Your ship has come in.

Under fire from Republicans alarmed at the growth of the federal budget in recent years, Mr. Bush called Saturday for new statutory limits on spending.

"To assure that Congress observes spending discipline, now and in the future, I propose making spending limits the law," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. "This simple step would mean that every additional dollar the Congress wants to spend in excess of spending limits must be matched by a dollar in spending cuts elsewhere."

Mr. Bush did not say who would set the limits or how they would be enforced. Unlike similar rules that governed Congress in the 1990's, Mr. Bush's proposal would not impose restrictions on new tax cuts.

And since we're in excess of spending limits right now, we gotta cut cut cut cut cut cut. Grover, who equates tax collection with the Holocaust, is smiling.

It might be Kerry. No one knows at this point. If it is, watch for lots of stuff like this, but from the GOP:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show.

It does a couple of things for the GOP.

1. It peels off the Howard Dean voters and the Howard Dean-generated excitement for Democrats. Deaniacs are, more than anything, believers in reform of the political system.
2. This, in turns, depresses Democratic turnout, which is worrying the GOP after IA and NH...

Broadband rules. I've never had it at home before.

Whoa baby.

Read the Decembrist on Cokespoon:

It is interesting to note that we now have a president who's been accused, with some cause, of desertion, treason (the exposure of Valerie Plame), and of leading the nation to war on a false premise. That's the Trifecta of crimes against your own country, isn't it? OK, the desertion charge doesn't meet the technical definition, and the other two, while we know that they occurred, we still don't have all the details about exactly who said what to whom. Still, not a record on which I'd want to be running for reelection, in a just world.

Turns out Rove stole from the Russians' playbook.

Putin has repeatedly pledged to rebuild Russia's military might and restore pride to the demoralized service. When he ran for his first term in 2000, he flew as a second pilot in a fighter jet and later donned naval officer's garb on a visit to a nuclear submarine -- images that played well with many voters who are nostalgic for Soviet global power and military prestige.

Great.

It's a good article.

Arianna's right. She was remarkable.

Then it hit me: the birthday rhododendron. Sawyer had found it next to impossible to believe that Judy Dean had actually been pleased when her husband had given her one of the perennial shrubs for her 50th birthday.

"It's not exactly hearts and flowers," chided Diane.

"I'm not a very 'thing' person," explained Judy. "Everything I want, I have ... I'm not that interested in things."

Poor McClellan. Feel sorry for him, dontcha?

John, do you have something on Iraq?

Q I did. Just an update for me, if you could. What's the White House's position on those aluminum tubes that Iraq was caught with?

MR. McCLELLAN: John, again, we're now trying to get into issues that are continuing to be --

Q No, I'm just wondering if you still believe that they were destined for uranium-enrichment centrifuge work.

MR. McCLELLAN: John, again, a lot of this -- the Iraq Survey -- the Iraq Survey --

Q A simple yes or no --

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me finish. Let me finish. Again, you're asking me to get into discussions of what the Iraq Survey Group is looking into, all these matters. There was an interim progress report that was put out that talked about what we have learned so far. It was a public document, but it made very clear -- I mean, you want to go, I know, line by line on --

Q No, I don't. I just want to -- you said that --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you want to go line by line on prewar intelligence. And I'm saying that --

Q The administration says --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- let's let the Iraq Survey Group complete its work. Then we can compare what we knew before the war with what we have learned since the war.

Q It's a simple question. You said prior to the war that those aluminum tubes were destined for centrifuge work --

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and I think Dr. Kay has since talked about --

Q -- and I'm wondering if you still believe it.

MR. McCLELLAN: Dr. Kay -- Dr. Kay, in his interim report, has talked about the efforts toward a nuclear program in Iraq. He's already addressed it. So he's already addressed that matter.

Q I'm wondering, do you still believe what you said before the war.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I know what you're trying to do. But I think I've addressed the matter.

Q Thank you.

MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you. Thanks.

