ORACULATIONS

Duke lacrosse players rape poor black woman....not. I post the news article below that is now impossible to get to on line. It's from the Herald Sun in Durham.....

Mar 31, 2006 : 2:20 pm ET

DURHAM -- Two Durham police officers were investigating a reported disturbance at a Duke lacrosse party just 16 minutes before the alleged victim of a gang-rape there showed up at a grocery store more than 2 miles away to call for help.

But police found nothing at the scene, a police spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, the district attorney began downplaying a link between the results of DNA tests that are expected as early as next week and any possible charges. He also said the DNA test results might not be made public when they return from the state forensics lab.

The lacrosse players and their attorneys have said the test results would prove the rape allegations are false. Police, applying for a court order compelling the DNA samples from 46 players, said the tests would "show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are in the alleged violent attack upon this victim."

Police arrived at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. just two minutes after a woman called 911 to report she and her black friend had been verbally accosted by men outside the house yelling a racial slur early on March 14, according to computer dispatch records.

"Officers responded to the call at 610 N. Buchanan within a minute of the dispatch. The complainant was not on the scene and no one seemed to be at the house, according to the officers, so they cleared the scene after checking the area for several minutes," said police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.

The dispatch records show officers were on the scene for more than 11 minutes.

"Where are all these white guys raising hell?" asked an incredulous James D. "Butch" Williams, who represents a lacrosse captain who lived at the house and voluntarily submitted to a DNA test shortly after one of two exotic dancers hired to entertain at the party said she was raped, sodomized and beaten by three white men there. "When the people start digging the least little bit, they're gong to find out things don't make sense."

Williams attended a news conference in Raleigh on Thursday with three other attorneys representing the 46 lacrosse players who gave DNA samples to investigators. None of the players has been charged.

"We believe that the DNA will show that it is not true. We believe that a full and complete and fair investigation will show that it is not true," said attorney Joe Cheshire of Raleigh.

Cheshire said Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and police have created a mob mentality that has tainted the men "before the evidence has all come out in a way that they will never recover." Vigils and protests, newspaper letters to the editor and local blogs all have been harshly critical of the players, whose season has been suspended.

But Williams questioned the strength of the evidence. He implied Thursday that the 911 calls might have been a scam and that the entire incident was staged.

In her call reporting the racial slur, the unidentified woman offered different versions of the incident. She variously said she had driven by the house, had walked by the house and was sitting in front of the house at the time she was talking to the 911 dispatcher. She initially said one male near the Duke wall hurled the racial epithet, and later said a group of people came out of 610 N. Buchanan yelling at her and her friend. The wall and the house are on opposite sides of a dimly lit street.

"There are a number of discrepancies that point toward a contrived situation -- maybe," said Williams.

The attorney said he didn't know why anyone might perpetrate such a potential hoax.

"I can't speak to speculation," he added. "But once you tell one lie, you've got to tell another and another and another. You're caught up in a web of lies."

According to official police logs obtained by The Herald-Sun, the first 911 call was received at 12:53. a.m. on March 14, and the first officer arrived at 610 N. Buchanan at 12:55 a.m. A second unit responded, and both departed by 1:06 a.m.

The second 911 call, from the Kroger store on Hillsborough Road, initially was dispatched as an intoxicated person but later was changed to a rape case allegedly involving those at the lacrosse party. The call was placed at 1:22 a.m., 27 minutes after the police arrived to investigate the first 911 call and 16 minutes after they left the scene. The Kroger store is 2.3 miles from 610 N. Buchanan.

The second caller later told police that she had found the victim walking on North Buchanan and then drove her to the store to get help.

Williams, who has a private investigator working on the case, noted that the Police Department is closer -- nine-tenths of a mile away -- than the Kroger store and wondered why the victim would have been driven to a grocery store farther away.

Michael, the police spokeswoman, was quoted in a published report saying the woman who drove to the Kroger store was the second exotic dancer hired by the lacrosse players. Earlier Michael told The Herald-Sun the driver was not the second dancer.

Nifong had no comment Thursday on defense attorneys' claims of inconsistencies in the first 911 call, nor on the proximity of times between the first and second 911 calls and the police response.

Several emailers have asked why existing Air Bus customers just don't walk away and buy Boeing; why ask Air Bus to change designs? The answer appears to be in the parts required to maintain their existing Air Bus planes. To shift from Air Bus to Boeing will require a dual parts/maintainence program for the affected airlines. The "new"Air Bus must be a very bad plane for companies to even consider switching. The French and other EU countries will end up subsidizing the ten bil costs of fixing the plane because it is built in ten or more countries with the various air frame sections shipped to France for assembly. We're talking half a million subsidized (fake) jobs here and the resulting unemployment for the EU will be too serious to ignore. The net of all this will probably be that airlines buying Boeing will have a two year jump on those using Air Bus. My original Air Bus post is here.

Late add (3/31 3AM) The Wall Street Journal has completely ignored this major business story. I've long had no use at all for this paper as an investment tool and the non-reporting of this story demonstrates what I mean. The Journal feels you should invest by using company and knowledge of business as opposed to the IBD theory of market generated information.

Here are the types of "Job Contracts" the socialist government of France imposes on EVERYONE, both business and workers. Keep in mind that these are the most common, there are plenty more. expats.

Contrats à durée indéterminée, CDIs (Unlimited-term contracts)

* Contrat nouvelles embauches CNE (New employment contract)
* Contract première embauche CPE (First employment contract)
* Contrat Jeunes en Entreprises (Youth at work contract)
* Contrat initiative-emploie rénové CIE (Renewed employment contract)
* Contrat de travail en temps partiel (Part-time contract)

Contrats à durée déterminée, CDDs (Limited-term contracts)

* Contract insertion, revenu minimum d'activité CI-RMA (Introduction contract – minimum wage)
* Contrat d'insertion dans la vie sociale CIVIS (Introduction to social life contract)
* Contrat d'avenir (Contract for the future)
* Contrat d'accompagnement dans l'emploi CAE (Employment assistance contract)
* Contrat de travail temporaire or travail intérimaire (Temporary job contract)
* Contrat initiative-emploie rénové CIE (Renewed employment contract)
* Contrat de travail en temps partiel (Part-time contract)

Evolving blogs: no better example than Winds of Change which started out as a one man band and is now a small group blog commentary, and a dam good one. If you haven't visited in a while, check it out.

Sondrak has a new look worth checking out too.

And then there is No Pasaran which is becoming a total waste of time. They increasingly post in French and the "news" they display in English is old, boring, and irrelevant. I'll probably remove my link.

Great news for Boeing----bad bad bad news for Froggy Bus

Several of the biggest customers for AirBus have demanded major changes in the design of the 340 and 350 Airbus planes because as they sit right now they are fuel sucking dinosaurs. The European planemaker's biggest customer, the International Lease Finance Corp., a Los Angeles-based subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), called for a top-to-bottom redesign of the A350, the plane Airbus plans to launch as a rival to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. Add to that the UAE, who would like to get even with the U.S. but not at the cost of running an airline that must be subsidized to exist, has basically cancelled their orders. Boing has been saying all along that the Airbus design would never be able to compete. They have been vindicated.

Industry watchers say Airbus will probably be forced to revamp the plane, even though the changes suggested would boost development costs from $5.3 billion to as much as $10 billion. Airbus' current design is based on its existing A330 widebody plane, with the addition of more fuel-efficient engines and increased use of lightweight composites.

