Pretty Day Quickhits

It's not raining here in Houston for the first day in what seems like a month, 2 of the last 26 days, so I'm not going to spend too much of the sunshine blogging. Here's some quickhits/interesting reads.

The NYTimes comes out with a big editorial calling for a complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. We'll see if it's significant, or just another ignored voice.

It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost.

(By the way, bravo for waiting so long until the waters grew safe.)

The NYTimes Ombudsman has a nice piece critical of his paper's inexact and deceptive over use of the word "Al Qaeda" in relation to the Iraq conflict.

(TimesOnline) Colin Powell continues to try to clear his name, “I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said....

(Reuters) A Sunni member of the Iraqi Parliamentary Energy Committee resigns over the oil law draft.

(Sorry, this may be all you get from me until late afternoon.)