The real blog is over yonder

This is the emergency backup site for Revolution 21’s Blog for the People.

The active blog is over here.

That’s OK, kid. You had lots of company.

‘No one should fear LSU.’

I may be jes’ a little bit likkered up after the big win by my Tigers, so you’re welcome to join me as I just sit back and laugh my (ahem) off at this fool and his fool prediction, which reflects too much fool faith in fool O-H I-O State.

Oh, yes, podna . . . fear LSU.

And the mostly nekkid hootchie mama at the end of the “Black Sports Network” (ahem) production . . . quite uninteresting. Too much skank, too little je ne sais quoi. I seen better.

But it does say a lot about the credibility of the “Black Sports Network” and its ilk. Robert Littal’s views on women might be even more whack than Robert Littal’s prognostications about college football.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful . . .

But the music inside’s delightful. So what the hell do we care? Let it sleet, let it snow, let everything ice over.

BUT NOT the power lines. We need the juice to listen to the Revolution 21 podcast, right?

And heat. Heat is good as we go into December, here.

That’s right, we’re bracing for an ice storm here in Omaha, but your Mighty Favog has got enough good music to keep us all warm.

Again . . . so long as the electricty and the Internet connection holds out. Let us pray. . . .

Don’t feed us a line, show us the pictures

Omaha’s police chief says nuh uhhhh, one of his officers did too shoot a teen-age suspect in the front of the leg, not the back, because the kid did too aim his gun at the pursuing policeman.

Marcel Davis Jr.’s lawyer, Bill Gallup, had alleged the Omaha cop gunned his client down from behind, saying the teen reported having thrown the gun away before he got shot. Here’s the latest report from the Omaha World-Herald:

Photos from a medical examination of the gunshot wound sustained by a 14-year-old boy showed the bullet entered the front of the boy’s leg, not the back, Police Chief Thomas Warren said today.

Warren offered the information in light of a statement made Thursday by J. William Gallup, the attorney for Marcel Davis Jr. Davis was in court after he was accused of pointing a gun at a police officer as he was being chased from a car that police had stopped near 48th and Boyd Streets.

The police officer, Nicholas Andrews, fired at Davis, hitting him once in the leg. A loaded 9 mm pistol was found at the scene. The gun was reported stolen June 2.

Davis was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm. Douglas County Judge Stephen Swartz set bail at $100,000. Davis would have to post 10 percent, or $10,000, to be released.

Gallup, after Thursday’s court hearing for Davis, said his client told him that the bullet pierced his right calf. “He was shot in the back of the leg, not front,” Gallup said.

Warren said today that’s not what crime lab photographs from the medical exam show.

According to the photos, Warren said, “the entry was to the front of the leg, to the shin area, approximately 4 inches below the kneecap . . . There was no entry sustained to the rear or the calf area.

“There is no injury to the rear of his leg.”

Gallup, when contacted today, said he isn’t disputing the medical report. “My client said he got hit in the rear area of the leg,” he said. “His position is that he was running away. He did not point a gun at the policeman.”

Gallup said that Davis told him he threw the gun in some bushes as he got out of the car because he didn’t want to get caught with a gun. Gallup said witnesses would confirm that account.

Officer Bill Dropinski, a police spokesman, said today that the gun was found near Davis when he was apprehended, “not back by the car.”

Gallup said police are taught to shoot assailants in the chest because that’s the biggest target. Andrews, he said, shot Davis in the leg “either because he’s a poor shot or he was simply trying to stop a guy he was chasing . . . He did not perceive the kid to be a threat, he was just hitting him in the leg to halt his flight.”

I LOVE THE SMELL of a good pissing match in the afternoon. Then again, no, I guess I don’t . . . ewww. Whom do you believe?

In one corner, we have one of the best criminal-defense attorneys in the Midwest, working like hell on behalf of a client who screwed up but good. You pretty much know the kid is guilty of something.

A good defense attorney usually doesn’t go off half-cocked when it matters. Or if he does, it’s usually calculatingly half-cocked. And he says he has witnesses, who at the time also complained to local TV reporters that the officer had no reason to shoot the kid.

In the opposite corner, you have Tom Warren, chief of the troubled Omaha Police Department. Bill Gallup is a better lawyer than Tom Warren is a police chief.

Warren presides over a department that’s had a problem with rogue cops and a culture of intimidating minorities and, sometimes, brutality. More than one — more than two . . . more than three — African-Americans in Omaha have been shot and killed by police under questionable circumstances over the past 35 years or so.

And recently, one Omaha cop was convicted of sexual assault on a local prostitute.

Despite all this, Warren and the mayor’s office are quick to completely exonerate police whenever anyone complains about their actions and completely demonize the complainer. All before anyone — even OPD internal-affairs officers — has had a chance to thoroughly investigate anything.

THE OMAHA COP SHOP has problems. The teen-aged knucklehead has problems — big ones — not counting the two he’s had since conception. Whom do you believe?

