The Press of Time

The Abraham Lincoln Observer keeps us current on Lincoln cents and the fans who squish them. Blogger Mike Kienzler reports on The Penny Collector, a central depository of all things in flattened coins.

The Collector’s review of the Springfield Lincoln Museum gets to the point quickly:

“There are two 4-die machines: one outside the gift shop, near the entrance/exit, and the other near the entrance to the cafe, around 5 yards from the women’s restroom. You can access the machine outside the gift shop without paying admission.”

Pyongyang Penpal

North Korean Strongman Kim Jong Il has responded to President Bush’s personal letter.

Sadly, we have no idea what he said, and little about Bush’s opening letter beyond a demand Kim offer up information on his nukes.

It all sounds like semi-normal diplomacy, but some of us are still nostalgic for the old Gnome of Pyongyang crazy.

Up Your Bolton

You may be among the first,* or even the only to crack wise, smear, insinuate and smirk about the Prairie Colossus of Our Present Day, Springfield Illinois’s Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library And Museum, in a blog devoted solely to this topic.

Touch the Void

And yes, you may pseudonym-asize your self!

Your anonymous blogger, “Bill,” leads off.

*As of midnight EST Saturday, two comments recorded on the first, er, slim, blog entry

Bush Seeks Smaller Presidential Library

President Bush is learning from Hillary Clinton.

Apparently anxious to avoid future controversies over Presidential documents at Bush’s Library-To-Be, the White House is reducing it’s document mountain unilaterally. They have told a federal court that the as many as five million lost Executive Branch emails are nobody’s business.

And screw off:

“It is clearly established law, however, that the President’s recordkeeping practices are not
judicially reviewable…This Court may not, as plaintiffs request, order the restoration and retrieval of any
allegedly missing federal records. The D.C. Circuit has held that such relief must be achieved, if
at all, through the administrative and legislative scheme set forth by Congress. Plaintiffs’
broader claims under the FRA[Federal Records Act], therefore, must be dismissed…. under the FRA such relief can be sought, if at all, only by the government through the FRA’s detailed and exclusive
administrative enforcement system.”

The National Security Archive had sued, and got a federal court order blocking the Administration from destroying documents or foreclosing their recovery. Bush is seeking to overturn this court order.

Bush killed automatic archiving of emails in 2002, allowing White House functionaries to manually delete their work. Nothing has been done by the White House or National Archives to fix this, prevent other losses, or find the lost documents since the problem was discovered.

NSA’s rebuttal argues that private parties like themselves have standing to sue for document preservation, and that the Archivist of th e United States has take no action to recover documents which even the White Press Secretary acknowledged disappeared. As the NSA says, the Bush Administration is inviting them to rely on the care of those who “lost” the emails, or who have not pursued them.

He’d have appreciated the flag on the dumpster

New Jersey’s The Record provides blow by blow Nixon demolition pictures, as the Sage of Saddle River’s “rustic prize” of a wreck of a house went down.

Richard Nixon’s home for the 1980s was knocked down Wednesday.