SCRAPBOOK

...The Administration has begun to plan an initial drawdown under the Iraq Liberation Act, but has signaled Saddam that he has nothing to fear by emphasizing that the drawdown will be 'non-lethal' in nature...

...Furrow, it's worth remembering, committed his crime in a state that has the death penalty (and committed an act of terrorism, which subjects him to the federal death penalty), fled to another state that has the death penalty (and in so doing crossed state lines, which exposes him, again, to the federal death penalty...

...Maybe it sounds better in the original Dutch...

...When Peter grew up, Tish moved in with his parents, Hilda and Gordon Hand, in their retirement home in Yorkshire, England...

...JIANG ZEMIN, OUR "STRATEGIC PARTNER" "Beijing, Aug...

...But what The Scrapbook is wondering is: Why do we know this...

...Why should the FBI, or any law enforcement agency for that matter, pass along to the media a murderer's call-to-arms...

...We tend to think that a man in custody for attempting a mass murder forfeits his right to hold a press conference...

...Why did the FBI see fit to provide a platform—however second-hand—for the views of someone who 24 hours before had tried to murder half a dozen people as a way to gain a hearing for his views...

...Will it surprise you to learn that the Clinton administration has unaccountably failed to do anything useful with the money...

...The Michigan judges didn't say Kevorkian is libel proof because he truly is a killer...

...Months from now, the man will have his day in court, and interested parties can hear from him then...

...Hand found him dead at the bottom of his fish tank late last week...

...And was the truth...

...He was Kevorkian's lawyer once upon a time, though he subsequently left to become the 1998 Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan, campaigning by calling Jesus Christ "some goof-ball that got nailed to the cross" and comparing rabbis to Nazis...

...Those inflammatory words understandably made headlines across the country...

...9—The Chinese Communist Party has asked its members to study a new book entitled 'Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin Discuss Materialism and Atheism.' " —Agence France Presse LIBEL-PROOF KEVORKIAN The Michigan State Court of Appeals did something admirable last week: It dismissed a libel suit brought by Jack Kevorkian against the Michigan State Medical Society and the American Medical Association for publishing essays calling him a "killer" back in 1996...

...O, ALBION...

...Well, when a lower court judge first allowed this case to proceed in 1996, Fieger crowed, "You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, you can't knowingly distribute pornography, and you can't call Jack Kevorkian a killer and accuse him of engaging in criminal activity unless it's the truth...

...First won by 7-year-old Peter Hand at a fairground in 1956, Tish the fish grew to 4 1/2 inches and outlived all of Peter's other pets...

...Surely this arsenal of potential punishments is sufficient...

...Scrapbook COLLABORATING WITH A KILLER A day after wounding four children and a 68-year-old woman in an attack on a Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley, then killing a postman as he fled, white supremacist Buford Furrow gave himself up in a Las Vegas FBI office...

...Here, writ small, is a devastating indictment of this administration's foreign policy frivolity: To date, of the $8 million appropriated to assist the opposition, less than $500,000 has been used to support activities carried out by the opposition...

...Anyone who looks at the venue of the crime, the victims chosen, and the method of the attack can put two and two together and guess at Furrow's motives...

...Euthanasia as "prevent[ing] serious detriment" to the one being put to death...

...a minor's request may nevertheless be met if the doctor is convinced this would prevent serious detriment to the patient...

...Further, the opposition has received no assistance whatsoever from the $97 million in military assistance made available under the Iraq Liberation Act...

...Reuters story of the year: "Tish, the world's oldest known captive goldfish, has died at the age of (at least) 43...

...The italics, needless to say, are not The Scrapbook's, but the frustrated senators...

...And in the case of Kevorkian—who has supervised more than 130 "suicides" and was finally convicted this year of second-degree murder—the reputation has fallen to the point where, on "the issue of assisted suicide, plaintiff is virtually 'libel proof.' " But The Scrapbook shouldn't let this praise-the-courts thing get out of hand...

...Libel suits, the court pointed out, should be dismissed "where an allegedly libelous statement cannot realistically cause impairment of reputation because the person's reputation is already so low...

...Notwithstanding these expenditures, we understand that as much as $1 million of this aid may be returned to the Treasury at the end of this fiscal year...

...And will remain the truth: In his thoughts and in his words, in what he has done and what he has failed to do, Kevorkian is a killer...

...Dutch bureaucrats with the Justice and Health ministries were quoted in a Reuters story last week justifying the measure as follows: "In the case of 12- to 15-year-olds, the consent of the parents or guardian is required [for the doctor to perform euthanasia], but in the event of refusal...

...No, they decided instead that his, um, "actions" have made him a public figure and you can't easily libel public figures: Kevorkian's "very celebrity (or notoriety, if you will) derives exclusively from his participation in a national debate over the propriety of 'assisted suicide'—whether it is more akin to an act of mercy or to an act of homicide," the court declared...

...Reportedly it will include photocopiers, computers, and fax machines, as well as training in such areas as accounting and flood management...

...Most of the rest of this money is being spent on such things as academic conferences, community outreach projects, and conflict management programs that will do little or nothing to expedite the demise of Saddam's regime...

...Last year Tish, having acquired a distinguished silver color, was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest captive goldfish...

...The principal backers of the Iraq Liberation Act—a bipartisan group that includes Trent Lott, Joseph Lieberman, Jesse Helms, and Bob Kerrey—wrote to the president last week to complain...

...Geoffrey Fieger—you remember Geoffrey Fieger, don't you...

...BOMB HTM WITH FAX MACHINES?_ Congress last year appropriated $8 million to assist the anti-Saddam opposition in Iraq...

...In providing authority for military drawdown, it was our intention to train and equip a force dedicated to bringing democracy to Iraq...

...YOUTHANASIA Legislators in Amsterdam have proposed extending their country's practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide to children as young as 12...

...Turns out, it is the truth...

...that seemed much too bold...

...According to an AP story citing an FBI source, Furrow said "he wanted this to be a wake-up call to America to kill Jews...

...Is it too much to ask that we not hear any more from him until then...

...Enthusiasts for the president's anti-hate-crimes agenda should pay closer attention to this episode: Do they really think it well advised for politically astute police agencies to torque up the drama of such crimes—to, in effect, serve as a public-relations conduit for the likes of Furrow and other extremist killers...