(The story was found linked by Exiled Online, and can be found directly by the Associated Press, hosted by Google.)

The story can be summed up in one line from the article:

“Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.”

Money, money, money quote from the not-racist Louisiana judge, Keith Bardwell:

“I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Anyone used to hearing people say that they aren’t racist recognize the tells in this defensive statement pretty quickly… The “I’m not a racist! Look, I even treat them like human beings!” argument.

… and the cow goes moo

I’ve been following this story since I heard about it a couple of days ago, waiting to see how it played out.  It seemed to outrageous to warrant an immediate action.  Now that it’s had time to simmer (and boil over), it seems like we’ve arrived at an appropriate time to comment.

Please see this good quick ‘n’ dirty summary post with relevant links at your favorite econoblog, Naked Capitalism.  Politico has all the juicy parts.

I feel Edward Harrison is being a smidge unfair.  If I can  go to cafepress.com and spend $30 to have a photoshopped image of me and Gandhi tandem-JetSkiing emblazoned on a tee shirt, why can’t I pay spend a few thousands dollars for the Washington Post to customize an news article or editorial to depict an event of comparable accuracy to me and my boy Gandhi enjoying summer at the lake?

Harrison and those blabbermouth, self-righteous health care lobbyists are such prudes.

… and the cow goes moo

I have no comment to add to this one (except that the last few frames are unintelligible to me), so this is a senseless post but check out Cracked.com’s Seanbaby and his comicbookization of the torture debate.  Really quite excellent and hilarious.

And I think Obama would make a great ’60s Batman.

Also:  There’s something hilarious about plastic-faced Nancy Pelosi in mid-clap.  That should be a wallpaper design so that anywhere you go in your house, you would feel like Barack Obama.

… and the cow goes moo

Just light one up!

Or says the BBC:

“The authorities in Gong’an county had told civil servants and teachers to smoke 230,000 packs of the locally-made Hubei brand each year.

Those who did not smoke enough or used brands from other provinces or overseas faced being fined or even fired.”

Awesome!

… and the cow goes moo

Holy cow. What a stupid government we have.

According to one of the NY Times’ blogs (The City Room), some idiots at the White House were really keen on getting a photo of Air Force One (or it’s lookalike backup) with the Statue of Liberty behind it.  I didn’t realize this, but apparently the recession has put the US in the position of selling Air Force Ones, as I don’t know what other reason anyone would have to put together marketing images of the aircraft.

Anyways, they received all the proper clearances to do this by whatever regulatory bodies (of course there is no regulatory body for common sense) but no one in New York appeared to know about this, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and were a bit prickly as a result of the 10am fly-by.

So when Air Force One (B) (or whatever you call it) went around buzzing New York at very low altitudes, with two F-16s in pursuit (I guess snapping the sexay promotional photos), people began to panic and streamed out of the Manhattan highrises.  The silly New Yorkers apparently were under the impression that what looks like a passenger airliner flying low over New York accompanied by two fighter planes might be a sign of menace, rather than the much more obvious explanation that our government is retarded.

So now the shouting match has started and everyone is “furious” (Bloomberg, Obama, me, everyone in New York) that they weren’t informed and that the government could be this publicly retarded and blah blah blah.

My issue is this:  Why the fuck do we need pictures of Air Force One (B), sans President, in front of the Statue of Liberty?  Even if people were ‘properly’ informed in New York, do you really think it’s a good idea to do this?  Do you really think thousands to millions of less-informed New Yorkers might not still panic?  Beyond the emotional damage it will cause, do they understand that the white collar workers in Manhattan are basically off work for an hour or two as a result of this?  And am I to understand that there is someone at the White House being paid by taxpayers whose responsibilities include getting sexay photos of Air Force One (B)?

Shouldn’t someone in the Obama White House (certainly someone in his campaign/mudslinging team) know how to use photoshop?  Because that would have been a lot easier.

