I called in sick today. I'll write more later...considering I just took a shower and it's already dark.

Oh, yeah. Anytime Ahmad Chalabi appears on a flowchart, you know you're in trouble. Just for the record. He's the Ken Lay of Jordan. Ditto for Scooter. Hooray for Stovepipes!

Someone pointed out to me that Kay was trying to blame Tenet for the intelligence failures and the buildup to war instead of Bush. (He's currently walking back a bit on this, but it was all the headline the first day...) Kay's logic (including a great line yesterday where he referenced "Pi's constant" as if pi were some ancient greek who had developed a constant) went like this: The analysts didn't have enough data to make their decisions, and Bush was misled by the IC, so the administration is actually blameless. It's all those evil bureaucrats fault! Condi Rice carried 43's water further this morning, saying that "everyone" agreed Iraq had WMD. So where's the flaw with this?

Well, there are two to begin with. Let's start with the obvious one: Conspiracy theories aside, these guys wanted to get Hussein from day one. Even after O'Neil mentioned it, it seemed like such an obvious point no one needed to follow up: this administration wanted to get Iraq well before 9/11.

The second point, then? Well, if the administration was so hell-bent on going into Iraq, even before 9/11, and had evidence of WMD (flawed or otherwise) why didn't they just make that case and invade? Why, you ask? Because the American people wouldn't buy it. I remember sitting in Tortilla Coast on Capitol Hill watching Powell give his presentation at the U.N. He's got these charts up and he's showing where the WMD is and saying that the Iraqis not only have the WMD, but that there are connections with Al Qaeda. I remember thinking to myself, "if your case is so strong with the WMD, why bring up Al Qaeda?" Likewise, when the VPOTUS started rumbling about a mushroom cloud or 43 mentioned the uranium in Africa, I kept thinking to myself "why are they going so far" in their descriptions? If the evidence was clearly there (and classified) all they had to say was that it existed and no more.

But, as is becoming painfully obvious, the evidence wasn't there. The data was fragmentary and piece-meal. So when you have tiny data points all over the place, what can you sell? Well, the administration sold nuclear weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles capable of attacking the United States. They sold an Al Qaeda - Iraq link and refused to knock down ridiculous 9/11-Saddam Hussein conspiracy stories even though everyone IC related agreed they were bogus. In short, this administration not only propped up the weakest portions of intelligence it had been given, but it directly contradicted its own intelligence community on several points. When Senator Graham leaked a CIA letter saying that attacking Iraq would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack or the use of WMD, they ignored it. They just re-emphasized that Iraq was the greatest threat over and over again.

Check out this list. Eye-opening, eh? And each quote isn't from some guy at INR, or Tenet, or even the NSA. (Remember, Condi didn't have time to read "every memo" that crossed her desk!) They're from Rummy and 43, with McClellan thrown in for laughs. And the notorious NIE? If we go back to the record, we can remember that it was Senate Democrats who demanded the production of the document because they didn't know if they should vote for war or not! A NIE is normally done before policy is made, not after, as JMM pointed out some time ago. And as everyone knows after the uranium flap, Tenet attempted to warn off Condi & Friends time and time again from using suspect information.

You know that annoying manager of yours? The one who demands that an office report have a quote in the end from Benjamin Franklin even though it doesn't apply to the subject? You keep cutting it, but after each revision it sneaks back in there. After the third time you just give up. You figure, what the hell. You're not adding it in, so you actually haven't been "pressured" to add it in. It just keeps sneaking back in there all on its own. Like I said, crazy.

The truly pathetic part of this entire story is that liberal hawks (like myself) could've made an elegant wilsonian argument to go into Iraq simply for humanitarian reasons. It would've taken longer, sure, but we could've done it. The irony is that the administration now trots out "we freed the iraqi people" every chance it can get instead of their original argument "be very scared of very scary people". Disgusting.

Watch this video. Or just read the transcript. The wheels are coming off the vaunted White House press control. The facts are clear: all the POTUS has to do is say "Hey, we goofed" but he and McClellan are unwilling to do so. Priceless. This is the very reason why any Democrat will win in November.

Actually, I just found out something which is kind of annoying about the Dean campaing: they fired Trippi, but not Trippi's ad agency. Trippi's firm, which produced the lackluster ads throughout the campaign, was the problem. Trippi himself was a little strange, but he helped organize stuff fairly well, taking Dean from a no-name to a front-runner. But Dean's media never helped him out. We'll see how this plays out in the next round.

