Why Does This

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is now host to the world’s largest communist party, state media said on Thursday, after establishing the first party branch in one of the U.S. company’s China stores.
A Chinese Communist Party official in the northeast city Shenyang said a Wal-Mart store there had set up a party branch on Aug. 12 — the first branch of the ruling Communist Party in the U.S. icon of global capitalism, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Employees at the Wal-Mart store will now have access to CPC membership,” Xinhua said, referring to the Communist Party of China.

…in the Land of THIS…
…give me a whoppin’ big case of feeling like this……?

Bloodless Ways to Hit the Iranian Street

…right where it hurts the mullahs most.

…The obvious next diplomatic step is to show Iran that the world meant what it said by following through with the toughest achievable sanctions. A myth has developed in some circles that there are “no good options” available to pressure Iran, but that’s more excuse than analysis. Iran’s mullahs are unpopular at home and their citizens will notice if they are declared a global pariah state. Sanctions on travel by Iran’s government officials, diplomats and sports teams may be largely symbolic, but such symbolism will not be missed on the Persian street.
Iran is also vulnerable economically. Sanctions on banks that deal with Iran can limit the regime’s access to global credit markets for trade and other financing. Despite its oil exports, Iran also imports some 40% of its refined gasoline. A ban on selling gasoline to Iran would surely lead to gas lines and other shortages there, with possible domestic political repercussions. And it is domestic discontent that the mullahs rightly fear the most.
The worry in the West is that Iran would respond to a gasoline embargo by playing its oil card in retaliation, withholding its supplies and sending world oil prices perhaps to $100 a barrel. But the mullahs can’t eat oil. Amid other economic sanctions, they would need their income from oil sales more than ever. They are also watching closely to see if the world is serious when it says it won’t allow them to go nuclear, and they know better than anyone that gasoline imports are their biggest political danger. They’ll know a wrist slap from a serious policy.

We’ve cut North Korea off financially from practically the whole world. Who’s still playing with them? Russia, who now with China are the powers still pushing for ‘negotiations’ with Iran. Let them play ~ we should be quietly choking off everything around them that we possibly can. I mean, if Congress is actually reading their own report…

…Anyone who still thinks a nuclear-armed Iran won’t pose a serious, and perhaps mortal, threat ought to consult this week’s bipartisan staff report from the House Intelligence Committee. Drawing on open-source information and mindful of classified background, the report lays out the history of Iranian nuclear deception and its attempts to promote trouble throughout the Middle East. It notes that “Iran probably has an offensive biological weapons program.” And it discusses in detail Iran’s support for Hezbollah and other terror groups, as well as its continuing support for insurgents who are killing Americans in Iraq.
“A nuclear-armed Iran would likely embolden the leadership in Tehran to advance its aggressive ambitions in and outside of the region, both directly and through the terrorists it supports–ambitions that gravely threaten the stability and the security of U.S. friends and allies,” says the House Intelligence report. With a nuclear arsenal that they felt protected them from retaliation, the mullahs would also be more likely to use conventional military force in the Middle East. The domino effect as Turkey, Egypt and the Saudis sought their own nuclear deterrent would also not be “stabilizing,” to cite the highest value of our Middle Eastern “realists.” And don’t forget President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow that “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

…there shouldn’t be a problem.

And No One to Thank For This

…but us.

‘Shiite giant’ extends its reach
Sadr’s armed movement becomes pivotal force in fractured Iraq
…Millions of Sadr’s supporters turned out in December elections to give his movement the largest bloc in parliament, which in turn put him in control of four government ministries. Thousands of male followers abandoned their homes and jobs when a bomb destroyed a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22, rallying at Sadr headquarters on a night and day of retaliatory bloodletting that plunged Iraq into sectarian war.
While opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq remains one of its core tenets, the Sadr movement’s militia, called the Mahdi Army, took heavy casualties in two military uprisings against better-armed, better-trained U.S. forces in 2004. Today, according to Sadr leaders and outside analysts, the movement is husbanding its strength and waiting for American troops to go.
Sadr “clearly is the most potent political figure, and the most popular one,” in Iraq, said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “Unless directly provoked, Sadrists will lay low, because they know the Americans’ time in Iraq is coming to an end,” he said. “Why would they risk another major loss of fighters if it’s not necessary?…
…Americans in their eyes are already defeated — they’re going to leave.“

