Tom Waits
On the Nickel

WASHINGTON - Republican Presidential candidate John McCain entered the second quarter of the year with half the cash in the bank that his two main Republican rivals for the presidency posted, a significant challenge for a candidate who is trying to put some luster back to his campaign.

McCain aides said the senator from Arizona had $5.2 million cash in hand after spending $8.4 million during the first three months of the year. McCain, who days ago moved to revamp his fundraising operation, also reported $1.8 million in debts.

Read more at YAHOO!

Another story that makes me glad I am an American.

MOSCOW - Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President
Vladimir Putin’s government, which opponents accuse of rolling back freedoms Russians have enjoyed since the end of Soviet communism.

A similar march planned for Sunday in St. Petersburg has also been banned by authorities.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the “Dissenters March” to protest the economic and social policies of Putin as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights. Organizers said only about 2,000 demonstrators turned out.

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off landmark Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow, beating some and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

read more at YAHOO!

This past week’s lengthy discussions about racial statements, hate mongering and insults made me think “why not lighten up this discussion just a little bit?” So, we present to you, a one-time segment we call “When Insults Had Class“. Enjoy!

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
— Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
— Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
— William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
— Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
— Moses Hadas

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
— Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
— Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
— Oscar Wilde

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
— Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
— John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
— Irvin S. Cobb

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
— Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
— Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
— Robert Redford

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
— Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
— Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
— Mae West

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts…for support rather than illumination.”
— Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
— Billy Wilder

Legendary crooner Don Ho, known for his raspberry-tinted sunglasses and catchy signature tune ”Tiny Bubbles,” has died, his publicist said. He was 76.

Publicist Donna Jung said the singer died Saturday morning of heart failure. He had suffered with heart problems for the past several years, and had a pacemaker installed last fall. In 2005, he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand in 2005.

Ho entertained Hollywood’s biggest stars and thousands of tourists for four decades. For many, no trip to Hawaii was complete without seeing his Waikiki show — a mix of songs, jokes, double entendres, Hawaii history and audience participation.

Shows usually started and ended with the same song, ”Tiny Bubbles,” which Ho mostly hummed as the audience enthusiastically took over.

”I hate that song,” he often joked to the crowd, adding that he saved it for the end because ”people my age can’t remember if we did it or not.”

Donald Tai Loy Ho, who is Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and German, was born Aug. 13, 1930, in Honolulu and grew up in the then-rural countryside of Kaneohe.

Bill Maher New Rules

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Bombings in Karbala and the Baghdad area killed at least 56 people and wounded scores of others Saturday morning, police and medical officials said.

A car bomb blast in a crowded shopping area of central Karbala, a holy Shiite city about 70 miles southwest of Baghdad, killed at least 43 people and wounded 55, according to an official at Hussein Hospital in Karbala.

The explosion went off near a bus station and just 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine. (Watch chaos as rescuers try to evacuate bomb victims )

Video of the scene broadcast on Iraqi television showed hundreds of people crowded around the bomb site as emergency workers placed victims in ambulances.

A short time later, a car bomb exploded on the Jadriya bridge, which spans the Tigris River in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 others, Iraqi police said. It was not immediately clear how badly the bridge was damaged.

The Jadriya bridge attack came two days after a suicide car bomb detonated on the Sarafiya bridge, which crosses the Tigris in northern Baghdad, also killing 10 people. Two large sections of the bridge collapsed into the river.

Eleven major bridges cross the Tigris River in Baghdad.

More at CNN.com

The evil Dickless doer never quits……….

Before Nancy Pelosi left Israel to travel to Syria earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin said “Pelosi is conveying that Israel is willing to talk if they (Syria) would openly take steps to stop supporting terrorism.” Pelosi delivered as requested, and this week received a thank you call from Olmert. So why then did the Israeli Prime Minister originally issue a statement of “clarification” about Pelosi’s message which became the basis for right-wing attacks against her?

The evidence of White House involvement behind the Israeli Prime Minister’s statement has been growing this past week. Middle East analysts have suggested Bush deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams - a close ally of Dick Cheney - may have been coordinating the attempts to undermine Pelosi’s trip. “A-It’s obvious the White House is desperate to find some phony criticism of the speaker’s trip, even though it was a bipartisan trip,- said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a Holocaust survivor who is considered the Democrat closest to the pro-Israel lobby. A-I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the attempt to undermine this trip.-”

Rep. Henry Waxman suggested that the White House’s coordinated attempts to smear Pelosi were part of an effort to undermine her on Iraq:

Waxman said the administration is focused on building a case against the Democrats in preparation for a showdown over the Iraq War funding bill. The more they can paint Democrats as weak and irresponsible, the more likely the Democrats will knuckle under and let the president continue the war unchecked. It’s been known to happen.

So Cheney trashes the reputation of men like Lantos and Waxman (who, by the way, has doggedly pursued waste and mismanagement in Iraq by Halliburton, the company that made Cheney rich), and it’s politics as usual.

This is not unchartered territory for Cheney. He has become famous for kneecapping people with whom he disagrees, even individuals within the administration. Middle East experts recalled Cheney’s involvement in a similar situation last year:

Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked Olmert into a 48-hour cease-fire during the war with Hezbollah to allow humanitarian relief, but within hours Israeli planes were bombing again, to Rice’s surprise and anger. Olmert had received a call, apparently from Cheney’s office, telling him to ignore Rice.

More at Think Progress

Couple things. I didn’t hear one newscaster wish Corzine a speedy recovery. No well wishes. Isn’t that odd? All they talked about was that he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Shame on him. Second thing…..I’d sure like to know who was driving that red pickup truck!

I wish Governor Corzine a speedy and full recovery!

CAMDEN, N.J. — Gov. Jon S. Corzine remained heavily sedated and on a ventilator early Saturday, but doctors said he continued to recuperate from serious injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident on the Garden State Parkway this week.

Meanwhile, authorities continued to search for the red pickup truck whose driver apparently caused Thursday night’s crash in Galloway Township.

Corzine — who was riding in a sport utility vehicle driven by a state trooper and headed to a meeting between radio show host Don Imus and the Rutgers women’s basketball team — apparently was not wearing his seat belt, as required by law. The crash occurred when the SUV was hit by another vehicle that swerved to avoid the pickup truck, sending the SUV into a guard rail.

More at the Sun Sentinel

And they keep on building……..

The River of Grass could once again pay the price for South Florida’s sea of lawns.

State water managers want permission from the federal government to use more Everglades water than usually allowed to restock drought’strained drinking water supplies — half of which typically ends up irrigating landscapes.

That would lower the Everglades water conservation areas beyond limits set to protect wildlife habitat. Just how badly fish, bird and alligator populations would suffer depends on how low the water goes and for how long.

It would be a “painful” decision to dip deeper into Everglades water, but one of the worst droughts in history might require it, said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District.

“The need for drinking water must take precedence over the need for habitat,” Wehle said.

Shrinking fish populations, wading birds forced to nest elsewhere and alligators wandering into urban areas to look for water are among the potential ramifications. Long-term concerns include muck fires burning away habitat, and melaleuca and other non-native plants further invading natural areas.

Read more at the Sun Sentinel