How about Josephine the Plumber?

Josephine the Plumber is fine with Barack Obama's tax plan. She makes only 67 percent of what Joe the Plumber does and won't get above the Democrat's $250,000 soak 'em threshold.

Tough bounce, John the Panderer.

Pot's been decriminalized in Alaska, right?

Some reality-based journalism from the Telegraph in London:

Sarah Palin's husband was warned by a top police official to stop trying to have her ex-brother-in-law fired, it has emerged.

John Glass, Alaska's deputy commissioner of public safety, told him the move could result in "an extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment," a state inquiry into the so-called "Troopergate" incident found.

Mrs Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was found by the inquiry to have abused her power in personally pushing for the dismissal of Mike Wooten, a state trooper and her sister's ex-husband.

The report discloses a warning given to Todd Palin by Mr Glass in the spring that disciplinary action had already been taken against Mr Wooten and that "we could not fire him".

"I also warned him that it was going to cause some extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment for the governor if they pursued this and it should never have become public," Mr Glass told the inquiry. "That it would just be not good for the governor if it continued, and that they needed to cease and desist."

The inquiry was sparked by Mrs Palin's dismissal of Walt Monegan, Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner, which he claimed was due to his refusal to sack Mr Wooten.

Robbing Peter to play politics

I think some of my fellow Catholics would vote for the devil himself if he said he was "pro-life."

The past couple of elections, we've come close. And the pattern seems to be holding among orthodox Catholics in 2008.

"AHA!" some of you are saying. "This Favog crank is a pro-abort Obama fanatic! A real Catholic in Name Only type."

You haven't read this blog much, have you?

NO, I AGREE with the much-maligned Catholic bishop of Scranton, Joseph Martino, that a Catholic faces some high hurdles indeed before he (or she) can vote for an abortion supporter with a clean conscience. What troubles me greatly, though, is "conservative" Catholics' assumption that means they can vote for John McCain.

Because the same reasons that keep a believing Catholic from blithely voting for the abortion enthusiast, Barack Obama, also keep him from blithely voting for the candidate who supports an unjust war, backtracks on his formerly unequivocal opposition to torturing "enemy combatants," remains silent when supporters cry out for Obama's death . . . and supports embryonic stem-cell research.

Embryonic stem-cell research. The increasingly superfluous "science" you can't carry out without murdered fetuses or cannibalized embryos. McCain's support of that little shop of horrors is kind of like condemning the Holocaust while bathing with a fresh bar of Jew soap.

But that doesn't stop all manner of my fellow Catholics from robbing Peter to play politics . . . badly. I think this slice of life from the Scranton Times-Tribune pretty much sums up the mess Catholics have politicked themselves into. The scene . . . in line outside an arena, waiting to get into a rally featuring GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin:

The line outside Riverfront Sports has dwindled to a a few hundred. Reporters at the scene said it appears that everyone who wants to attend the Palin rally will be able to get in.

One man walked the length of the line shouting out "reminders" to those waiting that " loaded firearms are not allowed inside."

Two vans full of students from St. Gregory's Academy in Elmhurst were juggling and performing as they waited to go through security.

17-year-old Ian Costello, a student from Oklahoma, said that he believed much of the student body was supporting the McCain/Palin ticket.

"McCain, definitely. Everyone is for McCain."

Matthew Schultz, a rhetoric teacher at St. Gregory's, said he had two reasons for bringing the students to the rally.

"To show support for Sarah Palin with regards to her pro-life stance. As Catholics, we support our bishop in his stances. I'd like the boys to see some rhetoric in action."

When asked about some of the anti-Obama outbursts from people at previous Palin/McCain rallies, Mr. Matthews said " It's not what a gentleman or a Christian should do."

I WONDER WHAT Schultz's opinion is of politicians who work the yahoos into a homicidal frenzy? How "pro-life" might that be?

The boisterous crowd, estimated at around 4,500, interrupted her speech several times with chants of, "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!"

There were no incendiary outbursts from the crowd about Mr. Obama during Mrs. Palin's speech, as there have been during other recent McCain-Palin rallies.

However, someone did shout out, "Kill him!" during Republican congressional candidate Chris Hackett's remarks before Mrs. Palin took the stage.

The outburst came during a round of booing from the crowd after Mr. Hackett said Mr. Obama should come to Pennsylvania and learn what the state's values are.

AT LEAST the McCain-Palin-loving Catholic schoolkids got "to see some rhetoric in action."

And the rest of us got to see how the tomfoolery some Catholics put up with in the name of voting "pro-life" buries that cause under a mountain of hypocrisy and does real, lasting damage to the Church's witness. It does violence to the gospel, and to those who have staked their lives upon it.

It comes down to this: God don't like ugly.

Catholic moral theology posits that we may not do evil in the hope good might come out of it. That applies to voting for abortion enthusiasts.

That also applies to backers of cutting apart frozen human embryos to fix what ails us former embryos . . . who support unjust wars . . . and countenance expressions of hate and homicide from newly minted mobs they've whipped up in the name of acquiring ultimate political power.

"Catholic" schools that can't grasp that aren't worth a dime's tuition, and a Church that compromises its witness for a sack of empty promises may yet prevail against the gates of hell . . . but it's going to be close.

Omaha: You can dump your kid here

I was born to parents who -- by life experience in a grindingly dysfunctional culture of white poverty -- had been rendered uniquely incapable, in many ways, of successfully raising a child.

