Mayor Waits for IPhone, Then Leaves Line

Jun 29 02:23 PM US/EasternBy RUBINA MADANAssociated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Mayor John F. Street abruptly ended his wait in line for an iPhone Friday after a passer-by asked him about the city's murder rate.
Street, who showed up outside an AT&T store at 3:30 a.m., left shortly after a 22-year-old sporting a mohawk asked him, "How can you sit here with 200 murders in the city already?" The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on its Web site.
Street told the man: "I'm doing my job," the newspaper said.
Street had planned to stay in line for most of the day, waiting for Apple Inc.'s iPhone to go on sale at 6 p.m. When he left at 11:30 a.m., Street said he planned to return to his spot.
The mayor said he wants the new device because he loves trying out the latest technology. Apple's new handheld would allow him to work some of the day outside the office, he said.
"We don't have to be sitting in City Hall to be conducting city business," he said.
Philadelphia recently had its 200th slaying of the year. Its murder rate is up from last year, the deadliest in nearly a decade.

Douche'

Mark Cuban Is Suing Don Nelson For Knowing His Team

You know, it's possible that Mark Cuban isn't quite over his Mavericks' loss to the Warriors in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. How can we tell? Because he's actually suing Don Nelson for having "confidential information" and using it in the Warriors' victory. He's really doing this.
Don Nelson's attorney, John O'Connor, who said Cuban is suing Nelson, claiming the Warriors beat the Mavs in the first round because the Warriors' coach -- and former coach of the Mavs -- had "confidential information and he [Cuban] wants to enjoin Don from coaching against the Mavericks."

"There is no basis in our view," O'Connor said. "I suppose he [Nelson] knows [Dirk] Nowitzki likes to go right instead of left, but normally that's not a trade secret."

Every year, Cuban becomes a little less of the "hey, I'd be a crazy fan like that if I owned a team too!" guy and more of the "jesus christ, he's really quite nuts, isn't he?" guy. It's fun to watch.
Oh, God, Mark Cuban's Being A Jackass Again [Uwe Blog]

Yippee-ki-yay

"When terrorist-slash-exceptional thief Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) taunts hero John McClane (Bruce Willis), "Who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child?" and asks this "Mr. Cowboy" if he really thinks he stands a chance, McClane's answer—"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker"—marks the moment that McClane, an everyman, assumes the mantle of America's archetypal heroes: Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gunsmoke's Marshall Dillon, and others who have been so vital to American boyhood. Unlike the many action-movie one-liners that are rooted in the hero's narcissism, McClane's stems from our collective wish-fulfillment. He is not referring to himself, not suggesting an "I" or a "me" but an us. And considering the European Gruber's appreciation of fashion, finance, and the classics, McClane's comeback acquires an additional subtext: Our pop culture can beat up your high culture."

http://www.slate.com/id/2168927/nav/tap1/

Joshua Muravchik has a compelling piece in OpinionJournal today about a gathering storm: Winds of War.

A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behavior. Hitler’s contempt for America, stoked by the policy of appeasement, is a familiar story. But there are many others. North Korea invaded South Korea after Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that Korea lay beyond our “defense perimeter.” Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait after our ambassador assured him that America does not intervene in quarrels among Arabs. Imperial Germany launched World War I, encouraged by Great Britain’s open reluctance to get involved. Nasser brought on the 1967 Six Day War, thinking that he could extort some concessions from Israel by rattling his sword.
Democracies, it is now well established, do not go to war with each other. But they often get into wars with non-democracies. Overwhelmingly the non-democracy starts the war; nonetheless, in the vast majority of cases, it is the democratic side that wins. In other words, dictators consistently underestimate the strength of democracies, and democracies provoke war through their love of peace, which the dictators mistake for weakness.
Today, this same dynamic is creating a moment of great danger. The radicals are becoming reckless, asserting themselves for little reason beyond the conviction that they can. They are very likely to overreach. It is not hard to imagine scenarios in which a single match—say a terrible terror attack from Gaza—could ignite a chain reaction. Israel could handle Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, albeit with painful losses all around, but if Iran intervened rather than see its regional assets eliminated, could the U.S. stay out?
With the Bush administration’s policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president’s freedom to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq—all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.

