The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

hmmm... Not within the excutive branch... Well it's sure as hell not part of the legislative or judicial branches, so it's either executive or non-governmental, in which case Cheney shouldn't have any access to any government information outside what the general public has.

Oh, and the Secret Service can tell him to provide his own security.

Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information :: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform :: United States House of Representatives

The subject of the document is entitled “National Continuity Policy.”

It defines a “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include “localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”

Oh, you mean like a Reichstag fire?

Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency | The Progressive

When the committees began to inquire into the firings of the U.S. attorneys, the official said, Congress had a right to know that the firings were part of an ambitious effort to install administration loyalists throughout the department. The official spoke on the condition that neither his position nor agency be identified, because he feared retaliation from his superiors and the White House for disclosing aspects of the program.

Referring to the firings of the U.S. attorneys and the broader plan targeting other Justice employees, the senior official said, "You cannot separate one from the other. They were one and part of the same plan by the White House."

Murray Waas once again showing why he may be the best political reporter in all of Washington (his only competition coming from Sy Hersh).

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides (04/30/07)

Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post.

Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals.

Surge+Purge=Religious Cleansing.

Maliki's Office Is Seen Behind Purge in Forces - washingtonpost.com

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

It is is no longer the lunatic fringe thinking things have gone awry, it is everywhere.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

"There are jobs Americans aren't doing. ... If you've got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory, or whatever you call them, you know what I'm talking about."

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to invoke the other part of the 25th Amendment. You know, the part about mentally...

Remember the rug?

What?

Bush muses on marriage, chicken-plucking - Yahoo! News

In another e-mail exchange revealed during the investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a White House official was described as warning that "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] . . . email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc." Abramoff responded in an e-mail that the message in question "was not supposed to go into the WH system."

So not only are we looking at missing documents, based on this comment we may be looking at something specifically used to avoid exposure of potentially illegal actions? This is nuts.

White House E-Mail Lost in Private Accounts - washingtonpost.com

James McQuivey, a principal analyst at technology research firm Forrester, said in the VHS-versus-Betamax war, porn provided a significant boost for the winning format.

He also noted the adult entertainment industry has often paved the way with new uses of technology -- such as streaming video on the Internet -- and said porn could help tip the scales in the current DVD format battle.

"If the porn industry wanted to break the logjam of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it could," McQuivey said. "If they said 'We are going to go with HD-DVD' you would see a few million homes immediately go out and buy HD-DVD players. They have that power."

Sony screwed this one up last time too.

Porn could be the key to next-generation DVD war - Yahoo! News

Years ago I heard a rumor of a rare coffee that was collected from the droppings of a wild animal. For quite a while, having nothing to substantiate this I had dismissed this as either an urban legend, or something so rare I was unlikely to ever have access to it.

Well thanks to the coffee explosion this rare and unusual blend is readily available, though still very expensive. My interest in this was rekindled when I noticed Armeno Coffee Roasters, my favorite source for fine coffee is now carrying Kopi Luwak Coffee.

I don't even know what to say about this one. Coffee for $100 a pound?

Life After Coffee � The Straight Poop on Kopi Luwak Coffee

The pornographers’ progress with HD may also be somewhat slowed by Sony, one of the main backers of the Blu-ray high-definition disc format. Sony said last week that, in keeping with a longstanding policy, it would not mass-produce pornographic videos on behalf of the movie makers.

And Sony shoots thenselves in the ass again. It may not be everyone, but there is a large segment of the population that buys porn (see the $3.6 BILLION figure noted a few paragraphs later) and those are people who won't get Blu-ray, they'll get HD-DVD. Sont lost the VHS-Beta war by forcing a proprietary format on companies that didn't want one. They're positioned better to try it this time by owning their own movie studio, but I don't think that's enough to cover both people who don't want to adopt Sony's rules for publishing and losing the porn business.

Beta was by far a better technology, the resolution in 1975 was better than DVD is now, but they lost, badly. They made the same mistake with their "memory stick" mess, seemed to get it right with the PS1 and PS2, but they're back to their original screw up again here.

In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real - New York Times