Sunday, July 29, 2007

Spaniard Takes France


Alberto Contador Captures Yellow Jersey in 94th Tour de France

I have to admit, my boy Paul S down in FLA got this one right. Last Monday he called the race for Alberto Contador, even though he wasn't even the captain of his own Discovery Channel squad; that would have been the alliteratively named Levi Leipheimer, who finished 3rd, by a mere 31 seconds.

There was a time when I used to tape every stage of the race religiously, which years back ran late at night on ESPN2 ... Me and Paul would both tape as much of it as we can, then watch it over and over, and that was even before Sir Lance-A-Lot starting winning the first of his 7 Tours.

Lance did win a major stage in 1995. So the potential was there even before the New Lance miraculously emerged from the ashes of a debilitating disease.

The first Tour de France I remember really being into was '95, which was Miguel Indurain's last of 5 straight Tour wins. Nobody thought that record would be broken, 5 straight; Eddy Merckx had won 5 overall, but not 5 Tours consecutively. And the French dude on Greg LeMond's team in the '80s, Bernard Hinault, also won 5, but not in a row. Greg LeMond could have easily won had he not deferred to the captain.

Greg LeMond is also unfairly overshadowed by Lance, through no fault of Armstrong's. LeMond singlehandedly put American cycling on the international map, and he had a miraculous comeback of his own, recovering from a life-threatening hunting accident in 1987 to win two more Tours for a total of 3 overall.

Despite Lance eventually shattering his record, I still rate Miguel Indurain the best cyclist I ever saw: a big powerful time trialer, yet he didn't give it back on the tough mountain stages. And most of all, no suspicion of doping or cheating that I know of.

I only caught a few highlight shows this year, and my interest has gone downhill pun intended ever since Lance retired and the drug scandals overwhelmed to the point of detracting from the race itself to an alarming degree. Nobody thought it could get much worst than last year, when Floyd Landis captured Yellow but was immediately tested positive for performance-enhancing substances and forced to relinquish the title. But the black eyes kept coming for professional cycling, culminating in this year's fiasco, with the tour leader booted mid-race. In no other sport could that happen.

Maybe the Tour needs to be scaled down a little, maybe design the course on a more human level as opposed to a super-human challenge of endurance and pain. Maybe these riders look at the grueling course and gravitate toward chemical-enhanced guidance. I know I might, and I wouldn't be the only one, human nature being what it is.

If your shrunk the course down to two weeks, chopped off a few mountain stages, added a few more team and solo time trials -- at least for a few years until you filter out the drug use, you might have something there.

It's worth a try. All they have to lose at this point is further embarrassment.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Who Let The Dopes In?












Michael Vick appears in court, pleads not guilty to dogfighting charges
RICHMOND, Va. -- Michael Vick's ability to run, juke and dance by defenders has earned him millions in football, but it was of no use in the courtroom Thursday. When it was Vick's turn to face the judge, he slowly rose from his chair, stared straight ahead and walked to the middle of the room.

Facing a maximum of six years in jail on dogfighting charges, he pleaded not guilty. The beleaguered Falcons quarterback said those two words loudly and in a confident tone in the middle of a federal courtroom packed with more than 100 reporters and fans in the back and guarded on the sides by U.S. Marshals.

ONE ASPECT of the Vick case that really galls me is all the pro athletes who still don't get it and are going out of their way to defend Vick. It started with Clinton Portis a few months ago, a typically addled Miami University product. When the dog-fighting charges surrounding Vick surfaced, Portis declared that Vick should be allowed to do what he wants:
In an interview with a Virginia television station Friday, Portis and a teammate, offensive tackle Chris Samuels, defended Vick. Portis said that if Vick is charged and convicted of dogfighting, "then you're putting him behind bars for no reason."

"I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property. It's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it," Portis told WAVY-TV in Norfolk.


They're raising 'em real good an' smart down there in Old Virginny, aren't they? Exhibit A is NBA baller Allen Iverson, the former Georgetown scholar-athlete and a native Virginian who has also made a career out of being a self-styled anti-social badass. Claiming "There's always a bullseye on us. Everybody doesn't love athletes. Some people feel like we're spoiled," Iverson sought to reassure the embattled Vick that, "He knows that all of us are rooting for him." Yeah, we fans just don't warm up to heartless animal killers or the other down to earth fellas like Ron Artest, Pacman Jones, the Vick brothers. I guess obscenely overpaid professional athletes like Ron Artest, Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson, the Vick brothers, Barry Bonds are all just misunderstood unspoiled wide-eyed innocents. Sorry, Allen. Our bad. Guess what: for the rest of his NBA career, I'm rooting against Allen Iverson every time he takes the court. EVERY time, and hard.

Even the usually classy Emmitt Smith put his foot in his mouth while weighing in on the Vick fiasco. Smith, while condemning dog fighting in general, didn't seem all that bothered by the charges against Vick, if the recent ESPN hire even bothered to read the indictment or, indeed, anything about the case at all, based on his comments. "He's the biggest fish in the whole doggone pond right now so they're putting the squeeze on him to get to everyone else," Smith said Saturday. Sadly, no one stopped him, so Smith went on to say, "Now, granted he might have been to a dogfight a time or two, maybe five times, maybe 20 times, may have bet some money, but he's not the one you're after. He's not the one you're after, he's just the one whose going to take the fall -- publicly."

