Using 9/11 To Pimp For War With Iraq

Started on 9/11:

The Washington Note: More Evidence that Iraq War Plan Started on 9/11

A blogger's FOIA request has yielded Steven Cambone's handwritten notes of Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld's instructions to General Myers at 2:40 pm on September 11, 2001.

Some of the lines are fascinating:

"Go massive. . .Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

Judge whether hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein) @ same time -- Not only UBL (Osama bin Laden)

Hard to get a good case

Need to move swiftly

This is what Rumsfield thought about on 9/11. What were you thinking about? Through your tears?

US Women's Hockey Upset By Sweden

US Women With Cammi Granato (2005):
US Women Without Cammi Granato (2006):
Where was Cammi Granato yesterday? Oh, that's right, the best US women's hockey player ever, their long-time captain, got cut from this team. For no reason I can figure. Doing a great job in the booth, by the way, but should have been on the ice. So she's broadcasting, and the US women are in the bronze medal game. Coincidence? I don't think so. Coach Ben Smith should be out on his keister after this Olympic showing, but he's a man, and the federation is run by men. Even if he is fired, he'll get a cushy exit package.

Hockey is a sport that reveres its captains. Granato was a great captain. Why was she cut? Why isn't Smith answering that question?

Supposedly this game will "save" women's hockey. The powers that be were thinking about cutting it from the Olympics because only two teams are competitive, the US and Canada. Like it's the women's fault that most countries organizing committees don't support their sport. Well, if this is what it takes, it's the silver lining for the US women. They lost to save women's hockey as an Olympic sport.

MSNBC: This U.S. hockey squad doomed from start
Americans' best player was doing color commentary for TV broadcast

Chicago Tribune: A cut that still pierces: `Kicked to the street'

Cammi Granato is angry. She is a broadcaster at the Winter Olympics, not a player on the U.S. women's hockey team. The face of U.S. women's hockey for the last decade, Granato was cut from the team last summer. Six months later, her relationship with USA Hockey remains icy.

"I'm not mad," she said. "It's just that, I was kicked to the street. See ya. See ya later. Thanks for shopping. I'm not saying, 'Oh, they need to come suck up to me.' There's just a lot of raw emotions at the moment."

NY Daily News: Granato wishes she had a shot

TURIN - The greatest player in the history of American women's hockey desperately wanted to be on the Palasport Olimpico ice, leading the United States to yet another gold-medal showdown with Canada.

But she was sitting in an NBC studio under its stands, aching for her friends, not seething at the coach who had unceremoniously cut her from the 2006 Olympic team.

"I feel like someone punched me," a shaken Cammi Granato told the Daily News an hour after Sweden had rocked the women's hockey world with a stupefying victory over the U.S. "I don't even know how to feel. It's like all the air is gone. I feel so bad for the girls."

As clutch a performer as women's hockey has ever seen, Granato set standards in the sport with 186 goals and 343points. She captained the United States to the first Olympic gold in Nagano in '98 and to silver in Salt Lake City.

But just five months after captaining Team USA to the 2005 world championships, the 34-year-old forward was cut from the national team without warning by coach Ben Smith. In his postgame press conference, Smith cut short a questioner wondering if the Americans missed Granato when crunch time arrived last night.

Red faces leave Team USA feeling blue

Ben Smith, the U.S. women's hockey coach, is probably feeling it a little bit today, too. He made the controversial and widely criticized decision to cut Cammi Granato from his team. Smith was cruising, too. His team had a 2-0 lead in its semifinal against Sweden yesterday.

Kerflooey.

If the U.S. team had reached the gold medal game against Canada - as it has in every single international tournament up until now - Smith would have skated (you'll pardon the expression). He still would have been wrong for whacking the most recognizable female hockey player in the States, but he would have been off the hook.

Now? Smith looks like a fool.

Call it Der Miracle on Ice, although this time the Americans were the prohibitive favorites who played scared and let the scrappy underdogs come back and beat them. Once the Swedes came back to tie the score, you half expected the U.S. players' sticks to start shattering, so tightly were they being gripped.

They played like a team that needed an experienced leader. A team that needed someone who had been there and done that and could rally the troops with a big play or the right words.

Say ... Cammi Granato?

But Granato was commenting on the game for NBC when her replacement as captain, Krissy Wendell, took a bad penalty during a Swedish power play. The Swedes didn't score, but the penalty prevented the U.S. from getting back its momentum.

