The always amusing P.J. O'Rourke shines this week in a brutal takedown of Hillary Clinton's dubious book: with Hillary's History.

Reading O'Rourke is not only better than reading the book, you can comprehend Hillary's entire effort in his first paragraph:

IF YOU PLAN not to read this summer, "Living History" is just the book. Hillary Clinton's new memoir is more than 100,000 pages long. At least I think it is. There are only 562 page numbers, but you know how those Clintons lie. A mere ream of paper could not contain the padding that has gone into this tome. Hillary--with the help of at least six ghostwriters--nails the goose of a manuscript to the barn floor and force-feeds it with lint.

A more common writer would stop right there and declare his work done for the week, but O'Rourke is just warming up. Later, in a slightly longer paragraph, he sums up the Clinton years with a concision worthy of an entry into the Encyclopedia Americana;

However, it says something unflattering about our era that prominent political figures--who used to write declarations of independence, preambles to constitutions, Gettysburg addresses, and such--now use the alphabet only to make primitive artifacts, like the letter-inscribed tablet that Charlemagne is said to have put under his pillow each night, in the hope he'd wake up literate. Conservatives, including most of the Founding Fathers, have always worried that the price of a democratic system would be a mediocre nation. But George Washington and William F. Buckley Jr. put together could not have foreseen, in their gloomiest moments, the rise of Clinton-style �ber-mediocrity--with its soaring commonplaces, its pumped trifling, its platinum-grade triviality. The Alpha-dork husband, the super-twerp wife, and the hyper-wonk vice president--together with all their mega-weenie water carriers, such as vicious pit gerbil George Stephanopoulos and Eastern diamondback rattleworm Sidney Blumenthal--spent eight years trying to make America nothing to brag about.

Unlike "Living History" this review deserves a place on your summer reading list.

Miller Emerges as New Voice for Bush Re-Election

Stumping for George Bush in Los Angeles, Dennis Miller had a few choice words for, well, every Democratic Presidential candidate. His most pointed observations, however, were reserved for Internet darling and appeasement afficianado Howard Dean.

"[Howard Dean] can roll up his sleeves all he wants at public events, but as long as we see that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlain's name on his right forearm, he's never going anywhere."

The American Zen Master
by Dick Allen
from Poetry Daily

Zen also is to be found, he tried to instruct us,
in a car dealer's showroom, and in shoelaces. . . . Also, in America,
you don't sit at the feet of the Zen Master
but you have coffee with him, preferably at Starbucks,
next to one of those outsized suburban malls where everyone looks half dressed,
half dazed and half dead. "The secret of Zen," the Master said,
may come halfway through a Yankee Candle store
when you realize you can smell nothing,
or from reading Hallmark Cards backwards,
or choosing nothing from an overstuffed refrigerator. But it isn't a secret."
�������������������������������As for our questions,
instead of smiting us around the shoulders with a bamboo cane,
he'd hand us little writing-intensive packets of Equal and Sweet 'N Low,
then lean back, smiling like a sushi plate. Sometimes, he'd babble:
"Tums, drive-up windows, ATM machines.
Checkout-line scanners, 1000 Megahertz,
the industrial landscapes so remarkable." Often
we'd catch him staring at the intricate face
of a digital wristwatch, or contemplating
a simple button-down shirt on a white shelf in a Wal-Mart.
All things. "Throw your computers into the eyes of children,"
he loved to tell us. "Work for the Federal administration,
if that's what you must.
Wear last year's fashions, re-endure the 8os.
Take the last train to Clarksville.
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill her." We'd come to Zen

Continued...

Is al'Qa'ida really on the run, close to being washed up, rendered powerless, and its members finding themselves confined to a small room with a Readers' Digest Condensed Koran? Opinions vary, but the Rand Organization's Bruce Hoffman is not a wild-eyed optimist. In his detailed and insightful Al Qaeda, Trends in Terrorism and Future Potentialities [NB: in PDF format], he examines what is known about the current condition of the terrorist group. For them to be rendered operationally harmless, they would first need to be stripped of three essential elements:

[W]hat was critical to the success of 9/11 were three capabilities that al Qa'ida likely still retains. First, was the ability to identify a key vulnerability or gap in the defenses of its principal enemy�America�that could be mercilessly exploited (e.g., the U.S. commercial aviation security structure). Second, was the effective use of deception on board the four hijacked aircraft where, the passengers and crew, were deliberately lulled into believing that if they behaved and cooperated as they were told�the standard operating procedure for crew and passengers on hijacked aircraft that historically had enhanced chances of survival�they would not be harmed. Third, suicide attack was employed to ensure the attack�s success. None of these essential qualities was dependent on al Qa'ida having a base of operations in Afghanistan�and thus could likely be replicated in some future plan that successfully identifies and exploits a gap in our defenses and then cleverly and adroitly assembles the operational requirements for that attack to succeed.

All of which suggests that the current administration's obsession with making air travel safe from all possible terrorist approaches, is just that, an obsession unlikely to stop future attacks. Indeed, it would seem that all this concentration on inter-city public transport security is a waste of assets. The pure fact is that all it would take to bring New York City of a halt again, murder thousands of its citizens, and send the US economy back into a tailspin would be three dedicated members of al'Qa'ida currently living in Brooklyn, and possessed of burning down death wish and a terrible intent.

Of this more in the days to come.

Photograph by Van der Leun

From Areopagitica by John Milton

"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

"Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness. Which was the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas, describing true temperance under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain.

"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read."

"Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another....

"And yet there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will...."

From Today in Literature
"Winter's Tale," by Mark Helprin, who was born on this day, 1947. A best seller when first published in 1983, the book's New York setting has won new readers since the World Trade Center disaster; from the chapter, "Nothing is Random":

Every office has one. Useful for hiding documents that establish your guilt. The downside is that documents that establish why you deserve a raise and promotion will be in the top drawer, back.

Photograph by Jef Poskanzer. More Poskanzer images at Fotolog, and infiitely more at Jef Poskanzer's Photography

Monday Morning Spooks by Hugh Hewitt.

