So yesterday after NATO planes attacked a convoy of refugees, the NATO commander claimed to have evidence that it was actually Serb soldiers who fired at the refugees. A day and a half later, we know that this was not true. Indeed, there were no soldiers and no tanks in that convoy. So what evidence was that, Wesley? Making a mistake is one thing, but if someone says he has evidence when he can’t have, some questions need to be asked, that no one seems to be asking.

In a gesture of goodwill, the Indian government has released a peregrine falcon arrested, if that’s the word, on suspicion of spying for Pakistan.

The latest unlikely-but-you-wouldn’t-put-it-past-them rumor out of Kosovo is that the Serbs are using Kosovars as living blood banks.

A complaint was submitted to the British Press Complaints Commission for harassment by a Mr. Slobodan Milosevic of Ilford (no relation).

An interesting article on Danforth Quayle in the Wednesday Washington Post. It says he doesn’t see himself the way everyone else in the universe does. You have to read it to catch a glimpse into a universe where Quayle is a winner and a hero. And Mr. Spock has a goatee.

Elsewhere in the Post, Al Kamen makes fun of Henry Kissinger for going on all the talk shows complaining about the lack of an exit strategy for Kosovo, and brings up Vietnamization. I hereby propose my own version of Vietnamization: any politician of a certain age who is a hawk now but avoided the draft back then is given bayonet and is dropped from an airplane into Beograde.

I haven’t decided on whether to give them parachutes first.

The briefing on how it was possible to blow up a passenger train was rather interesting. OK, by the time the pilot saw the train, he had already fired the first rocket, got that. Um, and then he turned around and took a second shot at the bridge, and hit the train again.

So Jack Kevorkian is sentenced to 10 to 25. A judge with a sense of humor would have sentenced him to life.

Why the sun has set on the Empire

Today’s London Times has an article on the state of the education system. Well fuck that. I have distilled the article down to the important information: funny mistakes on the GSCE tests.


A MYTH is a female moth and Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak,

“Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure - he invented cigarettes and started smoking.”

“Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100ft clipper.”

“Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they wrote in hydraulics,”

“Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul,”

“Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf - he was so deaf he wrote loud music,”

“The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.”

“In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java,”

“Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock - after his death his career suffered a dramatic decline,”

“Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments,”

“Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.”

Serbia says peace has been restored in Kosovo, so that’s all right then.

Germany says it has a secret Yugoslav plan for ethnically cleansing Kosovo, drawn up 6 months ago. There is also one written in 1937 by Vasu Cubrilovic, a man whose life suggests how short the 20th century has really been. Cubrilovic, whose pamphlet by the way was titled “The Expulsion of the Albanians by the Serbs” (he was for it), was one of the seven assassins of the Archduke Ferbinand in 1914. Released from prison in 1918, he became a professor of philosophy (applied philosohpy, I guess) at the University of Belgrade, and was a minister in Tito’s government. He died in 1990 at 94.

Speaking of young murders, Arkansas has decided to sentence children under 14 to life imprisonment. Just some of them.

Finally, a solution to the Kosovo Krisis

Macedonia seems to have beaten the Serb’s land-speed-ethnic-cleansing record. Huzzah and cudos. I now support Greek’s position that Macedonia has no right to the name Macedonia. I propose as its new name Serbia Lite.

Propaganda has gotten so much better with the computer. Serb tv is showing films of NATO jets flying in the swastika formation.

Serbia is also issuing stamps. First up, the bulls-eye stamp; next, the downed Stealth fighter stamp. Too bad there’s no international mail out of Serbia, these could be worth a fortune some day. But don’t try to buy them in Pristina’s central post office: we blow it up today.

An Egyptian woman is granted a divorce from a man because he wore an unIslamic earing. Let me rephrase that: all earrings are Islamic on men, since they make them like women.

The Germans are having a problem with their military forces in Yugoslavia. They don’t have any medals to give them. The Iron Cross was pretty much abolished--too many bad memories. The stuff they’ve been giving out has been designed to look as little like military medals as possible, and is for non-combat stuff, essentially Miss Congeniality awards.

Kevin has had the good grace or bad memory not to point out that several years I advocated pretty much precisely the actions over Bosnia that I have been criticizing over Kosovo. I said at the time that bombing could reduce Serb military capabilities and, if it would not end the war, would at least reduce the slaughter from wholesale to retail. Of course, that was the seige of Sarajevo, which is a somewhat different military situation.

So Milosevic has that tame/intimidated Kosovan leader they’ve been parading on tv. First NATO said that they were doctoring old footage, now that he’s acting under coercion, and they keep pointing out that there are pictures but no sound track. My question is, how long does it take to find a lip-reader who knows Serbo-Croatian?

I may have made another mistake over Kosovo. Some time back I commented that if nothing else, it was at least good that this war wasn’t started by something in Clinton’s sex life. On reflection, I’ve decided that the whole thing is a sneaky plot to get people to say precisely that. Clinton, looking to his place in history, wanted to bomb some place at a time when he didn’t have a sex scandal, so that history would say that that indicates that he didn’t bomb all those other places just to cover up sex scandals. Sneaky, huh?

I may have made another mistake, when I said that American Atheists Inc moved to New Jersey because NJ is proof perfect of the non-existence of God. Well, I told that to my mother, and she related the story of a friend who went to Catholic school in New York in the ‘50s, and they used to put the kids on buses and drive them past some place like Hoboken to show them what Hell had in store for them if they weren’t good Catholics.

Tipper Gore’s motto for the 2000 campaign: “I still believe in a place called Stepford.”

Antonin “Fat Tony” Scalia says that passengers in a car have a reduced expectation of privacy even for things hidden away in say a purse, so cops can search passengers they don’t think did anything because they think the driver did something.

NATO has officially stopped using the word refugee for Kosovars. They are now deportees. Macedonia, that fount of humanitarian benevolence, has been shoving refugees onto planes to airlift them to anywhere else. Turkey, which is taking some of them while countries like the US and Britain dither, is planning to use them to populate parts of Cyprus from which they expelled Greek Cypriots. At least in Cyprus, they’ll feel right at home.

Evidently NATO can affect events in Kosovo solely by bombing, according to Madeline Albright, because we are degrading his military and hence his ability to control the area. Of course by next week there should be so few Kosovars left that they could be controlled by a couple of guys with pointed sticks.

One of those workplace psych guys in Britain says that members of the House of Lords who are about to be, um, downsized, should really be given the sort of counselling you give after layoffs. You can just picture the session, can’t you?

Serbs you right

Don’t blame me for that one, it came from a British tab.

Notice all those Pentagon briefings given by Ken Bacon, who will never be mistaken for Kevin Bacon? He was the guy who leaked Linda Tripp’s file to the press.

OK Slobadon, quit hiding behind that Rembrandt!

American Atheists Inc is moving to New Jersey, a state which many people believe proves that there is no God.

So has the government yet figured out where those soldiers were when the Serbs captured them, and if not, why not? I smell covert op.

General Wesley Clark wants to bomb Beograde. Well, if you want a tough soldier, go for the guy whose name ensured he got beat up a lot as a kid.

In time for Passover, Louis Farrakhan goes into the hospital. His followers think the government gave him cancer, you know.

New Hampshire no longer has a school system.

...but it just might work!

NATO destroys a Yugoslav vacuum cleaner factory, hoping that Milosevic will be brought to his knees by dust bunnies.
-Yugoslavia, fighting back at last, brings the NATO public relations website to its knees.
-Russia plans to send a spyship to help Serbs kill NATO military personnel.
-All those zillions of dollars in defense spending, and now we’re actually running out of cruise missiles.
-Not that we’ve done anything useful with the ones we’ve already used. Beyond the vacuum cleaners, we’ve mostly destroyed planes and anti-aircraft sites. In other words, covering our own asses and not doing a thing for the Kosovars, who are not being bombed by those planes and have no aircraft for those anti-aircraft sites to be targeting.
-The Serbs have been destroying Albanians’ passports, birth certificate, marriage certificates, etc in preparation for refusing to let the refugees back into the country. That can’t be allowed to happen, so NATO just inherited another task. Of course, it would be made much easier if we simply tacked Kosovo onto Albania. No border, no problem.
-So the bombing didn’t work, but when does it ever? Well, once... What was Clinton thinking when he ruled out ground forces? His only idea was to get in quick, bomb, get out quick. I swear the man puts no more thought into the consequences of bombing someone than of getting a blowjob.

The president of Iran postpones a visit to France because the French refuse to have a state dinner without wine.

First Russia cancelled the Monica trip, now the Kiss (the rock group) tour. This war thing is turning out pretty well for them.

Stupid Internet idea of the day. Some guy has a site at which you can see daily pictures of his left nipple. It has an archive. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t think a similar site featuring a woman’s nipple would be all that interesting either.

Kosovulva

Oddest start of a news story: “Russia’s rage over NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia boiled over tonight when it canceled the upcoming visit by Monica Lewnisky.”

Serb tv has been running Wag the Dog over and over, like Iraq tv did a few months ago. Oooo, copyright infringement, now we’re really mad.

Quayle says that if Al Gore created the Internet, he invented the spell-check.

For Tom Lehrer fans, the diaries of Alma Mahler-Werful-etcetera have come out.

Best name for a book, the former Labour leader Michael Foot’s newish “Dr. Strangelove, I Presume?”

“Los Angeles is just New York lying down.” Quentin Crisp

That guy freed from death row & prison by a journalism class is back in jail for hitting his daughter & her mother.

