Bell Suspected in Shooting Drug Dealer...

...or at least that's what the drug dealer says. From NYDailynews.com:

"A Queens drug dealer has told police that he was shot by Sean Bell in a turf battle last summer, sources told the Daily News.


The allegation emerged Sunday night, when the 26-year-old ex-con was arrested in Queens on new drug charges.

"He hoped to cut a deal somehow with this information, but so far his account seems credible," a high-ranking police source told The News last night."

Wait--a 'high-ranking police source' believes the dealer? What a surprise. Wonder if it was the same source who believed the 'eye witness' during the grand jury hearing? It would have been more shocking if the police hadn't believed the snitch; 'No, I'm afraid this incarcerated criminal is absolutely wrong about Sean Bell, who we believe to be of the highest character.'

According to the Dealer:

"As he was selling his wares, a rival dealer, whom he later identified as Bell, told the man his drug crew owned the turf and ordered him to leave, sources said.

The outraged dealer refused, only to be confronted a short time later by two men in a black Toyota Camry.

In broad daylight, the car pulled alongside the dealer and one of the occupants shot him in the right buttocks as he fled.

"He said the dealer didn't want any competition. He didn't take no for an answer and shot him in the a-- as he ran," another police source said. "He was quite clear: Bell was the man who shot him.""

By the way, am I the only one who had to laugh at "...as he was selling his wares...?" As if he were selling ceramic piggy banks at the county fair? Anyway, the story really doesn't play too much of a role in this case considering the whole thing hinges on the fact of a) Did Bell or his friends pull out a gun during the melee? or b) did the police have evidence that he was carrying a gun prior to leaving the club?

But if you really want to know the veracity of the dealers statement--let's see if the DA presses charges against Bell for it. I'm setting the odds at 50-1.

By the way; I really hope the snitch got his deal because he's lost all street cred. He was shot, in the ass, as he was running away from Sean Bell. Hard to show your face on the streets after that one unless you're Doctor Dre.

I Need to Join This Class

Screw The Secret, this is a real power:

"Here's one for the Breakup Hall of Fame: A woman walked out on her boyfriend because she said her new lover had a special talent - he could make her climax using only his mind.

Such is the tale told by Quoc Pham, who is suing the mother of his child for dumping him for an Arizona cycling stud who allegedly possessed the unusual sexual gift."

I just wonder--does he have to actually pay attention to her while he does it, or can he do other stuff at the same time. I wonder if my fiance would get so angry at me when I play online poker if I could give her orgasms while I waste time.

"Honey, when are you...oh...OH...YES! YES! GO ALL IN!!!"

March Madness would be national women happy month--and let's not even talk about the Super Bowl.

Here's a Theory

According to this report from the New York Post, all the bullets that ended up striking Bell and his two friends came from one gun, that of Detective Michael Oliver. The Post goes on to criticize the grand jury's decision to charge Detective Gescard Isnora with Manslaughter since, though the detective shot first, he failed to hit any of the victims. Yet this story leads to more interesting questions. It seems to be apparent that Oliver meant to inflict damage to the suspects due to the amount of ammo he shot off, actually having to reload his gun during the melee. That being said, add that now to the fact that he was the only one who hit his targets, and it makes you wonder what were Oliver's intentions. My theory--only a theory mind you--but what if Oliver was hired to make a hit on Bell? Or what if he was hired to put a hit on someone who fit Bell's description? Think of it--this isn't the first time cops have been used as hitmen, and he had been deep undercover. He seems to have some 'good' friends willing enough to give him a 4,200 party the day before the grand jury was set to give his decision, and the scenario would have been perfect to cover up any malfeasance. Bell and his friends come out of a known crime den-Oliver yells out 'gun' and then gets to blasting, and, mock witnesses aside, there wasn't anyone left on the street, and Oliver seemed to be shooting to kill anyone other than his fellow cops.

Something's not adding up here, and by far there's many more questions that need answering. Who exactly was being staked out at the club? What are the officers records? What was the timing of the incident? Why was that spot chosen by the officers to apprehend the suspects?

This is getting more fascinating by the moment.

Giving Kuchinich His Say

As many of you might have heard, yesterday the House passed H.R. 1591 which is popularly known for calling for a deadline of Aug 2008 for pulling troops out of Iraq along with a bucket load of pork. I noticed that Presidential candidate, and Word of the People favorite Dennis Kuchinich voted against the measure. After doing a triple take I decided to take a look as to his reasons why. Here' s what he wrote on his website:

"Congress has just voted to give President Bush the money he needs to keep the war going through the end of his term.

So where do we go from here? Well, this is the moment that all of us must come together, in communities across the United States, to insist that our nation take a new direction -- now -- in Iraq.

We must go into the town squares. We must meet in libraries, and on university campuses across the country, to cause the policies of the United States to merge from right from the grassroots, and be heard in Washington.

Unfortunately Washington has not listened. Washington has said More War.

You're the ones who must stand for peace. And join with me in this effort to just Change America.

It's not satisfactory that Congress has voted to keep the war going.

Congress had the power to end this war.

And you and I know that.

And now we have to forge a whole new relationship with the American people leading the way, not waiting for Congress to act.

We must act. And we must act from our streets, we must act from our neighborhoods, we must act from our town halls. And it's the power of the people now that's going to have to transform the American government.

It's a sad day when Washington, having recognized that we're standing on a mountain of lies, and proceeding to prosecute a war against a people that did not attack us.

It's a sad day when America will know that there will be more troop casualties and more civilian casualties, and a greater drain on our resources, when we need money for education, health care, and so many other things in this country.

Where do we go from here? We go to where America has always gone, and that is the strength of a powerful civic response. And you must be part of that.

I join with you, as I have never wavered in my efforts for peace, in my determination to point out that war is not the way, in my insistence that this is the time that we have to take a new direction.

Just know that there are those of us who continue to take that stand in Washington.

But now you need to take a stand.

So please, join, together, all over the country.

And I'll be there with you.

Thank you very much."

So he voted on his principled stand against the war, and a demand for immediate removal of the troops. Principals huh? He will so never win Presidency, but, most likely, we'll be the biggest losers.

Sometimes You Have to Quit

First off I'd like to say a few words expressing the deep feelings of admiration I have for John Edwards. The man has gone through things that would have broken lesser people. He lost his son Wade in 96'. Then, during the final leg of his VP campaign with John Kerry his wife Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer. A cancer which she thought she had beat, but has now returned, treatable, but ultimately fatal. She could only have years to live, or she might survive, or she might pass on in months. The doubt is only the beginning of the agony of this horrible disease. It would be a triumph for any one to live through one of these tragedies, but two is far beyond, at least this writer's, comprehension. And that is why, in my own opinion, you should quit this campaign.

