“Deed I Do”

Bria Skonberg/Trumpet, Simon Stribling/Saxaphone, Jack Wadsworth/Bass Saxaphone, Karl Walterskirchen/Banjo, John Boland/Clarinet, and “WHATS HIS NAME”/Piano

Because I’m very shortly out the door (or just lazy), rather than cross-posting these, here’s a Hollywood trio over at VS: A Toast to the Writers, an Oscar Dress Quiz and the Oscar Drinking Game, 2008 Edition. Enjoy!

From the AP:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi’s former partners $4.5 million.

INN World Report does a report on Sibel Edmonds story.

Video on the GOP website, “FISA 2008: AMERICA AT RISK,” Via the Atlantic:

Why not just use the music from JAWS!

There’s long lines, so fuck it……we just won’t check for guns so we can speed up the lines.
From Editor & Publisher:

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported late Thursday that security details at Barack Obama’s rally in Dallas (of all places) on Wednesday “stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

“The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security,” reported the paper’s Jack Douglas, Jr. More than 10 days remain until the Texas primary and a key vote for president.

“Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on. ‘”Sure,’ said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a ‘friendly crowd.’”

The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

What’s wrong with this picture?

A small propeller airplane stenciled with the words “Iraqi Air Force” caused some commotion when it landed on a road near the rural Highlands County community of Sebring.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna C-172 had mechanical problems before landing on a rural road north of Lake Okeechobee yesterday evening.

Local sheriff’s deputies surrounded the aircraft and stopped journalists from photographing it. The plane’s markings were covered.

Turns out there was no need to panic - it was only a training aircraft built for the Iraqi military being taken from the Tampa area to Miami for shipment.

Air Force officials say the four’seater was part of a contract awarded to Cessna Aircraft Company for 18 aircraft for Iraq.

The aircraft are shipped from Miami to Iraq aboard Air Force transport planes.

The FAA is investigating.

Source

Yes, let’s not figure out how to HELP these people, let’s just figure out how to get the hell rid of them…..because, you know, when people spend $100. for lunch they don’t want to have to see homeless people.

As homeless people were waking up on the stairwells and parks of Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, some of downtown’s most powerful business and community leaders were in a meeting fretting about how to get rid of them.

Downtown has blossomed in the past five years into a city center with more than a dozen new luxury condo towers, a robust retail and restaurant economy on Las Olas Boulevard, and a jampacked bar district on Southwest Second Street, but the urban core also attracts more homeless people than any other city in Broward County.

According to CEOs and others at Thursday’s power broker meeting, the homeless are overrunning downtown like never before.

More at the Sun Sentinel