Yup, that would be us. We’ve had nothing but grief from these fat little clerics, thanks to our risk aversion induced indecision and the time honored Middle Eastern “cease-fires” we fall for that allow them to breathe and regroup. He and his army should have been dealt with mercilessly when the Sadr City insurgency first erupted. But we let him scuttle back to his lair (just as the Israelis are doing with Hezbollah’s robed and bearded Shelob) immunized from further prosecution military or otherwise. He gets to gloat that he played us like a rabab, (tangentially increasing his supporters fervor with his display of canniness against the great Satan) and we get to wring our hands in frustration when the fruits of our non-labor ripen, as they inevitably must.
They’ve learned that you can stab us in the eye and draw blood, but, as long as you drop the stick the second we act like we might mean business, you can snatch it back and slice at us over and over again, as long as your mouth is saying something entirely different from what your hand is doing. You keep carving away until we withdraw completely from the field of battle in quiet indignity.
It’s worked every time.

As If We Didn’t Have Enough to Blame on Global Warming and Pollution

…now polar bear gonads (the technical term) are going the way of wool in the dryer.

Polar bear genitals shrinking due to pollution
Shrinkage could endanger animals with already have low reproduction rate
The icecap may not be the only thing shrinking in the Arctic. The genitals of polar bears in east Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants.
Scientists report this shrinkage could, in the worst case scenario, endanger polar bears there and elsewhere by spoiling their love lives and causing their numbers to diminish.

Greenpeace will be airlifting Neuticles in by the cargoshipfull.
I can hear them after a night of binge drinking at the Aurora Barealis:

Lounge Lizard Polar Bear: Come here often, you furry white vixen?
Floozy Polar Bear: No. I’m not that kind of girl. Tonight I just came for the halibut.
Lounge Lizard Polar Bear: Well, it’s a whole different 23 1/2 hours of darkness when I’m on ice, creampop. Wanna go blow a seal? Maybe work the old steelhead over?
Floozy Polar Bear: Ooooooo! [shivers in anticipation] You silver salmon tongued devil…you don’t have to bend my ptarmigan with your puffin. Let’s go!

[later] Lounge Lizard Polar Bear: Honestly, baby! This has never happened to me before! It’s got to be the pollution!
Floozy Polar Bear: I’ll bet you say that to all the sows.

More Katrina:

“What went right.”

How Many Times Can We Say the Code Word: ‘ASIAN’

…in one article, in an attempt NOT to say ‘Muslim’?

Asian students’ shock at ejection from jet by passenger mutiny
Two Asian students have revealed their shock and despair after being thrown off a plane because other passengers feared they were suicide bombers.
• Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed

‘Muslim’ is used twice ~ by the students themselves, who also persist in calling themselves…Asians first.

“We might be Asian, but we’re two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun,” Mr Ashraf told the Daily Mirror.
“Just because we’re Muslim does not mean we are suicide bombers.”

Kim Jong Il is ASIAN. Chairman Mao was ASIAN. Hideo Nomo is ASIAN. William Hung is ASIAN. You say ‘ASIAN’, most of the world thinks ‘Far East/Occidental’. By the Daily Mail’s reckoning, Mel Gibson is ASIAN. (I could call myself Gisele all night long, but that doesn’t make me ‘Bündchen‘.) (At least it hasn’t so far.)
Are we are going to be sensitive ~ turning ‘Muslim’ into the N-word of our times, even though, like ‘Jew’, it’s an ethnic and cultural fact vice a perjorative? Then how ’bout just plain old ‘Middle-Eastern’? Whatever happened to that?

