But hey, enough about our government being run into the ground financially. Let's talk about important stuff. Let's talk about delicatessens. And we'll start with this e-mail from my pal Tom Galloway…

This reminded me of when I was at UMichigan, and Harlan Ellison was speaking there. I was responsible for him while there, and come lunchtime the following dialogue occurred (from memory):

Tom: Harlan, we're taking you to lunch at a world class deli. (thinking "here it comes…")

Harlan: What?! We're in the midwest! I grew up in the midwest! There is no decent deli here, let alone a world class one. I've lived in New York City. I live in L.A. That's where you find great deli. Besides, you're a WASP from North Carolina, and I should trust you on great deli?

Tom: Trust me…

We take him to Zingerman's. While waiting in line to order, Harlan sniffed around. He approved of the Dr. Brown's, the seeds in the rye bread, etc. His sandwich was so big he could barely finish it, and I ended up getting to eat most of the noodle kugel he'd ordered. At the end of the meal, he sat back and said, "OK, you're right. I don't know what it's doing here, but it's definitely a world class deli."

Highly recommended if you're ever in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area.

Tom's a smart guy, and Harlan knows his delis. But what really impressed me was that a few hours later, I got an unsolicited second opinion. This is an e-mail from Mark Bernstein…

I just read your post on delis, and felt moved to comment. You may not realize it, but my home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan is home to one of the finest delis and gourmet shops in the U.S. It's called Zingerman's, and it's not just a local legend. Last year, it was named by Food and Wine magazine as one of the 25 best food markets in the world. Now, they don't pile the meat as high as the Carnegie (I'm reminded of Mitch Hedberg's line: "He gave me my sandwich and asked if I wanted anything else. I said. 'Yeah, a loaf of bread and more people.'"), but the quality is consistently outstanding. If you ever come back to the Motor City Comicon, I hereby offer, schedule permitting, to chauffeur you out to Ann Arbor for lunch or dinner.

Okay, so there are two good recommendations for Zingerman's and if I ever get invited to another convention in Detroit, I'm there. Meanwhile, closer to home for me, we have another one-two punch. This is from Paul Dini…

Respectfully submitted: Brent's Deli, 19565 Parthenia St. in Northridge. Best in the west, no contest. (Although the tuna salad at Nate 'n Al's is mighty good.)

This was followed by a message from Marv Wolfman…

The best deli in Los Angeles is, and has been (according to Zagat's for the last 10+ years) Brent's Deli in Northridge. It's as close to a New York deli as one can get (except less attitude). It is never less than crowded and the food is all wonderful. Brent's! Period! End of discussion!

I've been to Brent's a grand total of once and wasn't as impressed as my friends. Then again, I've had the occasional bad experience even at restaurants I like, so it's not fair to judge from one try, especially since this was some years ago. Next time I'm in Northridge — which I hope won't be soon, not because it's not a nice place but because I'm getting to hate driving that far — I will give Brent's another chance to thrill me. Mssrs. Wolfman and Dini are invited to join me, to suggest items from the menu and also, of course, to pay. The quality of any deli is enhanced by at least 25% if someone else picks up the check.

Remember when it was extravagant (or at least, barely acceptable) for some folks that the Bush prescription drug bill was going to cost $400 billion? How it is that few of those people are upset at current, undenied reports that it will be more in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion? Here's one of those reports.

I understand that Republicans don't like to criticize Republicans and that Democrats do but don't know how to do it with any meaning. But you'd think we could all link arms and muster a little effective outrage any time any projection by any arm of government was this far from the mark.

Maybe it's like being shocked that a duck quacks, but I continue to be amazed at how reporters will try to manufacture a story where none exists. The other night, KNBC news in Los Angeles did a sizzling "exclusive" investigation that revealed that a person who has no way to knowing any of this is sure he knows who Deep Throat is, that Deep Throat is not ill, and that it's not George Herbert Walker Bush, Gerald Ford or Alexander Haig. Woodward, Bernstein and Haig have all said it's not Haig, so that last one is not much of a scoop.

They broadcast a brief, newly-conducted interview with Donald Segretti, who was one of the political pranksters employed by the Nixon campaign during the 1972 election. (This is the guy played by Robert Walden in the movie, All the President's Men.) As Watergate figures go, it would be hard to find anyone farther from the action than Segretti, who was in California throughout most of that investigation. Not only that but once it came out that he'd done some unethical things on behalf of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, everyone in the Nixon White House wanted to distance themselves from the guy. So he was not exactly in close communication…and even if he was, it was with folks who didn't know who Deep Throat was, either.