Yeesh, Emmitt! Stick to making a fool of yourself on Dancing with the Stars. Looks like
ESPN got themselves a real deep thinker there. I could find an 11-year-old on any street corner with a more nuanced take on the case. Although probably not anywhere in the American South. I give Sports Illustrated's Peter King credit on this one. Wondering out loud what ESPN saw in Smith in the first place to justify hiring him as a commentator, King wrote:
"I have a bad feeling about Smith's tenure at ESPN, and it hasn't even started. His comments on Vick are so idiotic and inappropriate that a few people at the Worldwide Leader have to be thinking, "Uh-oh. What if we've gone and hired someone who's very famous but not very smart?''
Speaking of "not very smart," the King of All Dumbasses Award goes hands down to another former NFL great and, I'm ashamed to admit, another former member of my beloved Dallas Cowboys. In an op-ed for the prestigious Southwest Florida News-Press titled "Don't be too quick to Judge," Deion Sanders' penchant for sheer uncut stupidity blew everyone else out of the water, raising the bar beyond reach, and lowering the standards of "journalism" in all likelihood beyond repair. The column really has to be read in full to get the full effect of its typically Deion-like blustery smugness, beginning with the opening nugget that this could have a devastating impact on Vick's endorsements. I'm sure all the dead dogs buried on his property after being savagely put to death all concur, Deion; yeah, that's the "devastating" part of the whole case here. Way to keep it all in perspective, you sorry excuse for a human being.

In Deion-world, you see, Vick's
"reputation might wind up so stained that he’s never forgiven in the court of public opinion. That would be too bad for the 27-year-old superstar." That's the shame here, that a guy was caught ... not that he was engaging in "unforgivable" and illegal activities.

The amazing thing is that other people besides Sanders had to make the decision to print this drivel. Imagine the editorial meeting that took place, the great meeting of minds involved. It's all part of the ingrained cultural mindset here in America where celebrities are sought out for their opinions on serious matters just because they're famous, not because they bring any special insight, skill or intellectual acumen to the table. And just as dispiriting are the enablers who defend or excuse the transgressions of celebrities for no other reason than they're rich and famous. But back to the "essay" at hand, which would be potentially comedic if the subject wasn't so startlingly inhumane.

Sanders believes that "This is all the result of perspective. What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I." This is a statement shocking in its capacity to outrage, but wait, it gets worse. Deion says he would "bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest. Maybe, he identified with them in some way. You can still choose to condemn him, but I’m trying to take you inside his mind so you can understand where he might be coming from." Yeah, well, a trip inside Michael Vick's mind is a journey I'm not all that eager to embark on, Deion; and I would bet that he "loved" the dogs he was condemning to a short, brutal life of pain and suffering the same way an abusive father "loves" the children he has to beat every night because, you know, it's for their own good. Go to hell, Deion.

There's more from Sanders, all too much more, but since just about every word makes me alternately sick, depressed and really, really pissed off, I can't stand to wallow in this filth too much longer. This Mensa member goes on and on about how Vick just couldn't be the ringleader, offering no evidence to back it up other than "I just can't see it." You know, Deion, I bet there's a lot you don't see. According to Deion, "The reason this is turning into a three-ring circus is that baseball is boring, basketball is months away, football is around the corner and we in the media don’t have a thing interesting to write about." Could a person be more wrong, more dumb, and still walk among us? In Florida, Deion passes for a pundit! Beautiful! I mean, has there EVER been more to write about in sports, given little developments like, oh, the NBA officiating scandal, Barry Bonds chase of Hank Aaron, the ongoing Tour de France fiasco...

Finally, as if somehow relevant to the case at hand (and what a nice job of copy-editing here by the geniuses at the West Florida News-Press), Deion sees fit to mention that he has three trained German Shepherds of his own -- "just in case someone wants to rob my family." Then the fucking peanut brained Sanders ends with a unnecessary cheap shot at the QB who the Falcons are counting on in Vick's absence: "How will this end up? I have no idea. All I know is Falcons fans better pray because Vick’s backup is Joey Harrington. Enough said."

Enough said? Enough said! Rarely have truer words been spoken, you fucking lunatic!

Of course, his was not Vick's first brush with the law. Remember when Vick, using the clever alias Ron Mexico, was accused by a woman of giving her genital herpes. Oh yeah, the guy's a real charmer. According to my sources at Wikipedia,
In March 2005 a woman named Sonya Elliott filed a civil lawsuit against Vick alleging she contracted genital herpes from Vick and that he failed to inform her that he had the disease.[20] On April 24, 2006 Vick's attorney, Lawrence Woodward, revealed that the lawsuit had settled out of court with an undisclosed amount.
There's also a metric ton of anecdotal evidence evidence that the guy is a total scumbag, treating kids who ask for his autograph shabbily, missing appointments and meetings, and being an all-around knucklehead and thug. One source told SI writer Don Banks that "He knows what's going on in that house in Virginia. There's not a doubt in my mind he's involved with it,'' while another source "cited Vick's longtime 'affinity' for the dog-fighting subculture, and expressed certainty that Vick was aware of what was happening at the house."

Another of Bank's sources (and the man does have sources) told him that
"a year or so ago, Vick and a neighbor got into a disagreement about the safety of Vick keeping two pit bulls in an unfenced yard at his home in suburban Atlanta. The neighbor went to Vick's home and complained to him that there were children in the neighborhood and that the dogs were a potential safety issue. Vick just "laughed in the guy's face and told him to get the hell out of there,'' the source said. "We just kind of knew he was involved with pits.''
Ultimately, it was another of Don Banks' inexhaustible supply of sources that got to the heart of the matter, cutting right to the chase about why Vick is involved in such mindless brutality: "He's not very bright at all,'' the source said of Vick. "And that's a big part of his problems. He's a very unintelligent person and he makes poor decisions because of it. It's not a white or black thing. Paris Hilton is an idiot, too. Mike Tyson was totally dumb, but for a long time his trainer kept him protected from his worst mistakes. You have to have someone around you who can protect you from yourself at times.''

