The happy news just keeps coming. Are things finally starting to unravel at the White House? Are they completely dysfunctional now? Are the more principled, more reality-based members of Congress finally realizing there’s no profit in supporting a morally bankrupt White House? Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of unprincipled lying pocket-lining bastards. First, a selection from the Washington Post’s “20 most emailed articles” for today: Bush Aides Brace For Charges Vice President For Torture Harriet Miers Withdraws Nomination In Ottawa, Rice Seeks To Temper Bitterness About Bush Policies What Rice Can’t See Grand Jury Hears Summary of Case…

Okay, so Harriet Miers has resigned. And now Charles Krauthammer is going to be insufferable to his friends and enemies, because he correctly called dibs on how the White House could “gracefully” get out of the nomination Nina Totenberg called a “disaster.” Nina dished some dirt; apparently in the WH coaching sessions for Miers, they couldn’t even get her to speak up loud enough to be heard; let alone get her to answer questions in a manner that would reassure Senate Judicial committee members as to her fitness. A previous story filed by Ms. Totenberg had detailed that “she’d flunked…

New Storm Measures as Most Intense Ever for Atlantic Basin – New York Times Hurricane Wilma, which appeared headed toward Cancun, Mexico, and possibly the Gulf Coast of Florida by this weekend, intensified into the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean basin early this morning, with winds of 175 miles per hour. Oh, goodie. The “named” storm after this one will be Alpha, because we’ve run out of names for this cycle. They could have named it Xena if they really wanted to. I just hope we don’t get all the way to Omega, or the tinfoil…

New Orleans ‘mourners’ bid adieu to Katrina – Yahoo! News A few denizens of the renascent Crescent City held a traditional funeral parade for that old beey*$!0tch, Katrina. That’s how you respond, everyone: grace AND HUMOR under pressure.

Apparently American Girl isn’t squeaky clean enough for some conservative groups, because of their support for a respected girls-advocacy group. Chicago Tribune | Groups Threaten to Boycott American Girl NEW YORK — American Girl, manufacturer of a highly popular line of dolls and children’s books, has become the target of conservative activists threatening a boycott unless the toy maker cuts off contributions to a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians. The protest is directed at an ongoing American Girl campaign in which proceeds from sales of a special “I Can” wristband help support educational and empowerment…

this little Iraqi girl? I ran across another essay today written by a Catholic nun, Joan Chittister. It reminded me of the story and I wondered if anything further was known, beyond the Newsweek followup a couple of months later. The original photos were taken by Chris Hondos. He has some other news stories about the Hassan family here. Remember her and her siblings. The soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing, but after they come home, will they remember, or try to forget? I don’t know – but these images should not be forgotten, ever.

I heard this exchange on NPR this morning and looked around for a transcript. Found it at AAR: WH aide: “Capt. Kennedy are you ready?” Kennedy: “I am ready, ma’am.” WH aide: “Okay, this is for the money. We are going to time this and remember that if the President cut’s it short, if he asks more questions, if you have the microphone and he follows up with a question to you, no matter who has it, Captain Pratt if you have the microphone and the President hears something and he wants more information, you just keep that microphone and…

Don’t let the bright colors and screaming banner ads put you off, this is going to turn out to be important in the tale of how the WHIG party orchestrated the war in Iraq. First, you form a sekrit club and have meetings about stuff you want to get done, like knock off countries you don’t like because they’re not American enough and have a lot of oil that you might like to have. Then you give a journalist a really, really juicy scoop that paints that country as teh evil. Then you use that published story to justify why…

What Did Rove Tell Dobson? Dobson, the influential founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family, has said he is supporting Miers’ nomination in part because of something he has been told but cannot divulge. He has acknowledged speaking with Karl Rove, Bush’s political adviser, about the president’s pick before it was announced. Fortunately, Sen. Arlen Specter is going to get to the bottom of this. Rove’s making his secret phone calls in support of Miers? So not good. But not unexpected. Some folks, however, think Dobson may be calling off the rightmost dogs and hedging his bets.…

I think we should all invest in hand sterilizer gel this year. And I think that if our Duh President is actually thinking ahead about a health threat, it’s a pretty damn scary one. He actually read a book recently about the great influenza pandemic of 1918 – the one my mom barely managed to survive when she was 3. She’s been telling me about that one all my life; there’s a china chocolate cup that she keeps in a special place on the hutch in the dining room. Apparently when she was so sick, she was given hot chocolate…