How to Flush MEEEEEEEllions Down da Terlet

Wouldn't trust him to take the garbage to the curb:

SI.com's Jon Heyman believes the Mets and free agent Oliver Perez are too far apart in negotiations for a deal to be reached. Heyman lists the Brewers, Dodgers, Reds and perhaps the Mariners as potential suitors for Perez. He's believed to want $14 million per season for five years.

Half of the 5 years will be spent on the D.L.:

Yankees signed RHP A.J. Burnett, who had been with the Blue Jays, to a five-year, $82.5 million contract. The Yanks announcing a big contract six days after it was agreed to is actually pretty good for them. Most players have to wait weeks. The details of Burnett's deal still aren't known, such as the annual salary breakdown and what kind of no-trade protection he received. He will average $16.5 million per season, which is a nice raise from the $12 million per year that he would have earned in the final two seasons of his contract with the Jays.

Didn't he like totally suck last year:

According to SI.com's Jon Heyman's, Andy "Pettitte's people apparently are telling folks he has a $36 million, three-year offer" from an unnamed team. A rather odd line. Pettitte's "people" are the Hendricks brothers, unless Heyman is using the word to refer a group other than his agents, and they haven't gone public with much of anything regarding the Pettitte negotiations. This could be nothing more than an attempt to get the Yankees to boost their offer. Pettitte wants to stay in New York, and he hasn't gone looking for a multiyear deal since leaving Houston.

And the coup de grâce, the drunk, gutless, neverwuz... Royals GM Dayton Moore must have reached this decison thusly: "Hmmm, I've heard of him...he's still in major league baseball, right?...a proven veteran...sold!"

Royals agreed to terms with RHP Kyle Farnsworth, who had been with the Tigers, on a two-year, $9.25 million contract with a club option for 2011. We'll be generous and say Farnsworth is just as good of a bet as Ramon Ramirez for next year, even though Ramirez was the far better pitcher last season. That would essentially mean that the Royals are paying $9.25 million for Coco Crisp. After all, Ramirez was going to make about $500,000, while Crisp comes in at $5.5 million. Farnsworth will get $4.25 million next year and $4.5 million in 2010. There's a $5.25 million option for 2011 with a $500,000 buyout. It's a ridiculous sum for a small-market team to be spending on a reliever who has graded out as below average each of the last three seasons.
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The Golden Age (cont'd)

If you'd like to smell like Burger King...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Burger King has launched a new men's body spray called "Flame," which it describes as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat."

The fast food chain is marketing the product through a Web site featuring a photo of its King character reclining fireside and naked, except for an animal fur strategically placed to not offend.

The marketing ploy is the latest in a string of virile ad campaigns by the company.

Burger King is also in the midst of its Whopper Virgins campaign that features an taste test with fast-food "virgins" pitting the Whopper against McDonald's Big Mac.
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A reason to visit Hammond, Ind.

"A Christmas Story" 25th anniversary exhibit draws thousands of visitors

More than 16,400 people have toured the exhibit since it opened Thanksgiving weekend, said Erika Scheeringa, community and public relations manager of the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau. On a recent weekend, when the center hosted a "Mommy's Little Piggy" eating contest as part of the exhibit, more than 4,000 people came through. . .

The exhibits showcase his adventures. "Flick's Tongue and the Triple Dog Dare" is where Ralphie's best friend, Flick, gets his tongue stuck to an icy pole; "It's a Major Award," features the infamous leg lamp that Old Man Parker wins; "Santa's Mountain at Higbee's" shows where an elf pushes Ralphie down a slide with his foot; "The Bumpus Hounds" devour the Parkers' Christmas turkey dinner; and the "Parker Living Room" features Christmas night.

coming soon: wintry End Times cocktail

... Winter Storm Warning remains in effect from 3 PM this afternoon to 12 PM CST Friday... expected to begin as snow late Thursday afternoon... mixed with sleet roughly along and south of Interstate 88 and the Eisenhower expressway... snow will change to sleet and freezing rain with significant icing... snow or ice accumulations by mid morning Friday are expected to be near a foot along the Wisconsin state line... to 6 to 9 inches from the north side of Chicago westward through DeKalb and Lee counties... to 4 to 6 inches from the south side of Chicago westward into northern LaSalle County... and 3 to 5 inches of mixed snow and ice along Interstate 80... significant amounts of snow... sleet... ice... strong winds... thundersleet... ice locusts... cocktail of precipitation... cats and dogs living together... thundersnow... Joey Gathright... keep an extra flashlight... food... and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency... career .632 OPS... run in circles... scream and shout... snow and sleet accumulation of 7 to 10 inches. ice accumulation of up to one quarter of an inch... pestilence from the north... south... east... west... chance of precipitation 100 percent... total snow accumulation 8 to 12 inches... then more snow and s#i+...

there is another non-disaster going forward directly behind this one

December 14, 2008: Zell expects housing recovery by spring

(Reuters) — A revival in the U.S. real estate market, key to a recovery in the world economy, should begin by next spring, property mogul Sam Zell told an Israeli business conference on Sunday.

"I believe that in a country that continues to grow and where the population continues to grow, we will see the first signs of equilibrium in the housing market in the spring of 2009 and I will expect by spring 2010 the housing market in the U.S. will look a lot better," Zell said.

Yay! Finally, some good news, and it's coming from someone who knows a thing or two about this stuff...

December 12, 2007: Zell says subprime meltdown is 'manageable'

(Reuters) — Billionaire investor Sam Zell on Wednesday compared the current credit-fueled crisis in U.S. real estate to the savings-and-loan meltdown of the late 1980s but said it was a "manageable" problem that would not drag the wider economy into a recession next year.

Speaking at an event in Chicago hosted by the Executives' Club of Chicago, Zell, who made his fortune in real estate, also predicted the U.S. property market would begin to recover modestly in 2009.

"I don't see any robust change," he said. "I also see no disaster going forward. . ."

"Commercial real-estate has always been (about) supply and demand," he said. "If you own the assets, those assets are going to benefit from the fact that there's little new supply and existing supply will be limited."

Zell said the key to the housing market's health going forward would be the strength of the U.S. job market. He expressed confidence that as long as unemployment stays below 5.5 percent, it was "very, very unlikely" that the subprime contagion would spread.

But how do you measure "most theatrically corrupt?"

Weisberg recognized that the "unmasking" of our governor "as a kleptocrat of Paraguayan proportion" finally gave Illinois "a real chance —its first in more than a generation — to defeat Louisiana in the NCAA finals of American political corruption."

Weisberg allowed that the Corporate Crime Reporter put Louisiana first in the nation for the period from 1997 to 2006 with 7.67 federal corruption convictions per 100,000 residents. Illinois, though its absolute numbers were bigger, managed only a 4.68 convictions ratio to finish "an embarrassing sixth. . ."

Over the past decade:

Sheer number of public officials convicted in federal courts of corruption -- Florida first with 824; Illinois seventh with 502.

Convictions per capita: the District of Columbia first with 66.9 per million residents per year. If you don't count DC (and the Virgin Islands and Guam), North Dakota first with 8.3; Illinois 22nd with 4.0.

A survey of journalists!!! Rhode Island first, Louisiana second, Illinois tenth. . .
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Not Bloheim's week...

First, one of his brain-dead players is suspended for the year by the university for punching a woman in the face (and Bloheim defends him...Classy!), he is forced into attacking a microphone (below), and den Da Cuse lose on a 60-foot bomb at the buzzer to Cleveland State (Cuse's leading scorer that night: the aforementioned tatted up asshole prick phokkface dickhead brain-dead shit-for-brainz no-talent loser, Eric DevenDORF).

They don't make 'em more brain-dead than this woman

Drew Peterson engaged to 23-year-old woman

Looks like it’s bride number 5 for Drew Peterson.

“Yeah, he proposed and she accepted,” Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, said of his client's impending nuptials.

Drew Peterson, shown here in a photo taken last month, is a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy. He is now engaged to a 23-year-old Bolingbrook woman.

