Barcepundit's blogging on Aznar's testimony at the 3/11 Commission
Don't miss today's post. Aznar, who's not the most amiable guy, was in rare form. Barcepundit quotes him:

"I can understand that the wish to mend relationships with someone you've demonized on the streets and other places is very intense, but hearing you praising Bush and portraying him as a real world leader is really admirable. If you say it louder, perhaps you'll be luckier than you've been so far."
He was referring to the unsuccessful atempts by Zapatero to get on the phone with Bush and the recent visit to Crawford by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia. Heh.

Read the post, and read all the links.

LaShawn Barber finds out Top Cop Nominee Is Member Of Racialist Group

George Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the person who’d be in charge of enforcing federal law, is a card-carrying member of a group that wants to stop enforcement of United States immigration law.
La Raza touts itself as a “Hispanic think tank” concerned with poverty and discrimination. Among other things, they want to strip law enforcement of the ability to protect our country against terrorists so that “Latinos” here illegally won’t be deported. Arabs are crossing our borders along with Mexicans, but La Raza wants the border to remain “open.”

This makes me ill.

David Frum asks, (updated)
Is this the most important week in European history since 1989?

In days to come, and if this story has a happy ending, we may look back on the last week of November 2004, as the most important week in European history since 1989: the week that the nearly 50 million people of Ukraine cast aside post-Soviet authoritarianism and acted decisively to rejoin the world community of democratic nations. It is the week also in which Russian attempts to re-establish control over its former subject nations received their first rebuff since Putin's entry into power.

Last evening France2 news had videos of the massive vote fraud during the Ukranian election: busloads of people taken from polling place to polling place voting as many as 40 times; propective Yuschenko voters savagely beaten up and brutally scared away from the polls, pre-filled boxes replacing the actual ballot boxes, ballots for Yuschenko set aside and not counted. Watch the French video here: Go to right sidebar, look for the Vidéos heading, and click under Ukraine: avant la décision de la Cour suprême.

May I ask, where's the UN??? Not where needed. Again.

Small wonder John O'Sullivan (via Instapundit )has reached the conclussion that,

The final losers are the U.N. and Kofi Annan. The U.N. has been invisible. As Kofi Annan has been trying to keep his head above oil, he has issued his usual appeal for restraint. But this crisis has brought forth the heroes of the Cold War from retirement -- Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa and Margaret Thatcher -- to encourage the orange revolutionaries. And Annan cannot begin to compete with their moral authority or the legitimacy they can bestow.

That's saying a lot, considering O'Sullivan includes Yanukovych, Putin, Chirac "and those European leaders who want the European Union to be an anti-American counterweight to America. International crises involving Russia tend to remind Europeans that the United States remains a very valuable ally in a dangerous and unpredictable world. Fantasies of a superpower Europe seem insubstantial delusions by comparison with this tested alliance." Arthur has more on the Orange Versus Blue struggle.

Update Welcome Instapundit readers! Please continue to visit often.
Additional update: France2 News also showed that all the downtown Kiev shops were prominently displaying every garment imaginable in orange, Yuschenko's color, and they can't keep them in stock.

Aznar testified before the 3/11 Commission
and Barcepundit live-blogged it. Don't miss his post, and the links to the potential ETA - Islamic terrorists connection, including his prior post.

Thank you, Kevin Dowd
Yesterday MoDo incorporated into her column her brother Kevin’s e-mail. Kevin said, among other things,

My wife and I picked our sons' schools based on three criteria: 1) moral values 2) discipline 3) religious maintenance - in that order. We have spent an obscene amount of money doing this and never regretted a penny. Last week on the news, I heard that the Montgomery County school board voted to include a class with a 10th-grade girl demonstrating how to put a condom on a cucumber and a study of the homosexual lifestyle. The vote was 6-0. I feel better about the money all the time.

My feelings exactly. Many people like myself believe that sex education is a parenting issue, and as such, should be left to the parents, but that is only one of the many reasons that have driven people like me and my husband to abandon the local public schools and enroll our child(ren) in private schools.

Moral values and discipline are closely related. It comes as no surprise that religious schools do well in bad neighborhoods, since in those schools the person’s behavior is seen in the context of the moral person.

Here in Princeton we are blessed with a variety of private schools, even when the local schools are highly rated, and the choices range from Montessori to the Latin Academy. None of them come cheap. The average tuition for grade school runs to approx. $12,000-$15,000/yr.

To those parents who are contemplating sending their children to private school and the only thing keeping them is the financial aspect, my experience is, this is the best money you’ll ever spend. Do without a new car, don’t replace the furniture, buy your clothes at Target. Do your research and pick a good private school. You won’t regret it.

And I wish the NYT would replace Maureen with Kevin.

Further kicking a dead Bucephalus
Alexander's a dud. As predicted in this blog, the conquest of the box office was left to Sponge Bob and others. Now the big guys are posting on it: Roger L. Simon starts by saying that A Lousy Movie Is a Lousy Movie. Arthur pounces on some Independent comments. Victor Davis Hanson calls it third-rate Cecil B. Demille in drag and says that the elephants were visually good, but (unlike in The Return Of The King) without context or significance. Belmont Club ponders the war strategies, the persian marriages and the contemporary war connotations while managing to compare Darius (who died "like a pursued animal") to Jimmy Carter.

Better to read the blogs than to watch the movie, me thinks.

Note There was a lot of Blogger trouble in posting this entry. My apologies.

Krauthammer's A Fight for Shiites, a must-read

There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate. Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 percent of the population -- decide they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, ending with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and participate in the new Iraq.
. . .
Our taking on the Sunnis is a way of demonstrating good faith. As is our intention to hold the election no matter what. Everyone knows the outcome will be a historic transfer of power to the Shiites (and, to some extent, the Kurds). We must make it clear that we will be there to support that new government. But we also have to make it clear that we are not there to lead the fight indefinitely. It is their civil war.

Babalu memories
Val titled his post Arbolito (little tree), which is the title of an old villancico, a traditional Spanish Christmas song. Spanish from Spain, as opposed to being from Puerto Rico, where the Christmas songs are called aguinaldos.

Val's post reminded me of when I was six or seven years old, and my brother, who was four, got a hold of some old (and I mean old even then) 78s and would play them over and over and over. Little kids love repetition and, le me tell ya, he repeated that music. Even I started getting tired of the stuff. I don't remember what my mother had to say about it, so she must have been very tolerant. The neighborhood houses were close enough together -- and my brother played the records loudly enough -- that the next door neighbor, a pleasant and sober man whose mother had recently moved in to live with, was driven batty. The neighbor ended up playing at least as loudly his records of the opera Aida, which probably means that we lived in a nice area. Either that, or salsa wasn't in the hit parade yet. I can imagine that the resulting dueling music probably drove a neighbor or two to drink.

As you can deduce from all this, all this took place quite a while ago. Still, the song still remains, and here are the lyrics,

Esta noche es noche buena
Vamos al monte, hermanito
A cortar un arbolito
Porque la noche es serena

Los reyes y los pastores
Cantan siguiendo una estrella
Le cantan a Jesus niño
Hijo de la Virgin bella

Arbolito, arbolito
Campanitas te pondré
Quiero que seas bonito
Que al recién nacido te voy a ofrecer

Iremos por el camino
Caminito de Belén

Iremos porque esta noche
Ha nacido el niño rey

Glora Estefan recorded it, in case you want to hear the music. BTW, she didn't write the lyrics. That song was around before she was even born.

Al-Manar TV, Hizbollah's TV channel, to broadcast into France
Join the Simon Wiesenthal Center petition urging President Jacques Chirac to Al-Manar from the airwaves.

