would not allow this employee to breed": Performance evaluations, via Lemuel.

Quiz: Men and women are different.

Alanis Jean King: Fugly.

C'est moi

The Harlequin You scored 47% Cardinal, 17% Monk, 44% Lady, and 48% Knight!

You are a mystery, a jack-of-all-trades. You have the king's ear, but also listen to murmurings of the common folk. You believe in the value of force and also literature. Truly you are the puzzlement of the age.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 71% on Cardinal You scored higher than 3% on Monk You scored higher than 55% on Lady You scored higher than 43% on Knight

Link: The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test written by KnightlyKnave on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Via Doulos.

Political blogs not exempt from campaign finance law

Bill to exclude blogs didn't get enough votes.

The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

...

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, said the federal government should encourage, rather than fetter, a phenomenon that was bringing more Americans into the political process.

"The newest battlefield in the fight to protect the First Amendment is the Internet," he said. "The Internet is the new town square, and campaign finance regulations are not appropriate there."

Without his legislation, Hensarling said, "I fear that bloggers one day could be fined for improperly linking to a campaign Web site, or merely forwarding a candidate's press release to an e-mail list."

I happen to think the 2002 campaign finance law is wrong-headed so I'm not pleased by this move.

The government wants to interfere with your pizza purchasing

A little slice of dystopia from the ACLU.

Boon for book lovers

Google Print goes online today with uncopyrighted books, chiefly 19th Century works of American literature and history.

Readers can also read high resolution copies of books published before 1920 at The Open Library, a competing venture sponsored by Yahoo and Microsoft. The Open Library allows users a print on demand option, which prints and binds the scanned pages in book form. A copy of the archive's edition of Henry James' An International Episode, for example, costs as little as $8.

Real-life bodice ripper enhances the aura of Shawkat

Asef Shawkat, who's implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, began his climb to power by eloping with then-President Haffez Assad's daughter, against the president's wishes.

"Anyone who could go into the home of Hafez Assad and take his daughter away without his permission has the power to do anything," said a television newscaster in Syria who has met Mr. Shawkat several times. The newscaster, who originally spoke on the record, called back later, agitated, and asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

...

Mr. Shawkat's rise to the inner circle was far from smooth, and for a long time he was treated as an outsider. No one seems to know exactly when or how he met his wife, but it is common knowledge here that her oldest brother, Basil, who was being groomed to take over the leadership of the country, and her father were bitterly opposed to the marriage.

After Basil, the family enforcer, died in a car crash in 1994, the two eloped. Eventually the father sanctioned the marriage, Mr. Shawkat was welcomed in and he built a close relationship with one of the three surviving Assad brothers - Bashar.

In 1999, Mr. Shawkat was shot in the stomach and taken to France. According to an article that appeared in the Paris newspaper Libération in November of that year, Mr. Shawkat was shot by his brother-in-law Maher al-Assad, who at the time was a captain in the presidential guard.

It is impossible to verify the details of what happened that day, when the family was alone and Maher reportedly pulled a gun, but since then Mr. Shawkat has managed to consolidate his power with the help of his wife and the president.

Celebrate Eid by becoming a suicide bomber

Iran to distribute suicide bombing sign-up sheets tomorrow; 40,000 have reportedly already signed up for this unique opportunity to kill "U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Jews in Israel, and Salman Rushdie, who still has a fatwa against his head issue by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini."

GOP succumbs to the lure of 'windfall' oil profits

Sen. Charles Grassley, Senate Finance Committee chairman, proposes plan to force oil companies to devote 10 percent of last quarter's profits to supplement the federal heating assistance program.

"In light of record profits and rising energy costs, it seems only logical for the companies to practice good corporate citizenship by helping low-income families and seniors," said the Iowa Republican, whose state is one of many in the Midwest where heating bills are expected to rise 50 percent on average this winter.

Mr. Grassley, whose powerful committee writes tax law and oversees charitable organizations, also asked the associations for status reports on charitable giving by the energy companies.

He reminded them that they have "a responsibility to use these record profits to invest in more exploration, production and refining capacity to increase supply of petroleum products."

This is the party of big business?

Dan Gainor, says Congress is following the media's playbook:

It’s the Poor Innocent Consumer vs. Big Bad Oil, with a side of Politicians to the Rescue.

The media love a good controversy – so much so that they stir things up when the facts don’t warrant it. Since oil companies released their profit numbers last week, the news template has been one of angry consumers claiming they’ve been harmed and politicians vowing to do something about gas prices. Both parties have been aided by the media, who declared that oil profits were "beyond imagination."

Girl poisons mother and blogs about it

A 16-year-old Japanese girl laced her mother's food with rat poison and wrote about it online.

The girl, who is from rural Shizuoka, central Japan, was apparently inspired by Graham Young, the notorious Teacup Poisoner of Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, who, in 1962, aged 14, slowly killed his stepmother with what was thought to be the same lethal substance. Asked by the compilers of her school yearbook to identify the historical figure she admired the most, she named Young.

In further emulation of her deranged hero, who poisoned numerous family members and work colleagues and died in Parkhurst after nine years in Broadmoor, the Japanese girl recorded her mother’s horrific daily sufferings in a matter-of-fact internet diary.

The girl’s blog has been removed from the internet but extracts apparently copied from it survive on other Japanese websites.

“It’s a bright, sunny day today, and I administered a delivery of acetic thallium,” the girl wrote in August. “The man in the pharmacy didn’t realise he had sold me such a powerful drug.”

Other entries attempt to match the meticulously scientific style of Young’s macabre diary, where he transcribed in detail the effects of each poison he administered and weighed up whether his subjects should live or die in excruciating pain.

The girl refers directly to Young’s diary in her blog, and is said to have been heavily influenced by a 1995 film, The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, which was dubbed into Japanese and dramatises Young’s macabre fascinations with lethal substances.

Imponderables

How come my cell phone was able to change to California time by itself, but was unable to make the switch from daylight savings time? And why not have a menu item called set date and time, rather than make the user go through about 35 screens each with its own grouping of indecipherable little icons?

Miscellany

Alito: A la Nabokov.

Fancy ain't always better: Writing.

Girl on (undead) girl action: Stalking a vampire.

San Francisco: In jello, via Lynn S.

Dirt: Each city's is unique.

There he goes again

Must he? Carter says administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq.

Via Bullwinkle, who tries to jog the Nobel Peace Prize winner's memory with a few inconvenient facts.

Iran prepares for global jihad

First President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacks 20 diplomats considered too liberal.

It is clear that a very different type of diplomat is likely to emerge from the shake-up. For instance, Mounacher Mottaki, the new Foreign Minister, is a former Ambassador to Japan and Turkey who was expelled from Ankara after being accused of supporting attacks against Iranian dissidents.

In fact, Ahmadinezhad himself belonged to "the 'reserves' of the killer teams that murdered Kurdish leader Abd al-Rahman Qassimlou on 13 July 1989 in Vienna," according to Austrian authorities.

