What the butler held

Something I missed: GeeDubya repeated the charge that D’s in the Senate don’t care about national security, for the third time, the day before the election.

An op-ed piece in the Post says that the D’s lost the battle of ideas. Of course R ideas are pretty much “Iraq bad, fire good.” A bit like losing an arm wrestling contest with Stephen Hawking.

The memoryhole.org site includes some stuff purged by the Bushies from the NIH website: evidence countering the urban myth that abortion increases the likelihood of breast cancer, on the effectiveness of condoms, on sex education programs....

2 items today in the I Told You So department: the UN resolution on Iraq was indeed written so that France & Russia can say it requires a second vote before war begins but the US & Britain will say it does not.

And on the DC snipers, Ashcroft not only chose the state, but even the counties, in which to prosecute, solely on the basis of the likelihood of execution. Evidently he had the power to do this not because of any law, god forbid, but for no other reason than that the prisoners were in federal custody. This is how a legal lynching begins. Sentence first, verdict second, trial we might as well skip.

On Iraq, the US ambassador to the UN, the war criminal John Negroponte says “noncompliance is no longer an option.” Bush admin people are using that “not an option” construction way way too often.

Princess Di’s butler is spilling the beans to the tabloids. What’s with all the homosexual rapes among the palace staff? I know royal gossip is the reason you all read these emails, so here’s a paragraph from the Guardian:

Among Burrell's revelations we learned that when Charles was in hospital and needed a wee, he got his valet to hold the bottle. I suppose it's better than Charles holding the bottle and the valet doing the other bit. "Shall I give it a little shake now, Your Majesty?" We also learned that Diana had a crush on Dr Hasnat Khan, and turned up at his house wearing a sumptuous fur coat under which she was completely naked. The great British public were appalled by this. They don't mind their future queen having it off with all and sundry and jeopardising the future of the monarchy; but wearing fur, well, that's just beyond the pale. Diana also had lovers smuggled into Kensington Palace in the boot of her car. Except on the nights when no one was available, when she went to bed with a spare wheel and a load of newspapers that they'd been meaning to take for recycling.

Also, Burrell would keep the queen company while she watched tv, only he wasn’t allowed to sit down. Queen Victoria used to do this to Gladstone, without the tv obviously.

Guardian headline: “Powell Says US Sensitive to Arabs.” Is that like being allergic to them, like shellfish?

Capitalist entrepreneurs are now allowed to join the Chinese Communist Party. Evidently they’re “workers” too.

A Nevada referendum banned gay marriages. Must...avoid... Sigfried and Roy...joke...

I don’t know how many of you are interested in this, but here’s a rather good piece on homophobia in British politics, and how the Tory party, bizarrely enough, is being shattered by the homosexuals.

The British government is planning to force people in motorized wheel chairs to take out collision insurance.

WaPo on redistricting and why almost all the Congressional incumbents managed to be re-elected.

Nord-Est, the Russian musical interrupted so rudely by the Chechen hostage-takers, is performed again, as a requiem. That must be a weird experience, given that it’s a musical comedy.