I don't like Thursdays. Why? Well, for starters, because every thursday "Doctor" Krauthammer gets to write the WaPo editorial, in this case, an idiotic one about David Kay's testimonty yesterday. I'd digress more but work is crazy.

And while on the Dean thing, let me just say that getting a new ad agency may be an understated benefit of the Roy Neel/Joe Trippi shakeup. Those ads definitely didn't help us in Iowa. And as the Kerry bounce shows, media trumps organization in this new century of campaigning. It's cool, of course, to have tons of people on your side, but Kerry's rise came precisely because Dean fell from grace. Bad media killed Dean in New Hampshire more than the third place showing in Iowa. If we'd had better media in Iowa, perhaps we'd be on top there, and throughout. I say, bring on the shakeup!

Better late than never...I realized today, when one of the 'rents talked to me, that I hadn't posted the link to the Val Air speech from the perspective of those of us who were there. Everyone should check it out if you haven't seen it.

Also, what are the rules concerning intern slackitude? We've got this intern at work who seems to take off every other day. He called in sick on Monday (after an hour of work...he looked fine) and today his car broke down. He "hoped it would get fixed by this afternoon". Yeah, right. This kid is making me look good, and that's a difficult feat to accomplish.

321!

I just found an addictive web game which involves you playing a yeti and whacking fat penguins to see how far they'll fly. I played for about two minutes and topped 320.9 (a record someone else challenged me to) with a big fat 321. I imagine some slacker at SCO came up with this...but I really don't know. Supposedly it's written by a Torvalds backer from St. Louis. Probably East St. Louis, based on the whole baseball-bat-whacking idea.

There are few Onion articles that I link to, simply because I assume most people read them without any help. But this latest headline is too good to miss: Bush 2004 Campaign Pledges to Restore Honor and Dignity to White House. Check it out today!

Can I say "I told you so" or not? I mean, come on, box-cutters? That was the most trotted out line in defense of the airlines since "deregulation will help us". Ask anyone how September 11th could've happened and the airlines always said "who could've known they'd have boxcutters for god's sake?" In reality, how about mace? Yeah, you know, mace. I think mace could've been somewhat predictable.

In reality though, mace also makes the absurd lengths the TSA is currently going to "protect" us all the more absurd. If the terrorists used mace (classified as a weapon by airlines even before 9/11) then why are we so worried about nail files, clippers, scissors, etc? Our priorities are seriously out of whack when one person's comments on one flight on Septemeber 11th led to an entire cottage industry of security screening.

Besides, let's be honest. If someone is holding a can of mace, I'm going to think twice. If someone has a boxcutter in their hands, I'd probably ask where the box was.

I'd kill a man for a salt bagel right now. Hopefully I'm not incriminating myself. The local place a block from works makes ONE salt bagel each day. One. So I show up today around 8:30 figuring that I'll be sure to nab it. No dice. (One of the two sales clerks said "sure, we have a salt bagel" only to be overruled by the back judge who must've eaten it herself.) As Mr. Bat would say, "Grrr."

From yesterday's press conference with Polish President Kwasniewski:

Q Mr. President, but how do you describe and account for the difference between what you claimed prior to the war about what he possessed and what he was capable of, and what the intelligence said he possessed and was capable of in terms of a nuclear weapon within the decade, and the fact that David Kay says the intelligence was inaccurate and wrong, and nothing has been found? Don't you owe the American people an explanation?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think the Iraq Survey Group must do its work. Again, I appreciate David Kay's contribution. I said in the run-up to the war against Iraq that -- first of all, I hoped the international community would take care of him. I was hoping the United Nations would enforce its resolutions, one of many. And then we went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution -- 1441 -- unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.

This is the second time Bush has weirdly stated that Saddam "did not let us in" to Iraq to complete inspections. Did he somehow miss the whole UNMOVIC deal? Did he forget about Hans Blix?

Every single time a media pundit says "Howard Dean got into trouble with his comments about Saddam Hussein" I think to myself that actually, Dr. Dean was right: America is not safer due to Saddam Hussein's capture. Even in Iraq, people are still being killed on a daily basis. Here in the US, we increased our alert level, and most people realized that there was no correlation between Al Qaeda and Iraq. (The Vice President excluded...) Dean told the truth, the media didn't like it, so they pretended that he made a mistake. Bush told a lie, the media blinked, and pretended nothing happened. Twice.

Tucker Carlson was on last night saying "Where will all the Dean people go?" ten minutes into the program. Wolf Blitzer finally had to interrupt him, saying, "Um, Tucker, the Dean people are going to keep running their campaign...why would they stop?" In much the same way, read this piece and this piece, both about 41 vs 42. Writing off "the frontrunner" because of a mistake is problematic, when only a few delegates have actually been won so far.

