He was climbing in the Himalayas, and died in his sleep in his tent.
He was 71.
As an aside, I’d like to be climbing the Himalayas when I am 71.
Category: Breaking News
Run, Andrew, Run
David Paterson has announced that he will run for reelection in 2010 on Meet the Press.
Andrew Cuomo needs to do the same, because Paterson will lose the general, and so New York will be stuck with Gerrymandered districts that disproportionately represent Republicans for the next 10 years.
Seriously, Paterson is polling below 30%, and not only could Rudy Giuliani beat him, so could Eliot Spitzer, even if he got a blow-job on TV.
Two Rafales Down Over Mediterranean
It sounds like it was a mid-air collision during a training mission, though that is just my take on a sketchy description.
They were from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle’s air wing, though it’s not clear if they were flying from the Chuck.
1 Pilot has been recovered, the other is still missing.
Robert Bird Taken to Hospital
He is 91
This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.*
There was a scuffle at a healthcare reform rally, and someone’s finger was bitten off.
*Admiral Josh Painter, The Hunt for Red October.
Great Googly Moogly!
The California brush fires on time lapse:
Our Dumb Nation
So, a band came up with T-shirt, “Brass Evolutions, 2009,” but some creationist whack job parents objected so the assistant superintendent confiscated the shirts, because some parents, “don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”
Since when did stupid people get the right to make the rest of us stupid?
What the administration should have done was contact the alma mater of said parents, and suggest that their diplomas be revoked.
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy 1932-2009
From His 1st campaign for SenateHe was the last of the Kennedy men of his generation.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?!? Organ-Legging!?!?!?!
So there has been a massive corruption bust in New Jersey, and one of the things that they have found is that there was also an illegal transplant organ sales operation going on.
Seriously, we are talking about selling kidneys.
Great googly moogly.
Franken Wins, Coleman Concedes
The Minnesota Supreme Court declared that Al Franken won, and Norm Coleman conceded:
Democrat Al Franken won Minnesota’s disputed U.S. Senate seat as a loss at the state Supreme Court prompted Republican Norm Coleman to concede.
“I congratulate Al Franken” on his victory, Coleman said at a news conference outside his home in St. Paul. “Sure I wanted to win,” the Republican said, though he said further litigation would damage the state’s unity.
The fact that Coleman conceded indicates that he’s going to run for governor, because it was clear that the RSCC would have continued funding challenges all the way to the Supreme Court.
He knew that if continued the challenge from here, that he would not be able to be elected dog catcher in Minnesota.
But really, it’s all about him, Al Franken.
Not a Good Week for Celebs
Shouting pitch man Billy Mays dead at 50.
Not a Good Week for Celebrities
Ed McMahon a few datys back, and now Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
Posted via mobile.
Sounds to Me Like Another Republican Spending a Few Days In the Closet
One of the odd bit of news right now is that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has gone missing.
He ditched his security detail, he’s turned off his cell phones, and no one can find him.
The interesting quote in the above story is from his wife:
Neither his wife, nor the state’s lieutenant governor, nor police officials know where he is, South Carolina newspapers reported.
But Jenny Sanford told the Associated Press she wasn’t worried.
“He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids,” she said while vacationing with the couple’s four sons.
(emphasis mine)
She sounds to me like someone who is studiously avoiding trying to find the answer to this.
The real issue here is not Mark Sandford’s personal life. It’s the concern that self-hating individuals, and the closet does imply self-loathing, do not make good decisions on the public policy.
Here is a question, how many straight Republicans who practice marital fidelity does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Either one can do it themselves.
Update:
The governor has been located.
He has been hiking along the Appalachian Trail….Yeah, sure, I believe that.
A commenter on the 2nd link nails it:
brads77 Jun 23, 2009 7:28:12 AM
The only reason this guy would have hiked the Appalachian Trail is because he wanted to visit the Home of Deliverance–thinking that the movie was a love story.
Brads77 owes me a screen wipe.
Train Crash in DC
2 Metro Rail trains collided, and the death toll is now at 6.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?!?
It appears that two “Democratic” State Senators in New York State just switched sides, and may have handed over controll of the State Senate to the ‘Phants.
There are elections in 2010, and it’s pretty clear that the Republican Gerrymandering of the State Senate had already run into its limits, but I gotta figure that the knives are really out for Governor David Paterson now, because he, and his staff, are supposed to be all over this sort of stuff.
FWIW, there are rumors that this is about anti-gay bigotry, and the fact that the Senate would pass a gay marriage bill, but this story seems to indicate that it’s just an old fashioned, and legal, political payoff, with positions promised in exchange for votes.
Attorney General Cuomo, you need to go from “no plans”, to, “Yes, I am running.”
As an aside, I think that having a federally court imposed redistricting in 2011 or so would be better than letting the Republicans Gerrymander again.
Debris from Missing Air France Flight Found
It looks like it may be nearly impossible to find the black boxes though.
Air France Plane with 228 Aboard Missing Over South Atlantic
The Smoking Gun For Dick Cheney
And no, this is not from the Smoking Gun, it’s from The Daily Beast, and it’s a big one.
Specifically, Robert Windrem, formerly a senior investigative producer with NBC News, has uncovered information that the office of the Vice President specifically requested that the a senior Iraqi official be waterboarded so as to extract a statement that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in league and cooperating on terrorism:
At the end of April 2003, not long after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. forces captured an Iraqi who Bush White House officials suspected might provide information of a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi was the head of the M-14 section of Mukhabarat, one of Saddam’s secret police organizations. His responsibilities included chemical weapons and contacts with terrorist groups.
…
In his new book, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq, and in an interview with The Daily Beast, Duelfer says he heard from “some in Washington at very senior levels (not in the CIA),” who thought Khudayr’s interrogation had been “too gentle” and suggested another route, one that they believed has proven effective elsewhere. “They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used,” Duelfer writes. “The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related. The debriefings were just debriefings, even for this creature.”
Duelfer will not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding, saying only: “The language I can use is what has been cleared.” In fact, two senior U.S. intelligence officials at the time tell The Daily Beast that the suggestion to waterboard came from the Office of Vice President Cheney. Cheney, of course, has vehemently defended waterboarding and other harsh techniques, insisting they elicited valuable intelligence and saved lives. He has also asked that several memoranda be declassified to prove his case. (The Daily Beast placed a call to Cheney’s office and will post a response if we get one.)
(emphasis mine)
This isn’t about a ticking time bomb. This isn’t about ongoing plans. This is a request to torture someone until they say something that benefits you politically.
Can we put him on trial now?
Yes, I know that OVP does not necessarily equal Dick Cheney, but we also know that his office would not make such a request without his tacit or explicit approval.
Great Google Moogly!
So, I go off to hear the Franklin High School strings festival, which includes stuff from Franklin Middle, where my daughter goes, and plays violin, in addition to Timber Grove and Chatsworth elementary schools, and when I get back, all hell has broken loose.
Looks like about ½ dozen things developed.
Go figures.
Commander in Afghanistan Fired
This is odd, but General David McKiernan has been fired as commander in charge of the Afghan theater, and replaced by General Stanley McChrystal.
The claim is that McChrystal, with a special ops background, is better suited to the conflict, but this has unfolded very quickly.
Note that McChrystal is hip deep in the Pat Tillman friendly fire coverup, as well as allegations of torture in Iraq.
No clue as to what is going on here.