Revolutionary Road—the Movie
Leonardo DiCaprio. Kate Winslet. Richard Yates' dark novel is finally being made into a Hollywood movie.
By Blake Bailey
Updated Tuesday, June 26, 2007, at 12:35 PM ET
Read more from Slate's Summer Movies.

A few months ago, Variety announced that Sam Mendes (American Beauty) would be directing an adaptation of Richard Yates' classic novel of suburban malaise, Revolutionary Road, starring Titanic duo Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler. In 2003, I'd published a biography of Yates the size of a footstool, so news of Mendes' project gave many of my friends the idea that my ship had come in. By far the most promising word came from my former editor—now a big shot at Viking Penguin—who said he'd contacted the screenwriter, Justin Haythe, to remind him of my particular expertise. Perhaps I'd be hired as a creative consultant! I pictured myself beside Mendes on the set, both of us chain-smoking: "No, no, no, Sam!" I'd erupt. "The picture window needs to be in the frame! It's a crucial motif!"
Shockingly, neither Sam nor Justin got in touch, but I console myself with thoughts of Yates' own bleak Hollywood experiences. "Remember I said I'd never do this shit again?" he said to the few friends who bothered to visit him toward the end of his life. At the time he was living in west Los Angeles, allegedly writing film treatments for his old protégé, David Milch. He was emphysemic, dead broke, and lodged (courtesy of Milch) in a cramped, orange-carpeted, motel-style apartment. "Yet here I am."
And there he'd been every so often for the past 30 years, largely because of Revolutionary Road. From the beginning, ambitious filmmakers couldn't help being tempted by the book—a "tough" look at the squalid heart of the American Dream—but only tempted. In the end, would people really pay good money to see a movie in which almost everything ends badly? Let's face it: Revolutionary Road is one of the most depressing novels ever written, which helps explain why it remains a "cultish standard" (as Richard Ford described it) rather than a canonized classic like The Great Gatsby. Even I, Yates' biographer, could not bring myself to finish the book when I first picked it up a few years after college. Frank Wheeler—c'est moi, I thought again and again. Like Frank, I'd fancied myself a kind of "knockabout intellectual" in New York, working at crap jobs and reading books. Years later, at any rate, when things were a little better, I managed to finish the novel and realized how great it was.
When the novel was first published in 1961, a few people in Hollywood came to the same conclusion, including director John Frankenheimer, who realized it was just the sort of arty, uncompromising vision he wanted to bring to the screen as the industry's foremost wunderkind. Cooler heads prevailed, and he proceeded to make The Manchurian Candidate instead. But meanwhile he'd bought rights to Lie Down in Darkness, by William Styron, who recommended none other than his friend Dick Yates to write the screenplay. Yates was then living in a ghastly basement apartment in Greenwich Village, and he could hardly believe his luck. Before he knew it, he was sucking down bullshots in Malibu with Frankenheimer, who told him, by God, that he wanted a rigorously faithful adaptation of Styron's novel and damn the censors!
Yates took him at his word and wrote an adaptation that would have amounted to a great movie adapted from a semigreat novel. Natalie Wood and Henry Fonda were ready to star as Peyton and Milton Loftis, whereupon Yates would receive (as he put it) "an avalanche of money." Then poof! Wood's agent decided it would tarnish her image to appear as the quasi-incestuous daughter of Henry Fonda, and United Artists pulled the plug. Yates went back to his vermin-infested apartment. "God, it's good," Frankenheimer said 40 years later of Yates' screenplay. "I'd still like to make that movie."
By the time Yates returned to Hollywood in the summer of 1965, his stock had fallen on both coasts. Though he'd followed up Revolutionary Road (his first novel) with a magnificent story collection, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, he'd published nothing since, and many thought he was washed up for good. A manic-depressive alcoholic, Yates had been institutionalized twice in the previous five years for mental breakdowns, and now that he was taking psychotropic drugs (and washing them down with bourbon), he found it hard to write a single sentence without crossing it out. Still, his devoted agent got him a job writing a script about Iwo Jima for Roger Corman.
