It's a growth industry!

Dr Who cut short:

Filming of the new series of Doctor Who has been hit by a shortage of dwarf actors.

Producers needed them to play little blue aliens in the new BBC sci-fi drama, reports the Mirror.

But most midget actors have already been snapped up for the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie or to play Gringotts Bank staff in the new Harry Potter film.

Executive producer Russell T Davies said: "It's very difficult to employ persons of restricted growth when, as our producer Phil Collinson says, `Bloody Gringotts and the Chocolate Factory are filming at the same time'."

Persons of restricted growth? Does that make Michael Moore a person of unrestricted growth?

What a maroon!

It's ABC's Terry Moran again:

At President Bush's press conference yesterday, ABC News reporter Terry Moran described the case of a Jordanian activist, Ali Hattar, who Moran said had been arrested and charged with slander for promoting a boycott of U.S. goods. Moran called it an "abuse of human rights," and invited the President to condemn it, saying, "If you won't, sir, then what ... do your fine words [about freedom] mean?"

President Bush said he was unaware of the case. He was in good company. The Hattar case appears never to have been mentioned by any news outlet in the U.S., including Moran's own network, that is, until Moran asked his question.

There's a Mad Hattar in this story too. It's Terry.

Nothing like some blogfodder

Deano!

CLINTON AIDE BACKING DEM DEAN:

Longtime Clinton aide Harold Ickes yesterday threw his support behind Howard Dean for the Democratic National Committee's new chief, fueling the growing belief Dean is unstoppable.
...
Ickes claimed Dean is a "real moderate" but Republicans are rooting for him just as they did in his failed 2004 presidential bid — which died with a scream in Iowa — convinced he will alienate swing moderates.

Howie! C'mon down!

"They baptized Hillary Clinton in Cedar Creek last Sunday..."

That's not quite how I remember the lyrics, but I was put in a gospel singing mood by Gerard Baker's London Times send-up of Her Heinous trying out her sheep's clothing for the 2008 election - Hillary Clinton gets religion and an AK47:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 15, 2005

At a public ceremony near Waco, Texas, Senator Clinton was received yesterday into full communion with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Repenting Transgressors.

As her sponsors, the Rev Jerry Falwell and the Rev Pat Robertson looked on lovingly, the New York senator was fully immersed in the swirling waters of the Brazos River. A gospel choir sang a collection of spiritual hymns, including, Lo, the Yankee Queen In Bright Array, Rises and It Takes a Village to Smite the Evil.

Mr Falwell welcomed Mrs Clinton, dressed in a white toga, as a reformed sister in the family of former sinners.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Voter,” he said. “The prodigal daughter has come home to the Lord! The sheep that was lost is found.”

I liked the part where she appeared at the NRA convention, too.

(Hat Tip: Betsy's Page)

Culture Vulture News: A&E stinks out the joint again

Tim Goodman in the SF Chronicle - A&E hits new lows with 'See Arnold Run'; see critic run even faster:

As if the A&E Network hadn't proved conclusively in recent seasons just how far it has fallen -- it has a roster of dreck to which few can compare -- a new biopic on Arnold Schwarzenegger confirms that nobody at the cable channel has much taste or, for that matter, smarts.
...
Apparently this will be another calendar year during which none of A&E's executives bothers to go out and buy a box of clues. And so the laughs are all yours as "See Arnold Run" unfolds Sunday as two of the most embarrassing, ridiculous hours of filmed television in some time.
...
Here's a caveat. And you should heed it: "See Arnold Run" is terrible. It's a movie so bad that even Mariel Hemingway's oh-honey-you-shouldn't-have take on Maria Shriver ranks among the very least of its crimes. Yes, if you're in the right frame of mind, the Arnold-Arianna-Barbara performances will make you howl. But that is a desperately sad place to imagine yourself.

Much more by following the link, but once again I wish I had been a fly on the wall at the meeting where all the minions congratulated the Big Cheese on this swell idea.

Poseur Alert!

Gosh, it's another one of those academic "revolutionaries!" When the revolution comes, Ward Churchill is more likely to be cleaning latrines. Badly.