At the conference, Udvar-Hazy said that a design based on "leftovers" would sell poorly against the 787, perhaps winning as little as 25% of the market. "Airbus has boxed themselves in on the A350," he told BusinessWeek Online. "Airbus has to make some changes."

Full story at Biz Week.

File under "What difference does it make who we vote for." Debbie Schlussel links to this story of hers appearing in the New York Post about a good anti-terrorist attorney being lynched by the Michigan Muslim ass kissing superiors in the DOJ. The Republicans have sold us out to mediocrity, mendacity, and criminal corruption. Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents in history and perhaps the key figure in the destruction of the republic. The corruption and decay of the GOP is the stuff that made Nero and Caligula household names.

Reynolds runs a piece today that refers to another site discussing the Spring Break Behavior of college girls and the phony polling of same. Leaving out the fake poll he refers to, here are my actual observations of a "Girls Gone Wild" type of show.

I was peripherally involved in one of those "Girls Gone Wild" type of episodes and this is the real deal. Seven "strippers" were hired to behave in the most slutty behavior possible; lesbian kissing, mutual fondling, kissing and slutting it up with the seemingly real college guys. Because I was looking at "raw footage" (un edited material) there were plenty of scenes where actual young female college students were photographed too for intercutting later. Not a one of the actual college girls disrobed or came close to it; all seemed to be nursing a single drink; and all had a sort of embarrassed detachment. In other words this was a staged event made to seem like slutty college girls were the only girls there when in fact ones shown were professional "strippers." Don't believe those "gone wild" girl stories. Of course the drunken women shown ad nauseam by MTV is real and there are plenty of true stories about wildly drunk young women, including the one about Natalie Holloway. And I have been to Cancun during Spring Break and there really is wall to wall pussy.

BTW the Reynolds supplied link is a pretty good read.

"Spontaneous" school walkouts in Los Angeles (continued): Actual police estimation of the crowd was 200,000 not the half million reported by the slugs in media.

All of my children attended Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles when it was one of the better schools in the LA system. Much has changed since they graduated, particularly the racial makeup of the school and the goals of the so-called students. Birmingham used to be 90% white (graduates include Michael Milkin, Sally Field, super agent Michael Ovits, etc.) and now it's just Mexico el norte with a sprinkling of black football players bussed in from South Central. Everyone excuses the failures of the Mexicans; all complain that the classes are "too hard," that the school should teach better, and so on. Some of the kids who didn't cut classes the other day were interviewed by a local talk radio show. Bottom line: the kids said that the "demonstrators" were mostly gangbanagers, failures, and kids who don't show up much anyway. We in Los Angeles are cursed with one of the worst newspapers in America---not saying much---and are left with little or no hard data about anything our good Liberals with children stashed in private schools don't want the rest of us to know. Suffice it to say that the LAT supports all illegals and anything they want.

Face it folks, this was strictly a Mexican walkout; a Mexican demonstration taking place in Los Angeles, and a band comprised mostly of losers who have little interest in education, the history of the country in which they live, or in doing anything to help themselves advance other than to get more entitlements. All are presumed to be future Democratic voters, but alas since they cannot read, they will be shown how to vote like Florida's senile voters and will learn their news from the new new LA Times which will soon be published in crayon.

Oh, and of course the backlash is now setting in. It was the Mexican flags that woke all non LA Times readers up, them flags and talk radio, a force in SoCal far greater than blogs. Mickey Kaus is all over this story too. The best of the best commentary is by Peggy Noonan today.

When you don't love something you lose it. If we do not teach new Americans to love their country, and not for braying or nationalistic reasons but for reasons of honest and thoughtful appreciation, and gratitude, for a history that is something new in the long story of man, then we will begin to lose it.

While our college faculties teach contempt for our history and allow a terrorist with a fourth grade education to earn a free education while the slobs who worked their asses off get shut out.

The hero in this case is democracy in Iraq. The mostly Iraqi bloggers, almost all of whom have been hopeful over the past couple of years, are now almost united in their description of Iraq. It is vicious civil war with bodies found every morning with their throats slit, body parts chopped off, or just hung from whatever is handy. I hate to tell you that I told you so, but I did. From the beginning I was aware of the basic tribal nature of the society, one in which every tribe seeks dominance over the others until a single strong man triumphs. The history of the region dictates that whomever finally controls the army--you know, the one we trained--will be the winner and will be ruthless in stomping any and all opposition.

Has the mission to "give" Iraq democracy failed? Yes. Was it worth the effort? Probably, but this is not a football game that ends and will be resumed "next year," this is the end of the play and the hero, democracy in Iraq, has been killed. And in Afghanistan the hero is committing suicide.

BTW, until Michael Yon cleans up his link to the Kaplan piece, here is the link to a great essay. Kaplan made his bones as a travel writer and his backgrounds to each and every city are an education, even if you disagree with his opinions.

Those phony illegals demonstrations are covered by Kim as well as anyone...

George Carlin once did a routine where he actually said the fifty or so words "you can't say on television." He said all the sexual words, synonyms for body parts and functions, and a few others and he got good laughs. Not included in his rant were the words: nigger, faggot, feminist bitch, slope, towel head, Mexican piece of shit, and lots of others that you really cannot say and that he would never say.

Hammorabi has been a good blogger for a while, but he has turned completely anti-American. His blog calls us occupiers and thugs.

As a counter read to yesterday's about Iraq and reports of Americans slaughtering helpless Iraqi parisioners, Bill Roggio is a must read today.

As an add to the illegals demonstrations I posted yesterday, go to Malkin today for pictures of Mexicans (not Americans) deliberately debasing the American flag --- comes with pictures too. Like I observed yesterday, these people are flat out stupid. AND MEXICAN, not American.

Re; LA students walk out.....I was in Chatsworth eating lunch and looked out of the restaurant window and saw about a hundred or so kids---seventh or eighth grade with dark skin and looked to be Mexican---walking along the sidewalk two abreast with two WHITE teachers behind the line so nobody could go into the street and get killed. There were two Mexican flags being waved and not a single American flag. AND there were three police cars creeping along with the little shits to see that they didn't get hurt. This is the Left urging the illegals to demonstrate.

But the Mexicans, as is usual around here, are stupid. These highway and street clogging tactics, mainly by students who should be in school learning to read, can only work to get people pissed off at them. It was the moronic leadership of the Mexicans that caused the state to pass the proposition 187 on the ballot a few years ago that was anti-illegal. The LA Times is doing its level best to lie about the rallies---marches, truant class cutting---claiming it's an "All American" protest, completely ignoring the preponderance of Mexican flags, more than just a few signs demanding re-conquista, and the participation of the usual Left subjects.

Blogging will be lite today......

Thanx to Joe Katzman over at Winds of Change, there is a link on the right to a site called Democratiya, a Left site that has been started up by a few on the Left who are hoping to appeal to many who cannot stand the KOS, Democratic Underground, George Soros foul mouthed hate filled so called Democratic Left of today. Worth reading.