And so begins the use of the Hutton report, which is being roundly criticized overseas, to spin Kay's revelations about Iraqi WMD.

Here's David Brooks priming the starter on the NewsHour yesterday:

And so Kay made this serious set of conclusions, which suggests we've got a serious intelligence problem and instead of talking about the serious intelligence problem, instead of accepting this testimony which is supported by the Hutton testimony in Britain by the way, that nobody misled anybody, that it was a honest mistake, what we had on Capitol Hill today, led by Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy, was a series of unsubstantiated charges: still, regardless of the evidence, they must have been misleading, must have leaned on the CIA and I think David Kay found there is just no evidence. We have serious intelligence problems but they're playing politics with it up there.

Whore.

[UPDATE: Mark Shields is such a pansy:

The president said, OK, on October 2002 we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Now that's about as dire and serious and grave a threat as you can give to the American people. And why isn't the president or anybody at the White House angry or upset if they got this defective intelligence and they gave the defective intelligence to the American people and we went to war based upon it and we're looking at 3,000 American either dead, wounded, crippled or disabled -- as a consequence of that? Now, I mean that's really ... where is the outrage?

Jeebus. It's not about bad intelligence, it's about fucking stovepiping. The CIA gave everything they had -- and it was used selectively by Cheney or those close to him. Why can't Shields talk about THAT?]

The Hutton report has its critics, apparently, though you wouldn't know it by the behavior of the BBC and Blair.

Gilligan [the reporter who made the original allegations against the Blair government], who has not been on the air since the inquiry began, did not comment directly, but the National Union of Journalists issued a statement on his behalf branding the Hutton report as "grossly one-sided and a serious threat to the future of investigative journalism."

"Whatever Lord Hutton may think, it is clear from the evidence he heard that the dossier was 'sexed up,' that many in the intelligence services were unhappy about it, and that Andrew Gilligan's story was substantially correct," said Jeremy Dear, the union's president.

In his resignation statement, Davies, the BBC chairman, questioned whether Hutton's "bald conclusions" could be reconciled with the evidence and whether they might damage press freedom in Britain. Still, he explained his resignation by saying, "I have been brought up to believe that you cannot choose your own referee, and that the referee's decision is final."

And then there's this, from Guardian readers' responses to the Hutton report:

Others also felt that Lord Hutton's remit was probably too limited to permit him to criticise the government. "I am not convinced that Hutton carried out a fair inquiry, but even if he did, his remit was so narrow that his report could not help but let Blair off the hook," said one. "It is patently obvious - that the document WAS 'sexed up,'" wrote Andrew Jardine.

"I hope the public reaction [to the report] will be one of enduring disbelief," wrote another reader. "For my part, I can see that the BBC has much to take itself to task about, but the government, too, has its share of responsibility to assume."

Let's hope we're not echoing this after the 9/11 commission report comes out...

[UPDATE: More here.

The Independent called Hutton's 740 page report "curiously unbalanced." The liberal London daily also published a column by Charles Kennedy , leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic party, declaring Hutton's report "should be the opening curtain and not the last word."

Even the editors of the conservative Daily Telegraph , who supported Blair and the war in Iraq, declared: "there are very serious issues that Lord Hutton decided not to explore."]

Le-yet's move to GEORGIA!

Georgia students could graduate from high school without learning much about evolution, and may never even hear the word uttered in class.

New middle and high school science standards proposed by state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox strike references to "evolution" and replace them with the term "biological changes over time," a revision critics say will further weaken learning in a critical subject.

Check out the comments to posts at the Lieberman campaign's official blog.

Indirectly, from Jesus' General:

The following is an excerpt from testimony before Congress on January 28, 2004:

What child needs to be exposed to this? Is pedophilia now a laughing matter? Would you want to have to explain to your youngster what "hide the toast" means? Nevertheless, this was broadcast over the public airwaves - the public's airwaves -- right into the family home, "the one place," according to the Supreme Court, "where people ordinarily have the right not to be assaulted by uninvited and offensive sights and sounds."

Hide the toast?