Toronto Star "The Spin" blog: Miracle in Turin

With criticism of the women's game having hit new heights during the past week because of a series of lopsided scores, it may well be that Sweden's absolutely shocking 3-2 shootout victory over the United States this evening at the Palasport Olimpico will be the match that saves women's hockey as a viable sport in the Winter Olympics.

For the first time in any major women's competition - world championship or Olympics - it will not be Canada vs. the U.S. in the final. Sweden, having never beaten either country, fell behind 2-0 against the Americans but fought back to tie 2-2, largely on the basis of a breathtaking goaltending exhibition by Kim Martin.

Both Swedish goals were scored by star forward Maria Rooth, and it was Rooth again in the shootout who ripped a wrist shot past Chanda Gunn in the U.S. net to send her country into the gold medal game on Monday.

It was an upset perhaps even greater than that of the 1980 Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid when the U.S. men upset the mighty Russians, for that had happened before. In fact, the Americans had been Olympic champions at Squaw Valley in 1960.

WaPo: U.S. Women on a Cold Spell at Olympics
Hockey Team's Shocking Loss to Sweden Is Latest Disappointment

Since the first women's hockey world championships in 1990, the United States had faced Sweden 25 times in various competitions. Twenty-five times, the Swedes lost.

The Americans' record against teams other than Canada was 102 wins, two ties -- both with Finland -- and no losses. The talk at the women's tournament all week centered around that inevitable Canada-U.S. matchup for the gold. Sweden, in fact, lost 8-1 to Canada earlier in the competition. There had never been another matchup in a world championship or Olympic final, and some observers had grown critical of women's hockey as a sport because it seemed just two teams could win.

"It's always Canada and the U.S. in the final," Swedish goalie Kim Martin said.

That has changed now, in large part because Martin was in net for the Swedes. Four years ago, when she was all of 15, she led Sweden to the bronze medal -- behind, of course, Canada, which took the gold, and the United States -- at the Salt Lake City Olympics. On Friday she was steady and stellar, the primary reason Sweden was able to withstand 39 shots from the Americans and still finish regulation time tied at two goals apiece.

If Terrorist Funders Run Our Ports, Terrorists Win

Everyone in Congress should object to this:

WaPo: Some in Congress Object to Arab Port Operator
Company Based in United Arab Emirates Set to Manage 6 East Coast Facilities After Takeover

Fortunately, two US Senators -- Democrats, natch -- are filing legislation to stop this insanity:

Reuters: Democrats plan bill to block Dubai port deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. Democratic senators said on Friday they would introduce legislation aimed at blocking Dubai Ports World from buying a company that operates several U.S. shipping ports because of security concerns.

Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York said they would offer a measure to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations.

"We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either," Menendez said in a statement. The Senate Banking Committee also plans to hold a hearing on the issue later this month.

P&O, the company Dubai Ports World plans to buy for $6.8 billion, is already foreign-owned, by the British, but the concern is that the purchaser is backed by the United Arab Emirates government.

The UAE company would gain control over the management of major U.S. ports in New York and New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami and that has sparked national security concerns among lawmakers.

Previous post: Privatization Gone Wild - Bushco Puts Terrorist Funders in Charge

Dick Cheney, Armed and Hammered*, on Friday? Or Saturday?

After receiving a tip, I watched Harry Whittington's statement on TV today and was weirded out by the guy behind him. Here's a picture from yahoo, telling us he's "David Frum, the vice president of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial Hospital." I thought he must have had a hand in writing Whittington's statement, he got so into it.

The guy couldn't stop grinning and mugging every two seconds. (Check out the Crooks & Liars video of the press conference.) Until Whittington said, about 58 seconds into the press conference, "That's what happened last Friday." Frum darted his eyes to the left to someone behind Whittington, completely exposing the whites of his eyes. The grinning and mugging stopped for about 10 seconds.

Now, it has been reported in the parroting corporate media that the incident happened on Saturday. Or did it? I'd like to get ahold of pop-eyed David Frum and give him the John Yoo treatment.



PHOTO CAPTION: Austin attorney Harry Whittington talks with reporters Friday, Feb. 17, 2006, in front of the hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he has been recovering after being shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident Saturday. David Frum, the vice president of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial hospital, is at left. (AP Photo/Paul Iverson)

Update: Actually, I think yahoo got his name wrong, because when I put "Frum" into OpenSecrets.org, I found that FRUM, ROBERT MR CORPUS CHRISTI,TX 78404, Occupation CHRISTUS SPOHN HEALTH SYSTEM/VP MAR, gave $250 on 11/9/04 to the Texas Hospital Association. (FEC filing.)

Update #2: The Christus Spohn Health System website lists his name as David Frum (via Anonymous commenter at Crooks & Liars).

*Dick Cheney: Armed and Hammered another classic headline from firedoglake.

Luddites In Charge

I joke about myself as a luddite, because my computer skills are pretty rudimentary. I mean, I don't even have a blogroll anymore. (not that you care about this, but a blogroll was part of the original blogger template I used, but I liked this one better aesthetically, but it doesn't contain the blogroll code, and I don't really know HTML, blah, blah, blah. Sad, really.)

But compared to Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfield, I'm Bill Gates, and you're reading slashdot:

They Haven’t Got Mail
The Katrina hearings haven’t only revealed critical information about White House responses to the hurricane. They’ve also uncovered the online secrets of Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Chertoff.

When it came to documentation of how Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld responded to Katrina, however, congressional investigators got a different answer from the administration. The House committee established to investigate Katrina was “informed that neither Secretary Chertoff nor Secretary Rumsfeld use e-mail,” reported Reps. Charlie Melancon and William Jefferson, two Louisiana Democrats who participated in the inquiry despite a boycott by other House Democrats who felt that the inquiry was too partisan.

How can you not use email in 2006?

Frist and Asbestos

Is Bill Frist the worst majority leader ever? Who could argue that. His current strategy to get the (bad) asbestos bailout passed? Call out the other senators who didn't show up for his first vote. Earth to Frist, that's your job, to make sure the votes are there. You just f*cked up.

WaPo: No US Senate asbestos bill without 60 votes: Frist

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Friday that 60 senators must pledge to help an asbestos bill overcome procedural hurdles before he would bring it up again on the Senate floor for debate.

The bill to create a $140 billion fund to compensate asbestos victims was shelved this week after it failed to get the 60 votes it needed to defeat a senator's objection on the grounds that it violated federal budget rules. The vote was 58-41.

Frist said he told the bill's sponsors that "60 members must signify their commitment" to vote to beat that particular budget hurdle as well as end any filibuster of the measure, before he would bring it up for consideration again.

"Once that public assurance is given, I will look to schedule the bill at the earliest possible opportunity," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement.

Wah! Wah!

Previous posts: Bad Asbestos Bill Defeated; Another Bad Asbestos Bailout Bill

Glacier National Park OR Waterworld?

The glaciers are melting in the US as well as in Greenland. I'm glad I went to Glacier National Park in 2001, because I doubt there is much glacier left to see. Already, 5 years ago, the once huge sheets of ice were little grey nubs on the tops of the mountains. If you looked at pictures of the park from even 20 years ago, the difference was striking.

BBC (UK): Legal case against US on climate

US conservation groups have begun a new legal case aimed at forcing government action on climate change.

They have filed a petition with the UN arguing that Waterton-Glacier Peace Park, a protected area, is being damaged by rising temperatures.

Conservation groups argue that climate change threatens to have four major impacts on the park:

* average summer temperatures have increased 1.66C between 1910 and 1980, and precipitation levels have decreased by as much as 20%
* the loss of more than 80% of the park's glaciers is the result of climate change
* since 1850, the area covered by glaciers in the park has decreased by 73% and continues to decrease
* loss of the glaciers will reduce stream flow
* climate change threatens mountain and prairie species which live in the region, through a reduction in water and other mechanisms

The Silenced Majority

commondreams.org:

Half the Population, A Fifth of the News

LONDON - ''What we see in news subjects is that whilst women make up 52 percent of the world's population, they make up only 21 percent of news subjects,'' Anna Turley from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) told IPS. WACC is a non-governmental organisation that promotes communication for social change.

But the number of women behind the news is rising, she said. ''Encouragingly, when we look at the men and women who report the news, we see a steady increase in the number of news stories reported by women,'' she said. That has gone up from 31 to 37 percent from 2000 to 2005.

The findings are based on news items appearing on a single day (Feb. 16, 2005). Almost 13,000 news items were surveyed on that day in 76 countries.

