Revealed: the Scot who inspired Dickens' Scrooge

Failing eyesight led to one of Christmas’s favourite characters
JIM MCBETH

HIS name became an aphorism for meanness, but the base nature of Ebenezer Scrooge was inadvertently fashioned by failing light and an author whose eyesight was equally dim.

The real "Scrooge", an Edinburgh merchant, could not have been more different from his literary counterpart.

But the gloaming of an evening in the Capital, allied with an episode of mild dyslexia suffered by Charles Dickens, has forever associated Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie with one of the Victorian author’s most famous characters.

In life, Scroggie was apparently a rambunctious, generous and licentious man who gave wild parties, impregnated the odd serving wench and once wonderfully interrupted the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by grabbing the buttocks of a hapless countess.

However, it was in 1841 when his entire life was misconstrued by Dickens.

Dickens was in the capital to deliver a lecture to an audience of Edinburgh notables. He was wandering the city, killing time before the talk, when he visited the Canongate Kirk graveyard.

There, as revealed by his diaries, he saw a memorial slab which read: "Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie - meal man". The description referred to his main trade as a corn merchant. However, the author mistakenly translated it as "mean man".

Though he was shocked by the description, it gave him food for thought and two years later, art imitated life - or so the author believed.

When A Christmas Carol , one of Dickens’ finest works, was published in 1843, it featured Ebenezer Scrooge, a "mean man" erroneously based on Ebenezer Scroggie.

Dickens always believed his creation was rooted in truth. Later, he wrote that while Scots had a reputation for frugality, they were not mean. It must have "shrivelled" Scroggie’s soul, said Dickens, to carry "such a terrible thing to eternity".

But, now, appropriately, on the eve of Christmas, Scroggie’s reputation is restored. Peter Clark, a political economist and former Conservative ministerial aide who has researched the episode, said: "I’ve always thought A Christmas Carol was splendid, a story of redemption, but Scrooge was based on Scroggie, who could not have been more different.

"Mere chance associated him with Dickens’ creation."

Details of Scroggie’s life are sparse, but he was a vintner as well as a corn merchant. He won the catering contract for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1822, the first British monarch to visit since Culloden. He also secured the first contract to supply whisky to the Royal Navy.

Scroggie was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife; his mother was the niece of Adam Smith, the 18th century political economist and philosopher.

Mr Clark added: "Scroggie was not mean-spirited, but he did attract the admonition of the Church of Scotland by having a child out of wedlock to a servant in 1830. It is alleged he ‘ravished’ her upon a gravestone. Still, what else was there to do in Edinburgh in 1830?"

Perhaps Scroggie’s most delightful claim to fame was the result of his dramatically halting proceedings at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, when he "goosed" the Countess of Mansfield during a particularly earnest debate.

"It fairly dampened the proceedings," said Mr Clark.

Scroggie also features on the internet, where his life is being examined by North American "relatives" eager to visit his grave. Alas, his final resting place is no more. The grave was lost to redevelopment in 1932.

And there is one other hitherto unrecognised by-product of the connection to Scrooge.

Mr Clark added: "Apparently Dickens’ novel killed off ‘Ebenezer’ as a parents’ name of choice for their children.

"A bit like ‘Edwina’, in our own time, you might say - although I can’t imagine why."

Sweeping the Clouds Away

The New York Times

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old “Sesame Street” is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper “Elmo’s World” started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”

Which brought Parente to a feature of “Sesame Street” that had not been reconstructed: the chronically mood-disordered Oscar the Grouch. On the first episode, Oscar seems irredeemably miserable — hypersensitive, sarcastic, misanthropic. (Bert, too, is described as grouchy; none of the characters, in fact, is especially sunshiney except maybe Ernie, who also seems slow.) “We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now,” she said.

Snuffleupagus is visible only to Big Bird; since 1985, all the characters can see him, as Big Bird’s old protestations that he was not hallucinating came to seem a little creepy, not to mention somewhat strained. As for Cookie Monster, he can be seen in the old-school episodes in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble (“om nom nom nom”). Originally designed by Jim Henson for use in commercials for General Foods International and Frito-Lay, Cookie Monster was never a righteous figure. His controversial conversion to a more diverse diet wouldn’t come until 2005, and in the early seasons he comes across a Child’s First Addict.

