And this guy is just one of them

A man was arrested Thursday for investigation of soliciting the murder of the woman who has accused Los Angeles Lakers star [blank] of sexual assault, authorities said.

Patrick Graber of El Segundo was taken into custody by Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators and FBI agents, the Sheriff’s Department said in a press release.
. . .
The investigation began Sept. 8 after security personnel employed by [blank] said they had received a letter from Graber saying he could solve [blank]‘s problems, the Sheriff’s Department said.
. . .
The detectives concluded that Graber was offering to commit murder and they contacted the accuser’s family in her home state of Colorado and authorities there to advise them of the alleged threat.

I wish I could say I’m surprised by this, but I’m not. After reading all the comments to my two posts on this subject, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more psychos like this guy on the loose :

you two are idiots, if we all know that [blank] was accused by some, drug addict, suicidal, whorish ass babe accuses [blank] of something, whether he did it or not, her identity should be known…

And you monkey asses are idiots for not realizing that.
. . .
i don’t give a shit what you guys think…i want to see that dumb bitch’s picture, because that’s exactly what she is; a dumb bitch! She’s a card carrying drug addict money hungry whore which are very abundant these days!
. . .
YOU ARE ALL WRONG. THIS GIRL IS JUST ONE MESSED UP FREAK CAUSE HER FRIEND DIED AND NOW SHE IS PARANOID. [blank] DON’T NEED TO RAPE A GIRL WHEN HE CAN GET ANY GIRL HE WANTS. I DON’T THINK HE WOULD RAPE A GIRL, ESPECIALY SOME LOSER FROM EAGLE COUNTY OR WHATEVER THE HELL THIS NO NAME CITY IS. SHAME ON YOU ALL FOR TRYING TO STICK UP FOR SOME FREAK.
. . .
I’ve seen the pictures. I bet mommy and daddy are real proud of their slut daughter getting mounted by some big buck nigger.
. . .
You know Gregg, you are a big piece of shit for not posting this bitches photo, she wanted to be the boss so now she must pay the cost. Lying ass whore, with a nasty stanking pussy. She probaly could’nt handle [blank]‘s package, small twat bitch.
. . .
greg u a fucken gay.
. . .
SO AS I WAS SAYING, SHE’S JUST ANOTHER WHITE BITCH SCREAMING RAPE. HISTORY DOESN’T CHANGE VERY MUCH. BUT ANYWAY, THE DUMB SKANKY BROAD HAD NO BUSINESS ACCEPTING AN INVITATION TO GO INTO THIS MAN’S ROOM IF SHE HAD NO INTENTION OF GETTING PERSONAL WITH HIM. I MEAN COME ON, HE WASN’T INVITING HER IN TO SHOW HER AROUND CUZ THE DIRTY WHORE WORKS THERE! SHE ALREADY KNOWS WHAT THE ROOMS LOOK LIKE. SHE WANTED TO FUCK HIM FOR HIGHER, BUT THINGS TURNED OUT DIFFERENTLY THAN SHE HAD PLANNED SO SHE SCREAMED BLOODY RAPE. AND WHO THE HELL CARES THAT SHE HAS VAGINAL TEARING?!? YOU KNOW THE MYTH ABOUT BLACK MEN IS TRUE. SHE’S A SLIMY SACK OF SHIT WHO NEEDS HER FACE BASHED IN. RIGHT AFTER GLORIA ALRED GET’S HERS BASHED IN.

And it goes on and on and on… (Check it out for yourself here) You know there something seriously wrong with our country when people want to murder a rape vicitm….

In case you were wondering, I replaced that famous basketball player’s name with [blank] in an effort to keep the rape victim cyber-stalkers out of this comments thread.

Arrrggg….today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Fer your readin’ pleasure [and to celebrate this site's six month anniversary], har’s some o’ The Talent Show’s greatest hits, as filtard through the Pirate Speak Translator. :

