TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Now With Slightly Fewer Dioxins.

The Furry Slug: A History Here's an excellent article from the Washington Monthly that shows how Bob Novak, known as "the Prince of Darkness," has been able to create and maintain an ethics-free journalism empire and evade taking the fall even for his illegal activities. Also interesting to note is that the Slug started at the same newspaper my father did. Well, it's interesting for me, anyway.

The Lady is a Herring This holiday season has already brought us all a wonderful gift in the form of the jaw-dropping, seemingly endless revelations about the sliminess of Bernard Kerik. Today's installment: the New York Times, along with many others, is beginning to suspect that this "nanny" that supposedly cost Kerik his nomination doesn't exist. Not only can't the Times find any neighbors or relatives who remember a nanny, but Kerik refuses to provide some basic information on the woman, like her name, her nationality, her age, and how long she was employed. If in fact there is no nanny, the theory is that Kerik and the White House might have cooked it up as a red herring to throw everyone off the track of his very real ethical, moral, and legal deficiencies (por ejemplo: today, the Bronx D.A. is considering a criminal investigation into whether Kerik illegally used a mob contractor to perform renovation work on a property he owned).

What's New in Crazy Judge-wear Two of the best judge-related trends in recent years have been emblazoning judicial robes with gold trim (courtesy of William Rehnquist) and trying to post the 10 Commandments in court (courtesy of Roy C. Moore). Now, an Alabama judge is in trouble for combining his chocolate with his peanut butter: Judge Ashley McKathan has caused quite a stir by wearing a robe in court with the Ten Commandments emblazoned in gold on the front. As McKathan said, though, it's really all a matter of semantics: "If the Ten Commandments, or the appearance of the Ten Commandments would prevent someone from getting a fair trial then I have a problem with the definition of the word fair," he said. Got that, fair-boy?

The Parallels to John Major Continue David Blunkett, the British Home Secretary and the third most powerful man in the Labour Party, has tearfully resigned his post, thanks to a juicy sex scandal. Well, it's more of an ethics scandal; Blunkett's ex-mistress, the publisher of the right wing magazine The Spectator, leaked info that Blunkett improperly bent the rules to grant her nanny a visa. The ex-mistress decided to ruin Blunkett when he demanded DNA testing to prove that her two kids are his rather than her husband's.

The Littlest Freedom-Hater Loudon County, Va. detectives are pretty busy these days, what with all the America-hating going on in local elementary schools. Recently, two detectives paid a visit to the home of Yishai Asido, an 11-year-old boy who said in class, when assigned to write a letter to Marines in Iraq, that he didn't care if the Marines lived or died. For this, the boy was suspended from school and reported to the police, who dropped by and questioned his parents for two hours about their political opinions and whether or not they were teaching their children "anti-American values." They also asked whether a friend from Germany who had recently visited the family was a "Taliban supporter." Incidentally, Asido's father is an Israeli immigrant who served in an elite combat unit in that country's military, an outfit that has spent considerably more time fighting terrorists than the Loudon County sheriff's department.

-Consider Arms