More Campaign Notes.

It's a good thing I'm not running for president.

This has got to be the stupidest article I've read in a long time. It seems the writer took a look at some silly posts over at Democratic Underground.
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Speaking of cackle, the religious right finds little to cackle about with the possibility Rudy might get the Republican nomination.
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There is no doubt a Hillary nomination is a disaster for Democratic candidates throughout the country, including areas such as the West.

What in the HELL is the fucking matter with the Democratic organization in this country they would even remotely THINK she would have a chance in hell of winning next year?

I sincerely hope Democratic voters will reject the delusional attitude of people like Terry McAuliffe who believes it is her "turn" to be president, something she will NEVER be.
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Here is a picture of the foldable frisbee Elizabeth Edwards signed for me at the townhall this afternoon.

You can find one here.

Elizabeth Edwards took some time to talk with supporters after her townhall remarks.




Here Elizabeth holds a foldable frisbee in the shape of a pie chart showing how much money is spent on the Pentagon versus everything else in the federal budget. She signed one for me after her talk.




Note a picture of FDR behind her.











I took some 40 pictures of Elizabeth Edwards at the townhall meeting here in Reno, which ended about an hour ago. Here are a few of them.

I Just Returned

from a townhall meeting at the Carpenters Union Hall. Elizabeth Edwards was there to talk a little bit about her husband's campaign and to answer questions from the audience. I'd say 100 or so people were there, and as I've mentioned many times, she knows her stuff. She answered questions about health care, unions and outsourcing, and also about the Iraq War, among other issues.

I especially liked her answer about voting machines. She and her husband are committed to fair elections and recognized there were lots and lots of problems in the elections of 2000 and 2004. She wants to see a paper ballot system like there is in North Carolina.

And she noted, and I want to note, her husband would win not by narrow margins, but by substantial margins, and he would be competitive everywhere in the country. That is probably the biggest argument in favor of his candidacy over anybody else running (with perhaps an exception being Joe Biden). Not only that, but he would help downticket on so many state races and ballot measures.

I got her autograph, which I will be posting a picture of it here shortly, and told her I was committed to getting him elected. She looked good, too, considering her current health problems. She is spending the night in Reno, and then she is leaving at about 6:30 tomorrow morning.

Campaign Notes.

And this, my friends, is why Hillary Clinton will NEVER be president.

We already have one goddamned family fucking up this country. Democrats need to look forward with fresh blood.

This "inevitability" shit is getting old.

However, it's less the notion that her opponents haven't been effectively going after her as it has been the media have made goddamned sure she will be the nominee, no matter the simple fact she is unelectable.

My Sister

left town this morning. We had breakfast again at Peg's, only this time we SHARED a Spanish omelette. That worked a lot better, and we didn't waste much of the food, either.

So often restaurants give people too much food. Of course, many people take the leftovers home to eat, but if they are from out of town, it's another matter.

Last night we saw the old crooner, Engelbert Humperdinck, at the Silver Legacy Grand Exposition room. I agree with my sister that the acoustics could have been better there; sometimes the sound was a bit tinny. As for the singer, he was good, if one likes that kind of music. A lot of people did, a couple of thousand, and many of those were people from out of state. He also told his share of off-color jokes, just as Robert Goulet did when he was in Reno three years ago.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of when EH's career really took off with the release of his signature tune, "Please Release Me." He's touring all over the U.S. and overseas (he has a couple of homes in Britain as well as his main residence in Beverly Hills), and since he is worth tens of millions of dollars, he can work whenever he feels like it.

My sister, who had not seen him since 1988, when she and I and the rest of the tribe saw him up at Tahoe, was rather shocked at how much weight he has gained over the years. Unlike Mick Jagger, EH hasn't bothered with hiring a personal trainer to get him into shape for his tours. He's 71, and the law of gravity has taken its toll. However, he appears to have had a facelift or two or more over the years, which my sister frowned upon. After all, when he was younger he didn't need it, and he simply should have let himself grow older gracefully. When he was younger, of course, his considerable good looks got him into trouble, with at least two paternity suits successfully lodged against him:

Although the tax rules mean that he can live in England for only 90 days a year, he has a place here, in Leicestershire, which is where he grew up. It's a massive pile, actually, built originally for the Duchess of Hamilton, and it's where his wife, Patricia, mostly lives. Patricia, mother of his four, now grown-up, children (a daughter and three sons), has always been marvellously long- suffering. Indeed, she once even said she could paper their bedroom with Engelbert's paternity suits. (Obviously, the Port Salut look is not off-putting in some quarters.) Someone always seems to be banging on his door, claiming he's their father. Has anyone banged on it recently? "There was an incident the other day when someone banged on my door." Oh? "Finally, I let them out. Ha, ha, ha... no, not recently."

However, in the Seventies and Eighties, a showgirl from California and, gloriously, a Sunday-school teacher from New York both extracted maintenance payments from him for their daughters. Does he see these children? "No. I have four children. A daughter and three sons." You're not interested in seeing these other genes march on? "No." I'm not sure he's an especially curious person...

Hopefully he is not pulling that silly crap anymore. His four children with his wife are involved in his career (and perhaps to keep an eye on him). I saw his daughter, Louise, when he was in Reno back in 2001.

If I Did It

is now at number two on the nonfiction bestseller list, right behind Alan Greenspan's CYA tome.

As the World Turns.

A cast of thousands is expected to be witnesses at the Darren Mack trial.

I exaggerate just a tad.
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This is just horrible:

Danny, who wore a Boy Scout shirt and a sturdy helmet, had been sitting on his skateboard, his presence concealed by a hedge that runs up to the driveway. He was dragging sneakers to slow down at the driveway, but scooted a bit farther than he intended, and the Honda Pilot was on him before he could avoid it.

Danny was under the car in a flash. His skateboard, knocked out from under him, rolled down the hill toward Palisades Drive.

It was Thursday afternoon, Sept. 20, a beautiful day clouded by this sudden intersection of random events involving people who had never met each other.

"Danny!" called the youngster's mother, Carole.

She hadn't seen the contact and was filled with dread at his disappearance and the sense that something horrible was happening. The car proceeded down the hill, and now Carole White could hear a child's screams.

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Pope Benedict XVI has high approval ratings, but not as high as his rock star predecessor. He has some work to do in that regard when he travels the U.S. next year.
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An arrest has been made in connection with that horrible Nye County, Nevada, sex abuse case.

Just awful.

Here's more:

It was also Boruchowitz who met with the mother of the child who was assaulted.

"The mother was crying, very distraught over what happened to her child," the detective said. "But she was also very grateful. She realizes that it's always better to find out that something has happened and to cope with that. Otherwise, she knew this could happen again because of the man involved. She did not know this had happened."

Stiles was a friend of the child's family, police said.

Boruchowitz said the 7-year-old girl, who was believed to be about 3 at the time of the attack, seemed to be in good spirits.

"She liked playing with my police stuff and I played with her toys," he said.

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Why

am I not surprised by this revelation?

A major New York fundraiser for GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has been revealed as the money man behind a proposed ballot measure that would have changed California's winner-take-all Electoral College vote system - and likely benefited Republicans.

Paul Singer, a billionaire hedge fund executive and Giuliani policy adviser, acknowledged his role to the New York Daily News on Friday just a day after GOP organizers in California said they were folding their effort to collect signatures for the group called Californians for Equal Representation.

The Chronicle reported earlier this week that Missouri attorney Charles Hurtt III was the legal agent for a tax-exempt corporation called "Take Initiative America," which provided the sole donation - $175,000 - to the effort to qualify the measure for the California ballot.

The scheme is dead--at least for now.

Campaign Notes.

Bill Clinton goes on the defensive on behalf of his scheme to circumvent the 22nd amendment and questions the Audacity of Hype's experience.
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Thanks to Mouthzilla's dumb stunt in 2003 to reject public financing of his primary campaign and losing in the process, Democrats have now rejected a key plank in their agenda. John Edwards, Joe Biden, and others are committed to it, but now the media naturally question their motives.
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Dodd questions Hillary Clinton's electability in the general election, which stands at precisely zero.
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Sam knew he was getting his picture taken.



I like this picture.



Sam takes a peek.



My sister was in a sleeping bag on the couch, but Sam decided he wanted to hog it all.

I Probably

won't do much blogging today because my sister is here from Oregon. She is here to see old crooner--he's 71 years old--Engelbert Humperdinck, or Engelbert, as he is known in some places in Europe, as descendants of the original Engelbert have barred the former Arnold Dorsey from using the full name. I am going to go with her, too. This will be the third time I have seen him in person, the first time I have paid for a ticket.