Within the close circle of his loyal followers, Iran's new state president Mahmud Ahmadinezhad revealed his great vision. It stems from the days of the 1979 Islamist Revolution. Now it harbors within it a new explosive force. "The new Islamic revolution" according to Ahmadinezhad, will cut out the roots of injustice throughout the entire world. The era of the Godless regime, tyranny, and injustice has come to its end," he prophesies. "The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world."

...

Western political leaders and security experts are evincing alarm. "The man at the head of Iran is an extremist, he wants to export the Islamist revolution," it is said in intelligence circles. "If this becomes Iran's new foreign policy, a maximum terrorist worst-case scenario threatens the West. Then the Sunni Al-Qa'ida terrorists and Shi'ite terrorist organizations will cooperate closely. Against the common enemy. Against the West."

Forbidden names

Rabbis in Israel have compiled a list of names Jews should not call their children.

Saying the name Ariel is problematic because it could beckon an angel instead, drawing down his wrath, the rabbis caution.

Omri - the name of an evil Biblical king - should be taboo because of the highly negative connotation.

...

The rabbis' list, presented on an Internet site in Hebrew, also offers preferred names. Rabbis said they compiled the list in response to a flood of requests from parents concerned they may accidentally give their children names that could shame them for life.

Some people just have too much time on their hands

Protesters plan to demonstrate against Prince Charles' new wife.

"This is Diana country," said Lisa Stewart, a member of Diana Circle, a group of die-hard fans who are staunchly anti-Camilla.

al Qaeda's most wanted

Omar Sharif, for playing the role of St. Peter on Italian TV. This is, apparently, not the first time Sharif has raised the hackles of his co-religionists.

The actor, who was named Michael Chalhoub, was brought up a Christian. He converted to Islam in the 1950s after marrying the Egyptian film diva Faten Hamama. They divorced after two decades. Sharif shot to international stardom as Sherif Ali Ibn el-Kharish in David Lean's 1962 desert epic, Lawrence of Arabia. But he has repeatedly upset fans in the Muslim world. In 1968, with memories of the six-day war with Israel fresh in Arab minds, he caused a furore by kissing a Jewish woman, Barbra Streisand, in the movie Funny Girl. His films were banned in Egypt as a result.

In 2003 he stirred controversy playing a Muslim shopkeeper who befriends a Jewish teenager in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran.

Theo Van Gogh, In Memorium

Pieter Dorsman remembers Van Gogh on the first anniversary of his murder.

And that brings us back to Theo, the man on the bike, the father, the errant moviemaker, the jester, the drinker, the womanizer, the man so full of life that he could not bring himself to see that it would soon be over. His death allowed fear to engulf the Dutch street and to create two groups, the fearing and the fearless. Neither group has so far been able to come up with a real strategy for the future of the troubled nation which – as we’ve seen in Paris this week – will become part of the battlefield called Europe. Theo was one of the few to see it, say it, and die for it.

Good news

Judge Alito isn't a fascist--unlike Scalia. On the other hand, he's got it in for babies. Puppies, too.

Iraqi terrorists give troops a reason to fight

Though they aren't particularly optimistic about Iraq's emerging democracy.

“Democracy? Here? Are you fucking kidding me?” one sergeant laughed, as we drove near the Abu Ghraib prison. This was from a guy from helped safeguard the January round of elections. He figures the place will collapse into civil war as soon as U.S. troops leave.

But he’s glad he’s in Iraq, regardless. Mostly, because of the insurgents.

The guerillas in Iraq have been brutal, killing way more innocent bystanders than American occupiers or Iraqi collaborators. While I was in Baghdad, a group of soldiers in a nearby neighborhood were handing out candy to bunch of kids. Until a suicide bomber stepped in, and killed 27.

“It boggles my mind, how someone can go into a crowd of kids, and kill them all. I’ll never understand it. But that’s why I’m here,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Palmer, with the 717th Ordnance Disposal Company, an Army bomb squad. “Yeah, it’s still fun to blow stuff up. But it’s not the core thing. Figuring out how this shit [the bomb] works. Stopping it from hurting people. That’s the main thing.”

'Young sluts and vicious debauchery'

London's West End during World War II.

While the popular impression of the influx of GIs was of an alluring group of men who were “overpaid, over-sexed and over here”, it transpires that they were not the sexual predators worrying Whitehall. Rather, the US troops proved to be irresistible to many British women, often living alone because of the war, and who in bleak wartime Britain were only too glad to grab the chance of some fun.

American troops wrote home in such colourful terms about being propositioned by prostitutes and “good-time” girls in the West End of London that the US military demanded action be taken to curb the “debauchery”. So bad was the West End considered to be that US troops who caught venereal disease became known as “Piccadilly commandos”.

Via Clive Davis.

Miscellany

Like watching a tennis match: Ritter v. Ritter.

Lazy Walloon! Racist Fleming! Marital discord.

Whatever happened?To regular jeans.

Life is a slab: Harriet Miers and other matters.

You reek of penis: Scalito.

Scary RINOS sighted

Read the trick or treat edition at Inside Larry's Head.

I hope it's true

Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders.

Syria has accused the United States of launching lethal military raids into its territory from Iraq, escalating the diplomatic crisis between the two countries as the Bush administration seeks to step up pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime.

Major General Amid Suleiman, a Syrian officer, said that American cross-border attacks into Syria had killed at least two border guards, wounded several more and prompted an official complaint to the American embassy in Damascus.

Via Outside the Beltway.

Now playing: Sean Penn as Gorgeous George

Galloway, that is.

UNDER-FIRE MP George Galloway is in talks to have a Hollywood movie made about his life.

The Scot - who is facing claims that he took cash from Saddam Hussein - has met with US actor and director Sean Penn to discuss the project.

Galloway sidekick Ron McKay is also to feature in the film,which documents their early days in Dundee through to their infamous meetings with the Iraqi dictator.

Film chiefs hope to cash in on Galloway's popularity since he blasted the US Senate over Iraq.

Via Marcus.

Eat two candy bars and call me in the morning

Chocolate: It's good for you. Or at least pushing it as good for you is good for business.

During a talk with analysts this month, Richard H. Lenny, the chief executive of Hershey, called the dark chocolate category a "major growth platform." He told of a new Yale University study - sponsored by Hershey and yet to be peer-reviewed - that found that eating Hershey's Extra Dark chocolate improved blood pressure and blood flow because of the candy's higher level of natural flavanol antioxidants. In the study, 45 people were fed 2.6 ounces (two servings) of Extra Dark, which also contained 420 calories.

"These results enable us to better communicate with consumers the positive aspects of antioxidants and dark chocolate," Mr. Lenny said.

Mmmmm. Dark chocolate.

No room to be fair

New York Times editor finds the perfect out. From here on in, any time the Times neglects an important fact or omits certain crucial details you'll know the reason. Rather brilliant actually. Covers a whole multitude of sins.

