“I Hung My Head”
Johnny Cash

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ST. LOUIS - Josh Hancock, a relief pitcher who helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series last season, died early Sunday when his sport utility vehicle slammed into the back of a tow truck.

The Cardinals postponed their home game Sunday night against the Chicago Cubs. It was the second time in less than five years that a St. Louis pitcher died during the season. Darryl Kile was found dead in his hotel room in 2002.

“There’s a big hole that’s going to be there,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “This is brutal to go through.”

Police said the 29-year-old Hancock, who was single, was alone in his 2007 Ford Explorer when the SUV struck the rear of a flatbed tow truck at 12:35 a.m. The tow truck was in the left lane with its lights flashing while assisting another car that had crashed, Police Chief Joe Mokwa said.

Hancock died upon impact, Mokwa said. The driver of the tow truck, whose name was not released by police, was in the truck at the time of the crash but was not injured. Mokwa said the truck driver saw Hancock’s SUV swerve just before it hit the tow truck, which weighs about 26,000 pounds.

Mokwa said it appeared Hancock was driving at or just above the speed limit, and there were no alcohol containers in his vehicle.

Read More at YAHOO!

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I don’t call them The Heat…….. I call them Da Simmer. DA BULLS…..way to go.

MIAMI, April 29, 2007 (AP) — The Chicago Bulls swept the defending NBA champion Miami Heat out of the playoffs, winning a postseason series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.

Ben Gordon scored 24 points, Luol Deng had 22 points and 11 rebounds and Chicago beat Miami 92-79 Sunday in Game 4 to finish off their first-round Eastern Conference series. The Bulls, who will face Detroit in the second round, became the first team to oust a defending champion in the opening playoff series since Phoenix did it to San Antonio in 2000.

The coach of that Suns team? Scott Skiles, who coaches the Bulls now - and who put together a plan that simply befuddled Miami all series long.

More here

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In an open letter to Rudy Giuliani, posted on the Huffington Post, Gary Hart, co-chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, slammed Rudy Giuliani on his lack of “preparation” for New York, for the “clearly predicted attacks” on 9/11. Gary Hart makes it crystal clear that Giuliani has “not qualified to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.”

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

Since you have based your presidential campaign almost exclusively on your reaction to terrorist attacks on New York City, and since you have recently accused Democrats of being on the defense against terrorism and therefore guilty of inviting more casualties, I have one question for you: Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?

The first date was when the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century issued its final report warning, as did its previous reports, of the danger of terrorist attacks on America. The George W. Bush administration did nothing about these warnings and we lost 3,000 American lives. What did you do during those critical eight months? Where were you? Were you on the defensive, or were you even paying attention?

Before you qualify to criticize Democrats, Mr. Giuliani, you must account for your preparation of your city for these clearly predicted attacks. Tell us, please, what steps you took to make your city safer.

Until you do, then I strongly suggest you should keep your mouth shut about Democrats and terrorism.

You have not qualified to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.

Gary Hart
(co-chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century)

P.S. You might ask these same questions of George W. Bush while you are trying to find a better reason to run for president.

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OAKLAND, Calif. - A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early Sunday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and erupted into flames, authorities said.

Flames shot 200 feet in the air and the heat was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck’s driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol said of the crumpled interchange. “I’m looking at this thinking, ‘Wow, no one died - that’s amazing. It’s just very fortunate.”

Authorities said the damage could take months to repair, and that it would cause the worst disruption for Bay Area commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged a section of the Bay Bridge itself.

Nearly 75,000 vehicles use the portion of the road every day. But because the accident occured where three highways converge, authorities said it could cause commuting problems for hundreds of thousands of people.

Transportation officials said they already had added trains to the Bay Area Rapid Transit light rail system that takes commuters across San Francisco Bay, and were urging people to telecommute if possible.

State officials said motorists who try to take alternate routes Monday instead of relying on public transportation would face nightmarish commutes.

Read more at YAHOO!

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If you think that title is kinda pushing the limit, then wait till you see what the President has to say! Quick, think back and try to remember all the promises made during all his photo ops. Now take a look at what he says now. Remember, think Jackson Square!

Imagine going out to dinner with a friend who offers to pick up the tab. But when the $50 bill comes, he throws $40 on the table and says the tip is included.

That’s how Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office describes President Bush’s refusal to waive the requirement for Louisiana to pay a 10 percent match on any federal disaster relief money received for recovery projects. The waiver would amount to $750 million to $1 billion of additional relief money for Louisiana, said Landrieu, D-New Orleans.

The Robert T. Stafford Act requires state and local governments to match 25 percent of any federal disaster money received, such as Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance projects associated with hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The federal cost share for permanent work in Louisiana has been adjusted from 75 percent to 90 percent.

Okay, so some might think that the match is fair. So what if it was waved for some, and they did not have the volume of destruction that was done here? Well look no further than 9/11. It was done then, but Bush doesn-t think that the very same thing that over stepped the federal government’s ability, is beyond our control. He couldn-t do what was right for one storm, much less three major storms in one summer! Now people on the right have it in their minds that people should do it on their own. I have this to say to them: Remember the gas prices after Katrina, and remember that real clear. What crippled the feds, brought the nation to gas prices that soared almost over night.