Responding to Josh Marshall's continuing attempt to prove himself today's equal of Clinton toady Joe Conason, the level-headed Hugh Hewitt comes up with what is most likely a permanent truth in today's foreign policy assesments by American citizens:

I will leave it to the foreign policy mavens like Marshall to come up with a more precise standard, but I think the layman's rule is this: If the commander in chief perceives a significant risk of severe casualties to Americans, he uses whatever force is necessary to remove that risk. The forgery of documents related to purchases of uranium from Niger, or the lack of a detailed Baghdad hotel bill from Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, in no way detracts from the correctness of the president's assessment of all the evidence of risk. The attempt to impeach the president's conclusion by impeaching parts of his data set establishes a standard under which many future September 11s could never be prevented because of the distinction between "signals and noise in intelligence collection."

Hewitt is onto something here. In today's world of infinite information sources, influential people more and more seem ready to make up their own minds about political questions that matter to them. It would seem that the more access to pundits we have, the less influence the pundits have over the populace.

This is why last week's blather from Al Gore and associates over the need for more liberal voices and radio and television programs sounds as flat and boring and irrelevant as... well, Al Gore. Americans, in larger and larger quantities, no longer seek multiple opinions from numerous sources. They seek access to facts and are perfectly able to draw their own conclusions.

Of course, this means that what any political party needs to be able to do is to control The Factoid Factory. When you are in power, that's easier to do, and when you are out of power, it is almost impossible. Hence the growing frustration and hectoring tones found in places like Josh Marshall's Screed of the Day. The rise of the Internet has not only made it possible for Marshall to marshal his opinions, it has also made it possible for the Layman's Rules to bat last. Just hit the clicker or the back button. "They opine. You decide."

State Department Report on "Trafficking." Scroll down.

During a long evening of poker at a friend's apartment in New York in the late 1990s, one man who attended and who had far too much bourbon regaled us with tales of his recent trip to Havana. 'You can have two sisters as your sex slaves and housekeepers for a week for the price of one night in a Holiday Inn in Boise,' he claimed. I replied that it didn't seem like the kind of vacation I'd enjoy and besides it struck me that, in a country like Cuba, you could find yourself in a jail pretty quick if the government caught you.

"The government?," he replied. "Hell, the government will pick you up and drop you off at the apartment. How do you think they get any money at all on that island? The '56 Chevy is the car of choice and the dollar is the coin of the realm."

It is encouraging that our State Department is catching on to Castro's Ministry of Pimping at last. But it is equally discouraging to note that Cuba's need for cash has driven it to the Bangkok solution of offering its children for sale to perverts with global reach.

Still, this revelation of Cuba's Child Sexploitation Policy is unlikely to stop numerous celebrated Americans from dashing off to Havana for a photo op with Fidel at every opportunity. Maybe they too agree with the new Cuban motto: "Cuba kids, si. Yankee kids, no."
The currrent US State Department evaluation of Cuba's sex trade reads:

Cuba is a country of internal trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Minors are victimized in sexual exploitation connected to the state-run tourism industry. Despite occasional measures by the Government of Cuba to crack down on prostitution, state-controlled tourism establishments and independent operators facilitate and even encourage the sexual exploitation of minors by foreign tourists. Government authorities turn a blind eye to this exploitation because such activity helps to win hard currency for state-run enterprises.

An icon for the 21st century that surpasses the Taco Bell Chihuahua would have to be this horned woofer run up for Target Stores by the Peterson Milla Hooks agency. We're not sure what he's promoting for Target, but we are sure that if he was on the shelves in time for Christmas, he'd run out of the store.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum   |   is an exceptional online sight featuring numerous flash-enabled tours of current and past exhibitions. Now showing is "The "National Design Triennial: Inside Design Now" showcasing 80 designers and firms who are setting the pace in contemporary design.

OpinionJournal - Taste

BIG-HEADED BREW: Maybe the folks at Stone Brewing haven't heard that the customer is always right. How else to explain the San Diego beer maker's Arrogant Bastard Ale? As the Los Angeles Times reports, the back of the label minces no words. "This is an aggressive beer," it reads. "You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory."

Not likely to surpass Bud in sales any time soon.

Chris Kathman's sharp article The peasants are acting like emperors! highlights the persistant obnoxiousness of recording industry executives as they launched their latest phase in their no-win war against file sharing.The position of these Class A Hypocrites is that getting music for nothing from friends, associates, acquaintences or people promoting their taste in music is "stealing." Perhaps it is, but since these record company bozos haven't shelled out a penny for their grossly overpriced products since the dawn of time, how would they know? Kathman, once an insider, lays out their heaping sack of dirty laundry when he writes:

For the last few years, top executives from all the major record companies have been giving interviews in which they criticize consumers for doing exactly what the execs have been doing for years - getting music for free. I was in the loop for a couple years, when I was writing about music for a free weekly, as well as a major daily newspaper, in Los Angeles, many years ago. And I can tell you none of these characters paid for anything, ever.The bookcases in their offices and their homes were (and are) filled with product that they receive for free as a matter of course. They would not dream of ever paying for recorded music, themselves, with very few exceptions. But now that the average consumer can download a ripped file from the Internet, you'd think it was the end of Western Civilization, from the way they talk.The false piousness of their pronouncements on this subject really offends me. I assure you, back in the day, if somebody at Record Company A wanted a copy of the new LP by so-and-so and the such-and-suches, they would shout at the secretary to call their good friend at Record Company B and have it messengered over, with the fee for the messenger charged to the artist signed to Company B! Maybe it took a little longer than getting an mp3 off the web now, but my point is that they did not go down to their local record store and pay list price to nobly support the artist who they claimed to be interested in.

The truth is broader than that. Freebies throughout the media are as deep as the ocean. Many people in the music, book, film, and television industries have been battening off freebies for decades.

Those that doubt this and are in New York City are invited to take a visit to the Strand Bookstore and note how many "review copies" grace the shelves in the basement. From the publisher to the "reviewer" to the Strand -- sometimes within 24 hours and always with a little cash in hand to the 'reviewer."

"It does basically make you look fat and naked, but you see all this stuff." - Susan Hallowell (above), Director of TSA's Security Laboratory.

