Women and Children First --



I can't help but picture these grandmothers as charred corpses. Hussein hands out guns, thereby making his civilians combatants. The US kills them, then Hussein, and the NYT, claims them as civilian deaths. I'm somewhat heartened by the fact that people aren't dumb when it comes to self-preservation, and will very quickly lose the AKs and hide when the American troops thunder into the already decimated town. I hope for the best for the like of Faris Zubaid who says, "We will show them our bravery. We will show them we can fight. And we will fight until we win or die." Once the heavens tear open, I figure a situational assesment of the odds of winning against death will reveal to Faris that fighting in this case is not an instance of bravery. Building a liberal democracy in fucking Iraq, now that takes bravery. So save it. Please, please save it.

James Watson -- Iconoclastic Randian Hero of Science who also, as it happens, likes to get laid. I quite like the fact that he pisses people off. And he's often right on, for instance:

"You know, the only people who say that stupid people don't exist are people who are not stupid. We know that if we go to homeless people there is an underclass with a very strong mental disease component. Those people can't pull themselves together, the brain just won't allow it. So it is not that they are weak in character, they are seriously unequal," Watson says. "People in first-class universities may have brains that work more efficiently than people who aren't there and if you could help someone, wouldn't that be nice?"

And this is priceless, and as true as truth gets:

"The book of the DNA sequence would in time be regarded as more relevant to human life than the Bible. It tells us who we are," he says, adding without a hint of irony: "I've never read the Bible, so I'm not sure I've missed much."

[from A & L Daily]

Automobility! -- I finally got a car! I can stay out on weekends after the Metro stops running! I can LEAVE WASHINGTON! It's a cute vehicle, a 1996 Honda Civic EX in lovely shape with just 43,000 miles. So I'm jazzed. But I need your help. I like to forge a personal relationship with my cars. My last, a red 1988 Escort GT, which gave up the ghost in the middle of Manhattan in August 2001, was dubbed Mephisto by my Goethe-loving German freundin. The Civic needs a name! So I propose a little contest: suggest a name for the Civic in the comments box, and if I pick your entry, I'll give you either a kiss, a ride in the newly christened conveyance, or a dollar -- your choice!

A sleek little black creature, it looks almost exactly like this: