If you're drinking tomorrow night during the annual State of the Union address -- And who wouldn't be? -- here's a fun way to play along.

Based on a quick look at the rules of the game, I'd suggest you play at home or, if you are in public, only if you have a trusted designated driver.

(Thanks to Peter Baker of Drinking Liberally, Philadelphia, who, I can attest, drinks only responsibly, if ideologically.)

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Net income at Exxon Mobil Corp. in 2005: $36.13 billion.

See also, "Exxon Mobil Posts Largest Annual Profit for U.S. Company," by John Holusha, the New York Times, in which we read:

The earnings come at a time of high gasoline and heating fuel prices that have prompted some political leaders to call for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. But the company said it was reinvesting in exploration and refining capacity to meet the world's need for energy.

Of course that argument would be more convincing if Exxon Mobil weren't paying almost half as much in dividends to shareholders as it is allocating to worldwide capital expenditures. (Note: The linked item doesn't make that point explicitly; you have to do the math yourself.)

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Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.):

"I am a pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-Bill of Rights Republican, and I will be voting against this nomination."

Calling Senator Snowe.

Calling Senator Collins.

Calling Senator Specter. Oh, right. Never mind. Forget we asked. Forget we gave you money.

(See also, "Chafee Rolls Dice With 'No' on Alito," by Chris Cillizza, at The Fix.)

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Tom, of TBogg, has fun with Michelle Malkin, viz., "Brain-Damaged Girl Moves to Rehab Facility."

Malkin's an easy target, sure, but the post is pure, unadulterated TBogg genius, complete with photographic evidence.

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Bernard-Henri Lévy has written a new book, a big book, an important book, a book with a ponderous title, American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville, one I think I'll skip, based on several recent reviews, including today's notice by Garrison Keillor, of all people, in the New York Times Book Review.

Pull quote:

[E]very 10 pages or so, Lévy walks into a wall. About Old Glory, for example. Someone has told him about the rules for proper handling of the flag, and from these (the flag must not be allowed to touch the ground, must be disposed of by burning) he has invented an American flag fetish, a national obsession, a cult of flag worship. Somebody forgot to tell him that to those of us not currently enrolled in the Boy Scouts, these rules aren't a big part of everyday life. He blows a radiator writing about baseball -- "this sport that contributes to establishing people's identities and that has truly become part of their civic and patriotic religion, which is baseball" -- and when, visiting Cooperstown ("this new Nazareth"), he finds out that Commissioner Bud Selig once laid a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, where Abner Doubleday is also buried, Lévy goes out of his mind. An event important only to Selig and his immediate family becomes, to Lévy, an official proclamation "before the eyes of America and the world" of Abner as "the pope of the national religion . . . that day not just the town but the entire United States joined in a celebration that had the twofold merit of associating the national pastime with the traditional rural values that Fenimore Cooper's town embodies and also with the patriotic grandeur that the name Doubleday bears." Uh, actually not. Negatory on "pope" and "national" and "entire" and "most" and "embodies" and "Doubleday."

Talk about missing the whole point of the entire thing. Lévy, I mean, not Keillor, which is saying a lot, because Keillor misses a lot.

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Bob Woodruff, one of two new co-anchors of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were seriously injured earlier today by a roadside bomb near Baghdad.

Woodruff is, of course, a fairly new face to most viewers of the evening news, but still, an injury like this one, apparently quite serious, is sure to affect viewers far more seriously or more intently, like it or not, than other reports of violence against American civilians in the region.

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It's great to see a deserving book, one so terrific and entertaining as Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan, garner not only rave reviews upon publication (including from Janet Maslin) and strong sales (it's currently number-two on the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list), but also continued general-interest media coverage some two months after it hit the stores.

For evidence of the latter effect, see "Belatedly, a Bad Dog Finds His Forte: Selling Books," by Dinitia Smith in today's Times; "The World's Worst Dog," from the Associated Press, as carried on CNN.com; and "Dog's Tale Unleashes Canine Passion," by Amy S. Rosenberg in the Philadelphia Inquirer (January 15).

I only recently moved Marley & Me from the "Current Reading" section to the "Recent Reading" area of the sidebar at right, that despite having finished the book just two days after I received a review copy in the mail.

It wasn't because I didn't enjoy the book. I absolutely did and I have recommended it widely, and at this site pegged it with a four-star ("very highly recommended") rating, richly deserved.

I've never been particularly good at writing book reviews, though I know I should try harder, and I wondered whether I could produce a notice that came even close to corresponding to Grogan's own cleverness and skill. So I'll just tell you what I told John: That's a damn good book.

[Post-publication addendum (January 27): Michael Klein reports in today's Philadelphia Inquirer ("Best-selling 'Marley & Me' is Heading to the Big Screen"): "Marley & Me, Inquirer columnist John Grogan's best-selling tale about his sweet but goofy Labrador retriever, is in line to become a film. . . . Terms were not disclosed, but the deal was 'substantial,' Grogan said. . . . Grogan, who plans to keep his day job, said Fox won out in bidding over 'another major studio,' which he declined to identify."]