The process of trying to, however, probably left them with more than a few scars and more than a little heartbreak. I know it left me with a lot more scars and a lifetime of heartbreak. You'd be surprised how far the ripples of sin and stupidity can travel through space, families and time.

MY FOLKS HAD the misfortune of growing up hard. Real hard. That's how many came up during the Depression in the Deep South amid a folk culture where, for example, comets were still terrifying omens and it was "better" for little girls to help around the house than, say . . . go to school.

Not to mention where curing bad coughs often involved eating Vicks salve. (Note: Vicks smells better than it tastes.)

I had the misfortune of growing up at the mercy of parents raised, as it were, by wolves and incapable of admitting -- most notably to themselves -- how messed up that was.

But they did their best with their baby boy. Their best wasn't great, but they muddled through. I'm muddling through still.

For all their struggles, dysfunction and redneck insanity, though, there's one thing Mama and Daddy never did. One thing they never could have conceived of doing, no matter what . . . and no matter what a damn mess their kid might have been (and I was).

They never would have loaded me up in the old Mercury, pulled out onto the highway and drove until they found a city where they thought they could get away with dumping my ass.

They never in a million years would have done what the Omaha World-Herald reports a Detroit-area mother did with her son early Monday:

A Michigan mother drove more than 700 miles to leave her 13-year-old son at an Omaha hospital in the middle of the night - a place where the family had no ties.

What drew her, according to officials with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, was Nebraska's unique safe haven law.

The teen became the second child from another state to be left at a Nebraska hospital under the law, which sets no age limit on the children who can be left.

A 14-year-old Council Bluffs girl was left last week at Creighton University Medical Center. She has since been returned to her family.

The safe haven law, which took effect July 18, says people cannot be prosecuted in Nebraska for leaving a child with a hospital employee on duty. They can, however, be charged with other acts of abuse and neglect and can lose their parental rights.

In the Michigan case, a woman identifying herself as the boy's mother left him at the Creighton hospital about 1:30 a.m. Monday, said Todd Landry, children and family services director for HHS. The family is from the Detroit area.

Landry said the boy's mother remained in Nebraska at least until Monday afternoon and had talked with state officials at least twice.

HHS officials were still gathering and verifying information, but it appeared the mother came to Nebraska specifically to drop off the teen, who has since been placed at an emergency shelter.

"Just like every other of the instances of safe haven use, the child does not appear to be and was not in any immediate danger of being harmed in any way," Landry said.

He said he could not give information about why the family decided to make use of the safe haven law. He said there was no indication the teen had violent tendencies and that he was not a state ward in Michigan.

THIS IS BECOMING an epidemic. Omaha has become American parents' landfill of choice for abandoning their "flawed" offspring. Or for flawed parents to cast off little people who so unfairly prevent them from hitting the "reset button" on their own out-of-control lives.

Only rarely do the consequences of a flawed law become so shockingly obvious so shockingly quickly. Something is seriously wrong in America . . . and I don't mean the economy or the stock market.

But.

There's been a common denominator in recent coverage of Nebraska's safe-haven debacle that I don't want to hear another word about. The latest example came in a story Monday evening on Omaha's KETV television:

For parents facing that situation, however, getting help can sometimes be extremely difficult.

KETV talked with a local social worker whose goal is keep families together.

She said that while Nebraska’s Safe Haven law seems like an option for troubled youth, it really isn’t helping anyone.

Bonnie Sarton Meirau has spent 15 years working with families and troubled youth and she said she understands why families may be taking advantage of the new law.

"I think they feel like they're out of options, there's a hopelessness and helplessness that unfortunately Safe Haven feeds in to," Mierau said.

I CALL BULLSHIT. If a Michigan mom has the money and the time and the energy to bundle her 13-year-old problem child and drive 12 hours to Omaha Effing Nebraska for the express purpose of abandoning the kid at a hospital emergency room, she has the wherewithal to track down and access whatever help might be available to her in greater Detroit.

Which I will guaran-damn-tee you is far more extensive than what was available to my flawed parents and their flawed kid nearly four decades ago in a Southern backwater. Shockingly -- at least by today's standards, apparently -- no children were thrown away in the telling of my life story.

Oh, today's poor parents. How did they ever manage before the Nebraska Legislature made it possible for them to unburden themselves of their most pressing problems -- which, unfortunately, seem to be their children?

Though I'm sure social services could be better and more accessible all across these United States in this troubled age, this scarred child of whack parents is here to tell America that's not our biggest problem in this whole mess. No matter what Channel 7 says.

No, what we have here is not a social-services crisis. What we have here is an asshole-parents crisis.

Would that it were as easily fixed as bureaucratic shortcomings. Or nonspecific state laws.

Their god is a frightened god

In London, The Telegraph tells the story of an Iranian family suffering for its Christian faith because the god of Islam -- as understood by that country's civil and religious leaders -- is a frightened god to whom free will is a mortal threat.

Or should I say an immortal threat?

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.

It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.

Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."

OBVIOUSLY, Iranian Muslims and their leaders have their deity all figured out. And we know what Flannery O'Connor said about such -- "remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself."

And this is apparently what's understood about Allah in Iran -- that the Muslim deity is a puppetmaster and mankind is a puppet. That Allah fears that man would not, could not love him freely, so man must be forced to do so. That Islam is not so much about knowing, loving and serving Allah as it is being a "soldier" in a Mafia of a billion-plus souls.

