Michael Bérubé's blogging is entertaining and brilliant. Day one here. Day two here.

Michael Bérubé has obtained a letter our fearless leader recently sent to the Pakistani government:

I'm writing to you about an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Go, dear readers, and enjoy.

Matt Drudge should start packing his bags. (Although -- can there ever be too much GOP propaganda masquerading as "news"?)

Far too long a time has passed since I discovered The Raw Story without talking about it. The Raw Story is a glossy web-based antidote to the poison Drudge spews daily. You can get real news at The Raw Story, and the site is none too hard on the eyes, either.

Perhaps the best thing about the Story is that they report the news that the so-called liberal media doesn't tell you -- like how well Fahrenheit 911 is doing in Texas theaters (North Texas loves it).

They update twice a day, and they're not just links -- they do some of their own reporting. Add it to your bookmarks, your blogroll, and your RSS readers and check it daily.

The American Street is having a hard time of late, from temporaily losing its domain name to a present technical glitch which leaves the entire page bereft of posts. Techies are swarming over the site to correct the problems, but they've been going on for days. In terms of traffic, it's one of the top 100 blogs in the blogosphere, so readers must be frustrated. I contribute something every Saturday over there for "Saturday Stickball," a week's end comedy round-up -- which is pretty good, including material from Ayn Clouter, the ever-excellent Jesus' General, and others. With luck and sweat, the site will be back to normal shortly.

A guy calling himself Victor Littlebear spent a year (!) "translating" into English "The Bushiad and the Idyossey." It is astonishingly good. From the chapter called "Mission Accomplished," a poetic rendition of the reaction of the Bush boys to the fall of Baghdad:

“Good job, boys!” Resolute George exalts,
“That was outstanding!” Huddled
In the war room with his coterie of
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rove
His cherished chums. “I’d drink
A toast to victory, but as you know I can’t.”

“I’d say the mission is accomplished,”
Hard-Hearted Cheney offers, “Now
To get that Iraqi oil to the market.”
“Hear, hear,” adds Rummy, "Onward to
Halliburton!” and the gang all laughs,
Except for Karl Rove.

* * *

Weeks later on May 1st the carrier
Abe Lincoln idles near San Diego.
Kept offshore for hours to improve
The camera view, the deck canted
To port for the same reason,
The crew awaits a special landing.

Michael Bérubé writes:

INSULT-UPON-INJURY, New York (AP)-- Conservative commentators have induced a "satire crisis" for liberal and progressive bloggers in recent days, producing a stream of remarks so bizarre and unhinged that the blogosphere's sharpest wits are at a loss to respond, according to a statement released today by the newly-formed Association of Flabbergasted Liberals. . . .

The strain has been felt most severely at Tom Burka's site. . .

Boy, does he ever nail it. I'm still gasping like a fish out of water after viewing Rumsfeld's testimony. I was thinking of writing something like this, entitled "Abu Ghraib Scandal Part Of Bizarre PlanTo Make Democrats' Heads Blow Off," but Michael beat me to it.

Mr. Bérubé -- whose name cannot be rendered accurately on the web without some stunning HTML code -- provides some prescient and wholly accurate quotes from an interview with me. Check out the whole thing. It's a must-read.

George W. Bush allegedly received another Presidential Daily Briefing he should have read. The Flaming Moderate has a few more details.

A Vet was outside Condi's door this morning and heard this:

Rice: Ok, I must have 15 drafts of this stupid speech, where's the latest one?

Speechwriter: Um, here it is..

Rice: "First of all, I'd like to apologize...." No, no, this is NOT my speech.

He's got the whole conversation. Check it out. (It's blogspot, so I haven't included a permalink. If this post is not at the top of the page, scroll down to April 7.)

Update: Link fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Investigators found, in the back of Quaddafi's closet, a rumination on what Libya's loss means to the Axis of Evil, and a compelling new version of A Chistmas Carol, and The Wiggles.

Jo Fish at Democratic Veteran has the story.

Dear Readers:

I'm tired of all this sickening questioning of the Bush Administration's motives and credibility. The people in the White House are simply infallible. Accept it and move on.

When Vice President Dick told Tim Russert yesterday that there were links between al Qaeda and in the planning of 9/11, and that there was some possibility that Mohammed Atta had met with a senior i official, well, people should listen up, or shut up. Thoroughly discredited? Not by anyone we know or care about, thank you.

also resoundingly mentioned, as he should, that the post-war plan was moving ahead swimmingly. I fully intend to vacation in as soon as I can get away from this hectic schedule. A couple of weeks in Baghdad or Fallujah will do me good.

Colin Powell once again told those nasty know-nothing Frenchmen to go take a hike, especially when they questioned the wisdom of sending their own men to to die and pledging their own hard-won francs (Euros? What are they using over there? Cheese?) to American leadership. I think we can all agree that it's American leadership that got us here today and it's American know-how that's put us in the catbird seat over in . And those French folks should put up, or put up and shut up. Either way, I don't care.

And what about these naysayers who claim we're spending our way into an economic hole? And that financial "disaster" is coming? I'll believe a disaster is on its way when Tom Ridge tells me it is and not before, buckos, and anyone else who wants to pipe up should pipe down.

And so what about that report by David Kay about Saddam's attempts to try to develop programs that could make WMD's? So what if it's not going to come out? It doesn't matter. WMD's had nothing to do with our invading in the first place. Can you people just move on, already?

If you can't get with the program, then just hold your tongues, and let the program drag you along to peace, prosperity, and everlasting happiness. I understand that if we let Bush and finish with their master plan, 23 virgins will wait upon us hand and foot in heaven.