As long as he was back on the West Coast, Yates thought he might as well take a meeting with Albert Ruddy, a producer who'd recently optioned Revolutionary Road. Yates described the experience in a very characteristic letter to friends:
[Ruddy] turned out, predictably enough, to be a very agreeable, friendly bullshit artist. … For the first five minutes he's elaborately, embarrassingly respectful … because he Admires my Work so much (so very, very much) and because he's always, always wanted to meet me. …[Then] he turns into this brusque, ballsy, rough-diamond kind of guy: hell, maybe he's crude … but no son of a bitch in This Town, in this Industry, can ever say he's copped-out on a property yet. For instance, let's take a property like Revolutionary Road. Let's take the ending. Is that a problem? Why hell, let's face it, of course it's a problem. Nine guys out of ten in This Town would cop-out on a problem like that—but wait. Listen. Do I know what he's gonna do?
Ruddy proposed to put in a lot of "tricky camera work" at the end—flashbacks, track shots, match dissolves—so that the audience wouldn't be sure, finally, whether April was dead or alive. When Yates inquired whether that might be confusing, Ruddy threw up his hands and said he wanted to "eat [his] cake and have it too!" Yates concluded: "In the end, of course, it came to light that he has absolutely no plans for producing the picture in the near or even foreseeable future ... and the whole afternoon was really just an opportunity for him to try out his personality on me." As for Yates, he plugged away at the Iwo Jima project for a few more weeks before ending up at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Center. He'd been found wandering along the Sunset Strip giving away money to bums and prostitutes. On top of which he thought he was Jesus.
For the rest of Yates' life, the lucrative prospect of Revolutionary Road—the movie—shimmered like a mirage in the middle distance. In 1967, Ruddy bought the property outright for $15,500, which Yates gave to his ex-wife so she could start a college fund for their beloved daughters. By 1972, Yates was languishing as a writer-in-residence at Wichita State University. Desperate to get the hell out of Kansas, he asked Ruddy if he could earn a few bucks writing his own adaptation of Revolutionary Road. Ruddy had just produced The Godfather, so what better time for a "ballsy" guy like him to roll the dice? But Ruddy already had two other projects lined up, and while he told Yates it would "break [his] heart" for another person to make Revolutionary Road, Ruddy wouldn't stand in the way if someone made him an "irresistible offer."
Fatefully, that someone proved to be actor Patrick O'Neal, and there the matter remained. To the very end, Yates tried wresting Revolutionary Road away from O'Neal, whose original screenplay he'd read and found godawful. But O'Neal wouldn't budge. Yates died (still broke) in 1992, and O'Neal died two years later.
I've always had a perverse curiosity to see O'Neal's screenplay, so I could imagine Yates' reaction to its various lapses. One thing I'm willing to bet is that O'Neal made the Wheelers a lot more sympathetic than they ought to be. It was a common misconception when the book was first published, even among good critics. Quite simply, Yates meant for the Wheelers to seem a little better than mediocre: not, that is, stoical mavericks out of Hemingway, or glamorous romantics out of Fitzgerald. Rather, the Wheelers are everyday people—you and me—who pretend to be something they're not because life is lonely and dull and disappointing.
Were Yates alive to advise Mendes, I daresay he'd insist that the movie begin, as the novel does, with April's mortifyingly awful performance in an amateur production of The Petrified Forest. In other words, the Wheelers' doom should never be in doubt because they can't help being themselves. "When the curtain fell at last," Yates wrote, at the end of one of the most excruciating scenes in American literature, "it was an act of mercy."

Will iPhone live up to the expectations of today’s tech-savvy consumers? Here’s what www.BetUS.com is betting:

Consumers are reported camping out waiting for an iPhone—3/1

Initial iPhones get recalled—30/1

iPhone sells at least 12 Million units in 2008—5/6

Apple’s stock jumps at least 10% in value in regards to the price on 6/30/07—1/2

Consumers pay at least three times the original price ($1,500) on ebay—2/1

The screen breaks/cracks like Apple’s first-generation nano (iPod)—150/1

There are mass reports of the battery life being less than the promised 8 hours—10/1

Someone is trampled while trying to get an iPhone—20/1

iPhone spontaneously combusts—150/1

Rage Boy!

Brian Ledbetter has a hilarious retrospective photo album of the ubiquitous “Islamic Rage Boy” (pictured above). Rage Boy appears to be a professional protester in Srinagar, India, who can be found at virtually every Muslim street protest in the area, screaming for the cameras on cue.

As he always looks like the most fanatical and angry zealot in the crowd, Western photojournos love to photograph him. Consequently he has appeared in the press all over the world under a dozen different banners and causes, as a Kashmiri nationalist, a member of Muslim League Jammu Kashmir, a Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen striker, a Pakistani Peoples Political Party representative, an activist from All Parties Hurriyat Conference, etc. etc.
Visit the Rage Boy Portfolio>>

The Prodigy

Jay Dee "B.J." Penn

(born December 12, 1978 in Hilo, Hawaii) is an American professional mixed martial arts fighter and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. He holds notable wins over Matt Hughes, Takanori Gomi, Jens Pulver and Caol Uno. He is the first American-born winner of the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championship (Mundial) in the black belt category (2000), a former UFC Welterweight Champion, and is a coach on the The Ultimate Fighter 5 reality show. His nickname "B.J." is short for "Baby Jay", as he is the youngest of his male siblings named "Jay Dee Penn".[1]

Biography
Martial arts background
At the age of seventeen, Penn began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after being introduced to it by his neighbor Tom Callos, and in 1997 he started training under Ralph Gracie. After being awarded his black belt in 2000 by Andre Pederneiras of Nova Uniao, he became the first non-Brazilian to win a gold medal in the black belt division of the Mundial World Championships held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[2]
Mixed martial arts career
His accomplishments caught the attention of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where he began his mixed martial arts career less than a year later in 2001. He demonstrated strong striking skills, knocking out lightweights Din Thomas and Caol Uno before suffering a decision loss in a title fight against UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver. In 2003, after Pulver left the UFC and relinquished his title, a tournament to crown a new champion flopped when Penn fought Uno to a draw in the finals at UFC 41, a failure which caused the UFC to later suspend its lightweight division. Penn bounced back later in the year with an impressive victory over Takanori Gomi, Japan's current number-one ranked lightweight fighter at Rumble on the Rock, an MMA event promoted by his brother.
The crowning achievement of Penn's career came in 2004 at UFC 46. Penn jumped up in weight classes to challenge the five-time defending welterweight champion Matt Hughes to fill a title contention slot in a division where Hughes had already defeated all the available opposition. Heavily favored to win, Hughes lost the fight four minutes into the first round by rear naked choke.
In K-1 and Hero's
Shortly after defeating Matt Hughes, the new champion signed to fight in the K-1 organization. The UFC promptly stripped him of the welterweight title belt, claiming Penn breached his contract and that the signing constituted him refusing to defend his title. Penn filed a suit against the UFC and publicized his side of the conflict, claiming his UFC contract had already expired. Penn filed a motion to stop the UFC from awarding a new welterweight title, but that motion was denied.[3][4]
In his first K-1 fight, Penn fought again at welterweight (170 lb) and defeated Duane Ludwig at the 2004 K-1 MMa Romanex show in under five minutes by arm triangle choke. Following that fight, Penn moved up in weight class to face the undefeated Rodrigo Gracie at middleweight (185 pounds). Penn won by decision, extending his winning streak to four fights.
In 2005, at the K-1 Hero's 1 event in Japan, Penn controversially faced light heavyweight Ryoto Machida, losing by decision. Later that year at K-1 World Grand Prix Hawaii, Penn returned to middleweight to face Renzo Gracie and won by unanimous decision
Return to the UFC
In early 2006 at UFC 56, UFC president Dana White announced that Penn and the UFC have agreed to a settlement and Penn was to return as a top welterweight contender. Penn redebuted on March 4 at UFC 58 and lost against Georges St. Pierre in a close split decision, in a fight that determined the welterweight number one contendership.
In July, Penn briefly spoke with KUAM about rededicating himself to earning the lightweight championship, along with the welterweight and middleweight titles.
After St. Pierre, who became the UFC's top contender for the welterweight title since his win over Penn, injured himself during training, the UFC announced that Penn would replace St. Pierre in an upcoming title fight, setting up a highly anticipated rematch with Hughes for UFC 63 on September 23, 2006. [5] In the bout, Penn controlled the first two rounds, but he sustained a rib injury during the scramble to take Hughes' back in round two severely limiting his breathing capacity. He was visibly different in the third round not being able to breathe properly. Hughes was able to take Penn to the mat in a side control position and rain punches on Penn's head until referee John McCarthy stopped the fight at 3:53 of the third round, making this the first time that Penn had been stopped in a fight. In an interview found on Penn's personal website, Penn stated that by round three he could hardly breathe and had no "mobility in his core." Despite his injury, he congratulated Hughes, calling him a great fighter, and said he deserved his victory. Recently BJ has announced that he will continue to fight in the UFC and remains dedicated to regaining the welterweight title.[6]
Penn is a coach for The Ultimate Fighter 5, which aired on April 5, 2007. Penn lead a team of eight lightweight fighters, and fought a rematch against Jens Pulver at the conclusion of the series on June 23, 2007. He won with a rear naked choke in the second round after controlling Pulver from the mount and then taking Pulver's back. He finished the fight after trapping Pulver's left arm with his leg and sinking in the choke. Now he wishes to return to 170lbs weight class to perhaps have a rematch against Matt Hughes.

