Major Ouch

I have mentioned - repeatedly - that the media was desperately trying to signal to Nancy Pelosi that she was about to run out of media cover for her behavior. (Not that I think Nancy Pelosi deigns to read the Crabitat daily - or ever for that matter). But guess what? Pelosi just hit the wall - and rather hard. She is being called - hard - in the media for her stunt visit to Syria. Oh, and for her ineptitude in dealing with a country that has long been a problem for the US.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution clearly assigns to the president leading authority for foreign policy. (''He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make treaties…'') Members of Congress have routinely traveled the world to offer the good will of the American people, fact-find and to visit with those in military service. What was different in Mrs. Pelosi's visit with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus was that she extended her portfolio too far.

Had she emerged from her meeting with the usual statement that the talks were ''cordial and constructive,'' there would have been no problem. It is true that Syria has been put in isolation by the Bush adminstration due to its role is enabling terrorism, but no harm would have been done with a simple visit, even if the White House didn't like it. (Republicans were along on this trip, and have visited Damascus in the past, without objection or rebuke.)

Rather, it was Mrs. Pelosi's attempt to redefine U.S. policy toward Syria and the Middle East that were troublesome. First, she told reporters that she had been authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to tell Mr. Assad that Israel was ready to have peace talks with Syria. Mr. Olmert quickly repudiated that, saying that his country's position regarding Syria, which it considers part of the ''axis of evil,'' has not changed. Even worse, Mrs. Pelosi's characterized Mr. Assad's comments to her as new willingness for Syria to return to peace talks. Again, more experienced Middle East hands pointed out that Mr. Assad has been saying the same thing for some time, but Syria's hard-line stance has not changed.

The cover is all gone. Pelosi is about to hit the big time in ravaging media coverage. This should be interesting to watch.

A Manifesto

The Anchoress has put up her manifesto about the 2008 Presidential elections - and you know what - she's right. This in-your-face, all election all the time nonsense is completely out of hand. I really don't dwell on it, myself. Only a post here and there - at least I hope I don't! But this is saying what should be said to the pols: too much, too soon. We don't need an endless campaign. Hell - we don't want an endless campaign.

I’m not participating in this, yet. I’m not going to allow myself to be suckered into paying attention to these people - and giving them either my money or my time - before I deem it practical and intelligent to do so, and that will be sometime around November of ‘07.

Yes. I am giving myself (gasp!) a whole year off from being caught up in the fakery and frummery of modern electoral politics. The press can make all the noise it wants and declare “winners” and “losers” over and over again, week by interminable week, for the next 18+ months, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen. If we allow the pols and the press to maintain the “endless campaign” mentality, we’re all going to be utterly burned out (and tuning out) at the time when we most should be keyed in and observant.

So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t get worked up over every poll and every pronouncement. I think it’s bad for the nation, bad for our mental and our civic health, to be in a continual campaign-mode, and I’m not going to simply jump in because I’m expected to, or because everyone else is. And don’t tell me I “must” clue in now, or “it will affect the primaries!” Primaries, schmiaries. I’m not going to go along with this trend. It is abhorrent to me. I believe it will have the effect of exhausting the populace, leaving them benumbed and bereft of constructive ideas or critical questions. And maybe that’s the whole point of creating this long, long campaign season - to dull our senses and move us along like cattle.

Ah, yes. The treating of the electorate like cattle. Nothing really new there - sadly it has been practiced for years. I live in hope that some of the folks who have decided to try that stunt will get a rude surprise on election day. Many others have in the past. The voters are not anywhere near as stupid as a lot of politicians - from either party - have assumed in the past. I won't take the year off as Anchoress is planning. But I sure won't try to buy into all the frenzy, either. I'll comment when I feel like it, won't say a word when I don't. In other words, pretty much business as usual around the Crabitat. (Which has the side benefit of driving some folks nuts. They get all kinds of het up when I haven't posted about whatever hobbyhorse they deem the biggest thing since sliced bread.)

