Extreme Mortman’s anonymous on-the-spot reporter files this breaking news story:

Authorities said four suspicious packages discovered near the U.S. Department of Energy in southwest D.C. are non-threatening.  Bomb-sniffing dogs and the bomb squad were called to the scene near L’Enfant Plaza, according to News4’s Keith Garvin. Independence Avenue was closed between Seventh and 12th streets during the investigation.

First, last week’s trivia answer — late in the second quarter in a 1971 game against the San Francisco 49ers, the Washington Redskins run a reverse play that loses three yards — and the winning question:

• Peter Roff: “What was the play Richard Nixon called in to George Allen that lost the Redskins yardage?”

By the way, Lee Annis notes: “Peter Roff is absolutely correct and deserves a prize, but diehards will recall Roy Jefferson lost 13 yards.”  But rkclement says: “What US President provided a play for George Allen’s Redskins that wound up losing three yards?”

• Other fun questions:
  RCGeist: “What was the play suggested by Richard M Nixon to Redskins head coach George Allen that taught Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula that RMN is not a good offensive coordinator when the President suggested the “Fins use a slant pass to Paul Warfield in Super Bowl VI? Shula could lose it all on his own — Cowboys 24 - Dolphins 3.”
• Phil Chroniger: “What example about why you shouldn’t take advice from a president, who faces intense media scrutiny because of a struggling war, did George Allen provide for his kids?”

Now, this week’s Extreme Trivia answer — Warm Springs, Georgia.  What’s the question?

This Progressive.org story, “Is Martial Law Coming?” gets this response from Extreme Mortman senior historian Richard Andrews:

Have you looked at the latest heavy-breathing Left obsession/urban myth?

All about some recent National Security Directive which the usual ignoramuses take as Evil W somehow giving himself power to declare an emergency, take over the entire U. S. Gov’t. in case of natural or mad-made disaster, and (this is the callers, not the Directive) cancel the ‘08 election so he can hold on to power.

I started hearing this called in to C-SPAN, et all, early this week, then received a link to Progressive.org from a lib cousin of mine.

Shades of the early ’70s, and Tricky Dick.  (Recall, he HAD to cancel the election, because with Youth in Revolt, he couldn’t possibly win!)  Of course, back then they had to use mimeographed flyers illegally posted on telephone poles.

Upon review, I find it to be a painfully bureaucratic missive about everyone getting their act together about having a comprehensive ‘continuity of government’ plan, when and if.   The Dept. of Homeland Security has been putting out similar stuff for years.  I had to write one for my tiny unit of MD State gov’t.

If we have such an event in DC, the POTUS certainly will have to coordinate routine matters for the other two Branches, if only because only military planes would be flying (remember?), he fills judicial vacancies & GSA operates the couthouses, and it would take forever to elect a new House leadership if they were all lost at once, especially if large numbers of Members were gone, too, as the Constitution requires that they can only be replaced by special election (Even the WashPost has nagged Congress on doing something about this last).

Dana Milbank quotes Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington:

“The people of Darfur, they need a lot of sugar and they are used to it.”

And here’s a pleasant picture of Sudan’s Kenana sugar company:

From today’s White House news briefing with press secretary Tony Snow:

Q On Cuba, Fidel Castro released a statement today which said, “I’m not the first, nor will it be the last, that Bush has ordered to be killed, nor one of those people who he intends to go on killing individually or en masse.”
MR. SNOW: Oh, my goodness.
Q Any concern about these incendiary remarks?
MR. SNOW: It’s Fidel Castro.

President Bush’s immigration speech in Georgia may have set a record for presidential product placement and plugs for peaches:

• “I remember the peach grower, Saxby, that you sent over to the White House. He’s there saying to me, you’ve got to understand something, Mr. President, my business won’t go forward unless I have some of these good people that are willing to work long hours in my peach orchard helping me harvest the crop.”
• “The peach grower wanted to comply with the law.”
• “You’re going to have a card that you can’t tamper with, that some document forger can’t foist off as a document for somebody to come and pick peaches here in Georgia.”
• “The peach man said to me, he said, I can’t find somebody from my home town who wants to pick peaches.”

If you ask me, the speech was a bunch of crop.

From today’s State Department press briefing on Darfur, with Andrew Natsios, Special Envoy to Sudan:

QUESTION: Yeah. Who do you have in mind that’s going to enforce this? The French?
MR. NATSIOS: Well, there’s no mechanism in the actual resolution. I haven’t read the text of it. You don’t put in UN resolutions who’s going to enforce it. You simply allow member-states to enforce it.
QUESTION: Exactly. So you know, who’s going to do that?
MR. NATSIOS: I mean, we’ll have to have those conversations if the sanctions resolution –
QUESTION: But if there isn’t anybody that has any — African air forces are not exactly the — you know, the best there are at enforcing these kinds of things.
MR. NATSIOS: I understand that.
QUESTION: The French have a big –
MR. NATSIOS: We’re going to get the resolution force through — the resolution document through first.
QUESTION: So there has been no thinking about who might –
MR. NATSIOS: There’s been a lot of thinking, but I’m not going to discuss it here in front of all of you.
QUESTION: Okay. Well.
MR. NATSIOS: Okay.
QUESTION: Good luck, then.

Concerned about the rising number of tour guides who get facts of the city’s history wrong, Philadelphia is considering an ordinance to test and license guides.

While they’re at it, they might also make sure everyone who visits the city knows what kind of cheesesteak to order.

Since many of you no doubt have taken your lap top and WiFi connection to the beach to make sure you don’t miss a single exciting moment of Extreme Mortman, let me just say, thank your lucky stars that you’re not spending your Memorial Day holiday in the Hamptons.

You’d probably be going hungry right about now.

We learn from an AP story about how the Wall Street boom is stirring Hamptons home sales that at one local gourmet shop in Sagaponack, lobster salad is selling for $100 a pound.

To which the only response must be: Hey, cut your own damn Alternative Minimum Tax!  We’re through fighting for you rich folks.  Oh, and can save some lobster salad for me?

Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell says “I’ll think about it” when challenged to start a blog.

That lack of certainty over a blog’s value is something only she can tackle.

But in today’s same Outlook section, we find more resolve — and tragic results — from Egyptian freedom blogger Wael Abbas:

I am an Egyptian blogger. And the Mubarak regime is out to get me and others like me.

It is engaged in an all-out campaign against those of us who use the Internet to report the truth about what is happening in Egypt. It is spreading rumors about us and targeting us for character assassination. Judges allied with the government have filed lawsuits against more than 50 bloggers, accusing them of blackmail and of defaming Egypt and demanding that their blogs be shut down. Meanwhile, security officials appear on television to claim that the bloggers are violating media and communications laws.

Is this the kind of regime you want your tax money to support?

That tale should influence Howell’s decision. At least if she starts a blog, she won’t be thrown in jail.