Gail Collins Lightens My Day

as usual, writing about politics and age.

(Let’s take a minute out and try to imagine what would happen if a series of crises struck the country so that we ran through the line of succession in rather short order. Governed by Dick Cheney. Then Nancy Pelosi. Then Robert Byrd. Then Condoleezza Rice. It sounds like the kind of experiment they perform on lab rats.)

From Kollywood, Apparently

It's not Sexy Beijing or anything, but it is pretty funny.
For those of you who cannot abide ambiguity, it's all explained here.

Best Scenes From Movies

you've probably never heard of (I know I hadn't). Fun to watch.
Okay, I did see Dead Calm, but it was a long time ago.

Find O' Teh Day

Okay, I didn't find it. Virginia Heffernan did. But she gets paid, I just do this to avoid paying my bills. And remember, I know about Virginia Heffernan so you don't have to.

Torture Memo: Day Three

The ABC News story Wednesday night that revealed key cabinet members, advisors and even the man the bloggoes like to call Darth Cheney were intimately involved in planning torture for suspected terrorists in U.S. custody spawned an AP story that has had widespread circulation, since AP is a co-op with member newspapers all over the country.
So, it's not only out there, but there's preliminary official Congressional attention.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-MI, has invited all to testify before his committee about meetings of the so-called Principals Committee in the Situation Room in the White House basement.
The list includes former AG John Ashcroft, former CIA head George Tenet, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Chief of Staff to the Vice President David Addington and former Asst. AG Daniel Levin.
As David Kurtz at TPM notes, not likely to happen without subpoenas, executive privilege claims and "a few trips to court."
My take since the Yoo memo surfaced last week is that he would be the scapegoat on all this, but now that the ABC story is getting traction, Yoo may become just a footnote buried on a law school faculty.
(Note here, Conyers' committee's action on contempt of Congress grounds to get a court to order Harriet Meyers and Josh Bolton to testify re: the White House involvement in U.S. attorney firings had its first hearing this week.)
Notably absent from Conyers' list is Cheney himself, Colin Powell and Condi.
In the meantime, the chairman of UC Berkley's law school says he's not going to fire John Yoo, author of the infamous torture memo, because it's Yoo's bosses who are directly accountable.
Despite a hot primary season of hairdos and bowling, the saga continues.

Torture Update

Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post probably has the best summary of the fallout over ABC's torture story Wednesday night that revealed the involvement of top administration officials.
So far, there are almost 300 stories on Google news.
He notes that a couple prominent lawyer bloggers say there can be no war crimes prosecutions in this country, in case you were wondering. Read it to find out why.
He also notes a large flaw in the ABC story related to the credibility of one of the detainees.
I've seen the whole thing discussed on numerous threads today, usually with the opinion that traditional media will likely not pick up on this story. Can't blame people for believing that, especially given ABC's flub, but it looks like it could have legs.
Teddy's making public noises, I expect there will be some move toward Congressional hearings.
I'm just gonna hang out now waiting for Charlie Rose's interview with George Soros.
P.S. Here's a petition asking for Condi's resignation because of her responsibility as chair of the committee. (Thanks, E.)

Astonishing Story O' Teh Day

Compliments of MetaFilter member.

Wearing an old-fashioned diving suit, William "Diver Bill" Walker worked in 14 feet of murky water beneath Winchester Cathedral, digging out the old timber and peat foundations and replacing them with bags of concrete cement and concrete blocks. Staying underwater six hours per day for five years (1906-1911), Diver Bill moved 25,800 bags of concrete and laid 114,900 concrete blocks, saving the Norman building from certain collapse.

Metafilter is cool. Just found it today.

Did We Win One?

The Hill is reporting that House Republicans appear to have abandoned their campaign to pass a surveillance bill with telecom amnesty in favor of another try to get the Bush tax cuts made permanent.
You may remember this was a very big deal for a very long time and the Senate approved a horrid version that gave retroactive immunity, but the House dug in its heels and refused.
The blogs like Glenn Greenwald's and Firedoglake and Daily Kos and whole lot of others in partnership with MoveOn, the ACLU and Electronic Freedom Foundation put up a real fight and drew an outpouring from online dwellers and other activists who rallied to the cause, calling, Faxing and emailing their Congress critters.
Is it over? As the talking heads say, time will tell.