You know, perhaps its a fact of human existence that we don't prize and value the things we have when we have them. Maybe we just can't help it no matter how wise we are, or think we are. A couple of days ago my fiance left to Paris to vacation with her sister. Now usually I come back home from work and want to do a million different things before I go to bed. There's writing, blogging, online poker, video games, reading, television watching, and more poker, and of course most of these things require, to some extent, isolation. My fiance chides me about it (alright, annoys me :) saying that I should spend more time with her, and my response usually is: you need a hobby, and yes, sometimes she really does.

But now that she's gone--you guessed it--I realize what she truly means to me. Coming home to a cold, dead empty house has to be one of the most depressing and dull experiences of my life, and the hole that's left when someone you love is gone is darkest void anyone can imagine. It is the nightmare of all nightmares. Yeah, I know that she's coming back in a week, but imagining not having her in my life...well, today at least, I don't know how I could go on, and if she were dying I think I'd want to spend as much time with her as possible, because as trite and Hallmarkish as it sounds, spending time with the people you love might be the most important thing in life, and definitely more important than a job, even if that job is President of the United States.

If you go on to run Sen. Edwards I'll still respect you and your family. But sometimes you can show the greatest courage by standing down, and your greatest lesson can be that family comes first. Now that's values.

Bad Move...

...Iran detains British Troops. From MSNBC.com:

"LONDON - Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors who had boarded a ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf off the Iraqi coast on Friday, officials said.
The British government demanded “the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.”


The British Navy personnel were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, Britain’s Defense Ministry said."

I have a feeling this is more of a mix up than an act of aggression or a political attack. With British troops pulling out of Iraq, and new leadership taking over for Tony Blair I can't find any reason why Iran would want to pick a fight with the UK. Still, we remember the last time Iran detained Westerners don't we?

Injustice

The UN commission on Women Rights finds Israel and only Israel in "violation of women's rights:"

"Muslim women are in the news everywhere — everywhere, that is, but the United Nations. The U.N.’s lead agency responsible for the promotion and protection of women’s rights the world over, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), ended its 51 session on March 9, 2007, by criticizing only one state — Israel."

Read the rest of it if you actually give a damm about women because apparently this UN commission doesn't. In the past I've tried to support the UN, and likewise I've criticized the nation of Israel, but this is an absolute travesty of Kafkaesque proportions, and should anger anyone who actually cares about women's rights which in many other places worldwide (ahem--Islamic nations) is barbaric and atrocious. I hope Cros rips them a new one.

Show me the Money!

Hil's giving bloggers up to 20,000$ a week? Is she wearing that jacket with the question marks on it too? Either way call me--I have a daily readership of at least 8 people, that's gotta be worth at least 5$ a week.

The Most Important Post You WIll Ever Read

And I'm not sure if that's hyperbole. Empirical proof that war is not in mankind's nature? Sounds right to me:

"War isn't natural. Humans are social primates; we need to live in densely clustered groups. As a result, we've evolved a set of powerful moral instincts that prevent us from hurting each other. Killing makes us feel bad, even when we are killing Sunni insurgents. It's one of the more uplifting facts of human nature: each of us is born with a powerful moral compass, and this compass constrains our behavior.


Going to war forces soldiers to void this innate moral compass. Violence is normalized in battle, but violence isn't normal, at least from the perspective of the brain. Thanks to fMRI research, we can now begin to see the neural source of this morality. Joshua Greene has done some of the pioneering work in the field. Greene has discovered that when we contemplate certain types of moral questions, a specific network of emotional brain areas become active."

Hat Tip: Sully (Who else?)

If I was in a much $h_T as Dick Cheney...

...I'd be in some 'discomfort' too.

Senate Repeals Presidential Power

From MSNBC.com:

"WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to end the Bush administration's ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors.
Amid calls from lawmakers in both parties to resign, Gonzales got a morale boost with an early-morning call from President Bush, their first conversation since a week ago, when the president said he was unhappy with how the Justice Department handled the firings.
With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. Democrats say the Bush administration abused that authority when it fired the eight prosecutors and proposed replacing some with White House loyalists."

Good work, but let's not forget that executive stacking of the Judiciary has been going on for quite along time from John Adams to FDR, and at times it makes sense (that is, if you support the Pres or not). Still the provision was a sneaky act which was immoral if it turns out that a member of Arlen Specter's office was bribed to insert it. Remember when thieves had class?

More of the Endgame...

From MSNBC.com:

"WASHINGTON - Congress wants to know how the FBI illegally or improperly gathered telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while chasing terrorists.


Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department inspector general who revealed FBI data-gathering abuses in a 130-page report last week, was to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The panel also called FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni, whose office was taken to task by Fine for inadequate supervision of the bureau's use of documents called national security letters to gather data.

In a review of headquarters files and a sampling of just four of the FBI's 56 field offices, Fine found 48 violations of law or presidential directives during 2003-2005 and estimated that "a significant number of ... violations throughout the FBI have not been identified or reported.""

Democrats in Congress have been reluctant to even mention the word impeachment, but not since Iran-Contra and Watergate have there been such pressing reasons for doing so, and these violations are just the tip of the iceberg it seems. MSNBC.com's Live Vote poll is at last count 87% for it, while Zogby is about even though geographically lopsided. Either way this can't go on for much longer with out a serious debate ensuing. Perhaps if Bush changed his rhetoric...nope, ain't going to happen.

Another Connect the Dots

From Dusty Foggo to Carol Lam to Alberto Gonzalez. From Think Progress:

"Referring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”
The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections:

– Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.
– Wade’s company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to “provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.”
– Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boat’s name was later changed to the “Duke-Stir.” Said one party to the sale: “I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that…Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it — all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.”
– According to Cunningham’s sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.

To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated."

More holes in the Bush Admistration. You know its getting bad when Texas Republicans are getting upset.

Police Indicted in Bell Shooting

From Wcbstv.com:

"QUEENS Indictments were unsealed Monday accusing three New York City police officers of breaking the law in the November shooting death of Sean Bell and the wounding of two of his friends outside a Queens strip club on the day Bell was to be married.Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver were charged with manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment.

Marc Cooper was charged only with two counts of reckless endangerment.

Isnora and Oliver face both first- and second-degree manslaughter charges.Two other NYPD officers who were present during the shooting were not indicted by the Queens grand jury that ended its deliberations Friday."

This comes after the DA made the unprecedented decision to hold the decision over the weekend. Michael Oliver took the extra time to party up a 4,200 tab which led to some stern criticism. Personally if I was about to be indicted for manslaughter I'd party too...preferably in a country with a non-extradition treaty.

The Title Says it All...

"Fuck Garrison Keillor
Posted by DAN SAVAGE on March 14 at 10:02 AM"

For those of you who those that little Garrison Keillor was about as nonthreatening as Barney Fife without the bullet in the shirt pocket, check out the article. I always thought Keillor was the most unfunny man in America and possibly the world. The man couldn't get a laugh out of a NO addict. Which brings me to...

Top 5 things I'd rather do than watch anything written, starring, or produced by Garrison Keillor:

5) Prayer session with Ted Haggard.

