I walk across the street and look up. The Transamerica Tower extends upward like a jeweled white dagger into the blue heart of the sky. Somewhere, perhaps cocealed in the braches of one of the full-sized potted trees that line the street, a bird chirps. Some say birds sing, happily, but this animal voice seems to me empty of emotion or thought--meaningless, instinctual noise. Because I cannot find its source, the bird's song seems also eerily disembodied, artificial. It occurs to me that it's quite possible there is no bird at all--that what I hear might be one of those ambient atmosphere tapes; the bird who'd sung it probably years dead. The voice of a ghost. A chill settles on the bare nape of my neck despite the May sunshine. I can't think of ghosts without shivering. Even small ones. Even birds.

Even Jessica Simpson wants to distance herself from the President.

Also, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill embarassed by Bush's Katrina Response.

Is the GOP losing the Dukes of Hazzard and Country Singing Star constituency? Boy, things are more grim than even I imagined.

Oh well, at least they've still got that paragon of artistic integrity Toby Keith driving his Ford in the cavalcade. (In case you didn't know, that's all he drives.)

Well, it's been several months since the enervating and fascinating blog of the cranky undiscovered genius, The Irate Savant has been updated, and I fear that foul play may have befallen him. He was getting into some weird stuff if his last few entries were any indication, and now months of silence. I figure it's either kidnapping and death or a book deal.

If you live in the Chicago area (we think) and you see anyone who looks like a missing antique store clerk wandering around mumbling "myrmidion" and "entheomaniac" at random passersby, ask him what happened with Gnat's mother. Inquiring minds, and that.

In the meantime, I leave the link on my sidebar, but only in hopes that one day the king will return.

Not to get all political on yer butt, but reading this after the subject of the previous post, I thought it was very, very interesting.

Differences between Bush and Clinton.

Besides the obvious, like competence, vision, and caring about poor people. Basically, it's about how Clinton could and loved to demonstrate his knowledge on an issue and explain it in a way that the folks in the back row could understand, or at least understand that HE understood. Bush--eh, not so much.

Everyone should read this. There's no way to pussy-foot around it: Bush lied. Video shows Bush got explicit Katrina warning.

New video released of teleconferences before Katrina show that Chertoff and Brown were warning the President in sometimes painful detail about what was happening, directly disproving the President's stated recollections after the fact. You can watch the video yourself here.

Most telling quote from the AP article for me:

Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?

That's right, it's time once again to ponder the profundities of Will, age 6.

Are people with "W" stickers on their cars more inconsiderate to other drivers than those without, or do I just perceive them that way?

I have the same feeling about Jaguar drivers, but the demographics seem to overlap.

Everyone's piling on our VP for shooting his friend in the face, and I admit I'm tempted to do the same. But fortunately for us all my friend The Middle-Class Tool has already done it for us, and in a much more artful and well-considered way than I ever could. So go read it and then tell me what talented friends I have.

Oh, and while you're there, ask yourself this question: have you seen 'em?

Archaeologists have discovered what appears to be an intact tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, the first such discovery since Howard Carter discovered the Tomb of the Boy King, Tutankhamen, in 1922.

No word yet on whether among the five or six mummies and sarcophagi is the undying husk of the High Priest Im-Ho-Tep, cursed to the living death for trying to resurrect Zita Johann for some post-mortem whoopee.

And who among us can blame him?

I was over at my buddy Jon's blog earlier, wondering if he'd posted anything about our drunken carouse at our favorite establishment for the dispensing of potent potables last week, which if I remember correctly resulted in the discovery of six additional laws of thermodynamics, a cure for the world's energy crisis scribbled illegibly on a soggy napkin, and several thousand dollars' worth of property damage. Anyway, while there I discovered that yet another of my school chums has staked out his claim on the world wide web.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I encourage you to give a click to Dr. Mike's SuperFrankenBlog.