Most? 9 to 1!

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485

Of course, this does not prove bias. Fucking assholes.

Fedor Emelianenko
Question and Answer Session:

Q: What's your favorite food?
A: I eat everything

Q: Do you have any fears or phobias?
A: No

UN

Rotten to its core, the United Nations Human Rights Council is about to adopt a “reform package” that drops Cuba and Belarus from a blacklist and places Israel under permanent indictment.

Contrary to all the promises of reform issued last year, the proposal released today by Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba targets Israel for permanent indictment under a special agenda item: “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” which includes “Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”; and “Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.” No other situation in the world is singled out — not genocide in Sudan, not child slavery in China, nor the persecution of democracy dissidents in Egypt and elsewhere. Moreover, the council will entrench its one-sided investigative mandate of “Israeli violations of international law”—the only one not subject to regular review after a set term—by renewing it “until the end of the occupation.”
At the same time, the proposal eliminates the experts charged with reporting on violations by Cuba and Belarus, despite the latest reports of massive violations by both regimes. As for the experts on other countries — on Burundi, Cambodia, North Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Burma, Somalia and Sudan — all of these may soon be eliminated, as threatened by the Council majority comprised of dictatorships and other Third World countries, under a gradual “review” process. Pending their fate, all experts will be subjected to a new “Code of Conduct,” submitted by Algeria in the name of the African group, designed to intimidate and restrict the independence of the human rights experts.

