Headline of the day!

From AFP: US judge sets December date to execute Nobel Peace Prize nominee. No word on some of the actual winners, but I haven't given up hope.

Miracles of modern technology!

(Via Michelle Malkin) Those pesky photo doctors in the maintream media are at it again and this time their target is Condi Rice. But they really don't have to have a computer to play - they've been doing quite well with modern makeup products:

(Hat tip: terrylee.com via doug_from_upland)

Hitchens puts the boot in on Georgie Galloway

Calling Galloway's Bluff:

I replied that this was not necessary, since his public denial to me was on the record and had been broadcast, and since it further confirmed the apparent perjury that he had committed in front of the U.S. Senate on May 17, 2005. I added that I wanted no further contact with Galloway until I could have the opportunity of reviewing his prison diaries.

That day has now been brought measurably closer by the publication of the report of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This report, which comes with a vast archive of supporting material, was embargoed until 10 p.m. Monday and contains the "smoking gun" evidence that Galloway, along with his wife and his chief business associate, were consistent profiteers from Saddam Hussein's regime and its criminal exploitation of the "Oil for Food" program. In particular:

1) Between 1999 and 2003, Galloway personally solicited and received eight oil "allocations" totaling 23 million barrels, which went either to him or to a politicized "charity" of his named the Mariam Appeal.

2) In connection with just one of these allocations, Galloway's wife, Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received about $150,000 directly.

3) A minimum of $446,000 was directed to the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned against the very sanctions from which it was secretly benefiting.

4) Through the connections established by the Galloway and "Mariam" allocations, the Saddam Hussein regime was enabled to reap $1,642,000 in kickbacks or "surcharge" payments.

Lots of good fun by following the links including that one of the witnessess against ole Georgie was his and Saddam's former bosom chum, Tariq Aziz. Punchline:

Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month. I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

Not likely, but I bet they're miffed they can't make wingnuttery pay like Georgie.

2nd Hoot!

Last one out of Cuba, turn out the lights:

The 40-member National Chorus of Cuba, which specializes in patriotic songs about the glories of the Revolution, is touring Canada. Twenty members just defected en masse in Toronto.

It's a Workers Paradise fer sure!

Today's Hoot!

Right Wing News:

You know what kills me about this? It's not that Spike Lee buys into this conspiracy theory, because let's face it, Spike Lee is a complete chucklehead. What kills me is that you have a reporter from ABC, who knows better, saying that Lee is espousing a "reasonable theory".

They're all Bozos on that bus.

There's bad news and good news

The bad news is that Cindy Sheehan isn't going to be tying herself up. The good news is that Activists to 'Die' Outside White House:

"I'll be laying down and not getting up," Sheehan said Tuesday to a small crowd in which the number of journalists exceeded the number of protesters.

I guess she's just getting our hopes up. I wonder if her handlers told her this time not to smile when the cops are carrying her away?

Bad news for the whining spiv

US Senate 'finds Iraq oil cash in Galloway's wife's bank account':

GEORGE GALLOWAY faces possible criminal charges after a US Senate investigation tracked $150,000 (£85,000) in Iraqi oil money to his wife’s bank account in Jordan.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will refer the Respect Party MP for possible prosecution after concluding that he gave “false and misleading” testimony at his appearance before the panel in May.

The sub-committee claimed that, through intermediaries, Mr Galloway and the Mariam Appeal were granted eight allocations of Iraqi crude oil totalling 23 million barrels from 1999 to 2003.

It will also forward the new information to British authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway’s financial disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq. “We have what we would call the smoking gun,” said Senator Norm Coleman, the sub-committee’s Republican chairman.

The sub-committee’s report, released today, was provoked by Mr Galloway’s clash with the senators — which he turned into a book entitled Mr Galloway goes to Washington. In that encounter, the anti-war MP vehemently denied receiving oil allocations from Iraq.

But the report provides bank account details tracking payments from an oil company through a Jordanian middleman to Mr Galloway’s now estranged wife, Amineh Abu- Zayyad, and his Mariam Appeal fund.

Couldn't happen to more a oleaginous piece of pondscum.

I know it's hard to believe

In Chicago - Are scandals creating a lawyer shortage?

There's been no shortage of city workers ensnared in the federal government's ongoing Hired Truck investigation.

But as more and more folks get caught up in the scandal, could there be a shortage of seasoned attorneys to represent them?

There are a limited number of criminal trial lawyers experienced at defending people in public-corruption cases in Chicago's federal court -- and many of them now are spoken for.

Some of the best were picked off early by city officials who have never been charged and hope they won't be.

So far, 36 people have been charged in the Hired Truck scandal, and 23 have pleaded guilty since January 2004. The investigation continues, federal officials have said.

Once a lawyer is representing a defendant in the Hired Truck case, his or her firm often discourages partners from representing any new defendant whose case could pose a conflict with the first client. It'd be a sticky situation if one defendant ended up having to testify against the other, and their lawyers worked at the same firm.

They'd have more "seasoned" lawyers if they prosecuted more of the Chicago kleptocrats.

Today's Hoot!

Cold Fury points to If World War II Was an RTS

If World War Two had been an online Real Time Strategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this.
...
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
...
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*

Much more at the source.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell ya!

U.N. Procurement Scandal: Ties to Saddam and Al Qaeda:

The scandal engulfing the United Nations Procurement Department now appears to be bottomless. It also shows signs of growing more sinister, especially where it involves a mysterious private company called IHC Services, which did big business with the procurement department until it was removed from U.N. rosters in June.

New details of how dark the scandal could prove to be have emerged from the private sale of IHC on June 3, 2005, just as the procurement scandal was about to break. It now appears that while doing business with the U.N., IHC had links both to Saddam Hussein’s old sanctions-busting networks, and to a Liechtenstein-based businessman, Engelbert Schreiber, Jr., known among other things for his ties to a figure designated by the U.N. itself as a financier of Al Qaeda.

Is it time to dump the United Nations yet?