The Loosh Spot

Menopausal Oregonion Dials 9-1-1 for Love

2006-07-14T11:27:00.000-04:00

Noise complaints in Aloha, Oregon brought police to the home of Ms. Lorna Jeanne Dudash, 45. Ms. Dudash was apparently making a ruckus but failing to meet her deepest needs. When the (allegedly handsome) deputy left, Lorna Jeanne--whose name sounds like a cookie co. to me--decided to call 9-1-1 and summon him back. From the AP story:

"He's the cutest cop I've seen in a long time. I just want to know his name," Dudash told the dispatcher. "Heck, it doesn't come very often a good man comes to your doorstep."

After listening to some more, followed by a bit of silence, the dispatcher asked again why Dudash needed the deputy to return.

"Honey, I'm just going to be honest with you, OK? I just thought he was cute. I'm 45 years old, and I'd just like to meet him again, but I don't know how to go about doing that without calling 911," she said.

The deputy returned, verified that there was no emergency and arrested her for misusing the 911 system, an offense punishable by a fine of up to several thousand dollars and a year in jail...

Poor Lorna Jeanne. She just wanted a good man. I hope she appears before a "cutie pie" judge. (No statutory penalty for passing a note to a bailiff...)

Russian President Offers Feline Excuse for Pedophilic Kiss

2006-07-06T14:14:00.000-04:00

It's a little shocking to see a grown man approach and talk to a small boy, and then seize the boy by the waist when his father tries to pull him away. It's even weirder to then see the grown man swiftly lift the boy's shirt and kiss his stomach.

And that is why the voting public in Russia hasn't quite gotten past Vladimir Putin's decision last week to steal a belly-kiss from a 5 year-old.

(See this bizarre incident on video.)

I'm not sure what would happen if a U.S. President was filmed doing this. I'm quite certain that the public affairs team wouldn't let him offer the kind of explanation Putin did today:

"He seemed to me very independent, sure of himself and at the same time defenseless so to speak, an innocent boy and a very nice little boy. I tell you honestly, I just wanted to touch him like a kitten and that desire of mine ended in that act."

Oh ok, that makes sense. He was cute and defenseless, so you just had to touch him like a housepet... wait WHAT!?!? Is this ok? Is Russia comfortable being led by a man who wants to touch boys like kittens? I don't think anyone's accurately capturing how unfathomably weird this whole thing is!

Hasselhoff Severs Arm Tendon w/Chandelier While Shaving in London Gym Bathroom

2006-06-30T15:25:00.000-04:00

I think the headline pretty much says it. But yes, this actually happened. Honestly, I think there are enough silly elements here to make 2 or 3 good stories, and yet they all came together here to really create something special.

Truthfully, any incident involving David Hasselhoff in a gym bathroom that becomes world news is spectacular.
And anytime a celebrity is hospitalized with a self-inflicted chandelier injury you have to stop and smile.

But here we get both. The chandelier-assaulted celebrity was Hasselhoff. Who was in the bathroom of a gym, almost certainly naked (that man enjoys covering his skin like sportswriters enjoy covering the WNBA). And, while shaving, he somehow drove his head into a chandelier with enough force to send shards of glass flying, severing a tendon in his arm. Wow.

USA Today just ran a story on how amazingly well things are going for Hasselhoff, but I'm not so sure. I mean just weeks before speeding to the hospital with a tourniquet on his arm and cream on his face he was caught bawling at the American Idol finale.

*the public relations assault that followed his girly Idol sobbing was as hilarious as the incident itself, and culminated with Hasselhoff's highly visible appearance the next night at a Dallas Mavericks game where he wore a manly black shirt w/3 buttons open, laughed off the Idol tears in a carefully planned courtside interview, and frequently pumped his fist (PR rep: no smiling, no clapping!)

I think it's clear that he's famous because people think it's so hilarious that he's still famous. Which keeps him famous. It's an interesting phenomenon. I don't think he's in on the joke though. (Neither, apparently, is the German public.)

But just to be sure we're all on the same page, it really is a joke. A joke of almost unimaginable proportions. (Indisputable Evidence HERE)

The Bosom Cancer Catch-22

2006-06-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

Getting a mammogram raises your chances of getting breast cancer. Just doesn't seem fair, does it.

For men, it seems testicular self-examinations still only raise the likelihood of chafing. Or weird looks.

NBA Finals go FINAL: The Heat is On

2006-06-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

Let me admit right out of the gate that I love Dwayne Wade. Perhaps there's a subconscious strain of self-love there since Wade is also a 24 year-old Illinois native with stunning facial features, but I think he is the most exciting player to watch on the planet (only Lebron compares) and has unbelievable grace and maturity off the court for someone his age. And I am *thrilled* that he has just led the Heat to their first NBA championship.

I'm also thrilled Shaquille O'Neal won a post-Kobe title to further solidify his triumph in that divorce. I love Shaq too. And the whole big brother-little brother thing he has going with Wade is downright adorable, and if you can't appreciate them as a duo then you simply can't appreciate duo's period, and probably would have just as soon detached Robin's sidecar f/Batman's motorcycle. And I think that's sad. But hey, live how you want to, ok? But I'm happy for the Diesel and Flash. I just hope the championship montages don't lead to a resurgence for Will Smith's Miami...

But back to Wade. Ever since his incredible, team-carrying performance to win game 5 Sunday night--which included a 21-25 night at the free throw line--it had been a non-stop whine-fest that swelled to a deafening chorus of 50 million sports fans and writers flinging their hands in the air and saying "Wade gets all the calls!!!"

The monotonuous outcry centered on a few main points:

* No one has gotten such generous/biased officiating since Michael Jordan
* Wade shot as many free throws in Game 5 (25) as the entire Dallas team
* The NBA wants Miami to win because they a) want a 7 game series, b) like teams with stars c) hate Mark Cuban, or d) all of the above.

Well I think they're all lame. The 7 game series theory makes some sense since millions of dollars are at stake there. But then the series just ended in 6 games. Oops.

There's a reason besides jersey sales and sexiness that lots of fouls are called for Dwayne Wade--he's really good. He attacks the basket relentlessly. He invites contact. He pump-fakes and then jumps into defenders.

These are all things players do occasionally and we're not surprised when fouls are called. Wade simply does them all the time. And why not? Have we not seen Kobe do the same things? And why shouldn't he? Should stars who are great at the free throw line settle for tightly guarded jumpers (See: Dirk Nowitzki) b/c it's considered cheap to drive the lane and take a foul? I think that's stupid. Drive to the hoop. If someone clubs you on the arm, or gets faked out and caught in the air, you take the contact and make 2 free throws.

And honestly, I'm sad to see Bill Simmons, my hero, fall back on the old number-of-free-throws-as-indicator-of-officiating-fairness trope. Because it's a dumb and simplistic argument that ignores the actual game taking place.

Anyone watching the Dallas-Miami series would agree that the teams play different offensive styles. Dirk shoots beautiful 20 foot jumpers off the dribble. Jason Terry shoots jumpers off the dribble. Stackhouse the same. Dallas shoots the ball over defenders.

Miami doesn't. Wade slashes to the basket. Shaq bangs into a guy and looks for an easy bucket. Whatever you want to say it's just not the same. This number of free throws comparison is apples and oranges. Wade frequently pump fakes and then jumps into a defender. People learn by middle school basketball that this earns you two free throws. Does this mean when the ball comes down on the other end and Dirk lofts a graceful college 3 over a shorter defender that we're supposed to blow the whistle and give him shots if he misses? Nonsense. Is it fair that one style of play earns you a lot more easy points? No. And that's exactly why it's smart to play Wade's style. Dirk's great when he goes to the basket (see end of Spurs series). He just never does. Maybe instead of obsessing about the officiating until smokes came out of his ears,* Avery Johnson should have told Dirk to go at the rim.

*anyone who saw the game 5 press conference knows the little guy was hanging on by a thread

There was one call very worthy of questioning, at the end of Game 5. Wade shot the game-winning free throws after a foul was called for nothing but incidental contact. That probably should have been a no-call. I can buy that. But that play--even if game-deciding--does not make a much larger argument true. I mean one play earlier Wade got a guy up in the air with a fake, tried to jump into him, but wasn't given the call. Don't you think if he really were getting slavish adoration from the referees at home that they'd have helped him out there, when he jumped into Harris but mostly missed him? Well they didn't. I think the referees are doing an ok job.

And for those still clutching their Kleenex because Wade shot a total of 25 free throws go back and look at the tape and tell me he shouldn't have shot at least 21. Get over it.

*update: The NY Times thinks this title is proof that Riley was right to toss last year's supporting cast and sign Payton and Walker. A glance at the box score reveals those two perennial "All-Stars" went a combined 1-13 on threes in the last game. I'm just saying...

Sasha Cohen Failed Our Country

2006-02-24T05:39:00.000-05:00

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
I'm KIDDING. Mostly. But honestly, haven't these Olympics been tremendously miserable for the anticipated stars? Doesn't anyone want to be on a Wheaties box? Who would they use at this point--Bode Miller for his awesome commercials?

And speaking of commercials, how historically embarassing was the snowboarder chick's early celebration gold-to-silver fall? Lindsey Jacobellis is about to win gold and she inexplicably tries to bust a trick and ends up in the snow. It's too bad her coach wasn't there to tell her that her Visa check card got stolen so peace and calm could wash over her when she started getting a little too excited about the victory that never was. Hilarious.

That event, though, the snowboardcross, was super cool. It's almost like having skiers run the luge track--a bunch at a time. What a great idea. I bet whoever thought of it is brilliant and has an age that starts with a 2.

I have to comment on the pathetic Shani Davis-Chad Hedrick speedskating feud. The brooding inner-city wonder vs. the chiseled Texan. You'd think it'd be intriguing. Instead it was like watching two friends fight in the middle-school cafeteria and then listening to them both tell their side of the story for the next week.

I don't know if I'm taking Davis' side, but I'm not with Hedrick.

Ok, so Shani Davis is kind of self-focused and withdrawn and made individual success his sole concern. If you think that's terrible then criticize him. Even publicly if you think you need to. But then let's move on with our lives. When Davis and another U.S. skater both medalled Hedrick made it a point to only congratulate his other teammate? Then calls Davis childish for leaving a press event after saying he thought Hedrick disrespected him. Probably the most nauseating thing was when Hedrick was interviewed after getting third in the 1,500 meters and blamed his loss on the feud (mostly his creation in the first place), then proceeded to drone on and on and on about how he's a team-first guy, hangs out with the teammates, they'll all tell you I put the team first, blah blah blah.

You know what? Shani Davis is your teammate too. If you're so big on supporting the team how about you air your complaints once and then bury the hatchet and get the team focused. Or maybe even publicly congratulate him when he wins your country a medal.

Final thought: I may be crazy, but doesn't Irina Slutskaya sounds like the female lead in an Austin Powers movie?

O-V-E-R-R-E-A-C-T-I-O-N

2006-02-08T20:37:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'll admit I'm a sucker for any high drama at a spelling bee. But when you get an eliminated child's mother threatening to appeal to the Supreme Court? Well, then you have something special.

Such is the case with the recent spelling bee controversy extraordinaire out of Reno, NV, where 14 year old Sara Beckman (picture right) was wrongfully eliminated from competition after correctly spelling the word "discernible." Sara and her parents brought evidence to the bee authorities after the competition, but they said it was too late to give her another chance.

Then mom flipped.

"I'm a momma bear with her bear claws out," Cindy Beckman said. "Spellers and academic children don't get all the accolades that the sports kids do. This is one of their few chances to shine, to get attention and look what happens... I'll take this to the U.S. Supreme Court. I will take this to the International Court of law to fight for my baby's rights."

While Mrs. Beckman's maternal tenacity must be admired (feared?), it's unlikely the International Court of law will be able to add a middle school spelling dispute to its docket. Nevertheless, I admit I don't totally understand the rationale of the bee keepers here.

According to Washoe County School District spokesman Steve Mulvenon:

"She (Sara) spelled the word correctly, that is not in question. The issue is that there is a way and a process to do a timely challenge, and nobody challenged it until after the fact. The analogy that I would give, in the NFL, if the coach is going to throw a challenge flag, they have got to do it before the next play begins. Once you go beyond that point, you can't go back."

This sounds good, but I don't think the spelling bee folks really want to enforce the rules this way. A kid is supposed to appeal their elimination before the next kid gets up and takes a word?? Do they know what the result of this will be once kids understand the stakes and the rules? Every aspiring spelling bee champ--already maladjusted, slightly unhinged, and adrift at the fringe of a society that does not appreciate his awkward intelligence and special word skills--now believes that if he's ever to appeal a ruling he must throw a fit in the 10 seconds that follow the buzzer that pierces his world with the horrifying ring of failure.

Kids are gonna freak out.

You don't think this will lead to spellers staying at the microphone and screaming through tears that they said the word right?

Listen to me spelling bee organizers: you don't wanna deal with these kids right after they go out. If I learned anything from watching Spellbound that was it. You have to coddle these dark little geniuses. They are maniacally driven and they are comfortable dealing with letters; people they struggle with. Just let them come up later and talk. Otherwise you've signed on for instantaneous confrontations with stressed out 13 year old loners hanging by a thread with their dreams dashed and nothing to lose.

I think it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court rules on this.

A Rant Concerning the Not-So-Super Bowl

2006-02-08T01:21:00.000-05:00

First, this was a phenomenally boring game. No game with a flee flicker touchdown pass and a long interception return could have been less exciting start to finish.

All week I heard about how Ben Roethlisberger was the next great NFL quarterback ("Good as Brady?" was an ESPN topic). He was lousy.

For two full weeks every sports media outlet forced me to marinate in heartwarming Jerome Bettis stories. He was inconsequential. And didn't deflect enough praise after the game. I kept waiting for him to say something to the effect of "It's great to finally win a Super Bowl, and to do it here at home in Detroit--but this game isn't just about me..." Instead the post-game interchanges went more like this:

Fawning Reporter: Jerome, you're the most amazing guy EVER!
Bettis: Yeah, yeah; I know what you mean. And I'll tell you--it's great man.

Secondly, BAD halftime show. In the post-Janet's breast era we've now seen Super Bowl halftime shows performed by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones. Next year the league said it is willing to consider bands that are from America or peaked after the mid 1960's--but don't expect both.