Go ahead and beat your wife

As long as you're a Muslim.

[Australian] POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.

Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

...

Police are told: "In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims."

They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against "fragmenting the family unit".

Via Nickie Goomba.

The last taboo

Carrying an out-of-date handbag.

If Freudian theory is correct and handbags are indeed vaginal symbols, this H.A.G.S.-induced mania for their constant renewal finds an easy parallel in the contemporary trend for vaginal shaving, waxing, tweaking and—last but not least—vaginal-rejuvenation surgery. The bottom line, it would appear, is that nobody, in the year of our Lord 2005, wants to be the owner of an old bag.

Once you accept the hypothesis—as I unquestioningly have—that vaginas and handbags are totally synonymous, the world becomes a very interesting place. Look at that chippie over there with her buckled and padlocked Chloé Paddington bag: Is she transmitting a message of chastity or bondage? Look at the teeth on that LeSportsac zipper! Vagina dentata, anyone? And that crazed overachiever who just stole your cab: What is motivating her to stuff her entire forearm into the gaping maw of her monogrammed Goyard tote?

Vaginal rejuvenation surgery? Oy. We're living in a brave new world, indeed.

UN to pressure Syria

A Security Council resolution to exert economic pressure on Syria if it doesn't cooperate in the UN investigation on the Hariri murder is expected to be introduced today.

Diplomats from the resolution's three co-sponsors, Britain, France and the United States, said they expected passage on Monday and did not foresee a veto from either China or Russia, the two countries most reluctant to punish Syria.

...

The measure also orders Syria to take into custody and make available to the investigators people they suspect of involvement in the killing.

The Commissar is unimpressed.

Seriously, what is the possible real-world impact of this resolution? The chances of the U.S. taking military action against Syria would have to be about zero, if not less.

To conduct jihad in the modern world

You gotta have a good graphic. Iran's strategy for the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon world.

He's a patient man

But no one is without limits. Basil has a new look.

Gee, Chucky, thanks but no thanks

Prince Charles to plead Islam's cause to Bush.

Prince Charles, who is about to embark on his first official foreign tour since his marriage to the Duchess of Cornwall, wants Americans - including Mr Bush - to share his fondness for Islam. He has agreed to attend a seminar on religions at Georgetown University, Washington, on Thursday: the only event where he will not be accompanied by the Duchess.

The Religious Policeman digs up some old stories about Prince Charles and comes up with a novel conspiracy theory. Not exactly the proper route to take for the man who stands to become the head of the Church of England.

Happy happy joy joy

2000 dead party, er, memorial.

The horror!

And the chutzpah. Nothing quite as hellacious as having your glamor shot appear on the cover of Vanity Fair. Poor, brave, put-upon Joe Wilson.

Guarding the bulldog

Fantastic story about what looks to be a terrific book, the recently unearthed memoir of Winston Churchill's bodyguard. A snippet:

As the entourage moved on by train to Gaza and Jerusalem, Russell Pasha said they were moving "into a climate of unclassifiable fanaticism". Churchill's fanatical love of a hot bath came first. He demanded one as the train swayed slowly through the desert. Thompson unearthed an old hip bath in the baggage car, but could find no water. "You're slipping, Thompson," said Churchill. "I thought you were a man of intelligence." He had Thompson stop the train and climbed down to the track in a brightly coloured dressing gown. The tub was set up in the desert, and the engine driver drew hot water from the boiler. Churchill "smiled up at the engine crew, stripped naked and fitted himself into the bath". When done, he "sauntered, pink and clean" back to his carriage.

Via Patrick Belton.

Miscellany

Wizardry? Harry Potter car seemingly flies away.

Travel back in time: Remembering Kaypro.

Chess capitol of the world: Beersheva, via Norm.

Matchmaking: Interior decoration on the cheap.

Mash up: Jane Austen and the Pussycats.

What they said

Ann Althouse:

Do you mind...
...if I continue not paying any attention to news stories with the word "Plame" in them? That's been my policy up until now, and it's saved me a lot of time. Occasionally, I've glanced about the 'sphere and noticed the slavering hyenas waiting for the Fitz-kill, but I've never felt the call to express how repulsive I find them.

Doug Williams:

I don't begrudge the left their heady moment with this. They need something to keep them off the streets. But in terms of significance, I think we're far more likely in the realm of outing Jeff Gannon than the realm of Watergate.

And if I turn out to be wrong? Well then at least it will become interesting enough to post about.

Hot veiled women

Asra Q. Nomani attends a fashion show for devout Muslim women at Nordstrom.

Many women interpret the idea of "hijab"—the term comes from the Arabic word "hajaba," which is translated as "to cover," and is used generally to refer to modesty, and more specifically, to mean headscarves and formless gowns—quite liberally. They wear Diane Von Furstenberg mini-dresses over Levi jeans or rapper-style do-rags as headscarves. Other women don scarves by designers such as Christian Dior, Hermes, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana. And even the traditional dress is no longer black and shapeless but comes in various cuts, colors, patterns, and textures: slim-cut, baggy, silk, chiffon, fringed, fur-cuffed, hand-painted, and even embroidered with rhinestones and feathers.

A couple of years ago when I was working at a state university that had a large Muslim population, there were about six girls who used to come to the library regularly. They wore a kind of uniform: Jeans, a blouse or sweater and a tailored blazer in a soft color. Covering their heads were scarves in colors complementing the jacket and blouse. They looked rather fab, actually. Modest, but attractive.

One day around lunchtime I was standing outside the library taking in the sun when the revolving door disgorged the Muslim girls one by one in their colorful scarves and jackets. The last person out the door was a tiny black figure, wearing a sack from the top of her head to her toes, the only opening around her eyes out of which protruded a decidedly unfashionable pair of glass. She looked like a bedraggled baby crow in a flock of peacocks. Poor thing.

The little crow represents the ideal of Muslim womanhood for some, however.

[T]he most puritanical Muslims would say that hijab is not meant to be flashy. According to these men and women, it's supposed to be the sartorial equivalent of a burlap sack, not a trimly tailored Anne Klein jacket. It's supposed to be black, not trendy colors like fuchsia and teal. Preachers from New Jersey to California rail at the pulpit against women who put too much fashion in their hijab. To quote one rant on a conservative Muslim Web site: "Everyday we see our Muslim sisters proudly displaying names and initials on their clothing. … What are they advertising? CD, YSL, D&G,"—as in Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana—"How ironic that the most modest of dressing—the cloak and scarf—should become contaminated by advertising the names of some of the most shameless and perverted people in the world."

Denny Hastert

Is a rodent.

Libby indicted

Rove still under investigation, according to report.

Does Iran care about its people?