The biggest surprise of the early episodes is the rural — agrarian, even — sequences. Episode 1 spends a stoned time warp in the company of backlighted cows, while they mill around and chew cud. This pastoral scene rolls to an industrial voiceover explaining dairy farms, and the sleepy chords of Joe Raposo’s aimless masterpiece, “Hey Cow, I See You Now.” Chewing the grass so green/Making the milk/Waiting for milking time/Waiting for giving time/Mmmmm.

Oh, what’s that? Right, the trance of early “Sesame Street” and its country-time sequences. In spite of the show’s devotion to its “target child,” the “4-year-old inner-city black youngster” (as The New York Times explained in 1979), the first episodes join kids cavorting in amber waves of grain — black children, mostly, who must be pressed into service as the face of America’s farms uniquely on “Sesame Street.”

In East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1978, 95 percent of households with kids ages 2 to 5 watched “Sesame Street.” The figure was even higher in Washington. Nationwide, though, the number wasn’t much lower, and was largely determined by the whims of the PBS affiliates: 80 percent in houses with young children. The so-called inner city became anywhere that “Sesame Street” played, because the Children’s Television Workshop declared the inner city not a grim sociological reality but a full-color fantasy — an eccentric scene, framed by a box and far removed from real farmland and city streets alike.

The concept of the “inner city” — or “slums,” as The Times bluntly put it in its first review of “Sesame Street” — was therefore transformed into a kind of Xanadu on the show: a bright, no-clouds, clear-air place where people bopped around with monsters and didn’t worry too much about money, cleanliness or projecting false cheer. The Upper West Side, hardly a burned-out ghetto, was said to be the model.

People on “Sesame Street” had limited possibilities and fixed identities, and (the best part) you weren’t expected to change much. The harshness of existence was a given, and no one was proposing that numbers and letters would lead you “out” of your inner city to Elysian suburbs. Instead, “Sesame Street” suggested that learning might merely make our days more bearable, more interesting, funnier. It encouraged us, above all, to be nice to our neighbors and to cultivate the safer pleasures that take the edge off — taking baths, eating cookies, reading. Don’t tell the kids.

Points of Entry

Caveat teletor: Volumes 1 and 2 of “Sesame Street: Old School” are available on DVD, which you can sample and buy on Sesameworkshop.org. With a few episodes, extras and celebrity appearances by the likes of Richard Pryor and Lou Rawls, “Old School” sounds harmless enough. But are you ready to mainline this much ’70s nostalgia?

The Way Old: YouTube is great for performance art. If 1969 is not far back enough for you, how’s 1935? The Oscar-winning short film “How to Sleep,” by the Algonquin Round-Tabler Robert Benchley, can be found here in sumptuous black-and-white; search for his name and the film’s title on YouTube.

Come of Age: Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the men of “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething,” have at last introduced their online-only young-adult series, “Quarterlife.” It started Nov. 11 on MySpaceTV.com, and it marks the first time a network-quality series — a long indie film, really — has been produced directly for the Internet. If the old times unnerve you, welcome to the new times.

Militants killed in raid near Philippines blast site

Three suspects were killed and three arrested Thursday as police raided an Islamic militant hideout near the Philippines legislature, where a congressman was killed in a blast earlier this week, officials said.

Philippine Army spokesman Major Ernesto Torres said without elaborating that "there are indications that they have something to do with the blast."

Military and police swooped on the northern Manila shantytown of Payatas near the House of Representatives to arrest suspected kidnappers and were met with gunfire, said Torres.

Three Abu Sayyaf suspects were killed and three others were arrested while one police officer was wounded, he told reporters.

The raid was launched two days after an explosion killed a legislator and three people at the House of Representatives.

National police chief Avelino Razon said the arrest warrant was for an unrelated kidnapping.

Earlier Thursday, Razon said the "sophisticated" bomb used at the House blast was intended for a pre-selected target.

Preliminary police findings indicate the bomber was experienced and bolstered the police theory that the explosion was aimed specifically for Muslim congressman Wahab Akbar, who was killed in the blast, said Razon.

"The one who made this bomb was pretty experienced. It is sophisticated," he said, citing the way the bomb went off to create a 180-degree blast arc to hit Akbar as he was departing the Congress building.

Manila police chief Geary Barias said that police scientists had determined that the explosive in the bomb was trinitrotoluene or TNT, adding that this means "it could have been dynamite sticks" in the bomb.

