- In an unsurprising bit of news from our nation’s capital, Congress and W. are set for yet another showdown over a bill that has been passed by the House and could soon be on its way to the president for approval. This particular showdown will be over a new surveillance bill passed by the House, one that will, among other things, not give retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct electronic surveillance without court orders. The bill would also establish a higher threshold for what the government has to provide to get a court order to listen in on the communications of American citizens with foreigners. W.’s main objection seems to be the lack of that retroactive immunity clause, in other words his wanting to provide protection form future prosecution for cronies and friends who helped his administration conduct illegal activities. Maybe you’d like a retroactive immunity clause for your friends at Blackwater, eh, W.? I’m all for anything that helps the average American keep Big Brother out of his private business, so hopefully Congress can muscle up with enough votes to override the promised presidential veto on this one. W. and the tools in his administration may argue that this bill would bog down intelligence agencies with administrative burdens, but what they call administrative burdens I call due process and respecting the f’ing laws of this country that prevent exactly the sort of illegal behavior that this administration is so fond of subjecting its citizenry to.
- Remember when Michelle Wie used to be a good golfer and was actually worth paying attention to when she teed it up in an event? It wasn’t that long ago, was it? She was a precocious teenager, able to bomb it 300 yards and threaten to make the cut in the occasional men’s event when she got a sponsor’s exemption to play. She was still an amateur but played in the occasional event on the PGA or LPGA tours, mostly as a novelty act but with enough game and competitiveness to make her a viable inclusion in a field. Then her gravy-training father B.J. got his way and steered his daughter into turning pro, a decision that has proved to be one of the worst ever in the history of acclaimed sports prodigies. Since she turned pro, Michelle Wie has been a mess, missing cuts nonstop and threatening to finish dead last in every tournament she plays in. She’s doing her thing this weekend at the Samsung World Championships in Palm Desert, Calif., where she took all of one round to station herself at the very bottom of the leaderboard. In a tournament where there are only 20 competitors, she’s 20th, having shot a 7-over 79 in her first round and followed that up with another 79 in the second round. Not a good sign when you’re 14 shots over par after two rounds. The problem now is that she’s turned pro and she can’t go back, so although she has millions and millions in endorsement money and should be set for life, her golfing career could be wrecked for good because of the greed and overzealousness of her father. Tournaments out there need to do for her what she and her father refuse to do, namely keep her out of their events by not giving her the sponsor’s exemptions that allow her to continue making a fool of herself weekend after weekend. She’s no longer a draw, she’s no longer a compelling figure and maybe right now she should just focus on being a college student.
- Could it be a case of art imitating life imitating art? Mechele Linehan, a former stripper-turned-soccer mom living in Anchorage, Alaska, currently finds herself on trial on charges that she masterminded the 1997 murder of then-fiancé Kent Leppink killed and based the murder on the plot of the 1994 movie The Last Seduction. At the time, she was known as Mechele Hughes and worked as a stripper at the Great Alaska Bush Co. Her tips must not have been that good, because she decided to knock off Leppink in the hopes of getting $1 million in life insurance on him. Using that oh-so-abundant and legendary stripper intellect, Linehan/Hughes mirrored the plot of the movie so closely that prosecutors in her case actually wanted to show the movie to the jury, a move the judge in the case has rejected. And who did this woman get to kill Leppink? Well since she apparently has no shortage of former fiancés, she got John Carlin III, yet another man she once promised to marry, to pull the trigger. By the way, this woman now is actually married, although Colin Linehan should probably get used to the idea of seeing his wife for only an occasional conjugal visit, because she’s headed to the hole if the evidence against her is any indication. Good rule of thumb, though, if you aren’t smart enough to formulate your own murder plot and feel the need to use one of your favorite movies as the blueprint for your crime because you’re not clever enough to make one up on your own, you should probably avoid committing the crime altogether.
- Congressional Democrats, I’m extremely disappointed in you, or at least I would be if I were naïve enough to have any sort of expectations that you would follow through on your promises and have some sort of honor and integrity. As it is, I count on my congressmen lying, deceiving, misleading, embezzling, engaging in lewd acts in public restrooms, etc., so I’m not all that stunned at things like the Democrats wussing out on their goal of passing legislation ordering American troops home from Iraq. Instead, the Dems are focusing on other war-related bills that they believe have a better chance of passing, measures addressing issues like rumors that the military is buying $100 million in equipment from China. Whether this uproar has to do with the prospect of buying equipment possibly laced with lead paint or just dealing with a hostile Communist nation I don’t know, but either way it shows a considerable lack of spine from a Democratic-led Congress that surged to power in the last elections on the strength of promises to start bringing the war in Iraq to a close and to bring our fighting men and women home.
- Caught one of ABC’s new fall shows Friday night, Women’s Murder Club. The short version is that it’s about a group of middle-aged women working in varying capacities in the police and forensics departments in the city of San Francisco, solving murders together and sharing the trials and tribulations of their personal lives with one another. Setting aside the fact that I’m still bitter that ABC canceled a great show like Traveler to put mediocre shows like this on the air, I was underwhelmed and unimpressed by the show as a whole. Angie Harmon is still pretty hot, but the so-called dramatic elements of this show were anything but intense. Harmon’s character is the main character in the series, with Rob Estes playing her ex-husband who is now her boss, and although I like Estes as an actor, the dialogue and writing in this show are subpar at best. At episode’s end, there was a revelation that some bizarre serial killer is stalking the city and is a thron in the side of Harmon and her friends, a serial killer who stitches the mouth of his victims shut in brutal fashion. I would guess that this killer is supposed to be a running plot line throughout the season, but with the show in the unenviable 9 p.m. Friday time slot and being so underwhelming in its first episode, it may not get enough episodes to tell the entire story of this killer before it’s canceled.
- Just a thought, but if you’re someone who has a problem with alcohol and pain pills, Atlantic City might not be the best place for you to live. The city’s mayor, Robert Levy, found that out when he landed in rehab for two weeks and then decided to resign after leaving rehab because for some reason, the city’s residents weren’t down with having an addict as mayor. “Mr. Levy has concluded that public confidence is so eroded by these circumstances that the only responsible action is to step down,” said his attorney, Edwin Jacobs. Yes, counselor, having a mayor whose primary objective is popping pills and chasing his next high would erode my confidence in his ability to run my city. Also problematic is when the mayor disappears for two weeks in his city-issued vehicle, as Levy did on Sept. 26, and secretly checks into rehab without anyone knowing where he is. Then, once city officials knew his locale, they would only say that he was hospitalized somewhere and refused to disclose his condition. Not a good feeling when your city’s mayor goes AWOL, that’s for sure. Jacobs may want to call his client’s situation a “detox situation” and not an addiction, but that’s just semantics. By the way, detox is what people go through when they have an addiction and receive treatment. Either way, probably a good idea to step down, both for you and for the people of your city. If you were the mayor of Hollywood, you would probably fit in a lot better going to rehab because you could mingle with a lot of your constituents there, but for now, get out of the public eye and get your life together.
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