In This Corner….

The Washington Post describes what had to be an extremely awkward dinner party despite all the protestations of mutual admiration. Ted "I think I'll swim home and catch a nap" Kennedy hosting his good pals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama along with some other people who know darn well they don't matter in this fight.

On Wednesday night, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy hosted the nine Democratic members of his health and education committee at an intimate dinner in his home in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood. The surroundings were stylish, the food home-cooked and tasty.

And then there was the entertainment.

The gathering included a former presidential candidate, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, and a close friend of Kennedy's, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. But the star attractions were Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, two junior committee members who may be duking it out for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination in a matter of months.

The air was thick with ambition. "I don't know why we're here, Bernie," Rep. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) quipped to a fellow senator-elect, Rep. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), as the guests walked into the dining room.

Neither Clinton nor Obama has formally declared a candidacy, but their rivalry is already the talk of the chamber, an amusing sideshow for Democrats and Republicans — at least the handful who aren't weighing their own White House bids.

Kennedy (Mass.) tried not to play favorites on Wednesday, seating the two superstars on his right and left at dinner. But the dais of his committee will be another matter next year, after Obama joins the panel in January: According to seniority rules, the two are likely to be seated next to each other, toward the end. There they will vie for prominence on major issues such as stem cell research, the minimum wage and college tuition subsidies.

This really will be an amusing two years in some ways. The spectacle of these two trying to upstage one another will be entertaining. Hillary has serious baggage, Obama has a serious lack of credentials. Let the games begin.

A Blog Advent Calendar

From Reader I Am  from Done With Mirrors at her personal blog site, Either End of the Curve. (Incidentally, an absolutely great catch phrase for the blog!) A musical Advent calendar and tribute to the troops at that. Great music, great idea.  

New, Old, What’s The Difference?

I was reading the Yahoo News and saw that this particular item was placed second behind a blurb about Hillary Clinton and how many people really don't like her all that much. But the Washington Post also caught it and moved it into first place, so to speak. It seems Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico has a wee bit of trouble understanding exactly who his constituents are. He appears to believe he represents Mexico, not New Mexico.

WASHINGTON — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson says a fence at the Mexican border authorized by Congress this fall "gets in the way" of U.S.-Mexico relations, and he wants the new Democratic Congress to reverse the legislation.

"The fence is very unpopular on the border in Texas and New Mexico, in Chihuahua," Richardson, a Democrat, said after meeting Wednesday with leaders from the Mexican state of Chihuahua. "So one of the most significant and constructive acts the U.S. Congress should take is to get rid of it."

The border fence is unpopular in Chihuahua. Ok. And that matters to the citizens of the United States how, exactly? I've seen quite a lot of other articles describing how very unhappy American citizens are that the border is a sieve that allows a flood of people across every day. I've read a bunch of articles that said residents who live on the border are scared to death of the flood of people tearing across their land. Of course those are American citizens and legal residents.

But heck, Richardson appears to be more worried about the folks in Chihuahua.

Weblog Awards Voting Begins

The voting for the 2006 Weblog Awards is now open. I was stunned to be nominated and outright floored to have been named a finalist for the Best New Blog category. Voting remains open for ten days and you can vote one time each day in each category. I thank anyone who chooses to vote for Blue Crab Boulevard in advance.

The best of luck to everyone in all of the categories. There are a lot of very fine blogs that I have a lot of respect for listed this year. The choices are going to be tough for any regular reader of blogs.

Sage Advice From The Des Moines Police

"… if you're going to have a bottle rocket war it would be a lot better to do it outside." If you follow that sage advice, you may avoid burning your house down!

A house owned by Drake University has sustained some $50,000 damage in a bottle rocket war.

Four young men have been charged with reckless use of fire, a serious misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

"They were playing around with fireworks like a lot of the rest of us have done at one time or another," said Des Moines Police Detective Jack Kamerick. "They are all good kids. But if you're going to have a bottle rocket war it would be a lot better to do it outside. It would still be illegal but at least you wouldn't burn up a house."

Yeah, What he said.

Shop ‘Til You…..

….Catch fire. An electrical fire in a department store in Mentor, Ohio filled the place with smoke. But the shoppers not only did not leave, more piled on in to try to shop. Firefighters ended up having to block the doors to keep people out.

No one was injured in the fire at Dillards South at Great Lakes Mall on Wednesday, but some bargain hunters were inconvenienced.

"It was amazing," said Mentor fire Battalion Chief Joe Busher. "Even though there was heavy smoke in there, they all wanted to stay and shop. We even had to put people at the door to keep people from coming in."