Once in, there's only one way to get out -- be rubbed out.

IF JESUS is the good shepherd, the ayatollahs' Allah must be Michael Corleone. And Muhammad is what? Al Neri?

That makes Ramtin Soodmand the Iranian version of Fredo, I'm afraid.

Nice conception of deity you have there, guys.

It's a minute to midnight. Americans, do you know where your economy is?

The first two paragraphs from this Associated Press story Saturday night would have Alfred Hitchcock reaching for the night light and his wubbie:

President Bush and financial leaders from nations rich and poor pledged Saturday to intensify their efforts to unblock a frozen financial system before it does more damage to an increasingly shaky global economy.

While there were no concrete offers of new moves, Bush vowed anew that his administration was doing everything possible to halt the biggest market disruptions since the Great Depression. The finance ministers spoke in unusually somber terms about the need for action.

DO YOU understand what was said here?

Finance ministers of nations worldwide speak in "unusually somber terms" about the need to do something to stop the global financial meltdown. Nevertheless, no one has committed to do anything along those lines, at least in any concerted manner.

I think those in charge of the global credit markets and stock traders around the world understand what has -- or more accurately, hasn't -- gone down during the Washington meetings. And I think we can guess what might happen Monday morning if the finance ministers don't do something big by Sunday night.

Don't know about you, but I'm getting damned nervous.

My parents both grew up dirt poor during the Great Depression. I've heard all the stories. I know the indignities they suffered seven decades ago. I know the opportunities lost forever to those children long ago -- the dysfunction bred and the repercussions still rippling through myriad lives after all these years.

I don't want to go there. America doesn't want to go there . . . again.

Bush started the day shortly after daybreak with a Rose Garden appearance with finance ministers from the world's richest countries and later made an unexpected evening visit to the headquarters of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund a few blocks from the White House.

With Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, he participated for about 25 minutes in a discussion with the Group of 20, which includes rich countries and major developing nations such as China, Brazil and India.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said that the president told the finance ministers that he was doing all he could to involve other countries in efforts to resolve the crisis. According to White House spokesman Tony Fratto, Bush acknowledged the problems began in the U.S., with a meltdown of the market for subprime mortgages in the summer of 2007. The president felt it was important to take the rare step of coming to such a meeting because the problems were spreading globally.

"It doesn't matter if you're a rich country or a poor country, a developed country or a developing country—we're all in this together," Bush said, according to Fratto. "We take this seriously, and we want to work with you."

In response, the G-20 countries issued a joint statement in which the finance officials pledged to work together "to overcome the financial turmoil and to deepen cooperation to improve the regulation, supervision and the overall functioning of the world's financial markets."

The financial turmoil also dominated discussions at weekend's annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. The IMF strongly endorsed a five-point plan put together a day earlier by the so-called Group of Seven wealthy powers, in which the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada jointly pledged to use all means possible to prevent major financial institutions from failing and to keep pumping money into the banking system to unfreeze lending and get credit—the lifeblood of the economy—flowing again.

"The depth and systemic nature of the crisis call for exceptional vigilance, coordination and readiness to take bold action," the IMF said in its joint statement. That statement, in an unusual move, repeated verbatim all of the commitments made in the G-7 statement that had been released on Friday.

IT SEEMS to me -- with government ministers and private-sector economists all stresing the need for urgent, global action to stave off le deluge -- all world powers can muster are piecemeal patches and pretty words. How will that save us from the financial apocalyse predicted by the head of the IMF on Saturday? From MSNBC:

The International Monetary Fund warned Saturday that debt-ridden banks were pushing the global financial system to the brink of meltdown and wealthy nations had so far failed to restore confidence.

The IMF's policy setting panel said the economic crisis is so deep and widespread that it will require a willingness to take bold action.

The Group of 20 nations, which includes the world's wealthiest nations and the largest developing countries such as China, Brazil and India, issued a joint statement late Saturday night stressing their resolve to work together to overcome the current financial turmoil.

"Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest U.S.-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown," IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

The IMF endorsed a plan of action adopted Friday by the G-7 economic powers to protect the financial system and get credit flowing again.

Bush huddled with economic chiefs from the G-7 — Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — and officials from the IMF and World Bank, and said top industrial nations grasped the gravity of the crisis and would work together to solve it.

"In an interconnected world, no nation will gain by driving down the fortunes of another. We are in this together. We will come through it together," Bush said. "There have been moments of crisis in the past when powerful nations turned their energies against each other or sought to wall themselves off from the world. This time is different."

"I'm confident that the world's major economies can overcome the challenges we face," Bush said, adding that Washington was working as fast as possible to implement a $700 billion financial bailout package approved a week ago.

Yet there was no concrete offer of new moves when Bush spoke on a Rose Garden stage just after daybreak, flanked by representatives from nearly a dozen nations and international organizations.

EVERYBODY HAS a plan. What we need is implementation. No implementation, no chance of a solution.

And no solution leads us to a place we really don't want to go.

At least that's what the experts who forecast our present predicament say. Like this one:

Nouriel Roubini, the professor who two years ago predicted the financial crisis, said world financial officials should orchestrate interest-rate cuts of at least 1.5 percentage points to help avert a depression.