Easter Caroling

So, much of the nation is gripped in a record-breaking cold snap Many of the temperature records dating back to the 1800s have been shattered, like so many icicles. Let it snow is now an Easter Carol instead of a Christmas song. And ABC News - with a completely straight face - reported the record cold blanketing the nation, then kicked off their new series on dealing with global warming.

Bwahahahaha.

This is really hysterical, and requires all sharp objects, food and drinking vessels to be properly stowed before proceeding.

On Saturday evening, ABC’s “World News Tonight” kicked off its new series “Going Green” with “fresh ideas for coping with the warming planet.”

Quite comically, this was just minutes after anchor David Muir led the program with a report captioned "Arctic Easter" detailing the “brutally cold temperatures across much of the Eastern half of the country…where there could be record lows overnight”.

Despite this historic cold snap, Muir — with a straight face, no less! — astoundingly began a seemingly contradictory segment just minutes later:

Tonight we kick off our new series "Going Green" — fresh ideas for coping with the warming planet. Just yesterday, a panel of scientists released the most detailed report yet of what is to come. They say droughts and floods are inevitable and they say worse will follow if greenhouse gases are not reduced. The good news, some of this country's best brains are now working on the problem. ABC’s Brian Rooney is in Silicon Valley where high-tech wizards are "going green."

Timing is everything, isn’t it? After all, "fresh ideas for coping with the warming planet" seems a little absurd as folks are digging out their driveways during Passover and Easter.

Now, in fairness, there was nothing wrong with the alternative energy ideas presented by Rooney. I myself installed solar panels some years ago to heat my pool, and am a strong advocate for all Americans to do much more in this regard.

Timing is, indeed, everything. This particular timing has got to have Groucho Marx spinning in envy. AS Noel Sheppard points out, a warm spell doesn't prove anything whatsoever, but the media thumps it like a big bass drum as proof that climate change is real. Then they completely ignore anything like record-shattering low temperatures - and actually pretend they didn't happen. All without missing a beat. Amazing. The only way this could get better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) is if the reporter was standing in a raging flood warning about drought. Which, sadly, will very likely happen soon.

The Easter Gunny

The Easter Gunny dropped by for a visit! Leaving a trail of .44 caliber eggs behind….. Model 1858 New Model Army, 12-inch barrel, modeled after the mythical "Buntline Special" revolvers. (And despite what you may have read as "fact", the story of Ned Buntline giving these revolvers to folks like Wyatt Earp are almost certainly myth.) Modern reproductions are manufactured in Italy by F. LLI Pietta and sold in the US under the nameplate of Traditions Firearms. Believe it or not, this is a very, very well balanced firearm despite the long barrel.

A Sale On Snake Oil

I read something like this and I just shake my head. Writing in today's Washington Post, Tim Watkin explains the dirty little secret behind a "self-help" book called The Secret.

The secret of "The Secret" is, very simply, the "law of attraction." Despite claims on the book's Web site that it is revealing hidden wisdom "for the first time in history," the idea dates back nearly 3,000 years to early Hindu teachings that "like attracts like." But author Rhonda Byrne takes it to a new level. She told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper in January that she stumbled upon "the secret" while mourning the death of her father in 2004, via a 1910 book called "The Science of Getting Rich," by one Wallace D. Wattles……

…..It's all so laughably nutty. And it would be harmless but for the millions buying the book and DVD and the exposure that "The Secret" is getting from the likes of Winfrey and Larry King. And for the danger lurking in its philosophy.

I saw that danger at the Barnes & Noble in Northern California where I worked for several months. Three times in less than two weeks, the store sold out of "The Secret." Time and again, the customers coming to the counter were working-class people, spending their hard-earned money on this piffle — $16.76 for the book and $34.99 for the DVD. When I started asking why, they said they'd seen "The Secret" on "Oprah."

