A JPMorgan Chase sales exec wore nothing but a condom when he jumped from behind a tree on a popular New Jersey biking and hiking trail - but he didn't realize the woman he'd exposed himself to was an off-duty police officer, authorities said yesterday.
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With his clothes tucked under his arm, Kelly - wearing just a condom - jumped in front of the off-duty female officer, who was jogging, authorities said.

She immediately pulled out a can of Mace and a cellphone, Honecker said. "She told him to halt and said, 'Don't come near me. I'm going to call the police,' " the prosecutor recounted.

Kelly put on his shorts and ran about 500 feet to his rented Ford Taurus, and the officer gave chase. The car's license plate was covered by a T-shirt, but the officer yanked it away and read the plate number to a dispatcher as Kelly sped off, Honecker said. Detectives traced the car back to the Hertz rental company, and after they began questioning Kelly's neighbors, his lawyer arranged his surrender.

It's much ado about very little, insisted Kelly's lawyer, Brian Neary.

"The evidence will show him [Kelly] in the park and exposed but will not show that he had the intent to sexually assault this woman," Neary told reporters.

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They also find that Dean was pulling numbers out of his ass, presumably to make more room for his head...

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The thought that John Bolton might be confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations brought one Republican senator to the brink of tears on Wednesday.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) choked up on the Senate floor, as he urged his colleagues to vote against Bolton's nomination on Thursday:

''I'm afraid that when we go to the [Senate] well, that too many of my colleagues -- (voice breaking) -- that too many of my colleagues are not going to understand that this appointment is very, very important to our country," Voinovich said.
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Voinovich did not attend Bolton's confirmation hearings; and he surprised Republicans by raising last-minute objections to Bolton on April 19, just as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was preparing to vote on Bolton's nomination.

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It's springtime, love is in the air, and 14 senators are gazing at the mirror.

You've heard the mindless braying and fruitless arguments, but I'm here to tell you the facts, no matter what brickbats and catcalls may come my way. Lindsey Graham defied the biases of his constituency to do what was right, not what was easy. Robert Byrd put aside personal gain to save our Republic. David Pryor ignored the counsels of hate to stand firm for our hopes and dreams. Mike DeWine protected our way of life. These men are uniters, not dividers.

How do I know?

Because they told me. Again and again, and at great length, as they announced The Deal. And I believed them, because I am an idiot. Or as they might put it, your basic "folk" from "back home."
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I personally was dazzled by their refusal to bow to the counsels of common sense and proportion, and stirred that they had no fear of justified insult ("blowhard," "puffed up popinjay") as they moved forward in the halls of the United States Senate to bravely proclaim their excellence.

In other words, Republicans would give Democrats almost everything they want and get virtually nothing in return. Sounds like the kind of plan John McCain and other Senate "mavericks" will enthusiastically support.

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A radical anti-American group working for the establishment of a separate Hispanic nation in the southwest U.S. has threatened attendees of an anti-illegal immigration conference in Las Vegas planned for this weekend, saying Mexican food workers might cause "Montezuma's Revenge" among those they serve.

A news release from La Voz de Aztlan – which sees its struggle for a separate state with Los Angeles as its capital as similar to that of the Palestinians in the Middle East – announces that leaders of the "USA Anti-Mexican Movement" – Aztlan's own term – will be meeting this weekend in Las Vegas.

States the group: "The 'Who's Who List of Xenophobes' will be at the Plaza Hotel on Friday May 27, Saturday May 28 and Sunday May 29 to coordinate the vigilante operations they plan to undertake along the California/Mexico border on June through August."
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Patricia Saye is co-founder of Wake Up America.

"What's so funny about this is the event is not being held at the Plaza Hotel," she told WND. "It's being held at the Cashman Theatre."

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Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who earlier this week brokered a deal over judicial nominees to protect the rights of Democrats in the Senate, today announced a compromise with DNC Chairman Howard Dean which would effectively give Democrats the White House for three of the next five presidential terms.

"The purpose of elections is to protect the rights of the minority," said Mr. McCain...

"I don't know why people call John McCain a 'maverick'," Mr. Dean added. "From my perspective as DNC chairman, he's not bucking party leadership. He's a solid, party-line guy."

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:16 AM -

The Eurovision Song Contest is not always a reliable guide to the broader political currents coursing through the Continent. One recalls the 1990 finals in Zagreb, when the charming hostess, Helga Vlahovic, presented her own fair country as the perfect Eurometaphor: "Yugoslavia is very much like an orchestra," she cooed. "The string section and the wood section all sit together." Alas, barely were the words out of her mouth before the wood section was torching the string section's dressing rooms, and the hills were alive only with the ancient siren songs of ethnic cleansing and genital severing. Lurching into its final movement, Yugoslavia was no longer the orchestra, only the pits.

But this year's winner, Miss Helena Paparizou of Greece, was a shrewder analyst of the geopolitical scene. Her triumphant My Number One is an eerily perceptive summation of the EU establishment's view of its ingrate electorates this pre-referendum week: "You're delicious So capricious If I find out you don't want me I'll be vicious."
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With the new constitution flailing in most polls, the Dutch government is being rather vicious already. Bernard Bot, the foreign minister, dismisses the electorate's objections as "a lot of irrational reaction". Piet-Hein Donner, the justice minister, warns that Europe will go the way of Helga's orchestra if the constitution is rejected. "Yugoslavia was more integrated than the Union is now," he points out, "but bad will and the inability to stifle hidden irritations and rivalry led in a short time to war."