Does anyone else remember when the halftime show was a bigger than life event? I mean it was never a good musical performance, but I remember one recent year where they had N'Sync, then Aerosmith, then Britney Spears, and then Nelly--all one act, one stage! Now we get a bland 3-song set from a single band fronted by a 60 year-old with a bare midriff?

Thumbs down.

(the bottom of this article lists each year's Super Bowl halftime act--my two favorites:
XXV - Jan. 27, 1991 - New Kids on the Block
XXVII - Jan. 31, 1993 - Michael Jackson and 3,500 local children)

Third, and most important, the referees were TERRIBLE. I mean awful. I've never seen worse in an important football game. Just unbelievable.

Pittsburgh's Joey Porter made waves when he accused the officials of cheating for the Colts because the league wanted Peyton Manning to win. Well if the league was originally pulling for Peyton, lord almighty did they throw their support to Jerome Bettis. I think reporters wrote their post-game piece about his feel-good sendoff win days before the game and just started partying in Detroit.

Perhaps it's just coincidence but there were 4 or 5 game turning calls and all went against the Seahawks and all were either blatantly or probably wrong. Briefly:

1. Darrel Jackson scored the game's first touchdown, but the play was called back for a phantom pushoff. If you've played football and you're not from Pittsburgh you know that was a normal play. Much more physical pushes happen every other down between receivers and DBs. A joke of a call, and the Seahawks had to settle for a field goal. That put them up 3-0.

2. Ben Roethlisberger got to the goal line on a pivotal 3rd down play near Seattle's goal. The linesman initially called the play down at the 2 inch mark--he then was overruled and changed his mind. Touchdown. Replays did not show the ball crossing the line, but neither did they show clear evidence that it did not. Touchdown stands; scraggly pre-anointed golden boy raises his arms on the sideline. 7-3 Pittsburgh.

(I'm willing to buy this one only b/c the call on the field creates a presumption and it was not completely clear they were wrong--though the probably were, and the game should have gone to 3-3. )

3. The Seahawks throw a beautiful pass down to the Pittsburgh 1-yard line to complete a great rally and setup the touchdown that will give them a 17-14 lead... But wait! What's this? The officials call holding. Replay will later show...nothing of the sort. Just normal blocking. Maybe they got the wrong guy?

I played offensive line for 5 years and got called for holding plenty of times--that was not holding. I'd venture to say that if you focus on the offensive tackles on any NFL play you'll probably see something much closer to holding than what you'll see in that absurd call that killed Seattle. The blocking there was more legal than average for an NFL play. No matter to Team Bettis in the stripes. Touchdown averted. A sack and a missed field goal later the Hawks have NOTHING. Pittsburgh still up 14-10.

4. Matt Hasselback throws an interception and makes a shockingly decent tackle on the ball carrier. What happens next defies the bad officiating imagination--this one requires creativity.

The officials decide to call a 15-yard penalty on Hasselback for an illegal block on the guy standing next to the guy he tackled. Two problems. 1) It was a tackle, not a block. 2) He never touched the guy he illegally "blocked." Beyond weird.

15 yard closer to the endzone the Steelers quickly drove the nail into the coffin with a nifty reverse pass for a touchdown. Pittsburgh 21 - Seattle 10. That's your final, folks.

Seattle whined a bit in the aftermath of this game, but you know what? They should have. They deserved much better in a game that will determine their legacies in their chosen profession. That game should have been a Seattle win or gone down to the wire. Instead we got the sleepy Bettis fest.

Count me unenthused.

MAXIM Super Sleazy

2006-02-08T01:04:00.000-05:00

Here's the back story on this ridiculous letter sent in advance to the female guests of this year's Maxim Super Bowl party. A friend of mine, like most men, wanted to attend badly. His friend's girlfriend, a 2005 "hometown hottie," was on the list. He begged her to take him. Alas, she could not take him (or any man). In explanation she forwarded Maxim's directions.

I think it's actually charming how these guys understand and embrace the utter shallowness of their undertaking. The letter is funny--the FAQ's are priceless. You read it here first.

----------Forwarded message ----------
"MAXIM ROCK CITY"

Congratulations, you are receiving this email as personal confirmation of your invitation to the exclusive Maxim pre-Game celebrity party. Please read this entire email (especially the FAQs at the bottom.)

The party starts at 9pm, Saturday, February 4th, 2006.

In order to check-in you must arrive at the check-in point at Orchestra Place (3663 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48201) You will need a valid 21+ ID. Once checked in you will be escorted to the party nearby.

Our Maxim Superbowl event is one of the most anticipated events of the year and is very exclusive with only the most notable actors, musicians, professional athletes, models, and industry executives in attendance.

You were personally selected to be invited to this event, and we expect you to arrive looking impressive and ready to party!

You must arrive by 9:30pm for check-in, traffic will be challenging so plan accordingly. Parking is available in the parking structure behind the checkin area.

This particular list is for women only. If you would like to recommend another HOT Girlfriend, please have them submit a recent picture and their full name to detroit@igetin.com. Please do not attempt to bring any male accompaniment, they will not be admitted under any circumstance. We have a zero tolerance policy.

Our theme this year is a Maxim Rock Opera (so come dressed as that hot, dirty rocker chick) with amazing drinks and insane entertainment. Of course, as with all Maxim events, everything is complimentary for guests.

regards,
Noah Flom & "Breakfast"
talent & special events
Maxim Magazine
detroit@igetin.com< mailto:mailto:) www.igetin.com

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q. Can Guys (boyfriend, husband, etc) come?

A. No, this is a very exclusive party - so leave 'em at home and come enjoya crazy night with the celebs and over-the-top Maxim madness. Unless you're banging Justin Timberlake or Pharell (but I think they're already on the list)

Q. What should I wear?

A. This is one of the hottest parties you will ever go to, and only you'regetting in because you're a hot chick. So take the opportunity to be bold, aggressive, alluring, and downright sexy. Your job is to make Carmen Electra, Paris Hilton and Jessica Alba look bad...don't f%$k it up!

Q. Should I eat before I come to the party?

A. Maybe - it depends on what you're wearing. We won't be serving food, socome ready for cocktails and other goodies, but don't come starving for dinner, unless that's the only way you're going to look good in that mini-skirt or liquid latex outfit you have planned...then by all means, fashion is a bitch.

Q. Can I bring my really hot girlfriend that didn't RSVP?

A. Yes, if she is really Maxim Hot and has a 21+ ID. Be honest with yourself and us, because if she's not hot enough for us she won't get in, then you will be faced with that unfortunate choice of leaving her in the cold while you party like a rockstar with the likes of Josh Duhamel, Jaz-Z, Jessica Alba, Tom Brady...

Q. I don't really look like the photo that I sent in, will that be a problem when I check-in?

A. Yes, even though you RSVPed and we added you to our exclusive list, we still retain the absolute right to refuse entrance to anyone we want. That means your girlfriend that is the "designated driver," the one that "offends spandex", the one that makes you look hotter or thinner, the one that only gets into hot clubs because she is with you, the one that buys cocktails out of circumstance, not out of choice...we are NOT going to let her in; sorry, this week we are shallow guys who only care about looks; this is our job and we like the money and the perks; don't embarrass them or us.

Supreme Court Crumbling

2005-11-28T16:47:00.000-05:00

Many of my left-leaning friends think the Supreme Court is falling apart.
It seems, in a literal sense, they're right. Today the very edifice of our nation's judiciary began to fall.

Up and Down Week for Brown University

2005-11-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

First, my alma mater gets embarassed when an undercover film crew from "The O'Reilly Factor" shot footage of the off-the-charts debauchery that happens each year at the "SexPowerGod" Queer Alliance party. The party happens every fall at Brown and if you remember what happened you drank conservatively. If you had on more than Saran Wrap you dressed conservatively. This year, with the film crew on hand, a record 20+ students had to be carted away for medical attention. Yeesh. Highlights from the report:

[Producer Jesse Waters] heard students having sex in the bathroom stall next to him and saw others having sex behind the DJ booth..."It was the wildest party I'd ever been to," he added. "Girls were falling down drunk all over the place." ...

O'Reilly began the segment on the "prestigious" and "highly regarded Ivy League school" by saying the footage of the event was "not for kids... [one] shot showed a student, clad only in a red drinking cup, entering an EMS truck.

NICE. It's shady to film drunk kids without their knowledge but... c'mon, people. We did most of the embarassing ourselves...

In happier news, I'd like to congratulate the IVY LEAGUE CHAMPION Brown U. Football Team!!!

Yes, our season-capping win over lowly Columbia makes us outright Ivy Champs for the first time ever. Even more impressive is running back Nick Hartigan, who ran for for 229 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday, setting new Ivy League records for career touchdowns (54) and points (324)...all after flying into NYC the previous night from a Rhodes Scholarship interview in Pittsburgh.

Hartigan definitely represents the best of our school. Suffice to say he wasn't the kid boarding the ambulance in a red drinking cup.

Presidential Laughs

2005-11-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

Michael Crowley enjoys an anecdote from Christopher Meyer's new Tony Blair book about the day the British PM first met America's new President:

That night, the Blairs watched the film "Meet the Parents" with the Bushes. Meyer wrote that Bush "split his sides" laughing when he heard that the character played by actor Ben Stiller was named "Gay Focker."

Crowley wonders how different the President actually is from the parodies played by Will Ferrel, and offers a great link.

If you either like Will Ferrel or dislike the President, this is a must-see.

Panther Cheerleaders Show Affection, then Claws

2005-11-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

What do you get when you cross the ultimate Bud-Lite commercial frat boy fantasy (think lipstick lesbian catfight) with Jerry Springer style white trash dysfunctionality?

Well, I guess you get this.
Not sure what more to say.

Except that using the name of another girl on the cheerleading squad when you get busted by the cops is soooo high school.

**UPDATE**
The girls have been kicked off the cheerleading squad.
Their pictures and bios, now erased from the team site, can be seen here.

WNBA MVP Comes Out

2005-10-26T19:39:00.000-04:00

Sheryl Swoopes is arguably the best female basketball player in the world. In college she set the NCAA Championship game points record when she dropped 47 against Ohio State to give Texas Tech its first national title in 1993 . The 34-year old plays in the most elite women's league, the WNBA and is its reigning MVP (for the 3rd time).

And in the upcoming issue of ESPN the magazine Swoopes reveals that she's gay, making her the most prominent team athlete to reveal his/her homosexuality--either while playing or in retirement.

It will be interesting to see the effect her announcement has. Her status as an "out" player in women's pro sports will likely encourage other lesbian athletes to talk about their sexuality, though it may not affect the dynamics of men's team sports, where the stigma remains stronger.

Swoopes is just ready to be herself in the public eye, and to be open about her feelings for her partner, former Old Dominion coach Alisa Scott. "I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love."

Meet the White Supremacist Olsons

2005-10-24T00:06:00.000-04:00

I tend to agree with Blues Brother Jake, who once said "I hate Illinois Nazis." I'm also comfortable saying I hate California Nazis--and that includes the hate-crooning cupcakes at left.

I honestly can't believe this is real. Most disturbing thing I've seen in a long time.

NBA Player-Hating (in proverbial sense)

2005-10-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

Ever since professional basketball began to more openly embrace hip hop culture in the post-Michael Jordan era, NBA Commissioner David Stern's motherly dictatorship of the league has progressed from arrogant and overinvolved to downright patronizing, exploitative, and over-bearing. Stern clearly fetishes the young black stars that sell his product with their talent and charisma, yet he plainly dislikes the culture that has produced, and been embraced by, most of them. And so for some time he has engaged in a quiet, passive-agressive campaign to compel them to act a little less hip hop, and a little more like Mike and Magic.

Yes, the commisioner still yearns for players in the 80's-early 90's mold, like Jordan and Magic Johnson. They were black mega-stars, but they were easily embraced by older generations and mainstream white America. Their shorts fell only to mid-thigh, they wore suits off the court, smiled frequently, and never gave post-game interviews in wife-beaters, retro jerseys, or do-rags.

You could say that Stern has been dragged into the Allen Iverson era kicking and screaming, but in truth he hasn't gone anywhere. What he's done is quietly take careful steps to mitigate the league's public embrace of young urban (read: black) culture. He's not racist (not my charge) or even elitist, probably; just a businessmen trying to make sure he can sell his sport in Iowa living rooms. But his paternalistic micro-managing of players' self-expression is wrong nonetheless.

And it reached a new low on Monday when he issued a memo instituting a new "minimum" dress code for the NBA. Beginning this season, if a player is "on team or league business," he is not allowed to wear the following:

Sleeveless shirts
T-shirts, jerseys, or sports apparel (unless appropriate for the event (e.g., a basketball clinic), team-identified, and approved by the team)
Headgear of any kind while a player is sitting on the bench or in the stands at a game, during media interviews, or during a team or league event or appearance (unless appropriate for the event or appearance, team-identified, and approved by the team).
Chains, pendants, or medallions worn over the player's clothes.
Sunglasses while indoors.
Headphones (other than on the team bus or plane, or in the team locker room).

That's right. Now we'll be spared the ghastly sight of a player getting off a bus wearing a medallion or giving an interview in a hat. Instead, while on team business, players are now "required to wear Business Casual attire," defined by the league as:

A long or short-sleeved dress shirt (collared or turtleneck), and/or a sweater.
Dress slacks, khaki pants, or dress jeans.
Appropriate shoes and socks, including dress shoes, dress boots, or other presentable shoes, but not including sneakers, sandals, flip-flops, or work boots.

Players attending games they are not playing in must wear sport coats and dress shoes.

(Iverson will have to lose the hat, necklace, and non-sanctioned jersey.)

Honestly, I think these requirements could seem overboard and paternalistic for a prep school basketball team--but for the NBA? Grown men, extremely gifted and possessing tremendous market value, are being treated like children and told that they're somenow unprofessional on account of their personal style. And it's ridiculous. Players' immediate reactions suggested that many don't expect to follow the code and don't expect others to either. But Stern quickly responded, saying that players resisting his policy "will have to make a decision about how they want to spend their adult life in terms of playing in the NBA or not." What a jerk.

Reporters a Little Too Starved for Attention

2005-10-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration has lately been all too easy to peg as corrupt and bumbling white males of privilege, and so journalists have happily enjoyed their recent turn as muckracking purveyors of righteousness. It's starting to seem like a few have a bit TOO much of a flair for the dramatic, however.

The most obvious case in point is Michelle Kosinski, who in recent weeks made Rolling Stone's annual "hot list" and then a colossal fool of herself.

