I've been attending eg2006, a gathering about information and entertainment at the Skirball Center up in the Sepulveda Pass above Los Angeles. Here are a few Kodachromes from the more than 50 presentations.

Yes, it's really puzzling, how such a grounded, sensible lad like George Deutsch could go from college, to the Bush campaign, to become the scourge of the NASA scientific community.

Republicans love playing the civility card. I wonder where these Emily Posts were when the Pentagon lied about the circumstances of Pat Tillman's death at his funeral. I don't recall them denouncing Pat Robertson -- while the towers were still smoldering.

There's no mystery about Frist's motives for inserting a pro-Big Pharma provision into a Defense appropriatiation bill. But you have to wonder why he and Hastert resorted to the dead-of-night maneuver.

The White House decided that the best strategy was to make self-deprecating jokes about it.

For nearly a decade, not only has Yahoo! allowed the Chinese version of its search engine to be censored; worse, it has also turned over to Chinese state security the IP and e-mail addresses they have sought in order to nail and jail dissidents.

In the crunch -- when crisis reveals character, and values are flushed from the covey -- we now know all too well what the members of the Bush administration are truly made of.

Bush's energy "plan" is the policy equivalent of "the think system" -- the con run by The Music Man's Prof. Harold Hill.

Republicans haul out the argument that Democrats are the party of "doom and gloom," and that they are the party of optimism.

Maybe it's Rove; maybe it's Cheney; hell, maybe it's Laura. This Dubai advice has nothing to do with the merits, and everything to do with power.

Looks like no contractor is being left behind, either.

Hooray for all those "ideas and thoughts out there," says Bush. What he means is: hooray for Drudge, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly, Malkin et al.