The US is appealing the decision of an immigration judge to grant political asylum to a Thai Buddhist monk who the Thais previously asked to be extradited on charges of insulting church and government leaders and wearing monk's robes. Nope, no possibility of persecution there.

In Arizona, a bunch of men wearing ski masks and carrying guns broke into a home, shot a man and his wife, tied up someone else, all in front of 3 children. They were bounty hunters. In AZ, anyone can bounty hunt, without a permit, and are allowed to break down doors and use guns, although killing people is frowned upon. Incidentally, and you knew this was coming, they were in the wrong house.

Biljana Plavsic, the president of the Bosnian Serbs whom the US is supporting for no very good reason except that she isn't Karadzic, has founded a new party and promised to emulate King Peter, who came to the throne in 1903 after his immediate predecessor was dragged out of a cupboard, chopped into bits, and defenestrated.

The Jewish gang problem in Alabama

A piece in today's NY Times on my favorite wacky governor Fob James led me to check the Alabama ACLU site, where I found the following:

Jewish Parents Sue Alabama School System For Persecuting Their Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 14, 1997

MONTGOMERY, AL -- The Jewish parents of four public school students have sued an Alabama school system for violating their children's religious freedom, citing dozens of incidents when students, teachers and school officials persecuted their children for being Jews.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, which represents the family, argues that the Pike County School Board and administrators violated the constitutional right of the students to freely excercise their religion. In addition, the lawsuit says the district failed to stop the harassment, intimidation and threats to the students because of their religion and violated the constitutional prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

The lawsuit, filed August 4th in U. S. District Court for the Middle District in Alabama, was brought on behalf of the children of Sue and Wayne Willis of Pike County. Mr. and Mrs. Willis are Jewish and are raising their children in the Jewish faith.

The Willis children attend Pike County Elementary and Pike County High School. Over the last several years, the lawsuit says, their religious faith has been denigrated repeatedly by teachers, administrators and students. They have been denied the right to practice their faith while other students freely practice theirs. They have been denied the right to express their religious beliefs while repeatedly being forced to participate in overtly Christian assemblies and classroom activities.

The lawsuit further charges that the Willis children have also been the victims of religious bigotry and anti-Semitic hate crimes at the hands of other students. Faculty, adminstrators and school board members have done nothing to stop this persecution.

Mr. and Mrs. Willis have taken their concerns and complaints to all levels of school personnel and the school board during the last few years. Their efforts have been in vain. In response to a complaint from Mrs. Willis in April of this year, Superintendent John Key suggested that the continual harassment would end if the Willis family would convert to Christianity.

One teacher, in response to Mrs. Willis' plea, explained "If parents will not save souls, we have to."

The following are examples of the religious persecution suffered by the Willis children and the entanglement of the Pike County school system with religion. Included in the lawsuit are:

* The Willis children were forbidden to wear Star of David lapel pins. The teacher claimed the Star of David was a gang symbol. Other children in class were wearing crosses.
* The Willis children were forbidden to participate in physical education class while wearing their yarmulkes.
* Two of the Willis children have been physically assaulted by their classmates because of their religion. On one occasion one of the children was beaten by five or six other students.
* Swastikas have been drawn on their lockers, bookbags and jackets. Their yarmulkes, worn on High Holy Days, have been ripped off their heads and used to play "keep away."
* The children are constantly taunted with jeers such as "Jew boys" and "Jewish jokers." These verbal assaults are particularly venomous after blatantly Christian assemblies. Teachers and administrators have done nothing meaningful to stop these acts of cruelty and threats to physically safety, although they have repeatedly been made aware of them.
* The Willis children were ordered by teachers to bow their heads during Christian prayers, even though the teachers knew the children were Jewish. On at least one occasion a teacher physically forced one of the children to bow his head during the delivery of a prayer in an assembly. The prayer was explicitly Christian. The teacher knew the child was Jewish.
* A vice principal disciplined one Willis child for disrupting class by requring him to compose an essay on the subject "Why Jesus Loves Me."
* One Willis child was sent to wait in the hall during the distribution of Gideon bibles. Classmates called the child names as she left the room. A Gideon representative tried to force the child to take a copy of the Gideon bible and held a cross in front of her face when she explained she did not want one because she was Jewish. The child ran screaming back into the classroom, asking her teacher for help. The teacher did nothing.
* Religious, overtly Christian, classroom activities and assembly presentations are common in the Pike County system. Events like "Birth of Jesus" plays at assembly and "Happy Birthday Jesus" parties in classrooms make the Willis children feel like second-class citizens.
* One local minister, brought in to make a presentation at a school assembly, told the students that anyone who had not accepted Jesus as his or her Savior was doomed to hell. The Willis child in the audience left to jeers from her classmates. She suffered nightmares for weeks.

"These harmful and hateful acts are the product of a culture of religious bigotry which permeates the Pike County school system," said ACLU of Alabama cooperating attorney Pamela Sumners. "They have been perpetrated or tacitly endorsed by the very officials who are duty-bound to operate our schools in a manner which comports with the Constitution and morally bound to operate the schools so that all children are treated equally and with respect."

As Mrs. Willis explained in papers filed with the court, "Every day that I send my children to Pike County schools, I wonder if I am sending them into a war zone. Every day that I send my children to Pike County schools, I feel that the environment threatens every value that my husband and I have tried to teach them at home. I have asked school officials how I can teach my children to be tolerant human beings and not bigots when they are subjected to outright religious persecution and bigotry in school."

The Willis family asked the court to declare that school officials must recognize their right to freely exercise their religion and that school officials have a duty to protect students from harassment and threats based on religious animus. They have also asked the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin the defendants from creating an establishment of religion.

The case is Paul Michael Herring v. Dr. John Key, Superintendent of Pike County Schools.

Copyright 1997, The American Civil Liberties Union

Interesting series beginning today in the LA Times on the failure of laws to control assault weapons. The first one is a little long to send out (3K) but I'll keep it and the subsequent articles around for a week or so and send them out to anyone who missed them. It says that legislators (federal and California) failed to write legislation that would outlaw copycat weapons, so some weapons are sold after major changes like taking the bayonet off or changing the name. Right, changing the name of a gun can make it legal to sell. Also, they refused to ban the most popular weapons, figuring they had too large a constituency. Weapons manufactured before the laws went into effect are allowed to be sold, so the companies worked up a massive stockpile, and items like large-capacity gun clips are imported from other countries, so that no one can prove they weren't made before the law went into effect.

Also a story about the Mexican national who was released from Texas prison after 14 years on death row because the police pressured witnesses, found himself a national hero in Mexico, appeared in a soap opera...and crashed his car killing himself 4 months after he got out of prison. By the way, Rodney King is also back in jail; I think he tried to run his wife over. Some people should learn to stay away from the horseless carriage.

In 1946 Congress revoked an earlier promise by the government to pay Filipino soldiers the same benefits as American soldiers for fighting the Japanese, including the right to emigrate, GI benefits, etc. Congress said that they had been on inactive duty during the war. Half the inactive Filipinos became permanently inactive while inactively strolling through the jungles of Bataan or in inactive Japanese prisoner camps. Some of them are protesting daily in MacArthur Park in LA, which shows their bravery.

By the way, the definition of GI, my little challenge to y'all, provoked by the new Demi Moore vehicle, which by the way opened the same day I believe as the local DA in whatever hick state the Citadel is located in said that setting female recruits on fire wasn't illegal under the hazing laws. GI, as in GI Joe, is a World War II term standing for general issue. What I find fascinating is that a sarcastic, bitter term made it into general parlance without anyone seemingly knowing its origins. My Webster's gives definitions without saying what it stands for. The term is a parody of military bureaucrateze, as in "30 entrenching tools, general issue, for dirt, removal of". The idea is that generals would requisition 1,000 "general issue" soldiers, whom they would think of as generic units, and dispose of them just as offhandedly.

Here's a quote that should sell a million tickets: "Demi Moore gives the performance of her career." The horror, the horror. This is the movie for which she achieved the look Bruce has had for years. Evidently the most quotable line from this movie, which the LA & NY Times both allude to but are unable to quote, is "Suck my dick". So *that's* what she bought with the $12 million from her last movie.

By the way, if she's in the navy, why is the movie called GI Jane?

And here's our quiz of the day. Let's see who amongst you actually knows what G.I. stands for, without actually looking it up.

A new election law is passed for Hong Kong. 1/3 of the seats will represent geographical constituencies, the rest will be elected by "functional constituencies", business and professional bodies and committees of Beijing puppets. For these latter 2/3 seats, 2 million will be disenfranchised (relative to the 1995 elections), with a maximum of 200,000 voting. I think this is unique, a communist government narrowing the franchise and admitting in as many words that it is not based on the people. Also interesting, those 200,000 will be exclusively either millionaires or communists.

An old Israeli scandal is coming to the surface, although I haven't seen anything in any newspaper yet. It seems that in the late 1940s, Yemeni Jewish immigrants were told that their babies had died, and these babies were given to European Jews. 4 graves were just excavated and found to be empty.

Bring out your dead

We mourn today the passing of Roger L. Zeller, noted in the NYT as a "Bowling Ball Innovator" for "revolutionizing bowling ball colors."

I had clipped that for use in just such an e-mail as this one, speculating on what it would be like to be remembered for revolutionizing bowling ball colors. But then I heard of the death of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" woman. At least her family won't have to think too hard about what to put on the tombstone.

Speaking of celebrating the pathetic, Richard Holbrooke was on MacNeil-Lehrer today touting as a major breakthrough his Kissingeresque shuttle diplomacy resulting in agreement in Bosnia on the unification of area codes. No longer will they be divided on ethnic lines when making telephone calls.... Glooooory gloooooory Richard Hooooolbrooke! I have a dream.....

Bumper sticker: I'd rather be smashing imperialism. On a pretty snazzy car, I might add.

"Copland" opens this week. A movie with Robert de Niro and Sylvester Stallone in which *Stallone* gained 40 pounds for the role. I just hope he keeps the weight for Rambo IV.