Arrr, people keep sayin’ o’er and o’er again that Bush lied t’ the American people, but that’s not the point. Bush is a politician, o’ course he lied t’ the American people. The “high crime” har was the fact that he lied durin’ the State o’ the Union. This isn’t just a fireside chat with the American people, tis’ a joint session o’ Congress. Aye, me parrot concurs.
. . .
Aye, creationism, while it may make for some intarstin’ religious dogma, isn’t science and tharfore has no place in any science classes. Hidin’ under the buzzwords “creation science” and “intelligent design” is an organized effort t’ replace a ‘alid and uni’ersally accepted scientific theory with a repackaged ‘ersion o’ the Judeo-christian creation myth (minus the talkin’ snake and the apple, for now). Gar, Where can I find a bottle o’rum?
. . .
Aye, o’ course I can already hear the complaints now. “Tis’ not fair. The rich pay the majority o’ taxes, tis’ only fair for them t’ get majority o’ the money back.” While that may be true, this tax cut is not a gift, tis’ an attempt t’ jump-start a stagnant economy. Tis’ not a matter o’ who deser’es a refund more, tis’ a matter o’ who’s more likely t’ spend the money. Thar be a ‘ariety o’ social programs that primarily benefit the poor that have been cut t’ make way for this tax cut. Askin’ the poor t’ sacrifice so the rich can have more money is what’s verily unfair. Aye.

I guess the translator could use a little work. Oh well. Enjoy spending the day talking like a complete jackass. I know I will…

This message bears repeating : For a muscle-bound guy, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a chickenshit for sitting out the gubernatorial debates. Here’s what he had to say the other day on Oprah :

September 24, I will be debating. Remember when I came over here and I was competing in body-building? I didn’t go to the Mr. Venice Beach contest or the Mr. Chicago contest. I went to the Mr. Olympia contest, to the No. 1 contest. And the debate on September 24 is the Super Bowl of all debates.

Whew. That must have been a pretty challenging interview for Arnie. Oprah throws in so many soft-ball questions, she makes Larry King look like Walter Cronkite.

Luckily for the people of California, Cruz Bustmante and the rest of the candidates aren’t going to take this crap lying down :

Next week is the only scheduled California recall debate that Schwarzenegger has agreed to attend. The debate, sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association, has been criticized for providing candidates with the questions in advance.

At a different debate Wednesday in Los Angeles, Bustamante asked the other participants to boycott the CBA event.

“I hope you really will take me up on my offer to have an unscripted debate outside,” Bustamante said. “Leave Arnold in there with his movie-scripted answers and have the rest go outside.”

A spokesman for Bustamante said the other candidates in attendance — Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, independent Arianna Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo — reacted positively to the idea.

I hope the rest of the candidates are serious about joining Bustamente’s proposed boycott. Considering that the rest of them have already participated in three debates, Schwarzenegger’s arrogance and cowardice about any debate format that doesn’t allow him to read his lines off a teleprompter really make a mockery of this whole election. Does he think the legislature is going to be starstruck enough to let him get away with this shit in Sacramento? I somehow doubt he’d be allowed to drag his feet while waiting for “the Super Bowl of all legislative budget battles.”

That’s the strangest line from one of the strangest shows I’ve seen all year. For those of you who didn’t catch it, I’m referring to HBO’s new show K Street. On the surface it seems like a normal reality show about a political consulting firm run by James Carville and Mary Matalin. Along with their two partners/assistants, they’re in the early stages of setting up their new office.

(Hmmmm…Mary’s assistant looks familiar. Maybe I saw her on Crossfire or something.)

When it is revealed that James has agreed to do some debate prepping for Howard Dean, Mary goes ballistic, fearing that a relationship between the firm and the senate front-runner could drive away their Republican clients. Cut to some random guy getting his shoes shined, hair cut, etc. (They keep cutting back to this throughout the show) In order to do some damage control, Matalin’s assistant/partner goes on a mission to inform their Republican clients, Senators Don Nickles and Rick “Dog Fucker” Santorum, “just in case the word gets out”.

(Ummmm…did she forget she’s on TV?)

In perhaps the most interesting part of the show, Carville, while consulting Howard Dean along with Paul Begala, feeds Dean his Trent Lott/MLK joke (which I wrote about here). The next night, Mary Matalin loses it even further when she’s watching the debate with “the girls” and she hears the joke.

(Why do they keep cutting to the assistant/partner on the phone with her boyfriend?)

The next morning at the office, James and Mary have an interview scheduled with a family friend of one of their friends (or something like that). Of course, it’s the weird haircut guy. As they interview him, he keeps going off on strange tangents. At one point he gives a bizarre mini-speech about how the dictionary is “the most important book”, “maybe even more important than the Bible”, because, I’m shitting you not, it’s full of definitions. At this point, I would have kicked his weird ass out.

And that’s it. The episode abruptly ended there. In the closing credits, it’s revealed that the assistant/partners and weird haircut guy are actually actors. I guess that means the whole “damage control ” subplot was scripted. Does this mean that Carville didn’t consult Dean? That he didn’t come up with the joke? Seriously, what the hell is this show? (Other than an outlet for politicians to do vanity cameos, a la The Simpsons)

Bush has finally admitted that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 :

President Bush said Wednesday there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 ? disputing an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq.

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties,” the president said. But he also said, “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.”

The president’s comment was the administration’s firmest assertion that there is no proven link between Saddam and Sept. 11. It came after Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday clouded the issue by saying, “It’s not surprising people make that connection” between Saddam and the attacks.
. . .
A recent poll indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, “I’ve not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that.”

Hmmm…I wonder why Americans have gotten the idea that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Could it be because Bush constantly mentions 9/11 when talking about Iraq? Here he is during the State of the Union.

Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam Hussein.

And he did it again during his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in May.

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men — the shock troops of a hateful ideology — gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the “beginning of the end of America.” By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.

Before that was his speech in October 2002 (while Congress was debating an Iraqi resolution)

We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability — even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm.
. . .
The attacks of September the 11th showed our country that vast oceans no longer protect us from danger. Before that tragic date, we had only hints of al Qaeda’s plans and designs. Today in Iraq, we see a threat whose outlines are far more clearly defined, and whose consequences could be far more deadly.

And there was the “Can I have some money?” speech from a week and a half ago.

Since America put out the fires of September the 11th, and mourned our dead, and went to war, history has taken a different turn. We have carried the fight to the enemy. We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power.

This work continues. In Iraq, we are helping the long suffering people of that country to build a decent and senate society at the center of the Middle East.

Sure, Bush hasn’t claimed that Saddam was flying one of the planes that hit the WTC, but his continual name-dropping of September 11th is done with the clear purpose of implying that the attacks on 9/11 and the war in Iraq are connected when they clearly aren’t. There may be a difference between misleading and lying, but the result is the same.

As far as Bush’s repeated allegations that Saddam had connections with al Qaeda, I think it’s farfetched to think that religious fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden and a secular dictator like Saddam Hussein would be able to find much common ground (other than a shared enemy). As a powerful man once said :

“Fool me once, shame on ? shame on you. Fool me ? you can’t get fooled again.”

Reader and frequent commenter Josh Boyle just emailed me a followup to the Earth Liberation Front Hummer firebombing story so shocking that I’ve got to share it with you all :

about three weeks ago, when you posted about the elf bombings of humvees in west covina, i replied that as a pacifist i decried their actions, yet admired their spunk.

on friday, the fbi finally arrested a buddy of mine that they had been trailing in this case for weeks. his name is josh cannole. he lives in a co-op in pamona that strives for sustainability. they live off the grid on solar panels. they mulch. they grow their own organic foods and have free classes for the neighborhood on gardening and cooking and eating vegan. many of the young adults in the co-op are very involved in the continuing antiwar movement. in other words, they are easily sold to the public as eco-terrorists. i mean, josh installs solar panels for a living. this is not normal behavior.

well, he’s innocent. they let him go last night. we were there for a rally in his defense that joyously turned to a rally for his release.

i’m not most upset with the fbi continuing its string of fantastic fuck-ups (at least they didnt try to blow him up judy barri style), not to mention it’s patriot act hardened bravado in regards to searching and seizing, with
dozens of students not knowing when they will get possessions back. nor am i most upset at a complicit media including showing a rather scary mug shot and dutifully painting josh as a disenfranchised outsider a la tim mcviegh (you
should see the shit i taped off fox news this weekend). the sheep that lept to call for his execution shall always be sheep so i do not fault them either. i take mild pleasure in watching them feel unapologetic about their mistake.

no, i am most upset at earth liberation front. they posted a defiant note in his… i guess defense, although it further implicated him in my mind. the fact is the elf took violent and environmentally unconscious action that morning and the perps were more than happy to watch someone else take the fall. to say this is cowardly is to state the obvious. what is not so obvious is the ramifications of this foot in the door to the socal peace movement the elf has handed to the patriot act happy fbi.

the fbi has my email on file. i’m working on the kucinich campaign with some of those co-opers, you see. every peace movement mover and shaker was on one of those hard drives or another, i’m sure.

am i nervous? for myself and everyone who’s done anything against this administration in socal i am indeed nervous. if we hadn’t lept to his defense, josh would still be in and he’d bee railroaded right to a fed pen. it could be any one of us, they just need groups like the elf to give them the excuse.

i take it back, greg. i do not admire their spunk.

fuck you elf.

