Hey Iraq — Bush isn’t mad, just disappointed with you guys right now. MORE »

Rumsfeld says he wants to retire to his Taos ranch, but federal prosecutors in Germany have a different idea: They’d like to charge him with war crimes. Germany’s top prosecutor gets a big ugly pile of legal documents next week from 11 plaintiffs charging human-rights abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and various other U.S. terror jails. MORE »

• A cabin in Montana and a copy of Newsweek is all you need to forget this world forever. [The Carpetbagger Report]

• Economics wonks: “9-11 was not that big an event.” DOES THEIR CONTRARIANISM KNOW NO BOUNDS? [Freakonomics]
• The Rude One pens his power ballad at ground zero, finds roses still thorny. [Rude Pundit]
• Freaks don’t just come out at night, they are also regular attendees of disaster anniversaries. [Little Green Footballs]
• White House maintaining policy of admitting to things 18 months after The New Yorker finds them out. [The Cool Honey]
• Bill Richardson eats cheetah steaks for breakfast just because it’s so baller. [The Corsair]
• Abu Ghraib prisoners now torturing selves over complaining about American torture, which apparently isn’t close to Iraqi torture. [Telegraph]

• Kenneth Lay’s death “effectively voids the guilty verdict against him,” though his assets will be fought over in court by the various people suing him. [NYT]

• An FBI consultant hacked FBI computers, just for a laugh. He learned the passwords of 38,000 employees and gained access to Witness Protection Program records. [WP]
• North Korea says they’ll continue launching missiles. President Bush faces an increasingly “bleak foreign policy landscape.” [WP, WP]
• President George W. Bush is 60 years old today. [NYT]
• The House Government Reform Committee subpoenaed the Pentagon seeking information on a soldier who claimed he suffered “reataliation” for reporting on abuses at Abu Ghraib. [AP]
• The Navy is reintroducing Vietnam-style swift boats in Iraq. [LAT]
• Hillary Clinton faced a difficult decision on the Joe Lieberman campaign, and despite her equivocal support, there’s no bad blood between them. Unless there is. [NYT]

* Reliable Source: Art Buchwald phones in from a hospice in Washington: “It’s like the Ritz-Carlton in Florida.”. . . Wax figure of Hillary is unveiled in New York. [WP]
* Rush & Molloy: George Clooney: “I love how they’re trying to blame the other guy for getting shot. Unless the guy is 20 feet tall, Cheney wasn’t aiming in the right direction.” [NYDN]
* Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Mary Matalin tells “Today” show viewers that the Pentagon was forthcoming about Abu Ghraib. [NYDN]
* Page Six: George Soros incites counter-attack commercials in Texas after funding ads against Rep. Tom DeLay. . . In light of Cheney’s hunting accident, Republicans dredge up Chappaquiddick. [NYP]
* Cindy Adams: Republicans mumbling about a McCain-Rice ticket. Says Henry Kissinger, “But John, Condoleeza is only just a staff person.” [NYP]

It’s officially okay if this news brings you a measure of delight. In the town where Su Lin hangs her less-cute-than-the-Stick head, iconic Abu Ghraib figure Lynndie England, currently stuck in a military stir for detainee abuse, was badly burned when she was splattered with scalding chicken grease. MORE »

•Su Lin and Butterstick battle for cute supremacy. [Pandafix]
•“I don’t really understand the need to have a giant creche in front of the courthouse. Is that the cradle of the holiday spirit? You’re like, ‘Boy, it sucks that I got that DUI, but look! The manger!’” [What Would J. Crew Do?]
•Someone in Tompkins Square Park is overheard to exclaim “It was so lame! It was full of bloggers!” Check out who overheard it! A hint: At one point, she was a BLOGGER that was FULL. Of semen. [Overheard in New York]
•The tale of two Bushes, scored side by side. [Boi From Troy]— DCEIVER MORE »

For those who didn’t tune into PBS’s Frontline last night to watch the chilling documentary, “The Torture Question,” the Post has just conducted a Q&A with its producer Michael Kirk. MORE »

On to some belated acknowledgment of happier news. Last night, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved the McCain-Graham amendment to the military spending bill prohibiting “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of military detainees. The wracking sobs of Alberto Gonzales were audible from down the street. And we’re also sure that it’s pure coincidence that the Senate should take a hardline stand against inhuman and degrading confinement on the verge of another marathon interrogation of a Supreme Court nominee about as likely to deliver recognizably human opinions as a butterfly would deliver the Gettysburg Address. — HOLLY MARTINS MORE »

An interview with a female veteran of Iraq in yesterday’s New York Times discusses the off-duty pastimes of soldiers in the desert: “They would also throw rocks at each other’s penises for fun.” Talk about taking your work home with you. MORE »

Today, the Southern New York District Court of Appeals is slated to hear government arguments in favor of barring the release of 87 photos and four videotapes depicting detainee abuse by U.S. military forces at Abu Ghraib prison. And over the weekend, unsealed court documents relating to the ACLU’s suit seeking release of the images revealed that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers opposes their release because they may incite riots in the Middle East, much as Newsweek’s earlier reports of Quran defilements at Guantanamo Bay did. Funny thing, this, because back in May, Myers explicitly denied any connection between Afghani riots in Jalalabad and the Newsweek report. So, to review: We must suppress damaging information about the war effort because we run the risk of repeating a mistake that we never made in the first place. Insert preferred WMD joke here. — HOLLY MARTINS MORE »