Campaign Finance Myths

George Will, writing in the Washington Post has a devastating takedown of public financing of presidential elections. Meant to be a high-minded way to take all candidates to a level playing field, public financing has instead limited candidates and provided funds to convicted felons. Later changes, like the McCain-Feingold incumbent protection act, have made the situation worse:

It is delicious that the McCain-Feingold law, the reformers' most recent handiwork, is helping kill taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns. Before McCain-Feingold, limits on contributions of private money — set in 1974 and not indexed for inflation — became steadily more restrictive, so candidates accepted public funding. But McCain-Feingold, by doubling the permissible size of campaign contributions, made it easier for candidates to raise sums far larger than taxpayer funding provides.

Public funding was supposed to increase voter turnout by decreasing the cynicism supposedly caused by privately financed politics. But Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, notes that turnout did not surge until 2004. Then, the dramatic increase correlated with a surge of private money, much of it devoted to voter turnout efforts. Reformers considered this surge evidence of increasing corruption and, of course, evidence of the need for more regulation of speech.

John Samples of the Cato Institute, in his new book, "The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform," demolishes the argument that taxpayer funding has increased voters' choices by increasing the number of presidential candidates. The seven elections before 1976 had an average of 10.7 candidates who received at least 1 percent of the votes in the two major parties' primaries. Since taxpayer funding was enacted, the average has been 7.8 candidates. In the 15 elections since 1945, the two most successful independent candidates — George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992 — did not use government funds. Taxpayer financing, which liberals love, did help Ralph Nader win 2.7 percent of the 2000 vote, including 97,488 Florida votes that cost the liberals' candidate, Al Gore, the presidency.

Does anyone argue that the $1.3 billion in tax dollars given to candidates since 1976 has purchased more elevated campaigns? About 10 percent of public funding pays for the two parties' conventions — vacuous festivities for a few thousand activists. Major broadcast organizations no longer cover conventions extensively because the public, which considers them unimportant, will not watch.

Both public financing and McCain-Feingold are actually bad for the election process. Go read the rest of Will's analysis.

Going Nuclear

Glenn Reynolds has an article up over at TCS Daily that argues that it might just be time to seriously look at nuclear energy if you are serious about global warming and American dependence on foreign oil. He describes the "Pebble Bed" reactor and the changes it might entail. (Full disclosure here, I used to work for a company that was very interested in this technology. However, we parted on bad terms, so I'm not biased in their favor).

What's more, we're fortunate that the choice isn't between continuing to burn fossil fuels or shifting to nuclear power as we've known it over the past several decades. Although nuclear power plants to date have been safer and more economical than is generally appreciated, the current generation of operational nuclear plants is obsolescent and results have been, in many ways, disappointing.

Fortunately, the technology hasn't been standing still. Partly as a result of recent Congressional efforts to fund reactor research, and partly as a result of ongoing work in national laboratories and the nuclear power industry, things in the field are looking up. As a recent survey article in Popular Mechanics magazine makes clear, there are new approaches to nuclear power in the offing that promise cleaner and more efficient power production with far less risk of "all-out" (or even minor) nuclear war in the process. Of these, perhaps the most promising technology is the pebble bed reactor:

"A typical pebble-bed reactor would function somewhat like a giant gumball machine. The design calls for a core filled with about 360,000 of these fuel pebbles — "kernels" of uranium oxide wrapped in two layers of silicon carbide and one layer of pyrolytic carbon, and embedded in a graphite shell. Each day about 3000 pebbles are removed from the bottom as fuel becomes spent. Fresh pebbles are added to the top, eliminating the need to shut down the reactor for refueling. Helium gas flows through the spaces between the spheres, carrying away the heat of the reacting fuel. This hot gas — which is inert, so a leak wouldn't be radioactive — can then be used to spin a turbine to generate electricity, or serve more exotic uses such as produce hydrogen, refine shale oil or desalinate water.