More on the Puerto Rican elections
Welcome Chrenkoff readers! Last Tuesday I blogged about the vote count in Puerto Rico. Currently, the chairman of the local election commission (called the Comisión Estatal de Elecciones -- State Electoral Commission -- even when Puerto Rico is not a state, but a US Commonwealth) has agreed to count the "mixed" votes, but not to tally them as part of any party's total.

Sostuvo que en este momento la orden emitida por el Tribunal Federal anula la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico de que los votos mixtos tienen que adjudicarse.
He believes that presently the order from the Federal Court annuls the Puerto Rican Supreme Court asking that the mixed votes must be adjudicated (my translation)

Puertorican cases are argued in the http://www.uscourts.gov/courtsofappeals.html">United States Courts of Appeals in the 1st Circuit, and the cases are heard in Boston, Mass. Last Friday evening a judge from the 1st Circuit Court asked that the mixed votes not be adjudicated to any party, until both sides have a chance to present their cases.

The Freepers comapare this election to "A Death of a Thousand Cuts", for good reason. Leaders from the (now in power) Partido Popular Democratico (PPD) have called for a demonstration this upcoming Monday to assert the decisions of the Tribunal Supremo over the Federal Court -- they call it "Marcha por la Dignidad" (March for Dignity), even when it was the PPD who first announced they'd appeal in Boston. The Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) will be holding a demonstration this evening, under the theme "Unidos por Puerto Rico" (United for Puerto Rico) in support of the Federal Court.

It looks to me that, constitutionally speaking, both under the USA and PR Constitutions, the Federal jurisdiction is clear, but the PPD wants the local ruling to supersede the federal since the results would favor the PPD. Other than that, as I said last Tuesday, if any of this makes any sense to you, I'd be most grateful for clarification.

Ukranian news
are certainly coming fast and furious. Arthur starts with the good news:

The good news is that thanks to the mediation by the Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and the EU foreign policy head Javier Solana, both sides have sat down together and agreed to set up a working group to continue talks, and they also agreed to renounce violence in settling the dispute.

President Leonid Kuchma is not happy, and said: "As I understand, the (working group) talks are going on with considerable difficulty. No one can say what sort of compromise can be found or whether one will be found at all."

This BBC News article has a timeline:

21 Nov: Viktor Yanukovych declared winner of run-off poll
Independent observers declare the elections flawed, and thousands take to the streets
25 Nov: Supreme court suspends publication of result until it considers the opposition's complaints
26 Nov: Mr Yanukovych and Mr Yushchenko hold talks and agree to seek peaceful solution
27 Nov: MPs declare election invalid, pass vote of no-confidence in the election commission

More at Daniel Drezner's blog.

UNScam today
Claudia Rosett's at it: Annan's Son Took Payments Through 2004. While it was known that Kojo Annan had been employed by Cotecna until 1998 and was paid until 1999, it now turns out he was paid until February last year, when the scandal broke. Belmont Club has more details.

As Barcepundit says,

Let's see if all the people who shouted "Halliburton, Cheney" have something to say about this.

Of course, we all know they won't.

Instapundit's proposed Vaclav Havel for UN Secretary General, but Arhtur has a better candidate, Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski.

------------------------------
Effective July 11, 2006, Fausta's blog moved to http://faustasblog.com. Please update your bookmark and your blogroll.
------------------------------

Gratuitous movie bashing: Alexander, updated
I stopped watching Oliver Stone's movies a while ago, back when he bored me into a nap during JFK, but then, that's just me. His latest creation, Alexander, sounds like a hoot, though.

There are bad movies (an indie called Judas Kiss with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman comes to mind) that aren't worth watching, and then there are bad movies that are worth watching because they're so bad they're funny. Lots of toga-and-sandal epics fit the latter category, and it sounds like Alexander might be at the top of the toga so-bad-you'll-laugh class. Just take a look at the NYT article, where Stone says

Alexander to me is a perfect blend of male-female, masculine-feminine, yin-yang. He could communicate with both sides of his nature. When you get to modern-day focus groups, to who'll get offended in Hawaii or Maine, you can't get out of it."

The real-life Alexander, of whom has been said, "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer" (if that line sounds familiar it's because you heard it from the bad guy in Die Hard -- another Rickman movie -- "the benefits of a classical education") was not quite a yin-yang guy. To give you a for instance, Plutarch described

But when the Macedonian [Alexander's army] garrison sallied out upon them from the citadel, they were so hemmed in on all sides that the greater part of them fell in the battle; the city itself being taken by storm, was sacked and razed. Alexander's hope being that so severe an example might terrify the rest of Greece into obedience, and also in order to gratify the hostility of his confederates, the Phocians and Plataeans. So that, except the priests, and some few who had heretofore been the friends and connections of the Macedonians, the family of the poet Pindar, and those who were known to have opposed the public vote for the war, all the rest, to the number of thirty thousand, were publicly sold for slaves; and it is computed that upwards of six thousand were put to the sword.

(more Plutarch here.) Alexander could communicate to all sides of his nature, alright, and clearly communicated a lot to the people he trod upon. He didn't need focus groups. The old Cool Hand Luke line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate", was not what the conquered would have thought about Alexander. You could say that they were up to their yin-yangs in communication.

Then there's the big to-do as to whether Alexander was gay. Back in Old Macedonia I don't believe people worried much about that -- as The Husband puts it, ancient Greek culture was essentially mysogynist -- but, as Ann Althouse points out, "I love the way Stone is lecturing us, as if we are too backward to tolerate homosexuality, when he's relying on the stereotype that men who have sex with men are feminine." On the other hand, Richard Roeper declares,

Having seen the film, I can categorically state that Stone does not in any way suggest Alexander was bisexual.

He suggests Alexander was absolutely, fabulously gay.

There's also some reluctant heterosexuality, but Stone leaves no doubt about which team he thinks Alexander played for.

In "Alexander," the proclamations of love and the most intense and passionate hugs are between Colin Farrell's Alexander and his best friend Hephaistion, played by the long-haired, dewey-eyed Jared Leto, who's photographed as if he's appearing in Elton John's wildest dreams.

As Larry Ribstein (via Professor Bainbridge) notices, gay relationships deserve better treatment, and they have been better treated on film (Sunday, Bloody Sunday, for instance). By now Stone's expecting better reviews in Europe (no s**t, Sherlock, considering how the movie's been dubbed a work of artistic suicide by most [American] critics), but at least Gore Vidal liked the movie. The critic from the UK's Telegraph calls the movie Alexander the grating, not quite the better review Stone was looking for.

No bashing of Alexander at The Bad Hair Blog would be complete without mentioning the hair. The Hindustan Times: "'Alexander is full of brilliant highlights, and they're all in Colin Farrell's hair," said the Boston Globe. Other descriptions of Farrell's hairdo ranged from "dreadful-looking blond pageboy," to "epically bad dye job." The Telegraph guy says,

although to judge by his hair - a golden, peroxide quiff that calls to mind a mid-period Bee Gee - you could be forgiven for thinking his mission was to set up a chain of Middle-Eastern hair salons.

However, while this might be an unfounded rumor, I felt a need to report it:

Unreliable sources say Stone can also expect to pick up support from the Mullet Anti-Defamation League for Colin Farrell's frank depiction of bi-level hairstyles.

Not to be outshone, the NYT mentions "Colin Farrell, upstaged by an epically bad dye job". Hair or not, Colin's been comparing acting to a malodorous dog ("I'm here because I like the work! The work intrigues me. It annoys me. It (screws) with my head and it's like a dog that I'm never going to catch. I do want to stroke it once and see how bad it smells. But every time I get close to the dog, he's gone again"), but maybe we shouldn't go there.