I missed the fat old souse's rant

But that's OK, Iowahawk has the details:

It Is Finally Time To Exit The Oldsmobile

Iowahawk Guest Commentary by Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Like all Americans, I had high hopes for the future of the Oldsmobile and its passengers, as we struggle against the onrushing water and its poorly-designed shoulder belts. But as claustrophobia sets in we must begin to sober up and face the truth: hope is no longer an option.

It is time for us to recognize that our continued presence in this volatile region is a hinderance to the Oldsmobile and its people. Rather than helping the situation we are further weighing down the Oldsmobile, causing it to sink faster and faster into the quagmire of Chappaquidick Bay, creating a dangerous situation for both ourselves as well as its passengers who are desperately seeking an air pocket in which to start a better life.

That is why I believe we have reached the point where we must take a deep breath and immediately depart the Oldsmobile. We must seek through the watery darkness and release the belt latch of madness that has kept us here, and reach out for a sane and honorable window crank.

Good ole Ted! He never changes. He loves to abandon people.

Ain't we got fun!

Red State fills us in on Roll Call Contributing Writer Stuart Rothenberg's deconstruction of the crack "campaign strategists" at a couple of prominent leftoid blogs including my personal fave, the Fat-faced Punk. Lots of good clean fun for the whole family:

But when it comes to campaign savvy or understanding how the campaign committees operate, two of the most high-profile liberal bloggers have an exaggerated sense of their own importance and insights.

Gosh, I thought Kos had the smooth moves down pat!

As one of the commenters observes:

"I only wish he hadn't written this piece, leaving our friends to blindly cut off their own legs. Then again, I've not seen anything to give the indication that they will be influenced by this article, anymore than they follow political history."

True enough, but this could encourage mainstream Democrats to become less panicky at the prospect of facing the disapproval of their activist base. Which would be a good thing for the country in general, but not so good for the GOP. :)

Hey, split the difference like John Kerry! Be a flaming leftoid except when you are conning the folks to vote for you.

Pond Scum

Rope, tree, Fontan. Some assembly required. I must have missed the part of World War II where Ernie Pyle was embedded with the Gestapo.

Who left the door unlocked at the asylum?

Sigh. I take some time off for remunerative employment and everything turns into a target rich environment. Hugo Chavez and Babs Boxer in passionate embrace. Who'd a thunk it?

Steve Case was a Nazi stooge too!

Mr. Poor Impulse Control took time off from mourning the billion bucks he owes the United Nations to whine about Fox News:

CNN founder Ted Turner has called the Fox television network a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise in Germany before World War II.
...
Fox News in New York issued a statement saying, "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind — we wish him well."

And don't worry about the billion, welsher! Kofi got his pal Jacques to put in a plea for United Nations taxes.

Good one Hugo!

Then the Senate Democrats became unhinged and ran a hatefest for Condi Rice lead by the Kleagle himself, Bobby Byrd. Classy. But not as classy as the pet Latin American wingnut of the Democrat party, Hugo Chavez, who opened his yap to deliver this beauty:

Just days after U.S. Secretary of State-nominee Condoleezza Rice said at her Senate confirmation hearings that Chávez was ''a negative force in the region,'' he suggested she needed the type of companionship he could not satisfy. ''I will not make that sacrifice for my country,'' he said Sunday.

It's the dog with the smallest bone that's always barking. Someone must have handed Hugo a magnifying glass so he could remember what he was talking about.

Moonbat Poster Child

Of course, not all the Donk Senators came off badly from their extended whine. Babs Boxer confirmed her position as the primo Moonbat Poster Child with a mailing from the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee that told of her courageous effort to abuse Condi. It's a two hankie job fer sure, and it even features her high school graduation photo instead of a more current snap like the one above. Maybe she can get together with Hugo Chavez and do a soft porn film? Even Hugo ought to be capable of that. Or a comedy routine.

All in the family

For a while it was looking good - POLS' BLOOD FEUD:

They say it's not personal, but it is.

New York politics is looking positively Shakespearean now that Robert Kennedy Jr. is eyeing a run for attorney general against Andrew Cuomo — the man whose very public, bitter split from Kennedy's sister pitted two of the most powerful families in American politics against each other.

