Until my body temperature returns to normal, here are some good places
(among hundreds of others, obviously) to go poking around:

Josh is hot on the trail of the forged Niger documents.  New updates on the case almost every day.

Jon is a kindred spirit.  If you like charts comparing the popularity of disastrous presidents, you’ll like these.

Cursor is good, top-to-bottom, always.  At the moment, they’re trying not to go broke.  You might be able to help.

Kevin has a particularly scary graphic from the WP about National Security Letters.

Desi has moved.  Her blog deserves a lot more traffic.

John Dean agrees with the general consensus that Fitzgerald is trying to flip Libby.

If you haven’t seen these (linked to by Atrios
and a bunch of others), in 2002 — a year before the war — the Monkey
King and his minions were told straight out that their
Iraq-hearts-Al-Qaeda source was intentionally lying, apparently after Team-Chimpy-approved torture.

I feel so sick right now… and the flu feels like the least of it.

Bush’s approval rating has fallen to 35. 
Maybe America is starting to realize that secret prisons and endless
war aren’t really the best government we can possibly hope for.

Dick Cheney, in the same poll, has a 19 percent approval rating.

19 percent.

That’s two points less popular than cheating on your spouse and seven points behind corporal punishment in schools (scroll down).

That’s down in what can be politely called lunatic territory.  As I’ve been pointing out for years, twenty or thirty percent of Americans believe any insane thing you can imagine.

Dick Cheney is now 18 points behind the number of people who believe alien beings have secretly contacted the U.S. government.

Bush, similarly, now trails the number of people who think astrology is scientific by five points.

Scottie McClellan, however, can still spin things: Bush only trails the aliens by two points.

PS — I notice that this piece is getting a lot of traffic from Australia, thanks to The Contrarian, a fairly new blog at the Sydney Morning Herald, which is one of my favorite papers on Earth.

So, welcome, O visitors from a beautiful land of strikingly sane people.  Two quick notes:

First, congrats on the cricket win over the West Indies.  I
watched almost every minute on satellite.  (I’m a novice, but I truly
love it.)  I thought Bracken and Watson both looked promising (at least
if the latter still has both shoulders attached) although the Windies
looked so demoralized by the end that I wasn’t sure one could measure
how good the team really was.  Your thoughts?

Second, I’m rather keen on moving to Oz long-term.  So, if you’ll forgive my directness: if anybody has reason to hire a decently-traveled American with almost twenty years’ experience at the banging of amusing words together for broadcast, print, and live performance — or if you know someone who does — by all means, say hello by email.  (And feel free to send the link around, incidentally, if you’re of a mind to help a brother out.)

I’m committed to finishing and promoting my next book here in the U.S., but after that, I’m hoping to make it Down Under in time for the next Ashes.

When I finally do get down there, I’ve got the first shout.

Today’s Washington Post is a must-read if you want to understand why America’s reputation as a defender of human rights is in shreds.

Keep in mind how many of the people have turned out to be innocent. 
Check out this report on two guys who were among what Rumsfeld called
"the worst of the worst" — recently released after three years in Guantanamo simply for writing a misunderstood piece of satire.

Incidentally, UN human rights investigators want to talk with the remaining Gitmo prisoners.  Rumsfeld told them, basically, to screw themselves.

The longer these people are in power, the more enemies we will have.

Since I had to withhold the photographs of amorous pudus as a matter of executive privilege, here’s another spectacular ungulate to tide you over, courtesy my friend Chris who just got back from Kenya:

This is a Gerenuk, also known as a giraffe antelope, also known as a Dik-dik which not only cares about hair care and makeup but can also kick your freakin’ ass.

So when a gerenuk starts prattling on and on about how much nicer their butt looks since they’ve started going back to the gym, you pretty much wind up doing a lot of nodding and pretending you’re listening.

Do not mess with the Gerenuk.

I’ve just heard from a fellow who would like to blow the whistle on employment practices by a very large company doing contract work for the Defense Department in Iraq.

I’m out of my depth on this.  Is there a particular watchdog organization he should go to?  Where would be the best place for him to air his concerns?  I’ll forward any useful response in his direction.

Thanks!