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Could the incredibly shrinking Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News get any smaller? Apparently top executives at parent company Knight Ridder Inc. think so. Peter Carey reports in today’s San Jose Mercury News, also a Knight Ridder paper (“Cut Labor, Paper Costs to Lift Profit, KR Tells Bidders”):

Knight Ridder is telling prospective buyers that its profits can be sharply increased by cutting jobs and benefits and reducing the size of some of its 32 newspapers. [...]

The figures Knight Ridder is giving potential buyers are similar to those in a Morgan Stanley research report published in November. The report, by analyst Douglas Arthur, said an outside buyer could reduce costs by $150 million a year through a 5 percent reduction in the workforce, cutting labor costs and chopping corporate overhead.

The company’s projections were reported in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday and not disputed by Knight Ridder. According to the projections, a buyer could increase Knight Ridder’s earnings by about 20 percent over 2004 earnings in the next 18 months by cutting jobs and benefits, streamlining operations and reducing the size of some of its 32 newspapers.

The Journal reported that two people familiar with the matter described the forecasts as overly optimistic.

It’s difficult to disagree with that last statement, if by overly optimistic one is referring to the ability of thinly staffed newspapers, in this city and elsewhere, to maintain a respectable level of paying readership.

I wonder who was the original genius who determined that newspapers, a healthier business than many realize, should start gutting their way to oblivion?

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The Washington Post today published a thoughtful editorial about the White House’s response to reporters’ inquiries about admitted felon Jack Abramoff was doing, or trying to do, during his meetings with administration staff members.

In a retort to Scott McClellan’s stonewalling, expressed thusly, “If you’ve got some specific issue that you need to bring to my attention, fine. But what we’re not going to do is engage in a fishing expedition that has nothing to do with the investigation,” the editors write (“Mr. Abramoff’s Meetings”):

This is not a tenable position. It’s undisputed that Mr. Abramoff tried to use his influence, and his restaurant and his skyboxes and his chartered jets, to sway lawmakers and their staffs. Information uncovered by Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the same inside the executive branch.

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff’s White House meetings is no mere exercise in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of government. Whatever White House officials did or didn’t do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting.

It’s hard to believe details about Abramoff’s White House meetings will not become public at some point, and for all we know now, it was all in a lobbyist’s day’s work. Still, you’ve got to wonder what’s being held back, and why, while at the same time enjoying the discomfort of the likes of McClellan.

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Many astute newspaper readers, including me, gripe about the reliance of their hometown newspaper, in my case, the incredibly shrinking Philadelphia Inquirer, on copy from the Associated Press. But, hey, sometimes the wire reporters are doing a better job than, or at least filling the voids created by, the paper’s slim staffing or institutional bias.

To wit: “[Two] Hopefuls Appeal to Face Santorum,” by the A.P.’s Marc Levy, published today by, yes, the Inquirer, from which we learn that Bob Casey Jr. skipped a debate in Harrisburg sponsored by the League of Women Voters, leaving Chuck Pennacchio and Alan Sandals to carry on by themselves the noble tradition of democracy, so well established centuries ago in this very city.

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I rarely go to the movies, and as such I’d like to think I’m particularly selective about which films I decide to see. (Or perhaps I just don’t get asked out very much.)

I can count just three viewings since late summer, and my ratings of each of these three movies, with stars assigned from one to five of a possible, and rare, five stars, each and all of which I added only this evening to the sidebar at right under the heading, “Recent Viewing: Film,” as follows, in reverse chronological order as I saw them in the theater:

Memoirs of a Geisha: Recommended: Two Stars.

Brokeback Mountain: Very Highly Recommended.: Four Stars.

March of the Penguins: Very Highly Recommended: Four Stars.

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News from NBC, according to the New York Times: At the end of this television season, no more “Will & Grace.”

That’s the good news.

But, at the same time, we learn: No more “West Wing,” and that, obviously, is the bad news.

[Post-publication addendum (January 25): See also “Will & Disgrace,” by Wayne Besen, at WayneBesen.com (January 24).]

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There are few things more frustrating as a sports fan than being, or trying to be, an avid acolyte of Andy Roddick, as I am, a condition John Pye, of the Associated Press, explains in “Another Major, Another Early Exit for Roddick,” regarding Roddick’s premature exit from the Australian Open.

All too frustrating. What’s the deal with this guy? Am I just tilting at windmills with my support for Roddick, expecting the best from him?

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Carolyn Davis, a member of the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer who long has championed the cause, today provides an update on the donated surgical treatment being provided to Jennifer Anyango, the Ugandan girl viciously disfigured six years ago during an attack by rebels on her family’s village and home (about which I blogged briefly here last year: “About Uganda: A Sewing Machine is All,” May 11, 2005; and “Getting Back to Jennifer Anyango: She’s Not Forgotton,” May 22, 2005).

