President "I don't do speeches or press conferences" Bush scheduling another speech on Iraq? Hmmmmm...

It's scheduled for tomorrow.

U.S. and Iraqi troops are on the offensive against insurgents who want to disrupt Iraq's October 15 vote on a new constitution, President Bush said Wednesday, and he plans to give a detailed speech on the progress of the broader conflict against terrorism Thursday.

When is it that President Bush makes terrorism speeches that make him look "presidential?" Oh yeah, when they desperately want to deflect from something really bad!

The D.C. Rumor mill is thrumming with whispers that 22 indictments are about to be handed down on the outed-CIA agent Valerie Plame case. The last time the wires buzzed this loud — that Tom DeLay would be indicted and would step down from his leadership post in the House — the scuttlebutters got it right.

Can it be a coincidence that the White House appears to be distancing President Bush from embattled aide Karl Rove? “He’s been missing in action at more than one major presidential event,” a member of the White House press corps tells us.

If the word on the street is right a second time, we have a bit of advice for Rove: Go with vertical stripes, they’re way more slimming.

By the way..."Radar" is a very well-read "inside-the-beltway" publication so chances are good there is something to this.

Isn't there some saying about "chickens coming home to roost?"

Geeks rule the world...the science world, at least!

Planet Xena is discovered to have a moon, so they name the "sidekick" Gabrielle.

The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the Earth's solar system have made another intriguing announcement: it has a moon.

While observing the new, so-called planet from Hawaii last month, a team of astronomers led by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology spotted a faint object trailing next to it. Because it was moving, astronomers ruled it was a moon and not a background star, which is stationary.

I guess there is still some debate as to whether Xena fits the definition of a planet because there isn't an agreed-upon definition for a planet.

But the newly discovered moon, nicknamed Gabrielle after Xena's faithful traveling sidekick in the TV series, likely will not quell the debate over what exactly is a planet and whether Pluto should keep its status. The problem is there is no official definition for a planet and setting standards like size limits potentially invites other objects to take the "planet" label.

I was trying to think of a new sentence to help kids learn the order of the planets with an "X" tacked on the end, but then I read this:

The International Astronomical Union, a group of scientists responsible for naming planets, is deciding on formal names for Xena and Gabrielle.

Awwww...c'mon!!!!

Even astronomer Michael Brown (another one?) says the same thing:

We use these names internally simply because they are easier to say and remember than things like 2003 EL61 or S/2005 (2003 UB313). There is no chance whatsoever that these will become the permanent names of these objects!

This may be ONE issue that fans of the show can't influence with an avalanche of letters!