An interesting graph.

So I may have gotten a little carried away last night decrying our administration's lack of economic sanity. But then I wake up this morning and get the bold news that the FY03 deficit will be $455 billion. And that's before the $4+ billion a month occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Or before the $150 billion was taken from the Social Security surplus in order to make things appear better than before. All totalled up, it could easily top the 6% of GDP we hit during 1983, the former high water mark of fiscal insanity.

We need a real fiscal conservative in the White House. Soon. While we still have a country.

Read this. Rinse. Later.

Repeat. Rinse. Later.

Go to the tape. Skip ahead to near the very end, when Bush is asked about the Niger story, and deftly transitions into a verbal gaffe about how Iraq "didn't let the inspectors back in". Kofi seems somewhat bemused by the lie. Go figure.

Towel off. Watch Milbank blast Ari for his lies with style, noting all the time that the press secretary picked a great time to leave. Why? Just ask Broder. When the Dean weighs in on certain events, you can be sure the press conventional wisdom is now going to start writing stories about the Bush presidency in a freefall. You heard it here first.

I just got this from the live Tour de France feed:

16 H 50 - Armstrong Goes Cross Country It's like a Nike ad... Lance has cut out a hairpin turn and raced across a field to rejoin the peloton after racing off the road to avoid the fallen Beloki.

16 H 49 - Beloki Down!
Beloki has fallen!

16 H 49 - Armstrong Chasing Stage Win...
Lance and Joseba are riding together in pursuit of Alexandre Vinokourov. With 5km to go, their chase was closing in on the stage leader. There was just 10" seperating the leader from the chasers.

16 H 47 - Results of Final Climb
The points for the Cote de la Rochette were won by:
1. Vinokourov 10pts
2. Armstrong 7pts at 15"
3. Beloki 5pts
4. Zubeldia 3pts
5. Mayo 1pt

16 H 46 - All Downhill Now
The final 8km of the 9th stage are all downhill. Vinokourov's lead over Armstrong, Beloki, et al is 15".

16 H 45 - Hamilton Also Present
Hamilton is one of the few riders able to respond to Armstrong's pace. They are 15" behind Vinokourov.

Wow. Way to go Lance!

For anyone who has forgotten, here's a nice look back at the extensive preparation of the President's State of the Union Address. You can almost hear Karen Hughes saying, "Hey, if we try to insert this uranium thing in here again, I bet that Tenet guy will pull his hair out like he did a couple months ago! And come on guys, put the tubes in. I love the tubes!"

Read this column. Then read the simple Slashdot version of what happened. As an IT person, I can fully identify with the number of times that I've thought to myself "Well, I warned them, over and over and over again, but if they're so damn insistent, let's let the chips fall where they may."

It's like a bad cd-w commerical become reality. Instead of office-workers asking "Fred the IT Worker" if they could recover files they deleted two years ago from the computer they just set on fire, we would actually have Condi and Dubya and various White House staffers, asking Tenet about issues of national security. Hmm. That'd actually be a pretty funny commercial. You could have them asking if we could invade different countries (after we'd already done so) or if we could UN support for invasion (after we ruled it out) or if the budget could support massive tax cuts (after we'd already pledged to lower taxes yet again.). Instead of "Fred" you could just have Tenet, Powell and Snow.

I've seen a great deal of idiotic spam in my time, but never any with a subject line that says ". : Good morning Hi stupid Edward. : . obtuse@NB641U28j9pvTieBBv". Just who do they take me for? An idiot? Who opens a message like that?

The latest unemployment claims numbers are out. To all those crazy GOP people who think that the Dems relish the economy going into the toilet, let me say this: that it'd be much easier to fight for clean air, water and a sensible foreign policy if we weren't scrambling to make ends meet. Only the rich have the luxury of being able to ride out the tough times with nary a scratch. And as the ranks of the unemployed climb, so too does my fear that, god forbid I lose my job, that it would be difficult to get back to where I am right now.

As a barometer of what's wrong with the country, however, unemployment is a good measure.

Yes, the other Bush today. Beat up here. Why do Republicans always rail against government? Don't they know that the entire point of government is to protect the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority? Whether through property rights, the rule of law or many other facets of government, the basic deal is this: angry mobs can't beat up on those with more money because of the government. This may sound like an oversimplification but if we were in a true state of nature, those in power would have to be highly armed to keep said power.

Just look at Africa and Chuck Taylor's All Stars!