Kosinski, ever the brave field reporter, was providing a live dispatch on flooding in New Jersey as she paddled a canoe. Her Today show report quickly switched gears from informative to ridiculous, however, when two relief workers walked right in front of her canoe--in ankle deep water!
**(see video)**

It suddenly became clear that Kosinski was paddling her way through about 6 inches, and the Today show hosts quickly tried to save the situation by mocking the hottie field reporter.

Matt Lauer: "Are these holy men, perhaps walking on top of the water?"
Katie Couric: "Have you run aground yet?"

Kosinski and NBC later claimed she'd "been riding in deeper water near an overflowing river down the street, but there were concerns that the current was too strong for her. "

Good good. Safety first.

Ludacris & the 7th Circuit: When a Hoe is just a Ho

2005-10-11T19:27:00.000-04:00

I promise to stop writing only about legal news, but I mentioned this court opinion awhile back and then the link went bad, making it unviewable. And this simply must be seen.

Ludacris--who went to my middle school for a year (if I know you I'm sure I've mentioned this 3 times)--probably wasn't considered one of the modern thinkers most likely to be quoted in a decision by a Federal judge, but that's exactly what happened when the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision in USA v. Murphy, Derron J.

The official case listing is here, and what you want to do is open the "opinion" and scan down to the first footnote at the bottom of page 2.

Just plain hilarious.

Bush Nominates Miers, Disappoints Everyone

2005-10-03T12:52:00.000-04:00

In Cheney VP fashion, the head of George W. Bush's Supreme Court search committee has proven to the final destination of the search. The President has nominated his personal counsel, Texas lawyer Harriet Miers, to replace retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This is a bad thing no matter who you are. Let me break it down and explain why.

She's not qualified.

I'm sorry. Not to be mean, but there's nothing to qualify this (I'm sure very sharp) woman except her proximity to W. It's not just that she didn't go to a top 10 law school (or for that matter a Top 50). It's not that she's never been a judge before. It's not that she is not a well known or well respected legal mind. A Supreme Court nominee need not be all of these things. But if you're lacking in one area, you need to compensate in the others. Miers goes 0-3.

To be fair, she is a successful private attorney, and blazed trails in Texas as the first female partner at a major firm and first head of the Texas bar. That's excellent. But it's still true that her resume consists only of private practice, running the Texas lottery from 1995-2000, and then going to work for George W. Neither side is going to refute the charge that she's a legal lightweight. She is.

She's a bad nominee if you're a liberal...

Miers' presence on the court would constitute "Bush packing." She could never doubt that she owed the position 100% to Bush Jr. If Alberto Gonzalez was white, was a woman, never served on the Texas Supreme Court or as U.S. Attorney General, and went to Southern Methodist instead of Harvard you'd have Harriet Miers. Sure she might go Souter on the President and just give him the finger once she has the job, but she's undeniably there as benificiary of a personal gift.

(above: POTUS kicking it with the nominee in Crawford, TX)

But she also may prove to be the conservative liberals fear. While President of the Texas Bar she vehemently opposed a statement backing abortion rights. Some have said this may only have been because she felt the Bar should remain neutral, but it is the only time she has tipped her hand on the subject, and she seems to hold Roe in less esteem than O'Connor.

And the frustration for liberals here is that Miers is a complete unknown. There's no way Democrats can know where she stands. They have nothing to review. Nothing to ask her about or hold her to. She may indeed be a figure worthy of the filibuster they've been mulling, but they simply can't know this and thus can't pull the trigger. She will give them fits. She's even more unopposable than Roberts on ideoligical grounds--if he was a blank slate then she is a black hole of expressed legal opinion--and unless they take the nasty route of questioning her qualification for the position (actually a more Constitutionally viable reason) they have little to rise against.

...and a bad nominee if you're a conservative.

Interestingly, Miers will probably meet stronger opposition from the right than the left. Conservative "pro-family" groups are not satisfied and are already mobilizing against her, in large part because they are not convinced she's a serious conservative. For starters, she was a Democrat through the 80's and gave money to Clinton in '92 when he ran against her present boss's daddy (she also gave money to Gore). Before latching on with Governor W in the Lone Star state, she really seemed to be a donkey, and thus no one trusts her credentials. Aside from her pre-W misallegiances she also was endorsed weeks ago by opposition leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Placating dingy Harry is surely not what social conservatives wanted and they must be sorely disappointed after helping elect Bush to two terms only to see two court positions opened up and filled without a single Thomas-Scalia conservative added to the court. Newsweek is convinced that Miers is not hostile to Roe and that Bush has successfully duped the pro-life crowd he pretends to endorse but in reality (e.g. practical matters of policy) does not. With 55 Republican votes in the Senate and a plethora of brilliant conservative minds sitting on federal benches around the country, they had to have hoped for more than Bush nominating an undistinguished personal friend.

The pick doesn't even make sense politically for Bush himself.

In the wake of the Michael Brown fiasco, one would expect Bush to avoid even a hint of cronyism. That's why it's shocking that he has placed another loyalty-over-qualification figure in a top federal position. It's also suprising that at a time when a majority of the country is unhappy with him, the President has selected a nominee that will excite absolutely no one and satisfy neither side of the political aisle.

I'm sure Ms. Miers is a wonderful intelligent woman, but I give this pick two thumbs down. I suspect many Senators will as well. Almost all either feel pressure either from women's groups or social conservatives and both will be out in force against this nominee.

Links
Bill Kristol sums up the conservative discontent - "a combination of cronyism and capitulation" David Frum laments "an unforced error."
Daily Kos hails "a victory--both politically and judicially--for Democrats."
Slate's Emily Bazelon sees a "nasty mix" of "cronyism and affirmative action" and says the President didn't need to give up brilliance and accomplishment along with the y chromosome in choosing a nominee.
Bruce Reed dubs the Supreme Court "a new official dumping ground for hacks."
"Think of her as a very capable indentured servant of the Bush family," advises Andrew Sullivan, who sees a tough but unqualified nominee. "After Roberts, we have gone from a clear A grade to a C +"

Supreme Hearing for Gold-digger

2005-09-27T19:44:00.000-04:00

Interestingly, while the rest of the world has grown tired of listening to and considering Anna Nicole Smith, the Supreme Court is ready to give it a shot. The former Playboy Playmate, who marr-ied 89 year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II a year before his 1995 death, initially was awarded $474 million of his estate, which was subsequently reduced to $89 million, and finally by the 9th Circuit Federal court to $0 million.

That's right, she married the almost dead guy that frequented the Texas club where she "danced" and didn't get a dime of the inherit-ance (this despite singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" at the funeral--seriously, I think you can find the video somewhere). It seems unjust really. And as it turns out...

The Supreme Court--always happy to straighten out that crazy 9th Circuit in San Francisco--has graciously offered Ms. Smith nine shoulders to cry on.

The question to be debated is a technical matter of jurisdiction, but don't think for one moment that the sometimes-plus-size sometimes-actress won't find a way to make some part of the proceedings ridiculous. Mark your calendar and stay tuned.

Clintons Promoted in Network TV, Chinese Beds

2005-09-27T01:21:00.000-04:00

Hillary Clinton's '08 Presidential campaign gets an early start tonight when ABC launches its new drama "Commander in Chief," starring Geena Davis as our first female President. Davis' character (apparently crafted by the Glover Park Group) will not just vaguely support the notion of a lady POTUS, but will meet many specific objectives of the Clinton '08 team.

Can America embrace a female Commander in Chief?
This show has titled itself after that Presidential role, and here's a hint: Davis doesn't fall on her face in her efforts to fulfill it. In fact she's thoughtful but steely--just what we need. Concern averted. Check.

Can the public now accept and embrace Hillary as a moderate?
Davis' character is unaffiliated (because of course a modern VP could acquire the position without choosing whether she's a Democrat or Republican). Davis' proto-Hillary is in fact so non-far left she's actually VP to a Republican President.

Can Hillary escape the caricature of being an unfeminine woman with raving (i.e. man-like) power lust?
The clever plot development here is that Davis is ready to step aside and not assume the presidency until the Republican meanies start acting sexist and bring up menopause (seriously)--then she feels she has to do it. Nice!

The strong, moderate, reluctant leader. Hillary, we are ready.

Critics don't seem ready for the show itself, though. I skimmed 7 or 8 reviews and apparently only the Chicago Tribune likes it.

MEANWHILE, on the other side of the globe...
Husband Bill is acquiring some unwanted fame in China, as the "Clinton" is now poised to become a leading brand of condom.

The creator of the condoms, clearly an admirer of our last President, assured reporters that "the Clinton condom will be the top of our line." Adding that he's sure the condom's namesake would not "be unhappy about this because he's a very generous man."

The company is also introducing a "Lewinsky" condom, which (perhaps fittingly) represents the cheaper alternative.

Read NY Times Opinions For Free

2005-09-21T13:08:00.000-04:00

Starting this week it costs $50 a year to read the nation's elite stable of newspaper columnists. If you love the NY Times gang but can't handle the new price tag, read them here for free.

Onion Article Proves Prophetic

2005-09-19T01:33:00.000-04:00

Last year the Onion wrote a laugh-out-loud satire announcing Gillette's intention to out-do the Schick Quattro (a 4-bladed razor that one-upped their Mach 3) by producing a 5-bladed razor. Read it, it's hilarious.

And it's even funner today, as Gillette has just unveiled the very product put forth as a joke last year. I love it.

Danish Taxes Used for Hookers

2005-09-16T20:27:00.000-04:00

No, it's not a scandal. It's public policy. Under the new 'Sex, irrespective of disability' initiative, the Danish government is hiring prostitutes to have sex once a month with disabled citizens.

I guess this is just one more example of how far out ahead of us the Europeans are when it comes to moral sensibilities. I mean we're still shucking off those Puritan roots while those kind-hearted Danes are taxing their citizens to buy sex for the handicapped. When will we stop being so close-minded and tight-fisted?

Actually the policy has many vehement critics at home, but its advocates are standing firm.

Stig Langvad of the country's Disabled Association said the politicians critical of the plan are showing "double standards".

He said: "The disabled must have the same possibilities as other people. Politicians can debate whether prostitution should be allowed in general, instead of preventing only the disabled from having access to it."

GREAT argument. I mean really when you think about it, if there's a group of people not having much sex and you don't use public funding to buy them prostitutes--that's pretty much outright discrimination. It's too bad Martin Luther King was taken away from us, cause I feel like he would have really gotten behind this one.

Foster Kids Uncaged

2005-09-14T20:22:00.000-04:00

MATT DILLON: I guess you could call me an architect--it's just a job really, a way to keep me moving. My real passion is my hobby.
CAMERON DIAZ: What's that?
I work with retards.
I beg your pardon?
You know...(flaps lips with fingers) the guys who ride the short bus.
Isn't that a little politically incorrect?
The hell with that. No one's gonna tell me who I can and can't work with.
No, I mean
--There's this one kid, we call him Mongo on account of he's a mongoloid. He got out of his cage once and--
--He's in a cage?!

--There's Something About Mary

See, the humor there is anyone who knew something about the mentally handicapped would never think of keeping retarded children in cages. Apparently, however, one Ohio family didn't find the idea so preposterous.

The Boston Globe reports that 11 children were recently removed from an adoptive family in Wakeman, OH (pop. 1,000) that was keeping 8 of them in cages. Michael Gravelle, 56, and Sharen Gravelle, 57, told police that the children, some with mental disorders, "needed to be protected from each other," and that a psychiatrist had told them it was a good idea.

A doctor consulted in August by county officials had a different take: "I said, 'No, I couldn't imagine any situation in which children should be kept in cages,' said Gregory Keck, director of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio."

At night, authorities say, eight of the children were confined in 3 1/2-foot-tall wooden cages stacked in bedrooms on the second floor. The cages were painted in bright, primary colors, with some rigged with alarms that would send a signal to the downstairs when a cage door was opened..."The sheriff and I stood there for a few minutes and just kind of stared at what we were seeing. We were speechless," [county sheriff's Lt. Randy] Sommers said.

The residents of Wakemen apparently thought the caged youngsters seemed well enough--"Those kids were dressed better than some of the kids who live in Cleveland"-- and never saw good reason to be concerned.

Said neighbor Leah Hunter: "They looked OK. They hardly ever wore shoes but I'm a country girl and for me that's normal."

Fair enough.

Oh yeah, the blog

2005-09-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

I apologize to my vast and enthusiastic readership for my recent haitus from posting. I haven't mainly for two reasons. 1) In the past couple weeks I moved from Washington to Illinois and then to Ann Arbor to start law school and have been very preoccupied. 2) Katrina has (rightfully) dominated the news in the past week and simply isn't the kind of event I can comment on with two paragraphs of cynical/witty observation. Likewise, it seems out-of-place to make fun of Christina Aguilerra or something, while such harrowing devastation is taking place. I'm honestly not sure what to say.

But I will say this. In my second day working at Homeland Security I was asked to take minutes at a meeting of federal officials. I think it had to do with transportation security. Anyway, one immediate impression I came away with was that FEMA is poorly run. This based only on the gentleman they sent for this meeting. But over the next several months that impression was solidified more than it was called into question. FEMA has done a great job in the aftermath of some disasters, but honestly if a hurricane just leaves one big trail of ripped up houses and you get to ride into town with millions upon millions of dollars in federal money and start handing out goodies, it's pretty hard not to be a hero, and hard not to be a well-received overwhelming success. For all its devastation, jobs like the Hurrican Andrew clean-up--as far as the Federal Agency was concerned--was fairly simple. Ride up to people, hand out food/medicine, have them send grant applications to Washington, and then send big checks. Katrina required a response that was aggressive, resourceful, creative, and brave, and judging from the (admittedly limited) vantage point of the casual media observer it appears to have been none of these things.

That really is a shame. It's sad to see the public Katrina talk starting to get nasty, but it's pretty easy to understand the incredible frustration that is being felt, and how readily that frustation could turn to anger over the course of a few days. The greatest tragedy is this: Katrina--awful in every other way--presented a perfect opportunity for a bitterly divided country to rally together. It should have eased partisan tensions in Washington and in the media as leaders came together to help victims and the grim but inspiring tale was told to the American people. It should have brought together white and black citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as a diverse people found themselves standing together with nothing, seeking solace and help from one another as they faced the loss and tried to move forward together.

