Oh, yeah...

Correction from The New York Times, the Gray Lady, the Newspaper of Record:

An article on Jan. 16 about the way presidents fare in their second terms misstated the reason Bill Clinton was impeached. He was accused of perjury and obstruction of justice, not of having an affair with an intern.

After reading their editorials for so long, I guess the news staff got confused...

"Spread-eagled, fine! But don't read my emails."

Apparently Paris Hilton's blackberry was "hacked."

Key quote indicating the dawning of the apocalypse:

“She was pretty upset about it. It’s one thing to have people looking at your sex tapes, but having people reading your personal e-mails is a real invasion of privacy.”

Sigh.

Michael Chertoff quiz

As I mentioned earlier, Judge Chertoff, the new nominee to head up the Department of Homeland Security, is my ex-boss.

Underneath Their Robes, the frequently amusing blog about Federal judges, has a Michael Chertoff quiz up which is terrifically interesting and funny.

Moore: "Guns are bad! Except for my protection."

Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested last Thursday for carrying an unlicensed firearm.

One would have expected Moore to require his bodyguards to be unarmed, no?


ALMOST INSTANT UPDATE:

Apparently it's overstating it to say that "Michael Moore's bodyguard" was arrested. The bodyguard is a former Marine who works for Gavin De Becker's agency and has been assigned to Michael Moore in the past. Moorewatch has a lengthy post reviewing the facts of the arrest.

But still, why is Moore hiring armed guards at all?

Remembering the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz

This article is posted by participants of the January 27, 2005, BlogBurst (see list at end of article), to remember the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, sixty years ago, on January 27, 1945.

On January 20th, we marked the anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee Conference. In the course of that Conference, the Nazi hierarchy formalized the plan to annihilate the Jewish people. Understanding the horrors of Auschwitz requires that one be aware of the premeditated mass-murder that was presented at Wannsee.

Highlighting these events now has become particularly important, even as the press reports that '45% of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz' (Jerusalem Post, December 2, 2004).



The Holocaust, symbolized by Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps, occurred in the wake of consistent, systematic, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. As a result, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how.

As Germany expanded its domination and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, parts of the USSR, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Italy and others countries, the way was open for Hitler to realize his well-publicized plan of destroying the Jewish people.

After experimentation, the use of Zyklon B on unsuspecting victim was adopted by the Nazis as the means of choice, and Auschwitz was selected as the main factory of death (more accurately, one should refer to the “Auschwitz-Birkenau complex”). The green light for mass annihilation was given at the Wannsee Conference, January 20, 1942, and the mass gassings took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation. All were subject to brutal treatment.

In all, between three and four million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles and Red Army POWs, were slaughtered in Auschwitz alone (though some authors put the number at 1.3 million). Other death camps were located at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec (Belzek), Majdanek and Treblinka.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, sixty years ago, after most of the prisoners were forced into a Death March westwards. The Red Army found in Auschwitz about 7,600 survivors, but not all could be saved.

For a long time, the Allies were well aware of the mass murder, but deliberately refused to bomb the camp or the railways leading to it. Ironically, during the Polish uprising, the Allies had no hesitation in flying aid to Warsaw, sometimes flying right over Auschwitz.

There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.

If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.

The full list of participating blogs can be found here.

Blogburst

This blog will be participating in the January 27 Blogburst, "Remembering the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz."

A blogburst is a coordinated cross-posting of material across blogs. There are currently over 140 blogs participating in the January blogburst. The full list of participating blogs can be found here.

[Listening to: Solace (Orchestra Version) - Marvin Hamlisch - The Sting (3:37)]

My friends Melissa and Dan on TV!!!!

I meant to blog about this earlier, but I, well, forgot.

Anyway, my friend Melissa was the subject of tonight's Queer Eye for the Straight Girl on Bravo.

She was preparing to propose to her boyfriend, Dan.

I was kvelling the whole show. If you get a chance to see a repeat, watch it!

America's Stupidest Senators...

I found it...

Washingtonian Magazine asked Capitol Hill staffers to pick the Best and Worst of Congress.

Boxer came in second.

NO ROCKET SCIENTIST

1. Tie: Rick Santorum (R-PA), Patty Murray (D-WA)
2. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
3. Tie: George Allen (R-VA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK)

A crowded field—more than a third of the Senate got votes.

Incidentally, Patty Murray is easily stupider than Boxer. I note that when I was working on the Hill, then-Senator Carol Mosely-Braun would have topped this list in a landslide.

Barbara Boxer

I remember reading somewhere that Barbara Boxer was voted one of the dumbest members of Congress by Capitol Hill aides. Does anyone out there have a citation to that?

Mike Chertoff

My ex-boss when I interned on the Senate Whitewater Committee, Michael Chertoff was nominated to be the new Secretary of Homeland Security today. Wonkette's take:

This is what Bush said when nominating U.S. federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff and former Whitewater counselor as his latest nominee for secretary of homeland security: "Mike has shown a deep commitment to the cause of justice and an unwavering determination to protect the American people."

This is what Bush meant: "Fuck you, Hillary."

Best Ikea product name ever.

Heh, heh, heh.

Update: The guys at Ikea must have heard the ridicule, because they've taken it off the site. Anyway, so that you get the joke, the product was called the Fartfull. (Heh.)