Who you callin' "Brownie?"

Michael Brown, deposed FEMA chief is none too happy about his treatment Post-Katrina. And now that hurricane season is here again, Brownie has a few choice words to say about his experiences in government. He ventilated to Playboy recently:

On Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), accusing him in a hearing of not comprehending the devastation: "For that little twerp to claim I didn't understand death and suffering -- he can just bite me, for all I care."

· On President Bush saying the levee breaches were unexpected: "He doesn't have an incredible command of the English language."

· On DHS boss Michael Chertoff ordering him out of the field: "I am so mad at myself for not saying 'screw you.' "

· On Bush calling him "Brownie": "It's typical of the president. He's a cheerleader . . . How many people in the world do you think have ever called me Brownie? . . . When he used that nickname, a lot of people in the media went, Is he an insider?"

· On his much-mocked prior job with the International Arabian Horse Association: "Dealing with horses' asses taught me how to deal with the federal government."

George's Geography Lesson -- It's NOT a small world, after all!

At the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, President Bush got an eye-opening lesson in world geography.

Bush, apparently making small-talk with Chinese President Hu Jintao remarked, "This is your neighborhood, doesn't take you long to get home."

He was totally surprised to find out it took eight hours to fly from St. Petersburg to Beijing.

"You, eight hours? Me, too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country," he said when corrected, sounding for all the world like an earnest kindergartner, processing new information. "Russia's big and so is China."

The Next Target

Where are the terrorists most likely to strike ("And they WILL strike again" says Dick Cheney.)

DHS keeps a list of potential terror targets by which Homeland Security Grant Money is dished out. So what would interest the terrorists most? Hoover Dam? Sears Tower? Disneyland?

According the New York Times (free login required), the top targets on the list are:

Apple and Pork Festival
Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo
Amish Country Popcorn factory
Mule Day Parade
the Sweetwater Flea Market
“Beach at End of a Street.”
“Nix’s Check Cashing”
“Mall at Sears”
“Ice Cream Parlor”
“Tackle Shop”
“Donut Shop”
“Anti-Cruelty Society”
“Bean Fest”

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

"We don’t find it embarrassing,” said the department’s deputy press secretary, Jarrod Agen. "The list is a valuable tool."

In May DHS cut money to New York City and Washington by 40 percent, while significantly increasing spending for cities such as Louisville, Ky., and Omaha.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

From the White House that brought you "No Child Left Behind" (which left many children behind,) and the "Clear Air Initiative" (which effectively cleared the air of birds by increasing pollution) comes "The Four-Most-Overpaid-Whitehouse-Staffers"

According to ThinkProgress.org --

The Four Most Overpaid White House Staffers

Today the National Journal published a list of salaries for the 403 White House staffers. Here are the four most overpaid:

Deborah Nirmala Misir, Ethics Advisor -- $114,688
Erica M. Dornburg, Ethics Advisor -- $100,547
Stuart Baker, Director for Lessons Learned -- $106,641
Melissa M. Carson, Director of Fact Checking -- $46,500

And yes, there is a White House Director for Lessons Learned. We aren’t making this up.

Another example of your tax dollars at work.

Coulter's Plagiarism Revealed

The New York Post blew the lid off Ann Coulter's plagiarism in her new book Godless for the general public. But the charges were first raised in a blog.

"Conservative scribe Ann Coulter cribbed liberally in her latest book, Godless, according to a plagiarism expert," reports The New York Post today.

Seems there some software called iThenticate which can scan text and identify passages that have identical text -- in other words, plagiarism.

The charges originated in The Rude Pundit, which is indeed rude, if you consider the number of 4-letter words it uses. Raw Story found some more examples a little later.

Mainstream newspapers have a way of picking up stories that originated in a blog without crediting their sources.

Other instances of plagiarism by Coulter have been identified in her syndicated column.