Across Difficult Country

Mustafa Setmarian Nasar , the alleged mastermind of last year's Madrid railway bombings, who also goes by the name Abu Musab al-Suri, has emerged as a suspect in the London attacks, according to unidentified investigators cited in The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday Nasar, as you might recall, has been known to use British identity documents and has an advantage going undetected amongst Europeans because he has red hair . For more, including Mustafa Setmarian Nasar’s possible link to Iraq, see the Red Headed League .

Today is Independence Day, and all across our great big world people are celebrating the 4th of July in their own way. An Albanian peasant exercises his right to ride a donkey sideways. Later, in the spirit of freedom, the peasant will allow the donkey to ride him. Happy Independence Day Albanian donkey and friend! In China, overweight women demonstrate independence by painting their disgutingly large bellies . Benjamin Franklin used to celebrate the Fourth of July the same way, much to the embarassment of the other Founding Fathers (John Adams in particular). In the Philippines , a crowd celebrates July 4th by cavorting around a crude mask of the patron saint of freedom, Ronald Reagan. Happy Independence Day America.

Opinion columnist Leonard ‘Pulitzer’ Pitts writes : Mark was surprised at his own ignorance. He's a reader who e-mailed me in response to my recent column about lynching. "If someone had asked me to estimate how many people were lynched between 1865 and 1960," he said, "I think I would have guessed around 75. "I am struggling with getting my brain around the number 4,700 in your column ... Appalled and disgusted doesn't come close to describing my thoughts. "But astounded as I was to see that number in your column, I am also stunned by my ignorance." One way to get one’s “brain around the number 4,700” for the years “between 1865 and 1960” is to reflect on the fact that 4,700 is 510 less than the number of murders committed by blacks in the year 2002 alone .

An item on an inexplicably esteemed ‘litblog’ complains about a recent essay in the WSJ by John Miller that criticized H.G. Wells: "Finally, Miller leaves us with a few bizarre insinuations about Wells' beliefs in science, evolution, and materialism. It is a peculiar claim of today's "conservatives" that by embracing evolutionary theory, the left has also embraced social Darwinism, thus destroying individual dignity and ushering in a merciless, survival-of-the-fittest world. Of course, it was the uber-capitalists of the Gilded Age who turned the theory of natural selection into a pseudo-scientific social creed. And the victory of laissez-faire, dog-eat-dog capitalism -- and the abolition of civilizing regulatory and social policies that guard against its worst excesses -- have been the central causes of the Republican Party for the last thirty years." H.G. Wells, in his own words: "It seemed to me that to discourage the multiplication of people below ...

"Within a single generation," writes David Ritchie, "paranoia has become as American as baseball and Mom’s apple pie." ...Ritchie, a bearded man of about 50 who has lived and worked in Seoul, Korea, since the mid-90s, is a specialist in geophysics and aerospace technology. Over the past two decades, he’s written books about everything from volcanoes and earthquakes to artificial intelligence and the history of American space-based weapons systems. He’s also written countless articles on science and technology for a variety of magazines. It’s only been in the last few years, however, that he’s turned his attentions toward conspiracy theories. Or, more specifically, what he has labeled "techno-paranoia"–those particular conspiracies that revolve around technological issues–UFOs, "scalar weapons," antigravity engines and the like. ...As it turns out, nearly every aspect of most of these stories can be traced back to some particular movie or tv show–...

Some really old jokes - 5th Century AD old, from the Philogelos : 57. An intellectual got a slave pregnant. At the birth, his father suggested that the child be killed. The intellectual replied: "First murder your own children and then tell me to kill mine." #227B. While an intellectual was imbibing in a tavern, someone approached and told him: "Your wife is dead." The intellectual said: "Time, my good man, to mix me some dark wine #247B. While a misogynist was paying his last respects to his wife, someone asked him: "Who has gone to rest?" He replied: "Me, now that I'm alone." #248A. A misogynist was sick, at death's door. When his wife said to him, "If anything bad happens to you, I'll hang myself," he looked up at her and said: "Do me the favor while I'm still alive."

New allegations of ‘Koran abuse’: LAHORE, Pakistan, June 28 -- Pakistanis freed from jail here after being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged Monday that they saw American interrogators throw, tear and stand on copies of the Koran... As has been noted elsewhere , the simplest way to put a stop to allegations of Koran abuse by Guantanamo prisoners is to take away the Korans . One former detainee also alleges, “naked women sat on prisoners' chests during questioning.” It isn’t clear to me if he is complaining or bragging, but he should be grateful to America for having provided him with the only instance in his life he will ever have contact with a naked woman who is less hairy than he is.