I've heard tantalizing little hints for years about a colony of Germans, or perhaps a cult of Germans, or, to use the more traditional plural, a blitzkrieg of Germans, living in Chile since 1961, when its leader moved there ahead of child abuse charges related to the orphanage he ran. As is usual for cult leaders, sex with children is always a major doctrinal point, if not a sacrament. Anyway, they're currently under investigation for the disappearance of 112 Chileans. In the 1970s the secret police evidently turned political prisoners over to these Germans for interrogation. [Insert your own painfully obvious joke here]

Happy birthday

To India and Pakistan, 50 years old. In a poll, 1/3 of Pakistanis want some sort of dictatorship and judging by past history won't have long to wait for it. One of India's provinces has as its governor the illiterate wife of a man just indicted for corruption. You don't hear that "world's largest democracy" line much anymore. And the two countries are still engaged in a border dispute over Siachen Glacier, with both sides shooting artillery at each other as they have done since 1984. Imagine a war in the Indian subcontinent in which most of the thousands of fatalities have been from frost-bite and altitude sickness.

Clinton as Reagan

Clinton says of the budget deal that "The sun is rising on America again." An appropriate misappropriation of Reagan's "morning in America" as he prepares to sign into law the Ronald Reagan Wet Dream Budget of 1997. He also said "I believe that together we have fulfilled the responsibility of our generation to take America into a new century." Of course we ain't there yet, but isn't it just like Billy Bob Bubba to take credit for the new century? Hey doughboy, it would actually have happened without you! Isn't there some cliche about the rooster thinking he causes the sun to rise?

The new oldest human being alive is another smoker. The woman who just died quit at 120, saying it was getting to be a habit.

So California failed to execute the possibly innocent guy, despite trying real hard. Next-governor Atty Gen Lungren called the 9th Circuit a "hyperactivist court". Notably, the 7-4 split was exactly along party lines. Notably also, the court's decision to cancel the execution was not based on possible innocence, which would have earned them instant reversal by a Supreme Court that couldn't care less about innocence, but on prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. But here's the important question: what happened to the last dinner? San Quentin was preparing for the execution until 6 pm, it made the dinner (Alaska King Crab, spareribs and a hot fudge sundae, one of the few sensible last dinners I've heard of) but didn't actually give it to him. I think it's the least he deserves for spending most of the day not knowing whether he was going to die that day, but who actually wound up eating this meal or did they just throw it away? Enquiring minds want to know.

A reminder: the 8-year old Panchen Lama is still the world's youngest political prisoner.

Speaking of 8-year olds, one of those dormant Swiss bank accounts belongs to the daughter of the last King of the Sikhs, and may contain documents proving among other things that one of the crown diamonds was stolen from the Sikhs by trickery. Which wouldn't have been very hard, since the king lost his kingdom to the Brits by a treaty he was forced to sign when he was 8. He spent the rest of his life saying, "But I was only 8!"

The British do like to hold on to their grudges, don't they? They are currently ratifying an extradition treaty with Brazil evidently solely for the purpose of then demanding the return of Ronnie Biggs, who perpetrated the Great Train Robbery in 1963.

More crap snuck into the budget bill, which was not printed or put on the Internet before the Congress had to vote on it. A provision to make savings accounts for private schools tax-deductible. Like the voucher idea, but more regressive. There were a full two minutes of debate allotted to that one.

And a provision making the new cigarette taxes applicable towards the fines the tobacco companies are supposed to pay under the settlement.

A Hong Kong court has ruled that the Chinese government's replacement of the elective council by an appointed one is not a matter subject to HK courts, which means the carefully-negotiated Basic Law is effectively null and void.

Also, I trust everyone noticed that Clinton's favorite new bragging point, health care for uninsured children, has a Republican amendment prohibiting abortion. This can have wider effects, since any health plan or HMO they'd be forced into could not offer abortion, as most insurance does.

California is heading towards another execution, now scheduled for August 5. My familiarity with this case isn't that great, probably because I read about it in the LA Times, whose stories all now seem to be written by Dilbertian middle management types: long on vague generalities, short on actual detail. But my impression is that the special circumstance required for a death sentence, rape, is pretty much unproven, and that the conviction in general relied a little too much on prison informants with bad track records, one of whom said the guy confessed but was innacurate on the very same facts that were misreported in the newspapers. If anyone sees something on this, please send it to me.

Alabama has been devastated by Hurricane Danny. Now if it were my home--er, trailer home (Alabama, ya know)--being destroyed, I'd prefer it to be by a hurricane with an adult name. Imagine filling out your insurance forms (again, this is hypothetical--no one in Alabama is literate) on the devastation left by Hurricane Skippy.

Follow-up: the guy who put the Hebrew curse on Rabin a month before he killed, who was convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, was sentenced to 4 months.

Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat: judges in Hong Kong have decided that they will still be called Your Lordship.

A woman in Virginia (but from NC) was arrested after piercing the ears of a baby deer. The earrings, if you were wondering, were zircon.

Next month is California's Breast-Feeding Awareness Month. Be aware. Be very aware.

Favorite LA Times headline: Kennedy Baby Sitter Probe Dropped.

Governor Wilson has been temporarily stopped by the courts from cutting off prenatal services to illegal aliens, but is continuing his crusade to cut off their fishing licenses.

I'm beginning to catch up on the British news I missed while being Webless. The most important seems to be that Jamie Lee Curtis is now Baronness Haden-Guest. Husband Christopher Guest, of Spinal Tap, is the baron. There may be something to hereditary peerships after all.

The Taliban order women not to make so much noise when walking.

The new big thing in India: sacrificing kidnapped children to the gods.

Employees at the Eiffel Tower went on strike defending their right to be rude to foreign tourists, after one is fired for berating and manhandling a vertiginous American.

Mon, 7 Jul 1997

In March I sent out a story about a British law firm that billed the mother of a member of the firm who had hanged himself for their time in discovering the body and so on. Evidently British solicitors, unlike American lawyers, cannot get away with such lawyerliness: the firm was just dissolved by the regulatory body.

Headline from Wash Post: “South Korean President's Son Says He Took Money, Not Bribes.” So that’s all right then.

More on Oklahoma: its obscenity law, which makes no mention of artistic merit, covers anyone *portraying* someone under 18 having sex. Let's all agree to define as obscene anyone over 30 portraying someone under 18, cancel Beverly Hills 90210, declare victory and go home.

The LAPD just had to ban another form of violence against black people, the hogtying of suspects. But according to one cop interviewed by AP, this may mean that cops will have to escalate into a higher level of force. Isn't that the LAPD motto? "Escalating to a higher level of force since 1911"

Chinese president Jiang Zemin says that the example of Hong Kong will provide "the final solution" of the Taiwan question.

Britain's largest remaining colony, by population, is Bermuda. Its largest remaining Pacific colony is Pitcairn Island, pop. 54, the one the Bounty's mutineers settled. This is also their last Pacific colony. The largest remaining colony of any power (unless you count HK as a new Chinese colony, or Tibet, or East Timor), is Puerto Rico.

The Montana Supreme Court overturns the state's ban on gay sex, passed oddly enough in 1973, under a right to privacy derived from the state const.

The California Sup Court says that juvenile felonies can count towards 3 Strikes, although it sounds like the 3rd one must be adult. This includes cases handled by juvenile courts, which means prosecutors rooting around in what were supposed to be sealed records.

Some small nations make money off of stamps. Tonga is making money from a fortunate internet nation domain: .to. It is selling sites to companies that want to be fly.to or pota.to or suchlike.

So Gerald Ford altered the description in the Warren Commission report of the wound that killed Kennedy, hell altered the location, to make sure it gibed with the magic bullet theory.

Mark Shields says that Al Gore is a heartbeat away from the vice presidency.

Andemus Jura Nostra Defendere

Chris asked me about a report of a man in Alabama who responded to a 20-year sentence by giving the judge the finger, and promptly had his sentence increased to life. If anyone runs across this story, which is not in the NY or LA Times or Wash Post today, please send it to me. Also, has anyone heard about this one, which I found in an archive search of the LA Times, but I can't retrieve the original story without paying $1.50 for 64 words:


Nation IN BRIEF; ALABAMA;
Governor Asks Judge to Defy High Court;

Saturday, June 28, 1997
Home Edition
Section: PART A
Type: News Brief
ID:0970057944
Words: 64
Byline: From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Gov. Forrest "Fob" James Jr. urged a federal judge in a school prayer case to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and rule that the Bill of Rights does not apply to states. The high court is plagued by "lawlessness" and must be resisted,

Alabama, by the way, comes from an Indian word meaning Clear the
Thicket, the state motto is We Dare Defend Our Rights (Latin above), and is known as the Heart of Dixie, which inspired a crude but obvious subject line I decided not to use, since the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to them and who knows how they'd come after me. A pickup truck and a deer rifle would probably be involved.

Alabama is also mentioned in my next e-mail.

By the way, the state assembly has passed a law permitting breastfeeding in public. When they make it mandatory, I will be a happy man.

(Later:) I have found the letter from the Alabama governor to the US district court judge. It is 79 screens long, and available at Fob James's web site, which y'all can find as easily as I did if you want the full text, under press releases. It goes on endlessly quoting Madison from the debates around the adoption of the Constitution, the Magna Carta, the history of the oath of office, and all sorts of stuff, forming one of those seamless pieces of logic usually found in statements by militia groups proving that there is no such thing as the income tax, or that guy proving that Stephen King, the bastard, killed John Lennon on the orders of Richard Nixon.

I believe I sent a brief item last week about Oklahoma City police seizing copies of the movie the Tin Drum, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1979, and whose sex scenes are nowhere near as offensive as the one where people eat eel. Those Germans! As long as it's phallic they'll eat it. It seems they actually got Blockbuster to release the names of people who had rented it, including a local ACLU official who had known what was coming, then went to their homes and grabbed the tapes.

Another follow-up: a Belgium court reprimands 2 soldiers who roasted a Somali boy over a brazier. They said it was just a game. A photo of the incident is on the June 24th cover of the Village Voice.

If you want to buy a piece of the moon or mars, try www.moonshop.com.

July 1 in Hong Kong, celebrating the principle that sovereignty over human beings can be leased. All that partying reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death, written the year Britain acquired HK.

The NY Times says 70% of deaths in hospitals are "passive euthanasia" in which treatment is deliberately withheld, and still more are from pain medication given at lethal levels. The problem is, the doctors don't seem to be discussing any of this with the patients, it being illegal and all. I'm in favor of euthanasia and all, but isn't this just a tad too much unchecked power in the hands of people who already think of themselves as gods?

Disney's records company, whatever it's called, just pulled a new CD from Insane Clown Posse (I think I heard that right), which evidently has unpleasant lyrics of the sort which which they do not wish to associate the Disney name. Funny, I'd have thought that a group called the Insane Clown Posse would produce tender love ballads.

You're all probably wondering if I've forgiven the Supreme Court, and the answer is no. The opinion on the internet indecency act was more broadly protective of the 1st Amendment than I'd have expected of this court, and unanimous too. And while I disagree with them politically about assisted suicide, only a loon or a lawyer could find an actual right to assisted suicide in the constitution. I'm also willing to allow it to kill the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, since we already have a perfectly good 1st Amendment. But what is this nonsense about congresscritters not having standing to challenge the line-item veto? If they don't have standing to ask the court to protect the separation of powers, who does? Evidently if Clinton had vetoed their free parking spaces, they could have sued because they lost something tangible, but if their legislative powers are stripped from them, they have no recourse in the courts. An interestingly materialist way to look at something as abstract as constitutional powers. This means Clinton will actually have to veto something before the Court acts. And if he vetoes, say, money to the UN or foreign aid, then no one at all has standing to challenge it, since furriners don't count.

It has been discovered that one of the, er, um, "fellows" at the all-women Newnham College, Cambridge, in fact once was a fellow before one of those operations we men don't like to think about.

From the AP: "Prosecutors have dropped aggravated sexual battery charges in the case of a 9-year old boy who was accused of pressing himself against a girl in a lunch line."

The Kansas case that led to that stupid Supreme Court decision on sexual offenders was worse than I realized. The prisoner involved had served 10 years on a plea bargain. A plea bargain! He could have been sentenced to 180 years if it had gone to trial, but the prosecutor pled it and then, the very same prosecutor went back to get more time via civil commitment.

The Whitewater prosecutor's drones have been interviewing Arkansas state troopers and every woman Clinton's ever been rumored to have slept with (that should drag it out until Clinton's Strom Thurmond's age) about his various affairs. What does Kenneth Starr plan to do, prosecute Clinton for adultery?

Way out there

This week is the 50th anniversary of both Roswell and the murder of Bugsy Siegal (who has a street named after him, although misspelled, in Las Vegas). A coincidence? I think not!

The truth is out there.

Fuck the Supreme Court

Right now I am so pissed off about the sexual predator decision that I don't have room to be pissed off about the decision allowing state teachers to teach in parochial schools.

First, let me point out, as neither the NY Times nor the Washington Post had the bad taste to, the incredible irony of Clarence "Pubic Hair in My Coke" Thomas writing a decision about so-called sexual predators. So people without the legal definition of mental illness can be incarcerated in mental hospitals forever, after serving criminal sentences. Nice to see mental hospitals (doesn't that word imply treatment?) being used for criminal purposes, just like the Soviet Union used to. Thomas says this is not punishment, hence subject to some sort of constitutional protection, such as that against double jeopardy, because it doesn't involve retribution or deterrence. Sure it doesn't. And it's ok that no treatment is on offer, by definition making the incarceration life-long. The people covered by the Kansas law are defined as suffering a mental abnormality or personality disorder that prevents them exercising adequate control over their behaviour. And who in prison does this not apply to? Including most of the guards.

If you're ever in Somalia, don't drink the water, since every UN soldier sent there in 1992 seems to have gone insane in a way that prevented them exercising adequate control over their behaviour. The meek, mild Canadians tortured Somalis, so did the Italians, Belgians roasted a Somalian boy over a brazier (and they will be sentenced this week to as much a month in jail and a $300 fine), and that's the most polite thing I know of Belgians doing; I will spare you the rest. Operation Restore Hope, wasn't that the name?

Hong Kong's currently illegal shadow legislature will not only implement all those awful laws you've been hearing about, but doing so retroactively to the first minute of Chinese rule, so that the demonstrations on the stroke of midnight July 1 will be illegalized ex post facto. The day after this announcement, Britain caved in to Chinese demands that it's troops be allowed in early, presumably so they can be in place to Tiananmen the Hong Kongese.

It's now clear that JFK had truly lousy intelligence during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that armageddon was a lot closer than he ever realized. It also now comes out, from the Russian archives, that there were still 98 tactical nukes in Cuba when Kruschev was promising there weren't. They'd have stayed there, too, but the Cuban foreign minister couldn't keep his mouth shut about them.

I trust you're all following the tobacco settlement ($2 billion for the lawyers! Money so well spent) and the Louisiana implementation of two-tier marriage law (married, and really really married) without my prodding. And of course, the Russian justice minister videoed frolicking with naked women in a mafia sauna. And the sudden realization that since no one ever did anything about a crimes against humanity tribunal, if Pol Pot is ever really arrested, there's no place to try him.

Oh, I think I forgot, when I was making fun last week of the House analysis of the CIA, to mention that one provision of the new intelligence budget is whistleblower protection, for anyone who brings to the attention of Congresscritters, and only those on the appropriate oversight committees, of crimes, fraud and lying to Congress by the intelligence agencies. Clinton has the nerve to threaten to veto the bill because of this provision. Evidently it interferes with his authority to, well, um, presumably to order crimes, fraud and lying to Congress. He gets more Nixonian every year.

McNutrition

During the British McLibel suit just ended, Micky D's senior VP for marketing, answering the charge the their food was not nutritious, said that Coca-Cola is nutricious because it is "providing water, and I think that is part of a balanced diet."

The House Committee on Intelligence thinks the CIA should have more money. Its report says that the CIA lacks analytic depth and that information is collected but not analyzed. Asked to respond, a CIA spokesman, and I am quoting the NY Times here, "said the agency had not seen the panel's report and could not comment on the criticisms it contained." Point taken.

OK, a couple of days ago two Orthodox rabbis in NY were arrested for laundering Colombian drug money, yesterday it was two SF interior decorators. I'm sure there's a pattern here, but I can't think what it might be.

Cardinal O'Connor joined the anti-Disney bandwagon, criticizing the new movie Hercules for I guess promoting the worship of pagan deities. Also, it lacks the homoerotic element he so enjoyed in all those badly-dubbed Italian Hercules movies. (Joke courtesy of the Daily Show)

The Russian Duma passes a bill, sponsored by a Communist yet, establishing the primacy of the Orthodox Church and establishing registration of religions with an aim to illegalizing any activities, including publishing and missionary work, by any sect they dislike. Especially the Baptists.
Probably a joint Disney-Russian Orthodox plot.

Not content with a Prime Minister who models himself after Clinton, Britain's Tory party elects itself a vibrant (cough) young leader, one William Jefferson Hague (yes, really). Mr. Hague was more ambitious at a younger age than even Clinton. When other kids were memorizing football team lineups, he knew by heart the names and constituencies of all 650+ MPs and regularly read Hansard. His mother (who is not a Tory and thinks he should have gone into business) still gave him a Tory party membership for his 15th birthday. When he was 16, he was annoited by Thatcher in a moment akin to little Billy Bob Clinton shaking hands with JFK. He vowed not to have a girlfriend until he became a cabinet minister. By an amazing coincidence, he became the youngest cabinet minister in quite some time. OK, that part's not that much like Clinton, but he has been called Hague the Vague, and now Hague the Younger. But remember, he is completely bald, and that makes me feel better.

Watergate

I think it's CNN that has rented the actual room of the break-in, 25 years ago today, and hired G. Gordon Liddy. What a great career move that burglary was for him; I wonder how the Cubans are doing? The Washington Post is still wallowing in Watergate nostalgia, so you might check out their web-site. I wonder if I'd feel less of a personal connection to all this if Nixon hadn't chosen my birthday to resign on.

My question about the Cubans might be significant, for all I know. Remember Mohammed Hashemi, one of the lesser figures in the Iran-Contra affair? He's been talking to the Sunday Times (of London), and I think has a book coming out. It seems that in 1984 the CIA spirited him out of the country to London after he was charged with 56 counts of various malfeasci (or whatever the plural of malfeasance is), where MI6 put him to work at what he did best, arms dealing. 1st they were trying to buy some Chinese Silkworm missiles, to see how to counter them. They aborted that purchase when the US did it first, but Hashemi wound up brokering the delivery of Chinese weaponry to Iran, in breach of the UN embargo and with MI6's permission for every deal. He sold them those fast motorboats that were used to attack American and British freighters, and the Silkworms used for the same purpose. Basically, he made possible the tanker war of the mid-80s, with all that lead to.

I hope everyone is breaking the barriers in their heart, as Clinton has suggested we do to rid the country of the scourge of racism. I have put "breaking the barriers in my heart" on my To Do list, right after washing the car and having sex with a supermodel.

Hollywood needs another pet cause now that the Dalai Lama has said that homosexuality is a bad thing, along with anal and oral sex (I leave it to your imaginations where these are on my To Do list), but that prostitution is okay, as long as you pay for it yourself. This was presumably to placate Richard "Pretty Woman" Gere.

Clinton is thinking about apologizing for slavery. Bill Maher says he wants to start off by apologizing for things that happened 200 years ago and work up to Paula Jones. Gingrich thinks we shouldn't apologize for slavery because that would just be meaningless "emotional symbolism." He said this the day after the House again passed the flag burning Amendment.
Speaking of which, the shadow Hong Kong legislature has already passed a law providing a penalty of 3-years prison for defacing the Chinese flag.

Stupid criminal tricks

A judge in Michigan resigns after newspaper finds he phoned sex lines 124 times from the courthouse. He says he's quitting "due to continuing difficulties with my hearing." That's probably how he was found out: "SPEAK UP, GIRLY! YOU WANT TO DO WHAT TO MY WHAT?"

And while a Santa Rosa real estate person can't benefit from the insurance he had on the partner he strangled, evidently his son can get the $500,000. This is the famous case where the victim's parrot was heard to utter "Richard, no no no no."

What is it with Alabama politicians lately? How many items have I sent out in the last few months about Alabama? Well, here's another one. Sleazy former governor Guy Hunt is pardoned by the Pardon Board, most of which he appointed, on the grounds that he is totally innocent and didn't really mean to steal $200,000. The only previous time the Board has ever pardoned someone on the grounds of innocence was one of the Scottsboro boys, in 1976, a tad late. But the interesting bit to me was that his original fine was $211,000, payable at a rate of $100 per month. You do the math.

A Spanish court just issued the first ever sentence for cruelty to animals. I forgot what for. But I know it wasn't for bullfighting. Or those people at the festival who force-fed a cow whisky until its heart exploded. Or that guy who likes to hang greyhounds. Or that town that has the festival (hey, this is tourism, folks!) where every year they put the fattest person in town on a donkey and beat the donkey to make it move. Or....

100 years of the Swiss army knife. And remember, if it doesn't have that loud click, it's a cheap Chinese knock-off.

George Bush has decided to be the first president since Truman who didn't actually have his brains splattered all over his wife's pill-box hat not to write his memoirs. On the other hand, Kato Kaelin's memoirs are forthcoming...

Desert droop, indeed

A recent Village Voice movie review said that Wesley Snipes is a very versatile actor who works well with a variety of weapons.

From the Sunday Times (London), which has been doing sex lives of the rich and famous for several weeks now. The last couple of weeks it was Hitler and his niece, and Bertrand Russell at 79 with his son's wife. Beats real news. By the way, does the name Bertie Ahern not sound exactly like someone clearing their throat? The only interesting thing about the Irish election is that Ahern has been shacking up with a woman not his wife.

Jeez, how can I get any work done when the cat is doing her Elmer Fudd impression all over the living room. "Be vewwy vewwy qwiet. I'm hunting dwagonfly."

Duplicity, senility

And you can decide which is which:

Item the first: Yesterday Hong Kong held its probable last-ever commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Amazingly, it was covered by the Chinese media. Oh, of course they reported that it was a celebration of the end of British colonialism, but they did cover it...

Item the second: Strom Thurmond, 3rd in line to the presidency, wrote the foreword to a book which says that all of recent American technology was adapted from the crashed Roswell UFO. The author, who evidently participated in this program while in the military, was an aide to Thurmond, now chair of the armed services committee, so he must be in on it too. Which explains the hair.

The truth is out there.

Paula Jones's lawyer is running for Virginia attorney general, which I'd never have known if I just read the NY Times. He recently got into trouble when one of his former clients reported (or had a tape of? I've already forgotten) him suggesting she pose for Playboy. He excused himself by saying that it was after he'd had a couple of drinks. So that's ok then.

Frank Rich in today's column says that the AMA's sudden switch to support of the bill banning late-term abortions is not without precedent. In 1964 the AMA opposed putting warning labels on cigarettes, trying to get Southern congresscritters to support its opposition to the establishment of Medicare.

After Palestine said that selling land to Jews now carries the death penalty, there was a lot of coverage of the 2 people assassinated, but none of the fact that 12 people have so far been arrested under this law. Which Palestine just extended to cover all Palestinians living in Israel, marking the first time, I believe, it has tried to claim sovereignty over the whole area of Israel.

Speaking of enlightened acts, Israel just sentenced a right-wing Jew under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for having put a curse on Rabin a month before the assassination. It was news to me that Jews even had curses, just like gypsies. Anyone care to speculate on what a Jewish curse would be like?

Just saw the Clinton-Blair summit on tv. I had to turn the "smarm" knob way down.

Blair's "spiritual mentor" at public school turns out to have been a major pedophile.

Your fact of the day: the phrase Peeping Tom comes from the one guy in Coventry who peeped at Lady Godiva. Which makes the term several hundred years old. I just read this in a 1849 book.

Tony Blair may not be reversing any of the disastrous policies of the Thatcher-Major years, but he is setting up a review of the cases of the 307 soldiers executed during World War I for cowardice.

A NY Times story on the many executions in Texas says that the last meal cannot include liquor, cigarettes or bubble gum, as these are against the rules. And no dirt either. Evidently someone once asked. He ate yogurt instead.

Everyone has noticed that the new dictator of Zaire has banned political parties and demonstrations, but I haven't seen much coverage of the Taliban-style decrees banning women from wearing pants and short skirts.

The commerce secretary is trying to get fast-track authority from Congress to add Chile to NAFTA. To do it, he's willing to drop those pesky labor and environmental provisions. By the way, there was supposed to be a report on the environmental impact of the existing NAFTA by now, but Mexico wanted a veto.

A company has denied lead-free, environmentally-friendly bullets. Now when you dump that corpse in the river, you won't be poisoning the water supply. Not with lead, anyway.

The former East German spy chief Markus Wolf, who the government keeps trying to put in jail, is about to publish his memoirs. First revelation: the US offered him $1 million to come on over in 1990. Just like '45 all over again.

Someone copyrighted the phrase "Summer of Love."

Why can't a woman be more like a gay man?

That air force pilot was discussed on Politically Incorrect tonight. Harvey Fierstein says that while she's being court-martialled for lying, gay men are supposed to. So she'd have been ok if she slept with a married woman, but not a married man.

Also, Reagan's son Michael insisted that Bill Clinton's friends all die of gangland-style killings, but he's not drawing any conclusions.

Why can't a woman be more like a man?

Does anyone else think that the court martial of the woman B-52 pilot is actually an elaborate practical joke? I mean, I thought it was amusing that they were charging an unmarried woman with adultery, but today's NY Times says that another part of the charge is conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Speaking of conduct unbecoming, there's a new biography out of Viscount Melbourne, the British prime minister 1834-41. Evidently he beat up his wife and his mistresses pretty regularly, but really got off on whipping children. He encouraged his friends and relatives to leave their children with him so he could "educate" them. He actually had discussions with young Queen Victoria about this. She thought that the practice of beating school boys was degrading, while he said that Eton hadn't flogged him enough. This was before the birth of Victoria's children, so she may have changed her mind later. Edward could probably have benefited from a good paddling in his 50s.

Speaking of mad, bad and dangerous to know (actually originally said about Lord Byron, whose mistress Melbourne's wife had once been--he beat her up too--and who wrote the first vampire literature in the English language)(ok, it's not a great segue, but it's still a segue), Romania has lately taken up Vlad Draculya as a national hero and is quite pissed off at all the fuss over the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker's little book.

Speaking of not treating your citizens very well at all, it seems that 5,000 Russian soldiers are now dying each year. 1,000 are suicides, the rest are, well, hazing. Really really bad hazing.

And speaking of soldiers behaving badly, I trust you are all following the newly-released British intercepts of German radio messages in 1941, indicating that it was not the SS but ordinary German police (well, occupation police, but still police) who killed most of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, starting at the very beginning of the invasion of Russia. This could bring those Holocaust figures up another million.

Bribery made easy

Singapore sentenced a 16-year old to 2 yrs for the crime of possessing a pack of cigarettes. Think all those Southerners who were so enamored of caning are paying attention?

Just what beautiful downtown Ashkhabad (the capital of Turkmenistan, but of course you all knew that) needed: a 240-foot tower topped by a 40-foot revolving statue of President Niyazev. Yup, I knew that skyline needed something.

A followup to my e-mail of December 3:

Secondly, a heart-warming story from the NY Times: a 14-year old girl sets fire to her house after years of physical and sexual abuse such that one could only be sorry she hadn't taken out more of her family. Her father has never visited her in jail but did send a picture of the burned-out house on her birthday. Naturally, the state of Indiana put her in a maximum-security prison ($25,000 a year) instead of the juvenile treatment center ($82k) the judge begged the state to put her in. You're waiting for the punchline, well I've got two: she has found a new mom in the joint, or "the closest thing to a mom I ever had" in another murderer, and second, she has been ordered not to talk about being abused in group therapy sessions because her fellow inmates in the special-needs unit are upset by her stories, since they all abused or killed their children.

The Indiana Court of Appeals now says incarcerating her with adults violates the state Constitution.

The British Parliament is shy 2 members, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness, elected for Sinn Fein from Ulster. They can't take an oath of loyalty to the Queen, so they can't take their seats. On a historical note, the first woman elected to Parliament was also a Sinn Feiner, and therefore was not technically the first woman MP, who was another damn foreigner, Nancy Astor. I don't know why they couldn't just take the oath with their fingers crossed; after all, Labour MP Tony Banks did...

I don't expect much from Tony Blair, although if Scotland gets its own Parliament again it may be worth it. I especially don't expect much on the civil rights front, given that the new Home Secretary Jack Straw is as rabid as the last one, about whom more anon, in the same way that Janet Reno is a worse Attorney General than whoever held that job under Bush (I know she's worse since I can't remember his name). But there might be some improvement on immigration. Amazingly, the Tories were sending 97% of Algerian asylum-seekers back. One just got killed, so that's been suspended. And everyone's favorite sob story, a Nepalese boy brought into Britain by a millionaire whose life was saved in the Himalayas by the boy's father, who died a bit later, only to be ordered out of the country years later by Michael Howard, has also been reversed.

But my favorite soap opera is the Tory leadership fight. The front-runner to replace Major was Michael Portillo, who lost a safe seat at the general election (to one of the 2 new gay MPs). The new front-runner Michael Heseltine withdrew from his hospital bed when his heart acted up again. The current front-runner may be William Hague, who is 36. The theory is that he may be too young now, but by the time his party has any chance at all of regaining power, he should be 45 or so. Or it may be Michael Howard, the ex-Home Sec. Neither is close to electable, so I'd be happy with either. Howard right now is facing charges that he misled Parliament about the circumstances in which he fired the head of the prison service a couple of years back. This used to be a serious matter when there were still standards in British public life, before sleaze or sex scandals became the Tory equivalent of a bar mitzvah, like a statutory rape charge is for a Kennedy. The charge is coming from the former Prison Minister Anne Widdecombe, so Howard's people are responding with a really offensive sexist smear campaign, suggesting that the fired guy wooed Widdecombe over to his side by sending her chocolate and flowers, the inference being that a 49-year old spinster (her term) is so starved for affection....

Finally, a quote from Jonathan Swift: "The bulk of mankind is as well qualified for flying as for thinking."

Paper or plastic: In Afghanistan, only the latter is now an option. See, the recycled paper in paper bags may be recycled from the Koran...

John Redwood, the right-wing candidate for next leader of the Tory party, announced his candidacy in a press conference at the Goring Hotel.

A disappointing headline

The story "Heroin found hidden in elephant" turned out to be about a wooden elephant.

I've watched way too much of the BBC coverage of the British elections this week. I know this because right now I can't get Labour's crappy pop song theme music "Things can only get better" out of my head. It's only marginally less annoying than Clinton's "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow."

Last night I woke up from a dream that inspired a great joke I was going to pass on to you all today when I finally got up. As I recall it went like this: "Gpiyrb sadter3t dafsgertgre dzxm ewrerdf sd3hjgv." Ha ha!

An article in today's NY Times says an unnoticed provision of the Welfare Act allows AFDC money to go to, get this, for-profit orphanages. There is one chain of these started by the founder of Jiffy Lube. Any takers on coming up with a suitable joke based on that fact?

"Bob Dole is lending Newt Gingrich the $300,000 to pay off his ethics fine. You know, most Republicans talk about taking money from the sick and old -- but only Newt actually does something about it."
-Bill Maher on "Politically Incorrect"

Happy 60th Saddam. What the wacky dictator really wants, though, is a clone. Evidently he got really excited by the sheep thing.

Does anyone know anything about Pat Robertson's finances? There was a story that a few years ago his tax-exempt organization sent planes to Zaire allegedly for humanitarian aid but actually to work in his diamond mines there. Diamond mines?

Japan finally sent compensation for the Indonesian "comfort women," but the Indonesian government decided to keep it instead of handing it out. They say they'll use it for old folks' homes and the like.

A Chinese amusement park called Flying Dragon World Park, tried to set the world record for locking people in a room with thousands of poisonous snakes. 100 days. The Guiness World Book of Records says it no longer keeps those sorts of records (marathons). Boy, if you were to imagine what a Chinese amusement park would be like, that's about what you'd come up with, right? Now what would North Korea's be like?

Montana passes a law to allow chemical castration of rapists and incestists (or whatever the noun is). Yeah, there just aren't enough pissed-off guys in Montana, are there?

Speaking of which, there was a segment on the Daily Show today about a group called NORM (Norm!) which stands for something something Regaining Manhood. These are people who don't like the fact that they were circumcised, and are determined to recreate their foreskin. It involves a lot of pulling and stuff I don't think any of us wish to know about. Sorry I brought it...up.

Stupid virtual pet tricks

Silliest Web idea of the week: a site in which a virtual monkey typing on a virtual keyboard to try to reproduce Hamlet's solloloquy.

Evidence of the existence of God: the vacation home of the president of RJ Reynolds was burned down due to a discarded cigarette.

Two items from the with-Democrats-like-Clinton-who-needs-a-Republican-Party-anyway file:

1) Some Cuban jazz musician who's evidently famous is turned down for citizenship under the existing Cold War rules of the INS because he joined the Communist party in order to effectuate his defection.

2) Social Security Admin ordered its administrative judges to ignore all Federal court precedents (below the level of the Supreme Court) and enforce only agency policies.

A judge in San Diego reduced a murder conviction to manslaughter, saying that the deceased, a neighborhood bully, was a "jerk" who got what was coming to him. Boy, that judge! What a jerk, huh?

A man in Merced tried to rob two banks by pointing his finger at the teller, you know, in the shape of a gun.

Also: a British Royal Marine survives his court martial. He was on a stakeout of a car-smuggling operation in Hong Kong, and shot at a rat.

Russia's press is now experiencing Western style freedoms, where censorship is by corporations linked to the state, rather than by the state. Izvestia, which accused PM Chernomyrdin of making billions off his connection with the gas industry, which he used to run, found itself bought up by an oil company, which plans to make a few changes...

Irony

Responding to the German court decision that Iranian officials ordered assassinations of Kurdish leaders in Berlin, demonstrators in Teheran have been chanting, "Death to Zionist Germany".

Gladstone & Disraeli revisited

Ok, background: you will remember the man in the chicken suit who followed Bush around when he was stalling on debates. The Tories have stolen the idea. As it turns out, the guy hired for the job isn't even a Tory himself. Read this one to the end, it just keeps getting weirder.

UK News Electronic Telegraph Friday 4 April 1997

Cries of foul over headless chicken
By Robert Shrimsley, Jon Hibbs and Rachel Sylvester

THE Tory chicken had the stuffing knocked out of it yesterday when a teenage girl tore off its head in Scotland.

Tories said the young woman who decapitated their creature was a "Labour thug" who "set upon our brave chicken to stop him asking difficult questions".

The chicken was waiting in Port Street, Stirling, to tackle Tony Blair on devolution and his refusal to join a television debate with John Major. A Tory activist said Labour supporters surrounded the bird, shouting abuse at it. Suddenly, the girl burst out of the crowd, grabbed its head and ran off down the street to loud cheers.

Fortunately for Noel Flanagan, the man in the chicken suit, the head was recovered in one piece by Scottish police. In the words of one Tory press spokesman: "The chicken goes on."

Police refused to comment on the incident but it is understood that the offender was released with only a telling off. Labour denied that any of its workers was responsible for the incident.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said the chicken had been invited to dinner but had flown back to London.

Mr Flanagan, hired to highlight Tory claims that Mr Blair was running away from a television debate, had flown to Stirling. He shared the shuttle with George Robertson, the shadow Scottish secretary.

The chicken was to follow the Labour leader, who was campaigning in the marginal Tory seat held by Michael Forsyth, the Scottish Secretary. However, his efforts to henpeck Mr Blair were hampered by a man from the Scottish Daily Mirror dressed as Freddy the Fox, who blocked his path during a 15-minute walkabout.

As Mr Blair approached, the chicken was seen to stumble and was pushed to the back of the crowd surrounding the Labour leader, where it waved a placard before skulking off. A jubilant Freddy observed: "I had him for dinner. I stopped him getting anywhere near Tony. Tony shook my hand and thanked me for it."

However, Mr Blair's guardian refused to identify himself, saying: "The whole thing is embarrassing enough as it is." The incident came at the end of a traumatic day for the Tory chicken. Earlier, he got into a nasty fight with a rival chicken with a detachable head, sent by the Mirror newspaper, as he strutted across College Green in Westminster.

He was also pursued across London by another fox, two teddy bears and a plastic rhinoceros.

The scuffle with the Mirror chicken, carrying its head under its wing, came as he returned to Conservative Central Office. The two birds war-danced around Smith Square "pecking at each other very aggressively", according to one witness. As the confrontation turned nasty one of the Tory media minders crossed the road to separate the two.

Alex Aiken, the Conservative head of regional press, wrestled the Mirror's chicken to the ground and told his own bird to return to the Central Office coop.

But the Mirror chicken was furious. "He threw me against a wall and took my head off," he said. The Tory minder had "mad eyes" and was "quite burly", he added.

The bespectacled Mr Aiken, who is actually far from burly, denied excessive violence, saying: "It was a Labour stooge chicken."

John Major defended the stunt, saying: "We are just attempting to egg Mr Blair into a debate."

After the fracas, Mr Flanagan flew straight to Scotland, disappointing two men in teddy bear suits who said they were the Teddy Bears' Alliance. They camped outside the Labour launch to challenge the Tory chicken to a debate.

The chicken also missed the man in a huge grey plastic rhino outfit who greeted Mr Blair outside a west London shopping centre.

Rhino man refused to give his identity but said he wanted to protest at the way "the level of debate in the political campaign seems to have become ludicrously cheap with a lot of people dressing up as animals".

An article in Slate suggests that Clinton's re-election strategy of spending huge amounts of money, garnered from anywhere, for large media buys, was advocated by Dick Morris partly because he was getting a percentage of the money so spent.

Twofer

The Tory holding the safest Tory seat in Scotland resigns his seat after a Tory twofer, committing adultery with a woman he met in rehab. Last year he lost his government job when he threatened a road protester with a pickaxe. How we'll miss the Tories.

Especially since Tony Blair's favorite, excuse me, favourite, Dr. Who is Jon Pertwee. I mean really.

A man showed up for his trial in Wichita for robbing a shoe store wearing a pair of size 10 1/2 boots that....

Liggett gets released from billions of dollars of liability for tobacco health problems by issuing a statement that says that smoking is addiction, causes cancer, and that advertising targets children. This is known as the "Duh" Statement.

In the last week, a deputy solicitor general argued before the Supreme Court in the internet indecency law case that it would even be ok to illegalize indecent speech in front of a minor, meaning speech speech, as in normal conversation, including presumably in one's own home, given that he acknowledged that the internet act could be applied against parents.

Similarly, a Justice Dept lawyer defending the line-item veto in Fed District Court accepts the judge's hypothetical proposition that Congress could delegate to the president the power to raise however much tax was necessary by whatever means he wanted. The Senate legal counsel agreed.

The newest bill against "partial-birth" abortions includes a provision allowing the father of the fetus to sue a woman who has the procedure, but only if he is married to her. Thank god this is all about protecting feti and not about controlling women.

