Not sure how the hell Perez Hilton has "exclusive sources" who can confirm the coming announcement of Fidel Castro's death, but here it is. The six thousandth announcement of Castro's passing.

The law of large numbers says one of these has to be right.

Incidentally, here's bad video of the Beyonce flash. It's a flesh-tone bra, alas.

I guess that can serve as a bit of lame cowbell.

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (36)
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Via Slublog, the plea agreement finally agreed to by Vick.

The dog thing I think is a minor concession. Obviously he killed dogs.

The one he can't admit is the gambling, I think. Because sports leagues take a very dim view of illegal gambling. Even if one is betting on other sports, gambling results in unsavory connections that could ultimately taint the integrity of the game. If you bet on a different sport with a mob bookie and wind up $600,000 in debt, it's very possible you might just get an offer to have your debt canceled... if you throw a couple of games (or shave points, which in gambling is the same thing).

Vick isn't just implicated in placing bets with organized crime -- he stands accused of actually running an organized crime betting operation. Ultimately, if the league wants to ban him for life, they'll do so on the organized criminal betting operation and not cruelty to animals.

I think there's actually a pretty good chance of that. Yes, other NFL players have killed people, or at least been peripherally involved in killings. But it's corruption by organized crime gambling interests that actually threatens the sport itself. Whether he expressly admits to this in the plea agreement or not, he did it, and the NFL is not required to punish him only for what he admits in a plea agreement.

Can the NFL really afford to not ban him for life? Can they risk another wannabe gangsta starting up another illegal gambling shop? And can they risk the chance that someone so heavily involved in a sprawling criminal conspiracy won't be corrupted or blackmailed into throwing games?

Hell -- for all of Michael Vick's atheletic gifts, he didn't exactly win a lot of games, now did he? Who the hell knows what else this prick of a pro-am Godfather was up to. Speculation? Of course. But that's exactly why sports leagues can't afford MobStars in them. Once someone is in the business of crime and gambling, what assurance is there that he isn't mixing his side-job with his regular gig?

On FoxNews, they described the plea deal as having a heavy emphasis on Vick's full and complete cooperation. Lie detector tests, multiple interrogations and re-interrogations, etc. The deal relies upon the truthfulness and completeness of his cooperation. So I don't see how he can evade ultimately admitting to running a start-up organized crime gambling ring, at least not without voiding his plea deal.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (26)
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The unofficial state religion may not be offended or mocked. Berke Breathed, creator of Bloom County and Opus, dared to take on Islam and lost.

Note to Opus readers: The Opus strips for August 26 and September 2 have been withheld from publication by a large number of client newspapers across the country, including Opus' host paper The Washington Post.

You can see the heresy here.

RememberÂ…the MSM are the deciders of whatÂ’s fair and whatÂ’s not.

Hat Tip: Milblogs

Apparently Breathed's site is getting slammed. You can see the cartoon panel here.

Posted by: DrewM. at 11:10 AM | Comments (36)
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I'm not really psyched about this, but it's newsorthy.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 AM | Comments (70)
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“If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.

“They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.”

Outrageous!

But the problem is that this isn't from Al Sharpton's personal blog. It's from a parody site, and an obvious one. Greg Pollowitz of the Media Blog has the details.

Ah, the patient fact-checking of reporters.

Multiple Fixes: Link fixed; attribution fixed. Greg Pollowitz, not Steve Spruiell.

Update: A new statement--

A "Vick Case" Article Update

by the Editors

Only at MSNBC Online | Post date 08.24.07

For several hours now, questions have been raised about Alex Johnson's "Vick case divides African-American leaders" While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy. We at MSNBC take these concerns extremely seriously. This is why we have sought to re-report the story, in the process speaking with five bloggers at the News Groper site who substantiate the authenticity of blog described in Johnson's article.

We're going on vacation now.

THE EDITORS

Thanks to hit and run.