Damn. He wasn’t kidding about the ELF’s letter of “support” either. It starts out good :

On September 15th, Connole was released without charges due to a lack of evidence to make the case against him. It is obvious that the FBI seriously blundered in this case, rushing to make an arrest in the middle of the night based on no physical evidence at all.

During the lead-up to Josh’s release, no concrete evidence was put forward by the FBI to suggest that Josh Connole was in any way involved with the West Covina Hummer dealership action. The raid was apparently based on a likeness comparison from blurry security-video footage and nothing else. While there no physical evidence to suggest that Josh was at the site, there *is* plenty of evidence that Josh was assisting a friend moving into their house on the night the Hummer action took place, and wasn’t anywhere near West Covina.

But it ends of a very self-congratulatory note :

The arrest is part of a pattern of harassment the FBI has been visiting on activists in Southern California since mid-August in a desperate attempt to claim “success” in their hunt for ELF members. Since 1997, very few ELF activists have been arrested which has led to a growing frustration in the FBI as evidenced by the recent raids against activists in the San Diego area and now this arrest on what appears to be non-existent grounds.

The Earth Liberation Front Press Office would like to send a message of solidarity and support to those activists undergoing harassment by the FBI in Southern California and elsewhere. We encourage people who wish to support Earth Liberation prisoners contribute to the Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network which can be reached at [URL deleted]

These dicks are essentially agreeing that the FBI raided the home of an innocent man because they couldn’t find the real eco-terrorists. Does this make Josh Cannole the Saddam Hussein of the environmental movement?

Seriously though, as if the ELF wasn’t conceited enough, they turned their letter of “support” into a fundraising letter. Sorry, ELF. People who firebomb auto dealerships should go to jail. If they had any class at all, they’d link to the homepage of the Josh Connole Legal Defense Fund.

If you’d like to help out, I encourage you to write some letters to the editor, your congressional representatives, the ACLU, your favorite blogger, etc…

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia that popped up at DailyKos :

Hard to believe, but Bush has yet to wield the veto during his presidency. Time to see if he has the cojones to use it. It would be an admission of failure and weakness, considering he has control over the entire governmental apparatus.

Wow. Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton had 78, 44, and 38 vetoes respectively during their presidencies. Even Gerald Ford (the only other unelected president) had 66 during his 2 and a half years in office. Since Bush has been in office for at least a couple months longer than Ford, that he would have used it at least once by now. Jeez, this has the be the most chickenshit congress ever…

Robert Reich did a great job of summing up why farm subsidies are such a bad idea in this Marketplace commentary last week :

Here’s the problem: Poor nations don’t have much industry, but they do have farms. In fact, the corn, wheat, cotton, sugar, rice, and dairy products they produce are just about the only things many poor nations have to trade for what they need from the rest of the world. Poor nations can produce a lot of these staples cheaper than rich nations, so you might think there’s a natural fit. Well, think again, because rich nations have farmers too. Not many of them, mind you, but they’re politically powerful.

Fewer than three percent of Americans work directly on farms, but agribusiness is big business in America. It’s the same in Europe and in Japan. As a result, rich countries are spending hundreds of billions a year subsidizing their farmers, which makes it almost impossible for poor countries to compete. Japan gives its rice farmers seven times what it costs them to produce the rice, which allows Japanese rice farmers to turn around and sell the rice for very little. This effectively shuts out cheap rice produced in Thailand and other developing nations.

One of the biggest culprits is the United States. Last year the Bush Administration announced that it would give American farmers an extra $175 billion over the next decade. They said it was acting to defend our farmers against artificially cheap produce coming from Europe. This is crazy, folks! These subsidies cost all the rest of us twice over. We pay more for the food we eat and we pay more taxes to make these farm payments.

Meanwhile, poor nations get clobbered. How are they going to earn the money they need to develop their economies if they can’t sell their farm produce? We talk a good game about foreign aid, baloney! The yearly subsidy we give just to American cotton farmers is three times our total foreign aid to Africa. Poor nations don’t need foreign aid, they need a fair shot at our markets.

Which is why the talks starting today in Cancun are so important, but also why they seem doomed from the start. Farmers in rich countries won’t give up without a fight but poor nations have almost nothing to fight with. We should be ashamed.

