My Own Private Larry Craig Moment

15 ish years ago I was in a downtown Seattle department store with my then fiance to see what we had registered for. Did not even know we had registered. So I have to use the bathroom and as I am walking towards the bathroom door there are two fairly normal looking guys just outside the door talking. I go into the bathroom, does not appear to be anyone else there. I go into a stall and "use the facilities as they were intended". Less than a minute later I hear someone else come in and then shortly after I hear someone say "are you married?". My only thought is must have been more than one person that came in although that seems like an odd question to ask someone in a bathroom. Whatever, this is Seattle after all. About a minute later, I notice one of those two guys who was outside the bathroom door is looking through the crack in the stall door at me going to the bathroom. I immediately said in an exceptionally stern voice, "what do you want?" to which he replied "I was just curious". He then walked out of the bathroom and I sat there wondering what was that. It literally took me a minute to realize the situation. First (and only) time I had (knowingly) been hit on by a guy. Once I realized what had happened, I thought I need to find that guy and do something, punch him in the face, scream obscenities at him, something, no idea what I was going to do. So I finish as quickly as I could, left the bathroom and scanned the floor of the store and saw him on the far side of the floor going down the stairs. I started going that way then realized I was wasting my time, I was not going to catch him and even if I did, what was I going to do, beat him up? Cause a scene?

So later that day I call my best friend and tell him what happened and he tells me his similar story about some guy looking at him from under the divider of the next stall. He immediately got up and starts pounding on the stall door yelling all sorts of unprintable things. He also threw the trash can into the stall which I thought was brilliant. He then decided to wait outside the door for the guy to come out. Half an hour later, he was still waiting so he went back in and the guy had literally climbed out through the window.

Now my thoughts on the Larry Craig deal. Do I think he was doing what he was really busted for. Yes I do. But last I checked what I think he was probably doing is not the legal standard in our court system. I have also listened to the police tape recording and good lord if that is not the most flimsy of cases I have ever heard. Could I convict beyond a reasonable doubt with that evidence. Not a chance. Do I think Larry Craig is an idiot who deserves to be kicked out of the Senate, you bet.

And that is the difference between the Republican party and the Democrats. Larry Craig will most likely be forced to step down. His own party will insist he do so, just like Mark Foley, who was never charged with anything, did. Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle is an assortment of all sorts of people who have been convicted, impeached, run afoul of the law, been accused of all sorts of things that far outweigh anything Larry Craig plead to but do they resign? Are they forced out? No.

The democrats are quick to yell hypocrite during Larry Craig moments but it reminds me of the story of the adult smoker who was telling teenagers not to smoke. Another person called him a hypocrite. The smoker replied, would I be a better person if I encouraged the kids to smoke?

Touching Best Man Speech


Funniest Best Man Speech Ever - Watch more free videos

Being Overweight, Not Always The Worst Option

The meeting between marketing and legal for this web sites content must have been tense:

alli™ works by preventing the absorption of some of the fat you eat. The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects. You may get:
* gas with oily spotting
* loose stools
* more frequent stools that may be hard to control

Start trimming fat from your diet now, even before you begin taking alli. Then pick a day to begin taking alli, such as a weekend day so you can stay close to home if you experience a treatment effect. Make the timing work for you. If you're getting ready to travel or attend a social event, hold off on starting with alli until the event is over

While no one likes experiencing treatment effects, they might help you think twice about eating questionable fat content. If you think of it like that, alli can act like a security guard for your late-night cravings

You can't "save fat grams" from lunch and "spend them" at dinner. Spread your daily fat gram allowance of 15 grams on average per meal over the whole day

You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work

You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens

Dennis Miller On Global Warming

There is nothing I could say to make this any better.

Shocked, I Am Shocked

Seems there was a little kerfuffle in the offices of the Seattle Times.

Seattle Times Executive Editor Dave Boardman wrote today in one of his morning notes to staff that there had been "an awkward moment at yesterday's news meeting." That's the meeting where editors and other staff from throughout the newsroom talk about the stories planned for the next day's paper. Boardman wrote in "Dave's Raves (and the occasional rant)"

When word came in of Karl Rove's resignation, several people in the meeting started cheering. That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom.

Who would have thought there would be that kind of reaction. The smart money would have placed bets on hearing the following from Mr. Boardman,

"WOO - HOO!!! Champagne for everyone and someone gets some strippers here fast. But just strippers this time and not the hookers like we got when we helped the Dems take back Congress".

The Seattle Times, keep your political views to yourself.