Regarding the Marine Corps IRR Call-Up

…major dad (being the gentleman and the scholar he is) has found a link on the right hand side of USMC.mil. See where it says…

Volunteer for duty
IRR Marines and recent retirees needed for GWOT billets
Learn more and apply

…? This is the link (if mine doesn’t work just click through theirs ~ might be Privacy Act issues). It’s got cool little boxes where you fill in your MOS, grade, DuSta CONUS etc. and when you’re available. Plug all that in, hit search and see if the Marine Corps can use you. Nobody wants or needs a SNCO in either 6313 OR Career Planner, which is just dandy by me. (So I’m not gonna sweat a recall and won’t be power chugging ding dongs to get out of it.) But if anyone’s worried they might be on the hit list, it probably wouldn’t hurt to see if your MOS is something they’re in dire need of. Like the WaPo article says:

They would come from a pool of about 59,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) — Marines with specific skills who left active duty and returned to civilian lives, but are obligated to serve if called. Marine Corps officials said yesterday that reservists in their first or last years of enrollment will not be subject to recall.
Officials said they will try to choose Marines with the smallest number of combat tours, leaving about 35,000 subject to the call-up.
Those receiving a recall notice will have five months to report to active duty and could serve tours of 12 to 18 months, Marine officials said yesterday.

Forewarned is forearmed. And, if you’re like most Marines I’ve ever known and there’s a slot for your MOS, you’ll beat them to the punch if your wife will let you.
UPDATE: More on the skill sets they’re looking for:

Yet the call-up is a rare one for the smallest of the country’s four military services, which has always prided itself on its recruitment and retention record. Less than 180,000 Marines serve on active duty, but the Corps has consistently met or exceeded its recruiting and re-enlistment goals for years, even as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drag on.
Those expected to receive involuntary activation notices include infantry and other combat specialties, communications and intelligence specialists, combat engineers and military police, the Marines said.

Dutch Police Have Arrested 12 People

…who were passengers on a diverted Northwest flight.

Dutch police said Wednesday that 12 passengers were in custody after a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Mumbai, India, returned to Amsterdam when several people on board aroused concern.
No formal charges have been laid, police said.
Flight 42 returned to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport after “a couple of passengers displayed behavior of concern,” according to Northwest Airlines.
It is not clear what behavior sparked the response.

And how neat ~ they had an air marshal on board.

According to the official, the crew told passengers to follow the instructions of the air marshals after at least one member of the team identified himself as a marshal.
At that point, the pilot diverted the plane.

UPDATE: A llittle more info emerging.

A U.S. government official said that some of the passengers had pulled out cell phones during the flight, and that some appeared to be trying to pass the cell phones to other passengers.
In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said.
That was enough to cause U.S. air marshals aboard the flight to break their cover. Fight attendants ordered the passengers to heed the orders of the marshals, the official added.
An airline source in Amsterdam said the passengers who were arrested were looking into plastic bags and were busy with their cell phones.

Playing Ping Pong With Pyongyang’s Pecuniary

…parcel parking.

Vietnam banks ‘shut N Korean accounts’
Vietnamese banks have been forced to shut North Korean accounts in the country as part of a US-led crackdown on overseas financial institutions acting as a repository for Pyongyang’s funds, a leading Korean affairs expert said on Wednesday.
The move comes ahead of Communist Vietnam’s anticipated entry of the World Trade Organisation later this year and follows the signing of bilateral trade agreement with Washington in May.
It is also an indication that the US Treasury’s efforts to limit North Korea’s access to international banking are proving increasingly successful since it moved last September against Macao-based Banco Delta Asia.
…”North Korea’s access to international financial markets is under threat” and the US push was now from Pyongyang’s perspective the biggest barrier to the resumption of six-party talks, Mr Beck said.
It left Pyongyang with a diminishing number of banking options, he said, with Russia “really one of the only countries — perhaps the only country — in the world that is allowing North Korea to bank.”

Wooo, there’s a lot going on behind the curtain. Lucky thing Putin’s there to lend him a ruble every now and then.

It’s enough to drive a dictator to drink.

I’ve Put Off Posting On This

…both because I wanted to wait until it was confirmed and because I was just plain sick at the thought. But he took the deal, his camp issuing patently ridiculous interpretations of the findings which are in themselves disgusting, delusional and devoid of personal responsibility. So I can’t pretend it never happened and he’s our golden boy anymore.

Gatlin loses record in deal
After accepting the accuracy of an incriminating drug test, Olympic and world champion sprinter Justin Gatlin faces up to an eight-year ban from track and field competition.
In exchange, the Woodham High graduate avoids a lifetime ban from the sport — the penalty for a second positive test.
Gatlin, 24, will be stripped of his co-world record-tying time of 9.77 seconds that he ran in May. He also agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s efforts, but his compromise does not stipulate that he testify against his coach, Trevor Graham, who has been involved with at least a half-dozen athletes who have received drug suspensions.

The one thing I don’t get ~ His coach is track and BASEBALL’s acknowledged dirtballpondscum:

…The case is about more than Gatlin. It’s also about his coach, Trevor Graham, who now has had at least seven athletes test positive for banned drugs. Graham precipitated the BALCO scandal in June 2003 when he sent a vial containing a designer steroid to USADA, which found a way to identify the previously undetectable substance thanks to work by the Olympic testing lab at UCLA.
Graham portrayed himself as a whistleblower and has denied any involvement with performance-enhancing drugs.
“As Trevor has stated publicly, he completely supports Justin Gatlin and Justin’s cooperation with USADA and efforts to get reinstated,” said Graham’s lawyer, Joseph Zeszotarski, in a released statement. “Trevor knows he has done nothing wrong in his relationship with Justin or any of his athletes and only wants the truth to come out.”
But Graham, according to a recent report in The New York Times, is under scrutiny by a federal grand jury as well as USADA.

Why in God’s name did he ~ WOULD he ~ ever hook up with this guy?
But I guess that answer’s plain enough, too.

$125,000 Sounds Like a Little More Than Just

…keeping your dues current.

Conflict of Interest Is Raised in N.S.A. Ruling
The federal judge who ruled last week that President Bush’s eavesdropping program was unconstitutional is a trustee and an officer of a group that has given at least $125,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, a watchdog group said Tuesday.
The group, Judicial Watch, a conservative organization here that found the connection, said the link posed a possible conflict for the judge, Anna Taylor Diggs, and called for further investigation.
“The system relies on judges to exercise good judgment, and we need more information and more explanation about what the court’s involvement was in support of the A.C.L.U.,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which gained attention in the 1990’s for ethics accusations against President Bill Clinton.
Three legal ethicists interviewed said although Judge Taylor’s role as a trustee for a supporter of the civil liberties group would not necessarily disqualify her from hearing the case, she should have probably disclosed the connection in court to avoid any appearance of a conflict.
“It certainly would have been prudent” to notify the parties in the case, including the Justice Department, about the issue, said Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University and an author of “Judicial Conduct and Ethics.”
“I don’t think there’s a clear answer as to whether she should have disqualified herself,” Professor Lubet said. “But at a minimum, she should have disclosed it.”

You would think. But since it was hardly in her self interest (and that of her ‘club’) to do so ~ I mean, how often does such a juicy tidbit drop in your jurisprudenal lap? A chance to strike a blow against the man? ~ it’s easier to say nothing, make your point in court and defend yourself later when the sh*t hits the fan. If you disclosed something like this prematurely (read: before you get your shot at it), there might be enough noise generated that you’d have to step aside.

…The Web site for the group that supported the A.C.L.U., the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit, lists Judge Taylor as its secretary and a trustee. It indicates that trustees make all financing decisions for the organization, whose assets exceed $350 million and which gives grants for a variety of community projects.
Judge Taylor declined to comment on the matter on Tuesday, and the foundation did not respond to a message for comment on what role if any she had in awarding the civil liberties grants.
The executive director of the Michigan A.C.L.U., Kary Moss, said her group had received four grants totaling $125,000 from the foundation since 1999. They were a $20,000 grant in 1999 for an educational program on the Bill of Rights, $60,000 in 2000, along with the N.A.A.C.P. and other groups for education on racial profiling, $20,000 in 2002 for work on racial profiling and $25,000 in 2002 for a lawyer to work on gay rights.

Most times when I hear people screaming ‘activist judges’ in these perpetual campaign ads and conservative sound bites, my ‘blahblahblah‘ meter kicks into overdrive. This is America and you don’t always get what you want. Then, every once in a while, along comes the Jimmy Carter connected poster child for ‘activist’ and I wonder if the left has taken leave of the few senses they have…well…left. How is it that they can be so blinded by their own indignation that the rules obstreperously applicable to others don’t apply to them?