I first saw him in 1988 up at Lake Tahoe, when my late brother Jim paid for the concert. Engelbert was at the peak of his looks, even at 11 p.m. at night, and even I noticed it although exhausted from staying up all day and part of the night with the family.

The second time I saw him was in October 2001. My sister (this one who is visiting) and her now-former husband got tickets to his concert at Reno's Silver Legacy, but because of the weather they couldn't use them. My landlord and I went in their place.

Anyway, enough of that. My sister and I are going to go to Peg's Glorified Ham & Eggs, mentioned below, to see if the place really does have the best breakfasts in the United States, or at least in Reno, as Esquire magazine claims.

Then it's off to town or Lake Tahoe for much of the rest of the day.

Edit: We returned from the restaurant, and yes, it's as good as Esquire said it is. We gave the waiter a big tip.

Is All That Hype

for the Audacity of Hype all for nothing?

It appears so. There was never any chance Obama could get the nomination, much less the presidency.

And frankly, the "charisma" stuff was way overblown. He's about as charismatic as former California governor Gray Davis.

More Campaign Notes.

Hillary Clinton is trying too hard to be hawkish and hence that vote on Iran the other day.
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As the World Turns.

Maybe the food fascists should find another hobby rather than force their moronic beliefs down everybody else's throat.
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The UAW has betrayed its workers.
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Campaign Notes.

Why am I not surprised a Republican "expert" like Erik Herzik would chastise Democratic candidates for not showing up at last night's fundraising dinner?

This is another excuse at digging at Democrats like Harry Reid trying to push for the earlier caucuses.

In case Herzik hasn't noticed, the Republicans moved their caucuses up, and there have been far fewer candidates bothering to show up in Nevada than the Democratic candidates.

So far, all of the six major Democratic candidates and most of their spouses have appeared here in Reno, many several times.

Elizabeth Edwards, as mentioned below, will make another appearance in Reno Sunday. She was last here in July for the opening of the Reno Edwards headquarters.

Thanks to Corporate Greed

and unmitigated stupidity by our politicians, we are right back at Square One before the start of the New Deal.

Our country's economy has been all but destroyed because of an idiotic ideology.

Campaign Notes.

John Edwards acts like a Democrat and says he will accept public financing for his presidential primary campaign.

Because Mouthzilla jettisoned public financing, a hallmark of the Democratic Party platform, he fucked things up for the Democrats. It was a stupid move, especially when John Kerry had literally tens of millions of dollars to tap into.

Edwards is doing the right thing, but you can bet the so-called "frontrunners" won't follow suit.

As soon as I got home this evening, I went down to the Obama Reno headquarters to listen to prominent supporter Tom Daschle, former senator and U.S. Senate leader from South Dakota, speak of why people should vote for him for president. Obama, that is, not Daschle.

I always pegged Daschle as being tall and lanky, but he is actually of only average height, about 5'8". In addition to talking about how Obama is inspiring much in the way JFK was when he was younger, Daschle said he has a new book coming out about health care, which he said is a mess.

Daschle, who had a lot to deal with during his tenure in the Senate, was unfairly maligned by the so-called "progressive left," who trashed him as a "pink tutu" Democrat. When people resort to that kind of shit, they reveal their ignorance about the political process. When you don't have the numbers, there's not a lot you can do. It's mostly reactive. One should also remember many Democrats, like Daschle and current Majority Leader Harry Reid, are from red states, and they can't take chances like Barbara Boxer or Dennis Kucinich can.

Daschle was scheduled to speak tonight, along with former ambassador Joseph Wilson, at the Grand Sierra Resort. This was for the annual Virginia Demmler Memorial Dinner, held every year at this time. I was going to go, but I changed my mind. I didn't get to see Wilson, who was there on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

I had my camera with me, and I snapped close to 20 pictures of the former senator. I shook hands with him after his speech, complimenting him on his remarks.

More is here.

Some People Are In Denial

about last night's debate. Hillary Clinton was the big loser, besides Tim Russert. Since Obama always gives a terrible performance, last night was no exception.

But Big Media desperately wants Clinton to get the nomination, so by so obviously losing last night, she is still the "winner.'

Myself, I look for Edwards and Biden to move up, and if Biden can raise enough money to be competitive, I wouldn't be surprised if he takes the nomination.

I know that's wild, but people are impressed with him.

Dan Rather

is going where few if any journalists dare to tread, and that is treading through the landmine of corporate media control by confronting it head-on.

You can bet Rather will expose the whole ugly situation.

And, as a I mentioned a few days ago, I saw that interview on Larry King Live and taped it.

The Booming Economy Casualty List for 9/20-9/27.

I agree with the WSWS that the union caved.

As the World Turns.

Well, maybe that was the goal all the time in the Jackson County library closures, and that's to outsource operations to some private outfit.

Note workers will NOT receive retirement benefits from the Public Employees Retirement System, which means they will get shit benefits.
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It Really Makes You Wonder

if the execs at CBS wanted to ditch Dan Rather in favor of fluffmeister Katie Couric all the time.

What WILL discovery show in the Rather suit?

I am surprised Obama got that much time. It didn't seem that way to me.

For once the panelists are being somewhat honest about how the debate played out, but they are still shilling for Hillary Clinton.

The Democratic Candidate

debate is now underway.

Obama decided to show up even as he claimed he has been sick with the flu. He didn't dare skip out.

I was going to do liveblogging, but I am getting too old for this shit.

Tim Russert is the biggest loser of this debate. Edwards, Biden, and Dodd came across best.

Hillary Clinton did not do well. She was tired, and she had to keep fighting off everybody else throughout. Obama was lackluster. Richardson did okay. And again, Kucinich and Gravel need to get out.

Gee, the MSNBC panelists actually liked Edwards' performance tonight. Obama was lackluster, they thought. But still, Clinton is the alleged one to beat.

I still think people should watch for Biden. He knows his shit, and he doesn't give a damn whether you like it or not.

Two Dumb Shits

on the Phil Spector jury didn't think he was guilty as sin in the shooting of Lana Clarkson, so a judge had to declare a mistrial.

Money talks and bullshit walks.

Thank God Clarkson's family isn't about to let the one-time music producer great off the hook:

But Spector's legal woes will continue.

"We're disappointed and we will begin immediately preparing for the retrial," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, at a brief news conference. She took no questions.

Spector, a record producer who reached the height of his fame almost two generations ago, was charged with killing Lana Clarkson, 40, an actress and nightclub hostess who was found shot through the mouth on Feb. 3, 2003.

"We will not rest until justice is done," said Clarkson family attorney John C. Taylor. The family has filed a civil suit against Spector, but that is likely to be delayed until the criminal issues are resolved.

The Spector case is the latest celebrity trial in Southern California to end without a conviction. He will remain free on $1 million bail.

Eric Boehlert

is right about Dan Rather and the Killian Memos flap.

Sidney Blumenthal has even more about the Rather suit and the bogus "forgery" story:

Rather believed that the panel would conduct a fair-minded inquiry. But he learned that neither he nor Mapes would be allowed to cross-examine witnesses. They heard from some researchers on the "60 Minutes II" staff that before they had been questioned, a CBS executive had told them that they should feel free to pin all blame on Rather and Mapes. CBS had told Rather to cease investigating the story and had even hired a private investigator of its own, Erik Rigler. Rather and Mapes discovered that Rigler's investigation had uncovered corroboration for their story. Rather's complaint states that "after following all the leads given to him by Ms. Mapes, he [Rigler] was of the opinion that the Killian Documents were most likely authentic, and that the underlying story was certainly accurate." But rather than probing Rigler on his findings, the panel, to the extent its lawyers questioned him in a single telephone call, "appeared more interested whether Mr. Rigler had uncovered derogatory information concerning Mr. Rather or Ms. Mapes, as to which he had no information," according to the Rather complaint. Rigler's report was suppressed, never presented to the panel, and remains suppressed by CBS. Nor did the panel fully question James Pierce, the handwriting expert consulted by "60 Minutes" who insisted that the signature on the documents was surely Killian's.

When Mapes appeared before the panel, she was harshly questioned at length about her use of the word "horseshit." On the issue of the special privileges granted to those sons of wealth in the "Champagne Unit," Thornburgh asked her, "Mary, don't you think it's possible that all these fine young men got in on their own merits?"

