Neither the LA Times nor the NY Times article on Dole's speech blaming Clinton for increased teenage drug use quote the most quotable line of it, that drug use is "the moral equivalent of terrorism". His solution: use the military.

Here we go again

Did you see where Corcoran state prison in our own fair California had actual gladiatorial fights organized by the guards. Sure the guards were punished this time, but in ten years you'll be able to see fights to the death on pay-per-view, especially if Lungren becomes governor. The fight I'd almost have paid to see: Charles Manson versus Sirhan Sirhan, both prisoners there.

Jack Kemp, draft dodger

Ya gotta love it. Just a couple of days after Dole says that veterans are better Americans than... well, I don't think he actually said better than whom, it seems that Kemp, who was a private in the Army Reserve, should have gone to Berlin in 1961 but was evidently not fit because of a shoulder injury. This was the year he passed 2,686 yards and won a division title (whatever any of that means). I'll bet Governor Engler, two pounds too fat to go to Vietnam, is looking better. Actually, my money is on this never being heard of again, since Clinton might have difficulty raising it, but who knows?

The Million White Man March

Newt Gingrich, Republican Convention, August, 13:

A mere 40 years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. Now it is not only a sport in the Olympics. There are over 30 countries that have a competition internationally. There are some 13 states with 25 cities in America. And there's a whole new world of opportunity opening up that didn't even exist 30 years ago or 40 years ago, and no bureaucrat would have invented it. And that's what freedom is all about.

Freedom is about having a dream, and maybe I feel that particularly because the greatest Georgian of this century, Martin Luther King, went to the Lincoln Memorial and said in his extraordinary speech, "I have a dream," and the dream he outlined is a dream for every American of every background to participate in creating an America that is better for our children and our grandchildren.

Dole says those who serve their country are better Americans than others. What others would those be? Before you ask, Kemp was a private in the reserves, if that counts. By the way, Dole was drafted. You might not understand that with everyone at the convention saying that his military service reflects his values in some way. As I write, Dole is talking on video about having his mouth washed out with soap by his mother. He doesn't say for what. Probably telling his mother to stop lying about his record.

The London Times reports a Tory technician saying that the applause at last year's Tory party convention was, shall we say, augmented electronically.

Clintons' Whitewater legal bills are $2.3 million (Washington Post) or $2.7m (New York Times). The sexual harassment suit is paid for by his liability insurance. How wise of him to take out insurance against being sued for sexual harassment.

Dole is still trying to project warmth. Frightening. It's like those stupid jokes they keep telling. You know, "Clinton's promises last as long as a Big Mac on Air Force One." (Oh God, the Rocky theme song) The jokes are like the music. No one sits around their house playing John Philip Sousa. It's just every 4 years you hear that stuff, at these conventions. No one really likes it, but they have to play it. The jokes are the same.

In the big news, a trial of a burglar in England is about to be the first to introduce ear-prints as evidence. Ear prints are evidently unique. In case you're wondering, a lot of burglars stick their ears against windows before breaking in.

The Catholic Church in Britain is soon to ordain a lot of disgruntled Church of England clergy who quit over the ordination of women. The interesting thing is that some of them are married. Now the person I want to hear about is the one female Catholic priest that I know of, who some years ago had a sex change operation.

Jay Leno says Dole and Kemp standing together looked as natural as Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie.

Will sign off. Dole is about to speak, be still my heart. I imagine it'll be slightly less awkward than that of the new Indian prime minister, who doesn't speak Hindi, but just gave his first address to the nation in phonetic Hindi. He speaks Kannada, whatever that it.

Haley Barbour keeps commenting that the only woman governor is a
Republican, as if the increased number of Republican governors isn't responsible for the decrease in the number of women governors.

Mississippi's new abortion law puts onerous regulations on some abortion providers, extending to them the rules applying to small hospitals. These are doctors who perform more than 10 per month--or advertise. Advertise!

And Arkansas, prohibited by state const from paying for abortions for anything except when the mother's life is in danger, but required by Medicaid law to pay for cases of rape & incest, will pay for them from private donations until the courts resolve it. If that's clear enough.

The platform includes a full Star Wars defence by 2003, inc for Hawaii and Alaska.

Welfare--Clinton's, I mean

The House just passed a particularly vicious welfare bill. Even the Democratic "non-partisan" alternative eliminated automatic entitlement to people meeting the conditions, which shows how far right the debate has moved. Clinton Admin has refused to release estimates of how many children the bill would impoverish because he might want to sign the bill. Shoddy even by Clinton's standards, I'd have thought.

Simple, maybe, but pure?

The House passes the No-Gay-Marriages-No-How Act of 1996, 342-67. The White House press secretary says that the bill is "gay bashing, pure and simple" and that Clinton will sign it.