After the tragic mass shooting on the Virginia Tech campus, Vick's alma mater, he reached deep down and, teaming with the United Way, contributed the staggering sum of $10,000 to go to the families of the victims. Vick, whose Atlanta Falcons contract is worth $130 million, making him one of the highest paid players in the history of the sport, also makes millions of dollars more each year in lucrative commercial endorsements, said that "When tragic things like this happen, families have enough to deal with, and if I can help in some small way, that's the least I can do." Well, yes, Michael, that was the least you can do, speaking of "small way" -- considering you were alleged to have bet much more than that sum on the outcome of a single dog fight, on more than one occasion. Which in my book makes you whatever the opposite of a humanitarian is.

The ironic part is that Michael was supposed to be the good Vick! Younger brother
Marcus, also a talented college QB, never made it in the pros, blowing his chances at NFL riches with some reprehensible actions both on and off the field of play, while displaying a disturbing lack of character. Marcus was dismissed by Virginia Tech "due to a cumulative effect of legal infractions and unsportsmanlike play." [1]

Those charges included violently stomping on the leg of a Louisville player who was down on the field, and giving the finger to his hometown crowd (which role model Michael would repeat before Falcons fans in 2006). Off the field, his driving license was suspended after nine traffic offenses, and he was charged with possession of marijuana and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Upon being thrown off the V-Tech squad in early 2006, an obviously contrite Vick was quoted as saying, "It's not a big deal. I'll just move on to the next level, baby."[7]

And as if to prove how much he "got" it, Marcus continued to run afoul of the law. Probably just bad timing, because just three days after making the above statement, Vick was

"charged with three counts of brandishing a firearm, a Class One misdemeanor [8] [9], in Suffolk, Virginia. A police report stated that he allegedly pointed a gun at a 17-year-old and at least two of his friends in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant in the 6200 block of Town Point Road in Suffolk. It has been reported that Vick approached the group of teenagers after his girlfriend told him that someone from the group had made disparaging remarks towards her. [10] Vick claimed that the "gun" in question was actually a BlackBerry cell phone that was mistaken for a gun and that his accusers were trying to blackmail him. [11] Marcus Vick was convicted and received a six month suspended sentence for the incident."
Later that same year, in December, "a 17-year old girl from Montgomery County, Virginia, filed a civil lawsuit against Marcus Vick accusing him of sexual battery upon a minor, fraud, and additional charges. In the lawsuit, seeking $6.3 million, an unnamed girl claims that when she was 15 (below the legal age of consent in Virginia) and was student in high school, she engaged in a sexual relationship with Vick, who was 20 years old, over a nearly two year long period. She also alleges Vick offered to provide her alcohol and marijuana and asked her to have sex with other men."

Looks like that next "level" may be the penitentiary team, baby! I guess those good parenting medals for Mr. & Mrs. Vick are on hold for now. But why blame the parents, they're only the ones who raised these two monsters. Nice job.

This morning, when I tried to go on Vick's official Website, it said Bandwidth Limit Exceeded. Whether it was supporters or detractors jamming the lines, I guess we'll have to wait and see. On the PETA and Humane Society sites, of course, there were passionate calls for immediate suspension of the once-elusive Vick without pay, as well as targeting his many sponsors for boycott, which sounds about right to me. Have to set an example to the hip-hoppers that this shit is not gonna be tolerated in a civilized society. And while you're at it, pull your fucking pants up. If I were mayor of a large city -- and who knows: stranger things have happened in politix -- I would ban anyone wearing their pants below a certain point. I would also instruct building managers to bar anyone from entering the building who refuses to pull up his pants. Period. You want to be part of society, or you want to be "bad." That's why millions of young minority kids are basically unemployable. They're learning this behavior from somewhere, but to me it's a disgusting aspect of the prison culture that has seeped into the culture at large, and it should be stopped. I mean, the joke is on them in the long run, isn't it? It borders on indecent exposure, and I would as mayor instruct my police force to round up anyone out in public who chooses to walk around like that, and then put the arrestees in a cell with some real sex offenders and, say, serial rapists and hardened pedophiles and then see if that's a deterrent for the next time. Hey, that's how I roll, maaaaa-aaaaaannnnnnn!
















This dog's name is Gypsy. She was rescued after suffering these serious injuries in a dog fight. Glamorous "sport" isn't it. Even after all she's been through, she's still smarter than Michael Vick and his supporters.

The Website I found this picture on published a bunch of comments responding to the picture. Most, being members of the human race, were of course outraged, whereas others, of indeterminate species, responded with sentiments ranging from support of Vick to belittling the seriousness of the charges. And we wonder why the country is going to hell in a hurry. Here's just a sampling of enlightened opinion from your fellow members of humanity who you're lucky enough to share the planet with (inventive spelling and grammar preserved):

"you guys are all faggots Michael Vick did not do this to the dogs, the dogs did it to them selves, Michael Vick was just in the area when it happend, fuck the haters i support Michael Vick 100%, this photo of the dog is just an optical illusion"
"yall muthafuckers need to get a fucking grip. if yall were really that concerned with dog fighting shit would have been done but now that the highest paid player in football is implicated on bullshit charges everyone's a fucking humanitarian that shits rediculouse even if he was involed or not most of you dumb fucks would do the same shit for 50g's because thats more than what have yall assholes make in a year so get of my man Vick Nuts and get a fucking life bitches!"

