Moderation, anyone?

So we go from an arguably straight white woman with zero judicial experience to another straight white guy with "more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 10 years"? Am I the only one with whiplash?

And why, oh why, is his wife (Martha) wearing white hose? With slingbacks! The ongoing DC Style problem continues.

[Stylish or a Patriot]- FGB

Knowing you were wrong is half the battle

Forwarded from Ebay by The Privacy Guru:

You are bidding on a mistake.

We all make mistakes. We date the wrong people for too long. We chew gum with our mouths open. We say inappropriate things in front of grandma. And we buy leather pants.

I can explain these pants and why they are in my possession. I bought them many, many years ago under the spell of a woman whom I believed to have taste. She suggested I try them on. I did. She said they looked good. I wanted to have a relationship of sorts with her. I’m stupid and prone to impulsive decisions. I bought the pants. The relationship, probably for better, never materialized. The girl, whose name I can’t even recall, is a distant memory. I think she was short.

Ultimately the pants were placed in the closet where they have remained, unworn, for nearly a decade. I would like to emphasize that: Aside from trying these pants on, they have never, ever been worn. In public or private.

I have not worn these leather pants for the following reasons:

I am not a member of Queen.
I do not like motorcycles.
I am not Rod Stewart.
I am not French.
I do not cruise for transvestites in an expensive sports car.

These were not cheap leather pants. They are Donna Karan leather pants. They’re for men. Brave men, I would think. Perhaps tattooed, pierced men. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say you either have to be very tough, very gay, or very famous to wear these pants and get away with it. Again, they’re men’s pants, but they’d probably look great on the right lady. Ladies can get away with leather pants much more often than men can. It’s a sad fact that men who own leather pants will have to come to terms with.They are size 34x34. I am no longer size 34x34, so even were I to suddenly decide I was a famous gay biker I would not be able to wear these pants. These pants are destined for someone else. For reasons unknown - perhaps to keep my options open, in case I wanted to become a pirate - I have shuffled these unworn pants from house to house, closet to closet. Alas, it is now time to part ways so that I may use the extra room for any rhinestone-studded jeans I may purchase in the future. These pants are in excellent condition. They were never taken on pirate expeditions. They weren’t worn onstage. They didn’t straddle a Harley, or a guy named Harley. They just hung there, sad and ignored, for a few presidencies.

Someone, somewhere, will look great in these pants. I’m hoping that someone is you, or that you can be suckered into buying them by a girl you’re trying to bed.

Please buy these leather pants.

mmmm winter

There's something about dressing for winter that almost compensates for the short, dark days. Almost. This cape is delish. And, in celebration of the season, have someone lace you up.

Life on a beach

I think part of me is wishing that I’d just spent the day on the beach, taken a long shower, changed into fresh white clothes and that I’m now sitting down on a porch with a view and a breeze and a pre-dinner snack of white wine and peel-and-eat shrimp. Care to join me?

All together now ...

Almost the entire blogosphere is posting minute by minute updates on the First Day of Fitzmas (or is it the last day of Fitzmas? I guess we'll know in half an hour when the press conference starts), so I'm not going to try to add to the cacophony. Here's a witty summary by Michael Kinsey, and otherwise, whether you've finally chosen your costume for the weekend festivities or are rubbing your hands together in glee at the initial crumbling of the Castle Rove Built, enjoy the weekend.

Wabi sabi - Not

The two dominant principles of Chinese and Japanese art and culture are wabi and sabi. Wabi refers to a philosophical construct, a sense of space, direction, or path, while sabi is an aesthetic construct rooted in a given object and its features, plus the occupation of time, chronology, and objectivity. Though the terms are and should be referred to distinctly, they are usually combined as wabi-sabi, as both a working description and as a single aesthetic principle.

[Hermitary]

And then there are those who don't give a damn about aesthetics, like the people behind Ninja New York. Frank Bruni goes off on the place in today's Dining & Wine section. It is:

a kooky, dreary subterranean labyrinth that seems better suited to coal mining than to supping. You are greeted there by servers in black costumes who ceaselessly bow, regularly yelp and ever so occasionally tumble, and you are asked to choose between two routes to your table. I recommend a third path: right back out the door. Granted, you will be denied the sating of any curiosity about what a $3.5 million design budget permits in the way of faux stone walls, make-believe gorges and mock torches. You will forgo an iota of modest amusement. But you will be spared an infinitely larger measure of tedium, a visually histrionic smorgasbord of undistinguished food and a discordant bill that can easily exceed $100 a person with tax, tip and drinks.

