By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - O.J. Simpson was charged Tuesday with seven felonies, including kidnapping, in the alleged armed robbery of sports memorabilia collectors in a casino-hotel room.

The fallen football star was arrested Sunday after a collector reported a group of armed men charged into his hotel room at a casino and took several items Simpson claimed belonged to him.

Simpson was booked on suspicion of assault and robbery with a deadly weapon. Clark County District Attorney David Roger filed those charges and added kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents.

Simpson, who was accused along with three other men, was also charged with one misdemeanor. He faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

He was being held without bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in the robbery reported at the Palace Station casino.

read more HERE

By KEVIN SITES

MIAMI - Ask Jason Atkins about the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, and his reaction is anger and disgust.

“I just thought, you know, [he's] gotta be the worst criminal I’ve ever seen,” he says.

Animal rights advocates might find that response surprising, because Atkins’s Web network, ToughSportsLive.com, features live cockfighting from Puerto Rico - which, while legal there, is banned now in all 50 U.S. states.

“Our ultimate goal is to be a cultural website,” Atkins says of the site. “To produce and show the world’s various cultural sporting events.” [...]

Atkins, an ex-Marine sniper and former insurance fraud investigator, says he doesn’t like hunting or fishing and isn’t even a fan of cockfighting, but feels people have a right to see it if they want to - and his company has a right to provide it.

Atkins says his Marine training taught him to take the fight to the enemy, so he has filed a pre-emptive suit on First Amendment grounds challenging the law, which has already been upheld in one federal case.

First Amendment grounds? O.K. Let’s go there for a moment:

from The United States Constitution: The Bill of Rights

Now, Mr. Atkins, Mr. Ex-Marine sniper with waaay too much testosterone and small weenie. Please tell me how outlawing the transmission of cockfighting on the Internet(s) denies your right of “Freedom Of Speech”. As clearly outlined in the Constitution of The United States of America, “Freedom Of Speech” gives you the right to speak freely against the Government (unless, of course, it’s the Crime Family Administration/ Bush-Cheney).

So shut up and find some other way to make an easy buck while you wax nostalgic about your days as a sniper while you “polish your helmet”. -JS

Before moving back home to KY, I owned an end unit condo in Knoxville, TN. The parking was directly in front of the unit and, to the side, was a row of thick, tall firs. Absolutely beautiful, except they also were home to pigeons. I couldn’t tell you the number of evenings, even during winter time, I’d go out and spray water up into the trees to run these birds off. If I didn’t, the next morning, my car would be completely covered up. Seriously!

Before moving, the homeowners association decided the only thing to do was to cut the trees down. Well, they did. And it ruined the look of my home.

I never hated a bird up until then.

Foul Play?

Officials investigating the deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse are looking at an unlikely culprit: pigeons.

Could pigeons have played a role in the Minnesota catastrophe?

Aug. 25, 2007 - Of all the possible causes of the deadly collapse of Minnesota’s Interstate 35W bridge earlier this month-uneven traffic patterns, de-icing salts, faulty construction-the latest is the most surprising: Pigeons. Or more precisely, the waste the birds leave behind. “Pigeon dung can be a serious issue-it’s acidic and will easily eat away almost any metal,” explains engineer William Schutt, president of Matcor, a corrosion-protection firm in Doylestown, Pa. “It can wash into and then rust the bolts and rivets of bridges if they-re not cleaned and checked properly.”

The build-up of pigeon excrement on the I-35W bridge was substantial enough to be noted in several Minnesota Department of Transportation inspections over the years, pointing to the steel box sections of the bridge as a popular nesting spot. Those sections are crucial to supporting the structure, and in 1999 bridge workers placed plastic screens over openings in the beams in an effort to repel the birds. But the dung continued to pile up. A 2006 inspection of the bridge still reported “severe pigeon debris” on its steel deck truss.

Eve Conant, Newsweek

Source: MSNBC.com

Hey Leahy….enough with the threats. They don’t give a crap. Like Nike says…..JUST DO IT!!!

