greatest headline. ever.

Via John Cole, I present to you the greatest headline ever in the history of news reporting:


Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo

(no subject)

US politics is so much fun right now. The current inmates of the White House make Nixon and his henchmen look like a pack of snivelling pikers. The latest jaw-dropping expose is courtesy of the former Deputy Attorney-General - the 2nd most senior legal officer of the country. He testified before the Senate yesterday, and recounted a tale of late night high-speed dashes to a hospital, the director of the FBI personally directing his agents to stand up to the White House's Chief of Staff (think Leo, if you're a West Wing fan), senior government officials behaving like bad extras from The Godfather... generally he made Aaron Sorkin's fictional White House look pale, gray and lifeless in comparision to the real thing.

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate's legal writer, had the best version of the events, but pretty much any decent coverage will give you the story.

It's hard to take any pleasure from the depiction of government officials in critical condition being manipulated in their hospital beds by soulless White House flunkies. But Senate Democrats are all smiles as former Deputy Attorney General James Comey goes before the Senate judiciary committee this morning. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., can barely stop grinning long enough to ask his next question. Because Alberto Gonzales truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Only a handful of reporters are on hand, at what should have been a rerun of Comey's devastating House testimony two weeks ago. But we are treated to Grey's Anatomy meets The West Wing.
And maybe that's why the Democrats finally have reason to grin. They have failed so far to take down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales with tales of the man's hackery, sycophancy, and boundless apathy. But now we're being treated to a graphic retelling of the AG's efforts to browbeat a critically ill man into signing off on the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance program.
Wait. Now even I'm grinning.

Read the rest. Really. You won't regret it. It's the sort of story that makes you realise that no matter how completely insane you might think the world is, it's more crazy and beautifully hilarious than you could possibly imagine. I can also recommend watching the video of the testimony if you've got 15 minutes to spare - I was sitting there open-mouthed with awe.

i call godwin's law

"He is the international Gestapo and a criminal ... he is worse than anybody else, his actions in banning the cricket is just one example of being the Gestapo," [Zimbabwe's Information and Publicity Minister] Dr Ndlovu said of Mr Howard.

... because banning a cricket tour is just like all that stuff that the Gestapo did. It's true - look it up. The Gestapo hated cricket.