Mexico In Turmoil

Leftist legislator supporters of leftist loser Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blocked President Vicente Fox of Mexico from delivering his last state of the nation speech by storming the stage. Mexico is in a bad way right now.

MEXICO CITY - Vicente Fox was forced to forego the last state-of-the-nation address of his presidency Friday after leftist lawmakers stormed the stage of Congress to protest disputed July 2 elections.

It was the first time in modern Mexican history a president hasn't given the annual address to Congress. Instead, Fox handed in a written copy of his report, and his office said he would address the nation in a televised speech later Friday.

A text of the speech Fox had planned to deliver to Congress called on Mexico to mend deep divisions that he said threatened the country's newfound democracy.

"Whoever attacks our laws and institutions also attacks our history and Mexico," he said, a thinly veiled reference to leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The opposition lawmakers took over the stage in Congress, waving Mexican flags and holding placards calling Fox a traitor to democracy. They ignored demands that they return to their seats, shouting "Vote by Vote" — a rallying cry for Lopez Obrador's bid for a full recount in the election.

They raised up leather-bound copies of the Mexican Constitution and flashed the victory sign. Fox left without entering the congressional chamber and the session was adjourned.

The standoff came six days before the top electoral court must declare a president-elect or annul the July 2 vote and order a new election. So far, rulings have favored ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon, who was ahead by about 240,000 votes in the official count.

Lopez Obrador has already said he won't recognize the electoral court's decision, and he plans to create a parallel government and rule from the streets.

Fearing violent protests, authorities earlier surrounded Congress for up to 10 blocks with multiple layers of steel barriers; attack dogs in cages, ready to be released; water cannons; and riot police in full protective gear. Entire neighborhoods were sealed off, preventing some of the city's sprawling markets from opening, and nearby subway stations were shut down.

Police used mirrors and dogs to inspect cars for explosives before allowing them to pass, and opposition lawmakers said police even tried to prevent them from arriving despite their credentials. Some said they were pushed and shoved by authorities.

"It's completely militarized around here. It is completely illegal, unconstitutional," Democratic Revolution congressman Cuauhtemoc Sandoval told The Associated Press. "Vicente Fox started out as a president, and is finishing up as a dictator."

So it is completely constitutional to take over the stage and prevent the elected president from delivering a constitutionally mandated speech? This would be the logic of the left, then.

The Same Ground Rules

One of the worst habits that people can get themselves into is believing that everyone believes in and plays by the same rules. I believe it was Thomas Aquinas (I'm quite sure someone will correct me if I am wrong) who defined arrogance as: "I am the measure of all things". It is a normal human trait to measure everything and everyone by an internal yardstick and to compare on that basis. That is not all a bad thing, either. You have to have an internal set of values and beliefs and it is not wrong to compare others to what you believe in and that you hold important. It is, however, a severe miscalculation to believe that everyone else uses the same yardstick. They do not.

So it is with nations, internal values that may be broadly (although not necessarily universally) shared by citizens of a given country or region may well not be shared by other nations and groups. In fact, it is much closer to the truth to say that it is unreasonable to say that every nation plays by the same rules. To do so is a particularly insidious form of cultural elitism, in fact. Across broad categories of governments, there are many shared values. For instance, true democracies, in the modern sense of the word, share certain values about human rights and human freedoms. Certain false democracies (Cuba for example) pay lip service to the word democracy but citizens there do not enjoy anything remotely close to the kinds of freedoms enjoyed in the US or Europe.

Many nations today that refer to themselves as democracies only pay lip service to the word democracy in fact. Nations that hold elections where only one party is allowed are not really democratic. Nations that elect presidents for life are not, either. Some nations that do hold multi-party, regular elections may have separate controls from other sources, such as religious figure, who actually trump civil government. For those in the West to assume, automatically, that these nations will play with the same rules is naive at best, willfully blind at worst. So with that long introduction, Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute takes a hard look at Iran's track record when it comes to negotiations. It is not a good picture at all. This is a longish paper, so I will direct readers over there for all the details. Rubin details the history of Iran since the Khomeini revolution and its blatant violation of what are considered international norms. But his conclusion is not encouraging.

