If an atheist walks by, he can avert his eyes, he can think about something else

The Credit Card Company Profits Protection Act Bankruptcy Bill exempts trusts used by rich people to protect their assets during bankruptcy. Of course it does.

Prince Charles is in Australia, where today they showed him an outhouse, tried to feed him live insects, and made him shake hands with topless Aboriginal women “of whom,” said the Times, “the description ‘willowy’ would be misleading”.




In the Supreme Court hearings today on displays of the Ten Commandments, Justice Kennedy complained about “this obsessive concern with any mention of religion,” and by “obsessive” he did not mean the Christian protesters yelling outside the Supreme Court building, but rather those obsessively concerned with following their nation’s foundational documents and principles. The plaintiff's lawyer pointed out that the crowds and the people sending him hate mail weren’t concerned with preserving the image of the Commandments as a secular symbol. “Obsessive concern.” Kennedy is such a dick.

Kennedy says removing the display might “show hostility to religion.” No, the existing displays show favoritism towards a religion. Not having such displays merely shows neutrality. To show actual hostility would require a monument saying “There is No God,” or “Jesus Sucks,” or “Go Ahead and Lust After Your Neighbor’s Oxen, See if We Care.” Kennedy says, “If an atheist walks by, he can avert his eyes, he can think about something else.” Like about how Kennedy is such a dick.

Fat Tony Scalia, who wouldn’t find it unconstitutional if a law were passed requiring the Ten Commandments be tattooed on everyone’s body, says “It’s a profoundly religious message, but it’s a profoundly religious message believed in by a vast majority of the American people.” He thought that included Muslims, until someone explained it to him. Although right after this display of ignorance, he blithely went on, “You know, I think probably 90 percent of the American people believe in the Ten Commandments, and I’ll bet you that 85 percent of them couldn’t tell you what the ten are.” He says the majority of Americans believe that “government comes from God.” They do?

Actually, I prefer the honesty of Scalia’s position (while totally opposing that position, of course), which at least admits to the religious intent of religious symbolism without pretending it’s secular or historical, to Kennedy’s position that not displaying them is “asking religious people to surrender their beliefs”.

Cynically

From the AP: “The United States accused Iran on Wednesday of ‘cynically’ pursuing nuclear weapons”. As opposed to the usual idealistic, utopian pursuit of nuclear weapons.

And Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA wants “transparency, transparency and more transparency” from Iran on its nuclear program. As opposed to glowing in the dark, presumably.

Firm evidence

A bit more on “faith-based” initiatives, which there was a McNeil-Lehrer segment on after my earlier post. There’s an interesting rhetorical inversion in the White House spin on faith-based programs, including in Bush’s speech today: they paint themselves not as trying to funnel tax dollars to religious groups and break down the church-state barrier, but as common-sense pragmatists willing to go with whatever program works, and they denigrate the opponents of those programs as unpragmatic ideologues, “radical secularists” Tooey called us -- a title I’ll happily accept -- pursuing a fanatical hatred of religion at the expense of the poor people these programs could be helping.

Turkmenistan closes all hospitals outside the capital. Says President-for-life Niyazov (the guy who renamed all the months, banned beards and gold fillings, etc): “Why do we need such hospitals? If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat.” Also rural libraries, because peasants don’t read.

E.J. Dionne on the bankruptcy bill.

Condi Rice says there is “firm evidence” that Syria was behind last week’s bombing in Israel. Well, if someone in the government tells me there’s firm evidence that a foreign government is up to no good, I just have to believe them, don’t I?

Instability and emotional imbalance

The Supreme Court rules that people who were 16 or 17 when they committed their crimes cannot be executed, because of the “instability and emotional imbalance” that produced their crimes. But if you want proof that instability and emotional imbalance are not the exclusive property of adolescents, you have only to read Antonin “Fat Tony” Scalia’s dissent (warning: pdf).

In a footnote, he says that the standard for the 8th Amendment should be what was legal in 1789 when “the death penalty could theoretically be imposed for the crime of a 7-year-old.” The standard the Supreme Court established the last time it dealt with this issue in 1989 took as proof of public support of a death penalty the passage by a state legislature of a law. In other words, a law allowing execution of minors was constitutional because there was a law allowing execution of minors. In 2005, with several states having revoked such laws, the Justices are debating which states have a vote. Scalia denies that states with no death penalty for anyone should be counted as opposing the death penalty for minors. That, he says, would be like including the Amish “in a consumer-preference poll on the electric car.”

