What’s that old saying? Something about rats deserting a sinking ship?

Whatever the cliche, the stampede to leave the Bush Administration before it flames out in a historically unprecedented legacy of failure and stupidity continues. Tony Snow, former Fox News ‘journalist’ and current White House Press Secretary has announced his plans to resign. Snow will be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino.

Said Snow:

“I’m not going to be able to go the distance, but that’s primarily for financial reasons. I’ve told people when my money runs out, then I’ve got to go.”

A perplexing comment, since Snow makes around $168,000 a year. He’s had some recent health problems, so perhaps the six-figure salary isn’t cutting it. Ironic, since he’s the mouthpiece for a government that steadfastly refuses to implement anything even remotely resembling a public healthcare system.

Some observers have had Snow on resignation watch for a while now. Apparently, he was starting to get a little ’snippy’ in briefings:

CBS News’ Bill Plante: “Your tolerance level seems to be slipping.”

Snow: “Really? Am I getting cranky like you? Wow.”

Zing! Of course, you can’t blame Snow for getting peevish. It’s not easy getting a daily pummeling over debauched Republican Senators, a disastrous foreign war, illegal government surveillance and the overall ineptness of the sitting president. I’d be cranky, too.

But I can’t help feel a little sadness over Snow’s departure. Whoever replaces him, it seems unlikely that their last name will have so many sarcastic applications- using  ‘Snow Job’ or ‘getting snowed’ was such a useful shorthand for the carnival of spin tumbling out of his mouth.

The mighty DeLorean, the stainless steel eyesore and star of the Back to The Future movies, is set to hit production again after a 25 year hiatus.  

Armed with a warehouse full of surplus DeLorean DMC-12 parts, mechanic Stephen Wynne plans to bring back the iconic 1980s sportscar. Wynne has spent the last 25 years servicing the 9,000 some-odd DeLoreans still on the road, and thinks there’s a market for ‘new’ DMC-12s:

“We have a great brand because of all the exposure we have had over the past 20 years from the movie. There isn’t a time of day that Back to the Future isn’t playing somewhere in the world.”

Wynne added:

“I knew 10 years ago I wanted to do this, but I couldn’t go around saying so, because people would have thought I was a nutcase.”

Go figure. To be fair, the original DeLorean never got its chance. A scant three years after DMC began producing the vehicles, the company went bust. Oh, and the original designer, John DeLorean, was arrested for conspiring to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to fund his company. Apparently, the stainless steel beasts he was foisting upon the world weren’t as popular as he hoped.

I, for one, applaud Stephen Wynne for his entrepreneurship. But I’m putting him on notice: if it doesn’t run on plutonium and travel back to 1955, I ain’t buying.

Censorship never looked so cute.

China is rolling out some adoringly fascist cartoon police officers that will pop up on popular websites, warning surfers to stay away from illegal content. Right now, the characters will only appear on the top 13 most popular web portals. By the end of the year, they are expected to be on every website registered on Chinese servers.

China has the second largest population of web users, at 137 million, and are on track to overtake the United States in the next two years. Too bad they can’t use the web to express opinions, learn about the world, or do just about anything deemed politically or morally inappropriate by the Communist Party. And if you try, you’ll get a cuddly cartoon reminder that Big Brother is definitely watching.

Experts expect a cartoon George Orwell to appear on Chinese websites by the end of the year, screaming and gnashing his teeth.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has yielded to his own crapulence and officially resigned his post.

Thank god. One less lying idiot in the White House. I’m going to assume some sort of whitewash will be coming down about this- something to the effect of “wants to spend more time with his family”- but it’s safe to assume Gonzales’ departure is because both Congress and the Senate have lost faith in him over the firing of eight federal prosecutors, and the fact that he sucks.

I feel bad for the schmuck they get to replace him. Sixteen months tethered to a sinking ship.

Norman Finkelstein, professor and subject of an extremely controversial tenure decision at DePaul University, has been put on ‘administrative leave’ (subscription required) for the final year of his contract. Finkelstein will continue to receive salary and benefits, but has been relieved of his teaching responsibilities. Both Finkelstein’s courses- “Freedom and Empowerment” and “Equality and Social Justice”- have been cancelled.

Finkelstein had this to say:

“[I intend] to show up on the first day of the academic year to teach my classes (students are currently searching for an alternative venue) and to use my regular office in the political-science department. If the university attempts to impede my movements, I intend to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and go to jail. If incarcerated, I intend to go on a protracted hunger strike until DePaul comes to its senses. It is regrettable that I have been driven to such drastic actions to defend basic principles of academic freedom and my contractual rights, upon which DePaul has been riding roughshod for so long.”

Hunger strike? Man, this guys doesn’t mess around. I’ve blogged extensively on DePaul’s decision to deny Finkelstein tenure. Although the university denies the charge, many believe (myself included) that the decision was political.

Apparently, DePaul faculty feel the same way. According the the Chronicle of Higher Education, they are now investigating the University Board on Tenure and Promotion for “perceived procudural problems” in the Finkelstein tenure decision. Many of Finkelstein’s students are also rallying around the embattled prof, founding the DePaul Academic Freedom Committee to fight against the university’s decision.

It seems we haven’t heard the last of Norman Finkelstein.

Sweet jesus, this is funny. And eerily accurate:

“We’re forced to assume their participation is strictly ironic.” Genius!

French citizens are scratching their heads over a magazine’s decision to photoshop French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s love handles from a vacation snapshot.

Recently released photos clearly show that someone has removed the offending flab. Judge for yourself:

Definitely more svelte in the second shot, n’est-ce pas?

Of course, this would all be somewhat amusing were it not for the fact that the missing love handles are the latest example of Sarkozy’s intimate- and once you get into the realm of body fat, we’re talking very intimate- relationship with French media barons.

Paris Match magazine, the publisher of the doctored pics, is owned by Arnaud Lagardère. Lagardère once described his relationship with Sarkozy as ‘close as brothers’. He also killed a story claiming the President didn’t vote in the presidential election, and fired an editor for printing a picture of Ms. Sarkozy with another man while separated from her husband.

And the list of buddy-buddy media relations doesn’t stop there. Check out this butcher’s bill (from CBC.ca):

• Serge Dassault, owner of historically conservative Le Figaro newspaper, is a senator from the President’s right-wing party, the Union for the Democratic Movement.
• Martin Bouygues, godfather to Mr. Sarkozy’s youngest son, controls the biggest French television channel, TF1.
• Vincent Bolloré, a billionaire with stakes in several media and polling companies, hosted the President on his yacht for a post-election holiday off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.
• Bernard Arnault, chairman of the luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH and reputedly the richest man in France. Arnault was the best man at Mr. Sarkozy’s wedding 11 years ago and owns a controlling interest in a string of regional newspapers. He is now in negotiations with the British press group, Pearson Plc, to buy France’s most prestigious financial newspaper, Les Echos.

Unsurprisingly, French journalists are a bit uncomfortable about all this. Said a coalition of journalist unions:

“Rarely in the course of the last decades has the media risked becoming so much the instrument of a single mindset, and yet at the same time so scorned by people in power.”

Indeed. Nevertheless, I hope someday to have the kinds of friends who, in the face of journalistic scorn, will photoshop unsightly photos of me. That’s dedication. Or a total collapse of the fourth estate. I can never tell.