- A hearty welcome to Ms. Willa Sagal, third daughter of your next Vice President. Although her schedule is tight, she’ll be expected to pull her weight on the campaign trail. That weight, at present, is about eight pounds.

- At the heart of the Republican defense of the whole State of the Union flap is the fact that people are getting all bent out of shape over “16 words.” It struck me today that those are actually a lot of words as far as infamous lies are concerned. Political suicide can be extremely efficient from a word count standpoint. Bush’s prevarication is positively prosaic compared to “I am not a crook” (it’s 3.2 times longer), “Read my lips - no new taxes” (2.7), “I did not have sex with that woman” (2.0), and Bush’s own reference to his tax-slashing budget back in ‘01, “We can afford it” (4.0).

- Amnesty International says, “We are disappointed that human rights were used as an excuse to go to war in Iraq and now the human rights of Iraqis are being violated.” Apparently, conditions for Iraqi prisoners haven’t been extremely good, which probably won’t come as a shock to anyone older than Willa Sagal. “Some Iraqis had been forced to stand under the blistering sun for up to 48 hours in U.S.-run detention centers that lack proper sanitation.” That part is a little shocking - I tellya, those are some pretty long, sunny days they got themselves there in Iraq.