I had every intention of doing lots of blogging on lots of interesting subjects this weekend, but unfortunately a monster migraine befell me on Friday evening. Now, 31 hours of sleep later, I've run out of weekend. I'll try to catch up this week.

P.S. Tedy is back :)

A federal grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements in the investigation over who leaked the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

[Special Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald said Libby is the first person known to have passed that information along to a reporter. He said Libby is trying to make it appear that he was "at the tail end" of a chain of phone calls. But Fitzgerald said Libby was, in fact, at the beginning of that chain -- and that he repeatedly lied about it under oath.

If there is evidence that Mr. Libby was in fact "at the beginning of [the] chain", that would seem to suggest that he leaked the information about Plame. Why, then was he not indicted for the actual leak? And if, on the other hand, there is insufficient evidence that he was in fact the leaker, what proof is there that he lied?

I have only skimmed the indictment, but it sounds as if the prosecutor was able to impugn some of Libby's testimony but could not (yet) trace the leak to him. As a result, the investigation is "not over", according to Mr. Fitzgerald.

Further complicating the matter is the contention by two lawyers who helped draft the law of which violations are being investigated that the identification of Plame was not illegal under that law.

At the threshold, the agent must truly be covert. Her status as undercover must be classified, and she must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years. This requirement does not mean jetting to Berlin or Taipei for a week's work. It means permanent assignment in a foreign country. Since Plame had been living in Washington for some time when the July 2003 column was published, and was working at a desk job in Langley (a no-no for a person with a need for cover), there is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as "covert."

But their take on what the law "means" may be of no consequence if that meaning isn't explicit in the wording of the law. That question may be addressed on the way to trial.

In any event, this one is far from over. I'll resist the partisan temptation to either (left) presume Libby and all his associates at the White House guilty without trial, or (right) downplay the indictment as inconsequential and not worth the paper it's printed on.

If bustles were still in fashion, I could be a cover girl. Or at the very least, a cover a**.

If I had a theme song, it would be Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom" (listen here).

As we approach Christmas, I should probably put a ButtMaster exerciser on my wish list.

In other words, the Den Mother needs to return to Weight Watchers.

If a presidential election were held in the United States today, the Democratic candidate would defeat George W. Bush.

In related news, if the election had been held in February 2004, John Kerry would have defeated Bush by 10 points.

Clearly, this information is relevant and newsworthy.

I don't want to hate people. I don't want to generalize. I don't want to believe that some people are just... wrong. But when this is all you hear from a particular group of people, it's hard not to.

The State of Israel should be wiped off the map, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, underscoring Teheran's extreme attitude towards the Jewish State.

More details are here:

"I have no doubt that the new wave [of attacks] which has started in dear Palestine and which we witness today all over the Islamic world will soon wipe this scourge of shame from the Islamic world. This is doable," Ahmadinejad encouraged the audience, which included thousands of Islamic students, as well as representatives of Arab terrorist organizations and their supporters. He noted his belief that the turn towards Islamism in the Palestinian Authority has brought the Arabs success against Israel.

Of course, they aren't just out to get Israel:

The goal of a world without the United States or Zionism, Ahmadinejad said, is "attainable and could definitely be realized. ...Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] ordered that the occupying regime in Jerusalem be wiped off the face of the earth. This was a very wise statement."

But wait... Ahmadinejad may just have a solution, just not the one he has in mind.

Compromise over the elimination of Israel, the Iranian president said, is tantamount to the defeat of the Islamic world, as "the central and command base of the enemy... is the occupying regime in Jerusalem."

These people complain about a "war against Islam", then do everything they can to incite such a war. Before long, that may just be what they get. More and more, I wonder why the "defeat of the Islamic world" would be a bad thing.

(Hat tip: Smash.)

People opposed to the war in Iraq have been gearing up for nationwide rallies once the 2,000th United States service member dies. That death reportedly occurred today.

Why are anti-war groups awaiting the 2,000th death before they rally? There are a few possibilities:

• 2,000 dead soldiers, sailors, airmen/women, marines, and Coast Guard personnel makes the war less moral than it was when only, say, 1,999 were dead.
• That 2,000th dead service member was a more important person than the others were.
• It took 2 1/2 years for the number of service members to die in Iraq that died in the average half year during the Vietnam War, which proves that Iraq is a quagmire. (Actually that isn't actually true, since the Iraq death toll includes fatalities from accidents and illness, whereas Vietnam numbers are all combat-related. But including the non-combat deaths makes it easier to make the quagmire case.)
• 2,000 dead service members = 2,000 reasons to protest the war, even though the overwhelming majority of the dead supported the war and wouldn't want their deaths to be used for propaganda purposes, but why split hairs?
• Ratification of the Iraqi constitution increases the likelihood of a stabilized Iraq, and those 2,000 dead service members would be very proud to have helped that happen.

I know, that last one isn't likely to be the reason for all the rallies. But I haven't given up hope that there might be two or three anti-war protesters out there who would actually like to see Iraqis successfully establish a stable and peaceful government of their own. OK, maybe one or two. Or one. Maybe.

Rosa Parks, the black woman who many years ago became famous for refusing to give up her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man as required by law, died yesterday.

I won't eulogize her here. Not only did I not know her (I wasn't born until nine years after her famous civil disobedience), but the web is inundated with tributes this morning that can be found by a simple Google search. What I'd like to do is talk a bit about the myth of Rosa Parks versus the facts, and explain why I think the bare facts have so much more significance.

The glamorized legend of Ms. Parks includes some misinformation about who this woman was, what she did, and why and how she did it. Fairness to Ms. Parks and respect for the historical record demand the myths—sometimes contradictory to one another—be put to rest.

• Myth: Rosa Parks single-handedly got the modern civil rights movement off the ground by being a pioneer.
  
  Fact: While she was certainly among the earliest black activists to employ the tactic of civil disobedience, she was not the first and certainly didn't accomplish anything by herself. Other men and women, under the coordination of the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, violated segregation laws in the dashed hope of creating test cases by which courts could scrutinize and possibly overturn the existing laws. Ms. Parks' act would have probably led to a similar dead end if it had not been followed by the massive boycott of the Montgomery bus system, an effort that took thousands of people and more than a year. It is more accurate to say that her individual action, along with those of many other committed people before and after herself, helped build the movement.

• Myth (version 1): Ms. Parks was a simple seamstress who, tired after a day of work, was too exhausted to get up from her seat on the bus.
  Myth (version 2): She was an average, apolitical citizen who took a stand as an individual.
  Myth (version 3): She was an aggressive activist looking for a fight.
  
  Fact: A seamstress by trade, Ms. Parks was also a committed civil rights activist who worked in cooperation with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She acted in the manner promoted by the NAACP and other civil rights leaders of the time, maintaining a calm and respectful demeanor. Her activism illustrated that everyone, including those living in humble circumstances, could make a difference when they banded together and organized.

• Myth (version 1): She boarded the bus that day with the intention of violating segregation laws.
  Myth (version 2): Her civil disobedience was a spontaneous act born of anger and frustration.
  Myth (version 3): She sat in the white section of the bus and refused to move.
  
  Fact: Others before her, under the coordination of the NAACP, had deliberately violated public segregation laws in the hope of creating a test case via which the courts could overturn the existing laws, but none of the other attempts had achieved the desired result. Ms. Parks agreed to be the next person to try. She sat in the "colored" section with the intention of challenging the law only if a white passenger demanded she give up her seat. When a white man did just that, she refused and was arrested.

• Myth: All she did was refuse to get up from her seat on the bus; there was no personal risk involved.
  
  Fact: The Jim Crow south took segregation very seriously, and some whites were violent in defending it. If a white passenger had physically assaulted her for her refusal, law enforcement may or may not have protected her. She also risked garnering the wrath of militant segregationists who were not above terrorizing "uppity" blacks who tried to challenge the status quo. What might seem like no big deal in 2005 was in fact a great risk in 1955.

It is unfortunate than when young people today think about the civil rights movement, they think of Martin Luther King, Jr., giving a glorious and rousing speech before admiring throngs in the nation's capital. The beginnings of the movement were much less stirring and certainly less tidy. Rosa Parks, like many others whose names have been lost to history, was willing to do the small and sometimes risky things that knocked down that first domino and got the movement going. To glamorize or embellish her contribution is to downplay the power of simple actions by humble people—and to ignore the courage those people had to muster in order to make a difference when success was far from assured.

I have never received an influenza vaccination. As a someone who is neither over 50, under 10, nor immunologically impaired, and who doesn't work with children, the elderly, or sick people, I though a flu shot was unnecessary. Besides, I hadn't had the flu since I was a kid, so obviously I wasn't highly susceptible.

Again last winter, even with the prospect of an unusually aggressive strain causing widespread illness, I decided against vaccination—but did take simpler preventive measures. I became more deliberate about frequent hand-washing at work. I started washing after using someone else's phone or computer, handling a file, or attending a meeting. I adopted the habit of dispensing paper towel before washing, then using the paper towel to turn off the faucet and open the restroom door.

The reward for my diligence was a raging case of the flu at the end of February.

Folks, when they tell you the flu makes you really sick, they aren't kidding. You can't suck it up and carry on with your daily routine. This isn't a cold or other type of viral infection, or the gastro-intestinal bugs that people erroneously call "the flu". While I did throw up for a day, that was the least of my problems. My head felt like it was being jackhammered from the inside, my joints felt like they were ready to explode, my throat felt as if it had been cut into shreds, my eyes ached. I had a 102-103° fever, chills, night sweats, and mild hallucinations. I swear I was in danger at least three times of coughing up a lung. I slept day and night. I was too tired and too sick to eat. I wanted to die for about five days, and on my first day back at work (part-time, for two hours), I had to stop and rest three times between the front door of the building and my office. Even after a week back at work, I was still so weak that I came this –>||<– close to cancelling my impending Spring Training vacation.

Now we have bird flu to worry about.

I submit. My flu shot appointment is a week from Friday.

Remember when malcontent Randall Robinson wrote a short essay stating that America sucks because of what happened to black people in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina? To refresh your memory:

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

Those are the only purported "facts" in his essay. The rest of it is Robinson's own ranting and raving about how, because of the "facts" cited at the beginning, he has determined that his country is "a monstrous fraud".

It turns out that the first claim, about black storm survivors being forced to eat corpses to survive, was among the many reported atrocities that never happened. But that still leaves thousands of blacks dying of neglect by their country, right?

Not exactly. As of last week, the Katrina death toll was 1,281. The breakdown by state:

• Louisiana – 1,035
• Mississippi – 228
• Florida – 14
• Alabama – 2
• Georgia – 2

If the entire state of Louisiana suffered 1,035 deaths as a result of Katrina, it is impossible that "thousands" died in New Orleans. Those who did die were not all black.

