Ex-Congressman Jefferson Convicted of Seeking Bribes

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- William Jefferson, the former U.S. congressman whose freezer was stuffed with $90,000 in marked bills, was convicted of soliciting bribes in exchange for official acts.

The guilty verdict was returned yesterday on 11 of 16 counts by a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count.

The jury, after deliberating today, found that cash and stock worth $470,653 were linked to the crimes. The court will determine later how much money Jefferson must forfeit.

“We have been reminded today that we are a nation of laws, and not men,” Dana J. Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said yesterday. “It should be a clear signal that no public official, and certainly not a U.S. congressman, can put their office up for sale.”

Finally a verdict. This type of corruption cannot be tolerated.

John Hughes, film genius, dead, 59, heart attack

NEW YORK – The actors made famous by writer-director John Hughes are extolling his talents after his death, calling him influential and "one of the giants" for capturing the youth market in the 1980s and '90s with such favorites as "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Home Alone."

Hughes died of a heart attack during a Thursday morning walk in Manhattan, spokeswoman Michelle Bega said. The 59-year-old was in New York to visit family.

His movies comprise a huge chunk of what I consider some of my favorites.
Career Opportunities (1991)
Home Alone (1990)
Christmas Vacation (1989)
Uncle Buck (1989)
The Great Outdoors (1988)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Pretty in Pink (1986)
Weird Science (1985)
European Vacation (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Vacation (1983)
Mr. Mom (1983)

Pure genius.

A colleague at work forwarded me this link. Check it out.

Confirmed

WASHINGTON – The Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor Thursday as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. The vote was 68-31 for Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first high court nominee. She becomes the 111th justice and just the third woman to serve.

Democrats praised the 55-year-old Sotomayor as a mainstream moderate. But most Republicans voted against her, saying she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench.

She replaces retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president, and she is not expected to alter the court's ideological split.

I think she'll be a non-factor. Souter is out and that's the judge I wanted to see removed anyway.

Pwned

You know what's going to happen before it does...but it's still hilarious.

We are so blessed in Norman

OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma park could be the permanent home for a new statue of actress Angelina Jolie, and it's guaranteed to turn heads.

The sculpture is a life-sized Jolie in the nude, breastfeeding twin babies. The artist said it's meant to encourage breastfeeding in public.

The man who designed it, Daniel Edwards, is an artist from New York. He chose MAINSITE Contemporary Art Gallery in Norman to be the first place to put his view of breast-feeding on public display.

"David is a true believer of breastfeeding as a healthier way to raise a child," Christian Pitt with MAINSITE Contemporary Art said.

So I'm watching this news with my wife last night, waiting for the weather. And after we hear this guys big schpeel about public breast feeding blah, blah, blah, my wife says, "no one breast feeds in the nude." And I added, "and certainly not nude in a public park, at least not any parks I've been too. Do you think those parks are on the west side of town?"

I don't have any problem with this type of "art". But it isn't appropriate for a public park. In an art museum, no problem. But I'd don't see this thing winding up in a public park. With the university here in town, a nude Angelina Jolie statue wouldn't last 24 hours in a park with out being stolen or relocated. I can imagine it on top the Vista building downtown, on the lawn in front of David Boren, the OU President's house on Boyd, in the breeze way in front of Norman North High School, and at least a dozen other places.

Mike Gundy, OSU open practice with five goals in mind

The Cowboys enter the 2009 season with high expectations, both internally and externally. OSU coach Mike Gundy has stated a goal of winning a Big 12 title, which likely will require wins over Texas and Oklahoma. Several national analysts have the Cowboys among the top 15 teams in the country.

(1) Make sure the Cowboys remain in good physical condition, yet try to avoid burnout.
(2) Legit backup quarterback
(3) Get a great feel for the system that new defensive coordinator Bill Young has in place.
(4) Become better tacklers
(5) Take better care of the ball offensively

This summer, I heard a OSU fan actually say they thought their football team could win the Big 12 South and the Big 12 Championship and go on to compete for the BCS Championship. I nearly laughed out loud. With 5 goals like those, I don't think the coaches have any fantasies that they are competing for the Big 12 Championship.

How would you like to be the possible 3rd best team in a conference behind OU and Texas?

