HEZBOLLAH LEADER: "SORRY GUYS, MY BAD! KING'S X"

Sheesh, the military leader of Hezbollah now says if he'd have known snatching the two Israeli soldiers would have started a war, he wouldn't have ordered it!

That raises some questions from me for him:

1. What did you think it would start, peace talks?

2. What is there in the Israeli personality that led you to believe it could possibly START ANYTHING BUT A WAR?

3. Great, you've admitted your mistake. Now that thousands of families are homeless and you've managed to bring about the destruction of one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, what are you going to do about it?

4. Did you every think about getting into another line of work, like shining shoes or washing dishes, where your tactical miscalculations are a bit less costly?

Maybe this fellow has been successful in the Peter principle and rose to his level of incompetence. Maybe it's time he took one for the team.

MONDAY MOANER-WHAT DO MAYORS LENANE, SCHNEIDMANN AND SCHOLZ ALL HAVE IN COMMON

Simple, Nyuk, nyuk:

They've all had a Street named after them!

THE EFFECTS OF LAYING DOWN WITH SWINE

My constitutionally protected opinion of the initial and continuing Bush administration has been that it had no regard for personal ethics. Colin Powell sold his integrity for power and peed it away with a little vial in front of the U.N. Richard Perle was not only a colonialist in savior's clothing but stood to profit from an "Arabian" war. On to Cheney and Scooter, Ashcroft shredding the constitution and W's defense of his overhear program on the basis of permission by Congress to attack AQ in Afghanistan. All really slimey stuff.

The one person in this administration I have always admired was Deputy Sec'y of State Dick Armitage. He was careful, deferential to Congress, not militarily adventuristic (Despite having been an Admiral). I once drafted a fan letter to him (never got sent.)

Now, it appears Armitage is a source of the Plame outing. At the risk of sounding naive, I would never have thought him capable of such petty revenge. Sure, the State Dept. Didn't want Joe Wilson going to Niger and Armitage was Powell's biggest apologist and protector but, I thought, not a petty bureaucrat. He, of all people, would have understood the implications of what he was doing. He had worked with classified information for some years and must have had some idea what it costs to set up a dummy front corporation. This disclosure is just astonishing to me.

I wish I could tell you what the moral of this story is. Don't trust anybody, ever? Your Government will always disappoint you? Don't let two ex-military guys run the State Department? Or maybe it's just I'm no good at finding that one Washington Republican who's pure of heart (if there is one.). All I know is this is truly a gut punch. A guy I thought was a true patriot turns out to be a petty in-fighter. Phooey!

PREACHERS ON WHEELS

What is it with ministers of the gospel and automobiles? You'd think they'd be the most law-abiding folks around, but, it seems to me, not when they're driving. Just this week, I've seen five people I know to be ministers run--not just phantom pause-stop, a/k/a the "Champaign Slide", but truly blow through stop signs.

Ladies and Gentlemen (They haven't all been guys), it's great you're in touch with spiritual concepts and high deeds but somebody's going to the pearly gates a little too soon, if you don't start paying attention to those red signs!

ET TU, PLUTO?

A bunch of scientists are sitting around debating whether Pluto is a planet. Note they do not argue about its properties, just the label that should be put on it. If any of them are there on grants, the grants should be revoked. Science is not being advanced by this exercise in label-making.

CHUCK'S EXIT--AFTERWORD

This will be my last thread on this topic.

For about the two weeks before he officially pulled out, Chuck knew there was something likely seriously wrong. In some ways, difficult as it was, the decision made itself. BUT, under the heading of meeting one's responsibilities, Chuck kept campaigning, even between the time the decision was made and when it was announced. None of us will ever know how difficult that might have been for him and Becky but he was a "gamer" even when he knew he was leaving the game.

Whatever anyone out there may think of him, there's no arguing that this was a bunch of grace under pressure.

PERSPECTIVE

One minute we're pursuing our job goals, our future is bright and our kids are doing well. The next minute, we're struggling to regain normal health and just live out an opportunity to enjoy our loved ones.

Smell the roses folks. My dear friend Chuck is not the first and he won't be the last to get gut punched with serious medical news.

Think about it.

