From the Washington newspaper Roll Call earlier today:

House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.

I wonder if Diebold counted the ballots?

I can't believe I forgot to post about the Weather Now Beta launch Tuesday evening.

I'll have more details later, including a list of why the new application is so much cooler than the current one, but right now I'm trying to figure out why a client's server keeps horking every day.

Josh Marshall has a new blog-within-a-blog: GrandOldDocket.com, which lists which Republicans have been indicted, convicted, or pled guilty to various corruption charges.

We were dark for over 6 hours today because someone at SBC did something, though no one seems to know who or what. The result was that the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters had no phone or Internet service from 9:15 am CT/15:15 UTC until 3:30 pm CT/21:30 UTC.

Sadly, this came on the first day of our Weather Now beta launch, which shows off some of our coolest stuff ever. (At this writing it's still a few hours behind, with weather from lunchtime today, but it's catching up as fast as it can.)

One of my friends asked, "How can they do that?" Well, like I said...they're the phone company.

The latest NBC/WSJ poll finds only 39% of Americans think the President is doing a good job. I can't remember a President with lower approval ratings, ever. And still this one believes he has a mandate. Incredible.

A related item: Journalist Josh Marshall finds the State of the Union address "unwatchable" in general. I think if it weren't on a Tuesday and one could make a serious drinking game out of it, perhaps it could be more fun, but alas. I'll probably watch it anyway, though Anne might want to leave the house for all the cursing it's sure to evoke.

Not that anyone is surprised, but Samuel Alito got confirmed an Associate Justice of the U.S. today.

Civil-rights activist Corretta Scott King died this morning.

Exxon reported a $36 billion profit in 2005, the largest corporate profit ever, making Exxon shareholders the largest beneficiaries in history of the ongoing environmental degradation of our planet.

And today is Alan Greenspan's last day as Federal Reserve Chairman, which actually may be good news for our children, since it's unlikely that incoming chariman Ben Bernanke will allow the structural imbalances in the U.S. economy that Greenspan encouraged to continue. More on that later.

Finally, the Oscar nominees were announced this morning, prompting me to send a very long, pun-filled email to Anne, which I will spare my loyal readers.

That is all.

"Several great minds were asked to help think up interview questions for George W. Bush. I liked, 'Are you the worst president since James Buchanan, or have you never heard of him?'"

Ivins' homepage

Not that anyone who reads a newspaper will be surprised, but Abramoff didn't give money to Democrats, only Republicans:

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.

It's the corruption, stupid.

For the record: The existence, or quantity, of any photos of the President shaking Jack Abramoff's hand, is totally irrelevant.

As Josh Marshall points out, Abramoff was the #1 most-connected guy in Republican fundraising during Bush's first term. So it's unlikely that Bush didn't know him, regardless of what either says on the subject.

Haven't we had enough of this already? One president lies about extra-marital sex, the other about helping his friends steal billions and kill thousands. One gets impeached, the other re-elected.

It's sad, really.

First, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has a great column today (sub.req.):

[The President's] breathtaking arrogance is exceeded only by his incompetence. And that's the real problem. That's where you'll find the mind-boggling destructiveness of this regime, in its incompetence. ... [T]he plain truth is that he is the worst president in memory, and one of the worst of all time.

Second, I've been ambivalent about the Times charging $49.95 per year to read most of its content, but I think more and more that it's fair. I don't know, though. I pay it, because I read Krugman and Dowd every week, and I like occasionally reading the Magazine. What are other people's thoughts on this?