"Oh man... he didn't to dogs. He did it to Pitbulls. Pitbulls should be exterminated from the planet. Vick is still the fastest QB today. Until someone else can top that, I'm still a fan of Vick. But hey maybe that's why he's fast. He probably uses Dogs to chase him in training. That explain why he's so fast."
"Michael Vick is the best and he is inocent, its the other dogs that messed up that dog, not Michael Vick."
"fuck the dog. a dog is a dumb animal.
someone said they wanted vick dead. wow...
such compassion. vick didn't do anything to the dogs. he bet on the fights. he didn't even live at the house where all that shit was."
Now if you all don't mind, I'm going to go stick my head in the oven.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Breslin Awakes


It's always an auspicious occasion when the great Jimmy Breslin emerges from semi-retirement to offer his thoughts. (Breslin plays a prominent role in the seemingly 900-part ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning.) Here he takes a verbal shiv to the gut of gutless George the draft-dodger. At least for now it's still legal to criticize Emperor George, but by next week who knows? We may see another executive order any day now, this one outlawing all dissent and criticism of the commander-in-chief during a time of war. Would a reasonable person put anything past the Bush/Cheney Crime Family and their ongoing assault on the Constitution?

Impeach George Bush to Stop War Lies, Deaths

Hey Jimmy, tell us how you really feel!

Monday, July 23, 2007

Week Of Shame

Let's begin the beguine...

Before I get to more pressing matters that need ironing out, by which we mean the fact that you can now count us among those who believe the official party line regarding the 9/11 attacks is one big cover-up of epic proportions, whereby the whole thing unravels like a cheap suit if you do the least bit of cursory research, let us first provide some necessary diversion on this waterlogged Monday morning...

Has there been a worse week for the major professional sports than this last one? Don't think so, mis amigos... In no particular order, then, let's recount the public relations nightmares facing the commissioners of the three major sports.

The NBA took a 3-point-like dagger to the heart of its integrity this past week when an investigation into game fixing by one of its referees was made public by the FBI. It involves point shaving, or more accurately point enhancing, on the part of Tim Donaghy, who only weeks ago worked a prominent playoff game in the Phoenix-San Antonio series -- a pivotal game in which a star Sun (Amare Stoudamire) got in immediate foul trouble. Hmmm...

Donaghy is alleged to have been in cahoots with the mob to fix certain games, usually involving the under/over but sometimes the point spread itself, after the wayward zebra became indebted to the bent-nose crew while incurring large gambling debts. Other equally juicy accusations surround David Stern possibly knowing about the sorry situation for over a year, yet still allowing the corrupt whistle-blower to fix, er, work games anyway this past season. Or was Stern told for the investigation's sake to let the damn thing play out to entrap as many mobsters as possible. Either way, we think this just about wipes that smile off the NBA commissioner's smug mug. I'd, ahem, bet that those plans for a Las Vegas franchise are on hold for now. Good idea having the All-Star weekend there, Dave! Hell, even before this revelation, fans of the sport would alternatively chuckle or shake their heads at the mystifyingly inconsistent nature of officiating in the league. Now nobody will ever look at a suspicious or phantom call the same way again.

The NFL has a similar PR nightmare on its hands, what with one of its marquee players, Atlanta Falcons QB Mike Vick, being indicted on federal charges relating to dog fighting on his Virginia property. The indictment goes into specifics of how Vick and his partners in Bad Newz Kennels ran a gambling ring that took bets on the fights and, even more damning, how Vick & Co. would dispose of dogs who failed to show enough fighting instinct: "executing dogs that didn't perform well by methods such as hanging, drowning, electrocuting, shooting and "slamming at least one dog's body to the ground." Vick, even if he manages to elude conviction and subsequent jail time the way he slithers out of the grasp of onrushing defensive linemen, has already been convicted of animal cruelty in the court of public opinion. That's gonna follow him everywhere he goes. Add to that putrid scandal the Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson troubles, and Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL will have its hands full defending its own off-the-field problems during the upcoming season.

Which brings us to baseball. Barry Bonds clubbed 2 more home runs last week, leaving him just 2 HRs short of tying Hank Aaron's all-time mark of 755. Problem is, nobody can enjoy the chase because of all the steroid allegations overshadowing Bonds. This puts Commissioner Bud Selig in the embarrassing position of having to confront a worst-case scenario of publicly congratulating Bonds for breaking a record that few want to see broken. Good luck with all that, Bud.

And speaking of embarrassing, the Tour de France continues among its own allegations of performance-enhancing drugs . As if life without Lance Armstrong wasn't enough of an obstacle, now nobody can enjoy the Tour because the winner will undoubtedly be wearing a yellow jersey of suspicion and doubt, a la Floyd Landis, last year's winner, still resolutely if not all that successfully defending himself a year later against allegations of cheating. Despite constant testing, large numbers of riders still apparently risk detection rather than face the harsh course sans pharmaceutical or chemical enhancement. If everyone isn't doing it already, they might as well start now because fans of the sport just assume you're doping anyway. Another stage, another rider thrown out. First clean blood sample to the finish line win... , C'est la guerre!

Back on the field, my b'loved New York Yankees continue to cut into the AL East lead of the d'tested Boston Red Sox. This morning's MLB standings indisputably show the Yankees trailing by a mere 7.5 games, which, with just over 60 games remaining on the schedule, is like being behind by about 8 points in the 3rd quarter of an NBA game -- hardly insurmountable.

The Yankees erupted for an astounding 45 runs in the last 3 games of the Tampa Bay series, belting out 53 hits and, in the process, may have found the new Shane Spencer in the process. Shelley Duncan, just called up from Triple-A Columbus, belted 3 HRs over the weekend. Duncan became the first Yank in 60 years to hit 3 HRs in his first 3 major league games, although counting the Devil Rays as a real MLB team takes a giant leap of faith. In one of the all-time head shakers, I heard over the weekend that Tampa Bay won a TOTAL of 3 road games after the All-Star break last year. That' just not getting 'er done.

