"Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped." -- Just substitute "government" for "civil rights law" and cross out the word "law" from "law school," and you've described President "C Average" and his whole cadre of monumentally mediocre flunkies. This Globe article on the politicization of the Justice Dept. -- that is, how the doors were flung wide by the Bushies to conservadrones from the nation's weakest law school, the one where they talk about "sin" in ConLaw class -- makes the J.D. in me burn with irritation. It's Delay and Abramoff and Brownie all over again -- all this administration cares about is loyalty, not competence. Nobody's driving the bus, folks.

UPDATE: Bill Maher provides the zinger of the year with his take on this whole mess -- "It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best." Hear hear!

"And to them I say, nobody can eat fifty Creme Eggs." -- Ugh, one is enough for me, and frozen, please. Check out this cautionary tale from Salon, and have an eggy Easter weekend...

It's a lovely April day, raw, grey, 40 degrees, with sleet in the forecast -- so while you're hunched over your mug of tea, check out the underwater photgraphy of David Doubilet. Feeling the sand on your toes yet?

For a chiffon-wisp of a movie, we have a whisper of a TicketStub:

* Blades of Glory -- Rounding out Will Ferrell's Anchorman/Talladega "trilogy of humbled arrogance" is this gentler, sillier comedy on ice. Without the raunch factor of the first two, this movie made us feel a little old for it, which was enhanced by the 95% teenage audience. But come on, two dudes in sequined Lycra? Comedy gold! Cleverer than it deserved to be, yet deftly skirting homophobia in favor of timeless nut gags, it's an 85-minute prescription for the end of a long workweek. Then again, I'd pay to watch Will Ferrell reading the phone book. (B)

"And it's why they can't stand McCain even though his views are actually more doctrinally 'conservative' than Giuliani's -- because McCain doesn't seem to hate liberals viscerally enough and seems to believe in some (very minimal) limits and restraints on what the Leader can do." -- Read Glenn Greenwald's essay on Rudy Giuliani's recent musings on Presidential authority, and then ask me why I'd rather have Mitt Romney in the Oval Office any day. This one's for you, Michelle! :)