A temporary guarantee of all bank deposits, unlimited liquidity for solvent financial institutions and fiscal-stimulus measures are also needed, the New York University professor of economics said in a commentary e-mailed today to Roubini Global Economics subscribers.

"It will take a significant change in leadership of economic policy and very radical, coordinated policy actions among all advanced and emerging-market economies to avoid this economic and financial disaster," said Roubini, 50. From late 2006, he highlighted the dangers flowing from a likely U.S. housing crisis.

The economist urged immediate action as officials from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Group of Seven nations meet in Washington this weekend. Stocks tumbled around the world today as the yearlong credit crisis deepened, sending Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average to its worst weekly drop in history. The MSCI World Index was set for its biggest weekly decline since records began in 1970.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 9,000 for the first time since 2003 yesterday. More than $4 trillion has been erased from global equities this week.

"At this stage the risk of an imminent stock-market crash -- like the one-day collapse of 20 percent plus in U.S. stock prices in 1987 cannot be ruled out," said Roubini. "The financial system is breaking down, panic and lack of confidence in any counterparty is sharply rising and investors have totally lost faith in the ability of policy authorities to control the meltdown."

AT LEAST that's what the Bloomberg News story said Friday. As for what people will say today, who knows?

All I know is it doesn't look good from here, as I sit in the studio typing this. You have to wonder . . . and I do.

What particularly worries me is that, after four decades-plus of cultural chaos and familial breakdown, our society is in a worse position to deal with an economic collapse that it was in the 1930s -- and it was a close call even then. We just have no idea what would happen now, and I'd just as soon not tempt fate, if you don't mind.

I'D REALLY just as soon not find out what happens if the economy implodes just as GOP presidential nominee John McCain has unleashed the right's angry demons against Democrat Barack Obama . . . and everybody else who happens to get in the way.

And it's not like the "nutroots" left is any better. Or any less angry. Just different.

I don't want to find out what happens if our financial system -- and, soon after, our entire economy -- falls apart at the same time as we do.

3C&T taking the week off

I've been on a roll putting a bunch of new (old) music onto the production hard drive, so I think I'm going to try to do some more of that today instead of putting together a new episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

THERE ARE, however, a few past episodes for you to check out -- and I think that would be a fine thing to do.

But as for me, I'm gonna try to get those chores done . . . as well as keeping a close eye on the U.S. Economic Death Spiral. It's not looking good, folks -- Japan's Nikkei average fell nearly 10 percent today and, as I write, the European markets are off by about the same in early trading.

I reckon it could be another really ugly day on Wall Street -- and for the economy -- today, though I'm far from an economist and the erratic Dow Jones index has made monkeys out of legions tremendously more expert than I am.

STILL, today looks like it will be another day of watching . . . and waiting for some first glimpse of the America that will be, which likely will be a far cry from the America that just was. I'll be there, as will you, keeping one eye on the TV and the Internet as I try to get those musical chores completed.

I'll wish you good luck and God bless, and ask you to do the same for me. I really don't think the missus and I will be retiring . . . at least so long as we're physically and mentally able to work. I reckon many of y'all probably are finding yourselves in the same boat.

How, then, shall we navigate this new land?

Download an episode of the Big Show while you think on that one.

What planet do these people live on?

Conservatives don't know irony.

I say this because -- one might assume -- the people at National Review Online had straight faces as they accepted, and then posted, this advertisement.

I know postmodern "movement" conservatives live in something of an echo chamber, but don't they get TV reception in there? Newspaper delivery?

YOU'D THINK they get the Internet, being that NRO is a website.

But conservatives are tagging Obama with a "zinger" such as "The Audacity of Socialism"? Really?

Are they freaking nuts?

I hate to be the bearer of politically incorrect news to the right wing, but WE ALREADY LIVE IN A SOCIALIST STATE! And the Bush Administration created it.

The government is buying financial assets -- and bad debts -- as fast as the Treasury can print money to cover the tab. It owns major swatches of the banking and financial-services industries.

It is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars of capital into the financial system to stave off utter collapse. The federal government is the mortgage industry now.

Now John McCain -- the "conservative" Republican candidate for president -- is proposing the federal government buy every troubled mortgage out there and renegotiate the terms.

You don't get more socialist than what the GOP hath wrought unless you find a way to reanimate the waxy corpse of V.I. Lenin and elect him president.

And you know what? Without this Republican-led lurch to the left, we'd probably all be eating dirt in short order. And may yet despite everything.

THE RIGHT WING done gone and drank the last of the Kool-Aid from the purple-stained No. 3 tub. The mind is going and the convulsions will start presently.

And then the merciful end.

If you're warped, too, call BR-549

You couldn't much avoid Hee Haw if you grew up in the South in the '60s and '70s and your family owned a television.

AND IF YOU fit that certain profile, chances are that Hee Haw worked its way into your psyche somewhere. Chances are, your psyche never recovered.

This would explain why the telephone number BR-549 makes you chuckle more than 30 years later. Back when Hee Haw was on the air and we were much younger, Samples Sales was the place to buy a jalopy from dubious salesmen.

Now, Samples Sales is where this country goes when it needs a new president. Obviously.

And remember, folks, that number is BR-549. Saaaaaaa-LUTE!

OH, LEST WE FORGET. . . .

Not an Obama voter

By all that is holy and good, it is really important that Sarah Palin be kept out of the Gret Stet of Louisiana.