Now Bush would not get this kind of rebuke, if he would not have made so many photo ops with a promise. With the war in Iraq, Katrina and Rita are forgotten to most. I myself, support closing off our pipelines to jolt the memory of the nation. Buying time till the office is thrown on the back of someone else, and then blaming them for all the failures of Bush, is not going to work.

The House and Senate are ironing out differences between respective Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bills passed before Easter. Both contain emergency relief packages for Louisiana wiping out the Gulf Coast’s 10 percent match and funding the Iraq War and global anti-terrorism campaigns.

Bush has promised to veto a Gulf Coast package, which totals $2.38 billion out of $121 billion in the Senate and includes the 10 percent waiver.

The White House maintains $1 billion was provided for the 10 percent match in the $10.4 billion in community development block grants already awarded to Louisiana. Bush also vows to veto any new funding or legislative attempt to waive the 10 percent match.

Read more at DEMOCRATIC DAILY

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Bill Moyers talks to Jon Stewart about his interview with John McCain

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McCain tells anti-war protesters to “Get a life.” Wow, what a comeback! Brilliant! So he’s wrapped up his tour. Maybe now he will go to work. He was not there to vote on the war funding bill. In fact, the last time he voted on anything in the Senate was April 12th. Way to represent your constituents!! We’re still paying him $160 some thousand a year to run around the country, say dumb shit and run for President. There ought to be a law……

TEMPE, Ariz. - It was the end of the beginning. When Senator John McCain’s four-day kick-off tour wrapped up here on Saturday at City Hall - where he launched his first race for Congress more than 20 years ago - it was not only old friends who turned out.
A loud group of anti-war protesters were there as well. “Four years of war - not one more!– they shouted from just outside the event.
“Go John, go!– shouted back Mr. McCain’s supporters, who waited under a wilting Arizona sun to hear their candidate.
At one point Senator McCain even paused in his speech to talk about the noisy protesters. “My message to them is, get a life, obviously,– he said at one point.

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Is there ANYTHING they don’t politicize? I think not. I have to say, for the most part, Cubans LOVE Bush. I think most of them would vote for him again, given the chance.

MIAMI - President Bush, pushing for a hard-to-find breakthrough on a broad immigration overhaul, appealed to graduating college students in this diverse city Saturday for help in persuading Congress to produce a bill.

Bush gave the commencement address at Miami Dade College, where more than half the students were raised speaking a language other than English. He gave the Class of 2007 an assignment: Tell their elected representatives in Washington to get going on immigration legislation.

“You see every day the values of hard work, and family, and faith that immigrants bring,” the president said. “This experience gives you a special responsibility to make your voices heard.”

Bush said the immigration system is deeply broken: Employers are not held accountable enough; borders are not secure enough; businesses need workers willing to do low-paying jobs; and the 12 million people estimated to be in the U.S. illegally cannot all be deported and so must be dealt with “without amnesty and without animosity.”

More at YahooNews

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WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is trying to evade responsibility for problems at the Guantanamo Bay prison by falsely blaming defense lawyers for the trouble, the New York City Bar says.

The group’s president leveled the criticism in asking Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to abandon a Justice Department proposal to limit lawyers’ access to the nearly 400 detainees.

In a court filing this month, the department said attorney access via the mail system has “enabled detainees’ counsel to cause unrest on the base by informing detainees about terrorist attacks.”

The mail system was “misused” to inform detainees about military operations in Iraq, activities of terrorist leaders, efforts in the war on terror, the Hezbollah attack on Israel and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the department said in this month’s court filing.

“This is an astonishing and disingenuous assertion,” the association president, Barry M. Kamins, wrote Gonzales.

More at YahooNews

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This is so sad. These men did nothing, and they’ve lost everything… friends, family AND country. Why oh why can’t the people that brought this about, from Bush right on down to the lowly idiot that voted for and still believes in Bush,.. why can’t they be renditioned? I’m not talking long. Just a couple of years or so.

It all falls back on something I posted once before regarding sympathy (democrats consider everyone while republicans consider only themselves). Many republicans just do not have the capacity to feel true sympathy towards anyone except the closest of friends and family. To hell with anyone else! The few republicans that do have the capacity to care for others, are speaking out against this administration today.

MSNBC/Washingtonpost:

82 inmates cleared but still held at Guantanamo

U.S. cites difficulty deporting detainees

LONDON - More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.

Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.
[...]

‘Not their problem’
Compounding the problem are persistent refusals by the United States, its European allies and other countries to grant asylum to prisoners who are stateless or have no place to go.

“In general, most countries simply do not want to help,” said John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “Countries believe this is not their problem. They think they didn’t contribute to Guantanamo, and therefore they don’t have to be part of the solution.”