Ouch.

We wish you a Merry Fitzmas

In Seattle, The Stranger is celebrating recent events in the other Washington with:
The Stranger's Indictment Night Party

Thursday, October 27, 2005 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM)
The Mirabeau Room

529 Queen Anne Ave N (Google Maps) Seattle, Washington

There will be drink specials, and special drinks, including:

• The Judith Miller, so strong you'll forget where you ever heard the name Valerie Plame (or, if you actually heard the name as "Valerie Flame," and wrote it down in your notebook that way, making it hard to claim you remember nothing, this drink will cure you of any inconvenient memories of who told you to write the name down that way in the first place)
• The Fitzgerald, a straight shot of Irish whiskey, in honor of our straight-shooting special prosecutor
• The Scooter Libby (aka The Scooter Shooter), which will of course involve Tequila
• The George W. Bush, a non-alcoholic beer followed by "a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey"
• The Valerie Flame, a flaming shot of a fancy, sophisticated, and currently top-secret substance

Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott has kindly pledged to offer a toast at the party.

This isn't The Muppet Show, people

Although it's fun watching everyone vying for Statler & Waldorf's prime seats.

The NYT reported this morning that The Big Bad, VP Cheney hisself told Scooter Libby about Ms. Plame weeks before her identity came out.
(Btw, when I'm outed as a CIA agent, I'm going public with a photo like this one - not to mention the kick-ass husband. Our Gal Val is clearly an FG at heart.)

The Note sums it up best, as usual:

12 hours and 1,759 phone calls and e-mail messages later, no other news organization in America has matched the New York Times' historic lede: "I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday." 12 hours and 1,759 phone calls and e-mail messages later, no one has said the story is wrong.

No comment required

October 25, 2005
U.S. Military Deaths Reach 2, 000 in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:45 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military death toll in the Iraq war reached 2,000 with the announcements Tuesday of three more deaths.

The Pentagon announced that Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday in San Antonio of injuries sustained Oct. 17.

Alexander was wounded in Samarra, a town 60 miles north of the Iraqi capital. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga.

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of two unidentified Marines in fighting with insurgents last week in a village west of Baghdad. The deaths raised the Associated Press tally of military fatalities to 2,000 in the Iraq war, which began in March 2003.

President Bush warned the nation to brace for an even higher casualty count as the mission has more work remaining to be successful.

''The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we have ever faced, unconstrained by any notion of common humanity and by the rules of warfare,'' the president said in a speech before the Joint Armed Forces Officers' Wives' luncheon in Washington. ''No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead.''

The U.S. military said the two Marines were killed by a roadside bomb in fighting with insurgents on Friday near the village of Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad. The military said two other U.S. service members -- a Marine and a sailor -- were killed in that attack. Their deaths were announced Saturday, although the military said Tuesday its earlier report had erroneously said the sailor was a Marine.

The Iraqi death toll is unknown, but estimates range much higher.

Iraq Body Count, a British research group that compiles figures from reports by major news agencies and British and U.S. newspapers, has said that as many as 30,051 Iraqis have been killed since the war began. Other estimates range as high as 100,000.

U.S. and coalition authorities say they have not kept a count of such deaths, and Iraqi government accounting has proven to be haphazard.

Click here for Paul Fusco's moving photo essay [Daily Kos].

Shuesday: If you love someone

buy her shoes. Ask her friends for suggestions, if necessary, or just whisk her off to Cole Haan for the afternoon.
The Scottish Cowgirl recently received these for her birthday from her biggest fan.








If my boot wardrobe had the basics covered (I know, I'm working on it), and the sky was the limit, these would be my splurge - with a black cashmere t-neck, black skirt & elongated silver hoop earrings, or peeping out under a pair of jeans.

Cheeky Moniker

After Good Night, And Good Luck - run, don't walk to your nearest theatre, don't wait to rent it unless your tv screen is enormous - on Friday, we wandered over to Crow (get it?) for a most delicious meal.

We began with wedges of delightfully salty Manchego cheese wrapped in grape leaves and warmed until the cheese is melty and served over ratatouille. Then we savoured a light but rich potato fennel soup, and sipped ginger lemon drops and Lillet. I ate a beautifully earthy chanterelle mushroom risotto, perfectly cooked and sprinkled with parmesan cheese, and The Renaissance Man had an extrordinary lamb shank over polenta that was good to the last gnaw. These were accompanied by glasses of DeLoach pinot noir and Santa Rita Cab-sauv. For dessert, chocolate pound cake with zabaglione (Renaissance Man thought it needed marsala instead of the orange liqueur used).

