When the Money Ran Out.

So did anybody get up in the middle of the night Saturday to go spend some federal money and violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, just for the heck of it? Technically, there was a gap between when a continuing resolution providing temporary fiscal 2005 funding for agencies expired at midnight Saturday and President Bush signed a new stopgap measure (lasting until Dec. 3, by which time he will presumably have signed the omnibus appropriations bill Congress approved over the weekend) on Sunday. The new resolution was flown to the president in Santiago, Chile, by military plane for his signature. What's that old line about no way to run a railroad?

NEXT STORY: Tortured Analogy.