But firing them in person "would have been unpleasant!"

So you guys probably know that the inspector general's report on the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys has been released. What you probably didn't know was there was no malice or political seediness in the process -- just evasion of unpleasantness:

From Legal Times:

Pg. 50: Michael Battle, then Director of the Executive Office for U.S Attorneys, fired the nine U.S. attorneys over the telephone. But at one point, Justice Department officials floated the idea of having then Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty sack them in person. McNulty, who is criticized in the report for being “remarkably unengaged” in firing process, told investigators that, in the report's words, “it would have been unpleasant to tell the U.S. attorneys they were being removed.” Sampson similarly told investigators that McNulty was cool to idea “because it would have made him uncomfortable.” Besides, McNulty told investigators, Battle’s phone calls were consistent with the plan to keep the firings in a “lower key.”

Battle had a list of talking points and a script he could retreat to if someone started asking questions. Also from Legal Times:

If the U.S. attorneys questioned their dismissal and asked who authorized it, Battle was to retreat to this script: “The Administration made the determination to seek the resignations (not a specific person at the White house or the Department of Justice.)” If they asked “why me,” the response was: “The Administration is grateful for your service, but wants to give someone else a chance to serve in your district.” And if they asked for more time: “The decision is to have a new Acting or Interim U.S. attorney in place by January 31, 2007 (granting ‘extensions’ would hinder the process of getting a new U.S. attorney in place and giving that person the opportunity to serve for a full two years.”

And finally, an excerpt from an e-mail from Sampson to Deputy White House Counsel David Leitch:

as an operational matter, we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys – the underperforming ones. (This is a rough guess; we might want to consider doing performance evaluations after Judge [Gonzales] comes on board.) The vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.

Because it's been too long...

Sleepy Mattie.

She wakes up when you call her, briefly opens her eyes, looks at you, and then goes back to sleep.

There's the tongue again.

I can't tell if she's yawning or meowing here. I think yawning...

She's starting to get too big to go places where she used to be able to fit. There's a dresser she likes to hang out underneath, and she just barely fits there now, so she has to slither in and out on her belly (which proves especially difficult when she is trying to chase something). Sometimes her back leg gets in the way while she's trying to slither and she thinks it's attacking her.

Awesome.

So I'm finally posting after 14 days of dormancy, and this is all you get:


In other news my brother's cat, President Cat, has taken to flinging his poo across the room. I told Daniel to take it as a sign that Prez is getting smarter (aren't monkeys supposed to be smarter than cats?), but he's considerably less amused than I am.

"Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?"

A 22-year-old San Diego girl is "auctioning" her virginity to pay for her graduate degree. She has a bachelor's in women's studies from Sacramento State and wants to get a master's in marriage and family therapy.

"We live in a capitalist society," she said to the Daily News. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?"

OK. So I'll start with the obvious statement that trading sex for money is not an auction -- it's prostitution. EBay, incidentally, rejected her, so she will be holding the "auction" through a Nevada brothel, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch.

"I think it's a tremendous idea," the owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch said, according to Reuters. "Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?"

My new car

This is my new car:

I pick him/her (I haven't decided yet) up tomorrow morning. It's a 2003 Honda Accord LX with 70,000 miles. You can't really tell from the photo but the exterior is that dark gray color.

It's relatively sexy, I think. I'm content...

"I've been called worse on the basketball court"

I hadn't seen this before, so I'll pass it on, sans commentary.

Obama, responding to the public vetting of Palin (via Writ Large, which traveled with the Obama campaign this week):

“Listen, I mean, if they want to work the refs, they are free to do so,” he said. “I think the public can make their judgments about this. The notion that any questions about her work in Alaska is somehow not relevant to her potential to be vice president of the United States doesn’t make too much sense.

“I think she’s got a compelling story, but I assume she wants to be treated the way guys want to be treated. That means our records are under scrutiny. I’ve been through this for 19 months. She’s been through it, what, four days so far?”

