Mackris v. O'Reilly

We are besides ourselves with glee.

And not only because of the election. It is this new story.

Crooks and Liars is reporting it.

Radar is reporting it.

Raw Story is reporting it.

The folks at Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly - an organization of hope - have been involved in the creation of a new work: Mackris v. O'Reilly The Opera.

In the book Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly, we discussed the possibility of a musical theater
production. We even went so far as to throw together some lyrics. Well kids, in the race to the
stage, we've been beaten to the punch… and by a guy named Igor, no less.

Mackris v. O’Reilly is the new work by Igor Keller. The oratorio (which is basically an opera
without the scenery), is for a 31-piece chamber orchestra, 32-voice chorus and three soloists,
directed by Kris Falk.

The libretto is comprised of the original court document and O’Reilly’s on-air settlement
announcement. Imagine a two-hour neo-baroque extravaganza including seven chorales, two
madrigals, three choruses, four recitatives, two instrumental entrances and numerous arias
dedicated to the sexual exploits of the most popular man in cable news.

This is an organization I could support! Here is their blurb for the event:

GET READY FOR A NEW EXPERIENCE IN CLASSICAL MUSIC!

Mackris v. O’Reilly is coming to Meany Hall on January 12 & 13, 2007 at 7:30 pm. On those two nights, the baroque oratorio will receive an unforgettable infusion of contemporary culture and controversy.

---

BILL O’REILLY SINGS!
The piece is a setting of the sexual harassment complaint lodged against Fox News pundit, Bill O’Reilly, by staff producer, Andrea Mackris, in October 2004. It includes all memorable moments from the original complaint and more – paranoid rants, clumsy sexual innuendo, and the famous falafel fantasy. Composer Igor Keller has produced this 31-part, concert-length work in the form of a baroque oratorio, in the style of an updated Handel’s Messiah, for 31-piece chamber orchestra, 32-voice chorus and three soloists. It’s an oratorio for the 21st century!

I would call this chamber pot opera. You may here two brief musical excerpts here.

Fire and Smoke

We found ourselves staring into space this morning browsing through Gawker , which had posted this photo with the headline:

Where There's Smoke ...

originally found in New York magazine here, with a somewhat different headline:

Every Neighborhood Fights Fires Its Own Way

with the tag

" We found ourselves standing on line next to this sign last night. We were in Chelsea, of course."

Just For Men mustache, beard and pubic hair color now has a female rival

Betty Beauty is now marketing pubic hair dye:

AUBURN Betty - HAIR COLOR FOR DOWN THERE

Auburn for your hotspot? Red means go there. Finally, the first safe color for the hair down there. Gray? No way! AUBURNbetty says never a dull moment! AUBURNbetty color for the hair down there naturally colors, covers gray and brightens to match your glorious locks above.

Follow the easy directions for safe color. Natural-looking. No mess. No drip. Use it every time you color! Want a red-hot secret? Get your betty ready!

Other colors inlcude blonde (of course), black, brunette, and fun (hot pink).

Hot pink means play. Adventure down below! Celebrate! The first safe color for the hair down there. Funbetty is a hot pink party in a box! Funbetty color for the hair down there. Go girl, it's your birthday! Or your anniversary or your wedding or his birthday! It's the perfect gift.

Follow the easy directions for safe color. Natural-looking. No mess. No drip. Use it every time you want candy! Fun is where you find it! Get your betty ready!

Mission Accomplished: The Revisionist Version

Mike McIntee over at Inside Minnesota Politics ("Minnesota's first politcal podcast") has discovered the latest in subtle propaganda from Der Führer.

Exclusive Video-White House Apparently Caught Doctoring "Mission Accomplished" Speech

Apparently the Bush administration has taken the Winston Churchill quote "History is written by the victors" into the video age.

See it for yourself.

red america investigation

In Tuscon, Borat had the crowd so worked up they sang along.

happy birthday to the blog owner

Now, enjoy this ad from the Scientists and Engineers for America.

Bus Plunge!

Another bus plunge.

This AP report appeared in the International Fishwrap, The WaPo, and The Paper Of Record .

42 dead as bus plunges off mountain road in Nepal
The Associated Press
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2006
KATMANDU, Nepal At least 42 people were killed and another 45 wounded Saturday when an overcrowded bus plunged off a mountain road in western Nepal, police said.

The bus was traveling near the town of Tribeni, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the Nepalese capital, Katmandu, when it skidded off the road, plunging about 250 meters (950 feet) into a ravine bellow, said local police officer Birkha Bahadur Rawal.

Police are investigating the cause, he said adding that an initial probe indicated the driver may have lost control of the vehicle because it was overloaded with passengers.

Police did not yet know if the driver was among those who survived.

The bus was traveling toward the southern town of Dang when the accident occurred.

Among those killed, 32 died on the spot while eight died on the way to the hospital, Rawal said. Another two died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dang.

About a dozen more were in a critical condition and hospitalized at Nepalgunj, he said.

Police official Rawal said some of the passengers managed to jump and survived, indicating there were several people traveling on the roof, a common practice in rural Nepal where not much public transportation is available.

A bus ticket attendant who survived the crash, Jeevan Nepali, Told the Associated Press by mobile phone from his hospital bed that the bus was unable to pick up speed on the slopes and the driver stopped. It then rolled backward and off the road.

He said he and some of the passengers managed to jump off.

Deadly road accidents are common in Nepal, often caused by poor roads and aging overcrowded vehicles.

The POfR used the same wire service story and its supplied caption, but the entry in the index to "The World" section was tastefully re-written:

Nixon Redux

The Lamont campaign has created a brilliant ad revealing Lieberman's word-for-word echoing of Milhouse's mewlings during the Vietnam war. Take a look.