The Packet reviewer's husband mentioned another minus,

When some of Alexander's men mutiny after years on the march, complaining that they're sick of fighting and want to go home, my husband moaned, "I know just how they feel".

Sounds like the conquest of the box office will be left to Sponge Bob instead.

Update Kathleen weighs in. The NYT evokes Joan Crawford.

Overseas news items
Spain: Following the news of last week's deplorable endorsement, Barcepundit (also in Spanish) has the implications of Spain's King Juan Carlos's Thanksgiving in Crawford:

by reaching out to the Spanish highest institutional figures with only symbolic and not executive power, Bush is proving that he's far from the un-nuanced moron as so many simplistically are portraying him. He's clearly signaling that he has no problem against Spain as a country and its people per se; just against Zapatero's current administration.

As this op-ed article (in Spanish) realizes, Spain's foreign policy, from the withdrawal of the (mostly symbolic) troops from Iraq to the new attitude towards Casto/Chavez/whoever else the tyrant du jour might be, is the news, not the King's holiday weekend.

Not related, but also about Spain, racial incidents continued this week as a group of spectators, barechested and wearing Nazi tatoos, chanted "Seig Heil!" (shown in the France2 evening news, no clip available) during a soccer game.

Ukraine: Arthur's been blogging about the Ukraine, and posts about a harebrained conspiracy theory postulated by "a Moscow think-tank closely linked with the Putin administration," which blames Zbigniew Brzezinski (?!?) for the whole thing. Just this morning the BBC TV news showed a clip of the official Ukranian news broadcast where the sign-language interpreter told the audience not to believe anything that was being said. (In view of the above conspiracy theory, that's sound advice.) There has been speculation as to whether Viktor Yushchenko, the oposition candidate, was poisoned, which would account for the change in his appearance. a Fistful of Euros has a roundup and updates on the elections. The Economist speculates on what happens next.

Tony and Paulie in Kuwait
Straight from the WSJ! Gandolfini got his hair buzzed for the occasion.

As the WSJ says, “America supports the troops--privately, and online”. Don’t forget to give to The Friends of Iraq Blogger Challenge.

What not to wear

Turkey pot pie
Stuck with leftover turkey? Had your fill of turkey sandwiches? Try this instead:

1 cup of mushrooms
half an onion, chopped
2 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
one package Pillsbury pie crusts (two crusts)
2 cups chopped turkey
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1 jar FrancoAmerican turkey gravy OR 1 1/4 cup leftover gravy (I use the FA gravy because it doesn't have MSG) (also, there's never gravy left over at my house).

Heat a skillet, add oil, and sauté the mushrooms and the onion until the onion is transparent, season with salt and pepper. Remove from the burner.

Warm the oven to 350oF.

Place one pie crust on a deep pie dish.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the onion, mushrooms, mixed vegetables, turkey and gravy until all the ingredients are coated with gravy. Pour into the pie dish. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the crusts together (don't forget to poke little holes on the top crust). Bake in oven for 45 minutes.

You can thank me later.

Thanksgiving Day
Kathleen has prepared us in detail for today’s feast (including the turkey calculator, and Steve has the menu.

After you read Today In History’s information, and James S. Robbins’s article on the history of Thanksgiving day, Giving Thanks in Wartime: The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Thanksgiving of 1864, you might want to take The Federalist Patriot Thanksgiving Day Quiz.

Dr. David Yeagley asks,

Many Indians today have a hard time with Thanksgiving, perhaps worse that Jews with Christmas. Thanksgiving doesn't seem to be a holiday that inspires Indians, since it was actually the beginning of the end of our homes, and our way of life. And who's to "thank" for that, but the white man? Is the situation abject? Are Indians forever slaves to discontent?

Read what he has to say.

Val, Ambra and La Shawn are thankful. Betsy posts on the Jamestown vs. Plymouth debate. Football Fans And Beyond are having fun with the turkeys.

Jane has her Thanksgiving proclamation:

Now in this new century, we find that for which we are grateful has not changed since the founding of this great nation: a country founded in freedom, all those who have sacrificed to preserve this covenant, all those in public service and those who dedicate their lives to preserving the homefront and our communities, those who with their toil give energy to the nation, energy to our families, and energy to the world. These United States so recently attacked, so recently termed divided, so recently declared a rouge, stand together on this day as on all others in appreciation of liberty and a with a willingness to secure that liberty at any cost. And there are none who deserve out gratitude more than our fighting men and women, who throughout the centuries have spent their lives to ensure the privilege of democracy and the continuity of America for all the world. God bless America and all her allies both declared and hidden.

Also from James S. Robbins, Pilgrim Parable: Choosing freedom.

This Pilgrim parable is worth remembering when giving thanks. Our country was not predestined to prosper; it did so through choices made at its Founding and renewed every generation since: the choices of freedom over rule, property over collectivization, the liberty of the individual human spirit over the dictates of the enlightened few. We should be thankful for the wisdom of our ancestors in creating this heritage, and mindful of our stewardship as we are called to carry forward this idea called America.

The WSJ gives thanks for America and David Gelenrter reminds us that it’s A Very Christian Holiday: "Fundamentalists" gave us Thanksgiving, and we should thank them for it

Michael is thankful for his visitors, too:

And as you pause from your day of sharing and football and turkey and trimmings to give thanks and praise, I also thank God for you. For as much as I do this for me, I do this for you, and without you, I would be diminished.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all!

Sarkozy is now president of the UMP,
the ruling French party. At the very least, France 2 says, that means the UMP "will have to serve the ideas of its president, which are very different from those of the current resident of the Elysée (Jacques Chirac)". The France2 report asks if, in view of Sarkozy’s initiative “The Republic, the religions, and hope”, this will lead to a “Bush-style liberalism” (a phrase that might strike fear in some, and surprise in others).

Bruce Walker believes that

The poison of Chirac and the Left can be dramatically diluted by the true friendship of a brilliant man like Sarkozy. Curiously, Sarkozy also has a Jewish grandfather, and a practicing Christian of Jewish heritage reaching out a hand of friendship to moderate Moslems is just what the world will be needed in three years when Sarkozy, likely, will be assuming one of the most powerful offices in any democracy, President of the Republic of France.

We shall see.

No-Thanks Thanksgiving, updated x 2
From The Independent Women's Forum

When teachers in the state of Maryland inform their pupils about Thanksgiving, they aren’t allowed to mention the fact that it has something to do with thanking God.
. . .
Trouble is, in the case of the Pilgrims, the "purely historical perspective" is the "religious perspective." The Pilgrims weren’t in Massachusetts for the Cape Cod fishing or to hear Teresa Heinz Kerry’s "opinions." A sect of dissident Puritans, they came to the New World in 1621 for strictly religious reasons: to escape persecution by the dominant Anglican Church and to set up a colony that would reflect their religious ideals.

The teachers in the state of Maryland are doing a disservice to their students.

Update Robert and Michelle are posting about it. Jane too -- don't miss the comments section.
Update Linda Chavez

No one is suggesting children should be forced to pray as part of their public school Thanksgiving celebrations, but they should not be denied learning an important lesson in American history. The founders of this nation were a deeply religious people, and Americans remain among the most religious people in the world. Religious faith has guided the development of our democracy and imbues our leaders still with a belief in the worth of every man, woman and child. When we sit down to our Thanksgiving feasts, we should remember and thank God for that.

Indeed.

Ozzy stops a robber
Via Samizdata,

Rock star Ozzy Osbourne has been praised by police for "very courageously" tackling a burglar who stole jewellery from his house.
The singer grabbed an intruder who then jumped 30ft (10m) from a first floor window as the star gave chase at his Buckinghamshire home on Monday.

