North Korea: "We'll talk, but don't f**k with us!"

An interesting little excerpt...

North Korea's Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland also alleged the United States had plans to take the communist nation by force if the North couldn't be disarmed.

LOL, let this show just what kind of kooks we're dealing with. Why exactly would South Korea reunite w/ a still-communist north? Kim's regime would have to collapse before this had any chance whatsoever.

Alabama judge suspended & charged with ethics violations for not removing ten commandments monument.

Well here's a gray area...what "ethics"? More specifically, what concrete definition of ethics exists? Technically speaking, his definition of the term presumably meant that it was against his ethics to remove it whereas for the federal court it was an ethics violation to NOT remove it. For them to call it an ethics violation and have it be a binding rule for a more legitimate reasoning than "becuz we said so", they would have to be able to point to a line within the rules of that court saying that such a monument could not be present anywhere in the courthouse. If this rule isn't there, then he violated nothing but their word.

What do I think of the monument? I think it's more of an issue of where such things are placed than them being present at all. Religious items for the benefit of gov't officials is not a trend, it's been a feature of the country since it was created. Hell, congress has had it's own personal religious counsellors (priests, chaplins, whatever you call them) for the longest, and nobody cares. If that's how they get down, that's fine by me, long as they do their job. Seperation of church and state is not literal to the point where even the officials of the gov't themselves cannot practice their faith, otherwise why is "in god we trust" on our money? I may not personally approve of the idea, but what I personally believe and what the constitution says are not the same thing -- it says "congress shall make no law" establishing a religion or banning the free practice thereof, not "no government official may express their faith in any way during hours of service". I'd say as long as it's not positioned so as to suggest shoving it in people's faces (i.e.: first thing you see upon entrance) it's fine.

FoxNews' lawsuit against Al Franken is thrown out:

"There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case. This case is wholly without merit, both factually and legally. It is ironic that a media company, which should be protecting the First Amendment, is seeking to undermine it."

Ouch...

BTW: this is the most "fair and balanced" gesture they've ever made, putting the announcement that they got smacked down on their own website.

Smoking Gun: Al Franken takes a page out of The Right-Wing Lying Liars handbook, and nearly embarasses the hell out of John Ashcroft in the process.

Only thing that would've made this funnier would be if Ashcroft had actually responded w/ that abstinence story. LOL, what could've been...

What a difference two days makes...

So Ali Hassan al-Majid ("chemical ali" for those of you who go by nicknames...) is not dead, but captured. And thus far we've caught 36 of these people and shot two of 'em to bits. Not bad for having almost no help, I'd say.

FCC to AOL: ""do whatever, losers!"

Of course, it's satire, but rather believable these days. I predicted before the merger even happened that it'd screw their bottom line, now it's proving correct.

See? The market works, a stupid idea is being punished. A gargantuan hydra of a media company, gradually being rendered financially bitchly regardless.

Speaking of which: remember those airline bailouts? Notice a name missing from the list of corporate welfare recipients? During the period of help-us-Uncle-Sam whining by the larger airlines, Airtran was still making money. I guess not everybody wants gubmint cheese, eh?

LOL, anybody can get op-ed space in the NYT now...

Not to say it's a bad column, just...odd.

Wishful thinking by the Washington Post:

"it is very unusual for the U.N. to be a target in Iraq given the organization's presence in the country since the 1991 Gulf War and long history of humanitarian assistance in the Arab world."

Going by this logic it should be a surprise that the same infrastructure we're helping rebuild is being attacked. It isn't, for reasons I should not have to explain to anyone with a functioning brain.

Meanwhile, I'm stunned: not one, but two George Will columns I agree with??? Hold on while I check to see if the sky is falling...

UPI:

"With the exception of selected articles, our content is no longer available for public view."

Guess which finger I'm holding up?