• Ken Layne reviews Infinite Jest, or some other book. [Las Vegas Weekly]
• Honestly, there’s really no point in reading something you’ve already been paid to vote against. [Think Progess]
• Convicts need their stimulus checks just as much as the next guy. How else can they afford to have The Club™ surgically installed in their pooper? [RedState]
• Your children will be brainwashed with Mao’s Little Red Book, and then they will coerce you into participating in the Census. [Michelle Malkin]
• The problem with investigating torture is that it might have a “chilling effect” on torture! [Matt Yglesias]

Something like that at least; she may have said these things before: “If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the census bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps.” Ha. We all know that if Michele Bachmann had been in power in the 1940s, she would’ve *loved* the idea of internment camps. [YouTube, Think Progress]

Our hardworking buddies at TPM Muckraker have compiled a fun list of the Bush Administration’s top Stalinist memory-hole operations. Here are a few: MORE »

Washington is dumber than Seattle, San Francisco and even Raleigh, according to a shocking new study by the U.S. Census Bureau (which is in Washington). But it’s not all bad news:

Seattle also has more than its share of residents with advanced degrees: 20.5 percent. Only Washington, D.C., has more holders of advanced degrees. Many there work for the federal government, as well as for the think tanks and other nongovernmental organizations that form the heart of capital’s working culture.

Notice they left out “lobbyists.” MORE »

• Parades, prayer, music mark Katrina anniversary. Bush admits “government at all levels that fell short of its responsibilities.” [WP, NYT]

• Rumsfeld gives speech calling Iraq war “a series of catastrophes that results in victory,” demands Americans’ unwavering support for more catastrophes. [WP, NYT]
• Kenneth Tomlinson, still corrupt after all these years, currently being ousted from the Broadcasting Board of Governors after getting the boot at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year. [NYT]
• Richard Armitage finally admits to being “leaker” in Plamegate. [NYT]
• Census Bureau reports income numbers, showing “glimmer of improvement.” Also shows record number of Americans have no health insurance. [NYT]
• Burbs of DC, however, are paid out the frame. [WP]

• CBS News reports, “George Bush spends 58% of US Budget on Whiskey and some Bling for his hommies.” [CBS News]

• Proving that August has been “racism month” in politics for decades, it was this day in 1957 that Strom Thurmond ended his 24 hour filibuster of the civil rights bill. [This Day In Mythstory]
• US uses foreign aid as bribe money to countries on the UN Security Council in exchange for pro-war votes, probably. Maybe. Possibly. [Freakonomics]
• Cenus report on poverty and income released today, but administration doesn’t want you to know that everyone is poorer, unless they’re not. [The Carpetbagger Report]
• McCain bored of dry-humping Bush, headed to South Carolina to make love, sweet love. [Pandagon]
• Now you know about secret holds, and knowing is half the battle. [TPMmuckraker]

• The cease-fire in Lebanon held for a second day, despite reports of light Hezbollah missile activity, as thousands of displaced Lebanese returned to their homes. [WP] MORE »