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Why is everyone rushing to Roman Polanski’s defense? (for future ref – he was arrested in Switzerland and the US is trying to extradite him for his crimes of 40 years ago)

Let’s sum up his actions: he photographed, drugged, and raped (orally and sodomized) a 13 year old girl. He was sentenced to 2 years in prison, but then skipped the country after serving only 30 days and has been living in non-extradition countries since.

Now, boatloads of people are rushing to his defense and I cannot understand why (mostly from the left, too, which is shameful. Whoopi, HuffPo, Applebaum, etc.). Simply because he is a great director does not make him above the law. There may have been some judicial improprieties at the trial, but the undisputed fact is that he raped a young girl. I don’t care how different standards of sexuality are in Europe – rape of a child is rape of a child. A 13 year old is only a “woman” if you’re living in Sparta and the wheel hasn’t been invented yet.

Polanski is now the entertainment world’s OJ Simpson.

JFC, there are important things going on in this world. Phelps taking a bong hit is not one of them

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” the federation said in a statement.

Light it up, Mikey. You’re not doing anyone any harm and if Aquaman doesn’t deserve some down time relaxation, I don’t know who does.

Oh, and the federation can blow it out of their sanctimonious pie holes. Yeah, yeah, it’s illegal to smoke, but so are u-turns in many states and I don’t see people losing sponsorship deals or having to deal with an unending stream of Sistah Toldjyahs for it.

And to the douchebag who took the private photo and distributed it: you are a douchebag. Keep this shit private and no one is harmed. Idiot.

Got a new neighbor. She has a dog. A tiny dog. That will not stop barking. If I did not hate small dogs before, I certainly do now.

Here’s my conception of the dog right after it has chewed through the crib, eaten the baby, and is now coming for your soul:

Obviously, this dog needs to be stopped. Just look at the eeeeeevil!
…
..
.

Yeah, fuck you too, Sparky. Your cute shall not work on me. Wanna know why? Because you won’t shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!

Part of the problem with automatic upgrades of site software is when, oh, they completely destroy your ability to post or modify your site. So fuuuuuck yoooou, Fantastico!

You’d think I’d learn.

Anyway, new job has crazy restrictive IT policy so until ClearWire makes it out to my new location… going to be slow.

In other news, I realized today why I like Robert Randolf’s I need more love so much… the bass line is taken straight from Michael Jackson’s Off the wall. Go figure.

Anyway, I think I’ll have to figure out how to post more frequently. Killin me and my 3 regular readers.

Oh, and the update killed all my plugins, my theme, and everything. Bitches! I don’t have time for this scorched earth site shit anymore!

If anyone spoils any part of the plot events of The Sopranos final season before I get a chance to see it on DVD is going to need some serious padding around the nether regions due to the asskicking that will commence.

This is brought about because no less than 5 blog posts today have started with something like “not to spoil anything with The Sopranos, but…” and then, of course, go on to spoil the plot event. So far I’ve managed to avoid contamination, but if anyone else keeps this up, I’m calling Jeff Gillooly.

You have been warned.

So a commercial comes on today for a new baseball game for some console. Graphics look great, yadda yadda… hey, wait a minute. What’s that song they’re using?

Breed by Nirvana.

Nirvana. In a commercial. For a video game.

May the gods smite you but good, Courtney. But. Good.

They’re evil and they only care about your health if it helps their profitability.

It is expected there would be no problems securing funding to explore a drug that could shrink cancerous tumors and has no side-effects in humans, but University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis has hit a stalemate with the private sector who would normally fund such a venture.

Michelakis’ drug is none other than dichloroacetate (DCA), a drug which cannot be patented and costs pennies to make.

It’s no wonder he can’t secure the $400-600 million needed to conduct human trials with the medicine – the drug doesn’t have the potential to make enough money.

Michelakis told reporters they will be applying to public agencies for funding, as pharmaceuticals are reluctant to pick up the drug.

At roughly $2 a dose, there isn’t much chance to make a billion on the cancer treatment over the long term.

According to research on DCA, formerly used to fight metabolic disease in children, the drug apparently revitalizes damaged mitochondria in cancer cells, effectively triggering cell death and shrinking the cells.

“One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer,” explained Michelakis.

This is also a large part of what’s wrong with the American medical system.

Who would ever want a $2 pill that shrinks/kills tumors with no side effects? Don’t be ridiculous. The mere idea of such a thing being desirable is absurd.

Today’s episode straight from Anonymous Lawyer is where the partner, after sitting on a report for 3 days, decides at 3pm on Friday to ask for a huge volume of work “by Monday.” As part of this, the person tasked with 99% of the work is the one who is paid the least, has no authority, and will under no circumstances be getting a bonus this year.

So, long story short, I told ‘em to stick it.

I have two DVD-specific rants. One, concerning the technology itself, where the designers have prohibited you from going directly to the menu and you can’t reauthor the DVD because of that egregious violation of our fair use rights known as the DMCA.

But today… today we’re going to talk about something else: DVDs for television series that do not place their chapter marks right after the opening credits. Yeah, I’m talking to you Stargate SG-1 and The Wire (and the early seasons of The Sopranos). After you’ve seen the credits once, do you really need to keep on seeing the menus the next 12-21 times you watch the series? And you can’t even find out that the chapter points are set at ass-random times until after it’s too late.

So here’s to you, underthinking DVD designers! Give us freakin’ appropriately-placed chapter points.

Oh yeah, and another thing, the DVD people who are putting only 2 episodes per DVD like, oh The Wire, designers… you’re severely cramping our Netflix enjoyment/throughput (well, the throughput would be fine-ish if they didn’t throttle our service).

Shuttle launch to go ahead despite risk of ‘catastrophe’

NASA managers have rejected last-ditch pleas from their top safety officer and chief engineer to scrap next month’s shuttle launch, saying that they will press ahead despite potentially catastrophic risks.

The head of the US space agency, Dr Michael Griffin, overruled warnings that there was a “relatively high” chance the shuttle’s external fuel tank could shed some of its solid foam coating when it launches on 1 July, carrying seven crew including Briton Piers Sellers, an Edinburgh University graduate.

But it gets better. Rove Griffin is going to carry on! Well, the soon to be dead astronauts are anyway. Money quote:

Dr Griffin said: “I do not see the situation we’re in as being a crew-loss situation. If we are unlucky and we have a debris event on ascent, it will not impede the ascent. The crew will arrive safely in orbit, and then we will begin to look at our options.”

Crew-loss == they all die
debris event == they all die on reentry
options once in orbit: 0

I don’t want these sociopaths to be able to add another 8 lives to their ledger. Politics is not worth sending a 25-year old deathtrap up into space.

Just remember: Mars, bitches!

The anti-sex misogyny brigade strikes again! Louisiana gov. signs another incest protection act into law.

Louisiana Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a ban on most abortions, which would be triggered if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling legalizing the procedure, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The ban would apply to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, except when the mother’s life is threatened. It is similar to a South Dakota law that has become the latest focus of the abortion battle.

Bonus points for having a woman sign the bill. Nice job, traitor to your gender. I’m putting in my claim on Kathleen Blanco’s uterus now. Kathleen, I expect you to ask me permission before you use your uterus for anything. Even menstruate.

I already gave for NOLA/Katrina, but Louisiana will never see another dime out of me.

Unannounced, formerly illegal cop entries into your home… are now legal.

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that evidence could be used even when the police entered a suspect’s home illegally by failing to knock on the door or announce their presence.

By a 5-4 vote, splitting along conservative-liberal lines, the high court ruled that a police violation of the so-called knock-and-announce rule does not require that the evidence seized during the search be thrown out.

…

“Today’s opinion is thus doubly troubling. It represents a significant departure from the court’s precedents. And it weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution’s knock-and-announce protection,” Breyer wrote.

Tell me again, how five justices departing from precedent are not activist judges? How they are not legislating from the bench?
Oh yeah, those are just meaningless code words to use when you disagree with the outcome.

So long, Fourth Amendment! Thanks, scAlito! Thanks bigot voters! Thanks compliant media! Thanks eletion fraud and disenfranchisement!

Zombie Cheney pushes graft to his company KBR.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the Department of the Army, per order of U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, has released to Judicial Watch approximately 100 pages of documents which detail the multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract awarded in 2003 by the Army to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. One document uncovered by Judicial Watch suggests the United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President’s office in awarding the contract.

