Back from Not Burning Man

I'm home from my Labor Day weekend travels, although this year I did not go to Burning Man. I went for eight consecutive years: seven years with a group of friends, and then last year all by myself when our group's camp failed to materialize. This year I went to a retreat with the Discovery Community, up in Lake County, California. While I was gone, apparently Senator Larry Craig (R–MSP; er, umm, R–ID, I mean) is thinking about not resigning in the midst of the sex scandal surrounding his stopover in the Minneapolis airport in June. And it seems that just about no one else has noticed that Senator John Warner (R–VA), in announcing his retirement, pulled a quote supposedly from the Constitution out of thin air, thereby giving the wrong date for his last day in office. The Constitution (specifically Amendment XX) says that his term ends at noon on 2009-01-03, but he seems to think he'll still be a Senator for another three days after that. It's not exactly significant, but dammit, it was my first genuine news "scoop" and hardly anyone noticed; harrumph.

Keith Olbermann had an excellent "Special Comment" tonight about George Bush's admission that he is stalling for time in Iraq in the hopes of locking in the next President to stay in Iraq for years and years. The link will take you to MSNBC's transcript and video of the segment.