Beyonce Unhurt After Stray Bullet Miraculously Hits Passerby Instead
Another Naughty Gay Republican
Geez, there’s no stopping them.
This was kept under wraps for some time, but no more.
This time, it’s not some state Congressman. It’s a full-blown United States congressman.
Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Id) pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator’s office said yesterday.
***
Roll Call, citing a copy of a report by airport police, said officers had been conducting a sting operation inside the men’s room because of complaints of sexual activity there. The police report gives this account of the arrest:
The undercover officer was monitoring the restroom on June 11. A few minutes after noon, Craig entered and sat in the stall next to him. Craig began tapping his right foot, touched his right foot to the left foot of the officer and brushed his hand beneath the partition between them. He was then arrested.
While he was being interviewed about the incident, Craig gave police a business card showing that he is a U.S. senator. "What do you think about that?" Craig asked the officer, according to the report obtained by Roll Call.
Hmmmm. Playing footsie in an airport bathroom stall.
From the Senator’s website:
Idaho Senator Larry Craig made the following statement in response to the Roll Call story this afternoon:
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.
"I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."
His excuse?
In a recorded interview after his arrest, Craig “either disagreed with me or ‘didn’t recall’ the events as they happened,” the report states.
Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor.
For the record, it seems to me that the foot-tapping thing from the police report is, well, you know, kinda thin. I honestly think that Craig probably did have a good defense. What exactly about what he did — the foot-tapping, according to the police report — is "lewd" or "disorderly"? I accept that his rather obscure actions must be known to be typical cruising signals, but I don’t see how they could be against the law just standing on their own.
But see, then he went and pled guilty.
Craig, who has been outed (by rumor) in the past (although he denies it). The issue, of course, isn’t that Craig is gay. It’s that he is gay and hypocritically advocates family values issues:
* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
As far back as 1982, Craig (when he was in the House) was denying hanky-panky with congressional pages, as this ABC News segment reports:
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has removed Craig’s video endorsement from his website. Smart move, but TPM has the video of Larry Craig, the co-chair of the Mitt Romney campaign, explaining why he supports Romney’s candidacy. Craig says:
Knowing Governor Mitt Romney is knowing someone who, first and foremost, has very strong family values. That is something I grew up with and believe in.
Greenwald: "If having "strong family values" is — as Craig claims — the reason "first and foremost" to support someone’s candidacy for President, then, by definition, whether one has "strong family values" is a politically relevant consideration for such a person. Craig’s own pronounced political standards render it relevant whether a married political official with children is having anonymous sex in bathrooms. That is just logically true."
UPDATE: Craig in 1999:
MR. RUSSERT: Larry Craig, would you want the last word from the Senate be an acquittal of the president and no censure?
SEN. CRAIG: Well, I don’t know where the Senate’s going to be on that issue of an up or down vote on impeachment, but I will tell you that the Senate certainly can bring about a censure reslution and it’s a slap on the wrist. It’s a, “Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You’re a naughty boy.”
The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughtyboy.
I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.
UPDATE: Guess The Singing Senators need a new lead vocalist.
Heckuva Jobs
Okay, well. It’s old news now that Alberto is resigning. I have nothing to say about that, other than it is waaaay too late.
The thing about Gonzalez is that he should not have been there in the first place. He got the position because he was one of Bush’s boys back in Texas. It’s that cronyism thing…. again. Bush picks loyalists — not people necessarily qualified.
So with AG on the way out, it looks like Department of Homeland Security Chief Mike Chertoff will be the new Attorney General. But who will replace Chertoff at the DHS???
Yup. It looks like another Bush loyalist — another person uniquely unqualified for the job: a guy named Clay Johnson. Here’s his White House bio:
Clay Johnson is the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget. The Deputy Director for Management provides government-wide leadership to Executive Branch agencies to improve agency and program performance. Prior to this he was the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, responsible for the organization that identifies and recruits approximately 4000 senior officials, middle management personnel and part-time board and commission members.
From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Johnson worked with Governor George W. Bush in Austin, first as his Appointments Director, then as his Chief of Staff, and then as the Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Transition.
Mr. Johnson has been the Chief Operating Officer for the Dallas Museum of Art and the President of the Horchow and Neiman Marcus Mail Order companies. He also has worked for Citicorp, Wilson Sporting Goods and Frito Lay.
He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and a Masters degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In Austin, he helped create the Texas State History Museum, and was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas Graduate School of Business. In Dallas, he served as President of the Board of Trustees for St. Marks School of Texas, and as a Board Member of Equitable Bankshares, Goodwill Industries of Dallas, and the Dallas Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.