Duncan is no spring chicken at 27 years old, and like Spencer served a long apprenticeship in the minors. But as the Daily News' Bill Madden put it, "There is a new People's Choice in the Bronx, an effervescent kid, living a dream, who packs a wallop with his bat and a whole lot of welcome fist-pumping energy in the dugout."
_________________________________________________
Now back to the cryptic matter at hand. I never wanted or intended to be counted among the swelling ranks of 9/11 conspiracy buffs, but over the last week, mainly through some excellent documentaries on Youtube, I discovered holes in the official story big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through. Then I did some reading on the issues the videos raised, and before you know it, I was through the Looking Glass again.

I first narrowly limited my focus on the bizarre circumstances surrounding the collapse of WTC 7. The more facts came in, the less likely it became that Building 7 just collapsed on its own, among other inconsistencies. (That was true of the rest of the 9/11 story, but let's confine our focus to WTC 7 for the time being.)

Approximately six months before 9/11, Larry Silverstein, who owned WTC 7 as well as the Twin Towers, took out a major insurance policy guarding against damage caused by terrorist attack. So far nothing suspicious. WTC contained a vast array of governmental offices, including the CIA, Secret Service and SEC, as well as the emergency operations center for the City of New York. In fact, because of the destruction that day, some 300 major cases looking into IPO fraud and other corporate malfeasance (including Enron) by the SEC had to be dropped, but that too could safely fall under the banner of coincidence. But there comes a point when coincidence no longer sufficiently explains all the unanswered questions.

It is also a fact that somebody did an awful lot of insider trading, specifically the short selling of major airline and insurance stocks, as well as the stocks of some major WTC tenants, in the days immediately leading up to September 11th. The volume of trading in these key stocks was way above average, so someone stood to make a lot of money if the shares of these companies' stocks plummeted. The only catch? Investors were prevented from cashing in on their, ahem, prescient business acumen because all the major markets were closed for four days following the attacks -- an unseen monkey wrench perhaps.

An investigation into the suspicious trading was allegedly blocked or allowed to fizzle, according to officials at the Chicago Options Board Exchange, despite available information into who conducted the trades. Technology exists that could pinpoint where and by whom the trades took place, but that major piece of the puzzle was conveniently not addressed by the official 9/11 Commission.

Back to WTC 7. As late as 5:00 on the afternoon of 9/11, Building 7 was still standing. Small fires were visible on two of the lower floors of the 47-storey building, resulting from the collapse of the two main towers earlier, but the fire appeared to be under control. The building had been evacuated, and no firemen or emergency personnel were still in the building. Until that day, there had never been a reported case of a steel structure building collapsing, yet a short time later WTC 7 became the third such collapse.

A year later Silverstein made the following quote, which he later refuted:
"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

The part of the quote referring to "pull" is construction shorthand for the controlled collapse of a building. Firemen and other emergency workers also testified that they were told to get away from WTC 7 just before it ultimately collapsed, while demolition experts viewing footage of the building coming down are on record saying it can only be explained by the structure being "pulled."

Now, it would seem that something is definitely amiss with regard to the official story of WTC 7. At the least, there are several inconsistencies that need to be cleared up. What makes the story even more fallacious, however, is the following.

Almost half an hour before WTC is seen coming down, news broadcasts from the site by CNN and the BBC report that Building 7 has collapsed. That's right: two major networks are on record saying the structure has been destroyed, well BEFORE WTC 7 came down. At the least, wouldn't an investigation into the source of the information be warranted? Isn't it at least suspicious that of all the buildings in the area, two different broadcasts are reporting things that had not yet happened, choosing a structure that, astonishingly, is clearly visible from behind both the CNN and BBC reporters as they report live from the scene?


There's more, of course. Despite the BBC's very own in-house mandated instructions to keep at least TWO SOURCES, or two tapes, of every broadcast, the broadcast content of the entire day's reports remain missing. That's right, folks, despite it being one of the major events in the history of mankind, the 9/11 tapes were not deemed worthy of recording and preserving. It boggles the mind and, more to the point, defies all logic.

Remember, this is one aspect of just one facet of 9/11 that doesn't meet the smell test. In fact, it smells like something you wouldn't want to step in. The deeper you go into the story, the more illogical it all becomes.

How anyone can swallow the misinformation dispatched by official media and government is beyond me, and that's after less than a week of my looking into it. If it can all be explained away or dismissed, I'd be willing to hear all about it. But as of now, I plan on following up with more troubling, disturbing aspects of the case.

Speaking of collapse, it seems to me that if enough of the facts upon which the official case rests are proven wrong, the whole house of cards will come crashing down, leaving in its wake outraged calls for a new investigation. We're not there yet, but the ranks of the disbelievers are growing daily.
______________________________________________________
One more brain teaser. Were you among those who wondered why the skies were left unprotected that day? After all, why weren't the
fighter planes scrambled in time, despite the long gaps between the first and second planes hitting the towers in New York, and before the Pentagon was hit? Was there an order to stand down?

Well. believe it or not, on 9/11 the entire East Coast was engaged in a NORAD air defense drill designed to prevent the hijacking of airliners by terrorists. So in addition to the actual planes commandeered by terrorists, there were similar training
exercises being conducted all morning involving dummy planes that showed up on radar, confusing those monitoring the situation.

Also, the planes that were responsible for defensing the air space above New York City were off on another training drill that took them to Canada and Alaska. Thus they were unable to participate in the defense of NYC that day. Did someone have foreknowledge of this exercise?