But Brodsky added, “I guess he's got to get divorced.” Peterson’s current wife, Stacy, has been missing since last year.

Peterson said he does not believe his marital status should prevent him from becoming engaged. “I was married to Kathleen when I was engaged to Stacy," he said.

Kathleen — Kathleen Savio, wife number 3 — was the victim of an unsolved March 2004 homicide. Stacy — wife number 4 — vanished in October 2007. State police say she is the victim of a potential homicide and have named Drew Peterson their sole suspect.

Peterson's publicist, Glenn Selig, said Drew's betrothed is a 23-year-old woman from the Bolingbrook area, making her even younger than Stacy, who would be 24.

A sleepy Peterson on Wednesday morning seemed perturbed that news of his engagement had leaked.

“I can't believe this is happening," he said. "How the f--- did this get out?"

Peterson said he wants to keep details of his new love under wraps.

“Last time I had a relationship, you guys screwed it all up," he said of 22-year-old tanning salon worker Kim Matuska. "The police had her, the grand jury had her. I'm not putting her through all that."
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I got yer End Times right here

Smiff?

The big dance

At 300 to 400 pounds each, the Bulls' Matadors make the city of big shoulders more like the city of big bellies.

Video

• Meet the squad

On second thought, he'd be the lightweight in this bunch. Moving on...

We are living in a golden age (cont)

Or, It's always someone eles's fault (cont)

Will this lawsuit fly?
Can you get drunk on a flight, then sue the airline for giving you the booze?

Well, of course you can sue, it's the American way! The question is can you sue successfully? And if alcohol can cause this, shouldn't it be illegal? This whole going to work thing is the sucker's way out. I need to find something to sue on to get me meeeeeeeeelions. Any suggestions Mr. Lawyer?

oh, get over it already...

Greenland melt seems to be picking up speed, blah blah blah

More than two trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

Did you catch that, my friends? "What scientists say is global warming..." a couple of drinks and you could probably get them to say almost anything.

Scientists studying sea ice will announce that parts of the Arctic north of Alaska were about 5 to 6 degrees Celsius, or 9 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer this past autumn, a strong early indication of what researchers call the Arctic amplification effect... As sea ice melts, the Arctic waters absorb more heat in the summer, having lost the reflective powers of vast packs of ice. That absorbed heat is released into the air in the autumn. That has led to autumn temperatures in the last several years that are 3.5 to 6 degrees Celsius warmer than they were in the 1980s...

"The pace of change is starting to outstrip our ability to keep up with it, in terms of our understanding of it..." (In other words, they're making it up... Ed.)

Two other studies presented at the conference assess how Arctic thawing is releasing methane - a potent greenhouse gas. One study shows that the loss of sea ice warms the water, which warms the permafrost on nearby land in Alaska, thus producing methane...

A second study suggests even larger amounts of frozen methane are trapped in lake beds and sea bottoms around Siberia and they are starting to bubble to the surface in some spots in alarming amounts, said Igor Semiletov, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (where Putin rears his head... Ed.). Late last summer, Semiletov found methane bubbling up from parts of the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea at levels 10 times higher than those of the mid-1990s, he said.

The amounts of methane in the region could dramatically increase global warming if they get released, he said.

God Bless Wal-Mart

Their next child will be called Goebbels Brownshirt Campbell.

Troglodyte Homunculus goes to the polls

Now some poor schmuck has to figure out who the hell he was trying to vote for.

add this to the list of things Bush has phokked up

It's no longer cool to look stupid.

[Reagan's] advisors proved so unable to get him to read his briefing materials that some of them began conveying the information in cartoon form... In this way, as in so many others, George W. Bush followed the Reagan script. In the 2000 campaign, he famously flubbed a quiz on world leaders and talked defiantly about “Grecians” and “nucular weapons.” He said he knew he was going to win when he read a New Yorker profile in which Al Gore cited the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

But if Reagan burnished the anti-intellectual brand, Bush has now wrecked it. Sometime between the catastrophe in Iraq, the catastrophe in New Orleans and the catastrophe on Wall Street, Americans decided that people who didn’t know much about government weren’t likely to run it very well.

Spoken like the piece of shit, degenerate sadistic old man, war criminal that he IS

A TREMENDOUS @SSH@LE UNTIL THE VERY END...

Cheney says Guantanamo should stay open, waterboarding OK

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Guantanamo 'war on terror' detention center should remain open indefinitely, Vice President Richard Cheney told ABC News in an interview Monday, while also defending the harsh interrogation method known as waterboarding.

Cheney was asked when the detention camp at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba can be "responsibly" be shut down. "Well, I think that that would come with the end of the war on terror," he told ABC.

And when is that? "Well, nobody knows," Cheney said. "Nobody can specify that."

In previous wars the United States has "always exercised the right to capture the enemy and then hold them till the end of the conflict. That's what we did in World War II with, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of German prisoners," Cheney said.

"The same basic principle ought to apply here in terms of our right to capture the enemy and hold them.

The other option, Cheney said, "is to turn them over to somebody else. A lot of them, nobody wants. I mean, there's a great resistance sometimes in the home countries to taking these people back into their own territory."

According to Cheney, some 30 detainees who were released from Guantanamo "ended up back on the battlefield again, and we've encountered them a second time around. But they've either been killed or captured in further conflicts with our forces."

Cheney also said he helped authorize interrogation methods used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an Al-Qaeda operative detained in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo who has confessed to being a top planner of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to a forced interrogation method that simulates drowning known as waterboarding.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said.

"And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it," Cheney said.

ABC asked him if in hindsight he thought the tactics went too far. "I don't," Cheney said.

The Cheney interview is to air on ABC late Monday and early Tuesday, the network said, as it released an advanced transcript of the questions and answers~

coming soon: MLB gets a chance to find out how nice a Miller Genuine Draft logo looks on a pitcher's mound

Ed Sherman: The Blackhawks have released an artist's rendition of what Wrigley Field will look like on Jan. 1 for the Winter Classic game against Detroit.

I have to say it looks pretty cool in more ways than one. The rink is going to be situated from first to third, and there will be lines showing the exact location of the baseball diamond. The on-deck circles will have the Hawks and Red Wings logos.




...there isn't any advertising on the boards or anywhere else on the field in the drawing. You know that won't be the case on Jan. 1.

In other news, the Blackhawks lead the league in attendance. Don't these lemmings know that all those local broadcasts of home games are driving down the value of their tickets?

Bush gives his friend one last gift that doesn't belong to him

He talks of doing the right thing, of not worrying about "callow" popularity - he's callow alright. And he wants to be popular with a crowd, that crowd just isn't the American people. And I hope his life is nothing but ash.

This filled me with real grief. Just leave one thing alone.

Final Days Fire Sale
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: December 13, 2008

Imagine if President Bush, on his last day in office, invited his friends to lift the Lincoln portrait from the White House Dining Room, take the 18th- century furniture from the Map Room and — for good measure — poison the Rose Garden on the way out.

In essence, he is doing the same thing this month with land that belongs to every American — the magical redrock country of the Southwest.

Well before it was a bumper sticker and a chant at Sarah Palin rallies, “drill, baby, drill” became the overriding mission of the political hacks who oversee more than 200 million acres of public land for Bush. At a frantic pace, they have opened up to oil and gas leasing canyons of golden slickrock, mesas once known only to hunters and pronghorn antelope, and little hideaways near the open-aired art galleries of the Anasazi.

Take what you want, they said — and get while the getting is good. It was a plunderfest that produced a gangster culture, with dozens of high-level Interior Department employees exchanging sex, cocaine and gifts with the industry they were supposed to be doing arms-length business with, according to a scathing and quickly forgotten report this year by the agency’s inspector general.

At the time of the report, with gas reaching $4 a gallon, many people shrugged and said we need the oil — drill, baby, drill. Now gas is selling for a pittance, but that hasn’t stopped the fire sale. Everything must go!

On Election Day, the Bush administration announced it would open 360,000 acres of public land in Utah to oil and gas leasing, including about 100,000 acres near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, and Dinosaur National Monument.

