Jesse Helms is history, Linda Tripp is broke and all is right with the world.

Zimbabwe's invasions of white-owned farms, beyond destroying this year's harvest and Zimbabwe's economy, is now spreading foot and mouth disease.

Last year Utah's Republicans stopped the legislature passing a bill to ban guns in schools and churches. This year, they've
decided to allow them at the state Republican convention, which Dick Cheney will address.

Well I'm still enjoying the Tory party leadership battle, now going into what seems like its third year. Ian Duncan Smith, it seems, has padded his lack of resume. See, he's been bragging that he has been so disloyal to his party leadership that he turned down offers of government jobs to be able to fight the Major government on Europe. But he was never offered any such job. Kenneth Clarke, on the other hand, has had a day job, as deputy chairman of a tobacco company, BAT (the 2nd biggest in the world), in which capacity he lied to a parliamentary committee about his knowledge of cigarette smuggling operations.

Don't know if anyone else is following Zimbabwe, which gets nastier and nastier. Today it threatened editors and reporters,
including one editor who reprinted a Sunday Times story about Mugabe being haunted by ghosts of his former aides. Anyway, he's now looking to buy 30 riot control vehicles. From Israel.

Recently, I think in the last News of the Weird, there was mention of a St Louis filibuster in which the alderwoman had to use a bucket while a quilt was held around her. She has been charged with public urination.

The LA Times reports that Bush is getting around the Congressional limit on civilian contractors used in Colombia by having the State Department hire foreign pilots, and not reporting the fact to Congress.

Coincidentally, that bill I mentioned some weeks ago in which Colombian military authorities are given supreme authority, and many other nasty provisions, was just enacted.

Prince Edward and Princess Sophie have gone on strike. To quote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Who would that inconvenience?" They have no royal engagements scheduled for
the rest of the year, but evidently still plan to keep the $250,000 or so they are paid by the British public each year.

Headline from a while back, "Canadians Flee in Spanking Dispute." Actually, I never heard more about that. Some cultists left Canada for the US, hoping their belief in rather stern corporal punishment of their children would be protected under the 1st Amendment.

A letter to the LA Times that I clipped as quintessentially SoCal calls for controls on immigration because the guy has to spend 4 hours commuting from Orange County to his job in Culver City, which is much longer than he thinks it should be. The letter doesn't say, but somebody like that has to drive an SUV.

So Israel, pissed with the way Palestine has been policing its terrorists, keeps flattening police stations, presumably pour encourager les autres (which is a French historical reference, translating as "to exercise the Darth Vader School of Management").

Presumably by now little Napoleon Beelzebub, or whatever his name is, has been executed in Texas. Killed the father of a federal judge, who used every contact to have him offed in return. For the first time in history, Supreme Court justices have to recuse themselves from a case, and 3 of them have to, leaving only 3 willing to stop the execution, and evidently ties are resolved in favor of death. Was a minor. Was a black tried by an all-white jury, judge, prosecutor, etc. who had the son looking over their shoulders. [Actually, after I wrote this a stay was issued, but I don’t know on what grounds]

The British suspend the Northern Irish government, in order to reactivate it one day later. The IRA withdraws its disarmament offer from 6 days ago. If you can grab this marble before my hand closes, Grasshopper....

Bush thinks India has suffered long enough for starting that whole nuclear arms race and violating the nuclear test ban,
and lifts sanctions. Also pardoned: the Indonesian military, poised to do who knows what in Acheh.

According to the NY Times of a day or two ago, the drug OxyContin of which so much has been said lately (the high of choice in 2001, for those of you who keep up with those things) could easily have been engineered so that abusing it (snorting or injecting it) would have produced no high at all. The drug company decided not to. I'm sure it was just an oversight.

I'm home again. At two spots on I5, there was only one lane because of what they laughingly called construction. Added an hour to the trip, which I will never get back. After the merger at the second one, we had gotten back up to half-speed when there was a sudden slow-down. Well, not really that sudden, but the truck behind me wasn't paying attention and didn't have time to stop. That’s ten years scared out of me that I’ll never get back.

It would be fun to sheherezade that story and pick it up in an e-mail tomorrow, but I guess I won't, and just tell you that the truck swerved onto the shoulder, avoiding pulverizing me.