So where does that leave Mr. Robinson? Black hurricane victims were not eating corpses to survive. Thousands of blacks in New Orleans did not die, like dogs or otherwise. That means the two statements upon which he based his entire diatribe, the two horrifying revelations that constituted what he called a "watershed moment in America's racial history", the events that left him "hopeless" and "sad" about the loss of "the America I strove for", didn't happen. Oops.

But it matters not. Randall Robinson stands by everything else he wrote. Which is probably for the best. He might choke on the big plate of crow he would have to eat. And the last thing we need is one more Katrina-related death.

Hurricane Wilma made landfall over southwest Florida early this morning.

The center of Wilma came ashore near Cape Romano at 6:30 a.m. as a strong Category 3 storm with winds of 125 mph with higher gusts.

Cape Romano is about 20 miles west of Everglades City, and about 30 miles south of the Marco Island, the National Hurricane Center's projected landfall site.

By my map, Cape Romano isn't any 30 miles from Marco Island. It's more like 5 miles south of the southern tip of Marco, and about 7 miles from the particular place where I stay during my annual Spring Training vacation. My friend Patty's condo is about 400 yards from the beach on the west side of the island, and west of that beach is nothing but Gulf until you hit either the southern tip of Texas or the Mexican coast. But at least the city isn't built below sea level like a certain other recent hurricane target. I haven't heard any reports of damage on Marco Island, but I presume the screens on Patty's lanai are in shreds and that her neighbors downstairs have some water damage. Good thing she is up here in New England this time of year.

Meanwhile, about 40 miles up the coast in the Fort Myers, reports are that Susan lost power this morning before dawn. The winds were really raging and she lost a several roofing tiles, causing some leaks. She is much closer to where Hurricane Charley made landfall last year, and even then her property took minimal damage. I anxiously anticipate hearing from her online once she gets electricity back.

Mary is way up in Tampa, and my aunt and uncle are in Sebring, so I'm not the least bit worried about them. Another aunt and uncle just bought a place somewhere down there, and I have no idea if they were in the storm's path or not.

Frequent readers of this site know that I am hardly a George W. Bush basher. I have been a strong supporter of his decision to go to war in Iraq (though not always the way it's been executed) and a vocal critic, especially lately, of the pathetic mess the Democratic Party has become. (Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean? That's the best they can do?) But none of that renders me blind to the Republicans' many faults, and those faults are magnified after five years of total Republican control of Washington and the way President Bush appears to have taken advantage of it.

What has me on a roll today is the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination. Knowing nothing about Ms. Miers, I have no reason to criticize her—but nor do I have reason to feel good about her nomination. That is no fault of hers; she has not yet had a chance to show her mettle via confirmation hearings, and in any event I don't believe it is up to her (or any other nominee, for that matter) to make a case for herself in the media. The confirmation process is the proper forum for her to put forth her qualifications.

What I would like to hear before then is something more from Bush about why he thinks she will be a good justice. So far, he has given only general platitudes, which may be fine when a nominee has a paper trail but don't quite fit the bill otherwise. No, I don't believe Bush needs to prove the worthiness of his nominee before the hearings. But since most of us won't be able to sit at home and watch the confirmation hearings, it might be nice of him to give us some substantive statement of what he thinks makes this person qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

So what does Harriet Miers have to do with the title of this entry? Simply this: I wonder if Bush has failed to make the most basic case for his nominee because he thinks it isn't necessary—the Republican-controlled Senate will go ahead and confirm her, regardless of what the public thinks. If it sounds like I am accusing Bush of arrogance... I am. It's the same arrogance Democrats used to exhibit when they were in charge of everything. It's why I thought Jimmy Carter should be defeated in his re-election bid in 1980 (even though I wasn't yet old enough to vote) and why I voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992. OK, I also voted for Bush in '88 because Mike Dukakis was a pathetic alternative. And I voted for Mondale in '84, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, but only because I knew he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

The Democrats proved the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I didn't trust them to run the White House and the House and the Senate, because when they did, they lost any sense that there might be another way of doing things from their way. Compromise and consensus became a part of their lexicon only after they fell solidly into the minority, and only then to mean "do things our way".

What is happening to the Republicans is in some ways worse. Not only do they seem to have lost any sense of competing ideas, but they haven't even stuck to their own ideas (opposition to same-sex marriage excepted, unfortunately). Spending discipline—one of the few conservative issues with which I fairly consistently agree—is a thing of the past, with the only difference between the two parties now being whether that they're throwing money at conservative pork rather than liberal pork. The idea that Americans might have to cut back to fund the important wars in which we are engaged (anyone ever heard of wartime rationing?) is as foreign to today's Republican leaders as the notion that the politicians themselves should forego their particular pet projects for the good of the country.

None of which means I'll be rejoining the Democrats any time soon. As disillusioned as I feel right now with the Republicans, today's Dems aren't any better. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that I am not alone in that opinion: while only 32% of the public approves of the Republican leaders of Congress, the identical low level of approval befalls the Democratic leaders of Congress. (You have to scroll waaaaay down to the bottom of the page to get to this, which may explain why none of the major news organizations included it in their reports, she said cynically.)

This may be an opportunity for Democrats to get their act together and improve their own plight while their opponents are down. If you want to win back me and others like me, a good start would be to abandon the gloom-and-doom, cut-and-run approach to Iraq and instead start contributing constructively to the discussion about how we can most effectively help the Iraqis transition to democratic self-sufficiency. I know most of them don't share my optimism that people in developing countries are as capable and deserving of self-governance as we privileged westerners, but they should try to put aside their racist and classist biases long enough to give the Iraqi people the benefit of the doubt.

No doubt you have heard those ubiquitous radio ads for the International Star Registry. It's an operation that has been around for years, and while it can't quite be called a scam operation because it don't offer something it don't deliver, its success certainly depends on a gullible target market.

What this company sell is a star-naming service. "Give the gift that will last forever—name a star after someone." For a fee, the customer gets to name a star after the person he or she designates. The name will be recorded "in book form in the U.S. Copyright Office", and noted on a certificate and star chart sent to the customer. The fee is $54 (plus shipping and handling) for the basic package. An additional $43 buys a double-mat and metallic frame for the certificate, plus a wallet card; for another $42, the star chart is matted and framed too.

Having done some matting and framing myself, I can tell you that the International Star Registry is making a killing from these so-called deluxe packages. A standard-size double mat and ready-made metal frame can be had for about $15 at retail prices. But even the basic product is a lot of nothing for a lot of money.

The International Star Registry is not associated with the scientific community, so there is nothing official about the name it assigns to a star, nor is it precluded from naming the same star more than once. The company isn't even "international" except in the sense that they'll take your money no matter where you live. Essentially, they don't do anything you can't do for yourself:

1. pick a star off a star chart and decide that you're going to name it after your great-aunt Helen or your next-door neighbor or your dead cat,
2. write it down, and
3. copyright the paper on which you wrote it down.

In the United States, practically anyone can copyright anything original for a fee of $30. What the International Star Registry does is hold off on copyrighting until it has a book full of names, and then spends $30 to copyright the whole book. If there are 100 entries in the book, it costs $0.30 per entry; if there are 1,000 entries, $0.03 per entry. My guess is that each book has tens of thousands of entries.

As for the certificate, I've seen one, and I thought it was tacky. The name of the individual for whom the star was named was inscribed in poor quality calligraphy. The star chart was like what you might find in a children's book about astronomy, with the named star marked by what looked like a rubber stamp circle.

Clearly, this operation has sold enough of its product to have lasted for more than 25 years and be able to afford radio advertising all over the country. It's success is proof that many people have more dollars than sense.

Because of this evening's downpour in Chicago, tonight's World Series game was delayed. Instead of the pre-game show, therefore, Fox Sports gave us some post-game coverage following the Dallas Cowboys vs. Seattle Seahawks game, which Seattle won by a field goal at the buzzer. Some Fox personality whom I don't know, interviewing some Seattle player whom I don't know, asked the quintessential Moronic Post-Game Question:

"How big was this win for your team?"

This is the fallback question for on-air personalities who are neither journalists nor interviewers, and they never ask it after a game that is not really any big deal. It's typically asked after a dramatic come-from-behind win, an emotional win-one-for-the-Gipper performance, or a decisive playoff win. The people who ask it are on the radio or television because they either look or sound good, not because they are capable of asking a probing question to elicit an interesting answer. In fact, they are utterly incapable thereof, which is why they are not the people asking the questions in the post-game press conferences given by players and coaches.

What they're doing is asking a question that they and all the viewers already know the answer to, but just in case the interviewee doesn't know what he or she is supposed to say, the interviewer asks a question for which there is only one reasonable answer. Just once, I'd like to see the following exchange:

Q: How special is this win to your team?

A: It isn't special at all, Joe. This is our job, and we get paid obscene money to play. The reason we're jumping around like kids on Christmas morning is because winning means we don't have to listen to the coach holler at us, do an afternoon of wind sprints tomorrow, or be humiliated on national television. And you are an idiot.

In the unlikely event that one of these sports studs or sports babes is reading this, here are a few suggestions for some decent interview questions.

• This would have been appropriate after the aforementioned Dallas vs. Seattle game: "That was a 51-yard field goal, Sam; was there any disagreement about whether you should go for the field goal or take your chances in overtime?"

• Appropriate after a record-setting feat: "At what point in the game did you realize you might have a chance at a historic performance? Did you have any trouble keeping your nerves in check, and if so, what did you do?"

• Appropriate after a playoff victory: "Obviously, athletic ability is of primary importance at this level of play, but do you feel your mental attitude contributed to winning this game/series/championship?"

Even if "human interest" fluff is the goal, there are some questions that might yield some interesting and unexpected answers.

• "Does it take you longer to come down from the emotional high of a big win like this?"

• "Give us the inside info about how you and your teammates celebrate after a big win like this."

• "Do you have friends or family here today/tonight? How many, and what did it set you back to bring all those people to a game, anyway?"

You get the point.

In the unlikely event that one of people who hire these sports studs and sports babes is reading this, allow me to point out that I'd be happy to work for you. I will give you a much better product than what you're getting now, and for about half what you're paying those bimbos and bimbettes working for you now.

The grand jury investigation of a possibly illegal leak of a CIA operative's identity isn't he only relevant part of the story. The Associated Press is reporting infighting between Judith Miller, a reporter to whom Valerie Plame's identity was allegedly revealed, and her editors at the New York Times.

In a memo to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller "seems to have misled" the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was not one of the recipients of a leak about the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The conflict, in which Miller and her Times bosses are now embroiled publicly, may complicate—or at lease divert attention from—the central question of the investigation. But if it turns out Miller herself is part of the reason why the story got out of hand, that could change things significantly.