The fire burned circuits of a high-voltage electrical panel near a women's dressing, firefighters said. It took them eight minutes to put it out.

Generally, people don't go to a fire sale until the fire is actually put out.

Countdown Running

Discovery is fueled and the countdown clock is running to launch STS-116. Cloudy weather may force a cancellation. If it does not, people all over the east coast will get a real treat. I've mentioned before that I watched a night launch from Orlando - which is quite some distance from the cape. (NASA launch page is here - A very high res version of the above picture is available there.)

UPDATE: The launch has been scrubbed due to the weather in Florida. Dang.

Swiss To Attack Ukraine

The Swiss city of Zürich is making a stealthy attack on the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa. You see, the Swiss are donating their old commuter train cars to the city.

Zurich's city council said it is donating 13 trams to the town of Vinnitsa, 250 km southwest of Kiev where they will enter service next year and are expected to run for at least 12 more years.

The trams are being retired from the number 5 route running across town to Fluntern, an upscale neighbourhood on a hill where Joyce, who wrote part of his literary masterpiece Ulysses in Zurich and died there in 1941, is buried.

Another free consignment of up to 15 trams will be delivered by the end of 2008. Unlike some European cities, such as Milan and Lisbon, where trams dating from the 1930s are still in service, Zurich's trams are routinely withdrawn after 40 years.

Sounds friendly, right? No, it is not at all friendly. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard remember everything about the sneaky Animal Uprising™. Call it our mission in life. But because we remember, we know the real agenda the Swiss have here. Because what the Swiss are really doing is getting rid of their snake problem.

"We immediately took the train out of service," Eric Luthy, a spokesman for the Neuchatel Regional Transport company, said Thursday.

Since last Saturday, reptile experts and infrared devices have been unable to find the cold-blooded adder or coax it out of its hiding place with juicy bait.

Although the snake is not regarded as dangerous, passengers "wouldn't understand" if the train was put back into service with the 80 to 130 centimetre-long (2.6 to 4.2 feet) reptile slithering around, Luthy explained.

Those evil geniuses. And here you thought the Swiss were neutral.

The Hazards Of Modern Life

Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy

He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark
Excitable boy, they all said
And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
(Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy)

It is getting more and more difficult to navigate the hazards of modern life these days. Even the newest video game craze has an unexpected pitfall. Take Nintendo's new Wii.

Players who get too excited can smash their televisions.

TOKYO (AFP) - Nintendo warned players of its new Wii video game console not to get too carried away when swinging the controller as they could accidently (sic) throw it into their television sets.

The warning follows reports that some users have cracked their TV screens when swinging the controller particularly hard to simulate the pitching of a baseball or the swinging of a tennis racket, after their wrist straps snapped.

"Of course before the launch of the Wii hardware Nintendo had a number of tests on the durability of everything including the strap," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told reporters.

"But our understanding right now is that even beyond our expectations people are becoming more and more excited playing with the Wii," he added.

Nintendo, which launched the Wii in the United States last month and in Japan on Saturday, has been getting rave reviews for its new controller and games that shy away from blood-and-guts action.

But the Kyoto-based company said that some users might be getting too excited.

"We are encouraging people to understand that you really don't have to be so excited but rather you need to understand the control and then you're going to be the best player," said Nintendo senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto.

Isn't modern life grand?

Honeymoon’s Over

When even the New York Times, that reliable cheerleader for the Democrats, calls out the party for failing to live up to campaign promises, you know the honeymoon is over. And they haven't even officially taken control.

Weeks before they take majority control of the Capitol, the Democrats are reported to be wriggling out of one of their most important campaign vows: to repair Congressional oversight of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Congress was found to be nothing less than “dysfunctional” on this duty by the Sept. 11 commission, which wisely recommended a full-scale revamping of the committee structure.

This necessarily means a wrenching change in the budget powers over intelligence exercised by the bulls of the defense appropriations process — a monopoly that reduces the intelligence committees to secondary lap dogs. When the Republican-controlled Congress showed no appetite for a turf fight, Democrats eagerly made a campaign vow to promptly enact all of the panel’s recommendations.

Now that they can taste power again, however, the victors seem to be having second thoughts. Instead of attempting wholesale committee reform in the first weeks of Congress, Democratic leaders may punt the idea toward oblivion in some sort of a study panel, according to The Washington Post. Nothing could be more disappointing to voters.

So, for those keeping score, that is two down already. Earlier I linked to a WSJ article on business as usual with lobbyists. Now this backing away from another campaign promise. Meet the new boss.

The Ugliest Cat In The World

Good Lord. This is one ugly cat.

To look at it, you would think the rare breed of cat called the sphynx didn’t have much to celebrate.

Virtually hairless, wrinkled and prone to sweating, it looks more like Gollum from The Lord Of The Rings films than a pet.

But now, nearly 20 years after it came to Britain, the sphynx has finally been recognised as a breed by the Governing Council Of The Cat Fancy.

You have got to see the picture to believe it.

UPDATE: Here's a web page on the breed that makes them look a little (very little) bit better. Here they just look creepy. I'm sure that will enrage some aficionados. So we want to apologize right up front: We're sorry that you keep ugly pets.

A Timely Bit Of Advice

Take it from your pals at Blue Crab Boulevard, generally speaking, if a priest offers to let you play in a bathtub with his naked girlfriend, it is a pretty good bet that a) the priest is not really a priest and b) that the pair is trying to rip you off. How do we know this? Simple, we read this story.

VIENNA, Dec 6 (Reuters Life!) - A bogus priest and his girlfriend tricked an Austrian pensioner out of $200 after promising him a naked bathtub session with the woman.

"The bogus priest and his girlfriend ran a bath for the pensioner, who undressed and got in straight away," a police spokeswoman in the northern Austrian town of Linz said on Wednesday.

The pensioner waited in the tub for about 10 minutes, but when he heard cupboards being opened and closed in the living room, he emerged from the bathroom and chased the pair out of his flat, she said.

"The credulous 65-year-old pensioner was waiting in vain in the bathtub … while the suspect stole about 150 euros ($200) in cash from his living room," a police statement said.

I don't think 'credulous' is quite the word the police wanted to use in the report. Just guessing. Incidentally, the "priest" and his girlfriend have run the scam on at least four other people. Credulousness is catching, apparently.

Get Your Fresh, Hot Lawmakers!

The call of the Washington lobbyists. Yes, despite all the promises to clean things up on Capitol Hill, lobbyists are rushing to ply incoming Democrats with wiki-wiki dollars. And the incoming lawmakers are tripping over themselves to grab handfuls while they can.

WASHINGTON — Democrats may be promising a clampdown on lobbyist freebies once they take control of Congress. But ahead of that push, party leaders are collecting lobbyists' checks, while Democratic staffers angle for jobs inside their well-appointed offices.Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this week sponsored a reception for newly elected Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Illinois Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean was the beneficiary of a Tuesday night fund-raiser in the new Capitol Hill offices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to retiring Ms. Bean's debt, Chamber Political Director Bill Miller said the reception was a chance for corporations and lobbyists who didn't back her re-election to "meet her and see what a great representative she is."

Yesterday, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, mastermind of the Democrats' House takeover, accepted donations at Sonoma, a trendy Capitol Hill restaurant that features California cuisine to match the wine list, for his leadership committee, a type of account employed by ambitious lawmakers to make donations and curry favor with their colleagues.

Separately, Moses Mercado, the Democratic National Committee's deputy executive director, will soon be joining the Federalist Group, a lobbying group with close ties to the White House that went bipartisan about a year ago. Mr. Mercado "can help our clients deal with the new majority on Capitol Hill," says Wayne Berman, the Republican founder of the firm. Senior aides to incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also have been snatched up by lobbying shops, while Democratic lobbying firms, largely frozen out in Washington for years, are being courted by dozens of new potential clients.

Postelection fund-raising and political repositioning are hardly new in Washington. Candidates routinely use the last months of an election cycle to clear campaign debt. Lobbyists use the time to target freshmen who haven't staked out firm positions on the vast array of issues that come before Congress.

As Pete Townshend famously said: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I predict that there will be a big show made of reforms, but there will simply be new back door ways of funneling cash to lawmakers introduced. That is pretty much the way Washington works these days regardless of who is nominally in power.

New York Times Takes Notice

I linked yesterday to a Powerline post that detailed the resignation of Kenneth Stein fro his position as a fellow of the Carter Center. Professor Stein tendered the resignation specifically because of the latest book published by Jimmy Carter. The letter of resignation called the book, “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments.” Unfortunately for Jimmy Carter, the New York Times has picked up the story.

The adviser, Kenneth W. Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and political science at Emory University, resigned his position as a fellow with the Carter Center on Tuesday, ending a 23-year association with the institution.

In a two-page letter explaining his action, Mr. Stein called the book “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments.” Mr. Stein said he had used similar language in a private letter he sent to Mr. Carter, but received no reply.

“In the letter to him, I told him, ‘It’s your prerogative to write anything you want when you want,’ ” Mr. Stein said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “That’s not why I’m resigning.”