As the Mother Hips sang "what good thing do bad things do? Pull us all together." Unfortunately this disaster and its aftermath are now spawning a bitter divisiveness. I'm not pointing the finger at the complainers. The angry protestations of New Orleans' mayor, black legislators, Maureen Dowd, and maybe even Kanye West are well grounded and legitimate. It's easy to become outraged. But it's a shame that what could have contained the silver lining of closing the racial and partisan chasms that exist in America has instead widened them further.

Virginia is for Laptops

2005-08-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

Or so it was yesterday at the Richmond International Raceway, when a sale of of $50 laptops launched a full-fledged riot "with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over."

The computers were being offloaded by a Richmond school district and were four years old, but people were still pretty pumped and came hours early, peed on themselves to stay in line, threw elderly competitors to the ground, beat each other back with chairs, and tried to drive cars through the crowd.
Some shoppers were understandably traumitized but some of the more vicious clearly were satisfied with their prize and considered their actions rational. From CNN:

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

"They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.

Life Lessons from the News

2005-08-11T15:37:00.000-04:00

If you sneak a bomb onto an airplane, be sure to have an Anglo-Saxon name so police don't think you're a terrorist or something.

This was the wisdom of Charles Alfred Dreyling, who attempted to board a plane in Oklahoma City with "an improvised explosive device" hidden in his suitcase. Luckily the FBI was pretty cool about the whole "oh yeah there's a homemade bomb in my suitcase" episode (standard, really) and quickly announced that they'd so far "found no apparent connection to any type of terrorist activity or group."
Oh good. Whew! Seems Dreyling was white and acting alone--don't see any reason why that should cause alarm in Oklahoma City...

If you're planning a funeral in Florida, FEMA will probably pay for it.

The trick is, you have to say the death was caused by one of the 2004 hurricanes. Then the U.S. taxpayers will give you a worthy final sendoff. If your death seems completely unrelated to the hurricanes, remember that hurricanes cause a lot of stress, which makes sick people deteriorate faster, smoke more, ride their motorcycle more recklessly, etc.

Just have fun with it. And if you're afraid you could never dream up a decent hurricane-related cause of death, consider some of the folks who've already nabbed a FEMA-funded funeral:

a Palm Beach Gardens millionaire recovering from heart surgery who died two days before Hurricane Frances; a Miami baby not yet born when the storm arrived; and a Port Charlotte man who died of cirrhosis and heart failure five months after Hurricane Charley.

If you're deciding whether to marry a goofy man or kidnap yourself, ask one simple question: would I rather be married to someone I don't like or mow lawns in a neon reflective vest?

"Runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks chose the latter, and seems just fine.

Stalling, Lies, Probes, and Tiny Dancers

2005-08-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

The John Roberts nomination journey has been fairly quiet, but has seen a few interesting developments so far.

Today's Washington Post reports that the White House is planning to release Roberts' records from his time as counsel to the Reagan and Bush I administrations, but is currently stalling while aides furiously review the 50,000+ pages of documents before Democrats get a crack at them.

They seriously didn't already have someone do this? Everyone's known for years Bush would appoint a Supreme Court Justice and no one in the administration had the frontrunners full records investigated for politically hurtful material? Amazing.

While the Right stonewalls, some on the Left are getting a bit nasty. In the first downright ugly chapter of the con-firmation battle, NARAL has released a grossly manipulative ad suggesting that Roberts wrote a brief defending abortion clinic bombings. The ad, which UPenn's Annenberg FactCheck.org has already called downright false, juxtaposes pic-tures of Roberts and his brief with foot-age from a 1998 abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. A victim tells viewers she was almost killed that day and so "must speak out:" a narrator urges viewers to oppose Roberts because "America can't afford a Justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans." A few problems:

**The Roberts' brief was filed in 1991, 7 years before the 1998 Birmingham bombing the footage and victim testimonial strongly suggest he defended.
**Roberts' brief did not concern bombings at abortion clinics, but rather the practice of forming human blockades to prevent women from entering.
**Finally, while the brief argued that the law in question did not prohibit clinic-blockings, it stated that other pre-existing state laws did.

In sum, not only did Roberts not condone bombings at clinics, he didn't even condone aggressive civil disobedience. More should be expected from NARAL, who is either guilty of cheap politics or horrendous fact-checking.

The other issue drawing anger from the right is the charge that the NY Times has been pursuing the adoption records of Roberts two children, contacting numerous adoption lawyers to seek ways they might get their hands on the papers. The Times recently denied it was still pursuing the records after being blasted by the National Council for Adoption and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who called their actions "reprehensible."

The confirmation process is starting to grow testy, but the highlight so far has been its opening dance, sadly missed by a national TV audience.

While Roberts was unveiled to America in a formal and contrived prime-time press conference, his adopted son John got a serious case of Saturday Night Fever and unleashed a series of dance moves the likes of which the White House has never seen. Though little John's moves were off-camera they delighted the in-house crowd (though not his mother and sister, apparently) and photos of junior's move busting have met rave reviews in the blogosphere. I'm late, but how can I not join in the adoration.
John starts out with a solid, enthusiastic lawnmower... ...then steps toward the Commander-in-Chief to slow it down with the robot...
Then jumps out in his saddle shoes for an all-out throwdown. Dance, Johnnie, DANCE!!

I hope we can all agree on little John, if not his non-dancing Dad.

Hillary's Competition

2005-08-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

Meet Jeanine Pirro, Westchester County District Attorney and 2006 challenger for Hillary Clinton's New York Senate seat. Though Pirro is not the first candidate to enter the race, she is the first to pose even a modest threat to the ultra-popular former first lady, widely considered the Democratic frontrunner for the 2008 Presidential candidacy.

Republicans had sought a tough contender to at least wound Clinton in the 2006 Senate race, and Pirro not only fits the bill but represents a female candidate strong, sharp, and sassy enough to out-Hillary Hillary.

The New York Times describes Pirro as "charismatic," "sharp-elbowed," and "well-financed." Cut in the Giuliani mold, she's a tough prosecuter and death penalty proponent, but has liberal stances on abortion and gay rights, even opposing a ban on "partial-birth" abortions. Her moderate/liberal social positions have the state Conservative Party unimpressed, but the Republican leadership thinks she'll play fine in New York and is more than willing to pitch a big tent to field a tough sexy woman willing to throw punches at Hillary. Yesterday Pirro stepped into the ring and did not tip-toe:

"Hillary Clinton is not running to serve the people of New York. We are just a way station in her run for the presidency. I think voters will choose the only woman who really wants the job. My full-time is a whole lot better than her part-time."

Pirro's one great liability is her husband, Albert J. Pirro, who spent 11 months in prison after a 2000 tax fraud conviction. But her team is unafraid, trusting that in a battle of dirty husband laundry, Bill's boxers would provide sufficient artillery.

Both sides see the 2006 Senate race as an important testing ground to see whether Hillary has Presidential mettle, and Pirro's challenge will surely provide Clinton a chance to prove she still has fight after her
recent metamorphosis to Martha Stewart clone.

The race promises to be quite an affair, with GOP strategist Roger Stone already predicting "the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history."

Stay tuned. This one should be interesting.

Jackson Jurors Convict Star (2 Months Too Late)

2005-08-08T16:01:00.000-04:00

"They ought to be ashamed. They're the ones that let a pedophile go."

That's what Eleanor Cook, 79, had to say recently of the jury that acquitted Michael Jackson of child molestation charges. Many agree, but there's something a bit ironic about Ms. Cook's condemnation of the Jackson jury--she was a member.

18 years after Michael Jackson told the world he was "bad," his lawyers convinced Eleanor he was not, and on June 13th she and eleven others voted unanimously to acquit the king of pop. Two months later, however, she and fellow juror Ray Hultman, 62, now insist they are certain Jackson was guilty and that their fellow jurors are idiots.

All, perhaps, except Katharina Carls, who recently became the third juror to say she's sure Jackson was guilty. (Way to go people.)

Carls' explanation of her acquital vote is a helpful window into the logic (or lack thereof) of the post-O.J. California juror.

"I believe the boy and I believe Jackson is a child molester. But there was a one per cent chance the boy was lying. That's where reasonable doubt came in."

Moral of the story: If you're ever in California and sense that you're about to be raped or killed by a celebrity, do your best to have a witness present who's more than 99% believable. Otherwise you're really just out of luck.

French Family Values?

2005-08-04T13:28:00.000-04:00

I thought it was an oxymoron too, but Paul Krugman, in an effort to knock workaholic Americans off their values high horse has written a column with that title (sans question mark).

His argument? The much ridiculed
35-hour French work week actually reflects a culture with a superior emphasis on family.

Hmmm...So how does the whole mistress thing fit in?
Or their recently revealed penchant for collecting dead babies?

I don't eat Freedom Fries, but count me a skeptic.

Terrorists Not Stupid (Just Their Actions)

2005-08-04T11:48:00.000-04:00

Americans inaccurately imagine that all religious fundamentalists are emotionally volatile ignorants. In their immediate reaction to the attacks of 9/11, many emphathists pointed to the poverty ravaging Afghanistan as a contributing factor. Only weeks later did we learn that we'd actually been attacked by upper-middle-class Saudis. Interestingly, four years later many still accept the notion that we are threatened by men of simple means and simple minds who live in fitful envy of our great freedom and material wealth. This could not be further from the truth.

As David Brooks points out today in his Times column:

We know, thanks to a database gathered by Marc Sageman, formerly of the C.I.A., that about 75 percent of anti-Western terrorists come from middle-class or upper-middle-class homes. An amazing 65 percent have gone to college, and three-quarters have professional or semiprofessional jobs, particularly in engineering and science.

Most Americans would be shocked by those statistics, mostly because we've been fed a persistent caricature of terrorists as crazies in the mountains; Middle-Eastern hillbilly religious fanatics with access to crude bomb-making materials. This fallacy is counterproductive because it obscures the true ideological divide that exists--one much more sobering and substantive than we'd like to think.

Miracle Baby Born

2005-08-04T09:29:00.000-04:00

Some may recall the inspiring story of Susan Torres, a young expectant mother whose cancer-plagued body suffered a stroke and lost consciousness, but continued to support the growth and development of her fetus. Three months ago Torres' husband Jason made the decision to keep his comatose wife alive in a race against the clock, hoping her body could produce a viable fetus before the cancer reached her womb. Happily, the effort ended in bittersweet success yesterday, when Susan Torres gave birth to a daughter by Caeserean section and then died.

Susan Anne Catherine Torres (1 pound, 13 ounces) remains in neonatal intensive care. Donations toward the Torres' lofty medical bills can be made here.

Rafael Palmeiro Makes Hall of Shame

2005-08-03T16:20:00.000-04:00

Earlier this summer, during the big Congressional steroids hearing song and dance, the only player to emphatically deny using steroids was Rafael Palmeiro, who got himself all worked up, jabbed his finger forward, glared at the Congressmen, and angrily said he'd come "to make it very clear that I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period." Perhaps at that moment we should have shot the raging Viagra spokesman with a tranquilizer and asked him why he added the word "intentionally." This week the unasked question was answered when it was revealed that Palmeiro failed a steroid test.

Now it appears Palmeiro is both a cheater and a liar. His defense--I didn't know I was taking it--is pathetic and calls to mind Barry Bonds, who thought his steroids were flaxseed oil, and Sammy Sosa, who "accidentally" picked up a corked bat and took it to the plate in a game.

The new motto in baseball: "Oh my goodness! I cheated? I had no idea!!"

I'm not buying it from Rafael Palmeiro, who brutally attacked the integrity of former teammate Jose Conseco when the big Surreal Life star asserted that Palmeiro had used steroids. Everyone took turns smearing Jose for his lack of integrity, and the most enthusiastic shots came from Palmeiro, guardian of fairplay and honesty.

My how the tables have turned.

Sadly for Rafael, there is no purple pill for a flacid Hall of Fame resume. And that's what he now has. Even with his gaudy 500 home runs and 3,000 hits.

Being the 7th-best first baseman for 16 years is all well and good, but it hardly makes you an All-Time Great. Raffy's Hall bid rests solely on his staggering career stats, and as Bill Simmons correctly noted in his recent ESPN the magazine column, career statistics mean very little in baseball these days--especially among steroid users (a group Raffy has now joined).

If the Hall of Fame has decided to welcome average players who inject hormones to become above average players able to play 20+ years that's their decision. But if Palmeiro, a Fred McGriff that enjoyed shorter fences, is a Hall of Fame baseball player then Cooperstown will be bursting with statues in 15 years. And that demeans the honor.

Sadly, some like Jayson Stark don't get it. But luckily Buster Olney does. And so does Tim Keown. And I can't believe I'm referring to his writing, but even Skip Bayless gets it. Hopefully voters will heed the call.

CNN Rapidly Becoming a Joke

2005-08-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

I swear I can remember when CNN was a revered news source. The last 5 years, however, have seen a ratings slide that has catapulted the network in the direction of Entertainment Tonight. Perhaps it's the silly celebrity sagas carried as hard news. Perhaps it's the bimbo anchors on Headline News. Perhaps its covering the developments of American TV shows with greater interest than international events (don't you care more about the demise of an American Idol contestant than 20,000 people in the Sudan?). Whatever the case, CNN viewers are now swimming in a kiddy pool of content.

At this very moment, CNN.com has 8 headlines at the top of it's front page. Two of these, (1/4) are the following:

• Surprising death on 'Six Feet Under'

• Aniston: 'I love Brad; I really love him'

Yes, America. There was a surprising plot development on a fictional TV drama, and an actress cares for the actor she's divorcing.

It's not really that we don't care at all about these things, but CNN? Do they have any desire to still be taken seriously? In front of me sits a New York Times with front page articles on the deaths of leaders in Saudia Arabia and the Sudan. You won't find a mention on the front of CNN, though the incredibly sparse 'World' page has a story on Saudi King Fahd.

I don't think I'm using hyperbole when I suggest that CNN probably devotes as much air time to TV and Hollywood as they do to the entire Southern hemisphere of the globe. It's a sad state of affairs.

Bush Nominates Walrus; Goo Goo Ga Joob

2005-08-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

The President has force-fed the United Nations his controversial pick for ambassador, John Bolton, who for 5 months had met consist-ent resistance on account of his offensive mustache and even more offensive way of relating to colleagues (particularly subord-inates and those who openly dis-agreed with him--the nerve!).

So he's not that charming or sexy. So co-workers describe him as a "kiss-up, kick down," "really creepy" guy. So he chases the occasional female colleague through a Moscow hotel room shouting and throwing files at her, and then bangs on the door and shoves papers through the mail slot when she flees to her room.

We need a tough guy at the U.N., say his backers.

And what informed observer of the U.N. hasn't wished someone would hurl a thick paper-filled folder at Kofi Annan? We need a man who will get results!

Bush, undeterred by the steady bipartisan stream of former associates who have come forward to describe his nominee as a first class jerk, nominated Bolton during the Congressional recess in order to bypass the Senate confirmation process (which, like the Geneva Convention and U.N. is also apparently losing its relevance). Let the reign of the Walrus begin!

Will's Girlfriend Now Objectively Hot

2005-07-28T10:54:00.000-04:00

The Hill has released its 50 most beautiful people working on the capitol, and included is the charming Ayame Nagatani. Though the list contains about a dozen inexplicable misfires, Ms. Nagatani is not among them. She is probably the least self-absorbed among the deserving members of the list (you should see Obama preen in the WSC locker room mirror) and even takes care of Will when he's drunk. A special lady, my friends.

The Loosh Spot salutes Ayame Nagatani: Top 50 in a photo, Top 50 in life.

Echinacea Buyers Feel Dumb

2005-07-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

The established herbology prescriptions are well known.

Tired? Ginseng! Depressed? St. John's Wort! Losing your memory? Gingko! Cold season? Echinacea!

Ever since the alternative medicine craze took off a decade ago folks have bought echinacea by the barrel, believing that ingesting the root boosted their immune system so it could ward off potential colds or fight the one they already had (I have a bottle at home).

It appears we were wasting our money.

A study in today's New England Journal of Medicine suggests that if anything helped our colds it was the water we used to swallow the pills.

Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the government agency that sponsored the new research, says he for one is satisfied that echinacea is not an effective cold remedy.

"This paper says it will not pre-empt a common cold, and it stands on top of prior studies saying it doesn't treat an established cold," he said, adding, "We've got to stop attributing any efficacy to echinacea."

Pass your friend in echinacea sales some St. John's Wort...

Fall in Love with Costco

2005-07-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

Why should you love this man? Because Jim Sinegal runs the 29th highest earning corporation in America (Costco), pays his employees $17 an hour, and himself only $350,000. (If that sounds steep it could easily be $50 million.) The health benefits and other perks for employees are amazing. But somehow Costco manages to be pretty amazing for the customer too. The prices are unbeatable! On a recent trip I got one of the very largest and tastiest hot dogs available in the free world--w/medium soda--for $1.50. As Austin Powers once said so rightly:
"Yeah capitalism!"

Read the fascinating NY Times sketch of Sinegal and his refreshingly generous-yet-competitive business here. It's an encouragement to those concerned with a "living wage," and a further incentive to go buy 48 bags of M&Ms for $10 this weekend.
But drive past Sam's club and get your goodies from a Costco. Four of the 10 richest Americans are Waltons, and they don't share like Sinegal. If you read this article I'm sure you'll want to give your business to him. And I'm almost positive he offers the better in-store hot dog...

Most Painful Reputation Killing Performance in a Soft Drink Commercial

2005-07-22T09:01:00.000-04:00

And the award goes to... G-Love!!

Yes Mr. Love, the grammatically challenged Philadelphian who eschews normative speech patters in pursuit of a hipper brand of whiteness, has created a horrifically embarassing commercial for Coke Zero called "Chilltop." (The commercial updates a 1971 ad "Hilltop" that featured youngsters on a hill singing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.") This trainwreck of an attempt at reaching young viewers missess the mark by about 5 miles and features Mr. Love, brow furrowed in concentration, bobbing his head and singing:

I'd like to teach the world to chill
Take time to stop and smile
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And chill with it awhile.

If the words went by quickly it would be much less painful. They don't. These four mind-numbingly stupid lines take twenty seconds to spill out. If they flashed the home phone number for G-Love's mother halfway through you'd dial her up and just tell her how sorry you were. The coterie of carefully selected multicultural friends who goofily nod their heads along in assent to their side-burned cult leader make this commercial even worse.

50 year old sitting in ad agency board room: "We put a bunch of diverse young people on a rooftop--downtown in a city! Then we bring in this guy G-Love, who sounds much cooler than a grown up white person, and we use the word "chill" egregiously. It's gonna be GREAT. The kids will love it."

The commercial is awful. When a writer for Business Week says you've failed to be hip, you've really failed to be hip. Coke tries to explain their thinking here, and you actually can see this monstrosity online. Click on "chilltop" to view the g-love disaster in its entirety, or click "chillosophy" to read about the spiritual underpinnings of this diet beverage (seriously).
G's not embarassed by his ad--"we've gotten a real good positive response"--and sees it as a sign of his blossoming entrepreneurship.

Since I first decided at 16 to make it in music, it's been all about getting into the game, getting your hustle on. I think I finally got a handle on it... Am I a businessman? I'm a musician who knows how to handle my business.

Less clear is whether Coca-Cola still knows how to handle its business.

Word "Consultant" Rapidly Losing Meaning

2005-07-21T15:20:00.000-04:00

Ask a guy at a bar what he does right now he'll probably say he's some kind of consultant. Oh he may tack on some preceding descriptor--"an investigative consultant," "a research consultant,"--but the odds are 4 in 7 that you're gonna get that professionaly sexy c-word.

And that's why it's becoming stupider and stupider with each new day.

Case in point: Yesterday my friend Will and I observed a ceaseless flow of middle-aged women wearing matching white t-shirts that implored us to "Live the Magic!" in bright pink letters. When we finally queried one "Live the Magic" wearer we learned that the women were at the adjacent hotel for a convention of private sellers of a certain line of candles (Candle Avon ladies). But don't say sales or retail around these part-time professionals. Not sure how to phrase their line of work Will started, "so you..."

"We're independent consultants," she answered.

Ah. Independent consultants.

Most shallow college students today are eager to enter the field of "consulting," and 1/20 successfully land work at firms paid by corporations or goverments to propose strategic solutions to problems and give business advice. Apparently the other 19/20 just become cubicle monkeys and decide to (why not?) throw consultant on their business card anyway. Actually it's not even the employees who do this as much as the businesses, who now call coffee retreivers "research assistants" and photocopiers "investigative analysts." I guess you can't post a job opportunity for a paper slave, you need to be hiring an "information consultant." Hey look at this job--sounds impressive!

In today's world of overblown corporate language if you cat-sit one week for your Aunt, it just may end up as a buzz word-laden item on your resume in two months:

Feline Resource Distribution Enginer:
Had primary role in the management and oversight of food and water disbursement to a team of feline clients. Also had a supervisory caretaking role with the team.

The net effect is that every working American is an analyst or consultant, and everyone's managing or leading something. Oh, and every employer is some type of "firm." Make video games? Congratulations! You have a software development firm. This makes the 25 year old game makers "partners" and the 15 year old game testers "research consultants." (I can't wait till a middle schooler hops off a skateboard to hand me his "consultant" business card).

The bottom line is that words like consultant will mean nothing in 2 years.

For the time being, though, I'm happy to report that a recent promotion has elevated me to the level of "consultant" within my DC-area "firm." And I just ordered my consultant business cards. They should be here in 3 weeks.

John Roberts Nominated for Supreme Court

2005-07-20T11:47:00.000-04:00

After weeks of intense anticipation, President Bush has nominated John Roberts to be the next Supreme Court Justice. (Who is he? NPR answers best.)

The expectation had been that Bush would nominate a woman (Laura's request) or a Hispanic judge, but instead he went with the well-credentialed, difficult to criticize Roberts, who graduated from Harvard in 3 years, Harvard Law with high honors, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (yeah, he's smart).

Several analysts called the pick "clever" or "shrewd," expecting the sexy (seemingly) pro-life WASP to give the Democratic opposition fits with his strong resume and short judicial case history. As expected, reactions to his nomination have been varied widely.

*Sandra Day O'Connor: "That's fabulous!"
"He's good in every way, except he's not a woman"

*Pro-Life groups: yeah.
*Pro-Choice groups: nay.

*New York Times: a "modernist" better than Scalia/Thomas.
*Chicago Tribune: prudent.
*CBS: "safe."
*MoveOn.org: "fringe and extreme."
*NPR: "brilliant legal mind" with "unquestioned integrity."

*DNC: diversion from Rovegate (or Plamegate or whatever we're calling the red hot non-scandal of the moment).
*Dean: "impressive legal credentials, but also sharp partisan credentials."
(wait--Bush nominated a Republican?)

Most agree that the confirmation process will end up being a debate on abortion, or more specifically an attempt to figure out just where Roberts stands on the issue. Though the advocacy groups on both sides describe an abortion opponent, Roberts' own comments at his 2003 confirmation hearing leave a very murky picture (relevent excerpts at SF Chronicle).

Tuition for Chastity

2005-07-20T09:59:00.000-04:00

A member of Uganda's parliament has proposed a novel reward to combat the spread of HIV: free college for virgins.

"The criterion is that a student must be a virgin and from Kayunga district," Bbaale County MP Sulaiman Madada told the state-owned New Vision. He also later clarified the deal was only for the ladies. Madada would have a gynecological examination administered by health workers to verify virginity (yikes!).

(above left: the forlorn look of eligibility lost)

Africa Tells Bono It "Just Needs A Little Space"

2005-07-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

Rock concerts aimed at fighting African poverty usually don't make popular targets for critics, but the chorus is starting to grow a little bit louder among those who have come to see Live 8 as little more than a music-based multi-continental orgy of patronizing moral superiority and self-congratulation. More specifically, many see it as a chronically misguided way of approaching the continent's problems, trying to fill a hole by enthusiastically plunging a shovel into its bottom. (hint: if the problem is oppressive dictators hoarding resources, the solution probably isn't shaming Western dignitaries into sending more resources to said dictators)

A must-read is Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme's stunningly sharp piece in today's Times: "All Rock, No Action." From the closing:

...the truth is that it was not for us, for Africa, that the musicians at Live 8 were singing; it was to amuse the crowds and to clear their own consciences, and whether they realized it or not, to reinforce dictatorships.

National Review editor Jonah Goldberg was on the case last week.

White House Scandals Going Downhill

2005-07-14T12:24:00.000-04:00

When I was growing up, scandals at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were the stuff of Cinemax movies. Wronged women on talk shows, old business associates carted off to prison; crimes were seedy and "proof" meant lies on videotape or Presidential DNA left in the worst of places. It's time to acknowledge the truth: Presidential scandals have gotten pretty lame.

Today's uproars are caused by the Deputy Chief of Staff instead of the Commander in Chief. Instead of defiled blue dresses and infamous cigars we have vague private e-mail conversations and cryptic internal memoes from foreign governments. Excuse me for yawning.

I realize people have been dying to take down the wildly unlikeable Karl Rove, but let's consider the extent of this horrendous crime, the much ballyhooed Rove leak (no, it's not "worse than Watergate," Mr. Frank R ich).

1. Diplomat Joseph Wilson writes a damaging editorial revealing that he had taken a trip to Niger to investigate the claim of an attempted Iraqi uranium purchase, had found it completely unconvincing, and had reported these facts to the White House, or more specifically the Office of the Vice President. They knew from his report, he said, that the Iraq uranium purchase claim was false, and yet the Bush Administration used it to bolster their case for war.

1B. As we now know, Mr. Wilson's findings in Niger were absolutely correct. His report, however, did not convince the CIA, and as such, never reached the Vice President.

2. Wilson claims during his subsequent book tour that he was dispatched to Niger by the Office of the Vice President. The administration quickly rebuts this claim.

3. Time magazine Reporter Matthew Cooper, writing a story about Wilson's Niger trip, queries Karl Rove on this point and is informed that Mr. Wilson's trip had not been planned or arranged by the administration, but simply by Wilson's "wife, who apparently works at the CIA."
(OH DEAR GOD, NOOOO!!! I'm moving to Canada!!)

The Bush folks didn't want to look like dopes for ignoring a report ordered up by the VP, so they wanted it known that the Niger trip was actually planned over eggs in the Plame/Wilson house. That Rove would say such a thing in a private e-mail to a reporter he trusted should shock and awe no one. The objective in bringing up the identity of Wilson's wife was to portray the Niger report as the latest volley in a petty CIA-White House squabble.

The real weasel here is Bob Novak, who got his hands on the same information as Cooper and ran a story dropping that Wilson's "wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

Novak achieved his point of refuting Wilson's "Cheney-sent-me-to-Africa" claim, but committed a cardinal sin in exposing a clandestine intelligence operative. The greatest question in this whole debacle is why two other reporters who followed his story were ordered to jail while he sits back in his chair and smiles. Why isn't anyone calling for his job?

*Updates*
Today's Washington Post editorial cuts this "scandal" down to size more clearly and succinctly than I did above. It's a very helpful read (July 15).

John Tierney also helps set the record straight, dubbing this flacid scandal "Nadagate" (July 16).

It has now been reported that Rove learned Plame's identity from Novak (July 15).

France Tough on Terror and U.K. Soft?

2005-07-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

The director of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes, makes a counterintuitive, but fairly convincing case.

Falling For An Obscure Government Official

2005-07-14T09:51:00.000-04:00

I try to be prepared for all sorts of situations. And if aliens invaded and forced me at laser-point to start a family with a government executive...well I've got mine all picked out.

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I have no idea what a Chief Privacy Officer does, but at the Department of Homeland Security it is the mysterious and stunning Nuala O'Connor Kelly. From her DHS profile photo Ms. Kelly appears to be a fetching 26 year-old, but somehow still possesses a Bachelors from Princeton, Masters from Harvard, and J.D. from Georgetown Law. She's also worked for two D.C. law firms and served as Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Commerce before taking the position at Homeland Security.

In addition to her pulchritude and staggering resume, Ms. Kelly is a native of Northern Ireland and has a really cool first name, Nuala, which means "lovely shoulders." Though the official DHS photo does not allow for conclusive analysis, I'm betting she's aptly named.

If this should find her, please know, Ms. Kelly, that I also am a smart, beautiful servant of domestic security, am usually not creepy, and share a deep appreciation for ensuring privacy. (If we ever share coffee I promise not blog about it.)

Who's Afraid of Outsourcing?

