Those Pesky Muskrats!

This sounds crazy!

A heroic effort by hundreds of townspeople, volunteers and National Guardsmen to hold back the Mississippi River failed Friday — undone by a burrowing muskrat.

The furry rodent dug a hole through the earthen levee in this eastern Missouri community, allowing water to penetrate the floodwall, which failed shortly before dawn.

"It's so disappointing," said Linda Wilmesherr as she peered through binoculars at water pouring through a gap that appeared to be 30 feet wide. "With all the guns in this county, couldn't we kill a muskrat?"

CNN Is Slipping

I hate to quote the ridiculous man that is Flavor Flav but all I can say is Woooow!



(h/t OW)

Didn't This Man See Mississippi Masala?

This is the follow-up to this madness I posted on earlier this month. This man was found guilty of having his daughter-in-law murdered.

A Mississippi businessman born in India was found guilty Thursday on charges that he arranged to have a hitman murder his African-American daughter-in-law.

A Fulton County jury returned the verdict a day after closing arguments in the trial of 68-year-old Chiman Rai.

Sparkle Rai was killed in her Fulton County apartment in 2000, a month after marrying Rai's son.

Prosecutors contended that Rai had the daughter-in-law, Sparkle Rai, killed because he was a racist and believed an interracial marriage would embarrass his family in caste-conscious Indian society.

Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty if Rai was convicted. The trial now goes into a sentencing phase.

Sparkle Rai was killed April 26, 2000, in a Fulton County apartment a month after marrying Rai's son. The case baffled police for years until two years ago and authorities arrested Chiman Rai and four other men, including the alleged hit man, a Rai business associate and a retired Jackson, Miss., businessman.

So now this man is going to get life or the death penalty over a "bad" marriage? I cannot fathom how all of this was worth it. Like it or not, he has a grandchild. His son has moved on in the "right kind" of marriage but how must he feel knowing his dad did this? How must his new wife feel knowing that her husband's family is capable of such a heinous act? I know this kind of thing may be fairly commonplace over there but it's just not going to fly here. How will this old man fare in prison in Mississippi with a whole bunch of folks who are black and know he had a black woman killed because he thought his son was too good for her? Other cultures have a right to their traditions but not when they break the law and not when people end up maimed or killed. I almost feel bad for him because he could have probably gotten away with this in India - and almost did here.

No Pregnancy Pact?

Just 17 individually stupid teens breeding for no damned reason!

pregnant high school student disputed the notion Tuesday that girls in this New England fishing town made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

"There was definitely no pact," 17-year-old Lindsey Oliver told "Good Morning America" on Tuesday. "There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was just a coincidence."

Oliver, who is five months pregnant, said she and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Andrew Psalidas, a community college student, were using birth control and her pregnancy was unplanned.

I didn't post on this when the story broke because this just makes me soooo mad!

Imus At It Again

Imus clearly can't help himself however at least this was on his radio show and not on MSNBC in the morning where he co-mingled this BS with reputable, informative guests. He's where he belongs with the kind of audience who lives and breathes this foolishness.

Wolf: "Defensive back Adam 'Pacman' Jones, recently signed by the Cowboys. Here's a guy suspended all of 2007 following a shooting in a Vegas night club."


Imus: "Well, stuff happens. You're in a night club, for God's sake. What do you think's gonna happen in a night club? People are drinking and doing drugs, there are women there, and people have guns. So, there, go ahead."


Wolf: "He's also been arrested six times since being drafted by Tennessee in 2005."


Imus: "What color is he?"


Wolf: "He's African-American."


Imus: "Well, there you go. Now we know."

Update: So, Imus says he was defending Pacman and was not being derogatory. I actually heard a longer segment of the program and I can see where that might be the case so I'll backpedal on my criticism. But, I do think that someone needs to tell them that "African-American" is not a color.

Does Obama's "Tightly Wrapped Message" Exclude Muslims?

Congressman Keith Ellison seems to think so.

As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.

Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. An aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.

“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message.’ ”

When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those organizations say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.

In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.

“This is the ‘hope campaign,’ this is the ‘change campaign,’ ” said Mr. Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota. Muslims are frustrated, he added, that “they have not been fully engaged in it.”

I like Keith Ellison, particularly with the classy way he handled some of the heinously ignorant people he had to endure in the run up to his election and just after - including some of his fellow members of Congress. If he's concerned, I am too. While I fully understand what a hot button issue the very word "Muslim" has become, I'd think that someone who is being pegged as an ultra liberal University of Chicago elite would take the high road and thumb his nose at closed-minded thinkers and embrace the Muslim Americans who, at least now, are supporting him.

I'm No Kobe Fan But Dang!

Shaq is crazy! Kobe is a punk but, dang, Shaq had to write a rhyme about it?

Shaquille O'Neal took the mic at a NYC club last night, unleashing a freestyle verbal assault directed at his arch-enemy Kobe Bryant -- blaming his former teammate for ruining his marriage and imploring him to "Tell me how my ass tastes."

After spending several verses shredding Kobe apart for losing in the NBA playoffs, Shaq drops the line, "I'm a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that's why I'm getting divorced."

Launch photosThe line most likely references a comment Kobe made during his infamous 2003 rape case, when he told Colorado police that he "Should have done what Shaq does ... Shaq would pay his women not to say anything." The two became famously bitter rivals after the incident.

The video is a riot!

This Is Booty

Zimbabwe needs to do better. This stinks!

Zimbabwe's opposition leader says he is pulling out of Friday's runoff election against President Robert Mugabe.

Morgan Tsvangirai says this is because of mounting violence and intimidation against the opposition during the campaign.

Tsvangirai announced his decision during a news conference in Zimbabwe's capital on Sunday after thousands of ruling party militants blockaded the site of the opposition's main campaign rally.

The opposition says that police in full riot gear and soldiers have taken over the site of the rally.

Scottie's Still Singing

I like that he's speaking out but I just hope he is able to get a job when he's done. He's dead meat to Bushites.

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress Friday that the Bush-Cheney Administration continues to conceal information about abuses of power committed to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson for challenging the President's storyline with regard to the "need" to invade and occupy Iraq.

"This matter continues to be investigated by Congress because of what the White House has chosen to conceal from the public," McClellan told the House Judiciary Committee. "Despite assurances that the administration would discuss the matter once the special counsel had completed his work, the White House has sought to avoid public scrutiny and accountability."

A Super Stupid Super Delegate

After you find people this stupid, why elect them?

Last week, Fred Hobbs, a state Democratic Party Executive Committee member in Tennessee, told Nashville’s City Paper that for all he knew, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “may be terrorist connected.” In a letter of apology to the Executive Committee, Hobbs now says he had that “incorrect” impression because he watched Fox News:

I was not as well prepared as I should have been when speaking with reporters, and I should have taken more time to research Senator Obama’s positions. My comments did reflect questions I had after what I had seen reported on Fox News, but I should have taken some time to check the accuracy of what I saw on television before speaking publicly. My statement that Senator Obama “may be terrorist-connected” was incorrect, and I apologize for making it.

Holding A Patient Hostage?

Simply unbelievable!

A doctor and two staffers at a Duluth medical practice face charges of false imprisonment for allegedly locking a patient in a room when concerns arose about her ability to pay the bill.

Dr. John Drew Laurusonis and office assistants Leslie Ann York and Alexander Acquah of the Doctors Medical Center were indicted this week on false imprisonment charges. The three face arraignment July 3 on the charge.

Police say Frances Bales, 36, of Duluth, was held against her will on Oct. 4, 2007, when she went to the clinic seeking treatment for arm pain.

A receptionist at Doctors Medical Center said the clinic would have no comment and then hung up. Office staff for Laurusonis' attorney, Richard Ryczek, said the attorney would call back later for comment.

Bales' attorney, Joseph Fried, said Friday she was told initially that the visit would cost $98. Bales had been visiting from out-of-state and didn't have health insurance, Fried said.

"They took her debit card and her driver's license at the reception desk," Fried said. "She figured with X-rays it might be a little more."

Instead, after tests, she was charged $755, Fried said.

"She says, 'I don't have the money,' " Fried said. "They direct her to go into what they called their billing office." For several hours, the staff refused to allow her to leave, locking her in for periods of time, Fried said. They had her log into her bank records from a computer while she was there, he said.

"They said, 'Don't you have anyone who loves you who can come and help you? Because you're not leaving until this bill is paid,' " Fried said. "They made her feel like she was a criminal. She was made to feel like she couldn't leave without something bad to happen to her."

Fried described Bales' personality as less assertive than other people.

At one point, they allowed her to go to her truck to get a paycheck, but held her keys while she looked, unlocking the vehicle's doors with the electronic key fob on the keychain, Fried said.

I don't believe this is the first time this has happened to someone. People who bully have bullied before. I hope folks come out of the woodwork on this one.

Everyone Wants To Be Like Michelle Obama

I was a little pissed the day after Obama sealed the nomination because, for all the hysteria that some folks were in over the battle with Hillary, some women on one of my yahoo groups launched straight into a "Michelle needs a stylist" critiques. I was floored that the same folks who behaved as though they were so into the political process and mocking every move that Hillary Clinton made, would find joy not in Barack's win but in bashing his wife's wardrobe and hair.

In any case, seems they are in the minority as far as opinions. Many people like her style just fine. The dress that Michelle wore on The View was cute to me and apparently to lots of other folks!

On Wednesday, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took a turn as co-host of TV talkfest “The View.” When the show’s audience saw her breezy, black-and-white, high-waisted print dress designed by Ricco, they had to have it. Virtually overnight, the dress all but sold out at the White House/Black Market boutiques that sell it for an affordable $148.

“I’m very happy. I’m very surprised. I had no idea she would be wearing this dress,” Ricco told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Friday in New York. “But it’s sort of a natural happening for me, because I’ve been designing dresses a long time. We ship a lot of dresses to the stores, and I’m happy that Michelle chose this dress to wear on ‘The View.’ ”

The Real Reason We Are In Iraq

All for them ...

Four Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP — are in the final stages of “talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields.” The New York Times writes:

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India […]

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

These current contracts are reportedly a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for more lucrative, longer-term deals.

Give It A Rest Chick!

Okay, blonde person, give it a rest! We all know how proud - as a former beauty queen, husband stealer and heiress - you must be of being an American.

ABC News' Ed O'Keefe Reports: Laura Bush may be ready to give Michelle Obama the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her patriotism but Cindy McCain may not.

"I don't know why she said what she said," Mrs. McCain explains in an interview with ABC News' Kate Snow airing on "Good Morning America" Thursday. "Everyone has their own experience. I don't know why she said what she said, all I know is that I have always been proud of my country."

Ten Cents More For Gas

I fill up my tank once a week (sometimes sooner) each week at Costco because that is about as good as it is going to get as far as price. Last week I closed my eyes and tried to avoid the $4.33 for regular price tag as I still had the $4.19 receipt in my car from the week before. Last night, I paid $4.33 and for the first time, filling up my Nissan Sentra registered at more than $51. This is when I miss Chicago. Yes bus/train fares have gone up as have the fares for the commuter trains. But, there was easy access. There were regular schedules and I could save some money. Here, I'm stuck because I'd spend more time getting to work than working given the lack of a viable transit system.

Telecommuting is a definite option. I need to take that up with my manager sooner than later.

Leave The Backwards Ways In The Homeland

As if America doesn't have enough home grown problems and black women don't have a hard enough time as it is, this man allegedly had this young mother killed because she married his son.

Theirs was a whirlwind relationship: The 18-year-old running his dad's hotel in Kentucky and the 20-year-old Atlanta native hired as a clerk.

Two months after Ricky Rai started dating Sparkle Reid in October 1998, she was pregnant with their daughter, Analla, and in March 2000 they were wed.

But the relationship ended as abruptly as it began. A few weeks after their marriage, she was found dead in her Union City, Ga. apartment, strangled with a vacuum cord and stabbed more than a dozen times.

The trial began on Monday for the unlikely suspect prosecutors say plotted to have the 22-year-old killed. Ricky's 68-year-old father, Chiman Rai, a native of India and a former math professor at a historically black college, could face the death penalty.

The motive: "Because she married his son, because she had a child with his son, and, ladies and gentleman, because she was black," prosecutor Sheila Ross argued to jurors.

Defense attorneys contend the case is not so cut-and-dry. Attorney Don Samuel acknowledged Chiman Rai was "not crazy" about his son's relationship, but said he would never pay someone $10,000 to have her killed.

"It was outrageous," Samuel said of the killing. "But members of the jury, that outrage, that tragedy, will not be mitigated or eliminated by the conviction of an innocent man."

Sparkle Rai was found dead in her apartment in April 2000, her daughter unharmed nearby. But investigators could find little hard evidence pointing to a killer.

The case went unsolved until two witnesses came forward in 2004, a breakthrough the investigators said helped them piece together a trail that eventually led to Chiman Rai.

They charge that Rai teamed up with Willie Fred Evans and Herbert Green to serve as middlemen for the hit squad. The two men passed along $10,000 to brothers Cleveland and Carl Clark, they say; Carl drove the car and Cleveland, a 300-pound ex-con, carried out the killing.

I won't even address the two criminals who carried out the horrific act. I do know that there are customs some folks need to leave in their native lands. When I was home for Christmas another man killed his pregnant daughter, grandchild and son-in-law because he was from the wrong caste. He kerosened their house and set it ablaze. Many families are unhappy with a child's choice of a mate but is it really worth killing for?

Cindy McCain And Cookiegate

I won't lie. If I were sitting on top of a $100 million fortune, I wouldn't be baking no dang cookies. I wouldn't have a favorite recipe because I wouldn't be baking a thing! I'd be eating!

Here we go again. Just two months after we broke Recipegate comes news that Cindy McCain is up to her old tricks. The July 2008 issue of Family Circle featured an article in which each (it went to press before Hillary conceded) of the presidential candidates' significant others submitted a cookie recipe. A tipster caught a whiff of something besides sugar after reviewing Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch cookies, and quickly found the original recipe at Hersheys.com (see image below). While McCain, or that same low-level staffer, managed to take the time to switch a few minor details in her version of the recipe this time around, there is no doubt that the recipes are the same.

While Bill Clinton gives credit to the family cook, and Michelle Obama to the godmother of her daughters, Cindy McCain attributes her cookie recipe to "a good friend."

Unless John McCain was a childhood friend of Milton S. Hershey or her beer baron family worked with him on a chocolate beer bar back in the day, it seems Cindy is a plagiarist of the most delicious kind. Again.

They need to stop this madness! Hillary told y'all in 1992 that she wasn't baking no cookies! Why can't we just let this out dated, Betty Crocker mess go?

Can They Get Some New Material?

Like the "stuck in a 70s sitcom" folks who thought they could pass off the "whitey" word on Michelle Obama, other clowns are running through the same lame "black jokes" from yesteryear. Can they get some original material?

While a number of speakers --- such as Railroad Commission chairman Michael Williams and Mike Huckabee --- have praised the advance of Barack Obama and what it means towards a colorblind society, at least one vendor hasn't gotten the message.

At the Republican state convention, a booth hosted by Republicanmarket was selling a pin Saturday that says: If Obama is President will we still call it the White House.

Summer is upon us. How long before the "my suntan makes me as dark as Obama" remarks?

No Lectures Please

Obama's not having it!

A defiant Barack Obama said Tuesday he would take no lectures from Republicans on which candidate would keep the U.S. safer, a sharp rebuke to John McCain's aides who said the Democrat had a naive, Sept. 10 mind-set toward terrorism.

"These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," the presumed nominee told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "This is the same kind of fear-mongering that got us into Iraq ... and it's exactly that failed foreign policy I want to reverse."

Guiliani, Pie Hole, Shut It!

Who asked him?

In addition to the earlier back-and-forth over Obama's remarks yesterday on prosecuting terrorism, former presidential Rudy Giuliani -- remember him? -- has now weighed in.

"Throughout this campaign, I have been very concerned that the Democrats want to take a step back to the failed policies that treated terrorism solely as a law enforcement matter rather than a clear and present danger," Giuliani said in a statement released by the McCain campaign. "Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security. In a post-9/11 world, we need to remain on offense against the terrorist threat which seeks to destroy our very way of life. We need a leader like John McCain who has the experience and judgment necessary to protect the American people."

Bush In Good Company

He's in a league with Musharraf, and Ahmadinejad.

U.S. President George W. Bush is ranked only slightly above the rulers of Pakistan and Iran as one of the least-trusted leaders in the world, a survey released on Monday showed.

The survey, carried out by WorldPublicOpinion.org in 20 countries around the world, found that no national leaders inspired wide confidence outside their own countries. But Bush, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ranked at the bottom, the polling showed.

Only 23 percent of people outside the United States had "a lot or some" confidence in Bush, compared to 22 percent for Ahmadinejad and 18 percent for Musharraf.

Did I Not Say This?

I am cracking up here! I know I'm not crazy! A few days ago I asked my mom if she knew any black people who called white people "whitey" and she said, "other than George Jefferson, no!" I feel sorry for the "white folks" still waiting for the Michelle Obama "whitey tape." They are some stupid ass "honkies!"

What he hasn't done—because he cannot if he wants to win the presidency—is roll out the clearest and most obvious knockdown of Whiteygate. Namely this: "When the hell was the last time you heard a black person call somebody 'whitey?'"

I mean, come on. White man, please.

Speaking as a person who has been black all of my 40-plus years on the planet, I can say with some authority that no self-respecting black, African-American, Negro, colored or even "there's only one race: the human race" person I know would use the word.

Not unless they were quoting Rush Limbaugh. Or maybe George Jefferson.

The accusation is insulting not only because it so clearly reveals the desperation of right-wing zealots terrified of losing their stranglehold on a gasping America by playing to baseline anxieties and sad, unfortunate fears of those hard-working white Americans we've heard so much about; but because, frankly, it's so ham-fisted in its mendacity.

I mean, 'Whitey?'

The woman has a law degree from Harvard, for crying out loud. If, for some reason, she was trying to rile up a congregation she could do much, much better than that. I have spent the afternoon trying—with all the honesty and courage and humble introspection that is called for in this historic moment, with America poised to finally cast off its original sin and move into the full realization of those ringing words in the Declaration of Independence—to think about the terms black folks use when talking among themselves about white people.

I could barely move my pencil tip. Probably because black folks spend a lot less time talking or even thinking about white people than most white, right-wing reactionaries and their black counterparts dream in their hot little dreams. I had trouble, and, after hours and hours, the best I could come up with was this:

White folks. Whites. White people. They.

Or, in the case of Limbaugh in particular: Hophead. Pill-popper. Junkie nincompoop.

But really, that was pretty much it. When I was growing up in Memphis in the groovy '70s, some people tried to get the word "ofay" going, but, in my circles at least, it never really took. My mother's generation used Mr. Charlie, my older sister's cool boyfriend use to say The Man. There was redneck, of course, but growing up in Memphis, the only people I ever heard use that word were white people.

There was cracker, but usually that referred to a certain, specific kind of hog-jowled, Southern racist, as in "That cracker had the nerve to make me wash his sheets—and I don't mean the ones he use on his bed!"

I know a genteel older black woman who, out of delicacy or discomfort, will never use the words white or black when referring to people associated with those hues. Instead she says "wonderful people" and "beautiful people," which I think is kinda sweet.

But whitey? Uh uh! I'm sorry. No.

Barack Preaching To The Choir On Father's Day

I was giggling when I saw this article because Barack was at another black church in Chicago today (hasn't he learned?). He spoke at Apostolic Church of God, or as my mother said, the other black bougie church. Naturally, his message was about fathers and, specifically, absentee fathers. Having grown up with my own deadbeat dad, I appreciate the message. But, was he preaching to the choir?

Barack Obama celebrated Father’s Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are “missing from too many lives and too many homes,” to become active in raising their children.
art.

Black fathers are “missing from too many lives and too many homes,” Barack Obama said Sunday.

