NY Times headline: "White House Picks Chairman of SEC: A Representative of Industries Will Now Regulate Them." The 2nd phrase is sort of a generic, I think.

There seem to be no more stories on Bush's daughter's drinking. We need a proper tabloid press like the British have. The Sun just flew Ronnie Biggs back to face justice and suck all the news coverage away from the general election that Blair should be announcing today. Ronnie Biggs, if you don't know, once (and by once I mean on the day I was born) helped rob a train. It was either a really great train or a really great robbery, I'm not sure which. He escaped from prison in 1965 and has been living in Brazil most of that time, most recently earning his living by letting Brits come and have tea with him (robbery proceeds last just so long). The British government, which has been rabid about getting this guy back for a rather long time for some reason, naturally expedited his passport, once he said he wanted to return, but the Tories are still accusing the government of doing so as an election stunt. I'm planning to enjoy this particular circus as much as I can. I must check if the Sun is online, I think it is.

I got off track. I meant to try to work into the bit about Jenna Bush a line I'm stealing from a Martin Amis novel about all rich kids going through a cocaine phase--at birth their parents set their names down for the posh drying-out spots.

Still, it's not as weird as trying to sneak into Japan on a fake passport to go to Disneyland.

In its ongoing efforts to start a new cold war, the US yesterday resumed spy plane flights off China's coast, and Rummy Rumsfeld said he'd really like to put offensive weapons into outer space.

If I were the Chinese, I'd break the spy plane down into 1.3 billion pieces and parcel it out amongst the populace. Like the Berlin Wall.