While diplomacy necessarily involves talking to adversaries, it is dangerous to assume that both Washington and Tehran operate from the same set of ground rules. From its very inception, the Islamic Republic eschewed the convention of international relations and diplomacy. Khomeini sought to establish a theocracy on Shi‘ite religious principles. As such, his writings are illuminating. In several essays, he spoke of the Shi‘ite concept of taqiya, religious dissimulation. Railing against the plots of the West in a series of lectures delivered in Najaf in 1970, Khomeini spoke of the necessity to engage in such religiously sanctioned lying.[50] While many analysts are unaware of taqiya and many academics stigmatize discussion of its extent and derivations for fear of portraying Iran in a negative light, the concept nonetheless influences Tehran’s diplomacy. If the Islamic Republic perceives itself as under threat,[51] its leaders may not only feel compelled to lie, but may also feel justified in so doing. From a religious and political perspective, the ends justify the means. Hence, Khomeini saw nothing wrong with his state-ment to the Guardian, shortly before the Islamic Republic: "I don’t want to have the power of government in my hand; I am not interested in personal power."[52] Tehran may still conduct diplomacy to fish for incentive and reward–and they may demand apologies and use the rhetoric of victimization to win further concessions and position–but, at its core, Iranian diplomacy is insincere. The Iranian leadership will say anything and do anything to buy the time necessary to acquire nuclear capability.

Think about one important thing if you advocate more negotiations.

I am the measure of all things.

(UPDATE: I have not been able to track the exact definition of arrogance I mention down to Thomas Aquinas. I did find this reference to a similar quote from a Greek philosopher, Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things". I remember a teacher, who had been in a Jesuit seminary but had decided not to enter the priesthood, telling me that definition one day. I thought he had said it was Aquinas that had said it, referring to arrogance, but I may be misremembering or he may have misquoted all those years ago. Regardless, I still think the basic idea I wrote about still holds. If anyone does have any idea who defined arrogance in these terms, I'd appreciate a citation.)

Live Longer With The New Wonder Diet!

Really! If it worked for George Johnson, why wouldn't it work for you? After all, he just passed away at the age of 112. Doctors say his autopsy showed "youthful" organs, too, despite his diet that largely consisted of waffles and sausage.

"He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California.

"A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity," Coles said. "But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle."

Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a caregiver began helping him, built the Richmond house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years.

Johnson was the only living Californian considered a "supercentenarian," a designation for those ages 110 or older, Coles said. His group is now in the process of validating a Los Angeles candidate who claims to be 112 years old.

Coles participated in an autopsy Thursday that was designed to study Johnson's health.

"All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets," Coles said.

"Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia," Coles said. "He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer's.

"This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death."

I suspect one of those doctors pushing the "healthy lifestyle" shtick offed him.

American Astronomers Fight Back

American astronomers are not taking the decision to downgrade Pluto from planetary status quietly. They are organizing a campaign to change the definition of a planet once again.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of U.S. scientists have challenged a recent decision by an international astronomy group to strip Pluto of its planetary status with a petition rejecting its definition of what constitutes a planet.

The astronomical insurrection shows that debate is likely to continue over the status of the icy rock at the edge of the solar system that was considered the ninth planet until a vote last week by the International Astronomical Union.

Petition organiser Alan Stern said the union's decision was driven by politics, not science.

"The IAU can say the sky is green all day long and that doesn't make it so," said Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"The IAU created a definition which is technically flawed, linguistically flawed and scientifically embarrassing," Stern said in a phone interview.

The 300 astronomers and planetary scientists who signed the petition said they would not use the IAU's definition. Dissenters are organising a conference next year to hash out a better definition, Stern said.

Pluto has been considered the ninth planet since it was discovered 1930. But the 2003 discovery of a nearby, larger body known as Xena prompted a reconsideration.

After rejecting a proposal to name Xena and two other bodies as planets, the IAU decided to downgrade Pluto and create a first-ever definition of what constitutes a planet.

According to the IAU, a body can be considered a planet if it orbits the Sun, is large enough to be made round by its own gravity, and has cleared the area around it of smaller cosmic objects. (Ed Note: Insert gratuitous Michael Moore joke of your choice here.)

That definition would exclude Earth and other planets that are pelted with asteroids, Stern said.

