Icepick, meet forehead

Sometimes you run across something that's so brain-boggling absurd that it just leaves you speechless. If you want to know why I seem to be a bit uninspired lately, it's because I'm encountering Outrage Fatigue. Every day I get up at 5:30 AM, pour a cup of coffee, sit down at the computer, and see what fresh horrors life in the Bush years has wrought upon us while I slept.

If you want to see something that fully encapsulates why there are days when an icepick judiciously self-applied to my own forehead seems like Blessed Relief, here you go:

The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so much central authority that the power-grab may undermine Moscow's commitment to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.

"In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.

I'm going back to bed.