Meanwhile Robert Mugabe rages on in Zimbabwe. Ginger Thompson, writing out of Johannesburg for the Times on Friday, reported that Mugabe "boasted that he could be a 'black Hitler, tenfold.'" Allegedly he made the comment in a speech on Friday, March 21. For more comprehensive coverage of what's happening in Zimbabwe, though, I usually read the Economist. You just can't count on the Times to give it regular coverage.

Thompson writes that Zimbabwe now has inflation of "more than 150 percent, with unemployment at 70 percent, severe shortages of gasoline and more than 60 percent of its population — estimated at 11.6 million — [is] in need of food aid."