Trick-R-Treat Accomplished

This year went well, except for an altercation between a couple of Sponge Bobs. (Sponges Bob?) It was one of those, "I'm more absorbent!" "No, I am!" things. Push came to shove, and tears were shed. It took two Scoby-Doos and a Velma to break it up.

I'll Be a Nun

but I'll be wearing a plaid flannel shirt under the habit

An Inconvenient Democrat

Harry Reid and other warmists will have a hearing:

A committee spokesman said the hearing “was prompted by the wildfires out West and the view of some scientists that the increasing size, frequency and intensity of these fires is affected adversely by global warming.” A panel of scientists will testify.

Yeah sure, Harry, just like the increasing size, frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Right? Anyway:

At Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, WERC researchers and collaborators from the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research have put together the longest and most detailed fire histories anywhere. The records, assembled from fire scars in the annual growth rings of giant sequoias, extend back over 2,000 years, and show that fire typically burned on the floor of sequoia groves every 3 to 8 years.

Sure, it wasn't the Sequoia groves burning, but the nature of the fires is the same. We only know this because the forest service figured out that Sequoias need fire in order to reproduce. By breaking the cycle and keeping the groves fire-free for the last hundred years, we stopped Sequoia reproduction. Mother Nature likes to shave her armpits from time to time and California forest management is to blame for screwing up that cycle. And keeping home owners from thinning their trees made the problem worse. Not the (natural) half-degree temperature rise we've seen in the last 100 years.

Sad thing is, some people will buy it.

Jimmy's Cousin is an Idiot

I thought Warren Buffett was suposed to be smart:

During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.

"There wasn't anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don't have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do," he said.

Warren, they publish the tax rate. If you're paying 17.7 percent then you're either cheating the government or you're doing some sort of tax avoidance.

Mother Jones

Mother Jones, the magazine for those who think Joe Stalin stood right of center, almost did something worthwhile. They did a series of articles under the theme of, "The Moral Dilemma of Leaving Iraq". Woo-hoo, I thought, finally leftists with the intellectual honesty to address Iraq as it is now, today. Not the usual leftist argument of: we should have never left the dock, therefore we must jump out of the boat.

Hard to say if the articles are any good though. I gave up after the first paragraph of the intro:

"You break it, you own it." So goes the "Pottery Barn rule" that Colin Powell invoked in his last-ditch attempts to dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq. "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all."

In the end, of course, Powell caved to Bush's geopolitical whims, played the good soldier, and did as much as anyone to lie to the world.....

You see, if you think it was a whim that got us into Iraq, you may as well just go back to your first argument of "we only went in to steal the oil," or "the CIA blew up the twin towers."

Dennis Kucinich

PHILADELPHIA - Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

See that woman in the background? That's Kucinich's wife. That he ever leaves the house, or spends more that two minutes doing anything other than thanking his lucky stars, is proof enough of his own mental instability.

Vlaams Belang

You may have read about the discord these last several weeks over the Belgian political party Vlaams Belang*. The controversy has to be compounded by the fact those involved are foreigners, foreign to Belgium, that is. Do you imagine that the average European has a good grasp of what an American Republican is, and stands for? Heck, American Republicans can't even agree on that. And I don't have the time or energy to devote to an exhaustive study that would allow me to pronounce with any confidence what modern day VB is. I can, however, form a rough idea from reading people I trust to be of good faith on the matter, and who are in a position to know a good deal more about VB than I ever will.

Is Vlaams Belang a racist white-power group? I really don't think so. I know Baron Bodissey and Paul Belien aren't racists, so I'll defer to them on questions of what VB is or isn't.

*(note- the wikipedia article on Vlaams Belang is tagged as "disputed", typical of all VB discussions these days. Their talk page can shed more light on the controversy)

Take Down

(photoshop: because some people just need to be taken down - felony style)

The Government Gab Blog

Seen that guy in the question-mark-suit on late night TV commercials, talking fast about all the government programs that can change your life if you would just buy his book and find the help? Sure, it'd be nice to get a government grant to experiment with solar energy, i.e. put zinc on your nose and sun yourself on a lawn chair at the beach. Or get the government to support your urine-based artwork. But think about it. It's an infomercial, of course it's a load of crap. Besides, you wouldn't be able to look in the mirror, would you?