MENSA Lexicon

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. And the FG thought these were good enough to share:

Re-intarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and
it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

What a whiff of The Gilmore Girls can do

Note: Trivial Kate is entirely to blame for the FG's occasional dip into the wealthy and pristine pool that is Stars Hollow, Connecticut.*

So last week, I'm told, the secondary plot on GG involved a move to accentuate the town's history by reverting to the original street names. This caused a crisis for the denziens of the Dragonfly Inn when they realized that that would place them on Sores & Boils Alley. The crisis was, of course, resolved within the alloted 42 minutes.

And today, the residents of Greenwich, Conn., awoke to the fact that some of the 'L. L. Bean-wearing, exercise-the-dog sort, (...) where Lacoste shirts and country club memberships are a virtual birthright,' reside on Hooker Lane. This is a story in the Times, I kid you not. Coincidence?

*Incidentally, did you know:

Gilmore Girls was the first series to make it to air supported by the Family Friendly Forum's script development fund. An initiative between some of the nation's top advertisers and The WB, the program is intended to offer a greater array of compelling family programming on network television. The strong and loving mother-daughter relationship portrayed in Gilmore Girls" reflects the growing reality of this new type of American family.

Stranded at the drive-in

What will they say?
Monday at school ...



I know, you've seen this photo before, but I'm repeat posting it in tribute to three of my favourite people, Badouliover, Trivial Kate and The Privacy Guru (who prefers to remain anonymous for obvious reasons), who are in The City this weekend, albeit for entirely different reasons.

I've already seen The Artist and The Actor this year, apparently all my wedding-related posting didn't make me a worthy date for TK's event, and I would just have stirred things up further at TPG's Board meeting. And so, I remain on the Left Coast, enjoying the sunshine and the attempts of the weather to achieve a state of seasonal crispness.

While I'm /outing/ people, I should add The Blue Fairy, who's just gone public with her site. Worth visiting for the photos alone.

James Spader - a man to grow old with

Seriously. Because he was beautiful in his 20's and 30's, is intelligent, witty and hilarious in his 40's , and because anyone who can turn Susan Sarandon on is good enough for me.

If he lost 10-20 pounds and kept the sex appeal and the smarts ... well, nuff said.*

*you may have noticed that, today, the FG is avoiding all mention of the DeLay arrest, the Miers nom, Waiting for Rove-ot, the Hussein trial, and Hurricane Wilma. She's assuming you're getting that stuff here, here or here. And if you're not, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. She told you Armageddon was on the way, it's not her fault if you don't study up.

Shuesday: The Mitten Glove Theory

The Scottish Cowgirl has a Mitten-Glove Theory explaining those compromise products that fail to achieve their intended goal. The mitten-glove is the classic example, and thus the theory bears its name, but there are countless others out there. (The Smitten is equally horrific, but for different reasons.) And today, we encountered this Mittens Boot, in a particularly egregious pattern.



I have nothing further.

Memories ...

The American Society of Magazine Editors (all currently attending a 'conference' in Puerto Rico), announced the top 40 magazine covers of the past 40 years - very fun. Several are iconic - John & Yoko, the pregnant Demi, but these are my favs.

When I grow up ...

I want to be a TSA baggage screener?


They even have tiny guns - it's part of the Playmobil Airport product line.

Maybe it's supposed to introduce your children to the joys of being searched by the government every time they attempt to take public transportation at an early age, before they're exposed to the Bill of Rights and their natural resistance to cavity searches asserts itself.

Oh, the food that we ate

This is part two of last Shuesday's post for those of you who've been clamoring for the 411 on meals consumed.

At Restaurant Zoe, there was champagne and grilled spicy octopus to start, followed by sauteed sea scallops with black trumpet mushrooms, sasafy, parsnips & butternut squash, and braised organic lamb's shoulder with corona beans, pickled cipollini onion and tomato arugula salad. And a delightful house made bite of chocolate & pistachio to send us on our way. The rehearsal dinner was held at the Palace Ballroom, Tom Douglas' catering venue. There, I focussed on the amazing O'Reilly's pinot noir and a few fresh shucked oysters. This was followed by dessert at Brasa - spanish doughnuts with an amazing creamy dipping sauce, and warm Vahlrona chocolate cake with espresso ice cream on the side and champagne cocktails.