Family insiders say Kennedy, son of the assassinated New York senator by the same name, has never gotten over Cuomo's public contention that his sister, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, "betrayed" him by engaging in a steamy affair with polo-playing cad Bruce Colley.

And the sources contend that Cuomo, son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, has never forgiven Kennedy for failing to respond to his pleas to intervene with Kerry in hopes that Robert could prevent her from seeing Colley before the break-up.

But Kennedy insisted in an interview with The Post yesterday that bad blood with his estranged brother-in-law isn't the reason he's looking at entering the race.

Still, Kennedy pointedly refused to knock down the widespread view in state Democratic circles that he can't stand the man who publicly accused his sister of cheating.

"I won't talk about any of that, I won't talk about my feelings," said Kennedy, 51, a famed environmental lawyer.

"Famed environmental lawyer?" Oh yeah, the goofy Kennedy progeny that said Iowa pork farmers were a "greater threat than Osama bin Laden" and is in favor of windmills except where he has to look at them. That is, when he drops by the Kennedy compound after flying in on his private jet.

"One of the points that [U.S. Sen.] Hillary Clinton made to me when I met with her is that it would be important for a candidate to win statewide office on the issues of the environment and corporate control in this country, because it hasn't been done before," he added.

Hmm, I thought he wanted to be New York State Attorney General? Anyhow, more spicy details:

The Cuomos' nasty split — which followed tales of illicit love-nest trysts between Kerry and Bruce at Manhattan pals' pads — grabbed national headlines after lurid details of the married lovers' affair first surfaced in the summer of 2003.

Friends said Kerry, a human-rights activist, met Colley, a charming playboy restaurateur, indirectly through her brother.

Kennedy, through his Riverkeeper project, knew Colley's long-suffering wife, Ann, who heads the philanthropic efforts of millionaire Louis Bacon. This link then led Kerry and Andrew to meet the Colleys at a gathering at one of Bacon's estates.

The couples quickly became fast friends.

They frequently dined together at the trendy restaurant Man Ray, once part-owned by Bruce Colley, the son of a McDonald's franchise entrepreneur.

It's unclear when the affair between Kerry and Bruce began. But their spouses — suspicious of the time the pair were spending together — eventually confronted them, and both confessed, pals said at the time.

These limousine liberals certainly have interesting lives. And "careers."

Well, it turns out we got our hopes up for nothing - RFK AVOIDS DIRT DEVILS:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided against running for attorney general as a whispering campaign alleging serious skeletons in his closet was already well under way.
...
Kennedy, 51, conceded yesterday he expected his past — including a two-decades-old arrest for heroin possession — to be pursued if he entered a statewide race.
...
"I spoke to my uncle [Sen. Ted Kennedy], I spoke to my brother Joe, and they urged me to wait," said Kennedy.

He added that he wanted to spend time with his children "to make a difference in their lives while I still can."

Ted probably told him that he should have stuck to Scotch.

But it's not all gloomy, Kennedy fans!

... word comes that some Democrats are courting cousin Anthony Kennedy Shriver to run for governor of Florida when Jeb Bush's second term ends next year.

"If I felt that being in that position would be extremely effective and helpful to people in this state, I would consider it," Shriver, 39, coyly told Miami's New Times.

Director Brett Rattner cautions that his pal has "some stuff in his past that could prevent him from being governor."

All we know is that, in 1993, he panicked Adnan Khashoggi, Estee Lauder and other guests at a party at Donald Trump's manse in Palm Beach by driving his Jeep around the manicured grounds. Donald didn't press charges.

Probably borrowed some of Bobby Jr.'s stash.

I'll be gobsmacked!

al-Reuters does an interview with Lurch:

Democrat John Kerry said on Tuesday he was setting aside disappointment from his failed White House bid to resume his "great job" as a U.S. senator...

He misspoke - he really meant "no show job." I'm sure everyone was shocked to actually see him in the flesh. But here's a bigger shock!

... and to maintain his fight to expand health care for children.

"What I'm doing is keeping a campaign promise," Kerry said in explaining his
introduction of a sweeping bill this week to provide health insurance to all of
America's youngsters.

