PSoTD

As he is forever tagged with AKA Deep Throat.

Why does he matter? The main reason is, he survived as an anonymous whistleblower. He was suspected, he was discussed, he was pointed as the possible identity of Deep Throat - but that was it. He retired from the FBI in 1973. He lived his life. He wasn't assassinated, he wasn't thrown in prison. It'll be interesting to hear in the future if he was threatened in any way - but the bottom line is, he was the source for some of the most damaging information in the most damaging experience any President has ever undergone, and he survived.

And so did the United States.

And that's why he is important. We were at war with the Communists then, on the ground and for the hearts and minds of the world. Similarly, we are at war today. He turned on the most paranoid Executive Branch in recent history to that point, and the country opposed the Administration. Some would say the Bush Administration rivals Nixon's in such paranoia. Perhaps the announcement today will have repercussions in this and future administrations as well... one can tangle with the highest office in the land and survive.

He is an example of the power of truth and information from high and secret places, regardless of motives. It is appropriate we have been reminded of it. In fact, it is appropriate that we appreciate it as well.

First chance for the crack squad of reporters known as the White House Press Corps to ask Bush the $1000 question.

Today they could not take that hill.

But there was this gem by some hard-hitting syncophant:

Q I did, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. President. At the Naval Academy last week you spoke of a midshipman named Edward Slavis, who graduated and has served in Iraq. And you quoted him as saying that the mission will be a success, and 20 or 30 years from now historians will look back on it and consider it America's golden moment.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q I'm wondering, sir, if you agree with that assessment, and, if so, why?

Wow. Poor form. Failed to follow up with: Do you think Laura is as beautiful as the day you first met her?

Cherie Blair is cashing in, while there's cashing to be done...

We're going to be hearing a lot about the Downing Street memo in the next few months. The question is, will we be hearing about it from the authorities.

As Shakespeare's Sister stated, in honor of Memorial Day, we should support our troops by contributing to efforts to uncover the truth about why they were put in harm’s way. They deserve that much. Democrats.com has offered a reward of $1000 to anyone who can get George W. Bush to answer this question:

In July 2002, did you and your administration "fix" the intelligence and facts about non-existent Iraqi WMD's and ties to terrorism - which were disputed by U.S. intelligence officials - to sell your decision to invade Iraq to Congress, the American people, and the world - as quoted in the Downing Street Minutes?

There's also a set of rules that go along with this.

I have a couple of thoughts about this - first of all, it shouldn't be $1000. It should be a growing lottery, one with a growth rate that generates its own news story. One thousand dollars isn't incentive, and isn't particularly newsworthy. It's worth the effort to make this bigger total and a bigger campaign. I hope Democrats.com considers doing this. I'll be mailing a check with that suggestion today.

Secondly... maybe this is part of the future of journalism. The market determines the value of the question asked to the questioned. At some point, that value can no longer be ignored. We all know that if the Bush Administration at some time feels compelled to answer that question, it will only serve to stall a full answer and suggest many, many other questions. Will the news media follow up on those questions as well, or will they need some sort of financial stimulus?

It's happening in Brazil on speculation about the unstoppable highway BR163. From Associated Press:

Brazil's government is preparing to let private companies embark on a $417 million paving project to turn BR163 into a modern two-lane toll highway stretching 1,100 miles, nearly the distance between Philadelphia and Miami. That would link Brazil's most important soy-growing region with a deep-water Amazon River port.

Truck traffic will skyrocket as the country opens up a new export corridor for soybeans, Brazil's most important crop. Trips that now take weeks during the half-year rainy season will be cut to hours.

Novo Progresso, a town straddling BR163, has doubled its population to 40,000 in only five years. Its merchants sell everything from chain saws to veterinary supplies and sometimes compare the paving project to the Transcontinental Railway which opened up the 19th century American West to immigration and development.

This week's question at the Unpaid Punditry Corps:

Would it be a good idea for the United States government to establish a few more official Monday holidays to provide America with more three day holiday weekends?

Go there and comment.

The following poem was written by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918). Some claim that Wilfred Owen is the greatest writer of war poetry in the English language. He died in the last weeks of fighting in World War I.

More on Owen here:

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Adam Penenberg has an interesting article in Wired about Salon - and whether it has discovered, through offering both a Paid Site Pass and free content laden with advertisements options, a central path for publications to make a profit through the Internet. Worth a read, particularly with the recent New York Times columnist paid content decision.

I still think we're well on the road to product placement as the revenue strategy in the online offerings of "news" columnists, but hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

I'm going to try something new. I have two blogrolls - one you see to the right which I check daily, and one that I peruse through bloglines daily as well. This extended weekend I'm going to offer a contest: 10 blogs from my Bloglines list are listed in the survey below. These are relatively random picks to choose from... Vote for one that you think I should move to my visible blogroll on the right. Each blog is linked... check them out if you haven't seen them. I'll move the two highest vote getters on Tuesday.

