If I was British, i'd be pissed off too.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | From flag-waver to republican I simply cannot understand how any self-respecting modern democracy is content not to be allowed to choose its head of state, but to settle for the random result of a hereditary lottery. It is a deep affront, per se, to the democratic ideals on which we supposedly pride ourselves. If the prince chose to run for the office to which he was born, fine by me. He might even win, in which case I'd grit my teeth and accept his legitimacy as the chosen symbol of my nation.

Paul Krugman on "compassionate conservatism."

Heart of Cheapness So here are our priorities. Faced with a proposal that would save the lives of eight million people every year, many of them children, we balk at the cost. But when asked to give up revenue equal to twice that cost, in order to allow each of 3,300 lucky families to collect its full $16 million inheritance rather than a mere $10 million, we don't hesitate. Leave no heir behind!

Which brings us back to the Bono-O'Neill tour. The rock star must have hoped that top American officials are ignorant rather than callous

Yes, I'm working on a new look.

Ari Fleischer, Box Cutters There is zero evidence of box-cutters on either plane that hit the World Trade Center. Not a single flight crew member or passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 or United Airlines Flight 175 reported seeing box-cutters or plastics knives. Nor were they mentioned in the FAA executive summary on any of the hijacked plane.(LINK FAA MEMO.) Only on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, was there a near-mention by one passenger that the hijackers in the back of the plane had knives and "card-board cutters," and even that passenger to claim to see what weapons were actually used to hijack the plane. The claim by administration officials that plastic knives were used to hijack the planes is pure invention. (See Fictoid #9)

Since unlike guns, metal knives and bombs, it was legal for airline passengers on September 11th 2001 to carry aboard box-cutters and plastic knives, the claim that they used such devices to commandeer the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center is a functional fictoid. Not only does it serve to shield the airlines, airports and airport screeners from massive liability from the victims at the World Trade Center, it protects the Bush Administration by diverting attention away from concern that airport security at three Federally-supervised airports was dangerously lax.

YIL | Column Raise your right hand and repeat after me:

"Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community."

JUst for my theater friends:
Late Show Top Ten Archive: May 07, 2002 Top Ten Reasons Your Production Was Not Nominated For A Tony Award

10. "Costumes" consist of items stolen from theater coat check

9. Helicopter appears in climactic scene, but it's not in the script

8. No matter how good it is, a show in your parents' garage is not eligible

7. It's called a "revival" because you're constantly resuscitating audience members

6. Marquee reads, "Tom Arnold Is Napoleon Bonaparte"

5. Instead of "Author! author!" audience shouts, "There he is! Let's get him!"

4. Despite the fact it isn't a musical, your lead actor is constantly breaking into song

3. When curtain rises, it only goes up a couple of feet

2. The big musical number -- "The Tonys Can Kiss My Ass"

1. The name of the production: "Osama Mia"

Late Show Top Ten Archive: May 20, 2002 Top Ten Surprises In The New Star Wars Film

10. Most of the action takes place on Planet Hollywood

9. Jedis interrupting lightsaber battle to change double "A" batteries

8. Jar Jar Binks is shot by enraged Robert Blake

7. Obi-Wan wins the big dirty dancing contest

6. A confused William Shatner keeps showing up looking for Spock

5. Supreme Chancellor passes out after choking on a pretzel

4. "The Force?" -- just a sinus headache

3. All the time C3PO spends bitching about Spider-Man

2. Usual Star Wars opening theme replaced with George Strait's "All My Ex's Live In Texas"

1. Yoda has sex with a pie.

Mark Crispin Miller (author of The Bush Dyslexicon on our President:
An Interview with Mark Crispin Miller - Democratic Underground
Bush is no Dan Quayle, who is a genuinely stupid man, but something else entirely. On the one hand, he is every bit as ignorant as he appears—that is no act, although such emptiness of head is often something of a plus for him with quite a few of his supporters. So while Bush's ignorance is real, his knack for flaunting it as if it were a sign that he's just folks is pretty artful. And as Bush knows very little about anything (except baseball), neither is he capable of reasoning in any complicated way.

Despite those limitations, however, Bush is not an idiot—and it's a grave mistake to write him off as one. He has very sharp political instincts (unlike the hapless Quayle). To laugh at him for his stupidity is actually to do him a big favor, since it helps him with that pose of commonness. (It helps him here, in the United States, with that plurality who voted for him. It doesn't do him any good at all beyond our borders.)