High hopes for a Big 12 Title, indeed. Perhaps too high. If I were OSU I would lobby the Big 12 conference for a shuffling of the teams. Moving some South teams to the North and some North teams to the South. Primarily I'd like to see OU play Nebraska every year, just like in the olden days of the Big Eight. It was once a great rivalry, unlike last year (box score), they used to give us a run for the money. So for Nebraska we are willing to give the North, OSU. That way at least OSU has a 50/50 chance of reaching the Big 12 Championship and loosing it, at the end of the year. Just think, half of the years they wouldn't even play Texas or Oklahoma until the championship game, if they made it passed the juggernaut of Iowa State Football that is. They are spending a shit-load of money to make their donkey of a program into a thoroughbred. I truly hope they accomplish it. I'd love to have my team competing in the toughest conference in the Nation.

This year, College Football is going to be really fun. The Oklahoma Sooners are loaded once again. The Texas Longhorns are also returning a squad equal to last year. And the ugly spector of tie-breakers is gone, the SEC is as strong as ever, the Big Televen is as over rated as ever, and the PAC-10 still doesn't have a defense worth a damn. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

There's no tweeting in football

DAVIE, Fla. – The only tweets during the Miami Dolphins scrimmage Saturday will come from the officials' whistles.

The Dolphins are at the forefront of an NFL clampdown on Twitter and other social media, with new restrictions imposed on players, reporters and even spectators.

Miami's secretive Bill Parcells regime prohibits fans and media at training-camp practices from tweeting, blogging or texting. At least six other teams have also imposed such restrictions on reporters, even though the workouts are open to the public.

Tony Sparano: Are you tweeting? Are you tweeting? ARE YOU TWEETING? There's no tweeting! THERE'S NO TWEETING IN FOOTBALL!
Ricky Williams: Why don't you give him a break, Tony...
Tony Sparano: Oh, you zip it, Doobie! Bill Parcells was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pigshit. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I tweet?
Ronnie Brown: No, no, no.
Tony Sparano: Yeah! NO. And do you know why?
Ronnie Brown: No...
Tony Sparano: Because there's no tweeting in football. THERE'S NO TWEETING IN FOOTBALL! No tweeting!

Caption contest!

Look who's in the news again.

When I saw this picture the first thing that came to mind was...
"Did you get the check?"

Al "The Bagman" Gore was expecting a reciprocal contact from his former President and running mate.

Yeah, some people are short-sighted and forget...I didn't. And hopefully with this post, you now remember the corruption too.

Perhaps it is the parent's fault....

Parents today give their children more freedom at home but keep them on a tighter leash in public, a new study finds. This is the reverse of what was considered good parenting in the early half of the last century, the researcher showed.

"Today's parents face demands that require near-constant surveillance of their children," said the study's author, Markella Rutherford of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. "Allowing children more autonomy to express themselves and their disagreements at home may well be a response to the loss of more substantial forms of children's autonomy to move through and participate in their communities on their own."

For instance, in a 1929 article, a writer explained, "By discipline we mean the reasonable regulation and supervision of the fundamental habits of a child throughout all stages of his development and a consistent plan for having him obey simple rules such as regular meal-times, regular bed-times, training in elimination, eating what is placed before him, wearing the clothes that are provided, observing certain proprieties of conduct."

Welcome to how I was raised.

In a 1996 issue of the magazine, a mother wrote, "If I told my daughter to go outside and shovel the driveway before school, she'd laugh in disbelief."

Welcome to how my children have been raised.

Where did I go wrong?

Age appropriate chores are important, I still believe that.
"Its your turn to wash the Land Rover son...and don't screw it up."

Tax brake: Wrath awaits Obama if pledge isn’t kept

The fact the U.S. Treasury secretary and a top White House economic adviser left the door open for new taxes on middle-class Americans during separate weekend interviews wouldn’t be so troubling if during last year’s campaign, President Barack Obama hadn’t made a big deal out of not raising their taxes.

Geithner and Summers know the growing federal deficit and the president’s health care proposals won’t be paid for simply by soaking rich Americans. They’re lodged in the hard place between politics and budget realities. Americans sense this, which is part of the reason Obama’s policies have been losing altitude the past couple months.

So if you believed the candidate Obama's promise that he could do all he promised without raising taxes on the middle class, get ready to be lied to. I didn't believe it, and the pundits have been asking "HOW IS ALL THIS GOING TO BE PAID FOR?" for months. You can expect the administration to divert all this to the "economic crisis" we are facing. And he is going to ask the middle class, so eloquently, to reach in to your pocket and poney up for all these new programs. And hopefully you will call your representative in congress and tell them to vote no. And in a few more months you can start funding your new favorite candidate to replace him. Its as if no one every really learns. Swinging the pendulum all the way to the other side doesn't make things better. It just makes things we have to undo to bring it back to the middle. The blessed middle, where everyone wants to pretend their policies reside.