The latest nine day wonder is the story of former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger walking out with classified documents and notes inadvertently “stuck in his pants”. Former President Clinton’s take on the story is interesting:

Bill Clinton defended his embattled national security adviser Tuesday as a man who “always got things right,” even if his desk was a mess.

“We were all laughing about it on the way over here,” the former president said of the investigation into Samuel “Sandy” Berger on classified terrorism documents missing from the National Archives. “People who don’t know him might find it hard to believe. But … all of us who’ve been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers.

In this spirit rather than commenting on the merits of the story how about a rundown on the sly, funny, and mocking things being written around the blogosphere on the story?
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From the Financial Times French workers vote to work longer hours for same pay:

French workers at a car components factory owned by Bosch on Monday dealt a blow to the country’s law limiting the working week to 35 hours, as they unilaterally accepted demands from the private German automotive group to work longer for the same pay.

And in a related story: Hell Freezes Over.

Seriously, they wanted to keep their jobs. Better to work a few more hours than lose the job altogether.

Hat tip to Steve Antler.

The blogosphere has been all a-twitter for nearly a week in reaction to Annie Jacobsen’s story from Women’s Wall Street:

On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.

If you’re just coming up to speed on this story the 14 Middle Eastern men appeared to be behaving oddly, several people on board seem to believe that it was a dry-run for a terrorist attack, etc. etc. Musical band or terrorist band? Senseless panic or prudent vigilance? Opinion is somewhat divided. Donald Sensing’s blog is a great place to start to get the lowdown (he’s skeptical) see here.
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The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC is dominated by the heroic sculture of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is portrayed as seated in a serene and composed but somehow inviting manner. His left hand is closed and resting on the arm of his throne. His right hand is opened. The sculptor of the famous statue was Edwin Miner Gallaudet who was also responsible for some of America’s most beautiful coins.

Moe of Obsidian Wings writes:

I looked at it and got the feeling that he was frozen in the act of getting up and clocking somebody with that clenched fist of his.

It’s not clenched, Moe, it’s closed. Look at the muscles and tendons of Mr. Lincoln’s left wrist. They’re relaxed. And scultors understood anatomy back then.

Edwin Gallaudet’s father was Thomas Parker Gallaudet, the minister and educator of the deaf who was instrumental in the founding of the first college for the deaf that later was named Gallaudet University for him. Edwin was the university’s first president.

Mr. Lincoln’s left hand is signing the American Sign Language finger-spelling sign for the letter A.
His right hand is signing the ASL sign for L. A—L. Abraham Lincoln.

Clayton Cramer draws our attention to this item. An anonymous NEA employee reports:

Another moment came in nostalgic mode, when Children’s Defense Fund founder and liberal icon Marian Wright Edelman was honored with a Friend of Education award. She responded with a gratifying sermon on the old time religion. Channeling the spirit of Sojourner Truth to blast the Bush (-Powell-Rice?) administration, she repeatedly brought the crowd to fever pitch. It was charming.

But one particularly interesting moment came with her bold declaration that Bush was failing the world by “supporting brutal, corrupt dictators.” In context, this got a nice slice of the rolling applause wave that continued throughout her remarks.

But I couldn’t help but wonder which dictators she had in mind.

The Taliban? No, Bush took them out already.

Saddam Hussein? No, the U.S. got him, too.

The mullahs of Iran? Kim Jong-Il? No, Bush regards them as “evil,” and they regard him as their main problem.

Qaddafi? No, he was one of the first to get the message.

Castro? I don’t think so.

So who?

Sadly, there was no time for Q&A, so Mrs. Edelman was not given a chance to elucidate.

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Steven Den Beste has a typically good essay on form, substance, and the shortcomings of waiting for our friends in the EU to approve our actions in the War on Terror:

That last sentence [ed.—referring to the Democrats’ platform draft] is a straddle worthy of the master. It’s also boilerplate. For what this really says is that the Democrats think it is more important what reputation the US has in “the world” than what the US accomplishes to reduce the threats we face. The goal of foreign policy should be to get the Europeans to pat us on the head and to praise us for being good boys and girls.

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Steve Antler, the Econopundit, fisks today’s Paul Krugman New York Times op-ed on the Bush and Kerry health plans. Antler suggests that Mr. Krugman needs a little field work on this issue:

And here of course is where Paul Krugman shows his ignorance of the real world of workers and employers. The problem he warns about is already here. Younger, healthier workers opt out of employer-provided health insurance all the time. Sometimes they expect and get larger paychecks as a result—and sometimes they don’t. This process has already generated higher the higher insurance premiums Paul warns of.

Paul—listen to me. All of this has all already happened.

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There’s a list of underblogs—blogs that deserve more traffic—being compiled at The Living Room. If you like what I’m doing here, please go over and put in a plug for The Glittering Eye.

Obsidian Wings, one of my multiple times daily blog visits, has lurched uncontrollably into a series of Scottish threads first on single malt Scotch whisky and now on the poetry of Bobbie Burns.

A few years ago my wife and I visited the Scottish highlands. We simply loved it. The history was fascinating, the scenery beautiful, and the people incredibly hospitable. It was like coming home.

One anecdote from our trip. We spent our first night in Scotland in a B&B in Edinburgh. We rose the next morning and, over breakfast with other fellow-visitors, agreed to share a car ride into town center. Well, while looking for a place to park we got pretty turned around as you could expect in the twisty streets of Edinburgh. It was early on a chill and slightly misty Sunday morning and the only people about were a pair of men patching the street. My wife walked over to the men and asked them where the castle was. One of the men looked up and said, solemnly, “Och, I canna tell ye. ‘Tis a secret.” It was at that point that we absolutely knew we weren’t in England. He then pointed. We were standing under the castle.