UPDATE: What other corporate gifts should Bush receive for his 60th birthday?  Vote in the latest poll (left) or suggest your own.

Looks like Left Behind won’t be the only video game Georgie enjoys during his next extended vacation.

Nintendo of America sent President Bush an early baby boomer gift pack today. The bag of presidential goodies includes a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day.

Now the subtleties of a gift like this may evade our presidential intellect, so Nintendo was sure to include this cover letter:

Dear President Bush:

Happy Birthday!

Don't worry, turning 60 is an exciting milestone. As you know, you've joined millions of other baby boomers in an invigorating new decade of your life. And, like many boomers, you may be looking for ways to keep your mind sharp. That's where we come in.

Please accept our gift of a new Nintendo DS Lite system and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. You now join millions of people around the world who have fun challenging themselves with Brain Age. If you have never played a video game before, don't worry. Brain Age is part of our new Touch Generations brand, which includes games that are easy for people of any age - regardless of their video game experience - to pick up and start playing immediately.

It's obvious you don't have a lot of time to play games, which makes Brain Age such a great activity for you - just a few minutes a day with more than 15 daily training tests will help keep your mind sharp. Training tests include categories like math, reading and memorization. Try it for a few days and watch your score improve. Brain Age also comes with more than 100 sudoku puzzles - these could make your next long flight on Air Force One a bit more fun! (Perhaps copies of Brain Age for journalists joining you on your next flight would be a nice distraction!)

Have fun exploring Brain Age with your Nintendo DS Lite and be sure to let us know your brain age!

Yes George, what exactly is your brain age? Personally, I would guess either 14 or 94.

Ahh, the sweet nectar of corporate guerilla terrorism.

Welcome to 1950’s Birmingham 21st century Louisianna: 

Jack Strain: "Now I don’t get into calling people names and all that fact, but if you’re gonna walk the streets of St. Tammany Parish with dreadlocks and "Chee Wee" hairstyles, then you can expect to be getting a visit from a sheriff’s deputy." 

He repeatedly refers to those displaced by the hurricane as “trash” that don’t belong in his parish.  My favorite part is when he claims defense lawyers are making one helluva posh living off of defending these “insert euphemism here.”  Never mind, of course, that court-appointed defense attorneys get paid about the same as flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Dillweed 

The title of this article is “Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts.”  As though they are covertly trying to sneak in rather than being actively.  To be fair, the first paragraph is a spot more accurate: 

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization. 

Nobody wants to be the president who institutes the draft.  But we’re running out of soldiers and they have to come from somewhere.  Why not the KKK?  After all, they’re already pretty good with the firearms and bad attitudes and come preindoctrinated with a hatred for brown folks.  They should fit right in when they get to Haditha.

This is really worth checking out. Norah O’Donnell pretty much lost her sh*t with Cindy Sheehan last night. But I have to say, Sheehan held her own and Norah was the one who came off looking like an irrational kook. I must say, Cindy’s media savvy has improved exponentially over the last year.

What can I say but – Genius! Who would have thought that courtesy would help capture hearts and minds. I always thought that gunfire and rape was the best way. I guess that’s why I’ll never work for the Pentagon.

Marines based in western Ramadi now regularly knock on people's front doors instead of storming through. Instead of roaming the streets in armored Humvees, Marines took a census of the area - sitting down and listening to people's concerns and complaints.

"You'd be surprised at how many people in Ramadi are shocked when we knock and ask to come in. And in Arab culture, it makes all the difference," said 2nd Lt. Ryan Hub of Sumter, S.C., who as a teenager lived in Kuwait for two years while his Air Force officer father was stationed there.

Umm, once more for the cheap seats. It’s not that it makes all the difference in Arab culture, it makes all the difference in every culture.  You boobs.

As a professional academic, I personally feel that plagiarism is the one crime worthy of torture.  Well, maybe not.  But these people should definitely be subject to a good public rogering. 

The fact that Coulter is guilty of intellectual theft is not surprising.  When you cherrypick support for a living, a sense of laziness and permissiveness inevitably takes hold.  TPM is doing a good job following the story.  Also, check out this video on how she got caught. 

UPDATE: Looks like Coulters syndicate is going to look into the charges.

All this campaigning might be cutting into Chimpy’s busy August schedule of logging, bike riding, and paying no attention whatsoever while major U.S. cities are destroyed.

President Bush will hold a news conference Friday in Chicago as the White House explores new venues for putting the president before the public.

It will be his first full scale news conference since June 14 in the Rose Garden on his return from a surprise visit to Iraq...

...Bartlett said the Chicago trip was the beginning of occasional presidential trips around the country to learn what's on Americans' minds.

Great, so more hand-picked audiences to salve Bush’s fragile ego.  Mr. Bush, save your jet fuel.  What’s on American’s minds is how many days are left before you’re out of our lives for good.

Second most powerful man in Al-Qu’eda or just another dude in an Egyptian prison.  Seriously, do we even bother to fact-check bin Laden these days? 

Ahh, the ever-classic American pastime.  Cozying up by the fire with your partner and perusing a good book on how to spot those evil japs in a crowd. 

Wha-fa?

Yes, to all my Texas brethren I implore - Let Kinky be Kinky! 

Twin defeats for rationality and progress.  Georgia I expected, but New York?  I mean, everybody knows it’s just a cesspool of degenerates, right? 

So much for the GOP meme that America doesn’t want an angry president (i.e. Dean’s scream heard ‘round the world). 

Way to go Larry, but that’s not exactly how it went now, is it.  Didn’t want to embarrass the buffoon in front of his partner?

In the wake of recent revelations that Lieberman's plan to run as an independant democrat are, in fact, not so much legal, William F. Buckley offers this positively surreal piece on the Kiss heard 'round Penn Ave:

But in looking into Lieberman's vulnerabilities, I discovered in Wikipedia this item: "Following his 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush, after shaking lawmakers' hands, abruptly grasped Lieberman's head in both hands and kissed him on the cheek. At first, Lieberman's staff humorously referred to the embrace as 'some kind of Yale thing.'

"However, as political backlash against the peck arose, Lamont's supporters have appropriated the incident into a campaign button: 'The Kiss: Too Close for Comfort.' Lieberman has since denied the kiss ever took place. 'I don't think he kissed me. He learned over and gave me a hug and said, 'Thank you for being a patriotic American,' Lieberman told Time magazine."

So I said to myself, thinking back on our celebration in October, "Thank God I didn't kiss Joe!"

Yes, because that's why you two shouldn't be smooching. Not that I thought there was any real debate surrounding whether or not the two actually shared an intimate moment. They did:

However, as always, the right is missing the point entirely. The netroots aren't inflamed by whether or not there was actual lip contact or exchange of fluids between the two. They are displeased with Lieberman calling himself a democrat while betraying every. single. core value the party stands for.

The kiss is incidental and symbolic at best, though I would expect no less of the right to remain obsessed with whether or not two consenting male adults shared a tender touch. I can't wait to see how they react when this comes out: