Rudy's taxpayer-funded hoochie mama

If you can't beat Bill Clinton, nominate a guy who's just like him to run against Hillary. Only worse, and whom you really wouldn't care to have a beer with in your neighborhood watering hole.

Unlike Bill.

Really, with Rudy Giuliani, you get all the following and a more-or-less fascist state, too. At least Bill did his messing around in the Oval Office, at no added expense to the American taxpayer.

THE POLITICO has all the Big Nasty details here:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."

It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.

But the practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani's security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Growing up feral

It's a damn shame that some parents can't be thrown in jail alongside their feral offspring.

Yeah, I realize that some parents don't deserve such a fate, because they do what they can and just can't overcome the odds. But on the other hand, something tells me this, as reported in the Omaha World-Herald, ain't one of those cases:

The 14-year-old boy accused of pointing a gun at a police officer has been charged as an adult, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said today.

Marcel Davis, who turns 15 next month, was charged today with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm, Kleine said.

Davis was shot in the leg by Officer Nicholas Andrews early Tuesday near 48th and Boyd Streets. Davis had fled from a Chrysler Cirrus that Andrews and Officer Alan Peatrowsky stopped after they spotted the car driving without headlights on and with an expired license plate.

During the foot chase, police said, Davis turned and pointed a gun at Andrews and Andrews fired at him, hitting him once in the leg. Davis was treated at Creighton University Medical Center and was released. He then was booked into the Douglas County Youth Center.

Alethea Goynes, 31, Davis' mother, said her son gave her a different account: He tossed the gun as he got out of the car and didn't point it at anyone.

Goynes said police told her they found the gun in some nearby bushes. She said she thinks Davis ran away because he was scared.

"If he admitted to having a gun, then why wouldn't he admit to pointing it at the police," Goynes said. "I believe my son. I think there's more to it."

Andrews has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation.

Police say Davis admitted to possessing the gun. A check of the gun's serial number found that it was reported stolen June 2.

Kleine said Davis is fortunate that he sustained only a leg wound in the incident.

"Obviously, the circumstances are such that with his use of a firearm in the manner that he did, he's fortunate that he's still alive."

Kleine said he considered Davis' age when deciding whether to file charges in district court. "But, again, the juvenile court can only maintain jurisdiction until they're 18." District court, he said, offers much the same services, but can maintain oversight over someone into adulthood.

"Threatening a police officer with that firearm, I believe it should be in an adult court," Kleine said.

Davis is a ninth-grader at North High School. He has been in the Omaha Public Schools since the second grade, an OPS spokeswoman said.

YOU HAVE TO WONDER about the mind-numbing idiocy and breathtakingly willful suspension of disbelief of an alleged "parent" so sure Baby didn't do nothin' when, before he allegedly pulled a gun on a cop, already had been facing charges in juvenile court after being found in a stolen car eight days before he failed to outdraw a cop in the wee, small hours of Tuesday morning.

Naw, Baby didn't do nothin'. What the hell was Baby doing out of the house anyway -- much less out on the streets long after a 14-year-old ought to have been in bed?

I suspect this will be easy enough to sort out. If Baby got shot in the back of the leg, bad news for the cop.

If Baby was shot in the front of the leg, chances are he wheeled on the cop, gun in hand, and it really, really sucks to be him.

BUT HAVING BEEN BORN to a 16-year-old mother of a different last name, one who let him run the streets a week after he already had gotten pinched by The Man -- a mother who will instantly take the word of her feral baby boy despite the fact that he was running from the cops and packing heat. . . .

Well, I guess it has sucked to be Baby for a long, long time.

Oom papa oom papa oom papa mau-mau

In case you didn't have reason enough to surmise that Hell lies at 30 degress north latitude and 90 degress west longitude, all you have to do is watch its inhabitants get in a knock-down, drag-out, race-baiting fight over . . . garbage.

Because the Devil's in the details, you know.

This Times-Picayune report may read a bit like a review of a bad country-music concert, because there's enough mau-mauing going on to keep the Oak Ridge Boys singing "Elvira" until Hades starts to look like not-so-bad a deal by comparison:

A debate that started simmering last month over whether New Orleans' two highest-paid trash vendors are complying with the terms of their contracts boiled over Monday into a racial clash as dozens of black ministers and civil rights activists alleged that the City Council has singled out the deals because they are held by minority-owned firms.

Supporters of Richard's Disposal and Metro Disposal, both New Orleans companies owned and run by African-Americans, told council members during a hearing in advance of Friday's vote on the city's 2008 budget that any attempt by the council to change terms of the agreements, which Mayor Ray Nagin signed last year, would amount to racism and could incite activists to abandon the city in the throes of the winter tourism season.

"What is out of compliance if these men are doing their job?" Spiver Gordon, national treasurer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked the council. "We don't need to come back here and dance around your cash registers. We're talking about economic boycott."

During a rally before the hearing on the steps of City Hall that drew about 100 supporters, including dozens of sanitation workers, SCLC regional Vice President the Rev. Byron Clay said the matter is not limited to the firms in question.

"For anyone to question the ethics and the honesty of either company is not only an assault to that company but to the entire community. They have done an excellent job of cleaning this city up," he said.

Last month, city officials acknowledged that a provision of the contract that Richard's and Metro signed calls for collecting "unlimited bulky waste," including demolition material. The city, however, is not requiring the contractors to pick up construction debris generated at properties under renovation because of Hurricane Katrina.

Instead, Nagin's sanitation director, Veronica White, has said the city requires the vendors to collect only debris that conforms with limits laid out in an ordinance adopted five months after Nagin signed the deals. She also has said that the contract's inclusion of an option for emergency collection of storm debris implies that such waste is not covered by the regular terms.

The companies' owners, Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods, reiterated Monday a point they have made throughout the debate: that in bidding on the contracts last summer, they assumed city officials were following industry norms when they called for "unlimited bulky waste" collection. That refers to debris created in the course of ordinary life and by minor construction projects, they said, not the mountains of waste generated by a flood.

The Revolution will not be in Gather.

The Revolution will not be in your Gather hymnal.

The Revolution will not have a soundtrack written by Marty Haugen or warbled by the St. Louis Jesuits.

THE REVOLUTION will not be proclaimed on felt banners, nor will how it makes me feel be discussed in small groups.

The Revolution will have no liturgical dancers.

The Revolution will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized, will not be banalized.

The Revolution will help you figure out just who the hell we are.

Saturday's Washington Post proclaims The Revolution -- started this year by Pope Benedict XVI:

Parts of it are 1,500 years old, it's difficult to understand, and it's even more challenging to watch. And it's catching on among young Catholics.

It's the traditional Latin Mass, a formal worship service that is making a comeback after more than 40 years of moldering in the Vatican basement.

In September, Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on celebrating Latin Mass, frequently called the Tridentine Mass, citing "a new and renewed" interest in the ancient Latin liturgy, especially among younger Catholics.

Spoken or sung entirely in sometimes inaudible Latin by priests who face the altar instead of the congregation, it is a radical departure for most Catholics, who grew up attending a more informal Mass celebrated in their native tongue.

"It's the opposite of the cacophony that comes with the [modern] Mass," said Ken Wolfe, 34, a federal government worker who goes to up to four Latin Masses a week in the Washington area. "There's no guitars and handshaking and breaks in the Mass where people talk to each other. It's a very serious liturgy."

And it is a hit with younger priests and their parishioners.

Attendance at the Sunday noon Mass at St. John the Beloved in McLean has doubled to 400 people since it began celebrating in Latin. Most of the worshipers are under 40, said the Rev. Franklyn McAfee.

Younger parishioners "are more reflective," McAfee said. "They want something uplifting when they go to church. They don't want something they can get outside."

(snip)

Priests, musicians and laypeople are snapping up how-to videos and books, signing up for workshops and viewing online tutorials with step-by-step instructions on the elaborately choreographed liturgy. For example, the rubrics dictate that a priest must hold together the thumb and index finger of each hand for much of the Canon of the Mass, the central part of the liturgy that culminates with the consecration of bread and wine.

"I knew there would be some interest, but I didn't know how quickly it would spread and how really deep the interest was," said the Rev. Scott Haynes, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago who started a Web site in August offering instructions in celebrating the Mass.

So far, the Web site, http://www.sanctamissa.org, has received 1 million hits, Haynes said, adding that he receives several hundred e-mails a day from fans of the service. "I was surprised by how many people have latched on to this," he said.

Portions of the Tridentine Mass date back to the sixth century, but it was standardized at the Council of Trent in 1570 -- hence the name Tridentine. It was largely supplanted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which modernized the Mass liturgy and translated it into modern languages.

The modern Mass, or Novus Ordo, can be said in Latin, but it is a radically different service from the Tridentine Mass. Until September, when the pope issued his Motu Proprio allowing greater freedom in celebrating the Tridentine Mass, priests who wanted to celebrate it needed special permission from their bishop, and it was celebrated at only a few churches in the Washington area.

In the Diocese of Arlington, where the bishop and priests are considered more conservative than in Washington, the number of churches where the service is celebrated has increased from two to seven since the Motu Proprio. The Arlington diocese, which stretches from Northern Virginia south to Lancaster and west to the Shenandoah, has sent six priests to a training center in Nebraska, at the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter seminary, for an intensive seminar.

But it's all we've got. . . .

We'll that's enough of that. Louisiana State's national-championship pigskin pipe dream, that is.

Got through the three-overtime debacle against Ar-KANSAS with a blue fog hanging in the air, with intermittent F-bombs still in the forecast, and an easily repaired smashed remote control. And a dented coaster.

Not one of those sandstone drink coasters, because then the TV would be dead.

I guess we Louisianians take college football kind of seriously.

AT THE END of the game, a friend (and old high-school and college classmate) called from her home in Kansas City. Mrs. Favog answered the phone.