Don't you dare chastise me for writing about what I see in my country....Soo ends this post at Healing Iraq

Please don'?t ask me whether I believe Iraq is on the verge of civil war yet or not. I have never experienced a civil war before, only regular ones. All I see is that both sides are engaged in tit-for-tat lynchings and summary executions. I see governmental forces openly taking sides or stepping aside. I see an occupation force that is clueless about what is going on in the country. I see politicians that distrust each other and continue to flame the situation for their own personal interests. I see Islamic clerics delivering fiery sermons against each other, then smile and hug each other at the end of the day in staged PR stunts. I see the country breaking into pieces. The frontlines between different districts of Baghdad are already clearly demarked and ready for the battle. I was stopped in my own neighbourhood yesterday by a watch team and questioned where I live and what I was doing in that area. I see other people curiously staring in each otherÂ?s faces on the street. I see hundreds of people disappearing in the middle of the night and their corpses surfacing next day with electric drill holes in them. I see people blown up to smithereens because a brainwashed virgin seeker targeted a crowded market or cafe. I see all that and more.

This guy has been writing his truth for quite a while and what he sees now is total tribal warfare. Sadly, this is a good read right now.

Gibson's Apocalyptco trailer is available at a site that won't force you to pay to download QuickTime 7. It's HERE, and it does make one want to see it. Hell of a trailer. BTW it fills my criteria for a commercial movie in that this picture will take us to places we have never been before and always wanted to see.

And where is the super basketball conference Big East? Dead and buried in ESPN hypeville. Those ESPN clowns (Dickie V, Mike and Mike etc.) hyped the Big East all year because ESPN had TV rights to the regular season games, the games all came on early, and they needed ratings. Had the hype artists failed to pimp for their Big East telecasts they would have been replaced by other pimps. The entire whorehouse of ESPN big mouths should be ignored by the rest of us. It should be perfectly obvious to all that the conference is just an ordinary conference (over hyped U CONN should have lost to Washington from the so-called horrible Pac Ten) and putting eight teams in the tourney was an insult to a lot of other good teams out there that are not on ESPN-TV early in the evening and therefore don't get the disgusting pimping from the "Sports Reporters."

Notes on a piece of toilet paper: several students at many high schools and colleges are being kicked out, suspended, tried by the thought police, and so on for giving a hand sign. No, it's not the ever popular middle finger, but the new and exciting "shocker." A complete description of the term and how to give it can be found HERE. Warning: it is only writing but you could get sent to the job evaluation bitches at work if one of them reads the page over your shoulder; but it is a must read, a shining example of hypocrisy, small town politics, bravery, and gutlessness.

The gesture, the province of minds quite filthy in nature, has taken on other, more explicit names: "Two in the pink and one in the stink"

Bad Jocks has an interesting picture series with cheerleaders giving the "shocker" if you are curious (they don't have links at Bad Jocks but the stories begin half way down the page).

And by the way, supposed child molester, the ever sizzling Debra LaFave, is engaged.

Way to go, girl.

The ultimate Left smear of a Republican can be seen here, at Wonkette. The attack is on Katherine Harris of Florida. I have no idea if they have been photo shopped or not, but it is a smear.

Time Mag sees the GOP getting whacked and all I can say is nobody deserves a burial more. They were elected to end the corruption of pork, nepotism, and the lousy appointments of Clinton and the Dems but now they are worse than Clinton ever thought of being ("Stop the voting, my state needs a billion for a downtown waterfall."). They are crooks and incompetents and deserve every stay at home voter they get.

The hypocrisy of Ivy, and especially Yale, is revealed on the WSJ editorial pages. I don't think that Yale is going to get a pass on enrolling the Taliban hero. An Afghan woman who actually deserves to be at Yale but goes to a junior college instead speaks in part----

It's hard, but certainly better than Pakistan," she told me. "I am very grateful, but I must work 50 hours a week and also go to class. Sometimes, I am so tired I can't attend." She earns $8 an hour as a clerk in a local retail store. (OMG, she "works?" We can't have that at good old Yale)

I asked what she thought about Mr. Hashemi attending Yale with the help of a Wyoming foundation and a discount from Yale of 35% to 40% on tuition.

Read it and be prepared to get really pissed off. Then wonder if our so-called elite universities are above us all. And Taliban subsidizing Wyoming? Give me a break.

Newsbabe war:CNN counters FOX's red hot Rebecca Gomez with super news babe Susan Hendricks. She looks terrific on TV. FOX is being out foxed.

Abdul Rahman, the Muslim who converted to Christianity and who is now facing death for his choice, has exposed the fallacy of our policies in the Middle East. We have lost 3,500 guys in Afghanistan, Iraq, and various other Muslim hot spots and our efforts toward "giving" them democracy have not taken hold. This "religion" has as its purpose the imposition of Shria Law in the entire world. There is no give here. Nobody is "flexible." These scumbags do not want any law but Shria law; no religion but the Muslim religion; and they demand that their countries be free from infidels.

Understand that Muslims don't want a thriving economy. They want Islam. They don't want civilization, they want Islam. Material things that are made by man and not God have no place in their lives. Flowers are a yes, processed foods are a no.

We keep saying that we should emulate our policies that made Japan into a democracy. This ignorant. The facts are that McArthur requested the leaders of the old Diet write a new constitution for Japan. All these old quasi-war criminals ever brought back to McArthur was the old Meji non-constitution. After the third time the Japanese thumbed their noses at him, McArthur simply took over and had his people write a constitution that HE liked and then proceeded to shove it up the asses of the Japanese. Remember, Japan is the most racist society on earth. Nobody who isn't Japanese is welcome there. Even after the "bomb" was dropped the major elements in the government were more concerned with maintaining the "Japanese Essence" than in saving the lives of their people. We shoved democracy down their throats at the point of a gun. Period. We will have to do the same in the Muslim countries.

We have to "cut and run" in Iraq and Afghanistan and adopt a policy of nuclear retaliation should Iran start launching missiles, and we must develop a distant awareness toward the Middle East. Above all, we must make whatever sacrifices that are necessary to become independent of oil. Til then we are slaves to the mullas, dictators like Chavez, and crazy power mad leaders like those in Africa.

Thanks Abdul, you showed us.

WAHOO,

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR WHEN THE VICIOUS WHITE CANADIAN CROCODILE INVADES TOWNS AND CITIES, MENACING BABIES AND PETS, AND TERRORIZING AMERICAN DRAFT DODGERS





But civilization is saved when a small group of armed hunters challenge the vicious man eaters where they live.



But once in a while tragedy strikes and a brave hunter is devoured by a horde of vicious crocs determined to wreak havoc on Canada.

Froggy Riots: No Pasaran has some scary pix up showing the misunderstood French Yoot beating a woman. Very scary. British tourists warned as French violence continues; Strike sends France closer to abyss And criminal gangs from Paris have begun a spate of crimes in the centre of the city while police are occupied with the protest marches.

Horrified Parisians have found themselves the victims of robberies and violence even in some of the smartest areas of the city and some of the best-known tourist spots.

It's the fucking Muslims, stupid. Financial Times has a piece on the French riots that fingers the "same people" as last time as the ones causing trouble.

My place was up to here with screamers yesterday watching the UCLA Memphis game, but Jesus Christ I've seen a hundred high school games with more scoring. UCLA fan but also a "fun to watch" fan. Keep in mind that this team got stomped by unranked--and lousy--USC just a month ago. UCLA missed 26 of 40 shots and nearly twenty free throws ---and won. I'm sure most of the country turned it off.

Immigration/illegals/Mexicans/Latinos: We are fucked. That fucking Bush has let in two million of them and we cannot throw out four million people. The problem now is that we have these four million people whose main obligation is to Mexico City and not Washington D.C. Many of them hate our country. Another great job, George.