ATHLETES WITH ILLEGITIMATE KIDSTHE HEAVYWEIGHTSShawn Kemp - 7 illegitimate kids by 6 women. Gives his nickname of the Reign Man new meaning.Evander Holyfield - 9 illegitimate kids. "Heck I'm not even mad, I'm impressed!"Ex-San Antonio Spur Willie Anderson - 9 illegitimate kids. If only his field goal percentage had been as high as his impregnation rate.Derrick Thomas - 7 illegitimate kids by 5 women. He died at 33. Let's just leave it at that.Ray Charles - Not an athlete, but still had 9 illegitimate kids and 12 total, which is quite impressive. Being blind must have made it tough to get that condom on.UPDATE: Don't know how we missed this - thanks to a reader for pointing this out to us - Calvin Murphy reportedly had 14 illegitimate kids by 9 women. Wow.THE MIDDLEWEIGHTSLarry Johnson - 5 kids by 4 women. 3 are illegitimate.Santonio Holmes - 3 illegitimate kids by two women, before leaving college.Former Celtic Greg Minor - 3 illegitimate kids.Ricky Williams - 3 illegitimate kids. Maybe that's why he smokes so much weed.Priest Holmes - 3 illegitimate kids. You best keep running Priest.THE LIGHTNING FAST GROUPWillis McGahee - 3 illegitimate kids in 2 years in Buffalo. Not a lot to do in Buffalo, except make babies. Lots and lots of babies.THE GUYS YOU WOULDN'T EXPECT GROUPWalter HerrmannPeja StojakovicWizards Coach Eddie JordanNHL player Daniel AlfredssonNHL player Richard ZednikMike MillerTHE FAMOUS OLD GUYS GROUPSteve Garvey - 2 illegitimate kids by 2 women.Dr. J - 2 illegitimate kids by 2 women.Larry BirdIsiah ThomasJim PalmerPete RoseTHE GETTING A HEAD START GROUPGary Sheffield - Had 2 illegitimate kids by age 17. Added a few more later on in life.THE THAT'S JUST WRONG GROUPElijah Dukes - recently impregnated a 17-year-old foster child.THE QB KIDS GROUPMatt Leinart - already has one, my guess is he's working hard on another.Tom Brady - his is on the way.GUYS WITH AT LEAST ONE ILLEGITIMATE KIDAntawn JamisonChipper JonesDeShawn StevensonCliff FloydMark Messier Brian UrlacherRae Carruth - Yes, he fathered an illegitimate kid before the incident where he had his pregnant girlfriend gunned down.Oscar De La Hoya Juan GonzalezAndre RisonDavid JusticeAlonzo Spellman Dave Meggett Gary Payton - If the glove doesn't fit... Stephon Marbury Jason Kidd Allen IversonLatrell Sprewell Juwan HowardKenny AndersonScottie Pippen Hakeem Olajuwon Patrick EwingRandy Johnson - by reader request. We missed him.So in other words, the moral of the story is wrap it up tight. Unless you're a professional athlete. Then just do whatever the hell you want.-WCK
Posted by 100% Injury Rate at 5:42 PM

One young monk who positively glowed with meta — loving kindness — explained to me that the West was a culture of emergency: "If you didn't think you could control everything you wouldn't have so many emergencies, would you?"

Robert Kaplan

"Some truths are so obvious that to mention them in polite company seems either pointless or rude. What is left unstated, however, can with time be forgotten. Both of these observations apply today to the American way of war. It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it."

http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=289&MId=14

www.littlegreenfootballs.com

It was the hook-up of the century, Hamas and Fatah, sealed with a toga-clad honeymoon at the Qaaba in Mecca. How could things have gone so wrong so quickly?

Oh, that’s right. They’re terrorists.

Abbas declares state of emergency as Hamas overrruns Gaza.

Craig Fergusen Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA

A friend sent this to me today...no suprise why.

Disgraceful

New York Times Notices Jihad, Immediately Goes into Whitewash Mode
An excellent post by Robert Spencer dissects a New York Times article on the militant Islamic concept of “just jihad:” The New York Times notices the jihad ideology.
My favorite paragraph from the New York Times piece is this classic idiot-left moral equivalence argument from Georgetown University professor John O. Voll:

Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says.

Voll, by the way, is an associate of Islamic apologist John Esposito, and is also the associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. That’s the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who gave $50 million to the Council on American Islamic Relations, and who offered Rudy Giuliani $10 million to issue a press release tying the 9/11 attacks to US support for Israel.
That’s who the Times calls when they need an opinion on Islamic terrorists killing innocent people.

I heart Lou Holtz

"I ask our players to follow three basic rules.

Do what is right.
Do your very best.
Treat others like you'd like to be treated.

Those rules answer the three basic questions we ask of every player, and every player asks of us. The questions are:

Can I trust you?
Are you committed?
Do you care about me?

People might think this is corny, but I don't care. This is what I believe."


I first heard this watching the "Do Right" video series at Aerotek. Still rings true.

On Friday, the Pentagon confirmed long-standing reports that, a decade ago, military leaders had considered building a gay bomb. An Air Force proposal suggested the concept of an offensive weapon that might render its victims homosexual. "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example," said the proposal, :would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior." While the idea was scrapped, it seems unlikely that other governments are so scrupulous.