Bush's problem—or rather, our problem with Bush—is not so much that he's an idiot as that he is contemptuous of thought, complexity, ambiguity. He's proud of his closed mind. That makes him far more dangerous than he'd be if he were merely dim.

Richard Cohen has an excellent column about the cloning debate in today's Washington Post.

Personhood in a Petri Dish (washingtonpost.com)
And, for the most part, if you scratch someone in favor of experimental cloning (almost no one supports it for human reproduction) you will find someone supportive of abortion rights. So this debate really is an extension of our cultural division. It is, at bottom, about sex -- how to control it, how to punish it.

Brownback and his supporters are entitled to their beliefs. But they are primarily religious ones -- a determination that life begins when they believe it does. They feel so strongly about this that, in the Republican-controlled House, they rejected a substitute bill that would have permitted cloning for medical purposes only. Why? Because ultimately, they want to declare the fetus or the electrically zapped egg a person, protected by the Constitution. To destroy it is murder. Goodbye abortion.

But this bill is nothing less than an attempt to impose a religious doctrine on the rest of us. It is not that far removed from the Vatican's attempt to silence Galileo because he supported the Copernican theory that the earth revolved around the sun. It is an attempt by legislative fiat to stop science in its tracks: Thou Shalt Remain Ignorant.

Eric Alterman is right on about this:

Eric Alterman: Altercation
The whole notion of a “war” against terrorism is a right-wing ideological construct designed to further a bunch of goals that have nothing to do with protecting Americans. I’m all for using the military to kill and otherwise disable terrorists. By all means let’s do whatever is necessary to cut off their supply lines in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But these are police and intelligence functions, albeit with a heavy dose of covert military operations.

Wars, however, involve mobilizing nations and killing thousands of innocent civilians. That is not only unnecessary, it is also counterproductive. Plus, we are only doing the (accidental, but unavoidable) killing civilians part. What sacrifices have ordinary Americans been asked to make? More tax breaks for the rich? More SUVs for yuppies? A stupid Star Wars system?

A language question: Does the Pope resign or does he abdicate?

Startled marines find Afghan men all made up to see them
"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

Isn't nice to have a President who makes Dan Quayle look smart?
CNN.com - Transcripts
CARVILLE: Now it's time for a look at those unusual, interesting, and downright shocking stories that you might not find anywhere but in our CROSSFIRE news alert. In case you think we Democrats are too tough on George Bush, I assure you, we usually have good reasons. Listen to this. The German magazine, "Der Spiegel" reports that during last week's European summit, Mr. Bush asked Brazil's president, "Do you have blacks, too?" "Der Spiegel" says National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had to quickly explain that Brazil probably has a larger black population than the U.S., and perhaps the largest black population outside of Africa.

United Press International: White House Watch: Caviar Anyone? Russian President Vladimir Putin is relating an anecdote about his friend George W. Bush to photographers at the Hermitage, this city's magnificent palace museum.

The night before in Moscow, he said, as he was serving caviar to Bush and guests' at a dinner at the presidential residence, he explained to Bush how Russia produces caviar.

They catch the sturgeon, open up the fish, carefully remove the eggs, close the fish and throw it back into the water. Everyone at the table is laughing, they don't believe Putin. Laura Bush is laughing, Ludmilla Putin is laughing, Secretary of State Colin Powell is laughing, Condoleezza Rice is laughing, and the Russian foreign minister is laughing.

"Everybody was laughing -thinking I was really inventing things on the spot, something really improbable" Putin relates. "And there was only one person who wouldn't laugh and said 'I do believe you, Mr. President,' and that was the president of the United States."

Salon.com Life | Here come the buns And the proper grooming of your behind no longer begins and ends at the gym. No, no: The newly revealed ass must be treated to an entire beauty regimen of its own. You must wax your bootie to eliminate all unsightly hairs that might peep from between your cheeks. You must massage your buttocks daily to "remove excess water and facilitate lymphatic drainage, causing the skin to plump, making dimpling less noticeable," says Elle. Your butt must be tan, but not sun-damaged, making G-string beach sessions problematic and self-tanning lotions a must. And don't forget to moisturize and exfoliate to eliminate embarrassing acne.