My Weekend Contest
Which Blog Should Be Placed On My Right Sidebar Blogroll?	Nick Lewis: The Blog NYCO's Blog Majikthise Ruminate This Nathan Newman Prairie Weather Dohiyi Mir TBogg LJ's Blogorific Just A Bump in the Beltway
	Current Results

Update: The contest is now closed. We had a tie, so there are actually three additions to the blogroll:

LJ's Blogorific
Majikthise
TBogg

I'll probably try this again over the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Thanks to the following fine blogs for adding PSoTD to their blogrolls...

Ang's Weird Ideas

Byzantium's Shores

Rantavation 3.0

The Sideshow

Much obliged!

I'm all for supporting the troops. And I guess it's okay that the Defense Department is now promoting jewelry as long as it says "Support Our Troops".

But there sure are a lot of other things we benefit from in our country that deserve support, and maybe need some product placement of their own to push that recognition.

Try these searches in Google. You'll be surprised at the difference in the results:

Support Our Bill of Rights: 80 results
Support Our Constitution: 517 results
Support Our Troops: 1,630,000 results

Go to eBay, do the same searches:

Support Our Bill of Rights: 0 items
Support Our Constitution: 0 items
Support Our Troops: 1681 items

It seems like it is time that liberals and progressives ought to get into some product placement with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And support that placement, too.

Baghdad Burning rips Tom Bombastic a new one while explaining how he is so wrong on so many fronts about Iraq.

There are none, to my knowledge, anywhere near us in Central Pennsylvania.

There's apparently one in the Pittsburgh area that I have not been to - the Green Forest Churrascaria.

Anyone here ever been there? Or know of any other Churrascarias in Pennsylvania?

We have eight competitors in our tournament. Please consider the totality of the News Coverage for each State Capital if you can, but if you're only familiar with the newspapers, that's fine. What we're looking for eventually is the State Capital News Coverage that provides the least benefit for the local news consumers in their coverage of their state government. The Fishwrap King, as it were.

With no further ado, here's the four brackets for the rest of this month. In early June, we'll have semi-finalists, and by mid-June we'll have a champion of crapformation. Don't forget to vote!

Note: You have to do each poll separately.

State Capital News Coverage Which State Capital Has The Worst Local News Coverage of State Government? Jackson, Mississippi Little Rock, Arkansas Current Results

State Capital News Coverage Which State Capital Has The Worst Local News Coverage of State Government? Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Trenton, New Jersey Current Results

State Capital News Coverage Which State Capital Has The Worst Local News Coverage of State Government? Columbus, Ohio Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Current Results

State Capital News Coverage Which State Capital Has The Worst Local News Coverage of State Government? Columbia, South Carolina Atlanta, Georgia Current Results

Two posts from Shakespeare's Sister worth your consideration:

Raw Story reports that a coalition of citizen groups, calling themselves After Downing Street and including Veterans for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, 911Citizens Watch, Democracy Rising, Code Pink, Global Exchange, Democrats.com, Velvet Revolution, and Gold Star Families for Peace, among others, are seeking a formal inquiry into the possibility that Bush committed impeachable offenses in making the case for the Iraq War.

Melissa is working on putting together a group of bloggers, called the Big Brass Alliance, to support the After Downing Street effort. If you think you might want to participate as a blogger, read this post, and consider joining the Alliance.

This article makes me puke.

Newsview: Bush's Global Clout Seen Growing

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In the rarified club of world leaders, President Bush has taken his share of lumps. Critics have railed against his handling of Iraq, his perceived disdain for the United Nations and what they say is a swaggering approach to foreign policy.

But Bush probably would not want to trade places with any other head of state.

Nearly all his fellow leaders of the world's big industrial democracies have stumbled. It has left them vulnerable at home and weakener on the world stage.

The president, through it all, is riding what he sees as a strong re-election mandate to trumpet his goal of spreading democracy.

That helps explains why Bush, despite a slip in his approval rating among Americans, may find himself holding the stronger hand when he travels in early July to Scotland for the annual summit of the leaders of the eight major industrialized democracies.

Does Raum mean the 8 countries that failed to stop Bush on his push to invade Iraq? Does he mean those vulnerable leaders?

He goes on to compare the other "world leaders". It is kind of a funny list. I don't see any Chinese names. Anyone from India? Nope.

But there's Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, a couple of guys who's international and national positions have been greatly diminished by working with Bush.

Nice try, Tom. Keep working on that George the Powerful sonnet. But weren't you the same guy that said those in St. Peter's Square booed and whistled last month during Pope John Paul II's funeral? How does that jibe with growing global clout?

