From a Washington Post profile of Mike Huckabee:

It's also worth noting the states with the highest obesity rates tend to vote Republican. Whether this would predict support for Huckabee in GOP primaries is not known, but at the very least, "it's a very intriguing possibility," says Chuck Todd, editor of Hotline, speaking of a Huckabee presidential campaign.

"Think about what they put on the cover of Time and Newsweek when there's no big news story," Todd says. "Diets and Jesus. There is a huge audience for this. These could be Huckabee's constituencies."

Newly-minted House Democratic Caucus chair Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) has some exciting new ideas about getting people to actually show up at caucus meetings:

In an interview with The Hill last month, Clyburn said he planned to invite the Democrats’ 12 regional representatives to help drive the agenda at caucus meetings and ensure member attendance.

"I will be focusing more and more on those regions for other things outside of elections," Clyburn said. "Once or twice a month, we’ll have meetings focusing on those regions. We won’t have guests; we’ll just have members talking to members."

So there it is. That's how government happens. Show and Tell.

This just in: Ray Nagin is crazy.

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he said.

He later compared his city's education crisis to "seven-layer dip," and the problem of homelessness to "some nice cheese, not that runny stuff, something stiff, like an aged gouda, or some sort of artisan cheddar."

Following the outcry over inaccuracies in James Frey's memoir, Daily Show writer Tim Carvell preemptively corrects some oversights in his own:

I feel that none of the slight liberties I took in writing my memoir really affect the overall work, but nonetheless, you should know a few things:

I am not, in fact, black. Nor am I, to the best of my knowledge, a woman. Anything in my book that suggests otherwise is the result of a typographical error.

Bring it on.

"Saudi, you're doing a heck of a job."

"At least" 345 people were trampled to death near Mecca this morning, in what has seemingly become a Hajj tradition. At what point does Saudi Arabia deduce that it's impressive-sounding public safety measures ("about 60,000 security personnel") are simply not getting the job done?

You know who I'm glad I'm not? Marion Barry.

According to this fascinating exposé,¹ taciturn Little League coach Sam Alito routinely forced his players to refer to him as "Coach Sam," as if they were four years old, or mentally disabled. Said Alito, when asked if that might have been a little callous, "Those goofy bastards are about the best thing I've got going."²

1 - Not actually an exposé.
2 - Not actually a quote.

For edification: Hotline's On Call is updating pretty regularly with Alito tidbits. "Useful shot, that."

Joe "Zell" Lieberman (D-ish-Conn.) could be in line for a lousy 2006:

After months of searching for a Democratic anti-war candidate willing to challenge Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the political left's best hope may rest with a millionaire Greenwich businessman.

Ned Lamont, whose family tree includes a Who's Who of Wall Street and a famous student of socialism, said Monday he is leaning toward challenging Lieberman for the Democratic nomination.

I know nothing about Lamont - whose Courant picture looks like a cross between a high-school English teacher and, well, Joe Lieberman - short of what I read in this article, but the fact that he's challenging Lieberman is good enough for me. (Though without knowing what kind of challenge the Republicans will mount in November, it's hard to count on a messy primary.)

Why it's still worth it to read Dave Barry:

In disturbing medical news, a new study of 1,000 Americans finds that obesity in the United States has gotten so bad that there actually were, upon closer scrutiny, only 600 Americans involved in the study.

Jack Abramoff pleads guilty. Merry Christmas, integrity!