Fourteen years ago there was another president named Bush who also killed Iraqis. The first one is also known for puking on Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi in a disgusting diplomatic exchange. This video includes the chunky details in addition to some hilarious footage from Saturday Night Live.

Crashers and friends went to a DC bar to smoke legally for the last time... and then to smoke illegally.

ELSEWHERE: Pan the Ban at To the People

Gene Healy writes about the tragedy that affected all Americans on December 30, 2006:

No mail delivery, closing the stock market, government shutdown (not that I mind that), security out the wazoo, shutting down major thoroughfares throughout the city

No, it wasn't because of a terrorist attack, It was because Gerald Ford's dead body was driven all over DC instead of letting the poor guy rest in peace. He was the president when I was born (but I was conceived during the Nixon Administration) and even though he opposed the latest Iraqi adventure he gave Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld jobs. He died peacefully which is good because it could have been a lot, lot worse:

more »

Today, U.S. President Bush II told German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a smile at the end of a their news conference. The Courier Mail said that she "smiled sheepishly in response" and summarized last year's harassment for us:

Ms Merkel had raised her shoulders in surprise last July at a Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg when Mr Bush, in a gesture of friendliness, approached her from behind and put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.

Videotape of the massage was posted on websites around the world.

Like this one:

President Jacques Chirac used his New Year's address to promise swift government action on a "right to housing" -- a key demand of protestors who have mounted a headline-grabbing campaign in support of France's estimated 100,000 homeless.

Villepin said the government wanted the right to become legally enforceable by 2008 for "people in the most difficult situations: the homeless, but also the working poor and single women with children."

In addition to healthcare and schooling, housing will be given to people who vote a certain way. In most countries, that's called bribery.

From that point onwards, "every person or family housed in unworthy or unsanitary conditions" will able to take legal action to have their rights enforced, he said.

Legal action, against whom?

His name is Donald J. Boudreaux and he is Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University. The time slot is currently occupied by the xenophobic populist Lou Dobbs who gets just about everything wrong. Boudreaux writes "An Open Letter to Lou Dobbs" for the Christian Science Monitor and I won't hold my breath for a response from Dobbs.

More on Dr. Boudreaux here.

DC's smoking ban went into effect January 2, 2007. A week before the ban, Crasher Mercalic and I went out to see how business owners felt about DC's nanny-state law and how they believed it would affect their businesses.more »

Dear RevLeft member,

Due to heavy technical difficulties with the revolutionaryleft.com domain, which where caused by RevLeft's domain registrar, who seems to be an entirely incompetent and fraudent company, we where forced to move the forums to a new domain: http://www.RevLeft.com The forums are completely restored there now. We are of course still hoping to get back the old domain, but this seems to be a difficult task at this time.

- RevLeft

When results prove unsatisfactory, try a competitor. Ahh, capitalism.

This is Democracy in action. It's not a vengeance campaign. It's not a hate campaign. It's just an opportunity for for the people to vote

Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a conservative group that opposes gay marriage.

Kris very clearly defines the problem with Democracy. If +51% of the people decide what the other -49% can (or usually can't) do it's deemed moral. Government shouldn't be in the marriage business but if they are it should be equally available to all consenting adults.