Well, for his abruptly disappearing website, anyway.

Cheney’s office is now going to have to claim executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena.

This right after Cheney’s office declared that, contrary to 218 years of US constitutional history, his office is not part of the executive branch.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the last six and a half years would make a lot more sense if the GOP were actually performing a sophisticated Dada art exhibition.

This Cheney character would actually be pretty tolerable if he weren’t actually real. You could just say, OK, I see what they’re doing here — this is clearly modeled on the fictional Bob Rumson from Aaron Sorkin’s The American President. Then give him two drunk driving convictions, a lesbian daughter, and a wife who writes soft-core erotica, just so everyone knows the reactionary moralizing is all just a put-on. Then give him five Vietnam deferments and a continuing income from Halliburton so absolutely no one can find him credible on defense issues.  Oh, and get his office involved in the outing of a covert CIA employee involved with monitoring the proliferation of WMDs in the mideast, and then have him claim national security as his keynote issue.

If suddenly Cheney just pulled off the rubber mask, and it was actually Mike Myers underneath, just screwing around, OK, then it would all make more sense.

But that day surely must be getting close. Apparently they’ve decided to make increasingly insane claims, some of them bordering on self-contradictory, just so maybe the country will finally catch on and say, "hey now, wait — this is all a put-on, isn’t it?"

Incidentally, the Washington Post has just done an excellent four-part series on what Rumson, er, Cheney here has been up to and how. Highly recommended.

So now Dick Cheney is back in the executive branch. Until he decides he isn’t again. He’s like Posted in Almost Seven Wonders

Cheney’s office is now going to have to claim executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena.

This right after Cheney’s office declared that, contrary to 218 years of US constitutional history, his office is not part of the executive branch.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the last six and a half years would make a lot more sense if the GOP were actually performing a sophisticated Dada art exhibition.

This Cheney character would actually be pretty tolerable if he weren’t actually real. You could just say, OK, I see what they’re doing here — this is clearly modeled on the fictional Bob Rumson from Aaron Sorkin’s The American President. Then give him two drunk driving convictions, a lesbian daughter, and a wife who writes soft-core erotica, just so everyone knows the reactionary moralizing is all just a put-on. Then give him five Vietnam deferments and a continuing income from Halliburton so absolutely no one can find him credible on defense issues.  Oh, and get his office involved in the outing of a covert CIA employee involved with monitoring the proliferation of WMDs in the mideast, and then have him claim national security as his keynote issue.

If suddenly Cheney just pulled off the rubber mask, and it was actually Mike Myers underneath, just screwing around, OK, then it would all make more sense.

But that day surely must be getting close. Apparently they’ve decided to make increasingly insane claims, some of them bordering on self-contradictory, just so maybe the country will finally catch on and say, "hey now, wait — this is all a put-on, isn’t it?"

Incidentally, the Washington Post has just done an excellent four-part series on what Rumson, er, Cheney here has been up to and how. Highly recommended.

So now Dick Cheney is back in the executive branch. Until he decides he isn’t again. He’s like Posted in Almost Seven Wonders

How much would you bid (all proceeds to charity) to spend some quality face time with Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and all things good and wondrous? If you’ll be in San Diego for ComiCon, you’ve got a couple of weeks to mull.

Incidentally, I’m not sure I’ve ever said publicly how invaluable Joss’s work has been for me, particularly in learning not to flinch or go defensively ironic in writing about Big Stuff like love and death, trying to not just intellectually but emotionally honest, even when those emotions are completely unexpected. To the extent that Trebekistan works in the hard parts, a lot of credit goes to the good airs of Whedonia. And then of course I was blown away when he actually blurbed the thing.

So. Dinner. Charity. You can bid starting next week on eBay. You are notified.

On Craigslists all over the country, you can actually find a growing industry of people buying and selling positions in the waiting line to buy one. The going rate for a place in line seems to be $200 and up.

I kid you not.

I should disclose that I retain a small investment in the company myself. In fairness, let me also point out that users still have many of the unanswered questions from the phone’s initial announcement, among which remain:

• How badly will the iPhone’s touch-sensitive screen smudge? Because I am pretty greasy.

• Will the iPhone be able to synch wirelessly with my computer or another iPhone? If two or more users touch our iPhones together, will it multiply our powers?

• Where can I buy powers? Please, please sell powers as an add-on.

• I heard Steve Jobs’s iPhone includes a Taser. What about the rest of us – do we get Tasers, too? The cellphone/Taser would be a killer app.

• How will my greasy hands affect Taser performance? Because I am pretty greasy.

• How many iPhones would it take to repel a wild baboon? I had a bad experience with a baboon.

• The proximity sensor that turns the touchscreen off when you bring the iPhone near your head to talk – what about a user who doesn’t have a head?

• There’s nowhere for me to plug in my Zip drive.

• The battery is now rated at 8 hours of talk, 6 hours of Internet browsing, or 7 hours of video playback. How long will the battery last when repelling baboons?

• Hey, maybe I can download powers through iTunes.

• If I’m Tasering baboons with the iPhone, and a call comes in, is there a speakerphone?

• The touchscreen – does that only work with fingers, or any body part? Because I download a lot of porn.

• The built-in camera seems only to work in the visible light spectrum. Come on, Apple. Think of the user experience.

• I hear Microsoft is working on a cellphone with X-Ray Spex built in.

• The built-in Google Maps – will that help me see baboons as they gather?

• If I’m downloading porn and I rotate the phone into landscape mode, the iPod video thing won’t kick in, will it? Because if I’m looking at porn and suddenly there’s Dwight from The Office, I am using the self-destruct.

Update, Monday evening: the thing won’t be out for four more days… and in New York, there are already people in line.