He told reporters they also found signs of a detonating cord at the blast site, adding that this had prompted police to order a review of the system for monitoring the sale of TNT and detonating cords.

The explosion late Tuesday ripped through a wing of the House after most congressmen had left. The explosion killed Akbar, two aides and a driver.

Police have recovered a mobile telephone that was apparently used to set off the bomb and nails used as shrapnel. It is believed that the bomb was hidden in a parked motorcycle.

Razon said he doubted the bomb was a terrorist attack aimed a general destruction, saying the bomber could have set it off in a place that would have killed more congressmen.

Police believe the bomb was intended for Akbar, who represents the southern island of Basilan, a haunt of armed groups like the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf and political warlords.

The Abu Sayyaf have been linked by intelligence agencies to the Al-Qaeda terror network and has carried out bombing attacks in the past.

Akbar was a former Abu Sayyaf member who turned against them.

Aside from the Abu Sayyaf, the other suspects in the blast are political enemies of Akbar.

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said the last time he saw a similar bomb, hidden in a motorcycle and set off with a mobile phone, was in 2004. That bomb was the work of the Abu Sayyaf.

He said this was not confirmation however the militant group was behind the latest attack.
The Philippine government has offered a five-million-peso (116,100-dollar) reward for information leading to the arrest of the bomber.

House Speaker Jose de Venecia said he was also setting up a task force to look into improving the security in the House.

Hillary's Obama Dirt: Obama Demands She Come Clean

As the Democratic primary draws near to the Iowa Caucus, the sparks -- and sleaze -- are starting to fly.

The latest mud: columnist Robert Novak reported Friday that "agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information" about Sen. Barack Obama.

So what dirt does Hillary have about the Illinois Senator?

Novak says the details, so far, have not been disclosed.

Democratic primary campaigns can be particularly dirty. Remember Sen. Gary Hart's "Monkey Business" affair that was reportedly dredged up by operatives of his 1988 primary rival Al Gore.

Also remember the Gennifer Flowers scandal. Republicans get blamed for the "Clinton Hate Machine" -- but the truth is that the buzz against Bill Clinton was fed by Democratic operatives in the '92 primary campaign.

This time, Obama is on the offensive and quickly lashed out at Hillary.

In a statement released by his campaign this weekend, Obama said: “The cause of change in this country will not be deterred or sidetracked by the old ‘Swift boat’ politics. The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it ....

“I am prepared to stand up to that kind of politics, whether it's deployed by candidates in our party, in the other party or by any third party."

Obama demanded that Hillary and her operatives release their "scandal" or deny they are part of an effort to smear him.

An angry Obama added, “She of all people, having complained so often about ‘the politics of personal destruction,’ should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics.”

Clinton's campaign hurriedly responded to the growing brouhaha. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson told Fox News that the campaign has "absolutely no idea what [Novak] is talking about. ..."

Carson said, bluntly, Hillary Clinton's campaign had no scandalous information about Senator Obama.

Word of the Obama scandal comes as Hillary has lost her momentum after flip-flopping on the issue of licenses for illegals. Obama appears to be gaining, and recent polls in Iowa show him closing the gap with Hillary.

O'Reilly: Hillary Is a Lock for Party Nod

Hillary Clinton’s political machine is so powerful that only a “demonstrable scandal” can keep her from winning the Democratic presidential nomination, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

“The machine is just too powerful,” O’Reilly tells Newsmax: “She may lose New Hampshire and Iowa. But it doesn’t matter.

“On Super Tuesday, she’s got the dough,” he says. “The Democratic stalwarts are going to come out in her favor.”

Sen. Clinton has been roundly criticized for waffling in recent debates on issues such as New York Gov. Elliott Spitzer’s now-defunct proposal to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. As a result, some pundits see her as politically vulnerable.

O’Reilly disagrees.

“She’s going to pretty much walk in there, I believe, unless there’s a scandal,” he says.

O’Reilly bases his assessment on the overall strength of Hillary’s political organization.

“The machine that she has built is so strong - the vote turnout, the donations to her campaign, the precinct chiefs everywhere - I mean these other guys aren’t going to compete with that. They can’t.

“Even if the far left doesn’t really like her that much, they are going to say, ‘Well it’s better than a Republican, so we’ll support her,’ ” he says.

