Chief Justice Roberts in the Hospital: Updated

Get well quickly, Mr. Roberts. And please retire in 2009.

That's all.

Wo - a seizure. No fun. He apparently had one in 1993 as well.

Best of health, again.

An Email to Mark Steyn

At the The Corner:

Mr. Steyn

I don't get you. You posted about a guy who admitted to burning a Koran - as "art" - and then about a guy who stole two Korans and put them in toilets, and was much later caught and arrested [First link.]. You then say:

"Obviously Mr Shmulevich should have submerged it in his own urine, applied for an NEA grant and offered it to the Whitney Biennial."

And you add a link to LGF.

It's not clear what you're saying. You seem to be in agreement with LGF. They and their commenters are repeatedly writing about how putting a cross or a bible in urine - as "art" - is okay, so there's some sort of grand hypocrisy here. But your post about the burnt Koran (that guy wasn't arrested) seems to show that that argument is silly. Yet you make that statement, and give the link?

???

Sincerely,

Thom (Someone who thinks you're a loon, but reads you now and then anyway.)

Songs for the iPod

Haven't been to CDBaby yet? You can get LT songs by the CD, or by the digital song (for as low as .89¢ apiece) at any of the numerous links - to iTunes, for example - located at the LT CDBaby site.

Thanks. That's all.

Bush Admin. Subpoenas Michael Moore

No matter who you love, like, or hate in this story, this seems like a loser all around for the White House.

UPDATE: Hey - Moore may not have to appear. Isn't there a precedent for ignoring subpoenas?

Condom Fashion Show

Because you only get to say that a few hundred times in your life. (From this guy.)

Jon Swift Eats Some Children

Well, at least it was some of the dumber ones. (Via TBogg.)

I don't want this to be true

I just don't.

Twenty-five hits on Google News. That's not many, but it includes the originator of the story, ABC News, as well as the Denver Post, Forbes, and a lot of not-so-small market TV sites.

This is a hard one to stomach.

Ultra-Right Wing SWANK

Unintended porn from Right Wing thing Human Events.

MadamGate Heading to Ohio?

Check there or check back here as the updates or non-updates come in.

It couldn't be Boehner, could it?

Vitter Wants to "Rebrand" his Grand Old Prostitution Party

This is really rich:

So just imagine their confusion when Vitter scrambled to his feet a week later. Would he apologize again? Had he committed some new sin?

But no. Instead, he launched into a speech about his thoughts on “rebranding” the party by reclaiming the fiscal conservative mantle.

HOOOOOOOOOOT!

"Let's get away from that whole 'family values' and 'morality' thing and go back to 'fiscally conservative.' I'll show 'em how I saved almost 50% by calling Pro... well, just a pro.

More Tony Snow Hackerism

The Carptebagger takes on Snow's pathetics from yesterday:

As for Snow’s belief that “assailing” executive privilege has “never been done in American history,” I’m not an expert, but as I recall, Nixon made the same claim — and things didn’t work out too well for him.

Tony Snow Lectures on the "Craft of Journalism"

Former FOX News hack and current FOX News White House hack Tony Snow redlines the farce machine.

Yeah, it's Les Kinsolving, but still - it's funny. And sick.

"Cat 'Predicts Patient Deaths'"

From the BBC:

Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.

Bush Bloggers to Join FBI Snitch Program

Via TPM's Justin Rood:

The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.

According to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Expect every Right Wing war blogger from Michelle Malkin to Ace of Spades to Hugh Hewitt to Instapundit to (take your pick) to sign up for their dream job: Informing on Americans (which they will then say counts for service on the "front lines" in the GWHAT?® and thereby allows them to never ever be called "Chickenhawks" again).

Expect also the FBI to quickly scuttle the program when they are daily besieged with "tips" from their enthusiastic blog-friends, such as:

Dear Handler

This totally unhinged dude on Daily Terrorist (Kos) just wrote that Donald Rumsfeld should be tried for war crimes. That's TREASON: T-R-E-A-S-O-N treason!

Sincerely,

American Hero

P.S. I'll take pictures of his arrest and post them on my blog if you send me a plane ticket voucher and a note to get out of work.

P.P.S. Do I get a badge now?

Chief Cheney Hawk/Aide Resigns

Via Huffington Post.

I wonder if he's gonna get Palfreyed.

AJ in Amercablog Out of the Closet

Quite the impressive bio.