50 Days of Laffs

Can't turn it down, can you?
Neither can I, I'm posting the site where the YouTube videos reside, the results of a judging of the 50 best TV comedy sketches.
I haven't read through the whole list, so my guess is there's no Honeymooners, Sic (heh-heh, Sid) Cesar, Steve Allen. Which is too bad, but the winner is...wait for it...wait for it.
Of course, the Dead Parrot sketch from Monty Python.
And now that I've found it, I see they have Ernie Kovacs and Abbot and Costello up there, so maybe some of the aforementioned oldies are there, too. Enjoy.

Forget Rev. Wright

Foreign Policy says these are the religious leaders to pay attention to. Hat tip Andrew Sullivan.

Torture: Who Was In On It?

What do we call this, the audacity of corruption?
From ABC News.
Excerpts:

But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

A year later, amidst the outcry over unrelated abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the controversial 2002 legal memo, which gave formal legal authorization for the CIA interrogation program of the top al Qaeda suspects, leaked to the press. A new senior official in the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the legal memo -- the Golden Shield -- that authorized the program.

Spring, Paris, Ah!

Actually, I hate this ensemble, but the doubletake is worth a thousand words. Spring. Paris. Ah!
From the Sartorialist, of course. Style is personal expression. Mine is underground, in pajamas. Not likely to encounter a camera.

Iraq War: Six Months At A Time

The six months at a time theme is apparently a winner for Democrats, as well as the "100 years" theme. Pass it along.

Afghan Farmers Switch Crops

I spent way too much time on a Daily Kos thread last night reading about skyrocketing commodity prices, developing food shortages, hoarding and predictions of doom.
It started for me with a recent post by Paul Krugman on his blog about the subject, increased news stories about protests and riots (in Haiti, not unusual, but also widespread in other countries.)
Needless to say, I went to bed fatally depressed. The blogs'll do that to you if you're not careful. Just be glad I read it for you.
Not doing Global Warming today. Nope, not gonna go there.
Anyway, Krugman and others had this up today, and I'm passing it along in the above context.

In parts of Helmand Afghan farmers are this year sowing wheat instead of poppy - not because they have suddenly been converted to the argument that producing heroin is not in the national interest.

Market forces have been the deciding factor - with wheat prices doubling in the past year, and the street price of heroin falling, it is now more cost effective to grow wheat.

Some People Like

this. Maybe you will, too. Shrug.

wowowow

is what they call it, it's been up for three weeks and I didn't know anything about it. The new Web site for women 40 and over is occupied by about 15 celebrity types and otherwise heavy hitters.
Lily Tomlin and Whoopie, Leslie Stahl, Candace Bergen, Miss Manners.
I haven't fully explored the site, but it's definitely about conversa...er, blogging...but they didn't once use the term blog when four of them appeared on Charlie Rose tonight.
Check it out. Tell me what you think. Should Contrarienne fold up her tent and steal away?

(I learned Miss Manners has second home in Venice.)

Matthew Diaz

I don't think his name or his deed or his punishment registered with me at the time, which is probably a pretty good indication that they registered with few Americans.
Yesterday, he was given an award and today Scott Horton retells the tale.

One of the crimes the Administration committed was withholding from the Red Cross a list of the detainees at Guantánamo, effectively making them into secret detainees. Before the arrival of the Bush Administration, the United States had taken the axiomatic position that holding persons in secret detention for prolonged periods outside the rule of law (a practice known as “disappearing”) was not merely unlawful, but in fact a rarified “crime against humanity.” Now the United States was engaged in the active practice of this crime.

The decision to withhold the information had been taken, in defiance of law, by senior political figures in the Bush Administration. Diaz was aware of it, and he knew it was unlawful. He printed out a copy of the names and sent them to a civil rights lawyer who had requested them in federal court proceedings.

Diaz was aware when he did this that he was violating regulations and that he could and would, if caught, be subjected to severe sanction. What he did was a violation of law, even as it was an effort to cure a more severe act of lawlessness by the Government.

Actions, Not Just Words

This is all over the tubes today. From Jim Mortin of the Miami Herald.

Is The Claimed Colbert Bump Real?

Apparently so, if you're a Democrat.
Some academic did a study and found out that donations to Democratic candidates who appeared on Comedy Central's Colbert Report jumped an average of 44 percent. Republicans, not so much. Not at all, actually.

Leave Iraq, Or Stay To "Win"?

If you're plugged in to the talking heads, you'd never know what Americans really think.
Luckily, there are always facts.
If you haven't yet signed the petition attached to the Responsible Plan to End the War, go here.