Damn You, Tom Raum...

If you have children past the age of 5, most likely you've had some sort of experience with soccer. Our 8 year old daughter plays soccer, and Memorial Day weekend is the big tournament weekend here, the end of the season, the awarding of trophies, the team picnic. By the end of this evening, soccer season for us will be over.

This weekend, tournaments around the country are going on. These tournaments are more than just fun experiences for the kids and exercises in time management for parents - they are economic flashes for many places around the country as well. For example, Dayton, Ohio...

One of the largest sporting events in Dayton returns this weekend. The Adidas Warrior Soccer Classic Memorial Day Tournament will bring 554 teams and 7,500 soccer players from around the country to town May 28 through May 30.

The event, the third-largest soccer tournament in the nation, will have a local economic impact of roughly $7.4 million from hotels, restaurants and other vendors, according to the Dayton/Montgomery County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Little did Dayton realize that 20 years ago, when this tournament began, it would become such an economic engine. But there it is, and in many other places around the country, this weekend.

To me, this is a feel-good economic story. The reward of the tournament is distributed to both large and small business, and it is a sizeable economic event that promotes activity and the family, among other values. All it needs is for the weather to cooperate...

Just part of my regular promotion of the blogrolls of blogs that blogroll PSoTD - and to see if there are other blogs listed that should be added to my monster bloglines reader. I'm going to make a pickled peppers tonguetwister out of that yet...

For today: BARBARIAN Blog's Blogroll

-Ang's Weird Ideas --- -Belisarius --- -blogenlust --- -Hellblazer --- -ItLooksLikeThis --- -King of Zembla --- -Paperwight'sFairShot --- -Scamboogah --- -Scaramouche --- -ShysteeBlog --- -SpicyFruit --- -suckful.net --- -The Token Reader --- -The Generik Brand --- -The Dark Window

Just remember, you can go too far... and too long. Time and space builds a separate reality.

From The Scotsman:

TWO men claimed to be Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender at the end of the Second World War could finally return home, 60 years later, after they were found living in the hills of a Philippine island.

The soldiers, identified as Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, from Osaka, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 83, from Kochi, apparently want to lay down their weapons - or what remains of them.

The two former members of the Imperial Japanese Army are believed to have spent the last six decades living in remote hills in the south of the Philippine island of Mindanao.

We'll see if this story pans out. Hard to believe.

Slain Soldier's Mom Rejected by Gold Star

Everyone agrees that Ligaya Lagman is a Gold Star mother, part of the long line of mournful women whose sons or daughters gave their lives for their country. Her 27-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman, was killed last year in Afghanistan, but American Gold Star Mothers Inc., has rejected Lagman, a Filipino, for membership because — though a permanent resident and a taxpayer — she is not a U.S. citizen.

"There's nothing we can do because that's what our organization says: You have to be an American citizen," national President Ann Herd said Thursday. "We can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows."

That explanation isn't satisfying the war veterans who sponsored Lagman's application, some other members of the mothers' group or several members of Congress.

That's not the kind of comment that denotes respect or dignity for the grieving mother. The wind blows? I'd say Herd has already broken her promise she made when she took the lead of this group:

Mothers, I promise to serve this office as your newly elected National President with Pride, Honor, Humility, Dignity, and Respect. I promise to represent our organization at all times. We must reach out to all of our military, wherever they are serving. Many who have come home – come home with injuries to their bodies, hearts, and minds that will give them pain for as long as they live. We as Mothers – they are our sons and daughters too, you know, as well as all of America's – must help them.

It shouldn't matter who the mother is - what matters was the child's contribution and eventual ultimate sacrifice. Why so exclusive?

The other day I asked here what size of city/town people were from. I had 20 comments.

1 was from rural America. And I suspect if I had 20 more comments, I still may have only had 1 comment from rural America.

It seems to me that the liberal/progressive blogspace is missing a representation of rural America. It's not that there aren't liberals or progressives in rural America. But somehow I am missing them - or not recognizing them - in the blogs. And so is Google. Search the term "urban blogs" and it has 6300 results. "Rural blogs" brings back ten results. Ten.

And so... I'll start with a request. Know of any rural political blogs - preferably liberal or progressive or moderate? If so, post their URL in comments - I'd like to see them. I think those of us from suburbia and the urban landscapes and the mid-sized towns need to hear the voices from rural America with which we share many hopes and visions and expectations of America and its government. I'd like to add some to my blogroll. To my knowledge, I currently have one: Gentle Breezes. I'd like to see more rural issue perspective.

So... please suggest.

Postal Service has anthrax detection machines being installed...

South Carolina:

Four mail centers across South Carolina will have machines installed this summer that can detect anthrax, postal officials say.