Our President: Incompetent at home, an embarassment abroad:

According to the New York Times:

Mr. Bush is clearly a very tired man. His staff says so. He admitted to jet lag at a news conference at Élysée Palace on Sunday, just after asking to be reminded of the elements of a multipart question he had been asked moments before. "That's what happens when you are over 55," he said to his host, Jacques Chirac, who is pushing 70 and arched his eyebrows at the explanation.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you ran for President. Maybe being able to stay u8p past 9:30 is a requirement for the job. And maybe you shouldn't be an asshole:

(From the same Times article) A lesson for correspondents covering Mr. Bush: When abroad, stick to English in the president's presence.

Offenders might otherwise find themselves in the situation David Gregory, an NBC News White House correspondent, who appeared to raise Mr. Bush's ire Sunday afternoon at Élysée Palace when he asked a rather in-your-face question to a tired president, then broke into French to seek Mr. Chirac's opinion.

"I wonder why it is you think there are such strong sentiments in Europe against you and against this administration?" Mr. Gregory asked Mr. Bush in English, "Why, particularly, there's a view that you and your administration are trying to impose America's will on the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to the Middle East and where the war on terrorism goes next?" Turning to Mr. Chirac, Mr. Gregory broke into French and asked him to comment on the same question.

Perhaps Mr. Bush thought the French question was directed at him, or perhaps he thought Mr. Gregory was showing off. Whatever the case, Mr. Bush, his voice dripping with sarcasm, said "Very good, the guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental." (Mr. Gregory offered to go on in French, but that only made things worse.)

"I'm impressed ? que bueno," said Mr. Bush, using the Spanish phrase for "how wonderful." He added: "Now I'm literate in two languages."

Mr. Gregory seemed a bit abashed, but others noted that, during the trip, Russian, German and French reporters posed questions to Mr. Bush in English, and in their native tongue to other leaders.

C'est la vie.

JBOW: Sascha Knopf

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FORWARD Over the past half-year it's become fashionable for Americans — especially liberal-leaning, intellectual types — to admit over cocktails how glad they are that Al Gore didn't win the Florida recount battle back in 2000. We all sleep better, so the confession usually goes, knowing that the guy in the Oval Office is a hard-line conservative and not a squishy liberal. Yes, Bush may be wrong on the budget and the environment, but on the big issues of life and death he is a straight shooter. He speaks directly from the gut, avoids shades of gray and points out the plain truths of good versus evil in the simple, black-and-white cadences of the Texas prairie.

Well, it turns out that the assessment is wrong, and dangerously so. Defending America is not a simple matter of knowing black from white. It's a very intricate business that calls for discerning many shades of gray, balancing conflicting political and economic interests at home, taking charge of complex, intractable bureaucracies. It requires managing complicated alliances around the world in order to secure cooperation, especially in the intelligence-gathering sphere, from a wide variety of sources, some of them hardly more appealing than the enemies we are fighting against.

Knowledge (and Power) The bin Laden/Mullah Omar crime family was trained in Afghanistan by the Pakistani secret police and paid for by Saudi Arabian money. The American "national security" class looked (and looks) upon the Pakistani secret police and the Saudi Arabian royal family as friends and allies. The most glaring example of this collusion was to be seen on September 11 last [see "Minority Report," January 21], when the FBI helped Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador, fly several members of the bin Laden clan out of the country with no questions asked.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ashcroft drawn into row over September 11 On September 10 last year, the last day of what is now seen as a bygone age of innocence, Mr Ashcroft sent a request for budget increases to the White House. It covered 68 programmes, none of them related to counter-terrorism.

He also sent a memorandum to his heads of departments, stating his seven priorities. Counter-terrorism was not on the list. He turned down an FBI request for hundreds more agents to be assigned to tracking terrorist threats.


Nevertheless, he began using a chartered private jet to travel around the country, rather than take commercial airliners as Ms Reno had done. A justice department spokesman said this was done as a result of an FBI "threat assessment" on Mr Ashcroft, but insisted that the assessment was not specifically linked to al-Qaida.

Salon.com News | Soccer may be the world's sport, but it will never be America's The truth is I do feel a little guilty about not reading or writing more about World Cup soccer. It's like that edifying but boring article in the New York Review of Books that you feel guilty for not having tackled. To be churlish about soccer is to indicate that you're not a good European or a good world citizen, or something like that. Instead of being self-centered Americans who only care about whether Roger Clemens is going to win his 300th game or whether the New Jersey Nets can possibly beat the L.A. Lakers, we're supposed to show some higher consciousness and root for Kenya against Germany.

