Larry King interviews Paris Hilton:

KING: Thank you, Paris.

HILTON: Thank you.

KING: Paris Hilton.  Tomorrow night, Colin Powell.

We learn this today from the release of CIA documents:

The CIA was eager to examine the use of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs to modify the behavior of targeted individuals, and so it asked commercial drug manufacturers to pass along samples of medicines rejected for commercial sale “because of unfavorable side effects,” according to an undated memorandum included in dozens of CIA documents released yesterday. …
Sidney Gottlieb, the chief of the CIA’s technical services division, who directed the mind-control experiments, retired from the government in 1973 and died in 1999.

We already knew this:

It was the height of the Cold War when Sidney Gottlieb arrived in Congo in September 1960. The CIA man was toting a vial of poison. His target: the toothbrush of Patrice Lumumba.

And we also already knew this: Sidney Gottlieb was the real-life inspiration for the James Bond gadgety character Q.

So let’s connect all the dots, take a drippy hallucinogenic, watch the walls melt, and imagine this conversation:

Gottlieb:  “Do you expect me to talk?”

Goldfinger: “No, Mr. Lumumba, I expect you to die!”

… Why not mention that the Bob McDonnell 2009 website is up and running?  For all you fans of Virginia governor races…

First, last week’s trivia answer — “I will not run as either a Democrat or Republican, because I will not sell out to anybody, but to the American people, and I will sell out to them” — and the winning question from Peter Roff: “What did H. Ross Perot say to CNN’s Larry King would be a condition of his running for president in 1992?”

Now, this week’s Extreme Trivia answer: Concerto No. 2 for Solo Trumpet and Strings (3rd Movement) Composed by Johann Melchior Molter.  What’s the question? 

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

Dick Lugar had some pretty strong words — he also criticized those who we have criticized in the past. What’s interesting is, I don’t recall getting this kind of questioning when Joe Lieberman wrote, the surge is working.

Those staid folks at the Consumerist blog take the presidential race in a whole direction — the kind we like:

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is making another run at the Presidency, after a heavily criticized run the Democratic nomination last time, where he was written off as “a Howard Dean without the poll numbers,” whatever that means. Now, he faces a primary in his home state by another Progressive politician upset with Kucinich’s absences from their Ohio district.

We caught up with “The Kuch,” as John Edwards has been known to call him affectionately, after he taped “Late Show with David Letterman” on Monday, although it was hard to think with his 29-year-old statuesque redheaded English wife standing heroically beside him…

Yowzeh!  Our only quibble with the quote is the photo they link to.  We won’t waste your time relaying it.  Instead, we’ve used the below pic on Extreme Mortman before, and happily use it again.  Move over Ron Paul, nothing drives traffic like Mrs. Dennis Kucinich.

Republican Rep. Bob Inglis’ fourth congressional district in South Carolina features a significant investment from BMW — the huge Zentrum factory in Spartanburg, where 4500 workers produce more than 100,000 BMW vehicles a year,

Inglis, the ranking member of the Energy & Environment Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, advocates the “Hydrogen Economy” and is a founding member of the House Hyrdogen and Fuel Cell Caucus.  All that dovetails well with the new BMW Hydrogen 7, a luxury performance sedan featured at Zentrum.

So it’s no surprise that in its new issue, BMW Magazine spotlights Inglis, including a full-page photo of him wading knee-deep into a BMW pool  (don’t worry: his trousers are rolled up at the knees) with this caption: “Congressman Bob Inglis (R-SC) stands by BMW while they help lead the way to a healthy, clean Hydrogen Future.”

But what might surprise some is this headline over a story about a Republican: “The Convert on Global Warming.”  And these Inglis quotes:

• “Human beings are a substantial cause of global warming.”
• “I shouldn’t be able to do something on my land that can do harm to my neightbor’s land.”
• Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” is “compelling”

Further proof that all politics is local — and looks real sharp in a sporty BMW.

Check out what must be the biggest metaphor ever uttered, from today’s Washington Post story on Dick Cheney:

On the home front, the vice president is well known for leading a secretive task force on energy policy. But in a town where politicians routinely scurry for credit, Cheney more often kept his role concealed, even from top Bush advisers.

“A lot of it was a black box, and I think designedly so,” said former Bush speechwriter David Frum. “It was like — you know that experiment where you pass a magnet under the table and you see the iron filings on the top of the table move? You know there’s a magnet there because of what you see happening, but you never see the magnet.”

Hoo-ey! Thank goodness the Post doesn’t pay its interviewees by the word.  Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just call Cheney a babe magnet?

Warriors against excessive government will want to check out a great piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by Jack Rust:

Looking for some summer reading? Have I got a book for you: The Virginia Administrative Code. Weighing in at 24,000 pages, it makes War and Peace look like a restaurant menu. Reading 65 pages a day it would take you roughly one year to finish.

If you are a business owner, or just a citizen, reading the code isn’t really optional, it’s mandatory. The regulations found in these 24,000 pages have the force of law and Virginia citizens and businesses are expected to know what is included and to comply with the requirements.

Compliance costs money, and Virginia consumers ultimately pay that cost — essentially a hidden tax.

With this in mind, Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced his Government and Regulatory Reform Task Force last August.

Want the thrilling conclusion?  Click here.

Fun item in today’s Yeas & Nays gossip column in the Examiner:

Most people interested in the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, aka the “D.C. Madam,” are used to receiving e-mail updates from her civil attorney, Montgomery Sibley. But Palfrey now seeks to deliver her message more directly. In an e-mail sent Saturday night, Palfrey wrote, “With the blessings of some of my legal team — yes, there is now a team — I am embarking upon my own informational and update mailings, along side those of Mr. Sibley. I am doing this in large measure because of the excellent data and evidence which is being brought to my attention piecemeal, by sundry investigators, journalists and bloggers interested in my case. It is becoming increasing difficult for me to relay such information onto individual recipients.”