If Philip means horse-lover, what does Strom mean?

Sorry, did I say “what a prince” about Strom Thurmond? I meant grand dragon.

It has been pointed out that Strom (at 22) having sex with a 15- or 16-year old black servant was not illegal under the stat rape or miscegenation laws in effect at the time, but that Strom as a judge in 1942 sentenced a black man to the electric chair for raping a white woman.

A feminist group in Britain has pointed out that for seats it might actually win, the Tory party has selected more candidates named Philip than women with any name. Philip, The Times helpfully points out, means horse-lover.

A Central American semi-free trade pact is being cobbled together without anything resembling public discussion or news coverage in the US. I say semi because most of the free trade concessions will be on their side--they have to sell us their phone systems, and not try to make generic versions of our drugs--while we don’t have to actually take their exports. I haven’t paid enough attention to the details myself to know why they’d want this thing. Costa Rica just pulled out, leaving only those countries that received heavy CIA attention in the 1980s.

Taiwan bans the sale of dog meat.

The governor of Connecticut John Rowland, caught with his hands in the cookie jar for the umpteenth time in his career, says that God doesn’t want him to resign. His wife compared the newspaper which uncovered his lies to “grinches who have stolen our tree.”

Diebold, the voting machine company, employs a bunch of convicted felons including purveyors of fraudulent stocks, and falsifiers of computer records. Swell.