The detectors will be placed as part of a $400 million system being placed in 114 mail processing facilities across the country.

Indiana:

The U.S. Postal Service's Kokomo processing plant will soon become Indiana's fourth postal center capable of detecting anthrax spores.

Lots of false alarms...

New Mexico

White powder in a threatening letter to Gov. Bill Richardson was not anthrax, according to tests a day after the substance forced the state Capitol to evacuate.

New York:

The emergency room at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn was evacuated Thursday night after three people walked in complaining of exposure to a white powder that was sent to them in an envelope four days ago, police said.

Oregon:

Employees at Washington County's juvenile services building got a scare Thursday afternoon when some white powder came in the mail, but the powder turned out to be harmless.

Finally, how's the Department of Justice doing on their anthrax investigation, which has been ongoing for over three years?

Nothing much in public, but that might change, as Steven Hatfill continues his lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other federal officials.

It's sad. The government isn't being held accountable for the status of the investigation by the news media, despite the fact that this country pays constantly for the aftereffects of the anthrax attacks, in higher security costs and in false alarms. Apparently the only way we're going to get more information is through discovery in a lawsuit.

What is wrong with our news media? This isn't a story without legs - there's a lawsuit from a man who believes he was wrongly suspected, there's widespread taxpayer costs, there's citizen fear that an anthrax mail attack could still happen again... this story still has a lot of angles.

How many anthrax scares did the U.S. have last year? Will there be safer and not-as-safe mail delivery states or areas once the Postal Service finishes deploying their new detection equipment? How are the victims that were sicked by the anthrax attacks now, three years later? Where's the FBI on the investigation?

It took me 20 seconds to come up with those questions, and I'm just a blogger. Can't the news media do better than that?

Apparently, very easily. Jen Roberts says the market is hot.

These are the invaders we have to stop.

Seriously.

Based in McCall, Idaho, Christy Behm has parachuted from airplanes and rappelled out of helicopters to fight forest fires in the western United States. But her toughest foe may lie here, 30 feet above New York's Central Park.

Straddling a slender tree branch, she pauses for a safety tug on her climbing harness and backup rope. Then she swings upside down, clinging like a possum to the underside of the modest limb while city traffic whizzes by below. Her quarry: a biological terrorist that's so rarely seen, its pursuers have to scrutinize each square foot of bark for telltale holes and faint spots where eggs the size of a rice grain may have been deposited. The threat: the potential loss of every maple plus nine other tree species across the United States.

When the Asian longhorned beetle - or ALB, for short - was first detected in the US nine years ago, it quickly moved onto the nation's list of most wanted bugs. But spotting the roughly 1-inch-long beetles with their gaudy black-and-white striped antennae is so difficult that normal means of detection and eradication don't work. So the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has employed nearly 200 people in an intensive "bug hunt."

This IS the war we have to win.

Here are a few of the lobbying-related news stories floating around this week in various places:

From NY1 (New York City):

Lobbyists keep getting richer. In 2004, they made more than $33 million lobbying city government officials. That's up 31 percent, with nearly $8 million more than they earned in 2003.

"Spending on lobbying is going up in part because of some big banner campaigns that are employing a lot of lobbyists,” says Megan Quattlebaum of Common Cause.

One of those campaigns is the West Side stadium battle. The New York Jets and its opponent, Madison Square Garden, each spent close to $500,000 in 2004, for a total of nearly $1 million. The investment appears to be paying off, at least when it comes to support.

From KOBTV, New Mexico

The state has hired a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm and an Albuquerque consulting company to help its effort to save Cannon Air Force Base.

Gov. Bill Richardson announced Wednesday that Keystone International Inc. of Albuquerque had been hired to provide staff support and analysis.

The firm of Hyjek & Fix Incorporated will lobby the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which can change the Pentagon’s proposals but must make its recommendations to the president by Sept. 8.

Keystone will be paid $175,000. Hyjek & Fix will receive $100,000.

From WATE, Tennessee

Lobbying ethics legislation that appeared to be going nowhere may have another chance after state senators reached a compromise.

A bill to make lobbyists disclose how much they spend wining and dining lawmakers could be reconsidered in the Senate but only if the bill's sponsor, Sen. Roy Herron, steps aside.

From The News, Maine

Free lunches at the Statehouse, served up two or three times a week on average by organizations hoping to curry favor with the Legislature, have become so popular that leaders from both parties say it’s time to limit their use as a lobbying tactic.

"It’s increased four-fold" in recent years, said Rep. Robert Duplessie (D-Westbrook), a four-term legislator who serves as majority whip in the House. "It’s happening way too often."

House Minority Leader David Bowles (R-Sanford) agreed.

"I’m troubled by the extent of the lunches," he said. "We’re looking at limiting it to coffee and doughnuts, a few pastries, and not what literally has become full meals."