2005-07-13T08:34:00.000-04:00

Suketu Mehta has one of the best columns of the year, thoughtfully pondering the historical context of the jobs migration to India and flawlessly cutting to pieces the lazy narrow-mindedness of the Western outsourcing hysteria.

Crushed By The (Wedding) Bells

2005-07-12T17:02:00.000-04:00

If you are a male aged 20-28 years and were conscious during the Saved By the Bell years, you will no doubt be crestfallen to learn that Kelly Kapowski (AKA Tiffani Thiessen) has gone and married some guy. Though there are surely other perky and wholesome volleyball players with wide smiles and t-shirts fallen-off-the-shoulder no one can touch the original and best.

And who exactly is actor Brady Smith, 33? I have no idea, but I'm sure of two things:
1) I'm not him, and
2) He will not enjoy this tremendous feat one little bit because each morning he is doomed to wake up and fall pitifully short of Zack Morris in all he says and does.

I choose not to envy you, actor Brady Smith, 33, because you will every day be measured against the ghost of Zack Morris until your married days expire in death or divorce. Let this pride-withering realization haunt you in sleepless nights of self-doubt and fantasies unfulfilled. And know that it is not really Kelly Kapowski you're sleeping next to, but some hollow actress that never would have been kind to Screech or passed up her prom to save her poor father money. And she probably doesn't smile in real life and can't play volleyball at all. And she won't dance and lip sync "I'm So Excited" for you. Not even on your Anniversary.

You will not enjoy this actor Brady Smith, 33!
(I hate you.)

Americans Rally to Save Actresses

2005-07-12T08:36:00.000-04:00

A swelling grassroots movement is quickly gaining steam in hopes of freeing Katie Holmes from Tom Cruise. What started as a funny t-shirt has now spawned two websites (freekatie.net and freekatie.com) which have gained national exposure. Those close to the actress are worried by her starry-eyed embrace of Scientology, and her restriction from communicate with anyone without Scientology-appointed handlers hovering. Evidence of both from a recent interview (CNN):

Holmes, who co-stars in "Batman Begins," has said she's taking lessons in Cruise's faith of Scientology. "I'm learning to celebrate my own spirit, my own being," she says.

During the W interview, the actress wouldn't part from Jessica Rodriguez, who is described as her "Scientologist chaperone." Rodriguez's role in Holmes' life remains vague, though Rodriguez says they're "just best friends" since meeting around the time Holmes met Cruise.

"You adore him," Rodriguez told Holmes when the actress was at a loss for words to describe her love.

Yikes. The saving celebrities grassroots spirit has also picked up a less grave, but equally important case--restoring weight (and can we add freckles?) to Lindsay Lohan.

Yes the folks at FeedLindsay.com have now gathered over 12,500 signatures urging the actress "to please pick up a sandwich and eat it, or ice cream, or any food that might put those oh-so-cute pounds back on.'' Like the Free Katie campaign it has spawned a myriad of t-shirts, stickers, and knock-off websites.

Please continue to keep your fingers crossed for a single Katie and a curvy Lindsay, and in the meantime follow the links and buy a funny shirt.

Best Place to Live in America

2005-07-12T08:14:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, Moorestown, New Jersey. CNNMoney says it's you.

Far more interesting to me were the lists of top 10 U.S. cities in categories like income, safety, and education spending. Not surprisingly, several states have a stranglehold on certain categories. Arizona has the hottest, Minnesota the coldest, Maryland and Massachusetts share the most educated citizens. California's got the priciest houses. Illinois apparently has all the golf courses.

On the negative side, pollution seems to settle in the battleground states. Judging by the staggering filthiness of Florida and Ohio, the candidates in '08 might want to talk more about clean air...

The Catholic Church and Evolution

2005-07-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna caused something of a stir recently when he wrote a New York Times editorial on the Catholic view of evolution. To read the Times mournful follow-up piece one got the impression that the Vatican had issued a policy reversal--now rejecting evolution instead of accepting it. "Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution" screamed the headline, as the article proceeded to survey a series of gravely concerned members of the scientific community, expressing trepidation at this deep slide back toward the dark ages.

What Schonborn actually did was clarify what he considered a popular misconception of the church view. The Church accepts the concept of evolving species and common ancestry; what Shonborn takes issue with is one particular cornerstone of neo-Darwinian theories--that the process was, in his words, "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation..." Unguided. Unplanned. Random. These are the words that cause problems.

The Cardinal had reportedly grown irritated over the years reading references to the Catholic Church's acceptance of evolution, references he thought implied a wholesale endorsement of neo-Darwinian theories. Hoping to re-emphasize the church's core belief in a Divinely-guided process he conferred with the new Pope Benedict and penned his article. Schonborn, suspicious of the currently prevailing evolutionary theories, wanted to make clear that the Catholic Church insists on God as the guiding force in the creation of all nature and life.

His piece has caused a lot of consternation but I'm not sure how much disagreement actually exists if the two sides would only drop their points of emphasis and use softer language.

The reason the Schonborn essay provokes such loathing in the scientific community is because it makes appeal to the concept of intelligent design. Intelligent Design is a movement to observe in biological nature an order and sophistication that bears the unmistakable sign of a higher cause. The most usual form of Intelligent Design has a stronger claim--that the evidence demands, or requires, a Creator. That it (in a sense) proves the existence of a Creator God. Unfortunately scientists currently only know this theory and movement as a means of assaulting Darwinian evolution, which is a shame. The current crop of biologists will not be convinced that random natural selection is insufficient to have produced the full range of species we see today (an implication of the design hypothesis). Thus there is a considerable impasse on this point.

But I'm not sure Schonborn and others would reject the following statement about the origins of life: that God created life on earth by a seemingly random process of natural selection spanning thousands of years. Christians can surely maintain their rock solid faith that God orchestrated the creation of all life without insisting that the available evidence on earth demands the conclusion. And it seems equally possible that cool-headed biologists could embrace an entirely naturalistic explanation of origins without definitively closing the door on the God question.

It seems to me that most biologists wouldn't care to make the point either way if they didn't feel that they were backed against the wall by opponents of Darwinian evolution who insist that the natural world answers the existence of God question, definitely and affirmatively. And this, I believe, is the Christian mistake.

For someone like myself, a mountain range, an ocean, or a sunset is a work of Divine art--I can't look at the world any other way. Seeing the natural world as God's creation heightens my own appreciation of its splendor. But it would be foolish to seek in this beauty a God proof. In fact I think it's an important aspect of Christianity that we lack an objective proof of God's existence.

Intelligent Design could be a wondrous undertaking for scientists of faith who wish to trace the hand of the Creator they trust in. But as an antagonistic prop in the culture war, it surely fails to achieve its greatest purpose, which should not be to target and implode another theory, but instead to cast light on the wonder of life.

By appealing to design language Schonborn frightened many. Only a change in the attitude of that movement, and of those who sneer at it, will help that fear cede. But Christians also should not be afraid to entertain this thought: that God created the world perfectly and exactly according to his intention, but that observable biological phenomena might not objectively require such an interpretation. This concession, about available evidence and not metaphysical truth, would do much to cool the fears of secular science. Here's hoping for a cease-fire.

L'il Kim Going to Big Pr'isn

2005-07-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

Yes the tiny female rapper famous for sexually profane lyrical content sinking even below that of her y-chromosomed counterparts has been sentenced to a year in jail for lying to a federal grand jury about a 2001 shootout involving her posse. (Ms. Kim may like to stroll Hollywood red carpets with nothing but paint above her waist, but she ain't no snitch.) Biggie's former squeeze told authorities she had no idea her manager Damion Butler was at the Hot 97 radio station, but security footage of him opening the door for her did a l'il bit to undermine her credibility there.

The unsigned AP writer gets mad props for being down with the lingo...

Hot 97 is the same station where the posses of 50 Cent and The Game traded bullets in February.

...But clearly got his/her game pulled down by the editors:

[Kim's] 1996 debut album, "Hard Core," was laced with sexually explicit lyrics and became a big hit, thanks to songs like "Crush On You" and others with unmentionable titles.

The apologetic Grammy award-winning magdalen will serve a one year sentence, which is light considering the 20 possible for her convictions.
(but astonishing for someone who's been in People magazine)

No word on whether she's requested an orange jumpsuit with no front.

Foreskins Obsolete?

2005-07-06T14:49:00.000-04:00

A recent study found that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV by 70%! Researchers had earlier hoped to produce a vaccine reducing HIV risk by 30%, but the classic surgical procedure proved more than doubly surpassed even this goal in the study, before it prematurely concluded. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

the study under way in Orange Farm township, South Africa, was stopped because the results were so favorable. It was deemed unethical to continue the trial after an early peek at data showed that the uncircumcised men were so much more likely to become infected.

In other words, the results were so clear so fast that researchers felt compelled to halt the study and give the uncircumcised men a chance to get snipped and join the (much) safer half of the sample.

Either God or Abraham gets credit for being super smart and being out in front on this bandwagon. Way to think outside the box!

P. Diddy and Tommy Hilfiger Unite

2005-07-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

To Create a McDonald's Uniform? Seriously, it may happen.

Are Men Bisexual?

2005-07-05T09:31:00.000-04:00

A study to be published in the journal Psychological Science says not really. A team of researchers in Chicago and Toronto tested just over a hundred men--1/3 self-identified as straight, 1/3 gay, and 1/3 bisexual--and found that straight men exhibited physical signs of arousal in response only to erotic images with women, gay men responded only to images with men, and bisexual men responded to...men.* While there may be things that attract self bisexual men to have relationships with women, the researchers say it's not raw sexual desire. The study backs up the theory that bisexual man are gay men leaving a straddling life of quasi-denial, but other researchers urge caution.

Interestingly there does appear to be authentic bisexuality in women. An earlier study by the same team found that bisexual women responded physically to images of both men and women. Non-creative screenwriters, attention-starved girls at clubs, and all other purveyors of beer commercial frat boy fantasies can breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Cheap cliche saved!

*correction: apparently a small sub-group (about 1/5) of the "bisexual" participants were actually closet heterosexuals, only responding to women.

Hope for Walt Disney

2005-06-30T14:52:00.000-04:00

Scientists have successfully developed a technique for freezing and then reviving clinically dead dogs. They hope to use the method on humans next.

Shaq Masters Business Administration

2005-06-28T00:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, the diesel just got an MBA. Shaquille O'Neal always reveals more talent, charm, and intelligence than you ever thought the big fella had (minus Kazaam). Turns out the Big Aristotle spent the past year taking correspondence business courses from the great, venerable, for-profit University of Phoenix (whose application asks for First Name, Last Name, and Modem speed).
Let's be honest, Shaq didn't need Wharton to make money after basketball, and he doesn't have many other options for attending class. You have to give the big smiley intellectually self-motivated man some credit. So here's to you, Shaquille O'Neal. I'll go into business with ya anyday.

All Missing Persons Young (Cute) White Women?

2005-06-21T15:56:00.000-04:00

Well, yes. If you mean the ones the media decide we should be eminently concerned about. Reality is a little different. And it's not that JonBenet Ramsey, Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Jennifer Wilbanks, and now Natalee Holloway weren't worthy of shock, heartbreak, and intense efforts to locate them. It's just that so many others (e.g. Tamika Huston) deserve the same attention, and for superficial reasons can't get it. According to a recent AP report:

"Most of the missing adults tracked by the FBI are men. More than one-in-five of those abducted or kidnapped are black. But you might not get that impression from the news media. . ."'To be blunt, blond white chicks who go missing get covered and poor, black, Hispanic or other people of color who go missing do not get covered,' said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism. 'You're more likely to get coverage if you're attractive than if you're not.' "

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post recently wrote an excellent piece on these very issues, describing what he termed a media "Damsels in Distress" preoccupation. His rules:

A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as "petite"... She must be attractive -- also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Jessica Lynch). Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage.

Some may find these criticisms callous or cynical, but they seem to have the evidence on their side.

CDs, Firewood Burning at McDonald's

2005-06-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Ever think that someday you might create a custom audio CD next to a crackling fire while you eat your Big Mac Extra Value Meal? Well someday is today at McDonald's flagship restaurant next to corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, where Happy Meals come with Wi-Fi internet and gourmet coffees.

A sure sign of the McPocalypse

The restuarant targets a new breed of "chicken nugget professionals," who cherish the flexibility of being able to work remotely from a giant playpen of vibrantly colored plastic balls. (last part fake; rest, disturbingly real)

Saddam: Just One of the Guys

2005-06-21T14:15:00.000-04:00

"He'd eat a family size bag of Doritos in 10 minutes," National Guardsmen Jesse Dawson, 25, recalls of former pal Saddam Hussein.

Yes, Dawson, and four other guardsmen charged with holding Saddam Hussein have offered interviews describing their interactions with the humorously normal and playful former dictator of Iraq. As the AP story, begins: "Saddam Hussein loves Doritos, hates Froot Loops, admires President Reagan, thinks Clinton was "OK" and considers both Presidents Bush "no good." He talks a lot, worries about germs and insists he is still president of Iraq."

"One more bag right here. Cool Ranch."

The soldiers describe a proud man who still believed he was President of Iraq, but generally was quite sweet (though he did "get grumpy" when the cheetos ran out). Saddam reportedly invited his young captors to come back and hang out with him in Iraq after the trial when he was restored to power, and even had some locker room wisdom to impart. When 19 year-old Sean O'Shea told him he was not married,

Saddam "started telling me what to do," recalled the soldier. "He was like, 'You gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean."' Then he smiled, made what O'Shea interpreted as a "spanking" gesture, laughed and went back to doing his laundry in the sink.

The Downing Street Memo

2005-06-20T15:47:00.000-04:00

Reaction to it has snowballed to the point of Congressional forums and calls for impeachment. Some see proof of Presidential perjury in the cryptic meeting notes from a 2002 meeting of U.K. leadership. Others see nothing of note. Now that the Downing Street memo is becoming the cornerstone piece of evidence for accusing Bush of duplicity in pushing the war case, it's worth knowing what it does and doesn't say. Fred Kaplan has the most fair and lucid treatment you'll find.

Update** The hearing may not have been quite as serious as it appeared.