4) Have anything described by Method Man in the intro to his solo album.

3) Watch a full season of Thirtysomething.

2) Visit my (soon-to-be) father-in-law.

and the number one thing I'd rather do than watch anything written, starring, or produced by Garrison Keillor...

1) Wait in the emergency room of Walter Reed with a gunshot wound to the gut while Stevie Wonder gives me a root canal.

What? Is This the St. Sober Day Parade?

Someone ought to tell this guy that:

"The head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade bashed New York firefighters yesterday, complaining they show up drunk to the march - and make the Irish look bad with their all-day boozing.

In a rare and candid attack, parade Chairman John Dunleavy said firefighters skip parade planning meetings, ignore direction - and get tanked up in front of TV cameras."

So first they can't post up girly pics in their lockers, and now they can't get drunk and march in the friggin St. Paddy's Day Parade. I tell you, if they pass a law banning premarital sex then there won't be any reason left to become a fireman.

Last minute witness steps up in Sean Bell shooting...

...but is he credible? From NYdailynews.com:

"A surprise last-minute mystery witness threw a Queens grand jury investigating the police shooting of Sean Bell into tumult, just hours after it began deliberating yesterday.
The Spanish-speaking man walked into the 115th Precinct stationhouse in Queens yesterday and said he saw the much-rumored "fourth man" - a man with a gun running away from the scene.

"He came forward on his own," said Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael Palladino. "He said he heard the clash of the car. He looks up and sees a male black fire one shot, maybe two, and run from the scene, possibly running into a building."

Suspicious? Absolutely. With the NYPDs reputation for racism and police brutality, this 'mystery witness' sounds very fishy. But my co-worker brings up an interesting point. Let's say for the moment that there was a 'fourth man' who was shooting at the cops--where's the shell casings? Did he shoot at the cops, and in the middle of returning fire pick them up and run away?

This Pretty Much Sums up My POV...

...from Sully:

"Well, I asked it, via Tom Mallon:

"Are American writers, artists, and thinkers truly prepared to admit that Islamofascism is a real, and even imminent, threat to everything they are accustomed to thinking, saying, and creating?"

And here's an answer:

How big is the threat? For me, it just isn't that big. Islamic terrorists, if they are lucky, will manage a couple of medium profile bombings of tourist sites each year, and maybe something larger (New York, London, Madrid) every few years. This sucks, and our security services should relentlessly hunt down these people and take them out of the game. But is it really that much of a threat to the world?

Our societies, cultures and economies are just too strong to be even mildly shaken by this lame bullshit. Just because some gaggle of religious lunatics manages to kill a bunch of westerners once every 6 months, does anyone really believe that "everything we are accustomed to thinking, saying and creating" is under threat? I call bullshit.

We are SO going to beat these freaks."

Did Pace Break the Rules?

One of Sully's readers thinks so, and Sully scoops more here. This could be a policy error on the General's part, but honestly, who's going to punish him? And furthermore, he could have been mandated to wear his uniform in that instance. Better to get at the obvious criminal.

Sorry I'm Not Worrying About the Rights of Pigs...

...people are higher up on my things to save list.

Sorry Obama...

...but I'm seriously considering endorsing this guy.

No seriously, I really am.

Update: He's even got a blog.

Connect the Dots...

...and see if you can trace this right-wing conspiracy. I've seen Family Circus cartoons with less twists and turns, but, you see, that's what makes them so efficient!

General Pace May Have to Apologize...

...but it shouldn't be for expressing his opinion:

"WASHINGTON - Senior aides to the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace won’t apologize for calling homosexuality immoral — an opinion that gay advocacy groups deplored.

In a newspaper interview Monday, Pace had likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces."

Personally, I see nothing wrong with homosexuality. I said it before and I'll say it again, what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own room is their business, and while I might think its sorta gross, there's plenty of heterosexual sex I also think is pretty gross. Take anything by this dude for example. Fact is, while I hold many opinions about many things I don't feel it's my place to pass judgement on someone else's sexual lifestyle, and further more, as a believer in the freedom of speech, I respect the right for someone to express their point of view even when it differs from mine. Gen Pace expressed his, and he shouldn't need to apologize for exercising his rights as an American citizen. If gays have a problem with anything it should be the policy of the United States armed forces that bans open homosexuals from serving their country. This bluntly discriminatory policy is what needs to be challenged and not one man's opinion. If anything this should only be a footnote to gay advocates' issues, something to be highlighted as yet another callous yet human trait.

Note: Yes, Pace's opinion was disrespectful to the homosexuals who choose to stay in the closet so they can serve their country with honor. But they're disrespected alot more by the policy that forces them in that closet.

Don't Call it a Comeback...

Morton Downey Jr. is having a comeback--Right-wing conspiracies never left. From MSNBC.com:

"WASHINGTON - The "vast, right-wing conspiracy" is back, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning, using a phrase she once coined to describe partisan plotting.
Once derided for her use of the phrase, Clinton is now trying to turn the imagery to her advantage.

Speaking Tuesday to Democratic municipal officials, the New York senator used the term to hammer Republicans on election irregularities.

Conspiracy alive and well
Clinton was first lady when she famously charged allegations of an affair between her then-president husband Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky were the result of a conservative conspiracy.

As evidence of the affair eventually came to light, the comment was ridiculed.But many Democrats have since insisted that Clinton was correct, pointing to the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations.
On Tuesday, she asserted the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted."

Conspiracy is a charged word, but accurate. There is a portion of the right-wing that is incredibly devious and organized and they implement plans with an insidiousness that is diabolical. Think not? What the hell do you think FOX News is? What was the Iraq war but a right-wing conspiracy?

By the way, that doesn't mean that the left-wing doesn't conspire. We're just not any good at it.

Surgeon General Resigns...

From NYdailynews.com:

"WASHINGTON - The Army's top doctor became the latest casualty in the flap over shoddy treatment of wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general who had been accused of callous indifference by troops and their families, resigned Sunday, but military sources said he was told to put in his papers."

Some one's head had to roll and I suppose Lt. Gen Kiley was the first (or is it the second?). Still the buck stops at the top and with this, Scooter, and now the problems with Alberto Gonzelez how far can we go before we get to Cheney and Bush? This whole tree is rotten.

And We Thought Mel Was the Crazy One...

...but Danny's turning out to be the loose cannon, as he unloads some Riggs on a Daily News reporter:

"Actor Danny Glover - best known for playing the less combustible cop in the "Lethal Weapon" movies - suddenly punched a Daily News photographer yesterday, shocking onlookers with his burst of violence.
As Glover, 60, emerged from Brooklyn Federal Court, he flipped out and threw a roundhouse punch at News photographer Gary He, connecting with a glancing blow to his jaw.
"What gives you the right to come out here and photograph me and have your camera up in my face?" Glover growled, according to He."

Sean Penn quickly called Glover to welcome him to the club.

Hagel for President?

He's leaving himself open to it. Why would he be viable? Well he said the words 'president' and 'impeachment' in the same sentence and he's anti-war. He also seems like a traditional Republican which means he's liberal. If he was black he might be Obama.

One Way to Solve the Walter Reed Problem...

...send injured soldiers back to the front:

""This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight.""

Well what did you expect? This is the administration that told us that cutting down trees would reduce the number of forest fires.

What's the Big Deal?

They're just going home:

"MANAMA/HOUSTON - U.S. oil services firm Halliburton Co. is moving its headquarters and chief executive to Dubai in a move that immediately sparked criticism from some U.S. politicians."

Chop the US off of the first part of that story and you have what Halliburton is--an oil services firm, and their bottom line is MONEY. What? When GM, Ford, and about every other "US" company (see that as companies that hire Americans) left our shores was that a surprise? Guess what? That's how business is run--and considering how much business Halliburton does with the Middle East it makes more sense just to move there I suppose. But as far as allegiances go, Halliburton owes more to Dick Cheney than it does to America--even if it gets its tax breaks from US.

The Things You Find When You Look Deeper...

The admistration knew they'd have problems with Veteran's care. Washington Post June '05:

"The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

Veterans Affairs budget documents projected that 23,553 veterans would return this year from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek medical treatment. However, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told a Senate committee that the number has been revised upward to 103,000 for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. He said the original estimates were based on outdated assumptions from 2002."

From there to here. So much money and so little intellegence.

Hat Tip: Sully.

Is Rommey Paying Off Journalists?

Sully seems to think so, targeting NRO's Kathryn Lopez. She disputes. You be the judge.

PS: For the record, the case of beer and weekly Metrocard Obama gave Word of the People totally didn't sway our opinion of his candidacy. We swear.

It's time...

...for Alberto Gonzalez to go. The NY Times gets on the bandwagon here, but everyone else from all sides seemed to have known this a while ago. If you ask me, when the Attorney General has the audacity to claim that:

"The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion."

Then he's not qualified to hold his position, either as Attorney General or a lawyer.

President Bush makes Brief Stop at Colombia

From NYDailynews.com:

"BOGOTA, Colombia - President Bush visited Colombia yesterday to show support for the country's battle against narcoterrorists, but security jitters had him staying only about six hours in the violence-plagued nation.

Bush's brief visit here - which took his motorcade not far from rioting protesters - was meant as a show of confidence in President Alvaro Uribe."

Here's a new motto for Colombia. Colombia--the other Iraq. By the way, we give 700 million a year to Colombia in aid? Talk about money wasted. I know Colombians who have to sneak into the country for fear that they're going to get kidnapped.

If There's Justice in the World...

...then this punk will be caught. And for his sake it better not be by some of these guys.

300 Breaks Box Office Records...

Who would have thunk it? Although it's not too surprising when you consider the market and this weekend's competition. Ghost Rider has made over 100 million and it totally sucked, and people were dying for something besides Wild Hogs to watch.

Maybe this will be the excuse for them finally to bring Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to the big screen. That would be awesome!

A Reminder...

...Freedom isn't free, but peace ain't all that expensive.

A New Hope...

...not for the Republic but for the United States and Iraq. This should have done a LONG time ago.

Yglesias on how the Iranians, er, the Persians might be US...

Right here...

By the way: I think 300 holds up better than Sin City, but doesn't have Jessica Alba which is always a big minus.

Editor's note...

Upon looking over the Wikipedia entry for Swift Vets and POWs for Truth I noticed that there was a mistake in the previous Word posting. The group going after McCain are comprised of a different membership. However we still contend that they are nutbags. We apologize for the mistake.

Liberals Against Swift Boating...

I'm starting the group, and I'm adding Kerry, Leland, and McCain as honorary members. I wasn't even going to mention this story, regarding a new set of attack ads against McCain brought to you by the same nut bags who attacked Kerry so long ago, but the story popped up here and here. For the best analysis of the controversy check out Moment of Triumph.

My thoughts--I don't like John McCain's politics one bit, but the man served his country with distinction and survived though experiences that would give me nightmares. I may still never visit Vietnam. Some people you just have to respect, and McCain is one of them.

Giuliani Busted!

Or more precisely his campaign is busted for creating a fake group ("Firefighters for Rudy") that's headed by Giuliani aide Tim Brown.

On a different note I'd like to mention my new group, "Superheros For Word of the People". It's headed by Bruce Wayne. Send all correspondence to Bruce@sucker.com. Feedback will be fictional.

Sara Silverman humping a Black God...

...Like I care. I think Jesus' General has the right idea as to why all of these Right-wingnuts are outraged. Personally, if I was God I wouldn't be sleeping with Sara Silverman--no disrespect--I'd be sleeping with Ice-T's wife.

Then again maybe Ice-T really is God, because only God could host porn movies, be a pimp, co-star on an popular prime time show and still be allowed to teach upper class white children how be rappers. Now that's skillz.

300: The Review

Think of Braveheart...on crack.

Excellent movie, with fantastic visuals and heart stopping action sequences. Frank Miller took some huge liberties in developing the plot--including an entire side story following King Leonidas' wife to fill the extra time but for the most part it worked and managed to hit some interesting feminist's points (when was the last time you saw a woman stab some dude to death and the audience cheered?)

Note to liberals: Check your politics at the door. My right-wing friend at the end of the movie said, "hey, how did you like your first pro-Bush movie?" And he was right since the language used by the Spartans so closely parallels the Right when they describe the war on terrorism and the Iraq conflict, though I can't be sure whether or not that was Miller's intention. Regardless of that rhetoric this movie will have you on the edge of your seat ready to throw down with your Spartan brothers. Warning: Watching this and Braveheart back-to-back could lead you to start a revolution against your local tyrant.

The Reasons Behind Bipartisanship...

...the money stupid. Well, at least Yglesias thinks so.

And for the record--for 7 million I'll work with Reynolds, Drudge and Malkin and love it.

A Response to Harry Reid

Over at Huffpo, Senate Maj Leader Harry Reid has this post regarding the Democrats' resolution to 'Bring home the troops:'

"Democrats believe, as does an overwhelming majority of the American people, that President Bush needs to change course in Iraq. We can't stay in Iraq forever. The question becomes whether we'll continue to follow the president's failed strategy or whether we work to change course.


Will the Senate sit silent, or will we bring stability to Iraq and bring our troops home from a protracted civil war?

Democrats have always been unified on these principles.


The mission in Iraq has changed and, therefore, so must U.S. policy change. Troops should not be policing a civil war. The current conflict in Iraq requires a political solution.

Listen to what General Petraeus said today from Iraq: "The war cannot be won militarily. It can only be won politically."


We further believe that Iraq must take responsibility for its own future, and our troops should begin to come home.

That's why, yesterday, I'm introducing a joint resolution calling for the president to change course and bring stability to Iraq by beginning a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq in 120 days, with the goal of redeploying combat forces from Iraq by the end of March of next year.


