We Regret To Inform Everyone…

… But Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer will not be making an appearance for Christmas this year. Or ever again. He was reported to have been making a good will tour of Alaska and had the misfortune of stopping by the village of Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island. There, he was invited to be seated in a place of honor at a banquet. Unfortunately, he did not quite understand the language as well as he could have. The word used was not "seated".

It was "served".

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Reindeer Messenger Festival is among the newest events in the Cup'ig Eskimo village of Mekoryuk — and one based on an ancient tradition resurrected by residents after decades of suppression.

The festival, called Qusngim Kevga, opens with a roundup of reindeer from a herd introduced in the 1920s to Nunivak Island, 40 miles off the western coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea.

Held every other year, the festival also features reindeer meat raffles and banquets shared with visitors from other villages. It's a time to relish the bounty brought by hunting and gathering subsistence foods in the harsh environment of the island, where constant winds carve the snow like sand dunes.

But most of all the three-day event, which kicks off Thursday (Dec. 7), celebrates the revival of long banished native dancing and festivals in the community of 200.

"It would be hard to create something like this without having foundations in the past," said Howard Amos, a member of the Mekoryuk tribal council and co-creator of the village's first dance group in more than six decades.

The Mekoryuk dancers, in fact, made their debut at the inaugural reindeer festival in 2002, performing with headdresses and large flat drums after appearances by seasoned dance groups from the Yupik Eskimo villages of Tununak and Toksook Bay. It was the first time that people had danced publicly in Mekoryuk since 1936, when the tradition was banned as heathen by missionaries establishing the Evangelical Covenant Church there.

Simeon John, 48, a drummer with the Toksook Bay dancers, remembers the crowd's emotional response to the Mekoryuk performance.

"It was a historic event," he said. "Something that came back after 60-something years was very good to see. It's part of our identity. When we're stripped of it, we're not whole and by them getting it back, it's like something missing has come back."

We are saddened to have to bring this unfortunate news to the world so close to the Christmas season. However, we did purchase a raffle ticket and hope to at least see some good steaks.

(Information on Mekoryuk and Nunivak Island can be found here.)

Finally Fighting Back?

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have been known to now and then have a bit of fun at the expense of the Scots. We do this not because we have any enmity for them, but actually because we think that having a national cuisine based entirely on a dare is actually a plus in this world of ours. Besides, even if they serve you haggis, you can wash it down with "whisky". But now, it turns out that the folks at Glasgow University are working on one of the first effective countermeasures against the fishy contingent of the Animal Uprising™. Forget that silly movie RoboCop, they are working on the real deal:

The RoboSalmon.

The robot has a built-in camera to broadcast images of real fish back to the operators of the device. Zoologists will use RoboSalmon to monitor various fish species in their natural habitat.

A key feature of RoboSalmon is its propulsion system. Since the robot will use its fins and tail for movement, it will be able to move through the water in a way that is more natural for aquatic creatures. Propellers make an unnatural noise that disturbs fish; RoboSalmon's biomimetic characteristics should help it blend in.

Robot evolution (biomimetic or not) does not follow the course of natural evolution. It turns out the the RoboSalmon is a direct descendant of the SHARC - Submersible Hybrid Autonomous Rover Craft.

The SHARC was also designed as a biomimetic system, using its tail to move around.

Pictures of the device are here. The only thing we think they need to do here is add the necessary equipment to make this a really effective tool against the fishy fanatics: torpedoes! Does this mean we will stop making fun of men wearing skirts? Of course not! That's what we're here for.

Fiji - Trouble In Paradise

The head of Fiji's armed forces sent troops to remove all the weapons from the only police unit with any real capability today. The disarming of the police tactical response unit means there really are no armed groups that can oppose a coup.

The troops could be seen loading weapons onto army vehicles at the offices of the police tactical response unit outside Suva, some three hours after they arrived asking to inspect the arms.

There was no apparent opposition from the police.

Fiji's military chief Voreqe Bainimarama has vowed to force Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase from power in a "peaceful transition" if he did not resign of his own accord.

It would be the Pacific nation's fourth coup in two decades.

Bainimarama set a deadline of midday Friday for the government to bow to a set of demands which include scrapping controversial legislation and ending a police investigation into possible sedition charges against him.

The path appears to be clear for the coup to commence any time Bainimarama chooses.

Venezuela

Massive amounts of conflicting information coming out of Venezuela right now about the election. (T)Hugo's reliable major media is dutifully reporting the official government line that Chavez is winning. Other sources say not so fast. Publius Pundit has pictures. Fausta has some technical problems with a podcast, but has valuable links. Telemundo was suddenly shut down by Chavez thugs and prohibited from broadcasting about the elections (If that isn't a sign that Chavez is in trouble, I don't know what is). Last link via Instapundit.

The Associated Press is reporting a landslide victory for Chavez at this moment.

With 78 percent of voting stations reporting, Chavez had 61 percent to 38 percent for challenger Manuel Rosales, said Tibisay Lucena, head of the country's elections council. Chavez had nearly 6 million votes versus 3.7 million for Rosales, according to the partial tally.

Turnout was 62 percent, according to an official bulletin of results, making Chavez's lead insurmountable.

Minutes after the results were announced, Chavez appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace singing the national anthem.

"Long live the socialist revolution! Destiny has been written," Chavez shouted to thousands of flag-waving supporters in a pouring rain.

Chavez said he would now try to deepen his social reforms to spread his country's vast oil profits among the poor.

"No one should fear socialism," he proclaimed. "Socialism is human. Socialism is love."

Even before polls closed, Chavez supporters celebrated in the streets, setting off fireworks and cruising Caracas honking horns and shouting "Chavez isn't going anywhere!"

We'll have to see what the election monitors have to say, but something is weird about those high numbers given the enormous turnouts in anti-Chavez demonstrations.

UPDATE Rosales has conceded but has vowed to remain in opposition. But one thing people should keep in mind here:

Chavez says he would convene a commission upon re-election to propose constitutional reforms, likely including an end to presidential term limits. Current law prevents him from running again in 2012.

President-for-life is up next.

Holding The Line

You may have received the picture above in an email that has been circulating widely on the internet. The email describes the annual trip that Morrill Worcester has been taking to deliver and place thousands of wreaths on the graves at Arlington National Cemetery. The Washington Post has taken note of the project this year.

E very year for more than a decade, at the height of the season, Morrill Worcester would pack up a truckload of his Christmas wreaths and head down from Maine to Arlington National Cemetery. Without fanfare, he and a dozen or so volunteers would lay red-bowed wreaths on a few thousand headstones of fallen Americans.

There was no publicity. No crowds gathered. The gesture was one man's private duty, born of a trip to Washington he won as a 12-year-old paperboy. Of all the monuments and memorials he saw, it was the visit to Arlington that stuck with him — the majesty and mystery, the sadness and the pride, the sight of all those neat rows of government-issue white headstones.

Years later, after he had started his Christmas products business, at the crunch point of one season Worcester asked some men who were building his new factory to find some wreaths and buy them for him.

They went a bit overboard: When Worcester heard that he was the proud owner of 4,000 wreaths that couldn't possibly be sold by Christmas, he called a friend who owned a trucking company, contacted his senator in Washington and, two weeks before Christmas 1992, was at Arlington, laying wreaths.

It seemed like the right thing to do. So he continued the ritual each year, honoring those who had died so that he and other Americans might live as they saw fit.

Then, a few months ago, the e-mails started. Maybe you got one: a heart-wrenching yet elegant image of Worcester's wreaths, each adorned with a simple red ribbon, resting in front of seemingly endless rows of identical gravestones on a snowy day at Arlington. Beneath the photo, a few lines of poetry:

"Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.

Know the line has held, your job is done.

Rest easy, sleep well . . . "

This year, the trip will not be a quiet affair. The Patriot Guard Riders will also accompany Worcester. And he is trying to make the campaign a national one with wreath layings at the more than 200 military cemeteries across the nation.

This year, the interest in Worcester's project has exploded to the point that he had to find some way to extend the tribute, so he has launched http://wreathsacrossamerica.org, a Web site that coordinates similar rituals at more than 200 military cemeteries around the country.

"The veterans are going to get their due," says Worcester, who never served in the military. "It's going to be quite something."

Worcester returns any checks sent to him by people. This is his personal statement, his personal project. And he is, in every sense of the word, holding the line.

Feast Or Famine

While the Germans are suffering a shortage of Santas, and are quite upset by that fact, Britain is being overrun with jolly old elves. Literally. There are Santas running in packs through the streets of Liverpool! Thousands of them.

To raise money for local charities, about 5,000 people dressed up in red suits, white beards and black boots and ran for five kilometres (3.1 miles) through the streets.

The feat dwarfed last year's event which saw the northwestern city earn a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most Santas in one place at one time with 3,921.

