Brad DeLong goes back in time via Lexis to prove that there’s nothing particularly new or shocking about how things work in Washington today. This is not to say that we should just shrug off the excesses and lawlessness of the Bush administration as business as usual, but rather that we should try to keep perspective. I get the sense that 8 years of Bush and his media enablers is being seen as some sort of profound nadir, the depths of which will shake us awake to a new way of doing things. I very much doubt it will work like that.

Engadget writes up a fascinating new product, the bizarrely named “CharmingBurka”:

The kit sends a “self-defined” picture of the woman beneath to every Bluetooth mobile phone in the vicinity. According to the project’s mastermind — Markus Kison — no laws of the Koran are broken.

Something tells me strict Islamists won’t go for this loophole.

But think of all the new vistas for smutty flirtation that this opens up! I, for one, hope that western garment-makers adopt this technology sooner rather than later. I look forward to women beaming nude pictures of themselves to my phone as I walk through Adams Morgan on a Saturday night.