Like a financial Nostradamus, Reich did a great job predicting the disaster that the World Trade Organization‘s meeting degenerated into :

World Trade Organization leaders, crippled by two major defeats in four years, are searching for a way to win back the trust of poor nations and cobble together a global trade treaty that will shape the world’s economy for years to come.

Developing countries say they won’t take any more bullying from the rich, and want a deal that will help even the poorest.
. . .
During five days of talks in Cancun, ministers spent little time on what was expected to be the main issue: agriculture.

Instead, they argued over whether to launch formal negotiations on several new topics, including rules on foreign investment and competition. Several nations insisted on taking up the talks, while other developing nations refused.

The failure of the talks makes it nearly impossible for the WTO to reach its main goal: a new global trade treaty by the end of the next year.

I haven’t written much about the WTO on here because I haven’t read as much about it as I should. On the surface, it seems like a decent idea. Free trade sounds pretty good in theory. Unfortunately, as this weekend’s meeting shows, the WTO seems to be the latest example of rich nations bulling the rest of the world in the name of “free trade”.

As Reich pointed out, the rich nations don’t seem to be interested in real free trade and competition. If they were, they’d cut out all the subsidies, tax incentives, tax cuts, legal caps, and close a myriad of loopholes that benefit their own countries in order to give poorer nations a decent chance to compete in their markets. In reality, what it looks like rich countries have been doing is using these trade agreements to strengthen their own industries and then pass local laws that stifle foreign competition.

Anyone who thinks the “invisible hand” zealots in this country really care about the free market is smoking crack. Behind every big policy decision whose purpose is to let businesses “stay competitive” lies the ulterior motive of helping big businesses to make as much money as possible at the expense of American workers.

Do the Republicans keep offshore tax loopholes open because our tax system creates such a big burden that corporations are unable to compete? Of course not, they do it because they hate any taxes. Do they want tort reform because they fear insurance companies are a few outrageous civil penalties away from bankruptcy? Hell no, huge punitive damages rarely survive the appeal process (Shhhh..don’t tell the voters). Did they deregulate the energy industry in California because they wanted to drive down the energy prices for consumers? Do they think “voluntary regulations” will actually help the environment? Do they insist on a multi-billion dollar retroactive tax refunds so businesses will have more money to “invest” into the economy? The answers should be obvious.

Where are all the “tough on crime” Republicans on cases like this?

A couple whose infant daughter died of meningitis after they treated her with prayer instead of medicine were sentenced to a year of weekends in jail.

Richard Wiebe, 30, and Agnes Wiebe, 31, were sentenced Friday and were to surrender next month. They pleaded no contest last month to child abuse and involuntary manslaughter.

They also were placed on five years’ probation and ordered to attend parenting classes. Superior Court Judge Gerard Brown agreed to suspend a six-year state prison sentence.

The couple, members of the Church of God in Upland, treated their 11-month-old daughter’s high fever, vomiting and convulsions with home remedies and prayer instead of taking her to a doctor.

Julia Wiebe died in July 2001 of what doctors said was a treatable form of bacterial meningitis. The couple said their religion shuns modern medical treatment.

A year of weekends?? What the hell?! Shouldn’t baby-killers get more punishment than grounding? I’m surprised the judge didn’t just say “No TV for a month and you can’t go to the mall with your friends!” And what’s up with the parenting classes?? “Next time you guys have a kid, we’re going to teach you how not to kill it.” As far as I’m concerned, these parents are murderers. I don’t give a shit what their God told them to do, if they withhold medical care from a dying baby they should rot in jail.

It looks like Clark is almost ready to make his big announcement :

Wesley Clark, the retired general with a four-star military resume but no political experience, decided Tuesday to become the 10th senate presidential candidate, officials close to him said.

“We’ll make an announcement in Little Rock tomorrow,” Clark told The Associated Press. He didn’t reveal his decision but said with a smile, “We’re tremendously excited.”
. . .
One hurdle will be his lack of political experience. Asked if he was ready to start telling Americans his positions on domestic policy, few of which he’s ever revealed, Clark said, “I’ll do my best, but there will be a lot of things that I don’t know right away.”

Now, I don’t really know that much about Clark. He’s a general who’s anti-war. That’s pretty cool. He’s got an endorsement from Michael Moore. That’s cool (and a little weird). And he’s got no political experience at all. That’s really uncool. Personally, I think the presidency is a little too important for someone who’s not able to hit the ground running.

