Free speech or respect ?

Over a year ago Clear Channel Communications which owns the nation's largest chain of radio stations responded to the World Trade Center massacre by sending out a memo with a list of 150 songs that its stations should suspend playing.

The idea was that Clear Channel would simply try to prevent its stations from looking like they were trying to make light of tragedy.

Now, that act is looking pretty visionary after a Charlotte NC, radio station offended some fans after they followed a news report on one of the sniper shootings with Queen’s "Another One Bites the Dust."

The song, by Queen, includes the phrase, "Out of the doorway the bullets rip, to the sound of the beat." That day's victim was shot in the doorway of a commuter bus.

They claim it was unintentional, Idiots!

Puffy the bank Robber?

Thirty year-old postal worker Cazzie L. Williams was arrested by the FBI, according to the New York Post, as he stopped at a Chinese restaurant near his East Orange home to pick up a takeout order. Williams is accused of being the "Puffy Cheek Bandit," one of America’s most prolific bank robbers, who is charged with sticking up some 27 banks over the past four years, netting himself well over $100,000.

As for that snazzy nickname, an FBI agent involved with the case told AP, "It looks like he's got swollen cheeks. I don't know if he put something in his mouth or that's the way he was."

The Real Motive For War
Daniel Ellsberg is the former Pentagon official who leaked a report that was later named the Pentagon Papers and was part of a chain of events that helped to bring an end to the Vietnam War. Ellsberg sees many connections between the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the one just passed by Congress. He also thinks the public is being misled when it comes to the real reason for a potential war in Iraq.

Extemporaneous Rambling

I was at the Gym yesterday, had a great workout.

The gym that I go to is one place where I refuse to go into the men's locker room. Why? Well, my friend Joe who agrees with me explains it more eloquently, he says:

"It is there that I've seen many examples of the "Missing Link", the bridge between Neanderthal and modern man. These man-beasts still smell of the wild, and have some traces of animal left in them, as exemplified by the fur on their shoulders and backs. They apparently feel uncomfortable in clothing, because they remove them as soon as they can and proceed to walk around in a natural state for long periods of time"

Enough said!

Otherwise:

My index finger has been sore lately. I suspect it's from left clicking the mouse all day long at work and at home.

I can live with that, at least it's not carpal tunnel, although I run that risk as well.

Well, I've been spending a lot of time reading other blogs and the amount of quality stuff out there is quite impressive. I wish I could read more, but there's simply not enough time in the day. I have to balance my time between career, family, wife, and blogging. it's a balancing act for sure.

Since my time is limited, I rely on the few web sites that I read to be thought provoking, entertaining, inspiring or just plain old well-worth-the-click.

I'm sure there are thousands of sites that could foot that bill, but who has the time ... unless one is willing to give up on ordinary mundane living and sit in front of the monitor all day.

________

Two new links have been added to the blogrolodex this week Ronn and Fresh.

On the home front:

My family and friends in the DC/MD/VA area are relieved by the recent turn of events

In the blogosphere:

Oliver calls the sniper "Sniper Idiot", I agree, I think perhaps now a more appropriate name would be "Dumb Sniper Idiot", of course, the reasons are obvious.

George considers the black/white perspective of the sniper arrest. "White van, white guy. Not a white van, maybe not a white guy. I was thinking the same thing G.

I'm considering the self fulfilling prophecy angle.

The alleged sniper may have been on to something when according to Chief Moose, he asked the chief to repeat the following statement: "We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose." Indeed perhaps we have.

My sincere condolences to the victim's families.

And finally, to Ron Lantz the truck driver who spotted the suspect's car and called police. Good job.

No Cheap Thrills

If you were planning on visiting the New York Museum of Sex which just opened in NYC last month (a first of its kind), you may want to think twice before wasting your money.

Joe Queenan of the Wall Street Journal was less than thrilled, his article is here

Excerpt:

The exhibition is heavy on fetishism and deviant sex, with the usual Betty Page bondage movies, meticulous designs for punishment machines, and grainy films of famous porn stars in action. Like the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Museum of Sex provides yet another opportunity for aging Baby Boomers to canonize their fabulous youth, with album covers of Jimi Hendrix, Cream and the Turtles replaced here by posters of Xaveria Hollander, Annie Sprinkle, Linda Lovelace and Vanessa del Rio. Without these sexual pioneers, the museum seems to suggest, Americans would still be holding hands and listening to Pat Boone records. Never mind about Nero, Casanova and the Marquis de Sade, the Village People of their time; if it didn't happen in New York, it didn't happen.

The first exhibition the museum has mounted is titled "NYC Sex: How New York Transformed Sex in America." This is yet another opportunity for Manhattan to pat itself on the back. Without New Yorkers to show them the ropes, how would those yokels in Des Moines and Chattanooga ever figure out how to procreate?

At $17 a clip, the museum is more expensive than the Met, the National Gallery and the Louvre rolled into one, and a case can be made that those institutions have better collections of erotica.

Joe, you have persuaded me to stay away from that place, I'll put my money to better use. And if I'm so inclined I'll go to the original museum of sex - The Internet - which has been up and running for years, and doing a damn fine job of distributing lascivious material to the masses.

Mastercard Commercial Parody A must see! Priceless!

(found via Metafilter)

Clinton Supports McCall for Gov.

H. Carl McCall's Democratic gubernatorial campaign got a much-needed boost yesterday as former President Bill Clinton stumped for him at a Manhattan rally and then hosted a fund-raiser on Wall Street to replenish McCall's near-empty campaign war chest.

Clinton was the latest in a series of nationally known supporters to appear with McCall. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) recently stumped for him, and on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle came to New York City to praise McCall.

McCall's last financial disclosure reported that he had only $1.1 million on hand, compared to Pataki, who had $12.2 million.

Cleaning out the closet

CNN has this story

Attorneys for NBA superstar Michael Jordan filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing a woman of attempting to extort $5 million from him in exchange for keeping quiet about a relationship they had more than 10 years ago.

Jordan, 39, is seeking a "trial by jury on all issues," according to the suit.

In the suit, Jordan acknowledged he had a relationship with Knafel "a decade ago" and that he paid her a quarter of a million dollars not to disclose it.

"Under threat of publicly exposing that relationship, Ms. Knafel extorted Mr. Jordan into agreeing to pay and paying her $250,000," the suit states.

Since then, the suit claims, Knafel through her attorneys has "attempted to extort additional money from Mr. Jordan." The alleged extortion demands were made to one of Jordan's attorneys in Chicago.

Your Airness, these things have a way of coming back and biting you in the ass bro.

You should have never offered to pay her that $250K, as soon as you did that you became nothing but a chump in her eyes. She played you for a fool.

But, the funny thing is, men and women both cheat on each other, and yet men are the ones with the horrible reputations and also the ones that keep getting caught. One could only assume that it's because women go about it intelligently are not as boastful about it as guys are

What them worry?

Mad magazine turns 50

You might notice Alfred E. Neuman's gap-toothed grin is a little wider this month.

MAD, the nation's preeminent humor publication, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with October's issue #423, and not even the magazine's editors, writers and artists - the self-proclaimed "Usual Gang of Idiots" - know how it lasted this long.

Explains co-editor Nick Meglin, who has been with the magazine for 46 years: "There isn't an issue that doesn't have something for everyone, regardless of your taste."

One quality that kept them going for so long I think is the fact that they are very good at keeping up with the changing times. The flow of fresh and funny new material is never ending, after all, life itself is a comedy.