The return of some old friends

The Axis is back. The Luftwaffe is back in combat for the first time since 1945, and so is Japan, which fired on North Korean spy ships, both in the same day. And today saw the largest air strike in Europe since, what, Dresden? So we have the best of both sides of World War II. And we call it NATO. Now sometime in the last few years, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has gotten the ability to decide to invade whole countries. If NATO weren’t a tool of the US, that would actually be frightening, since I don’t recall voting for any elections to NATO or in any way giving up that sort of sovereignty to it. Clinton gave another truly crappy speech in support of his little war (by the way, have we stopped bombing Iraq this week so that we can bomb Serbia, or Kosovo, or whoever it is we’re bombing?) He evoked the possibility of a wider Balkans war, which if it hasn’t happened by now, won’t. He said something about leaving a stable Europe to our children. Evidently in his will, he’s leaving Luxembourg to Chelsea. And the Netherlands if she promises not to inhale. He said that we’ll bomb but we won’t send troops. Hey, even if Milosevic suddenly signs the peace accord we stuck under his nose, does Clinton think no peacekeepers will be required? And that’s best-case. If Milosevic doesn’t surrender, we literally have no plan. Clinton is talking about restoring Kosovo’s autonomy, but that was autonomy within Yugoslavia which doesn’t really, ya know, exist. Autonomy within Serbia is meaningless. If we can send troops into a country whose only mischief even we define as domestic, then we can by the same principles decide to dismember that country and declare Kosovo independent, which is the only thing that makes any sense (unless you own a map, when you notice that Kosovo would be surrounded by Serbia). Find a principle, almost any principle at this point, and stick to it.

It’s a wonderful coincidence that the Law Lords released their, for lack of a better word, decision on Pinochet today, given that dictators the world over must have been paying attention. They said he could only be extradited to Spain on 3 of the 35 charges. Although I don’t see anything in the world stopping Spain reinstating the other 32 when they get their hands on him, in a minimum of a year.

The first baby produced by sperm taken from a dead man is born. Yick.

Paraguay impeaches its president. Keep an eye on that one.

A study shows that people looking at crappy video, like security video such as is used in court all the time, or those cameras they’re sticking in city centres, produce images that people can’t match up accurately to mug shots more than 70% of the time. If they see people they know on video, it’s 100%, strangers, not so good. If the head is turned or the guy’s smiling, no chnce at all. It suggests that people are going to jail on the basis of what’s supposed to be objective evidence, but isn’t.

As I said, the Axis is back. Come to think of it, an Italian just became president of Europe today as well.

I was wondering when J.C. Watts would have to say something about his colleagues’ connections with a racist group, and this week he’s been busily heading off an attempt in Congress to condemn the CCC (that’s pronounced as a hard C, if you know what I mean) and replace it with a measure condemning all forms of bigotry everywhere in general but nowhere in specific. My problem here is that I think the attempt by Congress to condemn the views of anyone is dangerous to the Constitution.

Russia’s prime minister refused to come to the US because we’re about to bomb Serbia, we really mean it this time. He stands on the high moral ground of someone just caught trying to smuggle MIGs to Serbia.

Amusingly, Russia was stopped in this endeavour by Azerbaijan.

Paraguay seems to be in the early stages of a military coup, if I read my tea leaves correctly.

Another sign of age: two grey nose hairs.

On the other hand, when I passed the local school walking home from the library, the crossing guard helped me across the street.

Miscarriage of justice of the week

And wouldn’t you know it’s in Texas.

But speaking of injustice, George Bush has actually beaten Reagan’s record for suspiciously overpaid speaking tours of Japan, having been paid in stock for a single speech last year, stock now worth $14.4 million, or $4,000 a word, which is more than even Stephen King makes. At least he didnt’ throw up on anyone.

Sweden, in a burst of rationality unknown to the rest of the world, has decided that since no one’s likely to invade it, it can cut its military budget in half.


After 30 Free Years, Man Faces Life for 2 Grams of Drug
By Paul Duggan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 20, 1999

In the Susan McDougal trial, the Starr people take the rather unusual step of calling one of their own grand jurors as a witness, to say that Starr wasn’t out to get anyone, he just wanted the facts, ma’m. The trial then broke for lunch, during which the juror could be seen indicting his ham sandwich for obstruction of justice.

The New York Times has recently added a world summary column in which the boring countries of the world get about two sentences each (sigh), but they still don’t have the space for an odd little story out of Egypt in which a charity is accused of selling orphans for spare parts. In a world less inured to horror stories, this might have made the front page instead of “NFL Backs Limited Replay After Complaints of Bad Calls”, but there you are. The charity took charge of 32 orphans. Shortly after, 25 were dead. Now there is a possibility that the organ transplant thing was made up by Islamists trying to derail a bill to legalize organ transplants, and the government certainly denies that anything of the sort happened. But they would, wouldn’t they? And the death certificates have consecutive numbers, which is more than a little suspicious.

Paul Wellstone, Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, the last 3 sane voices in the US Senate, voted against Star Wars. Buoyed by the fact that last week a Star Wars test actually succeeded (presumably on the same principle that a stopped clock is right twice a day, and 80% of American VCRs as well) after 3,000 consecutive failures. How long does a really stupid idea have to be around before 97 Senators vote for it without blinking an eye? I take it this is aimed at North Korea, whose last citizen should die of starvation well before that eventuality comes about, and China, which means that we are now literally in an arms race with ourself. Two arms races actually, if you count the race between our defense contractors and our spies to see who can sell American technology to the Chinese first.

Has anyone seen a story that says precisely what was unique about this week’s municipal elections in Qatar? This is not a rhetorical question.

And shows just how slow a news week this is, although Lafontaine’s resignation should make things more interesting. Here is another sure sign of press excitement, from the London Times:

LUCY, David Blunkett’s guide-dog, made parliamentary history yesterday when it was sick on the floor of the House. The rare example of canine weakness came shortly after the Education and Employment Secretary finished a speech on the education provisions in the Budget.

The House voted 398-12 to prevent nursing homes that drop Medicaid participation from shoving the existing Medicaid patients into the snow to make way for private patients paying more money. They are, however, free to make their lives a living hell until they “voluntarily” leave. Who on earth are the 12?

Clarence Thomas testifies to a House committee that the Supreme Court would really like to have minority and women clerks but that the Court is just too darned important to be tinkering around with stuff like equity. He says that when he wants clerks, he asks for the cream. Jokewise, there are two possible ways to go here. One is that it’s probably the sole woman clerk who has to go out for the cream. The other has something to do with pornography.

Some mathematician killjoy with too much computer time figured out how to win at Monopoly. I’d tell you how, but I read the story in one of the British papers, so the streets all have different names. But don’t get the expensive properties, and get the ones near the Jail.

Best obit of the week: Sidney Gottlieb, the former mad scientist of the CIA 1953-73. If it was an exploding cigar or a poisoned handkerchief you wanted, he was your man. He was also in charge of the MK-ULTRA (that’s LSD to you) program, experimenting on countless mental patients and inmates (did anyone see that great Canadian tv-movie on the program that ran on Lifetime a few months ago?) and, by the way, himself. What the London Times obit in tomorrow’s paper says that the NY Times’s Wednesday did not is that the man admitted that everything he did at CIA was a complete failure. None of the attempts to poison Castro or Lumumba or make Castro’s beard fell out ever worked, the LSD stuff was completely pointless. When Gottlieb retired from the CIA, at age 55 or so, he went to India with his wife and ran a leper hospital. Then he tried to start a commune in Virginia, and later ran a hospice, and, quote: “practiced two of his lifelong hobbies, folk dancing and herding goats.” Did I mention he dropped a whole lot of LSD?

You know it’s a slow news week when the BBC uses the phrase “emergency banana summit”.

Real news to keep up with: the Northern Ireland was supposed to be established by this week. It hasn’t been.
-The former prime minister of France was acquitted by a rigged jury for manslaughter.
-Um, you did know that the former prime minister of France was being tried for manslaughter, didn’t you?
-Austrian fascists do very very well in a state election.
-Another Austrian fascist gets into Japan without a passport. What, are you going to be the one to tell Arnie no?

Speaking of idiot Germans, two teenagers in southern Germany went into a gas station with stockings over their heads. Naturally, the police were called. But it turned out that they’d just gone in to buy condoms, and were embarrassed.

The British Labour party, increasingly desperate about the fact that the Scots are not going to vote for them in sheer gratitude at being granted Home Rule, is now campaigning on the claim that the Scottish National Party would slaughter baby seals if it wins power.

When will the Full Monica media blitz be over? I’ll be hiding under my bed until then, and if you knew how long it’s been since I vacuumed down there, you’d know how serious a statement that is. You know, in Norway, the prime minister actually took 2 months off in 1992 because her son committed suicide, and the media never said a word.

The 4th Circuit overturns a 1994 law allowing rape victims to sue on civil rights grounds in federal court. The court said that this really wasn’t what the Constitution meant by “regulating interstate commerce”.

Monica’s abortion: the daddy was the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Readiness. Which I assume means he used a $20,000 condom that didn’t work.

Road kill and oral sex

According to Molly Ivins, the big issue in the Tennessee legislature is a bill to allow people who run over animals to take them home & eat them without having had a permit.

Saw some of the Monica Lewinsky interview. Barbara Walters asked her if she had no self-esteem at all. I forget if that was before or after she asked Monica to explain what phone sex was. The only difference between Walters and Tripp is that the former told Monica that she was going to ask a lot of ridiculously personal questions and then broadcast the tape to the whole world. If we want to know what phone sex is, we should ask the Israelis to cough up their tape of the Clinton-Lewinsky phone sex. And who would pay $800,000 for a 30 second ad during this broadcast? The new Hugh Grant movie. How appropriate.

Quote of the day

“We will continue the battle against Hezbollah because they continue the battle against us.” Netanyahu.

I wonder why Hezbollah continues the battle against them...?

There’s an article in the Washington Post today, Tuesday, on the US using UNSCOM as cover for intelligence-gathering that’s rather more detailed than

There’s an article in the Washington Post today, Tuesday, on the US using UNSCOM as cover for intelligence-gathering that’s rather more detailed than anything we’ve seen before and suggests what anyone with a brain cell to all their own already knew, that the US line since being caught us was a complete lie.

I spent part of today in the Graduate Theological Union library (don’t ask). Now in such a library, if a woman at the next microfiche machine keeps talking to herself, wouldn’t you like to her to speak loud enough that you can make it out?

