Events

Josh Marshall wonders about Dick Cheney's hunting accident Saturday: At a minimum it seems a tad ungentlemanly to put out word through your media operation that the guy you just shot was at fault for getting shot. But I don't know. Tom Lehrer wrote a song about it many years ago: I always will remember,'Twas a year ago November,I went out to hunt some deerOn a mornin' bright and clear.I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow. Anyway, this flap...

Washington today is getting its biggest snowstorm in three years: A major snow storm pounded the Washington region overnight and this morning, dumping 20 inches of heavy wet snow in some locations and 8 or 9 inches elsewhere, causing power outages for nearly 200,000 consumers and disrupting travel by road, air and Metrorail. And in a later story: The snow swept in lazily yesterday afternoon and was expected to depart by midday today, giving residents ample time to dig out before the start of the...

From the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn makes some good points about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in his blog today: [S]ome of the drawings make a point in exactly the same way that any good editorial cartoon makes a point, and they have a grown-up, even sophisticated purpose: To challenge those who use intimidation to block free expression and those who find in their religious texts justification for mass murder. Specifically, Jyllands-Posten commissioned the cartoons to make a defiant statement after...

Charles Darwin was born 197 years ago this Sunday. In his honor, I proudly link to Garry Trudeau getting it just right.

First, House Majority Leader John Boehner is renting an apartment from a D.C. lobbyist: Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee. The relationship between Boehner, John D. Milne and Milne's wife, Debra R. Anderson, underscores how intertwined senior...

George Deutsch, the suit puppy who wanted to tell NASA scientists about science, has resigned: George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said. Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his...

There was a dust-up between Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) today, in which McCain mistook integrity for mere politics: "I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics, I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble," the Arizona Republican said in a letter to Obama. "Please be assured I won't make the same mistake again." In response, Obama sent a...

The Bush Administration (1077 days, 17 hours left) released its 2007 budget proposal today, which will cut or reduce 141 programs, including Medicare (down $36 billion), the drug-free schools initiative (axed), law-enforcement grants to help local jails house illegal immigrants after arrest (axed), Amtrak (down $300 million, or 25%), Employment and Training (down $648 million)...and on and on. Remember, the Administration wants to cut the Federal government down to the size at which they can "drown it...

There's a big flap up the street from Inner Drive Technology World HQ about Northwestern University engineering professor Art Butz, a holocaust denier. Seems Butz merrily burbled to an Iranian newspaper as part of the latter's reporting on the Iranian president's burbling on the same theme. The University's response was immediate and strong: Northwestern University President Henry Bienen said Monday that [Butz'] recent comments denying that the Holocaust happened are "a contemptible insult to all decent...