If that's the biggest lobbying excess Maine has to deal with right now, then the rest of the country needs to look to Maine to see how they keep it under control.

Sadly, that's probably not the case...

I grew up in central Indiana until I was 12. We lived in Muncie and in Indianapolis during that time. One year my Dad took us to practice at the 500, of which I have three memories only:

Hard wooden seating - I think benches. Uncomfortable. Hot. Very, VERY loud with the cars.

I do remember all the hoopla leading up to the 500 around the area a bit better, though. And my Dad still has a 500 Party every few years or so, even though he lives in Bakersfield. It's really just an excuse to have a party, nobody really pays much attention to the race, but he's maintaining a bit of his Hoosier tradition.

At one time, the 500 seemed very homegrown. Today, it's quite international:

More than half the 33-car starting field for Sunday's Indy 500 is made up of non-American drivers.

Eighteen drivers representing 12 countries will start the race, with at least one in each of the 11 three-car rows.

Brazil has the most entries, with five. Other countries represented are England, Scotland, Japan, the Czech Republic, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico, France, Sweden, Australia and Canada.

I have a few Indiana-based bloggers on the blogroll. If you stop by, how about a few thoughts on this question: Does the Indy 500 seem as much of a Hoosier tradition now as in the past? Or is it primarily an international event that has lost most of its Indiana flavor in pursuit of tourism dollars? I'd be curious to hear what folks that live there think about the 500.

Have you seen it? It tracks blog posts that reference articles from the New York Times.

I'm just seeing what this story link might do. And this one, entitled "Dancing to New Rules, a Rhapsody in Chrome".

And also this story about Mayor Bloomberg still buying TV ad space for his campaign.

UPC has a poll. Give it your best guess.

AAA estimates that 37.2 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday, a 2.2 percent increase from last year.

So... where are you going to be this weekend?

Bad Attitudes has a great post on the less shining lights of the newspaper industry:

If You Think the MSM Is Bad, Check the Backwaters

The most important truth is that newspapers try, and most succeed, to earn 20 percent on gross income before taxes. That is three times the profit margin of, say, Wal-Mart. Sam Walton used to say he was limiting his newspaper advertising until the industry brought down its profit margins.

This target is usually not reached by very large newspapers which, horror of horrors, have to negotiate union contracts so their workers get a living wage. Newspaper owners are a singularly greedy crowd. They pay salaries that are egregiously low, starting college-educated reporters at $300 a week in smaller rural markets.

It is in the smaller market where monopoly newspapers throw off the highest margins — some I know of get away with 40 percent of gross. Now you can see why your local daily is jammed with inexpensive wire service filler and tight as a drum — short of international and national news, but also terribly deficient in gathering the local news which they claim to be their forte.

Go read. You'll dislike newspapers even more after you do.

Rox has a post up today that relates to that 1970s crime which drags up a personal story for me. It's the kind of story that doesn't really have a point other than it was weird.

The driver and kids in the Chowchilla bus were buried in a gravel pit about half a mile from where we lived in Livermore. We could see the pits from the front window of our house (it was quite the view). In fact, most kids in our neighborhood went over to the gravel pits off of Isabel Road from time to time just to mess around, particularly on weekends when there really wasn't anyone around.

When the bus driver and kids escaped from the gravel pit and authorities acted, our neighborhood buzzed. First with the news, then with police and FBI. It is my first and only experience with that kind of law enforcement blanketing. And it was both scary and impressive, especially to a 17 year old.

The main reason it was scary is that the FBI and police gave the impression in first interviews that they believed the kidnappers were in the same area, and may even be from the neighborhood, since local knowledge of the gravel pit was necessary to have used that location for the crime. Parents kept their kids under a lockdown for a day or two until news broke on the suspects' names and possible locations.

Plus, the FBI was there. It was impressive to me. This was a big case and there were lots of agents. For a couple of days they canvassed the neighborhood - a large neighborhood, and talked to adults and kids. There were police cars stationed at the pits for at least a month. There were helicopters flying all over for a week or two as well. Law enforcement was a noticeable, physical presence.

It made parents and kids feel safer, and the leash on teenagers didn't last long. A side benefit - a vandalism outbreak in the neighborhood stopped immediately with all the police presence.

There's one last thing I want to say in this pointless story. If there's a School Bus Museum or Hall of Fame in this country, they better have a wing named after driver Ed Ray. He saved lives. He's a hero.

From MediaGab:

In the latest twist in the broadening battle overdecency standards, the band Mötley Crüe filed suit against NBC yesterday. The suit states that the network violated the group's free-speech rights and weakened its sales by banning it after Vince Neil, the lead singer, used an expletive on the air in a Dec. 31 appearance on "The Tonight Show."