The Samizdatistas are pondering what the consquences would have been had Ozzy been more agressive (no, not biting his had off, even when that was mentioned). I don't know if The Osbournes is still playing, but this would have been a top Entertainment Tonight item, had it been caught on camera.

Deplorable endorsement
Chavez hails Zapatero as 'revolutionary'

Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero share "good vibes" and the same social views.

As Barcepundit said: "FURTHER DESCENT into thirdworldism".

Preparing for the holidays
Yesterday I bought a free-range, organic turkey. I won't be telling The Husband about the free-range, organic part, since, as a scientist, (hard-science, the type of science that is based on quantifying and reproducing data, i.e., not social science) he has a tendency to deride anything labeled "organic". Today will marinade turkey as follows

Mix together
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped garlic (comes in a little jar, already chopped)
basil
Rub turkey inside and out with the above. Lift turkey skin and add the olive oil and garlic mixture, and then inset a whole sprig of rosemary on each side of the turkey. If you have a large turkey, use two sprigs. Pour any remaining mixture on turkey, wrap in Saran wrap, and refrigerate until Thursday when ready to roast.

(For those of you evil-minded people who are asking, has The Husband made fun of the "extra virgin" terminology, the answer is yes.)

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's a most American holiday, and it involves eating good food in (hopefuly!) good company.

Christmas is nice, but it's overloaded with too much emotional overtone, the stores prepare for it waaay too long ahead, and the music is awful. A day or two of Christmas carols will do, thank you, but six weeks is maddening. Even Handel's Messiah gets on my nerves, and, besides, I think The Messiah's more appropriate for Easter anyway. (As far as those eternal replays on TV of It's A Wonderful Life and other sappy movies, you don't want me to go there. Trust me on this.)

As an antidote to the usual Christmas carols, I suggest With Joyful Voice: Christmas Music of Eight Centuries (Box Set), a 3-CD set with one CD of Medieval, one Renaissance, and one Baroque, Christmas music. As an Amazon reviewer said, "A mood of quiet joy pervades the presentation."

Your guests will enjoy it as background music, and you'll enjoy listening to it while getting dinner ready. Best yet, you won't be repeating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in your head for hours.

The vote count in Puerto Rico, updated
points to a win by the PNP (Partido Nuevo Progresista's) candidate, former governor Pedro Rosselló, or does it? As this NYT article points out,

Puerto Rican election law, which requires an "escrutinio," or review of vote summaries from each precinct, before an official recount of the roughly two million paper ballots cast on Nov. 2. Hundreds of officials from the island's election commission and its three major parties are submerged in that task . . . The officials are also checking the validity of about 30,000 ballots that did not make the initial count, a slow process that sometimes involves determining voter intent

All of this has to be done before there is a recount. Faced with the possibility of months-long "escrutinios," the U.S. District Court and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court have now spoken: Recount Ordered in Puerto Rico Election

Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, the Partido Popular candidate, who was in the lead last week when the NYT article was published, has gone on the record saying that the current paper ballot system, "is foolproof against fraud because you have the evidence right there," he said. "Thank God for paper ballots." I guess he never heard of olden-day Chicago.

The Partido Independentista, according to the NYT article has lost its status as an official party by getting only 2.73% of the total vote.

There are no hanging chads, but there are "mixed votes", "in which voters marked the symbol for the Independence Party and the space next to the names of Acevedo Vila and Roberto Prats, the Popular Democratic candidate for Puerto Rico's nonvoting delegate to the U.S. Congress." I have no idea how it's done(*), but apparently "there could be as many as 20,000" of those.

If you're not confused by now, I'd appreciate if you could explain all this.

(*) It would be the equivalent of voting for the Green party while at the same time voting for Kerry, for example.

Update here

The Bad Hair Blog joins the Spirit of America Friends of Iraq Blogger Challenge!

Support freedom, democracy and peace in Iraq
Leading bloggers are competing to raise funds to benefit the people of Iraq. 100% of all donations go to needs selected by these bloggers. Many of our projects support requests made by Americans serving in Iraq (Marines, Army, SeaBees) for goods that help the Iraqi people. Other projects directly support Iraqis who are on the front lines of building a better future for Iraq

If you'd like to donate, please donate through this blog, here.
Thank you!

Excellent article on Dr. Rice, and some thoughts on Charlton Heston
The London Times (via The Anchoress), Condi: The girl who cracked the ice,

With the bombings came marauding groups of armed white vigilantes called “nightriders” who drove through black neighbourhoods shooting and starting fires. John Rice and his neighbours guarded the streets at night with shotguns.

The memory of her father out on patrol lies behind Rice’s opposition to gun control today. Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby removing one of the black community’s only means of defence. “I have a sort of pure second amendment view of the right to bear arms,” she said in 2001.

The article is most interesting, and these 2 paragraphs brought to mind another thought:

When I was eighteen I drove my mother to the funeral of a child who was accidentally shot and killed by his 5-yr old brother, and I'm very gun-adverse. However, I respect the Constitution, and respect the individual's responsibility to exert his/her right. Therefore, one of the reasons I don't respect Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine is that he completely ignores the role of the Second Amendment in the struggle for Civil Rights in the South. Moore also makes Charlton Heston, who was already in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, look like an evil clown (to put it mildly) (more details on Heston and Bowling for Columbine here). Charlton Heston was directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement at the height of his success. He had won the 1960 Oscar for Best Actor, and by all accounts was an A-list actor in 1963 when he joined the March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his famous I have a dream speech. Heston's involvement with the NRA was not coincidental to his civil rights activism.

Update on the mystery of the French hostages
Mohammad al-Jundi, the Syrian driver liberated by the Marines in Fallujah, arrived in France Saturday. al-Jundi had been separated from Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunnot for several weeks, and their location remains unknown.

Last Monday Prime Minister Raffarin was saying, "The recent discovery of the hiding place in which their Syrian driver had been locked up and the fact that the driver is alive and could provide us with information, make it possible for us to think that the hostages [Chesnot and Malbrunnot]are in a fairly safe geographical area". To add to the mystery,

Un camionneur égyptien libéré par ses ravisseurs la semaine dernière, a affirmé samedi à Amman avoir été détenu au même endroit que les deux journalistes français Christian Chesnot et Georges Malbrunot dans une maison à Latifiyah, à une trentaine de kilomètres au sud de Bagdad. Ahmad Abdel Aziz Mohammed a expliqué qu'il n'avait pas directement vu les deux Français. Selon le chauffeur routier, ils sont "en bonne santé".

[my translation] An Egyptian truck-driver released by his kidnappers last week, said in Amman last Saturday that he had been held at the same place as the two French journalists Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot in a house in Latifiyah, some thirty kilometers south of Baghdad. Ahmad Abdel Aziz Mohammed explained that he had no direct contact with the two men. According to the road driver, they are "in good health".

Additionally, Le Monde reported that Mohammed stated that the had attempted to talk to Chesnot and Malbrunot through an adjacent wall in the house there were being held, even when Mohammed doesn't speak French.

The French authorities have misgivings as to the truthfulness of Mohammed's statement, and whether he had actually been held hostage.

Saturday evening France2 news reported, right after the Chesnot and Malbrunnot item, that Polish hostage Teresa Borcz-Halifa, kidnapped on October 28 and subsequently released, had arrived in Warsaw. Additionally, they reported that the relatives of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had been released.

It's Monday, so it's time for Arthur's
Good news from Iraq, Part 15. While you're there, don't miss his Postcards from Fallujah

Jacques continues his diplomatic mission
After showing up 1/2 hr late to the Windsor Castle dinner and show, the Telegraph had some fun at Jacques's expense.