The general election will be a far different story than the primary, however. In fact, O’Reilly handicaps that contest as even.

“Whenever you get Hillary Clinton involved in anything, you get tremendous emotion on both sides,” he explains. “I think that if the Republicans put up a strong candidate who can zero in on the terror war, and other things like immigration, it is going to be close.

“And it comes down to Ohio and Florida,” he adds.


O’Reilly’s other predictions:

• Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are in a dead heat for the GOP nomination: “If I had to bet, I’d say Giuliani will probably take the day.”

• Terrorism and the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons remain the biggest issues facing America. If another 9/11-style attack takes place, O’Reilly predicts the country will swing “sharply to the right.”

• About half of the country still doesn’t understand that aggressive measures are necessary to protect the United States from future terrorist attack. “People have got to wake up. 9/11 wasn’t a one-time deal,” he warns.

• Hillary will not give Sen. Barack Obama the nod as her running mate. “She needs to get somebody in the Ohio realm who can influence the vote there. She’s already got the African-American vote. Anything can happen in these kinds of deals, but to me she’s got to be looking for somebody who can swing Ohio over to her.”

Can 3-D and a Nude Angelina Jolie Save Hollywood?

It’s a formula that might be able to give the Hollywood box-office an assist — Angelina Jolie sans clothes, computer generated animation, and 3-D effects.

The Robert Zemeckis-directed film “Beowulf” hit No. 1 this week despite Jolie’s use of the same old Transylvania accent she wielded in “A Mighty Heart” and “Alexander.”

In his latest film, Zemeckis uses performance-capture technology to render lifelike images of stars Ray Winstone and Jolie. In Jolie’s case, the realistic imaging just happens to have lots of skin showing.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is involved with the film via the DreamWorks/Paramount venture, apparently sees 3-D movies as potential overall box-office saviors.

The DreamWorks Animation exec told the New York Post, “I think this becomes something that so differentiates what you get in your home versus what you get in a movie theater, it becomes a real driver to keep people excited about the movie going experience.”

“Beowulf” took in $28.1 million in its opening weekend, and 40 percent of the cash came from 3-D showings in regular theaters and on Imax screens. (Twenty percent of the screens brought in 40 percent of the gross.)

Clinton Says No to Licenses for Illegals

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday came out against granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, after weeks of pressure in the presidential race to take a position on a now-failed ID plan from her home state governor.

Clinton has faced criticism from candidates in both parties for her noncommittal answers on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's attempt to allow illegal immigrants in his state to receive driver's licenses. Spitzer abandoned the effort Wednesday.

"I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal," Clinton said in a statement. "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."

Clinton stumbled when asked about the issue during a Democratic debate two weeks ago, and her new position comes the day before another debate where opponents are expected to raise the issue again.

Spitzer met with New York lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday, and conceded that there was too much public opposition to his plan. Clinton did not attend the meeting.

"It does not take a stethoscope to hear the pulse of New Yorkers on this topic," he said.

The Democratic governor introduced the plan two months ago with the goal of increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants "out of the shadows." Opponents charged the scheme would make it easier for would-be terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe.

The decision is another example of the roadblocks high-profile immigration reforms have faced this year. Less than five months ago, Congress failed to pass legislation that would legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants and fortify the border with Mexico.

"The federal government has lost control of its borders... and now has no solution to deal with it," Spitzer said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called Spitzer's reversal on the license issue "a good development" and said immigration is a federal issue for which his department has to "ramp up enforcement."

"What I want to make sure is that states aren't working at cross purposes with us and enabling the kind of conduct we're enforcing against," Chertoff told The Associated Press by telephone from London.

Kucinich to Force Vote on Cheney Impeachment

By: Susan Jones, CNSNews.com Senior Editor

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the liberal Democrat who's launched a presidential campaign, says he plans to force an up-or-down vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on an impeachment resolution against Vice President Dick Cheney.


Kucinich announced last week that he will offer a "privileged resolution" on Nov. 6 that would require House members, within two days, to vote on what to do with the impeachment measure.

He plans to discuss the matter in a conference call on Monday evening.

"The momentum is building for impeachment," Kucinich said in a Nov. 2 news release. "Millions of citizens across the nation are demanding Congress rein in the Vice President's abuse of power."

