ouch

It's hard for me to appreciate this properly, since they've been an enormous source of frustration for me this past few years, but it does seem as if the fourth estate has decided to stop giving Our Fearless Leader a free ride.

I wonder how many of his supporters in the heartlands even knew he was getting a free ride?

When Americans choose a president, their most profound consideration is whether a candidate can make the wisest possible decisions when it comes to war. In the case of George W. Bush, they will not only judge whether the invasion of Iraq was the right decision, but what our president has brought away from that experience. If there were misjudgments about the nature of Iraq's weapons programs or in the ways the administration presented that intelligence to the public, we need to know whether he recognizes them and has learned from them. Yesterday, in an interview with NBC's Tim Russert, after a week in which it became obvious to most Americans that the justifications for the war were based on flawed intelligence, Mr. Bush offered his reflections, and they were far from reassuring. The only clarity in the president's vision appears to be his own perfect sense of self-justification.

Right now, the questions average Americans are asking about Iraq seem much clearer than the ones Mr. Bush is willing to confront. People want to know why American intelligence was so wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Bush didn't have a consistent position on this pivotal issue. At some points during his Oval Office interview, he seemed to be admitting that he had been completely wrong when he told the public just before the war started that the intelligence left "no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." At other moments he suggested the weapons might still be hidden somewhere, or that they may have been transported to another country. At times he depicted himself as having been misled by intelligence reports. But he insisted that George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, was doing a good job and deserved to keep his job.

Average Americans are also asking themselves whether invading Iraq would have seemed like the right decision if we knew then what we know now. Mr. Bush doesn't seem willing to even take on this critical question. He repeatedly referred to Saddam Hussein as a dangerous madman, without defining the threat that even a madman, without any weapons of mass destruction, posed to the United States. At one point, his reasoning seemed to be that even if the dictator did not have the feared weapons, he could have started manufacturing them on a moment's notice. To bolster his position, he cited David Kay, the American weapons inspector, as reporting that "Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons." In fact, Mr. Kay said that Iraq's weapons program seemed to have ground to a halt under the pressure of the United Nations inspections and sanctions that Mr. Bush and his staff disdained last year. Mr. Kay said Saddam Hussein retained only the basic ability to restart weapons programs if that pressure were removed...

Our Fearless Leader throws a Hail Mary pass to Andrew Sullivan

Well, gracious no, thats not at all what it was code for. winkwinkwinkwinkwinkywinkwinkwinkwinkwinkwink

President Bush believes states can use contract law to ensure some of the rights that gay partners are seeking through marriage or civil union, a South Carolina congressman said Sunday.

The subject of contracts and gay marriage came up while the lawmaker, Representative Jim DeMint, was traveling with the president and the rest of the South Carolina Republican delegation on Air Force One last week. He described the conversation, first reported in the new issue of Time magazine, as politicians "shooting the breeze" rather than an in-depth policy discussion.

Paraphrasing the president's remarks, Mr. DeMint said: "He said he was not going to condemn anyone, that the need to have various types of agreement does not mean we need to redefine marriage. `If people want to have contracts on hospital visitation and benefits, that's O.K.' "

Responding to questions on Sunday about the Time article, Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said:

"States, through their contract law, have the ability to address some of the issues that advocates of gay marriage are raising, such as hospital visitation rights and insurance benefits and the ability to pass on one's estates to another. What the president has said is that he strongly believes in the sanctity of marriage, so that's what he is saying."

Pretty good, that, considering that Claire had to swot it up all quick and stuff, because this was a really casual kind of thing and probably noone even mentioned it to her at the time (those South Carolina Republicans are forever wandering off and supporting the human rights of the nonheterosexual).

surely Urban Outfitters can come up with a t-shirt for this

from Lean Left

Some staff at the London office of the US/British law firm Dewey Ballantine complained about an e-mail a firm partner had sent to all employees, offering puppies for adoption and urging “[d]on't let them go to a Chinese restaurant.”

Charmingly, it was the second such incident in a matter of months:

The firm had already put its lawyers through sensitivity training in the wake of a skit performed at a dinner last year when lawyers mocked stereotypical Asian accents to the tune of "Hello, Dolly," singing that they were "so solly" that the firm was closing its Hong Kong office. . . .

The firm will hold a special round of sensitivity training in its London office, in addition to its twice-yearly firmwide training, Mr. Pierce said.

So, the firm already holds sensitivity trainings twice a year, and some staff stage a racist skit at a company party (in the apparent belief that this would be well received). In response, the company performs a special sensitivity training, after which a partner sends out a global e-mail with a racist joke about eating dogs. The company plans to counter this by scheduling another training...

Fortunately, reporters were able to get input from someone who is apparently a sensitivity expert

There is no defense in these situations," said Roger Cramton, a law professor at Cornell. . . . "This is such a politically correct world."

So. Maybe you've noticed, if you ever glance at Google News or Yahoo or the AP feed running up the side of Salon, a story about dead cocklers. To be honest, I've been going right past it for a few days, because I'm cynical enough to figure that the reason it was getting so much play was that some midlevel editorial monkey thought people would read a story with cockler in the headline. Nonetheless, I saw the word cocklepicker in a link, and it was so dickensy I just had to click on it.

It turns out that there was a little more to it than I thought.

British police investigating the deaths of 19 mainly Chinese migrants who drowned on a beach gathering shellfish have arrested five people on suspicion of unlawful killing.

They are being quizzed about their part in organizing the cockle harvesting expedition by low-wage workers who were caught by fast-rising tides in Morecambe Bay, northwest England.

"Five people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, three are men and two are women," a Lancashire police spokesman told CNN.

"They are being questioned about any involvement they may have had in organizing the cockle trip that lead to the tragedy."

Police said that their investigation -- manslaughter is defined as unlawful killing without malice or through negligence, one below a murder charge -- could become a global inquiry.

Detectives seized computers, cell phones and other documents in house raids in the Merseyside area of northwest England on Saturday.

Lancashire police's Deputy Chief Constable Steve Finnigan said the inquiry would be "truly massive."

Ministers said they suspected gangs of "snakeheads" -- Chinese people-traffickers -- were responsible for providing the group at Morecambe Bay.

The deaths have focused attention on gang labor, where so-called gangmasters farm out migrant laborers, often illegally, to do poorly paid jobs in agriculture and unskilled industrial work like construction.

It's not, apparently, an isolated problem

When a Chinese illegal immigrant had an arm sawn off in a factory accident, his boss took him to hospital, registered him under a false name and dumped him.

Without a job or money, the man sought compensation but his employer ignored his pleas, treating him like a stranger.

Mr Jabez Lam, of the British-based civil rights organisation Min Quan, told The Straits Times that exploitation of Chinese migrant workers is increasing. 'At least one a day,' he said, when asked how many cases he saw.

Police say so-called gangmasters - unofficial labour recruiters offering desperate migrants low wages - are behind last week's drowning of 19, mainly Chinese, workers gathering shellfish in the north-west of England. These hapless workers, said to have been earning £1 (S$3.10) for nine hours' work, have been dubbed 'cockle slaves' by the British media.

Of course, cocklepicking seems to be dangerous work

Morecambe Bay is notoriously dangerous, with fast rising tides and quicksands.

Stewart Rushton and his nine-year-old son, Adam, died in the flats two years ago after becoming disorientated in fog and trapped by the rapidly-incoming tide.

Two RAF helicopters and lifeboats were scrambled last night after a 999 call from a mobile phone.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman described the race to rescue the shellfish pickers from the tide.

She said: “They were out collecting cockles and appear to have become trapped, possibly by mud, and are being threatened by what is being described to me as being a fairly strong incoming tide so they are at serious risk of drowning.”

The locals, at least, seem to realize that.

Margaret Owen is an auxiliary coastguard who was involved in the rescue and also collects cockles.

She said 40 cockle pickers arrived early in the morning a week ago and drove to the beach in a van.