You can't spell 'Saturday" without 'turd'

Our keen-eyed correspondent in Sappy Valley spotted this in their local fishwrap.

He supplied the headline, too. Thanks, Reidar.

Do you use the Google on the Internets?

ThinkProgress reports that Bush says he uses “the Google.” See it here.

HOST(CNBC): I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

an amusing campaign ad

Apparently the Republican nominee in Idaho's first congressional district hasn't always gotten along well with his colleagues in the state legislature...

No longer a free nation, nor a nation of laws

Ave atque vale, habeas corpus. We are no longer a nation of laws. WaPo reports that we have now become a dictatorship:

Bush Signs Bill Authorizing Detainee Interrogations, Military Commissions

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; 10:52 AM

Invoking the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush today signed into law a bill that allows tough interrogation of terrorist suspects and establishes military commissions to try them.

In a speech before signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush said the new law "is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror" and "will save American lives."

But none of the mainstream press is mentioning this part of the legislation:

(2) RETROACTIVE APPLICABILITY- The amendments made by this subsection, except as specified in subsection (d)(2)(E) of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, shall take effect as of November 26, 1997, as if enacted immediately after the amendments made by section 583 of Public Law 105-118 (as amended by section 4002(e)(7) of Public Law 107-273).

You've read this correctly! Der Führer just signed a law that immunizes against prosecution all of those responsible for the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the rendition of the innocent, going back to November 26, 1997. No war crimes trial for this administration!

But other than the fact that it totally sucked, it was OK

In today's WaPo, Tim Page roasted a performance at the Kennedy Center, saying of the soloist,"About the only thing Vavic managed with professional confidence and composure were her bows." Ouch!

Something Amiss in The WPAS Piano Series

By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 16, 2006; Page C05

Anika Vavic's Saturday afternoon recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater proved a shocking deviation from the extraordinarily high standards that the Washington Performing Arts Society's Hayes Piano Series has set for itself.

If her concert had been an audition for admission to a conservatory, it is possible that Vavic might have won a place, but I doubt if any leading music school in the country would have accepted the results as a credible graduation recital. The program -- Mozart's Sonata in B-flat, K. 333, Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35, and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 6 in A, Op. 82 -- was a succession of missed notes, memory slips, motoric rhythms, clattering fortes and sketchy phrasing. About the only thing Vavic managed with professional confidence and composure were her bows.

Der Führer's Birthday Present to The Twins

The Wurst President will be giving a special present to his daughters, Jenna and Barbara on their 25th birthday, this coming November 25, 2006:

At 7:24 AM EST November 25, 2006, we will have been at war in Iraq longer than our involvement in the Second World War.

United States involvement in the Second World War extended for1346 days, 9 hours, and 7 minutes, from the attack at Pearl Harbor at 7:53 AM Hawaiian Standard Time (UTC-10) on December 7, 1941 to the surrender of Japan in the radio broadcast of the emperor, 12:00 Noon Japan Standard Time (UTC+9), August 15, 1945.

At 7:23 AM EST November 25, 2006, the length of the Iraq war , starting from the 10:16 PM EST March 19, 2003 announcement by Der Führer will be equal to the length of time of our participation in World War II.

Newsweak sez Americans are stupider

Rising Hegemon spotted this anomaly on September 25.

The geeks at Wonkette have spotted another.

So why does Newsweak water down their news for native consumption?

We suspect that the domestic version has plenty of monosyllabic words, and all of those nasty compound sentences have been eliminated so that the final product resembles a Dick and Jane book. In other words, something that our our leader, Der Führer, can read.

Wonkette has much more to say:

The cover’s art direction is aimed at the crucial retard demographic, too: Giant Leering Foley Face with a little cut-out Bush figure running from Giant Leering Foley Face and two great big simple words, one of which starts with a freakin’ smiley instead of the actual letter. It gets worse. The international edition has the damning background to the North Korean nuke test: One year ago, Washington and Pyongyang made a deal and everybody was happy:

On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”

Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

In other words, for some perverse reason we’ll never know, Washington signed the thing and then deliberately provoked Lil’ Kim so he’d break the deal and let the neo-con nuts have a new “regime change.”

That seems like something a few people in America might like to know, right?

Wrong! It would only confuse and anger Americans, who have enough problems already!

That’s why the new U.S. edition is filled with important little tiny short articles such as “Parties: How to Have Fun,” “Rock Music: Secrets of ‘Shredding’” and a very special 400-word article about how 77% of Americans spend most of their time praying to their dead relatives’ ghosts, which are everywhere these days.

Another Plunge

This seems to be the day for plunges, but not of the bus plunge variety. This was reported in The Telegraph. I like the tasteful, low-keyed headline.

Woman, 34, impaled in hotel plunge

By Paul Anast in Athens
(Filed: 11/10/2006)

A British holidaymaker was fighting for her life last night after her boyfriend allegedly pushed her out of a second-floor window at their hotel on the Greek island of Crete.

Sarah Maskell was impaled on a pole, which pierced her leg and exited through her lungs, in a fall from her room in Malia on Monday.

The incident was witnessed by the British man's five-year-old son, believed to be from a previous marriage, police said.
advertisement

Miss Maskell was in a critical condition in hospital.

A man, believed to be Miss Maskell's 37-year-old boyfriend, was in custody after appearing in court to face attempted murder charges yesterday.

In a statement, police at Iraklio said that it appeared Miss Maskell had been hit and pushed in a "violent row".

