From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The Penguins blew a two-goal lead and fell for the third time in as many games without All-Star center Sidney Crosby, 3-2, against the Boston Bruins tonight at Consol Energy Center.
Crosby has a concussion.
The Penguins outshot Boston, 14-6, in a scoreless first period.
Just watched the third period of this game.
Sh*t. Sh*t. And Sh*t.
Why does the media flock around a failed pol? I really don’t get it at all. I can see Fox News or Glenn Beck, but CNN?
CNN has officially become the media’s official gossip station.
Some recent news flash items from CNN. Sorry, I removed the links back to CNN. It’s not worth the trip. Really.
Here they are:
McCain compares Palin to Reagan
Rove calls Palin move ‘smart’
Palin delivers a gaffe-filled message
Palin hits back at Barbara Bush
Obama doesn’t think about Palin
Palin kicks off book tour amid fresh speculation of a White House bid
If Palin runs for president, should she agree to Couric interview?
Obama doesn’t think about Palin? Oh no! Will Palin sit down with Katie Couric for another winning interview? Will she pardon a turkey?
Years ago, when I was a child, CNN used to do news.
I remember.
Sarah Palin, opportunist par excelence,has worked her way into a story that has nothing to do with her at all.
NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O’Reilly that he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane. Sarah Palin has called for NPR to lose its federal funding over Williams’ firing.
In a statement late Wednesday, National Public Radio said it was terminating Williams’ contract as a senior news analyst over his comments on Fox’s "The O’Reilly Factor."
NPR executives had previously complained about his remarks on Fox and asked him to stop using the NPR name when he appeared on O’Reilly’s show.
The latest comments came Monday, when O’Reilly brought on guests to discuss his own appearance last week on ABC’s "The View," during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set to protest his views on Muslims.
"Where am I going wrong here, Juan?" O’Reilly asked.
Williams, 56, responded that too much political correctness can get in the way of reality.
"I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
He went on to say that not everyone in a religious group — Christian or Muslim — should be lumped together with extremists.
In statement on her Facebook page, Sarah Palin called for NPR to lose its federal funding over the incident.
Sarah Palin, the Pol Who Quit, campaigns from Facebook.
God Bless America.
Can you say "Bill of Rights?"
My teapot boileth over.
From the Alaska Dispatch:
Alaska Dispatch founder and editor Tony Hopfinger was grabbed and handcuffed by a private security detail working for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller on Sunday while trying to ask the Fairbanks Republican questions following a town hall meeting at Central Middle School in Anchorage on Sunday.
Hopfinger was reportedly pressing Miller on whether the candidate had ever been reprimanded for politicking while working at the Fairbanks North Star Borough in 2008. Alaska Dispatch and other media have sued for the release of records related Miller’s time at the borough. Various accounts of what happened next generally agree on this course of events:
- Two or three bodyguards told Hopfinger to stop asking questions and to leave the building.
- Hopfinger continued to ask questions while apparently videotaping the candidate.
- Bodyguards told him that if he persisted they would arrest him for trespassing, but refused to identify themselves to Hopfinger.
- Hopfinger asked why he was trespassing, as the event was at a public school. Seconds later, he was then put in arm-bar and later handcuffed and sequestered at one end of a hallway for at least 30 minutes. He was told, "You’re under arrest."
- Anchorage Police arrived on the scene shortly after.
I watched Joe Miller on CNN this afternoon as he was interviewed by John King. He danced like I’ve never seen a pol dance, refusing to answer question after question, finally admitting that "he was disciplined for the misuse of local government computers."
Watch below:
Alaska, prove you are still Americans. Do not vote for this man.
Vote for the very, very moderate-to-conservative Democrat who will represent all Alaskans well.
It’s about Alaska.
Yup — the president has family ties to none other than Sarah Palin, according to the genealogists at Ancestry.com.
Obama and Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor named John Smith, a pastor and early settler in 17th century Massachusetts. Obama is related to Smith through his mother, as is Palin.
The president is also related to Rush Limbaugh, who’s a 10th cousin of the president — one time removed — through a common ancestor named Richmond Terrell, who was a large landowner in Virginia, also in the 17th century.
Hee hee hee.
(The ‘big fat idiot’ reference is in reference to Al Frankin’s wonderful book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
I heard Sam Zell speak a couple of years ago at the Inland Press Association’s Annual Meeting. He was funny. Seemed full of energy, off the cuff, eccentric.
