---

The jury for Ken Lay’s trial was picked today, so he probably won’t be at the speech.

Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, took time out from his busy schedule to call the Shrubbery a “loser” and say:

“My first message is to the butcher of Washington, Bush: You are not just defeated and lying about it, but you are, with God’s help, a loser,” he said. “You are bad luck to your people; you brought them disasters and catastrophes, and you will bring them even more disasters.”

It’s amazing how these people on the run manage to find television studios.

He didn’t say if he would be at the speech.

It looks like the Treasury has a cash flow problem and needs to borrow $188 billion to cover its bills during the first quarter. They also need to raise the debt limit above the current $8.184 trillion.

They are too busy scrounging for aluminum cans to be at the speech.

For some reason radioactive gas is used in aircraft ignition systems. They found out in Jacksonville, Florida when a tank of the gas exploded at the local Unison Industries plant.

Like every other accidental radiation leak in memory: “the amount of exposure is no more than an x-ray”, and the decontamination of everyone and everything is “just a precaution”.

No one from the plant will be at the speech as the glowing would be distracting.

---

---

Events
* 1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded.
* 1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is formally executed – after having been dead for two years (it’s never too late for revisionism).
* 1835 – A mentally ill man named Richard Lawrence attempts to assassinate President Andrew Jackson in the United States Capitol — the first assassination attempt against a President. Both of Lawrence’s pistols misfire, and Jackson proceeds to beat his would-be assassin with his cane.
* 1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, was found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling. How they died remains a mystery.
* 1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.
* 1948 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.
* 1968 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins when Viet Cong forces launch series of a surprise attacks in South Vietnam.
* 1969 – The Beatles’ last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.
* 1972 – Bloody Sunday: United Kingdom British Paratroopers kill fourteen Roman Catholic civil rights /anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland- Bloody Sunday
* 2003 – Belgium legally recognizes same-sex marriage.
* 2005 – Amid violence and threats to boycott the results, Iraq holds an election for its National Assembly, the country’s first free election since 1953.

Births
* 1882 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd. President of the United States (d. 1945)
* 1912 – Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian (d. 1989)
* 1922 – Dick Martin, American comedian
* 1930 – Samuel J. Byck, American attempted assassin of Richard Nixon
* 1941 – Dick Cheney, oil executive
* 1962 – King Abdullah II of Jordan
* 1962 – Mary Kay Letourneau, American teacher

---