He said he wasn’t responding to Palin’s attacks because “I’m running against John McCain. I don’t get the sense that Gov. Palin has ideas different than John McCain.”

But, Obama said, the criticism “isn’t that big of a deal.”

“I’ve been called worse on the basketball court,” he said.

Meanwhile, here's Biden's response to Palin's RNC speech (via the Washington Post):

At a town hall meeting in Virginia Beach, Biden called Palin a formidable politician and said he was impressed by her speech, which he said was stocked with "good, funny lines. . . . I'm glad they weren't about me. I was sitting there thinking, 'Whoa, zinger.'"

Sexy sleeping kitten

I am without words.

Sexism?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not hearing any of the mainstream media, liberal pundits or anyone in the Obama campaign assail Palin for not staying home with her children. I'm hearing the McCain campaign, the Republican base, and the conservative pundits talk about it, accusing the "liberal media" and the Dems of being sexist. But I haven't actually heard that criticism in the mainstream media or the Democratic base.

Here's the accusation...

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The accusations came at an angry press conference today starring former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who lead the charge, and California State Secretary of Consumer Services and former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, who were among others here at the Xcel Energy Center.

Marin, speaking to Spanish-language media: "It has insulted me, it has offended me, how they've treated Gov. Palin ... It's unacceptable."

"They feel they have the authority to question her -- and when they do they insult every woman who is trying to balance work and family. There are millions of women doing just that."

More Marin: "They are questioning whether you can be a mother and a professional, because she's running for higher office? How shameful that the media is mounting this campaign and insulting every woman in doing so." She called it a form of media "machismo."

So did any of this actually happen? Or are the Fiorina-types creating controversy that isn't there? Or quoting the tabs as the mainstream media?

Here's Roger Simon's response to the accusations in Politico.

The Daily Show did a phenomenal job last night of pitting the Republicans against themselves:

And this amused me because I am immature and lame:

Maybe if we omit that line about going with McCain to the strip club...

The McCain vice presidential nominee RNC address was prepared in advance, and then apparently had to be scrapped because it was "very masculine," according to the McCain campaign manager. From the Washington Post:

Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch."

OK. So putting aside my confusion over what constitutes masculinity in a convention speech (grunts? jockstraps? chest-pounding? beer? references to male genitalia? references to female genitalia?), my real question is why the McCain camp would tell this to the media.

If you're going to say the Palin selection is based on her qualifications and character, rather than her gender, stick with it.

Not to mention, McCain's people are calling Palin critics sexist. This is either about gender or it isn't. And if you're rewriting speeches on account of gender, well........

That's it--

--I'm appropriating Mattie.

Sexy kitten!

Mattie is getting all big. But look how sexy she is, spread-eagle with her tongue sticking out.


I have this same picture from when she was tiny, but for some reason my phone wouldn't let me e-mail it to the computer. Anyway she was in the same exact position but with one eye a little closed. Now she's all big with both eyes open.

I'd post more photos of Ryder, but Liza takes millions and then never uploads them.

In other news, when the old man in my building saw that I have a rental car and found out my car was totaled, he thought for a second and said, "You have really bad luck, don't you?"

Seriously? He's a lonely old man who gets out twice a month for his diabetes doctor appointments and has a coke-addict son. And from where he stands, *I'm* the one with bad luck?

More quotes of the day to come

I'll start by saying I feel completely gypped by the promised find-out-first veep text coming five hours after the Secret Service landed in Delaware.

But I'll put that behind me for now, because I think Biden is going to make for a Very Entertaining VP candidate.

A Politico story referred to a primary debate last year -- one of the send-in-your-YouTube-questions debates:

Via a video clip, a man identifying himself as Jered Townsend from Clio, Mich., said: “To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know if our babies are safe.”

Then Townsend picked up what appeared to be a semiautomatic assault rifle. “This is my baby, purchased under the 1994 gun ban,” he said. “Please tell me your views. Thank you.”