What? Oh, crap.

WELL, IN THAT CASE, be warned that this, as reported in the Monroe News-Star is the kind of baseline whackjobbery she'll have to work with:

A 75-year-old man was arrested today for threatening to bring his shotgun to the Registrar of Voters office in downtown Monroe.

According to the report, Wade Marshall Williams of Monroe used profanity and racial slurs and said he needed to vote in the upcoming presidential election to “keep the n***** out of office.”

Williams, of 266 Lake Passman, then reportedly said he wanted his card before he came to the building with his “shotgun and emptied it.”

Ouachita Sheriff deputies received complaints that Williams had threatened the office over the telephone after he was informed he would receive his voter registration card in two weeks, but could still vote by showing picture identification.

Williams reportedly told the office he recently moved back to the area but grew up in Ouachita Parish and attended Ouachita Parish High School.

Christa Medaries with the registrar’s office said Williams may have been drinking. He was booked on a charge of terrorizing.

ACCORDING TO The Smoking Gun, Williams did nothing to exonerate himself when the long arm of the law reached out to his address:

En route to the jail, he "continued his 'tirade' about n****** and also stated that he had a shotgun, but had it hidden at his residence," reported Lt. Michael Judd.

AMERICA'S ORIGINAL SIN: It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Wall Street: The new NASCAR

Y'ever thought that the stock market is like NASCAR now?

We're glued to the TV waiting for the next spectacular wreck. Didya see!? Down 700!

The stock-wreck craze will end when the cable gets shut off and the repo man comes to take all our TV sets away. Well, except me. My main television set is a 1974 Sony. And the one downstairs is a 1985 Sony.

The one downstairs has been paid off for a couple of decades. The one upstairs cost me $25 at an estate sale . . . and it works like a champ. Great picture.

Small picture, but great picture.

3 Chords & the Truth the fuss-free way

Have you subscribed to 3 Chords & the Truth yet?

Subscribing to the Big Show means all of the music with less of the fuss. Sounds like a good deal to me.

But then again, it would, wouldn't it?

What is 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, it's like this: 3 Chords & the Truth is freeform radio better than it used to be.

If you ask me, that's something worth checking out. But I would say that, wouldn't I?

Planned unparenthood

Listen closely. I am only going to say this once.

You know you have a society nearing total collapse when it's easier -- and cheaper -- to throw away your own child than it is to recycle your old, broken-down computer monitor. Think about that.

For the love of God -- or at least for the love of your own sorry ass -- think about that.

YES, THIS MEANS I've just read of another throw-away-children outrage in the Omaha World-Herald:

A Council Bluffs teen was dropped off at Creighton University Medical Center under Nebraska's new safe haven law Tuesday. It was the first time an out-of-state youth was left in Nebraska under the program, state officials said.

"We have made a formal report of the abandonment to the Iowa child abuse hotline," Todd Landry, director of the Nebraska Division of Children and Family Services, said in a statement. "We are working with the Iowa Department of Human Services to resolve this situation as quickly as possible."

The child, a 14-year-old girl, is the 17th youngster left at a hospital under the Nebraska law. This is the 9th time a parent or guardian has dropped off a child or children under the law, which went into effect July 18.

BAD STUFF is headed America's way, and we're going to deserve every jot and tittle of it.

Kool-Aid v. Kool-Aid

The Catholic Kool-Aid drinkers for the Party of Mammon, Greed and War have scored a great triumph, repudiating and purging from the Franciscan University of Steubenville a Catholic Kool-Aid drinker for the Party of Abortion.

IN REVIEWING this report from LifeNews.com, Jesus must be so proud of the Catholic Church in America:

A pro-life former law professor Nicholas Cafardi, the former dean of the Duquesne University Law School, has quit his position on the board of trustees for Franciscan University of Steubenville. Cafardi's decision comes after he received criticism for endorsing pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Cafardi recently issued an endorsement for Obama and claimed the pro-life movement is dead -- drawing a strong rebuke from pro-life advocates.

Franciscan University issued a statement saying Cafardi did not represent the views of the college, but it appears Cafardi has resigned on his own without pressure from university officials.

Catholic writer Deal Hudson, who has been following the controversy, tells LifeNews.com about the latest events.

"Dr. Terrence Henry, president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, has just told me that he received a letter of resignation yesterday from [Cafardi]," he said.

"Fr. Henry stressed that Dr. Cafardi's resignation from the board of Franciscan University was voluntary and had in no way been requested by the University," Hudson added. "Henry added that he was 'grateful' for Cafardi's letter."

"Cafardi's continued presence on the Franciscan University board became an issue several weeks ago when he publicly endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president," Hudson said.

Cafardi became the second prominent Catholic attorney to endorse Obama, following Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine University -- who has been the subject of significant criticism from pro-life advocates.

Cafardi based his endorsement on two points - claiming the pro-life movement has "permanently" lost the abortion battle and saying voting for Obama can be justified on other political issues.

But Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, disagreed.

"If you think the battle against abortion has been lost permanently, then you are asserting that the battle for America and civilization itself have been lost," Pavone says. "So don't trouble yourself one way or another about this election."

CAFARDI IS CORRECT when he says pro-lifers have utterly lost the abortion battle in this country. Pro-lifers have lost because -- either unable or unwilling to do the dirty work of impacting the culture for the cause of life -- they put all of their eggs (and cultural capital) in the Republicans' basket.

