Come for the legislation, stay for the snuff

According to the Guardian, smoking has been banned in the British House of Commons since 1693, well before the invention of California, but snuff is not only not banned, but is available free to members, not that many have taken advantage of it since Churchill retired in 1964. Indeed, the supplier reports that there have been no re-orders for 7 years. The Guardian is going to ask some poor MP to try it and report back, and I will pass the information along.

Thursday's Washington Post explains the nature of the dealings between the White House and the Salvation Army.

Perhaps I'm wrong in connecting two stories on the same page in today's NY Times, but it seems as if China is proving its capability of staging the Olympics Games by staging war games off Taiwan. Now remember, IOC, a vote for Beijing is a vote for mass deportations of beggars, mass arrests of dissidents and mass slaughter of stray (and other) dogs.

I haven't talked about Gary Condit yet. I'm tired of police engaging in public relations exercises and making deals with other people's PR people, such as whatever deal required them to say over and over that Condit was not a suspect. Of course he is.

Did anyone else see that thing at Kennebunkport, where Bush was asked about Putin and said something about Putin being concerned with extremism and Bush was too, where it was obvious that any follow-up question would have exposed that Bush had no idea what he was talking about?