Pippen Is "Down On The Farm"
Posted By:Darren Rovell
Topics:Sports

AP
Scottie Pippen

Matthew Lesko would be proud. NBA great Scottie Pippen is apparently a farmer. From 2003-2005, Pippen earned $78,945 in government checks for land he controls in Arkansas. That's according to information that will be available tomorrow from the Environmental Working Group, a public interest group that is seeking a better distribution of farm subsidies.
Pippen made about $110 million throughout his NBA career, but let us remind you why he needs this. He lost $27 million in bad investments and, as of February, he owed $5 million to a bank for a dispute with a private jet company. And he just sold a 2.28-acre property with 18,700-square foot mansion sitting on it for $2.95 million. He and his wife paid $4 million for it in 2000.

(NOPE: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-06092007-1360360.html)

The mullahs are cracking down on Iranian-American intellectuals and women dressed in Western clothing, in a totalitarian theocracy that has been a declared enemy of the US for decades.

And who does TIME Magazine blame? One guess....Bush man, fuckin Shrubby!

>>

Did the U.S. Incite Iran’s Crackdown?
Tehran’s jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year old grandmother who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, as well as the interrogation of others with similar papers, is evidence that Washington’s latest attempt to foist change on Iran is backfiring — as Iranian democracy advocates had warned. The Bush Administration had trumpeted its $61.1 million democracy program, including Farsi-language broadcasts into Iran, education and cultural exchanges and $20 million worth of support for “civil society, human rights, democratic reform and related outreach” as an important effort. However, sources tell TIME that several key Iranian reformers had repeatedly warned U.S. officials through back channels that the pro-democracy program was bound to expose them as vulnerable targets for a government crackdown whether they took Washington’s funds or not.
Iranian civil rights activists contacted by TIME say that the cases against the Iranian-Americans have fostered the most repressive atmosphere inside Iran in years, making democracy advocates terrified to work or even speak on the telephone.

www.opinionjournal.com

Global Warmists Are Having Kittens!

http://www.livescience.com/animals/070606_gw_pets.html
It's raining cats and dogs, LiveScience reports. Well, cats anyway. OK, not exactly raining, but--whatever, global warming is to blame!

"Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group.
Several shelters operated by a national adoption organization called Pets Across America reported a 30 percent increase in intakes of cats and kittens from 2005 to 2006, and other shelters across the nation have reported similar spikes of stray, owned and feral cats.
The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world's warming temperatures, according to the group, which is one of the country's oldest and largest animal welfare organizations. "

We were wondering just how much global temperatures went up between 2005 and 2006, so we checked with NASA http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt . It turns out the average global temperature actually declined by 0.09 degrees centigrade. Maybe the cats had to go into heat to keep warm.

Hitchens in Action!

http://www.zombietime.com/hitchens-hedges_debate/

I can't get enough.


Hitchens: But, to what I think is the hidden agenda of the question: 'Is George Bush on a Christian crusade in Iraq and Afghanistan?' Obviously not, obviously not. Anyone who's studied what's happening in either of those countries now knows that the whole of American policy -- and by the way a lot of your own future, ladies and gentlemen -- is staked on the hope that federal secular democrats can emerge from this terrible combat. We can protect them and offer them help while they do so. We know that they're there, that we are -- I've met them, I love them, they're our friends. Every member of the 82nd Airborne Division could be a snake-handling congregationalist, for all I know, but these men and women, though you sneer and jeer at them, and snigger when you hear applause and excuses for suicide bombers -- and you have to live with the shame of having done that -- these people are guarding you while you sleep, whether you know it or not. And they're also creating space for secularism to emerge, and you better hope that they are successful.

Hedges: I feel like I should be reading Kipling's White Man's Burden.
Audience: Laughter.

Hitchens: What you mean is you wish you had read it.

Bench Press

From 100% Injury Rate Blog-

...While that's pretty unlikely, we thought we'd take a look at how other athletes and celebrities have fared over the years with the bench press. We should note that not all of the numbers we've compiled are for max lifts. If they use certain weights for reps, we'll mention that. Our list is below, but all you really need to know is this, our current President benches more than Durant.