When it came to the merits of the facts the panel elided them. It never addressed the facts at all. Instead it criticized the "60 Minutes" team for failing to "obtain clear authentication" of the Killian documents, among other "errors," though it admitted it could not prove one way or another whether they were inauthentic. Mapes and three other producers were dismissed. "60 Minutes II" was abolished. And on the day after Bush's reelection, Rather was unceremoniously fired. His contract had called for him to continue as anchor for an additional year and then to serve as a correspondent for "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II," but that promise was not honored. CBS believed that by severing its link with Rather it could put the whole incident behind it and begin a new happy relationship with the ascendant Republicans.

It's great Rather is NOT interested in settling for money. He wants the whole ugly episode exposed. If he succeeds, he will do the American people a great service.

And still more.

Gene Lyons

gives his take on the MoveOn.org Petraeus flap, something that isn't even worth a controversy in the first place.

Just How

did the media get so screwed up that now we basically have one point of view presented?

In my view, creating an imitation of the far right's media structure is not the answer. The answer is that the media need to be required to present all points of view. In short, the Fairness Doctrine needs to be reinstituted.

It's Heartening

to see some workers stand up to the corporate hacks who want to destroy the middle class.

Why did unionized workers allow the Reagan administration to declare a class war on them?

Unfortunately, the UAW caved.

This is bad:

The creation of a voluntary employees' beneficiary association, or VEBA, that Gettelfinger said will cover retiree health care benefits for the next 80 years.

GM agreed to fund the VEBA near 70 cents on the dollar, sources said. That's significantly more then the 65 cent contribution the company originally pushed for.

*GM will implement a two-tier wage system for workers not doing core manufacturing jobs. The lower tier will be as little as half the current $28-an-hour wage for an hourly worker. The new wage structure would apply to new hires, not current workers.

*The automaker will make 4,100 temporary workers permanent employees paid at the lower rate. A special attrition program offering workers buyouts or early retirement would help clear out senior workers and make room for the new workers.

*Also part of a deal is a trade-off in which workers will give up cost-of-living adjustments in exchange for no increases in medical premiums.

*The agreement would include modifications to the controversial jobs bank program in which laid-off workers receive pay and benefits. The changes will expand the geographic area in which workers would be required to take a new job if one is available. Under current rules, workers are allowed to remain off the job and in the bank unless there's an opening within 50 miles of their old job.

*Signing bonuses, meanwhile, could help win ratification of a contract. The payments would be $3,000 to start, followed by three years of lump-sum payments equal to 3 percent, 4 percent, and 3 percent of their annual pay in the last three years of the contract.

The two-tiered wage structure is in fact a disaster, regardless of the mention the jobs affected are not "core" jobs. The union should have NEVER agreed to this.

Give the corporations an inch, and they'll take a mile.

More Campaign Notes.

If especially the media-designated "second-tier" candidates want to remain in the game for the Democratic presidential nomination, they are going to have to go after Hillary Clinton.

I'd like to see somebody who dares to have the guts to get her on the dynasty argument. That alone will sink her dismal chances in the fall, should Democratic voters be utterly out of their minds and nominate her.

No.

Obama needs to drop out and the media needs to cover Edwards fairly.

Neither of which will happen, and I'm afraid we are going to be saddled with a "safe" candidate who cannot win.

I Got This Message

in the email:

What: Sunday, Sept. 30 - Reno Town Hall meeting with Elizabeth Edwards

When: Sunday, September 30th at 4:00 p.m.

Where:
1150 Terminal Way
Reno, Nevada

Event Description:

We'd like to invite all of you to join Elizabeth Edwards for a town hall meeting this Sunday, September 30. The townhall begins at 4:00 pm at the Carpenters Hall located at 1150 Terminal Way in Reno.

If you can attend, please RSVP to Nevada@johnedwards.com. Please let them know how many guests you are bringing.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

For more information, and to RSVP for this event, please click here:
http://blog.johnedwards.com/event/3042

Campaign Notes.

Rudy has been taken to task over his latest stunt, using 9/11 as a fundraising tool.
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Miscellaneous News.

Warren Jeffs, so-called polygamist, got what he deserved today.
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That asshole Michael Vick has been charged with torturing and killing dogs.

These are state, rather than federal, charges.

He should get double what he dished out to the dogs.

I can say the same for that asshole who burned and stabbed a poor dog, who died ten days later. The bastard is on trial for animal cruelty.

Sure that ass wouldn't hurt his own dog, sure:

In court Tuesday, two veterinarians testified for the prosecution, using grisly photographs to help describe how Mercy was burned over 60 percent of her body and to show her two puncture wounds.

Mr. Wyde, however, contended that the prosecution's case is weak. He said some of the witnesses should not be believed because they were influenced to come forward by reward money. In addition, Mr. Wyde said, other potential suspects were ignored by police.

Sandra Brown, Mr. Brown's mother, would not talk about her son's case Tuesday. But she issued a written statement declaring that he would never torture or kill his own dog. She described how he cared for several pets, including two other dogs, two cats and a snake.

"My son lived in an apartment and would call me and ask if he could bring his dogs over to run around my back yard because they have been in the apartment all day," Ms. Brown said.

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It is True the Italian government dropped its civil suit against former Getty curator Marion.
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Keith Olbermann is smart, even brilliant, when it comes to his career, but it is hype in the extreme to compare him with Edward R. Murrow.
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A Writer and His Kid

spent some time recently visiting racing great John Henry, 32, who has had some recent health scares.

The WSWS

comments on the GM strike, the first of its kind in some 30 years.

I Am

sitting around here watching bootleg DVDs of the classic Amos 'n' Andy program, which lasted from 1951 to 1953 and pulled from syndication by CBS in 1966, thanks to boneheaded protests from the NAACP.

It was a great comedy, right up there with the best of the 1950s, and it never should have been consigned to the vaults.

Oh, people like Bill Cosby rant and rave about the show's alleged racism, but frankly the show would have been just as funny had the characters been white rather than black.

It's been often compared with The Honeymooners, and I believe the comparison is apt. It seems that show borrowed a great deal from Amos 'n' Andy.

The problem was there were no other shows at the time depicting African Americans in different roles, and therefore this comedy was singled out.

What a shame.

I've written about this show before. I had bootleg VHS tapes of it, but only about half of the shows. This version has 71 of the 78 episodes. I don't know if the remainder were lost.

Miscellaneous News.

The only copy of the Magna Carta in private hands will be going on the auction block.

It's estimated to sell somewhere around $20 million to $30 million.
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The notion of polygamy as some kind of "lifestyle choice" is as repugnant as the idea prostitution is a "victimless crime."

Both are repellent and exploitative of women.
_____

I'll have to check this restaurant out.

Reno is also mentioned in the Esquire article.
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More Campaign Notes.

I have decided not to shell out the $85 to attend the annual Virginia Demmler Dinner fundraiser for the local Democratic Party. Featured speakers include former ambassador Joseph Wilson and former senator Tom Daschle.

However, I am going to go down to the Obama headquarters earlier in the day and get to meet Daschle, who endorsed Obama some time ago.
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Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana has endorsed Clinton for president. (Evan Vucci / AP)
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The Nation's John Nichols seems to think Bill Richardson is starting to click.

Unlike the rest of the second-tier candidates, Richardson has an office here in Reno just a few blocks from my place. Obama's office is down the road on Wells Avenue and within walking distance from my place.
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I Think

it is great we have more and more "citizen" journalists who report on events. They give yet another perspective on the news.

Campaign Notes.

Just in case Senator Chris Dodd ever gets any traction in the Democratic primary race, the NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller will make sure people are reminded of his father's misdeeds and censure of decades ago.

Never mind the younger Dodd had nothing to do with it.

I Wish "Progressives"

like Robert Parry would learn to count before coming up with the kneejerk nonsense Democrats in Congress are "spineless."

After all, they barely--barely--control both houses of Congress, and a large proportion of Democrats are from red states, states whose voters aren't like those from both coasts.

What pisses me off is these "progressives," (not necessarily Parry) spend more time going after Democrats than after the assholes they should be going after, the Republicans.

By the way, the MoveOn.org flap is so silly it's pathetic.

The Booming Economy Casualty List for 9/14/9/24.

American autoworkers are pissed off as negotiations drag on and on.

They are on strike today, talks resume tomorrow.
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It's Still

raining like shit outside, so I don't know if I will be able to run today. The dogs are sitting on the couch looking at me, just waiting for me to take them on a w-a-l-k. At least they can't read computer messages. They know what the word means, even when it is spelled out.

I went downtown and picked up a couple of DVDs of TV shows from the late 1950s and early 1960s: The Real McCoys, a show I haven't seen since it was syndicated back in the early 1960s; and Petticoat Junction, created and produced by the late Paul Henning, somebody who couldn't write comedy to save his life.

