There's a bizarre story at Harpers. Apparently Pakistan's education ministry is removing a poem entitled "The Leader" from future versions of an eleventh grade English textbook. The reason? It's an acrostic -- the first letter in each line, taken together, spell "President George W. Bush" And what a piece of doggerel it is. Full poem after the jump for those with well tamed gag reflexes.

Ralph Reed got his valentine from the Georgia Republican party early, but he seems to be less than thrilled.

Republican senators urge Reed to quit race

By JIM GALLOWAY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/04/06

Twenty-one Republican state senators on Friday called for Ralph Reed to withdraw from the contest for lieutenant governor, declaring that his ties to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff could jeopardize the re-election of Gov. Sonny Perdue and the rest of the GOP ticket.

"For the good of the Republican Party, for the good of Georgia, we encourage Ralph Reed to withdraw from this race," stated the petition signed by the senators, all of whom support Reed's GOP rival, state Sen. Casey Cagle of Gainesville.

Did you ever play any of the 80s Infocom text adventures, like Zork, on your old Commodore 64 or Apple II? (If not, you can play them on line here.) If so, you need to check out the hilarious post at defective yeti, excerpted below...

[Updated Below] Oh man. If this doesn't wake up the so-called "Libertarian" faction of the right wing, they're gonna be rudely surprised when they awake from their Rip Van Winkle slumber...

Feds want Google search records
BUSH LAWYERS ASK JUDGE TO MAKE GOOGLE HAND OVER DATA; GOOGLE PROMISES A FIGHT
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

More on the flip...

The wingers' blades are whirring for poor Harriet, and they don't seem to care at this point if Dubya takes some collateral splatter.

Josh points us to the WorldNetDaily, of all places.

Miers panel to hear 'explosive testimony'?
Gag order lifted for ex-lottery boss claiming
Miers kept 'lid' on Bush Guard controversy

Released from a gag order, Larry Littwin – the controversial former director of the Texas Lottery under Harriet Miers – is free to appear at the upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings to give "potentially explosive" testimony damaging both to President Bush and his nominee, according to WND columnist Jerome Corsi.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, Littwin allegedly was fired by Miers because he wanted to investigate improper political influence-buying by lobbyists for GTECH, the firm contracted to run the lottery.

More revelations after the jump...

From Murray Waas' latest in the National Journal, entitled Rove Assured Bush He Was Not Leaker:

If Rove purposely misled the president, the FBI, or the White House press secretary, a reasonable prosecutor might construe such acts as 'overt acts in furtherance of a criminal plan'.

   

This AFP article should be a wake up call, but I haven't seen any reference to the relevant passage in the US press.

IMF head questions US approach to deficits

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The head of the IMF questioned the effectiveness of the Bush administration's plan to reduce US financial deficits, warning that it would have been hard to implement even without Hurricane Katrina. [Snip spin from U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow...]

Relevant passage below the fold...

Wonder how long this'll last...

Right-click and copy the link to Bob Herbert's column on the times front page and you get this URL:

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/opinion/19herbert.html?hp

If you replace 'select' with 'www' and delete everything after '.html' you get:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/opinion/19herbert.html

Which is a live link to today's column. Works with Krugman too. And I was beginning to think that the NYT didn't 'get' the web.  :)

What a revoltin' development: NY Times

The Senate Intelligence Committee will conduct hearings on American spy agencies' use of cover to protect the identities of intelligence officers, the committee chairman said on Sunday.

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said on the CNN program "Late Edition" that the committee was "going to go into quite a series of hearings in regard to cover." The practice of intelligence cover has come under scrutiny during the investigation of the disclosure of the C.I.A. employment of Valerie Wilson, who had worked under cover for the agency for 18 years before being publicly identified as a C.I.A. operative in 2003.

So far, so good. But...

Released today in the US...

http://tinyurl.com/9ju59 [Amazon]
--------------
Freedom Fries

The father, son and the Holy Ghost
Took the last train to the coast
They were moving fast, they were raising sand
They were running wild in the promised land

The father, son and the three wise men
Operating undercover out in Bethlehem
Will they heal the sick? Can they raise the dead?
Can they bring it on home like the good book says?

Billy the Kid told the Prince of Thieves,
A little give and take to satisfy my needs
You can give me lots but I'll take some more
I got my eyes on your treasure beneath the desert floor?

Freedom fries and burns and scars
The liberator goes too far
Freedom fries and screams and yells
The promised land is promised hell
--------------

OK, it's Clapton's turn...

http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/StolenHonor.htm

This video isn't streamed; you don't have to watch it to download it.

The contract/rebate talk is BS -- bandwidth is bandwith. But broadband users can easily cost this self described 'rich Republican' money by right-clicking on this link and saving Stolen Honor to disk.

Unfortunately this may also slow the spread of this 'fair & balanced' video. Delete and repeat at your convenience. :)

Jeepers Creepers
Where'd Ya Get Those Peepers...

The Hill has an article, "Bush-Cheney gets businesses' help in rush to the polls", describing a Republi-Corp. GOTV effort aimed at getting the drones to vote early.

I'll be using it too.  ; )