Missing from the Court Circular, then, was: "On their way to Windsor, the President of the French Republic attended a water-main burst and delay given in the Cromwell Road by the Mayor, Mr Kenneth Livingstone, and the cast of the London rush hour traffic jam with road-rage stabbings… After Dinner, the President of the French Republic and Madame Jacques Chirac slept through a special performance of Les Misérables. The President of the French Republic told the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh that they knew full well that he had always hated the show and that it was proof of French good taste that it had been running for a generation in London and had flopped in Paris.

"He added that when the Queen next visited Paris on a state visit he would, after dinner, show the video of France beating England in the 2004 Six Nations rugby. The Queen replied that one looked forward to that very much. The Duke of Edinburgh told the President of the French Republic that, according to what he read about crooked French politicians, the President of the French Republic would by that time be in prison.

"The President of the French Republic and Madame Jacques Chirac said that they were not going to take that from someone whose original surname, Battenberg, suggested that he was un Boche. The President of the French Republic and the Duke of Edinburgh then participated, with Madame Jacques Chirac, in a joint scuffle."

On a more serious vein, (via Betsy) the Times of London is not amused at all by Jacques's attitude, and goes as far as saying,

France is more than M Chirac and the Entente deeper than the current spat. Britain is right to celebrate friendship with its closest neighbour. It should politely ignore the bad manners of France’s President and wish M Sarkozy godspeed.

Allow me to remind you that Sarkozy continues to show up in the French polls as their most popular politican.

Andrew Coulson's a little more blunt, posting, Netherlands: "Why is Chirac such a Prick?". Dennis Boyles writes about Jacques’s Cracks

That, of course, is exactly what we should by now expect from Chirac — the notion that if it's not a bribe, it's not a deal. It would never occur to Chirac that what Blair got in exchange for liberating Iraq had nothing to do with the U.S. What Blair got was what he thought he'd get — the knowledge that he had done the right thing for his own country and for others.

What an unsophisticated way to see the world, non? A French leader would never say, "Either you are with us, or you're against us." In French, it translates like this: "Either you give us something, or we are against you." Chirac's remark explains a great deal about the deep, permanent animosity between the U.S. and France. And thanks in part to Jacques' cracks, it's now an antagonism George W. Bush overlooks at his peril.

Boyles calls Jacques a cheap crook, but the evidence indicates he's a very expensive crook.

Following up on three news stories,
The first news story is about the UN: The NYT says U.N. Staff Union Chides U.N. Management, or depending on whether you ask Fox, U.N. Staff: 'No Confidence' in Top Leaders. Either way, "Union members said the vote wasn't directed at Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but at the management of several top officials. In fact, the head of the labor organization said members actually did have confidence in Annan himself."

The second's about Arafat: Palestinians to get Arafat's medical chart: "French Defence ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said on Thursday Arafat's wife, Suha, daughter, Zahwa, and al-Kidwa [Arafat's nephew, who is also a Palestinian diplomat] would be allowed by French privacy laws to request the records."

The third concerns the Spanish racist catcalls at a soccer game: Spain’s FA Apologises To English Counterparts "for the racist chanting that disfigured last Wednesday's friendly international between the two countries.
In a letter, the Spanish FA also apologised for similar incidents during Tuesday’s Under-21 international." David Dein, the vice-chairman of Arsenal, the English team, "believes FIFA should force Spain to play their next international behind closed doors as punishment for the racist abuse by their fans towards England players on Wednesday."

In the no-news department, Bill Clinton lied again.

I didn't know Steve worked for Hardee's
but the evidence points in that direction: Hardee's has come up with a burger that weighs in at

a massive 1,420 calories with 107 grams of fat

Steve is the creator (author is too small a description) of Eat What You Want and Die like a Man: The World's Unhealthiest Cookbook. The evidence is circumstantial, but, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

For when you really need to know:
Google for scholars, via (who else?) the Tax Prof Blog

Barcepundit
posts on a shameful racial incident that took place in Spain last Wednesday night, reported in The Scotsman

Sports Minister Richard Caborn demanded action today after England’s black football players were subjected to racist abuse for the second night running when the national side played a friendly against Spain.

Mr Caborn condemned last night’s racial chanting against Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips and said he would write to his Spanish counterpart later today.

Black British players were also targeted in the Under-21 match between England and Spain on Tuesday night in Alcala de Henares.

Powerline also posts on the story. baldilocks remarks, " I do, however, find it interesting that the Spaniards felt so secure in the knowledge that such men would not resort to such drastic methods of revenge."

UNScam today, updated
Jeff Babin writes about how to take the UN to court:

The president could determine — and issue an order saying — that the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, according to the available evidence, violated that "commitment to peremptory norms" and thus waived its immunities to congressional and other U.S. legal proceedings. At that point, Coleman's PSI could issue enforceable subpoenas against the U.N., its staff, and the companies that participated in the program. The U.N. would then be in a position such that it had to either cooperate with the investigation or be held in contempt of Congress. (Which it manifestly is right now.)

Things are bad enough that the UN staff ready historic no-confidence vote in Annan

UN employees are expected to issue an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), union sources say, after he pardoned the body's top oversight official over a series of allegations.
. . .
"Kofi Annan is surrounded by corruption, a gang of criminals responsible for some of the worst things that happened to mankind in the 20th century," said one angry staffer, referring to the Rwanda massacres.

"It's possible that he doesn't know directly what has gone on," said the employee, who has worked for the United Nations for two decades. "But that's no excuse.

Ben Shapiro says It must be nice to be Kofi Annan.

Update Jane writes about The Ever More Dysfunctional UN

More music in the air, updated
Still haven't found the sheet music for "Midnight, the Stars and You", but Roger's blogging about Rolling Stone Magazine's top 500 songs of all time (article not on line yet). The top 20 listed are pretty lame, and of course Rolling Stone had to list John Lennon's Imagine in the top 3. Imagine's probably the lamest, most meaningless tripe anyone whose aim in life (after becoming rich, famous, and mob-accosted successful) was "to do nothing" could have come up with, which he did. Byron Matthews has been Imagining John Lennon's Utopia

With "Imagine", John Lennon believed he was showing the way to a better and more peaceful world. Instead, he succeeded in combining three supremely bad ideas as main ingredients in a musical recipe for political and economic disaster. If the goal were to produce an inexorable destruction of liberal democracy and economic productivity, it would be hard to improve on Lennon's triple whammy of abolishing religion, nations, and private property. Compared with the oppressed and mean existence promised by Lennon's utopia, life in a yellow submarine seems positively attractive. While we may hope that his dream of peace will always be widely shared, Lennon's program for getting there is not one that any thinking person should want to join.

Imagine that, Lennon!
Update Kathleen has a link to an article listing the top 50. She also noticed,

Oh, of course Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone is the number one greatest rock song---as if that qualifies as rock. Next thing you'll be telling me that Mahler is easy listening---yet, we're supposed to believe this thing wasn't rigged when Jakob Dylan was on the panel?

Speaking of lists, she also has a post on movie comeback lines.

"Midnight, the Stars and You", the theme song from John Batchelor's
radio show, is a most romantic tune.

I started listening to Batchelor before the elections, and his is a very interesting program. Unlike most talk radio, his tone is never strident, and he manages to convey a huge amount of information in a large variety of subjects through interviews with experts in each subject. Batchelor first came on the air on September 12, 2001. Good as the show is, to me the most interesting part of the program is his choice of music. He plays snippets of everything from Baroque to jazz, and if I'm not mistaken, even some early music. The final theme always is "Midnight, the Stars and You", followed by Kate Smith's rendition of "God Bless America". As the Batchelor program ends at 1AM and I get up early, it's not often that I get to listen to those two songs (or, for that matter, to the entire Batchelor show).