"The pebbles are fireproof and almost impossible to use for weapons production. The spent fuel is easy to transport and store, though there still remains the long-term problem of where to store it. And the design of the nuclear reactor is inherently meltdown-proof. If the fuel gets too hot, it begins absorbing neutrons, shutting down the chain reaction. In 2004, the cooling gas and secondary safety controls were shut off at an experimental pebble-bed reactor in China — and no calamity followed, says MIT professor Andrew Kadak, who witnessed the test."

China, with a booming economy, a huge population, and air pollution problems that are already absolutely dreadful, is very interested in pebble bed reactors. And they would seem to promise a lot for the United States, too — plus a way to promote nuclear power in the Third World without the kinds of nuclear-weapons proliferation threats we face today.

This kind of reactor would be much less likely to be misused for weapons production and would be a major plus for the reduction of greenhouse gases. It is well worth going ahead on projects like this.

UPDATE: Request from the comments section: more information on the pebble bed reactor concept. Here's the Wikipedia entry, here's the MIT information about the project and here's the South African information.

Reading Polls

Judith Apter Klinghoffer has a definitive breakdown of the latest polls coming out of Iraq. You REALLY need to read this before you accept the media spin that is being force-fed to the American public. All is not what it seems. First of all, al Qaeda has decisively lost in Iraq.

Al Qaeda has desicively lost the Iraqi battlefield.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

There is much more, I urge you to go read this. The people claiming we have got to pull out of Iraq precipitously are dead wrong. The Iraqi people are really moving toward democracy. There is still a ways to go, but we must not abandon them. The people shouting that we must leave at once do not give a damn about the horrible bloodshed that will ensue if we just cut and run. They care not one whit for any human life at all, despite their protestations.

I think we were right to go to war, others do not. That's fine, that is what democracy is about. We can disagree about a lot of things. But we must remember: Our troops are there and they are giving these people a chance they did not have before. But if we leave them in the lurch, more and more of them will die or be maimed, And we will have robbed all honor from the job the troops have done to date and dishonored those who have sacrificed in Iraq.

If we leave these people to their fate, history will judge us harshly. History will be right.

UPDATE: Flopping Aces sees a bit of a problem with the MSM spin, too.

The Rim Of Opportunity

The Mars Rover Opportunity has reached the rim of Victoria Crater and has beamed back a stunning picture of the place. The little robot that could has done good.

The rover beamed black-and-white images back to Earth showing the crater interior complete with hanging rocky cliffs and rippling sand dunes on its floor.

"We made it!" said rover principal scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

The road to Victoria Crater, a half-mile wide and 230-foot deep impact crater, was tough. The six-wheeled Opportunity drove through what scientists called a "wasteland." At one point, it spent five weeks stuck hub-deep in a slippery sand dune before freeing itself.

Victoria, with its exposed walls of thickly layered rocks, is a treasure trove for scientists trying to determine whether the rocks were formed in shallow lakes, which might suggest the planet once could have been hospitable to life.

"The big payoff is getting to the rock record," said deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.

Opportunity will spend a day looking for a more favorable spot around the rim to take a panorama of the vista. Meanwhile, scientists are plotting Opportunity's next move and analyzing the images to find the safest route for the rover to enter.

You really have to see this picture, click the image to see the full size version. (JPL Website for more Mars stuff is here.)

Very Bad Moves

I have never watched Keith Olberman's show, but have seen a few video clips. My opinion of him? He's a jerk on the make. He thinks he can build a name for himself by playing to the left and being more and more extreme in his anti-Bush diatribes. Some share my opinion, some think he's wonderful, some think he's good, some think he's bad. None of which gives anyone the right to send the man a packet of powder in the mail and attempt to terrify him.

None of which gives the NY Post license to make fun of him, either.

I'd guess that if a packet of powder, even harmless powder has the Olberman packet turned out to be, showed up at the home of the Post reporter who wrote the article, the tone of the report would be a bit different. This is nothing to laugh at or make fun of.

There is absolutely no way at this point to make a judgment as to who sent this. It could be a partisan on either side of the political divide. One to scare Olberman, the other to make false accusations about the other side trying to scare Olberman. It could be a jerkoff with a sick sense of humor. Whoever it is, I sincerely hope he or she gets caught and sent to prison for a long, long time.

