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Young Bush in New Delhi. It appears that a young George W Bush may have spent two months in India, back in the days when he was still a sinner (Indian Express):

The chefs at New Delhi’s ITC Maurya Sheraton are busy planning a menu just right for President George Bush. And it features a lavish Indian spread—from Lagan Ki Boti to Anjeer Dahi ki Lauj.

The hotel has just received a brief from the White House on what President Bush likes on his dining table. ‘‘President Bush loves Indian food and what’s more he knows it very well. He likes flavoured Indian food but does not like it too spicy, greasy or oily. Chicken and lamb are his favourites and he loves kebabs,’’ says says Executive Chef Amit Chaudhary. [...]

‘‘We have also planned an elaborate breakfast for the President with several kinds of paranthas, puri, aloo bhaji with yoghurt and also a South Indian spread with dosas and idlis to choose from. The entire menu created for the President’s visit is something very different from what we usually do mainly because the brief he has sent us is very clear about his love for Indian food. We are told he spent some two months in the Capital in his younger days and he still recalls the food he had here with great relish. Our attempt will be to make the food here a good memory for him for years to come,’’ says Executive Chef Chaudhary.

So that explains his absence from the Texas Air National Guard!

His menu will include:
• Lagan Ki Boti (kebab made from tender lamb cooked with spices and brown onions)
• Murgh Seekh Pa (chicken mince kebab stuffed with mint chutney and cheddar cheese)
• Khatte Baingan (baby brinjals with mustard seeds and coconut)
• Anjeer Dahi ki Lauj (yoghurt with figs)
• Zauk-i-Shah (gulab jamuns coated with poppy seeds)
• Paranthas, poori-aloo with pickle and yoghurt, dosas and idlis for breakfast

Via WaPo's Dan Froomkin.

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The anti-Republican wealth effect. In recent weeks, the stock market has been strengthening to Clintonian levels. Is it any coincidence that the market for Bush policies is weakening?

{ 11:48 AM }

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Your retirement savings? Shot. The 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings will be held March 1-2, at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, DC. The Summit will focus on "Saving for Your Golden Years: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities."

Who is the keynote speaker? None other than privatization advocate, Halliburton pension recipient, and face-shooter Dick Cheney.

{ 9:27 AM }

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Nothing to say. See you in a week or two.

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Happiness, said Aristotle, is not a feeling or an experience, it is an ethical state of being. It means judging that you have made the right choices and done the right things, and enjoyed a measure of luck along the way. Where and when you are born, how the play of daily contingency affects you, do not determine your happiness, but they do constrain it. And so it often seems as though the choices of everyday life, cosmically small though they are, matter far more than events in distant capitals and war zones.

But here is the key point. You must live your entire life with honour and commitment. You must try to build something larger than yourself: a community of citizens, a community of reason, a just and peaceful world. You may be defeated, because violence, arrogance and unreason are powerful forces in history. But that does not diminish your responsibility.

&mdash Mark Kingwell

{ 9:24 AM }

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Fake is the new real. From a WaPo chat:

Jena, Germany: Howard, I deeply enjoy your articles.

I was wondering if you could comment on the impact of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and the Colbert Report to journalists. In my opinion, The Daily Show and more recently the Colbert Report have started substantively "out perform" real journalists on holding guests to actual facts

It seems on the cable networks, guest have a carte blanche in respective to their "truthiness", yet on Comedy Central, I feel, both shows offer a higher degree of veracity to the facts and intellectual honesty.

Is it just me?

Thanks.

Howard Kurtz: No, you've got plenty of company. Of course, these shows have the freedom to make stuff up, be insulting, put fake reporters in front of green screens and pretend they're in Iraq, etc. But they certainly do a great job of nailing hypocrisy in ways that much of the MSM doesn't even attempt.

Comedy is the new tragedy.

{ 10:38 AM }

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Put your dreams on hold. It's the healthcare, stupid (Investment Advisor Magazine):

Who doesn’t have great dreams for their retirement, grandiose plans for what they’re going to do with all that free time?

Well, folks, you might as well put those dreams on hold, because most of us are apparently only going one place after we retire: Right back to work. According to a recent survey released by Putnam Investments entitled “The Working Retired,” that much-anticipated phase of life that is retirement is increasingly proving to be nothing more than a very brief hiatus for much of America’s working population. The survey found that seven million previously retired Americans returned to work for pay after a non-working hiatus that averaged only 1.5 years.

