Rod Dreher says that we should make that name stick to Dominique de Villepin. I agree.

There’s an interesting article over in the newly-liberated NYT today, on the origins of the dragon myth (found via Jonah Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan), which seems to be an almost human universal.

Synopsis: we’ve always believed in dragons because of fears going back to the dawn of man, when we were still in the trees–they’re an amalgam of the primary predators for tree-dwelling primates: snakes, raptors and cats. The myth was aided in its persistence by things like dinosaur fossils, which were mistaken by the ancients as dragon bones (even including mineral encrustations in the skulls taken as signs of jewelry in the head).

Interesting, but the article doesn’t address in any way what’s always been one of the most fascinating features of the dragon (other than to note it in the standard bill of dragon particulars in the opening grafs)–the fire breathing.

No snake, raptor or cat of which I’m aware belches flame, at least not on a regular basis, given a non-incendiary diet, and like the old Warner Brothers cartoon, if it did, it would likely be a trick that could only be performed once. So what’s that all about? Is it just based on ancient memories of the extreme version of halitosis that a carnivore might display up close and personal?

And is it a universal dragon trait? I’m not a dracologist, and don’t know all the ins and outs of dragons world wide, but perhaps my readership does. Do Chinese dragons breathe fire, or is it a habit only of the European variety?

The article also points out that the ancients never really doubted that dragons once existed–for them, the main question was, “why don’t we see them any more, and what happened to them?” Given their state of knowledge, it was a perfectly reasonable question.

But here’s a point on the improbability of dragons that pre-Darwinians wouldn’t have been bothered by. Most, if not all dragons have four legs and a pair of wings. They’re kind of like lizards with wings on their backs (and in fact, many dragon hoaxes were constructed in exactly that way). That is, they really had six limbs, since wings are considered limbs.

All flying vertebrates of which I’m aware (invertebrates are a different story, of course) only have four limbs. The wings have always evolved from the front legs. This is true for both avia (all birds) and mammals (both the conventional bats, which are rodents, and the flying foxes, which seem to be primates).

Evolution is capable of amazing feats, but it has its limits, and it has to work with the material available. There really is no plausible structure available from which to build large, articulatible wings, capable of lifting the body of such a creature, that come out of the shoulder, yet still leave separate, fully-functional forelimbs. In fact (ignoring the fire-breathing deal), this modern evolutionary observation is perhaps the strongest reason to believe that dragons truly are only mythical, and have never existed.

April 28, 2003, New York
(Unassociated Press)

The nation rejoiced as one of the last redoubts of resistance in the war fell. In a sudden and unexpected collapse, the New York Times finally conceded that the Saddam Hussein regime had disintegrated, with none of the dire pre-war predictions borne out.

While there is still some mopping-up action required, with occasional bursts of negative news coverage of power and water outages and exhortations of anti-Americanism by imported Iranian mullahs, and continuing complaints about the coalition’s inability to prevent Iraqis from despoiling their own country and national treasures, the national coverage of the war has finally been reporting a successful battle plan in a relatively uniform manner.

After the fall of Baghdad with little resistance, and the shock and awe of the precision bunkum-busting weaponry from the blogosphere, the wind went out of the sails of the elite anti-Republican Guard at the Gray Lady and the LA Times, and other left-liberal screeds.

Morale had been low ever since the tragic battle in which reporters outnumbered the protestors at the Masters. Everyone lived in constant terror of the regime, with continual threats to have columns savagely spiked, or amputations of access, in the face of even the slightest deviation from the party line. At the end, there was little will to fight.

As a result, when the course of the war became clear, several reporters left their posts to join the opposition, and most of them simply dropped their keyboards without a word, often as a result of pre-arranged cell-phone communications with special-forces correspondents from the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal.

Foreign correspondents, many of whom had rushed to the editorial aid of what they thought would be welcoming journalistic brethren across the water, were surprised to be attacked and denounced in many quarters of the American press (particularly the blogosphere) as people with no interest in the journalistic integrity of the American media, instead propping up dictatorial regimes in Atlanta and on West 43rd Street in New York. They were picked off, one by one, by blogger snipers, and few of them survived with credibility intact.

Despite the apparent war success, however, many remain concerned that the weapons of mass distraction haven’t yet been found, despite the abundant evidence of them. There is also frustration among some that much of the leadership remains at large. Of course, no one sensible expresses such concerns.

The whereabouts of “Commandante Howell” do, of course, remain uncertain. Many still believe that he was taken out early in the war, with a devastatingly accurate and precise description of him (using foul French words–the only even-slightly effective weapons available from that nation)–as a poseur and journalistic dillettante, more concerned with the admission of women in a men-only golf club than any serious issues. There have been rumored sightings of him in Catskills retreats and upper-West-Side semillon-and-brie receptions, but they are unsubstantiated, and he is known to have many doubles in his blinkered and antiquated “progressive” outlook.

Regardless of his disposition, the links between his former regime and the anti-war left haven’t been conclusively proven, but now that many are defecting, there is little doubt that they will be found and verified beyond any doubt. With the recent capture of key henchmen R. W. Apple, P. Krugman, A. Clymer and M. Dowd, revelations should come quickly now.

But the importance of actually finding the supreme leader at this point is denigrated, given his diminished, even insubstantial power.

“We don’t really care where he is,” said a spokesman for the New York Sun. “His credibility, and that of his regime, is shattered, and the people are finally free to read and believe as they wish.”

(Copyright 2003 by Rand Simberg)

I wonder if he’ll pop out of a cake in Tikrit?

It’s more than fitting that it occurs on the anniversary of the day that Mussolini met his just end, and the next day was strung up, fifty-eight years ago.

If he hasn’t yet assumed ambient temperature, may Saddam share his fate, if not on his birthday, then soon.

For all of their platitudes about Saddam being a dictator, and the theoretical need to remove him, as long as no concrete action was taken to actually do so, the French apparently helped him keep down the opposition.

No one of rank higher than colonel, or Navy captain, will be attending the Paris Air Show.

You know, I consider myself a First Amendment extremist, but I think that all of this incitement is getting out of hand. Fathers, lock up your hoboes–it’s not safe out there.

I’m back from Scottsdale, and will try to report on it today (or more likely tomorrow–lots to catch up on on the home front). But here’s something that happened while I was gone that wasn’t part of the program, but may be the most exciting news yet.

Jeff Bezos, founder and owner of Amazon, has finally started to show his space cards.

I’m off to Scottsdale.

All of the anti-American calls to arms by the mullahs seem to be fizzling out.