Gloria Salt:

The image of a black, smoking hole where Teheran used to be does not fill men like Ahmadinejad with trepidation — quite the contrary, I imagine. He will have ushered many thousands of deserving Muslims to their just reward, he will have put an end once and for all to the catastrophic historical mistake that was the State of Israel, and he will have ascended to an unprecedented level of pan-Arab leadership — a highly pleasing state of affairs he will have ample opportunity to enjoy from his bunker in Mash’had, which, conveniently, is 1,000 kilometers from Teheran. I believe it is entirely specious to count on Muslim discomfort with havoc wreaked on other Muslims as a guard against a potentially catastrophic nuclear provocation.

Horrors, movies and otherwise

Lorie Byrd lists her favorite horror movies and asks others to do likewise. I'll confine my list to ghost stories and leave the slasher, alien beings, vampire, demon and monster flicks to others.

Cat People: I saw this as a kid on the late, late show and it scared the crap out of me.

The Innocents: Is Deborah Kerr crazy, or is there a malignant spirit lurking?

The Others: Very low key, yet manages to retain its creepiness throughout.

The Sixth Sense: "I see dead people."

Let me also add two of the worst horror movies ever: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which provoked laughs rather than thrills. And Bram Stoker's Dracula, which also left me laughing.

More horrors:

Here's Kitty's list.

Ace examines vampires and their rules and powers.

Scare a Conservative at Halloween. Pretty scary.

Sissy Willis finds a scary human, though nowhere near as scary as this.

Iranian bloggers decry president's remarks

As tens of thousands of demonstraters gathered in Iran in support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to "wipe Israel off the map," Iranian bloggers had their own thoughts.

Hoder:

I'm very sorry about what this fundamentalist moron who happens to be Iran's president has recently said. But I have to say he doesn't represent the way the majority in Iran think. This guy is a fraud and is a puppet of Mesbah-e Yazdi, a radical cleric who is only gaining power after Khomeini's death.

...

However, the best indicator for me about the general attitude of Iranians towards Israel happened last year during the Olympic games when the Iranian Judoka refused to face his Israeli counterpart and eventually lost a medal. Average Iranians were quite angry about that and even in a poll I put on my Persian blog, the majority disagreed with the official policy of the Iranian regime.

Shahram Kholdi:

Congratulations to this genius of international diplomacy: His Excellency President Dr. Ahmaninejad! Now, the world is assured that Iran does not enojy the rationality and responsibility, and perhaps the International Legal Capacity, to have nuclear technology, because some genius statesman wants to see Israel wiped off the map, and how else can such a plane be achieved other than using something as big and efficient as an "N" or "A" bomb......!!!!

Thanks to DoctorZin.

Shipshape

Test your maritime knowledge with this quiz, from xreferplus, which I discovered through Miriam.

1. Which British passenger liner sank on her maiden voyage on April 14-15, 1912?

2. Name the British survey ship that carried Charles Darwin as ship's naturalist when it explored South America and the Pacific Islands for five years.

3. Name the leaky old craft which was the title of a 1935 novel by C. S. Forester, filmed in 1951 with Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnutt.

4. Name the yacht in which Francis Chichester made the first solo sailing voyage around the world.

5. Which Tudor warship (Henry VIII's flagship) sank in 1545 in Portsmouth Harbour (its hull was raised in 1982)?

6. Name the ship in which Jason sailed in search of the Golden Fleece.

7. Which ghost ship, haunting the seas around the Cape of Good Hope, inspired an 1843 opera by Wagner?

8. In R. L. Stevenson's story "Treasure Island", what was the name of the ship in which Jim Hawkins set sail with Squire Trelawney?

9. Which famous clipper ship, built at Dumbarton in 1869, is preserved as a museum at Greenwich in London?

10. Tinkerbelle crossed which ocean in 1965, the smallest vessel to make the passage up to that time?

Answers here.

When hell freezes over, perhaps

Sharon says UN should expel Iran.

"A country calling for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN," Mr Sharon said.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comment has been condemned by Western states and Russia, which suggested it would deepen the row over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran later accused the West of turning a blind eye to Israeli "crimes".

Protocols of the neocons

Evan R. Goldstein on how to build an effective conspiracy theory.

It is a truism of the trade that there are infinitely more stupid people in the world than hateful people, and The Stupids are the linchpin upon which your success depends. Always remember that as the last refuge of men with no serious argument, The Stupids are more concerned with making a good show of their own moral purity than with formulating serious opinions about the serious challenges of our time. Keep it simple and appeal to their self-righteousness and unreason. In short, rely on the unthinking boilerplate that has come to define much of the antiwar movement's sloganeering.

Miscellany

Eyebrows: I prefer waxing to tweezing.

He was injured bad: Video.

Rude store employees? Sh*t on them.

Flapart: Alternative book covers, via Bookish.

Strawberries? No. Grass? Yes. EU patents.

Election 2006: Deja vu all over again?

With the GOP losing, natch. That's what Fred Barnes fears after talking to GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

Luntz, who worked with Republicans in 1994 to draft the Contract With America and win a realigning election, said political conditions are as bad or worse now--only this time for Republicans, not Democrats. Republicans won 52 House seats in 1994 and have held the House since then. In 2006, he said, Republican control of the House--currently 232 seats to 203 seats--is "in jeopardy." Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take over.

"Republicans have a whole year to get their act together," Luntz said, though they've shown no signs of doing so. "As angry and p-----off as we were about politics [in 1994], I think it's worse today," according to Luntz, who spoke yesterday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "The saving grace for the Republican party is Nancy Pelosi." The House Democratic leader, he said, "is being handed the perfect political storm on a plate," but she's failing to take advantage.

Mark Steyn, however, is more sanguine about Republican prospects.

The difficulty for the Left is that if the problem is Iraq, Katrina or pretty much anything else, the solution is not obviously the Democratic party. The future of Iraq is mostly a matter for Iraqis now and it’s not going badly, as you can sort of tell if you decode the headlines — ‘Bitterly Divided Iraqis Take Time Out From Trembling On Brink Of Civil War To Overwhelmingly Ratify New Constitution’, ‘Three Sunnis And Their Pet Camel Boycott Poll In Sign Iraq May Be Becoming Ungovernable’, etc. In fact, it’s Syria that’s bitterly divided and becoming ungovernable and, as noted here three weeks ago, Baby Assad’s fall will not be long now. Meanwhile, Brent Scowcroft, one of the foreign policy ‘realists’ from Bush’s daddy’s day, recalled a conversation with his protégée Condi Rice two years ago. ‘She says we’re going to democratise Iraq, and I said, “Condi, you’re not going to democratise Iraq,” and she said, “You know, you’re just stuck in the old days,” and she comes back to this thing that we’ve tolerated an autocratic Middle East for 50 years and so on and so forth.... But we’ve had 50 years of peace.’

I hope he's right.

Bridget Clones and middle-aged moralizers: Sex wars

Really, it's a wonder that we're able to reproduce. This chap recounts his dating misadventures, and he's bitter. Very bitter. But funny, too.

Then there was the colleague from work. We went out for a drink and the following day I had two e-mails and a phone message waiting for me at my desk. It was a bit much first thing in the morning, I have to say.

Nonetheless, I was just about to pick up the phone and call when it rang again. It was her, asking me to meet her at the lifts.

