Blanco and Alito at Starbucks? and other items of the day
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Effective July 11, 2006, Fausta's blog moved to http://faustasblog.com. Please update your bookmark and your blogroll.
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Now that there's Judge Alito's Bold Justice coffee, Louisiana Conservative has a new cuppa joe, which might make it to a Starbucks near you. Barista of Bloomfield is brewing a pot.

And the despot of the year is . . .
Kim Jong Il, North Korea. The competition was fierce, with Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Than Shwe of Burma, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, and Muammar Qaddafi of Libya in the running.

Thank G-d there wasn't a swimsuit competition.

I bet Hugo is jealous. Not only Fidel was in the running, FC's even in the stalls, and the mullahs know how to deal with dissent. Neither Hugo nor Fidel won the Cluebat of the Year award, either.

425 cars burned on New Year's Eve is always good reason to lift a State of Emergency
at least, that's how Jacques Chirac looks at it even when the State of Emergency wouldn't expire until February 18. The article from El Pais (link in Spanish, via Hispalibertas, my translation) explains,

Al levantar la ley antes de que acabase su plazo de vigencia, el presidente Chirac pretende además demostrar que es él quien gobierna y decide y no el ministro del Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy. En realidad la entrada en vigor de la ley fue unilateralmente decidida por Chirac y el primer ministro, Dominique de Villepin, en contra del parecer de Sarkozy, que confiaba en poder acabar con la quema de coches e inmuebles sin necesidad de recurrir a ley especial alguna.
By lisfting the state of emergency before its expiration, president Chirac aims to show that he's in charge, and not Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy. Chirac and Prime Minister Villepin decided to implement the state of emergency against Sarkozy's judegement, who felt he could end the arson of cars and property without enacting any new law.

Maria's articles
Leak double-standards refers to something I mentioned in my rant yesterday:

Within days of the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, Sen. Chuck Schumer was demanding a full-scale investigation into the incident, and others soon followed suit. So where are Sen. Schumer and his fellow Democrats in demanding a similar investigation and prosecution of a far more egregious leak of classified material involving the National Security Agency? Instead of demanding to know who leaked information that could jeopardize both sources and methods for intelligence gathering that will protect American lives, Democrats -- and some Republicans -- are busy accusing the president of wrongdoing. Response to the two leaks reveals a stark double standard.

Update What would Jack Bauer do? and some book news at Ankle Biting Pundits.
(only twelve days before the new season of 24, folks)

Bolton Comes Out Swinging. Bolton might be the best thing to happen to the UN since Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Update Forbes has a report by Oxford Analytica on Reforming The United Nations -- as if it could be reformed.

Burt Prelutsky's article, Putting tenure on trial raises several good points on abolishing tenure. This used to be a subject of rather heated discussion among my extended family when I was a kid, with the tenured relatives defending their status to the other relatives in the traditional professions or to the self-employed.

Yet another reason why I'm not a liberal anymore
The Independent Women's Forum posts on a screed by overrated author Jane Smiley accusing republicans of everything from child abuse to murder because, you know, they're Republicans. Jane must have been off her meds the day she wrote it. Maybe Jane ought to read Dr. Sanity's post on people who think with half a brain.

Now excuse me while I go beat up or murder someone who may or may not be tenured.