Fetch, Blog, Fetch

Jesus, is he still alive?
Jesse Helms, objecting to Bill Clinton’s appointment as the UN’s tsunami reconstruction go-to guy, called him a ”left-wing, undisciplined and ethically challenged former President of the United States,” in a letter trying to raise funds for his senatorial library. Message: know your constituents.

Nepal and…
The king of Nepal has apparently put most of the government under house arrest in an effort to… thwart Maoist insurgents. Wow. I didn’t even know there were Maoists out there any more.

In the meantime, an election occurred in Iraq that went much better than feared. Hooray! A comparison between that election and the Vietnam election of 1967 has been making the e-mail rounds (a comparison refuted earlier this week by my favorite crank, Christopher Hitchens, in Slate). Well, it’s too soon to tell. Many would like to believe that the Bush administration really knows what it’s doing. I am not one of that number.

Dean Dean Dean!
Howard Dean may become the head of the Democratic National Committee. This is either scary or heartening.

Homeland Security
Drudge has broken a story which is supposed to appear in the Washington Post tomorrow that the Department of Homeland Security is plagued by “personality conflicts, bureaucratic bottlenecks and an atmosphere of demoralization.” Personally, I think it could probably all be fixed with duct tape.

Deep in the heart…
There was a recent study of the high school abstinence program in Texas. From Reuters: “The study showed about 23 percent of ninth-grade girls, typically 13 to 14 years old, had sex before receiving abstinence education. After taking the course, 29 percent of the girls in the same group said they had had sex.” Abstinence, therefore, must be an aphrodisiac. Q.E.D.