Aluminum Tubes

I just flew from Malaga, Spain to Boston, USA via Paris, France. That is a whole lot of distance in one day to spend in an aluminum tube.

Let me first say that Air France sucks. To start with, I was not allowed to change the ticket of my youngest son to an indeterminate time in the future, but before the date of intended travel, I had to pay them $200 to change the ticket for another date certain in the future. If that would need changing, another $200 would be needed. So, he stayed home.

On the day of travel, I was informed that my return leg from Malaga would be changed: the noon flight was cancelled and I was rebooked on the 7am flight. To get to the 7am flight, I had to leave where I was staying at 4am. For those of you who know Spain, restaurants don't even open before 8:30 or 9:00pm, so that means to have a meal the night before, you have to put up with 4 or 5 hours of sleep to get to the airport.

The 7am flight was absolutely full. Now consider that I had already paid for my other son's passage, and was "eating" the ticket, so an extra seat was "mine." On the way to Malaga, the seat was empty and permitted a more civilized passage. But on the way back, they sussed that the traveller was not coming so they sold the seat again. Pustibules. So the "gent" that plonks himself down in the seat next to me is one of those elderly types (60's?) who reckons that he is something of a big cheese (probably the golf captain at his country club in North Carolina). He is indeed "large" and decides that both armrests are his and that he needs to spread his legs wide -- so wide that mine are forced askew to avoid rubbing knees with him ... in front of my seat. Why is it that certain men express such a posture? I know that it drives many women berserk to see that legs-wide spread in action, as if to say, "I gotta a big one" (or perhaps they wish to convince others of it).

So this space-hogging jerk (hereinafter "Frank")and his execrably dressed wife across the aisle confer loudly about their Paris plans ... has anyone told senior Americans that baseball hats (especially the cheesy ones with the plastic snaps at the back -- one-size-fits-all) really should not be worn inside, and that on the senior cranium it looks particularly stupid? Ever notice how they sort of wear them "high" so that the whole shooting match looks perched like some redundant turd on their pate? Frank, in between sounding like a complete idiot mispronouncing practically every French placename or word, is busy alternately trying to hack up a piece of lung or snort down a snot spree. Putain, merde! Does this repugnant creep have drug resistant TB or something? For Christ's sake, use a frikkin tissue or something.

Which brings me to an observation: airlines should hand out nano-particle masks upon boarding their aircraft. Those aluminum tubes are nothing more than cruel and unusual exercises in taking a bunch of healthy people and cooping them up with the walking dead to see how many of the healthy they can infect as a result of re-breathing contaminated air, and disease ridden encrustations on the seats and other hardwear. Frank should be in the ICU about now with a lobe of his right lung dangling out his left nostril.

If the "bird flu" strikes, that is, if it mutates into an easily passed virulent and infectious version of H5N1, then the last place on Earth you will want to be is cooped up in an airplane with Frank or any of his replicants/stand-ins. You will become infected. The rank, stagnant swill that passes for air in commercial airliners is not acceptable under the best of conditions. When half of an airplane is doing its best to ensure that the other half joins them in communal suffering, any virulent pathogen is going to have a field day. Heck, ignore H5N1, the resistant TB that is out there is already threatening enough, or SARS. And the average Joe/sephine doesn't give a poop whether you live or die anyway. So they are going to travel, sick or not. And hygene is not foremost in the average mind when considering whether to rub one's eyes or not after touching almost anything in a standard airliner. To be properly protected, you'd need a Hazmat suit ... I can just see someone trying to pass through security in a bio-secure hazmat suit. But ... if we start seeing the emergence of real contagion risk, I don't see how any sensible person would NOT take precautions. A bad outbreak of "pathogen X" could kill off the airline industry. Imagine an Airbus 380 -- some 600-800 people on board. No thank you. Uh-uh.

Back to Air France. You owe me for the money you made selling my seats. And it is perfectly clear why you cancelled my noon flight: you could load up an Air Europa flight at 7am and make a few more Euro-francs, no matter that the seats are tighter together than Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins. No, most people would rather have enough room to fully inflate their lungs, even though to do so is to risk the virus du jour.

So a 6 hour lay-over. And the terminal you sent me to in my original boarding card was wrong. Espece des cons!! And then, because you screwed up the building of your new terminal (it collapsed almost immediately and is still not safe for occupancy)you insist on busing us out to our plane somewhere in the parking lot behind the Monoprix in St Denis. Is it cheaper to use buses? Boarding sure takes longer, so in the absence of terminal ramp space (note how intra-France travel still merits a ramp, but intercontinental travel is bused?), I guess that we should be issued shooting sticks to perch our sorry asses on while we wait for the bloody bus to return to take another load? And how about some shopping worth a damn? Huh?