Quote of the day, from John Le Carre:

“We failed to embrace the former Soviet empire. We failed to give them their dignity.

“Instead, there was a shameful expectation on our side, particularly the American side, that if we gave them enough pairs jeans and enough rock music and had McDonald’s there, somehow they would find private enterprise for themselves.

“They didn’t do that. They found crime.”

Lockheed Martin is developing the latest technology in troop transport: a really big blimp, capable of moving 4,000 soldiers.

The Times has an obit of a trader in port wine, who “elevated the act of spitting to almost an art form.”

In another example of an increasing problem, a Russian nuclear sub went out of commission because one of the sailors had snipped some wires and sold them to another submarine. This happens to elevators in Russia all the time. Also, units of the army have been selling some of their soldiers to the Chechens as hostages.

Australia’s deputy chief censor is now in the porno business. Just another example of the Hey I can do better than that! phenomenon. His films all seem to have the words “Down Under” in the title.

In 1954 the Catholic orphanages in Quebec were converted into psychiatric institutions in order to qualify for federal funding. They had 3,000 illegitimate children in them at the time. So what did they do with the kids? Re-classified them as mentally ill, put them in straitjackets, drugged them...

Britain is still working on their own little Rodney King story, after six years. A teenager named Stephen Lawrence was stabbed by a bunch of white teenagers. Reports at the time suggested that police arrived while he was still alive and stood around letting him bleed to death. That doesn’t seem actually to have been what happened, but that ensured that media attention stayed on the case. Everyone knows who did it, and everyone always knew. One newspaper even printed the names, which is unheard of, given the libel laws. The police screwed up the case beyond description so that no charges were ever brought, were nasty to the family, who got more and more upset as the years went on. Anyway, a report came out last week which blamed the London police for being racist (who knew?) and incompetent. Unfortunately, they also accidentally released the names and addresses of all their secret witnesses. And then the memorial to Lawrence was vandalized and it turned out that the police video cameras monitoring it were fakes, with no film. The Home Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the passion for liberty of Antonin Scalia, has proposed doing away with double jeopardy protection and making it illegal to say racist things in your own home.

You’ll all hear this sooner or later, so why wait for the media hand-wringing? Clinton has been accused by unreliable sources of 2 more rapes, one in Britain in 1969, a British woman, and one while he was at Yale Law School, which brings to mind a fairly obvious joke.

Kosovolvo

The war goes on. And those damned Serbs refuse to play ball and send up their planes and missiles. Since the missiles are still in reserve, the real bombing can’t begin, which means the whole campaign drags on while NATO falls apart, or so Milosevic hopes. The Italian government came very close to collapsing over Kosovo today. And the Greeks were never on board. More ominously for the future of this thing, Macedonia is not especially thrilled either, and Milosevic could easily start the usual civil war there just by sending a stream of refugees their way. See Macedonia has a large Albanian minority with whom Macedons don’t get along, and the last they want is more of them.

Still, isn’t it nice to see us killing Christians for a change?

And isn’t it nice to have a war that isn’t a distraction from a Clinton sex scandal?

Party dude

Another creepy-twins story: twins in Sicily give birth at the same time.

The Japanese consul to Canada, a wife-beater, says it’s no big deal, it’s a cultural thing. The Japanese prime minister is asked if he beats his wife, but says he is a pacifist.

Speaking of pacifists, that guy in Jasper is sentenced to death. They figure that in terms of re-education, nothing will be more effective than putting him in a place in which he is part of a small racial minority, the Texas death row. He is the first of hundreds of Texans sentenced to death to be a white person convicted of murdering a black one.

Speaking of people you don’t mind too much being executed even though you don’t support the death penalty, Texas executes the first of those Germans who thought choosing the gas chamber over lethal injection would keep the sentence from being carried out. As a Jew, the thought of a German in a gas chamber is kind of a giggle.

The Supreme Court rules that illegal aliens have no first amendment rights.

The Watergate burglars evidently carried out another break-in no one knew about until now, at the Chilean Embassy, for no good reason except for someone to link it with the planned Watergate break-in so that both would be blamed on a CIA operation. Something like that. Even Nixon thought it was a stupid idea.

Nigeria has its parliamentary elections. Corruption is such a way of life that it is carried out even when there is no reason. One election official reported 100% turnout in his area, where 250 people voted for one party, and 250 for the other party.

Another American victim

Bye to the skinny one.

And hello to Woo Yong Gak after 41 years in a South Korean prison.

The Washington Post says that one up and coming idea is the restoration of civil rights to ex-felons, given that 13% of black men are ineligible to vote, 31% in Florida.

I have some comments about the elections for leader of the Welsh Labour Party, but I doubt anyone wants to hear them.

Monica’s interview has been taped. She says she was raped by the constitution. Incidentally, although Starr finally allowed her to speak, she isn’t allowed to say anything bad about him or his crew. And what does that have to do with an immunity agreement, exactly?

In Arizona, which is weird, two prisoners, German brothers, one scheduled to die I believe Wednesday, the other one next week, having been given their choice of poison, as it were, chose the gas chamber so that they can appeal their own decision as cruel and unusual.

So Jane Doe #5 has finally gone public with claims Clinton raped her. The most curious aspect is her supporting evidence. At the time she is supposed to have told a) her husband, b) her best friend, whose father was murdered by someone whose death penalty was commuted by Governor Clinton.

Those Israeli Embassy guards in Berlin who shot 19 Kurds, 3 fatally, which strikes me as a fair number of bullets to be letting off, are themselves let off because they have diplomatic immunity. Does this sound like a good idea?

Threats of violence from the Japanese right prevent a publisher going ahead with a Japanese edition of an American book about the Rape of Nanking.

Yeltsin, who claimed yesterday to have spoken on the phone with Clinton, which he didn’t (American sources say he probably meant Madeline Albright, which is a mistake I think we’ve all made at some time), today meets Gerhard Shroeder for the first time, or at least what he seems to think is the first time.

The Pope intervened with Britain, asking them to let Pinochet go free. What’s interesting, aside from the inappropriateness, is that the Vatican has been lying about it ever since November. Aren’t they not supposed to do that? Isn’t there a commandment, or something?

Speaking of which, Monica’s blue & semen dress may go into the National Archives, which will at least spare us the knowledge of how much someone would be willing to pay for it at auction, but will mean that the dress is never going to be cleaned. They can put it next to Jackie Kennedy’s pink & blood & brains dress, which has also never been cleaned.

3 top members of the Greek government have to resign over the Greek role in the Turkish capture of Ocalan. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Madeline Albright to resign for the same reason. The Turks have already denied his lawyers entry into the country and refuses to let the trial be monitored. Oh, and some of those strange comments he made after his arrest suggest to me that they drugged him.

Kurd who most needs to be bitch-slapped: the guy who is so proud of his 15-year old daughter’s setting herself on fire in protest.

The Secret Service secretly funded a private company’s efforts to gain access to state driver’s license photos and create a Big Brother database without the states being aware of the fed involvement. Not that such a db in private hands is any better, of course.

The Czechoslovak divorce isn’t going that well after all. It seems the Slovak intelligence service has been busy stirring up anti-NATO and anti-Gypsy sentiment in the Czech Republic (the latter to make it seem less acceptable for NATO and EU membership).

Yesterday the US and Serb negotiators at that conference took a little break and flew to Beograde to talk with Milosevic. What the press didn’t bother mentioning is that this was a violation of the ground-rules which said that everyone stays there, and incommunicado, until a deal is reached. The Kosovar and I believe Russian delegations literally engaged in a car chase trying to head off the others as they drove to the airport.

Death of an honest man

John Ehrlichman’s obit says that he’s been a VP in a firm that does hazardous waste handling. You can take the boy out of the Nixon White House, but I guess you can’t take the Nixon White House out of the boy.

Washington’s birthday

Ah, the simpler days, when “interns” came not from the West Coast of North America but from the West Coast of Africa, and when... well, it’s a holiday, why don’t you all just write your own joke, utilizing the following elements: wooden teeth, oral sex.

oops (Valentine Day’s story)

The South African government has handed out tens of thousands of condoms--stapled to a helpful pamphlet.

According to the Sunday Times, after the US offered the use of its U2 spy planes to Unscom to monitor Iraq, the first thing it did was to refuse to tell when and where photos were taken and deliberately fuzzy them up to disguise the U2’s capabilities.

Trent Lott says that Clinton is untrustworthy. This from a man with the least trustworthy hair in the US Senate, bar none, including Strom Thurmond.

Real estate notice from Halifax Property Services: First floor bedsit in generally good order. Drug dealers next door.

Tough justice

An article in tomorrow’s Washington Post says that the Chinese are solving their girl-shortage problem by buying brides from North Korea.

The Italian supreme court rules that a woman wearing tight denim jeans can’t be raped. The all-male judges, never having heard of a zipper, insist that a woman must cooperate to get them off, especially Italian women with large asses. Alright, they didn’t say the last part. They reject the idea of threats possibly being a component of rape, because there is nothing worse than rape with which to threaten women. In protest, women MPs and a lot of other women will be wearing jeans until the court of cassation, tired of seeing fat Italian asses, reverses itself.

Today Pluto passed beyond Neptune’s orbit, resuming its position as the 9th planet, having escaped an impeachment resolution and removal from office as a planet. If anyone is asking my position, I haven’t considered Pluto to be a planet since Charon was discovered.

And yes, I do have a position on Pluto being a planet. I have a position on everything, haven’t you noticed?

George Dubbya knows foreign affairs like Dan Quayle knows spelling

A “Draft George W. Bush” campaign opens. They think he has the principles, the something, and the something else to win the next election. He’s also an ignoramus. William Hague, leader of the British Tory party, is visiting the US including Texas. And while the Washington Post was too polite to mention it, it was clear that Dubbya had no idea who he was, first confusing him with Alexander Haig, and then evidently thinking that Hague was something in the current British government.

