Happy Birthday Wes!!!!!

http://www.700club.com/CBNNews/News/030626a.asp << HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

To save you three minutes of your life, Pat Robertson's CBN says that the recent rash of tornadoes in the US is caused by our attempts to negotiate peace in the Middle East. What an asshat.

Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble playing "All Your Love I Miss Lovin'". The switch from the minor blues to the minor 7th blues is silly scary good. He comes with a dunna dunna dun da blues riff... aw fuck it... here

From Yahoo! News -
White House Won't Release Medicare Memo

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's top Medicare accountant has calculated how millions of senior citizens would be affected by bringing private managed care into the program, but the administration won't release the information.



An earlier analysis suggested that a Republican plan to inject market forces into Medicare could increase premiums for those who stay in traditional programs by as much as 25 percent. If that's still the case, it could help Democrats who argue that the GOP plan is risky for those who want to stay in traditional Medicare, where they can pick any doctor, rather than move to a managed care plan.


The administration's Medicare chief threatened to fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released his calculations to Capitol Hill Democrats who requested the analysis, officials said.


Medicare chief Tom Scully said in an interview Wednesday that Democrats had no right to request the information from Foster in the first place.


"They don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things," said Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "These people work for the executive branch, period."


Scully said he would release the analysis "if I feel like it."

Ah the true test of checks and balances... whether or not a member of the executive branch (you know us the peoples' employees) feels like telling us. I love the government!

http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?FuseAction=Statements.Detail&PressRelease_id=205148&Month=6&Year=2003

When I get around to it, please remind me to blow this shit up. What a fucking joke. This from the man that advocates destroying his constituents computers without trial! Thanks Orrin! Good to know you're watching out for us.* Also its good to know that you feel that the "rapid dissemenation of ideas" is a threat to national security. Those unwashed masses aren't fit to know, are they Orrin?


*us meaning approximately his rich friends...

Kerry Wood's slider makes men look foolish. Fernando Vina is batting about .310 this year. Wood struck him out on a slider that hit him. Vina swung at a pitch that hit him in the leg! Nice pitch.

Yahoo! News - Murder Trial Begins in 'Windshield' Death

FORT WORTH, Texas - Jurors saw pictures of the twisted, bruised and bloody body of a homeless man Monday as a former nurse's aide went on trial on charges she hit him with her car, drove home with his body lodged grotesquely in the windshield and left him to die in her garage.

Remember this one? Touching isn't it?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68273&cid=6249951

Another +5 Slashdot comment.

Orrin Hatch says "ARGH! A pirate I be."

Serious question: Is a "non-combat related weapons discharge" the military's parlance for a suicide in Iraq?

White House edits Report by the E.P.A. -- Leaves Out Data on Climate Change

In the end, E.P.A. staff members, after discussions with administration officials, said they decided to delete the entire discussion to avoid criticism that they were selectively filtering science to suit policy.

The White House cut out paragraphs from studies that found human contributions to global warming, while adding quotes from a study that disputes that claim. The study that disputes that claim received funding from the American Petroleum Institute. Now I don't know jackshit about global warming and its causes, but I do know bullshit when I see it.

From the story:

"Political staff are becoming increasingly bold in forcing agency officials to endorse junk science," said Jeremy Symons, a climate policy expert at the National Wildlife Federation. "This is like the White House directing the secretary of labor to alter unemployment data to paint a rosy economic picture."

You know, it's like lying.

Zambrano just doubled to start the fifth! Good to see your pitchers hit. Stupid DH rule. Some NL manager called interleague games in AL parks "the closest thing to a day off you can have at the ballpark". My Mom could manage an AL team.

Corey Patterson just doubled home Zambrano. Patterson to the All-Star game. Sammy stays home.

You know what. I hate this idea.

Steve Stone to Chp "You're at your best during the drop-ins."

Translation: You broadcast best when reading a cue-card ad.

One of the better left-handed compliments I've heard in a while.

Bottom 4 - 2 out - 0-0 - Runner on second. 0-2 count on Adam Dunn

Mark Belhorn has been a huge disapointment this year. Where's the bat? Heh, he just watched a 1-2 pitch bounce in the dirt about 5 feet in front of him and go wild. It'd be funny if someone consistently swung at that pitch with two strikes and no one on to try and "steal first".