The rest is from another New York magazine competition, from the 3/17/97 issue. Famous Last Words:

"If it stops your heart, you must depart." Johnnie Cochran

"I wonder if Roy remembered to feed..." Siegfried

"I'm going out for some couscous." Salman Rushdie

"See you in the movies." David Caruso

"I think I'll try green eggs and ham..." Dr. Seuss

"Bye." Gary Cooper

"Hom'm I doin' on time?" David Letterman

"Wrong!" John McLaughlin

"What time did you say? Fourteen after the hour?" Andy Warhol

"I am not too big--it's the coffins that got small." Norma Desmond

"...and never, never sell the movie rights." Nathanial Hawthorne

"I don't get no last respects." Rodney Dangerfield

"I thought you said at the count of five." Alexander Hamilton

"I'm tired of London." Samuel Johnson

"My fellow Corinthians, what you do not understand you will find in *St. Paul for Dummies*. St Paul

"Eeeeeeeeek!" Stephen King

"Rubber ducky, you're the one
You make bathtimes lots of fun..." Jean-Paul Marat

"Uhh...conspiracy...uhh...." Oliver Stone

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

I just saw Leaving Las Vegas on cable. I couldn't help notice that as Nicholas Cage drank himself to death, he kept running across gorgeous women. Every bank teller, every woman sitting in a bar, every stripper. Every hooker was pretty and fresh-faced, without excessive makeup, and heavily aerobicized. Now, is this the world-view of an alcoholic (as in, there are no ugly women when the bars close) or is it the world-view of Hollywood producers?

The British general election began today. The betting odds are 1-4 in favor of Labour, so you'd have to plunk down a fair amount of money, but it does seem a good way to enhance one's retirement account. Gallup shows Blair ahead by 28 points, and even the Sun is endorsing him, which led to the spectacle of him being asked on national tv for his views on naked women in newspapers. He has no views on naked women. Major will make an ass of himself standing on a soapbox as he did in 1992. One commentator says that if he wins, the soapbox will be broken up and sold as holy relics for centuries to come. However the odds are still longer on Screaming Lord Sutch becoming the next PM, 15 million-1, slightly longer odds than for a UFO piloted by Elvis landing on the Loch Ness Monster.

An item I passed on a couple of days ago reminded me of how good New York Magazine competitions can be, so I went to the library today. Evidently someone has systematically torn out all the crosswords, which are often on the other side of the comp, but here's one of the few which survived the vandalism that was also good. From the 10/7/96 issue, opening lines of human-to-Martian colloquy:

Hi! We met in Roswell.

Gimme three.

Pleasure, Mr. Perot.

You may already be a winner.

Abduct my wife, please.

You talkin' to me?

Hot enough for you?

Ray guns don't kill earthlings, Martians kill earthlings.

Welcome to planet Earth. Use as directed.

You left your lights on.

Uh, that a rental?

Okay, so your people will talk to my people about 25% at the back end for an exclusive option to your life-story rights regarding book, television, cable, and motion pictures, plus 10% of all ancillary worldwide product sales for the first five years...

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

Although it is illegal for US companies to comply with Arab boycott of Israel & Jews, the Air Force, with Justice Dept approval, *ordered* private contractors to exclude Jews & people with Jewish names from a project in Saudi Arabia. The poor company involved is fined by Commerce Dept.

Henry Hyde just escaped attention (judging by the brevity of the Washington Post/Reuters coverage) for his involvement with a Savings Bank (evidently not quite an S & L--whatever) that went bankrupt at a cost to the US of $67 million. The settlement recovered $850,000, with the government actually proud of having recouped the cost of litigation only. Hyde somehow swung a separate agreement under which he didn't have to pay any costs for the legal failures of the directors, of which he was one.

Gingrich says election financing by the Democrats is bigger than Watergate. Bill Maher asks, but who will break the news to G. Gordon Liddy?

3 million Americans have the right to classify documents. I don't know about you, but I feel left out.

The NY Times on the Senate debate on the balanced budget amendment: "The closing debate was arranged in an unusual way, not with speakers alternating in support and opposition, but with sizable chunks of time given first to one side and then the other. That freed senators from having to listen to the other side."

Common Phrases Redefined

A few entries from the New York magazine competition where they asked competitors to change one letter in a familiar non-English phrase and redefine it.

Harlez-vous francais?
(Can you drive a French motorcycle?)

Ex post fucto
(Lost in the mail)

Idios amigos
(We're wild and crazy guys!)

Veni, VIPi, Vici
(I came; I'm a very important person; I conquered)

J'y suis, J'y pestes
(I can stay for the weekend)

Cogito Eggo sum
(I think; therefore, I am a waffle)

Rigor Morris
(The cat is dead)

Respondez s'il vous plaid
(Honk if you're Scots)

Que sera, serf
(Life is feudal)

Le roi est mort. Jive le roi
(The King is dead. No kidding.)

Posh mortem
(Death styles of the rich and famous)

Pro Bozo publico
(Support your local clown)

Monage a trois
(I am three years old)

Felix navidad
(Our cat has a boat)

Haste cuisine
(Fast French food)

Veni, vidi, vice
(I came, I saw, I partied)

Quip pro quo
(A fast retort)

Aloha oy!
(Love; greetings; farewell; from such a pain you should never know)

Mazel ton!
(Lots of luck)

Apres Moe, le deluge
(Larry and Curly get wet)

Porte-Kochere
(Sacramental wine)

Iic liebe rich
(I'm really crazy about having dough)

Fui generis
(What's mine is mine)

VISA la France
(Don't leave chateau without it)

Ca va sans dirt
(And that's not gossip)

Merci rien
(Thanks for nothin')

Amicus puriae
(Platonic friend)

L'etat, c'est moo
(I'm bossy around here)

L'etat, c'est Moe
(All the world's a stooge)

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

Just saw an ITN story about a 3-legged cat in Ireland ordained a minister over the Internet by the Universal Life Church. I see they haven't raised their standards since they made me a minister.

There are plans for a restaurant with an Elvis theme, and yes the menu will include fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but you have to bring your own pills.

1st sign that CIA agent Harold Nicholson was selling secrets to the Russia: that photo of him taken 10 years ago wearing a t-shirt saying "KGB Is For Me".

An article in the New York Times about warning labels on products shows a Batman toy with the warning: "For Play Only: Mask and chest plate are not protective; cape does not enable user to fly." Duh! everyone knows that's the Superman cape.

The creepiest man in America is now officially NY mayor Guiliani, last seen in Marilyn Monroe get-up singing Happy Birthday. He replaces the Unabomber, who replaced...David Letterman, wasn't it?

As of the new IRS rules, if you have medical marijuana, you cannot deduct it from your income tax as with other drugs.

In last fall's Georgia debate for US Senate, the Republican said of the Democrat, Max Cleland, the Vietnam vet & triple amputee who won the election, "Your walk says so much more than your talk." Oops.

And you can't spit afterwards, either

Oral sex has been declared illegal in Singapore unless it is practised as a prelude to full sex, the island's Court of Appeal ruled. The court said the practice was "against the order of nature".

Rep. Helen Chenoweth said that term limits would get rid of out-of-touch politicians. Still holding those endangered-species campaign BBQs, Helen?

State Dept spokesman Nicholas Burns, cornered by the BBC on the differences in policy regarding trade with China and Cuba, said that constructive engagement worked in South Africa.

New in NY City: a kosher cybercafe.

An Alabama judge is ordered by the circuit court to stop his prayer sessions with jury pools and remove the large carved 10 Commandments.

Governor Fob (Fob?) James threatens to send in the National Guard and the state troopers to protect the plaques, saying "If we accept all judge's orders, we don't have a government of law, we have a government of men."

Is it my imagination, or a lot of really stupid stories coming out of Alabama lately?

The reward on Salman Rushdie's head is upped to $2 1/2 million. The British government has spent over $10 million keeping him alive.

Imperfect and ok with it

This is from www.pennpals.com, a website for folks in the joint. (Update: link no longer works) This is the women seeking men section, but check out the men seeking women section ("I love pizza, Big Macs, and Coors Light Beer. Are you out there?") and the death row section, where everybody is wrongly convicted. The typos are the web site's fault, not the prisoners', by the way.


Penn-Pals
Women seeking Men Penn-Pals Master Sheet

Click on a name or a picture and view that Penn-Pals Home Page!

[2]Gidget Lewis I am a Black-French-Indian Native. Currently in Texas Women Prison in Gatesville. Doing a 30 year sentence, been down 6 years. I have learned from my mistakes and I am seeking a long term friendship of lover, age 35 and up. Race is unimportant. My days spent here are very lonely. Without a companion to enjoy the night hours and days with. I'm in search of someone who knows the pain and fears of such admissable circumstances that have become part of my life. ......


[4]Kim McCullough HELP ! ! ! Single mother of two daughters. I am a perfectionist who is imperfect and OK with it. I am a dedicated, loyal, hard working, intelligent, loving and loveable woman. I am an artist, who is kind, empathetic, dependable, a great friend in need of constant challenges because I bore easily.

I am self-sufficient, versitile, eager for knowledge, ......


[6]Lora Zaiontz Honesty is a high priority. I'm incarcerated serving a life sentence for being a party to the crime of capitol murder. Please don't be afraid for I am truly a lost and lonely kitten, who continues to trust in peoples good intention. During my incarceration I have achieved my Associates Degree and now work on my batchor. I've been here thirteen years now. I was 17 years old at the time I came. The world I'll enter once free will be all new. I seek someone who will hold my hand always.

[8]Kim Leavelle Greetings Friends ! Don't let this prison garb picture scar you off. I'm Cinderella at heart; seeking pumpkins of all walks of life. I'm lonely and desolate; despite singing songs of dispair. . . and pity parties . . . I find humor does the soul good. I'm incarcerated for a non-violent robbery because of my previous addiction to drugs. If you are facing adversity in your life, let me pick you up and dust you off, then journey through life with smiles on our faces : ) Who needs glass slippers anyways? I hear they cause bunyons! ; ) 'wink & a smile'.......


[10]Je Donna Young Dynamic Multifaceted Lady - who wishes to correspond with a diverse sincere gentleman. I am a warm, compassionate woman seeking just the right man for me. True Old Fashioned Gentleman - Please respond to a sincere lady who wishes to correspond with a gentleman from a by gone era.......