I was informed that our friend took the big loss about like I did. Badly. Much angst and cursing. What kind of bleedin' IDIOT calls a pass play for a two-point conversion when you have the defense spread and could have run it in?

Anyway, amid blazing anger and a borderline existential crisis sometimes comes a flash of absolute clarity. Keen insight. An involuntary uttering of the God's honest truth -- straight, no chaser.

"It's sad," she said, "because it's all we've got."

I guess she could have been talking about how baseball is down and basketball is a basket case. But I doubt it.

I THINK SHE MEANT what I do: In a state leading all the bad lists and at the rear of all the good ones, LSU football is -- was -- the one unqualified success story measurable in quantifiable terms: W's and L's.

We coulda been a contender. But now we're not. More unfettered Louisiana suckiness after these messages. . . .

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I know. Unique culture, amazing food and music. Lots of history . . . tourism . . . blah blah blah. Unfortunately, none of that quantifiably adds to the bottom line in some very important ways.

Good food, good music and an interesting culture will not stop Louisianians from killing one another at far above the national average. They will not teach Tee John to read, or cause Bubba to graduate from a reasonably rigorous high school . . . or graduate from any high school at all.

They will not increase the state's percentage of college graduates, nor will they magically produce a well-trained, competent workforce. They thus far have resulted neither in good roads nor honest, effective government.

They have not grown the state's economy in any way that creates lots of jobs capable of supporting lots of families adequately. They have not caused a groundswell of economic activity, domestic tranquility or kept Louisiana's "best and brightest" from heading for the exits in increasing numbers every year.

Quaint, rustic and under indictment is no way to go through life.

I DON'T KNOW whether I count as "best and brightest," but I made for the exit -- for the last time -- in 1988. My friend left just before I did.

No, the one quantifiable success we native Louisianians have been able to take pride in -- at least the past seven years -- has been LSU football. We had a chance to win it all -- again. And that disappeared into an Arkansas defender's hands, in the back of the end zone, in the third overtime period.

Yes, I know football is "bread and circuses." At least the "circuses" part, anyway. And I know there are much more important things in life than that.

But it's all we've got.

Listen to the show. Eat more pie.

Gabrielle, what are you doing? Martha's your best friend . . . I can't . . . I mustn't. . . . Please! Ohhhhh. . . .

CLICK

And the Cowboys have scored on their 16th consecutive drive, and they lead the Lions 87-3 as we get ready for the start of the. . . .

CLICK

Next on C-SPAN 2, highlights from the Nashua, New Hampshire. . . .

CLICK

The Parade Life Channel . . . your life, your parades, your parade life. We're back. So, Bob, how did you go from Central Park lush, living in a van down by the East River, to being Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

CLICK

We're in an official's time out, and it appears Shaq is still out cold after being hit by a piece of bling as he drove to the hoop. Bonnie, what are you hearing at courtside. . . .

CLICK

Burrrrrrrrrp!

CLICK

Attention! Revolution 21!

HEY, MILDRED! Whadda you mean there's nothing on? Come listen to this!

Happy . . . Thanks . . . giving . . . from . . . Rev . . . o . . . lution . . . Twenty . . . One!

Watch 'em in order, boys and girls! And Happy Thanksgiving from Rev . . . o . . . lu. . . .

OH, THE HUMANITY!

PLEASE! GET OUT OF THE WAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I CAN'T WATCH THIS ANYMORE!

Grab some Oreos while the TV warms up

I need to be doing the Big Show -- that's the Revolution 21 podcast -- a couple of days early this week. Thanksgiving, don'tcha know?

So, while I'm doing that, why don't you kids sit back and watch some Kukla, Fran and Ollie, live from Chicago on the national NBC hookup in 1951.

Give more for Les. Care less for more?

Some Louisiana State football fans have decided to stand by their man, Coach Les Miles.

Actually, they're going to march for their man Wednesday. Of course, that's pretty much a no-brainer when your guy's team is 10-1 and in the hunt for a national title. And when Michigan just might be breathing down your neck . . . and whispering sweet nothings in your coach's ear.

FOX NEWS LOUISIANA reports:

LSU fans are planning a rally to show their desire to keep Les Miles in Baton Rouge. The head football coach of the Tigers is likely the top candidate to replace Lloyd Carr at Michigan.

Miles is a former Michigan player and assistant coach and has a passion for the maize and blue. But he has also made it clear that he loves LSU.

The "March for Miles" is set to begin at 6 pm Wednesday from Tiger Stadium. Supporters plan to walk from the stadium to Walk On's, which is the site of the coach's weekly radio show.

THAT'S SWEET. No, really. It's a sweet, albeit self-interested, gesture.

I would imagine that would give pause to a coach if his alma mater were to come calling, offering him the chance to make his dreams come true. Back home. Do you stay where you're appreciated, where folks want you to stay?

Or do you try to buck Thomas Wolfe and go home again? Go home to whatever uncertainty might await you there.

You know, if I were in Baton Rouge -- instead of an 1,100-mile drive away, sitting in my studio on a cold, damp and blustery Nebraska night -- I might be soooooo there Wednesday evening for the march. LSU needs to hang on to men like Les Miles. Even if they're Michigan Men.

BATON ROUGE NEEDS to hang on to a Michigan Man like Les Miles. Baton Rouge needs more men like Les Miles -- disciplined, smart, driven, upright, successful.

Baton Rouge has a funny damn way of trying to do that.

See, to keep men like Miles -- to attract more men and women like Miles -- my hometown needs to quit begging and start doing. Make Baton Rouge someplace that people like Les Miles would be crazy to leave . . . no matter how loud the siren song of home and how full the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow.

Instead, a parade of U-Hauls snaking toward the state line testifies that a lot of born-and-raised Louisianians think it's kind of nuts to stay.

Maybe that has something to do with Baton Rougeans and other Louisianians being motivated enough to organize a "Please Stay Les" march on, literally, a moment's notice but almost entirely uninterested in their crooked government, soaring crime rate and crumbling, ineffective public schools.

That testifies to some seriously messed-up priorities, people.

THINK OF IT, if Baton Rougeans were as interested in education as LSU football, Baton Rouge Magnet High School wouldn't be falling apart before their eyes. And around their kids. Talk about a school full of overachievers -- kids Louisiana is eager to hold on to but hard-pressed to keep.

They are the Les Mileses of education, business, industry and the arts. And most of them are going to haul butt, even without a multimillion-dollar contract as motivation.

Furthermore -- that is, if people cared -- East Baton Rouge Parish public schools would be a model system for the nation, not a failing morass of struggling students, fetid facilities and demoralized educators. One that's becoming blacker, and blacker, and blacker still with every passing school year.

For some insane reason, middle-class whites there are content to pay an astronomical "private-school tax" to keep their children out of the under-resourced and horribly mismanaged East Baton Rouge system, as opposed to paying the taxes and exercising the civic vigilance necessary to ensure a first-rate public system.

What was it the Supreme Court said about "separate and unequal"? That's what exists in Baton Rouge -- and across Louisiana -- today.

And anyone could tell you that a good public-school system is the foundation for building a better city. A city the likes of Les Miles would be crazy to leave, no matter what.

SO, GO AHEAD. March for Les. Beg him to stay. Perhaps he'll take pity on you and do what you ask.

But do you think you could spare a couple of hours, and a little concern, for your own children -- or for somebody else's not-so-fortunate children -- and have a little march for them, too?

Preferably one utilizing pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers.

Saudi Arabia: Defending the indefensible isn't just a cheap slogan, it's a way of life

News item from Reuters:

Saudi Arabia defended on Tuesday a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip, after the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".

The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province and an unrelated male companion were abducted and raped by seven men in 2006.

Ruling according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, a court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years. It blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated man.

Last week the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

The ruling provoked rare criticism from the United States, which is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to attend a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland next week.

A State Department spokesman told reporters on Monday that "most (people) would find this relatively astonishing that something like this happens".

The court also took the unusual step of initiating disciplinary procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, forcibly removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media.

"The Ministry of Justice welcomes constructive criticism ... The system allows appeals without resort to the media," said Tuesday's statement issued on the official news agency SPA.

It berated media for not specifying that three judges, not one, issued the recent ruling and reiterated that the "charges were proven" against the woman.

It also repeated the judges' attack against Lahem last week, saying he had "spoken insolently about the judicial system and challenged laws and regulations".

Dear Saudi troglodytes,

You seem to misunderstand the Western world's criticism of how your judiciary sentenced a rape victim to 200 lashes of the whip and six months in prison.

We do not question that you followed Saudi law and the court's procedures to the letter. I would imagine your attention to the law and to detail was exemplary.

What we question is your adherence to your idiotic Wahhabi flavor of Islam, which terrorizes the world in the name of God and thinks it acceptable to lash and imprison a 19-year-old woman because she dared to be seen in public with a man not her kin. This after she had been gang raped.

Not big on mercy, are you? What, in the name of "Allah the merciful," you get to act like devils?

Frankly, what we object to is that you are a bunch of Neanderthal goons who treat women as property and "infidels" as fair game for whatever sadistic idiocy you'll infect the world with next. We posit not that you are unfaithful to your twisted image of Allah but that, instead, you dour, sour Wahhabi fanatics have been slavishly faithful to a warped, grim and demented conception of the Almighty.

What horrifies us -- well, some of us, at least -- is that when you attack the dignity of an innocent young creation of the living God, you thereby offend the dignity of Him who created her.

And, as you profess to believe, God -- Allah -- is not mocked.

Have a nice day, and go sit on a minaret and spin.

The Pentagon Rag

Click on photo for video.

Come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
He's got himself in a terrible crack
Way down yonder in ol' I-raq
So put down your books and pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun

And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop might be I-ran
And it's five, six, seven, call up the collections guy
There ain't no time to wonder why, too bad we didn't die.