THEORY OF LIABILITY FOR LAND SURFING ACCIDENT IN PLEASANT HILL

As you probably know, a young man died when he fell from the roof of a moving SUV. It is a tragedy and I do not mean to make light of it.

Still, the cynic in me feels it's just a matter of time before the manufacturer of the SUV is sued on his estate's behalf for failure to provide a warning sign that it might be hazardous to climb onto the roof of a moving SUV.

What a Country!

THE "UPPIE" AWARDS

Lately it seems tri-state businesses have been providing some excellent service. Upper Mississippi River Basin Blog would like to recognize some of them with the "First, Maybe Annual, Maybe Not 'UPPIE' awards".

Submit your nominations. Create your own category.

Let's let this one ride for couple of weeks. Decisions of our vast Blog Staff are final.

WAY TO GO, JEFF TWEEDELL!

Jeff Tweedell has qualified to play in the United States Mid-Amateur Golf Tournament, the true amateur championship of our country. This is a very big deal. Congratulations, Buddy. Good Luck in Arizona. We want to see you on the weekend in HDTV.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!: CHEAP CHINESE KNOCKOFFS ARE RUINING THE NATIONAL ECONOMY....

........of China!

Yes, kiddies. It happens not only at WalMart but now also in the land where Mao hid in caves.

Chinese want Blackberry service but they are buying in at about $65 for the device because they can buy workable Chinese knockoffs. The Economic Officials in China Have licensed the device there but are not enforcing the license. The service is not even available either on the mainland of in the protectorate of Hong Kong until September, so most of them are just using the thing for a cool looking cell phone.

This could be an evolutionary step. They ultimately put themselves out of business and then have to go overseas for workable electronics. Go figure.

NRA'S NEW NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON

Maurice Clarett may have to do it on work-release but he's employable as soon as he gets his recent unpleasantness sorted out.

Why are national commentators saying this situation is a tragedy? A thug with anti-social tendencies, a mean streak and lots of loaded weapons is off the street. That's a good thing. If he gets better later, great.

Look, this man was running 5.6 forties. It's not like he was bound for success in the NFL.

And, yeah, I don't really know what to make of the Prisoners' CD in ol' Mo's vehicle, either (Although I gotta admit, I kind of liked the selection on it entitled"Hip Humpty". ) There's something a little dissonant about child rapists and murderers singing children's songs. Maybe it's just me, but that comes off as a little creepy.

Doc Holliday armed was an American Folk Hero. Why not Mo?

IHSA, MULTIPLIERS, NEW MATH AND STEROID TESTING

At its August 6th meeting the IHSA Board expressed favor for a New Jersey Drug Testing initiative. While they have not adopted any policy yet, they are leaning toward an approach that mimics the the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wouldn't you like to work for an agency whose acronym is "WADA"?) headed by that renowned scientist executive, Dick Pound (I'm not making this up--that's really the guy's name).

However, in unreported discussion, the Board acknowledged that some changes would have to made in the testing protocol for male athletes who enjoy the unacceptable advantage of playing for a private school with no, GASP!, boundaries.

As everyone who hasn't lived under a rock knows, they don't actually test for the steroids/EPO/HGH but they test for their effect. This is done by measuring the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. In most guys it'll be about four to one. The Board would generally consider ten to one an unacceptable rate and that would be the rate at which sanctions would apply ORDINARILY AND FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS.

The board however decided it needed a "multiplier" for private school athletes. Tentatively, although this discussion was unpublished, private school athletes whould have their testosterone multiplied by the assigned multiplier. This is necessary because stuff is just more suspiscious at private schools and it's harder to catch them at all the stuff the IHSA is certain they are doing wrong. For most private schools that multiplier would be 1.77, so an athlete testing at a relatively innocent six to one would be raised to about 11 to one and would, therefore, flunk. Of course, this would be totally the athletes fault because, if he didn't want to flunk a drug test, he should have gone to a public shool.

For schools with really good sports teams the multiplier would be two. So a regular QND player would go from an unremarkable 5.5 to 11-1 after the multiplier and, of course, flunk. Again, totally the players fault and he must live with his flagrantly anti-social choice of attending an evil "school without boundaries".

