Blagojevich Celebrates Indictment in Disney World

He's facing: 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of extortion conspiracy, one count each of racketeering conspiracy, attempted extortion, and making false statements to federal agents.



The video ends with an unknown mediator: "Until he’s convicted, just leave him alone."

"Until" being the operative word.

Gold Star Journalism

Amazing. Absolutely astonishing that this is the most "confrontational" media interaction we've seen on this topic. MIND-BLOWING.



The reaction? Not so shocking.

"This afternoon (9/1), anchorman Wolf Blitzer announced on air that McCain's planned interview with Larry King tonight had been canceled by the campaign. Blitzer said McCain aides complained that Brown had gone 'over the line' in her grilling of Bounds."

Global Warming Diet

Haven't a lot of us known this for some time?
Not preaching, but come on...

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century.

Celebrity Power?

Has anyone else noticed Drudge's lead for the past-I don't know-three days has been the Oprah/Obama love fest? Good no-God, I hate the attention focused on celebrity endorsements. The Washington Times reports that a celebrity endorsement of a presidential candidate does not influence the choices of the majority of voters, so why all the hooplah? Maybe we forget about the new majority(?). That section of the population who show no real interest in government leaders, but have already or soon will decide what box they'll check. You know one or more of these people. The ones the attack ads are created for (can't read fine print). The ones who pray before polling (not sorry for the no-God comment). The ones with Oprah's latest book club novel on their night stand (Uh-oh!). Ladies and gentlemen, meet my mother. But seriously, I'm not suggesting these are bad people, or even lazy-just disinterested and that's okay. Politics are brutish, cold, and often times confusing-that's not for everyone. What's not okay is the way these groups of people are mislead into believing they know their candidate.

So maybe celebrities do make a small difference, maybe they don't. I don't know. But let's not forget 2000-when a small number of votes made an awfully big difference.

Besides the horde of liberal Hollywooders supporting Kucinich, the only major players I've noticed are Oprah (Obama), Barbara Streisand (Clinton), and Chuck Norris (Huckabee)-if you can even call him a major player. Boy, I hope there aren't many Walker, Texas Ranger fans left.




*When using blogger on a Mac I can't use the font, spell check, or links options without html, otherwise I would have linked to the Washington Post article. Anyone know how I can view these options without a PC?

Funding Homophobia In Africa

The Bush administration may not have meant this (yes, I know, the benefit of the doubt again) but it comes with the territory when you're funding abstinence-only programs in Uganda. Ed Brayton comments here.

A Time to Investigate

The NYT investigates how U.S. tortue policies have crumbled via the current administration. It's all there. Dig in.

Andrew Sullivan asks the important question: "We have war criminals in the White House. What are we going to do about it?"

Oh, and just so everyone will stop quoting Bono and praising him as an international spokesman against torture, let's not forget someone said it first (and better):

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Steve Clemons, filling in for newlywed Andrew Sullivan (Congrats, Andrew!), posts a highly appropriate suggestion , today, on the 2nd anniversary of Katrina. The ethics of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour have been called into question more times than I can count, but who knew they were this twisted?

"Many Mississippians have benefited from Governor Haley Barbour's efforts to rebuild the state's devastated Gulf Coast in the two years since Hurricane Katrina.

The $15 billion or more in federal aid the former Republican national chairman attracted has reopened casinos and helped residents move to new or repaired homes.

Among the beneficiaries are Barbour's own family and friends, who have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from hurricane-related business. A nephew, one of two who are lobbyists, saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special reconstruction panel.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in June raided a company owned by the wife of a third nephew, which maintained federal emergency-management trailers.

Meanwhile, the governor's own former lobbying firm, which he says is still making payments to him, has represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery."

The Nation's Walter Mosley suggests a more somber marker.

"If we call ourselves Americans (and mean it), then we are all victims of Katrina. If we breathe the air or eat fresh fruit, if we call on our cellphones, drink water from a plastic bottle or just nibble on a chocolate bar, then we are Katrina; we are the rising waters around the ankles of this world.

When the day comes to mark off the two-year point since the deluge descended on the Gulf of Mexico, we should take care not to make too much noise. We shouldn't march in that shadow of time or even protest. Rather, we should sit alone in a room with our imaginations open to feel what they experienced on that day: the waters rising, rising and us climbing stairs and ladders, chairs and fire escapes; sitting on rooftops while bodies float by; calling out to passing boats and helicopters that go by in mute witness; being pressed to the roof by the rising tide and being engulfed shouting, shouting out for the ones we love underwater, unheard; the darkness swirling around us as we die with no one coming to save us, or themselves."

Meanwhile, at a New Orleans charter school, President Bush and Laura "pray to Santa Jesus" to mark the occasion.



From the NYT:

"The front page of The Times-Picayune advertised a scathing editorial above the masthead: ''Treat us fairly, Mr. President.'' It chided the Bush administration for giving Republican-dominated Mississippi a share of federal money disproportionate to the lesser impact the storm had there than in largely Democratic Louisiana. ''We ought to get no less help from our government than any other victims of this disaster,'' it said.

It is the president's 15th visit to the Gulf Coast since the massive hurricane obliterated coastal Mississippi, inundated most of the Big Easy with floodwaters and killed 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi when it roared onto land the morning of Aug. 29, 2005 -- but only his second stop in these parts since last year's anniversary."