I remember The Real McCoys well: My dad used to drive me crazy with his Walter Brennan imitation, complete with limp.

Most of the actors playing the major parts have since died. Richard Crenna (Luke) passed away in 2003. Michael Winkelman (Little Luke) died in 1999. Tony Martinez (Pepino) passed on in 2002. Walter Brennan kicked off in 1974. Madge Blake cashed in her chips in 1969. I thought Kathy Nolan was dead, but I confused her with Jeanette Nolan, a performer who had been married to actor John McIntire, who passed on in 1998. Kathy Nolan is very much alive. She was once president of the Screen Actors Guild. Lydia Reed is also still around.

Reading from the IMDB, Walter Brennan was not only a conservative Republican, he was a reactionary. He voted for George Wallace in 1968 and for that paragon of family values, John Schmitz (daddy of Mary Kay Letourneau), in 1972.

I don't know how true this is, but I'll post it here because I feel like it:

During the 1960s, he was convinced that the anti-war and civil rights movements were being run by overseas communists - and said as much in interviews. He told reporters that he believed the civil rights movement, in particular, and the riots in places like Watts and Newark, and demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, were the result of perfectly content "Negroes" being stirred up by a handful of trouble-makers with an anti-American agenda. Those on the set of his last series, "The Guns of Will Sonnett" (1967) - in which he played the surprisingly complex role of an ex-army scout trying to undo the damage caused by his being a mostly absentee father - said that he cackled with delight upon learning of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968.

Thanks to Other States

wanting to screw around with the primary calendar, Nevada's place in the contest is still up in the air for candidates.

They are treading lightly here compared with Iowa and New Hampshire.
_____

Was There Any Doubt

former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was a casualty of the Bush Justice Department scandal?

It sure as hell appears to be.

As the World Turns.

Granted, Dickie Scaife is no Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, but his divorce case should be very interesting to watch.
_____

Now that Larry Craig has reached iconic status, something he never came within a million miles of before the men's room incident, should he be cut some slack for his unspeakable crime?
_____

Son of a bitch, I just ate:

Heather Walsh-Haney bursts through the door and hurries past the long table where the skeleton of a man who was once a professor lies, past the rows of human skulls, the candles and the old leather-bound books until she stops and takes a breath.

''It smells a little like decomposition in here,'' says Walsh-Haney, a forensic anthropologist who hopes to open Florida's first body farm. ``Sweet and musty, don't you think?''

At 39, she already spends most of her days working among the dead, mining bones for what they reveal about life stories and crimes, mysteries and clues. Her ability to divine answers to the primal questions of ''Who was this person?'' and ''When did he or she die?'' has taken her from the broken ground of New York after 9/11 to New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina pushed bodies from their rightful burial sites. And she travels throughout Florida, investigating whether the skulls found in cauldrons have been acquired legally for use in religious ceremonies.

Hers is a relentless and complicated postmortem business. Between helping police and medical examiners throughout the state -- and teaching at Florida Gulf Coast University -- Walsh-Haney works to advance the field of forensics.

Along with the university, she hopes to establish an outdoor research facility in which donated corpses are allowed to lie out on the open ground while forensic anthropologists and criminologists study the mechanics of decomposition.

Oh, Jesus Christ.
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Obituaries.

This continues to be a big year for the obituary writers. Famed mime Marcel Marceau, who often made appearances on the old Red Skelton Show, has died at the age of 84. No cause of death was given.

He never talked onstage, but offstage, he wouldn't shut up.

This is interesting:

Marceau was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, France. His father Charles, a butcher who sang baritone, introduced his son to the world of music and theater at an early age. The boy adored silent film stars such as Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

When the Germans marched into eastern France, he and his family were given just hours to pack their bags. He fled to southwest France and changed his last name to Marceau to hide his Jewish origins.

With his brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance. Marceau altered children's identity cards, changing their birth dates to trick the Germans into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen. George S. Patton's army.

In 1944, Marceau's father was sent to Auschwitz, where he died.

Later, he reflected on his father's death: "Yes, I cried for him."

Campaign Notes.

I don't think Rudy will get the endorsement of the NRA.

I am surprised he even showed up at the event.
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You can bet your ass Vincent Van Gogh's final painting will set a world record when it goes on sale at Sotheby's next month.

A run-of-the-mill Van Gogh sells for tens of millions of dollars. This one will be even more than that.

It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Wynn gets in on the action. I hope, however, a museum gets it so the painting can be enjoyed by people around the world.

Some info:

The Fields (Wheat Fields) was completed on 10 July 1890, just 19 days before Vincent Van Gogh died. It hung in his room as he bled to death in his bed, where he had staggered after shooting himself in a field.

The work, only previously seen once in Britain, is one of just a few of Van Gogh's greatest works to remain in private hands and is celebrated for shedding significant light on the emotions felt by the artist in the days before his death.

As the World Turns.

Kate Middleton is scared shitless of becoming queen.

Which she probably won't be, anyway.

Her possible brother-in-law was caught allegedly snorting vodka:

BOOZE-loving Prince Harry was blasted last night for snorting VODKA in a potentially lethal drinking game.

Harry, 23, was captured on video as he inhaled a bottle cap full of the neat spirit through his nose while on holiday with girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

In the footage — seen by The Sun — pals egg the royal on as he first takes a SWIG of booze, then SPITS it into the bottle top.

Harry — wearing a Crocodile Dundee hat — covers his right nostril with his finger before taking a huge SNIFF through the other.

He throws back his head to take the full “hit” of vodka — and then reels in shock. The Prince is seen shuddering as his friends cheer.

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It Appears

the dictatorship knew John Edwards was going to run for president in 2004, and they hatched a scheme to wreck his chances:

In the last two weeks, two sources, one of them inside of the Justice Department, have told me that a scheme was hatched in the upper echelons of the Bush Administration shortly after it took office in 2001 or early in 2002. The project identified John Edwards and Hillary Clinton as likely Democratic challengers to President Bush, and identified prominent trial lawyers around the United States as the likely financial vehicle for Edward’s rise. It directed that their campaign finance records be fly-specked, and that offenses not be treated as administrative matters but rather as serious criminal offenses.

The scheme contemplated among other things that raids be staged on the law offices involved, and that the records seized not be limited to campaign finance—there was an acute interest in all politically oriented documents, in order to seize valuable intelligence on strategic planning from the enemy camp.

Now tell me again they didn't fear Edwards and still don't.

If I Did It

is number three on the NYT nonfiction bestseller list.

How Did a Republican-Nominated

Supreme Court justice become the vaunted liberal on the high court?

One should probably ask whether it is Stevens who actually changed or if our country has been so twisted with right-wing rot for the past thirty years that ANYBODY to the left of the card-carrying fascists is "liberal."

Campaign Notes.

I believe whoever gets the Republican nomination is anybody's guess.

I will say the GOP would be nuts if Mike Huckabee is not on the ticket.

I believe he will.
_____

The media hopes like hell their "Hillary is Inevitable" campaign succeeds in suckering enough Democratic voters to put in someone who certainly cannot win in the general election.

Her opponents are trying to dislodge her standing in the polls.
_____

Tragically,

our country has become so much of what we condemn in other countries.

Parry, however, is off-base when including publicity seeker Andrew Meyer as a "victim."

For All of You Conspiracy Lovers,

I present the euthanasia theory of Pope John Paul II's death.

After all, similar conspiracy theories have sprung up surrounding the death of his predecessor, Pope John Paul I, so why not him?

In a provocative article, an Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn't just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope's April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul's personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a few days before he died accelerated John Paul's death, Pavanelli concludes. Moreover, Pavanelli says she believes that the Pope's doctors dutifully explained the situation to him, and thus she surmises that it was the pontiff himself who likely refused the feeding tube after he'd been twice rushed to the hospital in February and March. Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life.

The article, entitled "The Sweet Death of Karol Wojtyla" (using the Pope's birth name) appears in the latest edition of Micromega, a highbrow Italian bi-monthly that has frequently criticized the Vatican's stance on bioethics. The author, who heads the anesthesiology and intensive care therapy school at the University of Ferrara, says she decided to revisit the events around John Paul's death after the Vatican took a hard line in a controversy last year in Italy over euthanasia. Indeed her accusations are grave, questioning the Catholic Church's strictly traditional stances on medical ethics, including the dictum from John Paul's own 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae to use all modern means possible to avoid death.

Stay tuned.

Obituaries.

Alice Ghostley, 81, who won a Tony award and also appeared on the sixties sitcom Bewitched, has died.

She suffered from colon cancer and from a series of strokes.

