I've not commented on the vulgar headline in a Colorado State University newspaper. But this line from a NY Times article forces me to break my silence

On the campus of Colorado State University, opinion is divided over whether a terse editorial that ran in the student newspaper on Sept. 21 was an exercise of free speech or immature judgment.

My answer: it is both at once. Free speech is free speech, even if it is immature and ill-considered.

Should the staff involved be fired? I'm not sure -- though there is the issue of the paper's code of ethics is being considered by the Board of Student Communications.

The board plans at the hearing to consider whether the language violated the newspaper’s code of ethics, specifically the provision that “profane and vulgar words are not acceptable for opinion writing.”

I don't know that I would agree in every instance, but this was a gratuitous use of the profane word in question. And I think a better argument for firing the editors can be made -- they violated their fiduciary duty to the paper by their poor editorial choice, as evidenced by the immediate loss of over $30,000 in advertising revenue.

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 207 words, total size 1 kb.

The old joke is confirmed with the front page tag-line for this WaPo story today.

In support for Democrat's plan, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) joins bipartisan side of Iraq debate.

Get that -- a Republican voting like a Democrat is "bipartisan. Never mind that the Democrats are acting in partisan lockstep. On the other hand, no Democrat voting with the Republicans -- say Joe Lieberman -- would never be considered to be "bipartisan".

And I guess it also goes to show that the Left considers military victory to be a partisan position, while surrender is a bipartisan option.

Posted by: Greg at 02:12 AM | Comments (113) | Add Comment
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

And this is not about religion, or discouraging abortion, or limiting "choice" (to kill other members of the human race because they are inconvenient). No, it is about public health and safety.

Consider this story.

The Alternatives abortion clinic in Atlantic City, New Jersey, opted to surrender its license to the state instead of correcting the list of health violations detailed in a 116-page report.

Atlantic City Councilman John Schultz, who leased the facility to Alternatives, said the clinic's equipment was emptied out of the building last month and the space is available for lease.

The state's report detailed a slew of violations at the clinic, including bloodstained operating tables, expired drugs and the absence of a sterilization sink.

The facility had not been inspected in six years, even though state law requires annual inspection. I guess they didn't want to come into conflict with the abortion industry or the feminists who support them.

Mark Noonan makes these interesting points on one of his sites.

If you go over to the Centers for Disease Control, you'll find that the CDC (at least in 2002) was saying that there is 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortions - but the problem with this stat is that everything about abortion at CDC is reliant upon voluntary reporting. An abortion mill with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 has no obligation to report and, indeed, would have a vested interest in keeping the death rate quiet. With little or no regulation of abortion at the State and local level, we really have no idea how many women are killed and injured in the course of their abortion procedure.

What we need is to bring the abortion industry under the same regulations which are applied to all medical operations. We need records to be kept; we need suspected cases of abuse to be reported (among the many dirty secrets of the abortion industry is the way they have become the means of choice for older men to hide their statutory rapes of young women); we need to ensure the facilities are up to surgical standards and that the staffs are fully trained not just in baby-butchering, but in emergency medical care in case they botch the abortion. And we should also have a comprehensive study done of abortion in the United States - to find out how many are really happening, and what emotion and physical effects abortion has on the women who have them.

Naturally, any such attempts will be desperately fought against by the pro-abortion fanatics - showing, in the end, that their real desire is that the killing continue. This, I believe, is a result of their guilty consciences - they know what they do and advocate is wrong, but as long as they can prevent any change in the status quo, they believe they can block out the fact that they are committing horrible crimes on a daily basis. Pro-abortion people - and the people fooled into being "pro-choice" - are people more to be pitied than despised; it must be a sad way to view life - but we who are pro-life have a duty to do whatever we can to lessen the ill effects of abortion.

As long as Roe v. Wade stands as precedent, we will be unable to stop the slaughter of the unborn in this country. That is a sad reality. However, treating abortion centers like other medical facilities would be a good start in protecting the woman who make the (wrong) choice to kill their babies from the unscrupulous and incompetent medical "professionals" who operate places like the one in the article above.

Posted by: Greg at 01:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 621 words, total size 4 kb.

A young author gives an interview to promote her new book.

The reporter asks her a totally unrelated question on US foreign and military policy regarding Iraq.

Is it relevant? Is it appropriate? Should she answer?

My answer to all of the above is NO!

Even if her father is President of the United States.

Jenna Bush agreed to an interview with Diane Sawyer to promote her new book, "Ana's Story." The nonfiction book is based on the life of a 17-year-old Latin American mother infected with HIV. She met the mother while working for UNICEF, teaching in four countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The AP, of course, chooses to criticize her, claiming she “ducked the question”. But it was a question that should not have been asked in the first place.

Posted by: Greg at 01:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 142 words, total size 1 kb.

I guess some folks think that absolute moral authority means the law does not apply to them.

A bench warrant was issued Thursday for antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, who did not appear for arraignment Thursday in a Washington, D.C., courtroom to face charges related to her Sept. 10 disorderly conduct arrest on Capitol Hill.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Michael McCarthy issued the order to Sheehan around noon, a court spokeswoman said. The warrant says she is to be arrested and brought before the court. She also faces one count of unlawful assembly.

"She wasn't aware that there was a court appearance today," said Sheehan's spokeswoman, Tiffany Burns, reached by cell phone.

"We'll have the attorney deal with this immediately, so as soon as she's rescheduled to appear, she'll be there," Burns added.

Burns said Sheehan was at home in California Thursday, and did not receive the paperwork notifying her of the court date.

However, a court document obtained by FOXNews.com dated Sept. 10, signed by Sheehan, advised her to appear Thursday at 8:30 a.m. The warrant issued Thursday sets a $50 bond for her arrest.

Damn those signed papers with the court date clearly indicated! They must be CIA fakes, manufactured as a part of a Rovian conspiracy by the BusCheneyHitler dictatorship!

And as for rescheduling the court date, I'd rather see her cuffed, stuffed, and dragged into court whining like Paris Hilton.

Posted by: Greg at 12:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.

Even a wannabe Commie dictator can be right from time to time.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez railed against a new trend in his beauty-conscious country -- giving girls breast implants for their 15th birthday.

"Now some people think, 'My daughter's turning 15, let's give her breast enlargements.' That's horrible. It's the ultimate degeneration," Chavez said on his weekly television show, which lasted a record eight hours.

Do we really need to further sexualize young people?

Posted by: Greg at 12:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

To celebrate the bicentennial of Abraham LincolnÂ’s birth, the US Mint will issue commemorative pennies with a variety of designs on the reverse.

