Good things come in threes. Today something I've been looking forward to for years finally happened: the Justice Department announced the indictment of the execrable Alaskan porkmeister Sen. Ted Stevens on seven counts of felonious thievery relating to kickbacks from billionaire oil contractor and VECO owner Bill Allen.

that seems to have been missed by all of the MSM's eagle-eyed reporters: from the New York Sun:

And astoundingly, the legwork's being done not by the Trib, but by the Boston Globe.

The subject: Obama's direction of large chunks of Federal housing funds to people who now are part of his campaign. The video shot by The Globe shows the conditions in the neglected, decrepit tenements that have resulted from these deals. Nearly every resident asks "where's the money?"

This one is very murky, with what amounts to a virtual news blackout in the press. The official story is that an Israeli policeman shot himself near French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy as he and his wife were about to board a plane to leave Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Sarkozy had been visiting Israel on a good will mission, hoping to rebuild ties that had languished during France's liberal governments and eruptions of Antisemitism in that country.

This diary is a model of objectivity; I have no personal motive for posting it.

You just can't make this stuff up. The US Court Of Appeals for the DC Circuit just ruled that the Treasury discriminates against blind people because one dollar bills are indistinguishable to the touch from tens and twenties. The court commanded the Treasury to change the country's currency, strongly suggesting that bills vary in size according to their denomination. The cost of that change was not discussed, presumably because in the court's view that is irrelevant.

And hold onto your hats: this will cost you a lot more than that cherry '55 Chevy two-door you had your eyes on at the last Barrett-Jackson auction in Vegas. From CBS's Sacramento affiliate:

What to do in that spare half-hour or so when you're not obsessing about the trials and tribs of your Presidential hopeful? Listen to music on your computer while your two typing fingers uncramp, of course. And post random thoughts in this open thread.

The half-dozen megastudios that used to control the music distribution business have missed some seminal changes in how listeners pick and listen to their music. One is what I'll call heuristic internet radio stations - websites that attempt to determine your musical tastes and then select songs from artists you haven't heard of that match that style. Generally you vote the songs up or down, supposedly refining the model of your tastes. Whether that actually works is open to conjecture, but it's an enjoyable way to experience new music in a style that at least is more likely to hit the spot than the typical AOL Radio or Shoutcast stream. And all this for free; the sites make their money from banner ads that are easily ignored.

I report, you decide.

The latest Rasmussen and Gallup show downward trend lines for Obama's percentage of the vote that might correlate with when the Wright videos hit the MSM.

Per Gallup:

[I thought I'd switch this from a comment to a diary so I could raise more Cain.]

I think it is obvious to anyone giving it some thought that the Republicans are benefiting enormously by the Obama/Clinton primary battle. Every campaign has a a finite amount of money and energy. Clinton and Obama are spending their capital at a prodigious rate competing with each other, and there's absolutely no sign that Clinton will bow out before the convention in Denver. The press is spending 90% of its time watching the pie fight while the Dem candidates shoot arrows at each other; some of those arrows would cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth if they came from the McCain campaign, naturally.