"Midnight, the Stars and You" is an enchanting tune (words and music by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Harry Woods). The lyrics are sexy:

Midnight, with the stars and you,
Midnight, and a rendezvous.
Your eyes held a message tender,
Saying, "I surrender all my love to you."
Midnight brought us sweet romance,
I know all my whole life through
I'll be remembering you,
Whatever else I do
Midnight with the stars and you.

The music is romantic but not coy, and it evokes women in Mainbocher ball gowns and satin gloves dancing with dashing men at the Rainbow Room, the glamour and romance of the Art Deco era. Sung by Al Bowly with the Ray Noble orchestra, "Midnight" is a song that belongs so specifically to the era it was written that Stanley Kubrick used it in The Shining to demonstrate Jack's submission to the ghosts of the past. In the film the paradoxical effect of the song was intensified by the very soothing cords of the music. "Midnight" was written for seduction, and Kubrick noticed.

I found the Guitar Guy's version on line. If I can get a hold of the sheet music for piano, will add it to my "repertoire" -- but for now I'm trying to play it by ear. If any visitors know of where I could find the sheet music, please let me know.

What's going on in North Korea?
While North Korea Charges It Is Under U.S.-Led `International Siege', Kim References Softened in N.Korea; Experts Ask Why, and N. Korea Pulls Kim Images From Buildings. Just last Sunday the London Times wrote about a Power battle as Kim grieves for mistress.
Roger's been posting on it.

Dan, one of Arthur's guests, asked, "Why hasn't the MSM ran the headline: Wheels About to Come Off Axis of Evil?"

It might be too soon to say.

As Lileks put it, "For God’s sake, if Patton were alive today he’d be slapping civilians." (updated)
Dr. Sowell reminds us,

Terrorists wear no uniform and show no mercy, as they have repeatedly demonstrated by beheading innocent civilians, including women.

Chapomatic posts on the subject. Juliette links to Power Line, who has a letter from one who's there.

Update Mary asks, "What does a person have to do to be defined as a terrorist these days?"

The Clinton Presidential Library and Mobile Home Park
was inagurated last night. The Indoctrination Center/Library exhibits are what one would expect. The infamous blue dress is not to be found, and neither are some inconvenient details:

But there are instances in the exhibit that, while technically true, skirt the edge of truth. For instance, one placard in the alcove states that although seven separate investigations of the Clinton administration cost more than $100 million, "none of these efforts yielded a conviction for public misconduct."
In fact, at least 14 persons were convicted in the Whitewater investigation for fraud or conspiracy involving bogus loans through public institutions, mail fraud and income-tax evasion, among others. Mr. Clinton himself agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license as a means to end the Lewinsky inquiry and head off an Arkansas court move to punish him for misleading answers in a deposition taken during the Paula Jones sexual-harassment suit.

Christopher Hitchens in his book, which I expect won't be at the Library, believes that the Clintons put the nail on the coffin of true liberalism in the Democrat party. As he says, "Whether the "capital" is moral or political or just plain financial, the Clinton practice is to use other peoples'." (page 53).

And now for the trailer park,

The Economist captioned this photo as "Put it on wheels, Hill. We're out of here". My husband, devoted reader of The Economist, points out that the building even has the posts from where to hook it up to a nice semi. Professor Bainbridge has the last word.

Good news for Jacques
at least when it comes to his grocery bills: A French court has dismissed legal action against President Jacques Chirac over the food bills he ran up as mayor of Paris in the 1980s and 1990s, because the statute of limitations has passed.

Jacques & Bernadette were spending 600 euros (£420) a day on average between 1988 and 1995.

Sleaze leaves French voters cold, or so it appears.

UNScam today
The Oil-For-Food program allowed Saddam Hussein to embezzle at least $21.3 billion in oil money during 12 years. This Oil-for-food money paid bombers' kin

Saddam Hussein diverted money from the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who carried out attacks on Israel, say congressional investigators who uncovered evidence of the money trail.

The former Iraqi president tapped secret bank accounts in Jordan — where he collected bribes from foreign companies and individuals doing illicit business under the humanitarian program — to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press

Friends of Saddam points out that the “9/11 Commission didn't even bother to trace the money trails of terrorist finance that led to the catastrophe three years ago, calling the question one of little practical significance”.

Presently, “The head of an independent panel investigating alleged corruption in the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq rejected on Tuesday a request to immediately turn over evidence that he has gathered to U.S. congressional investigators. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker instead pledged to make virtually all the evidence public at his own pace, beginning early in 2005.' The US House of Representatives International Relations Committee today holds a hearing that will focus on BNP-Paribas, the French bank that handled most of the money for the program: "An audit by a U.S. regulatory agency of a small sample of transactions out of the $60 billion U.N. escrow account managed by BNP-Paribas has raised serious questions over the bank's compliance with U.S. money laundering laws, the investigators said." Evidence seems to indicate that "payments in the oil-for-food program were made by BNP at times with a lack of full proof of delivery for goods and other necessary documents." There certainly are reports that the U.N. deserted leads in oil-for-food investigation: “A private intelligence firm hired by the United Nations to look into corruption in the oil-for-food program provided valuable leads to U.N. investigators, but they were ignored, the company's director says

Mr. Baldwin said new information related to the U.N. oil-for-food program uncovered by the company includes:
•A network of Iranians who were involved in smuggling oil under the U.N. program.
•Connections between the U.N. program and a French organized crime figure who U.S. officials said was a conduit for oil-for-food-related payments to French President Jacques Chirac.
•Information on the Swiss-based company Cotecna, which was involved in border inspections of oil-for-food goods. Cotecna at one point during the oil-for-food program hired Mr. Annan's son as a consultant.
•Data on the activities of an Egyptian oil broker who took part in illegal activities related to the oil-for-food program.”

It won't be the first time Chirac's name comes up: on April 2003, Safire was writing about it in the NY Times and in The International Herald Tribune.

Today Claudia Rosett asks, Come Clean, Kofi and explains how it happened under Kofi's watch

,Once Mr. Annan became secretary-general, he lost little time in getting deeply involved with Oil for Food. In October 1997, just 10 months into the job, he transformed what had begun as an ad hoc, temporary relief measure into the Office of the Iraq Program, an entrenched U.N. department, which reported to him directly--and was eliminated only after the U.S.-led coalition, against Mr. Annan's wishes, deposed Saddam. To run Oil for Food, Mr. Annan picked Benon Sevan (now alleged to have received oil money from Saddam, which he denies) and kept him there until the program ended about six years later.

Mr. Annan's reorganization of Oil for Food meant a nontrivial change in the trajectory of the program. All the signs are that Saddam immediately took the cue that he could now start gaming the program with impunity--and Mr. Annan did not prove him wrong. Within the month, Saddam had created the first crisis over the U.N. weapons inspectors, who were supposed to be part of the sanctions and Oil for Food package. Mr. Annan's response was not to throttle back on Oil for Food but to go before the Security Council a few months later and urge that Baghdad be allowed to import oil equipment along with the food and medicine to which the program had been initially limited. This set the stage for the ensuing burst in Saddam's oil production, kickbacks, surcharges and smuggling.

Mr. Annan then flew to Baghdad for a private powwow with Saddam and returned to declare that this was a man he could do business with. The weapons inspectors returned to Iraq for a short spell, but by the end of 1998, Saddam had evicted them for the next four years. Mr. Annan, however, went right on doing business. And big business it was, however humanitarian in name. Under the Oil for Food deal, Mr. Annan's Secretariat pulled in a 2.2% commission on Saddam's oil sales, totaling a whopping $1.4 billion over the life of the program, to cover the costs of supervising Saddam. Yet somehow the Secretariat never found the funding to fully meter oil shipments, ensure full inspections of all goods entering Iraq, or catch the pricing scams that by the new estimates of Senate investigators let Saddam rake in $4.4 billion in kickbacks on relief contracts.