“A penny for your thoughts” will have extra meaning in 2009 — the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the Lincoln cent.

To commemorate the event, the U.S. Mint, at the direction of Congress, will introduce four rotating designs on the 1-cent coin for that year depicting different aspects of LincolnÂ’s life.

Those designs will replace the engraving of the Lincoln Memorial on the “tails” side of the coin. The famous profile of the 16th president will remain on the “heads” side.

The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which provides recommendations on such matters, met Tuesday and got into a lively debate over what those rotating images should be.

The question of the design to depict the Lincoln presidency provoke some discussion and dispute. The panel didnÂ’t like the designs of the incomplete US Capitol building (Lincoln ordered construction to continue during the war to signify that the union would endure). Instead, there was a request for designs related to Lincoln as a war president (perhaps visiting troops) or relating to emancipation. Personally, I believe a design depicting Lincoln at Gettysburg would be most appropriate, given the fact that the Gettysburg Address so neatly unifies those two elements.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A masterpiece of American rhetoric and a cogent statement of our nation’s republican form of government, love of liberty, and debt to those who serve our nation in time of war. They are words to remember today – ideas appropriate to commemoration on our nation’s coinage.

H/T Don Surber

Posted by: Greg at 10:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 555 words, total size 4 kb.

Once upon a time, it was understood that a property owner could decide who they wanted to rent to – or who they did not want to rent to – based upon pretty much any standard they chose to set. After all, the government really had no business interfering in that decision on whether or not to enter into a contract with another.

Unfortunately, government decided to get involved. Sometimes it was through laws mandating racial or religious segregation, and later it was through laws banning such discrimination. As time moved on, we saw additional groups added to such “fair housing” laws, so that in many places one may not make such decisions based upon race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, family status, disability, veteran status, and a host of other criteria.

Do we now need to add laws preventing discrimination against those with tattoos and body/facial piercings?

Gilbert Carrillo thinks tattoos are an artform. He's been to tattoo conventions and one of his tattoos was featured in a magazine. "Ever since I was 18, to now, 25, bit by bit, covering up here, covering up there."
But last month, Carrillo's tattoos kept him and his wife, Melissa, from moving into an apartment complex called the Villas at Medical Center. "We liked the apartment, we brought them a check for the deposit and a check for the application fee," says Melissa.
Later, Gilbert went by to look at the apartment wearing a short sleeve shirt. The next day, the Carrillos were told they didn't qualify to live there, because the tattoos on Gilbert's arms violated the policy on personal appearance.
"For them to be so judgmental on a person's appearance, and for them to judge someone based on them having a tattoo is just ridiculous, you know," says Melissa.
The Carrillos were also upset that the manager refused to refund their full $70 application fee. But mostly, they feel the policy is discriminatory.

Ah, there we have the word – discriminatory. And they are, in fact right – but in the sense that one notices the differences among and between things and people and responds accordingly. There is no provision under the law that would (ordinarily) prohibit discrimination based upon body “art”.

We contacted one of the owners of the apartments: A southern California doctor named Edward Frankel.
Frankel e-mailed us a statement saying his apartment complexes do, in fact, "reject prospective tenants who have... tattoos exposed on the neck, head, hands and wrists, or large tattoos that cover over 40% of the lower or upper arm."
Frankel says, "We do not discriminate. The above applies to persons of any race, color, gender, etc."
Frankel, and his partners, have purchased numerous upscale apartment complexes in San Antonio and Dallas, where they've also banned pierced eyebrows and tongues. Tenants can't have more than one nose piercing, or more than five earrings.

Fine – this is the standard the owner wants. One can argue it is absurd, but that is one of the nice things about property ownership – you get to make decisions about how to use your property. Do we really need to go the next step and have the government act to ban such discrimination? I certainly hope not.

Unfortunately, we have added so many exceptions to the right to determine who one rents to that I wouldnÂ’t be surprised to see new law come out of this case. ThatÂ’s too bad, because what we really need to do is restore the property rights of owners by repealing all or most of the limits placed upon the rental of real estate. While there might be some individuals and companies that make decisions that I find despicable, the reality is that my standards should not ordinarily be the basis for limiting property rights. After all -- is it really freedom if citizens are only permitted to act according to the dictates of government and the majority (ore even a vocal minority) find acceptable?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, The Pet Haven Blog, Nuke's News & Views, Webloggin, Cao's Blog, , Conservative Cat, Inside the Northwest-Territory, Allie is Wired, Right Celebrity, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, and Public Eye, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 10:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 748 words, total size 7 kb.

Laws that allow the seizure of assets when someone is convicted of a crime never bother me. But actions like this one strike me as heavy-handed, and lead me to question how they can be squared with our rights under the Constitution.

Driving 11 miles over the speed limit cost one driver more than a quarter-million dollars this weekend — at least for now.

A State Patrol trooper spotted a Honda Accord speeding southbound on Interstate 5 on Friday, according to State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill. It was raining, and the driver was cruising down the freeway at 71 mph. So the trooper pulled the driver over, Merrill said.

The 35-year-old from British Columbia, who had a valid driver's license, struggled to tell the trooper where he was going and how long he had been in Washington, prompting the trooper to search his car, Merrill said.

The trooper found two suitcases in the trunk — one filled with $276,640 in cash. The driver claimed he won the stacks of dollar bills at 23 casinos in Washington, California and Nevada, but he was unable to produce any receipts, according to Merrill.

The money was confiscated as the State Patrol investigates the incident. Merrill said if it is determined the man obtained the money legally it will be returned to him.

1) On what basis does one have to account for one's whereabouts to a police officer during a routine traffic stop?

2) How does the failure to do so constitute probable cause to search the vehicle?

3) Upon what basis does the government legitimately seize property and assets that are, on their face, legal to possess?

4) Shouldn't the burden here be the other way around -- why should any individual be required to prove that he obtained property legally to get it returned? Shouldn't the burden be on the state to prove otherwise?

Yes, I know -- I'm going to hear the phrase "War on Drugs". But doesn't that really beg the question?

Posted by: Greg at 10:39 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 341 words, total size 2 kb.

I understand niche marketing, but I find the notion of limiting distribution by ethnicity to be a bit troubling.

Nike today unveiled what it said is the first shoe designed specifically for American Indians, an effort aiming at promoting physical fitness in a population with high obesity rates.

The Beaverton-based company says the Air Native N7 is designed with a larger fit for the distinct foot shape of American Indians, and has a culturally specific look. It will be distributed solely to American Indians; tribal wellness programs and tribal schools nationwide will be able to purchase the shoe at wholesale price and then pass it along to individuals, often at no cost.

“Nike is aware of the growing health issues facing Native Americans,” said Sam McCracken, manager of Nike’s Native American Business program. “We are stepping up our commitment ... to elevate the issue of Native American health and wellness.”

Nike said it is the first time it has designed a shoe for a specific race or ethnicity. It said all profits from the sale of the shoe will be reinvested in health programs for tribal lands, where problems with obesity, diabetes and related conditions are near epidemic levels in some tribes.

Nike designers and researchers looked at the feet of more than 200 people from more than 70 tribes nationwide and found that in general, American Indians have a much wider and taller foot than the average shoe accommodates. The average shoe width of men and women measured was three width sizes larger than the standard Nike shoe.

As a result, the Air Native is wider with a larger toe box. The shoe has fewer seams for irritation and a thicker sock liner for comfort.

However, let's be honest -- it would be nice if Nike would market such shoes for a more general population. I've never been able to buy Nike shoes because I have very wide, taller feet than their product is designed to fit. Indeed, there are only two brands of athletic shoes that fit me comfortably -- and not even all the styles from those companies. I'd love to be able to get shoes designed to actually fit my feet -- a particular concern for me in light of my diabetes -- if only they were on the market. Maybe someday Nike will be interested in making shoes that fit me and other non-ethnic Americans who need a bigger shoe.

Posted by: Greg at 10:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 409 words, total size 2 kb.

This incredible story makes me cringe.

AN Croatian motorbike rider was knocked unconscious when lightning struck his penis during a roadside toilet break.

Metro.co.uk reported Ante Djindjic, 29, escaped relatively unscathed from the incident, suffering only light burns to his chest and arms.

He said: "I don't remember what happened. One minute I was taking a leak and the next thing I knew I was in hospital.

"Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis."

"Thankfully, the doctors said that there would be no lasting effects, and my penis will function normally eventually."

That's just as long as lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice.

Posted by: Greg at 09:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 128 words, total size 1 kb.

I asked it before, and I ask it again – can the rest of the US dump the city of my birth from America?

Once again, the city insults the military.

New York said "yes," but we said "no." Why were the U.S. Marines denied permission to film a recruiting commercial on the streets of San Francisco?

San Francisco is, once again, the center of a controversy over how city leaders treat the U.S. military. This time, it involves an elite group of Marines who wanted to film a recruitment commercial in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

The tension has been building in the two weeks since the city turned away members of the Silent Drill Platoon, and it boiled over Monday afternoon at a meeting of the San Francisco Film Commission.

The U.S. Marine Silent Drill Platoon performed Monday morning in New York's Times Square. They filmed part of a recruitment commercial through the start of the morning rush hour -- something they could not do in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

"It's insulting, it's demeaning. This woman is going to insult these young heroes by just arbitrarily saying, 'no, you're not going to film any Marines on California Street," said Captain Greg Corrales of the SFPD Traffic Bureau.

Captain Greg Corrales commands the police traffic bureau that works with crews shooting commercials, TV shows and movies in the city. He's also a Marine veteran and his son is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.

He says Film Commission Executive Director Stefanie Coyote would only allow the Marine's production crew to film on California Street if there were no Marines in the picture. They wound up filming the empty street and will have to superimpose the Marines later.

Interestingly enough, they only needed a single lane shut down, and only for a few minutes at a time. The city regularly does more than that for construction purposes – and private businesses often hire off-duty cops to do the same thing on major streets so that their employees can exit parking lots. For that matter, the city regularly allows anti-American anti-military and political protests to block streets for longer periods of time, including during rush hour. But to let representatives of our nation’s military do so would clearly have been beyond the pale to the leftards in San Francisco city government.

So yes, let’s act as a nation and secede from San Francisco – set up the border checkpoints and build a wall to keep them out of our country.

Especially in light of what they will shut multiple streets for annually after denying the US Marine Corps a few brief minutes in one lane.

Organizers of San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair -- sponsored by Miller Brewing Co. -- have portrayed Christ and his disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists in the event's promotional advertisement, and the conservative group Concerned Women for America is complaining about the hypocrisy of it.

"The bread and wine representing Christ's broken body and lifegiving blood are replaced with sadomasochistic sex toys in this twisted version of Da Vinci's The Last Supper," CWA said on its Web site.

"'Gay' activists disingenuously call Christians 'haters' and 'homophobes' for honoring the Bible, but then lash out in this hateful manner toward the very people they accuse," said said Matt Barber, CWA's policy director for cultural issues.

"In their version of The Last Supper, Christ, Who gave His life for our sins, is despicably replaced by sin itself as the object of worship."

* * *

Concerned Women for America called it "shocking and offensive" that California taxpayers are forced to foot part of the bill for the Folsom Street Fair. The City of San Francisco sanctions the event by shutting down several city blocks and providing police for security.

So let’s get this “straight” – streets cannot be closed for the US Marine Corps, but will be closed for an anti-Christian festival celebrating gay sado-masochism. I guess those are what we call “San Francisco family values”.

H/T Michelle Malkin (twice), Right Voices (twice), Bookworm Room, Crush Liberalism, Stop the ACLU

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog's Weblog, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Inside the Northwest-Territory, Allie is Wired, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 09:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 778 words, total size 8 kb.

Is the jump in violent crime an aberrational spike or a sign of something else at work?

Violent crime in the United States rose more than previously believed in 2006, continuing the most significant increase in more than a decade, according to an FBI report released yesterday.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program found that robberies surged by 7.2 percent and homicides rose 1.8 percent from 2005 to 2006. Violent crime overall rose 1.9 percent, substantially more than an increase of 1.3 percent estimated in a preliminary FBI report in June.

The jump was the second in two years, following a 2.3 percent rise in 2005. Taken together, the two years represent the first steady increase in violent crime since 1993, FBI records show.

The uptick presents a significant political challenge for the Bush administration, which has faced growing criticism from congressional Democrats, big-city mayors and police chiefs for presiding over cuts in federal assistance to local law enforcement agencies over the past six years.

Frankly, the increase is troubling, though coming after a decade of decline might not be surprising as they initially seem. And the issue of cuts in federal aid to local law enforcement begs the question of whether local law enforcement should be funded at the federal level.

However, there seems to be a question that isn't answered by this story. To what degree does the surge in violent crime constitute a surge in gang-related crime connected to groups such as MS-13? And related to it, to what degree is the increase connected to the illegal alien population more generally?

This is not a question of scapegoating, but a genuine inquiry based upon increased media coverage of Latin American drug gangs and crimes committed by the undocumented. Are those real phenomena, or are they simply ratings boosting yellow journalism? And if the increase is connected to illegal immigration, to what degree should that impact the debate about border security and immigration amnesty programs?

Sadly, we may not be able to get those breakdowns -- the FBI classifies Hispanic perpetrators as White, so the data is not readily available to the public.

But the numbers for black-on-black crime are astounding, with there being nearly as many murders committed by that relatively small population segment against that relatively small population segment as there are by the many times larger white population against any ethnic group. That does sort of make one wonder about the focus on the questionable prosecution of the Jena 6 when there is obviously a much more pressing problem facing the black community. When will we see the major civil rights organizations making an effective effort to stem black-on-black violence in the face of a "no snitchin'" culture?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog's Weblog, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Inside the Northwest-Territory, Allie is Wired, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 10:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 531 words, total size 5 kb.

After all, the building where the Holocaust-denying, Israel-hating anti-Semite spoke today was named for and funded in large part by donations from philanthropist Alfred Lerner.

Alfred Lerner Hall, the main student center, was named for the late Jewish philanthropist who donated $25 million to the school.

It is an "obscenity" that the Iranian is speaking there, said Rabbi Gerald Skolnik of Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, to which Lerner also gave. "To have a Holocaust-denying, nuclear-aspiring hatemonger speaking in a hall that bears his name in the interest of 'free speech,' it's just the wrong person in the wrong place."

Lerner, who died in 2002 at 69, was born in Brooklyn to Russian immigrants. He was a 1955 Columbia graduate and a Marine pilot. He became chairman of MBNA Corp. and owned the Cleveland Browns football team. Lerner donated a fortune to the Cleveland Clinic and created a fund to help families of first responders killed on 9/11. He also gave generously to the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which assists aging unsung heroes from World War II who helped save Jews during the Holocaust and educates teachers about the genocide

Thank you, Columbia University, for pissing on the grave of a great man and a great patriot. May no American, and especially no Jewish American, give your pathetic excuse for a university a single penny in donations.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The Magical Rose Garden, Right Celebrity, third world county, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, DragonLady's World, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 01:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 337 words, total size 4 kb.

Maybe these archaic things will disappear if this sort of fraud is prosecuted like it would be in any other case.

When Ashley Wood was crowned Miss South Carolina in 2004, she thought her title came not only with a tiara and a shot at Miss America, but also a $20,000 state scholarship and $5,000 national pageant scholarship.

This fall, Ms. Wood entered the Wharton School, the business-studies arm of the University of Pennsylvania. But she has yet to receive any of that scholarship money, having been locked in a dispute with the Miss South Carolina pageant for more than two years.

“You are talking about an organization that is promoting itself as the largest scholarship provider for women in the world,” Ms. Wood, 26, said of the Miss America Organization. “When contestants try to collect their funds, they encounter one obstacle after another.”

Ms. Wood said she was told that she would not get the $20,000 for winning the Miss South Carolina pageant in part because her two local pageants had not paid her $950 that she had won from them (Ms. Wood said that after she enrolled in classes, one group reneged on payment and the other dodged her when she tried to collect). In turn, because she did not receive the state money, the national pageant sent her a letter in June saying she was ineligible for the $5,000 from it, even though the deadline to use her national scholarship had not passed. “It’s like a game of gotcha,” she said. “What is very clear to me is that the goal is to not give out the scholarships if at all possible.”

Most of us have believed that the ugly underbelly of the pageants was the sexism and the unhealthy competition between contestants and their parents. I see now that the real problem is the financial shenanigans and broken promises f the pageants themselves.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 323 words, total size 2 kb.

Come on -- let Grandpa and Great Aunt Martha have their doughnuts.

It was just another morning at the senior center: Women were sewing, men were playing pool — and seven demonstrators, average age 76, were picketing outside, demanding doughnuts.

They wore sandwich boards proclaiming, "Give Us Our Just Desserts" and "They're Carbs, Not Contraband."

At issue is a decision to refuse free doughnuts, pies and breads that were being donated to senior centers around Putnam County, north of New York City. Officials were concerned that the county was setting a bad nutritional precedent by providing mounds of doughnuts and other sweets to seniors.

The picketers said they were objecting not to a lack of sweets but that they weren't consulted about the ban.

"Lack of respect is what it's all about," said Joe Hajkowski, 75, a former labor union official who organized the demonstration. He said officials had implied that seniors were gorging themselves on jelly doughnuts and were too senile to make the choice for themselves.

Of course, this is precisely the problem when government is making the decisions. They don't consult you -- they decide for you.

Jon Edwards wants to tell us when we must go to the doctor. County officials want to tell seniors what they can have for a snack. Do we really want more government regulation of our lives?

Posted by: Greg at 10:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 234 words, total size 1 kb.

If you want to avoid those junk calls.

he cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list.

The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years.

Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do not enroll again.

"It is incredibly quick and easy to do," Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. "It was so easy for people to sign up in the first instance. It will be just as easy for them to re-up."

I'd rather not drop off the list, but I understand teh time-limit rule.

And it isn't like it is difficult to deal with -- it takes under 5 minutes every 5 years.

In fact, I just re-registered today, through 2012.

Here is where to go to get on the Do Not Call list -- or to renew your registration.

Posted by: Greg at 03:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 227 words, total size 1 kb.

I cannot imagine such callous indifference to others.

Shouting, "This is YouTube material!" a 27-year-old British man urinated on a dying woman who had collapsed on the street, the BBC and local Hartepool Mail and Northern Echo tell us. He also doused her with a bucket of water and covered her with shaving cream.

The woman, 50-year-old Christine Lakinski, died at the scene of pancreatic failure.

In a sad sign of the times, it was all recorded on a mobile phone.

In court, Anthony Anderson said he had smoked a joint and been drinking with two friends when they spotted Lakinski. He faces jail after pleading guilty to "outraging public decency." Sentencing is set for Oct. 22.

"We will await the outcome and just hope he gets what he deserves," Lakinski's brother said after today's court hearing.

But he won’t – there is no death penalty in the UK.

Posted by: Greg at 11:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 155 words, total size 1 kb.

Is implying that a teenager is a virgin defamatory? Has our society really sunk to such a level of depravity?

A Dallas family has sued Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.

The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing Web site, and failed to credit by name the photographer who took the photo.

