- I see what you’re doing, Iraqi government, and I love it. Echoing sentiments that sane Americans have been espousing for literally years now, a spokesman for the Iraqi government is calling for the United States to set a firm deadline for the completion of a total withdrawal of its troops from Iraqi soil. Ali al-Dabbagh, my new favorite Iraqi political figure (seriously, I just picked him up in my international political figures fantasy league), said earlier this week that a firm deadline for all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq should be set and that date should be 2011 or 2012 at the latest. The final deadline “depends on conditions and the circumstances that the country would be undergoing,” but al-Dabbagh believes that taking those factors into consideration, 2011 or 2012 are realistic. The comments come as the end of the U.N. mandate for coalition forces in Iraq expires at the end of this year and the U.S. and Iraqi governments are negotiating the framework for stationing American and allied troops in Iraq beyond 2008. As part of this new agreement, the Iraqis want a date for when all foreign troops will get out and stay out. We’re right with you, Iraq. Here in the U.S., we’ve been demanding that sort of decision for years now and gotten nothing but empty, broken promises and hollow assurances. We’ve been lied to, misled, manipulated and given a giant middle finger by W. and his stooges. As a result, I’m 105.5 percent with you on this one and I even think you’re being a little conservative with your withdrawal deadline demands. Why wait for 2011? How does next Tuesday sound to you? Everything must go in Iraq when it comes to U.S. forces!
- Thanks to an anonymous University of Michigan football booster ponying up the cash, new Wolverines head coach Rich-er Fraud-riguez has finally stopped dicking around, being a spineless, dishonest weasel done the right thing and agreed to pay the $4 million he owes his former employer, West Virginia University after lying to them and quitting to take the UM job. Fraud-riguez and the University of Michigan have agreed to pay the $4 million buyout clause in his WVU contract to settle a suit filed by WVU after he broke his contract in December. Fraud-riguez will pay $1.5 million in three annual payments beginning January 2010. The Wolverines athletic department, his new employer, will pay $2.5 million by the end of July and cover Rodriguez's legal fees, the University of Michigan said in a statement. “To help Rich focus on the challenges ahead, we have worked with him to resolve the dispute between him and West Virginia University over the terms of his buyout,” Michigan athletic director Bill Martin said. “Although he continues to disagree with the validity of the terms, Rich and the rest of us at Michigan felt that it would be best to get this distracting issue behind us.” Either that or he realized he was wrong, fought it as long as he could and when WVU didn’t blink and was ready to go to trial, he chickened out. The WVU Board of Governors held a special meeting Wednesday and approved the agreement, avoiding a trial that was set for this fall. To briefly recap the saga, Fraud-riguez flirted with the University of Alabama about taking its head coaching position after the 2006 season, had an agreement in place and then got cold feet when he was widely ripped for leaving WVU. He doubled back, signed a new deal with West Virginia and it’s that contract which was at the center of this dispute. It came under contention when Fraud-riguez quit the Mountaineers in December for the head-coaching job at Michigan, only a year after extending his contract with WVU. His lame-o argument to weasel out of paying the $4 million to get out of his deal was that WVU broke the contract first by failing to honor certain promises -- a charge WVU denied. Last week, WVU smartly filed in a lawsuit in Michigan court last week, asking a judge to order Martin and school president Mary Sue Coleman to testify in depositions. A hearing on that request had been set for Wednesday afternoon. Additionally, WVU had obtained a subpoena from an Ohio court for testimony and records from Fraud-riguez's financial adviser.
All of this prompted the duplicitous coach to approach the school with a settlement offer and things progressed from there. Now that this is settled, the irony is that Fraud-riguez has agreed to a similar $4 million damages clause at Michigan. I can’t say I would be a bit surprised if this deceitful, conniving scumbag ends up in the exact same sort of dispute with Michigan some day down the road….
- August 10 will be a big day for you, dorks and pasty losers who still dress up in sci-fi costumes despite being 43 years old and list Chewbacca as the one individual you’d most like to have lunch with from all of history. George Lucas, your very own guru of geekiness, will be offering up a special premiere of his new animated film “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” at the famous Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The premiere will take place five days before the film hits theaters worldwide and all of the proceeds from the premiere will benefit Cinematheque, a film organization based at the Egyptian. The theater was one of two Los Angeles theaters to show “The Empire Strikes Back,” one of Lucas’ six dork magnets, er, cinematic thrillers about light sabers, wookies and ewoks that came out in 1980. Tickets for the premiere will be made available to members of Cinemateque first, then any leftover ducats will be sold to the general public. In other words, you can head on over to eBay soon and find a whole bunch of people looking to turn a tidy profit from their tickets. So mark it down on your Darth Vader calendar using your R2D2 pen, losers, August 10 is the big day and then August 15 is the day when this new movie comes to your town. It will also be followed by an animated series on Cartoon Network and TNT, so this could be the start of something huge for dorks all around the globe.
- F’you, United States Constitution. It’s been a popular refrain from the W. administration throughout its seven-plus years in power and once again, it’s being trotted out to prevent administration officials from having to do what they are bound by law to do. Karl Rove, accomplished hip-hop mogul (yes, MC Rove is a bad mo-fo) and longtime advisor to W., has bee subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee to testify in the committee’s investigation into the firing and prosecution of U.S. attorneys and other officials seen as enemies or rivals of W. and his administration. This is the same mess that led to Alberto Gonzales being hauled before Congress, forgetting and not being able to recall things one minute and then spinning lies about them the next, but Rove doesn’t want to meet that fate and so he and his attorneys are attempting to hide behind the “executive privilege” defense. In other words, in the interest of national security, the president needs to be able to have private conversations with high-level advisors that will remain private. Nice try, W. and MC Rove, but no dice. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is the chairman of this committee and he’s right on the money when he threatens prosecution if Rove doesn’t submit to the subpoena and appear before Conyers’ committee. The subpoena was issued in May, so the clock is ticking and Rove is still evading, lying and double-talking. Why does this administration think it can take irrelevant constitutional principles that don’t apply at all to situations it is facing and apply them anyhow to avoid taking responsibility for its actions? Is it too soon to erect a ginormous countdown clock to Inauguration Day in January outside the White House and start planning the party for the day when W. is officially and mercifully evicted from office?
- Can I ask who out there is looking out for the best interests of the date rapist? Maybe it’s just me, but I’m getting the distinct impression that people aren't down with dudes going to bars and parties with date-rape drugs to drop into the drinks of unsuspecting girls so they can sexually assault and violate them later in the evening. I base this belief in large part on the raid conducted by police in Austria, Germany and Switzerland Wednesday in their search for chemicals used to make the popular date-rape drug GHB. In all, 600 homes were raided following several months of investigation. The genesis for the investigation was a large number of online orders for GHL, a chemical found in industrial cleaners but which is also used in making GHB. So once again, your friendly neighborhood date rapist gets the short end of the stick. Now where will this grease ball go to get his illegal, illicit drugs that are his only means of having any sort of sexual contact with a girl, even if it is when she’s unconscious and non-consenting? Thanks for nothing, Euro police…
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