Is “None of the above” an option?

Here’s the bottom line: If Tom Warren wants us to believe his version of the truth, he needs to pony up the medical report and the accompanying pictures. He also needs a third-party investigation to vouch for his officer’s actions.

Because while a little hoodlum who got on the wrong end of some hot lead from an Omaha cop may have little to no credibility, what emanates from Omaha police headquarters nowadays scarcely has more.

Back. Of. The. Leg.

Click on picture for video.

Whadda you know. Baby might have been telling the truth, after all.

And the Omaha Police Department just might have stepped in it. Again. Because it’s starting to look like some officers just might think they have Negro-hunting licenses. Maybe.

According to the attorney representing Marcel Davis, Jr., police shot the 14-year-old in the back of the calf. Davis said he was running from the cops and had thrown his stolen gun away after bailing from the vehicle in which he rode.

Omaha cops and the county attorney say he pulled a gun on the officer, and the cop did what he had to do.

PERHAPS IT’S POSSIBLE to get shot in the back of the leg by a cop while you’re pointing your handgun at him, but only if you’re really, really into yoga or happen to be Nadia Comăneci. Or, at least, so it seems to me.

The Omaha World-Herald covers Davis’ first court appearance:

Davis was shot in the leg by Officer Nicholas Andrews near 48th and Boyd Streets. Davis had run from a Chrysler Cirrus that Andrews and Officer Alan Peatrowsky stopped after they spotted the car being driven without its headlights on and with an expired license plate.

During the foot chase, police said, Davis turned and pointed a gun at Andrews, and Andrews fired at Davis hitting him once in the leg. He was treated at Creighton University Medical Center.

The firearm that Davis is accused of carrying is a Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol that was reported stolen on June 2.

Gallup said Davis told him that he had tossed the gun in the bushes and ran from police. He also told Gallup that the bullet pierced his right calf.

“He was shot in the back of the leg, not front,” Gallup said.

IT’S NOT LIKE Omaha police have a great track record in this area, with fatal shootings that sparked a major riot back in the day and almost got us there a decade ago. Not to mention this, of course.

Oh, before I go, I just wanted to note that Baby’s daddy’s baby mama is still a freakin’ piece of work. And the rest of that fractured whateveryoucallit, too:

Before the court hearing, Alethea Goynes, the boy’s mother, got into a shouting argument with the girlfriend of Marcel Davis Sr. just outside the courtroom. Security escorted the girlfriend outside.

POOR KID probably never had a chance. And now look at him. I almost wish that, instead of locking up Baby, we could instead lock up the pair who sired and whelped him, then called it good.

And then maybe the court could send that benighted duo’s most unfortunate offspring to Girls and Boys Town for a chance at a do-over.

The public airwaves: Existing so that petty people can do some score-settling

Guglielmo Marconi would be so proud. I know I am.

WHICH WILL EXPLAIN my projectile vomiting the next time I hear anyone allude to radio operating in the public interest. It’ll probably also explain that person’s nose growing longer and longer, right before your very eyes.

Here’s the vomitous sludge from the New York Post’s “Page Six” column:

All those politically correct types who piled on last April when Don Imus went down for making his bad “nappy-headed ho’s” joke had better duck and cover on Monday, when the I-Man goes back to work on WABC Radio.

“I think he will have some scores to settle,” the station’s general manager, Phil Boyce, told Page Six yesterday.

It is doubtful Imus will ever forgive CBS chief Les Moonves, who fired him, or regular guest Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” who was “an invisible man” while Imus was under attack.

Private eye Bo Dietl, who will join Imus in the 8 a.m. hour on Monday, also named Harold Ford Jr. and Al Roker as two Imus regulars who abandoned him in his hour of need. “They turned their backs on him so fast,” Dietl said yesterday. “Al Roker had his stomach stapled – he should have had his mouth stapled.”

One longtime listener wondered, “Will Imus ever give Newsweek editors another chance to plug their books on his show since they cut and ran when Al Sharpton started his crusade to get him off the air?”

Dietl said Imus’ controversial remark “brought attention to that Rutgers basketball team. They really benefited. It turned out to be a positive thing.” Dietl expects “a kinder, gentler Imus” next week, “but I don’t know how long that will last.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like . . .

Christmas!

Victory! This just in:

WBRZ Channel 2 has learned that LSU has decided to change the name of its annual holiday centerpiece back to “Christmas Tree.”

The university had chosen to change the name to “Holiday Tree” to be as “inclusive as possible of all cultures and religions, as the LSU community is very diverse,” according to a statement issued by Kristine Calongne, director of media relations at LSU.

“However, it is true that the tree is, in fact, a Christmas tree, and we are happy to call it such,” the statement said.

‘Twas the night before Holiday. . . .

As usual, Louisiana is behind the rest of the country. This time in rank politically correct idiocy — the “Holiday Tree” finally has come to LSU.