House Resolution 333 says Cheney should be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors," because he "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests."

Kucinich insists that Vice President Cheney continues to violate the U.S. Constitution by insisting on the supremacy of the Executive Branch.

The resolution introducing articles of impeachment against the vice president has 21 cosponsors, all of them Democrats.

"Congress must hold the Vice President accountable," Kucinich said last week. He accused Cheney of using his office to advocate the "continued occupation of Iraq and prod our nation into a belligerent stance against Iran."

For the record, at a San Francisco rally against climate change on Saturday, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan wore a T-shirt reading, "Arrest Cheney First," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Sheehan is now running for the House seat of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Bono Extolls the White House Virtues of Michael Bloomberg

Wearing his trademark wraparound sunglasses and a shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, Bono all but endorsed for president New York’s current mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

When U2’s front man was asked whether he thought Bloomberg could do more good as a president or philanthropist, the rocker told reporters, “He's a great and gifted manager and I think he could do an awful lot of good inside or outside the White House.”

Bono was in the Big Apple on the mayor’s invitation to discuss the singer’s various philanthropic projects.

As Bono no doubt knows, Bloomberg is a billionaire who claims his life will be dedicated to giving away money; this despite the talk of him running as an Independent candidate after finishing up with his mayoral duties.

“What I'm interested in is not just his [Bloomberg’s] cash, but his intellect, and how his business acumen could be used to work for the world's poor,” Bono said.

Wonder if Bono thinks that in Bloomberg he’s found another GOP-dividing, vote- chipping, Clinton-assisting Ross Perot.

Scriptwriter for ‘Lions for Lambs’ Was a Clinton White House Intern

Even the mainstream media critic crowd has had to acknowledge that the Robert Redford-directed “Lions for Lambs” film is told through a Left Coast lens.

Variety calls the movie (which incidentally also co-stars Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise) “back-bendingly liberal but also deeply patriotic.”

The Hollywood Reporter points out that although Redford and scriptwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan set out arguments both for and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s “no doubt” about “where they [Redford and Carnahan] stand.”

And veteran film critic Emanuel Levy says “Lions for Lambs” is Redford’s “most overtly political drama.”

An explanation for the strong leftward tilt of the movie can be found in the background of Carnahan.

While pursuing political science studies at USC, “Lions” scriptwriter Carnahan was also an intern in former President Bill Clinton’s White House. Carnahan’s responsibilities included working in a war room that defended Hillary Clinton's failed healthcare plan.

Carnahan received a career boost from older brother Joe who directed “Smokin' Aces” and was scriptwriter of the more even-handed terrorist-related movie “The Kingdom.”

Die and you're under arrest! Britain's most stupid laws

Queen Elizabeth II's speech in the British parliament Tuesday may have been routine but at least nobody got bored to death. That would have been against the law.

Dying in parliament is an offence and is also by far the most absurd law in Britain, according to a survey of nearly 4,000 people by a television channel showing a legal drama series.

And though the lords were clad in their red and white ermine cloaks and ambassadors from around the world wore colourful national costumes, at least nobody turned up in a suit of armour. Illegal.

Other rules deemed utterly stupid included one that permits a pregnant woman to urinate in a policeman's hat and murdering bow-and-arrow-carrying Scotsmen within the city walls of York, northern England.

A law stating that in Liverpool, only a clerk in a tropical fish store is allowed to be publicly topless, was also ridiculous, said a poll of 3,931 people for UKTV Gold television out Tuesday.

Nearly half of those surveyed admitted to breaking the ban on eating mince pies on Christmas Day, which dates back to the 17th century and was originally designed to outlaw gluttony during the rule of the Puritan Oliver Crowmell.

The laws and other regulations were culled from published research into ancient legislation that has never been repealed although subsequent statutes have rendered them obsolete.

Respondents were given a shortlist and asked to vote.

Most ridiculous British law:

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27 percent)

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down (seven percent)

3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (six percent)

4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day (five percent)

5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter (four percent)

6. A pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet (four percent)

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the king, and the tail of the queen (3.5 percent)

8. It is illegal to avoid telling the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (three percent)

9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour (three percent)

10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (two percent)

Voter Unrest Threatens Democrats in 2008

Widespread dissatisfaction with the government in Washington and the state of the nation in general could spell trouble for the Democrats in next year’s elections.

