Our title today comes from John Ford's 1945 PT boat saga about the doomed ones, the unlucky few left behind in the Philippines to hold off the advancing Japanese navy. They never had a chance, and went down hard against overwhelming odds. Which is kind of how I felt this morning, facing all of this weirdness.

They Were Reprehensible

The IHT looks at the French response to Colin Powell's bizarre assertion that "France would be made to suffer," since they didn't go along with us on Iraq. Nobody can understand this, although some believe that Powell is pushing the White House line here in order to position himself to mitigate the damage. Dominique de Villepin, a class act no matter how you slice him, responded with savoir faire:

"Throughout the Iraq crisis, France, along with a very large majority of the international community, acted in conformity with its convictions and its principles to defend international law. It will continue to do so in all circumstances."

They Were Diabolical

The Boston Globe is also carrying this story: Violent portrait: Aide tells of Uday. It's an exclusive interview with Adeeb al-Ani, the personal secretary of Uday Hussein. As you'll recall, Uday was so crazy that even Saddam avoided him, and Uday's e-mail address, shahrayar2000@yahoo.com, alluded to the evil despot who killed his bedpartners in The Arabian Nights. "Absolutely everything about Uday was abnormal," says Ani.

Uday's house also contained an extensive collection of pornography, a cache of medicines that indicate a tendency to hypochondria, and a vast liquor collection, unusual for someone who proclaimed himself devoutly Muslim.

"The method of the investigations was usually to hang someone upside down and beat them, hammering hard on their bones," he says, pointing to a hook on the ceiling that he claims prisoners were hanged from. "Some people would be left here for days upside down and would just die of fatigue and thirst."

They Were Inscrutable

These would be the authors of a Florida law that would have required mothers wanting to give a child up for adoption to "publicize their sexual histories in newspaper ads." The idea was to name the possible fathers of such children, who might then take responsibility for their offspring. The good guy here is the ACLU, which successfully struck down the measure by arguing that "the law violates privacy rights and substantially interferes with a woman's ability to choose adoption."

"It subjected women to public humiliation and harassment for no benefit," said Mariann Wang, an attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.

The policy also warns against use of "presumptive statements" and conduct or "attitude" that "annoys" another person or group.

Can't pass up this one: Stutterer Files Human Rights Complaint. Is it Pop Tart? No, it's Bob Tart, one of our nation's stutterers in St. Louis who filed a complaint against WIL-FM and Jones Radio Networks because "the person who answered the call-in line refused to let him on the air to dedicate a song to his ex-wife because of his stutter."

Tart said a woman named Alexa, who fields Lia's calls, told him on March 21, "Bobby, we don't do the stuttering thing."

More expendables lined up for this afternoon.

11:05:32 AM