See, this is how it is in America today: You can dip a crucifix in a jar of piss.

You can cover pictures of the Virgin Mary with dung.

You can shove a cross up someone’s butt and call it art.

All of this is free expression, and it is zealously protected by government types, lawyers and academics everywhere on First Amendment grounds.

But if a public institution puts up a Christmas tree and actually calls it what it is . . . well, that’s something entirely different. Someone might be offended by the mere mention of Christ. Now, we’re not talking establishment of a state religion or forcing faith on anyone.

We’re talking about calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree.

Christmas. The 25th day of December. Only reason we have to bother with a “holiday” tree.

The Daily Reveille at LSU has a story about this insanity, something so nutty that only academics and other fearful cyphers can remain completely blind to the sheer absurdity of it all:

“For Christians who take their religion seriously, I think those wreaths and those Christmas trees have a significant religious meaning to them,” said Stuart Green, law professor. “State universities – particularly state law schools – ought not to be endorsing or promoting any particular religion.”

Green, who is not a Christian, said he does not celebrate Christmas. He said he respects others’ rights to celebrate the holiday but does not feel it is appropriate for the University to display decorations.

Green said the University could technically be held legally responsible if the decorations offend people. He said he believes the decorations violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which states the government shall neither establish nor endorse a particular religion.

“Adding symbols of Jewish practices or Hindu or Buddhist [holidays], I think, compounds the problem rather than solves [it],” Green said. “I think the solution is that universities shouldn’t be in the business of putting up really any kind of religious symbols at all.”

Kristine Calongne, director of public affairs, said the University will hold the annual candlelight celebration Tuesday night. She said the celebration will incorporate Kwanzaa and will include the lighting of the Hanukkah Menorah.

“We’re very aware of diversity here at LSU, and that’s a big part of our Flagship Agenda,” Calongne said. “I think the decorations are just to be in the holiday spirit. I don’t think it’s anything beyond that.”

I EAGERLY AWAIT the federal lawsuit Professor Green surely will file against the President of the United States before it’s too late, being that George Bush “could technically be held legally responsible” if the official White House CHRISTMAS tree offends someone . . . which I’m sure it does.

And look at this, the federal government is using taxpayer dollars to promote the White House CHRISTMAS tree on the Internet, which we all know was invented by former Vice-President Al Gore. Furthermore, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush actually refer to “the Christmas season” in their official holiday greeting to the nation.

Can they do that?

Unbelievable. I’m sure the folks at LSU would understand if everyone were to yell “Jesus Christ!” upon receiving the shocking news.

But only if they were taking the Lord’s name in vain.

IN THE REVEILLE STORY, meanwhile, it takes a Jew to point out the true ridiculousness of both the war on the word “Christmas” and of the laughable impact Christians have had on American culture:

Daniel Novak, interim director of Jewish studies and faculty adviser of the Jewish student organization Hillel, said he is not offended by Christmas decorations because the holiday has become “largely devoid of religion.”

“But you do realize you’re not part of the mainstream in some way [when you see Christmas decorations],” Novak said. “The fact that they’re decorating does indicate a bias towards a majority Christian orientation.”

Novak said Hanukkah is not as important of a holiday in Judaism as Christmas is in the Christian faith, and he would like to see the University adapt celebrations of the more important Jewish holidays – such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah – rather than promote the less important holidays occurring near Christmas.

“It’s a nice gesture, and it comes from a really good place that people want to include other faiths in the decorations and in the recognition of the holiday season,” Novak said. “But I’d rather that well-meaning energy and well-meaning recognition of diversity be better directed.”

EXACTLY. Why is it that, in this country, “diversity” always involves gutting important things, leaving only the ability to make a buck off of them standing amid the carnage? It’s not enough that Christmas is devoid of cultural substance. No, now it’s That Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.

Why can’t we let Christmas be Christmas? And also let Yom Kippur, Easter, Passover and Rosh Hashanah be what they are as well?

Besides, I like to eat me some latkes. Lots and lots of latkes.

Mazel tov, y’all!

It’s beginning to look a lot like . . . yowza!

I was reading an item on Crunchy Con about how folks aren’t letting the prospect of an awful 2008 turn them thrifty for Christmas 2007. It linked to a Dallas Morning News article about how materialistic Americans are going Neener neener neener! Cancel! Cancel! in the face of a definite buzzkill.

But what should take over my Internet Explorer before I’m allowed to see the news story?

We live in an ironic world.

Rudy’s taxpayer-funded hoochie mama

If you can’t beat Bill Clinton, nominate a guy who’s just like him to run against Hillary. Only worse, and whom you really wouldn’t care to have a beer with in your neighborhood watering hole.

Unlike Bill.

Really, with Rudy Giuliani, you get all the following and a more-or-less fascist state, too. At least Bill did his messing around in the Oval Office, at no added expense to the American taxpayer.