At first, I couldn't figure out why KNBC thought this fellow's guesses are any better than anyone else's guesses…and then I realized: They don't. They just knew they could get a segment out of it that sounded like inside information if you didn't stop to think about it for more than a few seconds. In the news biz, a worthless story is still worth more than no story at all.

One other thought about the hunt for Deep Throat: The vast majority of guesses and speculations about his identity have been based on who had access to the information he is known to have passed on to Bob Woodward. For instance, Deep Throat told the reporter about the gap on a crucial Nixon tape at a time when only a handful of people had that information…so most of the hunters have presumed that it had to be one of those folks. But secrets get leaked and shared all the time in Washington. Why couldn't it have been someone who heard about it from someone in that handful? If we buy the premise that one of them revealed the secret to the Washington Post, why wouldn't someone in that handful have told the guy with the office across the hall from his? Why couldn't Deep Throat have been an aide to someone in that handful who accidentally overheard something he wasn't supposed to hear? I'm not sure there's ever been a known fact about D.T. that absolutely rules out that he was a White House janitor who was within earshot when Henry Kissinger was yelling at Alexander Haig.

Almost every news story about Deep Throat has gotten caught up in the idea that it had to be someone with direct knowledge. In much the same way, they also claim that the informant's identity is known only to Woodward, Bernstein and Post editor Benjamin Bradlee. Well, uh, there's at least one other person…Throat, himself. And maybe he told his wife and his kids and his lawyer and his clergyman and a few friends. Deep Throat has been under no promise of confidentiality, and he must know that the day after he dies, everyone around him is going to be peppered with questions, and asked to confirm or deny.

But that's not as interesting a story. It's more interesting if it's a secret known to only three human beings on the face of the planet. And it's a better detective novel if you restrict the suspect list to those who could have gotten the information first-hand and then snuck out in the middle of the night to meet Woodward in that parking garage. (I always thought that parking garage was a tipoff of something. Why not have Woodward come to his apartment where there was less chance of them being spotted together? Logic would suggest that D.T. had a spouse or roommate he didn't want to implicate in his leaking at the time…or maybe he lived across the hall from John Mitchell. But maybe he just liked the 007 nature of meeting in a garage.) I'm still guessing it's Mark Felt or perhaps Fred Fielding…but we may all learn a lesson about how worthless deductions can be when you aren't careful about what you assume to be the underlying facts.

Here's the latest on Peter Paul, the financial officer behind the now-defunct Stan Lee Media. That was the Internet company that went belly-up trying to market Stan's new concepts on the web. I have more than a passing interest in this because I worked there for a few months.

A little counter that you can't see but I can informs me that this is my 3000th post on this weblog since I switched to Movable Type software on 4/23/03. This is a frightening statistic, especially when you consider all the constructive things I could have been doing with that time.

So I will seize on this opportunity to remind you all that I have raccoons to feed at my back door, and really odd stuff to buy off eBay…which is why I'm putting up another one of these mercenary boxes. Use it wisely and extravagantly.

Floyd Norman has worked in animation as long as almost anyone I know. A few years ago, a book about Walt Disney was discussing how white his staff was back in the fifties, and it referred to a "lone Negro" who could be seen in the hallways. That was Floyd. He was working at Hanna-Barbera when the book came out and, instantly, all the other artists in his department began whipping out cartoons of Floyd in a cowboy suit and a mask, galloping down the Disney corridors as The Lone Negro. I'm still surprised Barbera didn't sell this as a series.

Over in his column at Jim Hill Media, Floyd writes about his experiences in the industry with regard to racial concerns. And he mentions the rumor that Disney is thinking of finally releasing Song of the South on DVD. I have also heard this rumor…and from someone who oughta know. The way it goes, the film will be issued in the "Walt Disney Treasures" series. Those are the ones that come in the little tin boxes, and which are available for a limited time. There would be extra material on the DVD, in which some prominent historians and black celebrities would attempt to put the material in historical context, and this could all happen in time for this coming Christmas. Or maybe not. The person who told me this says that there's still time for someone to chicken out and cancel or postpone. I suspect that if they go ahead, there will be a brief, two-day flurry of news stories because someone will smell some opportunity to get attention by being outraged. And then, since no groundswell of objection will follow, it will all be forgotten…and before long, folks will be wondering why such a fine movie was ever hard to see or own.

The most famous delicatessen in New York is probably the Carnegie on 7th Avenue. The second most famous is probably the Stage, which is located a whopping 30 yards away from it, also on 7th. Folks like me who like delis have been known to visit both on the same New York trip — sometimes, even on the same day — and to compare and contrast. If they do this with any semblance of intellectual and gastric honesty, they realize that the Carnegie has better corned beef, pastrami and chicken soup, whereas the Stage has better potato salad, brisket and pastry. (Don't try to argue these points with me, by the way. Facts are facts.)

