This is why Warner is a good guy. He's not some wacky conservative, like George Allen. He's a pragmatic, old-school, Virginian. A fiscal conservative. A good man.

Ever wonder who's on the mythical $10,000 bill? Well, wonder no more: it's Salmon Chase, who came up with the idea for a National Bank.

And, yeah, there is a $100,000 note, but it was never issued to the public and had Wilson's face on it. It was strictly for use by banks.

Want pix? Here you go.

CNN confirms it. Silberman is on the panel. Disgusting. I thought that Kissinger was the lowest the administration could go to appoint someone (for the September 11th commission) but this is almost worse. At least the White House didn't appoint someone from Cambodia to co-chair the 9/11 commission, whereas in this case they're sending a message to Robb that he better not mess with them. Disgraceful.

The President just appointed Judge Laurence Silberman of Iran-Contra and Whitewater fame, to head the new commission reviewing the IC. What a crock. Even Chuck Robb can't contain this guy. I hope the CIA has some big guns in their pocket, because the crazy judge is pure evil.

Oh, and how galling must it be for Robb to co-head a panel chaired by the guy who let Ollie North off? I mean, I'm not the only Virginian who remembers the vitriolic Robb/North fight for his Senate seat. Absolutely disgraceful. This appointment is a slap in the face for Robb. What a joke.

I said it before, I'll say it again: cough up some cash for Chandler. I just ponied up $10.01 for his effort. Why the $.01 you ask? Well, conveniently (I love the tech political people) Chandler has already included the appropriate cent denomination addition info for people contributing. Although I read several of the blogs listed here, 'kos was the first one to ask for contributions, so I'm rewarding him.

We can win this. And this technique, namely, soliticing small funds from people all over the country, is the best way to defeat numerous rethuglicans in the fall. Trust me. Dean may have pioneered this technique, but Dems of all stripes are going to benefit from it right now.

This is the best response to the whole Janet Jackson incident I've seen yet, from Toles no less:

So Deborah still has my umbrella, and conveniently "forgot" to bring it to work on a day when it's pouring rain which forced me to bust out my panda umbrella, (yeah, it may be yours Helena, but I can't remember who had the frog and who had the panda) and I run out of the house to get onto the metro only to discover I forgot my watch. Deborah had some excuse but it involved a bus and a car and I can't remember it.

Damn. A bad way to start a Friday.

So it was cool, being on TV. Unlike the other two folks, I at least stayed on message.

Also cool is this site which is publishing certain sections of O'Neill's files which implicate the man described as "a blind man in a room of deaf people" at cabinet meetings. Bush is still having an awful day, and I burned 20 seconds out of my fifteen minutes. For once, Thursday is fun!

So some guy I know was on Inside Politics this afternoon. He looked a lot like me, actually. He even sounded like me.

Really, today is just a very, very, bad day for the administration. In addition the Plame stuff, Tenet's speech, the AWOL stuff, Hastert's pork-threat and Scooter's pending legal troubles, there are two other big stories currently floating out there today. The first is the Cheney/Scalia industry bribe story well documented in this great LA Times article. But why read the article when you can just check out the latest Tom the Dancing Bug which summarizes it all nicely?

The second major issue is the ongoing investigation into the ethics violation on the floor of the House from a month or so ago. Timothy Noah has been all over this from the very beginning, arguing that a bribe took place. Now, it appears, even CQ is confirming that the House ethics committee (the Commmittee on Standards of Official Conduct) began investigating the issue two months ago. As recently as January 21, committee Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colorado) claimed no investigation was in the works, despite the fact that "informal fact-finding" had begun on December 8th, according to a statement released yesterday by Hefley. With the committee on the case, things are finally starting to move forward. Who knows, maybe Hefley will stand up to the leadership and actually get some good done. I'm not holding my breath, but neither is Timothy Noah, from what I can gather.

Altogether every single branch, from the executive to the judicial to the legistlative, seems to be taking it on the chin today. The GOP is being finally called on their lies and deception. A good day for the American people.

So wait...Tenet's speech today defended the CIA from the attacks of the past several weeks. In a key moment, he claimed that we didn't have anyone in Saddam's "inner sanctum" but that a key CIA asset helped nail Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

I'm left with the distinct impression that the agency kept their eyes on the real threats, namely, Al-Qaeda, even while the administration went ape over Iraq. So Tenet's speech managed to both skewer the administration's defenders while re-emphasizing what the real war on terror is about.

It's not about Saddam Hussein. It's about the guys who flew a couple of planes into the WTC and the Pentagon. It's about taking responsibility for your actions. Remember the Bay of Pigs fiasco? Kennedy took full responsibility for it. The buck needs to stop at the President's desk, and Tenet was conveniently reminding him of that fact. You take your eyes of the ball, you get burned. Enough said.