THE POLITICO has all the Big Nasty details here:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his “mistakes.”

It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.

But the practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani’s security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani’s two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city’s fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani’s aides refused, citing “security,” said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Growing up feral

It’s a damn shame that some parents can’t be thrown in jail alongside their feral offspring.

Yeah, I realize that some parents don’t deserve such a fate, because they do what they can and just can’t overcome the odds. But on the other hand, something tells me this, as reported in the Omaha World-Herald, ain’t one of those cases:

The 14-year-old boy accused of pointing a gun at a police officer has been charged as an adult, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said today.

Marcel Davis, who turns 15 next month, was charged today with attempted first-degree assault on an officer, use of a firearm to commit a felony and possession of a stolen firearm, Kleine said.

Davis was shot in the leg by Officer Nicholas Andrews early Tuesday near 48th and Boyd Streets. Davis had fled from a Chrysler Cirrus that Andrews and Officer Alan Peatrowsky stopped after they spotted the car driving without headlights on and with an expired license plate.

During the foot chase, police said, Davis turned and pointed a gun at Andrews and Andrews fired at him, hitting him once in the leg. Davis was treated at Creighton University Medical Center and was released. He then was booked into the Douglas County Youth Center.

Alethea Goynes, 31, Davis’ mother, said her son gave her a different account: He tossed the gun as he got out of the car and didn’t point it at anyone.

Goynes said police told her they found the gun in some nearby bushes. She said she thinks Davis ran away because he was scared.

“If he admitted to having a gun, then why wouldn’t he admit to pointing it at the police,” Goynes said. “I believe my son. I think there’s more to it.”

Andrews has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation.

Police say Davis admitted to possessing the gun. A check of the gun’s serial number found that it was reported stolen June 2.

Kleine said Davis is fortunate that he sustained only a leg wound in the incident.

“Obviously, the circumstances are such that with his use of a firearm in the manner that he did, he’s fortunate that he’s still alive.”

Kleine said he considered Davis’ age when deciding whether to file charges in district court. “But, again, the juvenile court can only maintain jurisdiction until they’re 18.” District court, he said, offers much the same services, but can maintain oversight over someone into adulthood.

“Threatening a police officer with that firearm, I believe it should be in an adult court,” Kleine said.

Davis is a ninth-grader at North High School. He has been in the Omaha Public Schools since the second grade, an OPS spokeswoman said.

YOU HAVE TO WONDER about the mind-numbing idiocy and breathtakingly willful suspension of disbelief of an alleged “parent” so sure Baby didn’t do nothin’ when, before he allegedly pulled a gun on a cop, already had been facing charges in juvenile court after being found in a stolen car eight days before he failed to outdraw a cop in the wee, small hours of Tuesday morning.

Naw, Baby didn’t do nothin’. What the hell was Baby doing out of the house anyway — much less out on the streets long after a 14-year-old ought to have been in bed?

I suspect this will be easy enough to sort out. If Baby got shot in the back of the leg, bad news for the cop.

If Baby was shot in the front of the leg, chances are he wheeled on the cop, gun in hand, and it really, really sucks to be him.

BUT HAVING BEEN BORN to a 16-year-old mother of a different last name, one who let him run the streets a week after he already had gotten pinched by The Man — a mother who will instantly take the word of her feral baby boy despite the fact that he was running from the cops and packing heat. . . .

Well, I guess it has sucked to be Baby for a long, long time.

Oom papa oom papa oom papa mau-mau

In case you didn’t have reason enough to surmise that Hell lies at 30 degress north latitude and 90 degress west longitude, all you have to do is watch its inhabitants get in a knock-down, drag-out, race-baiting fight over . . . garbage.

Because the Devil’s in the details, you know.

This Times-Picayune report may read a bit like a review of a bad country-music concert, because there’s enough mau-mauing going on to keep the Oak Ridge Boys singing “Elvira” until Hades starts to look like not-so-bad a deal by comparison:

A debate that started simmering last month over whether New Orleans’ two highest-paid trash vendors are complying with the terms of their contracts boiled over Monday into a racial clash as dozens of black ministers and civil rights activists alleged that the City Council has singled out the deals because they are held by minority-owned firms.

Supporters of Richard’s Disposal and Metro Disposal, both New Orleans companies owned and run by African-Americans, told council members during a hearing in advance of Friday’s vote on the city’s 2008 budget that any attempt by the council to change terms of the agreements, which Mayor Ray Nagin signed last year, would amount to racism and could incite activists to abandon the city in the throes of the winter tourism season.

“What is out of compliance if these men are doing their job?” Spiver Gordon, national treasurer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked the council. “We don’t need to come back here and dance around your cash registers. We’re talking about economic boycott.”

During a rally before the hearing on the steps of City Hall that drew about 100 supporters, including dozens of sanitation workers, SCLC regional Vice President the Rev. Byron Clay said the matter is not limited to the firms in question.