Mr. Annan and his aides would also have us believe that Oil for Food had nothing to do with Saddam's smuggling of oil--which generated the lion's share of his illicit income. But it was only after Oil for Food geared up that Saddam's oil smuggling really took off, totaling $13.6 billion during his entire 12 years between wars, but with more than two-thirds of that--an estimated $9.7 billion--earned during the era of Oil for Food. Those were precisely the years in which Mr. Annan repeatedly went to bat to enable Saddam, under Oil for Food, to import the equipment to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure, whence came all that smuggled oil.

In the face of all this, Roger asks,

Suppose the US had not invaded Iraq and the Oil-for-Food scam had continued apace, netting billions a year for Saddam and his cohorts? What would that money have been used for? Well, probably some variation of what it had always been used for -- castles, cars, planes and more and more weapons of all kinds, some manufactured and some bought, distributed to Saddam and his allies. Soon enough the already fat spigots would expand (with UN endorsement, no doubt) and the gush of money increase. Think about that in light of the brain dead, self-immolating incantation of "No WMDs!" offered us by the self-described left as justification for their naive isolationism. A cash flow like that provided by UNSCUM could finance enough WMDs to destroy the world many times over with the resources to hide them simultaneously under practically every sand dune from Mongolia to the Mojave (they probably already have). Left alone, the United Nations and Saddam would have put civilization in tremendous jeopardy. Sound exaggerated? Think about it. The UN Oil-for-Food Scandal was justification by itself to invade Iraq - far more than enough.

There's a lot more on the scandal, but Roger gets the heart of the matter. A Barcepundit commenter points out that $23b = the GDP of a small country like Peru, or 2.5% of the GDP or a larger country, like Spain.

There's more to this story. As Fox News said, Corruption Spreads Outward, and there's much else we don't know about yet. Will the entire story ever surface?

Right Thinking Girl's list,
How To Be A Happy Woman (via baldilocks, who knows about these things), is a must-read. On the list,

4. Break up with a guy you like but isn't good for you.

5. Don't give in, no matter how painful, if your principles are at stake
. . .
13. Know when to listen and when not to listen.
. . .
16. Do not ever let a man tell you how to drive, dress, think or walk. (so much for What Not To Wear, American version

My favorite is,

12. Only buy really good, high-quality handbags

(which is why I bought Coach stock a couple of years ago), and its corollaries, wear matching shoes, and get the best coat you can afford.

Meanwhile, at the Entente Cordiale anniversary celebrations,
Chirac manages to insult his hosts,

“I am not sure, with America as it is these days, that it would be easy for someone, even the British, to be an honest broker.”

To spare Jacques's feelings, "the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle will be referred to as "The Music Room" for a special performance of Les Misérables, in honour of President Jacques Chirac on Thursday", according to The Telegraph. However,

Even after the subtle rebranding, the French President will not be able to avoid the reminder of his country's defeat on the battlefield. The chamber was built to commemorate a famous British victory.

I hope they have beef Wellington for the main course.

Lileks on Rice

Yay Condi Rice. I want her to go to Saudi Arabia, and I want her first words upon getting off the plane to be “I’ll drive.”

Yay Lileks!

Speaking of Lileks, don't miss Kathleen's Former Caribou Manager Spills The Beans

New word watch:
A new feature at The Bad Hair Blog: new word watch.

In the article mentioned in my next post, Dr. K uses the word irredentist: One who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to one's nation but now subject to a foreign government

Krauthammer, hitting hard (updated)
Maria sent me this article, Arafat's Legacy: He was single-minded, but not about statehood or a real peace

The outpouring of tributes to Yasser Arafat is marked by two themes: (1) his greatness as creator, sustainer and leader of the Palestinian cause, and (2) the abrupt opening of an opportunity for its success now that he is gone.

The fawning world leaders saying this seem oblivious to the obvious paradox. If he was such a great leader, how is it that he left his people so destitute, desperate, wounded and bereft that only his passing gives them a hope for a fulfillment of their deepest aspirations?

As Dr. Krauthammer points out,

Americans never understood that Arafat saw himself completely differently: as an anti-imperialist revolutionary in the mold of Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro. Like them, his motto was "revolution unto victory." Total victory. No half loaf. And given Israel's stubborn refusal to die, Arafat's cause became sustaining the struggle -- the revolution -- indefinitely, almost as an end in itself

Sadly, Dr. K's right.

Update Via Power Line, Bat Ye’or's Arafat’s Legacy for Europe

Americans must face a new reality: Europe’s evolution from a Judeo-Christian secular and free civilization to a continent imbibed by a new political and religious cult: Palestinianism. This cult is vital for Europe’s security; it permeates the culture, academia, universities, the churches, the unions, the media, even the fashion industry, and all aspects of political life. For over thirty years, it has been injected in every sector of European society by the European Commission's supra-national power and unifying policy. The European Commission is the executive body that advises, directs, influences and monitors the same unique agenda, the same ideology, the same political correctness over all the European populations. It strives to control Europe’s foreign policy, and model Europe as a rival to America. This anti-American lust for power can only be implemented through the building of an idealized “Islamo-Christian Civilization,” the dawn of a messianic universal peace whose blessing over the whole world is impeded by Zionism and Israel. Islamic assistance is essential for building this European anti-American super-power, initially via Palestinianism, the ideology which foments Israel's elimination.
Palestinianism condenses jihadist values. It promotes the destruction of Israel, the denial of Hebrew biblical history and hence Christianity. It preaches Islamic replacement theology and the Arabization and Islamization of the Holy Land’s biblical archeology. Arafat, its leader, was the bin Laden of a seduced Europe, which applauded his policy of spectacular terrorism. It is Arafat who initiated in 1968 air piracy against Jews, hostage ransoming, suicide bombings, random killings of civilians and the destruction of urban areas as in Lebanon. In short, the current global terror campaign was successfully introduced first by Arafat against Jews and Israelis, as well as Lebanese Christians

Also don't miss Palestinian refugees: championed by Arab world yet treated like outcasts, if you haven't read it yet.

Havana Night Club dance troupe flew the Habana coop
Members of Cuban Troupe Say They Will Seek Asylum

In what appears to be the largest mass defection of Cuban performers to date, 44 dancers, singers and musicians, here to stage a revue, plan to seek political asylum in the United States, troupe members said on Sunday.
. . .
The performers said they decided to stay in the United States after the Cuban authorities told them they could be jailed or at the very least not be allowed to continue as professional artists in Cuba if they persisted in their plan to work in Las Vegas.

The article states "The troupe is independent, and receives no state support." Val points out that

When you have tried to leave Cuba for the states, the Castro regime immediately takes away your job. Then, they detain you periodically and threaten to arrest you for not having thejob they took away from you in the first place.

I don't believe Oliver Stone noticed that during any of his trips to Cuba.

"Economy booming despite McGreevey" (updated x 2)
-- specifially, despite a massive corporate tax increase in 2002, amounting to roughly $4 billion in increased taxes in the last three years -- is one of the articles Roberto's discussing in his blog, DynamoBuzz. Today Roberto focuses on The Asbury Park Press Writes McGreevey's Legacy. The APP has set up a page, The McGreevey Years that includes a Dishonor Roll. Included in the Dishonor Roll is the NJ State Attorney General.

As to what's coming up next in NJ politics, there's this item: Codey is no stranger to special interest cash. He has raised $12.8M for elections since'87

Update: The awful Carville, after smashing a raw egg on his face: "the only government official I know who has a mandate is Jim McGreevey".