The annoying thing is, I found myself in partial agreement with Fat Tony: by making the standard of what constitutes “cruel and unusual” dependent on evolving standards, the Court’s majority made itself a weather vane -- “a mirror of the passing and changing sentiment of American society regarding penology” in Scalia’s words -- and you can see that in the way it cherry-picked the evidence it used to support its claim that there is a consensus against executing kids that didn’t exist 15 years ago, including taking into account international standards, which Scalia correctly points out are not considered for other constitutional issues such as abortion and the separation of church and state. Of course using the community standards of the 18th century is also stupid. And so is Fat Tony’s other idea, leaving it up to the jury to consider. One of the problems with the death penalty is that people who oppose the death penalty are excluded from juries in capital cases, so those juries don’t represent community standards.

In truth, I don’t care if there is or is not a “national consensus” on executing juveniles, and I don’t much care if the Supreme Court uses intellectually dishonest arguments to ban the practice, as long as it gets banned.

I can’t think of a better motto for an army, to love a neighbor just like you’d like to be loved yourself

Shrub speaks to a conference of “faith-based” groups: “when I think about government, I think about law and justice, I really don’t think about love.” Joke 1: You really don’t think, period. Joke 2: That’s where you differ from Bill Clinton, if you know what I mean. Joke 3: You think about law and justice?

“Government has got to find ways to empower those whose mission is based upon love in order to help those who need love find love in society.” But use a condom. No, wait, we don’t believe in those either, do we?

And then he misquotes Tocqueville. Then, “I appreciate the leaders in the armies of compassion, one of my favorite phrases -- the armies of compassion. It’s a strong word, isn’t it?” (Yes, that’s actually 4 words. Later he says that one of his favorite words is “social entrepreneurship.”) Later still, he refers to “the helping hand offered by the armies of compassion,” which is an oddly mixed metaphor. He adds, “I can’t think of a better motto for an army, to love a neighbor just like you’d like to be loved yourself.” Yeah, let’s paint that on the side of all our tanks.

He says that you can choose your faith or to have no faith (I’d actually like to praise the fact that Bush is always careful to affirm the rights of non-believers) (while giving their tax money to the God-botherers, of course). But he kind of ruined it by saying that that right is “sacred.”

“faith-based programs are changing America one soul at a time.” Brrr.

A woman in a religious “tough love” drug treatment program feels she has an “angel on her shoulder.” Meth’ll do that to ya.

He and Towey have been using the term “roadblocks” (on the road to Paradise, no doubt) for state & local government refusal to give money to religious organizations -- Bush is trying to impose “faith-based” programs at all levels of government now.

His “culture of compassion” includes letting these groups discriminate against non-believers. And, no doubt, homosexuals, women...

He wants to let retired people give money from their IRAs to charities tax-free.

It changes what you read, what you watch, and what you think

Interviewed by the Guardian, Grover Norquist confirms what I wrote 3 weeks ago, that Social Security privatization is intended to create a permanent pro-business, anti-regulation, Republican majority in which, to quote myself, “Almost every aspect of a progressive agenda would be measured against the Dow Jones and found wanting.”

Norquist: “If 100% of Americans at age 18 knew they were going to retire with a savings account, it would change their attitude to regulating companies, it would change attitudes towards envy, and how they feel about rich people. The entire secular growth in the Republican vote can be explained by the growth of stock ownership. It changes what you read, what you watch, and what you think.”

So does a well-placed pod.



Addendum: At American Leftist, which has linked to this post, Richard Estes has this comment, “Norquist better be careful. Extreme poverty has a tendency to change attitudes as well.”

Many body parts still to be counted

Continuing its Puritan Crusade, the Bushies are 1) forcing AIDS organizations that work overseas and take some federal money to sign a pledge opposing prostitution (I would love to see the wording of that pledge. Has anyone seen it?)

2) At a UN conference to reaffirm, 10 years on, the commitment to women’s rights in the Beijing Conference, the US is insisting that no right to abortion be even hinted at, and that governments should be free to punish women who have had abortions.