One thing, though. Most of Charles de Gaulle airport is a wasteland of decent food, but in 2E, there is a "Paul" bakery ... some of the best baked goods anywhere. Bar none. Oh, the pain au chocolat I had. AND in 2F there is a brasserie that has a fruits de mer component in it. Belons, Fins de Clairs, Petit Gris, the whole works. As good as any you will find in Paris. At the airport. Who'd a thunk it? The steak frites is excellent too. But it is the only place in any of the terminals that provide the saving grace of France and the French: real food. So a dozen Belons later and a 1/2 bottle of Muscadet, the lay-over faded into a minor inconvenience, notwithstanding the conasse at the gate. Hein?

Random Venom

Who shall I rain scorn and derision onto tonight. Hmmm, lemme see.... Ah yes, the French. Of course.

Tomorrow is planned to be "Black Tuesday" (Mardi Noir) ... so a whole bunch of unions will march, students will riot, politicos will rend their garments and ... absolutely nothing beneficial to France will happen. These are the characters who feel that they should run the EU. These are the people whose leader walks out of international meetings of the highest level because French is not being spoken, rather the address is being given in English "because it is the language of business." I pity the poor Frenchman who uttered that, because without doubt, when you speak to an audience in English in front of your jingoistic French boss ... your expense account is about to be terminated and your office will shortly be found in the basement of the ministry.

So why, might you ask, is everyone in France so excited about this stupid law that Villepin wants to get on the books? What can be so bad about trying something to get unemployment down among the youth? Before the age of 26, if you have worked for a firm for two years or less, you can get fired for no reason. Sounds pretty reasonable to me: you get to try out a potential long-term employee without being burdened with someone for life. As it stands now, you hire a French person in France at your peril: you simply cannot fire them, except for the grossest malfeasance, and even then the unions will insist that the person is simply moved sideways out of trouble. So the unions and leftists like this: the underdogs are protected and the Aristos are forced to help the poor. OF course, it doesn't actually work that way, the Aristos will do ANYTHING to avoid hiring your ardent leftist/student in the first place. Result: at least 25% unemployment in the under 25 age bracket, with rates more than 40% in the poorer classes and minorities. And that is probably undereported due to those who have simply given up and an official policy to hide the truth (what, admit that the great social net does not work?).

So, employers stay away from youth hiring, and the youth riot at the unfairness of it all. They need to grow up.

The unions, of course, are terrified of this prospect: it would be the first significant hole in the wall of worker protection in 50 years. And possibly a slippery slope the bottom of which might mean a competitive France. And that is something that is too scary to contemplate: the great adjustment to the social fabric to place France in a mode where it can compete in the world markets without having to resort to nationalist economics. The ability to hire and fire -- only the Aristos could come up with such a fiendish scheme ... its not French. Far better to be paid for doing nothing, then screw the Rosbiefs across the Channel (La Manche -- not the English Channel -- we own one side too) for a greater share of the tax pie. Common Agricultural Policy, anyone?

Do you know that there are criminal penalties for the use of the English language in official French publications? So you better be careful where you prends the Weekend.

Flu season

Now we have the US press telling us that bird flu really is not that great a risk, after all. Well, that is more bullshit. The risk was and remains the same: if it mutates, we are in great peril. As most people are finding out, this particular virus likes to propagate in the lungs, the mucous membranes of the nose and throat are not inviting to this virus. We might have already deduced this when it was observed that only those in close contact with poultry contract H5N1. And this also makes inter-human transmission difficult (short of hacking up a green one, or a deep chest cough).

But whether the present variation like the receptor site on the throat and nose or lungs, it is the mutation that concerns us. As it did before. So don't relax your guard, this is a difficult and dangerous threat and will remain so. What the latest research might mean is that we have more time to come up with solutions before that mutation does strike. Pandemics strike every century, though the source (avian or swine) might change. We are not out of the woods and need to stockpile drugs and work hard for progress towards vaccinations.

But a nice spread of puts on Perdue and Tyson might also be good medicine.

