Okay, be honest now: have you ever consulted a psychic? I have - unwillingly and despite my sneering disbelief - in order to not hurt the psychic's feelings. She didn't charge me for the reading but I still thought it a total waste of time while simultaneously feeling guilty for being a snob and looking down on her. She told me that the wives of some well-known politicians visited her (indeed, she had photos) as well as celebrities (she had photos of those, too) and so on. And you know, all those celebrities and politicians can't be wrong...

Anyway, she used a regular pack of cards and made a prediction that I considered extremely unlikely to happen but which came true a few years later. Coincidence? I think so.

For some people, consulting psychics is an addiction and like every addiction, it's not cheap; they get into serious debt in order to feel that they have some control over their future.

Over the last 10 years this graduate of New York University, daughter of two computer scientists and otherwise rational adult in her 30's found herself spending more money on the services of tarot readers, palmists, clairvoyants and clairaudients (they hear voices) than some young actors spend on their cars. She paid one woman to read the sediment swirls at the bottom of a cup of Greek coffee.

Silly girl. My mom would have read it for her, for free.

Hooked on Online Psychics

In response to the Bush administration's growing encirclement, North Korea is getting scared and belligerent. The US has taken measures to stop North Korea's forgery of US currency and its extensive money-laundering operations; in response, North Korea not only quit the nuclear talks...

SEOUL, South Korea Mar 7, 2006 (AP)— North Korea reiterated its pledge not to return to nuclear disarmament talks after a meeting with U.S. officials about the communist regime's alleged illicit financial activity, a top North Korean diplomat was quoted as saying Wednesday.

At Tuesday's meeting in New York, the Americans emphasized that moves against a Macau bank where Pyongyang held accounts were part of regulatory moves "to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse, and not a sanction on North Korea," according to a U.S. Treasury Department statement.

...but fired two surface-to-air missiles in an impotent attempt to intimidate Japan as well. Unfortunately, they fired them in the wrong direction, toward China. That's got to put a warm fuzzy feeling in their Chinese benefactors' hearts, eh?

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles Wednesday, an unsettling reminder of the reclusive communist regime's ability to cause instability in the region where a standoff persists over its nuclear program.

(...)

Japan's Kyodo News agency gave conflicting details about Wednesday's launches, saying a security source in China told it the missiles were fired by mistake in the direction of China and apparently landed in North Korean territory.

However, the agency also quoted a Western military source as saying the missiles were test-fired from North Korea's eastern coast toward the Sea of Japan. At least one missile landed in the sea about 60 miles northeast of the launch site, Kyodo said, citing a Japanese defense official.

"Indications are that North Korea launched two short-range missiles," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in an e-mail to reporters traveling with President Bush. "We have consistently pointed out that North Korea's missile program is a concern that poses a threat to the region and the larger international community," he said.

Now if we could do something for all those exported slaves in Europe....

It's sad that it had to come to this, but the insidious boycott against Israeli Jews has reached a level that people involved in the IDF are afraid to leave Israel at all. So Alan Dershowitz is promising to defend any Israeli officer who is charged with war crimes abroad, as long as his actions were within Israeli government policy.

Why should the bad guys like Saddam get all the high-profile lawyers? I think this is a great idea, and a wonderful way to shame and defeat those who are targeting Jews for defending their country.

Dick Cheney assured AIPAC that the US won't allow Iran to attain nuclear weapons yesterday. He said that "all options are on the table", but the Bush administration has been saying the same thing for years, and dithering. While Iranian officials brag about how they fooled the West into agreeing to delay after delay, we continue to dance our quixotic dance with the feckless Europeans and the hostile Russians and Chinese.

What's the point any more?

By the way, Iran's two uranium mines have only marginal deposits; they only have enough uranium to fuel one gigawatt reactor for seven years-far from the financial break-even point when reactor lifetimes are measured in decades. It's pretty clear from that that Iran's sole intention is to obtain nuclear weapons.

Iran is now offering to suspend uranium enrichment for two years. We would be suckers to accept; we will be suckers if we allow the Euros and the Russians to accept on our behalf. Iran is taking Saddam's famous "cheat and retreat" strategy to whole new levels.

John Weidner points out a Ralph Peters article in which Peters is the boy who dares to point out the Emperor's splendid new clothes. Peters is in Iraq, where the Iraqi army deployed in force (100,000 soldiers, 47 battalions from 10 divisions) to calm the streets in the wake of the code-red level Iranian civil-war provocation, the bombing of one of Shiism's holiest shrines. They killed no civilians; they just kept order and tamped down the sectarian strife. Meanwhile, the Americans and the British sat back and watched. In the end, this is was a stunning vindication of our course of action in Iraq. Weidner:

If you've studied much military history, you will know that creating an army is extremely difficult. Creating an Arab army that can come close to Western standards, especially US and Israeli standards has never been done. This is actually a huge rebuke to those who think that the Arab world is incapable of change, and are doomed to be our enemies, all of them.

And yes, yes, I know that lots of things can still go wrong. But if I had said a couple of years ago that a major upheaval in Iraq in early 2006 would be dealt with without the need for US intervention, and without any (that I've heard of) failures or mistakes by the Iraqi Army, most people would have called me a crazy dreamer.

Weidner's fisking of an article on the Democratic party's desperate quest to pretend it has a mission statement is also essential reading.