Dang, I hate an unfused vertebra
From Glen Johnson in the Boston Globe:

Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has been Kerry's most persistent critic among the nine candidates for the Democratic nomination. He regularly criticizes him for granting President Bush authority to wage war in Iraq, as well as for voting for the administration's ''leave no child behind'' education act.

Dean did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War because he received a medical deferment for an unfused vertebra in his back. Several articles in the last year have noted that after his deferment, Dean spent 80 days skiing in Aspen, Colo. ''It was a great time to be a kid and do something relatively fun,'' the Aspen Times quoted Dean as saying last August.

Don we now our tin foil beanies!
Elle 'lined baby's cot with lead':

Supermodel Elle Macpherson has reportedly lined her baby's cot with lead to shield him from cosmic rays on planes.

Macpherson, 40, allegedly also used foil blankets to shield herself and sons Flynn, five, and Aurelius, 12 weeks, from radiation, British newspaper The Sun said yesterday.

The lingerie designer is said to have spent thousands of pounds on the custom-built cot, which Macpherson's partner Arpad Busson carried aboard a British Airways flight from the Bahamas to London recently.

Hmm, how much lead is enough? 1/4 inch thick or one inch or more? Don't tell Elle or Arpad will have a hernia in his future.

Another bizarre cult raises concern:

Japanese police said yesterday they were ready to crack down on a bizarre "white-costume" cult which has stirred unease among local people by occupying a public road and shrouding the surrounding area with mysterious white screens.

Police started questioning white-clad members of the Pana Wave Laboratory cult who, since last Friday have been occupying a 200-metre stretch of a mountain road with a caravan of 15 white-shrouded cars and vans in Gifu, about 300 kilometres west of Tokyo.

The local authority on Wednesday issued an expulsion order to the cult, which claims the earth is in danger because of electromagnetic waves used with evil intent by communists, according to its website.

Sounds like a pretty fair description of CNN.

Traffic ticket leads to 9-hour jury trial. It's not as mundane as it sounds:

Diewald, who identifies himself as ''The Rev. Chu Bbakka,'' was stopped by Plemons in Sheffield Township on Sept. 28 for non-working brake lights, according to a police report, and he failed to show a valid Ohio driver's license.

Instead, Plemons said, he pulled out a homemade ''international driver's license'' provided by his organization, ''The Sovereign Nation of Earth.''

Diewald testified yesterday in front of Judge Mark Mihok that his organization helps the homeless and he has no allegiance to ''any geo-political entity.''

''You can't play by society's laws, so you make up your own?'' countered Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Szabo.

''Their society doesn't want me,'' Diewald said.

Diewald called several members of his organization to the stand, including one of the ''founding fathers'' of the Sovereign Nation of Earth, James Bisso, and the secretary and treasurer of the nation, Mary Francis Cummings.
...
Szabo cross-examined Bisso, asking him where the Sovereign Nation of Earth is located.

''According to Chewy, it encompasses the whole earth,'' Bisso said.

Some people just shouldn't be allowed to watch Star Wars!

Hmm, how much did this cost?
Amazing gov't discovery: Junk e-mail is usually junk:

The FTC studied a random sample of 1,000 unsolicited e-mails taken from a pool of more than 11 million pieces of spam it has collected. The agency looked for deceptive claims in a message’s text or the "from" or "subject" lines.

"In one way or another, a great deal of it appears to contain important information that is false or deceptive," said Eileen Harrington, the FTC’s director of marketing practices.

Forward mine to Jay Bookman (post immediately below), thanks. He's worried about the goverment not having enough money to provide "services" and needs something to take his mind off it. Some mail offering "hot singles" and "penis enlargers" might do the trick.

Invincible Ignorance Alert!
Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a brainwave - Tax cut woos Greediest Generation:

The president's proposed $726 billion tax cut is not an economic policy. It is a crass appeal to greed, pitched to a nation conditioned to believe that greed is not a vice but a downright virtue.

And that's just the beginning of the deceptions and distortions being used to sell this policy.

The money that the tax cut would allegedly "return" to the taxpayer never came from the taxpayer in the first place.

I wonder it says on ole Jay's W2 form? But, Jay 'splains it all:

Every penny that taxpayers send to the federal government is spent by the federal government.

So how is it possible to "return" what has already been spent? The same dollar cannot be spent twice. The myth of "return" is a fiction, a cover story, concocted to soothe what little conscience we have left about such matters.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Jay to suggest reduced spending.

While the Nobel Economics Prize committee has your number, Jay, I wouldn't hang out by the phone.

You don't see too many of those around here
Bryan Smith in the Chicago Sun-Times astounds with Tongue-splitting ban slices its way through Legislature:

David Miller, the state representative from Calumet City and a practicing dentist, is serious when he talks about recent legislation he's introduced.

Miller, a Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that would all but ban what has become the latest craze in "body modification"--slicing the tongue in half to create a reptilian appearance.

More than you want to know by following the link.

They're having a hootenanny! (But not everyone is invited.)
This Saturday in South Carolina, the presidential contenders from the Democrat party are having a nationally televised debate. There will be lots of good wingnuttery on display with Carol Moseley Braun, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and the Rev. Al leading the hijinks. But it looks like there's a forgotten wingnut:

Perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche asked South Carolina Democratic leaders Monday to allow him to participate in Saturday's presidential debate.

But state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said there would be no invitation.

"I'm not inviting him," Harpootlian said. "I think LaRouche is not a credible Democratic candidate. He's not going to participate in our process this weekend."

Hmmm, whatever happened to the "politics of inclusion?" Admittedly, Lyndon's off the wall, but look at some of the other "candidates".

LaRouche's campaign released an open letter to the state party signed by eight South Carolina legislators, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Theo Mitchell and several members of the state party's executive committee.

It also was signed by lawmakers from 11 other states and former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders.

"The attempt to limit the nominating process to an agreed upon number of candidates, as designated by the news media and a handful of people in the national party, is discriminatory," the letter said.

"Now is the time for fair and open debate on the critical issues facing our nation and our party," said the letter, which noted LaRouche is a registered candidate.

According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, LaRouche has raised $3.7 million this election cycle.

Here's a copy of the letter which aside from the blather, has this telling phrase:

According to the FEC, he now ranks fourth in total contributions raised and first in total contributors, among all major Democratic candidates.

The latter is not surprising given how addicted the "party of the people" is to big money contributors. So what's the deal? Why can't Lyndon play with the other kids? Hey, at least he filed his reports with the FEC.

Besides, someone who believes in a vast international conspiracy run by the British Royal Family would raise the intellectual level of what the "credible candidates" will be putting on display.

"Eanie meanie, cheery beanie - the spirits are about to speak"
Sky News breathlessly informs us that SADDAM WILL SPEAK:

Saddam Hussein is to deliver a message in the next three days, it has been reported

The claim was made by a previously unknown Iraqi group opposed to the US presence in Iraq.
...
The claim was made in a letter to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

Hmm, selling bin Laden pronouncements must have maxed out. On to greener pastures - see y'all on eBay!

Gives new meaning to "He couldn't even get himself arrested"
Alex Spillius in the Telegraph amuses with Comical Ali even fails to surrender:

During the war he was the oddball public face of America's enemy Iraq, but now there are claims that Mohammad Said Sahaf, the former information minister, cannot get himself arrested.

The minister, nicknamed "Comical Ali" for his eccentric denials that Iraqi forces were being overrun, is said to have tried to turn himself in to the Americans. But they refused, as he was not on their list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam Hussein's regime.

A senior Kurdish official said that Sahaf had been holed up at a relative's house in central Baghdad for a week near a street patrolled every day by American armoured vehicles.

Adel Murad, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, told the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat: "He sent some of his relatives to inform them of his wish to surrender, but they turned him down. Negotiations are still going on to hand him over."

Sounds like an old Henny Youngman joke: "Take my brother-in-law. Please!"

Gorgeous George Alert!
James Taranto notices a discrepancy in Georgie Galloway's accounts:

Pennies for Mariam
The father of Mariam Hamza, the Iraqi leukemia patient who is supposed to be the beneficiary of a charity set up by scandal-plagued pro-Saddam British parliamentarian George Galloway, "said [Thursday] that he was worried his daughter's life was in danger because funds promised by the Scottish MP's Mariam Appeal had failed to arrive," Friday's Telegraph reports:

Hamza Abd Mittab said that the monthly allowance of £65 that the family of seven has received for three years from the appeal, to pay for Mariam's food and travel expenses, had last been paid in January. Speaking at the family home in Baghdad yesterday, he said: "Mariam's drugs are almost finished now and my daughter will die if she doesn't receive assistance."

Sixty-five pounds is the equivalent of just over $100, so the charity's annual payment to Mariam amounts to barely more than $1,200. But as today's Telegraph makes clear, Galloway isn't so niggardly with everyone. The paper reports Galloway has acknowledged the Mariam Appeal "spent more than £800,000 on political campaigns and expenses"--including an £18,000 salary for Galloway's Palestinian Arab wife. That's more than 23 times the annual payment to young Mariam.

When you send Geogie a contribution, don't forget to include extra for handling - he loves to handle it.

The latest episode of "The Rev"
Things were looking bad for The Rev yesterday:

April 29, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The Rev. Al Sharpton was having a tough time last night meeting his deadline to file a presidential campaign finance report.

Sharpton's campaign claimed a computer glitch made it impossible to file his presidential papers electronically with the Federal Election Commission by the 5:30 p.m. deadline.

The FEC warned earlier this month that Sharpton risked a fine for failing to file timely presidential papers. Sharpton's campaign subsequently vowed to file with the FEC by yesterday.

I told you the dog ate it! But he apparently got something out to reporters:

The Rev. Al Sharpton officially entered the presidential race yesterday by filing documents showing some of the nation's leading black businessmen are bankrolling his candidacy.

In his first finance report of the 2004 race, Sharpton said he has collected $114,456 and spent $54,456, a fraction of the million-dollar fund-raising and spending tallies reported by the five leading Democratic candidates for President.

Only one problem - The Rev and his entourage have been flying around the country for months but only claim $54 K in expenditures?

Sharpton's report did not fully itemize expenditures, so it was not immediately clear how he was able to spend so little compared with his rivals while crisscrossing the country for months.

His campaign compliance attorney, Stanley Schlein, did not return calls seeking comment.

Well, he's mastered the essence of the reporting rules - it's more important to file than it is to be factual.