“For anyone to question the ethics and the honesty of either company is not only an assault to that company but to the entire community. They have done an excellent job of cleaning this city up,” he said.

Last month, city officials acknowledged that a provision of the contract that Richard’s and Metro signed calls for collecting “unlimited bulky waste,” including demolition material. The city, however, is not requiring the contractors to pick up construction debris generated at properties under renovation because of Hurricane Katrina.

Instead, Nagin’s sanitation director, Veronica White, has said the city requires the vendors to collect only debris that conforms with limits laid out in an ordinance adopted five months after Nagin signed the deals. She also has said that the contract’s inclusion of an option for emergency collection of storm debris implies that such waste is not covered by the regular terms.

The companies’ owners, Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods, reiterated Monday a point they have made throughout the debate: that in bidding on the contracts last summer, they assumed city officials were following industry norms when they called for “unlimited bulky waste” collection. That refers to debris created in the course of ordinary life and by minor construction projects, they said, not the mountains of waste generated by a flood.

Listen to the show. Eat more pie.

Gabrielle, what are you doing? Martha’s your best friend . . . I can’t . . . I mustn’t. . . . Please! Ohhhhh. . . .

CLICK

And the Cowboys have scored on their 16th consecutive drive, and they lead the Lions 87-3 as we get ready for the start of the. . . .

CLICK

Next on C-SPAN 2, highlights from the Nashua, New Hampshire. . . .

CLICK

The Parade Life Channel . . . your life, your parades, your parade life. We’re back. So, Bob, how did you go from Central Park lush, living in a van down by the East River, to being Santa Claus in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?

CLICK

We’re in an official’s time out, and it appears Shaq is still out cold after being hit by a piece of bling as he drove to the hoop. Bonnie, what are you hearing at courtside. . . .

CLICK

Burrrrrrrrrp!

CLICK

Attention! Revolution 21!

HEY, MILDRED! Whadda you mean there’s nothing on? Come listen to this!

Happy . . . Thanks . . . giving . . . from . . . Rev . . . o . . . lution . . . Twenty . . . One!

Watch ‘em in order, boys and girls! And Happy Thanksgiving from Rev . . . o . . . lu. . . .

OH, THE HUMANITY!

PLEASE! GET OUT OF THE WAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I CAN’T WATCH THIS ANYMORE!

Saudi Arabia: Defending the indefensible isn’t just a cheap slogan, it’s a way of life

News item from Reuters:

Saudi Arabia defended on Tuesday a court’s decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip, after the United States described the verdict as “astonishing”.

The 19-year-old Shi’ite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province and an unrelated male companion were abducted and raped by seven men in 2006.

Ruling according to Saudi Arabia’s strict reading of Islamic law, a court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years. It blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated man.

Last week the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

The ruling provoked rare criticism from the United States, which is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to attend a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland next week.

A State Department spokesman told reporters on Monday that “most (people) would find this relatively astonishing that something like this happens”.

The court also took the unusual step of initiating disciplinary procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, forcibly removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media.

“The Ministry of Justice welcomes constructive criticism … The system allows appeals without resort to the media,” said Tuesday’s statement issued on the official news agency SPA.

It berated media for not specifying that three judges, not one, issued the recent ruling and reiterated that the “charges were proven” against the woman.

It also repeated the judges’ attack against Lahem last week, saying he had “spoken insolently about the judicial system and challenged laws and regulations”.

Dear Saudi troglodytes,

You seem to misunderstand the Western world’s criticism of how your judiciary sentenced a rape victim to 200 lashes of the whip and six months in prison.

We do not question that you followed Saudi law and the court’s procedures to the letter. I would imagine your attention to the law and to detail was exemplary.

What we question is your adherence to your idiotic Wahhabi flavor of Islam, which terrorizes the world in the name of God and thinks it acceptable to lash and imprison a 19-year-old woman because she dared to be seen in public with a man not her kin. This after she had been gang raped.

Not big on mercy, are you? What, in the name of “Allah the merciful,” you get to act like devils?

Frankly, what we object to is that you are a bunch of Neanderthal goons who treat women as property and “infidels” as fair game for whatever sadistic idiocy you’ll infect the world with next. We posit not that you are unfaithful to your twisted image of Allah but that, instead, you dour, sour Wahhabi fanatics have been slavishly faithful to a warped, grim and demented conception of the Almighty.

What horrifies us — well, some of us, at least — is that when you attack the dignity of an innocent young creation of the living God, you thereby offend the dignity of Him who created her.

And, as you profess to believe, God — Allah — is not mocked.

Have a nice day, and go sit on a minaret and spin.

Next up: Waterboarding Tommy Tuberville

This just in: Nick Saban goes nuts. The Associated Press witnessed the Alabama coach’s descent into madness . . . and into total loss of perspective:

Citing the 9-11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, Saban said Monday his team must rebound like America did from a “catastrophic event.”