Of the few things I know about him, this is the one I find the most troubling :

Clark’s fledgling political team is drawn heavily from the political networks of former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. The advisers include Mark Fabiani, who served as spokesman for former Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 campaign; Ron Klain, a strategist in Al Gore’s 2000 campaign; Washington lawyer Bill Oldaker; Vanessa Weaver, a Clinton appointee; Skip Rutherford, a Clinton fund-raiser who lives here; George Bruno, a New Hampshire activist; and Peter Knight, a Washington lobbyist and longtime Gore fund-raiser. Bruce Lindsey, former White House aide and now an Arkansas lawyer, also backs Clark.

Clinton had urged Clark to enter the race, but neither he nor Gore is expected to take sides in the primary fight.

I like Clinton and Gore. I think they’ve done a lot of really good things for our country. But I really think it’s time for new blood in the Democratic party. I don’t think Clark will be “Clinton, Part 2″ or anything, but even the comparisons with Clinton are enough to turn people off. One of the biggest reasons Howard Dean is so popular isn’t his positions, but the fact that he’s an exciting politician who’s not obsessed with the past.

The vast ties between the Clinton/Gore folks taken with Clark’s lack of experience will make it easy for the other senate candidates to paint Clark as a political puppet being manipulated by a Svengali-like Clinton. I hope he’s ready to take some hits, because his honeymoon is about to end.

According to NPR, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just voted to delay the California Gubernatorial election due to inadequate voting equipment in minority districts. Can’t find a link yet, but I gotta say this is both bad and good. The good side is that minority and poor districts won’t get stuck with a “hanging chad”-like problem. The bad side is that we might end up with a few more months of this recall-circus crap…

[Edit : At the time I originally posted this, this was breaking news. Now that this case has become big news, it seems more like the equivalent of "Holy shit, it looks like the Florida election results are "too close to call".

It's a busy week, so posting will probably be infrequent. Hopefully I'll get a chance to weigh in on some of this stuff soon. Blah, blah, blah..]

Here’s one of the millions of examples of why most of the “War on Drugs” is a horrible waste of time, money, and resources that hurts many, many more people than it helps :

Tommy Chong, who played one half of the dope-smoking duo in the Cheech and Chong movies, asked for leniency from a judge Thursday but was sentenced to nine months in prison for conspiring to sell drug paraphernalia.
. . .
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Houghton said Chong grew wealthy glamorizing drug use and trivializing law enforcement in his films of the late 1970s and early ’80s. Houghton also said Chong used the movie persona to promote his catalog and Internet business.

Chong admitted that his company, which operated as Chong Glass and employed 25 glass blowers, sold some 7,500 bongs and pipes until Feb. 14, when federal drug agents raided his California home and business. Authorities also seized about a pound of marijuana.

So they caught Chong with a pound of weed, but he’s going to jail for paraphernalia? It doesn’t make any goddamn sense that selling this kind of pipe is illegal :

But selling this kind of pipe is legal :



Hell, I’m suprised they haven’t arrested people for selling zig-zags, paperclips, and brownie mix. The absurdity of treating potheads like they’re criminal masterminds has got to stop. It looks like the British have figured this out :

Police chiefs urged their officers Friday to take a more relaxed approach to cannabis in line with a new policy that will effectively leave Britons free to enjoy the drug in private.

The guidance came as Home Secretary David Blunkett handed Parliament a draft order to downgrade the drug from Class B to the low-risk Class C to allow police to focus resources on hard drugs like heroin.
. . .
Seizures of hard drugs have reached a record high, government figures show, with heroin up 16 percent year-on-year in 2001. But cannabis still accounted for more than seven out of 10 drug seizures.

Hayman said the rationale for existing drug laws — that people who tried cannabis were often led on to harder drugs — had been disproved.

“The theory of ‘gateway’ drugs doesn’t stand up,” he said. “The evidence does not support that.”

Of course with an Attorney General who’s willing take resources away from the fight on terrorism to arrest cancer patients, I have a feeling it’ll be a while before we get some common sense reform in our nation’s drug laws.

In case you haven’t heard it yet, both Johnny Cash and John Ritter have died. On a normal day, either one of these stories would be big news, but since they both died on the same day, the media is in an awkward position of having to juggle the two stories.