A must watch.

Here.
Amen!

Holy Mother of Xenu!!

Grab your samurai sword and start swinging, cause Tom’s been…

CUT

He’s too weird. Can you imagine?

Paramount cuts ties with Tom Cruise
Film distribution giant ends 14-year relationship with actor’s production company because of Cruise’s recent erratic behavior, says a report.
Paramount Pictures will end its longstanding relationship with Cruise/Wagner Productions, actor Tom Cruise’s production company, citing his erratic behavior, according to a report published Tuesday.
Sumner Redstone, CEO of Paramount owner Viacom (Charts), said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Cruise’s controversial behavior over the last year – including advocating for Scientology and denouncing the use of antidepressant drugs – was the cause for the move.
The movie company is concerned that Cruise’s behavior hurt his most recent film, “Mission: Impossible 3,” said the report.
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Redstone was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.“

I’ll bet it’s all those mean posting identities Emily’s used..

Hmmm…

…I think I’ve aged out on my IRR commitment, thank God.

Marines to issue involuntary call-ups
Corps faces shortage of volunteers for deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan
The U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday it has been authorized to recall thousands of Marines to active duty, primarily because of a shortage of volunteers for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number of Marines who may be forced back into service in the coming years as the military battles the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next several months.
…The call-up affects Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve, a segment of the reserves that consists mainly of those who left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligation.

I Hate to Keep Hammering on This

…but it’s a subject near and dear to my heart. I’ve decided to let Max Mayfield talk today.

Looking back nearly a year to the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, and the third-worst hurricane in terms of American lives lost, Mayfield said Katrina itself could have been a greater disaster.
More than two days before Katrina struck the Gulf coast August 29, the hurricane center had predicted its future track accurately and also warned it could become a powerful Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.
New Orleans was squarely in the danger zone, and emergency managers and residents had plenty of time to prepare.
“One of my greatest fears is having people go to bed at night prepared for a Category 1 and waking up to a Katrina or Andrew. One of these days, that’s going to happen,” Mayfield said.

I believe they came close with Charley ~ people were expecting a 3 and got damn near a 5 at the last second. (I also love the swipe at local LA officials, but that’s neither here nor there.)

…Or how about a major hurricane racing up the east coast to the New York-New Jersey area, with its millions of people and billions of dollars of pricey real estate?
“One of the highest storm surges possible anywhere in the country is where Long Island juts out at nearly right angles to the New Jersey coast. They could get 25 to 30 feet of storm surge … even going up the Hudson River,” Mayfield said.
“The subways are going to flood. Some people might think ‘Hey, I’ll go into the subways and I’ll be safe.’ No, they are going to flood.”

That would suck. But there’s something bothering Max that is the most important thing of all. And NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES (in however MANY ways) it gets passed to the citizens in vunerable areas, everybody STILL wants to know why the National Guard’s not handing out Dasani 3 hours after landfall.

He is mystified by a study that found 60 percent of people in hurricane-prone U.S. coastal areas have no hurricane plan — which to disaster managers means up to a week’s worth of food and water squirreled away, a kit with flashlights and other gear, and an established evacuation route to higher ground.
“After Katrina and after the last two hurricane seasons you can’t understand why more people are not taking hurricanes seriously,” Mayfield said.

Because people are helpless MORONS in general, Dr. Mayfield. And MORONS are conditioned to think that ~ even if every major access to a HUGE area is OBLITERATED ~ that somehow the gub’ment is responsible for BOTH the damage and their welfare. ‘MORONOCITY‘ (the technical term) spans all socio-economic barriers and all ethnic persuasions. The day after Ivan there were Range Rovers, taxis and ancient Impalas all lined up for hours (within hours) by our airport. The Squid Terrorist was aghast at the desperation. He had to deal with them attempting to attack him for ‘cutting in line’ as he tried to assess the damage to the airport and it’s outer areas, so relief flights could start coming in. (He’s one of the airport maintenance supervisors, hence ’emergency personnel’.) Oh, he was hot under the collar when he got home that first VERY long day.