A top Senate Democrat on Monday threatened to hold members of the Bush administration in contempt for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for President Bush’s secretive eavesdropping program.

“When the Senate comes back in the session, I’ll bring it up before the committee,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I prefer cooperation to contempt. Right now, there’s no question that they are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress.”

Leahy’s committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency’s legal justification for the wiretapping program.

More at the Associated Press

The Bush administration has decided to expand the government’s use of information from U.S. spy satellites for homeland security and domestic law-enforcement purposes. Officials say the change is intended primarily to help them monitor the borders and coastal areas. But it is also raising some serious privacy concerns.

For more than 30 years, domestic agencies have had access to images gathered by U.S. spy satellites. But for the most part, the information has been used for scientific research or to monitor things such as hurricanes and volcanic activity.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, intelligence officials have talked about how that information might also be used to help tighten domestic security. Three months ago, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell authorized his department to make it easier for civilian agencies and law enforcement to access the spy satellite network.

More at NPR

By ANAHAD O-CONNOR and WILLIAM NEUMAN
The New York Times

This is extremely absurd as well as obscene. Let New York finance their own traffic problem solving. Fagetaboutit. - JS

The United States Department of Transportation announced today that it has allocated $354 million to help Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg finance his plan to reduce traffic in Manhattan by charging tolls to drivers entering the busiest parts of the borough.

The announcement, by Mary E. Peters, the secretary of transportation, is a major lift for the mayor, and is likely to increase pressure on legislative leaders who have balked at the plan to let the city move forward. Ms. Peters said that the city would receive $1.6 million initially, but that the State Legislature must assent to the plan within 90 days of convening - roughly by the end of March 2008 -before the city can receive the balance.

“If the city does not have the legal authority to move forward at that time, it will not receive the money,” Ms. Peters said.

The State Legislature has created a 17-member commission that it asked to evaluate the mayor’s congestion pricing plan and make recommendations. The $354 million that the federal government has allocated falls short of the $536 million that Mr. Bloomberg requested, but exceeds the $200 million that the Legislature set as a minimum commitment from the federal government for its commission to proceed.

Ms. Peters said that so long as the commission approves a traffic plan that meets the same “performance objectives” as the mayor’s original plan, the city would receive the balance of the money. At a news conference this morning, Ms. Peters said that the federal government supported Mayor Bloomberg’s plan because it was “as brass and bold as New York City itself.”

read more HERE

HAD ENOUGH?
4th of July Bush ENOUGH!

(Image courtesy of Daily Kos commenter, Timothy L. Smith)

Bush has nominated another religious whacko as Surgeon General. Do these people even read the bible??? I think not……not the one I have, anyway!

An editorial from the Washington Post:

A Questionable Nominee
A prospective surgeon general’s 1991 paper on gay men haunts him in 2007, and deservedly so.

PRESIDENT BUSH has nominated Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. to be the next surgeon general of the United States. His would be the leading voice on health issues in the nation, and as such, he would be looked to for unbiased information grounded in sound science and tailored to the common good. That’s why a 1991 paper written by Dr. Holsinger titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” has raised red flags.

Dr. Holsinger has had a distinguished care2er. From 1969 to 1994 he worked in the Department of Veterans Affairs, rising to undersecretary for health in 1992. From 1994 to 2003, Dr. Holsinger was chancellor of the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He was appointed by Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) in 2003 as Kentucky’s chief of health and family services, a post he held until December 2005 when he returned to the University of Kentucky. But his activity in the United Methodist Church has earned him the ire of gay groups across the country.

As a member of the church’s Judicial Council, Dr. Holsinger voted with the majority to boot a lesbian from her post as a minister and to allow ministers to deny church membership to gay men and lesbians. It is not our place to tell religions what their beliefs should or should not be. But that stricture does not apply when bigotry masquerades as science. Dr. Holsinger prepared “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” for the Committee to Study Homosexuality of the United Methodist Church, which was discussing whether to end the church’s stance of not condoning homosexuality. Pathophysiology was defined as “abnormal function.”