Didn't I mention that the wheels are coming off the administration? Yeah, I think I did. Well, the latest is some choice details about the Plame affair.

JMM dishes here. Who knew that 'Scooter' would be a bad guy? Oh, wait. I did as well. I'm not so sure they're going to nail Scooter, but it would be damn cool. It would also tear a hole in the next deck of the WH Titantic...

Dean's putting everything left into Wisconsin, in an attempt to reverse the current downward slide. A win there would certainly show the campaign was able to recover from the damaging results of the past few weeks, and would help spotlight why Kerry, of all the candidates is perhaps not the best choice to best Bush. So, perhaps for the last time, I'm going to throw up the contribution image. Since they started asking for change this morning, with a four day window, the Dean people have responded with the largest increase ever, pulling in over $50,000 each hour. Theoretically they could top the bat by midnight...which would be a good accomplishment.

With that said, here's the bat. Feel free to hit it or just watch as it goes up. The rollercoaster ride is headed up to the top, and only Wisconsin will reveal whether we pull it out or not.

We'll see how it goes. Remember, at the end of the day, Anyone But Bush.

I'm not a morning person. After spending all my high-school years getting up at a god-awful hour, my collegiate days were a nice step back. Upon arriving in DC, I kept the laid-back schedule for a few months, but then blew over a year getting to work before 6:00 AM. Needless to say, I didn't get a great deal of sleep. Now that I'm at the coolest job ever I can honestly appreciate each day the extra hours of sleep that I get.

Of course, I intended to hit the gym this morning. Staying up late and catching a couple episodes of Cowboy Bebop (can anyone say...betamax?) didn't help me achieve that goal. Nor did the inappropriately close placement of the alarm clock to my outstretched hand. Stupid willpower.

Of course, as soon as I pen another story, Salon comes out with a comprehensive look at the AWOL issue. It may be premium...so here are the first three paragraphs which are succinct and to the point:

In 1972, George W. Bush simply walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas Air National Guard. He skipped required weekend drill sessions for many months, probably for more than a year, and did not take a mandatory annual physical exam, which resulted in his being grounded. Nonetheless, Bush, the son of a well-connected Texas congressman, received an honorable discharge.

If an Air National guardsman today vanished for a year, military attorneys say that guardsman would be transferred to active duty or, more likely, kicked out of the service, probably with a less-than-honorable discharge. They suggest the penalty would be especially swift if the absent-without-leave guardsman were a fully trained pilot, as Bush was.

Bush's National Guard record, long ignored by the media, has surfaced with a vengeance. If the topic continues to rage, and if the media presses him, Bush may finally be forced to release his full military records, which could reveal the truth. By refusing to make all those records public, Bush has until now broken with a long-standing tradition of U.S. presidential candidates.

How's that for a great lead off? The rest of the article is killer as well. The only negative is that it doesn't include the infamous picture of the half-torn document, so I'm going to image snatch from Calpundit just to add the final nail in the coffin. Here it is:

Yes, it's hard to believe that this half-torn piece of paper with a "W" on it and a redacted area (supposedly Bush's SSN) "proves" Bush wasn't AWOL. If anything, the shoddy paper seems to reinforce that the administration would have to grasp at straws to prove Bush did anything. And as Salon pointed out, after taxpayers coughed up $1 million to train Bush to fly F-102's, don't we deserve an explanation to our million dollar question?

I was waiting for someone to pick up this story after it ran in CQ today. Basically, the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, took a trip to Kentuck to promise an expensive "we'll buy your tobacco above cost to give you tons of money" program to beleagured commonwealth tobacco farmers, but only, of course, if they voted for the Republican candidate in the upcoming special election. This is low for the GOP, but especially low for the Speaker of the House.

As Kos points out, all the more reason for good Dems to support Ben Chandler in his bid to recover an important House seat. Add $.01 to your contribution to let him know it's coming from the internet. He's currently leading Kerr, too, so your money will be put to good use, rather than thrown away on a hopeless race.

Everyone seems to have weighed in on the AWOL issue, from coast to coast. I think the Calpundit summary is also quite good, including the infamous "torn document" which would be conspiracy like, if it wasn't being brought up as evidence by the administration. Forrest dropped a line to say that although the earlier post I linked to covered several details, Carter's examination of evidence seemed to rely upon details which needed to be looked at in aggregate to reach a conclusion. For instance, although Carter says that Bush's income would reflect whether he was receiving guard funds, presumably one would have to obtain copies of all of Bush's other pay stubs in order to show that he wasn't receiving money from the National Guard during the period in question in Alabama. A tall order.

