Say What?

I don't know which is more noteworthy: That Bush (the never-apologizer) apologized for Iraqi prison abuse, or that he chose this opportunity to unveil his newest abuse of English: wrongdoer.

After years of hearing Bush say "evildoer" at every conceivable opportunity, is "wrongdoer" a sign of a budding Bush moral relativism?

Donnie-brook: 9 days and counting...

With 9 days remaining before Rumsfeld is forced to resign, we continue our Rumsfeld Retrospective. Today, we look at:

Donnie the Diplomat

Source: greenparty.org

You can learn more about Rumsfeld's adventures in handshaking here.

10 Days Left

10 Days Left Till Rumsfeld Resigns

I'm going out on a limb. I commented yesterday on this, but I put it too mildly.

Because of the Iraqi abuse scandal, Donald Rumsfeld will be forced to resign within 10 days.

In the meantime, I'm going to do something of a Rumsfeld Retrospective:

Rumsfeld the Claw

Source: Clear Channel

Fear the Claw.

(CNN removed the beautiful picture that I originally had in this post. Should it reappear, it will be below)

Rumsfeld the Smiler

Source: CNN

Look at that big grin. It's almost like it doesn't hurt him to smile.

At Least One Foreign Leader Supports Bush: The CEO of Prevost Car

I think the implication here is, "How dare the President buy Canadian products?!?"

If Bush's Republican colleague Pat Buchanan had his way back in 1997, this would not be a problem.

Hurry Up and Buy Them Before They're Free!

A buddy at Google set me up with a gmail address a couple weeks ago. 1000 MB is cool, but what's amusing is the ego-stroke it gives me and others to have something before the general public. Currently, having a gmail account is the cultural equivalent of being on the VIP list at the geek nightclub.

A couple days ago, Google unlocked a feature that allows each gmail user to invite 2 other people. Previously, only people actually working at Google could dispense addresses.

Like all scarce commodities, these invitations are now for sale on eBay. We'll see how long that lasts. Looks like $50 - $100 is the going rate.

Donnie?

Bye-bye, Rumsfeld?

Home Field Advantage

It's approaching summer. With the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing, it's just days until baseball is the only game in town.

Like cricket, baseball is as much a cultural ritual as it is a sport. Its minutiae have been analyzed and over-analyzed to no end. Baseball attracts statistics-minded people like no other athletic endeavor, and they find endless joy in dissecting the odd numbers of the game.

I'll spare you a broad discussion of these details. Here's a single aspet of baseball that I find enchanting: I can think of no other game in which the basic layout of the field varies wildly from venue to venue. Rob Neyer discusses these geographic quirks and how they can dramatically affect the outcome of a baseball game.

Keating Holland Cares So Much That It Hurts

When you've got to have enough programming to fill 24 hours in a day, you'll make a mountain out of whatever hill is available.

I'm a little disturbed by the amount of detail present in CNN's Veepstakes Game (assembled by Keating Holland, CNN Political Unit), where you vote on 32 possibilities for Kerry's running mate. The candidates range from Tom Brokaw to Anne Richards and their chances are detailed in four-part harmony.

Wow. As an amatuer news junkie, it's impressive and frightening to see the breadth of trivial knowledge that professional news junkies bring to their craft.

A Commute Without Bob Edwards in the Car

I was a rather naïve college student.

At the time, I believed that the workers of the world wasted those minutes and hours spent commuting, gaining nothing and existing in a kind of seated limbo.

Then, as a .dot-com worker in 1999, I discovered NPR, the saving grace of my daily migrations. I had been wrong -- NPR (in my case, KQED) could turn a daily commute into a meditation, an opportunity to learn and grow.

I'm a donor/member of KQED, and I can see why people like Joan Kroc consider NPR in their wills -- with other talk radio dominated by Rush Limbaugh & his heirs, NPR is a bastion of thoughtfulness and tranquility. In the way it reports the news and considers the issues of the day, NPR just does the right thing.

Yet, NPR did the wrong thing in the way it treated Bob Edwards this last week. 6 months shy of his 25th on-air anniversary at Morning Edition, NPR unceremoniously demoted Edwards from host to senior correspondent. Listener backlash was met with doublespeak from the NPR brass, but with dignity from Bob Edwards, who accepted this "reassignment" with uncommon grace.

Bob's last show as Morning Edition host was Friday, and he gave a poignant interview to Scott Simon, host of Weekend Morning Edition, today.

I'm confident that NPR will put Morning Edition in the hands of a capable replacement, but I'm disturbed that their management would engage in this behavior only months after receiving the largest philantropic gift ever given to an American cultural institution. They should know better, and they should work harder to behave in a manner worthy of our respect and attention.

Guns Don't Shoot People

People teaching gun safety shoot people. In fact, they shoot themselves in the leg.