What's that, the sixth bill in his whole career? But even more intriguing - whatever happened to Teresa's Department of Wellness?

Today's Hoot!

It's Australia Day tomorrow!

Do you think the Diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages?"

"No. They were thinking of grabbing a lamb chop off the barbie with their bare fingers, sustaining third degree burns, then sticking their hands in a relieving esky to fish out a cold one," he says.

"The soap-avoiding, pot smoking hippy vegetarians might disagree with me, but they can get stuffed. They know the way to the airport, and if they don't, I'll show them."

“Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings.”

If I may translate for our American visitors: "Australia - f*ck yeah!"

More by following the link including the reaction of those with knotted knickers.

A roundup of the usual suspects

Her Heinous:

America's leaders don't have a vision, and the economy may be on the brink of collapse, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.

The chance to invest in a national energy policy may be lost because President Bush is looking the other way, and flaws in the American health-care system are going unaddressed, Clinton said.

But somehow, she manages to be hopeful.

Gosh!

Jailed "Brinks Radical" Wants Freedom:

A former radical serving 75 years in prison for the deadly 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck has asked to be released from prison.

She claims she was not given proper legal representation.

55-year-old Judith Clark filed a petition for habeas corpus yesterday in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Clark argues that the judge at her 1983 state trial violated the constitution when he granted Clark's request to serve as her own lawyer.

Prison's too good for Judy.

Alexandra Kerry - she's the horsefaced one. Er, she's the horsefaced one with the see through dress:

ALEXANDRA Kerry might not have made the most gracious presidential daughter. She waltzed into the Converse suite at the Motorola lodge and started demanding shoes. "The woman running the suite was helping someone else, but Alexandra didn't care," said our spy. "She just started pointing to all these shoes and saying really loudly, 'A 10! In those, those and those! Didn't you hear me? A 10!' " When the Converse woman told Kerry she didn't have her size, Kerry waggled her finger and sniffed, "I am NOT impressed with what's going on here." The woman sighed, "Well, then, you can leave — I am not impressed with you!"

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but she apparently hasn't learned Poppa's favorite line: "Do you know who I am?"

Babs Boxer:

Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser's honesty.

"She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNN's "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Someone get Her Wingnuttiness a big bandaid.

Who's up for an "End of the World" scam?

Ruh oh! It's Countdown to global catastrophe:

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

Good so far - the "End of the World" has to be pretty close or no one would care. But hold on a sec! It has to be far enough away that the marks can be properly milked.

The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from around the world - and it is remarkably brief. In as little as 10 years, or even less, their report indicates, the point of no return with global warming may have been reached.

"Impeccable sources" and a comfy 10 year deadline - this is beginning to look promising, but where's the red meat?

And it breaks new ground by putting a figure - for the first time in such a high-level document - on the danger point of global warming, that is, the temperature rise beyond which the world would be irretrievably committed to disastrous changes. These could include widespread agricultural failure, water shortages and major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rise and the death of forests - with the added possibility of abrupt catastrophic events such as "runaway" global warming, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, or the switching-off of the Gulf Stream.

All right, now we're talking! So after the marks are duly alarmed, you go for their wallets:

The report urges all the G8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and to double their research spending on low-carbon energy technologies by 2010.

They're for firewood and nuclear power! Er, probably not, but the main point is to get them to lay out some money, no matter how little. Then you keep going back for more.

It also calls on the G8 to form a climate group with leading developing nations such as India and China, which have big and growing CO2 emissions.

It's sure tough deciding which is most promising, being a diplomat organizing meetings of the "climate group" or a scientist fishing for grants to study the problem. Both seem pretty lucrative. Of course, the real fun is when the political loonies show up. Where's Jimmy Carter in his sweater? Or Babs Streisand hanging her wash on the line?

Which reminds me - Hurricane Scientist Leaves U.N. Team:

A federal hurricane research scientist resigned last week from a U.N.-sponsored climate assessment team, saying the group's leader had politicized the process.

Chris Landsea, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research division in Miami, said Monday that he would not contribute to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's chapter on atmospheric and surface climate conditions because the lead author had told reporters global warming contributed to intense Atlantic hurricanes last year.

