Spiked

Spike Milligan has died at 83, the last Goon. Ying tong iddle i po, laddy, ying tong iddle i po.

Rummy Rumsfeld admits there isn’t enough evidence to charge anyone held at Stalag X-Ray, but doesn’t see why that should stop him detaining them indefinitely.

It’s spring and the political commercials are in the air. Bill Jones, or is it Bill Simon, attacks Riordan for not being Republican enough (just about the only ad to mention political party, even though these are primary elections), and says his (Jones or Simons’) heroes are Reagan, Bush (he doesn’t say which one) and Guiliani--who has over the years also been attacked for not being Republican enough. Someone, I think running for Controller, talks about having experience in business, academia and government. Just can’t hold a job. Most interestingly, Riordan is attacking Simon for not having voted all that often. What’s interesting there is that Simon has never held a government job of any sort, but Riordan doesn’t call him unqualified for that, just for not voting.

I’ve talked about Charles Pickering, Bush’s awful nominee for the 5th Circuit. Incidentally, I did a quickie research job last week and failed to figure out what he testified to in that Klan trial in 1967. Well his son, Chip Pickering, a sitting Congresscritter for Mississippi, just had his district hand-tailored for him by an all-Republican panel of the 5th Circuit, and the appeal of his opponent, another incumbent, one Ronnie Snows, was turned down by Pickering’s friend, Fat Tony Scalia. This after the Justice Dept delayed issuing the legally mandated preclearance for the redistricting in order to hand the job over to the court. This one smells rather bad.