So the government can record phone conversations and monitor internet activity of millions, but somehow they "lost" something like 5 million White House emails?!? Whoops, that was convenient.

The White House said yesterday that it could not find an unknown number of e-mails written by Karl Rove and at least 21 other officials, including some correspondence that has been sought in connection with the firings of eight US attorneys, prompting Democrats to express doubt that the e-mails were accidentally lost.

The White House did not say how many e-mails were lost or whether any pertained to the firings. But an independent group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said yesterday that it had researched the matter and believes that the White House has lost more than 5 million e-mails sent between 2003 and 2005.

Anne Weismann , the chief counsel for the citizens group , said in a telephone interview that many e-mails were lost because the White House did not put in place a system for archiving them after it dropped one that had been used by the Clinton administration. "They didn't keep a backup," Weismann said. "There was no way to ensure they were not modified or deleted in some way."

White House officials said at briefings yesterday that an undetermined number of e-mails were lost because they were sent by White House officials using nongovernment accounts, such as one run by the Republican National Committee.

This whole thing is ridiculous. They weren't storing emails or monitoring any other traffic? So someone in the White House could be spitting out all kinds of secret information to anybody they want via any unblocked email and there would never be a record (or it's easily erased). Yeah, I'd call that a small oversight. After all, you're only the freaking government! There's better internet controls even at some small companies.

It looks like in the Dallas/Fort Worth area they're going to start fining cops that run red lights $75 when not in an emergency. Finally! Hopefully more cities start to do this. It's one of my two annoyances with cops disobeying traffic laws, the other being cops that speed around way over the posted limit when they're not on a call. You're going to go flying down the street but I can't do the same?!?

The cops' reaction is great too:

"We have had some officers simply on routine patrol running red lights," said Lt. Sally Lannom. "...That's what we need to be adhering to, not simply, 'I'm in a squad car; I can do what I want.' That's not how the law is written."

"I know that a lot of the officers are not real happy about it," said the president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "Nobody out here is just running red lights left and right."

Officers said they are pressured to get to calls from citizens quickly, even if it's not an immediate emergency. By running lights, they said, they can save several minutes. However, the DPD says an officer won't be able to do anyone any good if they don't get there safely.

If that's true and they're not running red lights left and right, this shouldn't be a big deal! And they're pressured to get to calls quickly? Please! I'm sure I'm not the only one that's seen a cop turn on it's lights/sirens to run a red light and once it gets through the intersection they shut the lights off and continue driving normally, clearly not on a call.

Come on Google...I like that you've added pseudo-3D views for buildings in downtown Chicago, but Tokyo's destroying us with map features! They not only get the building images, theirs are colored by category (i.e. hotels are all green) and they have mini-icons for restaurants and stores! Google US needs to catch up with Google Japan.

A movie based on Dr. Seuss' book Horton Hears a Who is coming out March of next year. So why am I posting about it now? Well, I only stumbled upon it because I was surfing IMDb. And get a load of this (voice) cast: Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Isla Fischer (Borat's wife :), Jaime Pressly, Dane Cook, and Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin). That's a boatload of comedy talent, and some pretty unique voices too.

Well, you may be one of many that has issues with your cellphone, but I'm guessing you won't go to the lengths this guy did to vent your frustration.

It seems a gentleman in Korea -- we'll simply call him "Kim," since that's the only name we have for him -- got just a little upset when his shiny new Samsung handset still wasn't working after sixteen calls and two in-store visits to carrier SK Telecom. What really set the dude off, though, was a SKT employee suggesting that the phone be replaced with a different model when the original was out of stock (what nerve!). Next thing you know, Kim's chilling outside SK Telecom headquarters, filled with rage -- and, oh yeah, a 4,000 pound Mercedes with "Delinquent SK" scrawled across it. Them's fightin' words, of course, and SKT tried to get him to skedaddle. The attempt backfired, though, when Kim skedaddled right through the building's revolving doors.

Holy crap.

So take that! You thought you were going to see two movies for the price of one, but you're really only going to get one for the price of one! How's that? Well, it looks like Tarantino and Rodriguez actually made each of their portion a longer movie (presumably a full-length feature) and then they both cut them down to make the overall Grindhouse a 3-hour movie.

"Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don't really have this tradition," said Tarantino. "Not only do they not really know what a grind house is, they don't even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else. That was one. And two was [foreign distributors saying], 'Screw this double-feature stuff, we want a Robert movie and we want a Quentin movie.'"

"We actually have no worries about that because we cut our movies to the bone in order so they would work for 'Grindhouse.' So the real reality is Robert did 'Planet Terror' and I did 'Death Proof' and then we did 'Grindhouse' and those are three different movies. Part of the reason we were kind of able to just go for it and try to cut it to almost short of incomprehensibility was because we always knew that the full versions of the movies would go out, and eventually be on DVD out here and half the world would see that version of it. I am actually excited about both."

Apparently Grindhouse had a weak opening weekend, but what else would you expect when the movie comes out Easter weekend? I think this weekend will be the true test, and I plan to add my headcount to the box office total.

Here's today's quote of the day:

"Obviously, we would urge people not to drive with burning grills in their vehicles."

Here's the full story:

A man suffered serious burns when his pickup exploded after a hot grill in the truck bed ignited a propane tank, authorities said.

John Ferrell, 22, of Clarksville was injured Sunday afternoon and taken by helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for burn treatment, Montgomery County Sheriff's office spokesman Ted Denny said.

Apparently, the burning coals ignited the propane tank. What a moron. I'm guessing he was drunk or something.

Two hours of Thank God You're here makes it pretty easy to tell where the show's going and what it's like. And the answer is that it's pretty good. Basically it comes down to how good the comedian is at improv (obviously). And in this case, Kevin Nealon, Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle), and Wayne Knight (Newman on Seinfeld) were really very funny, while the other comedians were a mixed bag. But there were only a couple of okay comedians, and even they had their funny moments. So overall the show was about as good as it could be. And with the comedians they've been advertising, it looks like there's more good stuff to come.

Hey, another show where I need to implement the spoiler tag! Apparently these episodes are, in fact, a continuation of Season 3 according to HBO's website. So now, Ari is fighting to get Vince back, and just when it looked like E was ready to sever their relationship, Vince threw a curveball by displaying interest in Ari's (kind of) offer.

The birthday party was incredible...the sponsorship was funny. I also found out that I inadvertently posted a spoiler about this season in a previous post about this season. So heads up, and avoid it!

I'm looking forward to more episodes!

Spoiler! Vince and E are still alive!

What can I say about this week? A lot. It finally was an interesting episode. I don't know what it is, but I still feel like these haven't been strong episodes. This episode was better for the simple fact that Jack finally got back into the action some more and kicked some ass.

The twist with the CTU unit and the fake "recovery" of Fayed was cool because it actually was unexpected. Of course everyone would see Jack go down and be like "yeah, he's fine," but who saw the bigger twist coming?!?

Palmer keeping Tom in the dark was stupid and made no sense except adding useless drama to the storyline.

And Audrey's alive! Not that it was a very big surprise, but I guess now Jack's not seeking revenge.

Don't forget to check out this week's Character Countdown!