Chang's photo was part of a Virgin Mobile Australia campaign called "Are You With Us Or What?" It features pictures downloaded from Flickr superimposed with the company's ad slogans.

The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken at an April church car wash by Alison's youth counselor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison's brother, Damon. In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, "Dump your pen friend," over Alison's picture.

The ad also says "Free text virgin to virgin" at the bottom.

The experience damaged Alison's reputation and exposed her to ridicule from her peers and scrutiny from people who can now Google her, the family charged in the lawsuit.

"It's the tag line; it's derogatory," said Damon Chang, 27. "A lot of her church friends saw it."

Now i'll agree that the use of the picture without credit or permission is probably actionable -- but I'm stunned by that last line. Calling a 16-year-old a virgin is derogatory? Her reputation has been harmed because people at her church have seen it? Are you kidding? What do they teach at that church?

I can certainly understand if they implied that she was sexually immoral -- but to argue that Virgin Mobile defamed Alison Chang for saying that she was not engaged in sexual activity seems to be a stretch. To argue that her reputation is damaged by calling her a virgin seems to indicate that she prefers to be known as sexually active, or even promiscuous. What does this say about her values and those of her family, church, and larger community?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, The Virtuous Republic, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, Nuke's News & Views, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Adeline and Hazel, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, Public Eye, Church and State, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 11:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 456 words, total size 5 kb.

Under no circumstances should this evil man be permitted to defile Ground Zero.

Iran's president has defied the United Nations Security Council and snubbed the Bush administration, but there is one authority he can't ignore: the New York Police Department.

The NYPD announced Thursday that it had turned down a request by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The Iranian leader is to arrive in New York on Sunday for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

The problem is that under the Host nation agreement signed by the US with the UN, world leaders must be permitted to travel more or less freely within 25 miles of the UN Headquarters -- and the host nation (that means us) must provide security.

Which means, of course, that the US Secret Service may be in the position of squaring off with NYPD to enforce the international obligation to permit the Iranian terrorist-sponsor to go to the site of the single worst terrorist attack in American history.

I personally agree with John McCain.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be physically prevented from visiting Ground Zero should he attempt to go to the "sacred" site where the World Trade Center once stood, Arizona Sen. John McCain joked Thursday.

"I think the president of Iran should be physically restrained if necessary," a laughing McCain told radio host Shawn Wasson. "I hope it doesn't come to that but we're not going to have that kind of desecration of what is sacred ground. Obviously, it is a propaganda ploy on his part, and if we allowed him to do it it would just embolden his followers and give him the publicity he seeks."

If this evil man attempts to approach Ground Zero, American citizens ought to defend the sacred site from desecration by fully exercising the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights -- rights that Mahmoud the Mad denies his own people.

This is one more reason for demanding that our government repudiate the Host Nation Agreement, expel the UN from American soil, and and renounce membership in that corrupt organization (perhaps forming a new one, open only to free nations, in its place).

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, The Virtuous Republic, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, Nuke's News & Views, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Adeline and Hazel, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, Public Eye, Church and State, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 480 words, total size 6 kb.

Proof that anyone can sue over anything.

Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President BushÂ’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.”

That is sure a hoot -- a charge of biased and incomplete reporting from a journalistic hack like Dan Rather, who ran a hit piece on the President and continued to defend it after the documents involved were conclusively proven to be fraudulent! Dan Rather damaged his own reputation -- CBS simply engaged in damage control -- unsuccessfully, I might add.

Posted by: Greg at 10:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 182 words, total size 1 kb.

Because i cannot imagine any other circumstances under which someone would do something this incredibly stupid.

Snake collector Matt Wilkinson of Portland grabbed a 20-inch rattler from the highway near Maupin, and three weeks later, to impress his ex-girlfriend, he stuck the serpent in his mouth.

He was soon near death with a swollen tongue that blocked his throat. Trauma doctors at the Oregon Health and Science University saved his life.

"You can assume alcohol was involved," he said. Actually, not just beer. It was something he called a "mixture of stupid stuff."

Calls from cable network television stations poured in Tuesday, when he still had sore muscles and nerves from the venom.

It happened at a barbecue with friends.

Wilkinson, 23, had downed a six-pack and his ex-girlfriend asked him for a beer. He handed her one, not realizing the snake was also in his hand.

"She said, 'Get that thing out of my face,'" Wilkinson said. "I told her it was a nice snake. 'Nothing can happen. Watch.'"

So he stuck the snake in his mouth.

"It got a hold of my tongue," he said.

This should have been a case of Darwin in action.

Posted by: Greg at 12:22 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 209 words, total size 1 kb.

Here's one that is -- literally -- out of this world.

NASA posted a hiring notice for new astronauts Tuesday, seeking for the first time in almost 30 years men and women to fly aboard spacecraft other than the shuttle.

The pilots, scientists, engineers and educators that NASA recruits will train primarily for three- to six-month missions aboard the international space station. However, some could be among those who stroll on the surface of the moon as part of NASA's plan to return human explorers to the lunar surface by 2020 aboard the shuttle fleet's successor spacecraft.

"Yes, I think it's quite likely," said Ellen Ochoa, who supervises NASA's astronaut corps as the director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

There are 10 to 15 openings.

here are the requirements.

ASTRONAUT JOB REQUIREMENTS

• Must be a U.S. citizen between 5-foot-2 and 6-foot-3 in height (to squeeze into Russia's three-passenger Soyuz capsule).

• At least a bachelor's degree in engineering, a biological or physical science, or mathematics; and three years of relevant professional experience.

• Vision correctable to

20/20. For the first time, the space agency will consider applicants who have undergone successful refractive eye surgery.

Being too old, too fat, and too far outside the educational requirements, I don't think I'll make the effort to apply. However, I wish those who apply good luck -- and hope that a few of the younger folks from church who work at NASA put their applications in.

And I can't wait to see those selected lead teh next generation of space exploration.

Posted by: Greg at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 273 words, total size 2 kb.

Here is a story that leaves me troubled, while at the same time also strikes me to be a natural part of the progression of things.

When every known speaker of the language Amurdag gets together, there's still no one to talk to. Native Australian Charlie Mungulda is the only person alive known to speak that language, one of thousands around the world on the brink of extinction. From rural Australia to Siberia to Oklahoma, languages that embody the history and traditions of people are dying, researchers said Tuesday.

While there are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken around the world today, one of them dies out about every two weeks, according to linguistic experts struggling to save at least some of them.

Five hotspots where languages are most endangered were listed Tuesday in a briefing by the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and the National Geographic Society.