Ghostley excelled in daffy roles.
_____

Funeral services for the late televangelist Rex Humbard will be held in Akron, Ohio, where it all began.

The NYT has an obituary as well. Rex Humbard, unlike many televangelists, was apolitical.

He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but hit the big time with his ministry based in Akron.

Humbard was very prolific, with four children, ten grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren.
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Miscellaneous News.

This week is Excedrine Week.

I may go downtown and look around, but it has been raining here in Reno today.
_____

Jury selection for the Darren Mack murder trial is set for October 1.
_____

Experts believe Utah voters will flush school vouchers down the toilet where they belong.

The WSWS

has a good commentary on the Rather suit.

I printed off his complaint, which is linked below, for my own use.

Obituaries.

For some odd reason, this year has been a bad one for televangelists. First Jerry Falwell passed on, then Tammy Faye Messner, then D. James Kennedy. You can also include Ruth Graham, wife of the famed evangelist who also doubled as a television star.

And we can now add Rex Humbard, 88, to the list of deaths.

I watched him often during the 1970s when he had his Cathedral of Tomorrow telecast. His preaching style was what one would call "down home" and definitely low-key by comparison to others.

However, he was much like the others in that his ministry was lavish, and he and his wife Maude Aimee liked to live well. And there were troubles:

However, mounting financial problems forced Humbard to leave one dream unfulfilled. Construction was never completed on a 750-foot broadcast tower in Cuyahoga Falls, between Akron and Cleveland.

His ministry suffered from internal disputes and extensive borrowing. In the 1970s, federal and state regulators complained that millions of dollars in notes that he had issued to followers over the years violated securities laws.

Luckily for him, he was never involved in the sordid scandals that plagued other televangelists.

He was friends with Elvis Presley and spoke at his funeral, which raised him up a few notches in my book.

You, Too,

can play the part of a cartoonist or at least write the caption for this paper.

The responses to the latest cartoon are pretty good.

Mary Mapes

is right, of course regarding Dan Rather's lawsuit.

I hope he drags everybody and their sordid antics out in the open for all the world to see.

Rather's complaint can be found here.

As the World Turns.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if a mistrial occurs in the Phil Spector trial.

How anybody could possibly come to a conclusion of "not guilty" is beyond me.
_____

It's hard to put a finger on why Anna Ayala may get out of prison early, but it's not hard to point a finger as to who is responsible.
_____

There's a hell of a custody fight going on over seven-year-old Carl:

A lawyer for a Dillingham couple entangled in a custody fight over a 7-year-old orange tabby cat named Carl opened his defense today, the second of a planned four-day trial in civil court.

A former employee of Fosselman & Associates, where Carl lived for six years before fire consumed the building in February 2006, testified the cat wasn’t really considered a “company cat.”

Employees voted to keep Carl at the South Baily Street accounting firm, former employee Patricia Arnold testified. But under questioning by the Fiesers’ attorney, Eric Conard, she testified that she understood that Carl belonged to a former partner in the firm, Traci Weiland.

Catherine Fosselman, owner of the accounting firm, is suing a former employee, Staci Fieser, and her husband, Jason Fieser, for the return of Carl, along with $100,000 in punitive damages. Trial started Wednesday with selection of a 12-member jury. Fosselman testified Thursday, and her lawyer, Andrew Robinson, has concluded his case.

According to employees, Fosselman retrieved Carl from the burning building, neglecting other items of value to her and her company, and gave him to Fieser for safekeeping. Fieser took him home, and he’s lived with the Fiesers ever since.

The Fiesers currently live in Dillingham, where Jason Fieser, a state trooper, is posted. He testified Thursday that his superiors threatened him with “internal consequences” and possible criminal charges unless his wife handed over the cat.

_____

Tye Hilmo's dad insists his son was too much of an animal lover to feed kittens to his pit bulls.

"He's a good boy," and all of those other excuses.
_____

A noted serial killer received a second life sentence but expired before his first life sentence did.
_____

A judge denies the release of Mychal Bell in the Jena Six case.
_____

A sixth man involved in the most recent O.J. case has surrendered.
_____

So Why Do

authoritarians control the Republican Party?

It's the same rhetorical question as why does an unneutered male dog lick his you-know-whats.

This

is a good analysis of Dan Rather being of the "old school" of journalism, i.e., a reporter.

I am playing the Larry King Live interview of Rather last night. I can't believe Mike Wallace didn't stick up for him in an earlier interview. But Walter Cronkite didn't, either. A pox on both of them.

Rather needs to drag those executives and owners through the mud. Redstone and Moonves are the worst things that ever happened to the network.

What's ironical about last night's interview is that after Rather's interview, what does King talk about? O.J.

Campaign Notes.

Just because Rudy did what any mayor in the country would have done, he has been branded as "America's Mayor" by the media.
_____

These conjoined twins, Yurelia and Fiorella Rocha-Arias, will be separated later this year.

I Hope

Dan Rather kicks the shit out of CBS:

According to Rather, Viacom boss Sumner Redstone, worried about the company's standing in Washington, grew "enraged" over the Bush-story controversy at a board meeting, telling those present that "Dan Rather and anyone associated with Dan Rather has to go."

Rather also said CBS failed to honor the terms of its contract with him. He claims that then-CBS News boss Andrew Heyward, who was named in the suit, held "secret meetings" internally to discuss the anchor's fate. And Rather insisted that, despite executives' claims to the contrary, the network had decided to cancel the weekday edition of "60 Minutes" after its reporting on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal provoked displeasure from top Bush officials.

To hell with whether the Killian Memos story was true; it didn't matter. To hell with Abu Ghraib; it too didn't matter. What was important was whether CBS could get goodies from Washington.

Howard Kurtz, who peddled so much misinformation about the Killian Memos it was laughable, tries to spin Dan Rather's words.

Campaign Notes.

I forgot about the AARP debate and hope it airs on C-SPAN. Barack Obama couldn't bother with the debate, and he turned out to be the biggest loser in the debate.

The top five candidates (excluding Obama) were there.

Miscellaneous News.

What a sick son of a bitch.
_____

Did Luciano Pavarotti waste his talent?
_____

Alan Greenspan desperately tries to cover his ass over the mess he helped create.
_____

A revival of the old 1960s marches can be seen in the Jena Six protests:

Bell and four other teenagers initially were booked with attempted murder, and those four still face aggravated battery charges. Charges against a sixth person, a juvenile, haven't been made public. The case stems from the six students allegedly beating a white classmate in the wake of other white students hanging nooses from a tree in the school courtyard.

Critics of Walters' handling of the case have said the six teenagers were the victims of an overzealous prosecutor and that they were treated unfairly because they are black. They say some of racial attitudes that persist in Jena are reflective of how the justice system handles black and poor defendants in other parts of the country.

Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, described the scene as reminiscent of previous civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort might be in order for the six defendants, but "the justice system isn't applied the same to all crimes and all people."

Some background in case people haven't paid attention to this case:

The December beating was the culmination of racial taunts and confrontations involving Robert Bailey Jr., one of the accused teens, after black students sat under an oak tree in the school courtyard where for two decades white students traditionally gathered. A day later, the black students found nooses hanging from the tree. The white students who put them there were given only in-school suspensions by the schools superintendent, even though the high school's principal had recommended they be expelled.

Walters said he didn't charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no state law under which they could be charged.

Bean said parents met in a Baptist church after the nooses incident. The next day, Bailey and several friends decided to stand under the tree in protest, Bean said.

In an emergency assembly called at the school, black students say Walters warned students he could "take away their lives with a stroke of my pen." Walters has denied making the comment.

Bean said sporadic skirmishes between black and white students sparked even more tension between the students who hung the nooses and the Jena Six, a group of close football players. Last November, an arsonist burned a wing of the school, heightening tensions even more. That case remains unsolved.

More at the link.
_____

Floyd Landis is shit out of luck.
_____

In Case Anybody Cares,

Forbes released its list of the 400 richest Americans, who are several trillion dollars richer than they ought to be.

The Rich and Their Media Flaks

absolutely don't want anything discussed about the worsening plight of the poor and middle classes in this country, and that's why they are trying to bounce Edwards out of the race by focusing on the "hypocrisy" nonsense.

Hillary Clinton, the designated frontrunner, is such a disaster waiting to happen in the general election I can't believe Democrats would be that stupid to back her in the primaries.

You really have to wonder about any woman who would have anything to do with the likes of Simpson. Like the ex-wife he murdered, Christine Prody was a mere teenager when she took up with him.

Perhaps somebody that gullible and pliable was the only kind of woman he could get. Sociopaths are pretty good at picking out targets.

Maybe she isn't that dumb, for she has never lived with him.

I've known about her for years, as she is a tabloid staple. (Jae C. Hong, Pool/AP Photo)

O.J.

is now back in Florida, but the media coverage isn't about to go away.

The case is stranger and stranger the more one reads or hears about it.

Campaign Notes.

Famed theocrat James Dobson simply isn't impressed with Fred Thompson and refuses to support him.

That might be good news for the former senator.
_____

Sorry, Barry, but There is a Reason

why Democrats won't have any comment on Andrew Meyer, and that it is the simple fact he is a publicity-seeking nutjob.

You can add Cindy Sheehan to the list of publicity hounds.

Which means I can lump the WSWS in with the kooks.

Just for Fun

I decided to post this YouTube of Spectacular Bid's unsuccessful bid to become the third consecutive Triple Crown winner in 1979 when a safety pin and his unexperienced jockey threw his chances away:



I was never so pissed off in my entire life over a horse race than I was with this. I have written about this race many times on this blog.

I wasn't the only one sick over this race. Bid's trainer, the late Bud Delp, was so sickened over this race he never watched it again.

Racing Champion

John Henry has had some health scares as of late:

John gave his caretakers a scare when blood tests showed elevated levels of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine, indicating potential kidney problems. He was treated with intravenous fluids from Sept. 12-15, but more recent bloodwork has shown an improvement, and his handlers are now taking it a day at a time.

John Henry has had three good days in a row, but Roby is quick to caution that he's not out of the woods.

"You know it's inevitable, but you want to make sure it's not premature," Roby said. "If he gets to the point that he's miserable or suffering, the decision will be made. We've always hoped he'd make the decision for us.”

For now, John is being pampered, is allowed to eat whatever he wants (including doughnut holes, cookies, and chocolate candy), and is enjoying a constant supply of fresh, cold water.

"We're giving him anything he'll eat," Roby said. "At this point, it's not going to hurt him."

Miscellaneous News.

For those who have been newly paralyzed, the decision by them to die or by others to die and not be a burden to everybody else isn't an easy one.

If we had a more hospitable attitude towards the disabled, there wouldn't be articles like this one.
_____

Our Favorite

acquitted murderer got out on $125,000 bail this afternoon.

In other legal news, the Spector jury was told to go back and try again.

You know if he's somehow acquitted, a civil suit is going to happen.

And even more legal news, Dan Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, which it deserves after the way Moonves and company treated him following the Killian Memos.

What Happens in Vegas....

Arraignment has been set for the robbery suspect.



The Review-Journal's John Locher couldn't resist snapping this picture of a man willing to make a complete idiot out of himself.

Supposedly Hillary Clinton's

plan is good.

Off topic: Bernie Ward has really lost it. I had to shut him off last night when he started trashing the Democrats regarding Iraq. Pelosi is no good, crackpot Cindy Sheehan is doing us all a favor by running against her.

Earth to Bernie: How large a margin do Democrats have in Congress? They can't do much unless or until they have a huge margin (almost LBJ-era numbers) PLUS the White House to be able to reverse course.

With "Democrats" like Ward, Republicans don't need enemies. Kucinich is the best? Are you kidding?

The reason he can say what he says is because he can never be elected. He comes across as a New Age nutjob.

I do, however, agree with him Clinton's health care plan is an "effin disaster."

Only 22 Representatives and Senators

were good enough to make the most corrupt members' list.

Here they are, including presidential candidate Duncan Hunter:

Members of the Senate:
Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Members of House:
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-LA)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-CA)
Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
Rep. Timothy F. Murphy (R-PA)
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Rep. David Scott (D-GA)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL)
Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM)

Dishonorable Mention:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)

The original report can be found here at the Beyond DeLay site.

Leave It to WSWS

to make a martyr out of publicity-seeking crackpot Andrew Meyer.

Gene Lyons

comments on that recent study which claimed liberals were smarter and more adaptable than conservatives.

No surprise at all, even if I'm a bit skeptical if there is a scientific reason why people make stupid political choices.

Don't Think for a Minute

California is going to be a lock for the Democrats, no matter who the nominee is.

After all, the Republicans are working on cheating in that state:

Like crack addicts confronting the irresistible vial, the evil geniuses of the G.O.P. can’t seem to help themselves. This time — with an eye toward seizing the White House again next year, even if they lose the popular vote — they’re trying to rewrite the rules for the distribution of electoral votes in California.

Under current law, all of California’s 55 electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote statewide. This “winner take all” system is the norm in the U.S. It’s in place in all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, which have just four and five electoral votes, respectively.

Now comes a move, from lawyers with close ties to the Republican Party, to scrap the current system in California and replace it with one that would divide up the electoral votes in a way that would likely give 20 or more of them to the candidate who loses the popular vote in the state.

Democrats fear, correctly, that this maneuver could checkmate even their best efforts to win back the White House next year.

These people will never learn a goddamned thing.

Speaking of Kids, Here are Mine.

Here are pictures of Madison, born on Sunday night, and her proud dad, Elven Hillman.

Just So Everybody Knows.

The jury in the Phil Spector case is at an impasse.

I don't understand people. This should be an easy conviction.

Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler announced the latest twist in the celebrity trial that has been a fixture in a high-security Los Angeles courtroom since April.

Though the jury is hung, officials are not giving up the possibility that a verdict might still be reached. The trial will resume Wednesday as the judge tries to reinstruct jurors on the law.

The jury, whose deliberations were in the seventh day, sent a note this morning to the court announcing that it appeared to be unable to resolve its deep fissure over whether Spector killed actress Lana Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003.

Wearing a gray striped suit and a red tie, Spector sat at the defense table where he has been a fixture for more than five months. He appeared stunned, his hands shaking like they have so many times before in the trial.

The defense immediately asked for a mistrial, but Fidler rejected that move. He then sent the jury home to return on Wednesday.

Five idiots thought this bastard should get a "not guilty" verdict, while seven said no.

That's at least so far.

What Goes on in Vegas...

L.V. cops have released some surveillance photos.

The D.A. has added a bunch of new charges against the acquitted killer:

First-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit kidnapping , and coercion with a deadly weapon were added to the six charges he was booked on.

Yet another suspect has been arrested.

A Publicity-Hungry College Student

made a fool out of himself challenging John Kerry on the question of the 2004 election and got himself tasered and incarcerated as a result.

Naturally this guy has a website.

You can watch it here:




Another angle is here.

Update: He's been released.

Campaign Notes.

Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care plan yesterday, which is little more than pandering to corporate interests.

It's totally unworkable, because people who don't have company-provided health insurance won't be able to afford private insurance.

Talk about having her head in the sand.

Nobody is Giving

O.J. any preferential treatment.

Miscellaneous News.

The situation in downtown Reno has become unbearable for at least six transients.
_____

Rags to Riches has been sidelined until 2008 after suffering a hairline fracture in last weekend's Gazelle.
_____

Only in conservative Idaho could this happen.
_____

Matt Wilkinson almost made the Darwin Awards for his stupid stunt:

"Me, being me, I put his head in my mouth," Wilkinson said. "At first, it felt like someone had given me a shot in the mouth."

Wilkinson's throat began to swell and close as poison rushed through his body.

Doctors stuck a breathing tube down his throat, injected several rounds of anti-venin and then put him in a medical coma for three days.

Wilkinson, who nearly died from the incident, is still recovering from the bite.

Dumb shit.
_____

Once Again,

it's all the Democrats' fault regarding our dictator's new A.G.

Also for the Record,

you can hear the censored or uncensored version of O.J.'s latest outburst, which has been all over the news.

I'll take the uncensored version, thank you.

I Missed Recording

the Harkin Steak Fry of this weekend, but again I'll steal from the YouTube site and put John Edwards' appearance.

Apparently he brought down the house. I'm putting it on the blog for future reference:

Part 1:



Part 2:

CNN Broke the Story of the Year.

YouTube has the video, and I can't resist putting it on my site:

What Goes on in Vegas Stays in Vegas,

unless, of course, you are O.J. Simpson.




Frankly, O.J. is like a train wreck--you're embarrassed to look at him, but you can't help it.

Which, of course, feeds his sociopathic need for attention.

(Craig L. Moran, Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Now

I will be able to link to Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Frank Rich, and so forth, as the NYT is ditching its TimesSelect premium service.

It wasn't worth the hassle.

It would be great if the Wall Street Journal followed suit.

Also the Daily Racing Form.

Campaign Notes.

Howard Fineman sizes up the candidates in Iowa, with Edwards coming out on top.