With President Bush’s approval ratings in the tank, the Democrats have been expected to follow their 2006 takeover of Congress with further gains in 2008 — including the White House.

But the history of recent decades shows that “whenever voters get this unhappy, unpredictable things happen,” John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei write in The Politico.

A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 72 percent of those surveyed are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., and only 26 percent are satisfied.

“The last time the national mood was so gloomy was in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted from the White House and H. Ross Perot received the highest percentage of the vote of any third party candidate in 80 years,” USA Today reports.

In a clearly ominous sign for Democrats, pollster Stan Greenberg found in October that 69 percent of voters disapprove of the job the Democratic-controlled Congress is doing, up 20 percent since January and the highest disapproval rating since the party reclaimed both Houses last year.

Congress fared even more poorly in a USA Today/Gallup Poll in August, receiving an approval rating of just 18 percent, and while its rating in the current poll has risen, it still stands at a miserable 29 percent.

The poll also found that 84 percent of Democratic respondents felt the country was on the wrong track.

And a survey by the Field Poll in California last week found that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a job approval rating of just 35 percent in her home state — and a disapproval rating of 40 percent.

“The anti-Washington mood in the country — aimed at both a Republican president and a Democrat-controlled Congress — has reached breathtaking levels,” according to the report in The Politico.

Weak approval ratings for Congress led to a change in power benefiting the GOP in 1980 and 1994, and benefiting Democrats in 2006, pollster and Democratic consultant Mark Mellman noted.

Picking up a cue from voter unhappiness with the Democrats in the Senate and House, House Republican Whip Roy Blount of Missouri remarked at a news conference last week: “Never has a Congress spent so much time to accomplish so little.”

Giuliani Opposes Law of the Sea Treaty

Rudy Giuliani has become the latest Republican presidential candidate to denounce the controversial Law of the Sea Treaty now working its way through the Senate.

The treaty, called LOST by opponents, would empower a United Nation-affiliated organization to control the world’s oceans.

On Wednesday the Senate Foreign Relations committee voted 17-4 to send the treaty to the full Senate for ratification.

U.S. participation in the treaty, which has been signed by 154 other countries, has been held up since 1982 when concerns about deep-sea mining rights arose during the Ronald Reagan administration.

President Bush favors signing the treaty, and the Pentagon has called fears about ceding U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. unfounded.

But in a statement posted on Giuliani’s campaign Web site on Oct. 30, he said: “I oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. I believe the treaty is well intentioned, and I appreciate the hard work of U.S. negotiators who sought to resolve problems in the treaty first identified by President Reagan.

"I also understand the arguments of those — particularly in our military — who claim that this treaty will enhance America’s ability to guarantee freedom of the seas for all peace-loving nations.

“But I believe that the treaty is fundamentally flawed. I cannot support the creation of yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy that might infringe on American sovereignty and curtail America’s freedoms. I oppose ratification of this treaty as along as it fails to address these concerns.”

GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee had previously come out in opposition to the treaty.

The Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty, an organization that opposes LOST, has charged that it would force the U.S. to give up certain controls of its territorial waters. It said in a press release: “The emerging debate about the Law of the Sea Treaty will enable the electorate to choose between those who favor … greatly empowering world government agencies and unaccountable international bureaucracies on the one hand and those who are intent on preserving and promoting American sovereignty and interests on the other.”

Despite passage of the treaty by the Senate committee, it faces stiff opposition from Republicans in the Senate.

“This treaty will not be adopted,” said Sen. Kyl, R-Ariz. “There aren’t the votes to pass it.”

FBI Thinks China Is Greatest Threat

The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that China poses the greatest threat to the U.S. in terms of espionage — and that thousands of “front companies” in America have been set up to aid Chinese spying, according to the Maldon Institute.

A new report from the respected think tank, titled “The Chinese Secret Intelligence Service,” warns, “China’s intelligence services today consist of a vast shadowy organization that employs approximately 2 million full- or part-time agents.

“Federal officials in the United States, in numerous interviews during the past year, say and have said that there are more foreign spies operating in the United States than during the Cold War . . .

“In size and numbers, no country now can equal the numbers of Chinese spies in our country.”

The report quotes David Szady, FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, who said in a recent interview that the Chinese spymasters “figured out that what they want is throughout the United States, not just embassies, not just consulates. It’s a major effort.”

