Bob Barr, who as a Georgia congressman authored a successful amendment that blocked D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana initiative, has switched sides and become a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus?

--timball

Bob Barr Flip-Flops on Pot - Politico.com

Almost immediately, he caused a stir after he joined the White House Press Corps in 2005, making waves as the first reporter to ask then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan whether the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name might be considered an act of treason.

"There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove," Sanford asked. "The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?"

The guy who first asked the Valerie Plame question jumps off a building. Happy New Year's everybody.

--timball

Lawyer falls to death at hotel

Reasons to vote:

1) Iraq

2) Fear is not motive, it's a flavor enhancer (and now trans-fat free).

3) Your [I Voted] sticker is your ticket into my kegger.

4) Yelling at FNC doesn't actually accomplish anything.

5) Everytime a vote is supressed Lee Atwater eats another baby.

6) Democracy is only for the people that show up.

7) The time spent in the voting booth will be time not spend huffing glue.

8) All your base.

9) You goto vote w/ the electorate you have, not the electorate you want.

10) Everyone that doesn't vote gets a dick cheney facial.

Vote!

Here's a link to the Google Calendar I put up for the Phreaknic 10 presentation schedule.

For those who are into iCal, there is also:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/c70kpuqbtqvj904ki5hqmgot6g@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Note that I will be updating the schedule as I hear of any changes/additions.

Phreaknic 10 Presentation Schedule

In addition, behavior-recognition teams will be dispatched throughout the subway and bus system as part of the program. Those officers will be authorized to search a person’s bag if they believe it is warranted.

This administration sure has moved us forward. First we killed the dead weight that was habius. Now cops in boston can search your bag "because".

--timball

Police to Start Inspecting Bags on Boston Subway

First blog to take down a congressman.

--timball

Stop Sex Predators

-How to ride a motorcycle
-How to take your hand off the throttle *before* shifting gears
-How to do a wheelie, for about half a second, when the bike's transmission jerks it upward
-How to properly bandage road rash
-How not to ride a motorcycle

MOTORCYCLE DEATH!

Things I learned on July 3rd 2006

NEW BRITAIN - Mayor Timothy Stewart said Monday he will name New Britain Attorney Gennaro Bizzarro as the city's next corporation counsel. Bizzaro replaces Peter Mlynarczyk, recently appointed by Gov. Rell to serve as a Workers' Compensation Commissioner.

Bizzarro! Bizzarro! Bizzarro! Bizzarro! Bizzarro! Bizzarro!
Bizzarro! Bizzarro! I'm helping Bizzarro! Bizzarro! Bizzarro!

The Herald - Bizzarro named as replacement to city corporation counsel

The Road From K Street to Yusufiya

By FRANK RICH

AS the remains of two slaughtered American soldiers, Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, were discovered near Yusufiya, Iraq, on Tuesday, a former White House official named David Safavian was convicted in Washington on four charges of lying and obstruction of justice. The three men had something in common: all had enlisted in government service in a time of war. The similarities end there. The difference between Mr. Safavian's kind of public service and that of the soldiers says everything about the disconnect between the government that has sabotaged this war and the brave men and women who have volunteered in good faith to fight it.

Privates Tucker and Menchaca made the ultimate sacrifice. Their bodies were so mutilated that they could be identified only by DNA. Mr. Safavian, by contrast, can be readily identified by smell. His idea of wartime sacrifice overseas was to chew over government business with the Jack Abramoff gang while on a golfing junket in Scotland. But what's most indicative of Mr. Safavian's public service is not his felonies in the Abramoff-Tom DeLay axis of scandal, but his legal activities before his arrest. In his DNA you get a snapshot of the governmental philosophy that has guided the war effort both in Iraq and at home (that would be the Department of Homeland Security) and doomed it to failure.

Mr. Safavian, a former lobbyist, had a hand in federal spending, first as chief of staff of the General Services Administration and then as the White House's chief procurement officer, overseeing a kitty of some $300 billion (plus $62 billion designated for Katrina relief). He arrived to help enforce a Bush management initiative called "competitive sourcing." Simply put, this was a plan to outsource as much of government as possible by forcing federal agencies to compete with private contractors and their K Street lobbyists for huge and lucrative assignments. The initiative's objective, as the C.E.O. administration officially put it, was to deliver "high-quality services to our citizens at the lowest cost."

The result was low-quality services at high cost: the creation of a shadow government of private companies rife with both incompetence and corruption. Last week Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who commissioned the first comprehensive study of Bush administration contracting, revealed that the federal procurement spending supervised for a time by Mr. Safavian had increased by $175 billion between 2000 and 2005. (Halliburton contracts alone, unsurprisingly, went up more than 600 percent.) Nearly 40 cents of every dollar in federal discretionary spending now goes to private companies.

In this favor-driven world of fat contracts awarded to the well-connected, Mr. Safavian was only an aspiring consigliere. He was not powerful enough or in government long enough to do much beyond petty reconnaissanc... [ Read More (0.8k in body) ]

The Road From K Street to Yusufiya - New York Times

Big earthquake in eastern russia, aka siberia, but don't worry:
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/message.txt

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program � Magnitude 7.7 - KORYAKIA, RUSSIA