In this case, that would be an embarrassing 21-14 loss Saturday to Louisiana-Monroe, dropping the Tide’s record to 6-5.

“Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event,” Saban said during the opening remarks of his weekly news conference. “It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event.”

Alabama’s just getting ready to face No. 25 Auburn, its biggest rival, on Saturday.

A Saban spokesman said the coach chose the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor references to illustrate the challenges facing his team.

“What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy; everyone needs to understand that. He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events,” football spokesman Jeff Purington said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with.”

GET A GRIP, NICK. After Pearl Harbor, the United States had to rebound — or, in the spinmeister’s terms, evidence “true spirit and unity” — in the wake of losing something like 2,700 lives and most of the Pacific Fleet.

After 9/11, the country had to bounce back from . . . well, you know what we’ve had to bounce back from. Do you think losing a (expletive deleted) football game compares in any way to the difficulty of overcoming either of those two horrific events?

What, is Saban now going to have some goons snatch Tommy Tuberville off the streets of downtown Auburn, Ala., and apply “enhanced interrogation” techniques until he gives up the Tigers’/War Eagles’/Plainsmen’s game plan? All so the great elephant god, Crimson Tide, might prevail in the Iron Bowl and, thus, ignorance, hunger, poverty and violence be banished from the Gret Stet of Alabammer forever and ever, amen?

Lawdamuhcy, that Saban done lost his mind. Maybe he ought to run for president. He’d probably fit right in.

Frustrated in New York

I guess the Internet is like anything . . . it takes all kinds to make a world. And I guess even more so in Long Island City, N.Y.

AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, I was surprised and amused when this turned out to be one of the Google searches that led some poor soul to Revolution 21’s Blog for the People. I don’t think he got any guidance on that from this blog, the official Catholic opinion on that subject being what it is.

In other words, dim. Exceedingly dim, in the full mortal-sin sense of “dim.”

And with any luck, somebody in Noo Yawk still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Unless that ultimately would be God.

But I definitely would be Googling a different keyword combination to find the Almighty. I’m just sayin’.

OH, AND DON’T FORGET . . . your Mighty Favog knows all.

You Bet Your Life things were different then

Once upon a time — before there were handheld television cameras you could bob and weave with, dip and spin and tilt until the audience was reaching for the Dramamine with every quick cut — TV producers had to make do with actual content to carry a program.

And sometimes, in glorious black-and-white, this was achieved by mere conversation between interesting people who talked in actual strings of sentences and paragraphs, instead of quick soundbites.

When one half of these conversations was rooted in the comic genius of Groucho Marx, You Bet Your Life that sooner or later viewers across the country would be doubled over with laughter and gasping for air. Just from listening to a conversation and waiting for somebody to say “the secret word.”

Imagine.

Join me back in 1955, when TV was primitive, people were interesting — bizarre, even –and America was a very, very different place. You bet your life, it was.

Find a better show, and we’ll give you this one

We’re just going to say it flat-out.

If you can find a better show with more music variety than the Revolution 21 podcast, we’ll give you this show absolutely free. For life.

THAT’S RIGHT. Find a better show, better produced and with more variety, and we give you the Big Show absolutely, positively free. You pay nothing, nada, zilch, squat.

Frankly, we don’t think you can do it. That’s why we’re willing to make this outrageous offer. We don’t think you’ll find a single show anywhere that’s better and that plays the variety of stuff we do on the Revolution 21 podcast.

Like this week, for example. Are you gonna turn on your FM radio — yeah, right — and hear the Moody Blues, Feist, Phil Ochs, Queen, Buddy Holly, the Dropkick Murphys, The Jam, Anonymous American and Ten Years After in 83 minutes of musical goodness?

We don’t think so. We don’t think you’ll hear all that on one station in an entire day.

But you’re welcome to try. Right before you come back to Revolution 21.

TRY TO PROVE us wrong. And — once again — if you can find a better show with more variety, you get this one free. For life.

It’s the Revolution 21 podcast, and we’re better than FM. And AM, too. We’re what radio could be, but hasn’t been forever.

Once you download the Big Show, you’ll never go back to whatever you were listening to before. Or the show’s on us.

C’est magnifique!

Here’s a completely charming homebrew music video of Feist’s “Tout Doucement” from YouTube, posted by KidWithACam. And now you know what one of the songs will be on the Revolution 21 podcast, posted fresh and piping hot late every Friday night.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh crap.

Shiites.

Fan.

About to hit?

Decidement time draws nigh on whether to bomb-bomb-bomb bombomb Iran, and we do have a vice-president that could keep Col. Alfred E. Bellows, M.D., busy 39 episodes a season. If only we had Jeannie the genie to blink away 3,000 centrifuges o’ Persian trouble without giving America’s Deadly Duo the chance to get us into an even bigger mess than we’re in now.