When I did so, she thrust an envelope in my hands, and then turned on her heel and flounced off. Inside was a poem she had written for me entitled "My Ego", in which she described me as her "second skin" and "man of her dreams".

I couldn't run away quick enough. This was more bunny-boiler than femme fatale.

Then there's Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield's attack on modern women's “polymorphous promiscuity.”

“Hook ups,” the perennially-dapper professor said, “will get you in a bad habit that is very hard to get rid of.”

“By the age of 30, you see men,” he cautioned, “who are used to getting free samples” and will not enter into loyal, reliable relationships. Citing evolutionary biology research, Mansfield said that “men are interested in quantity, and women are interested in quality.”

“Women play the men’s game, which they are bound to lose. Without modesty, there is no romance—it isn’t so attractive or so erotic,” said the professor.

This has earned him the wrath of feminists and the scorn of Meghan O'Rourke.

The need to tell young women how to behave often comes over middle-aged men—it's an itch right up there with buying a flashy new car. And Mansfield's case for modesty is merely a new version of, say, Leon Kass' argument in "The End of Courtship," a 1997 article currently posted on the Public Interest Web site, which I happened to stumble across after reading Mansfield's remarks. One similarity between them is particularly worth note. Mansfield and Kass don't suggest that female sexual activity is immoral or wrong. They suggest that it makes women unhappy: "Young women strike me as sad, lonely, and confused," Kass writes, voicing an avuncular worry about our "grim" lives. Like Mansfield, he goes on to express concern that contemporary sexuality isn't morally but erotically bankrupt. The best sex, he argues, is stimulated by reading poets like Shelley, and, "if properly sublimated, is transformable into genuine and lofty longings—not only for love and romance but for all the other higher human yearnings." Reading these two pieces back to back, one finds oneself envisioning conservative elders gathered over brunch with teary-eyed twentysomethings, Sex and the City-style, nodding and patting hands: I feel your pain, honey, they soothe. And I'll tell you how to really get your groove on. First, go get a ring.

Judging by our dating friend's reactions to modern women, however, Mansfield may have a point. What do you think? Any dispatches from the sex wars you'd like to share?

She's out

Miers withdraws nomination to Supreme Court.

In a statement, President Bush said he “reluctantly accepted” her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down.

“It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House — disclosures that would undermine a president’s ability to receive candid counsel,” Bush said. “Harriet Miers’ decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the constitutional separation of powers — and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her.”

UPDATE: Decision '08 rounds up the reactions.

I can't say that I regard this as a happy moment for the Republican party. It wasn't pleasant to see them eating their own at a time when the left is hyperventilating for Karl Rove's scalp in Plamegate. And will Bush be able to name a conservative firebrand to the bench? I doubt it.

Camilla chic

The latest buzz phrase in the UK. I suppose next to the queen--described by Joan Rivers as the one in the housecoat and the tiara--anyone looks chic.

Funny how Camilla's image has changed since it was first revealed that Prince Charles wanted to be her tampon. And apparently the US is ready to embrace the new royal couple, too. Those hats will never catch on, though.

Essential reading

Richard Davenport-Hines reviews Theodore Dalrymple's latest book, Our Culture, What's Left Of It, for the Times Literary Supplement. If you're not familiar with Dalrymple, who also writes under the name Anthony Daniels, you should probably read this book, which contains essays previously published in a number of magazines.

Dalrymple has, it must be stressed, written an urgent, important, almost an essential book. Our Culture, What’s Left of It needs to be read and acted on by policy-makers, by opinion-formers, and anyone who wants to grasp why Britain has become so much less pleasant a country in which to live. The book is elegantly written, conscientiously argued, provocative and fiercely committed: “one gets more real truth out of one avowed partisan than out of a dozen of your sham impartialists”, Robert Louis Stevenson said. Dalrymple’s information is often unpalatable, but always arresting. He reports, for example, that many young Muslim women come to his practice in suicidal despair at their enforced marriages to close relations, “usually first cousins”, and deplores how journalists, “for fear of giving offence”, seldom allude to “the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages”. His measured polemics arouse disgust, shame and despair: they will shake many readers’ views of their physical surroundings and cultural assumptions, and have an enriching power to improve the way that people think and act.

He approaches his themes by four different routes. Many chapters describe with implacable force the brutal, sordid living conditions and the abysmal existence of the English poor. Others comprise a detailed indictment of the irresponsibility and fecklessness of the pundits from the educated classes whom he holds responsible for creating “a growing underclass devoid of moral bearings”. By contrast, in other chapters of delicate sensibility, Dalrymple extols and commemorates some great creative minds whose works exemplify the redemptive powers of art. “Human understanding, except in purely technical matters, reached its apogee with Shakespeare”, he declares. These essays comprise a collective plea for the restoration of cultural discrimination: for the recognition, which is crucial for human intelligence and for social well-being, that sharp distinctions are drawn between what is first-rate and what is third-rate. Dalrymple enforces this point by drawing on his extensive travels in the Third World to show what barbarism is, what barbarism means, and how closely barbarism is encroaching on contemporary England. Among many arresting images, one is unforgettable: his discovery, during the Liberian civil war, of the Centennial Hall in Monrovia, completely empty except for a Steinway grand piano, from which the legs had been sawn off and deposited on the floor nearby, together with little heaps of human shit. There are enemies nearer home, though, of intelligence, education and cultural discrimination.

Cheery stuff.

Just put him out of his misery

Laurence Simon is a tad disappointed with the home team.

Quit screwing with us, Astros. Quit struggling and fighting when we all know you just give up in the end.

Quit giving us hope and then dashing it into bits.

Quit screwing with our plans. Quit fucking with our heads. Quit messing with our lives.

I'd really like to go to Ren Fest with my wife this Saturday. If you manage to win one or two and drag this Series out, she's stuck dealing with you guys when you end up blowing it all in Chicago anyway.

Points for honesty

Iran president wants Israel wiped off the map.

“There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world,” [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday during a Tehran conference called “The World without Zionism.”

“Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury, any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world,” Ahmadinejad said.

Need you ask?

Christopher Hitchens wonders:

Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month. I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

The death watch

I tuned in to the middle of this when I got in my car this morning. It's the story of two mothers who lost sons in the Iraq War. By the time the interviewer got to Mom #2, Nan Byrd, mother of Marine Lance Cpl. John Byrd II, even he the grace to pause when he asked the $64,000 question: "Do you feel that your family's sacrifi ... sacrifice was wor ... worth it?"

Today's 2,000 Dead Day in the MSM. The Today Show was just cranking their coverage up when I left the house.

What's so significant about 2,000? You got me. But while reading and listening to news reports for the past week, it was evident that 2,000 represented some sort of milestone to the media.

James J. Na has some thoughts.

