In case you thought Iran was going to rejoin civilization, the mad mullahs rule that a woman should be flogged 100 times and then stoned while buried up to her neck (men are buried up to their waist and if they have confessed and can escape, they go free). Evidently the size of the stones is carefully regulated. If she survives, which she won't, she gets 16 years in jail. It's for adultery and murder, if that matters, although last month a woman was stoned to death for acting in porno films. Everyone's a critic.

That whole squeaky clean Vicente Fox was trying for didn't last very long. Elected on an austerity campaign, he is refurbishing the presidential mansion, and I really would like to know what you get if you spend $443 each on bath towels. The remote control curtains are $19,000 each.

Sony, the company recently discovered to have invented fake reviewers for its print ads and fake "real people" for its commercials, has rented some real US Army Rangers and combat helicopters for a Ridley Scott film. Better yet, the US military is being deployed in a foreign country--Morocco--on behalf of a movie studio.

Ethnic cleansing comes to Macedonia. Serbs are rioting because of a cease-fire. And that's the side we're on.