If he does perform, nobody will remember it

Up until today, all of the dead in the Cartoon Wars were protestors, usually killed by private or state security forces, including the 10 in Libya yesterday. So the score was Allah 0, Thor 25 or 30 (why is no one keeping a running tally?). Saturday’s deaths in Nigeria, however, 16 plus, were mostly Christians killed by Muslims, and the arson targets were not Scandinavian embassies or KFCs (which I understand can burn for over 10 years) but Christian churches and Christian-owned shops.

And the bounty on the head of the Danish cartoonist is now over $10m. The latest top-up comes from an official of the state government of Uttar Pradesh, India, the... wait for it... minister of minority welfare, a man who rejoices in the name Mohamed Yaqoob Qureshi. In fact, he shares that last name with the Pakistani cleric who announced the $1-million-and-a-car reward Friday. Hmm.

René Préval has negotiated with the Haitian electoral commission to avoid a run-off by ignoring the (suspiciously numerous) blank ballots, pushing him over the 50% threshold. The American ambassador says that it only matters that the election laws were flouted if Préval does a bad job in office. “If he does perform, nobody will remember it.” This is a man who works for George W. Bush. Ambassador Carney, pushing for the continued exile of Aristide, says that the elections “confirmed that Aristide is a man of the past, unlikely to have any role in Haiti’s future.” Not quite sure how he comes to that particular conclusion. Was there also a ballot measure, Is Jean-Bertrand Aristide a man of the past, yes or no, that I haven’t heard about?

Harry Hutton on who’s worse, Tony Blair or Hitler (I won’t spoil it for you by revealing the answer).

The LAT on regulations quietly, some would say stealthily, issued by the Bushies that eliminate consumers’ rights to sue over dangerous products. The article also discusses Bushie efforts to overturn state regulations on such things as emissions standards, privacy, or credit card disclosure. Not only a must-read, but a why-the-hell-haven’t-we-read-this-before?

And welcome to the Monkeysphere, or possibly spherical monkeys.