Some technical problems, apparently, at monkey. Do stand by.

But I understand completely. Really, I do.

On the results of New Hampshire:

It's not over. Kerry has yet to feel significant frontrunner "heat." Dean and Edwards could make life interesting, albeit in different ways.

Personally, I have deep reservations about Kerry, mostly because I think he's a crap politician -- as Gore was -- and is (more) vulnerable (than other Dems) to press abuse about irrelevancies, like his hair, and his awful speaking style -- as Gore was.

But if it's him, it's him. He'll win in a head-to-head with Bush, but not easily.

[Confidential to JL in CT: Are you serious? You've become an even bigger joke than you were. Please vanish forever, you irritating little twit.]

[UPDATE: A comment to this post has it right:

I can't help but think that Kerry represents an 'over correction' on the part of ABB voters. Dean was too hot, Kerry is too cold. Dean was not careful enough, Kerry has two answers to every question. Dean would get killed on security, Kerry drones on about a divisive war that we lost and most people would rather forget. Dean made his campaign about ITself, Kerry makes his campaign about HIMself.

The instinct is right. Drop the unelectable guy and get realistic. I just hope there is time to do it twice.]

The results from the judicial inquiry into the suicide of UK WMD expert David Kelly were released today.

The Hutton report, on first glance, looks like an indictment of the BBC and a near-total exoneration of the Blair government's claims about Iraq's WMD.

Here are some highlights:

Andrew Gilligan's report that Downing Street "probably knew" the 45-minute claim in its Iraq dossier was wrong was a grave allegation and attacked the integrity of the government and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).

The 45-minute claim in the Iraq dossier was based on a report received by the intelligence services that they believed to be reliable.

The dossier could be said to be "sexed up" if this term is taken to mean it was drafted to make the case against Saddam as strong as intelligence permitted.

But in the context of Mr Gilligan's report, "sexed up" would be understood to mean the dossier was embellished with items of intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable. This allegation is unfounded.

The chairman of the BBC has resigned. Blair wants an apology from the BBC.

This one event may have saved Blair politically.

It should be noted that the claims Bush is often criticized for (yellowcake, tubes, nukular program, imminent threat, etc.) are substantively different than those examined by Hutton. I've also seen no real response to Sy Hersh's allegations of stovepiping of intelligence by Cheney and the hardlineniks.

This is some sort of direct application of the principles of social Darwinism.

Here's a spelling test your very own self can take.

I think I'm a pretty good speller, and I received a score of 46.

List your results in comments. Be honest.

This is how we win.

Welcome to right-wing tactical Orwellianism.

Brendan Nyhan takes apart the phenomenon at Spinsanity.

You have to feel sorry for the New Republic. No one saw the Kerry thing coming, of course, but they very publicly didn't even include Kerry in their candidate evaluations pre-Iowa. With that, and their ultra-dubious Lieberman endorsement, and the drubbing they're taking from bloggers (Kos, most directly) -- well, they're just eating shit.

Out of sympathy, then, here is a link to a piece from the New Republic that I think captures an important truth about Kerry's surge:

The media (see, for example, yesterday's "Meet the Press") has also pushed the line that Dean's challenge has strengthened Kerry as a candidate--Dean is now credited with everything from livening up and shortening Kerry's stump speech to the Kerry campaign's increased organizational efficiency. But the reality is close to the opposite: If Kerry wins the nomination, the practical effect of the Dean candidacy will be to have made Kerry the beneficiary of an almost an unprecedented confluence of favorable circumstances, which allowed Kerry to win the nomination without ever being tested.

Flee from TNR, Noam Scheiber! Flee to a rag still held in some esteem! And one that isn't fucking owned by Bush supporters!

No one seems to know who's gonna win, according to Kos.

Aren't news organizations supposed to suppress their projections until voting has finished? Someone enlighten me, please.

[UPDATE: Calpundit has exit polls saying it's Kerry by 4-6 points, with Clark and Edwards in a close fight for third. No Joementum, thank goodness.]