Olberman may be a jerk, but he still has a right to say what he wants without someone trying to terrorize him. Or without the NY Post making fun of him for being frightened by this. These are both very bad moves.

UPDATE: Others: Done With Mirrors, RWNH, A Blog For All, Patterico, TMV, Political Pit Bull, Hugh Hewitt,

It’s Not Just Iraq

William Arkin has a very good post up about the NIE and the war on terror in general. He points out that Iraq is only part of what is going on in the War on Terror and it is not a good idea to paint it too simplistically. Nor is it wise to ignore the other things that are fueling the jihadis.

Even without the Iraq war, the "grievances" would still exist, and they are not just about domestic Muslim stagnation or some inner-Islamic religious war.  Furthermore, the "anger" and "humiliation" rampant in the Muslim and jihadist world do not find their origins in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

If anything, the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein was not a surprise to most Muslims.

What is more, the Iraq war at this point, and the "jihad" fighting America in Iraq, is having the effect of breeding a strange sense of hope: in Iraq, and in Afghanistan where al Qaeda survives, in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden continues to live, in Lebanon where Israel is defeated, the dominant anti-American narrative is that Osama bin Laden and other defenders of Islam were right from the beginning: just as the Soviet Union was "defeated" in Afghanistan, the United States and Israel can also be defeated.

The simplistic story line that the Democrats are pushing is all about and solely about Iraq: withdraw U.S. forces, defeat the Republicans, tidy up foreign policy by giving human rights to prisoners and being nicer in the world, and voila, terror subsides.

President Bush, on the other hand, loves to insist that before we were "in" Iraq, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon anyhow, hence the age of mega-terror is not about the Iraq war.

"My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions," Bush said yesterday. "They kill in order to achieve their objectives."
 
Both the Democrats and the President are wrong.

Go read it all. I try here to cover a lot of other areas of the world where trouble is brewing, not just Iraq. Arkin is right that there is a lot more going on here and a lot of interrelated events. A precipitous pullout from Iraq would make the situation even worse.

House Detainee Bill Passes 253-168

Some Democrats have supported the bill it seems.

For nearly two weeks the GOP have been embarrassed as the White House and rebellious Republican senators have fought publicly over whether Bush's plan would give him too much authority. But they struck a compromise last Thursday, and Republicans are hoping approval will bolster their effort to cast themselves as strong on national security, a marquee issue this election year.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, all but dared Democrats to vote against the legislation.

"Will my Democrat friends work with Republicans to give the president the tools he needs to continue to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, or will they vote to force him to fight the terrorists with one arm tied behind his back?" he asked just before members cast their ballots.

Democrats opposed the bill by about a five-to-one margin, with many wanting to tone down the powers it would give to Bush and the limits it would impose on terror-war suspects' abilities to defend themselves during trials.

Space To Let

A couple of items of interest from Space.com. First, the design of the Project Orion capsule is progressing rapidly. What basically looks just like an over sized Apollo capsule is being designed and built by Lockheed Martin with design input by NASA. They are moving into the cockpit design phase now and have two basic configurations in mind: a four seat configuration for moon voyages and a six seat layout for shorter trips to the International Space Station.

The pieces are coming together for NASA’s next spaceship Orion as space agency engineers begin working with lead contractor Lockheed Martin to shape the vehicle’s cockpit.

“We’re bringing the design teams together and looking at the features of this so that we can adjust and have one integrated concept,” NASA’s Orion project manager Caris ‘Skip’ Hatfield told SPACE.com this month, adding that astronauts are key in the design process. “We don’t want to deliver them a cockpit and have them hate it.”

As an engineer I can state quite firmly that getting the end-user involved in the design phase is crucial to a getting a good final product. Smart move by Lockheed Martin.

Next, we have a "by Jupiter" moment. The New Horizons probe, bound for the artist planet formerly known as Pluto, took a long range photo of Jupiter which even at the distance of 181 million miles shows the promise of the incredible imaging system the craft carries.