In a letter he posted on the Internet, Landsea said there was little evidence to justify Kevin Trenberth's assertion in October that in light of current warming trends, "the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."

"It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming," he wrote. "My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy."

They're in on the scam, Chris! And they want a payoff now rather than later.

More brutality revealed!

Time to slap Mom around again, eh Imaad?

If you haven't yet seen Tim Blair's demolition of Washington Post reporter Jackie Spinner's risible maundering about American "brutality" in Iraq, give it a look. Too bad the WaPo doesn''t do video as I'm sure it would have been a crowd pleaser. The whole thing has that cheesy lowlife voyeur quality of a prime episode of Cops.

Anyhow, Iowahawk has advanced the story with a little dumpster diving behind WaPo HQ where he found more tales of infamy which unfortunately did not make the cut. Here's a sample:

Tales of embarrassment at the hands of American military forces abound in the capital city of Baghdad. Faisal, 19, recounts an episode last September as US Army troops were distributing food in the impoverished Sadr City section.

"I was with my mother for to help get the flour, and there were many of the beautiful neighborhood girls around," he says. "I am then smell the bad gas smell. I say to a crusader, 'I think I am smelling the passing of wind!'"

The callous response of an American soldier would eventually create another enemy inside this war-ravaged country.

"A crusader point to me and say, 'he who is to be smelt it, is one who dealt it!'" says Faisal, his eyes fiery with indignation.

After suffering through a withering crescendo of giggles, Faisal began slapping his mother uncontrollably.

Now a senior deputy to militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Faisal says the false fart charges radicalized him to fight against occupation.

"The Americans are Devils!" says Faisal. "They will taste death, as will their giggling collaborator girls, like Fatima!"

Iowahawk does satire. Jackie Spinner does too, but unconsciously.

Johnny Carson, RIP

Johnny Carson dies at age 79

Second Helping!

Donald Trump's wedding was a tad bizarre, but did Katie Couric really have to wear a clown outfit?

Now Playing: 'Anybody But Dean, Part 2'. C'mon Donks, don't be party poopers! Deano is da bomb!

Update: American Digest has:

Twenty-one subjects so tedious that the mere mention of them makes me want to unwind with a small shooting spree.
...
17) The United Nations and its plans to take $195 billion from you over the next few years. I'd pay $1,000 for a front row seat to watch the building blown into the East River. $2,000 if occupied. Above that, I'm out.

18) Any and all award shows involving television, film, or music celebrities. I will make an exception for "The Buffy Awards" in which a golden spike is driven into the hearts of the winners. Runner-ups to be nail-gunned onto "The Walk of Fame."

And while you're there, check out Inaugural Leak: Iraq Exit Strategy Unveiled.

Meanwhile Tim Blair has fun with the WaPo and The night the soldiers came:

The Washington Post's Jackie Spinner meets a calm and reasonable Baghdad resident who turned against the US after ... well, you'll find out soon enough.
...

Imaad and his mother said the soldiers rushed in, ordering them to sit together while they searched the house. "You look poor," Imaad recalled one of the soldiers saying. "Why?"

Seems an unusual thing for a soldier to say. Maybe he was a Sociology Commando.

Imaad answered in English: "I have not been able to find a job, although I'm a graduate of the College of Arts." His heart was pounding, Imaad said.

As well it might. For we are about to reach this story's moment of Hitchcockian ultra-horror:

No spoilers here! You have to follow the link. Let's just say that Imaad is a naughty boy!

Update 2: You won't read anything stranger than this today.

Biscuits and Gravy - Jan. 23, 2005

Good Ole al Reuters - Survey Finds Church-Going Americans Less Tolerant

Church-going Americans have grown increasingly intolerant in the past four years of politicians making compromises on such hot issues as abortion and gay rights, according to a survey released on Saturday.

And speaking of the usual idiots - Austria urged to revoke Arnie's citizenship

VIENNA (Reuters) - California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a citizen of both the United States and Austria, should be stripped of Austrian citizenship for allowing a convicted murderer to be executed, an Austrian politician says.

