Bush on Zimbabwe elections: “The US will not recognize the outcome of the election because we think it’s flawed.” And he should know.

At the same press conference, he castigated Iraq for having weapons of mass destruction, and threatened it with nukes.

Elsewhere, Captain Hypocrite said “I understand that the unrest in the Middle East creates unrest throughout the region.” Quite.

In a remark characterized by the press as a severe criticism of Israel, Bush called Ariel Sharon an evil-doer. No, of course not, he said that his actions (massive military incursions, machine-gunning an Italian reporter, etc etc) were “not helpful.”

In a measure virtually unreported, the House, instead of attempting again to outlaw late-term abortions, voted to define an aborted fetus with a heartbeat or a breath as a person, in the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.”

I believe Tom Ridge’s color for the day is still yellow. After the announcement of the color-coding scheme on Tuesday, Chris and I did our part in being alert at a yellow level by carefully searching the Atlantic Casino for Osama bin Laden. He wasn’t there. Jon Stewart suggested that the new system allows one to coordinate the color of one’s clothes with one’s level of panic.

According to the OAU and South African observers, the Zimbabwean elections were perfectly ok. I don’t know if this is better or worse, but the reason for this may be less about what constitutes a fair election than South Africa not wanting to see a civil war that it might have to intervene in when Mugabe refused to give up office peacefully. One problem is that Mugabe might really have won a fair election, not that we’ll ever know.

A German art historian claims to know who the Mona Lisa really was.

Rumor is, Tipper Gore is planning to run for the Senate.

In Saudi Arabia, the religious police beat some girl students for not wearing properly modest garb, and force them back into their school. It was on fire at the time. 15 die.

Missed the big Paula Jones/Tonya Harding fight. I understand that Amy Fischer was originally supposed to participate, but wasn’t allowed to by her parole board. The NY Times commented that this just shows that all celebrities should have parole boards.

Yes, that’s what Yugoslavia really needed: a new name.

The Tom Ridge color of the day is purple: be afraid, be very afraid.