Just turned on the TV and noticed this on ESPN:

Red Sox vote not to play final spring game or board plane for Japan

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The Boston Red Sox refused to take the field for their final spring training game in Florida on Wednesday and threatened to boycott their flight to Japan for their season openers unless their coaches and other staff are paid for the trip.
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Manager Terry Francona and his players were upset after learning staff members are not going to get a $40,000 stipend. The Boston Herald reported players insisted part of their agreement to make the trip included the fee -- for them and the coaches.

While compensation in a major sport is usually miles beyond what most folks can hope to make, I suppose it's good when the guys on the top of that list stand up for their support staff, coaches and trainers.

Veteran Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy passed away Thursday morning, November 1, 2007, almost 24 hours after being shot in the head when he unknowingly walked in on an armed robbery at a regular stop on his beat.

He was the third office shot in the line of duty in four days here in the city of 'Brothery Love.'

Meanwhile, our Police Commissioner, unable to contain the surging violence here, has seemingly thrown in the towel.  He has taken potshots at the mayor-elect and exclaimed "Somebody's got to realize we've got a gun problem in this city."

Isn't that your job?!?

this is starting to pop up in a few places, so I thought I'd try to set the record straight...

I first noticed via America Blog, that the Colorado Democratic Party is expressing Concerns Over Comcast.

[We] have received a number of complaints over actions by Comcast TV. Apparently they are only providing CNN and Fox news in their basic package. The recent move of MSNBC to digital has created great concern on the part of Democrats that the news is slanted toward a more conservative message.

The bottom line is that this has virtually no chance of being motivated by politcal interests...

[more below]

also at Lutton Square

Calling all SCHIP-haters: Public money for private education?!?

Ignoring for the moment the wholesale attempt to shift public monies to private and religious schools for families 'that otherwise couldn't afford it,' how wrong must it (and your precious conservative Supreme Court) be to force taxpayer funds to be used

to reimburse a wealthy businessman for private special education for his son.

[also at Lutton Square]

OMG...

they've completely lost it...

Advanced western democracies have delivered the most prosperous societies in human history. There simply are no longer genuinely "poor" people in sufficient numbers. As Miss Shaidle points out, if you're poor today, it's almost always for behavioral reasons - behavior which the state chooses not to discourage but to reward.

In an effort to salvage something from their savaging of the Frost family in Baltimore, we're now told that the poor don't really exist, and if they do, it's their fault and the government enables them.

Wait, we're not back to welfare queens again, are we?

According to an ars technica posting, The NYS Attorney General's office is collaborating with MediaDefender, which offers services designed to prevent and stop people who engage in alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution.

Also at Lutton Square

Accusations against Blackwater continue to grow, and news continues to filter out that they operate with little oversight and no accountability.

I started thinking that they were similar to the German SS - Schutzstaffel - in their security and paramilitary organization, but as I did a little research, Blackwater seems to be more consistent with Germany's Freikorps. (Ironically, the Freikorps eventually morphed into the SA - Stormtroopers aka Brown Shirts - which was superseded by the SS.)

also at Lutton Square

What got Blackwater banned?

BBC World Service radio just ran a story which differs substantially from the rest of the media reports about the 'shootout' involving Blackwater USA which killed a number of Iraqi civilians.

In fact, the story indicates there was no shootout, nor did the Blackwater-protected convoy come under direct attack. There had been a car bombing in the vicinity, but that had occured 20 minutes to a half-hour prior to the convoy's arrivial at that location.

Two wounded civilians say the contractors opened fire without having come under attack.

also at Lutton Square

(h/t to various TPM Muckraker commenters)

The prosecutor purge scandal seems to gravitate around some very interesting machinations involving the candidates for United States Attorney for the District of Utah.

When the position opened up in early 2006, two candidates--one from the executive branch and one from the legislative--surfaced. A former White House staffer and then Chief of Staff for the Attorney General, Kyle Sampson, was favored by White House and Department of Justice officials, while influential Utah Senator and former Senate Judiciary Chair Orrin Hatch preferred former Utah federal prosecutor and Judiciary staffer Brett Tolman.

also at Lutton Square

Skipping the step of hiring a foul mouthed blogger for his campaign team, MA Republican State Senator Scott Brown took his directly to the kids.  (Of course the kids took it to him first)

So much for 'what will we tell the children?'