See anything in the official bio that relates to immigration, air travel security, disaster response, and other aspects of our nation’s homeland defense?
No, me neither. Oh, yeah — Johnson also attended Andover and Yale with George W. Bush and was one of Bush’s DKE fraternity brothers.
UPDATE: Hmm. Maybe it won’t be Chertoff.
Miss Teen America: Miss South Carolina Answers A Question
Priceless:
UPDATE: She gets a "do-over":
The 18-year-old got a chance to redeem herself Tuesday on NBC’s "Today" show when she was again asked why one-fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a map.
"I would love to re-answer that question," Upton said. "Well personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on our map. I don’t know anyone else who doesn’t. And if the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography."
That was much better than her previous response, which included "U.S. Americans" and mentions of South Africa and "the Iraq."
Seems like a good answer, if not an obvious one. And she had the whole weekend to think about the answer. [UPDATE: Video of her second bite at the apple here]
Fun Fact: She’s planning on attending Appalachian College here in Boone, NC. Sounds about right. I hope she can find it….
BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE:
Miss Teen Texas handles a tough question relating to Indian tribal sovereignty:
Drama Queen
I have just returned from my semester auditions. It was the first time I’d had an actual audition since I auditioned for the MFA Program, it was my first grad school audition, it was my first UNCG audition, it was the first semester audition, and I was the first one to go.
[horror story, horror story, horror story]Right about then is when most women would’ve had a huge breakdown and cried and screamed and thrown their music. But I didn’t. I walked out of the building and drove home. And I didn’t shed a single tear. The only time I felt like I might cry was when I realized that I’m glad this happened because it means I need to stop singing for awhile. I dropped the words to my "Full Monty" audition song, too, so I’m thinking this probably is a sign. It’s time to set the singing on the shelf for awhile while I sort myself out.
Good news for me: I was cast as Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd", the first show of the fall semester.
Congrats, Emily!
100,000,000 Blogs
In case you never heard of it, Technorati analyzes blog traffic. ALL blog traffic. A tough thing, I suspect, since there are 175,000 blogs started everyday.
Sometime this morning, the number of blogs they tracked hit the 100,000,000 mark.
That’s right. One hundred million blogs.
FWIW, this blog is ranked 82,708 at the current moment. In terms of traffic, not quality.
Need A Hug?
A new shirt — appropriately titled "The Hug Shirt" — has special sensors and pads that — literally — hug you when triggered.
But that’s not the best part.
The best part is that the "hugging" pads can be triggered from other Hug Shirts. That means that your mom or friend halfway across the country can send you a hug simply by hugging themselves in the Hug Shirt. The shirt’s sensors transmit data (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, etc.) to their cell phone, which sends the info to your cell phone, which sends the hug to your Hug Shirt, which (hopefully) you are wearing at the time.
It’s all done through Bluetooth technology.
A clever little invention.
I can think of some racier spinoff products, but I’m sure so can you….
Today’s GOP Sex Scandal
And it’s a doozy, ’cause it involves dead bodies:
Three men in their 30s have been found dead in a residence owned by the former Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party in Orlando, Florida.
On Thursday morning a concerned friend of one of the men called the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities went to 2420 Hickory Oak Blvd. in Orlando where they found the bodies, as well as a pair of dogs. The dogs were still alive but had been alone for at least a few days. The men may have been dead since Tuesday.
The men were:
Ralph Gonzalez, 39, his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30….
Gonzalez was executive director of the Georgia Republican Party from 2001-2002. He managed U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney’s 2002 campaign and was president of Strategum Group, an Orlando-based political consulting firm that represents Republican candidates.
Abrami, an attorney, was active in Republican politics as well.
So why are these three guys — two of whom were active in Republican politics, one of whom headed the GOP in Georgia — dead?
…an apparent double murder-suicide possibly sparked by a lovers’ quarrel, according to detectives.
Interesting to note that Tom Feeney (R-Fla) is opposed to gay marriage.
Just When I Start To Warm Up To Her…
…she goes and says something like this:
"It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.
I simply don’t agree with the premise.
If we are attacked by terrorists between now and Election Day, people will recognize that as a failure of Bush’s (and Republican’s) policies which have been in place since 9/11. How could that possibly become an advantage for Republicans?