(Apologies to Country Joe and the Fish.)


WHERE IS COUNTRY JOE McDONALD, anyway? Particularly when you need him to write a new protest song about the vermin we've put in charge of running things in this country, 40 years after he wrote about the then-vermin we put in charge of running this country.

But I don't know that the old vermin had anything on the new vermin, who are pulling crap like this:

After two combat tours in Iraq on a "quick reaction team" that picked up body parts after suicide bombings, Donald Schmidt began suffering from nightmares and paranoia. Then he had a nervous breakdown.

The military discharged Schmidt last Oct. 31 for problems they said resulted not from post-traumatic stress disorder but rather from a personality disorder that pre-dated his military service.

Schmidt's mother, Patrice Semtner-Myers, says her son was told that if he agreed to leave the Army he'd get full benefits. Earlier this month, however, they got a bill in the mail from a collection agency working for the government, demanding that he repay his re-enlistment bonus, plus interest — $14,597.72.

Schmidt, 23, who lives near Peoria, Ill., is one of more than 22,000 service members the military has discharged in recent years for "pre-existing personality disorders" it says were missed when they signed up.

"They used these guys up, and now they're done with them and they're throwing them away," Semtner-Myers said.

Her frustration extends to Capitol Hill, where the stage is being set for a confrontation between Congress and the Pentagon.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, calls the treatment of these troops "disgraceful."

"If they have personality disorders, how did they get in the military in the first place?" Filner asks. "You either have taken a kid below the standards, in which case you've got obligations after you send him to war, or you're putting these kids' futures in danger with false diagnoses. Either way it's criminal."

The Pentagon defends its policy.

"No military in the history of the world has done more to identify, evaluate, prevent and treat the mental health needs and concerns of its personnel," Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said. All cases of personality disorder discharges are diagnosed by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, and troops receive some benefits including health care, life insurance and education, she said.

Filner isn't buying it.

"These young people are being lied to and manipulated," he said. "We deny them proper classification so they can't get benefits, then they get this bill for a prorated signing bonus."

In the Senate, Missouri Republican Christopher "Kit" Bond, along with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is leading an effort to force the Pentagon to change its practice. Bond says it appears worse than the scandal earlier this year over poor conditions at Walter Reed hospital.

"This is a very sad story," Bond says. "We are fortunate enough to bring many severely wounded soldiers and Marines home, but we're not dealing with their mental health problems. They need help, not a discharge because some phony pre-existing condition is brought up."

NOT TO MENTION related crap like this:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.

It's a slap for Fox's mother, Susan Wardezak, who met with President Bush in Pittsburgh last May. He thanked her for starting Operation Pittsburgh Pride which has sent approximately 4,000 care packages.

He then sent her a letter expressing his concern over her son's injuries, so she cannot understand the U.S. Government's apparent lack of concern over injuries to countless U.S. Soldiers and demands that they return their bonuses.

While he's unsure of his future, Fox says he's unwavering in his commitment to his country.

"I'd do it all over again... because I'm proud of the discipline that I learned. I'm proud to have done something for my country," he said.

I DON'T KNOW what I can say about something this mind-numbingly dishonorable and wicked -- except this: A country that mistreats, uses and abuses those few who have sacrificed so much while so many engage in idle (and idol) pursuits is wholly unworthy of that sacrifice.

Wholly unworthy.

Judgment Day is coming, people. Judgment Day is coming.

Next up: Waterboarding Tommy Tuberville

This just in: Nick Saban goes nuts. The Associated Press witnessed the Alabama coach's descent into madness . . . and into total loss of perspective:

Citing the 9-11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, Saban said Monday his team must rebound like America did from a "catastrophic event."

In this case, that would be an embarrassing 21-14 loss Saturday to Louisiana-Monroe, dropping the Tide's record to 6-5.

"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event," Saban said during the opening remarks of his weekly news conference. "It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event."

Alabama's just getting ready to face No. 25 Auburn, its biggest rival, on Saturday.

A Saban spokesman said the coach chose the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor references to illustrate the challenges facing his team.

"What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy; everyone needs to understand that. He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events," football spokesman Jeff Purington said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with."

GET A GRIP, NICK. After Pearl Harbor, the United States had to rebound -- or, in the spinmeister's terms, evidence "true spirit and unity" -- in the wake of losing something like 2,700 lives and most of the Pacific Fleet.

After 9/11, the country had to bounce back from . . . well, you know what we've had to bounce back from. Do you think losing a (expletive deleted) football game compares in any way to the difficulty of overcoming either of those two horrific events?

What, is Saban now going to have some goons snatch Tommy Tuberville off the streets of downtown Auburn, Ala., and apply "enhanced interrogation" techniques until he gives up the Tigers'/War Eagles'/Plainsmen's game plan? All so the great elephant god, Crimson Tide, might prevail in the Iron Bowl and, thus, ignorance, hunger, poverty and violence be banished from the Gret Stet of Alabammer forever and ever, amen?

