Happy Halloween, Scooter!

After all, what better time for a witch hunt, eh?

Is it just me, or is it strange that there's been a two year investigation into something that may or may not have been a crime?

Anyway, I watched the 60 Minutes report on this last night and what a joke! They interviewed Joe Wilson and several of Plame's old CIA buddies, all of whom were outraged. None of their statements were challenged, and no one from the other side was given any air time. Journalism? Journalism!? That report wasn't fit to wipe my boots on.

The Little People Are Toast

There's a new project to help fight gnomelessness, which Ferdinand thinks is great because they're tasty when toasted, and an outraged Murray proposes a UN committee to deal with Ferdinand.

Sheesh. Next, Unicef bombs the Smurfs.

Ya know, if they really wanted 'real war' stuff, they would show the Smurf village being ripped apart by car bombs and suicide bombers.

But hey, it's all fantasy, right?

It Would Be Unbelievable Stupidity ...

from the New York Times, except it happens all the time.

Four years of war, and they can't get the basics of the military down. You'd think NYT journalists were sent to the front lines without ANY training ...

First Polygamy In Netherlands

The Brussels Journal carries the story of two women and a man who, although not legally able to have a 3-way marriage, apparently now have a legal 3-way civil union.

Remember how those in favor of homosexual marriage or civil unions laughed at that possibility? Hello? Anybody there?

God Speed, Mrs. Parks

CNN: Rosa Parks dies at 92:

Parks' moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

...

At the time of her arrest, Parks was 42 and on her way home from work as a seamstress.

She took a seat in the front of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery. The bus filled up and the bus driver demanded that she move so a white male passenger could have her seat.

"The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't," she once said.

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her.

As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?"

The officer's response: "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."

The US was born of a few principles, principles that it did not live up to for more than a century, principles that it still struggles with. Certainly, we must remember how the US system abused blacks, women, Asians, American Indians and others.

At the same time, we also cannot forget that the very system that abused also corrected itself, that the police officer who arrested Rosa Parks for not giving up her seat to a white man was part of a judicial system that eventually ruled that such treatment was unconstitutional, and that both the police officer and Supreme Court were part of a government that soon passed the Civil Rights Act.

The genius of the founding fathers was not that they were individually perfect -- they were far from it. No, the genius was that they built a system that was self-correcting, as long as men and women of principle run it, and as long as our nation produces principled citizens courageous enough to stand up and challenge the system when it's wrong.

God speed, Mrs. Parks.

Iraqi Constitution to Be Approved

According to CNN, Anbar and Salaheddin provinces, overwhelmingly Sunni, overwhelmingly voted no. The rest approved it. If three provinces had voted it down, it would not have passed.

I have to say, the fact that the vote was mostly along ethnic / religious lines bothers me. With some others, I think it might have been better if it hadn't passed. If the Sunnis saw their vote change this, then maybe they would be more willing to give democracy a chance in the future.

That aside, that's a job well done for the Iraqi government, and kudos to the Coalition and Iraqi forces for the security that allowed it to happen.

Celebratory Gunfire

Happy 60th, UN! (And many highly reformed returns ...)

Here's some UN parties you might have missed ...

Rockin' Round the Clock with the
Oil-For-UN-Officials-Not-Babyfood Scandal
Possible UNScam - Al Qaeda Link
Guilty Plea in UNScam
Indictment in UNScam
Three More Indicted
UN Procurement Scandal
New Conflict of Interest for Kofi?
UN Bribery Scandal: Russian ties, global reach
UN Allowed 'Corrupt Behavior'
Sevan Resigns

But HEY! It's not just the Oil-for-UN-Officials team that's partying!
Sex-for-Aid Charges Haunt UN Peacekeepers
UN Expert Made Child Porn Videos in the Congo

For more of the UN's most recent 15 years in existence, see:
Emergency Sex And Other Desperate Measures, a book that, among other experiences, details UN sex & drug parties and units of criminal peacekeepers, by two current and one former UN staffer.
The blog Friends of Saddam: UNScam and Other UN Scandals.

What'll those crazy guys do next, try to take over the Internet? (Well, they may already have the porn side wrapped up ...)

Just a thought ...

Should I run for president?

I mean, I meet the legal standards, and I'm not otherwise gainfully employed. It was always something I thought I might like to do someday ...

Whaddya think?

I Survived!

The philosophy mid-term is over. No reality questions -- Whew! I woulda had to fake it.

Also visited relatives in Arkansas this past weekend and had a good time (even if they do talk funny), survived some magazine deadlines mostly intact, made it through my fourth funeral this year, and started doing a little teaching.

Well, what's the world up to? Guess I'll surf around a bit. Everybody hold still until I catch up!

Well, Duh

Hollywood fails to show bad side of sex, drugs.

Yes, this was the result of a study.

Suicide Bomber at OU

Yesterday, there was apparently a suicide bombing at the University of Oklahoma. Only the bomber was killed, and it may have just been a suicide by bomb. Or, it may have been a botched terrorist attack. Nobody seems to know.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone else already knows about it, but I just checked the blogs for the first time this weekend and there it was, on Instapundit. Scooped in my own back yard!

###

Update: Reader Adolfo Velasquez sends this link to Michelle Malkin's post on it, which follows the story more.