An Invitation from the World League of Despots

Terry Jones has written this fine letter in the Guardian:

Dear President Bush,

I write to you in my capacity as secretary of the World League of Despots.

It is with great pleasure that I am finally able to extend an official invitation to you to join our ranks. For many years, we have watched your efforts to fulfil the requirements necessary to join our number. From the start, we were greatly impressed by your disdain for democratic principles - the way you wrested power from the democratically elected candidate in the 2000 election, and again in 2005 when you managed to swing what was clearly going to be a victory for your opponent.

Contempt for human life has always been a priority requirement for membership of the league, and I and my fellow adjudicators were well aware of your record as governor of Texas when you quadrupled the number of state executions. But your record since seizing power has surpassed even our expectations. The thousands of innocent people in Iraq, who have died so that you could fulfil your declared political objective of establishing "an American force presence in the Middle East", attest to your eligibility to join our ranks.

I cannot, however, disguise the fact that we adjudicators were extremely anxious when you announced your intention to remove from office one of our most stalwart members, Mr Saddam Hussein. However, we need not have worried. According to a recent UN report, you have ensured that there are now even more human rights abuses in Iraq than there were under Saddam. No less than 10% of those in custody are being physically or psychologically abused. Well done!

Of course, your unstinting efforts to make torture an internationally accepted aspect of human life have surpassed everything we could have ever hoped for. I don't think there is a single member of the league who could have imagined, six short years ago, that our activities in tormenting our fellow creatures would once again be recognised as acceptable, civilised behaviour, as it once was in the middle ages.

Despite these achievements, we had, until now, felt unable to extend our invitation to you because you had been unable to fulfil one of our basic requirements: the ability to carry out arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial, secret torture and executions at will.

We approved of your attempts to establish the principles of arbitrary arrest under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but unfortunately it was still restricted to terror suspects. We appreciate that you were hampered by the US constitution, but the restrictions this imposed on your arbitrary powers kept you below the threshold requirements for qualification as a despot.

Now, however, all that has changed. At the end of last month you persuaded the Senate to pass a bill regarding the treatment of detainees. Illegally obtained evidence can now be used against suspects, even if it has been gathered abroad under torture. Anyone you care to accuse can be thrown into prison without the right to a trial or the right to represent themselves.

Officially the legislation is restricted to "enemy combatants", but you have skilfully adapted this definition to include anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the US". This presumably means that anyone who publicly criticises your conduct can be defined as supporting hostilities to the US. You are now free to arrest and imprison anyone you don't like. You've got it in the bag!

It is with great pleasure that we in the World League of Despots note that you have now appropriated to yourself all the powers of arbitrary arrest and torture that Saddam once enjoyed. You are now one of us. Congratulations!

another one for the plunge archives

I know a middle-aged woman isn't a vehicle, but the headline does include "plunge"...

Woman who takes fatal plunge from university building hits walking student

TOKYO - A woman who plunged from a university building in western Tokyo on Wednesday in an apparent suicide bid died after hitting a student walking on the campus, police said.

At about 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday, a 55-year-old unemployed woman fell from the University of Electro-Communications' building that houses laboratories in Chofu, and hit a 20-year-old female student who was walking on its premises, local police said.

The older woman died while the student suffered serious head injuries and was rushed to hospital.

A pair of sandals belonging to the woman who fell was left on the landing of an emergency stairway between the ninth and 10th floors, leading investigators to suspect that she committed suicide.

The student who was injured was on her way home after finishing preparations for an upcoming university festival, according to police. (Mainichi)

WTF: More Fox Follies. Chafee is now a D.

Crooks and Liars has it here.

WTF: The O'Reilly Fuckter calls Foley a Democrat!

Brad Blog reports this.

LOGGED BY Brad ON 10/3/2006 6:07PM

INCREDIBLE! FOX 'NEWS' LABELS FOLEY AS DEM DURING O'REILLY FACTOR!

Three Different Video Cutaways, 15 Seconds or More Each, Credit Disgraced REPUBLICAN Congressman as Being a Florida DEMOCRAT!

Just amazing. Fox's O'Reilly Factor just covered the Mark Foley (R-FL) issue in two different segments, one of them with a page who says he received communications from Foley, and another with Ann Coulter.

Never mind the content of either segment for now. Incredibly during a total of three different cutaways to video footage of Foley, he was labelled at the bottom of the screen eachtime as "(D-FL)" !

indecision 2006

Via Steve Gilliard, and courtesy of the Mark Foley mess, the new House GOP slogan for 2006:

No one could have anticipated the breach of the Levi's.

Why there is beer

From here

The Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar

The Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar is part of "Five Holes", presented by Fado ("... a non-profit artist-run centre for performance art based in Toronto, Canada.")

FIVE HOLES

FIVE HOLES foregrounds our bodies by examining aspects of the five basic human senses. The presence of bodies -- the performer's body and the audience members' bodies -- is an essential element of performance. We 'perform' when we bring our bodies into relationships with an audience in time and space. FIVE HOLES considers some of the ways in which sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste allow us to perceive.

The LSBMB is staged by performance artist Jess Dobkin.

We are not sure which hole this is meant to represent.

Now I have seen it all

Who:
A female driving an old beat-up red pick-up truck with a male passenger.

Both look like a cross between Daisy and Onslow from the old BBC comedy, Keeping Up Appearances and characters out of Deliverance

What: Just you wait and see.

When:
5:30 PM, Friday, September 22, 2006

Where:
Red light at Kruse Way and Kruse Way Place, Lake NoNegro, Oregon

Why: That's what I keep asking myself.

How:
This has me stumped. I didn't think there was enough room in the pick-up for the female to do what she did to the male, but events proved me wrong.