The plot thickens.

There is absolutely no reason to be surprised that fanatical followers of the so-called Religion of Peace have found yet another reason to rampage, barbarians that they are. This time, they have their undies in a knot over a DVD of a play that happened two years ago at a Coptic Orthodox (Christian) church in Egypt.

Three demonstrators were killed when thousands of people protested on Friday near a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria over the staging of a play they said was offensive to Islam, security sources said.

The demonstrators were killed during clashes between police and the more than 5,000-strong crowd which had gathered near St. George's Coptic church in the Mediterranean port city after Muslim prayers, the sources said.

Reuters, being mindlessly neutral in their reporting even when it impedes accuracy, is calling the riots "protests" and is making the death of three rioters the focus of the story instead of the riots themselves. I wonder if they'd have thought the violence by the peace-loving Muslims to be newsworthy if the perpetrators hadn't gotten hurt or killed in the process. And God—excuse me, Allah—forbid they should describe a violent riot as, you know, a riot.

The question someone, perhaps a reporter interested in doing some actual work, should ask is why this play wasn't riot-worthy two years ago when it was actually performed. They must not have anything to gripe about this week, so they decided to make an issue of something that they didn't think was any big deal before.

CNN, meanwhile, is reporting the riot itself as the main story, while still noting the perhaps questionable actions of police, which seems to me a more complete and less biased way of description of what happened. They also aren't afraid of using the "R" word.

One person died and more than 90 were injured as thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam. Police responded by beating protesters and firing tear gas into the crowd, officials said.

Police said 53 protesters were arrested as people hurled stones, smashed windows and tried to storm St. George Church. Protesters also set a police car on fire and wrecked eight other cars, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Egypt's peaceful Muslims have managed to illustrate yet again that they lack the basic human civility possessed by the western "infidels" they hate. Said infidels, after all, could have responded to any of the countless Muslim attacks against Christianity or Judaism over the years by rioting at mosques. But we're better people than they are. It's about time someone gets up the guts to tell them so instead of pretending they deserve any sort of respect.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez has laid down the gauntlet: he's ready for a U.S invasion, and his country will prevail, dammit!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that his government is preparing for a possible U.S. invasion, and he warned that such "aggression" would send gasoline prices in the United States soaring.

His tough talk seems motivated by at least a hint of paranoia:

Chavez reiterated longtime claims that the United States finances his opponents, seeks his ouster and sabotages efforts to move his country forward.

[ . . . ]

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. radio aired earlier Thursday, Chavez said he had evidence to prove the U.S. government was planning an invasion.

Chavez said he believed the reason Washington was plotting an invasion was to take control of Venezuela's oil fields.

He must have gotten that idea from the U.S.'s seizure of Iraq's oil fields—which, by the way, hasn't happened. But that hasn't stopped Iraq War opponents from continuing to cite oil as the reason for the 2003 invasion, so why shouldn't Chávez join in the fantasy?

Chávez is playing dress-up in the style of North Korea's Kim Jong Il, who has in the past tried to act like a superpower by demanding direct bilateral negotiations with the Washington. Kim and Chávez have in common a desire to be "big", and the way to be big in the 21st century is to be a peer of the United States. But like a child wearing Dad's old suit or shuffling along in Mom's high heels, they merely look ridiculous.

When my son was younger, his pediatrician—unlike many others—deliberately avoided prescribing antibiotics for infections that he was reasonably sure were bacterial. For Dr. "H", reasonable certainty meant a positive strep culture, for example, or the recognizable telltale signs of bacterial infection. He explained that he was concerned about the overuse of antibiotics "just in case" or to appease parents who insisted on an antibiotic even for a viral illness, such overuse being possibly related to the development of drug-resistant bacterial strains.

When antibacterial soaps became popular for household use several years ago, I wondered if they might also do more harm than good in the long run. I was aware that there are some bacteria that serve

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration apparently has the same concern, although they have no definitive clinical evidence it.

Dr. Stuart B. Levy, president of the Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics, said laboratory studies have suggested the soaps sometimes leave behind bacteria that have a better ability to flush threatening substances -- from antibacterial soap chemicals to antibiotics -- from their system.

"What we're seeing is evolution in action," he said of the process.

[ . . . ]

Levy said overuse of antibiotics is the main cause of bacteria developing resistance to them. He acknowledged that a yearlong study showed that homes using antibacterial soaps did not show an increase in resistant bacteria in significant numbers, but he argued the soaps will still contribute to resistance over a longer period.

If the study does not substantiate fears of resistance, why worry about these products? Because we know that other bacteria have become resistant to drugs once thought to be sure things. In many cases, it takes decades for the resistance to develop. And household antibacterials have not been widely used for nearly that long.

It seems prudent to adopt a conservative approach—do the minimum you need to do to accomplish the desired result, and save the big guns for more desperate situations. If plain soap and water effectively remove bacteria from the skin—which is, after all, the goal of hand-washing—there is no need to kill the bacteria on their way down the drain just because we can. Especially if it merely creates more problems down the road.

Yesterday, SMASH mentioned a lunch meeting between President Bush and U2's activist lead singer Bono. Bono has decided to use his celebrity status to call attention and effect solutions to problems like third-world debt forgiveness, fighting and preventing AIDS, and financially supporting African development. Bush has increased assistance to Africa and has promoted a more comprehensive approach to combating AIDS on the continent. So the two B's aren't such an odd pair of lunch buddies after all.