[12]Jean Federico Hello, I have taken some wrong roads in life but now my head is together. I have spent many years in here. It's very lonely. I'm seeking an amiable, magnanimous man to write a lonely woman like myself. Please find the time to write me. I am lonely for companionship. I desperately need to socialize with people in society. I cry at movies whether they are sad or happy......


[14]Leslie Faulkner Hi There, I am looking for a nice man who is kind and understanding to write me. I do not receive any mail at all and desperately seek companionship. I am very outgoing & athletic. I am in here on a non-violent crime. I have turned my life around and need some mental suport. My family turned on me after this happened and I need someone to care.....

[16]Vicki Heyer I seek a sincere, caring, warm-hearted man, age 25-48, for friendship, possibly something more. I believe inner warmth is more inmortant than looks, age, race or nationality.....

[18]Aquilia Horace Hello ! I am a very young and sexy lady. I'd love to start to receive mail. I'll answer all letters. I'm presently incarcerated. I'm really not a hardened criminal, I made a mistake and am paying for it now. I've learned a hell of a lot. I'm in need of some new loving and caring friends who will grow to love me for the person I am today.

[22]Denise Jacques A 6' 2" Blue Eyed Doll looking for a man who is financially secure and willing to give a little help. Also willing to forgive a mistake and be emotionally supportive. I am willing to relocate. If interested please send a letter and photo....

[24]Robbie Coakley Single White Female, 34 years old, 5' 6" . Small, slim lady looking for a friendship, possible companionship, willing to relocate. I'm a fun, loving cowgirl looking for someone who is willing to live life to the fullest...

[26]Linda Paisley A "normal", attractive, vivacious, 5' 7" brown eyed beauty with a killer smile, outrageous personality, whose mission is to seek out and and find a professional or businessman 30's - 50's, who still has a twinkle in his eye.....

Coddling criminals

The guy who got life under CA's 3 strikes law for stealing a slice of pizza has had his sentence revised on appeal. He will be out after only 4 years (with good behaviour). With such leniency towards pizza theft, the republic must surely crumble.

Speaking of republics that crumbled, does anyone have the *words* to Virginia's "state song emeritus", recently demoted from its status as state song, or perhaps that's kicked upstairs, when it was discovered that it was the "darkies" who were supposed to be doing the Carrying Back to Old Virginny.

The State Dept accuses Germany of discriminating against Scientologists. Evidently, Madeleine Albright is now dating John Travolta.

Finally, from an LA Times article about yesterday's TV coverage of Yeltsin, designed to prove that he was in fact still breathing:


"This situation reminds one of the last days of Konstantin Chernenko," Sergei Markov, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center, said in comparing Yeltsin's staged appearances with the heavily edited glimpses Russians got of their last leader to die in office.
After a 13-month stint, the wheezing and frail Chernenko died in March 1985 at age 73.
Recalling one highly choreographed shot of Chernenko congratulating visitors to his "office" on International Women's Day--two days before his death--Markov said the film was taken at an awkward angle to obscure the fact that the hospitalized leader had no pants on.


What a coincidence: that's just how Clinton likes to celebrate International Women's Day!

Tom Carson of the Village Voice says that Clinton's new cabinet does look like America--pudgy, bamboozled, potentially truculent, bereft of fashion sense, mysteriously unconvincing.

Incidentally, to give the middle class a greater say in the running of the country, the Lincoln Bedroom is now charging hourly rates.

Italian prison inmates will be allowed to keep pet birds and fish, the Vatican came out against smoking, the ban on pornography in military PXs was declared unconstitutional, the Vienna Philharmonic will allow in women, Brigitte Bardot was acquitted of violating France's anti-racism laws, Playboy magazine is now the best-selling magazine in Ireland less than a year after it was unbanned, and the local Tory party in Kensington-Chelsea, the safest Tory seat in Britain, has found a suitable replacement for Sir Nicholas Scott, who you will remember for being found drunk in a gutter: Alan Clark, the world-class adulterer, who once screwed a friend's wife and both her daughters, presumably not at the same time, a man so rich that he criticized Michael Heseltine as being the sort of man who buys his own furniture, and whose motto, I quote here from his published diaries: "Girls have to be succulent, and that means under 25." The good burghers of Kensington-Chelsea found him suitable, extracting only one promise from him: that he not vote in favor of banning hunting.

Some Federal District Court judge in NYC decided not to find anti-abortion clinic blockaders guilty of contempt of his own injunction. He says that since he acted as both judge and jury at the previous trial that resulted in the injunction, he had the right of a juror to ignore laws he believes are wrong. Needless to say, he is a Reagan appointee.

Pyromania in the news

2 women leave the Citadel, citing harassment. The president of the Citadel says nonsense, it's customary to set all new recruits on fire.

In the Sunday NY Times Week in Review section, there is a picture of a South Korean striker on fire. The headline: "Seoul Takes Its Cue From Mrs. Thatcher".

A pig just got a face-lift. There are real reasons, but the story's funnier if you don't know them.

Poland is starting a cavalry unity. If there are real reasons I have yet to determine them. They can use pictures from the cavalry in action against German tanks in 1939 in the recruitment posters. Are we sure we want these people in NATO?

Y'all will remember several articles I sent a few months ago about a British insurance company offering policies against haunted houses, second comings and alien abductions. Well, it seems the whole thing was a fraud. It collapsed as the guy in charge issued a fake giant check for 1 million pounds, supposed to be presented by the chick from the X-files, to some abductee. Oh the perfidy!

Christmas traditions

At the South Pole, the tradition is the annual run around the world, 2.7 miles that covers 24 time zones.

The mayor of Moscow decreed that stores in central Moscow not displaying ornate xmas decorations would be fined. Remember: if it's not banned, it's compulsory.

Finally, the British holiday tradition of betting on whether they'll be snow on xmas has cost bookmakers over 100,000 pounds.

I love Christmas news stories. Here's one: 6-year old British girl electrocuted by xmas tree lights while family looks on in horror. Yes, that's real. Finland sent its annual huge xmas tree to the holy land where Israel, exercising its stewardship of the world's holy sites, put it into quarantine for a month. A Buddhist decided to escape the materialist world to meditate on a Welsh mountain; a helicopter descended on him to try to "rescue" him. In Belgium, the paedophile-paranoid police raided a Satanic cult. The high priestess, or whatever she's called, said she found the raid "terrifying". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, if you're planning to deal with the Forces of Darkness, shouldn't you be able to deal with a little police raid with relative equanimity?

Humanitarian aid X 2

Our first story, broken by the London Sunday Times, is that Israel smuggled tons of hashish into Egypt from the 1960s until the late 80s for sale to Egyptian soldiers, who showed a massive increase in addiction.

2nd:
Toxic Waste Sent to Bosnia as Aid.

John Major, in an interview with Good Housekeeping designed to increase his appeal to women, revealed that he calls his wife "Little Grub." Tony Blair refuses to disclose any pet name he might have for Cherie.

In entirety, from the NY Times digest for the NY region section: "The Queens teen-ager who was beaten into a coma by several youths in a subway station had been harassed recently for being "clean cut," his father said."

By the way, the last words of Len Tuggle, executed in Virginia yesterday: "Merry Christmas." And to all a good night, I guess.

British fox-hunters, in their perrenial fight against hunt saboteurs, are now going after them with helicopters, which sounds a heck of a lot more fun.

JFK's second-most-famous mistress, Judith Exner, whom he shared with Sam Giancana, says that she got pregnant by him in 1962 and had an abortion with his knowledge.

McDonald's opens in its 100th country. Believe it or not, there has never been a war between 2 countries possessing McDonald's. Civil wars don't count, which is good because Belarussian riot police attacked the crowd that gathered at the opening.

Irony

At Carl Bildt's party celebrating the 1st anniversary of the Dayton peace accords for Bosnia, many celebrants were hospitalized with salmonella.

Authorities in the Czech Republic wanted to establish a Sigmund Freud museum in the house in which he was born. The landlord preferred to make it into a massage parlor, or, perhaps, a "massage parlor".

It must be the silly season. The London Times is full of stories about people on trial for running over ducks, a scientist trying to get an import license for rhino dung, complaints from its neighbors that the French embassy is too dirty, a man whose photos of his expedition to the Arctic were lost by the chemists and wants 30,000 pounds to go back, etc. Yesterday we got the news that the newest hot business in Kabul is the sale of bones to Pakistan for soap, chickenfeed and something else I forget, and yes that includes human bones, which for some reason are easier to find in Afghanistan these days than animal bones. An adult male skeleton weighs 13 pounds and fetches about 45 cents.

According to the SF Examiner, the word Nixon used for the rich Jews was cock-sucker. I was hoping for something ethnic.

Keep the faith

New story from the Nixon tapes: September 1971 Nixon asked Ehrlichman on several occasions to go after the tax returns of the rich Jewish contributors to Democrats. "I can only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting."

I'm curious. The Reuters report says that Nixon used an expletive to describe the Jews. Anyone know which one?

Also on Nixon, you've read the stories, now read the transcripts from the alcoholic-in-chief:


CONVERSATION BETWEEN NIXON AND H.R. HALDEMAN
4/30/73 BETWEEN 10:16 AND 10:20 P.M.:

Nixon: Hello.

Haldeman: Hi.

N: Hope I didn't let you down.

H: No sir, you got your points over, and now you, now you're, you've got it set right and move on. You're in right where you ought to be.

N: Well, it's a tough thing, Bob. For you, for John, the rest, but Goddammit, I'm never going to discuss this son of a bitching Watergate thing again. Never, never, never, never. Don't you agree?

H: Yes sir. You've done it now. And you've laid out your position. You've laid out your, you've taken your steps. You've...

N: Interesting thing. You know we haven't heard. The only cabinet officer that has called , and this is 50 minutes after the thing is over, is Cap Weinberger, bless his soul.

H: Hmm.

N: All the rest are waiting to see what the polls show. Goddam strong cabinet, isn't it?

H: You'd better check and be sure, cause I, they may, you know, we've had a...

