UCSC committed suicide today, if you haven't heard, voting to require grades. No decision yet on whether narrative evaluations survive, but if so they will be gone within five years, I would guess.

George II's ads, the only ads he's running here so far that I've seen, are directed at McCain, telling him that he can disagree with him, but can't attack Bush's integrity. I can't for the life of me think why he thinks his integrity is out of bounds. He looks very determined in this ad; his eyes are squinting and you can hear this little voice in his head telling him "don't smirk don't smirk don't smirk."

The Paris newspaper Liberation has horrified French snobs everywhere (60 million and counting) for praising the cuisine of a restaurant with an imported Scottish chef, introducing some of the worst cuisine in Europe to the frogs-leg crowd, such as chicken in 7-Up, chocolate-filled ravioli, and the height of Glaswegian cuisine, the deep-fried Mars bar.

At the Harlem debate, Gore still refused to ask Clinton to sign an executive order ending racial profiling and accused the state of New Jersey of "practically inventing racial profiling." That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the former senator from the state of Tennessee is accusing New Jersey of racism. Bradley was too polite to bring up that whole lynching thing.

Bush II keeps talking about Democrats "hijacking" the Michigan primary to vote for his opponent. I hope Al Gore stuffs those words back down his throat when he starts appealing to the voters who might actually elect him president in November, the ones to the left of Pat Robertson. More to the point, did anyone tell him that 35% of Michigan's registered voters are independents? This is what happens in a state with open primaries. He should really watch who he keeps insulting.

I've been thinking about diplomatic immunity today. The feds recently arrested an INS agent who spied for Cuba. Actually, if he told Cuba anything, it was about some of their military people who were thinking of defecting. That may be wrong, but why should it be illegal? That the US is trying to bribe members of another country's military may be one of our secrets, but really he was just telling another country that one of their citizens was about to commit a crime. Now if he'd told Colombia about drug traffickers...

OK, so they arrest him and then tell his Cuban diplomatic contact to leave the country. The Cuban refuses. He is after all, the witness for the defense. He's got a point. Should the US be allowed to make its case by deporting witnesses for the other side? But if he has diplomatic immunity, should be be able to testify when there is no perjury penalty hanging over him? In either case, the US has given him until Saturday to leave, at which point he reverts to civilian status. My question is whether they can then arrest him for spying. The real question is, of what does diplomatic immunity consist? Does it turn a crime into a non-crime, in the way that a police officer is allowed to speed? Or is it more like a statute of limitations, where something remains a crime, but the perp can be prosecuted on one side of a line but not the other? If that is the case, then he can be prosecuted the minute his immunity lapses.