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Los Angeles, accuses the network of censoring the band to mollify a Federal Communications Commission that has been increasingly quick to levy steep fines for broadcasting indecent material on television and radio. The lawsuit says the network, which banned the group after Mr. Neil inserted an expletive into his New Year's greeting to Mötley Crüe's drummer, Tommy Lee, added insult to injury by promoting a summer reality series featuring Mr. Lee.

Look, this isn't about banning because of a political position, or a religious position, or a philosophical position, or blah blah blah. This is banning because these guys know the language code on television and are either too arrogant or too stupid to follow the rules, and are too arrogant or too stupid to have a good reason for failing to follow the rules. A New Year's Greeting?

Seriously, this isn't a ban against language. This is a ban against morons.

But, I suspect this lawsuit isn't about anything other than promotion. If you can't be booked on another network to perform, maybe you can be booked to talk about your lawsuit. Brilliant move! Somebody get a hold of Jimmy Kimmel's people person.

I had to take it off my Bloglines reader as well. I want to use Bloglines to scan a lot - and I mean a LOT - of blogs. But THP is coming in with 20, 30, 40 posts a day - and as much as I appreciate Bill Maher's response to Congressman Bachus today - that volume gets seriously in the way of looking at the other blogs, most of which average 1 or 2 posts per day.

I figure if it's important, I'll see it in another blog, or through a news search. And I could change my mind when and if THP starts including comments capability to blog entries.

In my continuing effort to highlight the blogrolls of those who blogroll PSoTD, I bring you the list from Ayn Clouter...

A-Changin' Times --- AirBeagle --- All Facts and Opinions --- alone --- The American Street --- A Mockingbird's Medley --- An old soul... --- anonyMoses --- Bark Bark Woof Woof --- Blogadactyl --- blogAmy --- blunted on reality --- Body and Soul --- brownbeagle --- The Cassandra Page --- Chapomatic --- Commoner Sense --- corrente --- Cup O' Joe --- Cut to the Chase --- Dark Bilious Vapors --- Dean's World --- DeanLand --- Dohiyi Mir --- Douglas McDaniel --- Dubya's Dayly Diary --- elementropy --- Estimated Prophet --- Ether Mind --- Everything Is Ruined --- eye of the storm --- Fact-esque --- The Felonious Elephant --- feministe --- The Fulcrum --- Futurballa --- Garet Garrett --- Geertzian --- Graham_72 --- green monkey online --- The Heretik --- hubs and spokes --- The Huck Upchuck --- Hugo Zoom --- iddybud --- I Hate Liberals --- The Invisible Library --- Jenn Arbuste --- Jesus' General --- killer empathy --- Knight Of The Mind --- The League Of Liberals --- Liberal Oasis --- Life or Something Like It --- Lifting The Fog --- Lucifer's Condiments --- Mad Kane --- Michael Bérubé --- Middle Earth Journal --- The Moderate Voice --- Neoliberal for Life --- New American Revolutionist --- Nick Lewis --- Nude Chaos --- Old Whig's Brain Dump --- The Owner's Manual --- The People's Republic of Seabrook --- Pharyngula --- Phersu --- Pigeon-liver'd --- The Poison Kitchen --- Plum Crazy --- Precinct 333 --- President Boxer --- Professor Kim's News Notes --- Pseudo-Adrienne --- PSoTD --- The Punning Pundit --- Random Thoughts --- Rhymes With Right --- Rook's Rant --- Rox Populi --- Rush Limbaughtomy --- scratchings --- skippy the bush kangaroo --- Spectre AWOL --- Stageleft --- Starsplash --- strios --- StoutDemBlog --- Sweet Spirits of Ammonia --- The Talking Dog --- That Colored Fella --- T. Rex's Guide to Life --- tsuredzuregusa --- Ugly Naked Guy --- Uncommon Sense --- The Un-Common Tater --- Urthshu --- What She Said! --- Wilson's Blogmanac --- WTF? --- WTF Is It Now? --- The Yellow Doggerel Democrat ---

A big one. I'm sure some of these will be added to my monster Bloglines feedreader.

You can always put some dough down on who will be the next Pope.

