I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED:

Three senior French officials are set to open an inquiry into claims that judges trying ex-Prime Minister Alain Juppe suffered a dirty tricks campaign. The inquiry, announced by President Jacques Chirac, will examine claims of threats, phone-tapping and break-ins.

Mr Juppe was barred from public office for 10 years after being found guilty over a jobs fraud at Paris City Hall.

Mr Chirac was under investigation over the same affair until 2001, when he successfully claimed the constitution granted him presidential immunity.

Interesting.

HERE’S A PICTURE OF the actual Cold Mountain, from the Smoky Mountain Journal photoblog.

MICKEY KAUS ponders the similarity between Kerry’s office and a subway, and observes: “This character problem is not ‘aloofness.’ Aloofness is what people who don’t want to acknowledge Kerry’s character problem say is Kerry’s character problem.”