we can only hope...

From here, and probably elsewhere.

Today's great Washington Post headline: "White House Shifts Into Survival Mode". And by "survival", the Busheviks mean of course themselves, not, you know, the country, and certainly not the planet.

Let it be known I'm swearing a solemn oath not to use any analogies involving outdoor furniture and ill-fated cruise ships in describing the personnel changes at the White House. That would be far too easy. Instead, I'd like to suggest that this is one of the very, very few instances where having tech industry experience helps to understand what's going on in the political sphere. The media meme seems to be that the shakeup proves Bush & friends now understand the problem. We're told they're taking decisive action now because they know exactly how to fix what's wrong. Yes, the whole list. Anyone who's toiled in the salt mines of a tanking dot-com company will tell you that the opposite is true: If your crappy dot-com CEO responds to falling poll numbers, I mean, marketshare, by juggling the exec staff around, it's a sign he (it's almost always a 'he') is in way over his head and has no clue at all about what to do next. All he's really doing is shaking the magic 8 ball over and over, hoping for a better result this time around.

Maybe it's unwise to prescribe what ought to happen next by continuing on with an analogy about the present, but let's try. From what I've personally seen, the only thing that really turns things around is replacing the CEO and reversing his failed policies. Get the burn rate under control, get your budget out of the red, produce actual products instead of marketing nonsense, rebuild your credibility and mindshare in the industry, think long and carefully before expending blood and treasure on forays outside of your core market.... Perhaps you can guess what I'm getting at here.

Updated: Researchers have discovered Karl Rove's most distant ancestor, the oldest snake(like) fossil ever discovered. Like I mentioned a couple of days ago, it's a terrible, terrible week to be a creationist. Which is fantastic, of course.

Doubleupdated: Today's amusing anti-Bush animation.