Speaking of crusades, in Iraq today anti-queuing militants struck again, killing at least 125 men applying to join the military & police as they were standing in line for medical exams. As we know, Sunnis believe that queues are distasteful in the eyes of Allah, while Shiites insist that forming orderly lines is a mitzvah, and require young men to form such lines NO MATTER HOW FUCKING MANY TIMES THOSE LINES GET BLOWN UP. The total number of dead is unknown because, to quote a hospital official, “there are many body parts still to be counted.”

Speaking of religious militants, Jim Towey, director of Bush’s Faith-Based program, had an online q&a at the White House website today. It’s an uninformative as such events usually are. Rick, from Worcester, Mass. asks, “Considering that Faith-Based initiatives enrich the community and provide increased safety, why do you suppose so many oppose them?” and Towey responds that he doesn’t understand why people are like that either. And Bush doesn’t want to destroy the separation between church and state, just to “restore balance to the public square [was it a trapezoid before?] and allow faith-based organizations and faith-filled people to be there like any one else.” Somehow the phrase “faith-filled people” fills me with no confidence. Towey closes by saying that he’ll have another q&a “God willing” and asks everyone to “pray for the President, Mrs. Bush, his family, and all of us here.” Would it be wrong of me to pray that you’ll all form an orderly line in Tikrit?

“Cedar Revolution” is the new Orange Revolution: that’s what someone in the State Department, if nowhere else, is calling the protests in Lebanon that forced the government to resign today. Scottie McClellan said, “The new Government will have the responsibility to implement free and fair elections that the Lebanese people have clearly demonstrated they desire.” Clearly demonstrated? By a few protests? I take it this new test applies only to countries whose regimes the US wants changed and doesn’t apply to, say, Haiti, where pro-Aristide protests were shot at by police today, killing two.

To head off a Borscht --or whatever-- Revolution, Putin is organizing a youth movement, Nashi. I was going to called it Putin Youth, but I hardly need to point out the similarities to the Hitler Youth when it’s already called Nashi, do I? Nashi is variously translated as Ours or One of Us; I like the latter for its invocation of Tod Browning’s “Freaks”: One of us, one of us, we accept you, we accept you, one of us... A journalist, and someone from a liberal youth movement, infiltrated the first, secret meeting, and were beaten up. When you’ve got an Us, you’ve gotta have a Them.

The fall of Aristide redux

Democracy Now (thanks to Eli at LeftI for the heads-up) has been covering the anniversary of the ouster of Aristide. Here’s a transcript of their interview with Aristide a couple of weeks later, in which he described his removal from Haiti by American troops as a kidnapping. Some of the details of that day are still murky to me -- was he told by Americans that he would not be rescued from murder at the hands of the death squads unless he resigned the presidency? how did he wind up in the Central African Republic? When I wrote last night that the US had collaborated “tacitly or otherwise” with those death squads, I meant that I don’t know if there was direct contact and coordination. It really doesn’t matter, because even without direct contact, a green light was given by American officials, quite openly. From my own archives:

2/12/04. While former death squad types were reentering the country and violence growing, a State Department official briefed the press that Aristide should step down before the end of his term.

2/17/04. Colin Powell talked of a “political solution,” presumably meaning negotiations between the elected government and the scum trying to overthrow it, and says “there is frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence,” a green light if ever I heard one. I wrote, “Boy, when even the Bushies have ‘no enthusiasm’ for invading a country, you know all the joy has gone out of this administration. Evidently it didn’t pass the ‘Little Rummy’ Test, by which all foreign policy decisions are now made: if Secretary of War Rumsfeld gets an erection just thinkin’ about it, we invade.”

2/28/04. Colin Powell refers to the death squads as “the resistance.”

3/1/04. With Aristide on a plane, Bush says, “The constitution of Haiti is working. There is an interim president, as per the constitution, in place.” I wrote, “Well, maybe the Haitian constitution does actually establish a process involving death squads, coups and US Marines in order to select a new president, something like the electoral college. I mean have you ever read the Haitian constitution?”

3/2/04. I wrote -- I won’t repeat the whole thing here -- that while the Bushies were trying to refute the kidnapping charge by reducing it to a single moment, and if Marines didn’t actually have guns pointed at Aristide’s head when he boarded the plane, it wasn’t kidnapping, the US had shaped the circumstances that led up to that moment.