63 Billion Dollars Buys A Lot Of Smokes In The Slammer

Ace has a post featuring the lawsuit filed by Jonathan Riches who currently resides in a federal correction institution. He claims Atlanta Falcons Quarterback, Michael Vick, stole his dogs, sold them on eBay, bough missiles from Iran, violated copyright laws, subjected Mr. Riches to "microwave testing" and then he starts making some crazy accusations.

The great thing about this country, even crazy people get to file lawsuits. That bad thing about this country, we have to put up with crazy people filing crazy lawsuits.

Global Warming...Human Caused Disaster Or Y2K Bug?

I was meaning to comment on the latest edition of Newsweak about how the Global Warming deniers are all bought and paid for by big oil, although clearly those scientist who get government money to study the effects of global warming... they are beyond questioning, but had not got around to reading the entire article.

Well this just broke, seems some of the data that the Global Warming alarmists are basing claims on is flawed, Y2K flawed.

But it gets better... it seems that the guy who wrote the buggy software, James Hansen is a huge Bush critic but refused to turn over his source code and raw data for other scientists to examine and attempt to duplicate. I guess that is one way to settle the science, do not let anyone else test your results. So a blogger, reverse engineered the data and figured out the problem which now shows that 1998 is not the hottest year on record, it is actually 1934.

James Hansen, get ready for some serious fact checking, and not that New Republic "seems plausible to us" kind. We are talking Freedom Of Information Act compliments of lots of conservative bloggers. Everything that has ever come out of this guys mouth or wrote on a piece of paper is now subject to review. It reminds me of what my cousin would say, "It is really going to suck to be him".

The biggest scandal of it all, NASA has quietly posted the new results. Now why would NASA, a non political scientific organization, not want to make sure everyone was aware that data they had provided that is causing all sorts of new laws and regulations and could eventually cost the US economy trillions of dollars, not want to publicly and openly correct the facts? Why oh why?


Go visit Ace for more details.

Fact Checking 101 With The Senior Editor Of The New Republic

Oh no... he is not explaining the basics of fact checking, the basics are being explained to him:

Johnathan Chait, Senior Editor of The New Republic: When you say your fact checkers re-report everything, do you mean like when you do interviews with sources, they go back and call up your sources and ask if the quotes you have are correct?

Ross Douthat, The Atlantic Monthly: Yes

Well there you have it, the secret to fact checking.

Watch the first 13 and a half minutes about the "Scott Thomas Beauchamp quasi slash non scandal" over at Blogging Heads video. Something tells me those two would like a do over.

The New Republic Masthead Contest

The New Republic, Fake And Even They Knew It Was Fake

Here is a recap of the latest implosion of liberal media. The New Republic, a twice monthly magazine that supports social liberalism with a largely centrist stance on fiscal issues and a left-wing stance of social issues printed a set of stories from a soldier in Iraq who went by the name of "Scott Thomas". The stories were about the behavior of soldiers that was not very flattering to the military. The stories immediately set off red flags for a number of conservative media sites and bloggers such as Ace of Spades HQ, The Weekly Standard and Hot Air to name a few. It was later revealed that Scott Thomas was in fact Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the husband of a TNR staffer, Elspeth Reeves. This further raised more red flags since simple Google searches and such revealed a history of politically left leanings by Beauchamp who had stated in the TNR stories that he was not political. TNR used the fact that Beauchamp was married to a staffer as a reason to believe what he had to say.

Once it was clear that there were problems with the stories, a source inside of TNR let Ace know that "Franklin Foer (the editor of TNR) Doesn't Want To Tell Ellie Reeves Her Husband Is A Liar". This source was fired from TNR almost immediately.

The military started an investigation and TNR issued a statement from Beauchamp insisting it was all true but TNR did mention an error in one of the stories, saying it happened in Kuwait, not Iraq as the story mentioned. TNR was going to go back and re check the facts but did state they had confirmed the story that happened in Kuwait.

It has now come out that Beauchamp:

signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source.

This signed statement happened on the first day of the military investigation right when TNR was posting a statement from the same Scott Thomas Beauchamp saying he stood by his stories and was willing to use his real name.

So clearly TNR never did check the facts like they claimed and they knew the stories were false while they were putting out statements to the contrary.

Why? Someone explain to me why? I mean besides they do not support the troops and want us to lose in Iraq.

Seafair Navy Fleet Week

I took the kid to see the big ships


But first you have to go past security... lots and lots of really serious well armed security. That is the kid in front on the right.


Canada sent its entire navy so if you are thinking of invading Canada by sea, now would be a good time.


Not the boat we toured.


On a vietnam era river patrol boat. Showing what Jane Fonda would have looked like if she was a patriotic American and not a traitor.


At the controls of a fighting vehicle inside the ship.


Behind the wheel. Big fat claustrophobic people need not apply.