I had seen the lunch story on CNN.com and posted the following thought in SMASH's comments section:

Bono is that rare bird in celebrity circles who finds common ground with politicians in order to get things done. Most others (Dixie Chicks, Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner, Janeane Garofalo) simply look for uglier and more maniacal ways to [hurl] insults at those they don't like. I'll bet that Bono doesn't agree with 99% of Bush's positions, but he isn't letting that get in the way of collaborating with Bush on the other 1%. Good for him.

Political people—those who think of everything in political terms—are adept at seeing the speck in the eye of the party they oppose while ignoring the plank in the eye of the one they like. Conservatives, for example, see same-sex unions as an affront to the sanctity of marriage while ignoring the damage wrought by different-sex divorces. Liberals who made excuses for criminally-inclined Democratic Congressmen like Robert Torricelli and Nick Mavroules now rise up in righteous indignation about the indictment of Republican Tom DeLay.

In the same vein is a quote tucked at the end of a Boston Globe article on former Boston University hockey player Travis Roy (free registration required), who was rendered quadriplegic by an injury suffered in the opening seconds of his first collegiate game ten years ago.

I believe I'll use [sports equipment] again. After my accident, I was sure there'd be a cure in five years. But now it's been 10 and it'll probably be 10 more. I hate to say it, but it's political. When Clinton was in, everything was lined up to allow stem cell research. With Republicans, it's been stopped cold.

Like the inaccurate contention that George W. Bush went to war in Iraq on the presumption that Saddam Hussein presented an imminent threat to our nation's security (Bush actually said the opposite), the history of federally supported stem cell research is deliberately misquoted by people who care less about accuracy than they do about scoring political points. Bush did what Clinton didn't—authorize federal funding of limited stem cell research. Because Democrats want no such limits, they perpetrated and continue to perpetuate the myth that Bush—and by extension, those nasty Republicans"stopped what the Democrats so benevolently started. In reality, stem cell research was not federally funded, even to a limited extent, under Clinton or any other Democratic President. A web site associated with the PBS series NOVA lets Clinton off the hook for the lack of federal funding and instead blames the Republican-controlled Congress, ignoring the fact that Republicans have also controlled Congress during the Bush Administration.

Perhaps I shouldn't blame Travis Roy for getting it wrong. He was probably given bad information by someone he had no reason to distrust. On the other hand, if Roy is going to make public accusations for why he's still in a wheelchair, wouldn't he want to get his facts straight first?

Louisiana's Attorney General, Charles Foti, is investigating allegations that doctors at a New Orleans hospital discussed euthanizing patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As part of the investigation, autopsies will be performed on 34 patients who died after the storm.

Those of us who weren't affected by the storm can't imagine how miserable conditions were, nor how desperate physicians and nurses trying to care for the ill and injured must have felt. While the hospital administration insists that nothing of the sort was even discussed, more than one person who was present has said otherwise.

Dr. Bryant King, who was working at Memorial when conditions were at their worst, told CNN that while he did not witness any acts of euthanasia, "most people know something happened that shouldn't have happened."

[ . . . ]

But King said he is convinced the discussion of euthanasia was more than talk. He said another doctor came to him at 9 a.m. Thursday and recounted a conversation with a hospital administrator and a third doctor who suggested patients be put out of their misery.

King said that the second physician—who opposed mercy killing—told him that "this other [third] doctor said she'd be willing to do it."

About three hours later, King said, the second-floor triage area where he was working was cleared of everyone except patients, a second hospital administrator and two doctors, including the physician who had first raised the question of mercy killing.

King said the administrator asked those who remained if they wanted to join in prayer—something he said had not occurred at the hospital since Katrina ripped through the city.

One of the physicians then produced a handful of syringes, King said.

"I don't know what's in the syringes. ... The only thing I heard the physician say was, 'I'm going to give you something to make you feel better,'" King said.

"My nurses wanted to know what was the plan? Did they say to put people out of their misery? Yes. ... They wanted to know how to get them out of their misery," [nurse manager Fran Butler] said.

Butler also told CNN that a doctor approached her at one point and discussed the subject of putting patients to sleep, and "made the comment to me on how she was totally against it and wouldn't do it."

But if they had enough of some sort of drug to kill patients—and it takes more to kill than it does to sedate or alleviate pain—why weren't those drugs used for pain management or palliative care? It is frightening to think that in cases when the most vulnerable among us trust in the able to care for them, the caretakers may have other ideas.

Parts of this read like satire, but it's real.

Well, I was in a tiny village in Mexico on the 17th of September, 1985. And I had a vision-like experience climbing a mountain there, on the top of which is a temple to the Mexo-American Christ figure, Ketso Quato. And one of these little UFOs came over that mountain and I was signaled from a group of persons to come. And I was beamed up into that small vehicle and carried to a larger vehicle, where I heard the voice of my leader and teacher, the Honorable Elijah Mohamed, saying these words to me, in early September, the president met with his joint chiefs of staff to plan a war. He didn't tell me who the war was against or what not. But early in the next year, it came to me while I was in Ghana that this war was against Libya and Libya's leader Muammar Qaddafi. So I went there and warned him of what was about to take place. And it did take place.

Thus sayeth Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam organization and a black man who previously suggested that the levees protecting New Orleans were deliberately blown up during Hurricane Katrina in order to kill black citizens.

"I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25-foot crater under the levee breach," Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan said on television recently. "It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."