Though more than 5,000 people filled in applications to enter the 2006 event, the exact number of runners along with the total amount raised was not to be confirmed for several weeks.

The event's website acknowledges that it will faces stiff competition for the world record from an event in Las Vegas later this month.

Santa invasion alert for Las Vegas! Get the traps out, folks! Maybe you could spray something or other, too.

Get The Hook

The way theater owners used to get poor performers off the stage in vaudeville was to use a hook mounted on a pole and snatch the offending act off the stage. The audience would usually be the ones prompting the management to get rid of the act by shouting, "Get the hook". The concept was updated and reintroduced in the old Gong Show television program. It seems that there is a cyber-equivalent of the hook over at Wikipedia. If you are not notable, your entry will get voted off Wiki Island.

The Shiny Diamonds, a spunky band from Canada, make music they call "mind-blowing thrash folk." On Wednesday, the lads and their songs were tagged with a less flattering description: "non-notable."

This was not some hasty, capricious opinion, either. No, this was the official verdict of a squad of stern-sounding editors at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which recently began the process of booting an entry about the Shiny Diamonds off the site.

One Wiki editor counted a mere 97 Google hits about the group and noted on a Wiki page that all those citations "seem to be myspace or other self-promotion." Three other Wiki editors soon weighed in, each recommending "delete," which in Wiki-speak translates roughly as "Beat it, losers."

Up in Vancouver, B.C., where the band's lead singer was reached by phone, the news hit kind of hard.

"Dude, I don't know what they were thinking," said Tim the Mute, which, you won't be surprised to learn, is a stage name and the only name he would give. In mid-sentence, Tim's cellphone went dead and a few minutes later, he sent an e-mail.

"I urge whatever Internet-snob wiki-geeks who deem our band 'non-notable' to look at their own lives," he fumed. "The Internet is about sharing and the point of Wikipedia is that there's room for everything."

That, it turns out, isn't exactly true.

Casual readers might assume that Wikipedia's goal is a complete account of all earthly knowledge, but the site maintains a rather elaborate set of criteria for admission. The several thousand unpaid volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia spend a lot of energy ensuring that people, bands, companies, and everything else meet what it calls "notability guidelines."

Let's sum it up this way: Not everyone is Wiki-worthy.

I guess the Shiny Diamonds will have to look elsewhere for their 15 minutes.

Venezuelan Election Sources

Publius Pundit is, as always, invaluable for information about what is going on down in Venezuela right now. They report that the election today might not be the Chavez walkover that the international media has been propagandizing reporting for weeks now.

Based on who I’ve talked to, here is the latest reading of what is believed to be likely to happen Sunday. It pretty much makes sense - on Monday, we can see how it stacks to reality.

1. Markets went hog wild Friday and one source tells me it’s because the markets are pricing in a Manuel Rosales victory over Hugo Chavez. Internal polls put Rosales five to 10 points ahead of Chavez. None show him behind and there is very high optimism in the Rosales camp. (I remember the high optimism pre-recall referendum so I am cautious about that. But they are insistent that they have the votes to win.)

2. Smartmatic in under probe for giving bribes by CIFUS, the federal agency investigating them, and the DOJ for tax-evasion. The news is having an explosive effect in Caracas, putting lots of pressure and scrutiny on those guys and on the observers.

3. The U.S. embassy’s warning to U.S. expats to stockpile food, water and medicine for the expected weekend turmoil somehow got out to Venezuelans who are also now panic-shopping in some parts. The government has now warned them that there is to be “no nervous shopping.”

4. Civil society groups will be flooding the place and every polling station looking for irregularities. Lots of them are lawyers. People in general are on the lookout for and expecting, fraud. The rumors are flying wildly. Sumate is taking a very low-key but critical role in the monitoring - they’ve already pointed out several avenues for trouble and are well prepared for shenanigans.

5. The international electoral observers, holed up in Caracas hotels until showtime, are getting very disgusted with the chavistas who are propagandizing them to death with leaflets, seminars and stuff they can tell is meant to influence their views. Most are going in with an honest objectivity so they are already getting suspicious by this chavista love campaign. These include the OAS, the EU, the Spaniards from some university and the Carterites.

There is a lot more information. They also point to an analysis in Venezuela Today that paints three possible outcomes. They ain't pretty. Reuters and AFP continue to trumpet an expected Chavez victory. But look at item 5 in Publius Pundit's roundup - it may not happen if the vote is clean. If the vote isn't, Chavez may end up in real trouble fast. We can but hope.