Last spring, I left the Defense Intelligence Agency (essentially the spy arm of the Department of Defense) where I was an Intelligence Officer for the Iraq office. I joined DIA wanting to contribute to the defense and security of my country, and I left convinced that the system -- and especially the Iraq office -- was politicized and manipulated to such a degree that we were doing more harm than good. When I resigned, I wanted to put to use my experience both in the field in Iraq and at the Pentagon to help advance reality-based security and foreign policies, and John was kind enough to offer me a place here to do just that.

In my establishment life, I’m a Fellow at the National Security Network, a fantastic organization run by Rand Beers, a former Marine and 35 year veteran of the civil service who resigned from the National Security Council just days before we invaded Iraq.

Thriller Update

Joe, in the comments, sends an update of the Filipino Prison Thriller Production. Thanks, Joe.

Update on Gov. Don Siegelman Case

From Dana Jill Simpson via Scott Horton at Harper's Magazine. More here.

Thriller: In a Filipino Prison

Very bizarre and cool. Michael Jackson's Thriller done by prisoners in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu City, Philippines. From this place.

The Man Who Was Murdered

The story of the Marine who got away has gotten a lot of play - a really lot of play - since it came out yesterday.

Military judges at Camp Pendleton have decided that a 25-year-old Marine convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi man will not serve jail time. Instead, a three-judge panel gave Cpl. Trent Thomas of Madison, Ill., a bad-conduct discharge and busted him to private.

"Conspiring to murder." They did murder, and Thomas admitted that, and admitted that he knew that he had helped murder a man he knew to be innocent.

But I don't feel like giving him or his "punishment" much thought right now.

What's been bugging me about all these stories is that you hardly get a sense of the human on the other side of the equation: the man who was pulled from his home in the middle of the night - in his bathrobe - marched a half a mile while he repeatedly asked them, "Why mister, why?", thrown into a ditch, and shot at least three times in the face, and then several more times in the chest. The seven Marines and one Navy corpsman then left him with an AK-47 and a shovel by his side, both of which they had stolen earlier from his cousin's house. The group later said, as they had all planned beforehand, that they had come across the man digging a hole for a bomb, and killed him only after he shot at them.

The man they killed was a 52-year-old named Hashim. He was, by all accounts, a small man, and disabled, and he had poor eyesight. He was known in his village as "Hasim the Lame," because he had a rod in his leg, put there to repair a wound suffered in a farming accident some 15 years earlier. His family - his wife, his eleven children, at least two of his brothers and their families - were home when he was taken. They later heard gunshots, but wouldn't know until the next day, when a brother was asked to identify a body - which he at first couldn't identify because the face was so badly mutilated - that he had been killed.

His full name was Hashim Ibrahim Awad.




Buy a Song for a Song!

No tips taken here at the LTB, just songs for sale - and they cost so little!

Check 'em out (and lots of others, of course) at PayPlay.FM. It's appreciated, and I think you'll find a song or three to appreciate too.

They even have a nifty player. It's too big for the column - but oh well.

Little Thom


Thanks much,

LT

Christian Extremist Goes on the Lam

If you think "Christian extremist" is over the top, take a look at this piece of work. This guy has issued death threats to several biology professors at the University of Colorado, Boulder…because they teach evolution.

Police have identified the man as one Michael Korn, but he has apparently disappeared. (Korn has a blog: JesusOverIsrael.)

But the Wired Science blog has apparently been in contact with him.

Indians Elect First Female President

Someday we'll join the grownups.

Quiz: Who was the first female leader of a modern democracy, and in what year was she elected?

Expand post for answer.

Siramavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) became the world's first female Prime Minister in 1960.

Ex-Gonzales #2: Make Fitzgerald Atty General

How much of a kick in the nads is that? Former Deputy U.S. Attorney General James B. Comey served from 2003 until 2005, under AG Gonzales and John Ashcroft, and is now with defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation. This is a Republican, appointed to U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2002, and then to Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department - by President Bush.

And he thinks Pat Fitzgerald should replace Alberto Gonzales.

Republican "Christian Activist" Busted for Prostitution

He's the president of the Christian Action League. Hey - they didn't mean that kind of action.

Ba da BOOM.

Here's their stand(s) on gay marriage.

Man Fires on "Iraqis"...in Florida

I wonder if he's a Michelle Malkin reader.

He fired "10 to 12 rounds" into a house, later telling police he thought he saw "Iraq people" running through the yard. The article doesn't say whether or not "Iraq people" live in the house.