In the end, this election will be about Bush. And the sooner other candidates get out (Joe, please, stop the bleeding!) the sooner most people will realize they have a choice between 4 candidates next week: Kerry, Dean, Clark & Edwards. Clark narrowly eeked out a win over Edwards and Dean managed to claw back to a solid second place showing. Money and organization (Clark and Dean still have both) will prove key next Tuesday. But after Tuesday, I expect there to be one or two candidates left standing. We'll see who pulls out a win. I'm still going to be on Dean's side the whole way, and I still think we can win, with a little momentum on our side.

Some other poll numbers are starting to come in. LA Times has a 34/33 Kerry Dean splid with ABC having a 37/31 split. Check out the daily kos for more love.

Are starting to come out. Kerry - 36, Dean - 31, Edwards - 14, Clark - 12, Joe - 9. Huge news. Dean is right back in it now, and Kerry looks weaker by comparison. Clark loses the most, because he was leading coming into it and couldn't claw back. His Iowa decision looked bad last week and looks bad this week. Go Dean!

Two quick points. First, I encourage everyone to support moveon.org in their campaign to get their commercial on the air during the super-bowl. To that end, click this banner!

Second, Wired's latest annual vaporware awards just came out. Check it out.

I remember well having some writers at school compose horrible articles for the "Features" section of the newspaper I ran and then claim "it was satire". Newsflash: people don't get satire. At least not most people. And you need to alert people before you send it out. That said, the pieces I viewed were always not satire, but merely poorly written. A good work of satire? Check out this e-mail. It seems fake upon first inspection, but for pure hilarity, you have to compare it side by side to Paul Bremer's upon which it is based. It's actually an excellent, although subtle, work of satire. Too bad people are already quoting it and revealing themselves to be idiots. Yay right-wingnuts! Keep shooting blanks.

The New Hampshire primary is tonight. We'll see what happens.

If you already read the Kay report "There are NO WMD!!!!" then you should read this WaPo article about the mismanagement of post-war Iraq. When are people going to wake up and realize that the government is actually doing a good job? It's the political appointees of the Bush administration that have consistently bungled things up.

Any Dem will win next November. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the election is about Bush, not who we put up. And because it's about Bush, we'll win. (I'll add a slight caveat: if we capture UBL...it'll be close.)

Although I'm easy to please, I'm never content. Kind of like my ability to forget but never forgive. Cliches aside, there are few things (blue skies excepted) as captivating as DC, at night, under a layer of snow. I just walked to my landlord's house and back and everything was still. A good way to end the evening. Now I finally get to take out my contacts for the first time in three days. My eyes hurt...

So I awake, post ex fun, Sunday morn. Brad gives me a ride back to the estate, where I regain my appreciation of heated houses. The gas people still hadn't called after lunch, and I was starting to worry about the space heater I left running in the basement. Fortunately, the 'werkz didn't burn down.

While on the land, I was forced to work for my supper by chopping down a series of trees and piling them into a large bonfire. It's probably the only thing I've ever done which makes me like our current miserable failure, namely, that President Bush has a whole bunch of bodarks on his land that he spends time clearing. For those unfamiliar with the delightful Osage Orange Tree, let's just say that bodarks have thorns that are longer than anything you've ever seen. The bodark apple is also one of the toughest fruits around, and even when thrown into a raging fire doesn't really disintegrate: it just shrinks a bit and gets dark. People used to use them in place of barbed wire fences. Clearing them wasn't that much fun, but burning them was. There are few things more captivating than watching a fire consume everything fed to it.

Hours later, we had a whole bunch more wood, a lot less brush and a much cleaner forest. I definitely earned my keep while home, plowed through a steak dinner, then stayed overnight as several inches of snow fell. Later in the evening, I learned that the gas had been turned back on. The 'werkz was hot, and I was ready to return.

Overall a great weekend. But I'm not eager to have the gas fail again anytime soon.

Excluding having my gas cut off, the weekend was a blast.

First off, the party at Deborah's was actually a great deal of fun, considering the numbers. On the minus side, I was only one of two people invited who didn't speak German. On the plus side, we spoke mostly English. On the minus side, Dwight only brought one special friend to the occasion. On the plus side, she was very cool, and quality made up for quantity.

