Clearly this smoke from the Sistene Chapel chimney thing wasn’t developed with live media coverage in mind. Perhaps they should update to fireworks or something else less ambiguous. But it is entertaining listening to these news anchors try to figure out what color the smoke is.
UPDATE: Bells are now ringing. Befuddled anchors and reporters breathe a sigh of relief.
UPDATE: Pope Hitler Youth, if the NY Post can be trusted.

I sometimes wonder how people who conduct forward-looking studies come up with their estimates. Here’s another example:

At least one politician or public official would be busted every other year if the ethics legislation that passed the state Senate last week becomes law.
That’s not the estimation of some cynical statehouse ob-server or disenchanted activist. That’s the estimate of the state legislature’s own staff.
The ethics bill, which has different House and Senate versions but generally aims for greater public disclosure of lawmakers’ consulting work and connections to lobbyists, would apply to state lawmakers, the appointed members of the governor’s cabinet, and local elected officials to the city council level.

Seems to me that if you change the rules, most people inclined to take money–at least at the state level–will simply get more creative in their means of obtaining it. There are rules against taking money in other areas, and people rarely get caught unless one of the parties admits to doing it or is very careless.

I was flipping through the news channels as they were covering the Oklahoma City bombing memorial service. The ceremony included 168 seconds of silence for the victims. I flipped over to Fox News and the anchor was jabbering through 70% of the silence time.
Kind of defeats the purpose of the coverage, doesn’t it?
I guess if you really want to watch these events, you should watch C-SPAN anyway. You’re much less likely to be subjected to some windbag making up stuff about how “hopeful” a city is.
Anyway, best wishes to those remembering victims of the bombing.

Given the media’s fixation with Hillary, you might not hear about anyone else, but it appears Wesley Clark is gearing up for a run, no draft required.
Meanwhile, John Edwards’ website appears as if he never stopped his 2004 campaign: same look, same guy running the blog. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t in.

South Knox Bubba has an exclusive preview.