Blurred & tarnished

UN Sec Gen Annan says there could be a UN-mandated multinational force in Iraq commanded by the US. Why do we need a United Nations, again?

The judge tossed out Fox News’s suit against Al Franken. Fox said his use of their copyrighted phrase “fair and balanced” would “blur and tarnish” it. That would actually be a much more appropriate motto. Fox: Blurred and Tarnished.

India’s Hindu nationalist government plans to outlaw killing (sacred) cows. Evidently most Indian states already have. From The Times: “Last year five low-caste men were lynched by a Hindu mob in a northern town after a rumour spread that they had killed a cow: officials at the time ordered an autopsy on the animal, but not the men.”

The name of Israel’s newest program of assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders: Fine Tuning 1. Other recent ops: Operation Wheels of Momentum, Operations Root Canal One, Two and Three, and Operation Maybe This Time. The newspaper Maariv published a...wait for it...deck of cards with 34 people.

Incidentally, Hamas, while certainly a terrorist organization, also feeds people under intense economic pressure from Israel, who no one else bothers to feed. Bush and Israel are trying to get everybody (read: Europe) to freeze Hamas funds, the effect of which would be as bad as the attacks on UN aid workers in Iraq which Bush deplored yesterday.

New history texts for Russian schools suck up to Putin. Here’s a quote: “Coming after Yeltsin, who was rarely seen and could hardly move, Putin made a positive impression: young, self- disciplined and driven by tireless energy.”

On narrowing of the right to abortion in Russia.