A limited number of troops would remain for the purposes of force protection, training and equipping the Iraqi troops, and counterterrorism activities.

Truly changing course in Iraq will require Republican cooperation and support. So far, Republicans have chosen to greenlight the escalation.


Hopefully, Senate Republicans will join the American people in opposing the president's flawed policies in Iraq. They must put doing the right thing above protecting the president."

This has about the same substance and is about as sincere as one of Bush's State of the Union addresses. Now I hate criticizing Democrat leadership. It's like scolding my Mother, and just about as futile, but it needs to be said. In this memo Reid is, at the least, disingenuous and, at most, deceitful. As I talked about here the Democrat resolution isn't a call strictly to pull troops from Iraq--as the American people want. The resolution includes several methods to keep our troops there leaving their presence in the region ultimately in the president's hands.

Is it just me or did I hear the word "blank check" echoing in the distance?

As a way to tame the Iraq conflict the resolution might work--if the goal is to tame and not end Bush's war. You tell us its the latter, but the facts point to the former. You can't have it both ways.

You're doing your party and your constituents a disservice when you try to play both sides of the aisle like this. Since Clinton people have accused the Democrats of not standing for anything, and yet even when a huge majority of Americans LOUDLY oppose our presence in Iraq you continue to talk vague and empty rhetoric. The girl at the end of the bar just tossed her panties in your face, but you're still nursing your drink. Either stand as the opposition party or the Democrats will lose whatever gains they made in the 2006 elections. And you don't need to be Karl Rove to figure that out.

All the Reasons Why Blacks Should Support Obama...

Right here. My favorite part:

"Rather than using his credentials and connections to build his personal wealth, Obama chose to pursue careers like providing job training for residents of poor neighborhoods, directing voter registration drives and fighting for civil rights. Unlike other candidates in the race, Obama has been consistent in speaking against sending our black babies to murder, and to be murdered by, brown people in the Mesopotamia for the sake of multinational corporate interests. He has successfully forged coalitions with people across racial and political lines to introduce a host of legislation that would, among other things, get guns off our streets, reduce greenhouse emissions, and limit the influence of special interest lobbyist on Capital Hill."

But he paid his parking tickets late!

PS: I wanna mention that as I was looking for that last link I thought I'd find a bunch of junk right-wing posts about those tickets, but it turns out most news services either didn't report it or gave it less than an inch of space. Now if we can only bring Anna Nicole and that NASA nut down to that amount of coverage we'd be getting somewhere.

The Wall of Shame...

...gets a new member. Move over Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett, Newt Gingrich steps to the head of the class as the man who led the impeachment of Bill Clinton admits that he had an affair at the same time:

"WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards.""

God's, Man's, the standards of decency...you hit them all. Then again how much can you expect from a guy named Newt:

"Newts can take several years to reach sexual maturity. Their main breeding season is between February and June. They hatch as tadpoles from eggs laid in ponds or slow-moving streams. In the case of triturus even brackish water is used, but most species are more picky. (see image on the right) Then they undergo metamorphosis, during which they commonly leave the water, only to return to the water to live out their adult lives. "

Metamorphosis--the new word for hypocrisy.

More swings than Benny Goodman...

...the economy stupid--and according to this unemployment is down:

"WASHINGTON - The nation’s unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent in February even as big losses of construction and factory jobs restrained overall payroll growth. Wages grew briskly."

But...

"Employers, meanwhile, added 97,000 new jobs to their payrolls in February, the fewest in two years, as bad winter weather forced construction companies to slash 62,000 jobs, the most since 1991. Factories, feeling the strain of the troubled housing and auto industries, also continued to cut jobs. They eliminated 14,000 positions last month."

The big picture? If you work in construction, auto, or housing, and you're not Donald Trump, you're not happy. But if you're one of the other 25,000 + you're feeling fine. Either way the news doesn't really help assuage investors' (or consumers' for that matter) fears.

More on the New and Improved Daylight Savings

The one they just snuck in. Could it lead to a new Y2K scare? From MSNBC.com:

""The average person, John and Jane computer user, is unlikely to see much of a problem, if anything," said David Keller, founder of Compu-Doctor, a computer-help provider in Florida. But in many complex networks with a range of newer and older equipment, on-the-fly tweaks sometimes have been unavailable. That has forced systems engineers to study how various computing applications deal with time, and make manual fixes if necessary.
The process reminded some people of the planning for the widely feared Year 2000 bug, even if the effects of this glitch — computer time is an hour off — appear way less threatening.
"We're going back to our Y2K lists to refresh our memories, to see what we did where and whether any of those areas are applicable to this, and sometimes the answer is yes," Ronner said."

My thoughts? Just like Y2K this thing will most likely pass us by, and since the change will be on Sunday rather than Saturday you'll sleep right through it.

PS: You might wonder why I keep posting up pictures of the Clock King from Batman. Simple--I think he's a righteous dude.

Taking a Step Back: A Special Report

HARLEM--Friday morning, around 10 am, and I just arrive to work. The temperature is below freezing but very sunny, hardly a cloud in the sky, and if you stand right in the light it's warm enough to strip out of your heavy coat and stand without shivering. The birds are chirping, squirels are out doing...squirrel stuff, and the streets are pretty much empty, our residents peacefully going to work. That's the key word here: peaceful. The morning is just about as idyllic as one could imagine outside of a Robert Frost poem. Even the air tastes fresh.

But from reading the front page of the New York Times this morning one would think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. There's a US report from the Justice department regarding an abuse of power by the FBI, more on the Walter Reed scandal, a story on a Bronx fire that took the lives of eight children and one adult, and crime in cities is on the rise. Yet looking at the paper in my hands and looking at the world in my face under the bright, nearly divine light, the two seem to contradict each other. In order for one to exist the other must be a work of fiction. And in a novel that would be the case.

But this isn't a work of fiction, this is the real world. And the real world is complex. The real world is full of contradictions and paradoxes. Regardless of what some pundits will tell you there is moral relativism, and all people are filled with some amount of good and evil regardless of race, creed, and religion. To love something, or someone, one must be accepting of the whole thing, not just a part of it--that section that shines.

The media and other elements will sometimes twist the truth for their own purposes, while others innocently twist it to create a narrative that makes sense, and while I can't say with certainty which one the Times falls under I will say this: Holding on to your sanity is an exercise where a person must accept two diametrically opposed truths at one time. You must be both a liberal and a conservative, a Republican and a Democrat, a heterosexual and a homosexual, and everything else in between to some extent because the truth is that one cannot exist without the other. That is not to say you can't pick a side, or decide on a particular position and fight for it--that is the calling of mankind--but to live, to exist without losing your head, you have to understand that regardless of anything you do the two sides will survive with or without you. Today is beautiful even if the front page of the NY Times (and I'm sure every blog I'll look at today) tells me the world is going to shit. Our challenge is to reconcile the two. And I know we can, if we take a step back.