So Bill Richardson answered first, talking about instant background checks and attacking poverty rather than Second Amendment rights, etc., etc., etc.

And then Biden was asked the same question:

“I’ll tell you what, if that is his baby, he needs help,” Biden said. “I don’t know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun.”

Biden went on to say that he was “the guy who originally wrote the assault weapons ban” and “we should be working with law enforcement, right now, to make sure that we protect people against people who are not capable of knowing what to do with a gun because they’re either mentally imbalanced and/or because they have a criminal record.”

Then Biden added sardonically: “I hope he doesn’t come looking for me.”

Yeah. This is going to be fun.

Oh, and just for good measure, yawning Mattie...

Quotes of the day

1) The first is from Joe Biden, whose house is being staked out by the press. You can click on the Politico story for the context, but I prefer it out of context so:
"A successful dump!" Biden proclaimed when asked if he had anything to report. ... "I got a second load. Anybody that wants to help me and load, let me know."
And credit Fox News (did I just say that?) for a phenomenal headline. "Potential No. 2 has 'successful dump'"

2) I'm newly obsessed with Jim Oliphant's new blog, Writ Large. Oliphant is the Supreme Court reporter at the Chicago Tribune and my new favorite with Linda Greenhouse gone, but he starts mornings with a non-courts post -- a random dialogue between him and Jim Tankersley. That's the background. Here's the quote:

I’m done waiting for Obama to make his veep choice. I’m sitting around, time on my hands, not sure what to do with myself. Last night, I cleaned my place! Cleaned it. At night! I even cleaned out my refrigerator. You know what my refrigerator has become? Gitmo for vegetables. It’s where awful things happen to vegetables in small chambers.

*Tap*tap* -- is this thing still on?

So I was giving the car insurance company a recorded statement Saturday regarding my totaled car (short version: Rich Bad Driver In A Beamer t-boned me in a parking lot and didn't own up to the fault, so the insurance company had to investigate before determining it 100 percent his fault).

They turned on the recorder and I started telling them about the crash, and about halfway through my statement I heard A.M. making that loud yelling noise cats make when they're either a) in the bath, or b) trapped somewhere. So I followed the sound and found A.M. Standing next to my bed with a tissue box stuck over her head.

So my statement went something like this:

"I was driving down the main thoroughfare when Mr. Hou came out of one of those secondary lanes with all the parking spaces and slammed into-- ohmigod my cat has a tissue box stuck on her head. Hold on one sec. A.M. A.M.! COME HERE! Let me get it off you! A.M. seriously calm down. Oooh. OK. There. Good girl. Aww, are you OK? OK. ... I'm sorry, are you still there? Sorry, my cat had a tissue box stuck on her head."

Adjuster : "That's funny."

Me: "Yeah. She's OK. So I was driving straight and Mr. Hou..............."

So yeah. That's on the record.

In other news, Rich Bad Driver In A Beamer's insurance company assumed full liability today and my car is totaled. So I will be buying a new car (A.K.A. probably a slightly newer version of my old car) with whatever settlement money I get. Poor Hessy Honda...

"With all due respect..."

Asked Saturday night which existing Supreme Court justices he wouldn't have nominated, McCain's response was:

"With all due respect, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Souter and Justice Stevens."

In other words, McCain wouldn't nominate anyone he disagrees with. Who knew?

Obama, meanwhile, is taking flak from conservative groups for his answer, which actually included some reasoning other than saying activist judges are bad (Brown v. Board of Ed was the product of so-called activist judges, but we like to disregard that):

"I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don't think that he…was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution. I would not nominate Justice Scalia, although I don't think there's any doubt about his intellectual brilliance because he and I just disagree, you know. He taught at University of Chicago as did I in the law school."

From the Legal Times blog:

"It was clear last night that Obama’s criteria for selecting Supreme Court Justices are fuzzy, lack intellectual coherence, and are subject to his own whims," said Wendy Long, a former Thomas clerk and counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network.

