Remembering history the way they wished it had been
Gift From God 
The wiseacres at the Journal of Improbable Research have a running tally,
where they keep up on any and all scientific papers with a Bush as author. Now we learn that Bush also found work as a bible scholar.
It’s almost as if the current George Bush was channeling his new pen pal Kim Jong Il, providing “On the Spot Guidance” to scientists and experts in all areas. 
Happy Feet 
He’s taking on a sitting President. After that the parallels kind of trail off, but Reagan is where you seek Him.
Jacob Zuma is expected to win a convention vote for African National Congress party president Monday, defeating South African President Thabo Mbeki, and almost assuring that Zuma will succeed Mbeki in South Africa’s next election.
For some the segue from “California Here We Come” 
to “Bring Me My Machine Gun” is hard, but a South African Business Day writer can’t resist the infectious optimist 
of the Southern Hemisphere.
“Zuma will probably be okay. He’s our Ronald Reagan, a good ol’ boy, at home in a suit in the corridors of power or sipping home brew out of a paint tin with his cousins in the kraal at Nkandla. Reagan was arguably the most successful postwar US president. He didn’t so much energise America as relax it. We could do with that here, too.”
If Reagan doesn’t work for you, take heart. Zuma’s also been called the Comeback Kid.
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 Not usually seen as a naif 
Whatever is Vaclav Havel thinking?
The fair haired boy of the Velvet Revolution is launching the Havel Library, and talking about it as though no one east of Little Rock had thought of the idea before. 
A by no means exhaustive list of Presidential Libraries built in imitation of the US would include Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, The Philippines’ Joseph Estrada, Mexico’s Vicente Fox, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, and Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung in Korea. We haven’t heard much on it lately, but Saddam’s relatives said they’ll build a presidential library around his grave.
Havel plans the now standard lists of his papers elsewhere, archives of what documents he still controls, and “Multimedia,” what many call photographs. The web site already contains a classic Havel channeling Nixon moment, jacket and shoes in the surf. 
