That look of perpetual surprise on the President's face isn't faked: He and his Administration appear incapable of anticipating the sunrise. Condoleeza Rice, May 16, 2002: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." George W. Bush, September 1, 2005: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." The two biggest one-day disasters of the Bush presidency -- of the past fifty years -- and the collective response of the President and his advisors is: "Well, goll-lee!" Thousands lay dead, hundreds of billions of dollars in property is destroyed and...

How much do you want to bet the campaign's slogan ends up being "More cowbell!" ...

The governator is proving more and more unpopular as a political leader the longer he stays on the job. Perhaps we should have another special election and recall him, too? The most recent poll shows that Arnold's approval rating is down to 34%, and that poll was taken even before the whole "I'm a governor -- and a magazine editor!" fiasco. A year ago, Schwarzenegger could do no wrong, as the action-adventure steroid booster had a 57% approval rating among Californians who think being an "actor" who plays a guy who fights alien bounty hunters is just like being the leader of...

In these times of overwhelming Christian agendas and the rise of the Bible-thumpers, what's an atheist to do? It seems like the only class of people in the U.S. more detested and misunderstood than us fags are the heathen non-believers. Faced with the growing political power of the fundamentalist organization, atheists are trying to team up and present a united front, struggling to make their tiny little voices heard within the flood of bestsellers about the afterlife and films about bloody, suffering Jesus. Atheists are often portrayed as, variously, immoral, unpatriotic, disrespectful and lacking integrity as if a belief in a...

Imagine a country where you could lose the property you rightfully own just because the government decides to change the rules on you and suddenly, you find yourself homeless. While this may be an overstatement in the U.S. (until, at least, they start testing the limits of a certain Supreme Court ruling), in Moscow it seems that the only people who own anything anymore are those with the cash to bribe elected officials into changing the laws on a day-to-day basis. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, all property was owned by the state and the Communist Party....

With the question of who leaked Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent now resolved (answer: everyone in the Bush Administration), perhaps the Washington press corps would like to use up some of the energy they've built up to take these few remaining open issues: Who forged the Niger/Yellowcake documents, and why? Once considered a smoking gun, papers that claimed Iraq was attempting to buy nuclear fuel from Niger have been proven forgeries. Discrediting Joseph Wilson's dispute of them was the impetus for outing Plame. But who actually created the documents and what their motivation was has never...

California governor and likely steroid abuser Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an $8 Million endorsement deal with the publisher of bodybuilding magazines two days before being sworn into office, and there wouldn't ordinarily be anything wrong with that -- except that the funds come from 1% of magazine ad revenue, many of which are health supplements. And, oops, Arnold vetoed legislation last year that would have imposed government regulations on... the health supplements industry! Talk about things that make you go "holy shit!" Elected officals can keep their outside jobs by law, and in his defense his office said he vetoed the bill because...

If Newsweek is right, and it appears that they are since no one's denying anything, then the Minister of Darkness, Karl Rove, is the mouth that spilled the beans to the press about Valerie Plame's C.I.A. lifestyle. Or one of those who did -- either way, it's coming clear that it was the White House that leaked the name in one way or another, and now their dance of legal speak begins. It depends on what your definition of "is" is, to quote another legal dance expert. It's not hard to predict that, once again, the administration is likely to squeeze its...

The party that spent countless news minutes to position itself as the banner holder for a "culture of life" is speeding up the death penalty so the government has less impediments to kill its citizens on death row. Dubbed the "Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005," congressional Republicans are just oh so tired of those damned criminals getting away with murder, literally, so they'd like to be able to kill them with less messy litigation. Looking at the numbers, Texans absolutely love killing, while 9 other states perform at least one execution per year and the rest of these United States that allow...

Same-sex marriage foes in the U.S. often say that they're trying to protect "marriage," because if "marriage" isn't a union between one man and one woman, it could mean anything! Those that think the gays are raising a stink over a little thing -- the word "marriage" -- sometimes say "it doesn't matter all that much, really. It's just a word. You can have the same rights without calling it marriage." In California, we basically have those same rights under the domestic partner law. It states that registered couples within California have the right to every state spousal law except joint...