Farrakhan's racial paranoia is, sadly, shared by more black people than one might think. It isn't necessarily surprising, considering the racism that still exists in the south and the distrust it is bound to engender. But Farrakhan, who managed to become a man of privilege, is irresponsible to take advantage of that distrust by fanning the flames with kooky conspiracy theories.

• You think crosswalks are for wimps.
  (The Den Mother says: Jaywalking? What's that?)
   
• You think if someone is nice to you, they either want something or they are from out of town and lost.
  (This ain't the South, folks.)
   
• You know how to cross four lanes of traffic in five seconds.
  (Just go. Others will get away for you, especially if their car is nicer than yours. Trust me on this.)
   
• You think it's not actually tailgating unless you're touching the bumper of the car in front of you.
  (I'm not a big tailgater, but I see plenty of them every day.)
   
• You know that a yellow light means that at least five more people can get through and a red one means two more can.
  (According to the Massachusetts Driver's Manual, green means "go", yellow means "go faster", red means "floor it".)
   
• The public transportation system is known as the "T" and you'd rather drive in bumper to bumper traffic for 4 hours to get to Boston than be caught dead on the "orange line".
  (Guess I should be glad I've never ridden the orange line.)
   
• You could own a small town in Iowa for the cost of your house
  (This one should be, You can't afford a house.)
   
• Subway is a fast food place.
  (I'm pretty sure there are Subway sandwich shops in other states, aren't there?)
   
• There are 24 Dunkin Donuts shops within 15 minutes of your house and that is how you give directions.
  (Starbucks, on the other hand, are very hard to find. Besides, Dunkin's coffee is better and cheaper.)
   
• When people talk about "The Curse Of The Bambino", you know what they're talking about and used to believe it, too.
  (For the record, I never believed it, so I won't even explain it.)
   
• You believe using your turn signals gives away your plan to the enemy.
  (Believe it or not, this is even more true in Connecticut.)
   
• If you stay on the same road long enough, it eventually has three different names.
  (And this is without crossing a town or city line.)
   
• Someone has honked at you because you didn't peel out the second the light turned green.
  (We don't have time to be patient, dammit!)
   
• You have honked at someone because they didn't peel out the second the light turned green.
  (Only when I'm in a rush.)
   
• All the potholes just add to the excitement of driving.
  (It's better than a video game because it's real.)
   
• Stop signs mean slow down a little, but only if you want to.
  (Are there actually places where people stop at a stop sign?)
   
• Six inches of snow is considered a dusting.
  (It sure isn't an adequate excuse to be late for work.)
   
• Three days of 90 degree heat is a heat wave.
  (This sounds whiny, but it's the humidity that kills you.)
   
• 53 degrees is "on the warm side".
  (I actually had this thought on the way home from work yesterday. It was 54 degrees.)
   
• You've walked to Brighams for an ice cream cone "to go", in the snow.
  (Ice cream is a dessert for all seasons.)
   
• You cringe every time you hear some actor/actress imitate the Boston accent on TV or in a movie; if you don't have it then you're never going to get it even if you were born here.
  (This is especially true for any movie about the Kennedys.)
   
• At the ice cream shop, you call chocolate sprinkles "jimmies".
  (Of course. What else would you call them?)
   
• A water fountain is called a Bubbler. Say it, "Bubbluh".
  (Because the water bubbles up, get it?)
   
• You can go from one side of town to the other in less than fifteen minutes and see at least fifteen losers you went to high school with doing the same thing they were doing when you saw them last.
  (You need to get closer to the city to observe this phenomenon.)
   
• The person in front of you is going 70 mph and you're cursing them for going too slow.
  (But I thought 65 was the minimum...)
   
• You know how to pronounce towns like Worcester, Haverhill, Peabody, Scituate, Chatham, and Leominster.
  (WOO-ster as in BOOK, HAY-vrul, PEA-biddy, SIT-chew-it, CHAT-um, and LEM-in-ster
   
• You know what they sell at a "packie".
  (Packie = package store = liquor store.)
   
• You have never been to Cheers.
  (The real name is the Bull & Finch, and locals stopped going there when the tourists showed up.)
   
• You've slammed on your brakes to deter a tailgater.
  (Your honor, guilty as charged. And he asked for it.)
   
• You keep an ice scraper in your car all year round.
  (If you don't have that think when the first ice storm hits, you're screwed.)
   
• Paranoia sets in when you can't see a Dunkin Donuts, ATM or CVS.
  (These are the three businesses you can't live without.)
   
• You've pulled out of a side street and used your car to block oncoming traffic so you can make a left.
  (In some places, it's the only way to get across the street.)
   
• You've bragged about saving money at The Christmas Tree Shop (don't cha just love a bahgin?).
  (The Christmas Tree Shops don't sell Christmas trees, except sometimes before Christmas, when they also sell a few ornaments. Most of their merchandise has nothing to do with Christmas or even winter.)
   
• You know what a "regular coffee" is.
  (Milk and sugar, but I think this is a common term everywhere, isn't it?)
   
• You can navigate a rotary without a problem.
  (In most other places, if they even have rotaries, they're called traffic circles. In England, they're roundabouts. And they really are easy.)
   
• You feel the rest of the world needs to drive more like you.
  (It's a daily struggle to not jump out of my car and tell this to the numb-nuts behind me.)
   
• When someone calls you a "Masshole", you take it as a compliment.
  (Hey, this is no place for wimps. If you can't hack it, go to California.)
   
• You use the words "wicked", "pissa", and "good" in the same sentence, and often in the same compound-adjective.
  (Good = good, wicked good = very good, wicked pissa = great.)
   
• You know what a frappe is.
  (It's ice cream and milk and flavoring all blended up. A milk shake is just whipped up flavored milk, no ice cream.)
   
• Saint Patrick's Day is your second favorite holiday...even when you're not Irish.
  (Spinach pasta is perfect for St. Patrick's Day, because St. Patrick was actually Italian.)
   
• You drink tonic and would never consider using it on your hair.
  (This is more restricted to eastern Massachusetts.)
   
• You never say "Cape Cod"...you say "The Cape".
  (Because it's the only cape that counts.)
   
• You went to Old Sturbridge Village and Plymouth Plantation at least once in elementary school, but never to Bunker Hill.
  (I'm 41 and still haven't been to Bunker Hill. I don't even know where it is.)
   
• You can drive to the mountains and the ocean all in one day.
  (The White Mountains are two and a half hours from me, any number of great ocean beaches within an hour and a half.)
   
• You have a special place in your heart for the Worcester Firefighters.
  (Six firefighters died in a warehouse fire in 1999. They were trying to save a homeless couple and, later, their brother firefighters.)
   
• You know the Mass Pike and I-495 create some sort of strange weather dividing line.
  (I don't know how it's possible, but I swear this is true. Ask any local meteorologist.)
   
• You almost feel disappointed when someone doesn't flip you off when you cut them off or steal their parking space.
  (If you didn't tick someone off, you did something wrong.)
   
• You actually get all these jokes and pass them on!

Thanks to Gimpy for e-mailing these to me (minus my comments, of course).

It's October 8, and I have yet to turn on my heat. Readers from warmer climates might find this unremarkable, but here in New England snow flurries are not unheard of this time of year. Though a friend in North Dakota and a business client in Minnesota reported snow this past week, I slept with my air conditioner on last night. It was hot and humid in advance of a cold front moving through that will bring a week of rain and cooler temperatures. Even before the bad weather, no one is mistaking this for summer. The leaves are turning and falling; it may be warm but it is unmistakably autumn. I'd post a picture, but it's nasty out right now and I don't want to get my camera wet.

Meanwhile, down on Topsail Island in North Carolina, where I recently spent a week of vacation, it still feels like summer. The ocean is warm, so warm you can swim in it for an hour without feeling chilled. What you're more likely to feel is battered and bruised. The surf is ferocious most days, and until you swim out past the breakers, you're in danger of being knocked down and dragged along the bottom before the water deposits you unceremoniously about 20 feet closer to the beach than when you started.

If you ever have the urge to doubt such violent natural forces, consider what the storm surges from the recent Hurricane Ophelia did to the dunes on Topsail. A protective barrier between the ocean and the island's homes and businesses, the dunes were badly eaten away in some areas and nearly destroyed in others. Word is that the towns on the island are planning to restore the dunes, but in the meantime they should probably shore up some of the stairs leading to the beach, the supports for which are now hanging in midair now that there is nothing underneath them. (Keep in mind that Ophelia was a mere Category 1 hurricane. It makes the damage caused by Katrina, or even the devastation wrought by last year's Indian Ocean Tsunami, this weekend's Asian earthquake, or the Guatemalan mudslides all the more unfathomable.)

Of course, I also saw signs on Topsail that it isn't just storms that can damage beach areas. I was astounded to find one morning that the normal surf was eroding the beach as the tide came in. There had been no overnight storm that I knew of, and the waves didn't seem particularly intense at the time. Still, the beach that had looked like this the day before

now looked much different.

My brother, who has owned property there for a year and a half, had never seen anything like it. Between the hurricane and this odd phenomenon, he won't see the same beach the next time he goes down that he knew before.

One more thing about the beach. Because the island runs northeast-to-southwest, you get the sun over the ocean for most of the day. It's well worth getting up early to see the sunrise, which is just what I did on the morning I left to make the long drive back home. I submitted this picture, which I took at 2048x1536 dpi, to Topsail Magazine and hope to hear soon whether it will be published. My digital camera isn't close to professional quality, so it's somewhat limiting for serious photography. The next time I go down, I must bring my film camera and take some photos to enlarge and frame.

The only down side of this vacation was that I inexplicably booked it for the last week of the baseball season. With my Red Sox embroiled in a heated pennant race until the very last weekend, I was none too happy to be someplace that didn't carry NESN on the cable system. I checked the ESPN sports ticker frequently each evening.

My departure, however, coincided with the Sox' road series in Baltimore. Naturally, I had to catch a game on my way through. I sat with Cyn and her cousin Kat in the cheap seats, the upper-upper deck of Oriole Park, where $15 gets you a seat with a birds-eye view and a bottle of oxygen. Seriously, Oriole Park is a very attractive ballpark, but it's much bigger than it seems on television. Despite all the amenities and unobstructed sightlines, I found myself missing the intimate charm of Fenway Park. And for someone like myself with moderate acrophobia, looking down on the field from such a height took some adjustment.

Speaking of baseball, no entry at this time would be complete if I didn't mention that the aforementioned Red Sox were eliminated from the postseason in the first round. Alas, there will be no defense of the World Championship title.

Finally, I should mention that when I finally got through all my personal and blog e-mail after my time away, I found a message from Darla Shine, the author whose radio interview by Sean Hannity was the topic of my last post. The message contains something of a challenge to post it, which I will do along with my response tomorrow.