Despite nonstop media hype about Clinton and Obama, I expect Edwards to win the state.

I expect Biden to do far better than people think.

As the World Turns.

So much for family values hypocrite Dickie Scaife, the man who tried to ruin Bill Clinton over bogus adultery allegations:

The estranged wife of billionaire and newspaper owner Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh banking heir turned media mogul, was awarded $725,000 a month in temporary support during their acrimonious divorce, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.

They're also fighting over custody of their dog.

More:

The marriage of Richard and "Ritchie" Scaife, as she preferred to call herself, was Mr. Scaife's second. The couple had been together since the early '80s while Mr. Scaife was still married to his first wife, the former Frances Gilmore. In the course of the next 14 years, Ritchie Scaife would serve on the board of Mr. Scaife's publishing company, sometimes exercising influence in its editorial judgments, and once sat alongside him during a rare interview he granted in the midst of the Clinton investigations. All the while, she was living in a Shadyside house of her own two blocks from the Westminster Place mansion occupied by Mr. Scaife.

So the current or recent adultery wasn't his first.

Some juicy tidbits:

The Scaifes' marital troubles first gained public attention on Dec. 22, 2005, with what Mrs. Scaife's lawyers characterize in their brief as "cruel, calculated acts toward Wife by Husband as punishment for her detection" of Mr. Scaife's alleged affair.

"On December 22nd in the late afternoon, Wife, in an attempt to confirm Husband's ongoing affair, appeared at the home of her Husband, peered in his residence window to confirm" whether the other woman was with Mr. Scaife. "Wife was arrested under an absurd trespass charge, handcuffed and transported to the County Jail, where she was incarcerated overnight in a grim holding cell," Mrs. Scaife's attorneys wrote. The charges were later dismissed but, in the words of Mrs. Scaife's brief, "The marriage was over!"

Campaign Notes.

Like John Edwards, Hillary Clinton puts the onus on health care directly on the patients, not on the insurance companies, not on the health care industrial complex.

Nobody will be able to fucking afford it, Hillary. More cluelessness from the elite class who can pay for their own health care.

John Edwards has once again put his foot in it by making a ridiculous promise he can never keep with regard to cutting off Congress' health care benefits.

Who in the hell is advising him? We have this silly comment, and also his refusal to personally repudiate his mandatory preventive care comments at the LiveStrong forum and in other places.

Miscellaneous News.

Thank goodness the air races ended safely.
_____

Economy.

Negotiations continue between the UAW and GM.

It Was Tough Shit

for Ted Olson.

After Much Waiting and Anticipating,

little Madison Hillman came into the world at 6:20 p.m. at a hospital in Salem, Oregon. She was due on the 9th, but she decided to take her time in making her grand entrance.

This means my nephew and his wife are now grandparents. Hell's bells, I remember when he came home from the hospital early in 1961. I was not quite six years old then.

My sister, who is 67, is now a great-grandmother. I guess that makes me a great-grand aunt or some goddamned thing.

I'd rather not think about it.

The family members are taking scads of pictures of Madison. I guess she's a cutie. When I get some I'll post them here on the blog.

Madison is Elven's first child. Kasey is his third wife. Madison is her second child, and Elven is her first husband.

Miscellaneous News.

Nope, Nevada is not the western version of the Bermuda Triangle.
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Now That I'm Ready

to head out the door and ride my bike, O.J. Simpson has been arrested in connection with the Las Vegas robbery.

It's just breaking...

The man in the earlier arrest has been identified as 47-year-old Walter Alexander.

Whistling a tune from The Wizard of Oz won't help his case, either.

Belmont Stakes Winner

Rags to Riches lost the first race of her career by finishing second in the Grade I Gazelle.

You can find the video of the race at the link.

This YouTube video is of her Belmont Stakes win.

As the Knife Turns.

There has been an arrest in connection with the Vegas robbery, but it isn't O.J.:

Nichols said it was not clear if Simpson would be arrested because the former football star has said he didn’t have any weapons or any of the property that was taken Thursday.

“If we had enough to arrest him last night then we would have,” Nichols said.

And more:

The Hall of Fame running back has said the items had been stolen from him and rightfully belonged to him.

While there is a chance that some of the property that was taken may have been Simpson's, Dillon said, "that doesn't mean a crime didn't occur."

Simpson, accompanied by his lawyer, is expected to make a full statement to police on Monday. He told investigators he has no plans to leave Las Vegas before that happens.

The former running back met with investigators Friday and made a statement but would not allow detectives to ask questions, Dillon said.

A Wacko Decides

he's going to force his beliefs down his students and finds himself in big trouble.

It doesn't matter whether the offender is a religious fanatic or a vegan fanatic; they are the same nuts falling out of the same tree.

I hate fascism of all kinds.

More Campaign Notes.

This "debate" is certainly interesting.

As the World Turns.

Like father, like son.
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The Reno Gazette-Journal has a list of all of the fatalities (excluding yesterday's) in the Reno National Championship Air Races.

Interestingly, there were no fatalities at all during the first eight years of competition.
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Lincoln Chafee has quit the GOP long after the GOP quit him.
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Once Again,

O.J. will walk, this time because his accuser wants the whole matter dropped.

While we're at it, let's take a look at his recent run-ins with the law.

The Official Website

for If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer is here.

Here's a bit from the introduction written by the Goldmans:

The killer swore he would never work a day in his life to honor the judgment … well, he just had. He had worked hard on this book, thought he would retire off of it, and we took it right out from under him. He has escaped our reach for nearly eleven years, but not this time.

The specifics of the bankruptcy agreement are confusing. The simplest way to explain it is this: we levied on the book back in January 2007, so we had a secured claim on that asset. When it was forced into bankruptcy court, we had the biggest vested interest, since we also had the biggest claim ($38 million). We agreed to turn over a portion of the proceeds to the court in an effort to pay off LBA’s other debts, which included the Estate of Nicole Brown (his kids) which is owed $20 million and a few attorneys who are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ironic twist is that we were now ordered to publish a book to help pay down our own judgment and help pay off his other outstanding “bills” and to pass money along to the family that helped create this drama to begin with. But again … it came down to him or us.

So here we sit, having to take this incredibly controversial book project, which was deemed abhorrent, disgusting, and dirty, and turn it into something powerful and positive. Having read the manuscript in greater detail, we are more determined than ever to put this product out into the world as an exposé of a murderer. We recall the language of the civil verdict: “he willfully and wrongfully caused the deaths of Ron and Nicole with malice and oppression.” According to the civil code, malice and oppression means “despicable conduct carried out by the defendant, to cause injury and that subjects a person to cruel and unjust hardship.” This is what you will see when you read his confession.

As the Knife Turns.

Too bad Johnnie Cochran has gone to that courtroom in the sky, for the acquitted murderer and now robbery suspect will need some high-priced legal help.

God, this is good:

One of the collectors was Bruce Fromong of North Las Vegas, a former Simpson business partner who had hoped to sell some memorabilia that included items signed by Simpson and other sports stars such as Joe Montana.

He said he expected a potential buyer to walk into the Palace Station hotel room when Simpson and several other men entered instead. One of the men stuck a gun in his face, but Fromong instead stared at Simpson.

"I kept looking at O.J. thinking, 'How stupid can you be, Juice?'" Fromong said. "If I was going to do something like that, I'd be sitting out in the parking lot and letting my guys take care of it. How stupid can you be. ... You've got enough trouble. You're O.J. Simpson, for God's sake."

Simpson left with more than $75,000 in sports memorabilia, Fromong said.

Simpson told The Associated Press that he took the memorabilia, but only because it had been stolen from him.

"We didn't break into any room. There was no armed robbery," the 60-year-old Heisman Trophy winner said. "Nobody was roughed up. What I can't understand is these guys are in a room trying to fence stolen goods, and I'm the story."

But a source close to the investigation said Simpson's entourage was armed and took the memorabilia by force.

"We do believe a robbery occurred, and O.J. was part of it," the source said. "He went there with goons who were armed."

Stay tuned for the sequel to If I Did It.

Obituaries.

Maria's Mon, sire of 2001 Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, has been euthanized at the age of 14.

No cause of death has been pinpointed as of yet, but the horse suffered from multiple-organ failure.

With the Latest Fatalities

at the Reno National Championship Air Races, should air races be banned?

There's an interesting discussion on that blog.

Campaign Notes.

Wesley Clark decided to make what he considered to be a safe bet and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Some of his more rabid supporters believe he will be on the ticket with Clinton. I seriously doubt it, assuming Clinton even gets the nomination.
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Is Newt seriously plotting a revenge on the Clintons by running for president himself, after self-destructing in 1998 and being laughed out of Washington?
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It'll Be a Week or Two

before If I Did It hits the bestseller charts.