Sports

I could rant some more that the frikkin Chinese and Russians have their communal heads up their rectums with regards to the Iranians, but what's new? Look at the record: the Russians have been hurt more consistently by radical Islam than we have, and Chechnya remains a boil in the sphincter of Putin. But no, he'd rather dick around with screwing the Westen powers than come to grips with the fact that a nuclear Iran would pose an incredible threat to Russia. The Chinese, too, have a large and restive Muslin population that just might become emboldened by an Iran on steroids that could offer "protection."

Instead, let's consider that the Patriots just let Adam Vinatieri go to the Colts -- he of the game winning Super Bowl kicks, cheating the Raiders of their chances, and other clutch kicks too numerous to count. No No.4, no rings. Dumb.

The World Baseball Classic: a triumph. Even better because the US got knocked out by Mexico. This actually brings me back to my theme of a post-imperial US being run by Caligula Bush. The Roman Empire was pathetic in later years, easily defeated by mobs of ill-disciplined Vandals, Goths, Celts (I am sure that I am missing the actual culprits, but you get the point) and others. And here is the mighty superpower, the US, defeated in its "national game" by Korea and Mexico, and the tournament won by Japan who was playing Cuba. We are nothing but a bunch of pay-check players who have no heart: that is why we are losing our competitive edge as a nation in any number of fields of endeavor. No heart. No "wanna so bad." True there were exceptions on the team, Roger Clemens being a notable stand-out. Sure he was the losing pitcher, but had we had his heart, we would have scored the runs to defeat the pretenders. But instead, we have Derek Jeter, A-Rod and company. People that are paid more than $20 million a year to play a game ... can you get more decadent?

But then again, there's Tiger. A Thai-African-American. Now THAT'S American. But he's solo deal -- led, as are most of the better American companies, by a single genius. Warren Bufffet anyone? Compare this against GM ... the classic case of genius ruined by bean-counting, by slavish attention to the quarterly report .... That is a topic for further review: did the quarterly report destroy America?

Anyway, Tiger is out on the prowl. Sure he did not win the Bayhill or Honda, but who knows what he was doing? He may have been out there to "try" things, to work into the place he needs to be to make a run at the Masters. We will see.

South Florida

What a dump! Sure the weather is fantastic, and the ocean nice and warm, but it is unbelievably ugly. And there is still trash everywhere from the passage of Wilma. Tons of trees still lying around. The devastation must have been unreal. Still, the trash and the insane crowding has destroyed this part of the country.

As little at 20 years ago when I first started visiting this area, there was still some feel of a tropical paradise. That feeling is long gone. Developers have simply run amok and fill up every vacant lot, raze every older house ... build, build, build. Downtown Fort Lauderdale is not recognizable to someone who was last here 5 years ago. There must be 50 new high rise buildings. Which brings me inevitably to folly: one of these buildings showed the risk of building inappropriately in a hurricane zone ... about half its windows are still missing. Apparently, the whole of the inside of the building was demolished as the 120 mile per hour wind gusts tore through it. And that was not even a strong strike. So what happens when the Cat 5 storm roars through here? Katrina that caused the floods in New Orleans was an indirect Cat 3 strike. What happens when a truly big one hits a city? Miami, say? All these houses on the canals, the huge high-rises, what happens? It is sort of a crap shoot: buy and make your money as an investor or developer and get the heck out of Dodge before it happens. But for people living here, this would be different: Wilma was far more damaging than anyone thought it would be, and it was only 13 years after Andrew slammed Homestead with a Cat 5 storm (that just missed Miami -- where we might have learned the lessons so desperately needed now).

There are traffic lights still out in Fort Lauderdale some 6 months after Wilma. Trailer parks still totally ripped up, but we only hear about Katrina because of the flooding. There are tons of canals lined with houses all over the region and the mean high tide is only feet below the houses. A good storm surge of say 18 feet would put all of this under water. Damage from flooding? It can happen here too. Of course, as soon as the storm passes the water would flow out of its own accord, but it really wouldn't matter much. The damage would be out of this world.

On a different tack, the population seems to have changed too. I have rarely seen such aggressive driving outside of Boston. The freeways are insane -- much worse than anywhere I have ever driven. On the streets, only Boston and Cairo put South Florida to shame. And why does everyone here have an SUV -- OK, not everyone, but a whole lot of people anyway. Huge, chromed-out, tinted window (darkest allowable and darker) barges screaming and weaving through traffic. And motorcyclists without helmets(!). And gum-chewing teens with one hand on top of the wheel and the other resolutely clamped to the side of their heads sporting the newest Razor cell phone. Not a healthy environment.

But, I need to go outside, get into the boat and go fishing. Ciao.

