What Caught My Eye Today

France - Don't look now, but the French are about to vote themselves a new President this weekend. In the latest polls, Nicolas Sarkozy, who would warm up relations with the United States and prod the French to work more, was favored to win presidential elections Sunday — and to dash Socialist Segolene Royal's hopes at becoming France's first woman president. Despite Royal's fierce final blows Friday, all final polls suggested that Sarkozy will win Sunday's runoff and take over this restless, troubled nuclear power from the aging Jacques Chirac. If the polls prove right, France would have a president friendly toward the United States but not servile, who gladly shook President Bush's hand but wants a deadline on pulling out of Iraq and wouldn't favor war against Iran. There's a bold stance, Mr. Sarkozy. Way to stick your neck out on that one. As for Miss Congeniality, Royal said France risks violence and brutality if right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy wins Sunday's presidential election. Now, now. No pouting until after someone officially wins and its not you. Otherwise, you just come off looking stupid.

Britain - It must be a busy week for elections over in Europe, or something. Scottish nationalists committed to independence from Britain became the biggest party in the Scottish parliament on Friday in elections which left a political headache for Prime Minister Tony Blair's successor. The Scottish National Party (SNP) ended 50 years of Labor dominance in Scotland in Thursday's vote and Labor suffered heavy losses in local council elections in England and lesser losses in elections to the devolved Welsh assembly. With Blair expected to announce next week he is stepping down as prime minister after a decade in power, he leaves a poisoned chalice to finance minister Gordon Brown, the 56-year-old Scot who is almost certain to succeed him. To be perfectly honest, I don't know diddly about the politics in the UK...but I did sleep at a Holiday In Express last night.

Ethics - Tell me you didn't see this one coming. In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in Iraq, less than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. More than 40 percent support the idea of torture in some cases, and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the Pentagon said in what it called its first ethics study of troops at the war front. The study team said shorter deployments or longer intervals between deployments would give soldiers and Marines a better chance "to reset mentally" before returning to combat. The Pentagon last month announced a policy that extends tours of duty for all active duty Army troops from a year to 15 months. I heard an intriguing piece on the radio a couple of days ago about the bickering going on in Washington about what was best for the troops. The commentary suggested letting the armed services vote on what they thought was best for them, seeing as they are the one with their necks on the line. How do you think that vote would turn out?

Abortion - President Bush is warning Democratic leaders that any attempt to weaken federal policies that restrict abortion will be met with a veto. The White House issued letters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an attempt to stop abortion amendments from being added to spending bills and other legislation that Congress will be considering in the coming weeks. The Republicans who held power in past sessions of Congress ensured that spending bills included language prohibiting federal funding for abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, and restricting funding for international family planning groups that might give advice on or provide abortions. Now in the minority, House and Senate Republicans recently wrote the president urging him to make clear that any weakening of those restrictions would be unacceptable. That's all well and good Mr. President but, like it or not, your term is over next year. You won't be able to stall this legislation forever.

Corporate Mergers - Speculation about a possible Microsoft-Yahoo tie-up met with skepticism Friday from analysts as reports that the deal was already dead began to surface. The reported takeover talks that sent shares of Yahoo up by 10 percent were no longer taking place, the Wall Street Journal said in an online article citing sources familiar with the negotiations. Yahoo shares surged following published reports that Microsoft had resumed its pursuit of Yahoo to better compete with Web search and advertising leader Google. Both companies declined comment on the reports. No comment, huh? Is that because there was nothing to comment on in the first place. I'm telling you, this smacks of some joker playing a prack on YouTube. Stupid jerk probably made a killing too.

Basketball - Warriors win, Warriors win, Warriors win. So for those of you who don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Golden State Warriors play in Oakland (funny how they call themselves the Golden State Warriors and not the Oakland Warriors). Besides being a rather entertaining series (Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks 4 games to 2), this marks the first time an #8 seed has beaten a #1 seed, since the NBA expanded the first round playoffs to seven games way back in 2003. In an interested side side, the Warriors coach Don Nelson used to coach the Mavs under owner Mark Cuban. Nelson contends that Cuban still owes him $20 million in back pay. I'm guessing the check is still not in the mail.