Odds and Ends

I've got a case of the Mondays, so I'm gonna grab dinner at Chotchkie's Applebees...

Christie Whitman, who no doubt regrets ever accepting the job of EPA chief at the beginning of the Bush administration, was forced to testify today before a congressional committee, over the statements made by her and other officials after 9/11 that the air in downtown Manhattan was safe. She decided to pass the buck for this, blaming the terrorists and Rudy Guiliani.

In equally stupifying news, Tony Blair (who's stepping down as Prime Minister this week) is apparently being tapped as an international envoy for the Middle East by the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States. Have these morons learned nothing in the past few years? People in the Middle East aren't dumb, and they are prone to anger (justifiably so, in many cases). So how do they think they will react when a disgraced world leader largely complicit in a war that is tearing the Middle East part is sent as an envoy there? Insulted and angry, I imagine.

Meanwhile, Paul Wolfowitz's fellow disgraced neocon, Robert Zoellick, has been ok'd to succeed him as the new World Bank chief.

Conservatives to Bush... 'Since our support for this shitty war of yours is based not on principle, but on pure partisan reasons, if you don't knock off this immigration reform crap, we will drop the war like the explosive hot potato it is, you dirty Mexican-sympathizer.'

Finally, CNN decides that Paris Hilton is more important than the healthcare debate.