And that was Friday. Saturday brunch was unworthy of mention, except for the beautiful hot scones that greeted us on arrival. The wedding dinner, however, will make up for it, I assure you. We began with a baby spinach and frisee salad with pomegranate seeds and vinagrette. And then, from the kitchen came Alaskan kazu cod with wild mushrooms, Hanger steak with Syrah jam crispy onions, roasted turnips with beet greens, snap peas and bitter sweet shallots, Kentucky wonder beans with toasted garlic and thyme, brown butter delicata squash and creamy polenta (I saved the best for last - it was o so good.). Dessert featured three lighter-than-air offerings - pumpkin cake with cinnamon spice cream cheese frosting, lemon chiffon with lemon curd and devil's food with chocolate truffle ganache. And then, just when we'd been dancing long enough to feel a bit peckish, they came out with a cheese plate with dried fruit, cheese straws and fresh bread. These were all delivered by the delightful Tony ... but that's another story.

Brunch on Sunday was at Lola (clearly it was a good weekend for TD)- housemade granola with delicious greek yoghurt and amazing fresh blueberries. And dinner was at Monsoon - dungeness crab and shrimp crispy spring rolls, grilled monterey squid stuffed with dry shiitake and duck meat, wokked white gulf shrimp with garlic and tamarind sauce, asian eggplant with green onions in spicy coconut sauce, spicy organic green beans with butternut squash and wokked soft noodles with yellow foot mushrooms, duck egg and green onions.

And on the fourth day, we rested. Was it good for you?

Now this is a photo of Colin Firth a girl can get into

Even if he is with his lovely Italian wife...

Yelling good, crying bad

In case you were confused, although women are welcome in the workplaces and boardrooms of these United States, they'd better not be themselves. (Big Girls Don't Cry). According to William H. Frey II, (author of "Crying: The Mystery of Tears"):

Nature may also make women more prone to tears than men, he said, explaining that both boys and girls cry about the same amount until the age of 12. But by the time women reach 18, they are crying four times as much as men, said Dr. Frey, who has conducted research on behavioral, personality and genetic aspects of crying. Scientists do not know exactly why women tend to cry more easily, but Dr. Frey said several factors may be at work. One is the hormone prolactin, he said, which is present in mammary glands and induces lactation but is also found in the blood and in tear glands. Boys and girls have about equal levels of prolactin levels in their blood during childhood. But from ages of 12 to 18, the levels in girls gradually rise, and that may have something to do with why women cry more than men. Tear glands in men and women also differ anatomically, and that, too, may lead women to cry more easily, Dr. Frey said.

Stoicism has officially replaced shoulderpads for women working outside the home. You can do a man's job, but don't you dare demonstrate frustration through tears. Even Martha agrees. Which brings up the question of Oprah, who cries for us regularly. Isn't that projected invulnerability part of what 'people' dislike so much about Martha? The work 'weak' hardly comes to mind vis a vis Ms. Winfrey.

"Men are allowed to be more direct," said Marianne LaFrance, a psychology professor at Yale University. "They can pound table tops and yell and throw something against walls and do various kinds of physical acting out. Women's mode of expression is supposed to be more passive, more childlike." She continued, "If women could act out like men, there would probably be less tears."

The goal is to be able to act out /like men/? Frankly, someone who punches a hole in the wall makes me far more nervous.

Give me a good man

over a grossly underqualified, religiously ass-kissing, heavy handed kohl-wearing, one-dimensional woman for a SCOTUS seat anyday. You may not like Tina Brown, but it's hard to argue with her dissection of the Miers nomination in today's WA Post. (See, I do like the post, I do!) Exerpts:

The healthiest aspect of the Harriet Miers nomination is that women haven't rallied to her cause. Ten years ago, there would have been a lot of reflexive solidarity about keeping the Sandra Day O'Connor spot on the Supreme Court from reverting to male type. But every female lawyer I've spoken with in the past week skips right past the sisterly support into a rant about Miers's meager qualifications or her abject obeisance to power. (...) The president favors women like Rice, Miers and Hughes because he has the kind of combustible male ego that needs to be "handled" -- and they know it, Miers better than most. (...) Twenty years or even 10 years ago ABC's "Commander in Chief" would have been a sitcom, not a drama. Now it's Bush who's the sitcom, though the laughs are bitter. He's the biggest reason why female leaders suddenly seem so relevant. He has debased the currency of machismo. From Iraq to New Orleans and back to Washington, his empty posturings, bonehead mistakes and panicky pratfalls have turned testosterone into Kryptonite. The cultural stage is being set for a woman president, even if the current understudies, from Hillary to Condi, end up stumbling over their own props or never come out of the wings. (...) Happy Birthday, Lady T(hatcher) -- and hail to you and all the women who've gone before! You won us the freedom to say that if opting for a Harriet Miers means we risk getting not just a sycophant but a stem-cell-banning, abortion-denying, Bible-thumping presidential sycophant, maybe we'd just as soon have a guy.

