ABSOLUTELY worth a read! I’m glad to see a CLG reference here. They get info faster than anyone on the net, which is why I work with them
siri

While this sounds fun, I have a question for the lawyers in the crowd: do you really think it’s likely that the judge will take this kind of argument seriously? I have no doubt that the Bush Justice Dept. is hopelessly biased, but is that bias really relevant to the DC Madam’s case? They busted her, they have evidence.

What everyone seems to have forgotten is the interesting connection between Monica and this case:

1. Her lawyer – when she was subpoenaed to testify before Congress (and got immunity therefor) re the politicization and firings of US Attorneys is one John Dowd, Esq. (He, of both the “Dowd Report” – which investigated and proved Pete Rose’s gambling on baseball – and, more pertinently, a large law firm far beyond Monica’s budget.)

2. One of the administrative assistants in Dowd’s law firm was among the women listed as having worked for Palfrey’s service during the relevant time frame. I have read reports (which I can’t find just now) posted when this came out (back about the same time as the Brian Ross story got gutted and Harlan Shock’n’Awe and Deputy Secretary of State for Aids Prevention both got outed), that this particular AA not only worked at Dowd’s firm, but actually worked for Dowd.
3. In other words, an AA for Monica’s lawyer was moonlighting for Palfrey’s escort service.

Why hasn’t the sanctimonious prick Senator from CT had anything to say about the Craig-Vitter insults to morality? The Clinton-Lewinsky affair brought forth the Sermon on the Mount on the Senate floor.

Ah, you’re talking about Short Ride Joe, eh?

Yeah. That little backstab from Lieberman — who Clinton had thought was on his side (never trust a triangulating public moralist, Bill) — was what gave the Republicans the ‘bipartisan’ figleaf cover they needed to push impeachment.

Somebody planted this damn thing.

After that I thought the excitment was over. But no, it has been a curious day.

I saw Tavis Smiley interview Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Nothing much of importance in that, though I didn’t see all of it. Nancy spoke about her goals of civility, putting children first and good government. She just isn’t interested in talking about a Constitutional crisis. I hope she succeeds, despite this rhetorical facade.

I saw Charlie Rose interview DCI Hayden (formerly of the NSA and formerly of the Air Force). Hayden couldn’t talk about specific methods, but did say the Army field manual sets a very high bar and U.S. law is a much much lower bar before you get to torture. He also denies any renditions were done to let someone else torture a suspect. He’s a lot like the other Bush guys. What he says makes sense, but you just can’t trust them on any substantial things because of their real politik behavior. Now, even if they were to say water-boarding is torture we still couldn’t trust ‘em at all.

PBS had an Expose on Duke Cunningham, Jerry Lewis and the whole payola for government contracts for campaign contributions scheme. If there’s any justice Lewis won’t be able to survive that revealing story. It also makes lobbyists look really bad and that helps confirm John Edwards argument that you have to govern with honesty, conviction and idealism and not money.

I saw a repeat of Senate Leader Harry Reid speaking about FISA. He appeared unfocused and somewhat uncertain about what he wanted to say. He didn’t exactly ramble, but his presentation lacked energy and the appearance of certainty. He appeared to be saying it was a good bill, but there was no arrangement with Bush, so they might do some more modifications to make it better. This might mean immunity is still up for grabs.

Then there was a PBS Frontline story about the famous 401K retirement plan and how it has largely replaced traditional corporate retirement plans, but is perhaps wholly unsatisfactory. It’s about time some attention was paid to retirement considering the sheer numbers of Baby Boomers who are nearly there and the number of people who lost their retirements during the depressed 1980s. It’s a crisis larger than the mortgage industry garbage.

I thought it odd that the NBC evening news would do a second story on Bobby Jindal (R-La) while they didn’t do a single story (so far as I know) on Niki Tsongas (widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas), the new female representative from Massachussetts who beat an actual opponent. Damn Liberal press!

Of course, the Santa Ana winds firestorm is THE big story. People dying should be a big story. That the war in Iraq was hardly mentioned today is a bit sad, but typical. That people have died from lack of health care is sad, but also typical. Instead we get Ahnold talking about nothing while brave firefighters try to do the impossible and hundreds of thousands of people flee for their lives. No mention of Bush rushing aid to their rescue!

Instead Bush promises to veto spending bills he doesn’t like (which is all of ‘em).

On the net I also saw some wild accusations about Hillary Clinton taking millions from an offshore government account for who knows what and a new story about Sen. Larry Craig using campaign funds to pay his new lawyer.

Whatta day!

The Santa Ana winds are a phenomenon most never experience. Didn’t Ray Bradury write a story about people going nuts in a Santa Ana? Hot, dry winds, with gusts up to 90mph. Whips those flames, baby.

I don’t recall Ray Bradbury writing anything about Santa Anas, but Raymond Chandler certainly did in “Red Wind”

Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.

larue @ 164

A quarter of a million evac’d . . . that was as of 2pm this afternoon Left Coast time . . . this is huge . . 310 square miles or more lit up . . and with a rainy season perhaps, just around the corner for the erosion issues, mudslides, and such . . .

Aww, man — I was hoping no one would remind me of what might happen if we get any rain this winter …

Well, they will need to get tens of thousands of additional agricultural workers to replace the ground cover very quickly. otherwise all the issues you mention above, as well as floods, threats of levee breakage, siltation of dams used for water storage, increase in the river bed hieghts, etc. will occur.

One more reason not to encourage anti-immigrant hysteria.

So, put me in the group that was glad this was pointed out. Sometimes it takes a little rudeness to illuminate a problem.

I think that assuming that Valerie had some control over any of this with Simon & Schuster was a bit presumptuous, though. And that was the impression I got from some of the comments. I though that, while it might have been useful to point these issues out to her…the manner it was done was pretty accusatory. It was as if she was complicit in making the decisions.

How was she going to know that her book wasn’t being delivered to her hosts for preview in time? In fact, if Marcy, Jane, etc. had told her then she may have already interceded on this issue.

To assume that first-time authors know or control such marketing decisions seems a bit naive…and one of the critics is a published author…and should realize how these big corporate publishers operate. They are huge beauracracies and an author could bang their head against the wall to try to influence how they promote books. Using a big publisher does allow widespread distribution in a lot of big bookstores…but it removes the control of the author (particular new authors) over how the book is promoted.