They Just Don't Get It Department

From the ""They Just Don't Get It"Department: Another one gets caught. You have got to practice what you preach. A Coanservative Republican Senator from Louisiana has his phone number in the files of the "DC Madam".
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized Monday night for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared among those associated with an escort service operated by the so-called "D.C. Madam".
Vitter offers his "deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way"
Vitter's wife was asked by an interviewer whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

STOP SIGN CAMERAS: Get Ready Springfield!

California: Stop Sign Cameras Installed on Canyon Road
A California park agency will ticket motorists with stop sign cameras July 9. Speed cameras to follow.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) has installed the first-ever automated camera in the US designed to ticket drivers who make "boulevard stops" or slow to a crawl at a stop sign without fully ceasing forward motion. The little-known agency will begin issuing $100 fines next Monday, July 9, at Franklin Canyon in the heart of Los Angeles, located off of Mulholland Drive and at the top of Topanga.

The stop sign devices are based on red light camera platforms, but they differ greatly in use. The more familiar stoplight cameras typically photograph a vehicle entering an intersection if a signal light changes to red between 0.1 and 0.3 seconds after the car crosses a stop bar line (view recent report) With the new stop sign cameras, a machine will make calculations to determine whether a vehicle did not stop for a long enough period and deserves a fine.

The cameras are being installed as a prelude to the agency's expected installation of speed cameras on popular canyon roads, as first reported by TheNewspaper in April. Australian camera vendor Redflex will operate every aspect of the program in return for a $20 cut from every ticket the company is able to issue (view contract). California law explicitly prohibits both speed cameras and per-ticket photo enforcement contract provisions, but the MRCA believes the law does not apply to them.

"Our Park Rangers are California peace officers and will always have traffic enforcement as part of their duty," MRCA Director of Public Affairs Dash Stolarz said in a June statement.

In 2000, the California legislature banned photo radar with a statute clarifying that although it authorized the use of photo ticketing at traffic signals, the legislature, "does not authorize the use of photo radar for speed enforcement purposes by any jurisdiction." (CVC 21455.6) Another provision specifies that, "A contract between a governmental agency and a manufacturer or supplier of automated enforcement equipment may not include provision for the payment or compensation to the manufacturer or supplier based on the number of citations generated." (CVC 21455.5)
aaa

Here's Another One

President Bush's Decision to Commute Scooter Libby's Sentence: Why It's Indefensible, Even if One Agrees with Republican Critiques of the Sentence
By EDWARD LAZARUS
Read This.
Lazarus writes:
An Indefensible Commutation Suggests an Administration Arrogantly Above the Law
"Bush's failure of justification is damning. Commutation, especially in a high-profile and politically-charged case, is a serious undertaking. It is an unreviewable act that has the extraordinary effect of exempting a single individual from the usual application of the law.

"Here, the presiding judge, a Republican, deemed the evidence of Scooter's guilt to be overwhelming. Moreover, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, including two Republicans, has concluded that Scooter has no substantial issues on which to base an appeal.

"Against this backdrop, Bush bears the burden of showing that his act of commutation served an aspect of fairness and justice that would be otherwise slighted in Scooter's case. Absent such a rationale, the commutation must be seen as one of three things (or some combination of any of three): a decision simply to substitute Bush's sense of justice for that of the court's; an act of political and personal loyalty; or, more nefariously, an attempt to insure Scooter's silence.

"To varying degrees, all three possibilities point to an Administration that considers itself above customary legal constraint - a consistent and dangerous theme for this Administration. Since I write this on July 4, it seems only fitting to describe this as un-American - or at least hostile to the America we desire to be."

What are they hiding?

I Got Tagged

Happy Lodges, Rockaway Beach, Missouri.
This simple little game involves telling eight things about you that most people don't know. I reserve the right to pull this posting. Relevant-To-Me tagged me. Thanks Louis!

1. I spent several years in a Benedictine Monastery.
2. I married a gypsy woman.
3. I cut my hair for Eugene McCarthy.
4. I can tell the difference cheap and expensive vodka.
5. I was cliff climbing with a friend who fell off the cliff.
6. I ran away and joined a town.
7. I knew Marjorie Libby.
8. I got up to 140 mph on highway 5 between Ava and Gainesville in a red Porsche before my testosterone kicked out.

The Man Behind the Bush

Here he is,
Can you see him?
Look at him looking at him.
He is the man behind the Bush.

What Are They Hiding?

"Watch this Drive!"

YOU GO DICK!

What Are They Hiding?

It Was So Good Killing Him the First Time, We Decided To Do It Again

From the "How Dumb Can You Get Department" or "Just Who is Leading this Parade" department:
The
US Command in Baghdad this week ballyhooed the killing of a key al Qaeda leader but later admitted that the military had declared him dead a year ago.