More than just a pat-down, the new airport body scan goes the final step in making flying one of the most dubious experiences of our age. In New airport scans could expose travelers we learn that we will soon be expected to expose ourselves to strangers if we wish to enjoy all the pleasures of air travel.

Susan Hallowell (above) took one for the Transportion Security team as she allowed herself to be scanned and the image to be published world wide.

"She stepped into a metal booth that bounced X-rays off her skin to produce a black-and-white image that revealed enough to produce a world-class blush.

"Her dark skirt and blazer disappeared on the monitor, where she showed up naked -- except for the gun and bomb she had hid under her outfit."

Ah, yes, those guns and bombs we all strap on when heading out to the airport.

Susan allowed that it also made her look "fat and naked, but you see all this stuff." Looking fat and naked is going to be a big hit with Americans, you can be sure.

I don't know about you, but looking at Susan, I also note she looks bald, with some sort of strange blemish on her shoulder and a body that won't be winning any Miss Teenage America pagents soon.

Of course, we won't be doing any real, sensible profiling anytime soon. No. We will all be expected to just have our bodies revealed to all. And recorded too. There's no way this gizmo is going to be put into airports without a recording device attached.

My only prayer is that, if this final insult is installed it will, by itself, put an end to American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and all other airlines operating in the United States when everyone in the country decides to just stay out of the naked skies.

"Now is the end. Perish the world." - Beyond the Fringe

We tend to sleep through announcements of the end of the world. Our default state is: "Wake us when it's over." As a result we completely missed out on the Niburu flap until it was put to bed by David Morrison at Nasa:

For months, weird stories have circulated on the Internet predicting the close passage by Earth this month of a Planet X sometimes called "Niburu", or in some versions a giant comet. I have even seen it linked to both Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), although why either of these is relevant is not clear to me. This news note is for those who may have heard such rumors and wondered if there was any reality to them. The simple answer is that these are lies. There is no such object.

All we can say is "Whew! That was a close one." Still, we'll keep coming back because, as the comedy routine above tells us, "We're sure to get a winner one of these days." The only problem is that it won't be from outer space. It will be homemade.

"Promise, big promise, is the soul of advertising," said a sage long ago in America. American advertising has been following that dictum without letup ever since.

The current craze for bottled water is an excellent case in point. According to an article in this month's Scientific American there is little in bottled water to justify the price and a lot in a lot of waters that puts them just this side of outright buncombe.

"Bottled Twaddle" by Michael Shermer raises a lot of points that tend to prove that "bottled water is tapped out." Americans shell out above $7 billion a year for the clear fluid and pay, according to Shermer, "120 to 7,500 times as much per gallon for bottled water as for tap. Bottled prices range from 75 cents to $6 a gallon, versus tap prices that vary from about 80 cents to $6.40 per 1,000 gallons."

For what? For something that is, often, nothing more than bottled tap water in a plastic container. This from a four year study of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel that examined 1,000 samples of 103 brands of bottled water, finding that "an estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle--sometimes further treated, sometimes not."

But is all bottled water of dubious benefit? Well, not all. There is one water that can, it claims, literally SAVE YOUR SOUL!

This would be the strong, pure and thrice blessed fluid that flows from the source at Holy Spring Water. Yes, according to the web site, (and why wouldn't you believe it if you are already buying tap water at $6 a gallon?) this water is, "100% Natural bottled water that has been blessed to remove your venial sins while quenching your thirst. Tastes Great!!!"

Sounds reasonable to us. Click away, order a case, and when it comes be sure to save us a sip. For free.

Photograph by Van der Leun

Hillsdale College

Brit Hume, who should know, has some insightful things to say about the mindset of media professionals in the United States today. His speech, "The American Media in Wartime," confirms what many already have observed, but coming from an insider it is all the more relevant.

Ted Koppel, one of the finest journalists of our generation, said something the other day that quite astonished me. Ted was an embedded reporter in Iraq, and after he came home he had this fascinating conversation � at Harvard, I believe � with Marvin Kalb. He spoke with real generosity about the American officers and enlisted men that he dealt with, and how able they were and how good they were and how effective they were. But he went out of his way to make a point of distinguishing between them and the policy makers in Washington. About the latter he said, �I�m very cynical, and I remain very cynical, about the reasons for getting into this war.�

Cynical? We journalists pride ourselves, and properly so, on being skeptical. That�s our job. But I have always thought a cynic is a bad thing to be. A cynic, as I understand the term, means someone who interprets others� actions as coming from the worst motives. It�s a knee-jerk way of thinking. A cynic, it is said, understands the price of everything and the value of nothing. So I don�t understand why Ted Koppel would say with such pride and ferocity � he said it more than once � that he is a cynic. But I think he speaks for many in the media, and I think it�s a very deep problem."

Link thanks to Donald Sensing

In the current Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Pollock has an number of insightful things to say about the American role in the middle east. His essay, Securing the Gulf, is most interesting when he talks about the realpolitik implications of "THE OIL." Whether or not the recent war was 'about the oil' was a toxic mushroom in the endless debate for or against American intervention and regime change in Iraq. It still is. And, according to Pollack, with good reason:

America's primary interest in the Persian Gulf lies in ensuring the free and stable flow of oil from the region to the world at large. This fact has nothing to do with the conspiracy theories leveled against the Bush administration during the run-up to the recent war. U.S. interests do not center on whether gas is $2 or $3 at the pump, or whether Exxon gets contracts instead of Lukoil or Total. Nor do they depend on the amount of oil that the United

Continued...

Al Capone's mug shot, one of several, from an excellent online gallery, at Gang Rule. Mugs, portraits, and assorted photographs from the decades when gang and mafia rule in New York was unquestioned.

Wild Honey and Gold

Today's Quotation from Today in Literature's Email Newsletter

Wild honey smells of freedom
The dust-of sunlight
The mouth of a young girl, like a violet
But gold-smells of nothing....

- - Anna Akhmatova ("Wild Honey Smells of Freedom"), born this June 23,1889

In an unusually intense blast of carping, even for him, Jimmy Breslin threatened a couple of days ago to "leave" the news business.