“They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it,” the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday at a largely black church in his hometown.

Reminding the congregation of his firsthand experience growing up without a father, Obama said he was lucky to have loving grandparents who helped his mother. He got support, second chances and scholarships that helped him get an education. Obama’s father left when he was 2.

“A lot of children don’t get those chances. There is no margin for error in their lives,” said Obama, an Illinois senator.

“I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle — that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls,” added Obama, whose daughters, Sasha and Malia, and his wife, Michelle, watched from the audience.

He’s already saying these things from a position of authority to people who finally need to hear them. The force will be magnified a thousand fold when he is president.

I guess I don't agree with Oliver's statement above. I don't think the people who need to hear it were there or listening. Neither the rants of Bill Cosby or the diplomatic words of Obama will turn this tide in the black community (which seems to be spreading like wildfire to other communities as well). Barack becoming president most certainly won't. He's not a god and he's not a magician.

Further, it's not just about families splitting up and the dad failing to pay child support and/or participate - as was the case with my father. Watch any television court show or daytime "talk" show (ala Maury Povich) and you will see an endless stream of men and women who are breeding recklessly, irresponsibly, mindlessly and dangerously - quite often with multiple people. There is no relationship to speak of in the first place so there is little to no hope that any kind of family will be created from these unions. I'm not sure what can be done to end this cycle that, most certainly, is just producing fodder for an ever expanding privatized prison system. I do know that an Obama presidency will not cure that.

(But back to Apostolic, I guess Bishop Brazier better get ready for the right wing to scour through his sermons looking for a sound bite that makes him sound angry and racist. I have to laugh again because, as with Trinity, I've been to that church too. My little heathen behind certainly gets around, huh)?

Prepare For The Hillirization Of Michelle Obama

I've been saying it for weeks. The misogynist wing of the GOP hates any woman who doesn't behave like wallpaper.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton before her, Michelle Obama is becoming the would-be first lady conservatives love to hate.

The conservative National Review recently showed a stern-faced Michelle Obama on its cover, under the headline, "Mrs. Grievance." The Tennessee Republican Party questioned her patriotism.

Michelle Obama has become a favorite target for critics, drawing many to compare her arrival on the national stage to Hillary Clinton's after she infuriated conservatives when she said, "I could have stayed home and baked cookies."

It's likely to get worse.

"It's going to be very ugly stuff," Democratic strategist Tad Devine said. "They're going to try to depict her as someone who is angry, outside the mainstream and not proud to be an American."

How did a 44-year-old Harvard Law School graduate become so demonized? One reason is the increasingly viral quality of the Internet.

"In an environment now that is increasingly polarizing and nasty, charges can be made, often unsubstantiated charges through the Web," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. "We're in an environment now where being a first lady is a lot tougher job than it used to be."

Google "Michelle Obama" and the term "whitey" and you'll find conservative bloggers claiming a video shows her using the racially tinged term at Trinity Church. No tape has ever surfaced. But the claim helped prompt the Obama campaign to launch its own Web site, FighttheSmears.com.

Much of the criticism stems from Michelle Obama's artless statement early in the campaign that, "For the first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country."

The campaign immediately clarified that to say that she meant she was prouder than ever. And she was defended on "Good Morning America" by first lady Laura Bush, who said, "I think she probably meant 'I'm more proud,' you know, is what she really meant."

But the statement was lampooned in a Tennessee GOP advertisement that juxtaposed her statement with those of supposedly ordinary citizens, one of whom played pool in a room lined with rifles who said, "I've always been proud to be an American."

Still Not Grasping It ...

We had a company meeting today so I was cooped up when this story broke. Oddly, the television in our reception area, which usually runs CNN or MSNBC, was tuned in to some soccer game when I returned from the meeting so I literally gasped when I sat down at my desk, went to yahoo and saw the headline. I work with a lot of non-citizens so they, of course, had no inkling as to the significance of this event.

What am I supposed to do Sunday morning? How could he check out and miss one of the best election cycles in the history of this nation?

I Am Sick Of Crazy People!

Who does things like this? Who?

