Erick's graduation pictures

...are posted on the photolog. Congratulations, kiddo!!!

A tip for Monica Goodling

How embarrassing.

"The forecast for today's House Judiciary Committee is tears, with a chance of some sobbing.

Monica Goodling, the former Bush administration official who has been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony on the U.S. attorney scandal, is slated to give her side of the story and some on the Hill expect a show.

Sources say that that Monica has been emotional about the issue and she also has a history with crying. " (The Hill)

First you get busted for your role in a major government scandal. Then you end up having to snitch on your former boss and coworkers, in a way that makes it pretty clear to everyone that you are covering your own ass rather than doing the right thing for its own sake. And worst of all, everyone is just waiting for you to start crying.

You know, I hear they can temporarily shut down your tear ducts with Botox now. Just a tip. Did you know that Hollywood stars also get their armpits Botoxed--to prevent any sweating--for red carpet events?

Blog in a bag

Something troubles me about the Gawker Media blog line, which includes Wonkette, Defamer, and a dozen other niche blogs. [The latest addition is Jezebel, whose introduction prompted this entry.]

On content, the Gawker blogs are fine; the problem is that they feel too...mass-produced and vaguely inauthentic. Like they came out of a box. You get the feeling that these are bloggers who possess best practices binders, can expect a raise at the 2nd, 4th, and 8th year on staff, and attend lame conferences in Houston hotels where they get wasted at the local Ruby Tuesday's with the guy from the LA office.

The mild decline in quality at Wonkette since founding editor Ana Maria Cox left exemplifies what has started to bother me about Gawker blogs. Remember when Cox's replacements spent a good week making non-ironic puns about John Boehner's name....until they learned its actual pronunciation (rhymes with "saner," not "loner")? Listen, it's an easy mistake to make, but in a blog all about beltway politics and personalities??? Sigh.

The Floyd Landis freak show

Been following the Floyd Landis testosterone doping arbitration hearing? Boy, have you been missing some weird shit.

Let me bring you up to speed.

1) July, 2006: Floyd Landis overcomes a devastating hip injury to win the Tour de France. Days later, one of his blood tests comes up positive for testosterone doping, throwing his victory into question. Landis offers various lame excuses, and a few potentially accurate conspiracy theories involving the French and tainted blood samples.

2) May, 2007: Arbitration hearing begins in Malibu to decide whether to uphold the positive results of the blood test and strip Landis of his 2006 Tour de France medal. Here's where it gets weird.

• American cyclist and three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond alleges blackmail. LeMond had been called by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to testify against Landis. He tells the panel that Landis's manager, Will Geoghegan, warned him not to show up, lest Geoghegan reveal that LeMond had been sexually molested as a child.
• Landis immediately fires Geoghegan, who himself almost immediately...you guessed it... checks into rehab "in an effort to address his problems." (AP via NYT)
  

And thus we have yet another awesome demonstration of the rehab maneuver, now firmly entrenched in the playbooks of PR flacks from every possible realm, it would seem. The childhood sexual abuse thing was sort of a red herring, but also pretty strange. I can't wait to see what happens next.

They did it. They finally did it.

Sometimes you have one of those days when you realize that every post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie you've ever seen--including and especially the really bad ones--is a possible glimpse of the actual future.

LONDON - Global warming will create at least one billion refugees by 2050 as water shortages and crop failures force people to leave their homes, sparking local wars over access to resources, a leading aid agency said on Monday. (Reuters via Planet Ark)

Meanwhile, the Director of National Intelligence agrees that the government should prepare a national intelligence estimate on the possible geopolitical and national security impacts of global warming. (WP) I'll say.

You are Evited

Have you ever really checked out the different template designs on Evite?

Like, what is this an invitation for?

Palfrey names unsaid

DC escort business caters to power elite, madam releases phone records, blah blah blah. Yawn. Unless you've got some kind of technical account of the erotic use of a cigar by a head of state, or homemade heiress night vision porn, I am so over your sex scandal muckraking...

But anyhow, I'm a little torn about ABC News's cherry-picking of which of Palfrey's clientele to expose publicly. (WP) "Brian Ross of ABC confirmed that some fairly important people had used her escort service." Yet ABC has acknowledged the identity of only two (to this blogger's knowledge): Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, and Harlan Ullman, of the Washington Times and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The rest, producers considered too "anonymous" to publicize.

Well, okay; Palfrey is arguing that the services her firm provided were all legal. If that turns out to be true, it does seem unethical to expose all of these people, possibly ruin their lives, over whatever legal activities in which they may be engaged in their spare time. And there may be no compelling public interest in revealing that the non-public-figure down the street is in Palfrey's black book, no matter what service he or she has received.

But who gets to make that judgement call? Why do any of the public officials implicated deserve a pass? And how do we know that ABC excluded them all based on their lack of importance or name recognition rather than some other, more political factor? (They include "A federal prosecutor, who recently died. A handful of military officers, including the head of an Air Force intelligence squadron. A senior official at the World Bank and other officials at NASA and the International Monetary Fund. Corporate CEOs. And lobbyists, both Democratic and Republican.")

Race fees shooting through the roof?

Listen, I care as much about curing brain tumors as the next person. But I was pretty astonished to see that the entry fee for this Sunday's Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers 5k Race for Hope to benefit Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure has a fifty-dollar entry fee for race-day registration.

Fifty bucks for a 5k? Typical fees for a big 5k are 25 or 30 bucks. Phew. All I can say is, I hope a hearty portion of that is netted for the charities. And the bagels had better be fresh.

How beer is going to save the world!

Foster's, Scientists Team Up To Generate Clean Energy from Beer-Making
May 02, 2007 — By Rod McGuirk, Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia -- Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water -- by using sugar-consuming bacteria.

The experimental technology was unveiled Wednesday by scientists at Australia's University of Queensland, which was given a $115,000 state government grant to install a microbial fuel cell at a Foster's Group brewery near Brisbane, the capital of Queensland state. (AP via Boston Herald)

If this technology takes off, I think our mission as consumers is clear.