As with the $700 billion bailout that Bush insisted had to be given to the very bankers, insurance companies and other tassel-loafed failures who got us into the economic meltdown, the president now wants every dead-ender in the energy business to have one last treat.

Solitude and ageless stone may not be commodities as easily quantified as a couple of thousand barrels of oil. But to the American inheritance, they are the equivalent of those first-edition Audubon books and presidential portraits in the White House.

The administration never even consulted with the parks before announcing they would have oil and gas rigs on their borders.

The giveaways went far beyond public land. For the coal industry, the parting gift was a federal rule that makes it easier to dump mining waste into streams. Anyone who has spent time in Appalachia of late has seen the handiwork — entire mountaintops lopped off in an end-of-days rush for a dirty fossil fuel.

On Thursday, Bush handed out another goodie: a rule that largely frees federal agencies from having to consult independent biologists before constructing something that could lead to the extinction of birds, fish or other endangered species.

Following a storm of outrage by park officials and the incoming Obama team, the government has now backed off from some of the more egregious sales in the Southwest. But on the upcoming Friday before Christmas, it will still auction off more than 150,000 acres near some of the most stunning scenery in the world.

In a concession, officials promised that oil and gas operations would be camouflaged — the rigs and drills painted a desert red so that visitors to the wildlands of Utah would not have industrial clutter marring their sunset picture.

It would be one thing if we needed the fuel. Of nearly 9,000 oil and gas permits approved on public land in Utah, barely a third of them have been drilled. The way this game works is that oil companies buy the leasing rights — in some case for as little as $2.50 an acre — then wait for Saudi Arabia to force another oil price spike. Then they drill.

And the impact on price or domestic supply? Nothing. Even if all the accessible oil and gas were taken from federal land in Utah, it would have zero impact on prices, according to several studies.

But the loss is incalculable — “geologic architecture that has inspired our American character,” and places where “the curvature of the earth is not only seen but felt,” as the ever-lyrical Terry Tempest Williams wrote in a recent essay in The Los Angeles Times.

So why do it? Because they still can. The only urgency is Jan. 20.

Eight years ago, in an act of frat-boy vandalism during their departure from the White House, members of Bill Clinton’s staff ripped W’s off computer keyboards and glued shut some shelves. If only Bush could revert to his college character type, and leave us with such a benign exit mark.

And they always have creepy bedroom odds and ends...

From The Advocate, more fear of the gay bogeymen and women.

Urban Outfitters Pulls Pro-Gay-Marriage Shirts From Shelves

In another sign that one of America's hippest retailers isn't as forward-thinking as one might assume, Urban Outfitters has pulled a T-shirt touting same-sex marriage from its shelves.

The shopping blog Racked reported late last week that the Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters removed "I Support Same-Sex Marriage" shirts from its stores after they had been on sale for only a week. The publicly traded clothing chain blamed the removal of the shirts on bad press, but according to Racked, the negative publicity consisted of only one blog post.

The shirts' designer, Tara Littman, told Racked, "With quite a few pro-Obama shirts in their store and even some anti-McCain products, this clearly isn't a company that has a problem being politically aligned, so why?"

Urban Outfitters chairman Richard Hayne is known as a conservative -- he's donated thousands of dollars to right-wing causes, including the campaigns of homophobic former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. When asked in 2003 what his own views were about homosexuality, Hayne told the Philadelphia Weekly, "I have my own opinion, but I am not going to share it."

The same-sex marriage shirts are not the only Urban items to generate scandal. In 2003, Urban began selling “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl” shirts, which had dollar signs surrounding the text. In 2006, Philadelphia stores featured handgun Christmas decorations, even though the city suffered over 300 gun-related murders that year. (Neal Broverman, Advocate.com)

Pollsters running out of questions (cont)

Survey Asks: Internet Access or Sex?

According to the study, 46 percent of women and 30 percent of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks instead of giving up access to their precious Internet for the same period.

What a stooooooooopid comparison! I wish I was on the internet so much that I could compare it to all my conquesting!

A case for equality...

This article made me think about a lot of things:

Woman Blinded by Spurned Man Invokes Islamic Retribution
Sunday, December 14, 2008; Page A01

TEHRAN -- Ameneh Bahrami once enjoyed photography and mountain vistas. Her work for a medical equipment company gave her financial independence. Several men had asked for her hand in marriage, but the hazel-eyed electrical technician had refused them all. "I wanted to get married, but only to the man I really loved," she said.

Four years ago, a spurned suitor poured a bucket of sulfuric acid over her head, leaving her blind and disfigured.

Late last month, an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker's eyes, acceding to Bahrami's demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime. The sentence has not yet been carried out.

The implementation of corporal punishments allowed under Islamic law, including lashing, amputation and stoning, has often provoked controversy in Iran, where many people have decried such sentences as barbaric. This case is different.

Tehran journalist Asieh Amini, who writes about human rights and opposes the sentence, said protest has been muted because people have been moved by Bahrami's story. "It's hard not to get emotional over what has happened to her," Amini said.

Bahrami, 31, said she has fought long and hard to obtain what she views as justice.

"At an age at which I should be putting on a wedding dress, I am asking for someone's eyes to be dripped with acid," she said in a recent interview, as rain poured against the windows of her parents' small apartment in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Tehran. "I am doing that because I don't want this to happen to any other women."
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Some officials also said the punishment would be a deterrent.

"If propaganda is carried out on how acid attackers are punished, it will prevent such crimes in the future," Mahmoud Salarkia, deputy attorney general of Tehran, told reporters after the court issued its ruling.

There are no statistics on the number of acid attacks against women in Iran. "This is an extreme case of social violence, but crimes like spouse and 'honor' killings are clearly on the rise in Iran," Amini said. "These crimes are violent reactions to sexual limitations in this country."

In public life, men and women are often segregated in Iran, and sex before marriage is illegal.

Amini said she doubted that the sentence against Bahrami's attacker would reverse the trend. "Social violence will not be cured with more violence," she said.

In 2002, Bahrami was a 24-year-old electronics student at a university in Tehran. She and her friends felt sorry for a sometimes bedraggled younger student named Majid Movahedi, so they collected sweaters and pants and asked a university staff member to pass them on to him.

"Ameneh was always nice to everybody," said her mother, Shahin, carefully lifting a cup of tea to her daughter's lips.

Bahrami left a deep impression on Movahedi, even though the two had never spoken.

"He was absolutely crazy about her," said Aziz Movahedi, Majid's father. "At periods he would lock himself in his room, saying he only wanted to marry her."

Bahrami didn't share his feelings. "I remember him as a strange boy with an obsessive stare," she said. In 2003, Movahedi's mother called Bahrami's parents to propose a marriage. "I politely declined," Bahrami said.

Movahedi, refusing to be turned down, began waiting outside her workplace and stopping her in the street, crying that he would kill himself if she didn't marry him.

Police said they could not act before a crime had been committed, so Bahrami decided that she needed to act. "Things were out of control. I was facing an unbalanced person," Bahrami said.

On Oct. 31, 2004, she approached Movahedi as he waited near her office. "I made up a story that I had gotten engaged and was about to marry. 'Continue with your life,' I told him. 'There is absolutely no hope for us.' "

As she returned to her office, he vowed to kill her.

Three days later, on a cold, clear autumn afternoon, Bahrami was walking home through one of Tehran's busy city parks when someone tapped her on the shoulder. As she turned around, a burning fluid splashed onto her face.
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"It felt like my head was stuck in a bowl of boiling water," Bahrami said. "I bent forward to allow the stuff to drip off my face, but the pain was intolerable. I fell on the pavement, screaming for help."

In the interview, Bahrami recounted these events calmly. Her mother, sitting next to her on a couch, held her daughter tightly.

Bahrami remembers a crowd gathering around her. "A bystander came with a jerry can of water. I splashed it on my face, but that only caused the acid to run down my arms onto my body."