Operation Switch the Victim

THE REAL VICTIM:


NOT THE VICTIM:


dailykos:

Mission Accomplished: Operation Switch the Victim Deemed Raging Success

''My family and I are are deeply sorry for everything that Vice President Cheney and his family had to go through this week,'' Whittington said, appearing emotional in front of television cameras.

'We don't have much time left' to stop global warming

This undated photo provided by the journal Science shows East Greenland icebergs. Large numbers of bergs are calved each year from the fast-flowing terminus of Kangerdlussuaq Glacier, East Greenland. Iceberg production is a major form of mass loss from ice sheets. (AP Photo/ho/J.A. Dowdeswell, Science) (J.a.dowdeswell - AP)
Global warming makes the front page of the Washington Post:

Glacier Melt Could Signal Faster Rise in Ocean Levels

Greenland's glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly Earth's oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday.

The new data come from satellite imagery and give fresh urgency to worries about the role of human activity in global warming. The Greenland data are mirrored by findings from Bolivia to the Himalayas, scientists said, noting that rising sea levels threaten widespread flooding and severe storm damage in low-lying areas worldwide.

The scientists said they do not yet understand the precise mechanism causing glaciers to flow and melt more rapidly, but they said the changes in Greenland were unambiguous -- and accelerating: In 1996, the amount of water produced by melting ice in Greenland was about 90 times the amount consumed by Los Angeles in a year. Last year, the melted ice amounted to 225 times the volume of water that city uses annually.

"We are witnessing enormous changes, and it will take some time before we understand how it happened, although it is clearly a result of warming around the glaciers," said Eric Rignot, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[]

"Glaciers have retreated systematically and in an accelerated fashion in the last few decades," Casassa said. One glacier that provided Bolivia with its only ski slope five years ago has splintered into three and cannot be used for skiing, the scientist added.

Rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers also raises concerns for the large portion of humankind that gets its fresh water from glacier-fed rivers in South Asia, Aizen noted.

Most climate scientists believe a major cause for Earth's warming climate is increased emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of burning fossil fuels, largely in the United States and other wealthy, industrialized nations such as those of western Europe but increasingly in rapidly developing nations such as China and India as well. Carbon dioxide and several other gases trap the sun's heat and raise atmospheric temperature.

From the Independent (UK) we get the take of Jim Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York; the scientist the Bush Administration attempted to muzzle.


Climate change: On the edge
Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.

[]

[] We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.

Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.

Our understanding of what is going on is very new. Today's forecasts of sea-level rise use climate models of the ice sheets that say they can only disintegrate over a thousand years or more. But we can now see that the models are almost worthless. They treat the ice sheets like a single block of ice that will slowly melt. But what is happening is much more dynamic.

Once the ice starts to melt at the surface, it forms lakes that empty down crevasses to the bottom of the ice. You get rivers of water underneath the ice. And the ice slides towards the ocean.

[]

How long have we got? We have to stabilise emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree. That will be warmer than it has been for half a million years, and many things could become unstoppable. If we are to stop that, we cannot wait for new technologies like capturing emissions from burning coal. We have to act with what we have. This decade, that means focusing on energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy that do not burn carbon. We don't have much time left.

Let Her Jump

Remember that old Nike commercial "If You Let Me Play"?

"If you let me play sports ... I will like myself more ... I will have more self-confidence ... I'll be 50 percent less likely to get breast cancer ... I will suffer less depression ... I will be more likely to leave a man who beats me ... I'll be less likely to be pregnant before I want to ... I will learn to be strong."

Nike needs to produce a new commercial to support women ski jumpers. ABC's morning program ran a story yesterday that astounded me. Ski jumping is the last sport women aren't allowed to compete in in the Olympics. And it's the old crap, they're looking out for us. Bullshit. Go protect someone who really needs protection. These women are talented, and they're being denied the right to compete. Too medically dangerous? Are you kidding me? I've watched skeleton and luge this week, and sliding down an icy runway at 70 miles an hour has got to be much more dangerous.

When I was in high school, state athletics rules made it ILLEGAL for girls to wear cleats. To protect us. Because we might hurt by being spiked. Meanwhile, I watched girls rip up their knees slipping on wet grass on sneakers.

And you can make all the rules you want, but women will still compete. Because athletics are fun, and competition is a gas.

Let's keep the pressure on the old men gasbags at the Olympics to let the women ski jumpers compete. Let them jump in Vancouver in 2010.