Picture of the Month - June

2005-06-19T15:45:00.000-04:00

A Notre Dame tailgater celebrates his triumph over an eating disorder

A Tale of Two Comatose Women

2005-06-16T15:10:00.000-04:00

USA Today has a fascinating and inspiring cover story today about a man keeping his brain dead wife alive in hopes that she can live long enough to deliver their unborn baby. Susan Torres, 26, fell in love with her husband Jason when they became study partners during a sophomore year in Rome. In 2002 she married him, and soon after became a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Tragically, on May 7 she suffered a stroke caused by an undetected brain tumor that left her all but dead. Her husband Jason, convinced that his wife would have wished it, is keeping her on life support due to the miraculous continued growth of the baby in her womb.

“I hate seeing her on those darned machines,” Jason says, “and I hate using her as a husk, a carrying case, because she herself is worth so much more. But Susan really wanted this baby. And she's a very — how should I put this? — a willful lady. That's probably why she's made it this far.”

The article states that since 1977 at least nine comatose women have given birth. Amazing! Doctors think that Susan needs to stay alive another month to make her fetus viable. It really is an amazing story.

And it stands in stark contrast to the story of Terry Shiavo, a woman we now know had no hope of progressing toward life, whose autopsy reveals she was irreversibly brain dead, had suffered astounding brain atrophy, and was entirely blind. The 10 second video clip of her seemingly responding to family and a ballon was a coincidental mirage.

There is no joy in proving that Dr. Bill Frist and Tom Delay (and so many others) were wrong about Terry's condition; only a sobering lesson. That a culture that deeply values life is different than a culture that blindly fetishes it. And that a middle ground exists between euthanasia and an endless prolonging of grossly unnatural human life.

Those who cherish life because it is divinely created must surely believe that Terry was born to laugh, love, and bring joy to her Creator. I would say that she is finally now able to do these things in heaven, but the truth is she may already have been there 10 years. It's possible that she began living again shortly after her mind perished, enjoying a life so glorious she never stopped to look back and puzzle at the political forces being galvanized to win her body.

Her parents were wrong, but cannot be faulted--the way they knew how to love their daughter was to try and keep whatever was left of her alive. But hindsight grants us the ability to see that while life is an incredible miracle, and modern medicine a gift toward protecting and preserving that miracle (just read the story above!), it has limits, and is not the final end in itself.

Here's hoping that a new life is granted to the Torres family.

Religious Leaders Find Some Purple To Share

2005-06-15T13:41:00.000-04:00

A very encouraging piece today in the Washington Post describes a growing trend of bipartisan cooperation among religious leaders. Beliefs are not being relented and positions on legislation are not shifting--but respect is being engendered and common goals pursued. Bravo!

FSU QB Loses Mind At Dave Matthews Concert

2005-06-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

Preseason starting quarterback Wyatt Sexton is apparently taking the duty of being Florida State's football messiah a little too literally--and cracking under the pressure. After grooving to the smooth frathouse stylings of the Dave Mathews Band Sexton kind of lost his marbles.

According to the Tallahassee Police Department report, when a police officer responded to a call regarding unusual behavior on Monday evening, the officer found Sexton lying face down in the middle of the street...

Witnesses told police that Sexton had been making strange gestures, and at one point jumped onto a car. When asked to identify himself, Sexton "yelled that he was 'God,' " the report said, and acted in a manner irrational enough that the officer pepper-sprayed him.

Only when police put him in a patrol vehicle did Sexton identify himself by name. As police transported him to the hospital, and upon arrival, he reverted to identifying himself as "God" or the "son of God."

So far Sexton has declined to identify himself as the Holy Ghost, but he may want to reconsider. FSU may need the whole trinity taking snaps to win their season opener against Miami.

Terrorists Are Beautiful, No Matter What They Say

2005-06-13T12:03:00.000-04:00

Calling Christina Aguilera's music 'torture' used to be hyperbole. Not anymore. Time Magazine's expose on the interrogation of suspected 9/11 accomplice Mohammed al Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay reveals the preferred methods of keeping Mr. Qahtani from sleeping--"dripping water on his head or playing Christina Aguilera music."

Christina on Grammy night before she, and detainees who listened to her, became insane

Qahtani, who never admitted collaborating with Osama Bin Laden, foiled his interrogators and showed remarkable strength of will by pretending to actually enjoy the tunes, even astonishing his captors by choreographing his own energetic dance routine to "Come On Over."

Okay okay, the last part's not true...

Perfectly Good Cockfight Spoiled in Tennessee

2005-06-13T11:38:00.000-04:00

This CNN story is a gem. I'm just gonna paste it all, comments inserted.

NEWPORT, Tennessee (AP) -- Law enforcement agents raided an illegal cockfight and arrested 144 people attending what one official said may have been one of the nation's largest such gatherings.

Several SWAT teams, helicopters and dozens of state troopers participated in the raid Saturday on the sprawling Del Rio Cockfight Pit. They seized about $40,000 in cash and killed more than 300 roosters.

Now hang on a second--they killed more than 300 roosters? Isn't cockfighting illegal because it harms the roosters? Why else would it be prohibited. So how is the anti-cockfighting side served by coming in and killing all the animals? I mean, it's bad for the business, but isn't it also kind of bad for the roosters? Isn't this all about them? I don't get it...

And it took "several" SWAT teams? Were they firing on the roosters from the helicopters or just keeping track of the fleeing people?

"Reputedly, this was the largest cockfight in the United States," said District Attorney Al Schmutzer Jr. "It was becoming open and notorious, and you just can't stand back and let something operate like that in the community."

Has there ever been a better real-life lawyer name than Al Schmutzer Jr.?

The 144 were each charged with being a spectator to cockfighting, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. If convicted, they face up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a $2,500 fine.

John Goodwin, of the Humane Society of the United States, who took part in the raid, said it served notice on those conducting such illegal operations. "I wouldn't want to be a cockfighter in East Tennessee right now," he said.

Oh, but at some other point in time he would like to be a cockfighter in East Tennessee? Second, someone from the Humane Society of the United States participated in a raid, presumably aimed at saving animals from cruelty, that killed over 300 animals? What's going on here??

David Webb, a gamecock owner from Rhea County, said he lost more than 20 chickens valued at $150 each during the raid. "I've been around this stuff all my life. Everything I've ever known is a chicken fight," he said.

Everything he's ever known is a chicken fight? I'm not going to cleverly extract humor from that quote, because 1) it doesn't need my help, and 2) it's kind of sad. In his life, this man's known nothing beyond chicken fights? Sounds like child abuse to me, but don't tell the Tennessee authorities. They probably prosecute child abuse complaints by arresting the parents and then killing all the kids.

Cocks Continued

2005-06-13T11:36:00.001-04:00

Turns out the Humane Society killed the birds themselves. Now we learn that "After the raid, the roosters were euthanized under the direction of the Humane Society of the United States." Why?? According to John Goodwin of the Humane Society, "not only because most of [the roosters] are injured, but because the only people who would want to adopt these animals are typically other cock fighters."

To me that sounds like he killed a couple hundred uninjured animals because he assumed they wouldn't find a home. Maybe he's right. But I still can't believe the bizarre haste in killing the cocks. The local news reports that "Humane Society workers euthanized them at the scene."

I also enjoyed this nugget from the local report.

Among those caught in the raid were many older people and several small children, witnesses said. At least two of the older attendees required medical treatment after the agents burst in and held them at gunpoint.

This painting shows roosters in happier times; before they met the Humane Society

Not only did it take "several SWAT teams" to save/kill the cocks, but the agents held seniors at gunpoint, sending them into cardiac arrest. Nice;-)

The Humane Society, for their part, is absolutely tickled about their participation in the rooster rescue/slaughter, and put out their own extended press release. They also have a cute cockfighting fact sheet.

What Could Be Sexier Than a Middle-Aged Japanese Businessman?

2005-06-11T10:50:00.000-04:00

Well a lot of things probably. Chocolate-covered strawberries, silk, and Swedish college students come to mind, and the list extends much longer than that (pretty much forever). But my sense of the sexy is out of touch with Japanese culture apparently, where designers are pushing aging executives down the runway to satisfy a booming taste for wrinkly men of power and influence, creating bizarre, frightening, and all too real scenarios like the following:

"Mr. Company President is sexy!" gushed an announcer as Toyota Motor's chairman of the board, Hiroshi Okuda, showed off a sharp black suit and pants at a fashion show this week at the 2005 World Fair.

Toyata Chair/Sex Kitten Hiroshi Okuda

Yes, the soup du jour on the Asian island is the well ripened male. [female readers, try not to growl].

Telling U.S. Dieters What They Don't Want to Hear

2005-06-10T15:30:00.000-04:00

There's a problem with dieters here in America. They buy armfulls of books, join gyms, and purchase designer diet food at the supermarket. The funny thing is, even though Americans diet (and preach about their particular diet) the most, they... well they're still fat. Karl Lagerfield has just the antidote for the American dieter. His book, a hit in Europe and Asia, preaches low carbs,low calories, and high discipline. He'd like to insert a giant needle into the love-bubble of self-congratulation that encases America's (largely unsuccessful) diet culture and crush some sacred cows. You should feel hungry sometimes, he says. It can be good to dislike your body. Exercise isn't all that great, as far as weight loss is concerned. In a nutshell, it seems his message is 1) Love yourself a little less and 2) Eat a lot less. It's very snotty, very European, kind of funny, and maybe just the medicine we need.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's...a Senegalese Leg?

2005-06-08T09:28:00.000-04:00

Yep. A flight from Senegal to New York's JFK Airport had a stowaway hiding in the wheel well and if his mother said "just get there in once piece" her request was not granted. You really need to just read the story, but let's just say that the next time you're complaining about rain, at least be glad you're not the person who had a human leg bounce off their garage and land in their back yard.

Kerry Narrowly Defeated By Bush: In Yale Classroom

2005-06-07T18:03:00.000-04:00

My oh my. The Boston Globe finally got their hands on John Kerry's academic records from Yale, and they're every bit as joke-worthy as those of his famously un-bookfriendly former classmate and campaign opponent.

For all the punch lines about Bush's college grades, Kerry's were actually worse. His cumulative score over four years at Yale was a 76 (Bush had a 77). He got four D's his freshman year, and never once earned an A. To his credit, Kerry had a trajectory of improvement, performed better in his politically oriented courses, and impressed enough with his speaking abilities to be chosen as orator for his senior class. But no matter how you slice it he still was pretty darn lousy in the college classroom, especially considering his top-flight preparatory schooling.

Ironically, despite the relentless caricatures contrasting Bush the courageous simpleton leader with Kerry the blathering out-of-touch smarty pants, simple life history reveals that Kerry isn't all that smart (other numbers suggest Bush also has a slightly higher IQ), but has natural leadership qualities and serious cajones in battle.

Who woulda thought? The John Kerry we never knew...

Are Jews Smarter?

2005-06-07T09:17:00.000-04:00

One lesson I learned at Brown: if a classmate was out for a Jewish holiday, they were probably a good person to study with for the final. Yes, in my own anecdotal experience Jews are, on average, a decent bit smarter than us golfing, NASCAR watching, easter-egg hunting goys. And that's cool. What's not cool is saying this explicitly in academia, and pointing to nature as well as nurture in explaining it. But a team of scientists from the University of Utah has done just that.

In a paper just accepted by the Journal of Biosocial Science (published by Cambridge University Press), they offer an evolutionary explanation--arguing that medieval Central and Northern European Jews, in order to thrive amidst centuries of oppressive circumstances, self-selected smart mates who could help them survive and thrive. Their data suggests that this self-selection produced a group that is on the whole both more intelligent and more vulnerable to certain diseases.

I'm no scientist, but their argument, which carries wildly un-PC implications (the idea of inheritied biological differences in intelligence sort of makes people uncomfortable), is being taken seriously by an academic community that really doesn't want to deal with it being true.

Einstein discovered the theory of relativity and was down with the lunar calendar

Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker admits that though it's "hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is...it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed." Not only do I lack the expertise to assess the science, I lack the expertise to assess the assessments of the science. But I'm interested to follow this discussion...

If you have the time and the gusto, read the actual paper here.

Nike to Runners: Go Barefoot (for $85)

2005-06-07T00:10:00.001-04:00

Is it the next big thing in running shoes? Nike's new Free shoe goes for ultra-minimalism, attempting to use a thin, flexible design to recreate the feeling of running barefoot. See some pictures and user comments here.

The Free 5.0 is a departure from the proliferation of frills and features in the running shoe arms race, but the concept has caught on fairly well in the running community. It does have its share of critics, who point out that running barefoot is not a good idea unless you have normal, healthy foot structure, and work up slowly. Nike, acknowledging the rigor the shoe puts on the babied foot, recommends spending the first week or two just wearing them around the house! When you get used to using all those tiny foot muscles that have become deadened by the sneaker assistance, you work your way up to running, and then running long distances.

After spending the last several months distributing the shoes to top global athletes (Freddy Adu, Lance Armmstrong, Maria Sharapova, etc.), and then attacking the niche market, Nike is now taking aim at the general public. The company is currently pushing the shoe hard in advertisements, both here and in Europe, where the au naturale concept is always a winner.

The official Nike Free site has some pretty slick propoganda.

Deep Throat Revisited

2005-06-06T17:30:00.001-04:00

I completely retract my initial statement that the unveiling of Mark Felt as Deep Throat is a ho-hum story. The more I read the more I'm fascinated. Probably the most exciting and intriguing aspect of this revelation is that it suddenly snaps some reality and specificity into the fabled relationship "Deep Throat" had with Bob Woodward. Having Felt out in the open has allowed Woodward to speak in detail about Deep Throat for the first time, and his account of their relationship is a must-read (full book due in July).

Decades before Nixon, Felt takes aim at the camera

Also of interest:
*Q&A with then-editor Ben Bradlee
*Deep Throat excerpts from All the President's Men
*Sally Quinn (wife of Bradlee) shares memories and insights (great piece)

On the side of those who aren't thrilled with Felt:
*Read a realist's take (from Jack Shafer)
*A doubt-inspiring take (from the man who chose NOT to reveal Felt)
*or the downright nasty take from... Ben Stein?

Yes, Yale Law Valedictorian, Game Show Host, and former Nixon speechwriter Stein defends his boss's legacy...then lashes out at Felt. (Maybe he finally called out 'Bueller' one too many times.)

Indians Get Smoke Out of Bollywood, Outspell Everyone (Again)

2005-06-03T16:46:00.001-04:00

Can you smoke at a theatre in India? I'm guessing no, because as of August 1 smoking is banned on-screen! Actors will have to find new ways to look contemplative and draw attention to their mouths. Everyone freaking out about the increasingly tight FCC should be glad they're not dealing with India's Central Board of Film Certification. For a great look at what is and isn't allowed on the Bollywood screen, read this informative short essay at Slate.