Although Monica is still on Starr’s leash, not allowed to speak to the press, Linda Tripp, who also has an immunity agreement with the Office of Independent Council (motto: We’re not holier than thou. We’re holier than you) (from Matt Groening), is somehow allowed to go on tv. Must have been the same oversight where they forgot to tell her not to talk with Paula Jones’s lawyers.

Although it just came out this week that Janet Reno is planning to investigate some of Starr’s abuses of power, including lying to her, the decision was evidently made in mid-January. Now here’s something: it didn’t leak. That was before the trial started in the Senate and details might certainly have affected it, but Reno didn’t leak it. The Justice Dept didn’t leak it. And Starr’s office didn’t leak it. So it is possible for something not to leak: it just has to be helpful to William Jethro Clinton.

Hasn’t even cleared her throat yet

Henry Hyde said over the weekend that it isn’t over until the fat lady sings, and she hasn’t even cleared her throat yet. Now the first part of that quote I myself used as a subject line a couple of weeks ago when Monica was called, and felt a bit cheap in so doing, but even my mind wasn’t filthy enough to think of the second part. Guess it takes a Congressman.

When they were debating whether to make their speeches in open session or not, Daschle suggested that grandstanding could be cut down by limiting the speeches to 10 minutes instead of 15. My suggestion: for all the value any of this has, we could save still more time by leaving the speeches at 15 minutes, but having all 100 Senators recite them at the same time.

Phil Gramm, in opposition to censure, notes that Andrew Jackson’s censure was expunged from the record an election or two later, and that Jackson is now on the twenty dollar bill.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department has announced plans for a sixty-nine dollar bill....

The 4th Circuit eliminates Miranda rights.

In the “why do we bother to vote” department, California’s new more caring Democratic governor fries his first felon.

Yeltsin almost makes it to King Hussein’s funeral, but has to go home early, tired, as the Daily Show put it, after handing out invitations to his own upcoming funeral. Back in Moscow airport, Yeltsin’s plane clips the plane with the Italian prime minister, and spokesmen rush forward to say that Yeltsin wasn’t trying to fly it, like that bizarre conducting incident.

Clichés in the Trial of the Century

The New York city police shoot an unarmed Sierra Leonean 24 times. Almost as worrisome to the city’s innocent bystanders, they also missed 17 times.

The surgeon who amputated the wrong leg a while back in Florida, and was assessed a jolly big fine ($2,500, probably less than he tried to charge Medicare for the operation), who then missed the target by an even larger margin by putting a chest catheter in the patient in the wrong bed, is back at work.

The anti-abortion web site ordered to pay $107 million in a questionably constitutional decision for almost advocating the deaths of doctors, announces plans to install web-cams at abortion clinics. Its provider then pulls it.

In her deposition, Monica Lewinsky objects to her affair being described as “salacious”. The Daily Telegraph says she’s lucky she wasn’t asked to spell it.

o

The municipal employee who used the word “niggardly” is hired back in D.C., but you’ll notice it took a week for it to be realized how stupid that was. I also didn’t notice any black leaders standing up to say that of course blacks aren’t so stupid that even if they didn’t already know the word they couldn’t have it explained to them, and that it was an insult to suggest otherwise.

Oklahoma executed the guy who committed the murder when he was 16, a new low in the death penalty biz. His was the 12th or 13th execution of the year. The Philippines resumes the death penalty tomorrow.

After the Senate today voted not to let the White House know in advance what clips from the depositions the prosecutors are planning to use on Saturday, Tom DeLay had to have explained to him twice the suggestion that there be a break before the defense responds to this surprise evidence, as if the whole idea of fundamental fairness was alien to him. But then often enough in this farce the White House was supposed to respond to charges not even made yet. I kept waiting for David Kendall to put on his Karnak hat but he never did. DeLay may have been distracted by Newsweek reports that he himself lied under oath in a civil suit deposition.

Testimony

The lower house of the Dutch Parliament has voted to legalize brothels, which is a surprise to everyone in the universe, who thought they already were.

Today Sidney Blumenthal, the chief proponent of the vast right-wing conspiracy, will have his deposition overseen by Arlen Specter, who invented the single-bullet theory.

Bossy

Margaret Thatcher says that Tony Blair is too bossy.

The 1st Circuit appeals court upholds the idiotic federal law outlawing computer kiddy porn created by computer manipulation rather than by using actual naked children.

Prince Charles finally goes public with Camilla. Mr. Lucky’s photo op was ruined by too much flash photography, making it impossible to air on tv for more than 5 seconds at a time without sending epileptics into spasm.

A piece in today’s Wash Post talks about Barbara Durham, who was forced on Clinton as a nominee to the 9th Circuit in exchange for his getting a judge he actually wanted. Durham broke the Washington state canons of individual conduct during her election in 1996 to the state supreme court by running a partisan campaign (Republican, if you hadn’t guessed), and by having the state attorney general as her campaign’s co-chair--no, no conflict of interest there. And she endorsed Dole on the grounds that he would get the executions moving.

Netanyahu’s election slogan is causing some controversy: “A strong leader for a strong people.” It probably sounded better in the original German.

Dennis Miller says that the Senate is trying to figure out a form of punishment for Clinton that won’t make him hard.

The majority of federal wiretaps are now issued by a secret intelligence court.

Did you know that since 1996 civil rights settlements are taxable? What incredible nerve Congress has. On the up side, Paula Jones gets screwed again.

Sex addiction

The pope in St. Louis speaks against abortion and assisted suicide, arguing for the dignity of human life. He then put on one of his many funny hats, and drooled.

44 Senators, if you read both votes together, said that they’ve heard enough to dismiss the charges, while 0 say they have heard enough to convict and need to see more.

Oklahoma plans next week to execute someone for a crime committed when they were 16, the first such since 1977.

Evidently Sidney Blumenthal is the right’s bete noir, the dark prince in its conspiracy theories, its Richard Mellon Scaife if you like. This is why he wound up on the witness list and not Betty Currie. Of course the last time he was questioned, it was by Starr’s people last June. They asked him whether Bill Clinton believes that oral sex is sex, does Bill Clinton’s religion include sexual intercourse, whether he ever discussed with Hillary whether Bill had a sex addiction....

Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap

One of the defendants in the Jasper, Texas murder-by-dragging trial has a tattoo of Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap.

Speaking of Woody Woodpecker in a KKK cap, the House impeachment “managers” today announced their list of witnesses, described by Bob Barr as two Jews and a niggra.

1 year on

The Wash Post’s impeachment coverage has recently included a “one year ago today” section, and today is the anniversary of the finger-wagging episode.

Normally there is no more fervent supporter of freedom of the press than myself, but sometimes there is an exception. Whatever reporters were briefed by Senators about what was said in closed section today should be hauled in and have electrodes attached to their genitals until they name the offending Senator, who should be expelled from the Senate under the standing rules. I didn’t support the decision to go behind closed doors, but I want a scalp. The hypocritical assholes can’t have it both ways.

Lindsey Graham’s speech arguing against dismissal was an exercise in televised nervous breakdown, and very entertaining as such. Henry Hyde, looking more than ever like Willie Loman, did his sorrowful-at-the-ways-of-the-wicked-world routine. Of course Saturday he supported the civil rights of Paula Jones in the same speech as he mentioned his opposition to abortion, just in case anyone had forgotten that he’s a prick.

As I write, the Senate is hearing arguments about hearing witnesses. No it isn’t, it just went to break. This is all rather problematic because there are good political reasons why Clinton’s people can’t put on a proper defense. If Monica testifies that she understand that Clinton wanted her to lie, without his actually having said so, someone needs to ask her whether she also believed that he would leave his wife for her and that Linda Tripp was her bestest friend. McCollum said that it is not he said, she said because she told other people at the time. She needs to be asked whether she also told them that she slept overnight at the White House and her other tall tales. None of this is possible.

I haven’t made any comments on the impeachment trial of William Jethro Clinton in the last couple of days, so here are my thoughts on developments in that period:

That Cheryl Mills sure has a sexy voice, doesn’t she?

On to other things.

I saw a bit of a clip on the Daily Show yesterday of Dan Quayle in a classroom. The teacher introduces him and explains to the tykes that he is President Clinton’s vice president. She is told that he isn’t and asks who is. Does anyone know where this took place?

Also on the Daily Show yesterday was a piece about a church in whose stained glass people have spotted the image of... Bozo the Clown. And there it was, too, clear as day. The pastor said sorrowfully that, yeah, once it’s pointed out to you, it’s impossible afterwards not to see it.

I think it was on the Daily Show that it was said that the only mention of the impeachment trial during the State of the Union Address was the bit about protecting our children from tobacco.

State of Union/impeachment & whatnot

So Bob Barr didn’t go to the State of the Union speech (see below). I’m guessing it’s for a reason similar to that of Andrew Cuomo, the single Cabinet member who traditionally doesn’t go, so that if the Capitol blows up, after the partying dies down, the Department of Health and Urban Development can go on. Similarly, Barr didn’t go so that even if Clinton, Gore, all but one member of the Cabinet, and most of the House and Senate and Supreme Court get blown up, the impeachment hearings can continue.

In 1940 a German firing squad executed a French horse that kicked a German soldier to death.

The Supreme Court lets stand a 25-year sentence under the Calif. 3 Strikes law for someone who shoplifted some vitamins.

During the Address, there seemed to be applause for everything. Who but a politician would applaud “putting a human face on the global economy”?

A quick read through Salon, the free parts of Slate and the Washington Post show no one else making the obvious observation, so I will: Clinton said that Boomers like himself have a fear of becoming a burden on their children, which is why Social Security should be shored up by investing a lot of money in the stock market. An interesting sentence for someone who last week sent a large chunk of Chelsea’s inheritance to Paula Jones.

In the speech and in today’s impeachment hearings, the day was surprisingly abject-apology free. Maybe we’re done with all the groveling. Today, Ruff pointed out two obvious holes in last week’s case: the call from Betty Currie to Lewinsky that proved there was a Clinton conspiracy to hide gifts, actually occurred after the gifts were given to Currie, not before. And Vernon Jordan’s meeting with Lewinsky that proved the job assistance was a bribe in exchange for false testimony because it occurred immediately after the judge in the Jones trial ruled that testimony from other girlfriends was admissable, actually occurred before--Jordan was on a plane to Europe by the time the ruling came down.