Most Also Outed By Senior White House Officials As Covert Operatives of CIA

Nathan of Brain Fertilizer has taken the loss of his CIA cover poorly -- just look at his desperate punning. I really don't know which is more entertaining -- his puns about coffee or his reference to opponent Swarzennegger as "The Running Man."

Bohemian Mama has the woman's vote sewn up. She recently let us know more about how things are falling apart in Iraq.

I don't see how Adam in Ma and Rick in Davis (of The Likely Story) can possibly run for governor jointly, not to mention how they can run a campaign while they're preoccupied with Yellowcake: The Scandal That Keeps on Giving.

I'm not sure which interests me more, Billmon's take on Rumsfeld's Brain or his transparently absurd cover story for his failure to post -- we all know he's busy getting his campaign in gear.

Andrew of Byte Back will do anything to get elected. He'll even blog on the subject of your choice.

I'm worried about Elvis56 of Lunaville (and PatK should be, too): he's running for Governor but he sees Ann Coulter wherever he goes -- literally.

Eric Tam of Antidotal is taking time out from his ridiculously arduous graduate work at Yale (not to mention blogging) to run -- and he might be a shoo-in, given his inside scoop on George Tenet's communications with Dubya.

I don't know what's up with the guy who coined the word "blogtopia," Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. He's not going to get elected applauding CNN for almost getting the number of casualties in right, unlike the rest of the media. (Skippy has always been less interested in getting elected than in speaking the truth. *sigh*)

Prometheus, who lists among his accomplishments the invention of fire (take that, Skippy!), has a shot at it, because, unlike any other candidate, he can explain how George W. Bush resembles Jack Nicholson.

At least one of the candidates will be wearing great shoes.

But Nick Barlow is the odds-on favorite. First, he has a much classier accent than either Arnold or Arianna Huffington. Second, he's much better than an actor -- he's a screenwriter. He's British. And he keeps track of where people may have left their vacation houses.

Read More »

Full story at Smoky Mountain Journal.

Click here.

On March 25, a Eric Alterman wrote (accurately):

The invading force turns out to have been too small.
       
        Homeland security is a joke, and starved for resources.
       
        Oil prices are going sky high and the market had its worse day in six months, during which time it had a lot of bad days.
       
        The first $75 billion is just a downpayment. Expect to pay hundreds of billions in the short-term, trillions in the long run. Expect it to come out of your schools, your police forces, your highways, your future and your children’s future
       
       Oh, and then there’s the rest of the world. Arthur Schlesinger lays it out in Newsweek” and the Los Angeles Times :
       “Today it is we Americans who live in infamy.”

I think fair is only fair. You've heard all of my antiwar rants. Oliver Willis gives you a look at the other side of the coin.

Wil Wheaton has a very funny entry in his weblog. Allegedly written by John Cleese, but certainly written by someone else (Cleese would never use the phrase "wickedly cool") -- I'm told it from Satirewire, which I have to check out -- it is a funny news story I wish I had written myself. It starts:

Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be more evil than that stupid Iran--North Korea axis President Bush warned of in his State of the Union address.

This is entirely seperate from the issue that Wil Wheaton has one of the most popular weblogs in America. Perhaps the world. You have to be a complete Star Trek sci fi geek to know who Wil Wheaton is, by the way. He is perhaps best known as the actor who played young Wesley Crusher on Start Trek:TNG. He claims that he started writing his weblog when a Hooters waitress asked him, "Didn't you used to be an actor?"

IsThatLegal?, a weblog that comments on a variety of things -- mostly the American Internment of Japanese during WW II, but really, other stuff too -- that the Patriot Act requires lawyers at real estate closings to

first check a federal database to ascertain whether either seller or buyer is a "Specially Designated National"--that is, a person or entity on a "terrorist list" compiled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department. And here's the kicker: if seller or buyer is on the list, then the lawyer must (a) report the fact to the federal government, (b) delay the closing, and (c) not tell the client(s) that the lawyer has done (a) and (b).

He goes on to note that:

Two things jump out at me here. First, this is a spot where the reach of the USA PATRIOT Act is just enormous. It affects every single real estate transaction in the nation. From an administration that purports to be concerned about protecting state and local power from the reach of the federal government, this is an extraordinary foray into what has always been understood to be a core matter of state and local concern--transactions in real property.

What else is hiding in the Patriot Act? Who put this in? Was there a lobby (the Background Check Association of America maybe?) that got this slipped in?

Yes, yes. You, too, can be a star. All you have to do is expose the most blatantly stupid and useless security arrangements at the places that need security most and you could win the Stupid Security Competition sponsored by Privacy International. I don't really know what Privacy International does, but if they're for pointing out blatant stupidity that harms us I'm all for them. As they say:

The sensitive and sensible folk at Privacy International have endured enough of this treatment. So until March 15th 2003 we are running an international competition to discover the world's most pointless, intrusive, stupid and self-serving security measures.

See, putting a nameplate on a door or a building that says "Dept. of Homeland Security" doesn't actually make the "homeland" more secure. Most places I go that require security merely have guards stationed at the entrance glancing at bags and asking people to show them photo i.d.'s. Someone should tell somebody that it's not so hard to get a little card with a name and your photo on it these days. Have any of these security guys seen Adobe Photoshop? Adobe Photoshop Lite? Adobe Photoshop Lite for Terrorists (APLT)?

The Onion has a stunning investigative piece on the Wonka crisis.