My friend who saw the low-flying plane over Washington last night was kind enough to email his full description of what exactly he witnessed. Note my original item was wrong about the time of the sighting:

As planes were belatedly descending into Ronald Reagan Airport at around 1:15 AM, all of a sudden a big plane appeared over the National Cathedral, banking slightly left and rapidly moving towards Massachusetts Avenue right in the direction towards the White House.

That plane came probably within mere seconds of being taken down with the missiles on top of the New Executive Building. This was the closest ever a low-flying big civil plane got to the White House thus far. Even on 9/11, the Pentagon plane was much farther away from it than this one.

Daily Kos points us to John Edwards’ press-release-blog where he retracts his distancing last weekend from Howard Dean:

Howard and I have been saying the same thing about this for years. Hear that? The same thing. For years. Have I ever put it some way that Howard wouldn’t agree with? Probably. And he put it in a way, once, just the other day, that I can’t agree with, since I come from a place where hard-working people, who are better served by the agenda and passion of the Democrats, somehow still vote Republican.

Throwing phones works great for dramatic effect. You see it all the time in movies. But in reality, if you throw a phone at, say, a hotel concierge, which is exactly what Russell Crowe recently did, you can wind up in serious trouble. No doubt the concierge has got himself a good lawyer and Crowe will have to settle, after lacerating the hotel employee’s face. Crowe claims he was frustrated in his attempts to call his wife Danielle Spencer. And here’s where I thought this would make a good item, considering his blonde actress wife has the same name as the woman who played Dee in What’s Happening? I was ready to throw out my references to Mabel King and Shirley Hemphill, No Roger-No Rerun-No Rent, What Doobie You Be? Alas, the brilliant minds at UsedWigs had beaten me to it and from quite some time ago. (Scroll down to their Corrections Dept.)

Claire Berlinski sums up quite well why the French voted against the E.U. constitution in yesterday’s Washington Post. One of her best explanations comes from personal experience:

Over the past few weeks, the pro-Europe talking heads on French television have been busy poking fun at French fears of the “proverbial Polish plumber” who is ready to steal jobs from the locals. But how the pundits can argue that he is only proverbial is beyond me. If you want to test the theory, try living in a Paris apartment that needs repainting, as mine did a few weeks ago. Get estimates. French workmen will propose to do the job for 10,000 euros. The Polish painter? He can do it for 800 euros. Tomorrow. He doesn’t ask for health insurance or social security, either. And this in a country where there is already 10 percent unemployment.

If I were a French house painter or plumber, I would have voted non, too.

In this coming Weekly Standard I’ve broken down the recent state election results in Germany, what it means for Gerhard Schröder, and the prospects for Angela Merkel, who could become her country’s first female chancellor.

There’s been much talk about Merkel as Germany’s Margaret Thatcher. But that would be inaccurate–the chairwoman of the CDU/CSU isn’t facing anything as daunting as Thatcher faced in the early 1980s. In addition, as one German told me, Merkel’s aim is not to make Germany “great” again. (And you know what I’m talking about.)

On the other hand, comparisons of Gerhard Schröder to Bill Clinton are more accurate, according to Michael Werz of the German Marshall Fund: “trailer home, single mom, white trash, and [Schröder] had to make his way up into the higher echelons of society.” Not to mention his love for the ladies. (Schröder has been married four times–a fact that did not escape his rivals who printed bumper stickers that read: “3 out of 4 wives can’t be wrong.”)

My friend Matthias Rüb of Frankfurter Allgemeine says that if Merkel wins, her challenge will be considerable: “It takes a true political leader to tell Germans, still spoiled by the experience of the Wirtschaftswunder of the 1960s and still pampered by the rampant welfare state known from the 1970s, what they will face, to revive the economy and to restore self confidence.” For Galley Slaves readers who understand German (there must be at least a few of you!), I recommend Matthias’s book, available at Amazon.de

From The Superficial’s interview with model/actress/whatever April Scott:

Q: I heard that you’re so hot, a boy actually died after kissing you. And that’s why you had to leave Missouri. You’re like Rogue from the X-Men. You went on a quest to understand and harness your powers. Powers of hotness. Is that true?

Friggin’ awesome.

And later:

April: And I am shooting my own swimsuit calendar right now. So that’s exciting.

Q: Wow, all you, just you?

April: Just me.

Q: I’m not gonna lie to you . . . I’m very much interested in seeing that.

It’s like someone melded Matt Labash and Greg Gutfeld.

The silly, pie-in-the-sky question I’ve always wondered about the European Union is: What is the E.U.’s stance on secession by a member nation? Would they go to war to keep a member state?

The answer I’m normally given is that the E.U. wouldn’t fight the secession of a country, but that, practically speaking, secession becomes impossible since going off the euro is too complicated. But what if it was possible to transition out of the euro?

Italian minister Roberto Maroni now says that Italy should hold a voted about going back to the lira. It’s interesting to wonder what happens if the United Europe project fails.

Blinq reports on the big fight brewing at the offices of 610 WIP–America’s best sports-talk radio station.

It seems that morning host Angelo Cataldi has taken his fight with night-time host Howard Eskin out of school and onto his personal website. Non-Philadelphia natives will find this tiresome, but really, what do I care? I don’t make you sit through listings of my TV appearances, so you can indulge me.

It seems that after being suspended from the station, Eskin has returned and started taking shots at Cataldi and his co-hosts, Rhea Hughes and Al Morganti. Cataldi has rushed in to defend their honor. (Read his long, intemperate post here. It certainly has the smell of truth to it.) Good for him.

Cataldi isn’t a serious sports heavyweight, but he’s good people, as is Hughes. For his part, Morganti may be the smartest guy at WIP. For Eskin to pick a fight with him is the height of idiocy.

But then again, that’s Howard Eskin’s long suit. Eskin has been a fixture in Philadelphia sports for as long as I’ve been watching the Sixers lose. He is oafish, loud, abrasive, and incredibly self-satisfied. He reeks of corporate favoritism–it is simply inconceivable that he produces any kind of numbers for WIP and he has bounced around so many jobs in town that clearly no one wants to keep him as a franchise.

Everyone knows someone like Eskin: The guy who sucks up to management and keeps being allowed to fail. The guy who thinks that his imperviousness to the consequences of his failures is a sign that he has no shortcomings. That Cataldi has finally called him out, in public, is something that everyone who loves WIP should celebrate.

Let’s hope the management at WIP finally come to their senses and dump Eskin the way everyone else in town has.

PS: For those of you who care, Cataldi also says that June 21 is the date WIP will start broadcasting on the web.