And now we continue with our regularly scheduled programming...already in progress.

What time is it?

If you're like me, you had no idea until recently that Daylight Savings Time had been changed and its start was pushed back from April 1st to March 11th. Turns out the change was caused by a portion of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. My question--how the hell didn't I know about this? I mean its TIME for the love of Pete! Shouldn't that get at least as much discussion as Anna Nicole Smith? Or whatever the equivalent 2005 celebrity news story was?

Next thing you know they'll be changing the line up for Must See TV. THEY DID!?!?!?! WHERE THE HELL IS ER? NOOOOO!!!!!!

Angelina Jolie Nude!

Not really, but she has been nominated to sit on the Illuminati, er, I mean Council of Foreign Relations. In any event it gives me a reason to post up a really hot pic. Does this ruin my blogging integrity?

What about posting up the Youtube clip of Tyra Banks groping Katherine McPhee?

It's sweeps week. Sue me.

So...did we win?

Yglesias says we did win the Iraq war but then explains why I still feel sick:

"The problem in Iraq is that, we won a hollow victory. Defeating Saddam and replacing him with a new regime based around exiled Shiite political parties has a negative impact on America's strategic position in the world. Even were Iraq to grow substantially less chaotic over the next 2-5 years this would continue to be the case. The win-lose frame, while factually wrong, is also politically counterproductive. As Weisberg indicates, voters are reluctant to declare defeat for understandable psychological reasons. But there's no need to do that here. It's the fact of American victory that makes further involvement so untenable -- this is what winning looks like and, frankly, it looks like shit; there's no earthly reason to keep doing this; becoming "more successful" at backing the Maliki government wouldn't accomplish anything."

Wisdom means asking the right questions and fighting the right battles--this is the result of this administration's lack of wisdom.

When they ask you about the "questions" regarding Obama's finances...

...tell them this. Money quote:

"This is a classic example of the weaknesses of "objective" news reporting on ethical issues. The Times reporters don't make an explicit argument or concede the limitations of their claim. Instead, they string together a series of facts around a loose hypothesis (that Obama's actions "raise questions") and leave it to the reader to infer what they cannot prove. It's dirty pool."

Pardon me?

Rude Pundit gives a convincing argument for pardoning Scooter. Money quote:

"Brent Budowsky, a former aide to Lloyd Bentsen, agrees with Harry Reid, and then says things like the "integrity of the judicial process" and "integrity" in intelligence information and its use. But using the word "integrity" in relation to the Bush administration is like using the word "witty" in relation to Ann Coulter. We don't expect integrity from the Bush White House. We only expect craven self-interest, ideology above reality, and unending crazy threats, to individuals, to groups, to nations. And with an unpardoned Libby perhaps ready to make a deal than facing even a couple of years in the federal pen, well, shit, any feints at "integrity" or "honor" would have to be shredded like so many documents before a Congressional subpoena.

"So, c'mon, Bush administration, just get it over with. Pardon Libby. Would it really make you look any worse?"

Economy watch

Just don't say the word 'recession':

"Since the middle of last year, a downturn in the U.S. housing market has taken its toll on a wide group of people and companies, clobbering homebuilders, condo flippers, borrowers with weak credit, lenders who oversold loans, and just about anyone with a home for sale.


"Now the housing slump is hitting yet another target: housing-related jobs, a list that includes everyone from the people who build and sell houses to makers of appliances and furnishings."

Dems to introduce Iraq withdrawal...

After testing the waters with their anti-surge resolution, the Dems are taking the next step in calling for a full withdrawal of US troops by 2008 should the Iraqi government not meet certain benchmarks:

"The conditions, described as tentative until presented to the Democratic rank and file, would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and AfgSpeaker Nancy Pelosi’s office announced plans for a Thursday morning news conference to unveil the measure, without providing any of the details. It said she would be joined by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and other key lawmakers. Murtha is chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Pentagon’s budget and is among the House’s most outspoken opponents of the war.


"But Democrats familiar with the emerging legislation said the bill would require President Bush to certify that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was making progress toward providing for his country’s security, allocating its oil revenues and creating a fair system for amending its constitution.

"They said if Bush certified the Iraqis were meeting these so-called benchmarks, U.S. combat troops could remain until September of next year. Otherwise, the deadline would move up to the end of 2007."

Sounds pretty decisive yes? Then comes the politics:

"At the same time, it permits Bush to issue waivers of these standards. Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president, but their effect would be to permit the administration to proceed with plans to deploy five additional combat brigades to the Baghdad area over the next few months."

Let me check to see if I have this right--you have a troop withdrawal bill that allows a President, who may or surely lied to take us into this war of convenience, to add more troops and 'waive' the established benchmarks to keep them there because, when it blows up in his face he'll be 'embarrassed.' Who the hell thinks of this stuff? And then the Democrats wonder why the public thinks that they flip-flop. This President is beyond embarrassment. You have enough embarrassing material on Bush to make a series of DVDs hosted by Bob Saget, but at the end of the day he's programmed to 'stay the course,' even when his notes tell him that he never said 'stay the course.' I will say one thing about the Prez--he's never wavered from his position no matter how the polls have swayed or what his daddy or the rest of the world has said. He has a pathological inertia that keeps his internal compass aimed downward. If you give him the ability to keep troops in Iraq how can you not believe he won't keep them there? That's like telling a crackhead, "Look we're hiding your crack, but if you really want it we put it in that bag labeled 'Crack'."

Jokes aside, this game is being played with human lives. Either you want the troops out or you don't, but you can't have it both ways. As the opposition party the Democrats are not supposed to want it both ways. While this is a nice metaphorical step, its vague language will only insure more deaths in a situation whose outcome is determined. We've already lost our military struggle, now you're just drawing straws to see which one of our GIs will be the last to die.

Something we can do now for our children...

The debate continues regarding new NY Gov Eliot Spitzer's heath care budget. Many people argue that his budget will cut over 244 million to city hospitals but Spitzer contends that he's siphoning the money away from traditional care and moving towards community outpatient facilities.

Yet there is an important drug already supposed to be offered free of charge to NYC's poor youth that's not reaching them:

"The new cervical cancer vaccine isn't available at many city clinics - and girls who are eligible to get it for free or at low cost are often told they have to pay, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said yesterday.


"None of the 11 city clinics designated to treat sexually transmitted diseases offers the three-shot Gardasil series, Gotbaum said.

"Federal guidelines recommend that 11- and 12-year-old girls get vaccinated routinely against the human papilloma virus, which causes 70% of cervical cancers."

Sometimes when our politicians focus on the big picture in terms of health care they forget that its small thing like vaccination that can make the large difference.

It took them this long?

