All hail former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, on his appoojntment as our second HOmeland Security Secretary. When the nation (or at least, the Imperium) needs a man who knows how to say “Yes, Il Duce” without asking any questions, Bernie Kerik answered the call.

Out of nowhere, new unemployment claims jumped unexpectedly for last week, to around 350,000 (around 25,000 higher than expected). Certainly this is possibly explained as a statistical anomoly from a volatile holiday season… by next week, this could easily “correct”. If, on the other hand, this is evidence of a more persistent trend of economic weakness, then, coming as it does at the peak consumer spending season, this does not bode well… Not to worry. Reality is no longer important; we’ll just wait for the White House announcement to tell us the actual significance (or insignificance) of this event.

In a stunning reversal of an earlier announcement, jailed militant Palestinian Marwan Barghouti announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah’s official candidate, remains the favorite (and, unfortunately for his prospects, Israel’s favorite), but the jailed Barghouti could complicate things in an already insanely complicated situation as the Palestinians seek an orderly transition to the post-Arafat kleptocracy…, er, order. Meanwhile, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon dismissed his coalition partner, (Justice Minister) Tommy Lapid’s secular Shinui Party (the big winner in early 2003’s election), and has announced that he will approach Shimon Peres and the Labour Party...

Amidst the same group of news that noted that the Jeopardy! champion got knocked off, and that “blog” was Merriam-Webster’s “word of the year”, we see that our beloved Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge joins the waves of departing Bush cabinet secretaries. Ridge will now “spend more time with his family”, one of the great political euphemisms for “the organization wants to make some changes”. In this case, more close at hand loyalists, so that there is no cacophony… just a pure message coming from Washington (after all- reality is irrelevant… it’s the message that matters.) It’s “code red” for...

Just when we were getting used to a probable record month for American casualties in Iraq, Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri sends greetings via a video broadcast on al Jazeera television. The video-tape was pretty close to OBL’s own pre-election message (which, translated from the Arabic, went something like “while Bush is obviously great for our business, given that Kerry is pandering to your stupid rural assholes by trying to get a seat at the tough guy’s table, he won’t be that bad for business either”). The text of the portions that al Jazeera broadcast (my translation) was something...

This week’s visit to our friends at Beijing’s People’s Daily will give us a brief look at all three members of the Axis of Evil TM. First, from Iran, we see that the Iranian foreign ministry is quibbling with the recent purported agreement with European powers Britain, France and Germany to suspend uranium enrichment activities, though Iran (“with the support of nations from the non-aligned movement”) is seeking to modify aspects of the agreement, including keeping 20 centrifuges “for research”. Note that the USA continues to accuse Iran of developing weapons. Our problem here is that (1) we have no...

The potentially explosive situation in Kiev, Ukraine following the hotly disputed presidential election rolls along. According to this piece (representing this week’s visit to Pravda), time is not on the side of the opposition, whose candidate Victor Yuschenko managed to get Ukraine’s supreme court to hold up certifying the election results. Pravda’s take is that we have an especially interesting situation in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has sided with the sitting government of outgoing current president Leonid Kuchma along with the government’s candidate, Victor Yanukovich, and the European Union has clearly sided with challenger Yuschenko. Naturally, Yanukovich is looking to...

While America’s “morality-obsessed” voters get ready for their national day of gluttony (to be followed by our national month or so of avarice), yours truly would like to give thanks… to the people of Ukraine for taking democracy seriously enough to threaten an armed revolt when an election is clearly stolen right from under them (we’re obviously hoping this works out peacefully and orderly, with no loss of life; still, I am heartened by the enthusiasm all around) . While EU and Russian leaders are urging a peaceful resolution, its good to see that there are things in this world...

There are the known knowns, and the known untruths, such as SecDef Rumsfeld’s statement that he supports the recently killed-by-Congress legislative overhaul of the nation’s intelligence apparatus. One of the killed proviswions, the darling of the 9-11 Commission, would have consolidated many intelligence functions under a national intelligence coordinator (a job left vacant over the last four years while NSC Advisor “Dr.” Condolleezza Rice took a paid leave of absence from her position that usually performs this function). To be honest with you, I was never a big fan of the intelligence “reform”. Having a national drug czar has done...

Lame duck Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time in sixteen months (is it actually conceivable that an American Secretary of State has been absent from Israel for that long?) announced that he was pleased with both preparations by the Palestinians for their election and preparations by the Israelis to actually allow Palestinian candidates to move around to campaign and Palestinian voters to vote. I suppose Powell is in the area because “the quartet” (USA, EU, UN and… Russia? RUSSIA?) are meeting at the Sharm el Sheik resort in Egypt to discuss...