It's basically like proving a negative: in order to say Bush was AWOL, Dems must come up with a mountain of evidence. Who could easily do this? Well, I'll give you a hint: the same person who could've solved the Valerie Plame incident months ago, namely, President Bush.

If Bush saw this as a political liability, and he had the records to prove it, why not trot them out? Surely it couldn't be that difficult? This ventures into Clintonian "what are they hiding" doublespeak, but the differences are key: in this case, detractors of the President are asking for documents which show he was in Alabama during the time he was supposed to be there. They're not asking for wacky conspiracies to be proved: they don't actually care where he was, so long as he wasn't performing his duty.

The Globe already covered this but no other paper picked it up. The problem, it seems, is that Bush's papers have been heavily redacted or that Texas military members have been unwilling to go on the record, which again brings us back to proving a negative. If Bush could simply drag out five people to say "Hey, I flew in Alabama with George" then he would presumably do so.

In fact, the charitable explanation towards Bush is probably also the truth: Bush missed several months of service in Alabama, then after his superiors in Texas noted on his annual evaluation that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." he was told by friends to get back and do some service, quick. Which he did. The only problem is that missing such a long period of service isn't kosher. It's being absent without leave. Or AWOL.

The odd thing about this controversy is that everyone takes for granted the fact that Bush was able to use his connections to get into the National Guard. The puzzler is why he would shirk his duty when he wasn't even risking his life. His response has always been "I remember being there" which isn't terribly reassuring. The press doesn't need to dig harder: they need to just keep hitting McClellan until he comes up with a better response.

This Washington Times headline is priceless. Regardless of what you feel about gay marriage (I think civil unions are the way to go because I think the government shouldn't have anything to do with religion and marriage is a religious ceremony) it certainly is gay marriage. It's not gay "marriage". Read the article and you'll find quotes every time the word "marriage" is used as if something was weird about the construction of the words themselves. Stupid moonies.

This post says it all. If Bush did serve, the records are most likely somewhere. Considering that he was able to avoid any serious discussion of past drug/alcohol habits, (of which there probably aren't many records) this is much more to the point. After watching the WH Press Corps go ape yesterday, this story has legs. We'll see how far it runs.

A hovering police helicopter (spotlight hitting a housemate!), several squad cars and even a bike cop all figured into my evening. Needless to say, I was somewhat distracted. More tomorrow...

Here for your pleasure.

Yeah, operation bad hammer. This is why Toles is a great cartoonist. And Bush should be careful what he asks for...

Time to roll that tape, TiVo-style. I'm glad the special moment will live for posterity on my hard drive, but the real question is with the whole event clocking in at several hours, when will I get the nerve to delete it to make room for the latest episode of 24 or dragonball z?

Hoagland is on the verge of getting Fisked with authority. By now this infamous column has been thoroughly torn apart by a variety of sources, including JMM and Atrios. But in case you need your news in bite-sized pieces, here's the easy to remember slactivist version of the Hoagland & Perle timeline:

1. Sept. 2002: The CIA is underrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq.
2. Oct. 2002: The CIA needs to stop claiming that the White House is overstating the threat posed by Iraq.
3. Early 2003: In the battle between the White House and the CIA, the White House is right and the CIA is wrong: Iraq poses a far more serious threat than the CIA will admit.
4. Late 2003: Everyone agreed all along about the nature of the threat posed by Iraq. There never was a battle over the intelligence between the CIA and the White House.
5. Early 2004: The CIA overrepresented the threat posed by Iraq, overwhelming the White House in the battle over the intelligence.

Thankfully, the internet allows us to knock down such shoddy op-ed shenanigans. Now if only the White House Press Corps would point this out to McClellan...

Also from the "dog bites man" school of journalism comes this schocker where Colin Powell actually admits that if he had known there were no WMD, he might not have wanted to invade. Only in the world of this crazy administration could this be news. I mean, the WMD was the nail in the coffin: the one reason everyone could agree on according to Wolfowitz. And the deal with the WMD was that Saddam could threaten us with them. With those wacky UAV's, remember? That the administration made up. Enough said.

Yeah, so I changed the default css to look a little different. I was never that big a fan of the DC flag in the background, but I couldn't come up with anything else. This will mean that it'll be more difficult to change the look on certain holidays, but I think I'm up to the challenge.

Need I also mention that we're only days away from the two-year anniversary of the first articles on the site? It would take over a month to get the blog entries up and running, but those first tentative steps laid the groundwork for today's masterpiece. Did I mention that we've topped the 1000 article mark? In fact, this article is 1035...considering we were only at article 435 a year ago, the pace is picking up. By next year, at this rate, we could top 1870 articles. Pretty heady stuff, eh?