Nice play Reds 3B Aaron Boone... two steps back and toward third base, leap, make and over-the-shoulder grab on a high hopping grounder, plant on the 3rd baseline, and fire to first to get the guy by two steps. Highlight quality.

A wiki with friends would be a cool way to do this.


Game is in the top of the fourth, no outs, no score.

I'm going to start blogging while watching Chicago Cubs games, and I'm going to start now. Tonight's game is on WGN and the Cubs are playing the Reds. It's the bottom of the second, and no one's out. Score: 0-0.

Zambrano is on the mound tonight. He's been pitching well this year despite the 5-6 record. He's got 11 decisions all ready this year. He pitches well enough even when he loses to stick around for the decision.

Inmates' long wait for justice

Bill White spent five years in Cook County Jail awaiting trial for murder. But it took a judge only 15 minutes to rule the state's key witness "worthless" and set White free.
One week later, White's co-defendants, Otis English, 32, and Roland Gray, 50, walked out of the jail when the state dropped their cases, too.
The men--who call themselves the "Wrigleyville Three" because they were charged with the murder of a young couple near the Cubs' ballpark in 1997--were caught in a legal system that moves far too slowly, Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan said.
"In a murder case, a reasonable time in jail would be 1-1/2 or two years," he said. "Anything over two years is ludicrous."

Sweet Jesus, and they want us to give these people more power?

Yahoo! News - Microsoft to Quit Web Browsers for Mac

Sommers said Apple is in a better position to create a browser with more features and that offers a smoother experience because "Apple has access to functionality in the (operating system) that Microsoft doesn't."
"They can do things because they're developing on their own (operating system) that we as a third party programmer can't do," she said.

Well duh! Microsoft must not feel like they have any corporate competition in the software market if they let quotes like that out of the office. Hundreds of companies have leveled that same complaint at ol' M$ over the years.

Our Leader.

If Lincoln had PowerPoint at Gettysburg...

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Lost from the Baghdad museum: truth

So, there's the picture: 100,000-plus priceless items looted either under the very noses of the Yanks, or by the Yanks themselves. And the only problem with it is that it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks.

Iraqi national museum /not/ looted. Most of the items were put in storage before the war. Few items actually missing!

Yahoo! News - Attacks in Jerusalem, Gaza Kill 23, Injure Scores

Attacks in Jerusalem, Gaza Kill 23, Injure Scores

Wow... Reuters covering events in the Middle East for what they are: terrorist attacks by both sides. The language in the story still refers to Palestinian "militants", but the headline is still the most neutral I have read.

Boston Globe Online / Business / WorldCom culture called 'poisonous'

In one incident cited by the investigators, accounting executive Buford Yates told an underling who questioned the company's books: ''Show those numbers to the [expletive] auditors and I'll throw you out the [expletive] window.''

(I'm assuming) Former Worldcom Executive Buford Yates according to an internal investigation conducted by WorldCom.

A quick poll: Was the expletive: A) Fucking B) Goddamn C) Asshat?

NEWS.com.au | Saddam 'source of Iraqi unrest' (June 10, 2003)

En route to Europe, Rumsfeld suggested the missing Saddam was still inspiring remnants of his regime to resist the US-led occupation.

"To the extent it's not proven
That he is not alive,
There are people who might fear
He could come back.
If they fear he could come back
They might be somewhat slower
In an interrogation to say what they know

It might give heart
To the Baathists
Who may want to hope
They can take back that country,
Which they are not going to succeed in doing.
So I think to some extent that is a fair comment."

Ah the power of cheese! Or wait no... That's the Poetry of Rumsfeld... right, or from the Right at least.

CMT.com: 100 Greatest Songs

CMT's 100 Greatest Songs of Country Music

lgf: Another British Attack on Wolfowitz

Look, the primary difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.

From the Department of Defense transcript of the Wolfolwitz Q&A session that the Guardian used to make the er... creative quote below.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

US deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz

Duh.