So what did you think of Spurious George's stem-cell speech? His very first address to the nation, if you can believe it. Hardly worth interrupting his or my vacation for, if you ask me. It was very Clintonesque, in that it compromised his principles but still undercut the people it was supposed to help, while pissing off both sides. Very gays-in-the-military. My mother pointed out that he was wearing seriously thick makeup to disguise his recent skin cancer procedures. Come to think of it, why is moron-boy outside playing golf every day after that? The New York Times points out that his policy turns out to be more liberal than Clinton's because it dumped all the ethical protections for acquiring stem cells, like not asking permission exactly at the moment they're trying to impregnate a woman, when she is emotionally vulnerable (not least from all the hormones they pump her full of in preparation) to such pressure.

This morning as I was reading the LA Times, a peahen and 4 little peafowl came up to the door, just like Jehovah's Witnesses. I told them I didn't want any.

Germany is looking for a new but really long name for gay
marriages. The new registered homosexual unions (and if you were gay would you be wanting the German government to have your name on a list?) are called Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft. There's a bad pun in there, but far be it for me...

Bush is torpedoing yet another international agreement, this one on land mines.

After all that fuss about a new Japanese textbook that whitewashed Japanese atrocities, none of the local education authorities adopted it. It will be used by only 1,300 children (in schools for the mentally handicapped and chronically ill).


From the Daily Probe:
BUSH: "AMERICA NOT ISOLATIONIST, JUST SHY"

Smuggling

Last night I watched a made-for-cable movie in which someone attempts suicide the day before his birthday. Think Showtime was trying to tell me something?

Bush on his month-long vacation in Texas: "I am the kind of person that needs to get outdoors.... it keeps my mind whole." Bush, who is not good with fractions, was of course rounding up.

According to today's LA Times, Ariel Sharon thinks that the whole problem with Israel's current world standing is one of PR. He thinks that besides stressing security, they should repeatedly stress that the land is theirs by divine right. I bring this up to emphasize how out of touch with the universe Sharon is, making an argument based on theology only Jews and a few fundamentalist Christians believe in.

Germany is shocked that the incoming US ambassador, former senator Dan Coats, who has not even been confirmed, is speculating aloud that Germany needs to raise its military spending. In the same story (in the Daily Telegraph) is a side-bar that German soldiers have been ordered to use less toilet paper. German soldiers have become such wimps. It used to be traditional for them to wipe their asses on France.

Dick Cheney says there is "some justification" for Israel's assassination policy.

The Italian parliament passes a law decriminalizing false accounting--coincidentally one of PM Berlusconi's crimes.

A region of China (Huaiji) population unfortunately not named in the article, has been ordered to conduct 20,000 abortions and forced sterlizations by the end of the year.

rebates

I'm in LA, where gas prices are even higher than up north, and indeed even higher by a full dime than what I paid in Kettleman City on I5.

LA is actually more densely built up than ever before, what I saw of it on either side of the SD Freeway, so most of that expensive gas is used in idling. That's the thing about LA: it's laid-back, but even laid-back is expensive here.

Not Nice

A nice headline from the Times: Tories will still oppose Nice, says Clarke. That's the Nice treaty; they're not actually against niceness, at least not to hear them tell it.

Follow up: That Egyptian feminist who was hauled into court by Islamic loons who wanted her forcibly divorced has had the case thrown out.

William Kennedy Smith is thinking of running for Congress, and has already commissioned focus groups to see what they think about a rapist, oh excuse me acquitted rapist, representing them. Wouldn't you love to watch the video on that one?

Yesterday I saw a gas pump with a little tv screen in it, so you can watch CNN Headline News while pumping your gas. This is just plain silly.

Even sillier, walking across a whale carcass in Australia so you can pet the shark feeding on it.

In 1914 and to a lesser extent in 1915, there were Christmas truces in World War I, where British and German soldiers came out of their trenches and played football. The last surviving participant in any truce just died at 106. He was also the oldest man in Britain.

The Danish Justice Minister is threatening to arrest Israel's new ambassador to Denmark, a former head of Shin Bet who has admitted to authorizing torture.

Just plain mean:
BOSNIAN Serb police have sent a £175,000 bill to organisers of a commemoration for the thousands of Muslim men massacred in Srebrenica, saying they must pay for security services.

Everyone reported that when Wahid went out on the balcony to declare that he was still president of Indonesia, he was wearing shorts and a polo shirt. This space can also confirm that he was wearing flip-flops. This is why it's a little hard to take his attempt to retain power all that seriously, although it's not as good as when a couple of days ago his declaration of a state of emergency was read out by an aide while he took a nap--on camera.