Carnival Time!

Pat Santy has the Carnival of the Insanities up over at Dr. Sanity. It's a doozy this time with a bumper crop of madness. Many thanks to Pat for linking one of my posts again this week.

Shoddy Merchandise

Jules Crittenden takes a very hard look at the reporting that the Associated Press has been providing from Iraq in recent days and calls it shoddy - at best. Curt from Flopping Aces is given full credit for his detective work on the imaginary police captain that the AP quoted time and again.

When a company defrauds its customers, or delivers shoddy goods, the customers sooner or later are going to take their business elsewhere. But if that company has a virtual monopoly, and offers something its customers must have, they may have no choice but to keep taking it.
 
That’s when the customers, en masse, need to raise a stink. That’s when someone else with the resources needs to seriously consider whether the time is ripe to compete.
 
The Associated Press is embroiled in a scandal. Conservative bloggers, the new media watchdogs, lifted a rock at the AP.

Curt at Floppingaces, www.floppingaces2.blogspot.com, led the charge. He thought there was something strange about an AP report, and took a second look at it, then a third look. He and others blew the lid off it. The AP is making up war crimes. But the resulting stink in the blogosphere has barely wrinkled a nose in the mainstream press. The ethics-obsessed Poynter Institute seems to be oblivious to it.
 
It has to do with the AP’s Iraqi stringers and an oft-quoted Iraqi police captain named Jamil Hussein. Problem is, the Iraqi police say Capt. Hussein does not exist. The Iraqi police and U.S. military say an incident described in an AP report - Iraqi soldiers standing by as people were burned alive in a mosque - didn’t happen. Another AP-reported incident, U.S. soldiers shooting 11 civilians, also never happened, the military says.
 
When the AP was forced to acknowledge this situation, it did so in a story about a new Interior Ministry policy regarding false reports. The AP buried the fact that its own false report prompted this new policy.

As Crittenden points out, the AP is a virtual monopoly. The only way to get it to change is for its customers to raise hell. And frankly, if the AP does not change, the newspapers who rely on the service will be the ones to pay the price. Readership and revenues will continue to fall as the public turns away from AP reports and relies more heavily on the internet for news. So it is in the best interests of the AP's customers to put pressure on them to clean up their act.

“Harmless As An Enemy, Treacherous As A Friend.”

Mark Steyn quotes a line spoken by Bernard Lewis, who was referring to the United States, unfortunately. That is a damning indictment, but with what is leaking - hell, flooding - out of the Baker Commission (between photo-ops), it is beginning to look like that is exactly how history will judge the US.

Don't get me wrong, I like a Friars' Club Roast as much as the next guy and I'm sure Jim Baker kibitzing with John Kerry was the hottest ticket in town. But doesn't it strike you as just a tiny bit parochial? Aside from Senator Kerry, I wonder whether the commission thought to hear from anyone such as Goh Chok Tong, the former prime minister of Singapore. A couple of years back, on a visit to Washington just as the Democrat-media headless-chicken quagmire-frenzy was getting into gear, he summed it up beautifully:

''The key issue is no longer WMD or even the role of the U.N. The central issue is America's credibility and will to prevail.''

As I write in my new book, Singaporean Cabinet ministers apparently understand that more clearly than U.S. senators, congressmen and former secretaries of state. Or, as one Baker Commission grandee told the New York Times, ''We had to move the national debate from whether to stay the course to how do we start down the path out.''

An ''exit strategy'' on those terms is the path out not just from Iraq but from a lot of other places, too — including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela, Russia, China, the South Sandwich Islands. For America would be revealed to the world as a fraud: a hyperpower that's all hype and no power — or, at any rate, no will. According to the New York Sun, ''An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference . . .''

On the face of it, this sounds an admirably hard-headed confirmation of James Baker's most celebrated soundbite on the Middle East ''peace process'': ''F - - k the Jews. They didn't vote for us anyway.'' His recommendations seem intended to f - - k the Jews well and truly by making them the designated fall guys for Iraq. But hang on: If Israel could be forced into giving up the Golan Heights and other land (as some fantasists suggest) in order to persuade the Syrians and Iranians to ease up on killing coalition forces in Iraq, our enemies would have learned an important lesson: The best way to weaken Israel is to kill Americans. I'm all for Bakerite cynicism, but this would seem to f - - k not just the Jews but the Americans, too.