Well not exactly. More accurately, Breslin said that because of The Terror that the current Fascist US government is inspiring from sea to shining sea, he was "thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore."

Thinking about thinking that it could be... Sigh. No joy here soon. No possibility of a large, restful white space standing in for Breslin's sentimental screeds in my local paper. Well, I guess everyday can't be sunshine.

Still, it is nice to know that Breslin is 'thinking about beginning thinking.' Such is the first step to wisdom.

The cause of Breslin's maudlin despair is that 1) The government is bad because

Continued...

Whitman: How Much Would You Bid?
CBS News | eBay's Bid For Success | June 12, 2003�15:53:46

eBay. Yes, good, old eBay. Your own personal eBay. �You've found and snagged those Trolls you had as a kid. You've gotten rid of all that junk you've been moving from house to house for a decade at a premium. You've nailed that stuffed Jackalope for only $468. Great. Now kick the habit and get clean before your are really addicted.

As more and more people are finding out, the web auction monolith built on "trust" currently only trusts the sellers to keep kicking coins into its bloated coffers. Buyers are left to the not so tender mercies of one of the largest and most rapidly growing centers of online fraud in the Infosphere.

Could eBay clean it up? Yup. Will they? Only if their stock price starts to auger into the ground.

EBay began to drift down in overall dependability about the time it hired the

Continued...

"Why must there always be fightn' and killin'? Why can't there be peace in the blogsphere?"

In a move all too typical of "organisations in transistion," Six Apart, creators of the excellent blog publishing system Movable Type, has taken its first tumble on the long slope towards being a successful company.

Flush with cash and with what looks to be the killer app of blogware MovableType, Six Apart last week sought to enforce the clumsy terms of its license agreement against one Kathy Kinsley. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

As Stephen Den Beste at USS Clueless puts it:

Continued...

CNN reports: Narrow Use of Affirmative Action Preserved: Law school policy upheld; undergrad program overturned

A close decision, but nobody really expected anything else from the branch of government whose motto might as well be: You Complain, We Decide.

In upholding the broader principle but setting guidelines for undergraduate admissions, it seems to me that the court is keeping with, rather than setting the pace of, the improving state of racial equality in the United States.

Tsunami of Pundit Blather and Spew Warning Issued by National Institute for Mental Health

Continued...

Cowgirl Ready for Red Meat Olympics

We've stopped at the Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo. We have eaten their steaks and tipped their waitresses. We have seen the shrine at the front in which, daily, a new example of "The Monster" 72-Ounce steak reigns on a bed of ice. it is a stunning thing to behold and an even more awe inspiring to imagine eating one. It simply doesn't look possible to fit the steak on the ice into your body. We don't care what size body you come with. Big men have tried and failed. Hungry men have tried and failed -- but they were not hungry for days after.

No, it is no small thing to attempt to eat four pounds of beef in an hour. That's why we were stopped cold by the item in Saturday's Washington Post that chronicled a woman's quest to conquer the Big Beef. Described in excruciating

Continued...

Airport Security Remains Porous-Screeners Depart, Officials Alarmed

Dulles International Airport already was losing passenger screeners at a rate of at least one a day, Scott McHugh, the airport's federal security director, wrote in an e-mail to colleagues at other East Coast airports. He said that with fewer workers, the airport was able to screen only 57 percent of checked luggage for explosives.

"Up to now we have been able to hide this fact from the public (and any terrorist surveillance teams)," McHugh wrote in a June 6 e-mail obtained by The Washington Post.

Solution:If we could all be convinced to just travel buck naked and allow our bodies to be slapped on the belt and run through the scanners, all this would clear up pronto.

"On the Side of Life"

Today in Literature reminds us that today marks the day in 1964 when "the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that found Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer to be obscene. This was three years after the book's first publication in America, thirty years since its publication in Europe, and a hundred years since Comstock began to patrol the mails for such "vampire literature." Though but one judgment in a series of significant decisions�most importantly, those concerning Ulysses, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill � the Miller ruling is considered landmark for having led the way to the establishment of a new, more liberal standard in censorship."

Reading a book by Henry Miller, from the Tropic books through the Nexus, Sexus, Plexus trilogy has always struck us as the same sort of an experience you get from sitting up all night drinking coffee with a wordly and fascinating friend. As Today in Literature notes, Miller once wrote of one of his books, "If it was not good, it was true; if it was not artistic, it was sincere; if it was in bad taste, it was on the side of life." The same could be said of Henry Miller as well.

Continued...

Midday Scan / Sunday, June 22, 2003

Yes, it's the same old song, but it seems so different since Yasser's been gone. Doesn't it?

Quartet resolute on Mideast peace
Israelis kill top Hamas member in West Bank

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Representatives of the so-called Mideast quartet presented a united front Sunday in support of the road map for peace in the Middle East, despite an increase in violence in the region.

"We have to keep moving forward," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters after meeting with leaders from the United Nations, the European Union and Russia as a World Economic Forum was getting under way on the shores of the Dead Sea.

A roadmap that leads straight to the shores of the Dead Sea? Haven't we been through this movie before?

---

Time to ramp up opium and marijuana production yet again in Afghanistan and Mexico.

US to Drop Limits on Drug Imports by Poor Countries

VOA News

22 Jun 2003, 15:01 UTC
The United States has agreed to ease restrictions that limit the ability of poorer nations to import patented drugs used to treat life-threatening diseases.

Such as boredom, ennui, and a crawling need for a shot of dope.

---

D-oh News of the Day, Week, Month, Year...

Amazon.com wild about Harry Potter
Web bookseller gets 1.3 million advance orders
Puh-lease! Wake us when it is all over. In fact, 1.3 million orders seems a bit light

Continued...

Ellen Petro smoking pipe
by Frank Michael Hohenberger

"Hohenberger was born in Ohio in 1876 and orphaned at five years of age. He spent his boyhood as a printing apprentice and later worked several years on newspapers in Dayton, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, and finally for the Indianapolis Star.

"Composing rooms and newspapers could not hold his attention. In 1917 he left Indianapolis to start a small photography business in Nashville, Indiana, concentrating on the subject matter of Brown County. The next forty-seven years were spent recording the life, customs, and scenes of the hills of Brown County, of other areas of Indiana, of Kentucky, of South Carolina, and of Mexico."