[REUP: Wonkette says about the same.]

Um.

Bob Zelnick, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University and a former co-worker of Walters's at ABC News, called her a "giant" in the field. "This is kind of like when Walter Cronkite retired," he said. "Barbara will never be replaced as one of the great interviewers in the history of television."

Barbara Walters retiring is kind of like when Walter Cronkite retired, except that it's not at all kind of like when Walter Cronkite retired. That is to say, Walter Cronkite is still relevant, whereas Babs has sucked celebrity ass for so long that she's a joke.

Liberal Oasis' wise counsel should be heeded:

The Anybody But Bush attitude is absolutely correct.

But voting against your heart is absolutely not. It shouldn't hurt to vote.

This is not to say that Dean is the only "heart" vote, and Kerry the only "head" vote.

There are plenty of people who are inspired by both of them, as well as the rest of the field.

There are probably folks that like Kerry but worry he'll get tagged as another Massachusetts liberal.

Folks that like John Edwards but worry he'll be derided as an inexperienced ambulance chaser.

Folks that like Wesley Clark but are worried (now) that the media will nitpick him to death.

And folks that like Dean but worry he'll be seen as too far outside the mainstream.

While it's worth considering how a candidate is going to play with voters who aren't hard-core Dems and liberals, nothing is more important that your own gut assessment.

Don't forget the lesson of 2002. [...]

Via Lean Left:

Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon improperly secured broken pieces of a highly explosive component by taping them together, federal investigators found. An explosion could have occurred, they said.

The incident was among several recent safety lapses at the Energy Department's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, noted by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Last fall, workers taking apart another old warhead accidentally drilled into the warhead's radioactive core, forcing evacuation of the facility.

Off the record, the workers had this to say:

Larry: Nyuck!
Moe: Woo-woo-woo!
Curly: [explosion]

This shit is a lot scarier than you think.

Asia's economies risk a multi-billion dollar meltdown if bird flu starts spreading through direct human transmission, experts warn.

At present, the casualties have been rural farmworkers and their families, infected by contact with chickens.

However, human-to-human infection could threaten as big a travel and trade standstill as that which accompanied the Sars respiratory virus in 2003.

Human-to-human infection doesn't seem to have happened yet, but if it does?

Although it has not happened yet, the so-called 'bird flu' presents a risk of evolving into an efficient and dangerous human pathogen," the three agencies warned.

"This is a serious global threat to human health," said WHO Director General Lee Jong-wook.

"This time, we face something we can possibly control before it reaches global proportions if we work co-operatively and share needed resources. We must begin this hard, costly work now."

You'll be hearing more about this soon, unfortunately.

David Neiwert has the straight story on Bush's wretched non-record of military service.

Well, the core of the matter is fairly simple, and boils down to two facts that are simply not in dispute:

Bush blew off his physical in the spring of 1972, thereby ignoring a direct order from his superiors.

Bush then definitely performed no drills at all for any unit of the National Guard between early May 1972 and late November 1972 at the earliest. This is a period of nearly seven months.

Here's [a rather lengthly excerpt from] Neiwert's conclusions, which I've yet to see refuted by anyone:

There are many questions that remain unanswered indeed, and most of the bloggers who defend Bush focus on these questions. It remains open to dispute whether Bush's short-circuited service was actually complete. It is also an open question about the relevance of the honorable discharge, since that is the default discharge, and as some have pointed out, any prosecution of Bush on AWOL or desertion charges would have meant. The absence of portions of his military records -- and the failure of Bush to release those records -- has variously been defended, but not convincingly. Others, including Rogers and Marty Heldt, have argued that Bush's AWOL period was for as long as two years, and that the evidence provided by the Bush people to demonstrate his November 1972 service -- comprised, as it was, of a torn sheet of paper -- was bogus; certainly it was questionable at best, but the matter remains open to dispute. Likewise, there is a good deal of speculation (such as Rogers') that Bush's evasions were based on his purported drug use, but there is simply no evidence of that other than circumstantial.