And speaking of India, have you noticed that Indian kids are WAY better at spelling in English than everybody else? An Indian-American student, Anurag Kashyap (far left below), just won the 78th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, continuing a recent trend of dominance by Indian-American students, who have won five of the last seven championships.
In fact, as the Times of India notes, "All three runners-up hail[ed] from South Asia." Top 3 this year, 5 of the last 7 champs... what can you say--

they're good.

Get Ready for Sudoku

2005-06-02T11:10:00.000-04:00

Apparently something called Sudoku is quickly taking over all land masses east of the Atlantic and is quickly headed for the U.S. Billed as "more addictive than tetris" it is a numerical cousin to the crossword puzzle. The Japenese grid game has England in fits and the New York Times is supposedly mulling a weekly puzzle right next to its holy-grail-of-newspaper-puzzle-games Sunday crossword. Refined readers may appreciate the Economist's snapshot, but the best reading on this subject is Seth Stevenson's synopsis of Sudoku mania at Slate.

Maverick and Joey, Part III

2005-06-02T10:10:00.001-04:00

This really isn't the story that should be taking over the blog (hey Sullivan has prison torture, I have Cruise/Holmes), but the New York Times today has a must-see pictoral montage of Tom Cruise's Oprah meltdown.
Oh, yeah, and an article...Meanwhile, Katie Holmes is "SO happy," cooing childishly about Cruise, "He's the most amazing man in the whole world." If she'd said "whole wide world" and been clutching a giant multi-color lollipop I think she would have officially nailed the part of 6 year-old talking about her dad...

Anglican Church to Let Gay Priests Marry

2005-05-31T15:51:00.000-04:00

The Church of England has allowed homosexual priests to marry--so long as they pledge not to have sex. This curious arrangement is an attempt to satisfy church doctrine against allowing sex outside of full marriage, while still allowing priests to obtain the newly legalized civil partnership available in England. The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement estimates that 1,500 homosexual Anglican clergy will have exercised this right by 2010, and the decision is expected to re-ignite the divisive internal debate within the world-wide Anglican church over the issue of gay marriage.

Deep Throat Unveiled

2005-05-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

One of the great mysteries of the 20th century has apparently been solved with little fanfare. Former FBI official W. Mark Felt has revealed that he is the Watergate source known as "deep throat." The exclusive story will appear in the June issue of Vanity Fair.

The identity of deep throat has inspired great speculation and discussion, but the end of the riddle was mostly met with shrugs. From MSNBC News:

Commentator Chris Matthews, who wrote a book about Watergate, said he wasn't surprised, adding that Felt "has always been the leading suspect."

Mr. Felt had publicly denied being Deep Throat in the past, but recently was convinced by his children to reveal his identity to help with family financial troubles. Daughter Joan's argument: "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education. Let's do it for the family."

Maybe we'll find Jimmy Hoffa when the person who buried him can't pay the mortgage?

Worst Drivers?

2005-05-27T12:10:00.000-04:00

I've proclaimed this for some time, but it's nice to have some empirical evidence to back me up: the Northeast has the nation's stupidest drivers. The GMAC Insurance National Driver's Test found that 1 in 10 American drivers would fail a state driver's test if they had to take one today. In the Northeast the figure doubles to 1 in 5!

If you've lived someplace else and then driven between Boston and Washington, D.C. you will not be at all surprised to learn that the path of states between these cities produce the very worst drivers our country has to offer. The trip down I-95 from Beantown to the Capitol is actually the consummate tour of driving stupidity; it includes: Massachusetts (2nd stupidest drivers), Rhode Island (stupidest of all! -average score 8 points above failing), Connecticut (8th stupidest), New York (4th), New Jersey (3rd ), Delaware (14th), Maryland (6th ), and Washington D.C. (5th). Amazingly, the eight state tour includes the six stupidest in the union.

Who has the smartest drivers? In order: Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Idaho, Vermont, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. See full rankings here.

Abortion Up Under Bush?

2005-05-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

I've heard this a few times, and you probably have too: After a steady decline during the Clinton Presidency, abortions are up since 2001 under the Bush administration. DNC Chairman Howard Dean repeated the charge Tuesday on Meet the Press: "You know that abortions have gone up 25 percent since George Bush was President?" he asked Tim Russert.

Turns out to be false. Abortions have continued to consistently drop under Bush. Where did this myth start? When Glen Harold Stassen, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, made an analysis based on 16 states for Sojourners magazine. His counter-intuitive conclusion, proclaimed a month before the 2004 election, was too convenient not to be employed by opponents of his policies, who understandably assumed the data was solid. Turns out it wasn't. The respected Guttmacher Institute launched their own investigation (involving 43 states) and found a modest decline in abortions under Bush. But are they a pawn of the administration?

No. And here I'll defer to FactCheck.org:

Guttmacher has little motive to make Bush and his anti-abortion policies look good. The institute was founded in 1968 in honor of a former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and describes its mission as being" to protect the reproductive choice of all women and men in the United States and throughout the world.”

Ironically, a pro-life seminary professor had the integrity to draw attention to data supporting pro-choice talking points...and a pro-choice institute had the integrity to proclaim his findings false. If only the discussion on abortion could be conducted in as fair and civil a manner as the research...

Tom & Katie a Fake?

2005-05-26T11:18:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago we reported the surprising and intriguing pairing of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. In the days since we've seen every superficial TV program advertise their own I'm-so-crazy-about-this-woman interview. "We got a chance to sit down with Tom Cruise and hear about his hot new love, Katie Holmes. And trust us--you've never seen him like this!" But Tom seemed just a little too geeked up about his new relationship (jumping up and down on Oprah's couch?) and what began as a whisper has gained enough currency to now be the prevailing wisdom: Tom Cruise's new ga-ga romance is just for show. Tina Brown has a great take at the Post.

Tom, I still believe. And I will most certainly buy a ticket to War of Worlds, due in part to my increased in interest in you on a personal level, spawned largely by your frolic on Oprah's furniture. (<--sarcasm)

Loosh Spot on Slate!

2005-05-25T13:36:00.000-04:00

We're going national, people. Slate, the nation's #1 online political/current events magazine, runs a daily digest of the blogosphere. Wonders never cease, my little blog made the scene. Unbeknownst to me, a few weeks ago Slate picked up my analysis of Rosa Parks' Outkast lawsuit (last item). This very happily brought some visitors.

An initial poster lamented that my "unfortunate blog" had gained national attention, and took me to task for not honoring Parks more. A second poster backed up my initial post, interpreting my comments as provacative hyperbole (correct, and thank you; though the first commenter's rebuke is still somewhat deserved, and I do appreciate those comments as well).

Back to the important part, the blog made it onto Slate!!

I don't know quite how to say this...it's kind of a big deal...People know me... I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany...

Quick Apology

2005-05-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

Sorry there's been so little posting lately. I've been travelling, launching another blog, and trying desperately to regain internet access at my apartment (success last night!). We will very shortly be back up to full throttle and better than ever.

Bush Goes to Calvin

2005-05-19T14:14:00.000-04:00

President Bush is delivering the commencement address at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend. The Christian college is one of only two the President will address at graudation this year. His visit is being met with a fair amount of protest, however, from faculty and students who feel the President's administration has not reflected the peace-seeking Christian values of Calvin. The Detroit Free-Press reports the story with a novel new idea: quoting moderate and left-of-center Christians talking about politics! Just imagine if this wild idea caught on someday at the New York Times and CNN!?

Don't count on them to set fire to the strawmen just yet...

The Qur'an, Toilets, and Newsweek

2005-05-19T09:10:00.000-04:00

Wow. A big story happened while I was in Las Vegas. Political riots (perhaps) stemming from a now-retracted Newsweek article about detainee abuse at Guantanamo killed 16 people in Afghanistan. The fury over this has been wild, with the White House on the offensive and the bloggers frothing at the mouth. Slate has articles tracing the Newseek frenzy as it traveled through both the mainstream media and the blogs. Today, David Brooks calls for a little sanity in the NY Times, where yesterday Thomas Friedman posed an interesting question: why do Sunni Muslims erupt in fury when the Qur'an is destroyed, but quietly accept the obliteration of living Shiite Muslims bodies? For more colorful commentary, see why Ann Coulter has become the most beloved and and reviled woman in America.

SWAT Team, Papa John's Now Listed Together in Yellow Pages

2005-05-09T11:35:00.000-04:00

A two-day hostage standoff in Australia was finally negotiated when authorities caved to inmates' demand for 15 pizzas. When the pies were delivered, the hostage takers promptly released guard Ken Hannah. Apparently the staff at the prison contacted the Phillipines' foreign relations team for advice (or no one at all). Don't they realize what the prisoners will do when they get a hankering for buffalo wings?

Contact Lenses that Work Like Sunglasses?

2005-05-06T16:23:00.000-04:00

Nike is testing colored contacts that work like sunglasses on select professional athletes around the globe. Tennis and baseball players are getting red ones that purport to help athletes track fast movement better, while golfers are receiving gray ones that supposedly help a golfer discern the lie of a ball better. The players quoted in the article seem to think the lenses work very well. Is it the wave of the future in sports?

Great bonus unintentional comedy in this This Is London article, which mentions "Brian Roberts, of US basketball team Baltimore Orioles." BASEball, lads. Baseball.

Custard is the New Finger Food

2005-05-06T13:20:00.000-04:00

Apparently public disuptes about human fingers in commercial food is becoming a monthly occurance. May's fingertip surfaced in Raleigh, North Carolina where Clarence Stowers was served the finger in his chocolate custard minutes after it was chopped from the unlucky hand of 23 year old Brandon Fizer. The case is wildly interesting for a few reasons...

1. Somehow Mr. Fizer witnessed his finger getting clipped into the chocolate custard, yet it was served to Mr. Stowers minutes later.
2. When the owner of Kohl's Frozen Custard tried to retrieve the finger from Mr. Stowers shortly after it was served to him he refused, exiting defiantly with promises to call local TV stations and a lawyer (he did).
3. Mr Stowers was sharply criticized for choosing to hoard his evidence instead of returning the fingertip so doctors could attempt to reattach it to Mr. Fizer's hand. But as his lawyer Lee Andrews explained to CNN, "his client was concerned about possible disease in the fingertip and kept it because he wanted someone to test it for 'all the diseases that are out here now.' "

There are some tough choices in life, but consider this one: If you suspected disease in the severed finger you were holding, would you take it home to your freezer, or give it to the kid with blood pouring out of the other 2/3 of the finger??

Red State/Blue State All About Income?

2005-05-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

Some think so. And they have color-coded maps to prove it.

How the International Clove Market Might Affect Legislation on Honeymoon Kissing

2005-05-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

In Zanzibar, at least. This article is a great glimpse at some the interesting/funny issues that result when different cultures and religions collide. And of course it includes some great quotes--"Tourists should not indulge in sex acts or kiss openly...Every society has norms to be respected. We want a law that stipulates that while tourists are accepted, there are standards that forbid wearing very short dresses in public"

Question of the week:

2005-05-04T16:04:00.000-04:00

Is anyone drinking Fiji bottled water for a reason other than the bottle? And could they state this reason and pass a polygraph test?

Be Nice To Ugly Kids

2005-05-04T15:58:00.000-04:00

Adding to the list of scientific proof that pretty people are treated much better in life, a new study reveals that good-looking kids receive better parenting than their ugly siblings. Ouch. Maureen Dowd ponders the findings.

Onion Back

2005-05-04T13:17:00.000-04:00

The Onion has returned to form, particularly with this recent gem. While all content cannot be endorsed, the Onion is still the funniest fake news service in the world and seems to have shaken its recent slump. This week's issue is great. Check out "Actual Expert Too Boring for TV." Like the best Onion articles, it only gets better as you keep reading.

Search for Sunlight Yeilds Infamy Instead

2005-04-28T11:19:00.000-04:00

It seems a striking young DC paralegal, fond of taking lunch breaks on the roof of her firm, ended up causing a bit of a stir. The tanktops she scaled down to in the privacy (so she thought) of her sunny lunches apparently did not sit well with a few of the more reserved associates of Winston & Strawn, and so a quite hilarious "clothing is not optional on the rooftop" memo was distributed. That now famous memo eventually found its way onto Wonkette (one of the most widely read blogs in America) making an anonymous sun-seeking 23 year-old instantly famous.

But here at the Loosh Spot we have an exclusive report on the "shoulders that launched a thousand memos." It's time to pluck this delightful young woman from anonymity and give her proper credit.

Mo Dollinger, we salute you:-)

Maverick and Joey!?

2005-04-28T10:20:00.000-04:00

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Hmm... This is an interesting couple to say the least. They're not without common ground, however. Cruise soared to stardom playing a high school student in Risky Business in 1983. Holmes soared to stardom playing a high school student on Dawson's Creek, which ended in 2003. News of the pairing reportedly caused Dawson to squint, and then look pensively to the side for several moments. He then went to sit on a dock and sort through his reeling emotions.

New Government In Iraq

2005-04-28T09:43:00.000-04:00

Today is a pivotal day in Iraq, as the leadership of the new government has been ratified. The last paragraph of this story relates two disconcerting facts, however. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari (a Shiite) ended up naming himself Acting Defense Minister, a position that had been held for a Sunni. About the worst thing someone could do for the defense of Iraq is to make Sunnis unhappy, as their most disenfranchised citizens pose by far the most significant security threat to the nation.

Worse still is the appointment of the highly suspect Ahmed Chalabi as one of four deputy prime ministers. Chalabi--at the time in exile--was beloved by the Pentagon and was the enthusiastic source behind several erroneous U.S. intelligence conclusions about Iraq (the existence of a clandestine WMD program, the use of portable weapons labs). As we understand better now, he was mostly just itching to return to his country in a position to take power. He was, in fact, the original choice of the U.S. to be interim Prime Minister. That is, until the U.S. discovered strong evidence of fraud, deception, and collusion with Iran and ousted Chalabi in favor of Iyad Allawi. Somehow the slick and charming Chalabi secured a top position in the Iraqi government nevertheless.

His history of self-interested cooperation with foreign powers will probably not play well with the public given his other newly acquired position in the government: Acting Oil Minister. Even if he proves honest, the appearance could not be any worse...