ABC:
Why Are Women Being Left Out in the Cold?
Ski Jump Is the Only Winter Olympic Sport to Exclude Women

The International Ski Federation has ruled that ski jumping is too dangerous for women, making it the only winter Olympic sport that has male competitors and no female counterparts.

"It's like jumping down from, let's say, about two meters on the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view," the federation's president Gian Franco Kasper said on National Public Radio.

Newsday: Rules let a brother fly, but clip sister's wings

The international federation will take another vote this spring on whether women should jump in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. And Alissa said, "So far, we've been told every excuse in the book. That it's too 'dangerous' for girls. That there aren't enough of us. That we're not good enough. That it would damage our ovaries and uterus and we won't be able to have children, even though that's not true. It's so outdated, it's kind of funny in a way. And then it's not."

The ABC story has a left column side bar asking this question:

Should Women Be Allowed to Ski Jump?
Yes, it's the 21st century.
No, it's not safe.

Currently, with 319 votes recorded, "Yes" has 97.8% of the vote. Go vote. It's the 21st century, damn it.

The Ballad of Dick Cheney

Go Fuck Yourself

Headline of the Day, Dick Cheney Edition

Jane Hamsher at firedoglake:

If The Shooter Was Tight, You Must Indict

99 Bottles of Beer On the Wall, 99 Bottles of Beer

You take one down, pass it around, and go hunting. If you're Big Time Dick Cheney, that is. No wonder the Secret Service wouldn't let the local investigators talk to him.

VIDEO: Cheney Admits To Drinking Beer Prior To Hunting Accident

Cheney Speaks: Less Filling, More Speculation

Cheney, "A Beer or Two" and a Gun

The Nation -- Vice President Dick Cheney, who was forced to leave Yale University because his penchant for late-night beer drinking exceeded his devotion to his studies, and who is one of the small number of Americans who can count two drunk driving busts on his driving record, may have been doing more than hunting quail on the day that he shot a Texas lawyer in the face.

Katherine Armstrong, the wealthy Republican lobbyist who is a member member of the politically connected family that owns the ranch where Cheney blasted his hunting partner, acknowledged to a reporter from the NBC investigative unit that alcohol may have been served at a picnic that was served Saturday afternoon on the dude ranch where Cheney shot Harry Whittington.

[]

This is where the hunting accident "incident" becomes a serious matter. The role played by the Secret Service in preventing questioning of Cheney on the evening of the shooting takes on new significance. If Cheney was in any way impaired at the time of the shooting, it was certainly to the Vice President's advantage put off the official investigation until the next morning.

Just For Laughs

Make the Pie Higher

This following poem is composed entirely of actual quotes from George W. Bush.

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen
And uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish
Can coexist.

Families is where our nation finds hope
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Congressional Report Confirms: Bush Fiddled While New Orleans Drowned

August 30, 2005

House Probe Blasts Katrina Preparation

"Earlier presidential involvement might have resulted in a more effective response," the inquiry concluded.

White House spokesman Allen Abney declined to comment Tuesday night. On Monday, White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend said Bush was "fully involved" in Washington's preparations and response to Katrina.

Massachusetts 2 - Fundies 0

State orders Wal-Mart to sell morning-after pill
Retailer says it will consider stocking drug at all US stores

Wal-Mart said yesterday it will start stocking and selling the emergency contraceptive drug Plan B at its 44 Massachusetts pharmacies and is giving serious consideration to carrying the drug at all of its stores nationwide.

The world's biggest retailer acted after the state Board of Registration in Pharmacy voted unanimously to require Wal-Mart to stock and dispense Plan B, a high dose of hormones that women can take three to five days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy.

The only other state where Wal-Mart sells the so-called morning-after pill is Illinois, where a state law requires it. Elsewhere, Wal-Mart has refused to stock the drug for undisclosed ''business reasons."

Guardian (uk):

Wal-Mart Must Stock Contraception in Mass.

Massachusetts got its first point on the gay marriage issue. Equality-R-Us.