Ms Owen told BBC Radio 4: "No one could believe it. They came off and there was a lot of trouble, a huge fight and the police were down.

"We've seen them come and go and everyone has just waited for this disaster.

"The sands are deadly - it's bad enough for people who know what they're doing."

So, let's see. You see vans roll up and drop off crowds of people to wade into dangerous waters and gather these cockles. You being an auxiliary coastguard whose charge is to protect the public safety on the waters. It does sound as if it wasn't precisely a secret that there was something seriously wrong going on.

The townspeople, though, responded in that concerned and proactive way that is the hallmark of the Silent Majority when roused.

"You can see up to 500 tourists on this beach at Easter weekend, but with so many people working here it's just a mess," he said.

"It's littered with cockle bags, coke cans, just general rubbish."

And these scenes are definitely not good for business.

Gareth Lymer, manager of the Hest Bank pub, said his customers do not want the cocklers in the area.

He said: "They're not generally our clientele. We did have a few in last week but had to ask them to leave.

"People feel they take away from the local fishing trade."

Tony Singleton, who lives in the area, says the main problem is the trade is not properly regulated.

"I would say they should close the beds down," he said.

"They (the cockle pickers) just don't give anything back to the community."

Apparently, though, at least according to the BBC, the number of daily "tourists" up to their asses in the freezing water and tidal muds seems to be closer to 300, and many of those "are thought to be chinese."

Well, at least the locals didn't imply their approval by serving the scurvy funseekers.

There are, of course, (at least) two ways of looking at this: either Hest Bank is a refreshing lacuna in the swelling global tide of political correctness, or Roger Cramton is just slightly overestimating the power than not being a gleefully ignorant racist has over the world's imagination.

Your call.

What nineteen people died for

naifs abroad

Dang, that there Mr. Rumsfeld surely is a folksy kinda fellow

In this climate, many officials here expected a tempered, if not conciliatory speech on Saturday from Mr. Rumsfeld, who is still regarded by many Germans and French, in particular, as a villain for his dismissive remarks about "old Europe." Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld, feisty and unyielding, appeared eager to put a potential adversary on the defensive as he laid out the administration's rationale for the war in the absence of any illegal Iraqi weapons.

"Think about what was going on in Iraq a year ago with people being tortured, rape rooms, mass graves, gross corruption, a country that has used chemical weapons against its own people," he said in response to a question, his voice rising, his hands chopping the air for emphasis.

He then turned the question back on the audience. "There were prominent people from representative countries in this room that opined that they really didn't think it made a hell of a lot of difference who won," he said, nearly shouting. "Shocking. Absolutely shocking."

Asked whether America's stature in the world had been diminished since the war, he acknowledged the Iraq war had taken its toll, but contended that it was more because of biased reporting by Arab media like Al Jazeera than anything the United States had done.

"I know in my heart and my brain that America ain't what's wrong in the world," he said.

I'm perfectly sure that once he spends another thirtyfive years or so in foreign relations, Mr. Rumsfeld will have the demotic for speaking to the people we're asking to pay for our imperial adventures down, even if he has to borrow Cheney's stent to do it.

oh, for crying out loud, enough already

( has everyone finished? - or - stick a bra on that pacifier, there are children present )

sorry bout that.

for I have had this political world and am bent to frivol.

from the Times, this past weekend

The Michelin Red Guide added three restaurants to the much-coveted three-star category: L'Espérance and La Côte Saint Jacques, both in Burgundy, and Les Loges de L'Aubergade in the southwest join 24 other restaurants on the list. One specialty of Les Loges is a foie gras hamburger with a cèpe mushroom-based catsup called "Ketcèpes"

I think we can all agree that the gentleman who invented that last name should, by rights, be the first one up against the wall when the revolution comes. Even if he hadnt been the one to think of foie grasburgers.* Which, you know, yuck. Peg Bracken would never have allowed this.

Whatever revolution. Just on principle.

*(bringing to mind Uncle Procrustes' and my nomination for best suggested british food name: Gurgle and Wurp)

Je frivol, ce que je suis.