The Rest Of The Week In Review - Long Weekend Edition

Seeing how we're all going to be losing a lot of our fortunes tomorrow, I thought it appropriate to take our minds off it by taking a look back to see what we've learned:

• Could this be... the end... of Fred? How will we go on? Will he bother to show up to his own press conference? Will anyone know that he's no longer running for President? All questions we need to know.

• Interesting article about the Secret Service arresting a guy for telling Dick Cheney that he didn't support the war in Iraq, and the subsequent lawsuit and fallout.

• The House is back to work, with the Senate to follow tomorrow. Pelosi's crew has already passed important mine safety legislation, cleared up the defense authorization bill, introduced a separate bill to stop voter caging, and made overtures to target Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers for failing to comply with subpoenas. Maybe they're getting the message over there.

• There's just no question that the evidence for impeaching Dick Cheney is far stronger than Watergate. That doesn't mean it'll happen, but on balance the choice is clear.

• If bloggers in China can force an investigation over an incident of government brutality, then there really is something to this bottom-up open-source stuff after all. Now if we get that blogger's union, triumph will be ours! Or something.

• I actually saw this moment live, and did note that Pat Buchanan never once denied that he was a white supremacist. And everyone had a good laugh, but the truth hurts.



• John Edwards mentioned in the debate his fight with Bill O'Reilly, who claimed that he would provide room and board for all of the 200,000 homeless veterans sleeping outdoors in America every day. That Factor studio must be big!

• This is sad. The LA Times has experienced one budget cut after another, and any editor looking to preserve the integrity of his news division is shown the door. Tribune Co. and now Sam Zell are dismantling a once-great newspaper piece by piece.

• I'm actually almost done this book by former Republican oppo researcher Stephen Marks. It's not particularly well-written or revelatory, other than that politicians have a lot of dirt in their backgrounds that Marks thinks is relevant to politics but actually isn't. Don't have a whole lot more to say about it.

• I don't know what's crazier - Tom Cruise in this Scientology promo or that continuous loop from the Limp Biskit track behind it. The music definitely makes Cruise crazier, not that he needs any help. I hear Will Smith is a Scientologist now too, which makes perfect sense.

• And finally, I can't help but wonder if the Cruise speech is connected to all the UFO sightings in this Texas town. Perhaps the Thetans are returning from the galactiverse!