"New Horizons is speeding toward this majestic planet at 45,000 miles per hour, right on target for a close encounter on Feb. 28 of next year," said New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), where LORRI was designed and built. "LORRI's resolution at Jupiter will be 125 times better than now, and we're really looking forward to getting the most detailed views of the Jovian system since Cassini's flyby in late 2000 and Galileo's final images in 2003."

If it's this good at 181 million miles, we have some stunning pictures to look forward to.

Malevolent Marsupial Motivates Mêlée

A wily opossum started a chain of events that ended up with a man tasered, his subsequent escape, a dog shot, then the capture of the fugitive. Sounds like an exciting day in San Diego. The malicious marsupial started the ball rolling by letting himself be spotted then pretending to be injured.

The events unfolded when officers were called to 44th Street north of El Cajon Boulevard in the Talmadge neighborhood after receiving a 911 call shortly before 11 a.m.

A man reportedly was yelling at another person who was standing over an injured possum, police said.

San Diego police Sgt. Rod Vandiver said the shouting man, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, started yelling at officers when they arrived.

Police Lt. Roger Howes said the man threatened an officer and claimed to have a gun. Vandiver said the man was cursing and then charged at the officers.

“Our officers then Tased the man, but he removed the barbs and walked away,” Vandiver said.

When the man refused to stop, officers chased him into a nearby fenced yard, where a Rottweiler came at one of them. The officers shot and wounded the dog, Vandiver said. A second dog, a pit bull, was not injured.

By then, students at nearby Hoover High had been restricted to their classrooms, and some residents had been cleared from the area.

The man managed to escape with the help of another man. They were found about 20 minutes later and taken into custody.

The troublemaker got his, though. He was so good at playing 'possum that the authorities had him put down.

The Vicious Season

Generally, the term 'The silly season' is used to refer to the time period when Congress is not in session during the summer. It is a time when there is little day-to-day news coming out of Washington and newspapers have traditionally had to come up with something to fill the paper. Hence, stories that normally would never get published get treated as serious and newsworthy, regardless how silly those stories are. I have sometimes seen the term applied to the campaign season after Congress adjourns as well, but that isn't really where the term originated. Yet it is an apt way to describe the campaign break most of the time.

We had the traditional silly season last month while Congress was adjourned. It was somewhat less noticeable because of other world events, but I could see it in some of the stories that were getting coverage. But after Congress reconvened, there should be less silly stuff getting ink, right? And so it is that this year, the humorous stories are fewer now, and the mountain out of a molehill stories that normally wouldn't see print are again not getting printed. But there is something else this year. The silly season has been replaced by something else.

The Vicious Season.

The worst manifestation of how utterly vicious it has gotten this year is the mess in the Virginia Senate campaign. The kinds of vile charges being thrown there this year is about the worst I can remember. The sudden accusations against Senator George Allen of his use of a highly inflammatory word were published despite some rather obvious problems with them. Allen has served in public office for many years now. Why would these suddenly pop up now? Only one source for these stories came forward publicly. That source is highly motivated to pull a political hit on Allen. The stories did not pass even rudimentary interpretations of journalistic standards, but saw print anyway.

The Allen campaign counterattacked and disproved key assertions of the story at once. Now journalists cannot get any collaboration for the deer head story from people who would remember such an event, law enforcement officials. It also turns out that opposition candidate Webb himself has used the offensive term in published writings.

Also Tuesday, Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, declined to say definitively whether he had ever used a racial slur to describe blacks.

"I don't think that there's anyone who grew up around the South that hasn't had the word pass through their lips at one time or another in their life," Webb told reporters.

Webb referred to his novel, "Fields of Fire," which aides said includes passages using the n-word as part of character dialogue. But he added: "I have never issued a racial or ethnic slur."

Asked for clarification of his original answer, spokeswoman Jessica Smith quoted Webb as saying, "I have never used that word in my general vocabulary or in any derogatory way."

She declined to say whether he had ever used the word apart from when he wrote his book.

Allegations of racial insensitivity by Allen dating to his high school days in California have become a major distraction for the senator since August, when he called a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent "macaca." The word is considered a racial slur in some cultures.