This is one time that I wish that I had a camera phone. As I pulled up behind the red pick-up truck at the red light, the female leaned to the passenger side and completely disappeared from view; simultaneously, the male continued to bounce around in his seat in a highly agitated motion. This continued for a minute after the light changed green. After several toots of my horn, the female re-appeared, after completely tooting the male's horn. He leaned back in his seat, and more or less collapsed there as they drove off, leaving me disgusted in their wake.

It left me ringing with the sentiments voiced by the priest from Harold and Maude, who said

"I would be remiss in my duty if I did not tell you that the idea of intercourse - the act of your... body... commingling with... withered flesh... sagging breasts... and flabby buttocks... makes me want to vomit. "

Beware Professor Osama

Roas Brooks has a terrific op-ed piece in yesterday's LA Fish Wrap.

Rosa Brooks: Students, Beware Professor Osama

Fear-mongering conservatives are on their perennial crusade to purge universities of liberal professors.

Rosa Brooks
September 15, 2006

WITH SEPTEMBER upon us, it's time to reflect on that perennially popular back-to-school activity, Bash the Professors.

According to David Horowitz's book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America," American universities are dominated by "a shocking and perverse culture of academics who are poisoning the minds of today's college students with … hatred of America … and support for America's terrorist enemies." His crusade against "radical academics" is not, alas, a lonely one.

By coupling his overheated rhetoric with a seemingly respectable campaign for "academic freedom," Horowitz has managed to snooker quite a few students and politicians into supporting his agenda.

Horowitz's website, discoverthenetworks.org, laments that most professors hold liberal political views, and he urges greater ideological "diversity" on faculties. On his Students for Academic Freedom website, he asks students to report "abuses" of academic freedom by professors, and state legislatures to mandate that public universities comply with what he calls the Academic Bill of Rights...

Brooks adds this devastating irony at the end of her piece:

The right-wing assault on supposedly liberal universities appeared to have run out of steam after the '80s, but it revived after 9/11. Capitalizing on increased anxiety about national security, Horowitz and his ilk were able to start denouncing the academics they disliked as not merely liberal but pro-terrorist "sympathizers … of Osama bin Laden."

Last week, they insisted that universities be purged of liberals and "improved to serve national security," and they urged students to "strongly criticize … the continued presence of liberal and secular professors."

Oh, wait — whoops! Those quotes were from — respectively — Ayatollah Abbasali Amid Zanjani, the hard-line Islamist president of the University of Tehran, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Silly me, getting my militant conservative Islamic extremists mixed up with my militant conservative Judeo-Christian extremists! Though now that I think about it, they seem to have an awful lot in common.

URPL8SUX

This very funny post made its way to The Smoking Gun.

NOTE: We don't find the Nazi or racist ones funny, so we're leaving them out.

Here are some interesting license plates:

State License (Language ) Translation
NY BIGPNS (Doh!) Put in some vowels
NY BYTETH1S (Doh!) nun needed
NY ELBECHO (Spanish) male body part
NY CTO XYEB (Russian) 100 male body parts
NY CGA2MDRE (Spanish) My Mother! Your mother!
NY 3M WOJ8 (Doh!) Read it in a mirror
NY EFF EWE 2(Doh!) Doh!
?? 2HOT2DOU (Doh!) Doh!
NY UP TOUS (French) Manges moi
NY POTVINSUX Doh! see this and the item below

POTVIN SUCKS - Bib
$9.99
Qty:

AVAILABILITY: In Stock, will ship in 2 business days
Product Number: 11846395
Tell a friend about this product!

Potvin Sucks. Teach young Ranger fans early. Whistle it to them every night. Tell them how Denis Potvin ended the career of Swedish hockey great Ulf Nilsson in 1979. Boo the New York Fishsticks.
Product Information
Eeewww Baby, Baby!!! It’s okay to make a mess in our easy-wash 100% cotton bib. It provides great upper body coverage to protect baby’s clothes. The sturdy closure makes this one-size bib fit newborns to 36 months.

* 100% jersey cotton
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Enshrine this burger? WTF!

The LA Times once again proves that it can sink below the Bay Area Fish Wrap any day. Here is the latest bit of cheap commercialism masquerading as an "op-ed" piece.

When SWMBO and I lived in LA, "In-N'Out" described not so much the manner in which the thing was served, but rather its effect on digestion.

Enshrine This Burger
If the site of the first McDonald's is commemorated, why not In-N-Out?
By Mark Kendall, MARK KENDALL wrote the "Fast Food Dude" column for the Riverside Press-Enterprise from 2001 to 2004.
September 5, 2006

Rank this story up there with JonBenet Ramsey, Katie Couric, and Suri. Sure beats talking about wars we shouldn't be fighting and other depressing news.

Picture this: the "traditionally right-wing" Telegraph

1 picture = 1 kword.

From the "traditionally right-wing" Telegraph's The Week in Pictures

Their caption:

A visitor takes a picture of inflatable sex dolls displayed at the Seoul Sex Expo 2006

The ozone hole: still big, still bad

Nasa's Ozone Watch has the latest.

It is still a bit early to assess how this year's ozone hole will compare with previous years, but so far, it looks large and deep. Here is the latest satellite false color image (from September 2)

You may download a movie showing the evolution of this year's ozone hole here (Windows or Mac).

I've been studying this for five years. I am not happy. Here are some graphs for the numerati:

The first image shows the area of the hole; for comparions, the entire North American continent has and area of about 24.5 millions of square kilometers.


The second image shows the amount of ozone remaining in the atmosphere; normal levels prior to the 1970s were about 300 Dobson units (DU).