Cardinal Angelo Scola 6 to 1
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga 7 to 1
Count Christoph von Schoenborn 7 to 1
Jorge Mario Bergoglio 9 to 1
Dionigi Tettamanzi 10 to 1
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone 10 to 1
Francis Arinze 10 to 1
Claudio Hummes 12 to 1
Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa 14 to 1
Cardinal Karl Lehnmann 16 to 1
Norberto Rivera Carrera 20 to 1
Cardianl Ruini 20 to 1
Cardinal Renato Martino 20 to 1
Wilfred Napier (South Africa) 20 to 1
Attilio Cardinal Nicora (Roman Curia) 20 to 1
Jose Da Cruz Policar 20 to 1
JaimeLucas Ortega y Alamino 20 to 1
Angelo Sodano 25 to 1
Ivan Dias 25 to 1
Antonio Mar?a Rouco Var 33 to 1
Philippe Barbarin 33 to 1
Cormac Murphy-OConnor 40 to 1
Giovanni Battista Re 40 to 1
Giacomo Biffi 40 to 1
Lopez Rodriguez (Dominican Republic) 50 to 1
Cardinal Walter Kasper 50 to 1
Keith O Brien 50 to 1
Geraldo Majella Agnelo 50 to 1
Godfried Danneels 50 to 1
Cardinal Dario Castrillion Hoyos 50 to 1
Cardinal George Pell 66 to 1
Jean-marie Lustiger 66 to 1
Cardinal Amigo Vallejo 66 to 1
Francis George 80 to 1
Cardinal Carlo Maria Matini 100 to 1
Silvano Piovanelli 125 to 1
Father Dougal Maguire (Craggy Island)1000 to 1
Bono 1000 to 1

Note: Bono seems like a sucker bet to me.

How long until San Diego area Republicans start suggesting that the government create (and rent) housing to certain necessary types of government employees? From North County Times:

The county Sheriff's Department expects to get only about $8.4 million more to fight crime in 2005-06 ---- a relatively meager 1.8 percent budget increase ---- mainly because the county is still in the midst of a two-year deal to fork over local cash to help the state pay off its debt.

But even if they had more money, sheriff's officials said last week, they might not be able to spend it.

They said the department can't find enough recruits to hire and train to patrol streets and monitor jails even though it desperately needs them, a problem officials blamed on the Iraq war, San Diego County's exorbitant housing market, and the county's generally high cost of living.

Blame it on the Iraq war? Laughable. Here's what you need to know from the article:

According to the San Diego Association of Realtors, the median price of a single-family home in April was $530,000. And statistics compiled by the San Diego Housing Commission said a family must earn $135,000 a year to afford that.

Pay for sheriff's patrol deputies, meanwhile, begins at $39,000 and tops out at $69,000. Pay for jail and court deputies starts at $29,500 and tops out at $53,900.

JibJab signed with Budweiser to viralmarket the brand.

I'm going to take a few days before writing anything long about the "f-deal". I have very mixed feelings at this point about it. Biggest positives:

Email searches. Lame excuses. Politicos on state government payroll. Attorney General investigation. Smoke, fire, or both? From WKYT:

Gov. Ernie Fletcher cannot shield millions of state government e-mails from the attorney general's investigation into improper political influence in state personnel matters, a judge ruled Monday.

Franklin County Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden did extract a promise from Deputy Attorney General Pierce Whites that the e-mails would only be searched for evidence about any personnel abuses.

Meanwhile a Franklin County grand jury subpoena filed with the lawsuit indicates investigators have 23 people of special interest, including several top aides to Gov. Ernie Fletcher and some political allies outside government. Neither Fletcher nor Lt. Gov. Steve Pence were named on the subpoena, which was reviewed by The Associated Press.

But the e-mails may not prove very valuable. William Hurt, an attorney hired for the case, said the state has records of e-mails going back only to May 5 and has a policy to destroy old e-mails after 10 days.

The grand jury subpoena asks for all documents, writings and any references to contacts or communications regarding Merit System hiring from Jan. 1, 2004 to the present. The subpoena also demands phone records and phone message pads.

The subpoena list includes Fletcher's Chief of Staff Stan Cave, his deputy Richard Murgatroyd, acting Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert, Commerce Secretary Jim Host, Republican Party treasurer Dave Disponett, a volunteer in Fletcher's office, and Stephen Branscum, a Fletcher contributor who is also a partner with Fletcher in a Florida real estate venture.

Attorney General Greg Stumbo's investigation is looking into whether the governor's administration violated state Merit System laws by hiring transportation workers based on politics, and not their qualifications for the job.

Did I mention document shredding? From the Courier-Journal:

The latest news in the ongoing story about the always circumspect Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is that an order was issued asking employees to shred documents with "confidential information" about its workers on precisely the same day that Attorney General Greg "The Warrior" Stumbo began investigating the cabinet's disturbing tendency to hire people with the same names as political contributors.

The almost unfortunate thing in this bubbling scandal is that Stumbo is a Democrat and the people doling out the merit-jobs are Republican -- which always moves the public debate beyond stupid and transparent to the politically self-serving.

Protecting whom? Cabinet Secretary Bill Nighbert said his shredding policy was aimed at protecting Kentucky citizenry against "identity theft," but nonetheless agreed this week to end the policy -- perhaps because a Franklin District judge seemed to think shredding cabinet personnel papers during a criminal investigation of the cabinet was a bad, or at least, tasteless, idea.