As usual, the Brit press is all over this like bangers on mash. The Guardian reports:

Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium – enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN’s nuclear watchdog reported last night.

The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.

The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran’s enrichment plant at Natanz is a “red line” drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.

The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%) but the confirmation that Iran has reached the 3,000 centrifuge benchmark brings closer a moment of truth for the Bush administration, when it will have to choose between taking military action or abandoning its red line, and accepting Iran’s technical mastery of uranium enrichment.
US generals are reported to have warned the White House that military action would trigger a devastating Iranian backlash in the Middle East and beyond.

Russian officials yesterday called for patience, insisting Iran could still clinch a deal with the international community in the next few weeks. They pointed to other parts of the IAEA report showing Tehran had been cooperating with the agency’s inspectors on other nuclear issues.

“We are most concerned to prevent Iran being cornered so that they walk out of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and break relations with the IAEA,” one Russian source said. He said Chinese officials were stepping up diplomatic pressure on Iran, with Moscow, to avert a collision.

“They are on high alert that something has to be done quickly,” the source said.

Never address real challenges when a new ‘branding’ campaign will suffice

This spoof is in memory of “Louisiana . . . a dream state,” “Baton Rouge, USA” and “Maybe it’s time you tried Baton Rouge.”

THAT LAST ATTEMPT at baffling people with bullshtuff memorably was transformed — with a single comma — into a statement of profound truth by a couple of high-school buddies of mine.

It’s still just as profoundly true today as it was 30 years ago.

Fix your state, and they will come.

In the meantime, don’t insult the nation’s intelligence. We can read statistical charts, and we know the money Baton Rouge swells are spending on yet another silly “branding” campaign would be better spent on fixing school facilities and teaching Louisianians how to read statistical charts themselves.

And books, too.

The War Between the States, or . . . ‘The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.’

I thought LSU-Tulane was a pretty vicious football rivalry. After all, we used to wear “Tuck Fulane” buttons and throw “Greenie Weenies” (hot dogs boiled in green dye) onto the field at the Green Wave players.

When I was a freshman, someone stole several large, concrete Tulane University signs from the New Orleans campus. One sat in front of an LSU freshman dorm for a long time.

Then, my junior year, somebody from Tulane cut the locks and let Mike the Tiger out of his cage on the LSU campus.

I thought that was pretty intense. I was wro-on-on-ong.

LIKEWISE, I thought LSU-Ole Miss was a pretty hot rivalry itself. ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!

Nebraska-Oklahoma? Naaaah.

Alabama-Auburn? Not even.

Michigan-Ohio State? Notre Dame-USC?

Fugiddaboudit!

NO, A TRUE college-football hate match is when each team’s fans invoke their state’s Civil War-era terrorists and mass murderers in some sort of unholy Litany of the Demons — “Kill for us!”

In this corner, massacring for the University of Mizzou-RAH! Tigers, at 157 pounds, William Quantrill leading his raiders, and aiming to burn Lawrence, Kan., a second time!

And in this corner, at 179 pounds, leading a raid for abolition and the University of Kansas . . . John Brown, coming off a tough loss at Harper’s Ferry and back from a-mouldering in the grave for one night only to lead the charge against some Missouri slavers!

ARE YOU READY for some football? Nathan Fowler at AOL Sports is:

You know what the best part of Kansas and Missouri having their best ever seasons at the very same time is? The entire nation will get exposed to what is possibly the most bitter and hateful rivalry in the country in all it’s glory (or shame, if you prefer). You can have your Ohio State v. Michigan or Alabama v. Auburn, but the last time I checked nobody from Columbus ever went to Ann Arbor and systematically executed every man they could find while burning the town to the ground. And certainly nobody made t-shirts later celebrating that fact.

But that did happen in 1863 in Lawrence, KS when William Quantrill led his band of “Bushwackers” to the “Jayhawker” stronghold and went on a 4 hour rampage that would become known as the “Lawrence Massacre” – one of the ugliest episodes of the brutal 10+ years of fighting along the Kansas and Missouri border. While the Civil War has become the South v. the North in most people’s minds, the fighting in fact began as a violent guerrilla conflict between the abolitionists in Kansas and the slave holding Missouri settlers (more or less, like many guerrilla campaigns there were quite blurred lines at times). In many ways, those old wounds have never quite healed – Grandpa Simpson will be be deep in the cold, cold ground before he recognizes Missour-ah as a state, for example.

Those t-shirts seen above that some Missouri fans are making for the showdown at Arrowhead in two weeks are celebrating the Lawrence Massacre and in fact have Quantrill’s visage and slogan emblazoned on the back – “Raise the Black Flag and Ride Hard Boys. Our Cause is Just and Our Enemies Many”. Talk about going straight past normal levels of fan behavior and making a hard right turn into loony land, that might be the single most offensive game day t-shirt I’ve ever seen. Kansas fans are now responding with t-shirts sporting noted violent Kansas abolitionist John Brownled a massacre of his own and the 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid that really kicked off the Civil War powder keg) with the slogan “Keeping America Safe From Missouri Since 1854″. . . .