The number of working retired is only going to increase in the coming years, says David Tyrie, director of retirement services at Putnam. The survey states that 67% of the current workforce aged 40 or older plans to resume working after they retire, and in most cases, it is not because people want to, but because they feel they have to.

It's not new but it's more relevant than ever. Here is the original survey.

{ 11:37 AM }

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Freelance Enron asskisser, the photo. Last week we looked at the mysterious case of Lee Perry, possibly the only person in the USA, excluding Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Gonzales, who "believes" that Ken Lay is "innocent."

Earlier this week the Houston Chronicle helpfully published his picture (link to full Enron coverage).


Lee Perry and his signs at the start of court
outside the federal courthouse in Houston.
[2/6/06]

{ 9:38 AM }

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Privatize this. When a president oversees and encourages rampaging deficits, it's impossible to take his pro-privatization talk seriously (WSJ):

With four years left in this decade, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is underwater. At this rate, the decade is shaping up to be the worst in at least a generation and perhaps longer. Consider: Even if the index rings up 10% annualized gains during the next four years (the historical average), stocks will finish this decade with only a 4% average annual gain. That would make it the worst since the 1930s.

"Worst since the 1930s." Hmm...

{ 11:09 AM }

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Adopt a Mexican. Compare and contrast Mexican dogs...

With the help of Continental Airlines, Houston-based Saving Animals Across Borders plans to fly the eight dogs to the U.S. for adoption on Wednesday or Thursday. The pooches will be picked up in Monterrey and taken, via Houston, to new homes in Colorado.

[...]

"Mexican dogs make such great pets," [Dallas native Kelly] Karger said. "They really appreciate it when they've been rescued and don't have to worry about where their next meal comes from."

...versus Mexican human beings...

[Minuteman Project founder Jim] Gilchrist is focused on lobbying and forming an all-volunteer group of retired law enforcement officials to go after employers who hire illegal immigrants.

He also favors revoking birthright citizenship and a temporary moratorium on legal immigration. He claims to have the support of Americans who are tired of sharing public resources with illegal immigrants.

Let's have Texas secede from the Union retroactively.

{ 9:50 AM }

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Department of Katrina. That's a heckuva proposed 2007 budget (from the WSJ summary):

Corps of Engineers

Total Budget (billions)
4.9

% Change from FY 2006
–41.3

Looks like we'll be adding several new verses to "When the Levee Breaks."

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Froomkin wins the Super Bowl. "A reporter could get up at the next press conference and ask a very simple, very basic question: Why should the American public trust you anymore?"

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Axis of evil. "Iran is the country most widely viewed as having a negative influence in the world, with the US in second place, a new poll for the BBC suggests."

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Where do Democrats come from? "There's a reason that veterans are flocking into politics as Democrats (55 and counting) to rid Congress of the Republicans who are working at cross-purposes to the best interests of our nation's men and women in uniform," says Kos.

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The New Untouchables. Are you wondering on what date Abramoff is to be sentenced? How about the date of the murder trial of the Gambino goons who killed the previous owner of Abramoff's casino company?

Josh Marshall puts on his Eliot Ness hat and keeps track of the major players in the American political mafia with his new Grand Ole Docket project.

"The Grand Ole Docket tracks trial dates, court appearances and sentencing hearings for players in the current array of national political scandals. But not just any crook can make it on the Docket - it only tracks perps who've been named by prosecutors in indictments or plea agreements."

{ 9:16 AM }

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Sick economy. "At another point [in the SOTU address], Bush said the number of jobs went up by 4.6 million in the past two and half years. There was a reason he chose not to start from the beginning of his presidency -- that would have brought the net number of added jobs down to 2 million over the five-year period, says Glenn Kessler in WaPo.

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Sick democracy. "Arresting Cindy Sheehan for asking how many more American troops must die on the same day that Coretta Scott King passsed away is perfectly emblematic of the bankruptcy of every soaring tribute George W. Bush makes to freedom and democracy," says Digby.

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Sick proposal. "I have no idea why the idea that you get to save money tax free so that you can spend it when you get sick is appealing," says Atrios.

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