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are glad to see that American scientists are not taking this lying down. We've been working on this problem in our own quiet way and propose sending a delegation of one to the next IAU convention. Developed by Magic 8-Ball Robotics and Bait Shop, Ltd. we proudly present the Pluonator 2000.

"Vote for me if you want to live"

So, Let’s Take This To The Logical Conclusion

Since I've mentioned Baron Samedi a couple of times in the past few days, this item caught my eye. The US Environmental Protection Agency has just completed a study of the ritualistic use of Mercury in some dwellings where Latino and Caribbean people have been living. It seems that the Mercury Poisoning Project in 2005 had identified the problem. The conclusions the staff reached are somewhat disquieting.

Mercury can be worn in amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to the EPA's inspector general.

Some practitioners believe that the mercury, which forms tiny droplets in liquid form, can attract love, luck or riches, and even ward off evil, the report said.

But mercury's toxic effects are pronounced in the nervous systems and brains of exposed children, and can damage organs and cause seizures in adults.

"Mercury vapors resulting from ritual uses can pose a health risk," the EPA said. "Persons involved in such rituals should be aware of these risks."

There could be a legal basis for the EPA to regulate mercury use, but "starting the process to establish such regulations would drive the practice underground," EPA staff said.

Staff also warned that "restricting the use of mercury might be challenged as a violation of the First Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees U.S. religious freedoms, among other things.

Here's the problem as I see it. Some practitioners of these religions are exposing themselves to danger. Ok, that's their choice. The problem is that the next occupant of the house may be exposed to the contamination and that is not their choice at all. Now the EPA is working out proposed regulations to limit mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Which I actually think could be a good thing, so long as the standards adopted are reasonable - and attainable. But let's take this to a logical, if somewhat facetious, conclusion. What's to stop the utilities from declaring themselves a religion and the coal plants as cathedrals? Presto! Out from under the regulations on religious grounds.

The EPA should not be concerned with the possibility that there may be a first amendment issue. I suspect that there actually isn't one here. This is forcing exposure onto unsuspecting people and I rather doubt the US Supreme Court would look upon that in a benign fashion. Propose some realistic rules, please.

Successful Anti-Missile Test

The US military has completely a very successful test of the anti-missile system it has been developing, shooting down a simulated warhead even though the test was not officially supposed to do so.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The test results will help improve the performance of a multibillion-dollar shield against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack a U.S. city with a weapon of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect data rather than shoot down the target.

It was the first involving a live target since interceptor rockets failed to leave their silos during tests in December 2004 and February 2005.

It was also the first since the ground-based system, which is part of a layered shield that includes naval and aerial components, was activated to guard against ballistic missiles test-fired on July 4 and 5 by North Korea.

As an engineer, I am extremely impressed by something like this. This is an amazing feat even though tests like this are not completely realistic. Most people simply do not realize how complex something like this is. The system has to do so many different things so quickly that it is just an enormous task.

UPDATE: Reuters coverage, but it really doesn't say anything new.

A Woodshed, Part Two

Yesterday, I commented on the news of British made for TV movie that portrays a fictional account of the assassination of President Bush. I wasn't exactly pleased with it. Today, the Daily Mail has a synopsis of the plot. Gee, I just got even less impressed. If possible. My friend Rick over at The Real Ugly American has already done all the heavy lifting on rounding up commentary on this:

Today the Daily Mail (a conservative British paper) has an article by Mark Almond titled What if President Bush really was assassinated? That will get your blood boiling again.

The article lays out the plot line of the movie which is a mix of future left wing conspiracy theories and a frightening insight into the delusions many people in the world suffer from. The main theme being there wouldn’t be any islamofascists if not for American imperialists.

Personally, I've already said that I think this is going to backfire and very badly. The Anchoress sent me a link to an absolutely vile site that was so filled with hate that neither one of us could understand how the person could stand to live with himself. (No I will not link it). To be actively cheer leading for this fictional event to really happen will boomerang.

Changes In Cuba?

The AP is reporting that some changes may be slowly starting to happen in Cuba under Raul Castro. It is still awfully hard to tell exactly what is happening and there still is no sign of Fidel. (After a month, it would seem highly improbable that he will ever be seen alive in public again).

