From Anne: Now on Huffington Post: http://nsaseti.cf.huffingtonpost.com/, a fun replacement for your tired, old SETI@Home application.

I've been watching the weather in Torino, Italy lately, and I've noticed it's awfully warm there. The Olympic Games start one week from today, but Torino's temperatures have stayed way above freezing. Last night's minimum temperature was 6°C (43°F), for example.

Are we looking at a repeat of the St. Moritz games of 1928, in which the speed skaters swam through 25°C (77°F) weather? Maybe we're heading toward a future where the Winter Games won't be possible below 2500 meters (8000 ft) or south of the 59th parallel. Think of it: "Welcome to the 2052 Games in Beautiful Barrow!

From Paul Krugman's column (sub.req.) this morning:

This administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern. That's why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan. It's why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it. And it's why the state of the union—the thing itself, not the speech—is so grim.

And this little tidbit from Poynter Online correspondent Alan D Abbey:

I ran across this brief couplet upon perusing "The Norton Book of Light Verse" with my son, who needed a short poem for something he is doing in school. It's a nice comment on the current media environment, and the explosion in volume, at least, of content and brands. It's by 17th-century physician and poet Samuel Garth, and it goes like this:

"What frenzy has of late posssess'd the brain
"Though few can write, yet fewer can refrain."

Heh.

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.