Still a long-haired gum-chewing pinko commie

Take the test yourself at Political Compass

What good are unions? - read this

From David Sirota's op-ed article in the Bay Area Fish Wrap

The war on workers
- David Sirota
Monday, September 4, 2006

U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled one "a terrorist organization." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called them "a clear and present danger to the security of the United States." And U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., claimed they employ "tyranny that Americans are fighting and dying to defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan" and are thus "enemies of freedom and democracy," who show "why we still need the Second Amendment" to defend ourselves with firearms.

Who are these supposed threats to America? No, not Osama bin Laden followers, but labor unions made up of millions of workers -- janitors, teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it.

Bashing organized labor is a Republican pathology, to the point where unions are referenced with terms reserved for military targets. In his 1996 article, headlined "GOP Readies for War With Big Labor," conservative columnist Robert Novak cheered the creation of a "GOP committee task force on the labor movement" that would pursue a "major assault" on unions. As one Republican lawmaker told Novak, GOP leaders champion an "anti-union attitude that appeals to the mentality of hillbillies at revival meetings."

The hostility, while disgusting, is unsurprising. Unions wield power for workers, meaning they present an obstacle to Republican corporate donors, who want to put profit-making over other societal priorities.

Think the minimum wage just happened? Think employer-paid health care and pensions have been around for as long as they have by some force of magic? Think again -- unions used collective bargaining to preserve these benefits. As the saying goes, union members are the folks that brought you the weekend.

The government's numbers explain how unions have helped their members. According to an analysis of federal data by the Labor Research Association, average union members receive a quarter more in compensation than nonunion workers. Eighty-nine percent of union members have access to employer-sponsored health care, compared to just 67 percent of nonunion workers. Unionized workers receive 26 percent more vacation than nonunion workers.

Unions also benefit nonunion workers. That's thanks to the "union threat effect" whereby anti-union companies meet higher standards in order to prevent workers from becoming angry and organizing. For instance, Princeton researchers found in industries that are 25 percent unionized, average nonunion workers get 7.5 percent more compensation specifically because of unionization's presence.

The flip side is obvious: The more corporations and politicians crush unions, the more all workers suffer. It is no coincidence that as union membership and power has declined under withering anti-union attacks, workers have seen their wages stagnate, pensions slashed, and share of national income hit a 60-year low. As Council on Foreign Relations scholars put it, the decline in unions "is correlated with the early and sharp widening of the U.S. wage gap."

Big Business claims union membership has declined because workers do not want to join unions -- a claim debunked by public-opinion data. In 2002, Harvard University and University of Wisconsin researchers found at least 42 million workers want to be organized into a bargaining unit -- more than double the 16 million unionized workers in America. A 2005 nationwide survey by respected pollster Peter Hart found 53 percent of nonunion workers -- that's more than 50 million people -- want to join a union, if given the choice.

Increasingly, however, workers have no real choice. According to Cornell University experts, 1 in 4 employers illegally fires at least one worker during a union drive, 3 in 4 hire anti-union consultants, and 8 in 10 force workers to attend anti-union meetings. When workers petition the government to enforce laws protecting organizing rights, they are forced to go before the National Labor Relations Board, which is both run by anti-union presidential appointees, and chronically understaffed so as to slow down proceedings. When Democrats have tried to expand workers' union rights by introducing the Employee Free Choice Act, the GOP has prevented a vote on the legislation.

So when GOP lawmakers pledge their commitment to workers at Labor Day celebrations today, remember -- Republicans are waging a war on the very workers they purport to care about.

David Sirota is the author of "Hostile Takeover" (Crown, 2006). He is the co-chair of the Progressive States Network (www.progressivestates.org).

Happy Labor Day

Oregon is finally a red state.

Spam, spam, spam

Today's Telegraph has this story about Monty Python:

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... and garlic?
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
(Filed: 04/09/2006)

Showbusiness merchandising, such as Harry Potter jigsaw puzzles and James Bond water pistols, may sometimes seem to be the curse of our age. But, for sheer absurdity, the latest commercial spin-off may never be beaten.

The makers of Spam, the processed pink slab of tinned meat that has long been a national joke, announced yesterday that they are to produce a "collector's edition" flavour, Stinky French Garlic, to cash in on the West End opening of Spamalot, the Monty Python musical fresh from Broadway, at the end of the month.

If life can be said to imitate art, this is chopped pork and ham, salt, water and sugar masquerading as humour.

Spam, a wartime staple in the United States and Britain, changed from being a mere foodstuff into a target for derision in 1970 thanks to one of the most memorable sketches – a satire on Anglo-Saxon eating habits – from the Monty Python's Flying Circus series.

In a cafe packed with singing Vikings, Terry Jones, playing the waitress, recites a menu on which every single dish contains Spam, usually several times over...

favorite joke of the moment

I may have shared this some months ago, but my memory had become rusty due to lack of recitation. Anyway, someone asked me if I could remember it while we were camping in Oregon earlier this month, and I managed to half-ass it, but I resolved to go home and look up the original wording in all it's glory. Here it is:

So theres three doctors enjoying a toddy or two at the local dive.....

The first doctor, wanting to toot his own horn, pipes up.......

"Hey, I got a note from an ex-patient of mine yesterday. Poor bloke, ran his hand through a tablesaw at work a few years ago. Wacked off all five digits on his right hand. In surgery forty two hours, but we got it put back together. I'll be damned if he isn't a concert violist now".

Not to be outdone, the second doctor immediately chimes in......

