Ya still wanna buy some wood?

Sarah's on-call at the hospital today, so Maya and I are doing a 12-hour fest o' all things Saturday-ish. She's currently trying to shove an entire towel into her yap which gives me a few minutes to reflect on the news wafting over the wires this morning.

Remember that crazy moment from one of the Bush-Kerry debates last year when Dubya responded incredulously to mention of his tree farm with the moronic "wanna buy some wood?" And then how it turned out that Dubya COULD actually sell wood given his interest in said tree operation. Well, in yesterday's disclosure of his family's and the Cheneys assets, it turns out that Dubya's version of tree-farming isn't exactly saplings and piles of twigs. Total value - $600K. I grew up on a "farm" in Wisconsin with some interest in Christmas tree farming. Certainly nothing like $600K worth. But I never went to Andover and assorted Ivies either, so maybe my math ain't so hot. Regardless, next time you get invited to one of those pre-packaged Bushie lovefests, I hope you'll ask Dubya if his offer still stands.

The Chili Finger Bandit's "jig is up," according to the San Jose police. Yes, they found the prior owner of the finger that showed in that always-horrific Wendy's 99-cent chili. As luck would have it, it's from a friend of the Bandito's husband. I could have sworn that most of the reporting on the finger indicated that it was a well-manicured probably female finger. This feller's finger got severed in some sort of "industrial" accident. Maybe he's just funny that way. Ya know, really particular about how well-shorn his nails are until the whole digit gets lopped off and then he doesn't care so much. Ya know, just funny.

Base closings, base closings - for all the hoo-ha we'll hear about this you'd think we were planning to actually reduce the size of the military and cut down on foreign deployments. Hardly. As the LATimes points out, this merely looks like part of an overall effort to move major bases from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and, to a lesser degree, the West. Simple power shifting, big Defense-style. The biggest loss I see is that of South Dakota which will lose Ellsworth A.F.B. worth over $2B. Hard to believe that the Bushies would smack S.D. around so soon after dumping Tom Daschle off their enemies list. But maybe the boyish-creepiness that is John Thune has worn out it's usefulness to the broader Bushie agenda.

The towel doesn't appear to be squelching Maya's protestations at the moment. We might be facing a diaper alert, Code Red. Please don't leave your homes, people. At least in this case, we have a plan. Rock on.