On the one hand, Johnny Cash was a revolutionary musician. He’s so influential, his prestige and talent can only be judged against that of Elvis, Sinatra, and the Beatles. Not only has he had a long, full career that’s spanned six decades, but he’s been able to do it while jumping genres effortlessly. He’s one of the few musicians that in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like he said in one of his hits, he’s “been everywhere, man.” As tragic as his passing is, you can’t say hid death was that big a surprise. He’s been having health problems for a long time.

John Ritter, on the other hand, although one of the most talented people to ever be in a sitcom, was definitely someone whose glory days were behind him. His brilliant comic timing and knack for physical comedy may have been great, but he wasn’t reinventing the wheel here. It was more like he had perfected the lessons taught by Dick Van Dyke. In the years since Three’s Company, he’s jumped from role to role in a way that always made him seem like an underused talent who was held back by typecasting. While Cash’s death was unsurprising, Ritter’s passing was a shocking reminder of how fragile life is.

Considering the timing of these two deaths, the media is surely in a position where it has to judge whose death is more noteworthy. What’s bigger news? The somewhat expected death of a legend or the stunning death of a sitcom star who many people would (unfairly) call “washed-up”? Based on the coverage this morning, it looks like the two deaths are getting equal coverage, which seems fair.

Cynics are often quick to dismiss the public outpouring of grief that accompanies news of celebrity deaths as a shameful byproduct of our celebrity-obsessed culture. I prefer to think of it as one of the few times that our increasingly shallow society is able to move beyond the bland MTV-inspired excitement and express some real emotion.

Whew! It’s been a busy day for the Dean and (potential) Clark campaigns. First there was the news that Clark might join Dean’s ticket :

senate presidential candidate Howard Dean has asked retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark to join his campaign, if the former NATO (news – web sites) commander does not jump into the race himself next week, and the two men discussed the vice presidency at a weekend meeting in California, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Clark, in a telephone interview yesterday, said he did not want to comment about the private meeting. Asked about reports that the two men had discussed a wide range of issues, including endorsing Dean, joining the campaign, possible roles in a Dean administration and the vice presidency, he said only, “It was a complete tour of the horizon.”
. . .
While it would represent a gamble for both men to team up so early in the campaign, such a move would rattle an already unpredictable nomination campaign. Dean and Clark have two things in common that if combined could prove formidable among senate voters: They both opposed the war in Iraq, and both are generating excitement on the Internet and with grass-roots activists.

A few hours later, the news was that Clark was going to run for president himself :

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark has told friends he is likely to become the 10th senate presidential candidate, a move that could shake up the crowded field just four months before the first ballots are cast.

Clark, 58, has not made a decision, but the Arkansas resident is aggressively recruiting campaign staff and plans to announce his intentions next week, friends and party officials said on condition of anonymity. His earliest allies would be from former President Clinton’s Arkansas-based political network.

By the end of the day, there was a new twist on the story. According to Josh Marshall and U.S. News, the Dean/Clark story was part of a “dirty tricks” campaign by Dean’s supporters :

And forget about that talk that all the retired four-star general and former NATO boss wants is the veep nomination. Supporters say that’s a dirty-tricks campaign pushed by rival Howard Dean who’s scared of a Clark candidacy. Says Frisby: “Wes Clark firmly believes that he is the best choice to be president, not be vice president or hold any other government post.”

I’m not sure if the whole Dean/Clark story was “dirty tircks” or not, but if it was, Dean better be careful. With all the attention that Clark is sure to get, the last think that Dean wants is Clark publicly bashing him for fighting dirty.

The Republicans have taken a lot of well-deserved flack for their cynical and manipulative plan to hold their 2004 nominating convention in New York in the week before 9/11. Their goal is to tie their convention in with the non-stop media coverage of the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Based on tonight’s prime time lineup, I somehow doubt that their plan will work :

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Series/Drama, 60 Mins.

A human eyeball is found in a raven’s nest, and the team traces it to a murdered woman; a car salesman has a heart attack and winds up on the autopsy table, but he is still alive.

Friends
Series/Comedy, 41 Mins.

Monica and Chandler interview unsuspecting candidates, hoping to find the right man to father their baby.

Extreme Makeover
Series/Other, 60 Mins.

A 29-year-old waitress has a makeover at her 11-year-old daughter’s request; a 27-year-old mother tries to stand apart from her identical twin.

Last year there was tons of news coverage of the anniversary. Tonight it’s back to “Must See TV”.