Posted by: Ace at 09:04 AM | Comments (42)
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Part of a Continuing Series: One of the things I’ve noticed over the last three or four years of national debate about the War on Terror is that it is oddly common for people to ignore international law—even when it supports their arguments. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, simply because I do not like to see anyone leave a good argument lying on the table.

With the hope that you never leave an argument alone simply because itÂ’s about a sticky subject, here are some simple, straightforward, and useful facts about international law that may help you out the next time youÂ’re talking about current events.

Current Event That Prompts Discussion: Enemy combatants in Iraq conduct operations from inside a mosque against U.S. forces, resulting in the death of an American soldier. They also use the mosque as a storage cache for weapons. U.S. forces, fed up with months of attacks from gunmen operating in the mosque, call in a missile strike
after ordering everyone inside to evacuate.

This causes a great deal of agitation among your coworkers. YouÂ’re on your way to the restroom when you overhear the following exchange and decide to introduce yourself into the conversation.

See the update at the bottom of the post. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:10 AM | Comments (45)
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Is it an earmark? I don't know. It's stupid, I know that.

US Fish and Wildlife Service proposes a $27 million dollar recovery plan to prevent the extinction of the ivory-billed woodpecker in northwest Arkansas, although whether the bird actually exists is in question.

The woodpecker was thought to be extinct when Cornell University researchers reported spotting one in 2004 in an eastern Arkansas swamp. Researchers and birders have since converged on the Cache River Wildlife Management Area hoping to spot the bird and hear its distinct double-rapping.

Twenty seven million dollars to protect the double rapper, which may or may not exist.

A representative from Fish and Wildlife presents the compelling argument thusly:

"There's enough out there that we've got to keep searching," said Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It'd be irresponsible not to."

Irresponsible. You keep using this word, irresponsible. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Thanks to Garret, a very popular radio guy from Long Island who is stuck in Texas now. Heh.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 07:07 AM | Comments (30)
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Notorious Vietnam era leftist, William Shawcross of Sideshow fame, who blamed the US for the killing fields of Cambodia, has apparently recanted his previous Cambodian assertions, and even better is now behind what we're trying to do in Iraq.

...Amid unbelievably bloody civil war which they would do everything possible to provoke,al-QaÂ’eda would try to reconstruct bases such as they had in Afghanistan before 9/11. They would be 1,000 miles closer to the West and in the midst of what is potentially one of the richest and most sophisticated countries in the world: very different from Afghanistan, very much more dangerous.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:49 AM | Comments (7)
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Feds give him a shot to stay in the NFL.

It'll be interesting to see how Goodell deals with this now. If Vick avoids a gambling conviction, he avoids the league's "lifetime ban" for illegal gambling. "And hey, I didn't personally kill them dogs with my own hands, I was just hanging around, watchin em die". No one will believe it, but will fans forget about it?

Probably.

The story also reports Vick's dad tried to talk him into giving up dogfighting, or at least putting the property in somebody else's name to avoid being implicated.

I used to get those "son, don't do that, but if you do that, don't get caught" lectures from my dad too. But what the hell did he know, anyway?

UPDATE: TomB points out (correctly) this is just rumored, not fact. Loose shit on my part.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 05:03 AM | Comments (27)
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ABSCAM Jack Murhta’s ‘cold blooded’ murder case continues to fall apart:

Investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware said the evidence was too weak for a court-martial. Tatum shot and killed civilians, but "he did so because of his training and the circumstances he was placed in, not to exact revenge and commit murder," Ware wrote.

"I believe (Lance Cpl.) Tatum's real life experience and training on how to clear a room took over and his body instinctively began firing while his head tried to grasp at what and why he was firing," Ware wrote. "By the time he could recognize that he was shooting at children, his body had already acted.

The recommendation now goes to Marine Lt. General James Mattis. Mattis has already dropped charges against two other Marines based on similar recommendations.

Via Hot Air

UPDATE:
Having now read the whole report (pdf here), the paragraph most of the wire stories have pulled is a bit misleading without some context (shocka, I know). more...

Posted by: DrewM. at 05:12 PM | Comments (25)
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