Quick excerpt from a Washington Post story:

There were tricky moments. At one point, Ruff found himself explaining that Clinton could not possibly have been obstructing justice when he lied about his affair to various top aides. Why not? Because he was lying to everyone else too. If you had a television, the president lied to you. The aides were nothing special.

He said it so calmly, so smoothly, that it passed by entirely unremarkably.

State of the Union?

The House impeachment wranglers made the point over and over yesterday that Clinton was being accused of stuff that the Senate has previously impeached judges over. I think that presidents in the future should wear uniforms so that they may be easily distinguished from other people in uniform. If Billy Clinton were a judge, he’d be wearing a black robe and no pants and he would serve for life upon good behaviour. If he were in the military he’d wear another kind of uniform and he could have been thrown out for the adultery alone (or for being gay or for sending a bunch of Italian skiers to their deaths). If he were in the Boy Scouts, he could have been thrown out for any of this, or for being an atheist. But he isn’t any of these things. Get over it.

A British judge rules that a house is not haunted. The owners were trying not to pay it off.

Motto: “And sleep like a Senator during an impeachment trial”

A piece in the Monday Washington Post points out that Clinton is in one sense not above the law at all, that the abuses perpetrated by Starr are the ones that US attorneys inflict on average Americans every day. Indeed, Reno has been lobbying against a bill to make US attorneys comply with state ethics rules and not interrogate people who have lawyered up (as they say on NYPD Blue).

On the talk show circuit today, 19% of the “jury” has spoken its mind, if any. D’s are fighting back on the witness issue, threatening to interrogate Starr and Tripp. It could be a long winter.

This year South Africa will legalize polygamy, as long as it is performed according to traditional rituals and so on. There will be no legal limit on bride-price, so this should hold the incidence down. Interestingly, whites will be able to take advantage of the law. No discrimination in the new South Africa.

Now it can be revealed

Jerry Falwell says the Antichrist is alive now and is a male Jew.

The University of Abertay (Dundee, Scotland) is developing a degree in computer games technology. The university’s first fellows in this dept. are the people who created Lemmings.

Egypt convicts a couple to one year for kissing in public.

The Sunday Times confirms that Hitler had one ball.

The US Department of Defense wants the right of prior censorship over Scott Ritter’s book.

All right, I admit it, Jerry Falwell, *I* am the Antichrist. There. You’ve dragged it out of me.

At the impeachment yesterday, Tom Harkin objected to the Senators being called “jurors” on the grounds that, quote, “Only losers get stuck with jury duty.” Rehnquist sustained the objection.

Republicans are calling for Monica Lewinsky to be called so that her body language can be read. I’ll leave it to you to create your own jokes, using the following elements: Ted Kennedy and Braille, overeating as an aid to Senators sitting in the back.

Ya know, Mark Fuhrman pleaded nolo contendre to perjury in an actual murder trial and got a $200 fine.

In one of the sillier moments, George Gekas talked about his mother’s naturalization classes, in which she learned that the three branches of government were, she said in her “wonderful, lovable accent”, were “The Exec, the Legisla and the Judish.” George Gekas’s mother was, in fact, Chico Marx.

And on and on. Bill McCullom actually summarized yesterday’s summary of the Starr Report. Jeff Greenfield on CNN is speculating that none of the House managers are speaking to each other, since they all deem it necessary to repeat the same damn things, including reading what Betty Currie said Clinton said to her (perhaps if it gets repeated enough times, we’ll all be convinced that Currie was able months later to remember it word for word?). Jon Stewart on Nightline described the Republicans from the House as looking like “every guy who ever fired my father.” McCullom looks like Clark Kent sucking on a kryptonite lemon. Now let’s see if I’ve got this argument straight: perjury must be impeachable because the Federal sentencing guidelines (the ones written in the 1980s?) said that perjury is as bad as bribery, which is mentioned in the Constitution. Head...hurt. The guidelines also say that crack is much worse than powder cocaine. And Clinton was lying when he said he wasn’t paying attention to his lawyer. If he has to deal with people like these Congressmen every day, I’ll bet he’s mastered the art of looking like he’s paying attention when he isn’t. As opposed to the Senator, I forget which one, who’s been showing up wearing sunglasses so no one can be sure when he’s sleeping.

I’ve read the affidavit of Bob Barr’s ex-wife, on the web, of course. What is it with Republican first wives and cancer? Bob reacted to her breast cancer and chemotherapy by saying she should take her mind off it by working for his election campaign.

Christopher Hitchens quotes Clinton after ordering the missile strike on Sudan: “I was here on this island [Martha’s Vineyard, poor baby] till 2:30 in the morning, trying to make absolutely sure that at the chemical plant there was no night shift. .. I didn’t want some person who was a nobody to me--but who may have a family to feed and a life to live and probably had no earthly idea what else was going on there [a CIA official?]--to die needlessly.”

And Michael Douglas in the movie “The American President,” which we know Clinton has seen because it’s about a president who dates: “Somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor is working the night shift at Libyan intelligence headquarters. And he’s going about doing his job because he has no idea that in about an hour he’s going to die in a massive explosion.”

From bias free of every kind, this trial must be tried

Someone at Slate counts today as the 9th presentation of the same old evidence against Clinton including the Starr report, Starr’s testimony to House, the judiciary committee’s presentation to the whole House, etc etc. And boy did it seem it, from the half or so I’ve seen or heard so far today. Henry Hyde said that oaths were real important (key theme today: every time someone lies under oath, an angel dies), that Thomas More went to the stake rather than swear a false oath (all together now: I knew Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas More was a friend of mine...). Poor Paula Jones had her civil rights violated. It’s always laughable watching Republicans try to hitch their causes to civil rights: Sensenbrenner likened Jones’s suit to sit-ins at lunch counters. Especially laughable if you’ve read today’s NY Times article about the Council of Conservative Citizens and why Trent Lott had to have known what it was all about, including the frightening information that 34 Mississippi legislators and Governor Kirk Fordice (who I’ve described as David Duke without the sheet) are members. And don’t get me started on Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, one of the three jurors currently consorting with the prosecutors about witnesses.

Things House “managers” did today they shouldn’t have: turned the count about grand jury perjury into an argument that Clinton lied during the Paula Jones deposition. Which he did, but that was a count the House voted against. It should not be resurrected now. And making the argument for calling witnesses during what was supposed to be about something else.

In other news today, the Pope says that God is not an old man with a beard, but refuses to say what she does look like.

The European Commission barely survives a censure vote, unfortunately.

A Labour county councillor in Sussex of all places defects to the Scottish National Party.

Israeli Watergate?

Something else worth paying attention to in the days or weeks ahead: the German debate over the proposed citizenship law.

A new California law says that it is now legal to throw out your old batteries. Um, you have all been recycling those batteries as was legally required, haven’t you?

So Bob Barr (R-Antebellum South) committed adultery, lied about it in court papers, failed to pay child support, and paid for his wife’s abortion. And has a really creepy mustache. Larry Flynt also says he has video on a congressional player yet to be named. And pretty much said that the next one he outs will be Tom DeLay.

The sheer spectacle of the Clinton impeachment is just overwhelming, isn’t it? Rehnquist in his personally designed comic opera robes, Strom Thurmond in his personally designed comic opera hair and comic strip (Li’l Abner) accent. The senators were required to keep silent under pain of imprisonment. I personally saw three senatorial heads explode. Each senator signed something or other and got a souvenir pen. A cigar would have been more appropriate. An exploding cigar would have been still more appropriate. Clinton still hasn’t been allowed to see all the evidence against him. But remember, folks, this is not a trial, no matter what they call it, even if it is the trial of the century of the week. It is essentially an administrative procedure. If they don’t want to show him evidence, they can. There has never been a standard of proof established for impeachments (beyond a shadow of doubt, a preponderance of evidence, whatever). I personally think they could order Clinton to testify without any right of non-self-incrimination, because it is not a trial.

The most popular boy’s name in California and Texas last year was Jose. Elsewhere, Austin is big (groovy, baby). I don’t know what the most popular baby’s name in China is, but it’s certainly a boy’s name, since they’re producing fewer girl babies than ever before.

Linda Tripp has established a legal defense fund. So send your letter bombs to...

Who are these unnamed US officials who are confirming to every newspaper that will listen to them that the CIA used the UNSCOM inspectors as cover to spy on Iraq? On the one hand, the US’s blatant abuse of the UN will definitely make sure that weapons inspection will not be re-established in Iraq or anywhere else (North Korea might have been a candidate). The UN’s credibility is especially damaged by the fact that the information flow came entirely through the US, which passed on only what it felt like, only to the UN folks it liked (Scott Ritter, to name one, was out of the loop), and for all we know tampered with it before doing so. On the other hand, whose idea was it to give the UN essentially espionage duties, for which it had no capabilities whatsoever? What did anyone expect it to do, other than to subcontract the job out?

John Ashcroft drops out of the presidential race before anyone knew he was in it. Of course, in today’s environment you have to ask whether that means he had an affair he doesn’t want to come out. Get used to it: even if it isn’t about sex, it’s still about sex.

Or at least about gender. The following is the summary of two stories from the index to the British news section of tomorrow’s Times:

[19]Women kick men when they are down
Survey indicates that women are more likely to attack men when they are most vulnerable

[20]The Thatcher theory of women’s success
Study shows female managers go to great lengths to appear more macho than men, writes Alexandra Frean

If you read only legitimate news sources like the NY Times or the Washington Post, you will be woefully uninformed about this week’s two Bill Clinton scandals. 1) his father is evidently not the guy his mother always claimed he was. 2) the son of a black prostitute is being DNA-tested to determine if Bill is the dad (this is made possible by Starr’s running tests on a certain dress).

The British Lottery, which funds lesbian theatre and other worthy causes, including a number of heritage projects, is to be used to renovate one of the last of the Victorian public loos, made famous because the playwright Joe Orton used to have sex there.

New laws: kids in Wisconsin can bring inhalers to school. They couldn’t before? NH parents of murdered children can sue for loss of companionship (although presumably the defendant can respond by proving that the kid was a little shit). And Massachusetts gets an official state polka. Massachusetts.

The Post suggests that 1998 can best be summed up in the words of Monica Lewinsky to the grand jury: we’re all really sorry for everything that’s happened. And we hate Linda Tripp.

The Washington Post uncovers that Richard Nixon proposed censuring Truman in 1951 for firing McArthur.

Washington Post headline: “Narcolepsy Drug Gets FDA Nod”

Millenial Olympics

New York magazine competition, Olympic events of the future:

Opinion poll vault

The compact disc throw

Synchronized paparazzi beating

Cross-country reindeer tipping

Aussie rules ice dancing

Au-pair skating

Decaflon

50-yard Mrs. Dash (low-sodium track and field)

Cross dressage

Cellular phone tag

Fishing for compliments

Synchronized watching

Whitewater stonewalling

Full-figure skating

Jose Greco-Roman Polanski wrestling

Drive-by skeet shooting

Maximum bobsledding

Viagrathon

Senatorial shotputzhead

Mom soccer

Elevator sprint

400 meter walking-and-chewing-gum relay

50-yard dine and dash

Crack and speed skating

Subpoena-dodging slalom

Men's 500-channel surfing

Platform-shoe diving

Advertising disclaimer speed reading

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

I've just seen the best example of an internet document by someone without a life. It's a bit long so I'll just summarize, but I will send it to anyone who asks in the next few days. It is an article about the impeachment, or I guess court martial, of James T. Kirk for lying about sex with subordinates and members of other races [my joke: "What is this Earth custom `blow job' of which you speak?]. Some think that this trial is occurring at a bad time, since Kirk has crossed the neutral zone with the Romulans, but... Lt. Uhuru, bored with her dead-end job opening hailing frequencies, has been secretly recording Yeoman Rand, who speculates that a transporter malfunction has separated Kirk into the good guy and the big creep. Kirk defends his original statement, saying that in fact he and Rand served on the Enterprise, not in the Enterprise, so it all depends on what the word "in" means.

The resignation of Britain's Trade and Industry minister and its Paymaster General show how boring scandals are supposed to be, in real countries.

Check out Salon's long-rumored expose of Dan Burton, his affairs, his campaign contributions, and the incident that sent his father to jail...

Clinton bombed the shit out of a foreign country last week, and the one phrase I didn't see anywhere: War Powers Act. I must have missed that one being repealed.

Oh sure, *now* they want to compromise on censure. By the way, since half the people aren't pronouncing it correctly, as a CNN piece showed yesterday, an interesting poll might ask the question, how many Americans think what is meant is censor. You laugh, but it's best not to underestimate popular stupidity in these matters. Anyway, some of the Republican "moderates" (defined as those people with broken kneecaps) who voted for impeachment say that the Senate shouldn't remove Clinton from power. And there's a lot of talk about compromise. Too late, guys. The time for censure was in the House before the impeachment vote. Check out the Constitution: the Senate has exactly three choices--removal from office, disqualification from further federal offices, or nothing. Plea-bargaining is not an option. Not that the Constitution has ever stopped the Senate, Clinton, or Rehnquist.

So if Iraq's military has been "degraded", have the civilian casualties been "demoted", ya know, to ashes?

Putting the wood to the Republicans

Livingston not only had at least four mistresses, but four who were willing to talk about it for money.

Yesterday we had the 500th execution since 1977.

Back in the impeachment debate, D.C. Watts says that impeachment is necessary to make Boy Scouts obey their oaths. Joseph Kennedy II says the R's are going after Clinton because "The President has put the wood to the Republicans time and time again." The best summary is that of Washington Post tv critic Tom Shales: "Rarely has so much buffoonery produced so little in the way of amusement."

The man who coined the phrase "Nixon's the One" has died. What a thing to be remembered for. Somewhere there is a picture of me from a 1968 costume thing, dressed as a pregnant woman with a sign saying Nixon's the One.

Poor Saint Bob Livingston, martyr to the cause of puritanism. It would be easier to take him for a victim if we didn't know (although the NY Times seems to have forgotten it) that he planned a couple of years ago to quit politics because he wanted to be making a lot more money, and stayed only because he was promised the speaker's job when Gingrich gave it up. The R's praised Livingston for his courage and his ability to bag that many mistresses, while the D's begged him to stay. Bizarre.

If impeachment has accomplished one good thing, it is that Clinton, who has been treading water for, what, 3 years now?, has an agenda again. Well he had to have some sort of agenda, so that his supporters could say it was being interrupted by this impeachment nonsense. Last year's agenda consisted of school uniforms and nothing else that I can remember. This year Clinton suddenly has ideas again: saving Social Security, a patient's bill of rights. Oh, nothing will come of any of this, but it's nice to see the D's have some ideas again.

The minute the impeachment debate was over, Operation Desert Fox was ended. What a coincidence that was! This was, to coin a phrase, The Mistress of All Battles. Fortunately it was easy to declare it a success. Since it was never clear what the goal was supposed to be, it was easy to declare the goal achieved.

Note to Tony Blair: if you're going to insist that this wasn't a war against Islam, don't make your announcements in front of a Christmas tree.

Dennis Hastert? Who the fuck is Dennis Hastert?

Ok, none of us think Clinton will be removed from office. But don't be too secure in your belief unless you predicted the results of the 1998 elections and the resignations of Gingrich and Livingston. One important factor is the absolute lack of depth of popular support for Clinton. Look at all those polls which say that the public thinks he's an ok president who shouldn't be impeached, but if he is impeached, he should resign. Situational support, exactly what this president deserves. If the hearings drag on, what support he has may well erode as fast as Clinton's support for Lani Guinear and Joycelyn Elders and so many more.

Hillary finally comes out to support her husband, at the last minute and in not terribly enthusiastic tones. Wonder how much that cost him. More interestingly, Al Gore finally came out. Clinton's biggest fan had been awfully quiet of late. I've always thought that Hillary and Al should exchange places. The job of first lady is to stand behind the president looking at him lovingly, and Gore was always better at that than Hillary was.

In all the talk today, I've forgotten who said this, but someone blamed the polarization between the parties in Washington, the well-known fact that Congresscritters no longer fraternize, on the fact that they now have to spend all their spare time fundraising.

Speech

I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.

I rise before you today to say one word: penis. Let me say that again: penis. Penis penis penis penis penis penis penis. Penis penis penis. Penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis. Penis!

And if you vote for impeachment, you'll hear plenty more of that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Rommel's revenge

Operation Desert Fox. Are we running out of "desert" codenames so soon that we have to name military operations after one of Hitler's generals? Next up: Operation Desert Inn, threatening Saddam Hussein with the specter of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Operation Desert Hearts, threatening Saddam Hussein with the specter of an art house film about two lesbians in 1950s Nevada, appealing to the common interest of Hussein and Clinton in girl on girl scenes.

Clinton said that only Iraq has used weapons of mass destruction. He said this while dropping hundreds of missiles on Iraq, which I assume was intended to be ironic. Also, if anyone remembers: Hiroshima, Dresden, Nagasaki, Agent Orange, napalm....

Trent Lott, also no stranger to paradox, refuses to support Clinton for doing what Lott criticized him last month for not doing. Do as I say, not as I say. Or something. Lott, whose spokesmodel lied about Lott's involvement with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens, should have been lying low rather than criticizing foreign policy while American bombs, I mean boys, are in harm's way. Which I've always thought is precisely when one should criticize foreign policy.

As I write, Congresscritter Porter Goss, whoever that is, says that he supports President Bush in this matter. He is talking about giving him bipartisan support.

The timing is obviously at least as much religious as political. First, as a present for Israel on Hannakah, we are lighting up one Iraqi city per day. And I understand the smart bombs (and the Pentagon says they've every one of them hit their targets precisely--mmm hmmm) have been programmed to spell out Happy Ramadam in rubble.

So Clinton embarks on a truly extra-constitutional misuse of military force, unauthorized by Congress, in an attempt to escape impeachment for a much lesser crime. We are so beyond the whole concept of irony here. I knew we were in trouble this week when I heard that Republican moderates were searching their consciences, or maybe it was searching for their consciences. When no Republican believes that censure is constitutional, and no Democrat believes that Clinton committed perjury or that if he did it was an impeachable offense, why should the semi-mythical Republican moderates, something like the Iranian moderates Reagan sold arms to, be the only people free of political calculation? And hey, surprise surprise, they turned out not to be.

And Monica Lewinsky bought another beret. Which reminds me of a story I don't think I passed on, that The Gap, which was beseiged by requests for a certain blue dress in the days before Halloween, insisted they no longer sold it.

One suggestion I've heard is that Clinton make a new statement: "Everything I say about Monica Lewinsky is a lie." In Star Trek, this sort of thing always made the tyrannical computer blow up, so it's certainly worth trying on Trent Lott.

Sun, 13 Dec 1998

McCollum says that Clinton can be convicted but not removed from office. Perfect. He smoked marijuana but didn't inhale, he had an affair without having "sexual relations"....

On their last day, the Judiciary Committee changed the 4th article of impeachment totally, to one that no defence was made for because it was never mentioned before. But they dropped the charge of lying to the American people. So a politician can't lie in a deposition, or to a grand jury, or to Congress, but he can to the American people. Gotcha.

The TV Guide lists a Flintstone Christmas special. The theology of this one is just beyond me.

As I write, Hyde is absolutely refusing to make it clear what statements of Clinton the articles of impeachment are charging him with lying about.

Abe Rosenthal, saying his statutory one intelligent comment every twenty years (I think it's a monkeys and typewriters thing), suggests that Richard Nixon should not be the minimum standard of bad behaviour sufficient for impeachment.

