We knew they were assholes, but...
Would some companies want to halt AIDS drugs sales just because they weren't making profit? Yes.

MSNBC fucks up
Look at the final paragraph of this article:

The death raises to 393 the number of U.S. troops killed since the United States launched the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein exactly a year ago.

Hmm....slightly off.

You scratch my back....
"Hey Pakistan, put a little more effort into finding those al Qaeda officials, and we'll...I don't know....give you $460 million."

Thank you Neil
A Kerry/Bush debate, you say? Why, what a splendid idea.

We all want to know...
What the hell is happening in Pakistan? Al-jazeera is now saying that al-Zawahiri is "fine." Which brings up the question: are the Pakistani troops merely surrounding something like an arms cache that just happens to be very well-defended? It is possible. However, I think it more likely that it's simply not #2, but rather another militant.

How not to win over Muslims
Hmmm...

Bush campaign pullover made in Burma
How fantastically ironic.

Damn you Red Lobster
The pinnacle of seafood (just kidding) is cutting down on it's all you can eat offers. Well...damnit.

#2 gets away
Our man has slipped the net...in a bulletproof LandCruiser, they say.

The story seems fishy, and no one else has covered it. Didn't we have jets there? Couldn't they track a car? Proceed with caution.

#2 caught two years ago?
What the hell (via the Guardian):

Osama bin Laden's most senior lieutenant, the Egyptian militant Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been captured and jailed in Tehran, a leading Iranian newspaper reported yesterday.
Zawahiri, the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was arrested several days ago and has been imprisoned in the city's Evin jail, where political prisoners are usually held, the Hayat-e-Nou newspaper said.

If the report is correct, the arrest is the most serious strike at the heart of Bin Laden's al-Qaida network since the World Trade Centre attacks, and a diplomatic coup for Tehran.

The FBI has Zawahiri on its most-wanted list in connection with the August 1998 bombings of two US embassies in east Africa in which 224 people were killed. It has offered a $25m reward for information leading to his capture.

What ever happened to this story? It's very possible that the account was incorrect, but where was the update on this?

The flip-flopper-in-chief
Steve Chapman sets the record straight on who is changing their positions.

Big Spending Republicans
The real cost of some of Bush's programs.

Coalition of the unwilling
Some more on the slow collapse of international support for the Iraq war

Black Box voting
A call to action from edwardpig, a fellow Liberal Coalition member.

anti-SUV vandal faces possible life in prison
Oh dear:
A college student with apparent connections to a radical environmentalist group was charged with firebombing or otherwise vandalizing 125 sport utility vehicles.

Billy Cottrell, a 23-year-old graduate physics student, was indicted for damaging or destroying vehicles at car dealerships and homes in the Los Angeles area last August, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office on Wednesday.

Cottrell, who could face life in prison, has been held without bail since his arrest on March 9. His attorney, Stephen Alexander, said Cottrell was innocent and declined further comment.

Life behind bars? Perhaps he can be visited by any number of rapists, who will surely get out sooner.

McCain winking at Kerry
Today he said that Kerry isn't weak on defense.

"High value" al Qaeda target involved in battle
Pakistan may be moments from capturing him. I sense that the U.S. is not involved...we would know not to practically televise a key battle.

Garner wanted early elections
A little insight into why Bush sacked Jay Garner.

Poland claims to have been misled
We may be entering a new era here, where countries that supported the Iraq intervention and in fact have troops in the country claim to have been misled by intelligence. This may force the Bush administration to avoid pointing at the coalition as backing for its decision to enter the war.

Get out of my city, MTV
I heard this on the radio this morning, and the full story is here:

Philadelphia proved a little too real for The Real World.

After squabbling with local unions, the producers of the MTV series yesterday gave up on Philadelphia as the site of its 15th season. Taping was to begin in three weeks.

"After considerable evaluation, we are disappointed to announce that Bunim/Murray Productions has decided not to shoot The Real World in Philadelphia," a spokeswoman for the company said yesterday afternoon. She declined to elaborate.

MTV's selection of Philadelphia was accompanied by unbridled civic rejoicing when it was announced Feb. 26. City leaders believed that The Real World, with its huge audience of 12-to-34-year-olds, would boost the city's cool factor and help it retain recent college graduates.

But within four days, Bunim/Murray had incurred the wrath of the unions by hiring a nonunion company to renovate the former Seamen's Church Institute in Old City, where the cast was to live.

The series had sidestepped organized labor in 13 previous cities, including union strongholds New York City, Chicago and Boston, without incident.

"Every other production company comes in, sits down and bargains," said Tony Frasco, vice president of Teamsters Local 107, whose members drive and unload vehicles. "The unions are not out to gouge anybody, but this is a union town."

It's a matter of "preserving the way of life in Philadelphia," said Pat Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades Council.

Sharon Pinkenson, head of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, worked years to bring The Real World to town. She said she had been aware that Bunim/Murray wanted to go nonunion.

"I recommended that they speak with other producers of nonunion reality television" who had worked here, Pinkenson said. She said work rules in reality TV tend to be looser.

Real articles gone bad
Here's an article on a pit bull attack in New Zealand:

Another child has been attacked by a dog in the Waikato.

Police say a nine year old boy is in Waikato hospital after he was bitten on the face by a pit bull last night.

It is the third serious dog attack in the region in just over a month.

Police say Cameron Potae has three puncture wounds to his face, including one under his right eye.

