"C", continued.

Wesley Clark's cell phone records, for $89.95: Just click on this. It's really horrifying.

Cary Tennis: has the capacity to combine, in a single paragraph, lovely insights with utter pap. For example, today he writes to a woman whose husband does not want her to get an MFA in fine art. Note that the husband does not want her to be an artist; he simply does not want her to bother to go to school for it, arguing instead that she should just paint and get gallery shows. Tennis says that the husband should just let her go to school: "Sometimes things are valuable to us in ways we cannot articulate. One of the benefits of being married to a sympathetic and compatible person is that they will support us in our quest even when we cannot articulate what it is we are searching for or why it is valuable. This is particularly important for creative people. Creative people must be allowed to follow their hungers; sometimes they have nothing else to go on." It's beautiful and true what he says about married people -- lord knows Max has supported me in some remarkably quixotic quests. But it's trite and ridiculous to bring up some kind of special dispensation that 'creative people' should get to 'follow their hungers'. Incidentally, people wondering whether they should go to art school should read the excellent Why Art Cannot Be Taught.

"D"

Peter Daou : Man, that guy is depressing: "This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists - positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war - face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called “liberal” media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle." I like, however, the idea that we are fighting a "cold civil war". I mean, I don't like the idea, but I like the term. It gives what is going on a name that is sufficiently serious. (via)

Dead Frogs: caused by fungus driven by global warming, say scientists.

Deficit: WaPo says "This is the third straight year in which the White House has summoned reporters well ahead of the official budget release to project a higher-than-anticipated deficit. In the past two years, when final deficit figures have come in at record or near-record levels, White House officials have boasted that they had made progress, since the final numbers were below estimates."

Democrat as an adjective is really offensive, and also incorrect.

Detainee Abuse: I really hate this euphemism for prisoner torture.

Diamonds: I wear a diamond engagement ring. It means a lot to me, and it's very pretty. But if we had it to do again, I wouldn't ask for a diamond (and yeah, I did tell Max I needed a ring. For a lot of stupid reasons, I suppose...). I'd probably still want a ring, but maybe I'd get a sapphire, or an opal. I wear no other jewelry, so it's nice to wear something sparkly. But there's no reason the sparklies should be diamonds, and lots of reasons they probably shouldn't be.

Digby is my favorite blogger. Today he explains just exactly why it is so ridiculous to compare Bush and Churchill.

Illegal Domestic Surveillance by the NSA, on Bush Administration orders may predate September 11, according to some sources. Pundits continue to spin the story as "Democrats get vapors over U.S. being aggressive about preventing terrorism", and no doubt there's nothing that can be done about this, really. Still, I'll take this opportunity to point out that those of us who are exercised about this are bugged (arggh) not because the U.S. was revealed to have been spying on suspected terrorists, but because 1) the government (including the NSA, DOD, and FBI, and probably everyone else too) s also, apparently, spying on LOTS of people who are not suspected terrorists. 2) Lots of the spying is, um, specifically prohibited, i.e. illegal. 3) there's no good reason they couldn't have gone through legal channels to authorize the spying, or gone to Congress to change the laws. 4) they insist that we should trust them not to abuse their unlimited power to spy on us, even though all they've done since getting into office is abuse their power.

Donner Party: In case you cared, which you probably didn't, the Donner Party split into two groups, only one of which ate people.

Dupes: firedoglake on media dupes and the press release issued shortly after Mrs. Alito staged her crying fit at the confirmation hearings.