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

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

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

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

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

Common Phrases Redefined

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

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

Ex post fucto
(Lost in the mail)

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

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

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

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

Rigor Morris
(The cat is dead)

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

Que sera, serf
(Life is feudal)

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

Posh mortem
(Death styles of the rich and famous)

Pro Bozo publico
(Support your local clown)

Monage a trois
(I am three years old)

Felix navidad
(Our cat has a boat)

Haste cuisine
(Fast French food)

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

Quip pro quo
(A fast retort)

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

Mazel ton!
(Lots of luck)

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

Porte-Kochere
(Sacramental wine)

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

Fui generis
(What's mine is mine)

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

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

Merci rien
(Thanks for nothin')

Amicus puriae
(Platonic friend)

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

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

[NOTE: More New York Magazine competitions here.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you can't spit afterwards, either

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

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

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

New in NY City: a kosher cybercafe.

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

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

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

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

Imperfect and ok with it

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


Penn-Pals
Women seeking Men Penn-Pals Master Sheet

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Coddling criminals

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

Pyromania in the news

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas traditions

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

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

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

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

Humanitarian aid X 2

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

2nd:
Toxic Waste Sent to Bosnia as Aid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irony

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

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

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