Sisyphus Shrugged has written the most insightful, intelligent review of Sid Blumenthal’s much maligned Clinton Wars. Brilliant.

I will be working at a conference for the next two days with no access to a PC, so it’ll be pretty quiet here. But wait until this coming weekend; I have a post that’s bubbling up that, if I can get my hands around it, will be the post ot end all posts.

I find it amusing that the Spell Checker for Blogger.pro doesn’t recognize the words blog, blogger or blogging. It reminds me of how Microsoft Word’s spell checker didn’t recognize the word “Internet” until 1998 or so.

Well, yes, but this one really jumped out at me.

Also, great SARS art here.

(Again, from Boing Boing)

UPDATE: One more, SARS SUNTAN:

From Reuters’ Oddly Enough column:

Boy Breeds Eggs in His Body, Produces Beetles?
Tue June 17, 2003 08:39 AM ET
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A 13-year-old Indian boy has begun producing winged beetles in his urine after hatching the eggs in his body, a senior medical official said Monday.
Doctor Chittaranjan Maity, Medical Education Director of West Bengal state where the boy is from, said doctors found the beetles while examining him for pain in the groin area.

An expert in urology, Doctor N. Subramanian, said that in theory it was possible for insects to hatch in the body and come out in urine but said he had not heard of such a case.

(Courtesy Boing Boing)

Thinking of sending the kids to summer camp? Want to make sure it’s a camp that will instill good, all-American values and teach the kids to love the things that really count in life — like guns? Then Camp America is for you. It really defies belief. (Courtesy of Orcinus, the Web’s best chronicler of the freeper-patriot movement, which in the Age of Ashcroft is becoming ever more mainstream.)

When the US arrests its citizens unfairly, I get just as upset as when China does it. This account of a frivolous arrest and its dangerous implications speaks volumes about our attorney general. (Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, who, I’m glad to see, is watching Ashcroft with an increasingly critical eye.)

Of course, unlike the poor innocent I referred to yesterday, the victim in this story lives to talk about it.

Only about 9 more days before I go under the knife (or, to be precise, the arthroscope) to have a ripped shoulder tendon re-attached to the bone with titanium screws. The literature the doctor gave me soothingly says, “This operation will be very painful.” Great. I’ll have a tube coming out of my neck for three days for intravenous pain killer, and I am not looking forward to it. I go to the hospital today for a series of pre-operation tests, then I check in a week from Wednesday, the day after my birthday, for three or fours days.

In case you missed my account of the Mr. Bean-like accident that caused all this, I wrote about it earlier when I lived in that Chinese city….what was the name of it? — oh yes, Beijing.

I don’t know if they’ll let me blog in the hospital, but I’ll certainly try.

Josh Marshall makes a pretty iron-clad case that Bush & Co. lied about the Iraq’s WMD and al Qaeda link (not surprising) and are now hiding under Bush Sr.’s old argument that he was “out of the loop” when the lies were being concocted. Scathing and merciless.

Andrew Sullivan unfairly rips Hillary Clinton over her doublespeak on same-sex marriage. When asked if she is for it in America, she ultimately waffled, though she made it clear she supports states creating domestic partnership legislation. Sullivan concludes his smear with an outright lie: “So there you have it. The Senator from New York State is opposed to equal rights for gays and lesbians. ”

Even more than abortion, this is probably the most politically charged topic in America. Bill Clinton tried (semi-successfully) to end the ban on gays in the military and was always publicly sympathetic to their cause. Then the Republicans, for no other reason but to embarrass him, created a ridiculous act, something like “the sanctity of marriage act” (I forget and don’t want to remember). The meaningless legislation simply stated that marriage was an act intended for men and women, and Clinton had no choice but to sign it to avoid major politicization of the issue with no point except to paint the Democrats as radically to the left.

This is the (ugly) world of politics. Politicians know that their critics hang on their every word and, wishy-washy as it seems, they have to measure what they say carefully, especially when it comes to super-charged issues — and Sullivan knows it. Would he apply the same litmus test to George W. on gay marriages? Because if he did, I suspect he would be mighty disappointed.

Sullivan goes way, way out of his way to make Hillary C. look bad, when she was obviously struggling to say she was supportive, without falling into the political booby trap. I think she should be commended. And if you really want to criticize pols for ducking tough questions, go look up George W.’s answers in 2000 to questions about his use of cocaine.