Mary Bono earlier today repeated the Republican line that Clinton denied Jones her day in court. In the same speech, she says that he should spare the country the trauma of the impeachment trial by resigning.

My apologies for misspelling pretty much every name in my last e-mail.

I missed it, but evidently yesterday ABC did a segment on Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Sam Donaldson called for him to be executed. He has also said off-air that blacks refuse to listen to the facts about the case.

Kenya's Y2K commission is expected to report in April 2000. And a joke internet thing purports to be a Microsoft statement that the release of Windows 2000 will be delayed until Spring of 1901.

A drunk driver who ran over a woman in California, now on trial for murder, says it was suicide. She was a Jehovah's Witness who refused a blood transfusion and pulled out an IV. He would seem to have a sort of a case.

It's disheartening that South Africa has been going downhill as badly if more slowly than the Soviet Union. Carjackings are so common that drivers routinely carry a gun on their laps. So carjackers have simply been shooting the drivers. So drivers are now fitting flamethrowers onto their cars. This is legal in South Africa, and in Gotham City.

Follow-up to my continuing arts coverage of the Turner Prize: an illustrator who says that modern art and modern life are rubbish, protested the prize by dumping a load of cow shit on the steps of the Tate Gallery. It would serve the Tate right if it couldn't be removed because it was art.

The US had ordered the Czech Republic to tighten up its security for classified information in advance of joining NATO. Imagine telling an ex-Warsaw Pact country that its security isn't good enough.

1/3 of US metropolitan areas have no facilities for abortions. Where the hell is the RU-486 pill?

I still don't know who the 2 people are who were banned from federal positions forever, as no newspaper has followed up that I've seen. Anybody know? To Aaron Burr, I'm adding a second guess: President John Tyler.

Comments on today's impeachment hearings: what is it with Coble's eyebrows? And why does Bob Barr's mustache keep creeping me out?

Speaking of Barr, earlier this year he was keynote speaker at the Council of Conservative Citizens, which believes that interracial marriage is evil and that Lincoln was elected by communists (really). I meant to check their web site, but haven't yet.

The Judiciary Committee sprang more evidence, the Clinton tapes, that D's weren't allowed to prepare for, and Schippers summed up endlessly for the R's in a snide annoying tone, suggesting that there were lots of other evil things that Clinton did, but that he wasn't allowed to say what they were, and of the Jones lawsuit, said that people don't settle false lawsuits. What country does he live in?

Scarlet letters

Switzerland's new federal president (admittedly, a mostly figurehead post) is a two-fer, a woman and a Jew. Ms. Dreifuss would not have been able to vote in Switzerland until she was 31.

British home secretary Jack Straw did not, as I expected, let Pinochet go home today. The dictator's Tory supporters have uncovered a scandal: one of the Law Lords who ruled that he did not have sovereign immunity is connected with a charity connected with Amnesty International. Imagine that being considered a bad thing. He doesn't get shipped off to Spain soon, so he'll be condemned to many more teas with Mrs Thatcher, which is certainly punishment enough.

Haven't heard so much about Chechnya since they started kidnapping every journalist that set foot in the country. The Chechen government made a moderately successful attempt to rescue four British hostages, aid workers, this week. By moderately successful I mean that they did at least get the heads back.

The New York Times explains the election as president of Venezuela of the leader of a failed coup attempt by noting that the coup "forged his credentials as the undeniable outsider." I can't tell if that was intended to be ironic or not.

Bill McCullom, who has no sense of irony, said that impeachment is "the ultimate scarlet letter". I've watched large parts of the last two days of impeachment hearings because I've been too sick to do anything else and it helps me sleep. Yesterday's session made more sense than today's, but my temperature was 3 degrees higher. There must be a black hole under Henry Hyde's chair, because the laws of time and space were clearly breaking down. The defense came before any charges to defend against were enunciated, while the bill of impeachment was written before the whole defense was even heard. This morning the D's asked if they might be allowed to see the charges sometime before they had to make speeches about them. Stensenberner (or whatever his name is) asked whether in turn the R's could see the censure resolution. Barney Frank shot back, "I'll trade you a copy for a vote on the floor."

Clinton is getting desperate. He offered to pay an (unconstitutional) fine, and was willing to say that he would not pardon himself or accept a pardon from his successor (how can you reject a pardon?). I wonder how much he's paying his lawyers to call him "reprehensible" over and over. As for the committee, a group of 35 lawyers complaining about legalisms is a bit rich. You wonder how most of them got through law school. Yesterday, at the end of the questioning of witnesses, after slogging through 36 other Congresscritters asking questions that didn't get answered because their time expired, Mary Bono was a sort of dessert (as I would have said in my e-mail last night, had I been a bit more alert, it is better to speak in tortuous legalisms and be thought a fool, than to speak in plain English and remove all doubt), but today she kept deferring her time to other R's, including at the end to allow Lindsey Graham a 15-minute rave about the smear campaign against poor Monica, which had to be heard to be believed. So what is all this talk about an impeachment trial taking 6 months or a year? Remember, if this all gets past the House, the plea bargaining stops. The House could settle on fines, censures, whatever, the Senate can only remove him from office.

The articles of impeachment, when they came, were a bit of a surprise. They included some of the weakest charges, like making frivolous privilege claims, and lying to his Cabinet. And they want to ban him from office forever, which has evidently only been done to two people in all of US history (I assume some newspaper will tell me who those were, but I'm betting Aaron Burr was one).

Ruff fairly effectively demolished some of the charges today. It makes no sense that Clinton obstructed justice by demanding his gifts to Monica back 10 minutes after he gave her more gifts. Starr evidently relied on a truncated Washington Post report of Clinton allegedly denying knowing that his lawyers were asserting privilege, which he didn't. Etc etc.

There's a very entertaining article on the federal witness protection program in the Washington Post Magazine. My favorites: the witness who tried to go on Letterman to plug his Mafia Cookbook (Dave backed out; the guy threatened to whack him), and the one who ran for mayor of Austin.

www.alienabductions.com. I think it's a joke, but you never know.

One of the upsides of the Asian economic crisis has been to decimate the Moonies' business empire.

Article in Friday LA Times compares Henry Hyde's endorsement of lying by Ollie North in 1987 with his opposition to it when Clinton does it.

Sheriff Joe of Phoenix, who hasn't done anything stupid in weeks, that I've heard of, introducing chain gangs of juveniles. Hey, try them as adults and they get the same pup tents, baloney, chains, forcible sodomy, as the adults, and may get the same chance to bury dead poor people.

Michael Huffington, the ex-Mr. Arianna Huffington, announces that he is gay. Nope, sorry Mike, that still doesn't make you interesting. Good try though.

Fri, 4 Dec 1998

As I said, a D.C. jury is unlikely to convict Clinton. Mike Espy, who's only marginally blacker than Clinton, was acquitted by a jury of 11 blacks, who only took 10 hours because, as the Daily Show said, they were trying to decide whether he was black enough. 4 years and $17 million went to naught, although Espy, who took more in freebies than the average American gets in salary, showed a lot of gall in pretending that he deserved to get his reputation back, much less a new job in the Clinton administration.

If I read the London Times correctly, the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony today from someone convicted of perjury for lying about going to a lesbian bar. Now we're really getting somewhere!

Part of the Wye accord was to be a prisoner release, but it seems that Israel, supposed to release 750 Palestinian, um, freedom fighters, is actually counting towards that number car thieves and violators of the pass laws.

New book: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Impeaching the President.

The news that scientists insist that breast implants cause no illness whatsoever is greeted by the rep of the women plaintiffs as "terrible news". That's a lawyer for you!

Followup on my Turner prize articles: the elephant dung artist won.

I have a couple of comments about the Tony Lewis NYT piece:
the real question is why they felt obligated to swoop on Monica then rather than a couple of days later.

Lewis is concentrating on Starr's people "wanting a crime", but we knew that. This is actually less egregious than using Tripp to convince Monica to try to blackmail the president into getting her a job and obstructing justice. I think the key item in this piece is that any immunity agreement they were dangling in front of her was a fraud in that it wouldn't be valid without the presence of her lawyers. So what they clearly had in mind was wheedling a statement out of her while pretending to give her immunity. This accords with their later conduct when they spent months negotiating with her lawyers over testimony and immunity. If you are just trying to get at the truth, you don't need to negotiate, you just give her immunity and issue a subpoena. The only reason to 1) get a statement without a valid immunity, and then later to 2) negotiate, would be to use the threat of jail to get her to testify the way they wanted her to, true or not. If they were afraid of her lying, she could always be prosecuted for perjury, immunity deal or not. The only reason to try and keep a bigger legal stick in reserve is to get her to lie.

The hospital at which Pinochet has been hiding the last few weeks is on the verge of taking legal action to get him out.

Clinton pledges, oh some sum of money, you could look it up, to the Palestinians as their bribe for signing the peace accord that Netanyahu keeps threatening to tear up and certainly has no intention of implementing, but he wants $1.2 billion himself. Anyway, Clinton said something to the effect that economic development would bring peace, that the violence has been caused by people with "nothing better to do." NEWSFLASH: Clinton ends decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict by implementing midnight basketball!

The Brady Act's 5 day waiting period to purchase handguns expires Monday. It was supposed to be replaced by a computer system that Congress never bothered to fund properly.

A security firm in Russia calls itself KGB (no relation), advertising with pictures of Beria and other such, with the slogan "Nobody stole *their* cars."

Millennium babies. You will here more about these. Britain's ITV is planning to follow the 1st baby of the millennium (well, of 2000, anyway) and do periodic updates, in the style of the 7 Up films. Parents who want in on this (why? presumably they plan to fund the kid's education by selling advertising space on its pram) are planning the conceptions to the minute. Sick of the millennium yet?

The California Supreme Court says that lawyers have no duty to defend guilty clients competently. The Court voted 6-1 (the 1 is Stanley Mosk, the only justice I voted for, so I feel good about myself) that lawyers can only be sued for malpractice by people who can prove that they were innocent.