No, famed photographer Joe O'Donnell, who died August 9, didn't take the famous picture of JFK, Jr. saluting his father's casket.

O'Donnell's boast that he did was certainly a surprise to Stan Stearns:

Stan Stearns, a 72-year-old wedding photographer in Annapolis, Md., knows that picture well. He took it.

A photographer for United Press International, he kept a close eye that day on the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, and her children.

“I’m watching her, and she bent down, whispered in his ear,” Mr. Stearns recalled in a recent interview. “The hand went up. Click — one exposure. That was it. That was the picture.”

Unfortunately for Stearns, he didn't take that picture, either. In fact, several photographers took pictures of the salute, not all of them attributed.

This photo shown here was actually taken by Dan Ferrell, then of The Daily News.

There were other famous photographs of which O'Donnell claimed authorship, and some claims were so absurd because the authorship of the photos was so well known.

Either an over-inflated ego or senility had to be responsible.

Despite

growing opposition to NCLB, Congressman George Miller is intent on getting that piece of shit reauthorized so he can get more contributions from corporate interests.

California Politics.

Cuts in the state's mental health care to the poor is nothing more than cynicism.

It's typical of the attitude of politicians, who tend to be well-to-do and tend to represent those interests over everybody else.

That's why you get comments like John Edwards' probably fatal comments about his health care plan basically having to be "earned" by forcing participants to have "preventive care." However, if people in his social class get sick, they can readily buy the "best" of care. If people in his social class have mental problems or drug abuse problems, they can check into elite hospitals or check into the Betty Ford Clinic.

Not so everybody else.

For the record, here is the 2006 report from the National Alliance for Mental Illness, mentioned in the article linked above.

My state, Nevada, not surprisingly has a D-.

Life's the Pits.

Eight rescued pit bulls involved in a dogfighting ring have found temporary homes.

Face It: the O.J. Saga is Far More

interesting than all of the problems in the world put together.

Time to put If I Did It on the sidebar.

Meanwhile, Denise Brown is on Larry King Live blowing a gasket because her family didn't think of the idea of taking ownership of the publishing rights to the killer's book first.

As the World Turns.

More than a few skeptics have come up with the novel claim that missing aviator Steve Fossett plotted his own disappearance.

Or perhaps he was captured by the Japanese. Or perhaps he was a CYA agent.
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The show will go on despite three plane crashes this week.
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As the Knife Turns.

O.J. did it again:

Investigators questioned O.J. Simpson about a break-in at a casino hotel room involving sports memorabilia, police said Friday.

The break-in was reported at the Palace Station casino late Thursday night, police spokesman Jose Montoya said. He said the break-in involved sports collectibles, but he declined to elaborate.

Simpson was released and is believed to be in Las Vegas, Montoya said.

"We don't believe he's going anywhere, " he said.

After several days of not watching television at all, now I have a reason.

I am sure this will be all over the dial today.

Once Again

the Democrats are to blame for everything in Iraq.

John Edwards

had a commercial following our dictator's speech, which I watched.

I watched the Edwards commercial, not the dictator's speech.

Campaign Notes.

What the hell?
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Nevada may move its caucus date earlier, perhaps as early as next week, if it has to.

I exaggerate, but just a tad.
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As We Know,

Ted Olson wasn't going to spend the rest of his life as a professional widower, so, to drown his sorrow, he skedaddled to Kentucky in 2002 to down mint juleps and to watch the Kentucky Derby.

That is where he met the fourth great love of his life, an attorney with the odd name of Lady Booth, no relation to John Wilkes Booth, at least to my knowledge.

It was her first marriage to the hard-bitten and hard-ridden Olson when the two tied the knot last October.

She is obviously a young chick because she was escorted to the altar by her dad:







According to USA People Search, not always a reliable source, she is 46. Olson is 67.

For the record, more pics are here.

Joe Conason

summarizes the sordid career of Ted Olson, and he didn't need to marry the late Barbara Bracher to pad his dubious resume.

Olson earned his sleazeball reputation all by his little self, with such lowlights as helping to install our dictator into the White House and his involvement in the notorious Arkansas Project.

Snip:

If you think Gonzales was excessively partisan in staffing the Justice Department and firing U.S. attorneys who didn't carry out Karl Rove's agenda, Olson demonstrated his own pure Republican partisanship -- and absolute Bush loyalism, another Gonzales trait -- when he helped direct the Republican legal team that "won" Florida for the Republicans in the Supreme Court of the United States during the aftermath of the 2000 election. Actually, he had earned his far-right credentials years earlier, when he joined the secret campaign to destroy the Clinton presidency that was financed by Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative Pittsburgh billionaire behind American Spectator magazine's Arkansas Project.

What kills me is Olson's argument in front of the USSC on behalf of our dictator was a wretched performance. He was such a nervous mess, he sounded if he were about to pee in his pants.

What

an ass.

She's all in favor of increasing cycling deaths, presumably.

Once Again

it's all the Democrats' fault on Iraq.

Since Few People

can afford to retire anymore, more people are working until they die, or so it seems.

Edit: Fixed the link.

Naturally if Our Dictator

actually nominates Ted Olson to the job of attorney general, Senate Democrats will not put up a fight.

This despite the fact the man should be rejected on sight because of his involvement with the Arkansas Project and the rigging of the 2000 election.

They won't do it because it is too close to the 2008 elections, and our dictator is considered a lame duck.

Paul Campos

takes on Harvard University's obsession with "overweight" people being at risk for disease and death.

The recent hysteria over "obesity," whatever that is, dovetails perfectly with our society's preoccupation with thinness as virtue. It has nothing whatever to do with concern for health:

Of course, one reason the Harvard claims are treated with such respect is that they tell people what they want to hear. Their claims dovetail perfectly with social prejudices that declare one can never be too rich or too thin, and with the widespread desire to believe that sickness and death can be avoided if one follows the rules laid down by the appropriate authority figures. Combine these factors with the social cachet wielded by the Harvard name, a willingness to make brazen assertions that run from serious exaggerations to outright lies, and lazy journalism of the "some say the Earth is flat; others claim it's round; the truth no doubt lies somewhere in the middle" type, of which the Scientific American article is only the most recent example, and you have a recipe for an epidemic of wildly misleading statements dressed up in the guise of authoritative scientific discourse.

Campaign Notes.

Could the Republican convention turn out to be a brokered one?

I think the race will be far more interesting than the Democratic one, and I hate to say I ain't terribly overwhelmed by the candidates on either side.
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Rudy's poll numbers aren't as strong as they once were.
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As the World Turns.

The UAW prepares to sell its members down the river.
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I Found

this link about the Finkelstein/Dershowitz affair, and it sure is interesting.

So is this.

Of course I can't leave out this. It is good, especially if you hear and watch the broadcast.

Since Dershowitz has damaged his reputation in defense of O.J. Simpson, one should take any claim he makes with a big grain of salt.

As the World Turns.

Was a university professor denied tenure because of alleged anti-semitism, or was he canned because he, like Ward Churchill, was unprofessional and irresponsible in his writings?

His controversial book can be found here.

Alan Dershowitz was instrumental in the campaign against Finkelstein.

The reader can find more from the horse's mouth.
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Today marks the sixth anniversary of you-know-what, and the media are prepared.
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A woman whose attempt to beat a freight train across the tracks and collided with it, causing the deaths of two of her four children, has died.

Her boneheaded attempt was captured on video. You can see she collided with not one but two trains.
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Frankly,

few people care about our worsening economy or worsening situation in Iraq. What they REALLY care about is whether Britney Spears is "fat."

She isn't, but no matter what her body size, she still can't sing worth a shit.

Campaign Notes.

Despite his frontrunner status, Rudy still faces many obstacles.
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South Carolina's leading newspaper is trying too hard to paint John Edwards as crooked.

Of course it's all bullshit.
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So Hsu me.
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Obituaries.

Jane Wyman, the first and only woman to have been an ex-wife of a president of the United States, and an Oscar-winning actress, has died. She was 90 years old and had been in ill health for some time.

Wyman won for her performance in the film Johnny Belinda. She was also popular on television, including a role as the matriarch in the show Falcon Crest.

Wyman also had the misfortune of being often confused with fellow performer Jane Wyatt.

At least I often confused the two.

As the World Turns.

It sounds like Britney Spears made a fool out of herself again, only this time in front of millions of people.
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It's that time of year again when the media and our politicians go in overkill mode.
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