Raul Castro is beginning to show his leadership as acting president while his brother rests from intestinal surgery, and Carlos Lage, another member of the collective, is being featured more prominently in state media. Both have been more inclined than Fidel to open up Cuba's communist economy.

And in a statement much analyzed by Cuba watchers, Raul Castro said he supports normalizing relations with the United States — but only if the Americans stop trying to determine how Cuba is governed.

The U.S. government's latest "transition" plan assumes "a more active civil society" and a "growing sense of frustration among ordinary Cubans" on the island will help hasten change, especially after Fidel Castro, now 80, is gone.

But while pressure to alleviate daily economic struggles is increasing — a reality Raul Castro will have to face — calm has reigned under the 75-year-old defense minister's leadership. And with the Cuban government running smoothly, attention is shifting to whether the U.S. might change its long-standing focus on pushing out the Castro government.

"If Raul Castro decides to make some serious changes in Cuba, that would immediately knock the props from under the existing policy of the United States," said Mark Falcoff, resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.

Some Cuban dissidents, from the moderate Oscar Espinosa Chepe to the more strident Martha Beatriz Roque, say Raul may listen to younger government leaders and allow more private enterprise. Even modest economic openings could lead to increased political freedoms, they say.

While Raul strongly embraces the primacy of the communist party, he has shown a willingness to experiment with a freer economy.

Raul expressed interest in China's model of capitalist reform with one-party political control during a November 1997 visit. And it was Raul who announced in 1994 that farmers markets were being set up to allow the island's growers to sell crops for whatever price they could get, introducing more Cubans to private enterprise.

Lage, in turn, was involved in other reforms that helped Cuba survive economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union cut off substantial subsidies. The changes allowed trade in U.S. dollars and foreign investment, spun off state farms into cooperatives and legalized hundreds of small private businesses.

Fidel Castro later retreated from many of those popular reforms, limiting self-employment licenses, imposing restrictions on farmers markets and removing the U.S. dollar from circulation. But despite unhappiness among many Cubans about the pullback, dramatic and rapid change here seems unlikely.

While the US appears to be now playing it very cautiously, most communist states that have been led by a cult of personality have not had successful, peaceful transitions when the strongman dies. It is, of course, not impossible, but there is a lot of precedent out there where violence or collapse have occurred. I would rather not see any violent changes, of course.

More Signs

Today, there are still more signs that the economy is simply nowhere near as bad as pessimists and other professional pessimists want to paint it. The jobless rate decreased again as employers added some 128,000 jobs.

Hiring perked up in August as employers added 128,000 jobs, pulling down the unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, sending a Labor Day message that the economic expansion still has staying power.

The latest snapshot, released by the Labor Department Friday, was a bit brighter than expected and should ease any fears that the expansion that began in late 2001 is not in danger of fizzling out.

The tally of new jobs last month was slightly stronger than the 125,000 that economists were forecasting. The nation's unemployment rate dropped down a notch from a five-month high of 4.8 percent in July. Job gains for June and July also turned out to be better than previously estimated. In June, employers boosted payrolls by 134,000 positions and in July they added another 121,000.

The report comes as the nation's work force gets ready to the Labor Day holiday and as the election season looms.

Economic conditions _ especially those where people live and work _ are likely to be on voters' minds when they go to the polls in November.

Workers' average hourly earnings edged up to $16.79 in August, a 0.1 percent increase from July. Economists were forecasting a bigger, 0.3 percent advance. While workers welcome strong wage growth, economists worry that a rapid and prolonged pickup in wages can ignite inflation fears.

Over the 12 months ending August, wages grew by a strong 3.9 percent. The last time this figure was higher was in June 2001.

For those who do not understand my point here, I am not saying everything is peachy in the economy. What am am saying is that it simply is not as bleak as some people are painting it.

Cambodia Passes Adultery Law - Legislators Walk Out

The Cambodian parliament has passed a law which could send convicted adulterers to jail for up to a year. Lawmakers opposed to the measure immediately stormed out.

The vote prompted a walkout by opposition lawmakers who said the law carried echoes of the Khmer Rouge and the Taliban in a country which should be tackling poverty and corruption instead of legislating about morality.