When life hands you lemon revolutions...

Kyrgyzstan had not terribly fair elections today, complete with my favorite recent example of misuse of election rules: a rule prohibiting anyone running for parliament who had not lived in the country for the previous five years is being used against an opposition politician who was Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Britain.

Oh, and I’m hearing suggestions of “lemon revolution” as well as “tulip revolution” for Kyrgyzstan.

Evidently Turkish prisons are more fun than the movies led us to believe. Two prisoners were just discovered to have made a hole between their cells in order to have sex (the woman has given birth), and have been convicted of damaging prison property. The London Times headline: “Wall-to-Wall Sex.”

The Indy has a good article on the hell that Haiti has descended into since the US collaborated, tacitly or otherwise, with death squads to depose Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Why this blog is better than the New York Times

Condi Rice cancelled a visit to Egypt to punish it for its arrest of opposition politician Ayman Nour. But in order not to humiliate Egypt, even thought that was kinda the point, she also cancelled her planned visits to every other country in the region. That’s the kind of logic that only the State Department could muster.

Egypt has followed up with an announcement that there will be something like real elections. According to the WaPo,

Mubarak, 76, said the decision was rooted in his “full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.”

Translation: “What the hell, I’m old, I’ll be dead soon anyway.” The government will decide which opposition parties get to run. Bush will wax smug about this one, but if Egypt moves closer to democracy I’m willing to let him; it’s not like he wouldn’t find something else to feel smug about if he didn’t have this.

Speaking of smug, I’d like to point out that I wrote about Bush taking a Camus quote way out of context 5 days before the New York Times caught up to me. Eat my electronic dust, NYT!

That’s not why this blog is better than the NYT: this blog is better than the NYT because I use phrases like “wax smug.”

The fact that we are just sitting here is a good thing

And speaking of democracy, Togo’s neighbors have peacefully forced a reversal of the military coup that imposed the son of its late president on the country. Congrats, West Africa.

Mostly unregarded by the MSMMM (Main Stream Mickey Mouse Media), Operation River Blitz continues in Anbar province. And so does that godawful name. I just assumed someone in the Pentagon would rethink the whole naming-operations-after-Nazi-stuff policy, but I guess it’s Rumsfeld’s way of reconciling with “Old Europe” (although there is pre-Rummy precedent).

The problem with River Blitz is that it can’t seem to find any enemies to fight. In Iraq. But that’s ok:

[Lt Col. Greg Stevens] was not discouraged that the guerrillas had failed to appear and take on his tanks.

“The fact that we are just sitting here is a good thing. It means that they don’t have the free rein of the place.”

Way to lower the bar.

We are not going to make up -- to invent any kind of special Russian democracy

In the past few months, GeeDubya has embraced a rhetoric of freedom and democracy, terms which remain as nebulous and ill-defined in that rhetoric as they probably are in his own head. But this week you could see that rhetoric taking on a life of its own, and since freedom and democracy are, you know, good things, it would be nice to encourage that process. Putin was visibly put out, pissed off, and defensive over his own record of slowly crushing the life out of Russian democracy. Good; he should be on the defensive. Clearly Putin feels that he was scolded and criticized, and the media view of the summit was that he was scolded and criticized.



But that didn’t actually happen, at least not publicly and I’m sure not in private either. Here’s the strongest statement Bush made at the Thursday press conference with Putin: “I was able to share my concerns about Russia’s commitment in fulfilling these universal principles.” He talked about some of those principles, the attributes of a functioning democracy--protection of minorities, a free press, a viable opposition, etc--but failed to say if he considered Russia deficient in any or all of them. When Putin compared his plan to personally appoint regional governors to the American Electoral College, Shrub didn’t say whether he found that comparison valid.

But every answer Putin gave was an uncomfortable riposte to some non-existent attack:

“Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy....independently, without any pressure from outside”

“we are not going to make up -- to invent any kind of special Russian democracy”

“If we talk about where we have more or where we have less democracy is not the right thing to do. But if we talk about how the fundamental principles of democracy are implemented in this or that historic soil, in this or that country, is an option, it’s possible. This does not compromise the dignity of The Netherlands or Russia or the U.S.”