And aren’t we in a goddamn recession?  I have no idea how to calculate this, but reading two F-16s, Air Force One (B), all the staff involved and fuel, plus all the bureacratic nonsense that I’m sure it involved (meetings for months, route plan clearances) probably cost American taxpayers upwards of a million dollars.  For a goddamn photo (that I don’t even know if they got) of Air Force One (B) in front of the Statue of Liberty.  Oh, and millions of loss productivity as thousands of Manhattanites fled what they thought were their soon-to-be-collapsing office towers.  But I’m sure Verizon and Sprint cashed in with all the daytime minutes spent as people frantically called their spouses to tell them they loved them.

Oh, and way to go White House/Defense Department/Group of Idiots We Pay the Salaries Of to Get Sexay Photos of Air Force One (B), you broke the fucking markets too:

“Even the markets dipped shortly after 10 a.m., though it was unclear if the alarm over the planes was a factor. Starting at 10:02 a.m., three main market indexes started dropping precipitously. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 40 points in 10 minutes, starting 10:15 a.m., before it rebounded more than 50 points.”

But I guess I should be thankful for the bureacratic nonsense.  If it weren’t for the procedural delays, I think it’d be safe to say that this fiasco would have taken place about seven and a half months ago.

… and the cow goes moo

Well, well, well.

I posted about this minor issue a few days back, but it seems the old grey lady has come around to agreeing with me.

The New York Times has an article expressing the views of numerous sources that would concur with my opinion that the evidence was enough to convict former Alaskan SuperSenator Ted Stevens, but the trial was ravaged from within by prosecutorial incompetence.

Colleen Walsh, one of the jurors who convicted Mr. Stevens, said on her personal blog of the trial’s collapse, “The only thing this proves is that the prosecution messed everything up.”

Ms. Walsh, a church secretary, wrote on the blog as if speaking to Mr. Stevens, saying: “You may be innocent on corruption charges which were never brought up. But you are still guilty of not disclosing some of your major gifts to the public.”

I fear much of this will be long forgotten in a few months or years and Mr. Stevens might regain his Senate seat as a result, once again able to distribute taxpayer funds to those who buy him fancy things.  Without repercussion, of course.  It took the Public Integrity Section 40 years to catch on to him this time around (and only a few months to set to fire all they had collected), and I doubt Mr. Stevens will live to perpetrate his particular brand of mean corruption to allow the PIS to accumulate another 40 years of evidence to use against him.

… and the cow goes moo

Just a link post today.  Check out Wired magazine’s article “The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist”.  Enthralling.  I would have much preferred they made The Bank Job about this heist.  Though I don’t imagine for a second that Hollywood producers aren’t putting together a project based on this robbery now.  Do you think Geoffrey Rush could play an hasidic diamond dealer?

It seems odd to me to see an exhaustive, hardly technical article on a diamond vault robbery in Antwerp, Belgium in Wired Magazine, but they gave it an excellent treatment.  Even if you have little interest in crime, heists, or technology, anyone with an ounce of ingenuity or curiousity should find the article enthralling.

(Though the wire cutting theory apparently espoused by the diamond police seems beyond unusual and actually baffling to me.  Someone explain to me how stripped wires suggest they were to be cut?  Personally, I don’t strip wires before cutting them…  And it sounds like the wires themselves were discrete, so there would be no reason to strip them prior to cutting them.  I need an explanation!)

And if you like this sorta howtheydunit crime story, check out one of my favorite documentaries, Cocaine Cowboys.

In both the Wired article and the documentary, it still  shocks me that the journalists (I guess) involved were able to find such forthcoming criminals, or coax such exposition from the subjects of their stories.

Do you think we’ll see this sort of exposition from Bernie Madoff, Hank Paulson, or Dick Cheney in a few years?

… and the cow goes moo

This is a bittersweet personal victory for me.  Kinda sucks when your cynicism is proven apt.

For background on some of the ridiculousness that has transpired during the trial (and if it takes decades to gather enough evidence to prosecute a dim-witted loudmouth Senator for corruption, should we expect anything other than breathtaking incompetence from the prosecution?) please see a post about Ted Steven’s ex-BFF Bill Allen, the prosecution’s key witness, here.

An update, including some “I dare you to call me on my bullshit” testimony from Mrs. Catherine Stevens, Ted’s wife, can be found here.

My own personal congratulations (a bit premature, perhaps, but still appropriate) for Mr. Stevens’ acquittal from October can be found here (God bless the internet and self-serving personal blogging.  Proof that I was right, recorded for posterity.)