Someone picked her up and took her to a nearby hospital. The doctors ordered a worker to hose her down in the hospital's courtyard.

"They didn't take her clothes off or wash her eyes properly. That could have softened the high degree of burns," said Farid Karimian, an Iranian ophthalmologist who began treating Bahrami a couple of days later. "She was a real mess."

Movahedi turned himself in to police two weeks after the attack. During a preliminary hearing, he acknowledged attacking Bahrami and was imprisoned to await trial.

"What was my sin? To want to choose freely in marriage?" Bahrami said. "What was he thinking?"

Bahrami was transferred to a burn unit at another hospital, where she had several surgeries over the next six months.

"All the time I had to sleep standing up. I was completely blinded," she said.

After the operations, doctors referred her to an eye clinic in Barcelona for a last attempt to restore some of her vision.

But Bahrami had no insurance. Iran's president at the time, Mohammad Khatami, who had heard Bahrami's story through her attorney, personally paid a large portion of her bills and promised that the government would make the remaining payments.

" 'You don't worry about anything; we'll take care of you,' they said," Bahrami recalled.
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Doctors at Barcelona's Instituto de Microcirugia Ocular, an eye surgery hospital, were impressed by Bahrami. "She was an amazing patient. So brave. She came to a foreign country, blind, without knowing the language. She only wanted one thing: to be able to see again," said Ramón Medel, an eyelid surgeon at the hospital.

Medel and other doctors focused on Bahrami's right eye, which was less damaged.

"After some operations, she could at least see some shadows," Medel said. "But we needed to do more work on her."

In August 2005, almost a year after the attack, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president, and the payments for Bahrami's medical costs and her Barcelona apartment suddenly stopped.

Iran's ambassador to Spain at the time, Morteza Alviri, said he had nightmares after meeting Bahrami. "I felt so sorry for her. I tried to do what I could," he said. But when Ahmadinejad changed several ambassadors, supporters of the previous government, Alviri was the first to leave. "I don't know what happened to Ameneh after that," he said.

Ahmadinejad's media adviser, Medhi Kalhor, said he could guess why the payments were cut off. "Did Mr. Khatami throw the acid? No. He shouldn't have paid for her out of the people's pocket," he said. "If Bahrami was an old man with an ingrown toenail, no one would speak of it. . . . There are so many people who need our help. We cannot just pay for everybody."

Bahrami eventually was evicted from her apartment, and members of a Spanish organization took her to a homeless shelter in Barcelona.

"After some days, I understood that I was surrounded by drug addicts, drunkards and prostitutes," she said. "I cried so hard -- what had I done to deserve all this?"

"It was a horrible, crazy place, where they had put her," said Amir Sabouri, president of the Iranian Friendship Association of New York, a charity that helps Iranians worldwide. Sabouri traveled to Spain to help Bahrami after hearing about her plight.

Soon after, Bahrami felt fluid dripping from her right eye.

"Unfortunately her eye, which was very weak, gave out," Medel said. "She must have caught some bacteria somewhere."
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Bahrami returned to Tehran in June.

With little left to lose, Bahrami took the unusual step of asking the court for qisas, or eye-for-an-eye retribution as allowed under Islamic law.

Courts usually order families of the accused to pay "blood money" for the crimes. But Bahrami insisted on the punishment. She had several meetings with the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who tends to favor less strict interpretations of Islamic law.

"Shahroudi really pressed me to demand blood money instead of retribution. He explained that such a sentence would cause lots of bad publicity for Iran. But I refused," she said.

The judiciary did not respond to a request for an interview.

More than two weeks ago, Movahedi was led into court by two policemen. He showed no remorse when the court ruled on the case. When the judge asked whether he was ready for his punishment, Movahedi said that he still loved Bahrami but that if she asked for his eyes to be taken out, he would seek the same punishment for her.

"They must also completely empty out her eyes, since I'm not sure that she cannot secretly see," he said. "The newspapers have made this a huge case, but I haven't done anything bad."

Movahedi was sentenced to five drips of sulfuric acid in each eye. His father said he was "incredibly sorry" for what had happened. "If Ameneh is really blind, the verdict against my son must be implemented," he said.

Under Iranian law, a convict has 20 days to appeal the verdict. If Movahedi fails to do so, the punishment will be carried out on a date decided by the judiciary.

Medel, the doctor in Barcelona, said he was shocked to hear that his former patient had asked for another person's eyes to be taken out.

"I heard about that court case on the radio here in Spain," he said. "I never linked it to Ameneh. It's a harsh sentence, but she really had to go through a lot. I don't know what I would have done if she had been my daughter."

pray harder, dude

And you might want to set your sights on something a little more attainable, like the Cubs winning the World Series or an asteroid impact...

Acree and two other pastors — The Rev. Steve Jones, president of the Baptist Pastor's Conference, and the Rev. Marshall Hatch of the New Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church — arrived at the governor's home shortly after 8 a.m. and met with him for about 20 minutes.

Jones said they prayed with Blagojevich and his family. . .

Shortly after they left, a fourth minister, the Rev. Leonard Barr of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, arrived at the governor's house with his wife, Rita.

He said they were invited by the governor and that the two "prayed that he would continue to be a great governor for the state of Illinois."
~

we don't call him "Perfect Hair" for nothing

POLL RESULTS :
Do you think Blagojevich is crazy?
Yes 66%
1565 votes
No 28%
664 votes
Undecided/Crazy 5%
118 votes
Total Votes: 2347

Is Blago's hair a sign of sickness?
DIAGNOSING BLAGOJEVICH Gov's chestnut mane might be sign of narcissistic personality disorder, psychologists say Recommend (18) Comments
December 11, 2008

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter sesposito@suntimes.com
It's a head of hair that a man 20 years his junior would envy -- a chestnut helmet that brazenly mocks Father Time and screams "healthy!"
Or does it?
Gov. Blagojevich's glossy locks -- perfectly sculpted in rain or snow -- may be an indication of a sickness beneath his scalp, said one local psychologist.
"It's all part of managing his image, managing his image of being without a blemish, without a flaw," said Scott Ambers, who has practiced clinical psychology in the city for more than two decades.
Several psychologists interviewed one day after the governor's arrest agreed that he might be suffering from an affliction known as narcissistic personality disorder.
"This grandiose sense of self . . . doesn't carry the implication that [Blagojevich] is a raving lunatic, crazy and out of touch with reality, but it does suggest he has a really overinflated view of his own importance," Ambers said.
Those who bandied the term "delusions of grandeur" when talking about Blagojevich have missed the mark, Ambers said.
"I have a patient who is firmly convinced the FBI, the CIA and [the Department of] Homeland Security are following her . . . as she drives on the expressway," Ambers said. "It's all delusional."
Perhaps Blagojevich suffers from the opposite problem?
"I think he felt a certain kind of immunity," Ambers said. "It's part of the grandiosity -- 'They are not going to be able to punish me because I'm above the law, I'm smarter, I will outfox them.' "
HAIRBRAINED?
~

You know you're a YOOOGE scumbag...

... when Dan Walker thinks you're a scumbag.

A disgrace to the state
By Dan Walker
December 11, 2008

While I admittedly erred in my private life 10 years after serving as Illinois governor—and paid the price for my mistakes—I am too proud of my state and my unblemished service as governor to remain silent about the despicable conduct of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
~

Who needs raving lunatics, the mentally challenged, or MORANS when there is the punditry class?

The 10 Worst Predictions for 2008

Prognostication is by far the riskiest form of punditry. The 10 commentators and leaders on this list learned that the hard way when their confident predictions about politics, war, the economy, and even the end of humanity itself completely missed the mark.