A bit more than a year ago the esteemed Philadelphia Museum of Art tuned 125 years old. In honor of that milestone, collectors and patrons gave a wide range of new art to the museum. Monet, Steigletz, Joseph Stella and dozens of other artists were represented. The web staff of the museum used this opportunity, and these works, to create a flash gallery that is exceptional for its range and its elegant presentation.

The Joseph Stella gouache above is one of the many blooms in this online bouquet.

Experience all of it HERE.

This week's aptly named Number Two on the Los Angeles Time's Children's Bestsellers List:

2. The Day My Butt Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths (Scholastic, $4.99 paper) A 12-year-old boy's bottom escapes and plots a rebellion, complete with the help of the B-team. Ages 9-12

Victor Davis Hanson on War on National Review Online

The brilliant Hanson continues his prescient observations on the course of the war on terror:

If on the evening of September 11th, an outside observer had predicted that the following would transpire in two years, he would have been considered unhinged: Saddam Hussein gone with the wind; democratic birth pangs in Iraq; the Taliban finished and Mr. Karzai attempting to create constitutional government; Yasser Arafat ostracized by the American government and lord of a dilapidated compound; bin Laden either dead or leading a troglodyte existence; all troops slated to leave Saudi Arabia � and by our own volition, not

Continued...

GREENPEACE AND SIERRA CLUB FUND RAISING UP IN SMOKE IN SUMMERHAVEN

Wildfire Burns 200 to 250 Homes in Southern Arizona Mountain Hamlet

TUCSON, Ariz. June 19 �
A wildfire driven by winds up to 60 mph roared through a southern Arizona mountain community Thursday, burning 200 to 250 homes, a fire official said.

It took less than an hour for the fire to tear through an area of Summerhaven with about 500 homes, burning some and sparing others, said Larry Humphrey, commander of the team directing the fight against the fire.

---

GROUP HUG FOR BENTON HARBOR DECLARED BY MICHIGAN GOV. JENNY GRAHOLM. COMMUNITY WARMS UP TO COOLING DOWN.

Michigan Gov. Granholm Urges Healing After Surveying Riot-Torn City of Benton Harbor

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. June 19 �
Gov. Jennifer Granholm urged healing and reconciliation Thursday after surveying the damage from two nights of rioting and meeting with leaders in this city plagued by poverty and racial tensions.

"The state must wrap its arms around this community," Granholm said.

---

Continued...

"Yes, you can play.
ANY NUMBER can play a number,
and that number is always an unknown number.
But if you can play unknown numbers
you can sit in on the session."

A good maxim to live by, among many others, is "Never buy what you sell." Advice lost for years to Bill O'Reilly as ten minutes viewing him will tell you.

The FoxNews 800-pound -canary, O'Reilly, has taken on many an opponent in his nightly mudpit. And, surprise, he always emerges triumphant. His pit, his rules, his mike control. Little wonder. But has he at last gone a rant too far in taking on the Blogsphere in general and drawing the attention of James Lileks in particular?

We don't know if Mr. O'Reilly actually reads the Blogsphere, or if he just gets printouts handed to him by one or the other fawning associate producers, but either way, Lileks calls him on his game...

LILEKS: "And you, Mr. Man of the People, Mr. People of the Man, Mr. Street, Mr. Champion of the Little Guy, Mr. Giving-It-Straight, want the Internet to be patrolled? Note: on most unpatrolled polluted waterway, everything does not go. In such a place things are dumped over the side, and after a moment bobbing unnoticed on the surface, they sink to the bottom."

O'Reilly: "For example, the guy who raped and murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from the Boston public library."

Lileks: "Ergo, we should shut down Massachusetts. Or Boston. Or the library. No? Just the internet? Probably so. I live in fear of the day I visit a website that gives me the idea to abuse and kill a child; I�d be powerless to resist such a command, because I saw it ON THE INTERNET.

"And hey, don�t forget that Factor website."

Ouch. That's gotta sting.

And given the speed of the Internet, it will get around and get some of Bill's semi-fans second thoughts about his nightly tirades.

Second thoughts = Channel surfing = Lower ratings.

Mother of Mercy, can this be the end of Bill O'Reilly?

Over on Roger Simon's comment boards the thoughtful and articulate Michael Totten is working his way through the current flavor of Democratic Party Angst:

Do I want a Democrat to win the next election? In the abstract, yes, but in the real world, it depends. I've never voted for a Republican president in my life, and it would be physically difficult for me to do it. But I can't vote for a peacenik. If the Democrats pick a peacenik in the primary who wishes Saddam Hussein were still in power, I will have no choice but to vote for Bush. I'm not going to get on the wrong side of this issue. I would rather break party ranks.

I would choose Joe Lieberman or Dick Gephardt over Bush. I would probably pick John Edwards over Bush, too. I will not vote for Howard Dean or John Kerry, and especially not for Al Sharpton.

It's good to hear someone like Totten looking about for a viable Democrat to vote for. I'll be looking too since I too don't know if I want to break a life long voting record of never voting Republican.

Check that. I just lied. I looked into my heart and realized that right now, today, I desperately want to vote for Bush. And I suspect that there are other deep and secret longings among lifelong Democrats like myself. And I suspect that no matter who the Democrats run there will be a goodly number of people who talk the Demo talk but won't walk the Demo walk when the curtains close behind them on election day.

I looked at Totten's list of likely candidates (two) and realized that old and deep truth of electoral politics: "You gotta beat somebody with somebody."

To my mind the Democrats have got Nobody... and they KNOW IT.

Hence, since they still have to beat somebody with somebody, they are trying to beat Bush with Bush.

And that is very, very Zen.

I suspect that a lot of us are going to be having these small satori's from now on.

On 14th Street

On 14th Street.

This week's special at The Sizzler is an extra helping of attention from your waitperson for the evening:

CORONA, Calif. - A family who angered a waiter at a Norco Sizzler restaurant later was served a few dishes they didn't order: a gallon of maple syrup, raw eggs, and rolls of toilet paper across their lawn and shrubs.

Wayne Keller, 37, wife Darlene, 40, and their two children, had their home and mailbox saturated Saturday with smashed eggs and maple syrup. Their yard was decorated with toilet paper, duct tape and plastic wrap.

Police arrested several people in an SUV parked nearby, and grabbed someone darting out of the bushes.

Officers presented the alleged culprits to the Kellers.

"I can't explain how I felt," said Darlene Keller. "I just said, 'Oh, my God. It's the waiter from the restaurant.'"

Corona police arrested the waiter, his girlfriend and his two younger brothers. Police withheld their names.

Continued...

• August 2009
  
• July 2009
  
• June 2009
  
• May 2009
  
• April 2009
  
• March 2009
  
• February 2009
  
• January 2009
  
• December 2008
  
• November 2008
  
• October 2008
  
• September 2008
  
• August 2008
  
• July 2008
  
• June 2008
  
• May 2008
  
• April 2008
  
• March 2008
  
• February 2008
  
• January 2008
  
• December 2007
  
• November 2007
  
• October 2007
  
• September 2007
  
• August 2007
  
• July 2007
  
• June 2007
  
• May 2007
  
• April 2007
  
• March 2007
  
• February 2007
  
• January 2007
  
• December 2006
  
• November 2006
  
• October 2006
  
• September 2006
  
• August 2006
  
• July 2006
  
• June 2006
  
• May 2006
  
• April 2006
  
• March 2006
  
• February 2006
  
• January 2006
  
• December 2005
  
• November 2005
  
• October 2005
  
• September 2005
  
• August 2005
  
• July 2005
  
• June 2005
  
• May 2005
  
• April 2005
  
• March 2005
  
• February 2005
  
• January 2005
  
• December 2004
  
• November 2004
  
• October 2004
  
• September 2004
  
• August 2004
  
• July 2004
  
• June 2004
  
• May 2004
  
• April 2004
  
• March 2004
  
• February 2004
  
• January 2004
  
• December 2003
  
• November 2003
  
• October 2003
  
• September 2003
  
• August 2003
  
• July 2003
  
• June 2003
  

ZZMike: "One of these day's I'll join a Wal-Mart protest. I'll carry a sign reading "Down With Low Prices!!! Down with Wide Selections!!!" -- AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The Enduring Greatness of Walmart

A classic Daphne truth-telling. Appropriate for today:

I find myself increasingly repulsed by Muslim practices and beliefs. Middle Eastern, African, Asian, American, the country of origin makes no difference. Women and children treated as chattel, genital mutilation, child brides, honor killings, culturally accepted pedophilia, the black drapes and head coverings, no rights, no votes, little to non-existent educational opportunities, no voice, no choices, no recourse. Persecution of homosexuals. Imprisonment, stoning and whipping for morality crimes. Lack of free speech. The foul treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic countries. The demented hatred of Jews. Sharia Law. Wahhabism. Madrasas. Blind obedience to Mullahs. Praying towards Mecca -- a place on the map few will ever see. Individuality is shut down, originality and freedom of the mind discouraged. Islam pisses on human talents that fall outside the dark walls of its faith. Hell, I even dislike their dislike of dogs. -- Scheherazade Needs A New Tale « Jaded Haven

The original novel is mostly mistaught in our universities these days, a

s professors twist Mary Shelley’s themes—and even turn them upside down—to endorse this or that modern attitude or political viewpoint. Of the several reasons why the book is a classic, perhaps the most important is the portrayal of Victor Frankenstein as a compassionate utopian destroyed by hubris. The history of humanity is soaked in blood precisely because we throw ourselves into the pursuit of one utopia after another, determined to perfect this world that cannot be perfected.

Of all centuries, the 20th was the bloodiest because of Hitler’s National Socialism, Lenin’s and Stalin’s and Mao’s and Pol Pot’s and Castro’s versions of Communism; as many as 200 million were murdered or killed in war because of these utopian schemes. Victor Frankenstein, utopian of the first order, hoped to perfect God’s creation, to reanimate the deceased and thus defeat death, and his project could result only in calamity, for it was against the natural law and common sense.

Via KA-CHING!

The Russians think he’s a Putz.

The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.

As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way. -- Editorial: I Told You So – Yes I Did - Galganov.com

Lawrence Auster had Johnson's number 2 years ago:

"Basically LGF seems to consist of Charles Johnson consigning people to oblivion on the basis of no facts and no arguments, followed by Johnson's followers crying, "Yes, Charles, yes! LGF is the greatest website! I'm so proud to be at LGF!", along with various other grunts and one-line ejaculations that convey no intelligible ideas but only assent. So there is the marginalization of the Outsider by the Leader, and the mindless banding together of followers around the Leader based on such marginalization of the Outsider. Sound familiar? I can't say I have ever seen anything remotely resembling this kind of behavior at Brussels Journal. I have, however, seen it in abundance every time I've read "Little Green Footballs" in the few days that I've been perusing the site. Take a look at the current LGF thread, "The Mask Comes Off," and see the mindless, mob quality of it." -- The method of Charles Johnson

Dalton Trumbo wore very cool hats.

Dalton Trumbo may have been a good screen-writer. Dalton Trumbo may have been screwed by HUAC. Dalton Trumbo may still be a Hollywood darling and the subject of a recent hagiographic offering by PBS. But I am here to tell you that Dalton Trumbo was also a Communist acolyte of Joseph Stalin, a denier of the gulag, and a maligner of truth-tellers like Koestler and Kravchenko. He was in short a useful idiot member of the American Communist Party. -- Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche: Inbound, from the Internet

Al Gore as our soon-to-be, first carbon billionaire.

Accounts included both his earlier and contemporary angry denials that he was greedy, or had used his vast network of government contacts to influence public loans, contracts, and regulations, in parlaying a 2001 net worth of $2 million apparently into a green empire of several hundred million....

To distill Gorism is to live in a 1,000 sq. ft. solar house, bike to work, and take the train on long distances; but to promote Gorism, one lives in a mansion, jets on private planes, and is chauffeured from airport to conference center—a rather heavy carbon footprint indeed. I mention that because this week he has insisted that he only invested in what he believes in and is thus not a hypocrite—sort of like a 1990s Fannie or Freddie director saying he is only taking mega-bonuses because he believes in public support for housing.