This is revealing - FROSH AGREE TO TAKE IT OFF FOR TSUMAMI-AID CALENDAR, but better not try it if any of those intolerant fundamentalists are about. Oooops, wrong kind of fundamentalists!

Concerning the right kind of fundamentalists to bash, MoDo phones another one in. As one of the Freepers observes:

Here is her formula:

1. Find something from Hollywood or television that is currently in the news.

2. Plug names of the President and assorted administration officials into the roles.

3. Mock the President for acting like some doofus Hollywood character.

She has done this with "The Godfather," "The Passion of Christ," "Titanic," and a few others that I can't recall right now.

But not to worry, when MoDo appears on FR, so does Catherine Zeta Jones.

Meanwhile, Bubba and Her Heinous do Key West to pick up a little spare change. Nominally it's for her, but maybe it's for him:

Political strategists are reportedly pondering a deal that would allow Bill Clinton to run for president again by getting Republicans to agree to a change in the constitutional ban on third terms.

Calling it "a long shot," U.S. News & World Report says the deal would work like this:

"Congressional Democrats will OK a constitutional amendment allowing naturalized citizens like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president if Republicans help kill the 22nd Amendment."

Sounds like a whole lotta wanking going on.

Mark Steyn:

I picked up the Village Voice for the first time in years this week. Couldn't resist the cover story: ''The Eve Of Destruction: George W. Bush's Four-Year Plan To Wreck The World.''

Oh, dear. It's so easy to raise expectations at the beginning of a new presidential term. But at least he's got a four-year plan. Over on the Democratic bench, worldwise they don't seem to have given things much thought. The differences were especially stark in the last seven days: In the first half of the week, Senate Dems badgered the incoming secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice -- culminating in the decision of West Virginia porkmeister Robert C. Byrd to delay the incoming thereof. Don't ask me why. Byrd, the former Klu Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states' rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days. Even "Eve Of Destruction," one notes, is a 40-year-old hippie dirge.

Ann Coulter:

In what The New York Times called Angola's "worst crisis" in "nearly 30 years" in December 1992, the country erupted into civil war. By January 1993, the streets were piled with thousands of dead bodies.

In the prior year, hundreds of thousands had died of starvation in Somalia. Millions more were still at risk.

Also in 1993, January floods left dozens dead and thousands homeless in Tijuana, Mexico.

Russia was, according to a New York Times editorial, on the brink of disaster, facing economic circumstances like those "that helped bring forth Hitler."

Nine people were killed in a volcano in Colombia in mid-January, including American scientists.

In Bosnia, according to The Times, hundreds had died of starvation and exposure in a matter of days.

"It has all been so much fun," Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd gushed in The New York Times in January 1993. It was Bill Clinton's one-week inaugural celebration. "Is it too much to ask that it go on forever?"
...
I wouldn't mention it, except for The Times' recent editorial snippily remarking that the amount of foreign aid to tsunami victims offered by the United States within the first few days of the disaster was "less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities." By that logic, why hold the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, or spend money on restaurants and theater productions praised in The New York Times? That money could go to tsunami victims.

Hollywood liberals could not be reached for comment on the cost of the inauguration because they were being fitted for gowns and jewelry worth millions of dollars in anticipation of Oscar night.

Do the anarchists dress up for their ball?

An impromptu demonstration by a crowd spilling from a "counter-inaugural ball" in Adams Morgan late Thursday turned into one of the biggest Inauguration Day disturbances, leaving windows smashed and nearly 80 people arrested.

Self-described anarchists, fans who had attended the punk-rock ball and passersby joined in a melee in the area of 18th Street and Columbia Road NW, where police said they spray-painted buildings with the red "A" anarchists use as their symbol, threw a brick through the windshield of a police vehicle and smashed out glass windows and doors at a police substation and at Riggs Bank and Citibank branches.
...
Nathan Bladh, 21, a jeweler from Escondido, Calif., in town to protest the inauguration, was outside the 18th Street NW hostel where he was staying when the protesters streamed by.

"We thought it would fun to join in," he said.

A few minutes later, Bladh was kneeling in the snow, having been arrested by police who surrounded the demonstration.

Bladh is evidently not the shiniest jewel in the case.