1. “If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then. … Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.” —William Kristol, Fox News Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006

Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol was hardly alone in thinking that the Democratic primary was Clinton’s to lose, but it takes a special kind of self-confidence to make a declaration this sweeping more than a year before the first Iowa caucus was held. After Iowa, Kristol lurched to the other extreme, declaring that Clinton would lose New Hampshire and that “There will be no Clinton Restoration.” It’s also worth pointing out that this second wildly premature prediction was made in a Times column titled, “President Mike Huckabee?” The Times is currently rumored to be looking for his replacement.
~

Yet another post about Gov. Bla....wait a minute - this is just another Facebook Poem

From the "Newsfeed":

Jodi-Ann is attending "Sexaholics."
Roseline is attending WORSHIPPING HIM ALWAYS.
Jim C. and Michael L, S. joined the group Joe Morgan Is A Douchebag.

Criminality & Failure Chronicled

And it must be said that while Blago will probably spend a few years in prison, Bush will walk away scot-free despite his many, many worse crimes... because, apparently, if the President does it, it isn't illegal.

Countdown: Keith Olbermann Looks At Bush's REAL Legacy

President Bush tells interviewers he does not care how history will portray him.

But in our third story tonight, the Los Angeles Times has obtained an internal White House memo giving cabinet members talking points for painting history a rosy portrait of Mr. Bush even though his image will only get worse, as new, damning facts emerge.

What does the memo say? And how are we obliged to correct its bizarre claims?

To start, it says Mr. Bush, quote, "...promised to raise standards and accountability in public schools -- and delivered the No Child Left Behind Act," an act so poorly received, that the Times points out it became a standard applause line this year... for Democrats.

Also from the memo: he curbed AIDS in Africa.

Its spread has slowed, and Mr. Bush has won praise for this but he has not won any praise for withholding funds from groups that promote condom use, a proven life-saver in favor of abstinence-only programs, which have also failed in this country.

Also, Mr. Bush's foreign-aid puritan, Randall Tobias quit last year after patronizing an escort service linked to prostitution.

Also from the memo: Mr. Bush lifted the economy with his tax cuts and, quote, "responded with bold measures to prevent an economic meltdown."

In 2005, Mr. Bush told a 57-year-old single mother of three, one of them mentally challenged, that it was "fantastic", "uniquely American" that she had to work three jobs unlike half a million people who have no job as of November... in the first presidency for decades during which family earning power fell, and income disparity continued to rise.

The "meltdown" he "prevented" now having claimed several Wall Street institutions which had weathered 1929, and 9/11... but not 43.

And, of course, the old standby, quote, he "kept the American people safe"...

Not counting twenty percent of his first term, January 20th, 2001, until September 11th, 2001. On 9/11, he sat reading "My Pet Goat" for seven minutes after learning America was under attack. Then covered up environmental dangers at Ground Zero, and failed to provide for the health of rescue workers. Helped bin Laden's family flee the country. Opposed the 9/11 Commission, the Department of Homeland Security. Tried to outsource America's port security to Dubai. Did not keep us safe from the shoe-bomber... alert passengers and crew did that...

Did not keep five Americans safe from anthrax... and never caught their killer.

Still hasn't caught the killer of 17 sailors aboard the USS Cole.

Still hasn't caught the killer of 3,000 on 9/11... outsourcing that to Afghans... turning that country into a narco-state, giving bin Laden a safe haven in the region of Waziristan by literally endorsing a truce that Pakistan signed with the Taliban there.

And most of all, not keeping safe 4,200 Americans dead in his war, a war that made us less safe, invading a country that posed no grave or gathering threat, provided a check on Iran... then igniting insurrection by disbanding the Baathist Party, creating a Muslim theocracy purged of its moderate intelligentsia. One in which freedom has marched backward for women.

And Lebanon, too, elected a Muslim theocracy... run by Hamas, no less.

Keeping us safe?

Terrorism is rising worldwide.

The still-thriving enemy has claimed Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto...

And thousands of people in India... including 200 in Mumbai last month.

Russia can now invade U-S allies without fear of retribution.

And Mr. Bush failed to prevent Kim Jong Il from joining the ranks of nuclear powers.

Despite even more ample warning than he received prior to 9/11, he lifted not a finger to keep a major American city safe from wind and water.

And what, finally, of the claim in the talking points... that Mr. Bush has always upheld, quote, "the honor and the dignity of his office"?

You must define dignity downward to find it in a lie.

The lie of "Mission Accomplished."

Of upholding the Constitution... or protecting habeas corpus.

That we do not eavesdrop without warrants... do not eavesdrop on Americans.

The lie that we do not torture.

That we do not play politics with justice... that we do not use the wheels of justice... to crush dissent.

That we do not betray those who serve us in secret.

That we uphold, rather than commute, the penalties for those who do.

That we do not stage fake news conferences, do not censor science... do not plant propaganda in Iraqi newspapers... nor pay US columnists to write it in American newspapers.

Or push respected Americans to vaporize their honor and dignity with lies to the world.

Or lie about the causes of the credit crisis, high gas prices, or even that he watched the first plane hit the North Tower on TV.

Where is the honor in vowing a crusade? Of daring those who would kill American troops to "bring it on?"

Of promising to care for the troops after you put them in harm's way, without body armor or up-armored vehicles?

Where was the honor, the dignity in giving a dead soldier's mother a presidential coin and telling her "don't sell it on eBay."?

His memo, revealing yet another lie.

He does care how history will portray him.

And now... he knows.
~

More (cont'd): Zell "sensitive" to Blago's "issue"

You're a newspaper. The governor of your state--a governor who has had the stink of corruption on him for years--has his people call you up and directly state that they'll help you out if you fire members of your editorial board. It is a phone conversation that not only wipes its ass on the ethical lines it crosses, it also treats the First Amendment like it's optional. And you don't report it? Why?

There's only one reason: Zell was entertaining the offer. . .

The Tribune could have and should have run the story of Blagojevich's call to Tribune Tower in 200 point type. They should have printed it in Rod's own blood. They would have brought down a sitting governor the same week that they were trumpeting the win of Obama. They would have pushed the Tribune's brand into the stratosphere, at just the time that it needed it.

But they didn't. Faced with a defining moment in journalism--this was the kind of story that we would have taught in journalism schools for years--Sam Zell decided not to do the right thing. It's not surprising--the guy is a waxed mustache away from tying a damsel in distress to a railroad track after all--but it's still a shock.

we should make a t-shirt

I know, I know... I'll get over it

(Crain's) — Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to shake down Children’s Memorial Hospital’s CEO in exchange for $8 million in state health care funding, according to a federal affidavit unsealed Tuesday detailing corruption charges against the governor.

Mr. Blagojevich on Oct. 8 discussed with one of his campaign fundraisers pressing the executive — named in the criminal complaint as “Hospital Executive 1” — for a $50,000 campaign contribution, allegedly a quid pro quo for the governor’s recent funding commitment, according to the affidavit.

“I’m going to do $8 million for them. I want to get (Hospital Executive 1) for 50,” Mr. Blagojevich told the fundraiser, according to the 78-page affidavit.

Da Mare on Blago chief of staff John Harris

"Very sad. He was a budget director. He worked here at the Police Department. Aviation. Had a good work record. I mean, you all knew him personally. Work ethic, very hard. Once you step over there [to the state], you don't know what they did. It's very sad ... It's sad. It's a sad day. It's very sad."

another Zeniths' success story

J.J. Barea got another start for the Mavericks on Tuesday, finishing with 21 points, two rebounds and five assists in 40 minutes. The Mavericks will continue to start whichever shooting guard has the hot hand and right now it's Barea. With Josh Howard (ankle) sidelined indefinitely, Barea looks like a great fantasy option over the next week or two.

I'm sure once the Mavs' crummy vets get healthy, "Kid Dyn-O-Mite" will find his way back to the bench after dominating for two weeks. Either that or he'll get traded to somewhere like Nellyland where he'll be placed behind Anthony Morrow on the depth chart. As it is, the stacked Zeniths can't play him anyway...
~

Gov. Rod 'Smith' on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Pill of Rights

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

more tales from the invasion of the brain-sucking... wait a minute... wtf???

Obama enjoys strong public support as president-elect

"I think he's intelligent and competent and he's picking intelligent, competent people," said Ronald Griffey, 74, a retired meteorologist and political independent who lives in the Dallas suburbs.