But the government argued the law would help reduce pervasive corruption by removing the temptation for officials to steal from state coffers to maintain mistresses as well as halting what it called a decline in morality.

"This law is also aimed at reducing corruption, because when government officials have more women, they seek more financial sources to support their girls," National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin said.

The walkout of lawmakers came as a complete surprise since it was the entire French parliament that did the walking.

Sexus Politicus, published on Thursday, reveals decades of philandering, adultery and seduction at the heart of the French state, with politicians of all colours apparently sharing the same passion for extra-marital sex.

According to the book, President Jacques Chirac and his predecessors Francois Mitterrand and Valery Giscard D'Estaing have juggled the fate of France, their families and a bevy of lovers with great ease, helped partly by an acquiescent media.

While there is little in the 390-page book that will surprise France's chattering classes, it nonetheless rips up the long-standing rule that what politicians do between the sheets should remain strictly off the record.

"All these politicians present themselves as clean-living individuals, but at the same time almost all French male politicians are compulsive womanisers," said Christophe Dubois, who co-authored the book with Christophe Deloire.

"This is an area that no one has explored before. It was a taboo. We've broken this taboo with the complicity of the politicians," he told Reuters, explaining how many of the book's targets willingly discussed their amorous exploits.

(I just knew I could tie those two stories together somehow!)

Assurances From Dictators

Well, I certainly feel reassured. Kofi Annan has held a press conference to tell the world that Bashar Assad has agreed to enforce a weapons embargo on Hezbollah. And they are even offering to conduct joint patrols with the Lebanese army to do it. Why, it's exactly like putting the fox in charge of guarding the hen house!

DAMASCUS, Syria - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday that Syria has pledged to step up border patrols and work with the Lebanese army to stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.

Annan also said that he had asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to use his nation's influence to help win the release of three Israeli soldiers held by Lebanese and Palestinian militants allied with Damascus.

According to Annan, Assad said at a meeting in Damascus that Syria will boost the number of its guards along the Lebanon-Syria border and establish joint patrols with the Lebanese army "where possible."

Israel has insisted that the international force be stationed along the Syrian frontier, although Assad has warned that such a presence would be considered "hostile."

Annan said Assad restated "Syria's objection to the presence of foreign forces along the Lebanese-Syrian borders."

The U.N. chief spoke with reporters at the Damascus airport before departing for Qatar. Assad made no public comments after the meeting.

Yeah, assurances from dictators are just so trustworthy. Especially when they object to the one thing that could provide verification of the trustworthiness of the assurances.

Batty Behavior

A school in Arkansas has had to evacuate students from classrooms until officials can deal with a situation that is driving the educators batty. That would be an infestation of bats who have invaded the walls and ceilings of the school.

Bats are roosting inside Mansfield Elementary School, and it appears the problem has gotten worse since classes resumed in August. In some cases, teachers have had to move students out of their classrooms.

School officials said a teacher found a dead bat in a utility closet a few days before school started. District officials told authorities they thought it was an isolated incident, but when they started finding more and more guano, they knew there was a problem.

"I had no idea it was going to be this big, had no idea," said Mansfield Elementary Principal Kathy Goff. "We found guano on the roof. That's when we knew there was a major problem."

Superintendent Jim Hattabaugh believed students were the source of one problem.

"We started looking around and noticed the odor was something else, and we kind of blamed that on the little boys missing the toilet," he said.

The bats are in the classrooms, on ceilings and, according to animal-control officers, behind the walls.

"They are really small. They can hide in a crevice. They are just a pest," Hattabaugh said.

After consulting with animal control workers, school officials set up a bat funnel. They hope the bats will fly out at night and not find their way back in.

Just another front in the animal uprising. Now the evil winged rodents are trying to keep our kids from being educated.

(Actually, this is a pretty dangerous situation. Not only is there a risk of rabies associated with the little beasts, but bat guano is quite nasty and can be a source of histoplasmosis - and yes, I am aware bat guano is used as a fertilizer, but ideally that guano has been composted and sterilized.)

Explaining The War

Daniel Henninger has a column up in the Opinion Journal that is well worth taking the time to read. It makes the case for Bush to not repeat the mistakes Truman made in 1950. (H/T Blackhawk in the comments section).

