Tony Blair has refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in Iraq. If you read the article it is not as bad as the headline implies, but still, there is something stupid about the conversation itself. Meanwhile in Germany.

If the tragedy of WWI destroyed, for most, what was left of the romance of monarchal authority, this war is going to prove that democracy will repeat the war as farce. Bush, Blair and Schroeder each represents, in his own way, the lowest common denominator of the political imagination of his constituents. All of them are cowards, but Bush is angry, while the others are looking over their shoulders at every step of the way: Schroeder at the German public and Blair for some reason, at our president, whom he seems to think outnumbers the voting population of Britain. Our leaders have been beaten into submission by the crowd, to the extent that even when that crowd is talking sense, as they are right now in every country -including this one- they are unwilling or unable to listen. For our president, ignoring the popular will is the equivalent of teenage rebellion. He's mooning us.

If citizens of democratic states want leaders who are like them, Bush represents the American people: stubborn, arrogant, uneducated, and well meaning. Unfortunately, anyone who has those characteristics is also an easy mark, and easily corrupted. I've never seen anything simultaneously so idealistic and so corrupt as this administration.

Study: Schools Have Become re-segregated.

Israeli Forces Demolish Palestinian Shops. [AP. link dead. Still up here]