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No matter how much I love B., I didn't give her one of these for Valentine's Day. (Nor did I give her any of these.)

ADDENDUM: Nor did I give her this. (Thanks to Tizzie at the monkeyhouse for this one.)

Movioke; I'm so there.

Gotta love our straightforward White House press secretary. Looks like he learned well from the master.

(P.S.: Just answer the freakin' question already!)

Number portability pays off: Jenny's phone number (212-867-5309) for sale on eBay. (via BoingBoing.)

UPDATE: Verizon says it can't be sold.

What an odd, sad, lonely website. It's a blacklist of fraudulent Russian mail-order brides. Each picture is a tale of woe.

What, they're not gonna call it "Black Eye for the White Guy"?

You know, work has been utterly kicking my ass this week. I'm cranky, grumpy, ticked off at some of the folks and idiotic decisions I have to contend with, and I feel so very tired. But in terms of fatigue, responsibility, required preparations, and (not least) real-world effects, I doubt I'm even on the scoreboard. Mark Hasty of The Bemusement Park is chronicling a week in the life of a Lutheran pastor (him.) The first installmentwent up yesterday, and it's worth a read.

If this music career doesn't work out for her, I think Courtney Love should try to be a Gelfling. (Or go for a Steve Madden ad.)

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is en fuego re: the Bush White House's dodging and reneging on Bush's promise to release all his military records. Go read him right away.

All it would take for the White House to truly lay this matter to rest is to get Bush's file released. His entire file. And all it would entail for that to happen is simple: Bush would formally waive his privacy rights and direct the military to release the contents of his file.

But he won't.

Even though he said he would.

(Want proof? From the transcript of Sunday's interview:

Russert: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?

President Bush: Yeah. Listen, these files — I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. And — absolutely. I mean, I —

Russert: But you would allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?

President Bush: Yeah. If we still have them, but I — you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records.

And I'm just telling you, I did my duty, and it's politics, you know, to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I have been through it before. I'm used to it. What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is — is — may not be a true service.

Russert: But you authorize the release of everything to settle this?

President Bush: Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000, by the way.

That was my bold-face there, not NBC's. I'm using it to highlight the bright shining lie. (a bold-faced lie?) But it's only one of two on that line. The other is the second sentence; the documents they've released so far this week haven't been seen before, and weren't released in 2000. So evidently the thorough "scouring" the records got four years ago wasn't good enough...but the records released this week could evidently be easily found once questions once again arose.)

He's released payroll records. He's released freakin' dental records. Where's the rest of the file? What about other medical records? Disciplinary records, if there are any?

So he promised to release 'em all. He hasn't. Which naturally leads one to wonder: What are they holding back? Something pretty damn incendiary, I'm guessing, if they're going to such lengths to duck, distort, and dodge releasing it.

(Incidentally, nice timing of the leak regarding Bush's support of an amendment banning gay marriage. It's just a giant "Look! Over there!", except it's the Constitution that'll get blindsided if the White House has its way.)

Leap Day should most definitely be Pizza Party, U.S.A..

Average Monthly Job Growth, by Presidential Administration:

(via Oliver Willis.)

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

(Actually, there's an inaccuracy in this animation. Scalia flew Air Force Two with Cheney to Louisiana, not an oil company's jet. But they did hunt on an oil baron's land.) (via MeFi.)

George W. Bush...or Emperor Palpatine? (via the always most-excellent dong.)

R.I.P. Sam the [Movie] Popcorn Man.

(So who invented the butterlike substance that goes over the popcorn? Someone connected with Occidental Petroleum, no doubt.)

Cool microphotography galleries of beer, burgers & fries, gems, wine, soft drinks, religious articles, cocktails, butterfly wings, and other nifty things.

Our bodies are wired in strange and wondrous ways.

For most restaurants, Restaurant Week ended on Friday. But Fleur de Sel, a small French restaurant in the Flatiron District, extended the Restaurant Week price of $20.04 to their three-course tasting menu through Saturday. (I'm told it's normally $25 -- still a bargain.) So I made a reservation for lunch on Saturday.

The Grammys are going on right now, but aside from you-know-who, there are some others who aren't there. Ibrahim Ferrer and four other Cuban musicians, Grammy nominees all, have been denied US entry visas to attend the show. (Oddly enough, the equally amazing Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes was able to get a visa.)

This is downright shameful. I'm guessing that it's election-year Bush Administration pandering to the Cuban-American community in SoFla. Besides being shameful, it's downright ridiculous...as anyone who's seen "Buena Vista Social Club" knows, Ferrer has been to the US before. (If you haven't seen it, the movie's climax involves the band playing Carnegie Hall.) And, as Jason at Queso points out, Ferrer played the Beacon in November 2001, so we know it isn't post-9/11 overreaction. So: Any government officials want to explain exactly how these musicians' entry would be "detrimental to the interest of the United States"?

(Via MeFi.)

From the "Dear God, Please Make It Stop" Department:

Paris Hilton is circulating a book proposal.

The Beatles' arrival in New York...if they'd had blogs back then. (via Anil's daily links.)

A small group of supporters of President Bush were among the hundreds of Virginia Tech students who turned out Friday morning to see Sen. John Edwards.

The students held up Bush-Cheney signs behind Edwards as he entered the room, TV cameras rolling. When Edwards started speaking, he asked them to hold up the placards. The students eagerly did.

"That's who's leaving the White House," Edwards shot back, drawing huge cheers.

(via Oliver Willis.)

Something I never thought I'd see...George Will going after George Bush.

I'd stay out of banks for a while -- if it isn't the blind robbers, it's the cows.

New York's Restaurant Week concluded yesterday, and I finally got around to taking advantage of it. During Restaurant Week, participating restaurants -- and there are some really good ones -- offer a prix fixe (no, not this) three-course lunch for $20.04, or dinner for $30.04...a bargain indeed for high-end dining in Manhattan. So Thursday afternoon, I called and got a long-shot reservation for lunch the following day at Tabla.

Turns out that John Kerry played bass with a high-school group called The Electras. A rare copy of their album (there were only 500 pressed) is up for sale on eBay.