Some of us have worried for years that the Bush administration wasn't making a steady public case for the war in Iraq. And that at the least, the troops fighting the war deserved it. Now in the past week alone have come major speeches on Iraq and the war on terror by Secretaries Rice, Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and yesterday the president himself, telling the American Legion's convention that we are engaged in the "decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."

….

Truman's failures and losses are largely lost to popular historical memory. Mr. Bush himself rifled the Truman library of its foreign-policy successes this past May at the West Point commencement. He described a world beset by the new communist threat–Greece, Turkey, Czechoslovakia and China for starters–then noted that Truman "recognized the threat and took bold action to confront it." Citing a lengthy list of Truman's foreign-policy achievements in those unsettled years (the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949) he said, "President Truman made clear that the Cold War was an ideological struggle between tyranny and freedom."

This Bushian turn on the parallel bars struck me as legitimate, but after he gave that speech, some liberal pundits themselves went nuclear, accusing the president of misappropriating a Democratic party saint. But the similarities are intriguing.

The Korean War sat inside the broader context of the cold war, which Truman presaged in a stirring speech to Congress in 1947. Mr. Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq followed on his strong post-September 11 speech to Congress, announcing a new global war on terror. Each president in turn promised that the Cold War and the war on terror would be long, hard slogs.

As Henninger says, I have long felt Bush was not doing enough to keep explaining the war in Iraq. The troops deserve not to be abandoned to the negativity of the left. The Truman comparisons are quite apt in this context. Truman did not stump in 1950 and it cost his party - and him personally - an awful lot. Many people forget that or never knew that in the first place. History tends to forget things like that when recalling presidencies. We should try to remember. Bush needs to keep explaining the reasons for war in the face of the continued onslaught of negativity. The troops deserve no less.

Bears Raid Kitchen - Get Surprise

A 72-year old woman cooking pot roast was surprised to find a bear standing in her kitchen. The bear hissed and swatted the woman. Whereupon the feisty woman scared the beast out of her kitchen! They raise 'em tough in Colorado, apparently. Then comes the best part of the story. The women then found the bear's cub also in her house. She pushed it out the door!

The unidentified woman walked into the kitchen and found the bear standing six feet away, apparently surprising it, Vail police Sgt. Dan Torgerson said. The bear hissed at her and swatted her chest and arm, giving her some minor scratches. The woman then scared it off by yelling and clapping her hands.

Torgerson said the bear hissed again and then left through a side door.

"If the bear was trying to hurt her, it very easily could have," he said. "I think it was just surprised."

The woman then found a cub in her house and she pushed it out the door, Torgerson said.

That bear and cub are believed to be the same ones that entered another home and ate food off the kitchen counter. The owners refused to let wildlife officials set traps for bears in their homes.

Another burglary attempt by the animal uprising foiled by a feisty 72-year old woman. She is our hero for the day!

Killing A Zombie

Yesterday, I wrote about the attempt by some to resurrect the foul corpse of the Plame investigation. CNN was happy to bring Baron Samedi to the graveyard while the dynamic duo of Plame and Wilson keep trying the incantations in civil court. Today the Washington Post comes out with what reasonable people will consider the final word on this pumped up set of lies masquerading as a scandal.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House — that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson — is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.

That's not to say that Mr. Libby and other White House officials are blameless. As prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has reported, when Mr. Wilson charged that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make a case for war, Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney reacted by inquiring about Ms. Plame's role in recommending Mr. Wilson for a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, where he investigated reports that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium. Mr. Libby then allegedly disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to journalists and lied to a grand jury when he said he had learned of her identity from one of those reporters. Mr. Libby and his boss, Mr. Cheney, were trying to discredit Mr. Wilson; if Mr. Fitzgerald's account is correct, they were careless about handling information that was classified.

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson.

Now, while reasonable people may consider that the final word, the people who pimped this story endlessly and created the elaborate house of cards that was Plamegate have proven themselves completely lacking in reason. But salvation is at hand, folks. Obtain a copy of the WaPo editorial and roll it up into a tight tube. When someone raises the zombie of the Plame affair, apply the rolled up news paper sharply to the side of the zombie's head. After all, we have expert advice that that is the way to deal with zombies.