UConn Women Feted at the White House

There are three other videos embedded above the Hartford Courant article, below; the ceremony, and interviews with Geno Auriemma and Rene Montgomery.

Hartford Courant: UConn Makes White House Visit

WASHINGTON — - Long before he became a candidate, President Barack Obama was a huge basketball fan. Well documented during the presidential campaign, his alter ego is that of a gym rat — a guy with a nice first step, decent jumper and pointy elbows.

And after the ceremony on Monday welcoming the national champion UConn women's basketball team to the White House, Obama decided to prove it. He invited them to the basketball court he had constructed on the White House grounds.

"We played P-I-G, which is a shorter version of H-O-R-S-E," UConn center Tina Charles said. "He beat Maya [Moore], Renee [Montgomery] and myself. He was shooting 17-footers all over the perimeter."

Said Montgomery: "He only missed one shot out of five shots. In 20 years, I'll remember that I could not make one jump shot at the White House. My clothes hindered me. I couldn't extend my arms."

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
HONORING THE 2008-2009 NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS,
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM

Impeach Bybee

New ad from moveon.org:

It's Called "Swine" Flu For A Reason

Notice that the government doesn't want you to call it swine flu any more? They're calling it the H1N1 virus. Partly that's because they don't want you to stop buying pork. But also it's to take the heat off our corporate pork producers, and off a U.S. company as the probable origin of the swine flu. A gigantic Smithfield Company factory farm in Mexico is the ground zero of swine flu. Read the Rolling Stone article, below, at your own risk, because you may never eat pork again after you read it.

grist.com: When pigs flu
Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms

Rolling Stone: Boss Hog
America's top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history. Welcome to the dark side of the other white meat.

GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus

Bipartisanship is not so great when you compromise with idiots. The Republicans said pandemics had nothing to do with the economy. Ha. Memo to Democrats: Don't compromise with stupid people.

GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus

Europeans told to avoid travel

Europeans have been urged to postpone all non-essential travel to the United States and Mexico by the EU health commissioner, Andorra Vassiliou.

Miss Otis Regrets

An old song by Nat King Cole. I know the version sung by Ella Fitzgerald. I kept thinking of this song today as I read and re-read this unbelievable article that was on the front page of the Washington Post today:

Amid Outcry on Memo, Signer's Private Regret
Friends Say Judge Wasn't Proud of Outcome

"I've heard [Jay S. Bybee] express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

Maybe Judge Bybee could express his regret to the family of Alyssa Peterson, the young soldier who killed herself in Iraq in September of 2003 after refusing to torture prisoners.

[I]n the years since the original Bybee memo was made public, his misgivings appeared evident to some in his immediate circle.

"On the primary memo, that legitimated and defined torture, he just felt it got away from him," said the fellow scholar. "What I understand that to mean is, any lawyer, when he or she is writing about something very complicated, very layered, sometimes you can get it all out there and if you're not careful, you end up in a place you never intended to go. I think for someone like Jay, who's a formalist and a textualist, that's a particular danger."

Blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit. You know, I once risked being fired because I refused to file a motion in Superior Court that I felt was unjustified in law. I refused to do that because a) it was unethical, and b) I took an oath as an officer of the court to follow the rules. Apparently Judge Bybee was more interested in getting the federal judgeship he so desired than in upholding his oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution:

Bybee's friends said he never sought the job at the Office of Legal Counsel. The reason he went back to Washington, Guynn said, was to interview with then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales for a slot that would be opening on the 9th Circuit when a judge retired. The opening was not yet there, however, so Gonzales asked, "Would you be willing to take a position at the OLC first?" Guynn said.

Sign the bullshit memo, allow thousands to be tortured, sully the reputation of America around the world, sell your immortal soul for a federal judgeship. That's Republican cronyism at it's finest. Heckuva job, Jay.

Oh yeah, Miss Otis Regrets. Roger Ailes (the good Roger Ailes) had the same thought, and he wrote some new lyrics. Miss Bybee Regrets