There was no talk of a "quagmire" as thousands of American died on the beaches of Normandy in one day and as thousands more died in the jungles of the Pacific, facing suicide attacks from a fanatical foe. No one was accused of hyped intelligence when the actual German atomic weapons program turned out to be substantially less advanced than estimated. Instead, the families of the Greatest Generation, already having survived a crippling Depression, quietly endured the deaths and supported the military endeavors to defend American interests and to extend the boundaries of freedom.

Today the news-hungry media reports each death in an agonizing, repetitive fashion. One learns of a death in the morning newspapers, hears about it on radio on the way to work, sees it on CNN during lunch time, and the cycle repeats itself for few more hours in the evening, capped by a special on Nightline. The effect is that the impact of each death is sensationally and numbingly magnified without any reference to the contexts, such as toppling a murderous dictatorship, defeating a sponsor of terrorism and bringing freedom to an oppressed people.

This is not to imply that the American deaths in the current war are less tragic. On the contrary, every one of the sacrifices in Iraq was a noble, meaningful one, suffered by an all-volunteer force that needed no draft, no compulsion to fight for our nation. In the end, what is important to recognize, and what these historical numbers demonstrate, is that it is fully within our historical legacy to carry on the struggle to protect our interests and to extend the boundaries of freedom, all in quiet dignity without losing our faith and determination to be victorious.

Via INDC Bill, who notes the glee with which the Washington Post Express reports on the 2,000 dead.

[A] huge, color, semi-fish-eye perspective graphic of a line of American memorials in Iraq (boots, rifle, helmet) with the reverse bolded 60+ point type "2,000 DEAD" to celebrate report the grim, round number of the latest casualties from the two-and-a-half year old conflict.

For a historic perspective, here's the Congressional Research Service's report American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics, which covers every military operation since the Revolutionary War.

What he said

There's no need to watch Wal-Mart as long as no laws are being broken. And, if a person doesn't like the health care plan, he/she can go work somewhere else. If a community doesn't like Wal-Mart as a neighbor, ban the stores at the ballot box. It's been done before. And, lastly, I still don't know what it means to be a good corporate citizen. It's apparently something different from being a United States citizen. But, what do I know? I'm just a blogger.

&mdash Interested Participant

He's not the only one

Omar has doubts about "secret" poll.

French perfidy

And Wilson's credulity. France tried to "set up" the US and the UK with forged yellowcake documents.

Two fairly obvious conclusions flow from this interesting factoid. First, France under Chirac may not be an enemy, but it is surely not an ally and definitely an adversary.

Second, Joseph Wilson obviously didn't learn a lot about black operations from his wife, because he fell for France's black op like a ton of bricks, even if months after the fact. Had he gone public in February instead of July, he might have turned France's operation into a huge success. (There is insight here into the character of Joseph Wilson, who might have written his op-ed piece before March 20 if it were genuinely his intention to prevent the war. Instead, he waited until the only impact other than on American morale would be partisan.)

Rats

Of the neighborly variety.

These neighborhood feuds can get out of hand. Years ago the man across the street from my parents' house began parking his tractor trailer in his driveway. Aside from the fact that it was big and ugly, it was a huge inconvenience when he backed it out to go to work. As I recall, the whole neighborhood was fuming over it. Then one day, the doorbell rang and it was the guy across the street. The police had come out to issue a summons to tractor trailer man, who was incensed. The cop, perhaps wanting to take the heat off himself, told the man that my father had called the city to complain. He hadn't. Until the guy died about a decade later, everyone in the family was treated to the evil eye whenever we came into contact with tractor trailer man. Fortunately he didn't take it any further.

When I worked for a suburban newspaper, some of the biggest neighborly disputes took place before the local zoning board. In one instance, neighbors objected to a landscaping plan. It was extremely elaborate, calling for giant berms to be constructed both in the front and back of the house. Inspectors were called, hearings were held and the work was stopped and started many times. Mostly I think neighbors objected to the constant coming and going of dump trucks with fill. I remember driving by and seeing a crane atop a berm that was higher than the house. An odd sight on that sedate, tree-lined street. The neighbors won some battles and they lost some. After construction began again for the umpteenth time, we began getting anonymous letters at the paper. The writer said he's seen the homeowner burying dead bodies in the back yard--he was a mortician. I think there were renewed calls to bring the inspectors in to exhume the purported bodies. I can't remember if anything came of it.

Miscellany

Comparative literature: Herrick or Snoop?

DIY: Tampon angel, via Chai-rista.

Hepburn? Hewitt? Both the same, really.

Vodka and fashion: Mixing the two is dangerous.

Reasonable? $240,000 lap dances.

Party hacks, sycophants and political cronies

Have always called the Supreme Court home.

Cronies? Did someone say cronies? Yes, indeed. For this is what the court has been -- off and on, but mostly on --throughout its history.

If you were to categorize Supreme Court nominees according to the reason presidents chose them, the slot for ``Presidential Pal'' would quickly flood over -- while the category ``Distinguished Constitutional Scholar'' would be significantly less populated than ``Sop to Special Interests.''

The Supreme Court, in other words, has seldom been a showcase of intellectual distinction. To judge by her background and public writings, the choice of Miers appears in line with the court's most hallowed traditions.

Zeitgeist change

Ken will ditch his metrosexual look in an effort to win back Barbie. (And Ken, I think you went way too far in that direction, dude. No wonder Barbie dumped you.)

And not a moment too soon. It seems the metrosexual is officially dead (again). So says the woman who coined the term, which is handy because now she's conceived of the latest model: The übersexual.

While metrosexuals were obsessed with self-image and lifestyle, the übersexual is politically aware and passionate about real world causes. The metrosexual has women who are his best friends, while the übersexual respects women but retains men as his closest confidants. The metrosexual grooms his hair: the übersexual grooms his mind. The metrosexual reads Vogue and Cosmo, the übersexual the Economist and the New Yorker.

Celebrity metrosexuals include Jude Law, Orlando Bloom and David Beckham, whose good looks can be seen as slightly womanly.

Their übersexual counterparts include George Clooney, Donald Trump, Pierce Brosnan and Bill Clinton, who are fashionable and wear tasteful clothes, but are unashamedly masculine, not least in their often complicated and very heterosexual lifestyles. Salzman's book proclaims the world's leading übersexual as the rock star and anti-poverty campaigner Bono.

Imagine you're a woman

Badriyya Al-Bishr, a lecturer in social sciences at King Saud University:

"Imagine you're a woman whose husband breaks her nose, arm, or leg, and you go to the Qadi to lodge a complaint. When the Qadi asks you about your complaint, and you say, 'He beat me,' he responds reproachfully 'That's all?!' In other words, [for the Qadi], beating is a technical situation that exists among all couples and lovers, [as the saying goes]: 'Beating the beloved is like eating raisins.'

"Imagine you're a woman, and in order to manage your affairs you must ride in a 'limousine' with an Indian or Sri Lankan driver... or that you [must] wait for a younger brother to take you to work, or that you [must] bring a man who will learn to drive in your car, and will practice at your expense... because you yourself are not permitted to drive."

