reyonthehill

The New York Times published this handy graphic that further defines the downward trend of Bush's presidency.

Image: New York Times

As the violence continued today, as Jake Tapper is witnessing first-hand, the president simplified the situation, saying "that the time has come for Iraqis to choose between 'chaos or unity.'"

I attempted satire as I commented on Tapper's blog...

It is always one or the other with the president. There's always choice A or B, never any additional ones. There is no doubt that Mr. Pibb is not a choice on the drink menu at Camp David, that's for sure. ("Sierra Mist, Mr. President?")

- The New York Times is suing the Pentagon to get access to "a list of documents including all internal memos and e-mails about the program of monitoring phone calls without court approval [and] the names of the people or groups identified."

- Those sounded like "hurricane-force winds" last night. And hail (or was it sleet) this morning. I hope the lemon tree will survive...

- And the first shoe has dropped: the new Roberts/Alito court reversed ground in "a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests." The question remains: How violent can a protestor become in order to stop a woman from entering an abortion clinic? And is it legal? Oh yea; and this decision is a step back in protecting a woman's right to choose (reading between the lines).

One for Letterman (or, more likely, Leno, as he has such a low standard for humor)...

A president Bush hasn't had a free fall this steep and of this magnitude since the first President Bush jumped out of a plane with a parachute for his eightieth birthday.

What? Not funny? (Not even a little? Okay, so it needs to be refined, but I'm talking about Leno, people.)

President Bush is in the midst of a political free fall as his approval ratings have dropped by a stunning eight percentage points in one month. What has obviously affected his poll numbers is the uncertainity of Iraq's future and the escalating violence there, the lingering Katrina news and information, the coverup that wasn't when Cheney shot someone in the face, and the Dubai ports deal. (But you knew all that...)

Image: CBS News

Following the final play of next year's (hopefully not-as-boring) Super Bowl, the MVP winner may possibly exclaim (albeit rehearsed and choreographed) to the cameras that he (I think we can safely assume there will not be a she, or can we?) is going to Appleland. Yes, you heard me, Appleland; not Disneyland. Rumor has it that after the Pixar-Disney deal goes through, making Steve Jobs "Disney's leading shareholder," Apple will purchase Disney. Of course, it would be silly and mindfully-absent of the company's fiduciary responsibility to not capitalize on the Disney brand, so there will be no Appleland. But what a place that would be... (Oh my god, my head is going to explode. Pretty soon, I will be blogging live, not from the Emeryville Apple Store, but the Cupertino Appleland.) Was there a subtle hint to all of this with the video iPod/ABC entertainment deal? Hmm...

In what seems to be an exhaustive attempt to cite all possible sources, AOL's news division divulged the following four sources for providing the names of previous White House press secretaries and their employers... "cbsnews.com, cnn.com, editorandpublisher.com, pbs.org."

Wow. Four pieces of information, four sources. Well, that informtion surely must have been hard to come by. The information that AOL provided (in this online, and unscientific, poll)... "[Ari] Fleischer served George W. Bush; Dee Dee Myers, who served Bill Clinton; [Marlin] Fitzwater served both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; and Jim Brady was shot during the assassination attempt against Reagan." Couldn't one have consulted an encyclopedia (even one online)?

Image: AOL.com

Bonus citation: AOL also sourced washingtonpost.com and nytimes.com for their four AP photos. Nice work, AOL; not even a scent of plagiarism...

- Studies show that "more than one-fourth of [cell phone users] formed opinions of someone based on their ring tone."

- Believe it or not, the lawsuits holding back funding for California's stem-cell research grants are headed by the "Life Legal Defense Foundation, the anti-abortion group that helped finance the fight in Florida to keep Terri Schiavo alive in a high-profile right-to-die case."

- And forget about Three's Company or the Andy Griffith Show, I remember Don Knotts for his character roles in the animated Scooby-Doo series.

This time... Emeryville. This weekend, I will finally get to work on our yard, finally with grass (this being our second Spring) green and wild from all of the winter rain. What to do with such a small space? I say, an olive tree. My fiancee says, a lemon tree. I suggest both. (Not enough room? Shade is nice...)

Blog later...

I do love the idea of the Olympics; however, when they finally do come around every four years, and especially when the events are aired nearly a day after they occur, my interest seems to decline. And why is it that every time you turn on NBC to watch the Olympics, there is only figure skating on? NBC shows 100 percent of the figure skating events (including warmups) and 20 percent of everything else. And there is nothing less exciting than figure skating. Not to say that speed skating is exciting (it isn't), but there are hundreds of competitive events going on over these two weeks. Show me something, NBC; show me something.

Image: Wikipedia