Some news and the afternoon’s open thread.

1. The Washington Post reports Federal judge hears CIA tapes case. “U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy… said he would consider the lawyers’ arguments for an urgent court inquiry into whether the destruction of the CIA tapes may have violated Kennedy’s June 2005 order requiring the government to preserve any evidence related to mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees… At the hour-long hearing, a Justice Department lawyer urged the judge to hold off on any investigation, saying such an inquiry could compromise a Justice Department probe that has recently been launched into the tapes’ destruction. [David Remes, an attorney for several detainees,] questioned why the court should trust the Justice Department, which may have been aware of the destruction of the CIA tapes, to now determine whether other Guantanamo-related evidence is being properly preserved.”

2. Oh no! Asteroid on track for possible Mars hit! According to the Los Angeles Times, “An asteroid similar to the one that flattened forests in Siberia in 1908 could plow into Mars next month… Researchers attached to NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, who sometimes jokingly call themselves the Solar System Defense Team, have been tracking the asteroid since its discovery in late November. The scientists, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, put the chances that it will hit the Red Planet on Jan. 30 at about 1 in 75… The Tunguska object broke up in midair, but the Martian atmosphere is so thin that an asteroid would probably plummet to the surface, digging a crater half a mile wide”. That’s before Martian primary voters can vote on Super-Tuesday.

3. “The Sleuth” aka Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post writes Gonzales has rough time tapping young minds for legal defense fund. “Buried by legal bills and hard up for cash, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hit the college speaking circuit last month hoping to rake in big bucks. Instead, he’s been raked over the coals, heckled or flat out turned down by students whose institutions he charges exorbitant fees to tap his amnesiac mind… Gonzales had become the subject of angry editorials and protests on campuses near and far. At the University of Florida last month, he was viciously heckled to the point that two students wearing black hoods and orange jumpsuits blaring the words “civil liberties”- impersonating prisoners at Abu Ghraib – walked on stage and stood next to the former attorney general as he spoke. (Until they were arrested.) It was a tough way to make $40,000. And it stands to get tougher.” Oh, BOO HOO! Cry me a river… AbuG shows up, mumbles, and makes more money than many of us make in a year. This isn’t work, this is a classic academia scam by politicians.

4. Lastly, this little Iowa caucus vignette from The New York Times.

   “Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

   Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

   In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

   “My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

This is an Open Thread: Sorry Were Open/Yes Were Closed

Spending Bills Still Stuffed With Earmarks : Bush remains thorn in Democrats’ side : Scientists Weigh Stem Cells’ Role as Cancer Cause :Torture chamber found in Iraq

USA

Spending Bills Still Stuffed With Earmarks

Democrats Had Vowed To Curtail Pet Projects

By Elizabeth Williamson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, December 21, 2007; Page A01

Twice in the past two years, Alaska lawmakers lost congressional earmarks to build two “bridges to nowhere” costing hundreds of millions of dollars after Congress was embarrassed by public complaints over the pet projects hidden in annual spending bills.

This year, Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, who are Alaska Republicans, found another way to move cash to their state: Stevens secured more than $20 million for an “expeditionary craft” that will connect Anchorage with the windblown rural peninsula of Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Now what Alaska has, budget watchdogs contend, is a ferry to nowhere.

Bush remains thorn in Democrats’ side

By Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

7:14 PM PST, December 20, 2007

WASHINGTON — Just more than a year ago, a chastened President Bush acknowledged that his party had taken a “thumping” in the congressional elections, and he greeted the new Democratic majority at the weakest point of his presidency.

But since then, Democrats in Congress have taken a thumping of their own as Bush has curbed their budget demands, blocked a cherished children’s health initiative, stalled the drive to withdraw troops from Iraq and stymied all efforts to raise taxes.

Rather than turn tail for his last two years in the White House, Bush has used every remaining weapon in his depleted arsenal — the veto, executive orders, the loyalty of Republicans in Congress — to keep Democrats from getting their way. He has struck a combative pose, dashing hopes that he would be more accommodating in the wake of his party’s drubbing in the 2006 mid-term voting.

Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…