Scornful of such piffling analogies, the prime minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, thinks a Balkan end is the least of their worries. "I've been in Auschwitz and Yad Vashem," he says. "The images haunt me every day. It is supremely important for us to avoid such things in Europe."

At the Theresienstadt (or Terezin) concentration camp in the Czech Republic, Sweden's European Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, declared: "There are those who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of doing things. I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads."

Golly. So the choice for voters on the Euro-ballot is apparently: yes to the European Constitution, or yes to a new Holocaust. If there's a neither-of-the-above box, the EU's rulers are keeping quiet about it. The notion that the Continent's peoples are basically a bunch of genocidal whackoes champing at the bit for a new bloodbath is one I'm not unsympathetic to. But it's a curious rationale to pitch to one's electorate: vote for us; we're the straitjacket on your own worst instincts.

It is difficult to tell what is fuelling the growing Dutch opposition to the Constitution: it could be a general discontent with the way Dutch and European politics are going; it could be the now officially acknowledged miscalculation over the euro; it could be the shambles of the Eurovision song contest (is that not a perennial problem?).

It would be very good to think that it is, in fact, the outrageous pro-Constitution video, fronted by four MEPs that convinced a number of those who had not intended to vote, to go out on June 1 and say no to the whole caboodle.

The pictures and words are clearly comprehensible even if one’s knowledge of Dutch is limited. In effect, they are saying that without the Constitution there will be more Holocausts, more Srebrenices, more Madrid bombs.

However the French and Dutch votes go, it seems unlikely that the EU's rulers will allow anything as footling as the will of the people to derail the project at this late stage. In Euro-referendums, there's only one correct answer; it's just that sometimes you have to have two votes before the people figure out which one it is.

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I was amused by how many people expected me to join in the weeping and wailing over the defection of Belinda Stronach. I was so pleased with the news that I sent her a thank you note. I enjoy having time prove me right.

Those who openly questioned her abilities, qualification and commitment were written off as jealous or sexist dinosaurs. Most of the media was so intent on selling the myth that she was a sharp, capable and popular conservative that they overlooked nearly all evidence to the contrary.

As a leadership candidate Belinda was unimpressive. The only successes on her resume were her wealth and her position of CEO at Magna. But they were not achieved by hard work; they were handed to her. It was painfully obvious that she did not even have a rudimentary grasp of the issues. She stayed away from unscripted events and media sponsored debates.

Her speeches relied heavily on focus group tested platitudes ('We need to bake a bigger economic pie') woodenly delivered and peppered with valley girl interjections of 'like' and 'ya know'. She began her final speech at the leadership convention saying "I am throwing away my script and will speak from the heart." and then proceeded to read from the script in her hands.

Through it all the media largely gave her a pass. She was new, she was glamorous, the camera loved her, and more importantly she was not a conservative from the west. In fact she was not a conservative at all.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:29 PM -

Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.

A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it.

The pair were rushed to hospital after one of the devices exploded in woodland at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

A 38-year-old Winthrop, Ark. man was hospitalized after jumping out the passenger window of a vehicle traveling an estimated 55 to 60 mph to retrieve his cigarette late Saturday, an official said.
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The driver of the car, Jerry Glenn Nelson, 44, of Haworth, Okla., was asked by Foran earlier in the evening to be Foran's designated driver, Gravier said.
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Foran was lying on the pavement bleeding profusely from the nose, eyes and chin.

"He also had a substantial case of road rash (abrasions from sliding on the pavement)," said Gravier. "It was obvious he was extremely intoxicated and this man was hurt."

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AT THIS POINT it comes as no surprise. John Kerry is releasing all his military records -- but then again, he isn't.

During an interview yesterday with Globe editorial writers and columnists, the former Democratic presidential nominee was asked if had signed Form SF 180, authorizing the Department of Defense to grant access to all his military records.

''I have signed it," Kerry said. Then, he added that his staff was ''still going through it" and ''very, very shortly, you will have a chance to see it."

The devil is usually in the details. With Kerry, it's also in the dodges and digressions. After the interview, Kerry's communications director, David Wade, was asked to clarify when Kerry signed SF 180 and when public access would be granted. Kerry drifted over to join the conversation, immediately raising the confusion level. He did not answer the question of when he signed the form or when the entire record will be made public.

Several e-mails later, Wade conveyed the following information: On Friday, May 20, Kerry obtained a copy of Form 180 and signed it. ''The next step is to send it to the Navy, which will happen in the next few days. The Navy will then send out the records," e-mailed Wade. Kerry first said he would sign Form 180 when pressed by Tim Russert during a Jan. 30 appearance on ''Meet the Press."

Six months after Kerry's loss to George W. Bush, it feels somewhat gratuitous to point out how hard it can be to get a clear, straight answer from Kerry on this and other matters. But as long as the Massachusetts senator is thinking about another presidential run, the candor gap remains on the table, because he puts it there.

The campaign waged against him by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth arouses Kerry's greatest passion. ''What they said was untrue," he said. He considered, but decided against, filing suit against the group, which alleged that he did not deserve his Vietnam military honors.

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Ralph Neas is still in charge of Federal judge selection

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ADMIRAL NELSON saw off the mighty Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar but 200 years on, he has been sunk by a wave of political correctness.

Organisers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between “a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet” not British and French/Spanish forces.

Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed.

“It seems remarkable that we are not saying this is Britain versus France in this re-enactment. Surely 200 years on, we can afford to gloat a bit. Not even the French can try and get snooty about this.”

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