Works and Days » The Discreet Charm of the Left-wing Plutocracy

Worth listening to. Just click play and listen in the background. You'll come back to the foreground often.

At their Monday night poker game in hell, I’ll bet Stalin, Hitler and Mao are kicking themselves: “ ‘It’s about leaving a better planet to our children?’ Why didn’t I think of that?” This is Two-Ply Totalitarianism—no jackboots, no goose steps, just soft and gentle all the way. Nevertheless, occasionally the mask drops and the totalitarian underpinnings become explicit. Take Elizabeth May’s latest promotional poster: “Your parents f*cked up the planet. It’s time to do something about it. Live Green. Vote Green.” As Saskatchewan blogger Kate McMillan pointed out, the tactic of “convincing youth to reject their parents in favour of The Party” is a time-honoured tradition. -- Gullible eager-beaver planet savers - Mark Steyn - Macleans.ca

"Yes, Sir; and from what I have heard of him, one would not wish to sacrifice himself to such a man. If he must always have somebody to drink with him, he should buy a slave, and then he would be sure to have it. They who submit to drink as another pleases, make themselves his slaves."

Paging Newt Gingrich.

The Tea Party world

is still that of genuinely funny things -- not the sour mordancy of Letterman; it is still one of basic fears and simple joys, of aching feet and a welcome ice-cream soda at the end of the day. Some people spend their whole lives trying to get away from it; to forget the memory of people sitting around a sunny porch eating peanuts, to try with various expensive unguents to wash the smell of new-mown grass and two stroke gasoline fumes from their hair. That is what "success" all too often means in certain circles. That and a line of white powder across a table. In the end they may arrive at a palace of chrome and glass, all cold air and ice at some dizzying height above the world. But they must always remember, or forget at their peril, that it is all upborne by truth and human love. -- Belmont Club » Bows and Flows

If you've ever heard the sound

of the old inboard motors in these vintage wooden boats you'll know what I mean when I say heads all over the marina snapped 'round when the twin Chrysler Hemi V-8's caught a spark and roared to life. Idling out and clearing the end of the marina, there was a small voice on one shoulder telling me to start slow and take it easy as the old power plants probably hadn't been run hard in who knows how long. On the other shoulder however was the slightly more insistent voice of "Old Vatted Demerara Rum" saying "Pour the coals to her!" Throwing caution to the wind, I pushed the throttles forward as far as they would go and the old wooden boat surged out of the water and was at top speed as I passed the last dock in the marina and burst into the open water of Lake Washington.

When something of a mechanical nature goes sideways on a boat running at speed.... -- The Demon Rum: « WESTSOUND MODERN

"When was the last time you sat on a couch upside down and looked about the house? Kids do that all the time, and I have done it again and thought, "Whoa - I seriously need to vacuum." And "So that's where that [object/thing] went." -- Mikey commenting on Side-Lines: One of the Burning Questions of Life

What happens next?

The President took a lot of the nation's hopes as political capital into the Big Casino. Now, after sitting at the tables for 9 months, there's only a small pile left of what was once a mountain of chips. Is the next hand going to win him big? Is he going to double down again? Or get up and catch a cab home, in case what's left in his pocket will cover it. Or will he write out a check on the basis of the family farm and spin the wheel of fortune again on the basis of his faith in the fundamental goodness of America's enemies? Order another round of drinks for everybody on the house? Go watch a play on Broadway and keep being Diamond Jim long after all the real diamonds have been hocked for paste? Is there a point where betting on hope means stuck on stupid? -- Belmont Club ｻ Another turn of the wheel

Exurban Jon asks:

With all the advances in scientific knowledge why has no one designed a manlier Kleenex box?

Here's a burning question I was reminded of by the video: do you eat your candy corn in sections? And, if so, do you consider the top to be the yellow part or the white part? I've always seen the little white triangle as the "foot" of the candy corn, but I learned when I designed my costume years ago that most people see it the other way. -- neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Get ready for Candy Corn Day

“Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.” — Rocco Landesman, President Obama’s handpicked chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts -- via KA-CHING!

"It takes no courage for an rich, unbelieving “artist” to piss on Christ. After all, that’s been done before. And Jesus voluntarily submitted himself to much worse, which means nothing an “artist” does to any image of Christ can do anything but reflect on the spiritual poverty of the “artist,” himself. For an “artist” to use Jesus for a cheap joke is about as “courageous” and “bold” as making a joke about George W. Bush before an audience of like-thinkers; it takes no courage at all.

"But for an “artist” to make an identical satirical “joke” on Obama and his adorers? That would take great courage. That would be bold, and daring. And it would speak reassuring volumes about free speech in America.

"I would not want to see it. I would not want to see the image of any American President so ill-used; he’s my president, too.

"But if Larry David could see the humor in pissing on Christ and the excesses of Catholic piety, surely he must see the humor in pissing on Obama, and the excesses of Obama worship?

"Haha. It’s all so funny, isn’t it? Are you laughing? Are you not entertained?" -- via The Anchoress | A First Things Blog

@ KA-CHING!

It's the word of the day @

Urban Dictionary A very deep sleep where you are unable to hear telephones, text messages, and even the Air Force. Named to honor the two fine pilots from Northwest Airlines and there little "in flight snooze"

A measure of the absence of any realistic self-appraisal is

Ms. McCain's failure to grasp that her prominence as a "writer," rather than as a Paris Hilton-style reality show performer, is owed first to her famous father, and second, to the fact that this is the Age of the Idiot.

Idiots have come into their own in a big way, courtesy of depraved consumers, and complicit TV producers and publishers, of pixel and paper alike. The duller you are and the louder you crow in contemporary America, the better you do. Clearly, Meghan McCain is not working with much ─ and is eminently qualified to dim debate in the Age of the Idiot. A familial predisposition, it would seem. John McCain finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy and lost five jets. As IQ ace Steve Sailer once quipped, "To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness." -- By ILANA MERCER

So, okay, it's war. I get it.