Griffey agreed to a follow-up interview. "I like having an intelligent president, instead of one you can drink a beer with," he said.

Zorn on Blago

In a profile of Blagojevich in last February's Chicago Magazine, writer David Bernstein reported:

Privately, a few people who know the governor describe him as a "sociopath," and they insist they're not using hyperbole. State representative Joe Lyons, a fellow Democrat from Chicago, told reporters that Blagojevich was a "madman" and "insane."

That struck me at the time, as over the top. Today it strikes me as brave and prescient.

FWIW, a friend of mine who works in Springfield said, in March of 2006 when Designated Phokkface was running for re-erection, that, if re-erectorated, nobody in Springfield expected him to make it through an entire second term.

But who knew it would be this classy?
~

Blago phokked with the wrong guy?

According to the Rachel Maddow show, Fox News Chicago is reporting on who may have informed Fitzgerald of Blago's attempts to sell Obama's senate seat. That person is said to have gone to Fitzgerald after Blago reached out to him. That person is Rahm Emmanuel. Uh, Rod did you really think it was a good idea to talk to one of the toughest most cut throat politicians in the country about something that by simply having knowledge of it could have destroyed the man he works for?

McCain remaking his image; or, with back-stabbing A-HOLES like this, who needs enemies?

Let's see, the only reason we know about Joe the ASSHOLE is because McCain mentioned his name 785 times during one of the debates. Certainly, Joe the ASSHOLE has made enough money from his 15 minutes to pay his back taxes?

Joe the Plumber: McCain 'appalled me'

Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain Tuesday, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”

Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”

Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”

“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.”

While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.
~

Studs, we miss you

“Chicago is not the most corrupt American city, it’s the most theatrically corrupt.”
-- Studs Terkel, 1978

Hide the women and children...

Blagojevich freed on own recognizance
December 9, 2008 at 2:56 PM

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were each released on his own recognizance at a federal court hearing this afternoon. Wearing a light blue running shirt and tight, dark-blue running pants, the governor walked slowly into the packed courtroom accompanied by a federal agent. After being escorted to the defense table, Blagojevich smirked and shook his head as he read documents given to him by his attorney.

He also looked briefly around the gallery, which was filled with reporters. His wife, Patti, did not attend the 15-minute hearing. Blagojevich and Harris later stepped toward the bench, as U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan greeted him. "Good afternoon, Governor," she said. "Good afternoon," Blagojevich replied.

Nolan said the purpose of the hearing was to explain the charges against the men and make sure they understood their rights. Assistant U.S. Atty. Red Schar then read into the record the two counts detailed in the criminal complaint. If convicted, Blagojevich and Harris could face up to 10 years in prison.

The magistrate agreed to release the men on a $4,500 recognizance bond. Blagojevich nodded as Nolan also ordered him to surrender his passport and any gun ownership cards. The governor was then escorted from the courtroom after the hearing.

His attorney, Sheldon Sorosky, said afterward that Blagojevich "is very surprised and certainly feels that he did not do anything wrong." The governor was driven back to his Chicago home and arrived there about 2:30 p.m. He went into his home through a back entrance.

~

fasting Cubs soup?

Patti Blagojevich: Hold up that f***ing Cubs s***
During the call, Rod Blagojevich's wife can be heard in the background telling Rod Blagojevich to tell Deputy Governor A "to hold up that f***ing Cubs s***. . . f*** them." Rod Blagojevich asked Deputy Governor A what he thinks of his wife's idea. Deputy Governor A stated that there is a part of what Rod Blagojevich's wife said that he "agree[s] with." Deputy Governor A told Rod Blagojevich that Tribune Owner will say that he does not have anything to do with the editorials, "but I would tell him, look, if you want to get your Cubs thing done get rid of this Tribune." Later, Rod Blagojevich's wife got on the phone and, during the continuing discussion of the critical Tribune editorials, stated that Tribune Owner can "just fire" the writers because Tribune Owner owns the Tribune. Rod Blagojevich's wife stated that if Tribune Owner's papers were hurting his business, Tribune Owner would do something about the editorial board. Rod Blagojevich then got back on the phone. Rod Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A to put together the articles in the Tribune that are on the topic of removing Rod Blagojevich from office and they will then have someone, like JOHN HARRIS, go to Tribune Owner and say, "We've got some decisions to make now." Rod Blagojevich said that "someone should say, 'get rid of those people.'"

~

Pat Quinn, the next gov (soon?): generally a good guy, but he really phokked us up in 1980

It was his petition drive that ended cumulative voting, which had succeeded in electing "ballot-rigging insiders" like, oh, Paul Simon and Abner Mikva. Under that system we had Republicans elected in even the most Democratic districts, Democrats elected in even the most Republican districts, moderates in both parties who were capable of working together. Since then all we've had are monkey-feces-hurling cronies.

The only place that could rival Hopleaf is another Hopleaf

(Crain’s) — A plan by the owners of Michael & Louise's Hopleaf Bar to open another tavern next door in Andersonville has collapsed after a Northwest Side bank pulled out of the deal.

Michael Roper, co-owner of the trendy Hopleaf at 5148 N. Clark St., says he would have paid more than $1 million for the building next door, now the home of Italian eatery La Donna Restaurant, which plans to move to Edgewater.

Mr. Roper says he still hopes to buy the two-story building, 5146 N. Clark St. His plan is to open a tavern that would serve Mediterranean-inspired cuisine and offer a beer selection that would rival the more than 150 varieties served at Hopleaf, which opened in 1992 and is known for its Belgian fare, such as mussels and frites.

Fantasy Football - the suckage

Only Ranger made the playoffs this year, with Smiff missing out on point differential, Sarge & Corporal a game out and the less said about Fung & Corms the better. Since we went to a 10 team league team, apparently there's no consolation bracket for 9th and 10th. So Fung & Corms are done. Finished. Outta dere. Their suckage and stinkage was absolute. They did manage to win once or twice, including going 1-1 against each other. But boy did they suck. So Fung will not have tales of lore about this season. Someone else will have to do that. Now to focus on basketball, where Briggs is obviously like 50 poi... hold on, I'm being told that somehow Smiff leads the league. I give up.

Not mentioned: K-Mad (too sexy for Fantasy Football), Briggs (lifetime Parcer, rejecter of any and all other leagues, despite innumerable coercive efforts, he will not join your league, got it?)

and the kicker is, she planned to trade the monkey for a cabinet post

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A Spokane woman who hid a sedated monkey under her blouse on a flight from Thailand to Los Angeles — pretending she was pregnant — has been convicted of smuggling charges.

No relief in sight here

News headline: It's Business as Usual for Cubs, if Not Tribune

Also, one of the leading bidders for the Cubs is Thomas Ricketts.

Breaking News

TV sez Blago taken into custody.

add this to Bud Lite's List of Fails (cont'd)

Santo falls short again of Hall of Fame induction

December 8, 2008
BY CHRIS DE LUCA Staff Reporter

LAS VEGAS — Despite a restructured process that was thought to favor him, former Cubs third baseman Ron Santo was again denied entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame today when the Veterans Committee failed to vote in any of the 10 finalists on the post-1942 ballot.

Santo got the most votes, but fell well short of the 75 percent necessary. He got 39 votes, good for 60.9 percent. Jim Kaat got 38 for 59.4 percent and Tony Oliva got 33 for 51.6 percent. None of the other 10 finalists got more than 50 percent of the vote.

‘‘When our board of directors restructured the Veterans Committee after the 2007 election, it did so with the goal of ensuring the voters — the living Hall of Famers — would review their peers,’’ Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark said. ‘‘The 10 post-1942 ballot finalists all spent a substantial part of their playing career in the 1960s or the 1970s, and a vast majority of the voters were either actively playing, managing or involved in baseball in those two decades.’’

A sub committee did review a ballot of players who began their careers before 1943 and elected nine-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion Joe Gordon, a second baseman who played for the Yankees and Indians.