In addition to northern Australia, eastern Siberia and Oklahoma and the U.S. Southwest, many native languages are endangered in South America — Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia — as well as the area including British Columbia, and the states of Washington and Oregon.

Losing languages means losing knowledge, says K. David Harrison, an assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College.

"When we lose a language, we lose centuries of human thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday."

All that is true, but is it necessarily an unnatural occurrence? Throughout history, languages have become extinct as others, used by larger and more powerful neighbors, have overwhelmed them. Yes, it is a sort of cultural imperialism, but it is also the price of peoples being able to communicate with each other. This is especially true of languages like Amurdag. Other than from a scholarly interest, do we really benefit from making an effort to save them, when in contemporary society there are only a handful of speakers left?

Why the loss of such languages?

Some endangered languages vanish in an instant, at the death of the sole surviving speaker. Others are lost gradually in bilingual cultures, as indigenous tongues are overwhelmed by the dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television.

Modern communication and education. We live in an age of instantaneous electronic communication. A handful of languages have become the standards. Will we find, two centuries from now, that most folks communicate in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic? Won't the internet and other forms of mass media necessarily bring that about -- especially as educational systems prepare children for a future in which a global community needs knowledge of global languages?

Posted by: Greg at 09:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 452 words, total size 3 kb.

They've got the incident on tape.

A profanity-filled audio recording, apparently of O. J. Simpson and others during the incident last week that led to his arrest, surfaced online today.

In the 38-second recording, the voice of a man identified as Mr. Simpson by TMZ.com, the Web site where it is posted, is heard repeatedly telling others not to let anyone out of the room and accusing those present of stealing his property and trying to sell it.

Mr. Simpson is being held without bail on six felony charges stemming from the incident; a bail hearing is now scheduled for early Wednesday morning in Clark County Justice Court before Judge Ann Zimmerman. The judge may conduct the hearing in person or by videoconference.

Two sports memorabilia collectors and dealers have told the police that Mr. Simpson and five other men stormed into their hotel room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino, about a mile from the Las Vegas Strip, on Thursday evening and robbed them at gunpoint.

I don't know about you, but I've always understood that holding someone against their will -- especially if at gunpoint -- a felony?

Here's where you can find the recording -- in both censored and uncensored versions.

Posted by: Greg at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 215 words, total size 1 kb.

After two years of marginalizing its top writers, the New York Times is ending TimeSelect, its pay for access service. Many of us projected that it would ultimately fail due to the amount of free content available on the Web.

But what is amusing to me is that the NYT claims it was a success!

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaperÂ’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

Yeah -- we simply weren't ging to pay for acces. It is why I haven't bothered commenting on Rich, Brooks, Krugman or Dowd for the last couple of years -- I don't consider them worth paying for, and I can't imagine finding them worth paying for.

The paper recognized that folks like me dominate the internet, because it found it necessary to end TimeSelect so that it could move to a more future-oriented business model in which it maximizes advertising revenue -- an important goal, given the fall in its print-subscriber base.

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 349 words, total size 2 kb.

Can an individual commit a hate crime against a member of a group of people of which he himself is a part? That interesting question has now arisen in a New York case in which the state is already arguing that one need not be motivated by hatred to commit a hate crime.

One of the defendants accused of killing a gay man in Brooklyn last year because of his sexual orientation offered a startling courtroom revelation yesterday: He, too, is gay.

So said the lawyer for Anthony Fortunato, 21, one of four men accused of chasing a gay man to his death on the Belt Parkway during a robbery on Oct. 8, 2006.

All along, homosexuality has defined the case. Prosecutors have used it as a sword, seeking heavier sentences for a hate crime.

As the trial began in Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday, Mr. FortunatoÂ’s lawyer, Gerald J. Di Chiara, sought to use sexual orientation as a shield. Without much explanation of how he planned to introduce this fact or turn it to his advantage, Mr. Di Chiara offered it to the jury in his opening argument. Not only was Mr. Fortunato gay, Mr. Di Chiara said, but so was the main prosecution witness, Gary Timmins, 17, who has pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in exchange for his testimony.

In fact, Mr. Di Chiara continued, Mr. Fortunato had planned to tell his friends of his sexual orientation on the night in question. Luring a gay man out to a secluded lot in Sheepshead Bay was part of that plan, Mr. Di Chiara said.

Again, we find ourselves facing the question of whether the status of the criminal or the victim should be used to enhance a penalty for a crime. As I've argued all along, the answer should almost always be no -- and in this case, the muddling of group identity makes the lines even more interesting. Why don't we simply stick with the principle of equal justice for all individuals under the law -- and stick a needle in the arm of all these mooks for the death of Michael J. Sandy during the commission of a felony?

Posted by: Greg at 10:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 371 words, total size 2 kb.

And I won't put the blame on John Kerry, though I believe he should have been much more forceful than his statement that he would answer the question. Indeed, I believe he should have insisted that the young man not be arrested.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry's speech at the University of Florida came to a dramatic close Monday, shortly after a vocal audience member was hauled off by police and shot with a Taser gun.

The audience member was preliminarily identified by UF officials as Andrew Meyer, a UF student in the College of Journalism and Communications.

Toward the conclusion of Kerry's UF forum, Meyer approached an open microphone at the University Auditorium and demanded Kerry answer his questions. The student claimed that University Police Department officers had already threatened to arrest him, and then proceeded to question Kerry about why he didn't contest the 2004 presidential election and why there had been no moves to impeach President Bush.

A minute or so into what became a combative diatribe, Meyer's microphone was turned off and officers began trying to physically remove him from the auditorium. Meyer flailed his arms, yelling as police tried to restrain him.

He was then pushed to the ground by six officers, at which point Meyer yelled, "What have I done? What I have I done? Get away from me. Get off of me! What did I do? ... Help me! Help."

Police threatened to user a Taser on Meyer if he did not "comply," but he continued to resist being handcuffed. He was then Tased, which prompted him to scream and writhe in pain on the floor of the auditorium.

Here's the video, so you can make your own judgement.

The incident is rather disturbing to me, because I don't see why the cops moved in (or why the organizers might have sought to have Meyer removed. Granted, he is nutty enough to be a part of the Truther Brigade or the Ron Paul Campaign, but did anything he did rise to the level of an offense meriting this level of action. Indeed, as I watch the video I can't find an answer to his pleading question -- "What did I do?"

Posted by: Greg at 03:20 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 379 words, total size 3 kb.

Some scattered bits of information since yesterday's post.

First, the charges.

Police charged Simpson with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count each of conspiracy to commit burglary and burglary with a firearm. He was booked last night in the Clark County Detention Center; a judge ordered him held without bail.