Anyway, something a lot more useful has been created: Government Gab, big brother's blog. Only not really big brother; this seems to be just a group of GSA employees who, well in their words:

We are federal employees who work in the Office of Citizen Services and Communications at the U.S. General Services Administration. In our daily jobs, we encounter a staggering amount of U.S. government information and services that can benefit your life. From saving money and visiting National Parks to finding out about government auctions and the latest recalls, we want to bring these resources to you in a new way—through our blog.

That's Jake, with the guitar - he blogs on Mondays. I tend to trust electric-guitar-playing blog profile pictures. It's those acoustic guitar players you have to keep an eye on. Them, and the question-mark suit guys.

Anyway, looks like an interesting and possibly useful site. Check it out.

Big Mistake

Talk about protest bloopers:


She's forgotten the first rule: Don't start eating babies until after the news cameras are gone for the day.

FEMA News Conference

MM, and everyone else, seems to be taking FEMA to task over the fake news conference. And I agree, having FEMA employees pose as reporters was a stupid idea. But also stupid is the main-stream media's single-minded determination to find problems with the effort in California, whether they exist or not. Sure there are problems. There are problems with any undertaking of this magnitude.

When the first coverage of the wildfires came out, I thought for sure that the MSM was going to go with: "yes, the job is getting done, but that's because the victims are rich white people and the government cares about rich white people". I'm still amazed that they're passing on the opportunity to call the administration evil and seizing on incompetent instead. I mean, it's a big government agency, you would expect some fumbling. And truth is, the media will find what they want to find.

So the honchos at FEMA looked at the past three days of belligerent questioning from the press and decided they wanted to get out some information without having to divert their energy to disproving wild accusations from belligerent reporters. Was that wrong? Yes, but so is the pack of wolves who call themselves journalists these days.

Yahoo Headline

Another Yahoo headline I refuse to click on:

Boiled nuts help protect against illness

Well, possibly, but I think I'll stick with NyQuil.

Evolution

clickabiggen
Seen the article on evolution by "a top scientist"? (top scientists, what would we do without them?):

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000.

OK, so three guesses which category top-scientist Curry thinks he's in. "We've tentatively named the new species 'top scientists' and 'hoi polloi'."

Some scientist. Liberals have held that theory for the past 30 years. In fact, this silliness has been going on since Plato (not Mickey's dog, the other one) and his philosopher kings. Gee, who's most qualified to rule the world? Hmmm, who could it be? Oh, I know, philosophers!

Well think again, top scientists; the tippy-top ne plus ultra of evolution is already here. And he wears flannel shirts. Oh, sure, there's Chuck Norris, but that's a one of a kind mutation. And really, he's already ascended to a higher dimension; what we see is an artifact, a sort of shadow of the adventures he's having on that higher plane.

FEMA

Sorry, the picture was on drudge and I couldn't help myself.


WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for sending toy fire trucks to battle the fierce wildfires that have plagued California. "I thought we had learned something after sending those toy boats to New Orleans, but apparently not," said FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson.

for real information from the scene: This Goes to 11

George Soros, Beware

The Times Online UK has a great culture quiz and article by Sarah Baxter. An interactive web-quiz would have been nice but this PDF is worth downloading.

A glorious culture clash took place in Iran recently that made me laugh out loud. The children of Che Guevara, the revolutionary pin-up, had been invited to Tehran University to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their father’s death and celebrate the growing solidarity between “the left and revolutionary Islam” at a conference partly paid for by Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.

There were fraternal greetings and smiles all round as America’s “earth-devouring ambitions” were denounced. But then one of the speakers, Hajj Saeed Qassemi, the co-ordinator of the Association of Volunteers for Suicide-Martyrdom (who presumably remains selflessly alive for the cause), revealed that Che was a “truly religious man who believed in God and hated communism and the Soviet Union”.