Pinochet is pleading mental instability as a reason he can't stand trial. Now he tells us.

Israeli religious parties are objecting to the latest inflation figures, which have been boosted by a large increase in the price of pork. Anathema, anathema!

None of the British press have the nerve to use the obvious headline about Zimbabwe's ex-president Canaan Banana fleeing the country after he is found guilty of homosexual rape. So I will: Banana Splits.

All this talk about trying Clinton after he leaves office. As someone or other pointed out, I'm sure the thought of a Washington D.C. jury really frightens him. He is, after all, the first black president.

As y'all can tell, I'm having another exciting Thanksgiving. Woops, have to go now and get my clothes out of the dryer.

London Times headline: "Reversing Circumcision May be Stretching a Point".

Some British aid workers for some charity hitched a ride back on a cargo plane after spending time in Honduras helping out after the hurricane. The plane went via the US, where the INS promptly arrested them for not having a visa form that is given out free, and then fined them. The INS is not at all embarrassed about this, either.

Starr court

Whose stupid idea was it to confine the testimony to a single day? Still, Starr did the impossible and testified for a solid 87 hours yesterday. Some of it I watched live and I'm still going through the rest on video. I have so far seen the first 137 hours. I am now officially more tired of his voice than I am of Monica's. I'm too brain-damaged to have anything especially intelligent to say, but here goes:

I had a sense of unreality while watching Starr that I only just pinpointed: no pornography. After the intense detail of the Starr Report, someone on the committee, and I nominate Barney Frank, should have figured out a question to which Starr would be forced to answer using the phrase "blow job". I'd have been happy if he was just told to turn to page 231 and read out the salacious material he saw fit to unleash on an unsuspecting world, to watch him squirm (don't go looking to see what's on page 231, I made the number up).

Starr thinks he is demonstrating his impartiality by saying how he didn't recommend impeachment for Whitewater, then wrecked it by adding that this was in spite of knowing damned well that Clinton lied lied lied about it.

I understand that the Dems on Wednesday got their hands on the GAO account of what Starr spent the $45 million on, but that Hyde declared it confidential in order to stop them using it against him.

Hyde's reputation, based on what exactly I've never known, to be the grand old man of impartiality, should now be in tatters.

I want the name of that Asian man with the glasses I could see all day sitting behind Starr, yawning, squirming, looking around like he was wondering why the Rockettes hadn't gone on yet...

Someone writing for Salon described the day as a "carefully choreographed blandness blitz".

The most telling moment on the issue of OIC leaking was the one where Starr was asked to release all media from any confidentiality, and he refused.

There was a piece in the Thursday Washington Post on the history of actual censures and attempted censures of US presidents, which can still be accessed using the Yesterday's Paper button. An interesting corrective to the claim that the censure is unknown to the American political system.

So that's what Monica sounds like! I'm listening to C-SPAN as I write. For a ditz, she has good grammar. She uses "whom" correctly. The censorship is annoying the shit out of me, especially during the discussion of Bill's dick size a few minutes ago. Linda to Luciane Goldberg (on whom, by the way, there is an interesting long article in today's, Tuesday's Washington Post) (yes, I use whom correctly too): "If she's flipping out I want to get that on tape."

Safeway's female employees are suing for sexual harassment. They claim that the rule that they smile at customers just encourages lonely pathetic men to hit on them, so it creates a hostile working environment. In future, I'm just going to grunt at the cashiers.

The Prince of Wales talked with new black army recruits, explaining how he too was persecuted and subject to prejudice when he was in the military. Yes, prince, that's exactly like racism.

The Washington Post says that Bob Livingston's first job was cleaning up after the elephants at the New Orleans Zoo--and that not much has changed since then.

The Lord Chancellor has won a vote in the House of Lords allowing him not to wear breeches, tights & buckled shoes, except on ceremonial occasions, although I believe he'll still be stuck with the wig. One (anonymous) peer asked when he was getting his kit off. Some peers worried that "dressing down" would work to the detriment of the Lords' image. Poofs in fancy dress?

Reagan's grandson is arrested for breaking into cars. Not exactly the Kennedies, are they? Not even the Bushes? Speaking of which, what is Neil Bush doing these days?

The London Times says that Israel is working on figuring out what genes distinguish Arabs from Jews so that they can develop biological weapons. Nice to see that old South African research, not to mention Joseph Mengele's, is being put to good use.

The Clinton Admin finally admits that those cruise missiles were intended to kill Osama bin Liner. It seems that while assassination is illegal, they can target the "infrastructure" of terrorist groups, and in this case, they define that infrastructure as human beings. So it's not assassination, it's, I don't know, infrastructure downsizing. Somebody find out who came up with this explanation, find out what law school they graduated from, and drop a small nuke on it.

I saw the tv footage of Prince Charles doing the little dance from the Full Monty. Priceless.

Carlos the Jackal is on hunger strike. What do jackals normally eat, anyway? Carrion? In a French prison that would of course be carrion with a really superb sauce and exactly the right wine.

Bubba Livingstone, the next Speaker of the House and third in line to the presidency (no, second, Clinton already is the president, so he's not on line) has won the position the old-fashioned way: he bought it. I mean, is there anyone who's arguing that he'll do a competent job, or unify his party, much less the House he is supposed to Speak for? No, he just has a very large PAC which disbursed a lot of money to Republican candiates, and is chair of the Appropriations Committee, and therefore someone you really don't want to piss off.

China has just convicted a rather nasty Hong Kong gangster of kidnapping. The problem is that he was arrested on the mainland, and tried there, for a crime committed in HK. HK was supposed to have judicial independence (and doesn't have a death penalty, which is about to be imposed on one of its citizens).

I trust everybody celebrated the 80th anniversary of the end of the Great War by going up behind a veteran and shouting boo.

London Times headline: "Coward was Unfit to Serve in 1914-18 War". Noel Coward, actually. Evidently he didn't like loud noises.

Chutzpah of the week award: At the global warning conference, OPEC demands compensation.

Buzzword of the week: "Exit strategy"-- what Republicans need to get out of the impeachment thing gracefully.

Mon, 9 Nov 1998

C-SPAN just interrupted its repeat of today's impeachment hearings to show Newton Leroy Gingrich speak at his political action committee, GOPAC. Which by coincidence is also the name of what the American people told him to do last week.

2 new inventions, just in time for California's new casinos: a combination stationary bike slash slot machine and a combination treadmill slash slot machine. You can't gamble unless you're exercising.

The case for taking Governor The Body seriously

The Shumer-D'Amato race cost $36 million.

Not only has the first open lesbian been elected to Congress (Tammy William, D-Wics) but also the first ever homosexual of either sex--previous gay Congressmen were in the closet when first elected. Why didn't this get more attention?

Israel is still using fake Canadian passports for its covert operatives, which they promised not to the last time they were caught.

If you haven't read the actual 81 questions Hyde has for Clinton, do so. The NY Times printed them all. Don't accept stories that just quote a few: you can only get the flavor of the document by seeing it all.

Slate's "Today's Papers" notes that Hyde told two huge lies yesterday: a) the downsizing of the impeachment process has nothing to do with the elections, b) he's planning to call only Starr because the American people really want to hear from Starr.

In the following article, note that Minnesota's slap at the two-party system, which I wholeheartedly applaud as long as it's another state that elects the wrestler, was made possible by campaign finance laws and easy voter registration. Surely an important lesson. The article neglects to mention the real reason Jesse won: he had the coolest campaign slogan--"Retaliate in '98"

The CIA refuses to tell Honduran human rights investigators the name of military officers responsible for death squad killings in the 1980s.

Has anyone seen the figures on the miscegenation repeal in South Carolina?

Lebanon accuses Israel of stealing its topsoil.

I give us 3 days before we're all heartily sick of jokes about Governor The Body. Until then, has anyone heard any good ones?

The LA Times calls the election as LA county sheriff of Mr. Baca a shift in power to the Latino middle class. And presumably a shift in power away from, you know, dead people.

Election--1st thoughts

Most of the surprise Dem wins so far seem attributable to black voters. Does that mean they're voting this year?

The Bushes are the new Kennedy’s. Come to think of it, the founding dynast in both cases was a Nazi sympathizer. Other than that, not much comparison.

Senator Pothole out, Senator Putz Head in.

D.C. voted on medical marijuana today. Congress voted last month that the initiative ballots could not be counted.

In Britain, two soldiers let out after serving 6 years of a life sentence for killing an unarmed Irish civilian are readmitted into the Scots Guards.

Fob James, the stupidest governor in the US, is out.

Jesse "The Body" Ventura?

The commercials just get more and more amusing. I haven't seen the one for whoever the Republican candidate for atty general is, accusing Lockyer of smoking dope, but I have seen the one where March Fong Eu demands that Barbara Boxer stop picking on her son. As the New York Times recently reported, there are a surprising number of ads this year featuring the wives of candidates, to prove that they are happily married (like Hillary wouldn't make such ads even today, if Billy Bob were running again). What does it prove when you have your mother do the ad? Especially when mom is from another party and didn't speak to you for many years after you became a Republican?

Speaking of presidential sex scandals, DNA tests strongly suggest that Jefferson did fuck Sally Hemings, which means that every Jefferson biographer has to eat their words and admit that every black person in America was right. Next up: proof that OJ was innocent and that the CIA created AIDS.

Oddest political spectacle of the season: LA county supervisors falling all over themselves to endorse the late Sheriff Block for reelection. The highest paid elected official in America, Block admittedly is much more competent now than he was last week when he was actually breathing. The supes want Block elected so that they can appoint a successor, rather than leave it up to the electors. So anyone who votes for Block, knowing this, is tacitly admitting that they consider themselves too stupid to vote for sheriff, concurring with the supes. But given that Daryl Gates was only the second stupidest law enforcement official in LA county, this is hard to disagree with.

On the Calif. animal trap initiative, Kevin recently asked whether fur trumps feathers. One person strongly supporting the initiative: Tippi Hedren. Really.