FRIDAY NIGHT STRAYS

Who needs the mainstream media? America, for starters. Dana Priest's lengthy-but-worth-it piece in Friday's Washington Post introduces a new and still secret acronym:

The broad-based [CIA] effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

President Bush is reportedly elbows-deep in the details. GST could make GWB SOL.

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This evening's repeat of "The Simpsons" has Homer running for mayor, popping open a brew and uttering the greatest political line of modern times:

"I'll find out what a mayor does! Expand my brain, learning juice."

Mmm ... learning juice.

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We continue our struggle to understand why Bon Jovi is considered one of the 10 best rock acts of all time. We are also enjoying the back-and-forth comments sparked by our recent post, as we listen to:

•"King Without a Crown" from Matisyahu
•"Hell Yes" by Beck
•"The Queen & The Soldier" by Suzanne Vega
•"It Must Be Love" from Madness, and not just because it's on that commercial for Levi's 527s
•"It's A Dream" by Neil Young
•Some Fixx, some Gin Blossoms, some Kanye, some Bob Seger, some Bobby Brown.

And ABBA. A lot of ABBA.

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Shortly it will be New Year's Eve and we can say goodbye to 2005. Plenty of good things to remember, but also the year of losing our triumvirate -- Lou Ziegler, Joe Whall, Robert Davis. We enjoyed the sweet of 2005. The bitter lingers still.

A toast, then: To the old year of memories and a new year of change. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.