CONSUMER ALERT
I have been getting dunning calls from a company claiming that I owe money on a credit card I never had. The call IDs itself as Alliance. The only company with that name is in the UK. However there are hundreds of complaints about this company from Rip Off Report here. Don't give them any info at all.

The people at FOX are asking the same question about the Left that I ask regarding child rapists and sexual predators who exploit children, "How can the press and the Left back these people?" I hear the ranting raving Left every day at work, hard core, very vocal, always spewing opinions for all to absorb, including a guy who cheers every situation that would make Bush look bad, especially the carnage in Iraq. To give you a flavor of his hate toward Bush, he said he loved every moment of the UAE fiasco only because it made Bush and the GOP look bad; the fact that it could have serious repercussions for our country made it even better. In other words, "fuck the USA, just get Bush." When I pressed him on the point of preferring discomfort for Bush in exchange for serious consequences for our country, he changed the subject, if only for a moment.

A few days later he made two remarks about the current child rapist getting off with probation and the serial child molester---abusing two small children from the time one of them was just four years old---getting only sixty days: "So what? We make too much of that stuff." His opinion was shared by two others including a woman.

It is a fact that the Left is anti-religion and has no fixed moral underpinning. It naturally follows that they have no firm code of conduct about anything; everything is moment to moment and situatioinal. We call it "situational ethics" because there is no fixed moral ground from which to evaluate things. To a Lefty, only one's personal view of a situation means anything and a person who is morally adrift cannot have a consistant point of view. Stealing is OK, sometimes, murder is OK, sometimes, as is sodomizing little children. I have no idea how the American Left arrived at that awful place, but our society under their influence has no concern for children; never forget that the press is almost totally Left. Reflect a moment about the thousands of people showing up to demonstrate against killing a whale stuck in a harbor on the same day a child rapist was given probation while only ten protestors waved signs in front of the courthouse.

How has this come to pass? I have long believed that legalizing abortion and making the killing of a baby inside a womb OK has the effect of making far too many of us uncaring about the helpless among us, but I honestly don't know that this is the reason for the current indifference regarding child abuse. I do know the Left press is approving the judges who let child rapists off with a smack on the wrist. It is obvious that the Left has arrived at the current approval of child sexual abuse and I have no idea how we got there.

MN town bans "Easter Bunny" because it is a religious symbol. WTF are they thinking? Bunny at springtime is a Pagan fertility symbol displayed at first days of spring. Ditto the colored eggs which pay tribute to screwing and having kids. Personally, I'd rather display Rebecca Gomez (below)

Battle of the News Babes: FOX strikes back hard with the super double hottie, Rebecca Gomez, a totally outrageous sex kitten who was fired from Hooters because her tits were too big.

Take that, CNN. We can beat that Asian bitch with a Mexican.

Several emailers complain that Laua Ingraham's website is terrible; impossible to navigate, articles not available, etc. I agree and may pull the link. I have no idea what the hell she is doing. You have to be something besides right wing. Don't you?

The French pass a law that is actually piracy of American technology. The law orders Apple to open up their ITunes technology to everyone who wants to download. Read this detailed account in Expatica. I hope Apple stands up to them. Our brain dead administration should be taking the lead. Ho ho.

Take a trip to Kaus and read this stuff. An evaluation of Reynold's book and his ideas. Because of work I don't get to read too much during the week, if you've already been to Slate on a daily basis you've read it.

Evangelical Outpost has some terrific techie stuff right now. Take a look and you may learn a lot of new tricks. No God though, unless the God of Tech counts.

Ann Coulter at Front Page has totally busted the New York Times polling techniques. Tip from Schultz

Kim duToit has the last word on scotch for you non AA members.

Battle of the News Babes: all I can say is the entire office was gathered in front of our TV set this AM to ogle (leer, drool over) CNN super hottie, Sophia Choi (left). Fox had better line up some topless babes quick or their rating superiority is doomed.

And Now for Something Completely Different: in the thrilling case of an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity, the Australian PM Howard said that it is "appalling."

We're putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line and this sort of thing is allowed, Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW today. "When I saw the report about this I felt sick."

Well la dee fucking da, people are appalled. The real bucket of fried puke is that this is the real Muslim religion showing its ugly head, AFTER we set them "free." You think Iraq will be any different? The problem IS the Muslim religion. The entire first century sewer philosophy, a religion that espouses Shria Law, a primeval code of law they seek to impose on everyone everywhere. Malkin seems to have the best overview right now, complete with links.

U.S. Hiring Hong Kong Firm to Check Cargo for Nukes
No sense blogging about this other than to observe once more that Bush and his staff are truly brain dead and just as much of a threat to this country as Islamofascists.

Name a great writer with the name of Miller. Most of you would probably name Arthur Miller, the guy who wrote a ton of plays in the 50s. But there's another one, a much better writer, but his best (and til after his death, his only) book remains in the memories of 50s and 60s old farts. Walter Miller Jr. wrote the best SciFi novel ever written, a book called A Canticle for Liebowitz, a book that the New Hollywood Left would never tolerate.

The plot seems a simple one. The earth has been destroyed by atomic war and the few survivors remaining include the monks in the Chapel of St. Liebowitz. These monks do what all monks do when things go bad, they exhume the past and try to preserve it for future generations. One of the things of the past the monks found in the ruins is a grocery list made out by a paragon of past glory now known as St. Liebowitz. First the monk examined the jotted notes which were scrawled by the same hand that had written another note glued to the lid of a tea jar, and the penmanship was no less abominable. Pound pastrami, said one note, can kraut, six bagels- bring home for Emma. Another reminded: Remember- pick up Form 1040, Uncle Revenue. The story, and what a story, begins when a monk doing his time fasting in the desert stumbles upon a ruined bomb shelter, the very place where Liebowitz spent his last hours, uncovering a hoard of twentieth century relics and documents. The current world is totally anti technology so the monks bring thing after thing forward to improve an impoverished world. The book spans centuries still focusing on the monastery of St. Liebowitz as they carefully restructure each and every relic they find. Since the disgusting monks are Catholic and the story features God as one of the good guys, this great book has remained a book and cannot be seen as a movie.

I cannot recommend this book more highly. I mention Miller and Canticle because at long last Miller's last book (he only wrote two) is getting some ink. The more or less new book is titled St. Leibowitz and The Wild Horse Woman, a book that praises God too, so forget the movie. The new book is not well reviewed, even by Miller fans. Both books are available at the usual places.

As a footnote I just point out that Miller wrote short SciFi stories for all the usual pulp mags and Canticle won a ton of awards within the SciFi community.

Notes on a Zig Zag paper:

CNN is challenging FOX for news babes, and I mean babes. Check out Headline news.... Rachael Carson at FOX is a disaster: dumb as a stone and ugly as a dead dog; she is Katie Couric lite. Where's E.D. Hill?

City Journal has some must read stuff up right now. Heather lays into the law schools; It's marriage, stupid, not all that racist stuff;

We are now a nation of separate and unequal families not only living separate and unequal lives but, more worrisome, destined for separate and unequal futures.

and this piece about the current French riots is too good to miss.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. " This plus a ton of really good stuff today over at Debbie Schussel

The Washington Post is sponsoring what they call a "Red State" blog called "Red America." So far it has nothing worth reporting in it. A boring rehash of all the stuff all of us already know. Not worth linking to, yet. What a liberal thinks conservatives feel---they know we are stupid and cannot think---about stuff.