The next year, I get a bunch of guys from Pixar to come over and we make the most amazing Halloween lawn you've ever seen, with shitloads of stupid coffins and ghosts and a skeleton playing the piano. We have music, and lights, the whole works. Meanwhile, Larry comes over and brings a bunch of Navy SEAL type guys that he knows. In addition to all the stupid Halloween decorations, we rig up water cannons on the perimeter of the yard and up in the trees, loaded with a mixture of water, bleach and gasoline. We plant IEDs in the lawn, loaded with rock salt, and at each corner we put a dispenser that blasts pepper gel. We lay exposed wires across the lawn carrying enough current to knock you out, but not kill you. Then we put on our black commando outfits, and blacken our faces, and we wait. -- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

Watching this will be either the funniest or most disgusting 2-minutes of your day.

Iowahawk breaks tradition and endorses Douglas Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate for the US Congress in New York's 23rd district. Why? Because....

"Canuck reader Maryann Crabtree forwards this photo of the candidate posing proudly in front of his Two Lane Blacktop - worthy 1955 Chevy 210 2-door sedan. Note missing rear bumper. Note radiused rear wheel well. Note nose-up gasser stance. Note the all-bidness custom paint, which appears to be a blend of Hugger Orange and Riverside Red. An educated guess tells me that lurking under the hood is a high winding destroked 301 small block, mating a 2-bolt main 327 with a 283 crank, with a set of Doug Thorley or Hooker headers huffing through glass packs. White ball Hurst shifter atop a Muncie 4-speed, natch. Visual cues indicate this photo was taken circa 1969; thus, while his Congressional cohort was tripping on brown acid in the mud at Max Yasgur's farm, Mr. Hoffman was gearslamming down the quarter mile at Fulton Speedway. (via iowahawk: Iowahawk Endorses ) @ Van der Leun

If you've ever seen the History Channel series Ax Men,

filmed in and around these counties, understand that the foul mouthed, hot tempered, illiterate rednecks featured on this show are the creme de la creme of mossback society. Supported mostly by what is left of the logging industry in these parts, they live largely in dilapidated singlewides surrounded by clearcut woodlands and collections of the rusted remains of every car, truck, motor, transmission, and assorted piece of machinery or scrap metal that have been handed down through generations from father to son. To a city boy like I was at the time, they were suspect in every way. Which leads me to the proverbial hole in the donut of this tale. -- WESTSOUND MODERN

KaChing!

The Spirit of Ecstasy

is the name of the hood ornament on Rolls-Royce cars. It is in the form of a woman leaning forwards with her arms outstretched behind and above her. The Spirit of Ecstasy carries with it a story about a secret passion between John Walter Edward Scott-Montagu and his secret love Eleanor Velasco Thornton, his secretary. -- Best of Wikipedia

.... because Peggy Noonan is terrified to get it. neo-neocon Noonan and Obama: public and private selves

What Noonan is so far refusing to understand is that, although Obama is narcissistic and likes adulation, he's not primarily interested in popularity -- except as a tool to policy. Policy is paramount, and his goal is not to be responsive to what the American people want, nor to hear their actual concerns and then to shape policy around them. His goal is to tell them what they want, to lie if required, to silence and ridicule and chastise and threaten the opposition, and if necessary to pull every political trick he can get away with in order to ram his agenda down our recalcitrant throats.

Why neo-neocon is not writing a column for the Wall Street Journal is a mystery that passeth all understanding.

The first and most important thing is for the impostor to claim the motivation of revolutionary impulses.

That way even those who know he is lying will think he is lying in a “good” cause. If the last refuge of scoundrels is the flag, the ultimate protective banner is the Red Flag. Hannah Arendt once wrote “Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear.” Find the hole in your audience’s brain and drive your truck of manure through it.

The second rule is to put forward the most extravagant claims.

Don’t be half-assed about lying. The more extravagant the fib the better. A sufficiently resourceful fraud clears his path of unbelievers by sheer audacity alone. Tell a big enough lie and no one would believe you could be so bold. As the fictional Rudolf Rassendyl proved in the Prisoner of Zenda that it is better to pass yourself off as King of Ruritania rather than a minor noble. A minor noble may be questioned, but the King will not be. It is all or nothing. And given that no one wants to tug at the Royal Robe to see if it is real ermine, the fraudster often gets it “all”.

The third rule is that when questioned, destroy the questioner.

When impersonating the King be determined to have everyone who doubts your identity thrown in the tower for treason. Once you succeed in beheading the first challenger there will be no second challenges.

The fourth rule is the most important. Avoid trying to bluff those who are too big to be faced down.

What undid both Fairey and Ward Churchill was that they didn’t know when to stop their imposture. They finally took it too far. Fairey, who had been successful up to that point tried to bluff his way past a major news organization and failed. Ward Churchill was already a professor when he made his “little Eichmanns” speech after 9/11 unleashed a tide of outrage he couldn’t outface. If Fairey had not launched his poster and Churchill had not made his “little Eichmanns” speech, they might still be intellectuals in good standing.

-- Belmont Club » Honest as the day is long

Anderson Cooper:

I have an uneasy feeling only 10 months into the new administration that we're beginning to see the symptoms of this same kind of animus developing in the Obama administration. And as those of use who served in the Nixon administration know, that can get you in a lot of trouble... Don't create an enemies list." -- Anderson Cooper Compares Obama to Nixon, Spotlights Declining Approval Ratings | NewsBusters.org

Archives

• Links
• Links

• Hillary Lite
• Dennis Miller on Howard Dean: He Shoots, He Scores!
• "Throw your computers into the eyes of children..."
• The Three Deadly Elements
• Urban-American Gothic
• On books promiscuously read
• Nothing is Random
• The Filing Cabinet from Hell
• The Layman's Rule
• Cuba: Pimping Children for Cash
• Target: Design in American Now
• Beer with a Bad Attitude
• Whines of the Real Freeloaders
• Another Reason to Never Fly Anywhere Ever Again
• Reports of Our Demise Premature
• Bottled Water a Mixed Blessing
• The Bridge
• Cynicism vs. Skepticism in the Media
• Of course it's about the oil, but not in the way you think
• Scarface and Friends on Camera