It would, furthermore, be a particularly contemptible confirmation of a line I heard Bernard Lewis, our greatest Middle Eastern scholar, use the other day — that ''America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.'' To punish your friends as a means of rewarding your enemies for killing your forces would seem to be an almost ludicrously parodic illustration of that dictum. In the end, America would be punishing itself. The world would understand that Vietnam is not the exception but the rule.

This is a hard column to read. The picture that is emerging of the US into the future is, quite frankly, hard to stomach. It is not too late yet. But it is getting close.

“And It Looks Like It’s Starting Again.”

Those are the words of Lebanese poultry seller Ahmad Sahd as quoted in Time Magazine. He was speaking about the flood of Hezbollah supporters who marched through Beirut and about the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990. His point was that the younger people had not lived through that agony. But they were heading down that same road again.

Lebanon wasn't supposed to turn out this way. In March of last year, President George W. Bush was hailing Lebanon as a shining beacon of his Administration's "democracy agenda" for the Middle East. Close to 1 million Lebanese had flooded into Beirut to demand that Syria pull its troops out of Lebanon and end its 29-year domination of the country. The U.S. State Department coined the protests the Cedar Revolution, a more folksy title than the Lebanese term, Independence Intifadeh, which smacked of radicalism. But with six ministers having resigned since Nov. 11, sectarian tensions rising and government officials fearing for their lives, the vision of a new Lebanon is dimming fast—and with it, the Administration's bid to build a positive legacy in the Middle East beyond the wreckage of Iraq.

There are worrying signs, in fact, that Lebanon may be closer to a total meltdown than at any time since the 1975-90 civil war. An Arab diplomat told Time that General Michael Suleiman, the commander in chief of the Lebanese Army, recently admitted that his troops would be able to contain a series of demonstrations "for only a few weeks." If Hizballah organizes protests around the country similar to those in Beirut last week, "We will not be able to cope," Suleiman reportedly said. His concern was that because many of his troops are Shi'ite, they would refuse to act against their brethren within Hizballah.

The nightmare scenario is that Hizballah's show of strength could provoke a backlash against its mostly Shi'ite supporters by Lebanon's Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze communities. If that happens, most Lebanese believe the situation could quickly escalate into all-out civil war. As a river of pro-Hizballah demonstrators flowed toward Siniora's besieged compound last week, poultry seller Ahmad Sahd, 65, wept. "These youngsters didn't live through the civil war. I did. And it looks like it's starting again." So why is the Cedar Revolution crashing down? Part of the answer rests outside Lebanon's borders. During the summer's war with Israel, Hizballah relied heavily on the Syrians for logistic, military and financial support. According to Israeli officials, Western diplomats in Beirut and Arab sources, Damascus acted as a conduit for Iranian weapons to reach Hizballah, allowing the group to fight the Israelis to a standstill.

Syria is demanding that Hezbollah pay the piper and deliver Lebanon to Syria on a platter. And Bashar Assad is no doubt emboldened by the word leaking merrily out of the Baker commission (when they aren't busy posing for photographs). After all, James Baker has sold Lebanon out before. Assad is probably quite confident he can get away with it.

The Danger Of Demagogues

Niall Ferguson, writing in the Washington Post, points out the rise of the "new" demagogues - and just how dangerous these people can really be. There are serious repercussions to all the unhinged attacks on the president and the administration. Not the least of which is the negative effect the attacks have on the entire nation, not just George Bush.

The world over, demagogues are back, yelling their slogans and thumping their tubs.

In Latin America, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have joined Chavez in heaping opprobrium on the diabolical gringo imperialists. In the Middle East, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah's Hasan Nasrallah denounce the demonic Yankee crusaders and their Zionist confederates with equal fervor. Others have different targets, but their language is no less inflammatory. In Germany, Udo Pastoers of the xenophobic National Democratic Party won a regional election after calling Europe "a cultural space for white people." In South Africa, former deputy president Jacob Zuma belts out "Mshini Wami," an anti-apartheid anthem that includes the line, "Bring me my machine gun."

Their rhetoric may seem overblown, but no one should underestimate the threat these new demagogues pose — especially to the United States. Irrelevant in Latin America, impotent in the Middle East, ignored in Africa and isolated in Europe, Washington may be facing its biggest foreign policy crisis since the late 1970s, when the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan rocked Jimmy Carter's presidency. And this new generation of rabble-rousers is seizing the moment. The more unpopular the United States becomes, the easier it is for them to win votes by bad-mouthing Uncle Sam.