The Maldon Institute report states: “The FBI believes that for the next 10 to 15 years, China is the greatest threat to the United States.

“The Bureau believes that today there are more than 3,000 ‘front’ companies in America whose real job is to direct espionage efforts. Then there are thousands of Chinese visitors, students and business people: how many of them have tasks to perform for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security?”

A great deal of the FBI’s information comes from the highest-ranking Chinese defector to arrive in Washington: Xu Junping, director of Strategy in Beijing’s Defense Ministry.

He claims that for five years he oversaw all operations against the U.S. and set up the business plans for the more than 3,000 Chinese companies launched to operate across the United States, according to the report.

The report also intimates the success of the Chinese espionage: “An analyst in the Defense Intelligence Agency informed a colleague that during the past three years, the Chinese have stolen $24 billion worth of secrets, and that many of these items enabled Beijing to accelerate its space program . . .

“The FBI also is following up on a number of investigative leads, such as who is funding individual Chinese students and which students, after graduation with a computer or other science degree, seek employment with a high-tech company.”

Why Hollywood’s Anti-War Films Are Bombing

Despite big name casts, two films from Hollywood’s current crop of anti-war flicks are box-office flops.

“In the Valley of Elah” has three Oscar winners in its cast line-up, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Additionally, the movie is directed by Paul Haggis, who also has a gold statue to his credit for the film “Crash.”

Even with all the star power “Elah” opened its first weekend with a paltry $1.5 mill.

Another anti-war film, “Rendition,” which features three more Academy Award winners, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin, took in an embarrassing $4.1 million in its opening weekend.

Hollywood decision makers have been deriving comfort from opinion polls, which show a majority of the public no longer supports the war in Iraq. But once again Hollywood is showing that it is out of touch.

Left leaners in Hollywood have a visceral hatred for the Bush administration and enormous hostility toward the war.

However, for the public, the underlying feelings are more those of war weariness, and there is little appetite for activism or anti-war related cinematic fare.

After being barraged with negative imagery on the news each day and inundated with discussions regarding the war from presidential candidates, political pundits and the like, the public is just not in the mood to seek out movies with such themes.

Next to bomb will likely be Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” and Robert Redford and Tom Cruise’s “Lions for Lambs.”

But also likely to happen in the near future, despite poor box-office performances, is a bunch of slaps on the back to each other in the form of Oscar nominations.

Schwarzenegger vs. Boxer for U.S. Senate?

Speculation is rampant in California that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will challenge liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in 2010 – and a new poll has them running neck and neck.

A California Field survey of registered voters released Tuesday showed Schwarzenegger with 44 percent of the votes in a hypothetical election, and Boxer with 43 percent. The rest were undecided.

The poll also showed Schwarzenegger with a favorable job performance rating – 56 percent of respondents said they approve of his performance as governor, and only 23 percent disapprove, with his support coming from a majority of both Republicans and Democrats.

“It would be a fabulous battle royale,” Republican consultant Rob Stutzman, the governor’s former communications director, told the San Jose Mercury News about a Schwarzenegger-Boxer match-up.

“And poll numbers like these just feed the parlor game.”

Three-term Sen. Boxer is up for re-election in 2010, when Gov. Schwarzenegger will be finishing his second and final term.

The conventional wisdom is that he most likely will not seek the Senate seat. Some observers believe he might instead run for mayor of Los Angeles, accept a Cabinet post in Washington, or return to Hollywood as a producer or director.

But others believe he will find the lure of “the nation’s most exclusive club” difficult to ignore.

Democratic strategist Garry South told the Mercury News: “I don’t think Arnold is any more immune to that than any politician. There’s nothing like being in office, like people calling you governor, like having a security detail around you. You can’t underestimate the allure of that status.”

Boxer – who has been seen as vulnerable to a challenge by a moderate Republican – is taking no chances. She raised the possibility of a Schwarzenegger run in a recent fundraising e-mail to supporters.

Arnold, for his part, has given no indication of his plans.

“Of all the things the governor is worried about right now,” his communications director Adam Mendelsohn said, “this may be last on the list.”

Is Hillary vs. Rudy Inevitable?

Dick Morris

What if the current polls in Iowa are the final result?