Among the players on the post-1942 ballot, Santo was the clear favorite under the revamped system, which cut the field to just 10 names before a final vote. There has been growing pressure on the committee to swing its doors open after gaining the reputation for being hard-liners.

‘‘The process was not redesigned with the goal of necessarily electing someone, but to give everyone on the ballot a very fair chance of earning election through a ballot of their peers,’’ Clark said. ‘‘The vote reinforces the selections of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and maintains the high standards set by the BBWAA. A 75 percent threshold is extremely difficult to attain, but the highly selective process helps ensure that enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame remains the greatest honor in the game.’’

Contacted by the Sun-Times on Sunday, Santo admitted he was anxious.

‘‘Nothing's going to change in my life if I don't get in,’’ he said before the results were announced. ‘‘I believe what I've done in baseball is Hall of Fame, and that would satisfy me immensely. But it's not going to make a difference to [family, friends and fans who have reached out]. They're still going to be around if I don't get in. That's what means a lot to me. ‘‘Am I excited about it? I've been so disappointed. This is my best chance, so don't get me wrong. But I thought I had a great chance [the past two elections].’’

Rounding out the post-1942 ballot were Gil Hodges (28 votes, 43.8 percent), Joe Torre (19, 29.7 percent), Maury Wills (15, 23.4 percent), Luis Tiant (13, 20.3 percent), Vada Pinson (12, 18.8 percent), Al Oliver (9, 14.1 percent), Dick Allen (7, 10.9 percent).

More evidence morons were voting: Dick Allen finishes behind Wills, Pinson & Oliver. His OPS+ is 19th all-time, the same as Willie Mays.
~

BINGO!

End Times Chronicles

Ron Santo denied Hall of Fame entrance
Tribune Company files for bankruptcy
High court turns down appeal on Obama's birth
Blagojevich: 'Nothing but sunshine hanging over me'
Bears are surviving ... for now
Skilly's weather: Icy today, worse to come
Studies: Dogs sense fairness, resent if other dogs treated better

42 days to go...are we going to make it???

Brain-Dead Quinquagenarians (soon): The Dumbering

I blame society.

If the data are objectively assessed, which age-slice of today's working-age adults really does deserve to be called the dumbest generation?

The answer may surprise you. No, it's not today's college-age kids, nor even today's family-starting 30-somethings. And no, it's not the 60-year-olds who once grooved at Woodstock. Instead, it's Americans in their 40s, especially their late 40s -- those born from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s.

Classy Move

From Raw Story we get a sense of Bush's post-presidential life and yet another peek at his sensitivity and his understanding of the role he has taken on as president by examining his choice of rezzzidunce:

"When the Bushes are here full time, I imagine we'll be here full time," said Officer Michael Bratcher of the Dallas Police Department, who was directing traffic.

But the exclusive Dallas community the Bush family will soon join has a troubled history of its own.

Until 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants. [my own bolding because I love it so much]

Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads: "Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

No clue who he was, but it's anudder Smiff sucker

Good old [Warriors coach] Don Nelson. Anthony Morrow didn't play in an overtime loss to the Heat. You never know with Nelson, but I'd release him in shallow leagues. [So would Smiff.]

MAC reaches new low in awfulness

Buffalo 42, Ball St. 24

DETROIT (AP)—Ball State fumbled away its perfect season.

The 12th-ranked Cardinals coughed it up four times and Buffalo scored off each turnover, routing the previously unbeaten team 42-24 Friday night in the Mid-American Conference championship game.

Ball State (12-1) finished the regular season undefeated for the first time since 1949, but entered the game without much of a shot to bust into the Bowl Championship Series because it trailed Utah in the standings.

The Bulls returned fumbles 92 and 74 yards on consecutive drives late in the third quarter to take a 28-17 lead.

Buffalo (8-5) won its first MAC title, capping the program’s first bowl-eligible season since joining college football’s top tier of teams in 1999

~

Is someone playing Taps? Decker?

Free agent Greg Maddux will announce his retirement Monday at the baseball winter meetings in Las Vegas. The future first-ballot Hall of Famer makes his home in Vegas, so he doesn't have far to go. Agent Scott Boras confirmed the decision on Friday.
~

dis doesn't happen to pets in SoCal

Dog frozen to Wis. sidewalk; fat helped it survive
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) -- A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat, authorities said. The Sheboygan County Humane Society says the "morbidly obese" dog, an aging border collie mix named Jiffy, froze to the sidewalk when he was left out overnight Wednesday. Shelter manager Carey Payne says few dogs could survive the single-digit temperatures, and it was probably the fat that made the difference.
Jiffy's 59-year-old owner was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of animal neglect, Sheboygan Police Lt. Tim Eirich said. She told police she tried to get the dog inside but couldn't, and instead checked on him every few hours.
The dog is 11 or 12 years old, Eirich said. Shelter workers poured warm water over Jiffy's back end to unstick him from the sidewalk, Payne said, and it was too soon to say whether he suffered any long-term effects.

Planetary Bush Disaster (soon)

Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush’s Future

"Let’s hope that President Bush, in figuring out what to do in his post-presidency, borrows a page from Jimmy Carter. There are lots of diseases waiting for a wealthy, well-connected Texan to lead the fight against."

Really? Would we want George Bush to take up the cause of disease eradication? I think the record indicates that he would be the best friend pestilence ever had.

You know the Guinea Worm sees a way out here...

45 days to go...are we going to make it??? (cont'd)

45 days to go...are we going to make it???

Employers cut most jobs in 34 years (AP)
AP - Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession....
~

The Iraq war should be run more like a business

Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base

A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against contractor KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, saying the companies exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.

“Defendants promised the United States government that they would supply safe water for hygienic and recreational uses, safe food supplies and properly operate base incinerators to dispose of medical waste safely,” according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “Defendants utterly failed to perform their promised duties.”
. . .

“Defendants knowingly and intentionally supplied and served food that was well past its expiration date, in some cases over a year past its expiration date,” the lawsuit states. “Even when it was called to the attention of the KBR food service managers that the food was expired, KBR still served the food to U.S. forces.”

The food included chicken, beef, fish, eggs and dairy products, which caused cases of salmonella poisoning, according to the lawsuit.
. . .

The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.”

Eller also accuses KBR of failing to maintain a medical incinerator at Joint Base Balad, which has been confirmed by two surgeons in interviews with Military Times about the Balad burn pit. Instead, according to the lawsuit and the physicians, medical waste, such as needles, amputated body parts and bloody bandages were burned in the open-air pit.

“Wild dogs in the area raided the burn pit and carried off human remains,” the lawsuit states. “The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with body parts in their mouths, to the great distress of the U.S. forces.”

The ever changing Fung

Once I was a person. Then I was a fungus. Then I was a douchebag, allegedly with hot chick. Now, I have transformed into a virus. Or a Trojan. Thanks once again go to Briggs (whitey) for bringing this to my attention. I hadn't noticed any change till he brought it up.

WTF??

Did you guys miss this?



OMG you guys!!!!



How did you guys miss this? I clicked on our friends at FJM and found this link, right under the one where they say they're done with posting on that site. WTF are you so busy with that you missed this one?

Cupcake Watch

Northern Illinois 55
Air Force 67

North Carolina 98
Michigan St. 63

Florida St. 59
Northwestern 73

Cornell 78
Syracuse 88

Indiana 58
Wake Forest 83

Ill. Chicago 74
Vanderbilt 55

SW Assemblies of God 65
Texas St. 110
~

The Palin Effect in reverse, or, brain-dead Floridians whut cain't tell the difference between Barack Obama and a radio prankster

I wonder what tipped her off? Maybe the phony French accent.

Ros-Lehtinen hangs up on Obama. Twice.

Is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen a little paranoid?

Maybe.

On Wednesday, the Republican congresswoman got a call from President-elect Barack Obama, didn't believe it was him, and hung up on him. Twice.

According to Ros-Lehtinen's flack Alex Cruz, the congresswoman received the call on her cell phone from a Chicago-based number and an aide informed her that Obama wanted to speak to her. When Obama introduced himself, Ros-Lehtinen cut him off and said, "I'm sorry but I think this is a joke from one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks." Then she hung up.