Support Who the Troops Support

Among second quarter presidential campaign donations from the "Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, Coast Guard and any military veterans," a whopping 50% went to two anti-war candidates, Ron Paul and Barack Obama, with Paul edging Obama by 2%. John McCain was third with 18%.

Third was Hillary Clinton with 11%, and the next Republican was Mitt Romney - with 4%.

That's gotta tell you something.

Rudy G.: We're at War with Pakistan

Don't tell the Pakistanis, I mean given that they're our allies and everything. That and much more over there.

White House to Congress: Bring it On

We are truly in bizarro land.


Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

"Never." Wow.

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

.

Strange move. It really does seem like another "Bring it on" move from Bush. Given his and his administration's level of support right now (and for the last few years), it doesn't seem like the brightest move. And they defended the stance by pointing to a similar conflict in 1984 - a conflict that administration effectively lost, if not in the courts then by the turning over of the documents that Congress had demanded. How can they expect to win this?

Waxman added: "I suppose the next step would be just disbanding the Justice Department."

Well, there's always that.




Bonds Will Retire

Barry Bonds hit 2 HRs yesterday, bringing him to a total of 753. Damn, that's a lot of home runs.

Here's my breaking news on this: Barry Bonds will retire from baseball when he gets to 754 home runs, just one shy of Henry Aaron, so Hammerin' Hank can keep the cherished all time record. Bonds will round the bases with a smile on his face, tip his hat to the crowd, and, even if it's still the first inning, he will walk through the dugout, through the locker room, out the back door, and out of active professional baseball forever.

This will obliterate any questions about Bonds regarding "cheating" via steroids, and will actually make him one of baseball's most loved characters of all time.

Way to go, Barry. Way to go.

Plame Civil Case Tossed

From CNN:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by outed spy Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband against Vice President Dick Cheney and other top Bush administration officials.

A judge threw out the lawsuit by ex-spy Valerie Plame Wilson and husband Joseph Wilson.

Plame had accused members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity.

U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that the lawsuit raises "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials" -- but in a 41-page decision, Bates found the Wilsons failed to show the case belongs in federal court.

"Important questions"...left unanswered.

Dismissed on "jurisdictional grounds".

WaPo version quite different from the others. How do you go from the AP version: "U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments" to this:

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and White House aides cannot be held liable for the disclosure of information about Plame in the summer of 2003 while they were trying to rebut criticism of the administration's war efforts levied by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were certainly part of the officials' scope of normal duties.

Bizarro.

Judge's decision here (pdf).

Sen. Vitter and the Diapered Astronaut?

Unconfirmed Sources does the Hustle.

Samuel Lipari, Medical Supply Chain Update

Got an email from Samuel Lipari with a link to his latest press release. It's complicated, but relates to Lipari's lawsuit(s) against General Electric, that suit regarding Novation LLC. For background info, enter "Lipari" into the "Search this blog" feature in the right-hand column.

I'll try to get more later.

P.S. I'll never understand how this story didn't get more press.

Kiwi PMs Lose Their Mind

Good godamighty, use of images of politicians for satire illegal? And this is from the ruling Labour party?

Both Alaskan GOP Senators Being Investigated?

TPM Muckraker has lots of info on a questionable land deal between Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Bob Penney, a business partner of Alaska's other senator, Ted Stevens, who is currently being investigated by the FBI.

And more from the Anchorage Daily News, with the price the land sold for, $179,400. Anonymous real estate agents in Soldotna told TPM Muckraker the land was worth about$300,000.

Fred Thompson's Abortions

TPM Election Central to the NYTimes on the Republican baby killer.

Roger Ailes has more.

Maliki Says We Can Go

Does the fact that the Iraqi Prime Minister says we can leave and they'll be fine put an end to all the talk of how we have to stay because of the mess it'll be if we leave?

Shouldn't it?

It would at least put an end to the losing the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

The "Read More" Function: KOSOVO - You find the function?

The "Read More" function that allows me to compress longer posts seems to have malfunctioned and now shows up on all posts whether there's more or not. Ignore it unless it seems the post has more to say.

Rupert Murdoch's Pot Plants

This is a hoot.

Monterey Sheriff’s Deputies pulled-up thousands of pot plants from a ranch in Carmel Valley owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Nearly thirty four hundred plants were found in two gardens along the banks of a creek. The remote property is part of a ranch belonging to Murdoch who owns the FOX Network and My-Space-Dot-Com among other things.