“we do have freedom of the press. Although we’re being criticized often of that, this is not the case.”

“I, in particular, do not think that this has to be pushed to the foreground, that new problems should be created from nothing”

With all his democracy happy-talk, Bush may have started something he won’t be able to control so easily.

All power to the crabgrass revolution

Immediately after Canada announced its decision not to participate in the US’s Star Wars program, the American ambassador said that the US would fire its missiles over Canada without permission, and that Canada’s decision therefore amounted to giving up its sovereignty. Sovereignty consists, and evidently solely consists, of voluntarily choosing to do what we tell you to do and giving us permission to do what we’re going to do whether we have permission or not.

The Russian Duma has voted to imprison anyone who sings the national anthem disrespectfully.

With an election coming up, Tony Blair has announced an increase in the minimum wage; at the press conference to announce this, some reporter asked him if he would wipe someone’s bottom for £5 an hour. He did not answer. I’m taping the event off C-SPAN even as I write, for later viewing. I want to see if the reporter was wearing pants at the time; just from the transcript you can’t be sure the question was just hypothetical. Possibly the questioner was Jeff Gannon.

Putin says he and Bush had a “very useful, very substantive discussion.” You know how you can tell this is a lie? Because no one has ever had a useful, much less a substantive discussion with George W. Bush.

While in Slovakia, Bush, in a rhetorical ploy, compared the elections just held in Iraq to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. “For the Iraqi people, this is their 1989, and they will always remember who stood with them in their quest for freedom.” He went on to use a phrase I think we’ll be very sick of very soon, dubbing those elections-under-occupation a “Purple Revolution,” like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Kyrgyzstan’s opposition, by the way, is talking about a “tulip revolution” there. I believe “crabgrass revolution” is still available.

After 1,300 suicides from the Golden Gate bridge, the authorities have decided that maybe a barrier of some kind would be a good idea.

No deposit, no return

The Illinois Appeals Court ruled that a man who claims his former lover stole his sperm during oral sex and used it to impregnate herself can sue for mental distress but not for theft. According to the court, “She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift. There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.” They are both doctors.

Al Kamen of the WaPo notes that while Bush wants to get the UN to impose sanctions on Iran because “they were caught enriching uranium after they had signed a treaty saying they wouldn’t enrich uranium,” the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in fact allows uranium enrichment.


Bush trying to peer once again into Vladimir Putin’s soul. Then they fucked.

I live in a transparent country

Bush says of European leaders, “We have a common objective, which is to convince the Ayatollahs not to have a nuclear weapon.”

Bush has been explaining democracy to Putin. Things like checks and balances. On a totally unrelated note, Afghanistan, which elected a president last October, today missed the deadline for announcing parliamentary elections in May. Like 6 months with only one functioning branch of government being elected wasn’t bad enough, it could now be a year.

Actually, the White House website doesn’t headline Bush & Putin talking ‘bout democracy, but rather “President and President Putin Discuss Strong U.S.-Russian Partnership.” They make it sound so exciting, just sitting around discussing the strong US-Russian partnership:

Bush: You know, Pootie Poot, the US-Russian partnership is really strong.
Putin: Yes, is strong like Russian women weightlifter at Olympics.
Bush: Strong like Condi’s thighs.
Putin: Strong like Yeltsin’s breath.
Bush: Strong.
Putin: Strong.
Bush: Lunch?
Putin: Fuck yes.

Bush: “the sign of a healthy and vibrant society is one where there’s an active press corps”. But enough about Jeff Gannon’s sex life. He added, “democracies have certain things in common: They have a rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press and a viable political opposition.” For example, we’ve got Guantanamo, a ban on gay marriage, Fox News, and the Democratic Party. So we’re set.

He adds, “I live in a transparent country.” Dude, you’re back on the weed again, aren’t you?

He says of his relationship with Putin, “we’ll have a very frank and candid and open relationship. ... a relationship where, when a person tells you something, you know he means what he says, and, ‘yes’ means yes, and ‘no’ means no. Sometimes in politics yes means ‘maybe,’ and no means ‘if.’ This is the kind of fellow who, when he says, yes, he means, yes, and when he says, no, he means, no.” ‘Cuz he knows Bush only understands words of one syllable.