Lawdamuhcy, that Saban done lost his mind. Maybe he ought to run for president. He'd probably fit right in.

Be careful with your dreams. They may come true.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.

Harold Arlen wrote it, and Judy Garland lived it to a nightmarish end at age 47.

Sometimes, over the rainbow, the dreams that come true aren't all what they're cracked up to be. And you better be careful about those dreams that you dare to dream, lest they really do come true.

And break your damn heart.

RIGHT NOW, it's starting to look like Louisiana State's football coach, Les Miles, has an appointment to meet the dream of a true Michigan Man. Miles has the chance to try to fill the shoes of his old coach and mentor, Bo Schembechler, after Lloyd Carr has given up on trying to do just that.

And this grand opportunity to try to go home again comes as Miles and his LSU Tigers chase after a national championship. Could there be anything better than that?

Sure, doing that at your alma mater. Being a hometown hero back in the place you count as home.

Be careful of your dreams. Sometimes they only partially come true.

Can that count as one definition of "nightmare"? I think so, and I know a little something about that.

When you think you have it made, it's important to remember a couple of things: S*** happens, and people can be real jerks. It all falls under The Fall. You know, Adam, Eve, serpent, apple.

Ever since The Fall, we've dealt with sin, exile, death and chaos. Our dreams are subject to all of those, which quickly can turn them into nightmares.

And sometimes, you think you've landed yourself a really sweet gig. The powers that be tell you how much they love you. They tell you how much they need you. They pay you a nice chunk of change. All of this happens right at the point where you say, "I'm livin' the dream."

Then, of course, life intervenes. Unless you are exceptionally charmed, things don't always go quite right. You encounter slackers, backbiters and screw-ups. Sometimes, you are one -- or all -- of the above.

And then, to rip off another popular song:

Baby, baby
Where did our love go?
And all your promises
Of a love forever more?

REMEMBER POPE FM? That was an occasional series of posts I did about a Catholic FM station I really worked at, though the name has been changed to protect the guilty. In 1999, I thought I could be there forever.

I'm not there now. It's The Fall, dammit.

See, I loved that station, even though the programming wasn't always my cup of tea. I learned a lot, and I did a lot of good there, and I think I made a "religious" station just a bit more accessible to people who don't live in church . . . and who don't see life as a never-ending progression of bad liturgical music and stern church ladies.

The Catholic Church pretty much has been in disarray ever since the Second Vatican Council, despite that council having been much needed. What I learned from my "dream job" is that the folks who think they have the answers on how to set her straight again are pretty screwed up themselves.

Misplaced priorities and toxic spirituality have no ideology. The center did not hold, and one lunatic program director and several crises of conscience later, I was out of a job. The alternative would have been worse.

Still, I felt as though I'd been through a divorce. A nasty divorce from someone I once had loved.

I HAD SEEN borderline-crazy and completely wrong things done there in the name of Jesus Christ, by the people who ran a radio station that professed to have the Catholic answer. I had just seen the crazy underbelly of, and cold cynicism within, a tool of the Church I sought out as a refuge 17 years ago.

I almost lost my faith. The last thing I did as I gathered up my things and walked out of my office for the last time was to pitch a crucifix on the floor. What had gone on there under Jesus' dying gaze, the indefensible that had been defended in Christ's name -- indeed, under the nose of Jesus Himself in the Pope FM chapel's tabernacle -- was scandalous and a sacrilege.

I had come to believe that not only did the Church not have the answer, it didn't even have a clue.

Do you know how that feels? Do you know what it feels like to have something precious to you start to leave an exceedingly bad taste in your mouth?

It feels like The Fall. And it breaks your heart.

I am still Catholic, by the grace of God. I finally internalized the reality that the Church is not Pope FM, nor is it the flawed men who lead it. Pope FM is a flawed evangelist for the Church; the bishops are compromised shepherds who sometimes neglect their flock.

I am a Bad Catholic, trying to get to tomorrow from today. Intact.

We all are The Fall.

AND THE TROUBLE with our dreams is they sometimes come true . . . and aren't nearly so dreamy. I hope Les Miles thinks about that before leaving a pretty decent gig for his "dream job."

We all know that coaching is a do-or-die, cutthroat kind of profession, all the noble collegiate bromides aside. Boosters are cold, and fans are nuts -- I know this, I are one. A fan, that is. Don't have the scratch to be a booster.

If Michigan were to betray a loyal and true Michigan Man -- or if the loyal and true Michigan Man were somehow to betray it -- could Les take it? Could a coach's coach make the necessary halftime adjustments to his broken heart?

Aye, there be the rub.

Frustrated in New York

I guess the Internet is like anything . . . it takes all kinds to make a world. And I guess even more so in Long Island City, N.Y.

AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, I was surprised and amused when this turned out to be one of the Google searches that led some poor soul to Revolution 21's Blog for the People. I don't think he got any guidance on that from this blog, the official Catholic opinion on that subject being what it is.