"Well, I had a patient a couple years back, a gawdawful motorcycle wreck it was. Guy lost his right arm, and broke his leg in fifteen different spots. It was a damned tedious surgery, but my team managed to get it right, and the guy is now playing on the pro-tennis circuit."

Snorting, the third doctor jumps in with distain.........

"Child's play. Hell, in my rural practice we perform such miracles durned near daily. My most memorable surgery, however, was some God damned idiot that tried to ride his horse acrost a train trestle. Christ, all the ambulance brought us was a barely breathing torso and a garbage can full of parts....hell, there was even a cowboy hat and a horse's ass in the mix. But hey, we put the ignorant hick back together, pulled him through, and I'll be a son of a bitch if he didn't actually become the President of the United States."

“the golden era of profitability” - gag, cough, urgggggggh. We're screwed.

The New York Times reports

August 28, 2006
Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and DAVID LEONHARDT

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

A Heartwarming Story

A friend in the Willamette Valley sent me this.

This is a story that will warm your heart, especially if you have lost faith in human
kindness.

This letter was sent to the principal's office after an elementary school had sponsored a luncheon for the elderly. An old lady had received a new radio at the lunch as a door prize, and was writing to say thank you. This story is a credit to all humankind. After reading it you may agree and forward it to anyone you know who might need a lift today!

Dear Faculty and Students,

God bless you for the beautiful radio I won in the drawing at your recent senior citizens' luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at the Assisted Living Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away, so I am all alone in the world. It's nice to know someone is thinking of me. God bless you for your kindness to an old forgotten lady. My roommate for the past few years is 9 5 and always had her own radio. Before I received this one, she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping. The other day, her radio fell off the night stand and broke into a lot of little pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. She asked if she could listen to mine and I said fuck you.

Thank you for that opportunity.

Sincerely, Agnes

Airline joke

This story was reported in the Irish Independent

A guy sitting at a bar at Heathrow recently noticed an attractive air stewardess sitting next to him and thought to himself: "Wow, she's gorgeous. I wonder which airline she works for."

Hoping to woo her, he leaned towards her and uttered the Delta Airlines slogan, "love to fly and it shows?"

She gave him a blank, confused stare and then another airline slogan popped into his head: He leaned towards her again and whispered, "something special in the air?"

She gave him the same confused look.

He mentally kicked himself, and scratched Singapore Airlines off the list. Next, he tried the Thai Airways slogan, "Smooth as silk".

This time, the woman turned on him: "What the f*** do you want?"

The man smiled, then slumped back in his chair and said: "Aaahhhh. It's Ryanair."

"How can anyone have faith in a man of such low intellect?"

The Daily Mail reports this story:

Blair 'feels betrayed by Bush on Lebanon'

By SIMON WALTERS 22:57pm 19th August 2006

The alliance between George Bush and Tony Blair is in danger after it was revealed that the Prime Minister believes the President has 'let him down badly' over the Middle East crisis.

A senior Downing Street source said that, privately, Mr Blair broadly agrees with John Prescott, who said Mr Bush's record on the issue was 'crap'.

The source said: "We all feel badly let down by Bush. We thought we had persuaded him to take the Israel-Palestine situation seriously, but we were wrong. How can anyone have faith in a man of such low intellect?"

booze in the news

A judge in Clark County, Nev. was forced to declare a mistrial in a kidnapping case when the defense attorney arrived 90 minutes late and intoxicated. The attorney claimed he hadn't been drinking since the night before, but the judge thought his slurred speech argued otherwise. That, and the fact that the attorney arrived with a girl he'd apparently met 20 minutes earlier at a bar...

Could single malt whiskey be an effective tool against cancer?

It's not really news, but just trust me on this. Go here. Enter your age. Click on the "Beer Cannon" link at the bottom of the screen. Click on "Videos" on the left-hand panel. Watch the "AWESOME CANNON MONTAGE." You'll thank me later.

What the right wing sees when they read the Times

Hilarious.

What the right wing sees when they read the Times

Bomb Plot or Bush Shit?

Craig Murray ("As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped expose vicious human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.") writes that he is not a believer:

August 14, 2006
The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms...

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.

Shanghai Green Administration Bureau Rules for Visitors

These are the "Rules for Visitors" in Shanghai parks. I am posting these in our laboratory. I am fond of them all, but admire these particular aspects:

• children below 1.2 meters in height are imputed to be indistinguishable from mental patients.
  
• visitors are expected not to urinate or shit.
  
• there is a gradation of unacceptability that ranges from "unallowable" to "objectionable" and then beyond to "impermissible."
  
• "The visitor to the park should discipline himself instead of making himself a nuisance to others."
  
• "activities of feudalistic and superstitious nature , gambling and those banned under law are prohibited."

Rules for Visitors

Pursuant to the 'Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Administration of Public Parks',visitors are advised to observe the following:

1. Parks are accessible to the public during the 'open' hours; admission tickets or relevant identity documents, where desired , are to be presented at entrance, children below 1.2 meters in height , mental patients are admitted only under custody;
2. Ethic and moral codes should be duly honored ; visitors are expected not to urinate or shit ,post ads or posters, and write or carve around in the park, nor to remove or harm any facility or equipment in the park ; exposing one's top, lying about ,washing and airing clothes , scavenging or begging from others is unallowable ; climbing artificial hills, or playing or swimming in the pond or lake is objectionable; ball games and kite-flying are impermissible (unless in a designated area) ;
3. Visitors are not supposed to tease, scare, or capture bird, cricket, fish and shrimp , or cicada (except those for commercial purposes ) ; no animal is allowed to enter the park unless permitted , visitors should take good care of trees , flowers and plants,and should not tear at flowers or plants ,dig up fruits or seeds,and collect soil or water- plants:
4. Firearms and ammunition , combustibles and explosives , and any other hazardous items are strictly forbidden ; firework-playing , barbecuing or camping is banned (unless in a designated area) in the park:
5. The visitor to the park should discipline himself instead of making himself a nuisance to others ; any group activity in the park shall be subject to the administration of the relevant department of the park ; public speech, public meeting or fund-raising of any nature is inexpedient ; activities of feudalistic and superstitious nature , gambling and those banned under law are prohibited; activities of business nature,including setting up a vending stand, peddling about, practicing medicine or distrbuting propaganda sheets are not allowed:
6. No vehicle (except special vehicles for the disabled) shall be admitted into the park ; vehicles allowed into the park should move around slowly.
   

Shanghai Green Administration Bureau
October 2002

The Newspaper Douchebag Barrier Has Been Broken

Rachel Sklar, in Huffington Post's Eat the Press, reports this breakthrough:

Toronto Star Describes Tucker Carlson, Becomes First Mainstream Newspaper To Break The "Douchebag" Barrier

Sklar reports that her research demonstrated that The Star is, in her words,

"the first mainstream newspaper to employ the word "douchebag" as a descriptive term."

Vinay Menon, writing in The Star, had this to say about Fucker Carlson*

During those Crossfire years on CNN, Carlson seemed to be on the verge of a powerhouse career. Sure, he often came across as just another smug douchebag in the beltway. But, hell, he was perched beside Robert Novak, and next to that crabby ideologue even Lou Dobbs would seem boyishly charming.

So what happened? Well, go back to 2004. That's when Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire. You know how that story ends. (If not, Google "partisan hackery," "stop hurting America," or "you're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show." Be warned: that last one may return unwanted websites.)

The strange part is that, over the past two years, as Carlson's profile faded like a newspaper on the beach, many of his fellow travellers on the right emerged as cultural superstars.

The last time Carlson made headlines was around December, when he said Canada was "stalking" the United States ("Canada has little pictures of us in its bedroom.") He also said Canada was the "retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously."

Congratulations to both Vinay Menon and The Star!

* A Google search of "Fucker Carlson" returned 1560 hits:
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,560 for "Fucker Carlson".

Giant Microbes

Giant Microbes describes itself:

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).

My personal favorite is Black Death

Improved hygiene and readily available antibiotics keep this bad boy at bay. But what a history. Find out more about the good old days.

Black Death Plush Doll: $5.95

What's New on the Grand Old Police Blotter

Today's WaPo reports this AP story:

Recipient of Gifts From Abramoff Pleads Guilty
Associated Press
Saturday, August 12, 2006; A07

A former Interior Department employee pleaded guilty yesterday to a misdemeanor charge for failing to report gifts he received from lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Roger G. Stillwell, 66, told a federal magistrate that he had been given hundreds of dollars' worth of football and concert tickets by Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Stillwell was with the Interior Department's office of insular affairs, which handles issues involving the island government. He is the fifth former government official to plead guilty or be found guilty by a jury in the investigation of Abramoff, who was convicted on felony counts of fraud and corruption.

Documents filed as part of Stillwell's plea do not indicate whether he is providing authorities with evidence against others who may be involved.

Stillwell was given four tickets to a Washington Redskins game in December 2003 valued at $316 but with an actual cost of $2,147, prosecutors said. He also accepted two tickets worth $166 to a 2003 Simon and Garfunkel concert, prosecutors said.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys would say whether Stillwell provided Abramoff anything in return for the gifts.

"He recognizes that his decision on how to treat gifts from Mr. Abramoff was inexcusable. For that he has deep remorse," defense attorney Justin P. Murphy said in a prepared statement. Murphy said Stillwell had been friends with Abramoff and his family for years before he took the Interior Department job.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay set sentencing for Oct. 26. Stillwell faces up to a year in prison.

So far, the Abramoff probe has resulted in guilty pleas by Abramoff, two ex-aides to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and a former chief of staff to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio). A former White House official was convicted on unrelated charges.

Lamont's great-uncle

Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote this in the Nation:

The Other Lamont

The Nation's been going since 1865.

But, if it hadn't been for Hammond Lamont, great-great uncle of Connecticut Democratic senatorial hopeful Ned Lamont, we might be telling a different story.

When Nation Editor Wendell Phillips Garrison was ready to retire in 1906, after "41 years of unrelaxed application" in the weekly's service, he wanted to let The Nation die because he could think of nobody "fit to carry on who would respect it and its traditions." Whereupon Oswald Garrison Villard, then a regular writer for the magazine, who later became its owner and editor in 1918, suggested that he consider Hammond Lamont. (Hammond had done newspaper work in Seattle and Albany, and was managing editor of the Evening Post.) After some reflection, Garrison changed his mind and asked Lamont to become The Nation's third editor. As one report had it, Lamont was no firebrand --one report characterized him as a "noble, kindly, conservative gentleman," But he understood The Nation's role, its traditions and kept the magazine alive {Sadly, he died just three years later, during what had been expected to be a minor operation on his jaw.}

This week, The Nation--along with thousands of others across this country --is poised to celebrate Ned Lamont's victory over longtime incumbent Joe Lieberman. But there'll also be celebration of another Lamont --one who kept America's oldest weekly alive and kicking so we could mark this good day.

Surrounded by Fucking Maroons

Live Science has this report from Ker Than

U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 10 August 2006
02:01 pm ET

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower.

Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say.

“American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University.