Will Murdoch be arrested for possession? Possession is 9/10 of the law, right?

Little Stevie Orbit

Or Steve Forbert, if you like. You might know him from the song Romeo's Tune.

Michael Moore Writes a Letter

To CNN, with love.

Executive Privilege: The Pat Tillman Docs

Hot off the wire at Raw Story. The WaPo has it too.

Those would be docs showing whether Bush knew about the cause of Tillman's death earlier than he said, I'm guessing,

Al-Qaeda Bakes Little Boys [Updated]

And feeds them to their families. This from WingNutDaily and Michael Yon, who Hugh Hewitt had on his radio show. And Power Line goes along for the blood libel ride.

Al Qaeda: It's the new Jew.

Yon tries to backpedal from it on the July 12 Hugh Hewitt show - "...there’s no proof, and I haven’t been trying to get proof of that. That’s just Iraqis talking," he says - but this is what he wrote on his Web site on July 5:

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

No proof... just Iraqis talking... But I'm going to post it with next to no qualification on my blog, because that's how blood libel works the best.

And he doesn't provide us with who these "Al Qaeda" boy-bakers are: are they Iraqis? Saudis? Pakistanis? I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? There can be no mistaking that they're brown, Arab-ish people, and that's really all that matters.

UPDATE: Yon updated his story when he heard that people were misusing, if that's the right word, what he wrote. (His point about the chicken crossing the road is worth the read, and understandable.) This is according to a representative of his, who just sent me an email. Yon states in the update that he was simply writing what someone had told him. Fine. He stated it as a fact in the story, but he didn't mean to and updated it. It is unfortunately being used by Right Wing bloggers for their own purposes.

Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) Next in Hookergate?

He seems to say it's possible (here also):

“All of us have to look at it and say that we could be next,” he said in answer to a Vitter question. “We all think that we’re not vulnerable to something like that happening, but the fact is this can be a very lonely and isolating place.”

Did he just give his wife a warning shot from a safe distance? Oy.

Tony Blair to War Crimes Trial Tomorrow

At least in this BBC radio play.

Brilliant!

Friday Roundabout

Douglas Adams: Is there an artificial god?

• Word judge declares mistrial in R-A-P-E case.

• Internet radio is dead?

• Mormom church must release financial records.

• "Remove the one millimeter penis!"

• "Except for a tragic accident, the parade went off without a hitch".

• India to require pregnancy registration to fight female foeticide.

• Got an early release of An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England. It's a good one. No - a special one. Or something. It's due out in September.

Higher Crimes

How high can they go? Josh Marshall, from someone who "knows his stuff":

Invoking a privilege is one thing, but telling a person not to show up in response to a subpoena -- if only to actually invoke the privilege -- is quite another. It's not just worse, it's a felony under federal criminal law. See for yourself.

Does Bush, or Cheney, have to strangle someone on live TV for Congress to act? You can only think that the answer is "Uh, yeah."

Nobody Named "Johnson" Allowed in the U.S.

This guy says all "Muslim doctors" should be "suspended" from entering the U.S., since some Muslim doctors appear to have been involved in terrorist activity in the UK.

He's right, gosh darn it.

And since 247 people named "Johnson" have been arrested in the U.S. since June, for a multitude of crimes that include rape and murder, which are terrible crimes that should terrify the hell out of anyone, we should also suspend anyone named Johnson from entering the U.S.

That goes for all the Smiths too.

"A Debased, Sad Fantasy"

One (former) Republican on the urge to hurl his typewriter through someone's front window.

Do Jehovah's Witnesses Convert People?

This one hasn't done so well.

After decades of door-to-door proselytizing, Sybil Lovelace can count five people -- only five!? -- she's led to Bible study, which led to baptism. Time for her to brush up on her sales skills (or just retire).

Loaded Orygun

If you haven't heard of Loaded Orygun, especially if you're an Oregonian, get on over there and get yourself filled up with all the latest on the political goings on, and just cool stuff in general, regarding our great state.

Henry Rollins: Mmmmm-peachment

Teaser Update: I'll be getting a set of phone records... in the mail any day now. Check back to see if my mad researching skillz dig anything up (though I'll have to check with headquarters to see if I can publish anything).

Pink Pistol-Packing Lesbian Killer Gangs

No, it's not coming to a cinema near you soon, it was on The O'Reilly Factor. So you know it's true.