JUST IN CASE, I think we Nebraskans might be putting the National Guard on our southern flank. When people go that nuts, you can’t be too careful. Y’know?

Hey, suck-ups! Leave them kids alone!

Another Leak in the Wall,
Part 1,577

We don’t need no associations,
We don’t need no thought control,
The dark sarcasm of “consultants,”
Suck-ups, leave them kids alone!
Hey! Lawyers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all, it’s just another leak in the wall.
All in all, you’re just another breach in the wall.

HERE’S WHAT the American Society of Civil Engineers does: First, it takes a whole bunch of money — almost a million bucks — from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study why New Orleans drowned even though Hurricane Katrina only sideswiped it.

Then the engineers’ study group dances to the tune its client plays — so the members don’t look into this, and they don’t look into that, because it’s “outside our scope.” At least that’s what one ASCE member told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

And then, voila! The engineer group’s “peer review” wonders just how much busted levees had to do with flooding New Orleans, anyway, and offers a much less harsh assessment of the Corps’ performance than did two independent panels of engineers and other experts studying why the city went into the soup.

Or, rather, why the soup went into the city.

And when the nonprofit advocacy group Levees.org posted a hilarious-but-pointed send up of the “whitewash” — a video done by high-school kids at the Isidore Newman School — the group decided to play some hardball. It demanded that Levees.org take down the video.

One can presume there was an “or else” in there somewhere.

You have to wonder whether the ASCE would be so insistent if Levees.org had a million bucks to sling around.

Anyway, the Picayune is on top of things. And we can show you the nefarious teen production today only because the newspaper posted it itself after Levees.org pulled it down. Grassroots advocacy groups lack the legal resources million-dollar federal contracts can buy you.

Here’s some of the Times-Picayune coverage:

The civil engineering group’s most controversial claims were that much of the death and destruction would have happened even without the levee failure, and that the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet did not serve as a hurricane highway into New Orleans. Reviews by other scientific organizations were much tougher on the corps.

The American Society of Civil Engineers confirmed the launch of an internal ethics probe of its staff and members based on complaints by a University of California-Berkeley professor, who served on a separate independent panel investigating levee failures.

ASCE officials took the unusual step on Tuesday of e-mailing a letter to its Louisiana members that outlined its response to the criticisms of Levees.org in its online video and others.

“Although it was expressly not our intent, the press release was interpreted by some to be supportive of the corps instead of being critical of the mistakes the corps made,” said the letter, signed by ASCE President David Mongan. “A few outspoken critics have even castigated ASCE for appearing to pander to the corps and for apparently being apologetic for the many corps mistakes made in the design and construction of the pre-Katrina hurricane protection system.

“This could not be further from the intent of the press release,” Mongan wrote.

The civil engineering group is bristling at a video spoofing its levee investigation recently posted on the Internet site YouTube by the local advocacy group Levees.org. The video implies that ASCE engineers were “in some way bribed or corrupted by the corps,” the association contends. They demanded it be taken down.

In the spoof, narrators say, “The Army Corps of Engineers asked the American Society of Civil Engineers to hand-pick some members to find the truth.

“Then they paid them nearly a million dollars and awarded them medals of honor. Way to go, guys!” The American Society of Civil Engineers accepted close to $1 million from the corps to compensate the external review committee members for their time and expenses during the two-year investigation.

“These people wouldn’t be able to devote that amount of time to this investigation otherwise,” ASCE Executive Director Patrick Natale said. “These are subject matter experts who were getting paid nowhere near what they were worth for their expertise.”

The video was produced by Stanford Rosenthal, a senior at Isidore Newman School and the son of Levees.org President Sandy Rosenthal, who said her group would remove the video from the Web by Tuesday night, although she believes the allegations it contains are accurate. It has become an Internet phenomenon, garnering tens of thousands of viewers in just a week.

“I told them, yes, we’d take it down, but our Webmaster is 17 years old and is on a field trip and out of town,” Rosenthal said Tuesday. “That same youngster is going to be honored this week with the outstanding youth and philanthropy award of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.” The student she is referring to is her son.

The ASCE also sent a copy of its letter to Isidore Newman officials, and Rosenthal said she also informed the school that the video was being removed from the Web.

“The reason we’re taking it down, quite simply, is we just don’t have the personnel or resources to wage a legal battle with the ASCE,” Rosenthal said, “even though we stand by every word of the public announcement and contend it’s completely accurate.”

Levees.org wants a congressionally mandated, independent “8/29 Investigation,” similar to the independent federal investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

AND IF LEVEES.ORG ever gets that independent investigation, I bet it’ll find that the Corps, the ASCE, FEMA, the Bush Administration . . . it’ll find that, all in all, they’re just so many leaks in the wall.