Good Queen Bess visits Virginia

And Virginia's in a tizzy about it.

Mastering the royals' esoterica is sending American staffs from Richmond to Washington to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt into a fear-tinged tizzy. E-mails are pinging back and forth between the queen's page and the director of the Virginia Governor's Mansion. In the last week alone, 300,000 people have clicked on a special Virginia Web site, seeking info about the arrival of Her Majesty. At NASA, when Goddard officials offered a chance for 200 employees to simply sit in an auditorium with the queen, 900 responses immediately flooded back.

I suppose I'd go if I had a chance to meet the Queen, but more to get a look at the pomp and circumstance than to actually meet the Queen. I can't imagine that we'd have much to talk about, other than what a twit her son turned out to be, which I doubt she'd appreciate--or maybe she would, the Queen can't be too amused at Charles's antics. Anyway, I don't imagine one actually talks to the Queen beyond a how do you do.

I heard on the news that the families of Virginia Tech victims will get a chance to meet the Queen while she's in town. I hate it when the powers that be drag out the victims of the latest tragedy and put them on display, though I suppose it was their decision to attend. I guess it's the silver lining in that particular cloud: Sure my son was killed, but if he hadn'ta been, I never would have gotten to meet the Queen.

Who will they blame when Bush is gone?

Gerard Baker looks at BDS, the European strain.

Somewhere, deep down, tucked away underneath their loathing for George Bush, in a secret place where the lights of smart dinner-party conversation and clever debating-society repartee never shine, the growing hordes of America-bashers must dread the moment he leaves office.

When President Bush goes into the Texas sunset, and especially if he is replaced by an enlightened, world-embracing Democrat, their one excuse, their sole explanation for all human suffering in the world will disappear too. And they may just find that the world is not as simple as they thought it was.

It’s been a great ride for the past six years, hasn’t it? George Bush and Dick Cheney and all those pantomime villains that succour him — the gay-bashing foot soldiers of the religious Right, the forktailed neoconservatives with their devotion to Israel, the dark titans of American corporate boardrooms spewing their carbon emissions above the pristine European skies. Having those guys around for so long provided a comfortable substitute for thinking hard about global challenges, a kind of intellectual escapism.

Baker looks forward to a Democratic administration that will allow Democrats to "take ownership" of US foreign policy. I'm afraid a Democratic administration will be like a second coming of Jimmy Carter.

A world without America

Via Allah.

Cult venerates the USA

Tanna Islanders who belong to the Jon Frum cult celebrate by dressing as US soldiers and holding drills.

Village elders tell of how a mysterious outsider came to their forbears in a series of apparitions, telling them to go back to their traditional ways. The idea of a messiah-like outsider was given a huge boost during the Second World War, when hundreds of Tannese men were recruited by the Americans to build roads, airstrips and bases. They were impressed by the large amounts of cargo – tanks, weapons, medicine and food – brought by the US military. The shadowy spirit figure they already believed in gradually assumed a name and a nationality – Jon Frum is believed to be a contraction of John From America, a reference perhaps to a soldier who showed particular generosity.

The movement was officially founded on Feb 15, 1957, to celebrate the release of cult leaders who had been imprisoned by the ruling Anglo-French authorities. For the last 50 years cultists have clung to the belief that by dressing up as GIs and venerating US symbols they can somehow tempt back the wartime cargo.

In a thatched hut in the centre of the village a cult shrine says: Jon Promise America – One Day He'll Be Returning.

Arafat responsible for 1973 Sudan murders

Declassified State Department document shows how diplomats covered up the knowledge because they didn't want to anger their Arab friends. Plus, it might have ruined Arafat's chance for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Morally confused

Jimmy Carter doesn't know right from wrong.

Carter wants to do what's just. His heart's in the right place. He just can't figure out what the right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples. Not because he is a bad man, but because he is a confused man.

CARTER SUBSCRIBES to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the weaker party, however wicked or immoral.

Israel has tanks and F-16's. The Palestinians don't. Therefore the Palestinians are being oppressed. Never mind that the Palestinians have rejected every offer to live side by side with Israel in peace and elected a government pledged to Israel's annihilation. Their poverty dictates the righteousness of their cause even if their actions speak otherwise.

If Israel builds a barrier to cordon off the Palestinians, it is not to prevent their suicide bombers from dismembering children but to punish them for having darker skin.

'Our long national nightmare is over'

Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States, dies at age 93. His most controversial act as president, pardoning Richard Nixon, likely cost him the election though it's now seen as the right decision.