Still thinking in pre-9/11 terms

Gray Davis’s ads keep telling us that California rose from the 7th to the 5th largest economy in the world under him. Actually, thanks to the dotcom bust, we’ve dropped behind France. But a Davis spokesman says “We will not surrender.” Fortunately, as ever, France will. “We won’t fight about numbers,” said the Chief Stereotype Upholder at the French Consulate.

What Davis isn’t bragging about is that the California state fish (!), the California golden trout, is becoming endangered. Oddly enough, if it gets listed, the government will tell the California golden trout who they can fuck, because evidently the problem is in part that they are miscegenating with other breeds of trout. And then how do you bring up the children? All very Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Still no word on making the banana slug the official state mollusk, a bill for which was vetoed by Deukmejian, as you will all recall.

Unclear on the concept: the FEC fines the Democratic Party $243,000 for accepting $1,000,000 in illegal campaign contributions in 1996.

Israeli troops are tearing up Arafat’s headquarters around him, and replace the Palestinian flag with an Israeli one. Not terribly subtle, the Israelis.

A cute piece in the Wash Post on how Texas still doesn’t see what the big deal is about executing people, and candidates routinely accuse each other of being soft on executing the retarded.

Maureen Dowd has the perfect analogy for Bush’s streamrollering tactics for his war on Iraq: “Bush is like the guy who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom.” And a quote from Rumsfeld I’d missed: "I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back in the 20th century and still thinking in pre-9/11 terms." Didn’t we already bomb a country because we blamed it for bin Laden? How many countries can we blame for the same thing? Isn’t going after Iraq like the FBI continuing to name different people as the “20th hijacker”?

Can you believe that Union Carbide still isn’t telling Bhopal exactly what chemicals it released 18 years ago?