Finally, a really good player on a really good team would have a multiplier of 3, which would mean a normal four to one would be 12-1 and fail. Again, such a reckless youngster should have thought of the consequences before being born male and enrolling in a wicked private school.

The goal of this program would be to protect young people from injury and also to make sure that the QND band was handling kicking teams and the defensive backfield by the third game of the season.

We're from the IHSA. We're here to help you.

LIKE THE CAVALRY, U/G RIDES IN, JUST IN TIME

U/G's been on a very understandable hiatus.

Today I've been wrestling with whether to write about some of the developments of last night. Having concluded that I can't ethically do that, I noted that U/G has opened the same general topic today so I would invite my readers there. Try going through the individual presentations last night and asking yourself if anything trips your hyprocrisy meter. If you only identify the obvious one, you're not trying hard enough. There's more. Have fun.

See ya tomorrow.

THE GOP JOURNEY TO FOUR DOLLAR GAS

Major pipeline break in BP infrastructure in Alaska. Probably worth a .50 increase. (Be a good idea for you to get gas before lunch time today). How'd you like to be the incumbent party, looking for crossovers when you're the guys who brought em' four dollar gas.

Guys, the four dollar gas is wallpaper behind all this. It spoils the picture for the GOP and their pals the "Earl Men", not to mention Uncle Dick has secret meetings (presumably unarmed) with the "Earl Man" buddies.

MELON SALAD, MELON SEASON

Happened to eat a wonderful melon salad yesterday and sadly noted the season is coming to an end. All that reminded me it was probably time to take down the Rob Mellon for Congress Website.

Rob, when you start blogging, I'll link you. I doubt you're done sharing you views and maybe even your service. GodSpeed.

LIEBERMAN AND LAMONT: A RACE ABOUT YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPER

Ned LaMont is gonna beat Joe Lieberman or Joe Lieberman is gonna pull it out. Great. Have a nice election and let me know how it comes out. I get all that.

All the internal cross tabs in almost every poll except Texas (even Utah) shows that both Democrats and Independents are looking for Democrats to vote for. Thus I understand the DFA's ardor for LaMont. Also, anybody who's read here for a while knows that I believe the DLC gambit only works if your last name's Clinton. No card trick works for everybody. You probably get that. From me you get it ad nauseam.

Here's what I don't get. The principal issue in that campaign seems to be whether the idea of virtually singehandedly invading Iraq was a good idea. Good Lord! Is there anybody out there undecided on that Issue? These guys are stuck on that topic and not even talking productively on the essential topic: "Now that we're there, what the Hell do we do now?"

As nearly as I can tell, Liebermann's answer is "Bitch at the the President!" and LaMont's is "Retreat!". Surely a State full of Yalies can do better than that.

CUE "IF I HAD A HAMMER" --TEXAS REPUBLICANS LEFT WITH NO CANDIDATE

Court Ruled on Texas GOP filling "The Hammer's" Spot. Made to order GOP district, but no GOP candidate. Wonder if the faithful still love His Hammerness now that his gambits have left them with no representation.

Somewhere, Martin Frost is smiling.

Lawrence O'Brien once said "There are no final victories in politics." Why is it so difficult for folks to keep that in mind?

IFS ANDS AND BUTTS

A professional British jockey has been disciplined with a one day suspension for, and I'm not making this up, head-butting his mount. Where have all the creative commissioners gone? How about making the punishment fit the crime? Sentence the guy to a head-butting contest with a bison or an elk! Get creative.

Oh, yeah, he's sorry and won't appeal.

No, his name's not Wietholder.

CUE "MAN ON THE RUN": TOM DELAY LEAVES SKID MARKS AND THE GOP TRIES TO SAVE HIS SEAT

Yes, kiddies, the same Tom Delay whose minions called the democrats in the Texas legislature "cowards" and "fugitives" when they left the State to defeat a quorum so the Gerrymander could not be voted upon has gone into his own "four corners" offense.

The GOP couldn't replace him on the ballot if he just quit. Thus, he's moved out of his district so the GOP can argue he's not "qualified" to serve. Such a "not qualified" finding might enable the GOP to appoint a candidate. That part's in court.

So the dem is the only person on the ballot, Delay has left the jurisdiction and "The Fugitive" is coming to a theater near you.