In other words, dim. Exceedingly dim, in the full mortal-sin sense of "dim."

And with any luck, somebody in Noo Yawk still hasn't found what he's looking for. Unless that ultimately would be God.

But I definitely would be Googling a different keyword combination to find the Almighty. I'm just sayin'.

OH, AND DON'T FORGET . . . your Mighty Favog knows all.

You Bet Your Life things were different then

Once upon a time -- before there were handheld television cameras you could bob and weave with, dip and spin and tilt until the audience was reaching for the Dramamine with every quick cut -- TV producers had to make do with actual content to carry a program.

And sometimes, in glorious black-and-white, this was achieved by mere conversation between interesting people who talked in actual strings of sentences and paragraphs, instead of quick soundbites.

When one half of these conversations was rooted in the comic genius of Groucho Marx, You Bet Your Life that sooner or later viewers across the country would be doubled over with laughter and gasping for air. Just from listening to a conversation and waiting for somebody to say "the secret word."

Imagine.

Join me back in 1955, when TV was primitive, people were interesting -- bizarre, even --and America was a very, very different place. You bet your life, it was.

Find a better show, and we'll give you this one

We're just going to say it flat-out.

If you can find a better show with more music variety than the Revolution 21 podcast, we'll give you this show absolutely free. For life.

THAT'S RIGHT. Find a better show, better produced and with more variety, and we give you the Big Show absolutely, positively free. You pay nothing, nada, zilch, squat.

Frankly, we don't think you can do it. That's why we're willing to make this outrageous offer. We don't think you'll find a single show anywhere that's better and that plays the variety of stuff we do on the Revolution 21 podcast.

Like this week, for example. Are you gonna turn on your FM radio -- yeah, right -- and hear the Moody Blues, Feist, Phil Ochs, Queen, Buddy Holly, the Dropkick Murphys, The Jam, Anonymous American and Ten Years After in 83 minutes of musical goodness?

We don't think so. We don't think you'll hear all that on one station in an entire day.

But you're welcome to try. Right before you come back to Revolution 21.

TRY TO PROVE us wrong. And -- once again -- if you can find a better show with more variety, you get this one free. For life.

It's the Revolution 21 podcast, and we're better than FM. And AM, too. We're what radio could be, but hasn't been forever.

Once you download the Big Show, you'll never go back to whatever you were listening to before. Or the show's on us.

C'est magnifique!

Here's a completely charming homebrew music video of Feist's "Tout Doucement" from YouTube, posted by KidWithACam. And now you know what one of the songs will be on the Revolution 21 podcast, posted fresh and piping hot late every Friday night.

Money money money monnnnn-ey . . . MONEY!

You know, if I ran a school system and had a $66 million dollar windfall, the first thing I'd do is dedicate a chunk of it to recurring expenses, like giving everybody a raise, with no thought about how people usually expect to keep those raises -- even after that extra revenue paying for them is long gone.

And I'd never give a second thought to dedicating that tax-money bonanza to a desperately needed one-off renovation project -- one all that extra cash could more than pay for right now. Nuh-uh.

But then again, I'm a flippin' moron. And it looks like I'm not alone.

The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La., has the plain poop on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Follies:

With a surplus of at least $66 million, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system is weighing how best to spend, but not squander the money.

For the second year in a row, the school system has ended a fiscal year with tens of millions of dollars in the bank. The strong financial showing is outlined in the school system’s annual audit approved Thursday by the School Board.

Only three years ago, the system was trimming spending and outsourcing custodial, maintenance and nursing services.

The post-hurricane local economy, and millions in extra federal aid, helped create the surplus.

State and local school funding picked up the slack this past year, but is not expected to maintain its post-hurricane pace.

The board on Thursday immediately dipped into the surplus to finance a midyear, across-the-board pay raise for all employees.

Superintendent Charlotte Placide outlined for the School Board some of the initiatives the system is considering pursuing in the near future:

* A new plan for school construction and repair over the next 10 years.
* Instructional audits of low-performing schools.
* More career-based programs.
* A new math initiative, similar to an expensive literacy initiative rolled out over the past two years.
* A new “data warehouse” to allow for better use of existing school data.

“This administration, this staff, is turning this district around,” Placide said forcefully. “I don’t want anyone to say we can’t think out of the box.”

Ohhhhhhhhhhh crap.

Shiites.

Fan.

About to hit?

Decidement time draws nigh on whether to bomb-bomb-bomb bombomb Iran, and we do have a vice-president that could keep Col. Alfred E. Bellows, M.D., busy 39 episodes a season. If only we had Jeannie the genie to blink away 3,000 centrifuges o' Persian trouble without giving America's Deadly Duo the chance to get us into an even bigger mess than we're in now.

As usual, the Brit press is all over this like bangers on mash. The Guardian reports:

Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN's nuclear watchdog reported last night.

The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.

The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz is a "red line" drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.