On Monday, a former football teammate of Allen's, Dr. Ken Shelton, said he heard Allen frequently use a common slur applied to blacks among white friends while in college. Allen called the claim "ludicrously false" and released statements from four other ex-teammates defending the senator and rejecting Shelton's claims.

Also in interviews with the AP and Salon.com late Sunday, Shelton claimed that on a hunting trip to Louisa County in 1973 or 1974, Allen stuffed the severed head of a female deer into the oversized mailbox of a black household near Bumpass, Va., 40 miles east of the university.

But in interviews Tuesday, two Louisa County sheriff's deputies who were on the force in the early '70s said that they recall no complaints about severed animal heads.

Retired Lt. Robert Rigsby said he was in charge of investigations in the early '70s, and any such report would have gone through him.

"I think that's a myth," Rigsby said.

Another veteran officer, Deputy William Seay, also could recall no such incident. Authorities said they did not know if records from so long ago would be preserved.

So we appear to have allegations that are unraveling very quickly indeed under scrutiny. Even the much ballyhooed statement by Larry Sabato turns out to have been hearsay on his part (and he has likely just damaged his "most quoted" status because of that). Had the journalists involved done even rudimentary fact checking and followed normal rules, this story would never have been published. But if in the silly season, stories that are really molehills can be made into mountains. In the vicious season, false allegations can be made into major stories for political reasons, it seems. The press will cooperate.

7-11 Store Chain Drops Contract With Citgo!

Wow. The 7-11 chain of convenience stores is dropping Venezuelan owned Citgo gasoline at over 2,100 locations and switching to other suppliers. The chain has had a contract with Citgo for 20 years but it dropping them because of Hugo Chavez's performance at the United Nations.

A spokeswoman for Dallas-based 7-Eleven said its 20-year contract with Citgo Petroleum Corp. ends next week. About 2,100 of 7-Eleven's 5,300 U.S. stores sell gasoline.

Citgo is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and the foreign parent became a public-relations issue for 7-Eleven because of comments by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez has called President George W. Bush the devil and an alcoholic. The U.S. government has warned that Chavez is a destabilizing force in Latin America.

7-Eleven spokesman Margaret Chabris said that, "Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez."

Bam! A punch directly to the wallet. Three cheers for 7-11!

UPDATE: The AP story has been updated with a few new pieces of information. There may be a bit of opportunism on the company's part here to take advantage of some publicity.

Chabris said 7-Eleven's decision to sell its own brand was based on many factors, including Citgo's decision this summer to stop supplying stations in parts of Texas and other states to focus on retailers closer to its refineries in Corpus Christi, Lake Charles, La., and Lemont, Ill.

But 7-Eleven had been considering creating its own brand of fuel since at least early last year, and some analysts suggested 7-Eleven may now be hyping the political angle a way to curry favor with U.S. consumers.

I'd be kind of surprised if Chavez's antics had not had some effect on the decisions, though. He has been getting notably worse in the past year or so.

And In The Interest Of Being Fair

A French accomplishment toward the advancement of medicine in space. Using a specially equipped Airbus aircraft, French doctors have proven the feasability of performing surgery in zero gravity.

Dominique Martin, head of Bordeaux university hospital's plastic surgery unit, removed a fatty cyst from the forearm of volunteer patient Philippe Sanchot.

"It happened in accordance with our expectations. Today we performed a feasibility test. We weren't seeking to achieve a technical exploit," Martin told a news conference at an airport near the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

The operation lasted around 11 minutes and was performed in 32 sequences, during which an Airbus 300 Zero G aircraft flew in arcs putting it into free fall and creating weightless conditions for 22 seconds each time.

In a specially-developed operating theater, measuring two meters by two meters, surgical instruments were held in place by powerful magnets and the surgeons by harnesses.

"If we had had two hours of continuous weightlessness, we could have operated on an appendicitis," Martin said.

The facility, developed with the help of a leading elevator manufacturer, is intended to be installed in the International Space Station or in a future base on the moon, Martin told French daily Liberation.