A few of those on the right have tried to compare Bush's behavior here to Bill Clinton's well-chronicled avoidance of the draft. The difference, of course, is not merely one of degree but substantively of kind: Clinton neither broke the law in his behavior, nor flouted or undermined basic rules of military conduct, nor wasted taxpayer dollars in the process.

Though of course, we all remember how many critics of the mainstream right have referred to Clinton as a "draft dodger" -- which, like "deserter," is a term that refers specifically to acts of law-breaking. But then, I can't recall anyone demanding that George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole renounce the people who uttered those characterizations, either

Watch the liberal press jump all over this story.

Isn't it strange that the story was immediately how scandulous the mere accusation of Bush desertion was? Instead of, y'know...?

Melville says you should turn the heat down.

This is for all the folks enduring the cold snap:

We felt very nice and snug, the most so since it was so chilly out of doors;
indeed, our of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room.
The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part
of you must be cold...[I]f the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be
slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most
delightfully and unmistakably warm.

For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire,
which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort
of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your
snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm
spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

Moby-Dick, page 55.

...if they're not committing suicide.

The Guardian, via Salon:

Up to one in five of the American military personnel in Iraq will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, say senior forces' medical staff dealing with the psychiatric fallout of the war.

This revelation follows the disclosure last month that more than 600 US servicemen and women have been evacuated from the country for psychiatric reasons since the conflict started last March.

At least 22 US soldiers have killed themselves - a rate considered abnormally high - mostly since President George Bush declared an end to major combat on 1 May last year, These suicides have led to a high-level Department of Defence investigation, details of which will be disclosed in the next few weeks.

You know that you're waiting breathlessly for Joe Lieberman to drop out.

I can't tell you the pleasure it'll give me. He is incredibly annoying.

[UPDATE: Jesse Taylor at Pandagon feels me.]

[UPDATE: Check out the video, yos. Poper is mad wavin' his hands n' shit! And homes almost spins wildly into the Popizza! Daaaaaaaaamn!]

Interloper, blather not about the San Francisco mayor's race if ye know not of what ye speak!

If you really like Newsom's wife, Oliver, you should see Newsom's hair. It's made of plastic.

Don't you remember when Dennis Miller was cool? Even if his rants were ripped off from Bill Hicks, or whatever, and his references were just-so-conscientiously-obscurantist, and he was kind of a dick sometimes, and...

Wait. Dennis Miller was never cool.

Whatever he was, now he's just another sellout motherfucker who will be (one of) the first up against the wall when the revolution happens, etc.

The NYT on Soros' book, amongst others.

Instead, Bush and his team disdainfully chucked out containment and deterrence and declared that America had the right to ensure its security any way it deemed proper, including pre-emptive war. The triumphant America of the 21st century would use multilateral institutions only when it suited American aims. Not only that; guaranteeing its safety required that America impose its democratic values, starting in the Middle East.

Someday Bush may be proven right, and a harmonious chain of friendly democracies may stretch from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. For the time being, the new American order has generated a tsunami of anti-Americanism, with the United States perceived in some quarters as a greater threat to world peace than Al Qaeda. Deep fissures have developed between the United States and its allies; American policies have threatened to undermine Europe's drive toward unity; Muslims around the globe have turned against the United States; many leaders in Asia now look to China for their economic and political security; and Americans themselves have become polarized in their attitude toward the rest of the world. The ''war on terrorism'' has gotten mired in an anarchic Iraq; Guantanamo has come to represent a willful violation of civil rights; and tyrants have seized on the concept of pre-emptive war to justify their own suppression of opponents, now labeled terrorists.

Nothing on the irony of sending Dick over to berate the Euros.
Nothing on the administration's sudden, convenient internationalist turn.
Nothing on Cheney's snarky reponse to the imperialism question.
Nothing on crowd applause for hostile, anti-US questions.

The AP should be starting to worry you.

Someone start noticing this byline:

DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

Like, OMG! Wes Clark is such a loose cannon! Or something.