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Sunday Talk
* Meet the Press: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
* Face the Nation: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. John Murtha (D-PA); Politico’s Roger Simon.
* This Week: SoS Condi Rice; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI); Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS); actress Natalie Portman; roundtable of ABC’s Martha Raddatz, Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria and George Will.
* Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Cindy McCain; remembering ex-MPAA chief Jack Valenti.
* Late Edition: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL); Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA); Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari; European Commiss. Pres. Jose Manuel Barroso; a roundtable of Dana Bash, Joe Johns, and Ed Henry

TV Alerts
* Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am): NSC’s Dir. of Iraq policy Brett McGurk on 4/29
* Road to the WH (CSPAN, 6:30pm): Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-SC) annual Fish Fry on 4/29
* 60 Minutes: George Tenet on 4/29; Guns & Mentally ill on 4/29
* Political Capital w/ Al Hunt: discussions on the economy, Paul Wolfowitz’s struggle to survive at the World Bank, and U.S.-Russian relations on 4/27
* Chris Matthews Show 4/28-4/29: Jim Cramer, Katty Kay, Clarence Page, Anne Kornblut discuss “Democrats debate, and the President vetoes: Do Democrats now have the upper hand on national security credibility? Dow 13,000: Are we in a new gilded age with the greatest income divide since the Great Depression?” Quotes here
* Today Show: George Tenet on 4/30
* The View: Bill Bradley on 4/30
* LKL: George Tenet on 4/30
* Tavis Smiley: Gwen Ifill on 4/30
* The Daily Show: Christopher Hitchens on 4/30
* The Colbert Report: Bill Bradley on 4/30

Source: Newsie8200

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A new study from the University of Maryland shows that for young women, the effectiveness of the abstinence-only sexual education programs favored by the Bush administration pale in comparison to another approach: wearing granny panties.

Well, no, I made that up. But there’s some anecdotal evidence!

In honor of Little Miss Know-It-All’s political panties post, Blue Gal’s granny panty party graphic (one of many Blue Gal panty posts), Bridget Jones and the Blue Herald thong (not to mention the BH ads!) - and in honor of Hilzoy and HTML Mencken’s recent posts on a conservative blogger’s fear of the vagina - I offer the following.
Read more »

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Germany’s federal prosecutor announced she will not be proceeding with an investigation against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA Director George Tenet, and other high-ranking U.S. officials for torture and other war crimes committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantnamo, according to a press release obtained by RAW STORY.

“The 400-page complaint was filed on November 14, 2006, by Berlin attorney Wolfgang Kaleck on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Republican Attorneys’ Association (RAV), more than 40 other international and national human rights groups, 12 Iraqi citizens who were held in Abu Ghraib, and one Saudi citizen still held at Guantnamo,” the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) press release continues.

CCR president Michael Ratner told the Associated Press in a telephone call from New York, “If Germany is not willing to enforce their law we think other countries will be - we’re not going to leave a stone unturned.”

“It took 35 years to get (former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto) Pinochet and it won’t take that long with the Rumsfeld case,” Ratner added. “I think everyone recognizes that high-level U.S. officials ran a torture program around the world.”

Read more and follow the links provided by RAW STORY

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This weekend, Democrats are holding their State Democratic Convention in San Diego. Here are a few highlights from today’s festivities.

Wooing influential California Democrats, presidential contender Barack Obama vowed to “turn the page on this Iraq disaster” while Hillary Rodham Clinton denounced President Bush’s conduct of the war as “one of the darkest blots on leadership we’ve ever had.”

California, long a major cash source for candidates of both parties, is poised to become more influential in the electoral process as well, having moved its primary to next Feb. 5. As a result, the state Democratic weekend convention was expected to attract all the party’s major presidential contenders except Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, who was campaigning in South Carolina.

Saturday’s program featured appearances by front-runners Clinton and Obama, as well as Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Clinton unleashed an unusually personal critique of Bush, accusing his administration of ignoring scientific evidence about global warming and stem cell research and lying about the effects of toxic dust at the World Trade Center site.

Her voice hoarse from days of campaigning, Clinton brought the 2,000 delegates to their feet when she said she wished she could turn the clock back to a different time.

“Somebody said to me that he wished we could just rewind the 21st century and just eliminate the Bush-Cheney administration, with all their mistakes and misjudgments,” she said to cheers. “People are ready for leaders who understand it is our votes who put them in power, our tax dollars that pay the bills.”

Obama, who has made his early opposition to the Iraq conflict a central theme of his campaign, told delegates he was proud to have bucked popular opinion at the time. It was a subtle but direct jab at Clinton, who voted in 2002 to grant Bush authority to invade Iraq.

He also renewed his call for the political parties to find common ground where they could and declared it was time to “turn the page” on issues like health care, education and energy independence.

But he, like Clinton, also leveled a sharp critique of Bush, saying “the president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open.” And he characterized the administration’s foreign policy as “bluster and bombast.”

Obama and Clinton both called on Bush to sign legislation passed by Congress last week tying funding of the war to a timeline for removing troops. Bush has indicated he will veto the bill.

Read more at YAHOO!

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