2d update The NJ Secretary of State's office received the letter [McG's letter of resignation] from a member of the governor's legal staff at 9:15 a.m.

Go see The Incredibles
It's got as much action as Spiderman (I & II), and it's also a good comedy.

Visually, it's perfect. The insurance company design reminded me of one of my former employers (which shall remain nameless, even when it was a much better place to work than Mr. Incredible's employer). The Incredibles' house reminded me of Lileks, and of my aunt Maria's house. My aunt, in a fit of 1960s modernity, turned a lovely Out Of Africa-style home stylishly decorated with Ralph Lauren-like wicker furnishings into, well, The Incredibles' manor. (Now, that's an unlikely pair: Lileks and my late aunt Maria. That's the magic of Pixar for you.) The bad guy's lair borrows a style note or two from Goldfinger's, Dr. No's, and that house where the two women gymnasts attacked James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. Jazz enthusiasts will want to hang around at the end for the credits music score.

My favorite character in the film is Edna, the designer. She looks like Linda Hunt, wears Pauline Trigere glasses, and has the attitude of a Diana Vreeland.* Edna's voice, according to the IMDB, was done by Brad Bird, the film's writer/director, who also directed The Iron Giant, a good children's movie. The fashion conscious will notice that Elastigirl/Mrs. Incredible's figure echoes the latest trend in women's fashion.

Like any good film, The Incredibles has a serious side. As Frederica Mathewes-Green said,

If the first point will discomfort euthanasia enthusiasts, the second will do the same for nanny-schoolers. While public schools across America are eliminating honor rolls and honors classes to spare the tender esteem of low achievers, Bob Parr gripes that "They keep inventing new ways to celebrate mediocrity." Young Dash wants to go out for sports, but his parents have discouraged him, because his superpowers would reveal the family's secret. And maybe it wouldn't be fair? "Dad says our powers make us special," he protests to his mom. "Everyone is special, Dash," Helen says. "Which is another way of saying no one is," Dash mutters.

More on the pursuit of excellence at Blogcritics:

Th Incredibles seems to imply that we are all "special" but that some of us are more special than others, and the world is a better, happier place if individuals are free to openly express and pursue excellence rather than repressing these characteristics so as to not offend the sensibilities of the masses in the statistical average. We can see this dynamic very much at work on the world stage underlying tectonic differences between cultures.

All this, and the kids will enjoy it, too.

* On second thought, Edna's probably based on real-life Hollywood (is that an oxymoron?) designer Edith Head, considering the "astonishing" physical resemblance.

It must have been a flash of inspiration
that made the NYT feature as a front-page item (dead-tree version) a story on college students eating cereal.
Or it was a slow news day.

Not on the Commisar's new Empire of the Blogs map yet
but I'd love to have The Bad Hair Blog situated near Barberia. Of such stuff my dreams are made.

One question from Barcepundit

CBS FIRES a producer over the Arafat cut-in, and Dan Rather and Mary Maples stay after the fake memos fiasco? Amazing.

Sure is!

Orwellian New Jersey's going to the dogs,
according to Paul Mulshine:

In New Jersey, even the animals would be watched by Big Brother. They'd have microchips implanted in them. Big Brother would be able to put Spot under a scanner and determine instantly whether he's been barking up the wrong tree.

I don't know about dogs, but here in The Principality deer are tagged, earringed (is that a word?), and carry antennae because of the birth-control program monitors. Said birth control, by the way, doesn't work. Just this spring TWO, not one, two, baby deer started feasting in my yard, with parental units in tow, but I digress. Paul continues,

The most brilliant stroke, however, is the call for the state criminal code to be altered to "incorporate standard terminology used in other criminal offenses" in the prosecution of alleged offenses against animals. The definitions of aggravated assault and criminal homicide are cited in this regard. The report states that these definitions should apply equally to crimes against animals.
. . . To that end, the task force suggests that the state should prohibit any municipality from setting restrictions on the number of animals a person may own. Towns and insurance companies would also be prohibited by state statute from discriminating against those breeds of dogs most likely to attack humans. Landlords would be precluded from banning pets from their premises.

While I ponder the Animal Welfare Task Force report, allow me to point out that those Invisible Fences people have DO NOT WORK.

The Mystery of the French hostages, part 4: Jimmy Carter on the Seine
As I wrote on October 4, two journalists, George Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, and their Syrian driver, Mohammed al Joundi, were kidnapped in Iraq and have been held hostage since August 20. On Friday, October 1,

Didier Julia, a member of the UMP (Chirac's party) went to Syria to negotiate their release, after several other initiatives that included French Muslim leaders had failed. Laurent Gbagbo, the president of Côte d'Ivoire, had lent him his private aircraft to fly to Syrian capital. Julia confirmed rumors that he and his collaborator Philippe Brett had been in Damascus. Brett apparently then went to meet with the hostage takers, and, when a highly-publicized press conference (where the hostages were to be released) started, Brett didn't show up. Instead, Brett phoned saying he was with the hostages but "there was a delay". No hostages -- or Brett -- at all.

As Le Monde confirmed, the French government was involved with Julia's mission. To make things worse, the news conference fiasco took place the same day that two women hostages were released -- Italian women, and Italy's part of the Coalition. Later, on October 5, I theorized on

Why is this mystery important?
This is important because appeasement-and-negotiation is the cornerstone of French foreign policy. Or as the French would rather put it, "French is the language of diplomacy". There was colossal shock and disappointment felt by the general public when the hostages failed to materialize at Friday's press conference, which was broadcast live on TV -- while at the same time, the Italian hostages were released, and Italy's a member of the Coalition in Iraq. The catch phrase is "La diplomatie est dans le bleu" (diplomacy's in the blue -- it has failed). The repercussions of this failure will be felt for months, not only within the UMP (Chirac's party), but in all the political parties. The ramifications on French-American relations are yet to be ascertained.

I don't believe this hostage crisis will change the French as much as the Iranian hostage crisis changed American politics during the Carter administration, though.

While there was much speculation that the hostages were under Syrian control, French officials met with a Sunni Muslin group, hoping to establish a "thread of contact", to no avail. The portraits of the three hostages continued to hang from Paris City Hall.

Nothing had been heard of regarding the three hostages. France2 news kept count of how many days the three men had been held hostage, much like the American networks kept count of how many days the American hostages were kept by the Iranians back during the Carter administration. That was, until yesterday, when the headlines changed to: Otages: chauffeur syrien libéré, Mohammed Al-Joundi retrouvé à Fallouja, or as we say here in Jersey, Marines rescue Syrian driver captured in August with French journalists:

Marines sweeping through Fallujah as part of a major U.S. offensive against insurgents located Mohammed al-Joundi, the U.S. military said, but there was no sign of journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.

A portrait of al-Joundi that had hung from the facade of Paris City Hall for nearly three months was taken down Friday. Portraits of Chesnot and Malbrunot remained.

I remember reading Ken Follett's book on how Ross Perot rescued two of his corporate employees from an Iranian prison when Perot realized that the Carter administration's efforts were futile -- and Perot's success was a huge public relations disaster for the Carter administration. Now Chirac's administration is in a similar situation, only worse: the loathed Marines - not a group of private individuals hired for that specific purpose -- were the ones to free the hostage. (To their credit, the French media, which has done more that its share of erasing all evidence of American successes, including the role of Americans in winning WWII, have mentioned the Americans; but then, it's kind of hard to avoid that, at least for now.) It could be worse,though: the Marines might have freed the two French hostages. It is bad enough, though, that Chesnot and Malbrunot have been missing for 86 days.

But then, it won't be the first time that Jacques and Jimmy have something in common. At this rate, I'd not be surprised if Jacques even manages to get himself a Nobel Prize.