And 30 years later, abortion has been eliminated to the point where it's a wonder doctors aren't shooting healthy, full-term babies as they pop out of the womb. As a matter of fact, the "culture of life" has so triumphed -- thanks to the loving and savvy action of Catholic pro-lifers all over the United States -- that parents and guardians in Nebraska now are using a recently-enacted "safe haven" law to dump their unruly teen-agers in hospital emergency rooms.

That's not necessarily reason to vote for Obama, but it is reason not to judge a man, or his conscience, because his erstwhile compatriots' utter ineffectiveness in championing life has led him to a radically different political conclusion.

NOW, WHAT ABOUT John McCain's support for war, war and more war, more tax cuts for the rich and embryonic stem-cell research? Is anybody being forced off the Steubenville board for endorsing a candidate who supports, in order, Mass Death, Avarice and Homicide?

And what about supporting a candidate who sends out his "Joe Six-Pack" running mate, Sarah Palin, to demonize the opposition and work crowds up into this kind of hateful, racist frenzy, as noted by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post?

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

(snip)

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

"See, John McCain is a different kind of man: He believes in our troops," she said.

EXCOMMUNICATE the politically incorrect board member, and turn a blind eye to folks who'd kill Obama and sling racial slurs at TV sound men. Turn a blind eye toward those who organize the lynch mob, egg on the devil within then remain silent as the hate approaches critical mass.

Catholics should remember one thing from history: You might think it's better to hitch your wagon to Generalissimo Francisco Franco to defeat the lefties, but that choice comes at a price. And with its own set of pathologies.

The devil always gets his due.

Your daily p0rn from Omaha

This is not going to end well

Today, the United States is a nation on the brink. Of what, we do not know.

The economy is in turmoil. People are losing their homes. Retirees are losing their retirements. Workers are starting to lose their jobs in large numbers.

WE'RE ALSO going to have a national election in a month. One one side, to paint with the broadest of brushes, we have a young apostle of "hope" who speaks in generalities and has given rise to what approaches a personality cult among some of his younger supporters.

On the other, we have a man whose overarching political philosophy seems to be winning by any means necessary. Never before much of a culture warrior, he has become a strident advocate of social and class conflict as an animating feature of his campaign. Never before much of a partisan, he and his surrogates now paint the Democrat as "dangerous" and a consort of "terrorists."

IN THE TRENCHES, amid the ranks of schoolkids and "Joe Six Packs," we have examples of fascistic hero worship and demagogic demonizing of The Other.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, particularly on the beleaguered Republican side, we see the long knives being pulled from beneath cloaks. The partisans want blood, and blood they shall have.

One must wonder whether party bosses have made fateful decisions. The calculation that, if their side cannot win, the nation will be made as ungovernable as possible for the opposition.

The dagger, however, is double-edged. Will anyone be able to govern?

I CANNOT POINT to a study here, or to anything other than my middle-aged gut. But my gut tells me that Peggy Noonan was onto something this morning on Meet the Press.

We find ourselves at a perilous moment historically. And widespread recklessness is afoot:

MR. BROKAW: And, Peggy Noonan, as you know, the McCain campaign has signaled pretty strongly they’re going to strain—change their strategy. We have a quote from The Weekly Standard. Bill Kristol, who is the editor, is, of course, in the College of Cardinals, he’s the Pope when it comes to writing about what’s going on in the conservative movement. He says in The Weekly Standard, “More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. ... Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he’s consorted with dubious figures. It’s fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn’t be intimidated from going there.” We already heard on this broadcast, Senator Palin yesterday, raising the association that he had with William Ayers, who is a former member of the Weathermen, a very radical group from the ‘60s and ‘70s, who is now a school reformer in Illinois. Is this a smart strategy, in your judgment, for the McCain campaign?

MS. NOONAN: You know what, this has been a long campaign. We are in the last month. It is still close. Whoever’s rising or, or, or falling, it’s really close. And some part of me fears they’re going to open up the gates of hell on this one. It seems to me there is trench warfare out there. The left—there’s a huge middle in America, but there’s a left. They think they’re going to win, and they’re getting meaner than ever. The right fears they’re going to lose, they’re getting meaner than ever. I would hate to see this descend into this, this—“I’ll kill—I’ll tear your throat out” kind of stuff. I think that would be harmful. I think we are at a unique and dangerous...

MR. YEPSEN: But, Tom...

MS. NOONAN: ...moment in history, and it’s the last thing we need. And I don’t speak as a sissy; I’m trying to speak as an adult.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah. David.

MR. YEPSEN: There’s a danger, Tom, that it backfires.

MS. NOONAN: Yeah. Yeah.

MR. YEPSEN: I mean, clearly John McCain is worried. They’re, they’re on defense. The best proof of that, Tom, is, is what is Sarah Palin doing this afternoon? She is in Omaha, Nebraska. Now, when a Republican vice presidential candidate has to go to defend one congressional district—they vote their electors by congressional district--30 days out, it tells you they’re worried. And so what, what I see happening in the McCain campaign, with all this talk about William Ayers, is this sort of a sense of desperation. It could get carried away, and it’s irrelevant to people in mainstream America, in middle America. You know, William Ayers, what do they care about—how is that going to put gas in the tank or get somebody a job? I think it runs the risk of coming off as irrelevant.