Che’s daughter Aleida wondered if something might have been lost in translation. “My father never mentioned God,” she said, to the consternation of the audience. “He never met God.” During the commotion, Aleida and her brother were led swiftly out of the hall and escorted back to their hotel. “By the end of the day, the two Guevaras had become non-persons. The state-controlled media suddenly forgot their existence,” the Iranian writer Amir Taheri noted.

After their departure, Qassemi went on to claim that Fidel Castro, the “supreme guide” of Guevara, was also a man of God. “The Soviet Union is gone,” he affirmed. “The leadership of the downtrodden has passed to our Islamic republic. Those who wish to destroy America must understand the reality and not be clever with words.”

Don’t say you haven’t been warned, comrade, when you flirt with “revolutionary Islam” as if it were a mild form of liberation theology.

Oh Canada

Because our Canadian friends know we're only kidding.

Can't Take Him Anywhere

String Theory in Two Minutes

Now, with ducks.

Don't Make This Mistake

As a rule, inanimate hostages are of lesser value.

Scott Beauchamp

Scoblic: Are you standing by your story then?
Beauchamp: I'm not talking about it at all. I'm not commenting on it at all anymore.

You know, I'd even give him a pass; he's obviously been found out and he's embarrassed. He just wants to put it behind him. And if he'd lied about going to college, or about romantic conquests, I'd say fine, let's move on from here. But he didn't make up a benign piece of fiction. He besmirched good men who thought he was a friend. Shame on him.

Call It Global Warming

I think we've gotten to the point where anything bad, that can't be directly linked to George Bush, is going to be blamed on Global Warming. These wildfires will go down in the Warming column, I bet. Even though they're now calling some of the fires arson.

That Nutso Protester

I believe the clinical term is 'nutso', anyway it occurred to me that the lovely woman who accosted the Secretary this morning wouldn't look way out of place in this setting:

"Listen. For the last time; I don't have any involvement
in their disappearance.I just want you to help me find
my kids and quit asking all these questions."

Code Pink

Seen that video of the code pinkers confronting Condi Rice? Me, I'm surprised that any one of them could get that close to her. Anyone who charges the Secretary of State should wind up on the ground, hard, before they get within six feet.

I see the pinks still believe in that theory of law that asserts that if you yell, "What did he/she do? He/she didn't do anything." then the cops have to release their prisoner and leave the area.

This looks like a good place for:

Fascism Awareness Week

Zombietime has got coverage of the Nonie Darwish speech at Berkeley. It's just amazing to see how some on the left are willing to overlook antisemitism, homophobia, sexism, and murder, just because it's the 'other side' talking about it. Also funny: seeing the oldster, stuck-hippies who just can't let go of the jazzed feeling they got sticking it to the man 30-40 years ago. Taze um, bro.

Classic Blunder

...only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a
Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Road Hazard

We had some of these guys yesterday. It was like driving over a wash-board.

Living in a Stadium

It's Katrina all over again.They're only clinging to life because they've started eating the dead! Remember that? And remember how a mix-up in government paperwork resulted in the National Guard actually shipping sharks to the area?

Well, actually it's a little different in California:

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes.

The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium.

Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires.

Oh sure, foie gras and massages for us, but what about our pets? It's been two days and the dog masseuse is nowhere to be found.

Now we just have to wait for the comparisons between New Orleans and San Diego. But you don't have to wait for Al Sharpton to explain it: the big difference between these two stadiums is that it didn't take the National Guard 24 hours to drive the first 50 miles in San Diego. Rescue is easier when there isn't hurricane damage to drive through.

James Lipton

Via Jonah, at NRO:

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors' Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.

The revered TV presenter, who has sat down with Hollywood's biggest names for in-depth chats about their life and work over the last 13 years, has revealed he once procured clients for French hookers.

Me, I'm looking on this as not too much of a confession. I'll bet he's been dying to 'confess' for years.

Too Much Energy, Not Enough Thought

Knowing when to quit is important.

The Series

Nother One

Code Pink disrupts a Japanese game show.