Coincidence?

The FG is floored (floored!) at the similarities of her posts yesterday on holiday sweaters, matching family sweaters and Harriet Miers' blog (see below) and the Manolo's similar posting today. The Manolo, naturellement, has FAR better photos.

I'll put this down to great fashion minds thinking alike. Besides, the FG just can't bring herself to mock Colin Firth, although she wishes he'd drop a few pounds (sorry Rainster).

You spin me right round, baby, right round

Of course The Daily Show can survive a spin-off - although it might have made more sense to shore up the interview section of the show first, and the current head shot on the website is a tad creepy, Jon. Is the NYT really comparing The Colbert Report to Joey?

Guess we'll have to wait until 10/17 to find out just how good it really is. And we can always use that last 10 minutes of TDS to brush our teeth & put on our jammies, right kids?

You can be stylish or a patriot ...

But possibly not both. Bear with me, I'll get to the point soon. Seasonal sweaters have always been one of my pet peeves, (along with matching children/mother-daughter outfits, but that's another bloggable moment), and this country does them like no other. And today, the WA Post has a QVC rated- story in their Style section called Rhinestones are a Girl's Best Friend. I'm not kidding. To wit:

Jeanne Bice, maker of sequined Christmas tree sweaters and promoter of year-round good cheer, creates clothes for women who are always celebrating one thing or another, the sort who decorate for Thanksgiving with little Pilgrim salt 'n' peppers.

Bice's zest for life is reflected in her use of rhinestones, which appear on a line of knit tops and stretch leggings that have proved popular on the QVC shopping network. Last year she sold $50 million worth of clothes, and her company is considered one of the network's top apparel lines. On the set of her show recently, Bice is wearing a black top smothered with sequins and a pair of rhinestone candy corn earrings she happens to be selling for Halloween.

First of all, there shouldn't even be a WA Post Style section. I mean, let's consider how the women of DC dress and do their hair. It's certainly a style ... as in, all the same style. Perhaps the newspaper section is a relic from the Kennedy era? Still, in what galaxy are stretch leggings considered stylish? They must be mocking the entrepreneuring lady. I adjusted the sensitivity on my irony meter, but caught not a whiff in the entire article. Although it didn't take the FG to point out the prime market for these singular items:

She says her customers tend to be from the Midwest, like her -- positive, patriotic people, intent on changing "the world one smile at a time."

Patriotic? The FG reserves the right to stand up for those who consider themselves patriotic and know that they don't have to wear blue denim stretch leggings with a rhinestone studded star at the left hem to prove it.

So grateful for an empty stomach

The NYT reports:

"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

Ms. Miers, President Bush's personal lawyer and his selection for a Supreme Court seat, emerges as an unabashed fan in more than 2,000 pages of official correspondence and personal notes made public on Monday by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in response to open-records requests.

Oh please, please let this woman be withdrawn from contention as a candidate to the highest court in the land. I cannot stomach it, as a woman, as a human being, it is too much to bear. I'm counting on the ECG's Gandalf-esque assertion that "She shall not pass."

Shuesday: Here comes the Bride

No, it was't me, silly.

The FG was an an insanely fabulous wedding this weekend in Seattle - rehearsal dinner here, ceremony here (typically unpredictable weather prevented it from being held here), and reception here. (there will be more on the food in a separate post).

As an indication of the relative wealth of the crowd, let me say that 98 per cent of the women were wearing stockings, even those under 30. I was not one of them, I'm just Note-ing it. That may be meaningless to some of you, but I'm confident that others will fully understand.

The dresses were lovely, but the SHOES! Have spend ridiculous parts of today searching for the best shoes I saw there and am forced to present you with this almost-replica pair. Those at the wedding had a pointy, closed-toe, were a lovely cranberry satin, I'm confident were FAR more expensive than these, and were worn by a beautiful blonde woman in a cranberry dress.