What if Romney wins in Iowa and then comes in first again in New Hampshire? What if Giuliani stumbles badly in Iowa and finishes fourth? What if Huckabee surges and finishes second in Iowa? What if Fred Thompson makes an unimpressive third-place finish there?

And, on the Democratic side, what if Hillary only narrowly beats Obama in the first caucus state?

With two months to go before the Iowa caucus, everything can change, and probably will, but it is worth speculating on what the impact will be if things don’t change much from now until then.

On the Republican side, a Romney victory in Iowa would virtually guarantee a win in New Hampshire. The two states, in media terms, are practically one. Two-thirds of New Hampshire lives in the southern part of the state that watches Boston television every night. Since Romney served as governor in Massachusetts, he will probably win New Hampshire anyway. A win in Iowa would make it a fait accompli.

Two victories would make Romney the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Coupled with a Giuliani stumble in Iowa, it could totally change the dynamic of the Republican primary. Here’s what might happen:

Rudy could come to be seen as too antagonistic to the Christian right, and moderates might once again turn to McCain as the less inflammatory option, sidetracking the former New York mayor.

Huckabee, coming in a strong second, could take off and become the poor man’s Romney, taking advantage of his greater consistency on social issues, his Christian (read: non-Mormon) beliefs, and his support of the Fair Tax as an alternative to the IRS.

Republicans would likely panic about the idea of a Mormon candidate and worry about his prospects, making Huckabee and either Rudy or McCain viable as alternatives.

Thompson will be forced out, having lost his position as the socially conservative answer to Rudy.

Edwards, who had been leading in Iowa until recently, would probably have to leave the race. That would coalesce the entire ABH vote (Anybody But Hillary) around Obama, giving him a leg up in the national race.

Hillary’s vulnerability, newly revealed in the Iowa vote, could create a sense that she might not be electable given her baggage and lead Democratic voters to look seriously at Obama. The result could be a real slugfest between the two candidates, making a mockery of the idea that her nomination is inevitable.

And the outcome for Democrats?

Hillary probably still wins.

The history of Democratic primaries has always been that challengers emerge and run stronger than anyone believed they would but then fade and the front-runner prevails after all (see Bradley in 2000, Tsongas after New Hampshire and Brown after Connecticut in 1992, Gore after the Southern primaries in 1988, Hart in 1984 and Kennedy in 1980).

And among the Republicans?

Who knows?

The race would be thrown into chaos. Anyone could win.

Romney would have the momentum, but doubts about his ability to win as a Mormon would make his lead unstable. Huckabee would be gaining, but he may not be well enough known to make it. Giuliani could still recover, given his strong national standing, but would be hobbled. And McCain would still have his immigration position hanging over his head, but as Rudy falters, he might pick up the slack.

Then again, Hillary could open up a large lead in Iowa as her juggernaut gets going. And Rudy could, at least, finish a strong second to Romney in Iowa, and perhaps beat him, making it a Giuliani-Romney runoff in the main primaries, which Rudy probably wins. Then the general election match-up would be Hillary vs. Rudy, as we have all anticipated.

But what if?

Obama Bashes Hillary for Playing Gender Card

Democrat Barack Obama, the only black candidate for president, accused rival Hillary Clinton on Friday of hiding behind her gender after she was pummeled in a debate with six male candidates.

"I am assuming and I hope that Sen. Clinton wants to be treated like everybody else," the Illinois senator said in an interview with NBC's "Today Show."

"When we had a debate back in Iowa awhile back, we spent I think the first 15 minutes of the debate hitting me on various foreign policy issues. And I didn't come out and say: 'Look, I'm being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage'," he said.

"I assumed it was because there were real policy differences there, and I think that has to be the attitude that all of us take. We're not running for the president of the city council. We're running for the presidency of the United States."

He was speaking a day after New York Sen. Clinton -- the only woman running for president -- urged women voters to rally behind her against "the boys club of presidential politics."

Obama and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who are both trailing Clinton in polls by a wide margin, attacked the former first lady's honesty, leadership and ability to win the November 2008 election in a Tuesday night debate.

Obama noted on Friday that Clinton is widely viewed as a tough figure in national politics.

"So it doesn't make sense for her, after having run that way for eight months, the first time that people start challenging her point of view, that suddenly she backs off and says: 'Don't pick on me'," he said.

"That is not obviously how we would expect her to operate if she were president."