The four-year-old female dog has been seized but police say no decision has been made on whether the bitch will be destroyed.

God bless the Internet, ladies and gentlemen.

CIA to investigate bin Laden tape leak
When someone leaks the name of one of their agents, they won't press too hard to see who did it. But when someone points out that they fucked up big time and let bin Laden go, suddenly they're wide awake.

Next time they could avoid these "leaks" by actually doing what they're supposed to. In this case, killing Osama bin Laden.

Minority report
By 2050 whites will be less than half the population, or so they say. Danger! Danger!

How tolerant
A county in Tennessee has decided that they want to ban homosexuals:

DAYTON, Tenn. - The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.

The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said. ]

Uh-huh. J.C. Fugate: maximum asshole.

GOP abandoning Illinois
It seems that this former swing state is now solid Dem territory. Expect this to happen a few more times over the next 20 years.

27 dead in Baghdad
Terrorists struck a hotel with a car bomb today.

Suck it, Clear Channel
Infinity says Stern isn't indecent.

Town Hall gets it.....right?
Joel Mowbray, aside from his rantings about "evil" and his possible concern that socialism will take off in America if Kerry wins, brings to light the very real concern that terrorists may strike just before the election.

McCain aide to help out Kerry
What's better for us than a pissed off GOPer helping us out?

How not to end your life
I know that suicide seems like the only way out for some people...but self-crucifixion?

"We still need your help"
Bush urged allies to stick with us in Iraq. But here's the kicker. He might want a U.N. resolution to prevent Spain from pulling out. That's right, Mr. anti-U.N. wants a resolution to keep Spain in the war the U.N. didn't want to begin with.

Bush challenges Kerry
Are you kidding? Kerry walked into this; he said certain world leaders want Bush out. Everyone, the WH included, knows that this is the case. However, the WH also knows that Kerry isn't going to name them, which would just cause turmoil. So congratulations, John, you've made one of what I assume will be several political screw ups.

Under the weather
In southeastern PA, on March 16, 2004, let it be known that we got an assload of snow. On the plus side, it's turning to sleet.

Photos of sex offenders spark debate
Here:

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - Robert Enochs was starting to turn his life around last fall. He had moved out of his car and in with his girlfriend, and they had gotten engaged. He soon landed a job driving a tow truck.
Then the local paper ran photographs of him and 62 other sex offenders on the front page.

The harassing phone calls began. Within a few days, Enochs lost his job. His fiancee stayed with him, but the convicted child molester otherwise found himself a pariah in his community once more.

"When I saw my picture in the paper, I was more upset and mad, more than anything else," said the 33-year-old Enochs, who served two years behind bars for molesting a relative and has been out of prison for a decade. "What happened in the past, leave in the past, don't bring it back up."

I don't usually defend sex offenders, but I have strong feelings on this. Despite what everyone says about what I would do "if it was my child," punishment should not continue after the time has been served. I agree in keeping them away from children, clearly. What I don't agree with is ruining the remainder of their lives by announcing their presence to everyone within earshot. When we let someone out of prison, society agrees that said person is able to maintain themselves within the parameters of society. If they aren't fit to leave prison, then they should not, but that is a shortcoming of the judicial system that the offenders shouldn't be paying for.

Army overstepped its bounds
At least someone can admit that it's going too far.

bin Laden nearly caught, France says
Oh dear, another "close call"...
PARIS (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden has escaped capture in Afghanistan several times and may be linked in some way to the Madrid train attacks that killed 200 people, France's chief of defense staff said Monday.
Gen. Henri Bentegeat said about 200 French troops were operating with U.S. forces in southeastern Afghanistan against the Taliban and bin Laden's al Qaeda. The Saudi-born militant is thought to be there or just across the border in Pakistan.

"Our men were not very far. On several occasions, I even think he slipped out of a net that was quite well closed," he told Europe 1 radio. He did not specify a time frame.

Bentegeat, who spoke as if he were sure bin Laden was in Afghanistan, said the country's difficult terrain explained why it was so hard to catch the world's most wanted man.

"In Afghanistan, the terrain is extremely favorable to escapes, there are underground networks everywhere," he said.

The general said it was essential that bin Laden be caught.

"He symbolizes September 11 and is certainly not completely innocent in what happened in Madrid," he said, making a link between the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington and the Spanish train bombings last Thursday.

But he added that arresting bin Laden "would not change things directly. (Al Qaeda) is a hydra with many heads. If we catch one head, there will be others."

I can only hope that the French capture bin Laden.

Is it just me....
Or is the war on terror hitting some snags recently? And of course, with the "Winds of Black Death" attack (clearly a biological one, in case you didn't notice) possibly impending, I don't exactly feel optimistic.

BushCo busted on Medicaid ads
It appears that the WH has been sending news packages to local stations with actors posing as journalists interviewing other actors pretending to be pharmacists/elderly people on how fantastic his Medicaid plan is. Oops.

And where is the liberal media on this? Last time I checked, this could be filed under the "lie" category in Bush's resume. The "huge, blatant, deceiving lie" category. I'll be watching FOX News just in case they deem it newsworthy.

Stem cells take on aging
Is there anything they can't do?

KtL report
Sorry about the long hiatus, I forgot to warn you, I headed down to Washington D.C./Maryland this weekend to watch my significant other run (she is now 12th in the nation, thank you). Apologies to both of my fans.