The Daily Grill

Duck, Duck, Goose

Under-reactionary

After weeks of political turmoil President Bush appears to see little need for the wholesale housecleaning that previous administrations tried in times of upheaval. Then again, there were a lot of people in New Orleans who thought Katrina was just going to be a chance of showers, regardless of how many storm warnings they got.

Pooper Scooter

Scooter’s in trouble. I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, has been indicted in the C.I.A. leak case. He’s charged with making false statements to the grand jury which means, of course, he will NOT be President Bush’s next nominee for Supreme Court Justice.

Warp Factor

George Takei, the actor best known as Sulu on the original “Star Trek” series, has come out in the pages of Frontier magazine and revealed that he’s gay. Kinda brings new insight to Captain Kirk’s opening to that show when he says, “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Halloween Breaking Noose

In Frederica, Delaware, the apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said. The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said. The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles. Unless the woman was dressed as a witch, a hooker or Princess Leia, for those people in Delaware not to notice something amiss, they must be pretty hardcore when it come to holiday decorations.

Taking A Leak...

With time running out on his investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, special counsel in the leak case, continued to seek information on Tuesday about Karl Rove's discussions with reporters in the days before a C.I.A. officer's identity was made public, lawyers and others involved in the investigation said. Tension in the White House are said to be running high as fear of indictments mount. The only one who, reportedly, is showing no sign of tension is President Bush who still believe the reference to a "CIA leak" is part of a hilarious joke which he doesn't get but laughs at anyway.

Grim Update

I originally ran this phodoodle when the American military death toll reached 1,000. I hope that I will not have to run it again. — MH

Stealth Monopoly (aka "ATT-1000")

AT&T said yesterday, in what might be its last earnings report in its 128-year history, that it earned $520 million in the third quarter. SBC Communications is awaiting regulatory approval to buy AT&T, which was formed when Rutherford B. Hayes was president. SBC expects its $16 billion purchase of AT&T to conclude before the end of the year. Now, is it just me or wasn't AT&T forced to break apart because it was a monopoly years ago? And ever since then, the "Baby Bells" it separated into have been slowly sliding together like the pieces of the T-1000 robot in Terminator 2 under the SBC umbrella. I don't mean to say it's a bad thing, but in T2, it became a cop who killed everybody.

Make-Up Test

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers to resubmit parts of her judicial questionnaire, saying various members had found her responses "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting." Miers apologized and said she thought she was being graded on a "pass/fail" basis. The committee did note that while the nominee "played well with others", she also showed "a tendency to eat paste and pick her nose."

Washington Fairy Tale

A Washington Post story two days ago suggested that Vice President Cheney, whose office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, might step aside and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be elevated to the post of VP. This is predicted to happen moments after the mothership lands on the White House lawn, pigs begin to fly and President Bush correctly conjugates a verb.