A military spokesman acknowledged the mistake after it was called to his attention by The Examiner. He said public affairs officers will be more careful in announcing significant kills.

WHAT?!

Is Andrew Sullivan Calling for Impeachment?

Andrew Sullivan, conservative blogger and frequent guest on political talk shows. In this blog posting, Why the Perjury (which I have copied below), he asks the question everyone should be asking: Why did Scooter Libby lie to the Grand Jury? If there really was no crime committed, we need some explanation as to why he lied.

"Just because the Republican blogs are steadfastly ignoring this is a good reason to stay focused. Matt's question remains foremost in my mind:

"If there really was no crime - then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied.
Quite. Or from Libby's defenders. If you go back and read my archives on this, you'll find I was simply puzzled from the start. None of it made much sense to me back then. In retrospect, it makes much better sense today, after all we have found out about how this administration functions. My best guess is that the explanation for Libby's perjury is pretty obvious. For Libby and Cheney to take the risk of outing a CIA operative's cover (and even if there was some doubt about the law and her status, it was still a risk), they must have had a very pressing reason. It may be that they were just engaged in aggressive press manipulation to keep their own story out here. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we? But why so aggressive as to risk law-breaking? Why the risk for a careful lawyer like Libby? Why not just write another op-ed refuting the claims? I still have no explanation unless Libby had something major to hide and Cheney something major to fear.

"Like the fact that he and Cheney knew the WMD evidence was weak, misled us, and then, busted more brutally than they ever expected, tried to cover their tracks. We can't know this yet for sure. But it surely remains the most plausible explanation for the entire affair.

"It means of course that they knowingly exaggerated the causes for war. That's why this story still rankles, because it's the closest the outside world has really gotten to the real nexus of decision-making on Iraq that obviously took place in Cheney's circle. I can still just about believe that Bush thought the WMD case was sound. I can't believe, given all that we now know, that Cheney did. He's too smart. The data he read, we now know, was far more equivocal than the data the public was provided with. He's not new at this. He probably never wanted to make the WMD argument anyway, put it in to appease the UN crowd, and certainly wasn't going to query its validity. We may never know, of course, because Cheney will have destroyed the evidence, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's obvious Cheney knew all along that the WMD line was a cover, not a real threat, but realized by the summer of 2003 that any hint of this leaking (even from a two-bit blowhard like Wilson) needed swift and brutal rebuttal. They were embarrassed enough by the WMD bust, but if it was revealed that they had ignored all the caveats beforehand, it could get really dicey. One has to assume that Libby and Cheney are indistinguishable in their knowledge and involvement. Miller was also trying to cover her tracks that, in retrospect, had begun to look shady. Hence the weird Cheney-coordinated hit on Wilson and Plame. Hence Libby's clumsy perjury. Has Libby ever done something as clumsy in his entire life? Sometimes, even the smoothest cannot escape their own lies.


"That's not just worth 30 months in jail. It's worth impeachment. At this point, I think the weight of the evidence suggests they did all this. Maybe the deception crept in after the fact. But I know from the torture debate that they are all capable of bald-faced lies to hide embarrassment and advance their agenda. Why would they not have deliberately deceived us about WMDs before the war?

"Well, it worked. I believed them. Many of you did as well. We trusted them. And they got away with it. The one man whose perjury did threaten to hold him, in some minor way, accountable has been reprieved by the man at the top of the decision-tree for war, and given every incentive not to get bitter and start talking. Is there a simpler explanation?"

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

What Are They Hiding?

Don't Blame Us Bill Clinton Got a Blow Job.

Since the Chief Typist over at Chatter started a new gig (The Missus and I haven't caught it yet, we spend the 10 pm hour watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But we'll catch it soon. It's been getting pretty good reviews on the other blogs), his blogging has not been as frequent as previously frequency been posted (what?) Anyhow, his fourth of july post touched off a bunch of comments, almost as many as the comments about the tv reporter who moved to Miami and I ain't sure it wasn't Oklahoma but the other Miami.

Our government has been doing us wrong, all in the name of righteousness. And it is coming back to haunt them and us.

AHOY Matey, we ain't eating at Long John Silver's yet so Hoist The Black Flag!

Then this posting on Andrew Sullivan's blog: Americans evenly divided on impeachment of Bush, majority for targeting Cheney.

What Are They Hiding?

OUCH! That hurts, but only when I laugh.

1. Don't set artillery shells on the deck hand railing.
2. Step away from the fireworks after the fuse is lit.
3. Put shell in launching tube correctly, aka follow directions
4. Don't pick up tube to empty out dud artillery shell
5. Duds aren't always duds.

Loud noise, scared me and got my heart to pounding, ruined the bright orange genuine Polo shirt my son had gotten me. Felt like someone had slapped me very hard in the side, concussion blast. Bruised and battered. It only hurts when I laugh.