I now have a favorite NASCAR driver.

Eschaton: "Verbatim from Chris Myers (Fox Sports announcer) on today's race at Pomona pre-race program..

'You think you know Dale Earnhardt Jr.? He advised his crew to go see the Michael Moore movie Farenheit 911. He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see... and it just shows you that Dale Earnhardt Jr. can reach far beyond the steering wheel.'
"

Oy

My Way - News: "An Iraqi militant group issued footage Sunday of a man it said was a captured U.S. Marine and threatened to behead him, further heightening tension ahead of the June 30 formal handover of sovereignty.

Video shown on Qatar-based Arabic channel Al Jazeera showed a blindfolded man in a camouflage uniform, and an apparent Marine Corps identity card that named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun.

Jazeera said the group threatened to behead Hassoun unless Iraqi prisoners are freed."

This is prison reform -- the Elephant way!!

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Jumbo footballers take on Thais: Ten elephants took on a Thai prison team on Sunday in a game that officials hoped would show playing football is more fun than gambling on it.

Inmates are among many Thais betting illegally on the matches in Portugal.

The humans opened the scoring, but the special oversized ball meant the elephants more than held their own.



Football fever

Amid the mud, the result was unclear: either a 5-5 draw or a creditable 7-6 win for the elephants.

The elephants had the flags of the European countries taking part in the 2004 tournament in Portugal painted on their sides. Prisoners wore face paint.

'We want to show and want to get support from all the people that you can get fun from playing football without gambling,' said Nathee Chitsawang, head of Thailand's corrections department."

The Reagan Legacy

Reagan's Vision Triumphed ... But Is His the World We Want to Live in?: "During the Reagan era, the United States offered aid and assistance to a variety of despots throughout the world. In El Salvador and Guatemala, American officials turned a blind eye to right-wing death squads that murdered tens of thousands of civilians. The CIA forged close alliances with President Manuel Noriega of Panama despite Noriega's repressive regime and close ties to Columbian cartels exporting drugs to the United States. In Liberia the United States backed the murderous anti-communist Samuel K. Doe, whose reign destabilized Liberia and neighboring countries for decades. The Reagan Administration demonstrated scant inclination to assist those seeking to unseat dictatorships and oppression in Haiti, the Philippines, and South Africa, which, Reagan incorrectly asserted had 'eliminated the segregation that we had in our country.'"

Least surprising headline EVER

Poll reveals hostility to US and support for rebel cleric

Sure, they never told Cheney.

Official: Cheney Not Briefed on Iraq Work (washingtonpost.com): "Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was told in 2002 that Cheney's former company would receive no-bid work to secretly plan restoration of Iraq's oil facilities, but the information wasn't given to the vice president, a White House official said Tuesday."

What is wrong with people?

washingtonpost.com: Pandas Defaced, Artists Devastated: "The attacks began almost as soon as the colorful panda sculptures took up their posts on street corners and city sidewalks.

Freedom -- a bronze-painted, teddy bear version of the statue atop the Capitol -- lost the eagle, Native American headdress and 13 stars that adorned her helmet, as well as the stars from her shield. Two colorful, prehistoric-looking birds were stolen from atop Cro-Magnon Panda. Ti-Bet Your Life, a Groucho Marx look-alike, was robbed of a pair of eyeglasses and the back part of a jacket.

At least seven of the 150 life-size statues produced for the PandaMania public art project have been vandalized since their unveiling last month, say officials with the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which is running the program.

Three were defaced with graffiti. A security camera at the World Wildlife Fund headquarters in Foggy Bottom captured a young man, beer in hand, prying a piece off the For a Living Planet panda at 2 a.m. one Saturday.

'It's a shame,' said Tony Gittens, executive director of the arts commission. 'It's people who don't have very good intentions.'"

He's not everybody's hero.

You should read this Gadflyer post about black America and Ronald Reagan.

In its eagerness to characterize Ronald Reagan as an American icon based upon the "outpouring" of grief at his passing, the media are ignoring an important yet unavoidable fact: there are hardly any people of color singing Reagan's praises. For days, we've watched eager commentators tell us ad nauseam that the mourners waiting to view Reagan's casket represent a "cross-section of America." But if they just turned around, they'd see what we see – a virtually all white tableau snaking behind them. This backdrop sure doesn't look like the America I know.

How hard is it to notice that, in a city that's more than 60% black, so few people of color have bothered to wander over to the Capitol to bid farewell to President Reagan? Yes, a few were spotted here and there and, of course, dark faces abounded among the military personnel participating in the solemnities (thanks to our integrated armed forces, there was more color in the Color Guard than in the crowd). Otherwise, it seemed that most of the handful of black folk not decked out in full ceremonial dress were there not to see Reagan but to sell water, snacks and souvenirs to the white folks who were there to see Reagan.

If they bothered to leave their cozy perches on the Capitol lawn and venture a few blocks in any direction, the network reporters might actually pick up a different perspective, a perspective they aren't getting from the self-selected masses gathered to honor the former president.

Announcement

I don't know if anybody still visits this blog, but if you do, I hereby pledge to actually take it seriously, and post on a regular basis. Whether the posts will be interesting is another story.

Should I be concerned...

that the Best of Coupling on BBC America, which I'm watching right now, is sponsired by Zoloft? I guess I'm their target demographic.

Telegraph | News | Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels'

Telegraph | News | Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels': "New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House.


The Telegraph understands that four confidential Red Cross documents implicating senior Pentagon civilians in the Abu Ghraib scandal have been passed to an American television network, which is preparing to make them public shortly.


According to lawyers familiar with the Red Cross reports, they will contradict previous testimony by senior Pentagon officials who have claimed that the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident."

Unbelievable

CNN actually showed -- and commented on -- the workers taking down the staging at last nights grave-side ceremony. Otherwise, the Reagan Library was closed. yes, they were reporting from a closed library.