I celebrate his late-October conviction here, as well as mentioning the likelihood of successful appeal.

One incidence of ridiculousness at the trial can be found here (a new juror was needed to replace a Ms. Marian Hinnant who just had to watch the Breeders’ Cup during deliberation.  And who lied about her dad dying so that she could do so.  Fishy.  I’d like to see some before and after photos of her house, pre- and post-trial).

And here’s a re-cap of some of the oddities and prosecutorial blunders, including the sexy sexy revelation that perhaps a female FBI agent was getting all hot and bothered for star witness and apparent sex god, ‘Big’ Bill Allen.  Re-capping my favorite quote from FBI Agent Chad Joy, who is central to the allegations of misconduct by the prosecution (I’d also like to see a before and after photo of his house, not that I doubt the validity of his claims, just the motivations):

“Mr. Joy said his colleague, Mary Beth Kepner, almost always wore pants but on the day the witness, Bill Allen, took the stand, Ms. Kepner donned a skirt, which Mr. Joy said she described as “a present” to Mr. Allen.

…

In its court filing, Mr. Stevens’s defense team has magnified Mr. Joy’s complaint about an improper relationship between Ms. Kepner and Mr. Allen, asserting that they appeared to have had a sexual relationship. Mr. Joy did not raise that possibility in the redacted version of his statement, but did say Ms. Kepner had improperly gone alone to Mr. Allen’s hotel room.”

Bow-chika-wow-wow.

And here’s what you’ve all been waiting for…  The New York Times today reports that the Justice Department is now looking to void Teddy’s conviction!

“The Justice Department moved on Wednesday to drop all charges against former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who lost his seat last year just days after being convicted on seven felony counts of ethics violations.”

Congratulation, Ted Stevens!  Due to massive incompetence by prosecutor Brenda K. Morris, among others, and the irresistible sexiness of star witness, Bill Allen, as well as what must be by-design universal retardation at the special ed section of the Justice Department (the Public Integrity Section), you will probably live to 120 as a free man rather than see a day of prison.  And you probably have a fair chance at re-election in the asshole-of-a-state, Alaska, in 2012, at age 88.

Who else thinks that perhaps the Public Integrity Section’s staffing and funding is influenced by the very people they are meant to police?  I cna’t imagine why the department might be designed in manner that would allow it to do its job without impedance from the powerful members of Congress it is likely to investigate.  There’s no reason why anyone in power would want the dirty laundry aired.

… and the cow goes moo

In a continuation of our ongoing national embarrassment that is Barack Obama’s gift-giving, we have Obama and the Queen of England (so says The Telegraph):

“Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh – apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.”

At least her gift was equally thoughtless and a bit more self-absorbed even, but in her defence, she’s an old lady and there’s apparently a room full of those framed photos in Buckingham palace somewhere.

Prediction:  Obama’s next gift to a visiting dignitary or a host country’s leader will be a $50 Best Buy giftcard.

… and the cow goes moo

According to the USA Today, Obama’s famous gift to visiting UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was not only kind of cheap and underwhelming, but actually technologically inept too.

Prime Minister Brown gave a very thoughful penholder that had ties to Obama’s place in history as the first black president (it was made out of the timber of the HMS Gannet, the sister ship to the HMS Resolute that provides the material for the desk that adorns the oval office. The Gannet also served as an anti-slavery ship off Africa.  A more thoughtful gift one would be hard-pressed to conceive).

The US President responded with what would have been merely a hoaky, afterthought of a generic gift (25 American DVDs) had it not been for a minor overlooked detail:  UK DVD players cannot play Region 1 coded America discs.  That, and I’d think the Prime Minister probably has BluRay by now.

So Obama gave Gordon Brown absolutely nothing, unless Prime Minister Brown decides to go with a not-so-legal region-free player, I suppose.  Or watches them in a hotel room the next time he visits Canada or the USA.

With the AIG bonus debacle, increased forces in Afghanistan, an economy continuing to flounder, and now these inept gestures on the world stage, does Obama seem all that different from George W. Bush?

… and the cow goes moo