Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said today that President George W. Bush was "a lying failure." Meanwhile, famous author Bob Woodward's new book said today President George W. Bush was "a lying failure."

However, MSNBC sports pundit and much-sought-after world affairs analyst Kieth Olbermann declared they're all going too soft on the guy.

Dearie me, the Iraqi people are still keen on democracy. What will the newspapers say?

If they'd only pay more attention to the New York Times and Washington Post they'd know to give up now.

Gnomon is aware there are other more well-known, Bork-like judges that conservatives would love to see put on the bench, that they think there's no better time to try, and that it would be a noble Phyrric victory if they were ground into the dust of defeat. Our idealistic nature is attracted by that sort of thing as well.

But we would suggest that in his cagey Texas political style President Bush has found a way to do an end-run around fanatic Michael Moore liberals and get someone on the Court that he knows and her past history shows (but for which there is not much of a legal paper trail) is a conservative Originalist -- and deeply religious to boot. And a female, to balance out that meticulous and ravishing interpreter of the Consitution, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The reaction of the National Review, Rush Limbaugh and others reminds us of that moment when President Reagan came out of the White House with David Jacobson, one of the Lebonese hostages that had just been freed. We remember the press going wild and hounding the President with questions about whether there was a deal and what was really going on behind the scenes. He and the hostage were virtually begging them to stop because he was still trying to get out other hostages, but they just kept going on and on. That eventually led to Iran-Contra of course, which Gnomon still regards as a noble cause. The last hostage was not freed for five more years.

It would be quite sad if we lost the opportunity to put an Originalist judge on the Supreme Court because conservatives won't do what's necessary these days to get one past MoveOn.com liberals. But perhaps the President would have done better to first nominate Judge Roy Moore and let him be the much-coveted Phyrric victory before putting forth the name of Harriet Miers.

Enjoy your Columbus Day -- if they let you off to celebrate it...

Madonna, currently a Kaballahist, has found the Kaballah ditty she wrote for her next album didn't go over big with Kaballah Kahunas in Israel. Her "immodest" lifestyle would also have disappointed the subject of her song "Isaac," 16th mystic Isaac Luria, they assured her.

Madonna meanwhile is said to think her new song is "just like a prayer."

Hoping to spend 3 years looking into global warming at the North Pole, the European Space Agency instead got to study the ice cap close up yesterday when Russia dumped their Cryosat probe in the Arctic Ocean, north of Greenland.

"Not going to use that rocket again," the Russian Space Agency mumbled dejectedly, referring to their charmingly named Rokot rocket -- a former Soviet-era, solid-fuel, nuclear ICBM.

A massive 7.6 earthquake turned large areas of northern Pakistan and India to rubble this morning, killing upwards of 3000 people.

Regrettably, this is all too common for this part of the world.


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UPDATE: (October 15, 2005) One week on, the count is now 39,400 dead in Pakistan and Indian Kashmir, with at least 60,000 injured.

Who do you call when deadly asian birds are undermining your country?

Time to call out the big guns, says President Bush.