An article in today’s New York Times reveals so much more, reporting on the bizarre culture Zell and those he has brought in have created at the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere at the Tribune Company.
Clearly, Zell is steering company into the ground.
In January 2008, soon after the venerable Tribune Company was sold for $8.2 billion, Randy Michaels, a new top executive, ran into several other senior colleagues at the InterContinental Hotel next to the Tribune Tower in Chicago.
Mr. Michaels, a former radio executive and disc jockey, had been handpicked by Sam Zell, a billionaire who was the new controlling shareholder, to run much of the media company’s vast collection of properties, including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, WGN America and The Chicago Cubs.
After Mr. Michaels arrived, according to two people at the bar that night, he sat down and said, “watch this,” and offered the waitress $100 to show him her breasts. The group sat dumbfounded.
“Here was this guy, who was responsible for all these people, getting drunk in front of senior people and saying this to a waitress who many of us knew,” said one of the Tribune executives present, who declined to be identified because he had left the company and did not want to be quoted criticizing a former employer. “I have never seen anything like it.”
The report goes downhill from there, where sexual harassment is justified as path to creative thinking, with disclaimers like this in the Tribune’s revised employee handbook:
“Working at Tribune means accepting that you might hear a word that you, personally, might not use,” the new handbook warned. “You might experience an attitude you don’t share. You might hear a joke that you don’t consider funny. That is because a loose, fun, nonlinear atmosphere is important to the creative process.” It then added, “This should be understood, should not be a surprise and not considered harassment.”
My jaw dropped several times reading this article. So sad. I don’t see how the Tribune can be taken seriously any more.
(Photo: Cook County Public Auction Notice)
Betty Loren-Maltese may lose her home, but right now the auction is on hold.
An attorney for former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese persuaded a federal judge today to postpone the auction of her Cicero home until she can challenge her 2002 corruption conviction.
The government was scheduled to auction her one-story brick home Thursday to recoup a portion of the $8.3 million in restitution that she owes.
But Judge John Grady granted a stay of the auction until Loren-Maltese can challenge her conviction based on the so-called "Skilling" defense, said her lawyer, Leonard C. Goodman.
"It’s been hard for her," Goodman said of his high-profile client, who was sentenced to a 97-month prison term in 2003 and was released to a halfway house in February. "She’s been trying to get steady work." Since her release to a halfway house, Loren-Maltese has worked as a restaurant hostess and written a blog.
Her attorneys are seeking to have her conviction thrown out based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s conviction for theft of honest services.
The high court found the honest-services fraud law was unconstitutionally vague and that violations must include acts of bribery or kickbacks.
I certainly don’t want to see anyone lose a home, but Betty was convicted. There’s no reason to say "alleged" here.
There was no minimum price set for the home, according to the notice.
The Late Late Show Theme Song
Written by Craig Ferguson
It’s hard to stay up
It’s been a long, Long Day
And you got the sandman at the door
But hang on, leave the TV on
And let’s do it anyway
It’s ok
You can always sleep through work tomorrow, OK?
Hey hey
Tomorrow’s just your future yesterday
Listen to the LLS theme song at CBS.com.
Love the guy.
They have got to be kidding.
No, I guess they’re not.
[sic] indeed.So how are you going to spend this September 11? I have no plans yet myself, although I’m sure that at some point my thoughts will wander back to that ghastly day in 2001 when I climbed up to the roof of the building I was working at and watched the smoke billow into the sky and the two towers go crashing to the ground. Others will find solace in religious services and in mourning their losses in the company of friends and relatives.
But it doesn’t have to be this way: A church in Florida is planning a spectacular event with deep historical roots. Yes, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville will be marking the ninth anniversary of the September 11 tragedy with a public Koran burning. The non-denominational DWOC, which is run by Rev. Terry Jones and whose membership figures are hard to come by, enjoys a reputation throughout Florida for its in-your-face demonstrations against pornography, homosexuality, and abortion. It announced its latest provocation in late July and has been publicizing the burning on Youtube (see video below) and through its own Facebook page. The purpose of the event, we are told, is “to bring to awareness to [sic] the dangers of Islam and that the Koran is leading people to hell. Eternal fire is the only destination the Koran can lead people to so we want to put the Koran in it’s [sic] place – the fire!”
As-Salamu Alaykum, and Ramadan Mubarak to all our Muslim friends.