The British papers only have 70 or 80 stories about the royal divorce details, so not much to tell. Diana will have to give up her military duties (!!!) -- evidently she's colonel of a bunch of regiments. And since she'll revert to commoner status, she's technically supposed to curtsey to her sons now. A teenager's dream.

And Israel's sephardic chief rabbi calls for the killing of all
non-Orthodox Jews.

Even I don't believe any of this, but it's all true.

Village Voice

From this week's issue, 2 quotes:

"I didn't think Striptease, the movie about Demi Moore's body, was so bad, but that's because I saw it a few days after seeing Phenomenon, the movie about John Travolta's brain."

"In my most recent conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt, I asked her what she and Hillary talked about--and Mrs. R. complained that she could barely get a word in edgewise."

What ho, Robin!

The Sheriff of Nottingham is fired for slapping a 10-year old boy. Evidently he's been drinking lately (the sheriff, not the 10-year old). Oh how PC! What did they expect the sheriff of bloody Nottingham to do? Maybe his evil laugh wasn't quite wicked enough, that's all I can think.

Speaking of PC, what can one make of Orwell's having named
"crypto-communist and fellow-travelling" writers and journalists to the British government in 1949? I mean, Orwell of all people.

The vice chair of Dole's campaign finance committee pleads guilty to making illegal contributions, laundered through his employees and banks in Hong Kong.

Quebec re-establishes the famed language police, with a $3.5m budet to go after English on signs.

Law 'n order

From LA Times. Does anyone know the incident referred to in a story about gay marriages in which someone mentions Dan Lungren having had to apologize for a homophobic brief filed by one of his subordinates a few years ago?

Lungren & Pete Wilson are calling for a bill to refuse CA recognition of gay marriages, now wending its way through the legislature. Wilson wants only the traditional marriage of a man, a woman, and an illegal immigrant nanny.

An article on Tony Blair says that he supported family values back when most Tories were still on their first wives.

Yeltsin and the Wilsonites

I've just read the piece in this week's Time magazine about how American advisers helped Yeltsin run a "modern" election campaign. One problem with it is that the consultants clearly did a much better job conning Time into exaggerating their importance than they did conning the Russian people. Still, it's an amusing piece. Yeltsin's people saying, why can't we just tell the factory owners to order their workers to vote for us? and the Americans saying, no no, you have to have focus groups and go negative negative negative, show pictures of Soviet breadlines, and never promise anything because no one believes a word Yeltsin says. The clash of two totally different forms of complete and utter political cynicism.

All of the American consultants, none of whom spoke Russian and who spent the whole time hiding out in a hotel room so that no one would know Americans were trying to run the Yeltsin campaign, were former aides and campaign managers of our own Pete Wilson. Thus the negative strategy.
And again, Wilson was hated almost as much in California as Yeltsin was in Russia but they both got (re)elected. The parentheses in the previous sentence indicate my understanding that Yeltsin was not reelected since he was holding an office, president of a sovereign country, to which he was never elected in the first place--the last presidential election took place when there was still a Soviet Union responsible for foreign policy, the military and so on, all run by Micky "Mr. 0.5%" Gorbachev.

Cough cough

Bob Dole goes insane on morning television and insists that C. Everett Koop has been brainwashed by the liberal media for thinking that cigarettes are addictive.

It's not just that Dole has personally received close to $400,000 in tobacco money and that Philip Morris sponsors the Republican conventions, but that many of his consultants, spin-meisters and lawyers are shared with tobacco companies and lobbies.

By the way, Dole's brother died of emphysema.

Now for real news, did you notice the LA Times reference yesterday to a Topless Traffic School?

And did you see Scalia's dissent, joined by Justice Pubic Hair as always, on the right to free political speech by independent government contractors, where he said that there was a traditional right to reward your friends and punish your enemies?

Supreme Court rules 5-4 that a death sentence can't be set aside simply because the prosecutor introduced new evidence, after telling the defence he wouldn't, in the *sentencing* phase, accusing the defendant of a whole new murder for which he was never charged.

The Great Beef War of 1996 ends with a total capitulation by John Major. The British secret strategy was to delay negotiations until lunchtime, so that the always-hunger Helmut Kohl would want them wrapped up quickly.

People who are no help at all: the Saudi dissident that Britain tried unsuccessfully to deport to Dominica because the Saudis threatened their business deals--and amazingly this was cited by the British government as sufficient reason to do it--well, he may now be charged under the race relations act or whatever else they can think of, for calling for the annihilation of all Jews (well, Al Masari says he just meant all the Jews in Israel, so that's all right then).