Identify theft! That response is worthy of some Jay Leno and David Letterman jokes... work it in, folks.

Oh my God. Are business schools really using The Apprentice as a teaching tool? And now Donald Trump is getting into online education?

The next generation of business hyperbole and self-promotion is going to be one damn scary experience.

I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of educational offerings by Trump's e-education business. I see a lot of potential for the following:

Branding in Wedlock. Use your marriage to promote yourself. Learn the techniques to use media to announce, promote, and schedule your wedding and your future spouse. Discover the inside nuptial rib-ticklers for Regis, Jay, and especially veteran Larry King.

Branding in Divorce. Use your divorce to promote yourself. Build public sympathy for yourself while creating a more "safe" sexual and public partner stable. Discover the inside divorce rib-ticklers for Regis, Jay, and especially veteran Larry King. Prerequisite: Branding in Wedlock.

Branding Your Physical Liabilities. Learn the secret to embracing your physical liabilities and squeezing out every drop for public awareness for yourself without running afoul of the law. Weak hairlines, nose incongruities, and weight issues are covered in detail.

I have an "about bloggers" piece I'm starting on, and this is as good a starting point as any...

Do you consider yourself a blogger from:

Rural area
A small town
A medium-sized city
A suburb in a large metropolitan area
A big city

Please post in comments. I'll let you define those terms for your own purposes. It ain't scientific, just sense of the waterfront.

If you find yourself in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area in May of some year, definitely check to see if the Annual Greek Festival is going on at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Camp Hill, PA. We end up going every year. There's music and dancing and crafts, but there's one failsafe reason to go.

The FOOD.

Here's a pic of dancers from yesterday. As usual, we left stuffed.

I know most of you may not care, but I take heart in the fact that Rex Grossman and Mike Brown were at Chicago Bears' minicamp and practiced with no ill-effects from last year's injuries.

From the Washington Post:

Any doubts that there is a housing bubble in many of the major markets were dispelled last week by fresh data on home prices and mortgages and warnings from bank regulators.

The National Association of Realtors found that median prices for previously occupied homes rose at double-digit rates over the past year in 66 of the 136 metropolitan areas in its survey. That's the highest number since the Realtors began compiling such tables 25 years ago. For Washington, the figure was 22.7 percent.

Meanwhile, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who has downplayed bubble talk, on Friday warned that house prices can't continue to rise faster than the incomes of the people buying them. "It's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable underlying pattern," he told the Economic Club of New York. "At a minimum, there's a little froth in this market."

I snipped from the beginning and the end of the article for those three paragraphs, but if you read the article you'll realize this is scary news.

Particularly for those who have recently bought a home or those who are in the market to buy a home - like my wife and I.

Ten years ago we bought our first home, and now, two kids and possessions later, we have been looking at homes in our area for the past two and a half years.

We are picky, both on house and on price. But this last week a house came up in our neighborhood, two blocks down, on the other side of our house, remodeled, on the creek... has a swimming pool...

It was the house that we have always said if it came up, we'd put an offer on it. We love our 40-year-old neighborhood and prefer to stay here.

We did put an offer down. We did not get the house.

A year ago, that house would have gone for $260K or so, at best. This week the winning offer was over $320K.

I am normally a person who, once I have come to a decision, comes to peace with that decision. But this week I had a hard time sleeping every night before our offer lost. I just couldn't decide whether the expected price of the house was irrational, or whether this market would continue going up for quite a while. We liked the house, but it wasn't perfect - none ever are. And the backyard was completely against what I want - I want a more natural appearance, not a swimming pool. Regardless, the price of the home was going to preclude our making major changes for a while if we bought it.

My wife and I are a little bummed that we didn't get the house, but mostly because of the price it went for, and what it means for the short-term of what we can afford in our area.

But I have slept well since our offer lost. I am one of those nearly 4 in 10 Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that the housing bubble in their local markets will burst — signifying a collapse of housing prices — within the next three years. I find myself more and more wanting to remain on the sidelines of the market until this occurs.

Such talk from Greenspan, although it was coated with more happytalk about housing, can't help but reverberate with people thinking like myself. Sooner or later, the majority of consumers will make an assessment - what is more likely to happen in the next few years, wage inflation or real estate deflation? And at that point, I think the housing market will emit a low whistling of air.

Every few weeks I like to point out some blogging that has covered a lobbyist news story I hadn't heard. Here's some of what is percolating recently:

Arlen Specter paints Dick Armey as "just another paid lobbyist spreading disinformation". From MySpot.

From Kentucky: a pretty blatant request for School Superintendents to pay the campaign debts of House Budget Chairman Harry Moberly.