In Los Angeles, the most famous delicatessen is probably Canter's, which is located on Fairfax Avenue. The other local delis — Junior's, Nate 'n Al's, Art's, Jerry's, Langer's, etc. — are all some distance apart from one another, making direct comparisons a bit difficult. As far as I can tell, Art's has the best corned beef, Canter's has the best potato salad, Jerry's has the best chicken soup, Nate 'n Al's has the best brisket, Langer's has the best pastrami, and Junior's has the best pastry.

But you can't tell for sure because they're not within walking distance of each other. A few years back, the L.A. Times did a taste test of regional pastrami sandwiches by sending a runner to each to fetch samples, then bring them back to the newspaper offices downtown, where a conference room full of pastrami-tasters awaited. The jury's decision for Canter's was approximately as accurate as the first O.J. verdict, and the other establishments rightly cried "foul." They insisted — and who can argue the point? — that their products would have fared better if sampled when they were fresh, instead of after more than a half-hour of transport time.

Years ago, we briefly thought the science of Delicatessen Comparison was about to go bi-coastal, providing a better chance to finally match the best New York delis against Southern California's. Both the Carnegie and the Stage opened outlets in Los Angeles, with the Carnegie's only a block and a half from Nate 'n Al's. Alas, the only deductions that were possible — and they were pretty obvious — was that the local incarnations of the Manhattan shrines were terrible.

All of us who'd loved the Carnegie and Stage emporiums on Seventh Avenue in New York rushed to the Carnegie in Beverly Hills and the Stage in Century City, foolishly thinking they might resemble the East Coast originals. Not even close. The new, nearby Carnegie was the worst deli I've ever visited in my life, and that's including places like the one in Muncie, Indiana where asking for a "corned beef sandwich" brings you meat that's been extracted from a plastic vacuum-pak and placed between slices of Wonder Bread and topped with lettuce, tomato and Miracle Whip. (It's another of those great chicken-and-egg conundrums: Are there no Jews in Muncie because they serve food like that? Or do they serve food like that because there are no Jews?)

The Beverly Hills Carnegie closed in a New York minute. The Century City Stage lingered a few years but now it's gone, as well. That would seem to have been the end of N.Y. and L.A. delicatessens going head-to-head…but now they've agreed to meet on neutral ground.

Not long ago, an outlet of Canter's opened in Las Vegas at the T.I. Hotel, aka Treasure Island. A Carnegie Deli has just opened next door at the Mirage…and the two are even closer than that sounds. The Mirage and the T.I. are sister hotels, owned by the same company and connected by direct walkways and a tram. It's almost like the most famous delicatessen in New York and the most famous deli in Los Angeles are now housed in the same building.

And if you want to take the comparison another step, there's a pretty decent re-creation of the Stage Deli over at Caesars Palace, which is on the other side of the Mirage. You could easily go to one of these three for your chicken soup, to another for your sandwich, and to the third for pastry. Or hit one for lunch, one for dinner and one for a late night nosh.

One of these days, I intend to try either option. I'm willing to bet I'll like the corned beef best at the Carnegie, the potato salad at Canter's and the chicken soup at the Stage. And since this is Vegas, you just know there'll be someone willing to cover that wager.

Once upon a time, imitations of MAD Magazine were about as prevalent in this great land of ours as Denny's restaurants…and you can make up your own joke about which is funnier or which tastes better or whatever you like. While you're working on that, I'll mention that we are now down to one, and it hasn't even come out very often lately.

I speak of Cracked Magazine, which has managed to be around for over 47 years, which may be longer than the combined lives of Sick, Nuts, Crazy, New Republic, Panic, Blast, and all the rest. But this century has not been kind to Cracked, which only got four issues out in 2004, the last of which — it came out in September with a Bush vs. Kerry cover — may be the most recent.

Now comes the news that Dick Kulpa, its most recent proprietor, has sold the humor mag to an Arabian concern. Here's the news item that will tell you what is known about the transaction. I gather from an e-mail I received from one of them that the publication's freelance writers and artists have been caught by surprise, and that none of them have a clue what this means. I'm guessing it means someone's going to pump a little money into the operation, maybe putting out a few more issues, trying to promote a brand-name that can be exploited for movies or videogames or other venues. I hope they do keep publishing because I'd like to see what an American humor magazine looks like with foreign owners.