Another day, another proposed Amendment to the US Constitution. This one a victims' bill of rights sort of thing, allowing the victims to be notified of prison releases, escapes and be present at all phases of the trial, even when testifying themselves. And for a speedy trial, even if this violates the defendant's right to due process. Sponsored by our own Senator Di Fi, supported by Clinton.

The US frees Haitian death squad leader Emmanuel Constant without
deporting him back to Haiti, citing concern for the overburdened Haitian courts and prison system, and not having anything to do with his CIA links at all, no sirree bob.

The RSPCA had to change its constitution because it was being covertly infiltrated by hunters wanting to change its position against hunting.

Some guy in Lincolnshire paid 10,000 pounds for a Russian Scud missile for his front garden.

While 7 Supreme Court justices accepted that there is a common law right of privacy for patients of psychiatrists, Scalia said that people would be better off talking to their mommies, but there is no mother-child privilege.

The Southern Baptist convention has voted both to boycott Disneyland for giving benefits to gay partners of its employees, and to try to convert Jews. I've tried like hell and I can't think of a funny way to connect the 2. There will be a virtual prize (like a prize, but not actually existent) for the best joke. Void where prohibited.

So I'm reading the Supreme Court decisions rejecting all these black districts. What's interesting is less that they consider race valid as a criterion (hey, if you had to work with Clarence Thomas every day, you'd have second thoughts about affirmative action too!), than the valid criteria mentioned in the decision. It's ok to gerrymander for political reasons, for example to protect incumbents (i.e., not having 2 incumbents run against each other). I must have missed the jobs-for-life clause in the Constitution. Drawing up districts on party affiliation lines is also ok. Silly me, I thought we had elections to determine the party make-up of Congress. If that is the case, then surely party affiliation is the least appropriate criterion for redistricting. Stevens, in the sort of dissent that makes you wish Brennan or Marshall were still on the court, notes that strange-shaped districts are banned only to facilitate minority voters, not white ones.

The Supreme Court also found valid in upholding the reduction in the sentences of the cops who beat up Rodney King the criterion that they had been found innocent in the local trial. Assuming that you accept the bizarre presumption that the federal trial wasn't double jeopardy because it was a different jurisdiction ("Well, we couldn't convict them at the state or federal level, let's try them in their waste management district, then the water district..."), surely the results of one trial shouldn't be used to change the sentence in a trial where a different decision was reached. Should hung juries count? Are we just taking the average of innocent + guilty? They also got time off for being cops and therefore in greater risk in prison. By that standard, child rapists should all get reduced sentences....

Horror story of the week

Several decades ago (the story is unclear), presumably around the same time the Australian government was stealing Aborigine children, it was doing the same for illegitimate ones. Certainly dozens, maybe thousands. The mothers were told that they'd died, or were drugged, or tricked into signing papers, and the babies taken away for adoption.

Manners are everything

New York Times story: "An Ethiopian man who hijacked a German jetliner to NY in 1993 was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a judge rejected his assertion that the hijacking was justified because his visa application to the United States had been denied. The man, Nebiu Demeke, said, "I was forced to hijack the plane and I hijacked it politely."

The Antiterrorism Act passed last month included a finding that international terrorism is more dangerous to the US than pollution or population growth. It also says that the gov should use covert action and military force to destroy terrorist infrastructure abroad--a sort of Tonkin Gulf resolution for the '90s.

China will join the nuclear test ban treaty when it is quite done exploding nuclear bombs, evidently having given up on using nukes for tunnelling and abandoning the planet to killer asteroids. The small print says that they also want to ban any high-tech monitoring of compliance with the test ban.

One of the preconditions for fair elections in Bosnia not yet in place is some form of nation-wide media. Serbs say that their communications infrastructure was too badly damaged by the war for them to participate. In the meantime, there is Pale TV, which just announced its scoop, that NATO used low-intensity nuclear weapons in last year's air strikes on Serb positions. Pale TV also says that the war crimes tribunal tortured a Serb general, and when a UN spokesman held a press conference in Pale to condemn the beating and torture of 7 Muslim prisoners, they cut out that bit and claimed that he called the Muslims terrorists.

In 1961 the CIA started sending Vietnamese agents into North Vietnam. The project was taken over by the Joint Chiefs in 1964. The agents had a way of not coming back, and the military started declaring them dead in 1965, and lying to their families: over 200 people they knew were not dead. Many of them are now in the US after 15 years or more of Vietnamese prison, and they'd like their back pay now, $2,000 per year, without interest. The US is resisting this in court, saying that secret contracts for covert operations are unenforceable (a 1875 Supreme Court case denied back pay to a Union spy from the Civil War), so we don't have to pay.

Go team!

Competing to replace Bob Dole as Senate majority leader, are two
Mississippians, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who also have in common a) silly names beginning with T, b) they were both cheerleaders at Old, pardon me, Ole Miss.