This post is in response to several emailers responding my post on movies below, emails asking basically the same question: Won't theatre owners rebel against the studios if they continue to produce Left Wing trash that nobody wants to see?

The short answer is "sort of" and "they might if." The theatre owners are the only ones who can bring pressure to bear if they begin to see their investments lose money. Low grosses mean low grosses for them too. The chains like AMC are now very large and if they told Hollywood that they didn't want their movies and theatres began to close and turned into something else that would obviously cause Hollywood to change. I think that five chains now own 60% of the "screens" so if things get dicey theatres might adjust what they are doing. The current wave of theatre building means that the large corporations owe plenty of money to whomever financed the construction.

Another side of this is "block booking," a business practice that is supposed to be illegal, but I hear is done anyway. Block booking means a distrib or studio will tell a theatre owner to take a block of movies along with the big picture they actually want to show or else the theatre will be denied both the feature and a "block" of product put out by the studios.

"If you want Titanic at a split of 90-10 (actual figure) you will have to take ten other pics of questionable quality, but we'll go 60-40 on them." In other words take the ten and we throw in Titanic, turn us down and you get the 1947 version of Titanic and we'll let you bid on some other shit.

Bear in mind that concessions are a huge part of theatre grosses; that a $2.50 coke costs the theatre less than a dime and so on, but some distribs insist on a piece of the concessions too (think the theatres give a gouging studio an honest count?). Big crowds buy big products. Some chains are very small while a few are owned by the same companies that also own studios. Viacom owns Paramount and Vivendi Universal owns Cineplex Odeon etc., but number of theatres is not what you need to know. You need to know the total number of screens. Screens, are the only thing that is important. Some multi-plexes now have 16 "screens" inside a single theatre. Example is AMC which has 210 theatres within the U.S. But those 210 theatres have 2916 screens in the United States (1999 figures, latest available). At the end of 2001, there were 35,153 movie screens in the U.S. but only 6,246 total cinema sites, meaning each theatre had around 5.2 screens.

These 35,000 screens need product, but if the product is not drawing enough patrons the theatre chains will begin to lose money. Theatre chains are not protected from ruin by Left Wing gazillionaires willing to lose a fixed tax deductable fifty mil or so on an individual movie. And theatres have large fixed costs they must overcome; I have no idea what kind of electric bills each screen generates but it must be at least 10 tickets per day, I don't know what their insurance costs are, nor do I know how much of the advertising budget they must share on each picture. Suffice to say that they have a big daily nut.

So as the main studios cut back on production and further reduce the number of "big pictures" (movies that will run for two months instead of two weeks), cut down on the number of total pictures, insist on producing guaranteed money losers, and have movies go straight to DVD, you may begin to see the theatres get tough. When a cineplex converts to a jewelery exchange you will know the time has past. If the audience continues to shrink you can bet there will be "adjustments" both to the share price and the function of a movie theatre.

Below is a list of the chains in the U.S.

* AMC Theatres - 450 theatres - North America's second-largest movie theater chain and planning to merge with Loews Cineplex in the first quarter of 2006
* Carmike Cinemas
* Century Theatres- over 1000 screens
* Cinemark Theatres
* Cineplex Odeon Corporation
* Coming Attractions - As of July 2005, thirteen locations in California, Oregon, and Washington state
* Consolidated Theatres - A Charlotte, North Carolina-based chain that serves several mid-Atlantic states
* Eastern Federal Theatres- Small chain of theatres in central North Carolina that was recently bought out by Regal.
* Empire Theatres - 59 locations, 403 screens - Leading chain of movie theaters in the Atlantic Canadian provinces
* Famous Players - Formerly Canada's largest theater chain, bought by Cineplex Odeon in 2005
* Galaxy Theatres
* Goodrich Quality Theaters - over 35 movie theaters
* Harkins Theatres - Arizona's largest movie theater chain with over 14 theatres and the expansion into California, Colorado and Texas.
* Kerasotes Theatres - 76 theatres with 607 screens, in the upper Midwest
* Landmark Theatres - 58 theatres, 209 screens
* Loews Cineplex Entertainment - 200 theaters, 2,176 screens
* Mann Theatres - 20 theatres, 122 screens in Southern California
* Marcus Theatres
* Marquee Cinemas - A fairly small movie theater chain, operated out of Beckley, West Virginia
* Muvico Theaters - United States chain based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
* National Amusements - 1,300 screens - Parent company of Viacom
* Pacific Theatres
* Rainbow and Magic Lantern Cinemas
* Regal Entertainment Group - 584 locations, 6,273 screens - North America's largest movie theater chain. Includes Edwards Cinemas, Regal Theaters, and United Artists
* Rave Motion Pictures - A fairly small, new, futuristic movie theater chain.
* Encore Cinemas - A small Canadian chain with two locations.

Terrific piece on the early Negro Basketball Leagues I bet you didn't know about is HERE at the WSJ.

Will somebody please tell me how Pajamas Media is different from Glenn Reynolds and a ton of other blogs linking the reader to a site? What is it and who needs it?

Q: What are the similarities between Hollywood, the automobile business, and the news business?

A: The high costs of starting competing businesses.

New competition for the slumping Los Angeles Times evaporated when it became clear that startup costs would exceed $100 million dollars plus the several years of losses before the paper had a chance to be on its feet; estimated losses before turning the corner were nearly a billion dollars. The "Book Values" of the car companies exceed a billion dollars, which means startup costs would be near ten billion if you count the dealerships, engine manufaturing plants, and so on. Hollywood is different in that one movie can be made outside of the system and then distributed to theatres via the system, BUT Dreamworks couldn't last as a separate entity more than a few years because in spite of hits they had trouble with pictures that didn't make money. Their losses on failures exceeded the profits from the hits and they didn't have the staying power of a multi-national. Soros paid a billion for their library so their lenders probably came out clean.

It is generally conceded that the car business is so badly managed (and has such bad labor contracts) that nothing other than an entirely new management can possibly save it. The Newspapers continue to bleed but nobody is fired, and in fact large pay raises as a reward for failure continue. Hollywood continues to make pictures guaranteed to lose money, the latest being Susan Sarandon, who stars---she has never been in a movie that made back costs of production---as Cindy Sheehan; another far Left movie that will have to come in under ten mil including prints and advertising in order to break even. This movie could not be made unless there is a guarantee of distribution including prints and advertising from a major studio in advance, or which is most likely, the movie is completely financed by Left Wing idealogues who don't care if their movie makes money as long as their "message" gets out. But failures ruin the theatres so badly that money losing movies cannot continue.

So what about the stockholders? Yeah, what about them? All refuse to do what the system allows and demands that they do when a company begins to fail or fails repeatedly: take over the companies and put in new managements.

So what? What's all that to me? Here's what: when costs of entering any business get too high, freedom dies. Freedom of speech is the first to go but all freedoms of economics die too. And it means that all of our freedoms will eventually collapse in the face of "reality."

I received a personally athenticated email regarding my post about the CBS fine for the teen porn on the show Without a Trace. The person wants to remain anonymous but the person attended a pre production meeting after reading the script. The person felt that showing such graphic teen sex would blow up in everyone's face. At the meeting was Allison Abner (producer), Steve Beers, Ethan Smith (on phone from New York), and a few others known only by name to the emailer. The person was asked to leave the meeting after voicing an opinion. A typical business reaction to anyone who differs from the party line. The person emailing is known to me personally and is sufficiently talented to get plenty of other work, including work on the show. The point made is that everyone wanted to "stretch the envelope" and thought any controversy would help ratings and would only come from the "Red State assholes."