We have been here before, and it wasn't pretty. When an elected president expresses skepticism about the Holocaust and threatens to wipe the state of Israel from the map, it is not hyperbole to draw comparisons with that most disastrous of demagogues, Adolf Hitler. Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad knows that anti-Semitism is one of the aces in the demagogue's deck, a tried-and-true means of inspiring hatred and suspicion of others — and of staying in power himself. Hitler also frequently expressed his contempt for the United States, which he dismissed as "a decayed country," racially and culturally inferior to Germany — and, of course, ruled by Jews. Read Ahmadinejad's latest letter to "the American people," released last week, for a reprise of that theme.

…..

The good news about demagogues is that they often find it harder to deliver on election pledges than to deliver election speeches. In September, Morales's deputy, Vice President ?lvaro Garc?a Linera, called on Bolivia's indigenous people to defend Morales's government "with your chest, with your hand, with your Mauser" in response to opposition in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Such language belies the reality that the Morales government has been forced to modify its plan to nationalize the country's energy sector (though last week it did succeed in pushing through a radical land reform bill). Economic instability and backwardness may bring demagogues to power. But they also constrain them once they get there.

But, as Ferguson points out, some of the new demagogues happen to control large oil reserves. That makes them more dangerous than the run-of-the-mill rabble-rousers. The US is facing real danger here if we continue to show disarray to the world.

Denouement

Following the climax of the midterm elections, it really looks like Congress is about spent. There is probably not going to be any more legislation of any import coming out of Washington in the little amount of time left in the 109th Congress. Not that anyone should be surprised by that, but the Washington Post pretends that this is somehow news.

Congress will convene on Tuesday for what some fear will be the lamest of lame-duck sessions, and GOP leaders have decided to take a minimalist approach before turning over the reins of power to the Democrats. Rather than a final surge of legislative activity, Congress will probably wrap up things after a single, short week of work. They have even decided to punt decisions on annual government spending measures to the Democrats next year.

"There is a lot of battle fatigue among members, probably on both sides of the aisle," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), usually a reliable conservative firebrand. "Contrary to popular belief, members of Congress are human beings. They have a certain shelf life and a certain amount of energy to be drawn on. We're tired."

Before the midterm elections, GOP leaders had dismissed the Democrats' "do-nothing" label for the 109th Congress as political posturing, promising that a robust post-election session would put the accusation to rest. Instead, Republican lawmakers will have met for one week in November, devoted almost exclusively to leadership elections for next year, and one week in December, largely to pick committee assignments, move offices and pass a measure to keep the government operating through February.

That will mean this Congress will have spent the least time in session of any in at least half a century, according to Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, congressional historians and the authors of "The Broken Branch," a critical look at recent Congresses. In the time they have met, lawmakers have failed to approve a budget resolution or pass at least eight of the 11 annual spending bills.

Congress, regardless of who holds the majority, has been pretty well dysfunctional for many years. But to really expect any action from it with a change of majority coming in January is pretty silly. The Democrats simply will not accede to any controversial legislation getting through when they are about to take control. Even if a bill got forced through the House, it would die in the Senate. As the members themselves realize:

To be sure, Congress will do something this week. Lawmakers have routinely extended a number of business tax breaks every year or so, including a tax credit for research and development and a break for hiring welfare recipients. But that routine was broken this year when GOP leaders decided to link those business-tax-cut extensions to a deep and permanent cut to the estate tax, a link that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) had declared inviolable.

This week, the inviolable link will be broken. The tax extensions will be passed on their own after all, according to legislative aides, perhaps with a multibillion-dollar provision staving off scheduled cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.

The House has scheduled a vote on Smith's fetal-pain bill, which, among other things, would require abortion providers to inform patients of the controversial assertion that the procedure may cause pain. Providers would also have to offer anesthesia for the fetus, which the patient would have to accept or reject in writing. But GOP leaders put the measure on the fast track to passage, which means it will need the vote of two-thirds of the House. Even if the bill wins that much support, it will go nowhere in the Senate, Republicans concede.

Likewise, House Republicans on Friday relented on their opposition to a Senate-passed measure opening new territories off the Gulf Coast to oil drilling, with much of the royalty proceeds to be dedicated to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. That, too, will go on the expedited calendar, where it could be sunk by environmentalist lawmakers and Republicans who believe that the bill does not go nearly far enough to open up new frontiers for oil exploration.

So, Congress will lame duck its way out of Washington, this really is no news at all, is it?