A couple accused of tying their 13-year-old son to a tree for two nights to punish him for disobedience has been charged with murder in his death, authorities said Friday.

Brice Brian McMillan, 41, of Macclesfield, told a deputy that the child was being disobedient and was forced to sleep outside Tuesday while tied to a tree, the Edgecombe County Sheriff's Office said. The teenager was released Wednesday morning but again tied up that night for bad behavior, authorities said.

The boy was left tied to the tree until the following afternoon when his stepmother found him unresponsive, Sheriff James Knight said. Knight said authorities believe the boy was bound to the tree with plastic ties and possibly other kinds of material.

"An adult couldn't get out of those," he said.

Temperatures in the area rose to above 90 degrees on Thursday afternoon, with a low of 73, according to the National Weather Service. Knight would not discuss any details on the cause of death, saying an autopsy was being conducted at the state chief medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill.

The sheriff also didn't have details on why the boy was being punished, although he said deputies were investigating whether he had run away.

Dwight Jefferson, an emergency responder with Pinetops Rescue Squad who was first on the scene, said he did not know the cause of the child's death.

"What we found was a 13-year-old laying on the ground — CPR being done by his father," Jefferson said. "Then we took over."

Knight said the boy was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

McMillan and Sandra Elizabeth McMillan, 36, also have been charged with felony child abuse. Two other children at the home, ages 7 and 9, have been placed in the custody of the Department of Social Services, authorities said. Knight said he does not know of any past allegations of child abuse in the family.

... And people are always taken aback when I call people "breeders." These people aren't parents. They are breeders!

On Another Sad And Tragic Note ...

This nasty piece of shyt was acquitted.

R. Kelly was acquitted of all charges Friday after less than a day of deliberations in his child pornography trial, ending a six-year ordeal for the R&B superstar.

Kelly dabbed his face with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys after the verdict — not guilty on all 14 counts — was read. The Grammy award-winning singer had faced 15 years in prison if convicted.

I've never gotten the supposed genius of this cat. Something about him has always creeped me out. When I found out he was forever chasing young girls, I knew why.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

I hate to shatter the proverbial Florida Evans punch bowl but I'm just stunned!

NBCs Tim Russert Dies

Gee! Who's Surprised?

He was a miscreant from day one!

It’s common knowledge that Vice President Dick Cheney had a less-than-stellar record at Yale, where he left — or was kicked out — after two years. Today, Cheney revealed on Chaz and A.J. in the Morning’s radio show that he attended two kindergartens because “I got kicked out of one school and had to go to the other one.” Cheney’s interviewer retorted, “Well, you showed them, huh?”

What'd he do? Tell the teacher "so!"?

No Such Whitey Tape

Why am I having a George Jefferson moment? Truthfully, other than television, I'm not sure I know too many black folks who even use the term "whitey" when referring to "the man" ... certainly not anyone Michelle's age. This whole lie was a figment of whitey's imagination.

Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about himself and his wife.

The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against "whitey" in a diatribe at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama's candidacy this fall.

"No such tape exists," the campaign responds on the site, www.fightthesmears.com. "Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word."

The site is a response to the realities of a brave new world, where information travels 24 hours a day on blogs and voters are increasingly turning to the Internet for information. It's a particular problem for Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who is still unknown to many voters and has been the target of persistent misinformation campaigns online.

In another sign of the campaign moving into the general election race, the Democratic National Committee's spokeswoman said Thursday its political and field operations are relocating to Chicago, where Obama's campaign is based. While other departments will remain in Washington, it's an effort to streamline the campaign and party efforts in one strategy instead of the overlapping efforts of past presidential elections.

E-mails about Obama rank No. 2 on the list of "Hottest Urban Legends" on snopes.com, an Internet rumor-debunking site, behind e-mail greeting cards that could expose computers to viruses.

Like most of us, who knows what she's said in private. The minute she stepped into an integrated environment, she probably had to come up with all kinds of euphemisms to label the folks who worked her nerves from a racial standpoint. I know I did. I've been spewing sarcasm on a daily basis ever since I can remember so Lord knows what kind of lunatic I'd look like if all of my YouTube moments were captured.