So the nice thing about sick days is that one gets a great opportunity to putter around the house (assuming one isn't violently ill, but merely has a cold) and battle kipple. Or one could play videogames and watch movies. Fortunately, I did all three.

I managed to find time to review Prince of Persia for the ps2. A great game. And here's a review of a movie Brad gave me based on one of my favorite books. Yeah, I should've reviewd the book awhile ago, but given the number of books I go through in a month, I don't really have time to be reviewing them all. I will say the book was good enough to make me purchase it in Barnes & Noble while shopping for other people. It looked good enough to warrant me not giving it away as a gift and I was right.

The kipple was also battled on all fronts. I disassembled my super-cool wacky IKEA portable wardrobes, reducing them to a tiny fraction of synthetics and metal. I plowed through half my mail, discovering in the process that over the past month I managed to acquire two different credit cards. Yay! Now I have over 7 different credit lines, which is probably far too much for someone of limited means. Thankfully, I still have yet to carry a balance on any of them. Also fortunately, of my four major cards (VISA, AmEx, MasterCard & Discover), all but one are earning me cash back. I have yet to actually cash in on any of that cold hard cash, but I'm sure I'll do it one day. What I'm going to do with a "Macy's" card is kind of beyond me, but I suppose I'll use it once a year to buy a gift, which is the whole reason I obtained it in the first place. Maybe I'll cancel it after a few months, like I'm planning to do with my staid, forest AmEx cash-back card that got slapped into inconsequential land a mere month after I lost my AmEx blue in a bizarre credit-card swapping incident in Virginia and applied for a new-and-improved AmEx Blue Cash, which still nicely receives stares when I trot it out in defense of my pathetic liquidity. Regardless, I can't get rid of the green, boring card until the anniversary, which is a few months away. So it just sits there, daring me to cut it in tow and mocking my indecisiveness. After the past two weeks my financial situation is a pitiful crumbling ruin, so I'm going to try to take the next two weeks off from all craziness. Yeah, I know that's a socially awkward thing to try to pull off, but if I don't do it, I'll end up pulling a Brad and attempting to bum money off my friends at overly expensive night spots. I joke, of course. Brad normally waited until drinks/dinner were ordered before revealing "Uh, guys, I'm out of cash" at which point a group huff was released and his mooching tactics were rewarded.

I didn't actually complete all the mail (there's still a pile at home) but I did manage to actually clean the lower floor of the 'werkz, which was sorely needed. For some reason it appeared that several crust grenades had been detonated over the past several days. I remember the good old days when salt bombs (courtesy two defective shakers) were the only issue to worry about. I can handle salt. I can't really take crumbs. Fortunately, my apathy managed to prevent me from doing anything about it until I called in sick. But then, (after I completed PoP and watched BR) I had nothing better to do.

And, yes, in case you wanted to know, I don't like to write (either here or at my personal website) during the day. I can't focus for some reason. My eyes go fuzzy. I get distracted. I start to wonder how many of the seven deadly sins I've got pegged down. (For those keeping score at home, I'm all over Pride, Gluttony, Lust, Wrath, Sloth & Avarice...all I need is Envy to nail a perfect 7!)

Today at work, it was Budget Day. The one day a year people go crazy. Surprisingly, everything went off like clockwork, leaving me to ruminate now. The morning was busy, with the afternoon slow and busy alternating. But no mass panic. Yay! If I get through tomorrow, it'll be smooth sailing the rest of the week.

werkz advice: go watch it. rinse afterwards. say 'out out damned spot'.

The film version of Battle Royale is a well executed adaptation of the excellent book. Having read the book, I knew what to expect: mindless violence, kids going nuts and a great premise combining the best of 'Lord of the Flies' and 'The Running Man'. Battle Royale isn't for the faint of heart, but it'll leave you wanting more, just like any good movie. The few discrepancies between the book and the movie are all good (including a hilariouss "training video" added to the movie) and in the end, you'll leave shocked, but satisfied. An instant classic.

werkz advice: short but worth it.

Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of those rare games that manages to add unique elements while retaining all the best parts of an action/adventure classic. The most annoying feature of any skill-based game is that moment when you fall off a cliff, accidentally run into a wall, etc. and have to restart the level over again. PoP:TSOT solves this perennial issue with a gimmick: a trick dagger that allows one to "reverse" time so long as you keep it filled with sand. It's a sweet move that enables the game to be tons of fun, especially if (like me) your standard strategy in a room full of monsters is to eschew tactics and simply go berserker on them. Each time you kill a hired goon, you have the opportunity to suck sand from it, thus replenishing your dagger. By the time you reach the final levels in the game and lose your dagger, you'll come to appreciate how much more fun it is having a little magic on your side.

Overall a great game that's sure to become a classic.