President Bush: 5 reps of 185 lbs.
Brady Quinn: Max - 350 lbs. and 28 reps of 225 lbs.
Yao Ming: Max - 300 lbs.
Former Cowboys offensive lineman Larry Allen: Max - 700 lbs.
Former NHL hockey goon Tony Twist: Max - 405 lbs.
Refrigerator Perry: Max - 465 lbs.
LaDainian Tomlinson: Max - 430 lbs.
The Rock: Max - 425 lbs.
Reggie Bush: Max - 335 lbs.
Matt Leinart: Never did one (Somehow I'm not surprised).
Power lifter and world bench press record holder
Scot Mendelson: Max - 715 lbs.
MMA fighter and former pro football player Bob "The Beast" Sapp: Max - 600+ lbs.
Titans offensive lineman Justin Geisinger: Max - 600 lbs. and 43 reps of 225 lbs.
Former wrestler SuperFly Jimmy Snuka: Max - 525 lbs.
Shaq: Claimed Max - 455 lbs.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Best ever Max - 455 lbs.
JaMarcus Russell: Max - 335 lbs.
49ers Tight End Vernon Davis: Max - 465 lbs.
Olympic Gold medalist and current pro wrestler Kurt Angle: Max - 420 lbs.
Dwight Howard: Max - 345 lbs.
Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Derek Landri: Max - 425 lbs.
Actor Hugh Jackman: Max - 315 lbs. (during X-Men)
Former wrestler Brett "The Hitman" Hart: Max - 405 lbs.
Actor Will Smith: Max - 385 lbs. (during I-Robot)
100 meter dash world record holder Maurice Green: Max -365 lbs.
Michael Vick: Max - 335 lbs.
Tedd Ginn Jr.: Max - 250 lbs.
Former wrestler Lex Luger: 5 reps of 405 lbs.
Actor Jack Lemmon: Claimed Max - 300+ lbs. (I assume this is a joke)
Tiger Woods: Max - 300 lbs. Reportedly does reps at 190 lbs.
Wilt Chamberlain: Witnesses claim he once benched 465 lbs.

6 Day War

I went to pay a parking ticket this morning and noticed a few scraggly old hippies with signs like "end the occupation" and some shit about Palestine (wherever that is!)- I was hoping to be accosted but nobody approached me. I didn't put two and two together until I realized today is the 40th anniversary of the 6 Day War.

This is a pretty good article on the war and the historical revisionism in most of the current coverage. Hard to believe it was in Slate.


http://www.slate.com/id/2167713/fr/flyout

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000157.html

Coney Island Paintball

The Sinatra Group

Frank Sinatra: Issue number three: [ points to Sinead ] This bald chick - what's with her head? Let's start with the chick. What gives, cue ball? I'm looking at you, I'm thinking: fourteen in the side pocket!

Sinead O'Connor: I can't believe you're talking about my hair with all the bloody starvation and suffering in the world right now.

Frank Sinatra: Come on! Swing, baby, you're platinum! Billy Idol.

Billy Idol: I think she's really quite attractive.

Frank Sinatra: Check out his papers. Luther Campbell!

Billy Idol: You watch it, mate!

Frank Sinatra: Easy, baby! And what's with the sneering crap? [ Billy sneers ] Don't do that to the people, they want to like you! That's what killed Dennis day - contempt for the audience.
Luther Campbell! What about the chick's head?

Luther Campbell: Be honest, I don't care about the head. I like the butt.

Frank Sinatra: I hear you, baby. Forget the head. Put a bag over it and do your business! Am I right, Steve and Eydie?

Steve Lawrence: [ slow to answer ] You bet, Frank!
Eydie Gorme: You know it, Chairman!

www.slate.com

Britain may recommend reducing meat consumption to fight global warming. Rationale: "Cattle and sheep release millions of metric tons of methane gas a year into the environment through flatulence. In New Zealand … farm animals produce some 90 percent of the country's methane emissions." A British official says the government "is working on a set of key environmental behavior changes to mitigate climate change. Consumption of animal protein has been highlighted within that work." Officials' caveat: We won't "enforce a dietary or lifestyle change." Carnivores' reaction: Sure, we'll let you stop us from eating meat ... right after you stop animals from farting. (For Human Nature's take on the morality of meat-eating, click here.)