I just want to point out that, like Estrada being forced out in the Philippines, this was not repeat not an example of "people power." These were elected leaders who should never have been elected, because it was obvious what they were.

Speaking of wing-nuts, Bush ended the Clinton program of buying back guns from housing projects, which took 20,000 guns off the streets.

On an unrelated note, Ashcroft is on the cover of the NRA magazine this month. I understand the fold-out is an Uzi.

The Basque government plans to hold a referendum on independence, despite threats from the Spanish government.

An Anglican nun was talking about the hostility faced by nuns in East London. Someone yelled "fucking nun" at her, and she told him it was one or the other.

Not a very funny story, but you don't often see the word "fucking" in the Daily Telegraph. But as it turns out, they were quoting the Church Times.

Saw a story on the BBC about an Australian swimming coach who made his students faster by putting a crocodile in the pool with them (mouth taped) (the croc's, not the students'). The Beeb didn't remark on this bit, but the town was Darwin.

There is a credible theory now going round that Van Gogh did not cut off his own ear, but that Gaughin did it. Certainly makes a lot a more sense.

And that leads me back to the question of Lincoln and mercury, addressed here a few days ago. I read that story in two British papers. The NY Times didn't have it and I didn't see it in the Washington Post either. The British are more interested in the American past than the Americans are.

Knowing how trend-conscious all of you are, I thought I'd pass this on: soup is the new salad.

Bush has found yet another international treaty to wreck: chemical warfare.

The Israeli Jewish terrorist group that killed the 3-month old Palestinian is called the Committee for Road Safety.

Why have the police been bothering Gary Condit all this time if they knew he had a brother named Darrell Wayne Condit?

Bush is trying to increase the number of "civilian contractors" sent to assist the Colombian military and/or death squads.

A () bites () story / Getting your sea-legs / exploding cow (oh, is that what it takes to get your attention?)

Bush was in Britain today, chowing down with the Queen. Someone streaked, which is just so '70s. Daughter Barbara went along, but had to eat with the other kids at the card table. No one is saying whether she, like Bill Clinton at around her age, took advantage of the laxer laws of the mother country and had a little wine with her meal.

When writing about Cheney's plan not to pay his electricity bills (and the Daily Show did my joke better with a line about Cheney being plugged into a nickel-cadmium charger over-night), I neglected to mention the small print, which is that he also wants to be able to take donations (read: bribes) from corporations for consumable goods for official functions at Blair House.

As is its usual practice, the Pentagon first declared victory in its Star Wars test Monday, and then admitted later that the system had actually failed, again.

The G8 conference in Genoa will be met by an Italian-style protest. The locals, already pissed off at the heavy-handed security arrangements, are really annoyed at being told not to hang their washing out. Expect a lot of underwear. A lot.

Colin Powell, showing that facility for the language that no doubt won him his current job, said this week, "It takes a while to tighten your saddle and get your sea legs." I think I see what his problem is...

Neat

As expected, Michael Portillo, the only Tory leadership
candidate with a chance of making Blair even breathe hard, was eliminated from the race today. Times' columnist Matthew Parris said that the during the counting it was so quiet you could have heard a dagger drop.

Cheney, about to start his tour in support of his Saving Our Precious Life Style By Putting a Power Plant on Every Block energy plan, has asked that his office not have to pay the skyrocketing electricity bills at the VP mansion. The extra electricity is necessary to charge the robot which replaced the late Mr. Cheney last month. The robot is thought to be the old Gorebot but with a new head. Dick Cheney: his love is real, he is not.

Spurious George has been doing interviews with the British press. He told the Times that the Queen is "neat." He told the BBC that Russia is no longer our enemy, therefore it is necessary to set aside the ABM treaty, which locks us in a hostile relationship.
Something like that. Who knew it was just an arms control treaty standing in the way of eternal peace.

Philip Morris has told the Czech government that killing off smokers 5 years early saves the gov much more money than the additional medical costs. Our heroes.

Abraham Lincoln for years periodically went into homicidal rages because he was taking quack medicine with a large amount of mercury. He went off the stuff several months after becoming president. This never happens with robots.

Virgin nurses and the return of Stakhanov

Turkish student nurses and midwives will have to take virginity tests. I'm gonna take a guess that this applies only to females.

Continuing his onward march to the 1930s, Putin has implemented a program in which model workers will be honored.