On democracy in Russia, Putin said that the guarantee for democracy is the Russian people, while Bush said that the guarantee was Putin’s statement of support for democracy. OK, neither of those is particularly confidence-inspiring, but you’ll note who has the clearer grasp of what democracy means. If the health of a democracy depends on the support of its president, it’s fucked.

Putin added that his decision to replace the system of popular election of regional governors with appointment by Putin himself is just like the US Electoral College, “and it is not considered undemocratic, is it?”

And here’s Bush on the press: “Obviously, if you’re a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free. And that’s -- feel that way? Well, that’s good. (Laughter.) But I -- I talked to Vladimir about that. And he -- he wanted to know about our press. I said, nice bunch of folks.” Putin adds, “I’m not the minister of propaganda.”

Pictures of Bush, out and about in Slovakia:

Liberalism, Iraqi style

Comical Allawi is still in the race to be Iraqi prime minister, running as a secularist (“we believe in a liberal Iraq and not an Iraq governed by political Islamists”). Yes, Baathist-rehabilitating, CIA & MI6-connected, secret-police loving, attack-on-Fallujah green-lighting Iyad Allawi is running as the the liberal candidate. The LIBERAL candidate.



Allawi and Jaafari.

Murder in the Mosque redux

Everyone will be happy to know I passed my smog check today. So did my car.

The FBI issued a warning against a computer virus being spread through emails purporting to come from the FBI. Said the FBI, the giveaway is that everyone knows the FBI doesn’t have email yet.

Following his revelation yesterday that “I believe Russia is a European country,” Bush today informed a stunned world that “Iran is not Iraq.” Presidential geography lessons haven’t paid off so well since Ronald Reagan visited Central America and announced “they really are all different countries down here.”

Remember the wounded, unarmed Iraqi prisoner shot dead last November by an American soldier in a mosque for no particular reason? “He’s fucking faking he’s dead. He faking he’s fucking dead.” Bang. “He’s dead now.” That. Today, UnFairWitness informs us, the decision was announced that he would not be charged (he’s never been named, I believe). Lack of evidence. Too bad no one was filming the incident. Oh wait, they were. UnFairWitness has the video, too. A couple of days after the incident, I asked if Bush or Rumsfeld or a single member of Congress would go on the record as being against summary executions. The answer has been a resounding no. On this issue, they’re faking they’re fucking dead.

By contrast, today the British Army convicted 3 soldiers for the far less...permanent... abuse of Iraqi prisoners in January (this abuse), including surfer dude and forklift boy. Their officers, however, have been promoted.

By contrast, even in near-fascist Zimbabwe:

A military court in Zimbabwe fined a platoon commander Zim$2 million (£169) after one of his subordinates accidentally shot 14 spectators during a mock battle at a fair last September. (AFP)

Oops

No wonder I get so little hate email. Evidently at some point I accidentally deleted the contact information from my template. That’d do it. So there it is again, at the top of the right-hand column. Also, please note that it’s a new email address.

I have added an Amazon search box. Use it if so inclined, or shun it as capitalist evil and the death of independent bookstores, if so inclined. Go to the library instead, or garage sales, Friends of the Library sales, the Goodwill store. Use my Powell’s link, located above the Amazon link. Shoplift from one of the big chain stores. In the future, someone will invent a “shoplift” button to click and I’ll proudly feature that on my site too, if the commission is good enough.

If it isn’t in English, it can’t be important

So I’m watching the BBC World News 3 am broadcast. They say there will be a Bush-Schröder news conference shortly, which they will cut to. They do, but Schröder is speaking in some sort of foreign language, possibly German, and no one at the BBC evidently knows German, so they cut away until Bush started speaking (there is no translator: Bush has an earpiece). CNN & Fox also have no employees who know German, so they do the same. This is pathetic.

As he did yesterday, Bush twice referred to the Iranian “ayatollahs.” Guess that’s a new thing. Delegitimize them.

Not amused

Montenegro, the last former-Yugoslav republic still associated with Serbia, has proposed independence.

This is the picture the London Times is running with the story that Queen Elizabeth is skipping Charles & Camilla’s wedding. Brrr.


In the same context, The Times describes Henry VIII as polyphilogamous. I like the picture and the word, so I’m stealing them both.