Crafty to the end

Karl Rove to Resign At the End of August

So The Brain is leaving to Spend More Time With His Family. Why?

The best simple answer:

He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president's term in January 2009.

Sure. Get out while you still can. A rational move.

Or perhaps he's leaving because the next president is slated to be one of the Democratic candidates, and to make sure that the Republicans remember they're supposed to be losing this time around, he has to take himself out of the advice loop in case he accidentally tells one of them something that may help them.

Then, the more interesting theories: he's deserting the sinking ship to escape something big going down; he's doing it to facilitate something going down; he's doing it to stop something going down.

I am suspicious, all the more so because I know this is SUPPOSED to be making me suspicious and I don't want to be manipulated into suspecting what I'm SUPPOSED to suspect instead of what is really suspect. Still with me?

An executive order to be NICER?

Bush Alters Rules for Interrogations

The White House declined to say whether the CIA currently has a detention and interrogation program, but said if it did, it must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the executive order.

"If it did"...didn't O.J. Simpson say something like that?

The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2006 that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

The legislation said the president can "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

Okay, I remember that. So now he's apparently advocating the opposite. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it...

The future limps forward

What we want:



What we get:



Never Waiting In Traffic Again

At a meeting in Munich in October, Mayor Yury Luzhkov gave Lipp the green light to test a system that would integrate buildings and roads. Roads for light vehicles would be built on top of commercial and residential buildings.

A raised road network would free up ground-level streets of 30 percent of traffic and cost at least $30 billion, Lipp said.

The project's viability rests on the results of a pilot: a 1.7-kilometer, four-lane highway atop a row of shopping complexes and residential buildings near Varshavskoye Shosse in southern Moscow.

'Cause those Soviet-constructed buildings are gonna hold that road RIGHT up. Strong and robust as Chernobyl, they are. No substandard materials and lowest-bidder contracts in Russia's construction history, no-sirree-Ivan.