It is virtually certain that at some point there will be a medical emergency in space that requires emergency surgery. Kudos to the French and to the doctors who worked to prove the concept.

More About The NIE

From Jules Crittenden at the Boston Herald, a detailed breakdown of what the NIE says, or does not say.

 1.In time of war, the nation’s classified intelligence analysis of the enemy’s capabilities is none of our, the public’s, business. It is not the New York Times’ business. It is the business of those who are prosecuting this war. They use it to determine strategy and tactics for defeating that enemy.
 
2. It is, however, the business of a select few in Congress. For the purpose of oversight. Not for the purpose of scoring cheap political points.
 
Thanks to the New York Times and its politically-tainted abuse of our nation’s classified intelligence, the NIE’s key judgments are no longer classified, and are very much the subject of political opportunism. Subsequent news reports continue to be distorted, omitting or burying key elements while seizing on sensational aspects such as the description of the Iraq war as a "cause celebre" among terrorists. Those news reports would have you believe that President Bush lied when he said the United States is winning the War on Terrorism. They have characterized the NIE’s assessment as "bleak."

Please go read the whole thing. It is a good analysis, and it exposes the terribly distorted coverage the media have given of this report to date. Unfortunately, they are continuing to try to distort the NIE.

Laugh Of The Day

Courtesy of The New Republic and Marty Peretz: A collection of quotes about the French!

"France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes." –Mark Twain

"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." –General George S. Patton

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." –Norman Schwartzkopf

"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it." –Marge Simpson

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." –Jacques Chirac, President of France

"As far as France is concerned, you're right." –Rush Limbaugh

"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." –Regis Philbin

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it." –John McCain, U.S. Senator (AZ)

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get Hitler out of France either." –Jay Leno

"The last time the French asked for "more proof'' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." –David Letterman

"War without France would be like … uh … World War II."

"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?" –Dennis Miller

"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us." –Alan Kent

"They've taken their own precautions against al-Quaida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house." –Argus Hamilton

"Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day–the description 'Never shot. Dropped once.'" –Rep. Roy Blunt (MO)

"The French will only agree to go to war when we've proven we've found truffles in Iraq." –Dennis Miller

"Raise your right hand if you like the French. Raise both hands if you are French."

"Question: Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris?
Answer: It's not known, it's never been tried." –Rep. Roy Blunt (MO)

"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining." –John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv.

"The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the London bombings that it has raised its terror alert from 'Run' to 'Hide.' The only two higher levels in France are 'Surrender' and 'Collaborate.' The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling their military."

"French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney. … The French government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at EuroDisney. The decision comes that day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists." –AP Paris

My favorite is the one from Schwartzkopf.

Locusts Besiege Cancun, Demand Tequila

Those party animals of the animal uprising, the locust, have laid siege to the Mexican resort city of Cancun. Our sources tell us that the locust heard about the free tequila that is available to tourists at the all-inclusive resorts there and are demanding their share of the bounty. (Our sources sometimes appear to have been indulging in tequila, but that's another story).

Traveling in dark fogs, locusts are grasshoppers that have entered a swarming phase, capable of covering large distances and rapidly stripping fields of vegetation.

"Imagine, they fly in the form of a flock. Imagine the width of a street," government official Martin Rodriguez said on Tuesday, describing the fields around Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Towns have formed pesticide-armed brigades and are winning the war against the 3-week-old plague that has left tourist areas unharmed, authorities said.

Squads wait until night when the flying insects are roosting on plants to blast them. They carry motorized backpack pumps to shoot chemicals in a crusade that has affected from 2,000 to 2,500 acres of farm land.

"It is a war, effectively," said German Parra, a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state of Quintana Roo, home of tourist resorts Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

Hot weather and an absence of mobility-limiting hurricanes have allowed the insects to breed more than normal but authorities hope to end the infestation in the next eight days.

So far the swarming party pests haven't actually made it to the beaches or the pool bars, but it is only a matter of time. Hide the tequila! Or drink it at once! (Send a bottle or two up this way, too. Our sources are thirsty).