A wartime....visionary?

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: Pakistani dictator Musharaf calls for a holy war against extremism.

Another bit of dissonance in the Sunday WaPo: one article says Bush will present himself in the State of the Union speech as being above politics, “a wartime visionary who stands above the fray of politics -- the commander in chief, not a candidate.”
And then there’s this article, saying that Bush plans to run attack ads in support of Congressional candidates, quite possibly illegal under campaign finance laws, calling their opponents soft on national security.

Presumably Bush means that anything he does is by definition above politics and above criticism. It’s gonna be a long election year.

Has anyone seen pictures of the art installation in Stockholm that the Israeli ambassador attacked? A suicide bomber as Snow White. O....K.... There exists footage of the incident, but I haven’t seen that either.

More details on last week’s female suicide bomber: her husband drove her to the scene. She thought that if he also blew himself up at a later date, she’d be one of the 70 nymphs greeting him in paradise. I can understand wanting to have 70 nymphs, but wanting to be one of them?

The move to ban Muslim female pupils wearing the hijab is spreading throughout Europe. Belgium and I forget which German state (Bavaria?) are talking about it.

Your State of the Union speech drinking game, sort of.

According to the Sunday Times, one of the candidates in Russia’s presidential elections, owner of the largest drug company in Russia, admits he doesn’t want to be president and will vote for Putin himself, and his only purpose is to help increase turnout to 50%. “I am running just because, without candidates other than Putin, this election could not take place.” Makes you feel warm all over about Russian democracy, doesn’t it? Of course, he’s just exhibiting the sort of attitude that Shrub thinks his own opponents should (and too often do).

Scientists say there is a reason Russians get so drunk. They metabolize alcohol differently, getting drunk faster, staying drunk longer, and becoming more depressed and aggressive when drunk. They inherited the gene for this from the Mongolians, who developed an enzyme to break down alcohol from fermented mare’s milk rather than grape- and grain-based alcohol.