Via Dr. Demarche.

Who are you to judge?

Indeed. Not my cup of tea; but why exactly does it bother you so much?. More here.

Now that sex has reared its ugly head

In the whole Plame/Cheney/Lewis/Wilson/Miller case, you'd think it would become more interesting. Unfortunately not.

At least, I'm guessing that the supposed Miller/Lewis entanglement remark is meant to suggest that the two were sleeping together. I'm still as baffled/bored as ever. Though I'm pretty much convinced of one thing: That these various attacks on Miller have more to do with the war, Miller's coverage of WMD and her supposed alliance with Ahmad Chalabi than they do with who leaked what to whom.

Oh. And that Maureen Dowd is a vicious bitch.

Rosa Parks dies

The Times recounts the bus ride that made Parks famous:

[A]s she rushed home from her job as a seamstress at a department store on Dec. 1, 1955, the last thing on her mind was becoming "the mother of the civil rights movement," as many would later describe her. She had to send out notices of the N.A.A.C.P.'s coming election of officers. And she had to prepare for the workshop that she was running for teenagers that weekend.

"So it was not a time for me to be planning to get arrested," she said in an interview in 1988.

On Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system's riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door.

For years blacks had complained, and Mrs. Parks was no exception. "My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest," she said. "I did a lot of walking in Montgomery."

After a confrontation in 1943, a driver named James Blake ejected Mrs. Parks from his bus. As fate would have it, he was driving the Cleveland Avenue bus on Dec. 1, 1955. He demanded that four blacks give up their seats in the middle section so a lone white man could sit. Three of them complied.

Recalling the incident for "Eyes on the Prize," a 1987 public television series on the civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks said: "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.' "

Her arrest was the answer to prayers for the Women's Political Council, which was set up in 1946 in response to the mistreatment of black bus riders, and for E. D. Nixon, a leading advocate of equality for blacks in Montgomery.

Blacks had been arrested, and even killed, for disobeying bus drivers. They had begun to build a case around a 15-year-old girl's arrest for refusing to give up her seat, and Mrs. Parks had been among those raising money for the girl's defense. But when they learned that the girl was pregnant, they decided that she was an unsuitable symbol for their cause.

Mrs. Parks, on the other hand, was regarded as "one of the finest citizens of Montgomery - not one of the finest Negro citizens - but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery," Dr. King said.

Bar Mitzvah fever

Bar Mitzvah Disco, a new book by three 30-somethings from suburbia is a sociological look at the Bar Mitzvah, 1980s-style.

A collection of more than 300 photographs culled from bar and bat mitzvahs from the 70's to the early 90's with essays by friends of the authors like Jonathan Safran Foer and Sarah Silverman, "Bar Mitzvah Disco," which will appear in bookstores on Nov. 2. It is at first glance a nostalgia tour through an era of unprecedented bourgeois tackiness. But, the authors say, it is also a cultural history, albeit one with a Duran Duran backbeat. The MTV-era bar mitzvah marked not only a transitional moment in their own lives, they say, but also one for American Jews as a whole. It was a time when an insular Old World ritual blew up into an all-American affair: inclusive, often suburban and, thanks to new Hollywood production values, unforgettably garish.

I'd say over-the-top bar and bat mitzvahs were already a well-established tradition before the 1980s. But the decade of big hair is always good for a laugh.

"For most of these people these pictures have been sources of shame, embarrassment and therapy," [co-author Roger] Bennett said. For his part he said he could look at his own album now and laugh, but couldn't face it even a decade ago. "Ten years ago, when you still have everything to prove, and there is some flexibility about who you might become, this is something you most certainly want to hide. But after a certain amount of time the statute of limitations on shame just evaporates."

Of course some memories are easier to rationalize than others. Stephanie Huttner of Denver, for example, is shown standing in the middle of a country club wearing a gold ruffled skirt next to an elephant on loan from the Denver Zoo for her safari-theme bat mitzvah in 1987.

View a slide show of pics from the book here.

Liar, liar

British MP George Galloway may be facing perjury and other charges for denying before a Congressional committee that he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime.

Ex Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Tariq Aziz states:

"Mr Galloway asked him for political funding in allocations in the name of Mr Zureikat. The Senate report shows that Mr Zureikat received $740,000 from Taurus Petroleum on July 27, 2000, as commission for its purchase of 2,645,068 barrels of oil."

Galloway denied he had reveived a single cent of the money before the Senate back in May

The Senate committee report reproduces money-transfer documents from Citibank showing that Mr Zureikat sent Mr Galloway’s wife $150,000 on August 3, 2000. They conclude that the amount was "largely" Oil-for-Food money because Mr Zureikat’s account contained $848,683 at the time, only $38,000 of which did not come from the programme.

Galloway's Palestinian wife received £100,000 as well, documents show.

A report by an investigative committee of the United States Senate says the money was sent to the personal account of Amineh Abu Zayyad in August 2000.

The report, compiled by Republican and Democratic staff, contains detailed information gleaned from Iraqi archives and bank accounts in Britain and Jordan.

The investigators concluded that Mr Galloway knew about the payments and that "through his wife was personally enriched" by them. They say that he "knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath before [a Senate] sub-committee".

More here.

UPDATE: Which tyrant-loving scum do you believe?

Book fair promotes perennial favorite

Iran pushes its very own edition of Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the Hamburg Book Fair, a violation of German law that was somehow overlooked. Also available: Henry Ford's The International Jew:The World's Foremost Problem. More here.

Land of the displaced shoes

I've officially run out of closet space: The overflow.

Miscellany

Not their top 100: Amazon readers review top novels.

Ode to the commode: Toilet museum, via Samantha.

Useless surveys: Stupid, too.

Trial by combat: Test Harriet Miers in battle.

Moment of shame: Starring Sheila and The Rock.

Women are crazy

Their expectations are screwy, thanks to contemporary pop culture and the now-ingrained expectation that they (we) can have it all.

Not so fast. Some of this is doubtless true. A woman who treats Sex and the City as the primary text on which to build her life is a very foolish woman indeed. Newsflash: Carrie could not afford those shoes--let alone her apartment--writing a weekly newspaper column in the NY Observer. But living alone doesn't have to be tragic. Some benefits:

1. The toilet seat is always in position.
   
2. The remote is yours, and yours alone. This means you can lay on the couch all night long watching Lifetime movies.
   
3. You don't have to share a closet with anyone.

I also take issue with the notion that women dress to please men. (Oh, and leather toreador pants? Not in this decade!) I like clothes. I like makeup, perfume, nail polish and jewelry. If God struck every man dead tomorrow, I'd still buy and wear new clothes. It's nice to get a positive reaction from men, but it's not necessary. Wearing a soft cashmere sweater is its own reward.

Women have always felt pressure to find a man, the perfect man. Jane Austen would have been put out of business if it weren't so. At least nowadays a woman can earn her own living and doesn't have to depend on male relatives for survival. And women who adhere to a more traditional lifestyle don't have it so easy either.