This post from Libertas says it all about the next year or two future for Hollywood. Cutting to the chase: the piece explains why Hollywood can tell Red State America to shove it and forego any revenue from Heartland America, and that Hollywood will be saved by cheaper to make movies. Duh......

As a regestered old fart I can guarantee you that I've heard this line at least three times, all uttered after a few disasterous years at the box office. I particularly remember it being shouted from the rooftops after Cleopatra (the Liz Taylor version) crashed and burned taking most of Fox with it. Movies got cheap(er) for about a year and a half. Movies have always been the medium that took us to places we didn't know about or in many cases even dream about, and as there are fewer and fewer of those mystery places movies can no longer fill that function.

Cheap ain't gunna cut it.

CBS socked with $3.6M fine for teen sex show
The show (not a live news shot) had live teen actors "pretending" to have sex, group sex, and other "good times." The defense? CBS is claiming that the show "featured an important and socially relevant story line warning parents to exercise greater supervision of their teenage children."

Is there a person with half a brain that doesn't already know that? We have to see a pretend teen orgy acted out by presumed under aged actors to be "taught" that? Cutting to the chase: CBS made the filthiest show they could get away with in order to draw an audience not able to log onto a porn site that night.

Not only is Hollywood and CBS "defining decency down," but it is also just another example of Hollywood's self proclaimed artists proving that they are exactly like a character in a Checkov play who is described thusly after one of the characters inquires if the off stage writer is any good. "Not really. He writes about things intelligent people already know about and that stupid people don't care about."

If that ain't the current Hollywood artistic community, what is?

Bird Flu Alert: if your pet canary starts to cough and runs a fever, give it to one of your ex-wives and get ready for a good laugh......

Only 21% of young people eligible to join the service can pass the IQ, obesity, anti-social, and other screens set up by the military. We have a country of fat stupid chickenshits, most of whom go to college. Kim du Toit has the more reasoned account.

The University of North Carolina, never one to challenge terrorists anywhere or champion free speech anywhere, has refused to brand hit and run driver Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar a terrorist. In spite of Reza's ranting about doing the will of Allah and so on, the UNC leadership(?) is steadfast. The enemy is actually racist and hate filled Amerika. The "kid" is just misunderstood.

There is really no surprise that the UNC terrorist is top of his class, well thought of, etc. If you will think about all the years we've been reading books written by the likes of Pipes, Lewis etc., informing us about Muslim jihads, the casual slaughters of one another over who should be the legit heir of Muhammad, and the random attacks on civilians everywhere, you will see that this kid is the perfect clone of a terrorist.

Most jihadists come to America or England and over time come to hate the host country, particularly the women, sexy filthy women who are not available to a pious Muslim. They hate our books, hate hate hate the movies, the pornography and so on, and they especially hate freedom. Eventually the call to jihad becomes the voice of cleanliness and purity. And when any of us really believe that our path is one of holiness, cleanliness and moral purity our task in life becomes the elimination of all the un-holy, the dirty, and the immoral.

The guy who started the Muslim Brotherhood started by hating us from inside the USA; several other violent clerics studied in England. One of the architects of the "movement," one Qttib (sic) Sayyid also started in the USA. There is the articulated Muslim tactic of isolating oneself inside a society. This concept is taken from Muhammad himself. He formed a society within a society before 622 and his mobs became the Infidel hating Muslim armies that took Europe, Africa and the Middle East by storm. This "society within a society" isolates or inoculates the believer from the evil diseases of the host country. The purpose of most radicals is the establishment of Sharia Law, and they actually believe this will be achieved in the USA.

It should come as no surprise that college students, college grads, and some people with advanced degrees gravitate to Muslim jihad and terrorism. If you read the actual writings of the Islamic leadership starting in 1919, you will note the sophistication of their reasoned arguments, their questioning of the state of the Muslim religion, and the proposed solutions which called for the purging of all foreigners from their soil. The books are all thick ones that are carefully reasoned and it is a philosophy that can only attract the intelligent and at the same time pious Muslim youth.

This NC "student" fits the terrorist profile perfectly and you can bet he is not alone on the NC campus, there have to be others, it's the way terrorist cells form. Faculties with no courage at all will continue to nurture them.

Protectionism Watch: first it was the interference of the French government in the energy deal set with Italian company, Gaz de France and the energy group Suez. France did this to thwart a rival bid for the latter from Italian energy group Enel. France calls the move Economic Patriotism. France has virtually destroyed Windows and now want to wreck I-Tunes. Spain has joined in by stopping German energy giant E.ON from buying Spanish group Endesa; France, Luxembourg and Spain are looking at ways of keeping Mittal Steel from acquiring rival Arcelor. In other words "Island Europe" is rearing its ugly head and the proles there, like the union dopes here, approve. While here, the protectionist union gangster controlled Democrats are suddenly quiet about the UAE terminals deal.

Here's who Schumer, Clinton, and the rest of our bought and paid for Senators want to control our ports instead of those horrid Arabs. Quote from the U.S. Deparment of Justice complaint:

"For decades, corrupt ILA officials and their organized crime partners have maintained a stranglehold on the waterfront, enriching themselves through 'mob taxes' siphoned from hardworking union members and legitimate businesses operating in New York and in other major ports throughout the Eastern seaboard," stated United States Attorney MAUSKOPF. "Today's historic filing builds upon and adds another dimension to the series of successful criminal prosecutions brought in this district. It seeks -- once and for all -- to end mob domination of this important labor union and put its future back into the hands of the rank-and-file members it was designed to serve." Ms. MAUSKOPF expressed her grateful appreciation to the New York State Attorney General's Organized Crime Task Force and the Richmond County District Attorney's Office for their assistance in the Gotti criminal prosecution, as well as the New York City Police Department for its assistance in the Bellomo and Gotti prosecutions.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge MERSHON stated, "The hard-working rank-and-file members of the ILA were denied the right to fair and honest representation when members of the Gambino and Genovese crime families conspired to fix the selection of certain union officers. Pension and health plans intended to benefit the union membership were pillaged for the unjust enrichment of those corrupt, self-dealing union officials and their mob associates. Conditions reminiscent of 'On the Waterfront' have no place in this day and age. We are steadfast in our resolve to clean up the ILA and keep it clean."

Department of Labor Inspector General HEDDELL stated, "When the influence of organized crime permeates every aspect of union activities, control of the union is removed from its members. Those involved in this criminal enterprise have victimized not only the union membership, but also all who do business through the piers of New York City, and the consumers who incur additional costs for goods and services. We will continue to work closely with other law enforcement agencies to break the stranglehold of corruption and extortion by organized crime families over the unions and to end the long-standing domination of the unions by corrupt union officials."