Mr. Stein said that he admired the former president’s accomplishments but that felt he had to distance himself from the Carter Center and the book, which was published by Simon & Schuster.

“It’s an issue of how history should be written,” Mr. Stein said. “I had to distance myself from something that was coming close to me professionally.”

Deanna Congelio, spokeswoman for Mr. Carter, released a statement with his response: “Although Professor Kenneth Stein has not been actively involved with the Carter Center for more than 12 years, I regret his resignation from the titular position as a fellow.” It did not address Mr. Stein’s criticism of the book.

That criticism is the latest in a growing chorus of academics who have taken issue with the book, including Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, who called the book “ahistorical,” and David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“I was just very saddened by it,” Mr. Makovsky said. “I just found so many errors.”

Mr. Carter’s use of “apartheid” in the title has attracted much of the controversy. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles released a statement on Monday saying the former president harbors bias against Israel. “There is no Israeli apartheid policy, and President Carter knows it,” the statement read.

But Mr. Stein’s criticism of the book has been perhaps the sharpest cut.

Stein was the first director of the Carter Center. His resignation - and the public airing of it - is meant to be a slap in the face for Carter. The fact that Stein refuses to have his professional reputation damaged by the fraudulent "history" that Carter tries to peddle should be telling people just how badly Carter mangled the truth in his latest screed. It should also, one hopes, cause Jimmy's execrable views to be featured less and less in the media.

UPDATE: Jake Tapper hammers Tulane historian Douglas Brinkley for attempting to paint this incident as "more ideological than ethical".

"They've never been on the same page in the Middle East. They've been in an almost constant state of disagreement. Carter has used him as a sounding board but apparently Carter went too far and the sparring partner decided to bloody him up," Brinkley said. "Ken Stein … doesn't trust the Palestinians as much as Carter."

As a college student, I interned for Dr. Stein at the Carter Center in 1988. He's a stand-up guy, one committed to trying to find a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and one certainly open to the Palestinian point of view.

My work for Stein revolved around research about THE BENELUX STATES — the economic union that allows Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemboug to function together while existing separately. I also researched ways in which Israel and the Palestinians were intertwined infrastructurally — water supplies, for instance. This is not the work of a man turning a deaf ear to the needs of the Palestinians — it's the work of a man researching ways to achieve peace.

Stein is not going after ideology, Brinkley must understand that as an academic. This is all about Carter's complete fabrications. That is not an ideological argument, it is a straight-up ethical problem for Carter. Brinkley's attempt to provide cover for Carter calls his judgment and ideology into question. Carter is suddenly getting rather a lot of negative press.

Compare And Contrast

Victor Davis Hanson has a column up over at Real Clear Politics that compares and contrasts Pearl Harbor and America's response and September 11th and America's response. There are great similarities in what Hanson calls, "Our Pearl Harbor," but there are real differences, too.

It's been five years since Sept. 11. After such a terrible provocation, why can't we bring the ongoing "global war on terror" - whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere - to a close as our forefathers fighting World War II could?

Is our generation less competent?

Not really. The United States routed the Taliban from Afghanistan by early December 2001. America's first clear-cut victory against the Japanese, at Midway, came six months after Pearl Harbor.

Do we lack the unity of the past?

Perhaps. But we should at least remember that after Pearl Harbor, a national furor immediately arose over the intelligence failure that had allowed an enormous Japanese fleet to approach the Hawaiian Islands undetected. Extremists went further - clamoring that the Roosevelt administration had deliberately lowered our guard as part of a conspiracy to pave the way for America's entrance into the war.

Are we in over our heads fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq?

Hardly. Within days after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. found itself in a three-front war against Germany, Italy and Japan - an Axis that had won a series of recent battles against the British, Chinese and Russians.

But there are significant differences between the "global war on terror" and World War II that do explain why victory is taking so much longer this time.

The most obvious is that, against Japan and Germany, we faced easily identifiable nation states with conventional militaries. Today's terrorists blend in with civilians, and it's hard to tie them to their patron governments or enablers in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan, who all deny any culpability. We also tread carefully in an age of ubiquitous frightening weapons, when any war at any time might without much warning bring in a nuclear, non-democratic belligerent.

As always, Hanson is worth reading as much for the history lesson as for the analysis. There are serious differences in our response these days. Some of that has to do with internal divisions, both political and ideological. People's world views differ wildly right now. So do people's level of understanding of history and historical context. In many ways, as I have mentioned many times before, reasoning by historical analogy is very tricky and very imprecise. Yes, in number of days we have been in Iraq longer than we were in World War Two. But the situations are not the same.