Of course, Hillary must realize that, to some extent, those policies are her policies, having voted (for example) for the war against Iraq (thus diverting our attention away from al Qaeda). I suppose she has to try to distance herself from that now.
But should we gat attacked again, it seems to me that the candidate with the advantage does not lie with a Bush-supporting Republican or a Bush-supporting Democrat, but one who has always been opposed to the way in which the war on terrorism has been executed. That, clearly, would be Obama and/or Edwards. Not only were they right all along (unlike Hillary), but they seem to understand that liberal solutions to national security are workable and sell-able to the American public. Unlike Hillary, they don’t play into the false narrative that "Republicans are strong on security; Democrats aren’t".
Dumb move, Hillary. You’re buying the Republican spin and repeating it in your speeches.
UPDATE: Carpetbagger thinks he know what Hillary meant:
Clinton probably was trying to make the point that in the event of another attack, Republicans will try to seize on the tragedy as a political plus for the right. The media will, regrettably, go along, because it fits into a ridiculous narrative reporters have been buying into for years. “It wouldn’t be fair,” Clinton seemed to be saying, “but I can deal with it when it happens.”
Possibly. But she now has to do damage control because, as Carpetbagger notes, "it’s a mistake for any Democrat to amplify the bogus narrative in the first place."
New Revelations About Mother Theresa
While gathering biographical material for his case to the Vatican that Mother Theresa deserves sainthood, a priest finds that the Nobel Prize winner was, if not agnostic, then certainly riddled with doubt about the existence of God.
Wow. And you think you know a saint. Er, potential saint.
Her doubts appear in letters and private correspondence to friends:
Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit left Mother Teresa.
"Where is my faith?" she wrote. "Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God — please forgive me."
Eight years later, she was still looking to reclaim her lost faith.
"Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal," she said.
As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she said, was a mask.
"What do I labor for?" she asked in one letter. "If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."
By the time of her death, she was still plagued with doubts, and had even stopped praying.
Seeing the things she had seen, it hardly surprises me that anyone would question the existence of a loving God.
As Time notes, Mother Theresa "considered the perceived absence of God in her life as her most shameful secret", so much so that she asked that her letters be burned after her death. (Obviously, this didn’t happen).
I don’t know that there’s any reason for shame. She started a mission for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." By the time of her death, she was operating 517 missions in over 100 countries, including 20 in the United States. Nothing to sneeze at.
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum
For some reason, I have the opening strands of "Mr. Sandman" running through my head constantly today.
Now, you will too. Welcome to my world.
Historian Pounces On Bush
Not literally, of course (although that would be a great Youtube moment)
In Wednesday’s speech Bush said:
"’An interesting observation, one historian put it, ‘Had these erstwhile experts’ — he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society — he said, ‘Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage.’"
But the "one historian" in question was going to tale that lying down:
A historian quoted by President Bush to help argue that critics of the administration’s Iraq policy echo those who questioned the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Japan after World War II angrily distanced himself from the president’s remarks Thursday.
“They [war supporters] keep on doing this,” said MIT professor John Dower. “They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it’s always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They’re desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse.”
Dower, in fact, wrote a November 2002 New York Times op-ed where he outlined 10 reasons why “most of the factors that contributed to the success of nation-building in occupied Japan would be absent in an Iraq militarily defeated by the United States.”
And in March 2003, Dower wrote an essay for Boston Review, entitled “A Warning From History: Don’t Expect Democracy in Iraq.”
Probably not the best historian to quote from, George.
Alexii Found
For those Romanov-ophiles out there, it looks like they found the bodies of Czar Nicholas’ son and the "missing" daughter (probably Maria).
Anastasia, as you probably know, didn’t survive — although her story ended up being a good play/movie.
The Magistical
Winston-Salem is probably the last place on Earth you would expect to find an animation studio, but we got one.
The company is called Out Of Our Minds, and they are putting the finishing touches on their first full-length feature, called The Magistical. It stars the voice of Jeffrey Holder (as well as some local talent) and the music of Bobby McFerrin, Celtic Women, and Gaelic Storm. It’s a fairy tale with dragons and mystics and focuses on a boy who has to save the people he loves.
It’s a tough market, virtually dominated by Pixar. As I understand it, Out of Our Minds is shopping for a distributor for The Magistical. The animation (the clips I’ve seen) is stunning and vibrant — kind of a throwback to the glisteny world 1950’s Disney, but with the latest in computer 3D animation.
Keep an eye out for this film and this studio. (Pictured above, a screenshot from their BAFTA awaard-winning animated short, Dear Sweet Emma).