Winfrey first featured it on Feb. 8. According to Nielsen BookScan, the book had sold 18,000 copies the week before. During the week of the show, sales rocketed to 101,000. The show did a follow-up on Feb. 16, and sales that week reached 190,000.

Yet none of the how-the-Secret-changed-my-life stories on "Oprah" mentioned the dark side of the book's pie-in-the-sky pitch. In February, Los Angeles Times editorial writer Karin Klein reported that local therapists were seeing "clients who are headed for real trouble, immersing themselves in a dream world in which good things just come." Klein told me in an e-mail that she had heard from readers who were worried about friends who "suddenly start buying things, certain that the money to pay for them will just show up."

So the gist is you attract all the good and all the bad in your life just by thinking about it. If you think happy, fuzzy rich thoughts you'll get rich without doing anything at all - other than making the wish. And if you're the victim of genocide, that's all your fault, too. No, seriously, read the whole article - that is actually explicitly stated by one of the "gurus" quoted extensively in The Secret.

Wow. That's it? That's all it takes? Thinking about getting rich? Well, that's all it takes to take people for $16.76 for the book and $34.99 for the DVD and for the author to make a tidy profit. Oh that and some drooling by Oprah Winfrey - who honestly should know a hell of a lot better than this. She didn't get to where she is by wishful thinking, she got there by working for it. When the wreckage of people's lives start piling up, do you suppose Winfrey will wish it all away for the victims? We're right back to traveling snake oil salesmen and medicine shows, aren't we? And sometimes it comes right into your living room on the television.

Taxi!

Take me to Arizona at once! A retired couple from New York City has actually hired a cab and the cab driver to drive them to their new home in Arizona. Neither Bob Matas, 72, or his wife, Betty, 71, drive so it seemed like a good idea. It actually started out as a bit of a gag, then turned quite seious.

They met taxi driver Douglas Guldeniz when they hailed his cab after a shopping trip several weeks ago.

They got to talking about their upcoming move, and "we said 'Do you want to come?'" said Bob Matas, 72, a former audio and video engineer for advertising agencies. "And he said 'Sure.'"

It was initially a gag, Matas said, but as they talked over the ensuing weeks it became reality.

They plan to leave Tuesday on the 2,400-mile trip to Sedona, Ariz., with Guldeniz driving his yellow SUV cab 10 hours a day for a flat fee of $3,000, plus gas, meals and lodging.

They're getting a break. The standard, metered fare would be about $5,000 — each way, according to David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety, a drivers' group. But city Taxi and Limousine Commission rules direct drivers and passengers to negotiate a flat fare for trips outside the city and a few suburban areas.

Well, it's one way to get around. Now, if he can just get a return fare…..

Well, He Made It

Back in January, we brought you the story of Martin Strel, the 52-year-old Slovenian swimmer who was about to swim the length of the Amazon River. Believe it or not, he actually made it all the way, although it was a pretty near thing at the end. He'll also probably be paying for this for quite some time, as his body has been pushed to the limits - and maybe a bit beyond.

After nine weeks, Martin Strel arrived near the city of Belem, the capital of the jungle state of Para, ending a swim almost as long as the drive from Miami to Seattle. Strel averaged about 50 miles a day since beginning his odyssey at the source of the world's second-longest river in Peru on Feb. 1.

By Thursday evening, he was struggling with dizziness, vertigo, high blood pressure, diarrhea, nausea and delirium, his Web site said. But despite having difficulty standing and being ordered by the doctor not to swim, Strel was obsessed with finishing the course and insisted on night swimming.

"He's hit point zero," Borut Strel, Martin's son and the project coordinator, said by telephone from the Amazon. "There will be a ceremony Sunday in Belem, but he finished today."

Speaking in fluent accented English by satellite phone during a break aboard his support vessel, the elder Strel said that the going got tougher the closer he got to Belem.

"The finish has been the toughest moment so far," he said Thursday. "I've been swimming fewer kilometers as I get closer to the end. The ocean tides have a lot of influence on the river's currents and sometimes they are so strong that I am pushed backward."

