From the AP on the Saddam Hussein trial: Dressed in black trousers and a gray jacket, Saddam was the last of eight defendants to enter the courtroom, walking with a swagger, appearing confident and acknowledging people with the traditional Arabic greeting, “Peace be upon the people of peace.” He also carried a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

Come to think of it, do we even know if Bin Laden and Zarqawi are really believers or just expoliting religious belief for political gain? Of course, we don’t.

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Ecologically-related catastrophes in Harbin, then Chongqing, now a mine blast in the northeast, killing 68 – all within days.

An explosion at a state-run coal mine in China’s remote northeast killed 68 workers and left another 79 trapped underground, the government said on Monday, as frantic rescue efforts were underway for survivors.

A total of 221 miners were underground when the cave-in occurred about 21:40 on Sunday at the Dongfeng coal mine, near Qitaihe city in Heilongjiang province, not far from the Russian border with Siberia.

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Bruce Willis is apparently making a film based on the superb Iraq War reporting of blogger Michael Yon. From the Timesonline: It will be based on the exploits of the heavily decorated members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, which has spent the past year battling insurgents in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

Okay… finally a pro-democracy, pro-US involvement feature film about Iraq. I’m placing a bet right now this movie will go through the roof, to the consternation of many of Willis’ peeers. Of course, that’s a risky prediction in the movie and political worlds, but considering the following from today’s Washington Post (via Balloon Juice), I feel pretty secure about this one:

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale — with 44 percent saying morale is hurt “a lot,” according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

That’s a lot of people who want to stand up and cheer for our troops.

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As I recall, one of the rumors running around Harbin, in the midst of their water pollution disaster, was that an earthquake was about to hit them. Turns out the quake has hit central, rather than northern, China with at least 17 killed and thousands homeless at this wee insomniac hour here in California. Seismologists are reporting a 5.5 Richter scale quake – certainly substantial but nowhere big enough, it would seem, to be producing this kind of a carnage. Of course this is rural China where people live in a manner in no way comparable to the glittering big cities of Shanghai and Beijing. But one wonders how those monuments to instant development would withstand a serious shake.

UPDATE: And now Iran. It’s as if there were a cosmic conspiracy against the poor of these countries. And in the case of Iran, they are poor indeed, oppressed by a regime of religious psychotics that wants nuclear arms. for the sake of all of us, I hope they put them in earthquake secure missile silos. I hope the Europeans are starting to get the message that keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the mullahs is not about George Bush, but about human life.

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Everyone knows Boomers are, well, a tad narcissistic. They won’t get off stage and it’s hard to get them to slow down or age gracefully. [You're not talking about yourself, are you?-ed. Moi?] This is nothing important, all just fun and games…… until you run into one of these leftovers from that old The Cheers classic (Lieber & Stoller circa 1955) barreling down the road next to you. Then it’s time to look out and hold onto your hat (or buy a helmet)! According to the AP:

Statistics show state motorcycle fatalities on the rise, with most involving riders 40 and older on bikes with the largest engines.

Nationwide, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s projected 2004 figures have motorcyclists 40 older involved in about 47 percent of 3,900 fatalities. They’re also expected to account for more than 60 percent of the yearly increase in deadly crashes.

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I remember that phrase… or something like it… as one of the catchy descriptions of Hollywood filmmaking back in the day (thirties? forties?). But I can’t seem to pull its provenance out of my dim memory… or out of Google… at this moment. Perhaps some reader can. At any rate, I was reminded of it when reading this post by ShrinkWrapped on Real Estate Narcissism.

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The Melbourne Herald Sun tells us: Just days after a 100-tonne spill of toxic benzene [in Harbin] caused a public health crisis, a second chemical plant explosion has been reported in China.

Schools closed and thousands of people were evacuated in southwest Chongqing after a blast at the Yingte Chemical Company.

This isn’t rural China. These are big towns where these eco catastrophes are occurring. Harbin has 3-1/2 million people; Chongqing a mindboggling 30 million, give or take the population of Delaware. Put another way, Chongqing by itself has considerably more people than Iraq and is catching up to California. No wonder this isn’t a simple situation. The Independent, a left-leaning publication, has a pretty detailed analysis of how the Chinese lied to their people about the Harbin spill.

More interesting to me are the implications of these events for the ecology of the developing world, of which China, despite its giant economy, is still very much a part. In the light of the disasters in Harbin and Chongqing (and whatever other ones the Chinese government may have succeeded in covering up) the politically-motivated (and happily extinct) Kyoto Treaty now seems almost anti-ecological in its intent. But as countries like China and India boom, genuine global approaches to these matters must be developed. The question is how to do that without the interference of the hugely-corrupt United Nations, which would most likely make matters worse. Still, this is everybody’s problem. The Russians are already bracing for the pollutants from Harbin.

UPDATE: Pajamas Media has more with links to blogs inside China.

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I am, but not at Wal-Mart. Like Teddy Kennedy, I don’t go there. But unlike Teddy, I don’t have an opinion about it.

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… too busy with family, I guess… but I just had to link it in case anyone wants to comment. (As you know, they don’t have comments over there.) Frankly, I don’t have anything to say. I just want to the throw up.

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This is a Debka exclusive, so take it for what it’s worth, but…

He was told: hand over the six Syrian officers wanted for questioning in the Hariri assassination by the end of Friday, Nov. 25 – or face a charge of non-cooperation to the UN Security Council.

Mehlis insists on interrogating the officers outside Syria. Assad is posing legal barriers against making them available overseas. Among the suspects are the president’s brother-in-law Gen. Assef Shawqat, head of Syrian military intelligence and strongman of the Baath regime, and Gen. Rustum Ghazaleh, Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon at the time of the murder and current overlord of all Syria’s intelligence agencies.

UPDATE: Maybe it’s not so exclusive. According to Reuters, Mehlis is “close to giving up” on Syrian cooperation. The showdown may soon shift to the Security Council.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS: What’s going on now isn’t all that amazing. What we’re seeing is a gangster regime trying to prevent some “family” (figuratively and literally) members from going to jail for life (by assuring they are tried within Syria). What always surprised me about the Syrian regime, particularly under Bashar, is how dumb they are. The whole world knows they are mafiosi, but would have been prepared to ignore it as long they stayed within their own borders, ruining the lives only of their own people. But the Allawites insist on projecting their own dubious power. How self-destructive is that.

More interesting to me: Why is the UN Security Council suddenly developing some backbone? The other day they even condemned Hezbollah. This can’t all be because of the presence of John Bolton. It’s also rather unlikely to be due to a sudden “moral reawakening” from the likes of Russia and China. Could it be there is some extremely embarrassing Oil-for-Food information being held in abeyance?

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