Cheney Shooting: Hard to Keep All Those Lies Straight

Good diary on dailykos summarizing all the holes in Cheney's alibi witness's story:

Update: Shooting Holes In Cheney's Story

To summarize: Katherine Armstrong, ranch owner, is the only witness cited on the accident report. She said Whittington came up behind Cheney, didn't signal or indicate his presence or announce himself, and Cheney didn't see him. She also said she was 100 yards away -- the length of a football field -- in the hunt vehicle (too far to hear anything, for sure). She said he was bruised, the pellets broke the skin; but the medical team said he was bleeding profusely from the face, neck and chest, and his daughter says he doesn't recall a lot of the incident, and didn't know if he was going to the mortuary or the hospital. Was drinking involved? She said "No, zero, zippo and I don't drink at all. No one was drinking."; but yesterday she said "There may be a beer or two in there, but remember not everyone in the party was shooting." She said she talked to the VP on Saturday, and he told her to get the story out; she said she and her family decided on their own on Sunday to go public.

And then there's the most damning statement:

There's a paragraph in the now-scrubbed beer story that makes it clear that she didn't see the accident.

Armstrong said she saw Cheney's security detail running toward the scene. "The first thing that crossed my mind was he had a heart problem," she told The Associated Press.

This is Armstrong admitting that the first evidence she saw that alerted her that something was wrong was the Secret Service running to help. And that she thought it was Cheney who was in trouble.

This says, to me at least, that she did not see the accident at all.

I'm very curious why no one has asked Ms. Ambassador to Switzerland about the accident, seeing as how she was supposedly standing right next to Dick.

Liar.

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”
- Mark Twain

Parity

Hayley Wickenheiser, Canada
I woke up this morning and turned on MSNBC to watch hockey. I've been watching women's hockey for the last few days. The score read "Italy 1, Canada 2" and I thought to myself, wow, Italy scored on that powerful Canadian women's team. Shocking! They had only given up one goal in the tournament so far. I thought Italy was only in the Olympic hockey tournament because they're the hosts. I thought Canada already crushed Italy. I wasn't awake yet. I put the coffee on.

Then I saw the back of one of the Canadian's uniforms and it said "Bertuzzi". I thought, I wonder if she's Todd Bertuzzi's sister? How come I've watched all these games and never heard those excellent NHL announcers says Todd Bertuzzi's sister is on the Canadian women's team?

It was Todd Bertuzzi. This is a men's game. Parity has indeed arrived. You can't tell the difference between the men's and women's games just by looking at the size of the players. Hayley Wickenheiser, Todd Bertuzzi, put a uniform and pads on 'em and it's hard to tell the difference. Italy has a men's hockey team! They scored two goals on Marty Brodeur. Parity all around.

Hot Ticket

Looks like I could make some money if I wanted to sell my Women's NCAA Basketball Final Four tickets. I entered the lottery last year and got my 4 tickets a month ago.

I attended the 1991 (New Orleans), 1992 (Los Angeles), 1993 (Atlanta), 1995 (Minneapolis), 1996 (Charlotte, NC), and 1997 (Cincinnati) women's final fours. Then my trial schedule heated up, I missed 1998 in St. Louis, and I never got back into the habit. In the early years you could walk up to the box office on the day of the game and buy a ticket. The last few years I attended the place was packed, but serious scalping wasn't going on yet. I guess the women's game has finally arrived. Thank you Patsy Mink, Birch Bayh, and Title IX.

Women's basketball proves a hot ticket

April brings Opening Day for the Red Sox. There is no denying that fundamental truth of life in Boston. But before this year's ritual, another major sports event will come to the Hub: the NCAA Women's Final Four.

The women's college basketball championship will be held this year at the TD Banknorth Garden, and the event is expected to bring upward of 30,000 visitors to Boston. The semifinal games are scheduled for Sunday, April 2, the day before the Red Sox begin their season in Texas, and the finals will take place on April 4.

Boston beat nearly two dozen other cities for the right to host the event, which is expected to pump at least $20 million into the local economy. But fans hoping to stroll up to the Garden's box office and purchase tickets in the coming weeks are out of luck: For the 13th straight year, all three games of the Women's Final Four are sold out. On eBay, tickets to the three games are being sold for as much as $342 apiece, which is nearly 2 1/2 times the $140 face value.

Nearly all of the Garden's 19,334 seats will be filled by students and others affiliated with the competing schools, other NCAA Division I universities, and corporate sponsors and muckety-mucks. About 6,000 tickets to the games were sold to the general public last August after a random computerized drawing. About 22 percent of them went to Massachusetts residents, second only to the 26 percent that went to Connecticut and its rabid UConn fans.

Where the tickets go