Interestingly, in June of 2001, two major military
changes were made in the chain of command. One, the responsibility for a "seamless coordination" of the nation's air defense system was transferred from the Joint Chiefs to the Office of the Vice President; and two, the protocol for shooting down civilian airliners in an emergency was transferred to the Secretary of Defense. On the morning of 9/11, Rumsfeld was missing for key stretches of time, while Dick Cheney was in a bunker below Washington, where he repeatedly convinced President Bush not to return to Washington until it was "safe" -- at one point even telling Bush of a direct threat to Air Force One that was later found to be a fabrication.

Testifying before the 9/11 Commission, Secretary of Transportation Leon Mineta said the following, which also never made mention of in the final "official" report:

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?"









Thursday, July 12, 2007

Last Best Chance

An occasionally lucid, sometimes rambling discourse arguing in favor of traffic congestion pricing for New York City, as well as other (hopefully even more onerous) anti-automobile measures designed to save the city, nation and planet from ourselves... now in the hands of a notoriously dysfunctional governing body known as the New York State Legislature, as Mayor Bloomberg continues stumping for his plan.

AT THIS WATERSHED MOMENT in New York City history, it is my contention that without passage and implementation of Bloomberg's plan (and soon) or one equally ambitious in scope, this is the City we're gonna be stuck with, a city overrun by cars and gridlocked by traffic, where the pedestrian is a second class citizen on his own streets. While other major urban centers around the globe are undertaking programs to improve their traffic problems, New York continues to do nothing to address the situation. Now New York is competing with eight other cities for its share of over $1.1 billion in federal mass transit funding. Only catch is, each city has to present a traffic reduction initiative based on congestion pricing to qualify for the funds. And of course the New York State Assembly can't agree on a plan, specifically Sheldon Silver, the speaker of that august body representing Lower Manhattan who is doing all he can to scuttle Bloomberg's pet project, much as he did just over two years ago. Difference being, we loved him when he blocked that stadium plan, and now ... not so much. Silver is just not a big Bloomie guy, as this quote makes pretty clear:

"The mayor … insists that he is the city, and he wants the authority to impose fees, he wants the authority to set a zone, and he wants the authority to purchase the equipment that’s necessary to implement his plan. He does not want anybody else’s view considered on the entire issue."

Whatever the real reason for Silver's refusal to get on board, it's more than a damn shame, because essentially the very same plan was implemented in London four years ago and, guess what, it's worked: cutting traffic by 15 percent the first year, with at most a negligible impact on retail business centers. But an organized opposition to Mayor Bloomberg traffic congestion tax on drivers entering Manhattan below 86th Street -- $8 for cars, $22 for trucks -- has stopped passage of the measure, which in turn would have immediately triggered some half-a-billion dollars in federal mass transit aid.












MEANWHILE, the city's nightmarish traffic situation has become all but unmanageable, with some or perhaps most residents throwing up their hands in despair and all but giving up. And maybe people believe modern urban traffic is one of those intractable problems that HAS no solution, like immigration and racial tensions. However, other large cities have actually tackled the problem head on with congestion relief and traffic calming initiatives that have gone a long way toward making the areas in question less stressful, where pedestrians and vehicles coexist and interact in more humane, civilized ways.

New York is one of the few major U.S. cities where you can still function without owning a car, one of the only metropolitan areas where the car has not entirely taken over every aspect of life, as is the case in suburb after exurb, with their office parks, malls, shopping centers in place of sidewalks, stores, shops. That's why obesity rates among children have risen steadily since more people now live in suburban areas than in cities nationwide. I'm just saying.

Who would oppose alleviating Manhattan's congested streets, and on what grounds? On the nightly news programs we saw drivers being interviewed, but not walkers; commuters but not residents; we constantly heard the viewpoint of car owners, but not lowly pedestrians. Most respondents were challenged by the facts, and usually resorted to rumors and half-truths to make their case. Others hid more blatantly behind lies, such as the cowardly Richard Brodsky, whose opposition rests on what he describes as an unfair burden the plan would place on lower- and middle-income drivers. What Brodsky and, indeed, most news reports fail to disclose when covering his study is that the Westchester Assemblyman is the recipient of the second highest amount of campaign contributions (of course some would call such donations bribes) from the parking garage industry. Brodsky had the gall to claim he is acting purely (nobly?) on behalf of the greater good, telling the New York Times, "We don't have any competing interests. We're interested only in the public interest, and the first thing the public interest requires is someone to actually look at the mayor's plan, fairly and thoroughly." But the parking industry's biggest beneficiary is (surprise, surprise!) another leading opponent of the Mayor's congestion easing plan: City Councilman David Weprin, who has received more than $40,000 in political contributions from garage and parking lot owners.

In fact, fewer than 5 percent of NYC residents drive to work, and lower-income, working class residents of course rely on mass transit to reach their jobs on a daily basis. But why let the facts get in the way when you can hide behind a phony populism? Brodsky represents New York's most prosperous county (Westchester), where per capita income of those who commute into the City by car is $176,000 (overall per capita in Westchester is over $66,000), but a large portion of Westchester residents also commute to the City via Metro North and other forms of mass transit.

The price of off-street Manhattan parking spaces precludes all but the upper middle class and above from being able to afford them on a regular basis. So let's stop this nonsense about the congestion plan being some kind of onerous tax on the poor and working class schmoes; they're not the ones coming into Manhattan to either work or shop at the status label boutiques or dine at 4-star restaurants. Besides, it's not a ban but a restriction; it's still free to come into overpriced, overcrowded Manhattan on weekends. At least for now.

