AddieStan

In the U.S., the top stories today focus on who's dissing us now at the big rectangle on the East River (a.k.a., the U.N.). In Germany, the top story also focuses on the U.S., but there the big news is the disclosure of the identities of three CIA contractors who abducted an apparently innocent man, Khaled el-Masri , from where he was staying in Macedonia, then beat him and shipped him to Afghanistan, where he languished in a secret prison for five months. Because el-Masri is a German citizen, pressure is mounting on the German government to issue arrest warrants for the three, who, according to a European broadcaster, live in North Carolina. Spanish authorities are under similar pressure because the flight manned by the three originated on the Spanish island of Mallorca. According to Deutsche Welle : [M]any journalists wonder why it is taking prosecutors [so long] to find out more about el-Masri's case. In an article on Thursday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wondered why German...

Did you think your blogstress had abandoned you, mes amis ? Tsk, tsk; you should know by now that at times the work of a blogstress will demand her removal from the world -- yes, even her own blog in the virtual world we call cyberspace -- in order to prepare herself spiritually and sartorially for all that lies ahead. And so it has been that your Webwench has been hunkered down in the Oppo Factory, mitts deep in a box of bon-bons , nose buried in theology and history texts -- and fall fashion magazines. The impetus for the history cramming was provided by those unfortunate comments about Islam uttered by the Holy Father from a podium in Germany. As for the fashion mags, well, your cybertrix hears that the pontiff does love Prada -- yes, the same Prada reportedly worn by the devil, whose identity, revealed this week by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez , is shared by a man named George W. Bush . In case you missed it, Latin America's socialist standard-bearer took some time out...