My friend Gordon Kent writes to ask…

Your comment about Julie Nixon Eisenhower being Deep Throat raised a thought. I'm not nearly the aficionado of D.T. that you are — but how many women have been considered for the part (so to speak)? And what do you think the chances are that D.T. is a woman?

I don't think that's possible. When they were making the movie of All the President's Men, they cast Hal Holbrook as the mysterious informant. The story is that Robert Redford (or someone involved in the movie) went to Bob Woodward and said, in effect, "Look…we know you can't tell us who Deep Throat is, but for God's sake, we don't want to be about to release this movie and suddenly it comes out that it was a midget or a black guy or a woman or something like that." And Woodward, it is said, assured them that Holbrook was safe casting.

More to the point: Over the years, a number of things have been revealed about Deep Throat. In their book, Woodward and Bernstein refer to their friend as "he" and they say he drank Scotch and smoked, and they give a few other hints. They've said that nothing in the book is a fib to throw people off the scent. I don't think they're dumb enough to give all that info out, swear by it, and then declare that Deep Throat was an Amish woman. No one would believe them, and the rest of the news community would rip them apart. Which may happen anyway, but I can't imagine Woodward and Bernstein making it that easy.

The late Frank Kelly Freas is remembered in a way that would have amused him. (Thanks, Jerry Beck.)

David Kay was the author of a number of articles and speeches about the Iraq War that told everyone what had gone wrong, and in such eloquent and calmly reasoned manner that few seemed able to attack or answer him back. He has a new article out about what may be about to go wrong with Iran.

I awoke this morn to this e-mail from Michael Burstein…

Given the news that Deep Throat is terminally ill, your post saying that "I really hope it turns out to be someone like Julie Nixon Eisenhower or Ben Stein" could be interpreted as hoping one of them is about to die, which I'm pretty sure is not the impression you meant to give…

No, you're right. I don't hope for anyone's death…especially Ben Stein, since the world needs all the funny Conservatives it can get.

But you know, I kinda wonder about this rumor that D.T. is very ill. Why would Woodward, who has zealously avoided giving anything but the slightest hint for decades, now reveal to anyone that it's someone who is now terminally ill? If the source is one of the two dozen or so popular suspects, there are going to be reporters on his porch, demanding to know if he's dying so they can rush back and say, "So-and-so is dying so he must be Deep Throat." That's probably not what the mystery man wants to endure in his final days of life. And there's nothing in it for Woodward, especially if his source continues to deny it on his death bed. You have to wonder if this is just another false lead.

We may be about to find out the identity of "Deep Throat," the informant who tipped off Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to certain facts during the Nixon/Watergate drama. According to this article, D.T. is ill to the point where Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee has already prepped the obit, which would presumably reveal the secret. Todd Draper, a reader of this site, notes: "This would seem to contradict the George H. W. Bush theory, as he seemed perfectly healthy during his Super Bowl pre-game appearance tonight."

So it could be any day now, or this report could be wrong. If I were a betting man, and there were anyone around willing to cover bets on this, I think I'd lay a few bucks on it being former FBI assistant director Mark Felt, and maybe make a side wager on Fred Fielding, who was Nixon's deputy counsel, just in case. Of course, I really hope it turns out to be someone like Julie Nixon Eisenhower or Ben Stein, but I'll settle for just about anyone at this point.

Earlier today, I linked to an excerpt from a song and challenged you to guess what was familiar about the tune. Most of you probably got it, but for the benefit of those who didn't…

That was an excerpt from a song called "It's Really Love," which appeared on Annette Funicello's 1959 LP record, Annette Sings. It was written for her by Paul Anka, who was recycling a song he'd written years earlier called "Toot Sweet.

In 1962, shortly before Johnny Carson took over as host of The Tonight Show, he and his manager ran into Anka on 57th Street in New York. During a brief conversation, Carson happened to mention that he was looking for a theme song. Anka scurried off to come up with something and decided to reuse the tune one more time. He was doing work then at Bell Sound Studios and he put together a demo record there and shipped it off to Johnny, who by then was down in Florida for a combination vacation and strategy session. Carson heard the song and liked it, but ran into some opposition from his newly-chosen bandleader, Skitch Henderson. Apparently, Skitch was looking forward to writing a theme song and collecting the royalties every time it was played.

There are two versions of what happened next, depending on who you ask. One version is that Johnny insisted on Anka's song and, out of gratitude, Anka named it "Johnny's Song" and put Carson down as co-author, which meant that they split the royalties. The other version is the opposite: Anka named it that and designated Johnny as co-author so that Johnny would insist on that theme. Either way, it wound up being played to kick off every The Tonight Show for 30+ years. For each of those years, Anka and Carson split somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000. Not bad.

Didn't watch.