Right. Because McCain clearly based his answer on qualifications and experience.

I'm not saying the Souter/Stevens/Breyer/Ginsburg set is superior to the Alito/Roberts/Thomas/Scalia set or vice-versa. What I am saying is let's stop lying to ourselves and acknowledge that presidents appoint justices who agree with their Constitutional views. PR flaks can spout as much BS as they'd like about how the other candidate would try to impose his own agenda through his nominations -- but, um, yeah... so would your candidate. Glass houses, dude.

Sunday night on NJ Transit

Returning from the city Sunday night, we somehow picked a train car with the following passengers (actually, they picked us... none of them were sitting there when we got on):

=

There was Jazzy Jeff from the Fresh Prince.

And there was the guy with the bandanna over his nose and mouth. I didn't realize I was going to be part of the picture, but the look on my face entertains me. So Shruti tried again for a close-up, and...


Bandanna Boy walked onto the train with his two friends and ever-so-considerately began playing his bass-heavy cell phone music for everyone on the train car to hear. Meanwhile, his friends chatted loudly about pussies and such. We could only assume that Bandanna Boy was immuno-suppressed (Unless you can think of some other reason for the trusty germ-stopping fabric draped over his nose and mouth?). And his friends were quite obviously talking about their cats. Such nice boys.

Should have gotten the six-pack

A Chicago woman has been accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death because he was drinking her beer.

The 55-year-old woman was in the car with her 77-year-old boyfriend Wednesday when she became angry that he was drinking her beer. So she stabbed him repeatedly, got out of the car, called for his nephew ("You better come get your uncle—I just killed him," according to the police report), got back in the car and finished the beer.

No word on how she managed to keep the beer from spilling while she was stabbing the guy.

Two-faced kitten

I'm sure you've all heard of Chase No Face, the cat who lost her face and eyelids in an accident when she was 4 weeks old.

Now an Ohio kitten was born with two faces -- or, more specifically, four eyes, two noses and one mouth.Weird.

First Amendment vs. Sixth Amendment

I know I made a sort of pledge not long ago that I would try to be more entertaining on this thing, but I'm actually interested in what You People think of this, so...

A judge in Kansas declared a mistrial in a rape case after the local paper reported that the suspect had been convicted of fondling a 13-year-old girl in another county and would be facing child pornography charges in both counties.

The outcome of that trial had been already reported in the other county's paper, but the issue was with the local paper because the jurors would be more likely to see the story. But the judge had already ordered the jury not to read the local paper, and the defense lawyer said in the local paper behind all this:

“The problem we had was (the headline) was in bold face, and if (jurors) were even innocently looking through the paper, and it caught their attention, we have a compromised jury.”

The headline on the original A5 story was "Man sentenced to 11 years in sex case."
The one-column subhead was “Same man accused of raping Salina girl, other sex charges.”

So I'm torn. The original story was a matter of public record and the paper had every right to print it. But the suspect is obviously entitled to a fair trial. But the judge did order the jury not to read the paper, so for him to assume they didn't follow those orders (without asking, at that) is strange, right? And the girl who was raped already testified for three hours, and now she's going to have to do it again.

So what do you guys think?

Denver, the DNC, and poop

In anticipation of the DNC, the Denver City Council has passed an ordinance barring people from carrying poop in public for "nefarious purposes."

Seriously.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

The ordinance makes it illegal to carry certain items, such as chains, padlocks, carabiners and other locking devices. It also prohibits the possession of noxious substances. Two of the most frequently used examples of a noxious substance are a bucket of urine and a "feces bomb."

Police have to prove that people carrying such items intend to use them to block public access or emergency equipment or to thwart crowd control measures.

The ordinance was passed unanimously by the City Council on Monday.

This came despite three protest groups signing a treaty that called for "a moratorium on the public throwing, spraying, smearing, hosing or inducing of excrement," according to the Denver Post.