MR. GREGORY: But just to show you how...

MS. NOONAN: And it runs the risk of being demoralizing.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. NOONAN: Forgive me, David. But in a serious national way, don’t do that.

MR. BROKAW: Although, before we go on with this, maybe what the McCain campaign is reading the last draft of the latest Time magazine-CNN poll—and this shows up in a number of polls—Senator Obama still shows vulnerability on the question of what kind of president he would be. Fifty percent of those polled said Obama gives a great speech, but doesn’t have other qualifications; 46 percent disagreed with that statement. But that’s in a poll in which Senator Obama did very well overall.

(snip)

MS. NOONAN: Can I make a point, also, that I think part of the reason this is going to get so rough in the next month, trying to get my, my hands around this thing, is that we live in the age of political strategists. We live in the age of the guys on the plane. We live in the age of the BlackBerry guys saying, “Let’s get them this way. Let’s get them this way.” It exists on both campaigns, the instinct, “Hey, we have nothing to do now but go to, to the jugular.” I have the sense sometimes lately that these guys on the plane think history is their plaything. History is not their plaything. This is big. This is a nation having two ground wars and an economic recession—we hope just a mild recession. This is not a time for playfulness and mischief. It ain’t right.

AMEN.

Bet your bottom dollar on Bill

Click picture for video.

Don't be surprised if "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the indicted congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District, is the next congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District -- that's New Orleans to you and me.

William Jefferson's Democratic runoff opponent will be Helena Moreno, a 30-year-old former TV anchorwoman. Jefferson, who finished first in the primary Saturday, has a good shot at doing the same in November.

THE UNKNOWN REPUBLICAN in the race has no shot at finishing first in the December general election.

The Times-Picayune reports:

Despite the dual impediments of an upcoming federal trial on public corruption charges and a slew of well-financed opponents, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson ran first in Saturday's Democratic Party primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat that he has held for 18 years.

He will battle former TV news anchor and first-time candidate Helena Moreno of New Orleans in the Nov. 4 contest. With two-thirds of the district's voters registered as Democrats, the winner of the party runoff is almost certain to claim the congressional seat.

With 482 of 492 precincts reporting late Saturday, Jefferson led the seven-candidate Democratic field with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Moreno with 20 percent. The general election is Dec. 6.

For Jefferson, it was only the second time since he captured the seat in 1990 that he has been forced into a runoff. Two years ago, he handily defeated state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, though she outspent him by a 2-to-1 margin.

This time, Jefferson managed to fend off a field of primary opponents who together raised $1.5 million -- compared with his $200,000 cache -- in their effort to unseat him.

Jefferson has seen his fortunes crumble since the federal probe into his business dealings became public more than three years ago.

Six months after he was sworn into a ninth term, a federal grand jury indicted him on 16 counts of public corruption related to his business dealings. Earlier this year, two of his siblings were indicted on separate charges that they stole money from charities; six other Jefferson relatives also were implicated in that case.

The congressman's trial is set to start Dec. 2.

Flanked by his wife and daughters at the eastern New Orleans eatery Flavorz by Mattie, Jefferson, 61, thanked supporters for sticking with him.

"I cannot tell you how much gratitude I have in my heart tonight for what you have done to undergird the work that my family and I have undertaken for so many years together," he said. "Give us your support, give us your prayers as you have, and we'll keep delivering for our area."

Moreno, 30, was a well-known news personality at WDSU-TV before she quit in March to explore a run for Congress. With support from local business executives and political power brokers from both parties, she managed to surge ahead of five opponents with extensive political resumes.

Moreno is vying to become the second woman ever elected to represent Louisiana in the U.S. House, following former Rep. Lindy Boggs, a New Orleans Democrat who held the 2nd District seat before Jefferson.

As the only white candidate in the primary field, Moreno also would make history by winning in a district where 62 percent of registered voters are African-American. Jefferson is black.

TWO YEARS AGO -- when everybody and his uncle knew the dishonorable member from Louisiana was going to be indicted -- Dollar Bill beat a black woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money. Now we're supposed to believe the indicted Jefferson is going to lose to a white woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money?

I don't think so.

Here's what's going to happen: Moreno will run a fierce anti-corruption campaign, arguing that Jefferson is almost certainly guilty, likely will go down in flames soon after the election, has no clout left in Washington and is, on principle, unfit for public office.

Jefferson will counter thus:

The white woman is calling the black man a crook. The white establishment has been after me, they want their white woman candidate in power, and they want you under their thumb.

You know me. I've been bringing home the federal bacon. Did I mention that my opponent is a white woman?

AND DID I MENTION that Barack Obama is on the November presidential ballot?

I'm not saying Jefferson absolutely will win -- I'm not a political scientist, and I don't play one on TV. I'm not a soothsayer, either. But I think it's likely he'll win next month, and then again in December . . . days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

Let me repeat that -- days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

If New Orleans and Louisiana in some ways resemble a failed state, there are reasons for that. And they span not only present day white flight, the challenges facing African-Americans and the state's ongoing "brain drain" but, in reality, reach back to the days of Jim Crow.

And not only back to the dysfunctional era of "separate but equal," but also back to Huey Long, and beyond the Kingfish to the corrupt reign of the "Bourbon" Democrats . . . and beyond even that to the Civil War . . . and beyond even that to Spanish and French colonial rule.