“How can these f*ckin’ IDIOTS be out of water and PISSED OFF already?!
It’s only been a day…”

I dunno. But they do it every time, with every storm. And they’re the goobers you see on the news reports, like the whole world’s failed them.

A Good Question

…without a really good answer.

Israel is still in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is more powerful, thanks to Israel’s lack of resolve and our pitiful support. More roadside bombs were exploded in Iraq in July than in any month since we invaded almost four years ago. More than 3,000 Iraqi civilians were killed last month in Iraq — that is more than 100 a day. Iraq is in the middle of a civil war, not sectarian violence. Hell, I don’t even know what sectarian violence is, but I do know — and so should you — what a civil war looks like, and that is Iraq. Over 2,300 American soldiers have been killed or wounded there, and that count is still getting worse. We are flat in the middle of a bloody war with terrorism. We have just witnessed how vulnerable we still are, based on the most recent London “liquid bomb” scare.
However, such mundane subjects as terrorism and war are not on the front pages or in the news today, no sir. What we care about now, what we will be treated, to is the revisiting (the constant yelling and confusion created by lawyers and experts talking about), the conjecturing about another blonde, this time about a dead 6-year-old beauty queen from Colorado, or last week, about a famous actor who gets drunk and says bad things. You have got to be kidding me! Of course it was and still is tragic for the Ramsey family, but come on. How do we square this round peg? How did we get so off track? How can we spend even a moment of our national time on this?

ATTENTION: RED SUCKSOX FANS

Dear Max Mayfield

“We’re actually not sure why some of these are not developing,” he said.

STFU, already. Seriously.
Now, on a lighter note. Swillers are very familiar with my ‘tale of woe’ radar shots of hurricanes and tropical storms pounding the hallowed shores of Bangla-cola. Over and over again, like a bad record. I wanted to take this opportunity to present even more reason why, if you should learn that major dad and I have moved anywhere near your neighborhood…you should leave immediately. Just take the dogs/cats and go.
North Carolina’s coast (especially the Onslow/Pender/New Hanover counties) hadn’t taken a direct hit from a storm of any magnitude since 1934. We moved there in 1993.

Read more »

This Was So Cool

…I just had to share.

Now THAT’S

…cranky.
But I didn’t see any protestors.

I Find His Track of Faith

…disturbing.

“If what’s said in that letter reflects the councilman’s views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age,” Graham said. “Maybe they wouldn’t have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now.“

So what did the Rev. and Watertown City Councilman Timothy LaBouf do that disturbs so many?

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on August 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”

I can think of someone else who ought to stuff a sock puppet in it…

ABC News Reporter Jake Tapper

…has his own blog at the ABC site and it often has little gems in it. (Plus he just seems like a really decent guy ~ that helps.) One caught my eye today, unfortunately illustrating the point of my Andrew Young/Ray Nagin rants.

…Right now am working on a World News with Charles Gibson spot about the political football Wal-Mart has become, along with the recent anti-Semitic, anti-Korean, and anti-Arab comments made by civil rights icon Andrew Young. (For which the former UN ambassador has APOLOGIZED, though when I spoke with the man who conducted the interview for the LOS ANGELES SENTINEL — the black newspaper Young made the comments to — he asked me what Young had to apologize for.)

So Speaks the Front Runner, Ségolène Royal

…the “rising star of the French Socialist party“.

…Confronting those who criticised her inexperience in foreign policy, she launched an attack on the “simplicity” of US President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” policy, and described Mr Sarkozy’s policy of encouraging skilled immigration as “a pillage of talent from old French colonies“.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that sound like she’d much prefer the uneducated, unemployable car-b-que types she already has?

Tonight’s Programming Note

The Travel Channel at 9 p.m. EST. ~ Anthony Bourdain in Beirut.

The moment that things went sour: Tracey, surprised mid-scene by the sound of automatic weapons fire, shoots Hezbollah supporters as they drive through town celebrating the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The reaction of our fixer and friends was one of immediate dismay. Unlike us, they realized pretty quickly what this would likely mean for Beirut as they knew it.– Tony Bourdain

Apparently it wasn’t all mojitos at the bar after all.

Joe Rosenthal

…the WWII, Pulitzer prize winning photographer (left) has died at 94 years young.

Rest in peace Joe. And thank you.