Paradox

I first noticed this phenomenon years ago. On one side of an image-search page was a picture of Bill Maher, and right next to it was a picture of a horse's ass...... but I repeat myself...

Bloopers In Protest History

Ipmeachment Now!

"Dang it. Not again!"

Limbaugh and the Letter

Others have covered this. And anyone who can work Youtube and pay attention knows what happened and what Limbaugh said. Anyone under the impression that Limbaugh disrespected any troops is wrong, but beyond reaching anyway. My question is this: Seeing as the letter fetched $2.1 million, to be matched with $2.1 million from Limbaugh, and there were 41 signatories: Will these Democrat senators be deducting $51,220 as charitable contributions on their 2007 taxes, or will it be $ 102,439 ?

It's Spreading

Don't blame the victims, um-kay?

I Fear the Big Melt

From John Daly via the Junkman:

"A considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated."


"2000 square leagues[approximately 14,000 square miles or 36,000 square kilometers] of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared."

"The floods which have the whole summer inundated all those parts of Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains, afford ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened ..."

This is not the latest scare story from the greenhouse industry, but extracts from a letter by the President of the Royal Society addressed to the British Admiralty, recommending they send a ship to the Arctic to investigate the dramatic changes.

The letter was written, not in the year 2000, but in 1817. History repeating itself?

Randi Update

Brian Maloney has got the audio of Randi Rhodes' perfectly logical explanation of "the event". Personally, she had me at, "I was watching football in an Irish pub..."

Having been somewhat wilder in my youth, I too would sometimes "watch football in an Irish pub." An it's true that sometimes you could find guys "mugged" on the ground outside, well and sometimes inside too, especially on St. Patrick's Day. Help one up and you'd usually get a bewildered, "what happened to the game? I just wanted to watch the game..." Ah well, we wish Randi well.

Also, judging from some of the pictures I've seen of her on the web; the big mystery is, if she fell forward, how did her face ever hit the pavement?

***Update: No, I wasn't calling her fat.

Pete Stark

Raving Mad

Half of Us are Ignorant

First off we're not in a recession. OK? According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: SECOND QUARTER 2007 (FINAL)
CORPORATE PROFITS: SECOND QUARTER 2007 (FINAL)
Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2007, according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.6 percent.

So we're not in a recession. The economy is expanding. No recession. Not. None. No.

So why do so many people think we're in a recession?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Nearly half of Americans feel the U.S. economy is in a recession, marked by a significant decline in economic activity, according to a survey released Thursday.

The poll by the CNN-Opinion Research Corporation found that while 46 percent of Americans hold that belief, 51 percent don't.

That 46%, where do they get their news? Well, a clue might be in the article. It reports the poll's results, it gives a definition of recession, and it even reports that "most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades." But nowhere does it report that we are not in a recession. Seems like CNN would think that pertinent to the article. Nope. This article is about how well the MSM's campaign to misinform the American people is going. And they keep with program by not reporting that those 46% who think we're in a recession are wrong. Wrong, wrongdittywrongwrong.

Burma

I won't go into "first they came for the lumberjacks.." you've all heard it before. Check out the front page for more Burma news:

Lumberjack arrested and fined by Burmese forces
Maungdaw, Arakan State: A lumberjack was arrested by Burma 's Border Security Force on August 26, in Maungdaw Township , Arakan State and was fined Kyat 1.2 million before release, said a friend.

He was brought to Nasaka headquarters in Khawar Bill in Maungdaw Township , kept for a night and severely tortured.

However, on the following day he was set free after he paid bribes to the tune of Kyat 1.2 million to the Nasaka, said a relative on condition of anonymity.

It seems bribes are an everyday thing with the junta. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. A well known actor and comedian was held for a month, a drug dealer was held for just two days. The drug dealer must have had more access to cash.

Just as I Suspected

Nick Nolte is slightly taller than the Dalai Lama.

Thank Goodness

And it seemed like such a good idea too:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. John Murtha, a prominent Democrat, said Wednesday that his party's leadership underestimated opposition to a resolution on Armenian genocide and predicted that such a vote would easily fail.