Travel Lexicon, courtesy Daily Candy

Daily Candy does it again with their smart-ass lexicon to amuse you as you sit in the waiting area for your next flight ... or in the British Airways FIRST lounge.

business ass
n. The dude who shows up at the airport in his best suit thinking it will help get him an upgrade.

deflydrated
adj. Used to describe the dried-up, greenish appearance of post-flight skin.

frequent liar
n. Someone who boasts incessantly about traveling to places he/she has never been.

heirport
n. On-the-spot airport created in a remote location to accommodate a private jet carrying passengers en route to seasonal home. (Our new island is days away from the nearest commercial landing strip, so we’ll have to use daddy’s heirport to land.)

jet hag
n. The overly dressed, overly perfumed woman in desperate search of an on-flight date.

scary-on
n. An piece of luggage that’s clearly too big to fit into a plane’s overhead compartment.

Screamese
n. The loud form of English used only to speak to foreigners. (Rather than learn a few rudimentary terms in Spanish, Harold preferred to ask for directions in Screamese.)

sluggage
n. Luggage that always seems to come out of baggage claim last. (I’ll get there later. Just waiting on my sluggage.)

Cause-metics et al: Caveat Emptor

Before you go out and buy anything & everything festooned with pink ribbons in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, do your homework (or read this article - the NYT Style section people have done some of it for you.)

The FG finds it a little hard to believe that every month isn't breast cancer awareness month - if you don't know anyone who has it, or has had it, or who has a family member who has, you're living in a more circumscribed world that anyone I know. But it doesn't hurt to crank up the volume every now and again.

There's another Corddry on The Daily Show

Rob Corddry has a little brother! With hair! Named Nate! And no, I have no links at this time, but apparently he's also a Boy Scout.

If you missed it tonight, it will be on again tomorrow at 8 p.m., I promise.

Laughter: More intimate than a kiss?

There was a moment on Boston Legal* this evening that was, per usual for James Spader, detatched and yet moving. His character caught his girlfriend (recommend you explore that link if you're into beautiful, haughty British women) laughing with an old friend (recommend you explore that link if you're into beautiful, haughty British queers), really laughing, and concluded that he had lost her. William Shatner's character suggests that perhaps, instead of laughing, the former couple were 'just' kissing, but no, the intimacy runs much deeper.

So the question is ... is it easier to kiss a woman than it is to make her laugh?

* by the way - did ABC redo all their websites? patently /hip/ (not).

A Talbots frequent shopper

When it comes to this morning's SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers (I spent all day calling her Edith, Gertrude, Hortense and every other unfortunate girls' name in my head, my apologies to all your grandmothers & great-aunts), I would have gone with 'make-up by the Old Towne Girls', but I'll take it from Jon Stewart. At least now we'll have a Justice who personifies "i before e" rule. And neither the right nor the left are particularly happy, so bi-partisanship lives on ... ?

In truth, the FG has a long lost and rarely discussed relationship with the clothing chain behind the big red door. Let's just say she can fold a mean stack of sweaters.

The West Wing: Ripped from the Headlines

Really, are they taking cues from Law & Order? A reporter who won't reveal his White House source goes directly to jail for contempt of court? Come on. Give us more Alan Alda and original plot lines - we BEG you. And if there's supposed to be sexual tension between CJ Craig and Greg Brock, I'm not seeing it.

Oops, wrong number

Why do these stories always come out late on a Friday? I wonder ...

The FBI admits to making occasional errors when setting up secret wiretaps under the Patriot Act.

The FBI would not say how often these mistakes happen. And, though any incriminating evidence mistakenly collected is not legally admissible in a criminal case, there is no way of knowing whether it is used to begin an investigation.

Parts of the Patriot Act, including a section on "roving wiretaps," expire in December. Such wiretaps allow the FBI to get permission from a secret federal court to listen in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a terrorism suspect may be using, regardless of whether others who are not suspects also regularly use it.

The FBI could not say Friday whether people are notified that their conversations were mistakenly intercepted or whether wrongly tapped telephone numbers were deleted from bureau records.

Privacy activists said the FBI's explanation of the mistaken wiretaps was unacceptably vague, and that in an era of cell phones and computers it is easier than ever for the government to access communications from innocent third parties.

"What do you mean you are intercepting the wrong subject? How often does it occur? How long does it go on for?" said James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Just in case you thought the Patriot Act didn't affect you.