As for the horror of aging, again, not a new phenomenon. Youth and beauty have always been assets and women--especially unattached women--were relegated to nonentity status once their youth faded. Thankfully, these days people are living longer and looking better than in the past, even without resorting to the surgeon's knife. Though we do now have that option.

And don't tell me men don't fear aging. Midlife crisis anyone? Trophy wives? Viagra? Rogaine?

Via Charles.

Raging

Rino sightings this week can be found at Louisiana Libertarian.

After Miers: A more compassionate Bush?

Lexington Green indulges in some speculation in the event of a Miers defeat.

Bush certainly has no reason or incentive to give the Conservative wing of his coalition anything they happen to want after they went to war with him on this. Bush is in many ways a "Nixonian" president, spending lots of money, relatively pro-Government, not particularly popular, polarizing, more interested in foreign policy than in domestic policy. Perhaps his response to this episode will be similarly Nixonian, "f*ck the Conservatives, they are a bunch of kooks."

I think we will see a much more "centrist" and "compassionate" President Bush hereafter, after having his throat cut by his own side. Why not? He is not running for anything again.

Mao wasn't all bad

Nicholas Kristof:

Mao's legacy is not all bad. Land reform in China, like the land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today. The emancipation of women and end of child marriages moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea. Indeed, Mao's entire assault on the old economic and social structure made it easier for China to emerge as the world's new economic dragon.

Ho hum

Just another election day in Iraq. Micheal Yon visits Iraqi polling places.

We left, drove here and there, and landed at a different unit: the 170th MPs from Fort Lewis. This unit was responsible for supporting 20 polling stations. Sergeant First Class Dilbert French mentioned some minor SIGACTS that were not worth jotting down. (SIGACT is military jargon for significant action; anything that significantly affects friendly or enemy forces.) "Is it like this all over Iraq?" I asked. I could hardly believe it. Where are the mortars? The IEDs? The homicide bombers and car bombs? No snipers? Surely the ground must be shaking in Falluja or Ramadi, and what about Mosul, Baquba, and Basra? What about Tal Afar? French checked the secure computer for all of Iraq. The whole country looked quiet. "The media is going to be very disappointed," chuckled one soldier, and I laughed along with him.

...

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

Dem opposition to the war inevitable?

Is this true? Dave Price on Democratic reaction to the war in Iraq:

This reminds me a lot of the noises some Republicans made during Clinton's Kosovo intervention. The reaction to both of those interventions strike me as simple mirror-image permutations of the political process we work under: ipso facto, any military intervention taken by the domestic political opposition must be wrong, foolish, ineptly executed, and/or doomed to failure. The political stakes in such an intervention are so high, I think, that the two-party political calculus makes it very difficult for the situation to be otherwise. It's not a coincidence that whichever party is out of executive power in America nearly always tends toward non-interventionism, or even isolationism. And in some sense, we should probably be glad about that, because that not only puts a lot of pressure on the administration in power to wage war effectively and for good moral cause when it does go to war, it makes the decision to go to war a very risky one politically, which certainly helps explain the phenomenon of the Democratic Peace

'He has to be guilty of something'

Karl Rove is to Democrats what Hillary Clinton was to Republicans. And the wishful thinking about the Fitzgerald investigation stems from that belief. Sounds about right.

What he said

Here we have the U.S.A. and Great Britain and their smaller friends, an alliance that has defeated Nazi Germany and the mighty Reich, and have had the stomach to obliterate Japanese cities with atomic bombs. Here we have the Americans, the descendants of those who wrested a whole continent by shear obstinacy and fought for every inch of land with blood and sweat. Here we have nations that have waded through rivers of blood and mud and marched through entire continents to become symbols of human perseverance and enterprise. Yes all this history and yet we have some who think that our miserable "Sunni Triangle" poses an insurmountable problem and that one should "cut and run" and "bring home troops immediately" etc. etc.

I salute President Bush who does not care much for this kind of defeatism and treats it with the contempt it deserves.

~ Alaa, The Mesopotamian

England expects

Today's the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. More here.

UN: Assad brother-in-law suspect in Hariri murder

Asef Shawkat, the second most powerful man in Syria, and head of Syrian military intelligence, is considered the ringleader.

Detlev Mehlis, the United Nations investigator, has been given an extension until December to continue his inquiry. He said his commission had in four months interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents and arrested four high-level officials of the Lebanese "security and intelligence apparatus."

"There is evidence in abundance," [a diplomat with intimate knowledge of the inquiry] said. "But to get every piece of the puzzle they need more time." He spoke on condition of anonymity because of what he described as the extreme sensitivity of the matter.

...

The diplomat, describing Syria as a "country run by a little family clique," said the involvement of any one in Mr. Assad's inner circle would be a severe blow to the government.

"There is absolutely no doubt, it goes right to the top," he said. "This is Murder Inc."

I'm not surprised that an Assad family member is believed responsible for the murder. But I'm kind of surprised that the UN is the organization making the assertion. When the report is released in December can we expect action from the Security Council?

Miers confirmation: Odds in favor drop

Like a ton of bricks following a push from GOP Senators Brownback and Graham for more internal documents from the White House. Will this move push the president to withdraw Miers from consideration?

Bloodthirsty but not too brite?

William Wallace You scored 75 Wisdom, 69 Tactics, 66 Guts, and 45 Ruthlessness!

Like William Wallace, chances are you have no problem charging a larger, better trained, better equipped, better armed and armored English army with a band of naked drunken Scotsmen. I'm not contesting that you have balls. It's your brain function I'm worried about. Scottish soldier and national hero. The first historical record of Wallace's activities concerns the burning of Lanark by Wallace and 30 men in May, 1297, and the slaying of the English sheriff, one of those whom Edward I of England had installed in his attempt to make good his claim to overlordship of Scotland. After the burning of Lanark many joined Wallace's forces, and under his leadership a disciplined army was evolved. Wallace marched on Scone and met an English force of more than 50,000 before Stirling Castle in Sept., 1297. The English, trying to cross a narrow bridge over the Forth River, were killed as they crossed, and their army was routed. Wallace crossed the border and laid waste several counties in the North of England. In December he returned to Scotland and for a short time acted as guardian of the realm for the imprisoned king, John de Baliol. In July, 1298, Edward defeated Wallace and his army at Falkirk, and forced him to retreat northward. His prestige lost, Wallace went to France in 1299 to seek the aid of King Philip IV, and he possibly went on to Rome. He is heard of again fighting in Scotland in 1304, but there was a price on his head, and in 1305 he was captured by Sir John de Menteith. He was taken to London in Aug. 1305, declared guilty of treason, and executed. The best-known source for the life of Wallace is a long romantic poem attributed to Blind Harry, written in the 15th century.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 68% on Unorthodox You scored higher than 26% on Tactics You scored higher than 92% on Guts You scored higher than 16% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

H/T Robbo, who , it seems is destined to defeat me.