Keep in mind that the business of criminals is to commit crimes, crimes that include stealing things off the docks, smuggling things onto ships in foreign ports so the mobsters can unload the contraband with immunity. Below is the list of the union thugs who are now on trial:

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, AFL-CIO,

JOHN BOWERS, President,

ROBERT E. GLEASON, Secretary-Treasurer,

ALBERT CERNADAS, Executive Vice-President,

BENNY HOLLAND, JR., General Vice-President,

GERALD OWENS, General Organizer,

HAROLD J. DAGGETT, Assistant General Organizer,

HORACE T. ALSTON, Vice-President,

JORGE L. APONTE FIGUEROA, Vice-President,

CHAUNCEY J. BAKER, Vice-President,

JOHN D. BAKER, Vice-President,

JOHN BOWERS, JR., Vice-President,

EDWARD L. BROWN, SR., Vice-President,

TIMOTHY BROWN, Vice-President,

JAMES A. CAMPBELL, Vice-President,

RONALD CAPRI, Vice-President,

CHARLES CHILLEMI, Vice-President,

ARTHUR COFFEY, Vice-President,

RAYMOND DESGAGNES, Vice-President,

MICHAEL DICKENS, Vice-President,

CLYDE FITZGERALD, Vice-President,

PERRY C. HARVEY, Vice-President,

STEPHEN KNOTT, Vice-President,

JOHN H. MACKEY, Vice-President,

JAMES T. MCCLELAND, JR., Vice-President,

WILLIAM R. MCNAMARA, Vice-President,

JAMES H. PAYLOR, JR., Vice-President,

LOUIS PERNICE, Vice-President,

KENNETH RILEY, Vice-President,

RAYMOND SIERRA, Vice-President,

HARRISON TYLER, Vice-President,

REUBEN WHEATLEY, Vice-President,

PETER GOTTI,

ANTHONY CICCONE, a/k/a "Sonny,"

JEROME BRANCATO, a/k/a "Jerry,"

JAMES CASHIN,

THE MANAGEMENT - INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION

MANAGED HEALTH CARE TRUST FUND,

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE MANAGEMENT - INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION HEALTH CARE TRUST FUND,

THE METROPOLITAN MARINE MAINTENANCE CONTRACTORS' ASSOCIATION,

THE METRO-ILA FRINGE BENEFIT FUND,

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE METRO-ILA FRINGE BENEFIT FUND,

THE METRO-ILA PENSION FUND,

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE METRO-ILA PENSION FUND,

THE METRO-ILA INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT RETIREMENT FUND,

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE METRO-ILA INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT RETIREMENT FUND

These are the guys who now control our ports instead of those dirty Arabs. Let's all thank Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. And remember that Hillary's former campaign manager has been indicted for money laundering. Tracking contributions is now near impossible because the criminals have learned to break all contributions down to amounts of less than $200 and source them to union members.

LATE ADD: a blogsite called chickenhawk, a site you may have avoided because the word "chickenhawk" means a homo who cruises and seduces young boys, has lots of stuff on this one. The site is strictly a political blog and he has done a lot of digging on this Port subject. It's deeper than you think and the corruption of our Senators is beyone nickel and dime. Hat tip to anonymous comment contributor.

The Real Ports scandal, is once again a major corruption story, this time covering the Democratic Party. It is a story that goes mostly unreported by a news media that is Krazy Glued to the corrupt liberals from New York and New Jersey. The real story is about the mob control of the ports, a control that is near total and one that actually does threaten our national security. Suppose the UAE had blown the whistle? Not a single dock union exists that is not mob controlled, not a senator in either New York or New Jersey is free from the net of corruption. The union compaign contributions to The "Honorable Chuck Schumer and the equally "Honorable" Hillary Clinton reveal their inclusion in this pit of mob money. This story is public record from the Justice Department and you would think that some Republican shithead might have published the story; but not to worry because the mob bribes everyone. Schumer and Clinton most likely screamed about Dubai out of fear that the UAE might fail to hide the corruption and bribery in their state. Those horrible Arabs might have told everyone about the ton of mob money being poured into the Schumer-Clinton coffers. The union bribes--camaign contributions---extend to Senator Barbara Mikulski in Maryland. Just in case you think that the Democrats are the only ones on the take, rest assured that Republican pockets are being stuffed as well.

CBS radio 880 in New York, alone of all the media, spilled some of the mob beans on the air last week. And as typical for the leftist Democratic supporting press, nobody else in the press anywhere has talked. From CBS:

Justice Department lawyers warned eight months ago that a nefarious element had infiltrated important East Coast ports, but they weren't talking about terrorists or Arab shipping companies.

They were talking about the Mafia.

In a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors in Brooklyn accused the International Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to ports from Florida to Maine, of being a ``vehicle for organized crime'' on the waterfront.

Packed with tales of corruption, embezzling and extortion, the complaint accused union executives of being associates of the Genovese and Gambino crime families.

The U.S. Attorney's office asked a judge to seize control of the union, remove its officers and ``put an end to the conspiracy among union officials, organized crime figures and others that has plagued some of the nation's most important ports for decades.''

The charges, assailed by the union as unjust and untrue, are inching toward trial amid heightened concern over port security.

Most of the furor has revolved around the purchase of several U.S. shipping terminal operations by a company based in the United Arab Emirates. Critics say Dubai Ports World's Middle East ownership makes it ripe for infiltration by terrorists.

But some port security experts say America already has a fifth column, of sorts, at work on its docks: gangsters who have made the piers friendly territory for drug smugglers and cargo thieves.

This means that both the Genovese and Gambino crime families control both the docks and the four U.S. Senators from New York and New Jersey. And don't forget that it was the Longshoremen who began the attack on the Dubai Terminals deal with their paid agent, Chuck Schumer, getting most of the face time on TV. Perhaps the real danger to Schumer, Clinton, and the NJ Senators Lautenberg and new Senator Robert Menendez is being found out.

Even without the direct help of American mobsters, terrorists could still use gangland networks to their advantage, said Joseph King, a former special agent for the U.S. Customs Service and now a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

``It is an invitation to smuggling of all kinds, whether it is heroin, or weapons, or human trafficking,'' King said. ``Instead of bringing in 50 kilograms of heroin, what would stop them from bringing in five kilograms of plutonium?''

The ILA has denied any wrongdoing and said its alleged mob connections are a myth.

Stay tuned.

Notes on a Zig Zag Paper:

Is it me, or has the Sopranos become more boring than an afternoon soap? Actually, more boring than an afternoon soap commercial?

Did Japan get fucked in the Japan USA baseball game, or what?

Can Republicans live with the demonstrably incompetent Bush White House or will they implode?

I know most of you read Mudville, but in case you don't, the link to CBS 60 Minutes is a must see if you missed it last night. At last an MSM outlet actually shows Americans in a good light.

Everybody bets and everybody loses. Why? It's mainly because all teams build their reputations and records playing against teams and players they know. Many individual players have played with or against each other since grade school. They know the moves, the fakes, the guy who can't hit a 25 footer to save his life but can shoot the lights out at 23 feet. But when they play teams and players they don't know at all many teams and players simply cannot adjust. Same might be said for their coaches. That is why a pretty good UCLA team lost to fucking Princeton a few years back. Princeton? And Weber State beating North Carolina---are you kidding me? Those Princeton guys couldn't win a game in most conferences other than the Ivy but when they ran a "back screen" offense against a team that has never seen it or prepared for it we have "upset." When we see Big East "tournaments" we see nothing but players who know each other getting hot or not getting hot. When Connecticut has to play Texas we can't know what will happen and we just guess. I have never called more than two final four teams and most years I'm KOd by the Sweet Sixteen. This is a great time of year for sports fans because we just don't KNOW the various strengths. Have fun everyone and beware UCLA which looks very tough against their friends and Memphis ditto. Oh, and Nevada (Nevada???) is very good and nobody is looking at them.