Best summation, by GWB:

With all the pressing responsibilities facing the nation, "One thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire," he told a White House news conference.

New Species

Seen all the new species they've discovered in a deep ocean basin south of the Philippines? They found orange worms, black jellyfish, and one cool new jellyfish that looks like a spaceship. Bad news: it's not really a spaceship. Good news: after outfitting it with a laser, the scientists trained it to hunt down Tom Cruise anyway.


Scientists, what would we do without them?

***Update: Bad news: A family in Madison has been forced to take down a Halloween display because the hanged mannequin could have been taken as a racist statement. They probably never meant it as such, but if it is likely to offend, it's probably best to take it down.
Good News: Scientists have developed a flying pumpkin with a laser weapon that is programmed to hunt down Tom Cruise.

Randi Ouch

Good news, everybody. Randi Rhodes now claims she wasn't mugged by right wing extremists. She now admits it was just a fall. Did Jon Elliot just make up the story from whole cloth, or did Randi make up the story to hide her embarrassment? I've seen other children make up stories in that situation.

The Rockies

"This is what we grew up wanting to do," winning pitcher Matt Herges said. "Playing in the backyard with your brother, this is what you dream about. And now we're going to the World Series."

"This is a special moment in the career of every man involved in this," said Colorado Manager Clint Hurdle, whose team stood fourth in the NL West with 13 games to play. "This may never happen again. This is one of those things where you get everybody back 10, 20 years down the road and you have a reunion."

Regardless if it's Boston or Cleavland, you have no soul if a part of you isn't rooting for the Rockies in the WS.

Poll

Here:
Based on what you have heard or read about this bill, who do you have more confidence in to handle this issue?
Bush 32
Democrats 52
Neither 10
No opinion 5

now, the disconnect:

As you may know, the Democrats want to allow a family of four earning about $62,000 to qualify for the program. President Bush wants most of the increases to go to families earning less than $41,000. Whose side do you favor?
Bush 52
Democrats 40
Neither 3
No opinion 4

How concerned are you that expanding this program would create an incentive for middle class Americans to drop private health insurance for a public program?
Very concerned 22
Somewhat concerned 33
Not too concerned 25
Not concerned at all 17
No opinion 2

Rehearsals

Eighty thousand a year can qualify for a
government handout of my tax dollars? Puhleeease.

Nancy Pelosi, Sorry Excuse for a Human Being

This is what the Middle East needs right now, the Turkish army crossing into Iraq:

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right government is under heavy public pressure to act after a series of attacks on Turkish troops by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which seeks an independent homeland in eastern Turkey.

The prospect of NATO's second largest army crossing into mainly Kurdish northern Iraq helped propel global oil prices to an all-time high of $86 a barrel on Monday while the lira currency fell more than 2 percent against the dollar.

The United States has urged restraint on Turkey, a key NATO ally strategically located between Europe and the Middle East. But Washington's influence in Ankara is being severely undermined by U.S. Congressional moves to brand as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

If you haven't following this issue, you might not know that this situation has been ongoing and was definitely a problem before the US congress decided to accuse the Turks of genocide. But on Sunday Nancy Pelosi said she intends to press on with the resolution. Why accuse them now, 90 years later? Just because the President asked Congress not to? To try to inject more trouble into the region to secure an American defeat? Or do they just not care what happens. Was throwing this in Bush's face just so sweet that they said 'screw the consequences'?

Everyone who might have done genocide is dead now. It's been 90 years. This could have waited.

The WaPo seeks to cloud the waters though:

[President Bush] came out forcefully last week against a congressional resolution labeling as genocide the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians between 1915 and 1923, even though most historians agree with that conclusion. Yet Bush continues to describe atrocities in Darfur as genocide, even though many experts, including some in his administration, doubt that the situation there of late qualifies.

Unmentioned is the fact that Darfur is something that we can do something about today. Atrocities that you can do something about matter; history isn't urgent. (Not that our congress would approve of any action in Darfur, especially if it was GWB calling for intervention)

Pink Dirt on the Playground

It's another Chinese toy recall.
h/t Dallas.