[Republican] state senator read profanity-laced criticism posted online about him in a talk to high school students in his district about his opposition to gay marriage.

Just a quick note that attendees to Yearly Kos may be able to save some scratch if they can use a Discover Card.  Initially there was a potential savings on hotel charges, but now additional bonuses for travel expenses could also be realized.

Here's how:

Nancy Pelosi said she was ready to drain the GOP swamp.  Well, I'm ready to drain the GOP bank.

Reacting to this article on TPMCafe, "NRCC Spends Nearly $40 Million In Seven Weeks!" I started to wonder about the convergence of current planned spending by the party, the campaign committees, the PACs, 527s and candidates, the party's willingness to borrow funds for a final push, along with our new push to get 'safe' candidates to throw some extra cash into the fray, plus the obvious signs of K Street begining to hedge their financial bets with outlays on our side:  Can we spend the GOP into looking up the financial hill at the Democrats?

Geez, what a freakin' asshole

"When President Bush and his top aides gathered in July to plot out a strategy for the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, it was clear to all that they had to try to reset the clock -- back to a time, before Iraq, when portraying himself as a steely commander in chief was a far simpler task for Bush, before Katrina, when questions about competence did not weigh so heavily," write David E. Sanger and Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

No. We will not accept this. We will not allow this. This is golf; this isn't a shitty season of Dallas, and we don't get to find Bobby Ewing in the shower after a bad dream.

Oh, hell...this constant losing of laptops has got to end.

We're in the midst of an aviation-related security clampdown, and we find out the DOT lost the personal records of 42,800 PILOTS?  

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

A U.S. government computer loaded with approximately 133,000 drivers' and pilots' records — including Social Security numbers — was stolen last month, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

The department's Office of Inspector General said one of its laptops was taken from a government vehicle in Doral, Florida, on July 27.

Man, you guys are suckers. You hear 'tax cut' and drool all the way to the voting booth. Meanwhile the GOP uses your tax-cut blinders to screw you and just about every other working stiff. You dream of some day having enough of an estate to have to worry about the estate tax. The super rich thank you, knowing that your dreams are their ticket to an American aristocracy:

Meanwhile, government policy is explicitly aimed at accelerating the income distortions. "In 2006, the average tax cut for households with incomes of more than $1 million -- the top two-tenths of 1 percent -- is $112,000 which works out to a boost of 5.7 percent in after tax income. That's considerably higher than the 5 percent boost garnered by the top 1 percent. It's far greater than the 2.5 percent increase of the middle fifth of households, and fully 19 times greater than the 0.3 percent gain of the poorest fifth of households." You'd think, given the the trends, the government would be using the tax code to smooth out the inequality. Instead, they're giving it a helping hand.

cross posted at Lutton Square

According to MSNBC/AP, Arlen Specter is ready to introduce legislation to authorize Congress "to undertake judicial review of [presidential] signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional."

But at the same time, Specter's so-called 'compromise bill' regarding the administration's NSA / domestic spying activities provides the administration legal cover and additional powers to prevent any oversight or legal action against the spy program.

Can you believe this?  Power outages going on for days, and we're just starting to hear about it?  And they don't even know what's really going on!

Thousands in New York City without power
Blackout enters fifth day as city suffers through hottest time of the year

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were still without power Friday, the fifth day of a mysterious electrical problem that has been blamed for subway delays, flight cancellations and dead air conditioners during the hottest week of the year.
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated that would translate to about 100,000 people considering that each “customer” could be more than one household in an area where homes are often sectioned into multiple units, and could even be an entire apartment building.

Let me take you back about eighteen months ago, when the United States almost overlooked blatant terrorism right in our own skies.  Thankfully patriot Annie Jacobsen noticed the tell-tale signs:   Middle Eastern men, Arabic writing, musical instrument cases, a McDonald's bag, a dark suit and sunglasses, first class seat 1A--the seat second-closest to the cockpit door...