FoxNews reports that David Williams is suing the gaming industry for preying on his “addiction” and allowing him to gamble away $170,000 of his life savings. If When this suit fails, maybe we can all turn around and sue Williams’s lawyers for preying on their clients’ “addiction” to the notion that everything bad that happens is someone else’s fault.

Longtime readers may recall Daisy, a sweet whippet/lab mix who we had to give up because of incompatibility with our pit bull, Molly. In February, I posted that Daisy had been placed with a young couple in Rancho Santa Margarita. Unfortunately, that couple has now informed us that they are not allowed to keep dogs in their unit. This means that Daisy is available once again. As before, Mrs. Xrlq and I offer free delivery to anyone in Southern California, and will work with anyone as far as Vegas, Phoenix or the Bay Area. Anyone else is more than welcome to come for a visit. In case you’ve forgotten what Daisy looks like, or came aboard after February, here’s the pic once again:

I’d like to tell the French “thanks for nothing,” but that might be too generous.

I really thought Scott Ritter had bottomed out with that infamous Time interview last fall in which he tipped his hand by openly refusing to discuss children’s prisons in Iraq because “what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I’m waging peace.” A few months later, we learned some even less flattering things about Ritter, particularly his arrest record, which may or may not have anything to do with his role as an apologist for Saddam. Finally, in the midst of the war, Ritter completely lost it and told TSF Radio of Lisbon that “we do not have the military means to take over Baghdad, and for this reason I believe the defeat of the U.S. in this war is inevitable.”

Of course, it only took another week before our military proved that it did have the means to take over Baghdad, and another week after that before we had ended the war and “evitted” the supposedly inevitable defeat once and for all. If you are like me, you probably thought Ritter would take this as his cue to shut up and lay low for a while. Then again, if you are like me, you were also wrong. Here’s a translation of the linked article, which appeared in today’s online version of Der Spiegel:

Former Weapons Inspector Compares War in Iraq to Hitler’s Invasion of Poland

Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter compared the United States’ war in Iraq to Adolf Hitler’s action in Poland.

BERLIN – “I see no difference between the invasion of Iraq and the and the invasion of Poland by Hitler in 1939,” Ritter told the Berliner Zeitung. Hitler had used self-defense as an excuse to send his troops in, and U.S. President George W. Bush had done exactly the same thing in 2003. “It was the same lie,” Ritter was quoted as saying.

According to Ritter, Bush has manipulated the September 11 terrorist attacks on America to his advantage, in the same way that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag. In Ritter’s view, Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, making the basis of the war invalid. “130 Americans died in this war for a lie,” Ritter said, according to the report.

I don’t know if it is even possible for Mr. Ritter to sink below this latest interview, but I don’t put anything past him anymore. If he doesn’t outdo himself again, it surely won’t be for a lack of trying.

UPDATE: Ever notice the irony in the fact that the U.S. and Germany each had U.N. weapons inspectors who ultimately took positions more or less congruent with those of the other country’s government? The only thing I find more ironic is that one of them has a surname that would be much more fitting for the other (“Schmucker”).

UPDATE x2: I’m pleased to note that this post has been linked to by two heavy-hitting bloggers, namely Emperor Misha and Andrew Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan has also nominated Mr. Ritter for the coveted “Sontag Award.” He’d better hurry up and give Mr. Ritter the award while he is still a free man. I’m not sure that Ritter will be able to accept it from prison.

UPDATE x 3: The story has finally made it into the English-language mass media, at least on the other side of the pond. Here’s the Daily Telegraph’s account. Link via Command Post.

UPDATE x4: Winds of Change has picked this up, too.

Well, not quite, but he will be leaving Baghdad Tikrit-by-the-Bay for Seattle in a matter of days. Good for him. I have to say I’m a bit envious. Orange County is not quite as expensive as San Francisco, but it’s very expensive nonetheless, a point that was driven home over the weekend when Mrs. Xrlq and I visited some friends in Phoenix.