The President is slowly introducing some reality to his talking points about oil. Tonight he bemoaned Amerca’s addiction to oil and correctly pointed out the dangers of our current crash course with petro-disaster.

It’s the cartoonish antics of anti-war activists that undermine the legitimate arguments against American imperialism, especially in the Middle East. I think it was Dan Dannett who said, “there’s nothing I dislike more than a bad argument for a point of view I hold dear.”

Sheehan could have taken a much more dignified approach and sent a much stronger message by just sitting in the well of the House throughout the speech, quietly. Instead, she has apparently pulled an idiotic shenanigan and will miss the speech.

And right when you thought things couldn’t get any scarier, try this frightening exchange that occurred yesterday at the National Press Club between Jonathan Landay, a reporter for Knight-Ridder, and General Michael Hayden, Deputy Director of US Intelligence. I just watched an edited version on MSNBC:

Landay: “…the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to violate an American’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures..”

Gen. Hayden [indignant]: “Just to be very clear … mmkay… and believe me, if there’s any Amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the Fourth. Alright? And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional standard is ‘reasonable’.”

No need for the General to brush up on the Fourth amendment, I suppose .. after all, we don’t seem to be using it. A good piece – with the full transcript – tonight by E&P here.

Hurricane Katrina shows that “God is mad at America…” … and with any luck, New Orleans will be “chocolate” again. Who sayeth? A moronic, rabid right-winger like Pat Robertson? A racist homeless guy, mumbling outside the packie store between swigs of Mag Dog? Nono folks, it’s good old Mayor Nagin shooting his stupid mouth off, again.

As you’ve heard predicted in this space before, Nikon finally came right out and said it yesterday: after over fifty years, they will cease production of film cameras “one by one”. According to today’s New York Times piece, spokesperson Akira Abe cited the “dramatic” shrinkage of the market for film cameras.

So apparently, the Governator is not licensed to ride a motorbike, unless it has a sidecar, which it did. This seems stupid… then again, these people elected Arnold.

Craig Smith of the New York Times wrote a short but pretty good piece profiling Albert Hoffman just prior to his 100th birthday. Worth a read for you psychonauts out there. I enjoyed some of his comments on sensory perception and cognition – that the “external” sensory world really only exists internally. He refers to LSD as “medicine for the soul” which, I think, is a perfect way to describe it.

Time is reporting that Congressman Cunningham wore a wire while cooperating with federal investigators. If he was wearing that thing in the cloakroom, or just while talking with colleagues, things could get very interesting for Republicans. I don’t know what the solution is to this mess. I would not be surprised to see McCain or someone lead a full break from the Republican pack on this issue. Democrats share in the guilt and responsibility here. Some of these lobbying firms that make their living inflating my tax bill represent a lot of what is broken in Washington.

There does seem to be a currency “perrfect storm” converging. One analyst says China’s recent moves (driving gold to today’s closing of $541) represent a “death blow” to the US Dollar.

“Our family is dead because they lied to us…” – Family member of a miner who died in the Sago, WV explosion [MSNBC, 1/4/06]

Umm, no. Your family is dead because they were in a mine two miles underground during a very large methane explosion. I understand tragedy can be very disorienting and confusing. And yes, the communications about these guys was terribly botched. But, the botching of the communications did not kill these guys. And no sane human thinks this was lying. Stupidity, yes – but not lying. And, that stupidity is not to blame for their deaths. Perhaps the saddest part is the irony that it was apparently family members themselves who initially started spreading the word that they were alive.

It’s also extremely angering that the media would perpetuate all of this last night when these reports were totally unconfirmed. Not a single official had gone on record to say these guys were OK. Yet it ran in dozens of newspapers this morning and all over the web.

This is an unfortunate and painful illustration of that old adage, “a lie is halfway around the world before the truth even gets its pants on.”