The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%) but the confirmation that Iran has reached the 3,000 centrifuge benchmark brings closer a moment of truth for the Bush administration, when it will have to choose between taking military action or abandoning its red line, and accepting Iran's technical mastery of uranium enrichment.
US generals are reported to have warned the White House that military action would trigger a devastating Iranian backlash in the Middle East and beyond.

Russian officials yesterday called for patience, insisting Iran could still clinch a deal with the international community in the next few weeks. They pointed to other parts of the IAEA report showing Tehran had been cooperating with the agency's inspectors on other nuclear issues.

"We are most concerned to prevent Iran being cornered so that they walk out of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and break relations with the IAEA," one Russian source said. He said Chinese officials were stepping up diplomatic pressure on Iran, with Moscow, to avert a collision.

"They are on high alert that something has to be done quickly," the source said.

Never address real challenges when a new 'branding' campaign will suffice

This spoof is in memory of "Louisiana . . . a dream state," "Baton Rouge, USA" and "Maybe it's time you tried Baton Rouge."

THAT LAST ATTEMPT at baffling people with bullshtuff memorably was transformed -- with a single comma -- into a statement of profound truth by a couple of high-school buddies of mine.

It's still just as profoundly true today as it was 30 years ago.

Fix your state, and they will come.

In the meantime, don't insult the nation's intelligence. We can read statistical charts, and we know the money Baton Rouge swells are spending on yet another silly "branding" campaign would be better spent on fixing school facilities and teaching Louisianians how to read statistical charts themselves.

And books, too.

The War Between the States, or . . . 'The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.'

I thought LSU-Tulane was a pretty vicious football rivalry. After all, we used to wear "Tuck Fulane" buttons and throw "Greenie Weenies" (hot dogs boiled in green dye) onto the field at the Green Wave players.

When I was a freshman, someone stole several large, concrete Tulane University signs from the New Orleans campus. One sat in front of an LSU freshman dorm for a long time.

Then, my junior year, somebody from Tulane cut the locks and let Mike the Tiger out of his cage on the LSU campus.

I thought that was pretty intense. I was wro-on-on-ong.

LIKEWISE, I thought LSU-Ole Miss was a pretty hot rivalry itself. ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!

Nebraska-Oklahoma? Naaaah.

Alabama-Auburn? Not even.

Michigan-Ohio State? Notre Dame-USC?

Fugiddaboudit!

NO, A TRUE college-football hate match is when each team's fans invoke their state's Civil War-era terrorists and mass murderers in some sort of unholy Litany of the Demons -- "Kill for us!"

In this corner, massacring for the University of Mizzou-RAH! Tigers, at 157 pounds, William Quantrill leading his raiders, and aiming to burn Lawrence, Kan., a second time!

And in this corner, at 179 pounds, leading a raid for abolition and the University of Kansas . . . John Brown, coming off a tough loss at Harper's Ferry and back from a-mouldering in the grave for one night only to lead the charge against some Missouri slavers!

ARE YOU READY for some football? Nathan Fowler at AOL Sports is:

You know what the best part of Kansas and Missouri having their best ever seasons at the very same time is? The entire nation will get exposed to what is possibly the most bitter and hateful rivalry in the country in all it's glory (or shame, if you prefer). You can have your Ohio State v. Michigan or Alabama v. Auburn, but the last time I checked nobody from Columbus ever went to Ann Arbor and systematically executed every man they could find while burning the town to the ground. And certainly nobody made t-shirts later celebrating that fact.

But that did happen in 1863 in Lawrence, KS when William Quantrill led his band of "Bushwackers" to the "Jayhawker" stronghold and went on a 4 hour rampage that would become known as the "Lawrence Massacre" - one of the ugliest episodes of the brutal 10+ years of fighting along the Kansas and Missouri border. While the Civil War has become the South v. the North in most people's minds, the fighting in fact began as a violent guerrilla conflict between the abolitionists in Kansas and the slave holding Missouri settlers (more or less, like many guerrilla campaigns there were quite blurred lines at times). In many ways, those old wounds have never quite healed - Grandpa Simpson will be be deep in the cold, cold ground before he recognizes Missour-ah as a state, for example.

Those t-shirts seen above that some Missouri fans are making for the showdown at Arrowhead in two weeks are celebrating the Lawrence Massacre and in fact have Quantrill's visage and slogan emblazoned on the back - "Raise the Black Flag and Ride Hard Boys. Our Cause is Just and Our Enemies Many". Talk about going straight past normal levels of fan behavior and making a hard right turn into loony land, that might be the single most offensive game day t-shirt I've ever seen. Kansas fans are now responding with t-shirts sporting noted violent Kansas abolitionist John Brownled a massacre of his own and the 1859 Harper's Ferry raid that really kicked off the Civil War powder keg) with the slogan "Keeping America Safe From Missouri Since 1854". . . .

JUST IN CASE, I think we Nebraskans might be putting the National Guard on our southern flank. When people go that nuts, you can't be too careful. Y'know?