In view of some perceived "rethinking" within the Bush administration, this morning's Wall St. Journal asks,

At a Pivotal Moment,
Where Is Mr. Cheney?

He's been keeping a low, mostly uncommunicative profile, the paper notes.

There's no mystery, actually. He's well on his way to recovery from nearly drowning in his own cumbath. It happened when he got one of these, from Raytheon:

The Goodbye Weapon:

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.

According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games....

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds....

The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million....

Tests on monkeys showed that corneal damage heals within 24 hours, the reports claim....the Air Force is adamant that after years of study, exposure to MMW has not been demonstrated to promote cancer....

"Key technologies to enable this capability from an airborne platform -- such as a C-130 -- are being developed at several Air Force Research Laboratory technology directorates," says Diana Loree, program manager for the Airborne ADS.

Via Wired News. Test documents here.

(Dick Whittington said to be looking very tanned.)