The researchers combined data from public surveys on evolution collected from 32 European countries, the United States and Japan between 1985 and 2005. Adults in each country were asked whether they thought the statement “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals,” was true, false, or if they were unsure.

The study found that over the past 20 years:

* The percentage of U.S. adults who accept evolution declined from 45 to 40 percent.
* The percentage overtly rejecting evolution declined from 48 to 39 percent, however.
* And the percentage of adults who were unsure increased, from 7 to 21 percent.

Of the other countries surveyed, only Turkey ranked lower, with about 25 percent of the population accepting evolution and 75 percent rejecting it. In Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and France, 80 percent or more of adults accepted evolution; in Japan, 78 percent of adults did.

The findings are detailed in the Aug. 11 issue of the journal Science.

RSTDT More schadenfreude

(image from here)
The WaPo reports this AP story:

IRS May Audit Recycled Leavitt Family Donations

Associated Press
Thursday, August 10, 2006; A05

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Internal Revenue Service plans to audit a foundation that channeled tax-deductible donations from the Leavitt family through Southern Utah University back to the Leavitts in the form of student rent for family-owned student housing, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday.

Southern Utah Foundation President Scott Truman said the organization's board, which met Monday, asked him not to comment on the audit, but that "they feel that we should be okay." An IRS spokesman said he could not comment.

Mark Barton, a Southern Utah University vice president, said the school does not plan to change how it administers the foundation's donations or its housing scholarship program.

"Everything has been checked out [by attorneys] and it's legal," Barton said. He said the school has not been notified of an IRS inquiry.

Nearly $500,000 in charitable contributions from the Leavitt family, which includes U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt, to the Southern Utah Foundation went to the university and eventually were recycled to the Leavitts through an agreement that student housing scholarships be used only for apartments the Leavitts own.

Leavitt family spokesman Dane Leavitt said the family's foundation is reviewing its arrangement to ensure it complies with tax law.

The Washington Post reported two weeks ago that the Leavitt foundation had failed until recently to meet a requirement that it donate 5 percent of assets to charity. The foundation gave $209,000 to charity from 2001 to 2004 but boosted its donations in 2005 and 2006, donating a total of $1.2 million in that time.

Previous story in our Series, Republicans Say The Darndest Things:
Leavitt's Charity Gives Crumbs

Total Fucking Morons On Camera

Clara Jeffrey posted this at Mother Jones:

Americans Say the Dumbest Things

Want to know why half of Americans still say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded—up from 36% last year?

Watch this video.

Sometimes you just feel like giving up.

Posted by Clara Jeffery on 08/09/06 at 6:42 PM

No shit, Sherlock

Wonkette reports the obvious:

Like We'll Believe the Results Anyway

On last weekend’s Chris Matthews Show, New York Times columnist David Brooks made the following loose-lipped declaration: “One of the things I’ve found in life is that politicians are a lot more sincere than us journalists and we are more sincere than the people that read and watch us.”

Who is the least sincere?

Politicians 24.8% (311 votes)

Journalists 8.8% (110 votes)

Readers 6.8% (85 votes)

David Brooks 59.7% (750 votes)

1256 total votes. results as of 08/09/2006 07:57:28 pm.

Polls close tomorrow.

Bush's Backrub Game

Repelled by the Bush-Merkel backrub scene? Relieve your angst by playing with yourself here: Bush back-rub game. Here is the story from AP

German Chancellor shrugs off Bush backrub

July 21, 2006
- NEW YORK - Take the leader of the free world giving a quick back massage to the German chancellor and you've got one of the most watched videos in cyberspace.

It barely runs five seconds. But in that time you see President Bush walk up behind Angela Merkel and quickly rub her shoulders. Merkel, apparently shocked, throws her arms up as Bush walks away. The incident happened during a summit in Russia.

YouTube.com is among the Web sites where the video is getting plenty of play. Other sites have still pictures of the incident. It was even the butt of jokes on the "Daily Show."

Watch the video on youtube.com

University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato says it's more proof that these days, public figures have to be more careful than ever. As Sabato puts it, "almost any male alive today knows that you don't offer uninvited massages to any female, much less the Chancellor of Germany."

If you need a little more agression in your game-playing, try Bash the haggis.

Another great voice lost

Tim Page wrote an eloquent obituary for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the Post.

(image from Wikipedia)

He closes with this:

Schwarzkopf made two recordings of Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs" for soprano and large orchestra -- holy music by any standards I know, brimming with life, love, longing, gratitude and, finally, a serene acceptance of approaching death. I'm sure that many other people besides myself played one of these performances yesterday, after hearing the news. (I chose the one conducted by George Szell.) She owned this music. In one of Terrence McNally's plays, one vocal aficionado challenges another: "Which 'Four Last Songs' do you like? Schwarzkopf or Schwarzkopf?"

The question still applies.

What's new on the Grand Old Police Blotter

From the Post:

Ex-Bush Aide Pleads Guilty to Theft
Claude Allen Blames Stress and Sleep Deprivation for Target Scam

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 4, 2006; 2:18 PM

Former White House aide Claude A. Allen pleaded guilty today to one misdemeanor count of theft, attributing his criminal behavior to sleep deprivation and the stressful nature of his job last fall.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Eric M. Johnson asked Allen to pay a $500 fine, plus $850 in restitution to Target, one of the stores where he stole items through a refund scheme. Allen will not be incarcerated and could have a clean record within two years if he satisfactorily completes his supervised probation.

Allen, 45, speaking publicly for the first time about the thefts, said he had no excuses for his actions, but described the time during which they happened as particularly stressful.

"I accept full responsibility for my actions," Allen told the judge. "Something did go very wrong. I lost perspective and failed to restrain myself....