Moments later, Obama tried again, this time through his soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

"Ileana, I cannot believe you hung up on the President-Elect," Emanuel said. And then--yes, you know what's coming--she hung up on Emanuel saying she "didn't believe the call was legitimate."

Too Many Admins...

Somebody changed our blog archive to go by month instead of week. Whodunit? Fess up. You know how we feel about "change" here at the LoC. Why would you take away such an avenue of discussion? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?!

Oh, whitey (cont'd)... and you too Alan Keyes...

Suit contesting Barack Obama's citizenship heads to U.S. Supreme Court Friday

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship, a continuation of a New Jersey case embraced by some opponents of Obama's election.

The meeting of justices will coincide with a vigil by the filer's supporters in Washington on the steps of the nation's highest court. . .

Legal experts say the appeal has little chance of succeeding, despite appearing on the court's schedule. Legal records show it is only the tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to derail Obama's election over accusations that he either wasn't born a U.S. citizen or that he later renounced his citizenship in Indonesia.

He Guone

Will he be missed?

A random treat from the LoC archives...

2007... it was a simpler time...

Apart from spending the rest of our lives cleaning up after him, what will we ever do without him?

Catching up with da RezzziDUNCE

Want to park here for a couple of hours? Bring 52 quarters...

Okay, presumably they'll have done away with quarter meters by then and found a way to suck the money directly out of your kids' college fund, but still...

News item: Motorists will pay $6.50 an hour by 2013 to feed downtown parking meters

But at least all that extra cash is making it easier to get around town...

Daley warns drivers: Slow down when it snows

On Tuesday, Mayor Daley and Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Michael Picardi warned Chicago motorists to drive slower when the weather turns ugly and expect to wait longer to get side streets plowed as the city seeks to do more with less. . .

The mayor warned: "Next year is gonna get worse than this year. ... Once January comes, hold onto your pants. Smiff: Lord knows this means you above all."

this is probably nothing to worry about (cont'd)

Maldives’ escape plan for rising seas

The new President of the Maldives says he will begin buying land in other nations as "an insurance policy" in case his nation needs to be evacuated due to rising sea levels from climate change.

because he hasn't totally killed him off yet

Reds' Dusty Baker wants to manage Kerry Wootz again

"We have a closer already in [Francisco] Cordero, who we have under contract for a few more years," Baker said Monday. "But somebody can use Kerry Wootz. I am going to call him. I like Kerry Wootz as a person, not just as a ballplayer, but as a person. I will give him a call and see what's up... man"

when irresistible suction force meets immovable vacuum object (part II)

Chicago State at Northern Illinois, Saturday December 6, 2pm

when irresistible suction force meets immovable vacuum object (part I)

News item: The Northern Illinois men's basketball had a chance to meet, and take photos with, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who was in attendance at the Great Alaska Shootout on both Friday and Saturday.

but they make good toothpaste

Syracuse 86, Colgate 51

Syracuse jumped to an early 17-2 lead less than five minutes into the contest with Harris and Flynn accounting for 15 of that total. Flynn started the barrage by opening the game with a three and then quickly followed with a zzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

k-mad already scheming to end their careers, or, why does k-mad do it?

Indian baseball players chase American dream

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Two Indian youngsters chasing the American baseball dream have taken an important first step when the Pittsburgh Pirates signed them up as non-draft free agents.

Left-hander Rinku Singh and Dinesh Kumar Patel pitched in front of scouts from the Pirates and other Major League organizations on November 12 before being chosen, a statement on the club website said.

The players, with shoulder strength gained through their initial training to become javelin throwers, earned a U.S. training stint in May after topping a pitching contest in India, "The Million-Dollar Arm," which offered the winner $100,000.

Singh, 20, who won that contest and Patel, 19, will now take part in the Pirates' Minor League spring training next year.

Their promoters hope they can make it as professionals, saying such success would boost baseball in cricket-mad India in the same way that Yao Ming's move to the NBA created a fan base for basketball in China. . .

K-Mad already scheming to end her career...

Japanese schoolgirl signs pro baseball contract
TOKYO (AP) -- A 16-year-old Japanese girl signed with a regional baseball team Tuesday, becoming the country's first female professional baseball player.
Eri Yoshida, a knuckleball pitcher, will play for the Kobe 9 Cruise in a new independent league starting in April 2009. The team selected her last month along with 31 male players in the league draft.
"I still don't feel like I've really become a pro baseball player, but I want to do my best," Yoshida said at a news conference after signing her contract. "My specialty is the knuckleball, so I really want to be able to get batters out using it effectively."
The Cruise are more like a farm team and a far cry from Japan's mainstream pro teams such as the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. But the 5-foot, 114-pound Yoshida has broken a barrier in baseball-crazy Japan, where women are normally relegated to amateur, company-sponsored teams or to softball.
Yoshida, who started playing baseball when she was in second grade, said she wants to emulate Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who has built a successful major league career as a knuckleballer.
The fledgling Japanese League, based in western Japan, is hoping to find enough success to eventually challenge the likes of the long-established Central and Pacific leagues. Those leagues, home to the best Japanese players, have become an increasingly fertile ground for talent headed to the U.S. major leagues.
~

I suck, but you voted for me, so who's really to blame?

Bush remorseful on financial crisis: 'I'm sorry it's happening...also, I SUCK'

Asked if he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion if intelligence reports had accurately indicated that Saddam did not have the weapons, Bush replied: "You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate."

Phokk You.

"I think I was unprepared for war," he said. "In other words, I didn't campaign and say, `Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack.' In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."

Interesting. I wonder who started the war...anybody know?

As he leaves office, Bush said he felt responsible for the economic downturn because it's occurring on his watch, but he added: "I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so" before he became president.

I knew it - all Clinton's fault. Carter, too, that phokk.

Later in the interview, he said: "I can't guarantee that we'll get all our money back, but it's conceivable we could."

Said the man who couldn't find oil in Texas, or his ass with both hands.
~

Anudder heartwarming holiday tale...

Hey kids: BLAMMO!

Motive still unclear in Toys "R'' Us fatal shootings

Moreno and Meza apparently shot each other, as evidenced by two guns recovered near their bodies and eyewitness accounts. The store reopened Saturday with extra security on hand.

Witnesses said the men were with two women who got into a fight that escalated into the fatal shootings, which sent terrified shoppers and their children scrambling for safety.

“I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys R Us?” Ferguson said. “I doubt it was the casual holiday shopper."
~

Shocking (cont)

Bush says some voters backed Obama ‘because of me’

Really? Why is it always about you? Why can't it be about someone else? Are you still here? Perhaps you should have sucked less then. You know, help your party stay in power, done what the people wanted, you know, stuff like that.

Ever wonder why i'm named Smith?

Plaxico Burress reportedly sought treatment for his gunshot wound Friday night by checking himself into a hospital under the codename "Harris Smith."
Plax also allegedly told medical staff at New York-Cornell Hospital that he'd been shot at an Applebee's. Hospital workers immediately recognized him and did not report the injury to authorities, putting them at risk of legal action. Police found Burress' gun after searching his home with him not present.
~

German acts of Christmas retailing

Vendor sells all-natural dildos at Hamburg Christmas market

One vendor at the Santa Pauli Christmas market in Hamburg has taken a non-traditional but all-natural approach to Christmas gifts this year, selling handmade spruce wood dildos, daily Hamburger Morgenpost reported on Friday.

desperate acts of online retailing (or maybe I'm just padding LoC's post count)

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Bill James Handbook 2009 (Bill James Handbook) have also purchased Don Cherry's Hard Hitting Hockey on DVD. For this reason, you might like to know that Don Cherry's Hard Hitting Hockey will be released on December 2, 2008.

Yes, the experience of sitting down with a Bill James book just isn't complete without a Don Cherry DVD to pop into the tele.

We suck

4 straight weeks of declining posts? If we're not careful, we'll lose our reader.