NASA fires Lisa Nowak:

"NASA dismissed Nowak on Wednesday, a month after she was charged with trying to kidnap a woman she regarded as her romantic rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot.
Nowak's dismissal did not reflect the space agency's belief in her guilt or innocence, NASA officials said. The agency said it lacked an administrative system to handle the allegations because Nowak is a naval officer on assignment to NASA, rather than a NASA civil servant."

Bloomberg once fired a dude on the spot because he was playing Solitaire on company time--but yet it took NASA a month to fire Lisa after charges of kidnapping? In this situation it's not about guilt or innocence it's about image, and frankly when a story like this breaks the first thing the suspect should think is "damm, guess I won't be going back to work on Monday." Especially when they're a friggin ASTRONAUT.

Then again you'd think after they found Libby guilty the President might want to distance himself from the Veep. Just shows you what I know.

Homeless figures rise in NYC

From the NYDailynews:

"The average number of homeless families last month totaled 9,287, marking an all-time record high since the city began tracking this data about 25 years ago.


According to the report, during the past year, the number of homeless New Yorkers in shelters increased by 11.1%, the number of homeless families in shelters increased by 17.6%, and the number of homeless children increased by 18.1%."

But yet the economy is doing fine. I wonder what are the figures on low income housing build vs. luxury condos.

More news you won't hear from CNN

From Stories in America:

"According to the United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF), about one in 10 children under five in Iraq are underweight and one in five are short for their age. This means that some 4.5 million children in the country are under-nourished."

Why does this matter? Well beyond the morality of the situation, remember that we're supposed to be winning their "hearts and minds?" Well letting children starve isn't a winning tactic. Then again it's not like we're doing that much better here.

Then again maybe suffering is a good thing? This theocon thinks so, and takes Obama to task for trying to alleviate pain.

Is it just me, or does it feel that sometimes that we have just lost all sense of decency?

Libby makes strange bedfellows...

What does a Greek liberal, a conservative man, and a gay pundit have in common? They all think Libby should be further investigated by Congress. From Sully:

"It's come to this? I'm watching Scarborough and see both Buchanan and Huffington agreeing that the Congress needs to take the Libby verdict from here on. Both opposed the war. I didn't. But at this point, I agree with them. Why are those of us who favored the war not as eager to investigate whether we were deliberately misled? Weren't we potentially conned as well?"

Better do it now, before Libby gets pardoned.

The last word on Coulter...

...is best left to Sully here. Not only does fantastically deconstruct what Coulter said, but his post is also very telling about hateful language that we all may say without thinking it's "hurtful." Money quote:

"Coulter's defense of the slur is that it was directed at an obviously straight man and so could not be a real slur. The premise of this argument is that the word faggot is only used to describe gay men and is only effective and derogatory when used against a gay man. But it isn't. In fact, in the schoolyard she cites, the primary targets of the f-word are straight boys or teens or men. The word "faggot" is used for two reasons: to identify and demonize a gay man; and to threaten a straight man with being reduced to the level of a gay man. Coulter chose the latter use of the slur, its most potent and common form. She knew why Edwards qualified. He's pretty, he has flowing locks, he's young-looking. He is exactly the kind of straight guy who is targeted as a "faggot" by his straight peers. This, Ms Coulter, is real social policing by speech. And that's what she was doing: trying to delegitimize and feminize a man by calling him a faggot. It happens every day. It's how insecure or bigoted straight men police their world to keep the homos out.
And for the slur to work, it must logically accept the premise that gay men are weak, effeminate, wusses, sissies, and the rest. A sane gay man has two responses to this, I think. The first is that there is nothing wrong with effeminacy or effeminate gay men - and certainly nothing weak about many of them. In the plague years, I saw countless nelly sissies face HIV and AIDS with as much courage and steel as any warrior on earth. You want to meet someone with balls? Find a drag queen. The courage of many gay men every day in facing down hatred and scorn and derision to live lives of dignity and integrity is not a sign of being a wuss or somehow weak. We have as much and maybe more courage than many - because we have had to acquire it to survive. And that is especially true of gay men whose effeminacy may not make them able to pass as straight - the very people Coulter seeks to demonize. The conflation of effeminacy with weakness, and of gayness with weakness, is what Coulter calculatedly asserted. This was not a joke. It was an attack.

Secondly, gay men are not all effeminate. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen a leading NBA player and a soldier come out to tell their stories. I'd like to hear Coulter tell Amaechi and Alva that they are sissies and wusses. A man in uniform who just lost a leg for his country is a sissy? What Coulter did, in her callow, empty way, was to accuse John Edwards of not being a real man. To do so, she asserted that gay men are not really men either. The emasculation of men in minority groups is an ancient trope of the vilest bigotry. Why was it wrong, after all, for white men to call African-American men "boys"? Because it robbed them of the dignity of their masculinity. And that's what Coulter did last Friday to gays. She said - and conservatives applauded - that I and so many others are not men. We are men, Ann.

As members of other minorities have been forced to say in the past: I am not a faggot. I am a man."

Nice to be wrong (for a change)

Scooter found guilty on four of five counts. From MSNBC.com:

"WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters.

He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI. "

I wish I could get the above picture as a poster. Let the spinning begin!

Prediction...

...Scooter will wheel his ass outta court, not guilty.

Greenspan revises comments...

...says now that there's a one-third possiblity of recession:

"SINGAPORE - Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted as seeing a “one-third probability” of recession in the United States this year, according to an interview with Bloomberg."

That's right calm them down. Problem is the tumor's still there. Still, if you're like Mort Zuckerman you might want to put your money in government bonds in the next couple of months. From the March 4 Mclaughlin Group:

"MR. ZUCKERMAN: My pillow is stuffed with U.S. government bonds. That's the way I sleep, John.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did you move into government -- did you see this coming?

MR. ZUCKERMAN: No, of course not.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did anyone have the sense to move into government bonds before it hit?

MR. ZUCKERMAN: I'm sure some people did, but I don't think they did it in anticipation of the Shanghai market going down by 9 percent.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How can you seem so elated, almost, here today?

MR. BUCHANAN: John --

MR. ZUCKERMAN: I'm elated because I'm on this show, John. You know, it's such a thrill.

MR. BUCHANAN: Right. (Laughs.)"

Horrible...

Dozens of Shiite pilgrims killed. From MSNBC.com:

"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two suicide bombers killed at least 90 Shiites making a pilgrimage south of Baghdad ahead of a weekend holiday, police said Tuesday.
The pilgrims came under attack as they streamed south, mostly on foot, toward a shrine in Karbala. Two bombers exploded themselves in a crowd of pilgrims in Hillah, about 60 miles south of the capital."

And just in case you thought the US got away scot free:

"Separately, U.S. officials said nine American soldiers died in explosions north of Baghdad on Monday the deadliest single day for U.S. troops in Iraq in nearly a month."

Blogs are political tools...

...as the Guardian discovers:

"Westerners assume Middle Eastern bloggers are liberal. But the Muslim Brotherhood has just started blogging in force."

Is this a surprise? Are we to be shocked because the East has their Ann Coulters?