In an email dated April 22, 2003, Carol Sanders of the USACE, writes, “Mr. Robert Andersen, Chief Counsel, USACE, participated in a 60 Minutes interview today in New York regarding the sole source award of the oil response contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root….Mr. Andersen…was able to make many of the points we had planned.” Sanders subsequently provided sound bites from the interview, including, “There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office).”

This directly contradicts another email uncovered by Judicial Watch in 2004. The email, dated March 5, 2003, sent by an official of the Army Corps of Engineers whose name was redacted, stated, “We anticipate no issue [with the KBR deal] since the action has been coordinated w VP’s office.”

Read the emails. They’re just patently awful, and a sign of just how corrupt this government is. Using soldiers to cover for the asses of the powers behind the throne, who are lining their pockets with corrupt no-bid contracts given to incompetent contractors. This is the kind of government behavior you typically only see in despotisms or autocracies. Rarely does this pervasive, blatant corruption exist for any period of time in a democracy.

Hmm… I wonder what kind of government we have?

MLB suspends Grimsley

Major League Baseball has suspended Jason Grimsley for 50 games under the auspices of its joint drug program, making the former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher the first Major Leaguer to be so punished without failing a drug test. Grimsley is also the first big leaguer to be suspended under the new rules this season.

This decision by MLB is so wrongheaded, it’s astounding. Look, just because a guy said he did something does not mean you can suspend him. No positive test == NO SUSPENSION.

Now the league is going to have a labor dispute over a guy who retired and without any objective evidence that he did anything in violation of any of the league rules. All for some false appearance of “enforcement.”

Here’s how you know this move is ridiculous: using the same reasoning, Barry Bonds should also be suspended. He said he used the Clear! Off with his head!

Another way: how is HGH detrimental to the game, but cortisone shots to enable an injured player to stay on the field OK? With both you get players who shouldn’t be on the field on the field (theoretically in HGH’s case). How is HGH any worse for the body than repeated cortisone injections?

Update: Yet another way to know that your move is both retarded and transparent… the dudes at Baseball Tonight at ESPN can point out the sheer hypocrisy of the move in the first 10 seconds of the segment on the news.

Nice move, Bud.

I’m with Billmon on this one:

the news that a committee of scholarly bootlickers has blackballed Juan Cole’s candidacy for a tenured professorship at Yale absolutely refuses to leave me in peace.

This may not seem like particularly noxious news, at least when compared to the stench of putrefying corpses hanging over Haditha, or the Nazi stab-in-the-back myths now being recycled in Right Blogistan, but it’s touched an extremely raw nerve with me – because of what it says about the age of fear and intellectual intimidation that we live in, because of the unadulterated vileness of the self-appointed commissars involved, and, not least, because I consider Juan Cole my friend, and a man who won’t take the time to speak up for a friend who’s being blacklisted is, as the Godfather might put it, less than a man.

Now, I don’t know Juan Cole. He and I aren’t friends, and he probably doesn’t need any defense from me. What I do know is that he is a fair-minded intellectual history professor who is an expert on the Middle East, fluent in the languages of the region. And english. Which is nice, since I don’t know those other languages.

In addition to his other pursuits, Professor Cole maintains a blog, focusing on the news out of Iraq and the region at large, gathered in large part from the news sources of the region and translated by Cole. Because he’s fair-minded, because he speaks the truth about things like Zarqawi and Ahmadinejad and the actual situation on the ground and Israel’s policies and how it affects Palestinians, he has been relentlessly attacked by the mouthbreathing pond scum of the right wing bigotsphere. It’s his view that Palestinians are people too, and whose rights are being infringed, that has brought the thermonuclear righty meltdown (see also, the uproar over the papers about AIPAC’s influence, etc.)

Cole doesn’t need our defense in any substantive way; he’s ably smote all of the fools who challenged him on factual or interpretive grounds (particularly Goldberg, a repeat ass kickee). Cole could probably use some moral and publicly-stated support, however, because you see, the vile, dishonest, cowardly, Stalinist cretins of the right have finally found a way they could hurt him: by working money angles to keep him from getting tenure at Yale. And it worked.

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