Salon.com Politics | Axing the tough questions Since the story broke Thursday that President Bush received a general warning before Sept. 11 of possible hijackings, Democrats have been asking tough but fair questions about information the government had prior to the attack. Many Republicans and conservative pundits, however, have claimed such questions amount to suggesting that Bush had knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks and failed to prevent them.

This is only the latest example of GOP officials and their supporters in the media using bombastic, anti-democratic rhetoric to shut down debate on any issue related to the war. Whenever serious questions have been raised, this Republican-pundit alliance has launched a massive and aggressive counteroffensive to silence critics -- with grave implications for open debate about the war on terrorism.

From Today's Washington Post washingtonpost.com: Pat Carroll: At 75, She's Back in 'Town'
Follow Spots

• The Theatre Lobby handed out its Mary Goldwater Awards last night in a ceremony at the Writer's Center in Bethesda. As part of its mission to recognize work done at smaller theaters, the organization honored director Steven Carpenter, playwright Allyson Currin, lighting designer Adam Magazine, actors Jon Cohn, Christopher Henley, David Bryan Jackson, Richard Mancini, Scot McKenzie and Lynn Steinmetz, and the MetroStage theater in Alexandria.

I haven't seen it, but this is not a good sign:Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | In space, no one can hear you groan "Attack of the Clones" is the ultimate betrayal of the two high points in the "Star Wars" series: It's such a far cry from the giddy, Saturday-afternoon feel of the first "Star Wars," and from Irvin Kershner's somber, completely enveloping "The Empire Strikes Back," that it hardly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath.'

I've always thought the word "furore" was pronounced the same as the word "furor". Then I was listening to Simon Schama's History of Britain as I drobve back and forth to Philadelphia. The reader pronounced the "e" at the end. Evidently, the British do pronounce it that way. Who knew?

I've always thought the word "furore" was pronounced the same as the word "furor". Then I was listening to Simon Schama's History of Britain as I drobve back and forth to Philadelphia. The reader pronounced the "e" at the end. Evidently, the British do pronounce it that way. Who knew?

I've always thought the word "furore" was pronounced the same as the word "furor". Then I was listening to Simon Schama's History of Britain as I drobve back and forth to Philadelphia. The reader pronounced the "e" at the end. Evidently, the British do pronounce it that way. Who knew?

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall This is a very, very, very bad situation.

With last week's revelations about possible early hints of a terrorist attack, and the ferocious response from the White House to calls for an investigation, there's one thing that would be extremely convenient right now for the White House: some pointed reminder of how close we might be to another terrorist attack, and that it's no time to be second-guessing the President, or resorting to the conventional political expedient of a congressional investigation.

And, voila ... Here it is.

A view from overseas:

A bad call?



Ed Vulliamy in Washington
Sunday May 19, 2002
The Observer


For eight months now, Bush and his presidency have ridden on the political crest of the wave of 11 September, legitimised by its professed defence of America from the global terrorist menace.

But now its bluff is called, as layer after layer of the warnings it received that al-Qaeda would strike at America's heart is unpeeled. Now Bush and his aides are having to explain to the people, the press and even to themselves why and how they either misread or failed to read the clear warning signs that al- Qaeda would strike in exactly the way it did.

Jewish Babe of the Week:Leah Remini

Welcome to the 21st Century.



Georgia school holds 1st integrated prom


- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Elliott Minor

printe-mail

May 4, 2002 | COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- Taylor County High School ended a decades-old tradition Friday night when young couples -- black and white -- arrived in gowns and tuxedos for the school's first integrated prom.

"I think it's perfect," said junior Candice Grimsley, who is white. "We go to school with these people every day. Why shouldn't we have (the prom) together?"

Many Southern schools have kept social activities segregated years after court-ordered integration 31 years ago. Though some schools still crown dual homecoming queens or have separate social clubs, Taylor County High School was one of the last to hold separate proms.

Students at the school, located in a county of 8,800 midway between Columbus and Macon in central Georgia, voted overwhelmingly to hold an integrated prom this year.

Ultra-hot Jewish Babe of the Week: Caprice Bourret

Visit her official site!

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BIG DOG

He wants to be the next Oprah -- there are no jokes to be made.


Former President Bill Clinton has met with NBC executives in Los Angeles to discuss hosting his own talk show, according to several television sources, The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.

Although the talks are only preliminary, one source said Clinton's interest was serious and said he was demanding a fee of $50 million a year and had aspirations ``of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey,'' the paper said.