But why do what's best for the actual residents of the City, who face the disastrous effects of traffic on a daily basis, including serious health problems related to automobile pollution and pedestrian deaths directly caused by vehicles. It would take the efforts of a thousand Al-Qaeda's to replicate the carnage & destruction that can rightly be "credited" to the automobile industry on a national basis. The difference is that we bemoan the existence of one while foolishly embracing the other through propagandistic ad campaigns that do their best to celebrate the myth of the open road as uniquely American, with the driver cunningly celebrated in countless cultural messages as master of his own destiny.

A recent study called Traffic's Human Toll conducted by Transportation Alternatives showed how constant auto traffic took a major negative toll on residents in four City neighborhoods, including Astoria, Brooklyn Heights and Chinatown. According to study respondents, New Yorkers "living on streets with high volumes of traffic spend less time outside and are more likely to restrict their children's outdoor play compared to people who live on medium and low traffic streets." The TA Report report also found that "residents on high traffic streets are twice as likely to be disrupted by traffic while they are walking, talking, eating, playing with kids and sleeping."

THE SADDEST THING is how many people have given up. Too many have come to terms with being helpless to change such an important quality of life situation. One Brooklynite offered this resigned perspective: "Compared to where I lived ... in Manattan, here we have nothing to complain about. Sure, the kids can't play ball in the street, but compared to the heart of Manhattan, this is downright pasture land."

Indeed, the days when NYC kids could play anything on a city street without being interrupted by a constant flow of cars is a thing of the long lost past, a distant rumor, a dying murmur. Just another long-dead ghost of New York yesteryear.

I remember growing up how this city was a walker's paradise, where your own two legs could carry you from one interesting neighborhood to another without being subject to wave after wave of cars, trucks, buses, taxis and, most deleterious of all, and modern bane of pedestrians the world over, the Sport Utility Vehicle blocking the way, making navigating the streets a living hell for all concerned.


It's not just that certain busy Manhattan streets and avenues at certain times are clogged, like during rush hour. Rather, it's EVERY street, EVERY day, EVERY time of day, ALL day, with literally no relief or respite. A year ago, the EPA reported that NYC's air quality is among the the worst in the nation; and cars, trucks and buses are responsible for at least 80% of the harmful pollutants we all breath in. Yet there are those who remain on the wrong side of change. In one news story, a small businessman expressed his opposition to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. "There are a lot of uncertainties," said Luis Nunez of the Latino Restaurant Association. "I live on 96th Street, and I get claustrophobic in the subway," he said. "If I need to travel ten blocks from where I already pay high taxes, am I expected to pay $8. It's unjust." It's all about Mr. Nunez, the claustrophobic, overtaxed Latino restaurateur, representing a subset if there ever was one. Hey, Luis, take a bus or walk, there's an idea. Okay, big shot, now it's $10 if you wanna come into the city! We'll come up with a special traffic plan just to accomodate Luis Nunez's special needs. Give me a fucking break, Luis!

Now, the Bloomberg plan is far from perfect but it's a good start. I was dead set against Bloomie when he tried to shove his West Side Stadium project down the city's throat. But this is different, this is progressive, it's enlightened, and it proposes the greater good for the most people in the City he was twice elected to represent. Not the parking garage owners who are spending upward of $150,000 in a concerted effort to defeat pricing congestion. Not the pols like Richard Brodsky and David Weprin who are in the cushy pocket of the parking industry.

HOPEFULLY THE NEXT STEP is completely banning automobiles from sections of Manhattan. A plan is already under way to do just that, with Times Square being proposed as the first model project. According to the Daily News, Bloomberg is trying to convince the City DOT to hire Jan Gehl as a consultant, who previously designed similar traffic-free zones for London and Copenhagen, to great success. If by success you mean an urban oasis that takes back the streets from cars and gives top priority to pedestrians, cyclists, walkers, perambulators, skaters, joggers, skateboarders and other natural forms of human-powered motion.

According to the July 10th Daily News,

Gehl spoke about Times Square and his vision for the city last winter when Sadik-Khan interviewed him for the New York Transportation Journal, a think-tank publication affiliated with New York University. Times Square is "beyond the brink" with too many cars and pedestrians cramming into an inadequate amount of space, Gehl said.

"We could take all of the pedestrians out of Times Square or we could take some or most of the traffic out - whatever," Gehl said. "I think that should be the strategy for reducing the vehicular traffic in this dense city." Bloomberg has proposed an $8 fee to enter Manhattan below 86th St. to raise funds to reduce pollution, improve mass transit and prepare for population growth.

"Another thing we can do is to reduce the number of parking spots," Gehl said. "I would raise the price for parking right away." The city also should consider taking parking off some avenues to transform them into tree-lined boulevards with wider sidewalks and outdoor cafes, he said.
"I question whether it is smart to have all this parking on the avenues which could instead be used for trees, benches and cafes," he said.

I really love this guy Gehl already.

Bloomberg's plan has been compared most often and for obvious reasons to the London traffic congestion solution orchestrated by Ken Livingstone, the visionary Mayor of London. Before he could implement his plan, which would make London the largest city to adopt a major congestion easing model, he had to overcome ingrained resistance to the idea that a large urban area could do anything to alleviate a decades if not centuries old problem. Livingstone was also vilified as a communist and socialist by business organizations and their minions in the press, and by various other special interest groups orchestrating opposition to a tax on commuting, as well as to the need for thousands of security cameras needed to help enforce the traffic ban at various strategic locations. And as Bloomberg can relate to, sizable numbers of the citizenry were also quite skeptical of Livingstone's plan, to say nothing of the criticism loudly voiced by the drivers and commuters themselves.

The London traffic congestion tax has had its share of critics, who argue the mass transport system is ill prepared to take on additional capacity; that small business is hurt by the decrease in traffic; that it hits the poor sections of society. But it's done what it was designed to do: significantly reduce car traffic, successfully lowering not only congestion but overall pollution levels (nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide by over 13 percent according to one report).