Al-Qaeda at Thermopylae

So a couple of days ago I bought and finished 300: March to Glory, the video game that accompanies 300 the movie, coming out on March 9th. The game was overall a pretty fun button masher, with decent graphics and story board. However, and quite a large however, I was a bit confused and puzzled by the game's use of suicide bombers.

For those of you unfamiliar with 300, it's a movie based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. The story depicts the tale of the 300 Spartans who stood up to the million strong Persian army at Thermopylae at around 480 BC. Stylistic, Miller does take some liberties in developing the story, however I don't remember any suicide bombers in the novel. Enter the video game which features "Persian Slaves," picture Gandhi in a diaper carrying some flaming device. He runs up to a Spartan and boom! It's like downtown Baghdad.

Now I'm not one for political correctness, but why would the makers of the game add such an odd fiction to their game? I wish I could answer that point. I wish I didn't have a feeling that there is a deep down political purpose to the bomber which further enhances the already apparent neo-conservative ideas of the story (west vs. east, freedom and democracy vs. slavery and theocracy), all I do know is that on one hand the "bomber" totally took me out of the game, and in some way was offensive not only to the modern day descendants on Persians (hey Iranians have enough bad press to deal with) but to me having to deal with such an overt political ploy in the middle of my video game which I play to escape reality. If I need to watch someone on a screen twist reality I'll turn on Fox News. What's next, a video game based on the Spanish-American war where Pancho Villa rides up in a low rider? Or how about a video game based on Shaka Zulu? Instead of throwing spears the Zulu's will do drive bys while selling crack to the British. What's wrong with a little racism? It's all just a game.

A sane conservative voice

Ed Morrissey makes sense regarding the Coulter at the CPAC. Money quote:

"First, criticizing Coulter's use of the word "faggot" is not a suppression of free speech; it is an exercise of free speech. We're not advocating her arrest for using the word. We're just saying it was stupid, unnecessary, and hateful. This is no different than Melissa McEwan calling Christians "Christofascist Godbags" and Amanda Marcotte's incendiary hate speech about Catholics. We howled about that when John Edwards hired them; why do we defend Coulter's appearance at CPAC?"

Bingo.

I'm probably a left-wing extremist...

...at least according to Joe Klein. Here's a list of what he believes are attributes of a LWE:

"A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

--believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

--believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

--believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

--tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

--doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

--believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

--believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

--believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

--believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

--believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

--is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

--dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

--regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives."

I'll let you decide on which, if not all, of those attributes I share.

Classic Coulter...

Extremism at its finest:

"I was going to talk about John Edwards but these days, you have to go into rehab if you say the word 'faggot,'" - Ann Coulter, cheered to the rafters at CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] today."

People cheered--not much of a surprise. It's worth stating that this radical partisan bigoted rhetoric is epidemic on both sides of the rafters. Half of the bloggers ready to point a finger will find three pointing back at them.

But she really is a class act. Like Archie Bunker, but not funny.

Hat Tip: Sully

For those of you concerned about our injured troops...

...don't worry, they'll be kept warm with a hot blanket of sarcasm. Thanks for the in depth coverage Glenn Bond Bourne.

For any of you who want some real info check here.

PS: Thanks to Sully for spelling out my post.

The appeal of Obama...

It's ok Sully, you can say it:

"I'm not sure Barack Obama has sounded an off-key note in his campaign thus far. Am I swooning? No. I've learned my lesson. But read this NPR interview, where Obama has to walk through a racial and cultural minefield. He strides straight ahead, unflappable and sane. I think his appeal is precisely this. He is moving our narrative forward. He is able to speak of race and faith and politics without the usual ideological cant, and without the conventional cliche-ridden positioning...

Why do I keep feeling that he's actually being honest?"

Now that would be insane wouldn't it?

More good news for Obama...

First Zogby has him beating all the major GOP candidates, and now he's gaining on Hil.

Call him Neo, cause he could be the one.

PS: Think about this for a moment: do candidates win because some one tells the people that they can win? Is Zogby really creating the election right here and now? What do you think?

I don't know what you're talking about?

Isn't dodging the draft a prerequisite to become a presidential candidate?

"WASHINGTON - If this presidential campaign is anything like the last, John McCain’s Vietnam service will inevitably be contrasted with GOP rival Rudy Giuliani’s avoidance of a war that he opposed...

“Any suggestion that he was dodging the draft is totally, factually inaccurate,” said a senior Giuliani campaign adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “He opposed the war on tactical and strategic grounds.”"

He even has a crappy reason to boot. He's in like Flynn.

PS: This, by the way, is the exact reason why Hilary won't win.

I have an idea

Instead of passing laws to allow civil detainment of sex offenders after their prison sentences have expired, pass their names off to Chris Hansen.

Instead of spending tax money to track these guys down NBC will handle it, and provide us with great entertainment like this:



Capitalism at work.

Is Giuliani still mayor?

Because this is right up his alley:

"Should New Yorkers be arrested for picking up an unattended bag and not turning it in? The New York Police Department has a sting operation to do just that, but one couple caught up in it says they were doing nothing wrong. NY1’s Criminal Justice reporter Solana Pyne filed the following report.

For Aquarius Cheers and Kia Graves, it started as a routine trip to Target Thursday night to buy their daughter diapers. They were waiting for a train at 59th Street. “I look around and I end up seeing this bag,” recalled Cheers. “It was a Verizon bag. I took it, and look inside of it. I saw there was some electronics. Next thing I know the train is coming.” They grabbed the bag and rushed for the train. "I was like ‘just bring the bag,’ not thinking twice about it,” said Graves. “I was thinking ‘oh we could find a receipt in there,’ and possibly go back to the phone company Verizon." Then a team of undercover officers grabbed Cheers and charged him with petty larceny.

The NYPD calls the sting Operation Lucky Bag, where officers plant a bag and arrest those who take it and do not turn it into a uniformed officer posted nearby."

I'm not even going to get into the fact that this is obviously entrapment, but the entire exercise seems to me to be a waste of time. New York City, and the NYPD feels the need to catch people who, what? Find a bag and then don't immediately return it? As a New Yorker here's the rule; you leave something in the street, subway or train platform, it's gone--you snooze, you lose, and if you do happen to get it back then lucky you. Just be glad you lost it and it wasn't taken from you by some dude who'll get away because I'm getting arrested after picking up a sack full of cigarettes and porn that Officer Putz left for me to find. This is a complete mismanagement of resources, the equivalent of having a teacher assigning you an hours worth of long division to do in class during fourth period of fifth grade. Crap like this is only needed to keep up the already inflated police population in the city. Furthermore the arrests probably are illegal since:

"A Brooklyn judge threw out one Lucky Bag arrest, pointing out that the city's personal property law gives people ten-days to turn in found property worth more than $20."

Pretty soon they'll be giving out free chewing tobacco and arresting people for spitting on the street. Operation Waste of Time.