The six pages of prurient fascination with what Dr. Holsinger believes is gay sex paint all gay men as promiscuous beings who are riddled with disease because of various sex acts (described in detail) that are in the extreme for both homosexuals and heterosexuals. To prove his argument that gay sex was unhealthy and unnatural, Dr. Holsinger wrote, “In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other.” Is he a doctor or the ACE Hardware man?

Christina Pearson, spokeswoman at the Department of Health and Human Services, said, “Dr. Holsinger remains focused on addressing the health of all in need, including gay and lesbian populations, consistent with sound science and the best medical practices.” Senators who will meet with Dr. Holsinger when he makes the rounds on Capitol Hill this month need to determine — at a minimum — whether his judgment of sound science and best medical practices has improved since 1991.

This is such crap. If she was sick, send her to the infirmary, like any other inmate. Division of classes……wider and wider.

LOS ANGELES - Paris Hilton was released from a Los Angeles County jail early Thursday because of an unspecified medical problem and will fulfill the reminder of her sentence in home confinement, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The 26-year-old hotel heiress was sent home shortly after 2 a.m. fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. She had spent five days at the Century Regional Detention Facility in suburban Los Angeles for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.

“I can-t specifically talk about the medical situation other than to say that, yes, it played a part in this,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

More at MSNBC

This administration hate civil liberties.

The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed “potentially problematic” intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post.

One of the panel’s five members, Democrat Lanny J. Davis, resigned in protest Monday over deletions ordered by White House lawyers and aides. The changes came after the congressionally created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had unanimously approved the final draft of its first report to lawmakers, renewing an internal debate over the board’s independence and investigative power.

Some of the changes sought by the administration ultimately were reversed, and some members of the panel said they were not opposed to the others.

But one section deleted by the administration would have divulged that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s civil liberties protection officer had “conducted reviews of the potentially problematic programs and has established procedures” for intelligence officials to file complaints about possible civil liberties and privacy abuses.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A 10th Mountain Division soldier facing a bad conduct discharge for going AWOL says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is being court martialed because he went home for help after the Army failed to provide him with adequate treatment.

“They don’t want the liability so they deny I have a problem, and because I tried to help myself, now they want to make me a criminal,” Spc. Eugene Cherry said in a telephone interview from Fort Drum, where he is restricted to post pending a court martial.

Cherry served as a combat medic in Iraq for a year with the division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, returning to Fort Drum in June 2005. That November, he took an unauthorized leave from the Army, returning to his native Chicago to live with his mother and find mental health treatment.

“This is not a borderline case. There is no question about his diagnosis,” said Dr. Hannah Frisch, a clinical psychologist who diagnosed Cherry with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.

Frisch prepared a six-page report on Cherry’s condition. She hoped to meet Monday with Cherry’s commanders and post mental health officials to discuss his case.

Frisch said Cherry needed intensive, individualized psychotherapy, not just drugs, to treat his condition.

“Here’s a young man, a combat veteran who has clearly sacrificed a great deal for his country. It appalls me that they are treating him like a criminal when he needs mental help,” said Frisch, who said she has treated other soldiers but never before taken such an advocacy role on a soldier’s behalf.

More at Newsday

At what point might impeachment be on the table? Just askin…….

White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.

The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable.

Read more at the Washington Post

This was not just a racial slur. It was degrading to all women. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is calling for him to be fired, also. You can go here to join in their call to dump him. I have to say, his apology isn’t enough. I don’t know that a two week suspension is enough. Someone today called him a “serial apologist.” At some point, it’s just not enough. Did he apologize the day after he said it? No. The next day? No. I don’t believe he apologized until the public uproar really sunk in and he knew his ass was grass.

The I-Man has been shelved.

Both CBS and NBC Monday slapped a two-week suspension on Don Imus‘ popular program amid a gathering chorus of calls for his resignation or firing in the wake of the now-notorious comment about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

“Due to the events of the past week, CBS Radio will suspend Don Imus and the broadcast of his show for a period of two weeks, effective Monday, April 16,” according to a terse statement released late Monday by the radio broadcaster that owns “Imus in the Morning.” The CBS announcement came a little less than an hour after NBC’s — which was effectively rendered redundant when CBS pulled the plug.

