• From the French.

    From the French wire AFP:Bush offers no date for Iraq victory.

    Embattled President George W. Bush defiantly dismissed mounting worries about his Iraq war strategy, refusing to set a date for a US pullout and warning that victory requires “time and patience.”

    “Decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington,” the president charged.

    They ought to get with their prime minister, the poet Dominique de Villepin:

    “I think that the timetable should be a global timetable,” he said. “The real timetable is the Iraqi situation.”

    Of course, the poet is embattled as well, what with the rioters and his governments surrender to and attempted mollification of the automobile burners.

  • My tooth has been saved.

    I had a root canal in August, then my dentists’ office closed for two weeks remodeling which turned into two month, so the tooth was never capped. It split down the middle, and I went for an emergency visit two weeks ago. My dentist. Dr. Rudy Marcelli, managed to glue my tooth together, but I had to stay away from it entirely for two weeks until he could put the temp cap on.

    That has been done. In two more weeks, I get the perm cap, but my tooth has been saved. I’m down with that. Thanks, Dr. Rudy!

  • Tonight’s music.

    On XM radio, they’re carrying a concert from the New York Philharmonic with Guest conductor Mikko Franck and violinist Gidon Kremer – featuring Beethoven’s Leonore Overture, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, and the Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 5.