Blog Action Day

Oh man, almost missed it. I forgot I was signed up to post on the environment today. What the Blog Action people were looking for was something along the lines of, "run for your lives, I found gum stuck to my shoe and I think it's due to global warming!"

What they're getting:

Take the test.

Seasonal Dog Abuse

Yup, we're at it again.

The National Health

The Guardian has: Patients pull own teeth as dental contract falters.

Large numbers of people are going without dental treatment and some even report extracting their own teeth because they cannot find an NHS dentist in their area, a survey reveals today.....

...."Fourteen teeth have had to be removed by myself using pliers," said one Lancashire respondent. "Have pulled teeth out before, easier than finding a dentist," said one in Hull. "Because I could not afford the treatment cost, I had to extract my own tooth on one occasion," said one in Harrow. "I took most of my teeth out in the shed with pliers. I have one to go," said another in Wiltshire....

One tooth left to go. Then he'll be done.

And Hillary wants the government to run health care in this country. I suppose she thinks we would do it better. Somehow she'll get around government inefficiency in this one area. Me, I'm going to make a dental appointment.

The Cat Show

Judge Darrell Newkirk decides that Mr. Biggins can
only be entered once in the Persian category.

Judge Barbara Sumner checks for traces of superglue
on this American-Wirehair. "We'll have no shenanigans
this year," she informed contestants, "We've worked far
too hard on this show. We won't have it ruined by a bunch
of cats falling apart on the judging table again."

Dignity

The path to enbiggenment begins with a single click.

Saturday Dog

SCHIP

I lose patience with liberals who feign outrage, so I haven't had much to say about little Frost children. I was going to comment, but it was going to be something along the lines of "the children were faking it, come on kid, shake it off, you're not hurt, cowboy-up" See? Wouldn't have worked. So seriously, thank goodness the children survived this accident. Thank goodness SCHIP covered them, even though we know that no hospital would have turned them away.

And I don't care that the Frosts have more cars, and more commercial buildings, than me. That's fine. I, and the President, only object to people making almost twice as much as the Frosts taking my tax money to insure their kids. OK? We love your kids, but we don't love them more than you do, and if you're a family of four making $80 k/year, you should be able to buy your own health insurance.

The Smug

At first I thought that Erik at ¡No Pasaran! did this artwork. I mean, doesn't it look like early Soviet Union propaganda? And is that camouflage he's wearing? Dear Lord, don't let him grow a ché beard.

Anyway, click on the poster and you'll see, it's for real. Al Gore, Saver of Worlds. And quite possibly the only person on the planet that could make me vote for Hillary.

OK, couldn't help myself:

J'Accuse!

J'Accuse! - Gesundheit!

JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge revoked his probation because of an old drug charge that had never been tried, his father said Thursday.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court expecting another routine hearing, Marcus Jones said.

"He's locked up again," Jones said. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

Anazing, "thrown in jail again and again" and we have no clue why. I mean, what a surprise. It's so confusing that this would happen.

OK, I know the kids were overcharged in the beginning. But that's what prosecutors do; they overcharge in order to get the guilty to plead to a lesser charge. It may be a flawed system, but that's how it works. They'll charge the people in the car with you if you don't admit that it was your dope. If you don't want to plead guilty to the car you stole, they'll charge you with assaulting the officer as well. It's hardball.

I know I'm just looking for trouble by asking, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, a plan could be formulated to beat this system that is grinding this young man down? Maybe something clever, something the police and prosecutors would never expect: maybe something like staying away from drugs, and not running with "friends" who do crimes? Just an idea.

You want to beat the criminal justice system, quit being a criminal.

Awards

It's not bad enough that actress Charlize Theron snatched the Esquire Magazine Sexiest Woman of the Year Award away from John Edwards, now there's talk of Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize. If there's a silver lining in this at all, it's that the Prize might finally help Al with his self-esteem problem. (Here's an inside the beltway tid-bit you might not have heard: Rumor in DC is that lately Al's been seen walking around the reflecting pool rather than over it)