Indeed, NBC tried to get out in front of the fast-growing controversy by announcing the suspension on its highest-profile broadcast, “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” which opened Monday night’s program with its own announcement.

Both broadcast giants Monday suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs of increasingly vocal critics who were calling for Imus’ resignation, including among the harshest the New York State NAACP and the New York Chapter of the Coalition of One Hundred Black Women, which will stage a rally Tuesday morning at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to demand his firing.

“We want to make sure he’s no longer on the air,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the New York State NAACP said in a phone interview Monday before the suspensions had been announced. “He’s outlived his usefulness.”

She added that Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, will request a meeting with the presidents of both NBC and CBS. MSNBC simulcasts his CBS-owned radio show, “Imus in the Morning,” which originates from WFAN’s studios in Astoria.

In its statement, NBC said Imus’ program was pulled “after careful consideration in the days since his racist, abhorrent comments were made. Don Imus has expressed profound regret and embarrassment and has made a commitment to listen to all of those who have raised legitimate expressions of outrage,” while adding that “our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word.”

Read more at Newsday

and it is ill-equipped to do so And why, after going on 5 years, are we ill equipped? Why?
From the Washington Post:

About 1,800 U.S. troops, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, are now suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) caused by penetrating wounds. But neurologists worry that hundreds of thousands more — at least 30 percent of the troops who’ve engaged in active combat for four months or longer in Iraq and Afghanistan — are at risk of potentially disabling neurological disorders from the blast waves of IEDs and mortars, all without suffering a scratch.

For the first time, the U.S. military is treating more head injuries than chest or abdominal wounds, and it is ill-equipped to do so. According to a July 2005 estimate from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, two-thirds of all soldiers wounded in Iraq who don’t immediately return to duty have traumatic brain injuries.

Here’s why IEDS carry such hidden danger. The detonation of any powerful explosive generates a blast wave of high pressure that spreads out at 1,600 feet per second from the point of explosion and travels hundreds of yards. The lethal blast wave is a two-part assault that rattles the brain against the skull. The initial shock wave of very high pressure is followed closely by the “secondary wind”: a huge volume of displaced air flooding back into the area, again under high pressure. No helmet or armor can defend against such a massive wave front.

A couple questions about King Georgie’s speech today:

It has now been 57 days since I requested that Congress pass emergency funds for our troops.

Why, after over 4 years, is he still requesting “emergency funds?” What happen to him budgeting for his war on terror??? Why has congress allowed him to keep this up? Because this way, there’s no accountability.

The only way the Democrats were able to pass their bill in the first place was to load the bill with pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war.

Has a single bill EVER passed that wasn’t full of pork??? I love the way he acts like pork has never been loaded in a bill prior to this one. The Republicans never did this, eh? Not that two wrongs make a right……..but give up the holier than thou shit already.

And now they have left Washington for spring recess without finishing the work.

Do we want to talk about what the Republicans didn’t finish before they left the 109th congress?

Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq.

Wait……was it the Democrats who went to war with the “army they had, not the army they wanted?” Was it the Democrats who have fucked our soldiers and veterans every step of the way and then all they have to say for it is……”my bad….mistakes made.”

If Democrat leaders in Congress are bent on making a political statement, then they need to send me this unacceptable bill as quickly as possible when they come back.

The statement they are making is one of the people you asshole. 70% of us. They are doing what we told them we wanted them to do. Next step…..NO funding for the war.

If Congress fails to act in the next few weeks it will have significant consequences for our men and women in the armed forces.

EVERYthing YOU have done, or failed to do, regarding Iraq has had significant NEGATIVE consequences for our men and women in uniform.

In a time of war

This is not a fucking war. War was never declared. The words “war on terror” don’t make this a war. They make it an occupation. Period. You want war, then vote on it and fucking declare it…..if you can.

Members of Congress say they support the troops. Now they need to show that support in deed as well as in word.

I believe he was talking to the Republican members of congress here. Don’t you?

Full text of speech here