At a news conference last night, police said there were no indications that Simpson was carrying a weapon during the alleged robbery, nor was there evidence of physical harm to anyone in the episode.

It is those conspiracy charges that will get Simpson, because they make him responsible for any of the actions that went on among any of his co-conspirators. That means that he is responsible for the drawn gun, whether he was armed or not.

Second, there is some question about the ownership of the items taken.

Police said they were not sure who owned the memorabilia. But they say the manner in which the goods were taken was under investigation.

"Whether or not the property belonged to Mr. Simpson or not is still in debate," Lt. Clint Nichols said Sunday. "Having said that, the manner in which this property was taken, we have a responsibility to look into that, irregardless of who the property belonged to."

I'm willing to bet that those dealers all have some sort of records indicating that they purchased these items, making it relatively more difficult for Simpson to prove that the items are his -- and given how they were taken by Simpson and his crew, the ownership issue is irrelevant. You can't go in with guns drawn to recover your property.

And the specific items taken are not just OJ items.

“It included a lot of sports memorabilia and most of it and had been signed by Mr. Simpson himself along with some other property,” Lieutenant Nichols said. “I believe there were some Joe Montana cleats, some signed baseballs and some other stuff.”

Makes it somewhat harder to argue that he was just taking back his own items. Joe Montana cleats? Baseballs? Do tell how these were acquired -- especially with that judgment still hanging over Simpson's head.

This case should be fun to watch, as the Las Vegas cops have gone out of their way to dot every i and cross every t.

Posted by: Greg at 09:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 404 words, total size 3 kb.

Couldn't happen to a "nicer" guy.

O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday on charges related to the armed robbery of Simpson sports memorabilia from a Las Vegas hotel room, Las Vegas police said Sunday.

Lead investigator Lt. Clint Nichols said Sunday that Simpson, 60, had played a "substantial role" in the incident and that in earlier interviews with the police, Simpson had provided information that "changed the course of the investigation."

Nichols said Simpson was taken into custody at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas hotel where he was staying without incident. Several police officers were seen entering the hotel; a security guard said police took Simpson out a side door shortly after.

Bail is expected to be set during an arraignment by video Monday morning.

Earlier Sunday, Las Vegas police seized two firearms and arrested another man allegedly involved in the robbery, authorities said Sunday.

An interesting question arises, though. To what degree can the 1994 murders be taken into account at sentencing -- OJ was found not guilty in the criminal trial, but legally culpable in the civil trial. Can the latter be used as evidence of a history of criminal activity (especially when paired with is abuse of Nicole) to move his sentence to the higher end of the range?

H/T Stop the ACLU, Pirate's Cove, Don Surber, Speed of Thought, Patterico, SoCalPundit

Posted by: Greg at 10:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 246 words, total size 2 kb.

But then again, we already knew that.

Still, I wonder, has anyone found any gloves in the room?

O.J. Simpson says he only went into a casino hotel room to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect Friday in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Simpson insisted there were no guns involved and he only went to the room at the Palace Station casino to retrieve stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover.

"It's stolen stuff that's mine. Nobody was roughed up," Simpson told the AP.

Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said the confrontation was reported as an armed robbery involving guns. But he said no weapons had been recovered and stressed that the investigation was in its "infancy."

One has to wonder whether this was a set-up to obscure the release of his book by the Goldman family. After all, the timing is highly coincidental.

And I wonder who he will get to defend him in the resulting criminal and civil trials, now that Johnny Cockroach is dead.

Posted by: Greg at 02:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 221 words, total size 1 kb.

Sportscaster Keith Olbermann, who is playing in a pool well out of his depth, has really crossed over into the final delusions immediately before the body rejects the brain as totally diseased and more of a threat than death itself.

Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society. It’s as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

Let's see -- how many people have been hunted down and murdered by FoxNews? How many individuals have had their rights stripped of them by FoxNews? Last time I checked, the combined total is approximately ZERO.

On the other hand, the KKK (the paramilitary terrorist wing of the Democrat Party), was responsible for over a century of subjugation of American blacks, including multiple acts of murder for of individuals for daring to assert their rights as American citizens and their equality to any white man. Furthermore, they engaged in the oppression of other non-whites, as well as Jews and Catholics. One member currently sits in the US Senate, as an honored and respected member of the Democrat Party -- an ongoing disgrace to the Senate.

And need I remember this mouth-frothing lunatic that al-Qaeda attacked America and murdered our citizens and continues to kill Americans today around the world? Does he really mean to say that reporting the news from a perspective that Keith Olbermann disagrees with is more damaging to America that the acts of al-Qaeda?

Good God -- to draw moral equivalence between a cable news channel, jihadi swine, and racist murderers is an act that I thought even below Olbermann -- whose rhetoric on any given night sounds surprisingly close to that of Osama bin Laden in his latest video.

Clearly, Keith Olberman is the Worst Person in The World -- and MSNBC needs to fire him!

H/T Inside Cable News via Captain's Quarters & Malkin

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Link Fest - Week One, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, Nuke's News & Views, DragonLady's World, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, Conservative Cat, Allie Is Wired, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Republican National Convention Blog, CommonSenseAmerica, CORSARI D'ITALIA, High Desert Wanderer, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 420 words, total size 5 kb.

The world of literature has lost one of its greatest fantasy writers.

Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

Her death, of natural causes, was announced today by her publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ms. L’Engle (pronounced LENG-el) was best known for her children’s classic, “A Wrinkle in Time,” which won the John Newbery Award as the best children’s book of 1963. By 2004, it had sold more than 6 million copies, was in its 67th printing and was still selling 15,000 copies a year.

Her works — poetry, plays, autobiography and books on prayer — were deeply, quixotically personal. But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.

“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”

I've always hated to see her pegged as a children's writer, for there was so much more to her writing than that. In a sense, L'Engle was the J.K. Rowling of her era, writing books that transcend that category in their sophistication and which earned a following outside the boundaries of "kid lit".

I might have let her death pass unnoted on my site, were it not for my own fleeting contact with Madeleine L’Engle some ten years ago when I was still teaching English. I decided to write to one of my favorite authors, Marion Zimmer Bradley, asking her for advice to give to students about how to write and what it took to write a good story. A few weeks later, I received a pair of big boxes in the school mailroom. Upon opening them up, I discovered that I had been shipped two boxes of MZB's science fiction and fantasy magazine -- and a handwritten note telling me that MZB was unable to personally respond to my request due to a serious illness, but that she wanted me to have a classroom set of these two issues that each had a column on the topics I had asked about. The beautiful note also contained its writer's own answer to those questions. And at the end, I was stunned to see the signature -- Madeleine L’Engle.

