Ken Starr Rebukes Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, et al.

Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone who can fire off more than two neurons, Ken Starr went on Countdown(!) last week to correct and school the imbecile class.

Stephen Colbert is the most subversive and dangerous man on TV, and that's why we love him.

Colbert's ability to be both serious and fatuous simultaneously is remarkable, but what makes it all the more remarkable is his genius for taking apart the modern political establishment and showing their stupidity, hypocrisy and insincerity.

That he has been able to do this so brilliantly, insightfully and amusingly and for so long is tantamount to a great actor playing Hamlet every week for 568 (and counting) consecutive performances is astounding.

My personal viewing habits are limited to small doses of Colbert, but only because watching him is the equivalent of eating a month's worth of sweets in thirty minutes.

He is, without question, the greatest political commentator of our time, and a national treasure.

Recently, there have been some rumblings that his ratings are not all that good, and that his show may be subject to cancellation.

I hope for my sake, the country's sake, and the world's sake that The Colbert Report continues on for many years to come.

His 2006 speech at the White House Correspondents' dinner is one of the most subversive and brilliant skewering of the both the political establishment and the media that covers them that has ever taken place.

Is Kirstie Alley's New Weight Loss Program a Scientology Scam?

Anti-Scientology campaign group Anonymous, and some blogs, are airing accusations that Scientologist Kirstie Alley's new weight loss program, Organic Liaison, is based on quackery preached by L. Ron Hubbard, and that the company has links to the 'church'.

[...]

Gawker

Holocaust Memorials DEFACED With Anti-Semitic Slurs in Poland

WARSAW, Poland — Vandals sprayed anti-Semitic graffiti on Holocaust memorials at a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, desecration that authorities discovered Saturday and are investigating.

Words including "Jude Raus" – German for "Jew Out" – and "Hitler Good!" in English, were found in red paint Saturday on a large monument at the former Plaszow camp near Krakow. A smaller memorial plaque was also painted with a swastika and "Jude Raus."

The vandalism was discovered a day before a planned memorial march marking the 67th anniversary of the liquidation of Krakow's ghetto.

More:

Remember When: New Feature!

Remember when this vehicle was the most intimidating on the road?

Now it may be this one:

The times they are a changin'.

Refund Please: Algeria Wants to Return Russian Jets, Not Happy with Pin Striping, Pleather Interior and Sudden Deceleration

MOSCOW - For the first time in memory, one of Russia's arms customers may return a shipment deemed defective.

THE RETURN OF MiG-29s may be dependent on Algeria buying more modern aircraft. (Department of Defense)

Algeria's effort to send back fifteen MiG-29 fighter jets might scuttle the rest of an $8 billion arms deal clinched in 2006, Russia's biggest export package since the Soviet Union collapsed.

[...]

More here

Second American Woman Held in Terror Probe

Colo. Woman Detained in Ireland in Probe of Cartoonist Murder Plot; Investigators Look for Links Between Her and "Jihad Jane"

Law enforcement officials in the U.S. have confirmed to CBS News that a Colorado woman has been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch offended many Muslims.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was among seven people arrested in Ireland this week as authorities investigate an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist over a 2007 sketch depicting the head of the Muslim prophet Mohammed on a dog's body.

Source: CBS/AP

Apple COO gets $5 million thank you

Steve Jobs salary is $1. The cost of a six-month replacement for him? $5 million.

That's what Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was granted Wednesday as a reward for taking over while Jobs was on medical leave from January to June 2009, according to an SEC filing made by the company Friday.

Source: CNET

Google to shut China search engine - Maybe

Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.

Source: FT.COM

Pro-life group urges Congress to pass Senate health care bill

By Thomas C. Fox

Created Mar 12, 2010

Twenty-five pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders yesterday sent letters to members of Congress urging them not to let misleading information about abortion provisions in the Senate health care bill block passage of sorely-needed reform.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the Senate health bill upholds abortion funding restrictions and supports pregnant women.

The letter included a page by page analysis of the Senate bill as it pertains to abortion.

The group asked members of Congress

“to make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.”

Full text at the National Catholic Reporter

Suicide attackers hit Afghan city, at least 30 die

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations late Saturday, killing at least 30 people in the largest city of the southern Taliban heartland.

The prison was the main target, but no prisoners escaped, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's half-brother said. Ahmed Wali Karzai, a member of the Kandahar provincial council, said two of the explosions occurred near his home, which was not damaged.

[...]

Read the full AP report

here.

Utah GOP Leader Resigns After Hot Tub Confession

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah's House majority leader resigned from the Legislature Saturday, two days after his confession about sitting nude in a hot tub with a teenage girl 25 years ago stunned this conservative state.

Republican Rep. Kevin Garn, in an e-mail message to House Speaker David Clark, apologized for becoming a distraction.

''After discussing this matter with my family, I have decided that it is in the best interests of them, my colleagues and the people of Utah,'' he wrote.

Garn said he paid the woman, Cheryl Maher, $150,000 to keep quiet about the episode when he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2002.

[...]

NYT

Nothing like the "Family Values" party to display exemplary personal behavior. Add this to ex-congressman and ex-GOP member Massa's revelation on Glenn Beck's show this week:



And you have a perfect storm of seriously creepy perverts.

Not only did I grope him, I tickled him!

Best iPod Cassette Adapter in the World!

Now this is an outstanding unit. We use it with our iPods in all of our cars and we could not be more pleased with the sound and build quality of this unit. This Philips cassette adapter really delivers the goods.

iLounge rates this as a best-in-class unit and I would have to agree. Superb adapter. Five stars!

Also, if you're using an FM adapter and you have a cassette deck in your car, I guarantee the sound quality of this unit will trump that of any FM adapter. It's not even a horse race when A/B tested. I threw out all my FM adapters after using this unit.

As of this posting, it's just $7.99 plus shipping and would be a bargain at twice the price.

Church Sex Abuse Scandal 'Has Now Reached' The Pope: AP

VATICAN CITY — Germany's sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese disclosed that while he was archbishop a suspected pedophile priest was transferred to a job where he later abused children.

The pontiff is also under increasing fire for a 2001 Vatican document he later penned instructing bishops to keep such cases secret.

[...]

"We find it extraordinarily hard to believe that Ratzinger didn't reassign the predator, or know about the reassignment," said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Already, the scandal was inching closer to Benedict after allegations of abuse surfaced at the prestigious choir that was led by his brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 until 1994. Ratzinger has repeatedly said the sexual abuse allegations date from before his tenure as choir director and that he never heard of them, although he acknowledged slapping pupils as punishment.

[...]

Read the full article here: Huffpo

Club Settles In Child's Uzi Death At Gun Fair

March 11, 2010
A Massachusetts sporting club is donating $10,000 to children's charities as part of a deal settling criminal charges in the death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi during a gun fair.

Still pending is a $4 million federal lawsuit the boy's family has filed against the club, the event's promoters and those who supplied the weapon and ammunition.

From NPR

Ten grand to settle criminal charges in the death of an 8-year-old? That is so wrong on every level.

Glenn Beck Calls Obama Racist

Glenn claims the President is a racist against whites and/or hates the "white culture."

White culture? Really? Racist against whites? Does that include his white grandparents, who raised him, his chief of staff, and all the whites in his cabinet? I wonder how man African-Americans work on Beck's TV and radio shows? Less than none?

Glenn Beck: America's most disturbed, demented and racist political commentator. And when you factor in guys like Limbaugh and Savage, that's some rarified air Glenn's floating in.

Separated at Birth: Governor Paterson and Alfred E. Newman

Unedited boyhood photo of beleaguered NY state governor Paterson and Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman.