make your blood boil, well i should say

The budget news is stunning.

War, tax cuts and a third year of a flailing economy may push this year's budget deficit past $450 billion, according to congressional sources familiar with new White House budget forecasts. That would be 50 percent higher than the Bush administration forecast five months ago.

The deficit projection due out today is nearly $50 billion more than economists anticipated just last week, and it underscores the continuing deterioration of the government's fortunes since 2000, when the Treasury posted a $236 billion surplus.

The article goes on to note that this "easily tops the previous record $290 billion deficit of 1992". Why is it that only Democratic administrations are fiscally responsible?

Surprise! Faced with less federal assistance, state and local governments are raising taxes. Could we have predicted this before the tax cut? Of course we could, and did. Was the administration straightforward about it? Not that I can recall.

Surprise! The Third Infantry Division will stay in Iraq indefinitely. Could we have predicted this before the war? You know how this goes. I don't even know why I'm bothering to mention this stuff.

Today's Papers is full of good tidbits today, like this:

The Post also notices another, ahem, misstatement by yesterday Bush: He said Saddam "wouldn't let [U.N. inspectors] in." The paper notes, too politely, that the president's assertion "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war." Appeared?

Also in Slate: William Saletan reviews the current state of finger-pointing from a president who ran on a straight-shooter image, and Michael Kinsley condemns it:

3) The final argument: It was only 16 words! What's the big deal? The bulk of the case for war remains intact. Logically, of course, this argument will work for any single thread of the pro-war argument. Perhaps the president will tell us which particular points among those he and his administration have made are the ones we are supposed to take seriously.

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Some of you may remember my affection for a Mexican restaurant I used to eat at when I worked for Liquid Audio, my dismay when it mysteriously vanished, and my delight when its descendant resurfaced at a countertop in a bar in Palo Alto.

It turns out that if you Google for the name of the restaurant and the city it was in, my journal entry about it is the only hit. Which is probably why I got mail a couple of days ago from a "HUGE fan" of the original restaurant, currently living in Boston but planning to move back to San Francisco, who wanted to know where he could find the new one.

Well, of course I was glad to help. I gave him the information I had, he called them up to say hi, and learned that they'd actually opened up a second restaurant in Palo Alto... which I promptly looked up, but it turned out it wasn't listed in Google or the Yahoo Yellow Pages. He'd copied the name down wrong, and hadn't gotten full directions because he figured he could look it up on the web.

But he did have the street it was on and the general vicinity, so today for lunch I drove up to Palo Alto, found the street, and drove down it until I spotted a Mexican restaurant with a familiar design motif. (Also, a poster that said "OPEN FOR BREAKFAST Abierto Para Desayuno!" and had pictures of Budweiser and the U.S. flag.) It's a nice little restaurant with lots of sunlight, and the enchiladas are as good as ever.

(no subject)

Military tribunals: "Many lawyers and bar groups say the conditions for civilian defense lawyers are so restrictive that they might not agree to participate in the process and thereby lend it legitimacy."

Afghan census: "'All the cars are stuck; the teams are all out on foot,' said Ghulam Hazrat, 51... 'It is very difficult because of the state of the roads.'"

Bush in Africa: "Mr. Bush's two-question rule variously annoys and infuriates White House reporters, who have started to rebel. On Wednesday, when Mr. Bush and Mr. Mbeki held their "media availability" on the lush lawn of the presidential complex in Pretoria, many of the reporters on the trip chose not to attend, figuring they would not get a chance to ask a question anyway."

Demonizing Ashcroft: "'None of those Democrats can beat George Bush, but John Ashcroft can,' said one Republican strategist."