Boot Camp

Before I am misinterpreted, I abhor violence exercised in an indiscriminate way. That is violence on the street, violence against the innocent, violence in the home, violence against children, etc.

But it appears that a young lad was pummeled to death in a Florida boot camp by guards. And now his mom wants "justice." Initially, death was ruled to have resulted from "sickle cell trait", but under pressure the State of Florida dug him up and let a cornoner from New York do a second autopsy. And surprise! He did not die of sickle cell trait. Instead, tape is also unearthed showing guards beating the crap out of him. Why were they beating him? For failure to do their bidding? Certainly throughout the US, such camps have been closed because of random brutality, but was this the case here?

Martin Anderson, 14, was sent to juvenile boot camp because he violated a probation order resulting from him stealing his grandmother's car from a church parking lot. At 14. Not exactly a fun youth to have around then, except if you are a gangsta and wanna-be thug.

The US Department of Justice has determined that recidivism is really no different from "more traditional methods" of punishment, and that any corrective effect in attitude is short lived. The US Bureau of Prisons has shut its program that at one point had 7,000 inmates in 27 states. But Florida kept its program, as I imagine many Southern States did: chain gangs and hard labor are still well received by the public there. Heck, I'd get the Gulag going again for child molesters, drug dealers and crimes of violence.

You see, once the criminal decides that violence is OK, they should then forfeit their rights to protest when violence is used against them. Does stealing a car get you to boot camp? That seems a bit extreme -- but be sure that there is more under the youth record than the car to get his sent there. You would be right in saying I can't be sure ... just as I can't be sure that the man did in fact walk on the Moon. IT could all be a conspiracy. But I doubt it. Here in Cambridge, however, those sentiments might cause the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences to rig the scaffold for my benefit ... violence against the unbeliever!

Tragedy, then. Poor black kid beaten to death by fascist guards. And now his mom wants justice. Where the F*&^ was his mom when junior was out committing crimes? Where was the Dad when his 14 year old son was committing felonies? Where is society going to get compensation (like the parents, of course, are seeking from the State) for the crimes of the tens of thousands of kids like Martin Anderson are committing against it? Its not a race thing, it is a parenting thing. How about a suit against the parents for the costs associated with this whole mess?

Can't get excited

Its just more of the same: Iran is hiding the 666 under its hairpiece, Democrats are hiding under their hairpieces to avoid Feingold's resolution, Republicans would have you believe that all is well in Iraq and I just saved a lot on my car insurance.

What is really buggin me is the notion that is creeping into my mind about the similarities between ancient Rome and the US today. Since things didn't happen very fast in a non-computing age, Rome's decline was slow. By comparison, our decline could be as meteoric as the speed of information today. Not hundreds of years of misrule and squander of riches, but a few generations -- or worse a few administrations....

American kids are so far behind the curve academically, I'd rather my kids went to school in Poland, or at least adopted their standards of learning. Or better yet, take best of breed and score the Chinese and Indian mathematics, computer and engineering schools, anyone else's social studies or language arts, and perhaps even French political sciences ... in short, almost anything is to be found abroad of better quality and quantity. Starting from kindergarten we are taught to "think out of the box." The idea, apparently, is that we can then outsource mundane tasks and keep value added ones here in the US, keep the cutting and profitable edge. Trouble is, all the technical skills required for value added work are best (or most copiously) learned abroad ... the crux here being that this very fact makes a mockery of the notion that we keep the good, value added enterprises here. The people to staff them are living in India, or China.

The only things that people really come here to learn anymore is management: how to outsource for the greater good of the quarterly report. And then they go home to make their fortunes.

Our graduates? They know absolutely nothing of value: sociology prepares one to ask "would you like fries with that?" Accounting (assuming that one is ambitious and actually wants to make money) is outdated ... the computers and software are in India as is the people who e-mail you back your "pdf"s to print out and sign. Doctors? We have great medicine ... if you or your insurance company can afford it, and if your doctors feels like taking you as a patient. But why work as a doctor when you are choked by litigation and "the practice of medicine of fear?" No person worth a damn really wants to be anything less than a specialist, so they can afford the malpractice insurance and still have enough left over to buy a nice house and car. OBGYNs? Going to be harder to find, unless we import some nice Indian doctors.

Solutions? Let's get a grip on it and admit that we have failed in the great social experiment of the 1960's onwards. We need a meritocracy where those best suited get the chances. We need to establish whether someone has any aptitude, before trying to jam mathematics into an artist. And then force them to learn it ... really learn it. Up or out. Sorry. Do you think that the Chinese or Indians have any sympathy for the "challenged?" If so, you are frikkin nuts, as well as delusional. And their students pratically kill themselves trying to get ahead: there is no safety net, no notion that everything will be alright if they screw around an smoke dope through college. Instead, there is a good chance that they will starve if they mess up. Amazing what that threat might do to incent someone to try. No Daddy to pick up the pieces.

And the US USED to be like China and India. There was no safety net. And America was the most dynamic society the Earth has ever seen. How did we screw it up? Easy. The faulty logic of socialism told us that it was OK. We are all created equal and we all deserve to enjoy the wealth and riches of our country ... the wealth and riches that generations built. No doubt that a return to the masses of working poor is not palatable and can be avoided: what cannot is a return to responsibility. No free handouts. No spending money on bullshit like multilingualism -- like before, you come to the country and you learn the language. If not, you get someone to interpret ... on your dime, not ours.

Trial Lawyers of America, your time is up. Tort reform will go a long way to cutting expenses of many types to reasonable levels: and making health care affordable again. EVERYONE pays taxes. You make more, you pay more. You CONSUME MORE, you pay more. This one is critical: we need to curtail consumption to start the saving ethic once again: remove taxes from investments. It is not regressive in the greater scheme: if you buy a Mercedes, say $70,000 worth, you pay %15,000 in tax. You buy a civic (we don't make a small car that I'd buy -- lots of reasons there too), you pay $2,000. Your car drink 12 mpg? You pay big. If you are poor, you will drive a small car: there is no GOD (or other) given right to drive a big car. Driving is still a privilege and not a right. Everyone to their means: you want more, work for it and save.

Make staple foods tax free. Any pre-prepared foods (byond "minimally processed") you pay tax. If it does not meet certain requirements for nutrition, you pay double taxes or more. Coke, sodas, beer, booze, chips, pretzels, junk foods of all types (including candy) need to be hit with a sledgehammer. Make it easier to eat cheese and sausage than Cheetohs and Sprite. Anyone heard that water is still good for you? No calories, either.

Gas, yes I am back there, needs $1.00 per gallon in tax. Now. Too bad if you are stuck with a lemon SUV. Pass legistlation to phase it in over 5 years, if we have to, but give the car companies and eveyone else a chance to bail now. Cars over a certain weight and engine displacement should be whacked. We do not need heavy cars, the technology exists to have light small cars with adequate space. Large engines just use more fuel ... so what if you Lincoln Navigator cannot accelerate to 60mph in less than 10 seconds. If you need a car that big, you may have to be stuck with an absolute pig of a vehicle, both in size and performance: THERE IS NO REASON THE EARTH AND ALL ON IT SHOULD PAY FOR OUR FETISH FOR THESE VEHICULAR CRIMES. None. It is not justifiable and accordingly, you want one, you need to pay for it. Alternatives exists and are used ALL over the rest of the world.

Kids in school (back there too) ... if you flunk the grade you need to be held back until you get the picture. Or, at the age of 16, drop out to a technical school where you MUST learn a trade until the age of 18 plus an apprentice period of two years. No options. Or enter the military at 18 for four years. So, high school, or tech school or the army. Your choice. If you are just too "challenged" (we used to call it "stupid") to make it, well, the rest of society should not be made to suffer your misfortune with you. There is no fundamental right for the "challenged" to keep their class mates with them at their level of ineptitude. Rather that smacks more of unusual punishment for those who are capable and being deprived the opportunity of success -- almost a tort.

We have to dump almost all of the crap we have burdened ourselves with since 1960. Enforce color/race/gender blind laws. Equal pay. Equal opportunity. Provide those with ability the opportunity to advance: our nation's future depends on getting the best and the brightest out there, unencumbered by America's economic and commerical dead-ends.

"Plus que ca change, plus que c'est la meme chose".

Roughly, "the more it changes, the more it is the same thing."

Ma Bell is back. AT&T has grabbed BellSouth, one of the original split-offs of the great breakup engineered for "anti-trust" reasons. The combined BellSouth-AT&T will have 70 million local-phone customers in 22 states including four of the largest: Texas, California, Illinois and Florida. Ownership of Cingular Wireless LLC, the largest mobile-phone carrier, will give AT&T 54.1 million wireless subscribers and along with the business segment will make up 72 percent of total revenue. Sound familiar?