He said he was lucky to have escaped encounters with piranhas, the dreaded toothpick fish, which swims into body orifices to suck blood, and even bull sharks that swim in shallow waters and can live for a while in fresh water.

"I think the animals have just accepted me," he said. "I've been swimming with them for such a long time that they must think I'm one of them now. I still have dolphins swimming with me."

Nah, they just probably didn't want anything to do with him on general principles, figuring he had to be out of his mind. But, hey, he made it, good for him.

We Regret To Inform All You Golfers……

…..About this story. But we feel it is our duty to add to your misery. A report from California says that a golfer there shot a hole-in-one. Which is enough to make many golfers wail and gnash their teeth. But there is one other thing you have to know about the event.

The woman who landed the most elusive shot in golf just happened to be 102 years old.

CHICO, Calif. - Elsie McLean thought she might have lost her ball on the par-3, 100-yard fourth hole at Bidwell Park. Instead, the 102-year-old Chico woman became the oldest golfer ever to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course.

Because of the slope of the green, McLean and her partners couldn't see where her ball landed after she teed off.

"Where's my ball?" McLean asked.

Her friends, Elizabeth Rake and Kathy Crowder, found it in the cup.

"I said, 'Oh, my Lord. It can't be true. It can't be true.' I was so excited. And the girls were absolutely overcome," McLean said.

It was McLean's first ace.

We love the sounds of snapping golf clubs in the morning. And more than a few are being snapped right now!

We Regret To Inform Our Readers…..

…..But the Easter Bunny has been found frozen to death, turned into a frosty lawn ornament in Georgia. Sorry kids.

ATLANTA - An unseasonable cold snap put a chill on Easter Sunday services across the Southeast and much of the rest of the country, moving some events indoors and adding layers over spring frocks.

The usual courtyard service at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Columbia, S.C., had to be moved indoors, said the Rev. Michael Bingham. Sunday morning lows in Columbia dropped to the upper 20s, the National Weather Service said.

"Our musicians are worried about their fingers," he said Saturday as the church's plans were being changed.

Across much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, Easter celebrants swapped frills, bonnets and sandals for coats, scarves and heavy socks. Baseball fans huddled in blankets and, instead of spring planting, backyard gardeners were bundling their crops.

Two weeks into spring, Easter morning temperatures were in the upper 30s along the Gulf Coast and in the single digits in northern Minnesota and the Dakotas. Atlanta had a low of 30 degrees, with a wind chill of 23, the weather service said. The same reading put a chill on New York City's Fifth Avenue, celebrated in song for the traditional Easter Parade of spring finery.

Despite the chill, nearly 1,000 people attended the annual sunrise service at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park, as a slight breeze whipped over the granite monument. The service usually attracts 10,000.

Al Gore - he's everywhere these days. The Gore Effect is popping up all over the country.

Harvest Time

Sowing the wind has yielded a bumper crop of whirlwinds for the West. Iran, flush with success from its acts of piracy on the high seas has announced it will do more of the same whenever it feels like it - and the West can't do a thing to stop them.

Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.

"Iran has come out of this looking reasonable. If I were the Iranians, I would keep playing the same game. They have very successfully muddied the waters and bought themselves some more time. And in parts of the Middle East they will be seen as the good guys. They could do it time and again if they wanted to."

Americans also expressed dismay that the British had suspended boarding operations in the Gulf while its tactics are reassessed.

"Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight," one US defence department official said.

It is also clear that the Iranian government believes that the outcome has strengthened its position over such contentious issues as its nuclear programme. Hardliners within the regime have been lining up to crow about Britain's humiliation, and indicated that the operation was planned.

Obviously it was planned. Only the truly dim could think otherwise. And the complete breakdown of the so-called transnational institutions just tells Iran it can pretty well do what it wants without fear. The West may have finally lost it collective chance to stop Iran short of a war.