Anyango is being treated at Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax, Va.:

About four hours after they began, the doctors are finished. Much of what they have done is preparation for a more dramatic operation after there is enough new skin to move down Jennifer’s hairline and reconstruct parts of her face. But even the immediate result pleases [her guardian Abitimo] Odongkara and should make Jennifer smile after she awakens, despite the postsurgery pain. [Dr. Craig] Dufresne has been able to pull down some skin near Jennifer’s eyes by making small incisions and tightening ligaments. In what seems like only a few moments, he has enabled Jennifer’s eyelids to close over most of her eyes -- for the first time in six years.

There’s a long way yet to go, but this sounds like a promising start.

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Daniel Rubin, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who blogs at blinq, today introduces to the paper’s readers a new Philadelphia-based weblog, The Trouble With Spikol, produced by Philadelphia Weekly columnist Liz Spikol, that will focus on mental health issues.

Welcome to the fray, Liz.

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There’s an excellent letter to the editor in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, of particular interest to those following the campaign to eject incumbent Republican senator Rick Santorum, submitted by Dave De Vetter of Willow Grove, Pa.

De Vetter writes, in part:

In November, the majority of Pennsylvanians who believe this war was not justified are expected to choose between two candidates who think we are wrong. The loved ones of the more than 2,200 American soldiers killed in Bush’s preemptive war in Iraq do not need the media to remind them this war was a mistake. Nor do the families of the tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.

Democrats need to know that we have a clear choice to make in the May 16 primary. We can choose Chuck Pennacchio [Link added.], who opposed the war from the start and now supports a timeline for a quick and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Or we can let [Bob] Casey take the nomination and lose after voters find out that he agrees with Santorum on just about everything.

De Vetter’s right. It’s a primary, not an investiture. Let’s have our say; make sure you have your say.

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Sometimes the briefest item in the paper says more than an entire article can accomplish.

From an aside I caught in inside the sports pages of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

A nationwide strike truce was signed by Italian unions yesterday for the period covering the Turin Olympics. . . . All major Italian unions signed the accord.

No specifics were offered regarding how this feat was accomplished, nor the likelihood of all participants to abide by the deal, but the news really has to be a big load off the minds of the games’ organizers, to say nothing of the Italian government and tourism officials. Oh, and the athletes, too. Yeah, them.

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I tried not to laugh, even to smirk, when I heard yesterday and then read in the papers today, the apology offered to the court by guilty-pleading Criminal-Republican-Lobbyist Jack Abramoff (see “Lobbyist’s Guilty Plea Rocks D.C.” in the Philadelphia Inquirer and “Abramoff Pleads Guilty to 3 Counts” in the Washington Post):

Your honor, words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused. I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to suffer. I will work hard to earn that redemption.

How much, really, does Abramoff regret the high-flying lifestyle he has led for so long? Who really believes this nonsense?

Regardless, there can be few of sound mind who are not pleased by the prospect of Abramoff working hard to earn the redemption of his God while he -- Abramoff, not God -- is pounding out license plates for more than a handful of years.

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The day’s top story: Criminal-Republican-Lobbyist Jack Abramoff today pleaded guilty to three felonies and is promising both to cooperate with prosecutors investigating corruption in Congress and to testify against what the media are euphemistically calling his “former colleagues.”

Enjoy, everyone, every moment; it doesn’t get much better than this.

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David Ehrenstein, film historian, writer, and blogger, offers his take on Brokeback Mountain in “Horsefeathers,” published in the January 5 issue of the L.A. Weekly.

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From today’s New York Times (“Bush Defends Legality of Domestic Spy Program,” by Eric Lichtblau), arises the question: How many lies will it take before the American people will say they’ve had enough, we no longer will be fooled, we won’t play along any longer, and that this is the line in the sand:

As President Bush continued to defend the program at his appearance in San Antonio, he was asked about a remark he made in Buffalo in 2004 at an appearance in support of the Patriot Act, in which he discussed government wiretaps.

“Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap,” Mr. Bush said at the appearance, “a wiretap requires a court order.” He added: “Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”

This isn’t “leadership,” this isn’t “strength,” nor is it “determination” in the face of adversity. This isn’t “courage,” nor is it “boldness.” This is desperation.

Worse, these are lies, pure and simple, and simple-minded dishonesty of the lowest form whatsoever displayed by any occupant of the Oval Office since Richard Nixon, and bald-faced lies at that, repeated over and over again, with no hesitation, regret, nor apology, lies that fly in the face of -- that mock with no shame at all -- the Constitution of these, the United States of America.

Enough, already. It’s time to start working toward this man’s impeachment.

It’s as simple, and as sad, as that.

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