Posted by: Greg at 01:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 409 words, total size 3 kb.

The world of literature has lost one of its greatest fantasy writers.

Madeleine LÂ’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

Her death, of natural causes, was announced today by her publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ms. L’Engle (pronounced LENG-el) was best known for her children’s classic, “A Wrinkle in Time,” which won the John Newbery Award as the best children’s book of 1963. By 2004, it had sold more than 6 million copies, was in its 67th printing and was still selling 15,000 copies a year.

Her works — poetry, plays, autobiography and books on prayer — were deeply, quixotically personal. But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.

“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”

I've always hated to see her pegged as a children's writer, for there was so much more to her writing than that. In a sense, L'Engle was the J.K. Rowling of her era, writing books that transcend that category in their sophistication and which earned a following outside the boundaries of "kid lit".

I might have let her death pass unnoted on my site, were it not for my own fleeting contact with Madeleine LÂ’Engle some ten years ago when I was still teaching English. I decided to write to one of my favorite authors, Marion Zimmer Bradley, asking her for advice to give to students about how to write and what it took to write a good story. A few weeks later, I received a pair of big boxes in the school mailroom. Upon opening them up, I discovered that I had been shipped two boxes of MZB's science fiction and fantasy magazine -- and a handwritten note telling me that MZB was unable to personally respond to my request due to a serious illness, but that she wanted me to have a classroom set of these two issues that each had a column on the topics I had asked about. The beautiful note also contained its writer's own answer to those questions. And at the end, I was stunned to see the signature -- Madeleine LÂ’Engle.

Posted by: Greg at 01:11 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 413 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Could you help me. The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young. Help me! I find sites on the topic: Loan settlement figures. I found only this - instant approval debt settlement loans. Although, by 1700, irish neared the market part in ireland, for the parliament, the shares and neighborhood, english was very other.It is several, loaned the peninsula. The company used, decreased you deliberately want earlier that an worth law can seek primary buyers and use this grave schedule?Jamestown machinery were accumulated by the association for the solution of virginia workers. THX , Toft from Lesotho.

Posted by: Toft at Wed Oct 21 13:12:34 2009 (/hK63)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

And how do the bison in question feel about this development?

With nowhere else to go,
sex offenders gravitate to Buffalo

Actually, it is a serious story about a serious issue -- but who writes these headlines?

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Now that's funny, thanks for the laugh!

Posted by: Just Me at Thu Sep 6 11:07:19 2007 (B1QYg)

2 Be careful though, Buffalo have a very wide stance.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at Thu Sep 6 11:10:22 2007 (Z3kjO)

3 So rather than reaching out for help they 039 re more likely instead to reach for another drink.; accutane %OOO; ambien :-OOO; viagra > ; buy viagra 2599;

Posted by: volks at Tue May 19 07:47:49 2009 (J+OLy)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

When everyone started carrying on about Katie CouricÂ’s trip to Iraq, I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to see what she had to say on the situation before I made a judgment about the trip.

And interestingly enough, she has come back with a rather surprising assessment.

One week before Gen. David Petraeus is expected to give his report on U.S. progress in Iraq, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she has already seen dramatic improvements in the country.

"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric said Tuesday. "I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda."

When even the liberals make the conservative case, you know that it must be true – things are improving in Iraq, and the surge is working.

Posted by: Greg at 12:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 162 words, total size 1 kb.

In the battle between environmentalism and public safety, it seems that some folks don't care about human life.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife has set up traps for a bear that attacked a bicyclist on Sunday, and officials say the bear will likely be killed.

But people who live near Banner Forest Heritage Park say the animal did nothing wrong.

Anthony Blasioli, 51, was biking with his two dogs alongside him when he encountered the bear Sunday morning.

The bear charged at the man, cutting his arms, back and neck before he managed to get away. He's being treated at a Tacoma hospital and was listed in satisfactory condition.

Officials think the bear may have been defending its cubs, and that is what has area residents protesting plans to kill the animal.

"It's mean, it's cruel, it's bad," said Mike Leathers. "We're in their territory. The bear and her cubs need to be relocated."

Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Duane Makoviney it's very rare for a bear to attack a human, and they have no choice but to euthanize it.

"It could have been worse. We could have a fatality here and we certainly don't want that to happen," he said.

The bear attacked a person.

Put it down.

The safety of people trumps warm fuzzy gfeelings about a vicious animal.

Posted by: Greg at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 225 words, total size 1 kb.

It seems that treatment might just be in the offing.

Who knows -- maybe their delusions can be gone by election time.

Standard treatment for jihadism, however, will remain the high-velocity injection of lead, 5.56 mm at a time.

Posted by: Greg at 02:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, that's what the London Times is claiming is in the offing.

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the IraniansÂ’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.

Frankly, I don't buy the argument -- and I think the article is much to speculative to believe that it is accurate.

besides, I think Israel is more likely to do the job than we are.

Meanwhile, over at the Cloaca Maxima of the Internet AKA Daily Kos, there is this piece of excrement floating around.

I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.

* * *

I asked her about the attack, how limited and so forth.

"I donÂ’t think itÂ’s limited at all. We are shipping in and assigning every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be massive and sudden, like thousands of targets. I believe that no American will know when it happens until after it happens. And whatever the consequences, whatever the consequences, they will have to be lived with. I am sure if my father knew I was telling someone in a news organization that we were about to launch a supposedly secret attack that it would be treason. But something inside me tells me to tell it anyway."

Somehow, I think this is all a load of crap.

If false, I think this qualifies as a violation of Title 18 Part I Chapter 115 § 2388 of the US Code, to wit:

(a) Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully makes or conveys false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; . . .

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

Of course, if this information is true we have the possibility of treason and espionage charges being brought, as well as a host of charges under the UCMJ against the person who disclosed the information to the KOSsack in question.

Here's hoping that the investigations have already begun. I know at least one bloggger has made a report to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Seems like a prudent step to me.

More At Confederate Yankee, Neptunus Lex and Stop the ACLU

UPDATE: Here's something even more insane than the Kos piece mentioned above (which even Kos himself seems to have disavowed -- and now pulled from his site).

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, Right Truth, Big Dog's Weblog, Nuke's News & Views, DragonLady's World, Webloggin, Cao's Blog, Stageleft, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, Faultline USA, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 09:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 697 words, total size 6 kb.