Of course, 10,000 jobs will be axed to the greater glory of corporate good and the ways of the free market ... oh dang, what free market? What happens if Dubai telephone decides to make a hostile bid for AT&T? Or is there some greater conspiracy to corner the US telecoms market ... again?

Wait, I can see Elliott Spitzer firing up the subpoena machine!!!

Da-KOH-tah morons

"HB 1215 bans all abortion, including in cases of rape and incest, including cases that threaten the health of the mother; the only exception is if the mother’s survival itself is at risk, and even in those instances the doctor must “make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child.” Doctors caught performing abortions would be charged with a Class 5 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison." So reports Time magazine.

And Time is letting the drooling knuckle-draggers of Fargo fame off lightly -- yes, I know that Fargo is ND and not SD, but can you tell me the difference? Thought not. The point is this: we have our own far-right Taliban alive, well and voting in deep red state land. Consider the denial of rights involved in this Bill: American women will be forced to bear children donated to them by rapists and incest aficionado. then, of course, they will have to raise them, provide these bastards of violence and prurient deviance a home and care ... not to mention shoulder a financial burden for a minimum of 18 years.... For what exactly? So that a bunch of "religious" white men can feel better about themselves for promoting their archaic beliefs? And SHAME on any woman that supports this atrocity, either actively or passively (that would include allowing any slug that voted for this a place in their bed, marital or not, let alone touching her in any way).

Friends, put turbans on the heads of the SD legislators and you have bigotry and ignorance on a par with the mullahs and followers lately hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora or trying to smuggle themselves on a donkey over the border from Pakistan. And we went to war to prevent this sort of scum imposing their primitive beliefs on us. Perhaps it is time to declare a jihad against ignorance in our own country.

Iran moves on

It's been a while since my last entry. In the interim we had two feet of powder to track up. And that is job one. Very cool to see one's oldest son leaving a powder rooster-tail hammering a line in the trees. Probably irresponsible too.

Back to the psychos in Iran....

We are coming close to the end game. According to the IAEA, "Iran is engaging in small-scale uranium enrichment and getting ready to install 3,000 centrifuges for industrial-scale enrichment." And, "Iran has shown IAEA inspectors rough sketches for casting uranium that may be used for a nuclear warhead."

Enter Israel. They cannot let this come to pass. The small-scale enrichment currently underway ... a surprise. But commercial/industrial enrichment ... armegeddon. Iran's President (another holocaust doubter) states, ``[w]e neither are bullies nor will give in to bullying.... We are acting on the basis of international laws and it's others who have to act in compliance with the law and the desire of Iranian people.'' Yeah, the Iranian people have even the foggiest idea of what nuclear energy is, its uses and why they need it. So we may not be bullies, but we clearly lie out our collective Iranian asses.

India wants "time for democracy to work" -- but since India wants to buy gas from Iran that runs in a pipeline through Pakistan ... they couldn't give a crap what Iran does. Iran is one of India's largest suppliers of energy (US-Saudi comparo), their enemy Pakistan already has nukes, and India has ICBMS or long range theater missiles that can reach Tehran ... so what the heck. And if they take out an Indian city ... so what? Kind of reminds me of France and Russia when asking for time for sanctions to work in Iraq. Yup, that brought Saddam to the bargaining table. All the while Kofi's son takes money and France's elite pocket even more. Democracy aside, I wonder what the US found in terms of contracts and paperwork showing Russian and French complicity in supporting Saddam? The US could not expose it, of course, without totally screwing up any hope of cooperation in the UN ... but I still wonder....

The Supreme Court of the US shot dead the liberal campus dodge of taking federal funds, but denying the right of the government to recruit on campus. 9-0. That is an old-fashioned shit-kicking. That means that you have no leg to stand on, back off, don't think of revisiting this in the near future (50 years) ... piss off. And even Ruth Bader-G joined with the majority: she is not even remotely kindly to the military or conservative thought, so this is pretty damn clear. Shove that up your pooper, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard!!! And don't bother to trot out the "don't ask, don't tell" pretext for keeping the military off of campus as though you are standing up for freedom of speech: try telling Larry Summers that you believe in that.

And Brokeback Mountain did not win best picture. Crash did. Hmm.... Whatever. Months of hype for an evening of little pleasure and less humor. And did anyone who voted for Keira Knightly in Pride and Prejudice EVER read the book? Huh? Or even see the brilliant A&E seven hour epic? Obviously not.

George Clooney: proud to be "out of touch" ... you're a moron.