From Hollywood Tuna posted for no reason I can think of other than I have too much time on my hands and The Tuna has lots of pics of this chick, whoever she is.

Marc Cooper lays it all out there in a perfect rant on all things Hillary and the UAE terminal deal. Great read.

What we can show you are the memorial crosses for the 3500 migrants who died as they were pushed deeper into the desert by Clinton’s various border “operations” We can show you the deportation orders for literally tens of thousands of legal immigrants (that’s right, legal green-card holding permanent residents) who have been deported and in many cases have had their families shattered thanks to the policies imposed by Bill Clinton.

Read it all.

The Nashville Left rears it's refuse laden head as the Dixie Chicks now choose to attack the president in their songs. They have chosen to link up with the rock and roll Left which is largely Hollywood based and they have revealed themselves as the usual show biz phonies who will only stand up for what they believe in if it won't cost them in sales. Nobody says that performers have to score more on a Wonderlic Test than Vince Young or be able to do more than find their guitars, so just chalk it up to their hypocrisy and stupidity.

And they have a song paying tribute to the Katrina victims, co-written with black blues singer Keb Mo, which ought to fix things. Would be believeable if they donated all income derived from album sales to a relief fund but Lefties don't have to do things like that.

They sure can sing purdy though.

In case you missed all the details about the convenience store robber who was videotaped while doing the crime while his pants were down and his butt revealed, Smoking Gun has the goods.

Had a lunch with a couple of the top analyists from Merrill Lynch yesterday and the talk turned to the UAE Terminal deal. Both of them were appalled at what has happened, are furious that the gutless Republicans just caved, and are seriously concerned about many investments. Both told me that they were quietly recommending that Boeing stock be sold because it is a virtual cinch that the UAE will cancel their jet orders and the other Arab countries will follow. Both are in the process of finding out how much Arab money is in our stocks and will bail at the first bad day there as well.

We cannot retaliate other than by freezing their assets, something not even Schumer would advocate---or maybe he would.

This could be really really bad.

Book Note: back when I was in college (my extra job was cleaning up the dinosaur shit) a book called "Atlas Shrugged," a 1,000 page rant by Ayn Rand, was what all the kids were reading and what all the professors ranted and raved against. It seems that this year's Atlas is the Horowitz book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America," and from what I hear from a lot of young people, many most of whom just like to do things that the authorities will get pissed at, are reading the book and threatening to take tape recorders into class. One kid told us that he pretended to be recording and the prof went nuts. You can't keep kids off the web so they will get the truth eventually. Wonder if the Taliban punk at Yale knows how to work a tape recorder.....

Illegals, legals, and just plain undocumented workers, under whatever banner you put them we all use them here in SoCal. Whether we need help moving, painting, or just plain grunt work in the yard or condo these guys are lined up outside of every paint store, lumber yard, and home improvement store ready and willing to work. The emphasis is on WORK. I don't see a single gringo or Black in any of those lines, the pissing and moaning of Blacks needing help when compared to the Latinos who work needs no further illumination. Yeah, we should beef up the border because drugs and criminals are slipping across but the current witch hunt for everybody with a funny sounding last name just sucks. They all work their asses off and take jobs from nobody who really wants to work.

I just learned about this "ex" Taliban memeber with a FOURTH GRADE education being accepted at Yale. Here's the background of this EX terrorist

This is the same Taliban spin doctor who defended a regime that sheltered Osama bin Laden, held mass executions and burned entire families alive. And it’s the same haughty fellow who appeared in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” insulting a burqa-clad woman protesting the Taliban’s misogynistic policies.

Has the entire Ivy League gone crazy? What about people who honestly worked their asses off in high school, got great grades, and couldn't get in? We all beter start re-thinking our respect for Ivy Degrees. What good are they? A fourth grade education will get you in and presumeably pass; make a stupid woman angry and you get fired; dare put up a recruitment stand and be terrorized. Somebody ought to sue.

But Vince Young, he of the 6 Wonderlic Test, wouldn't be allowed past the gate.

Best Oscar overviews are here and here. Libertas says all I wanted to say other than to prove I'm not homophobic I'm spreading the word that I got a hard on watching Brokeback Mountain. That's so I can get a job in Hollywood.

Spent the better part of last week in the heart of Red State country and if any of you think that Bush is home free out there, think again. Blue roofs dominate the landscape, blue because that is the color of the plastic tarps covering unrepaired roofs throughout the South. Insurance companies in Florida have pegged repair at $2.17 per foot when the absolute lowest possible replacement cost is $5.23; homeowners flat can't get insurance, something that has chilled the RE market---I spoke with one RE broker who had seventeen listings and not a nibble from a buyer. Worse, huge downed trees with exposed mud encrusted roots soaring ten to twelve feet in the air dot the landscape because no government entity will haul them away and homeowners can't pay the cost for cleaning out the two and three thousand pound behemoths; fences are down even in high end properties, trees and garbage block the canals in South Florida. And the hurricaine season is only three months away.

The president, and the Republicans, have lost the confidence of the people. All feel that he is out of touch or flat doesn't care. Government has broken down on every level.

Last on the Terminal Deal: Kudlow hits the nail on the head. Foreign investors will now think at least twice before investing here. The Congress gave the signal that their money is NOT free from seizeure.

Watch for the Arab countries to literally bar Boeing aircraft from purchases. This will be seen as a clear case of racism and religious discrimination together with all the racist and nativist ranting from our "leadership." The Emerates owns the airline that buys our planes. Why the hell should they buy them now?

The inept handling of this issue by Bush is costly, and it is his ineptness that is now front and center, another one word issue: Dubai, Katrina, Iraq. The GOP has lost any initiative in Congress, and has in effect lost it. The main rant of the Dems has been that Bush isn't--can't--pay attention to things. Bye bye tax cuts, foreign tax credits, and all pro-growth legislation. The '06 election may easily turn the House over to the Democrats.

Worse, if that is possible, is that both the Democrats and Republicans are now pushing proposals to give Congress veto power over purchases of American companies by foreign corporations or governments. This extends to all road building, broadcasting, canals; in short everything.

This could cripple our economy. Oh, and this isn't the first. Just last year Congress killed any possible deal with the Chinese on the UNOCAL purchase. This is really bad. Late add: the Journal is listing all the threats from Congress over almost everything. Read it and be warned. The prime force behind this entire debacle is the UAW and the rest of the union dopes. And if all the sheikistan oil barons decide to stop investing their petro-dollars here? We are toast. The Coopster laid it out pretty well yesterday and links to the ultra left LA Weekly for more.

I heard a radically different message seeping out. A sense of fear and loathing seems to be creeping in among those Republicans who prefer to think in cool, strategic terms rather than in purely ideological ones. Maybe even a sense of foreboding that among the many lesser accomplishments of the Bush administration — creating the morass in Iraq, the racking up of record deficits, the mucking about in corruption scandals — we will soon be able to add one more Mission Accomplished: the definitive scuttling of the 1994 Gingrich Revolution.

Good read and very bad news for the GOP which seems as foggy brained as their peerless leader.

And Google? See my old post and then check here. That funny red line that has been crossed is called the 200 day moving average. All who have lost money deserve it and all still in the stock will tell you it will come back. Back to where? is the question and "it will come back" is something every loser in the stock market always says. There is no bottom before the 300 area (check the weekly) and then 200 for this nutball speculative stock which every moron hopefully jumped on and then bailed on weeks ago.