N: Nah, nah. No, no, no. They know. They know. They know to call, you know. They know they can get through. But in any event, I just wanted you to know that Cap called & he was all the way.

H: Good.

N: But let me say, you're a strong man, Goddammit, & I love ya.

H: Ha.

N: And I, you know, I love John, and all the rest, and by God, keep the faith. Keep the faith. You're going to win this son of a bitch.

H: Absolutely.

N: You notice what I said about the violence and so forth on the other
side.

H: Yeah.

N: I mean there were some, there were some intricacies in this, that only (unclear) would understand.

H: I got those. And I want to get the (unclear word), cause there are some things to work on from there that.

N: All right.

H: That uh...

N: I thought it was good, too, to sort of end on what I deeply felt (unclear word) on a religious note, you know, God Bless America. I mean, I don't, I'm certain, I must have, have, you know, I must have driven you up the wall.

H: Didn't drive me up the wall, but I felt that way (crosstalk). I'm all for that. I completely agree.

N: I don't know whether you can call and get any reactions and call me back, like the old style. Would you mind?

H: I don't think I can, I don't, I don't.

N: No, I agree.

H: Puts me in kind of an odd spot to try and do that.

N: No. Don't call a Goddam soul. The hell with it. Let me just say,
(unclear words)...from me, from you, I haven't heard from any cabinet
officer except Weinberger an hour afterwards, and thank God, and no
staff member.

H: Well, now, when I called the board said they were instructed not
put any calls through, so...

N: The hell with that. I told them to put all the calls through.

H: Well, that may be why you haven't gotten them though. Because
that's...

N: All right.

H: What told me.

N: All Right. I'll change it. I'll change it. Fine, but God bless ya,
boy, God bless you, I love you. You, you know.

H: Okay.

N: Like my brother.

H: Oh, we'll...

N: All right boy.

H: We'll (unclear word) it up from here.

N: Keep the faith.

H: Right.


CONVERSATION BETWEEN NIXON AND WILLIAM P. ROGERS
SOMETIME BETWEEN 10:20 AND 10:32 P.M.:

Nixon: Hello.

Rogers: Hi, Mr. President.

N: Hi, Bill.

R: Gee, that was terrific. Really superb.

N: Don't give me that shit, you know. You know.

R: No, I really mean it.

N: You and I (unclear)...kind of rough, you know, afterwards, I, I,
shouldn't have done, done it, but, you know, I, uh, think, you know,
the, the operators and the rest. All of a sudden, I sort of, sort of
broke down a bit, and I, I don't, you know, I'm not that kind of a
man.

R: Oh, hell (unclear). I tried to get you right away, but your damn
system is tough to get through. I finally got through to Barker,
but...

N: Been trying to get through to you all day. I mean I told Rose,
Goddammit, any cabinet officer is to get through from, from the minute
after the speech. And only one I've heard from is Weinberger. So I
wondered what the hoot, what the hell's happened to everybody else.

R: I don't know what the Goddam system is. Anyway, I called. I tried
to get Barker, I tried to get (unclear). I finally got Barker, and he
took a message. Anyway, I thought it was superb, I don't know how you,
I don't see how you good have done any better. I think it's the best
delivery I've ever seen you give. I thought the delivery...

N: What, what parts of it did you like, Bill?

R: I liked all of it. I just thought it was great. I, um...

N: You didn't mind the God Bless America? That was my intuition
(unclear) I just sorta felt that way.

R: No, I, I, I thought it was, you know, I thought it was great. I,
uh, suppose some of the (unclear word) editorial writers may not like
it, but the public is going to love it. That's what counts. Uh. And I
thought the whole, the whole tone couldn't have been better. I didn't
think it was, I didn't think it had any, any rough spots in it. I
didn't think that you had any (unclear words) or anything of that
kind. No, I thought it was superb. I couldn't improve on it. I just
thought it was great. Adele was watching...

N: What did Dell think?

R: She thought the same thing. She, you know...

N: Smart woman.

R: She's critical.

N: You married a smarter wife that you, than you are. You know, like I
did.

R: That's right. Now, how'd you think it went? I

N: I don't know anything about it. You know, I've, I've gotten. You
know, I've been through a hell of an experience, you know. I was just
reading, uh, Adams' memoirs, and Adams, you know, to his credit, did
come in and say, look, I'll resign.

R: Yeah, yeah.

N: But Haldeman and Ehrlichman didn't. I had to tell them they had to
resign. That was a Goddam, tough son-of-a-bitch.

R: Yeah.

N: You know.

R: I, I tell you this (unclear), you made a lot of improvements on the
speech. I thought it was pretty good last night, but it was a hell of
a lot better tonight. You must have done a lot of work on it today.

N: Worked all day on it. Yeah.

R: And, well, I, I just think you oughta be happy with the speech. I,
I don't...

N: But, the cabinet thing, they were putting out Thursday, but
(unclear) move to Wednesday. I think we ought to get it over quickly.

R: I think it's probably better.

N: Is that all right with you?

R: Right, right.

N: Because, you're, you're the cabinet now, Boy.

R: No, no.

N: No, I'm not givin' you any bullshit, you know that.

R: Incidentally, I, I think things look pretty good for Packard, I, if
you still want him. I think you ought to give him a call. I thought
the

N: I think I'll wait til tomorrow, though. I mean it's...

R: I don't want you, I don't want you to do it tonight, but I just
mean...

N: Right.

R: I talked to (unclear), I talked to Mansfield, I talked to George
Mahon.

N: What'd they say?

R: Well, they thought he'd be great. They thought he'd be great.

N: And they'll, they'll waive the...

R: Oh, we'll figure out something to do about that.

N: That's right, that's right. Good of you to call, Bill, you've been
a...

R: That was a great speech, and get some sleep.
N: Great (tape cuts off)


CONVERSATION BETWEEN NIXON AND BILLY GRAHAM
BETWEEN 10:20 AND 10:32 P.M.:

Nixon: I had, I had, I had to tell Haldeman and Erlichman to resign,
which they wouldn't do voluntarily, and that was tough.

Graham: Well, your sincerity, your humility, your asking for prayer,
all of that, had a tremendous impact.

N: You really think so, Billy?

G: I really, I'm telling you the truth, and I'm not trying to just
encourage you. I know you get all that. But I really mean it.

N: Well, that's good of you Billy. You've been a friend, and, and
(tape cuts off)
________________________________________________

Transcribed by Washington Post Staff researcher Barbara J. Saffir from
tape Tape #197 RC-3, available at the National Archives

Russian cuisine

It seems that "prescriptions" for marijuana under Prop 215 are valid under current Nevada law, and possibly other states as well.

Clinton's book Between Hope and the Remainder Table, or whatever it was called, sold miserably, and most of the copies are being returned to the publisher, which thinks it's unseemly to remainder a book by a president, but I suspect will swallow Clinton's pride. It sold nowhere near as well as the book by the former FBI agent about Clinton's love life etc, much less Hillary's book, but did outsell Dole's book. Interestingly, the publisher of the latter says that the Dole campaign lied, inflating the number of copies printed. In other good news, fewer than 20% of Newt Gingrich's 1945 sold.

John Deutch's last act as Director of Central Intelligence was to revoke the security clearance of the State Dept official who leaked to Rep Toriccelli that the Guatemalan colonel responsible for killing an American was a CIA informer.

There is an interesting 7-part series in the LA Times on homicides in LA, and how badly they are handled, with loads of anecdotes like the guy who rotted in jail for 4 months because the LAPD couldn't be bothered to check his time card at work that showed his alibi. Well worth reading but long, so I'm not sending them out, especially as most of you are on vacation right now. I'm afraid I didn't save the 1st one, or see the next 2, but I will send out the rest to anyone who asks.

A new record was set today when a Japanese furniture mover ate 23 1/4 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

A heart-warming story from the NY Times: a 14-year old girl sets fire to her house after years of physical and sexual abuse such that one could only be sorry she hadn't taken out more of her family. Her father has never visited her in jail but did send a picture of the burned-out house on her birthday. Naturally, the state of Indiana put her in a maximum-security prison ($25,000 a year) instead of the juvenile treatment center ($82k) the judge begged the state to put her in. You're waiting for the punchline, well I've got two: she has found a new mom in the joint, or "the closest thing to a mom I ever had" in another murderer, and second, she has been ordered not to talk about being abused in group therapy sessions because her fellow inmates in the special-needs unit are upset by her stories, since they all abused or killed their children.

And Thurgood Marshall used to be an FBI informer. I don't get it.

IRONY ALERT: a couple of days ago the NY Times remarked that a biography of a Chinese general, a veteran of the Long March I believe, gave the impression that he had retired rather than spent the last 15 years of his life under detention. Well, the Chinese minister of national defence is right now arriving in Washington and the official bio of him handed out by the US Defense Dept fails to mention that he commanded the troops responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

UPDATE: My long-term readers will remember Sir Nicholas Scott, the hapless former minister for Northern Ireland and later minister for the disabled, banned from driving after a hit & run involving a baby's stroller earlier this year, and then found by police dead drunk and face-down in the gutter during the Tory Party Conference. Well, despite the endorsements of 130 MPs, other former ministers, other former drunks, and the KGB agent whose job it used to be to try to bribe him, as I reported a couple of days ago, his local party deselected him as a candidate for the next election. The hapless Sir Nick lost his job as Minister for the Disabled in 1994 after having to admit misleading Parliament in an attempt to weaken a bill for access for the disabled. Activists for the disabled, chief among them his own daughter, demanded that he resign.

I THOUGHT THEY WERE ALL THAT LONG: The longest-ever Church of England service was held, 5 hours long, in an attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World Records.

SCRAP, MISSILES, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE: the US DOD has been selling as scrap military systems that were supposed to be decommissioned but weren't. Parts thus sold include functioning encryption devices, propulsion parts for submarines, advanced radars, parts of Patriot and cruise missiles, Stealth fighter guidance systems, etc. Buyers include Iran, Iraq and especially China.

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: At a benefit, Princess Di called the homeless "Englishmen without castles".