On the "collision course with wackiness" front, it turns out one of Deborah's friends is allergic to legumes starting with the letter "p". What did we have for appetizers? Why, buckets of nuts, of course! I'll leave the food review for a later moment, but the evening wore on well, and I departed with Dwight (plus special guest) at an appropriate hour.

Saturday morning I wake up to the sound of someone knocking on my door. By the time I roll out of bed and wander downstairs they're gone. This puts me in a foul mood, so, sleep-deprived, I text message Gwyn and the other Ward One Captain telling them I'm going to bail on canvassing for Dean and instead prepare to shave. (Yeah, tmi, whatever.) The hot water runs out. I check the pilot light, which appears to be off. I blow thirty minutes trying to relight it. I check the range, which lights up fine, and the furnace (gas-powered) is still working, so the gas line must be fine, right? That only leaves the water-heater. I call my landlord to tell him the water-heater must be broken. After another half-hour of trying to light the pilot-light, I hear someone knocking on my door. By this point, I'm really steamed. I don't have any hot water, I still haven't shaved, and it's almost in the pm. I open the door to find a white-helmeted Washington Gas man there. He says he's there to shut off the gas. I let him do so and then ask when it'll be fixed. He mumbles that there's no ETA and that I can go get a space-heater at the fire-station up the street.

As Brad pointed out to me later, considering that Carroll was planning to have an art show at my house Saturday evening (she only cancelled when we hung out earlier in the week), it was extremely fortitous that the show was nixed, given the lack of heat. At the time, however, I wasn't looking for silver linings. I was looking for warmth.

As I'm about to head over to the fire station to pick up a space heater, Helena calls. I had been getting a little annoyed at the lack of contact between us, so I was happy to hear from her. Evidently she'd called and left a message while I was in Iowa (on the hard line...!) and she got some weird message when she called my cell. She, of course, didn't get my e-mail because she was driving across the country. Regardless, we spoke for a minute, then again a second and third time as I walked to get a space heater. It felt good. She's doing well, despite being three time zones away. Now the 'werkz officially has west-coast love. Yay!

Post Helena, I got prepared to welcome Brad into town for an evening out, and to see Deborah's sister, who was jetting into town. Before the festivities fired up, however, I needed to get something to eat, so when Brad arrived, finding me frozen, we buzzed by Fincher's place to introduce her to the wonders of Bethesda.

After hitting francophile film addict haunt "Mon Ami Gabi" (I'd only been there once before, but it was just as good this time despite Brad's presence) we sauntered south, I acted like a jackass, and some good conversation was had over my objections and objectionability. This gave us ample time to head back to the igloo, spruce slightly and then roll over to my favorite french establishment, saint ex.

Since Meat and Loaf were bailing on the local adventure scene, I took comfort in the fact that Kristen said she was coming to supplement Deborah and sister (who managed to set the single season record for most phone calls to my phone in a 30-minute period) who were engaged in the herculean task of transporting a eph from foggy bottom to said destination and obtaining dinner in the process. Carroll also bailed, prefering to spend her evening curled up next to a box of "Snakes and Ladders". After bailing on the show, and the ex, she definitely owes me. you reading this, C?

Things went uphill swiftly, however, and soon all the assembled people were having a good time. Ex was hopping, as usual, despite the substandard weather outside (it has snowed earlier in the day with nothing sticking) and in the 'werkz. I kept hoping that the Washington Gas people would call while there so that I could just roll the three blocks home and heat the house up. Oh, fickle hope.

While there, an old friend from college showed up with two of her high-school friends. All were an added bonus to the evening, especially since I hadn't spoken with her since graduation. Information was exchanged all around, and when the later urge for more movement hit us, those of us survivors retired to Gate 54 downstairs. When the lights finally came up, post winning-time, and we were forced to depart, my disappointment was matched only by the sharpness of the cold outside and the realization that the 'werkz itself was likely to be equally chilly.

I was right. The house was just too cold. Not the worst night of sleep I've ever had, but definitely not a fun one.

Yes, it's true: Our president has truly disappeared. All he needs is a Roman hat and he's officially turned into a cartoon, eh?

Did I mention that the picture was actually from a White House webpage? And that I attended said mayoral meeting? (I left before Bush arrived because I had plans with a friend...good thing, too, because I guess I wouldn't have seen him either way.)

It was cold this weekend. Very, very, cold. Consequently, despite having a great time Friday night and Saturday (which I'll relate later) I retreated to the landed gentry estate Sunday, where I was forced to do manual labor for my meals. I'll explain later.

Needless to say, Washington Gas and I are not the best of friends. But it's nice to hate a megacompany other than Verizon and Pepco.