If you want to understand -- in part -- a place like my home state, you need to know a little about places like Haiti, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. You need to understand the French and Spanish colonial mindsets. You need to understand class-based societies.

If you want to understand Louisiana, you need to understand me a little bit. You need to understand how I have lived for 20-plus years now in the Midwest -- in a great, up-and-coming city like Omaha -- but oftentimes still feel like a stranger in a strange land.

That the "America" I, in Louisiana, was enculturated into wasn't necessarily America as the vast majority of Americans understand the concept. Turns out we were still a colony and didn't quite realize it.

If you want to know how this congressional election in New Orleans is going to work itself out, just assume the cynical worst, like you might in much of American politics. Then double down on your bet.

'Cause dat's Louisiana for you.

Oh . . . what the Buck. This is cool.

Man, I miss stuff like this. You can take the boy out of the 1960s -- and the South -- but. . . .

I especially like the part where the director thinks "We got us this fancy new zoom lens and, by God, we're 'a gonna use that sucker. Outlandishly."

3 Chords & the Truth: What the Buck

Listen, y'all. It's been a tough week.

The country's on the brink. And then there's that financial meltdown thing, too. I don't know about you (though I suspect maybe I do, a little), but my brain is full.

I'M CRANKY, and I'm wondering what the hell is going on nowadays. Not only that, but I just got stitches out of my back, I have a sinus infection, I'm on antibiotics and I can't have a beer -- even though I really could use a cold one right now.

So when it came time to do this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, I just said "What the Buck."

"What the Buck" will set you free.

SO THAT'S THE DEAL with the Big Show -- I'm just saying "What the Buck," having a little mindless fun and trying not to make my brain -- or yours -- hurt any more than it already is.

What. The. Buck.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

'You won't believe what people are uploading'

Whoever wrote the positioning statement for CNN's iReport page didn't know how right he was.

"iReport.com," the pithy headline says. "See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

Well, no, you won't believe what people are uploading. That's because you can't believe what some people are uploading.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE "iREPORT" that Apple chief Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a massive heart attack. Not true.

The problem is, a lot of investors and Wall Street traders did believe what they read on the Cable News Network site. And Apple's stock tanked -- a 5.4-percent drop at its lowest.

Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating, according to Bloomberg News:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the origin of a false report on a CNN citizen journalist Web site that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs had a heart attack and was hospitalized, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry.

The agency's enforcement unit is trying to determine whether the iReport.com posting was intended to push down the company's stock price, said the person, who declined to be identified because the probe isn't public. The report is ``not true,'' Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in an interview.

Concern about Jobs's health weighed on the shares this year, contributing to a 51 percent drop. The stock swing caused by today's erroneous report drew renewed calls for Apple, which has said only that Jobs's health is a ``private matter,'' to be more forthcoming, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at Yale University's School of Management.

``Leaving it to rumor and speculation is reckless,'' said Sonnenfeld, who has personally owned Apple shares since 1997, the year Jobs returned as CEO. ``If he is healthy, they should say so. If he's not, we should know that too.''

The shares fell as much as 5.4 percent earlier today after the post on iReport.com cited an anonymous source saying Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a ``major heart attack.'' The report has been removed.

John Heine, a spokesman for the SEC, declined to comment on whether the agency will look into today's erroneous report.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped $3.03, or 3 percent, to $97.07 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock earlier fell to $94.65, the first time it has traded at less than $100 since May 2007.

IT TOOK JUST A DAY to find someone in the journalism universe stupider than the Detroit radio reporter who got fired for wearing an Obama T-shirt while covering an Obama rally. Unfortunately, that "someone" is a whole network.

The one whose executives came up with "See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

What were they thinking? Without close supervision -- and fact checking -- by an adequate number of editors for the task, CNN's iReport is ripe for victimization by a Janet Cooke a day. At least.

In the present era of lean budgets and leaner newsroom staffs, do you think CNN's iReport is getting supervision equal to the task? Today's fiasco -- possibly a criminal stock-manipulation fiasco -- says no.

I hope Apple sues CNN for millions, because CNN violated the cardinal rule of journalism: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

CNN didn't know the "citizen reporter" from Adam, but that didn't stop the cable-news outfit's web editors from taking his unconfirmed report and plopping it prominently on the iReport page. With nary a call to an Apple flack for confirmation.

Ever.

BUT IT gets worse, according to Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider:

"Citizen journalism" apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack (story and screenshot below). Fortunately, it appears the story was false. We contacted an Apple spokeswoman, who categorically denied it.

CNN's iReport kept the report up until at least 10:15 AM, about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial. The story has since been removed.

UPDATE: Here's CNN's official statement. CNN says it removed the story because the "community" brought the story to its attention. Importantly, CNN also refers to the content as "fraudulent," which is much stronger than "inaccurate." "Fraudulent" implies an intent to deceive.

CNN's iReport, Original Story

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.

Immediately after reading the iReport story, we contacted Apple. Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Communications, replied quickly, saying "It is not true."

A GUY with a trade blog can get an Apple flack on the phone after reading the CNN iReport, but a CNN web editor couldn't do the same before almost sinking Apple's stock by publishing something that flew in over the Internet transom?

Let the journalism world watch this train wreck carefully, then proceed exceedingly cautiously into the brave new world of "citizen journalism."

"Citizen reporters" work for free. And, sometimes, you're going to get exactly what you pay for.