SPEAKING OF STUDIES, there has been a ton of market focus group research looking into the mindset of consumers who purchase SUVs and Hum-Vees. Despite a track record demonstrating that SUVs made drivers less safe on many quantifiable metrics, SUV buyers consistently relate that they feel safer behind the wheel, and similar gut feelings related to security and safety continue driving the stratospheric sales of 4-wheel drive vehicles more than any other factor -- trumping negatives like rising gas prices every time in consumer surveys.

So what kind of people buy and drive these kinds of vehicles? According to industry data, it's about what you would expect. (We'll leave drivers of Hum-Vees out of the discussion for now, because they wear a whole different brand of asshat, exhibiting a whole other strata of delusional behavior that goes far beyond the parameters of acceptable taste, social interaction, etc.) Extensive market research data shows that there are certain shared specific personality traits behind it all. According to internal industry reports, "SUV's tend to be bought be people who are insecure, vain, self-centered and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills."

Another key element contributing to the SUV boom, and why SUVs have become the most profitable vehicles for carmakers, is the perception of safety as opposed to the actual safety statistics and, even more crucially, "passive safety" versus "active safety." As Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly captures it in an article for the New Yorker called "Big and Bad": "Bringing five thousand pounds of rubber and steel to a sudden stop involves lots of lurching, screeching and protesting ... The benefits of being nimble -- of being in an automobile that's capable of staying out of trouble -- are in many cases greater than the benefits of being big."

As cultural anthropologist G.C. Rapaille puts it: "People who buy these SUV's know at the cortex level that if you are higher there is more chance of a rollover. But at the reptilian level they think that if I am bigger and taller I'm safer. That you can look down is psychologically a very powerful notion." According to Gladwell, another thing Rapaille discovered while conducting research paid for by the auto industry is that "car buyers feel unsafe when they thought an outsider could easily see inside their vehicles. So Chrysler made the back window of the PT Cruiser smaller. Of course, making windows smaller -- and thereby reducing visibility -- makes driving more dangerous, not less so. But that's the puzzle of what has happened to the automobile world: feeling safe has become more important than actually being safe."

I know most people don't think of themselves as selfish nuisances; they don't climb into their oversize vehicles and think of how annoying and harmful they're being, instead we all see ourselves as just going about our daily business and just trying to make a living. But you know what? That's no excuse. And since SUV owners purchase these vehicles based on non-rational, or Reptilian, impulses, appealing to them based on reason or logic in an attempt to discourage their injudicious purchasing decisions is bound to fail. Instead, I suggest mounting an anti-SUV campaign based on unrelenting derision. So all you SUV owners, whose ranks include members of my immediate family tree as well as close friends and even confidantes, consider yourself appropriately derided. Sternly so, you self-centered reptiles you.

100, 150 years ago, I'm sure there were critics decrying the amount of horse-drawn carriages running rampant on the same NYC streets or lamenting the number of people maimed or killed by runaway horses. Well, driving an unnecessarily large (5,000 pounds of mostly metal) and powerful (the engine provides thrust to all four wheels) sport utility vehicle on city streets in 2007 is like riding an elephant into town in 1897: it's stupid, senseless, selfish, and should be discouraged by any and all means necessary -- including the government providing financial disincentives to do so.

This issue speaks loudly to the necessity of New York City controlling more of its own destiny politically versus being controlled by forces hundreds of miles away in Albany. The blocking of the statewide minimum wage increase on the specious grounds that it will be harmful to the state's farm owners is another striking example of incompatibility between what's best for the City and what's good for the state overall. We are left with the unseemly spectacle of politicians representing areas well outside the city limits having an undue, even unfair influence on the lives of NYC residents. If government not only stops serving the greater good of its citizens, and in some cases works to their disadvantage, the whole system needs to be reexamined. But until and unless the outcry builds to an angry crescendo on this issue, it looks like the unacceptable status quo will prevail and what once was a city the whole world looked to for enlightenment will remain stuck in its own dark age to the detriment of its more civilized instincts.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO I saw a prone man bleeding profusely near the 59th Street & 5th Avenue entrance to Central Park. He was lying on the street, motionless, obviously the very recent victim of a vehicle that had struck him at what had to be a high speed. His black shoe, knocked off by the force of the impact, lay balefully on its side a few feet away. This seriously injured man -- mid-50s or so, heavy set, standard business attire -- didn't wake up that morning thinking he'd become a statistic, but it looked like he was all too close to being yet another New York City traffic fatality.

All around the unfortunate soul, cars continued speeding by, the angry faces of drivers contorted in grim masks of determination, all the while seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, pounding on their car horns when all else fails, progress marked solely by making the next light. If these drivers had to inconvenience or intimidate everything in their path, well, that's just the way it is.

The sight of the bleeding man really shook me up that day, and I had trouble getting the image out of my mind as I walked to work. It was a perfect yet sobering metaphor for a city that is fast becoming an irreversible bastion of alternating rage and sorrow for its inhabitants.
The great H.G. Wells once said, "When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." I'm afraid I feel the polar opposite when I see a young dumb-looking fat-ass driving a 2 1/2-ton hunk of metal while chatting mindlessly away on a cellphone.

Maybe I was just born a couple hundred years too late. It happens, you know.














Thursday, July 05, 2007

Emptying The Madhouse



QUICK TAKE on the unpardonable Scooter Libbyration: At first glance Bush is throwing a bone to his hardcore base by commuting Libby's sentence, but this will give Dems the moral high ground on the upcoming campaign trail. Karl Rove knew something had to be done quickly to get conservative editorial writers and right-wing talk show hosts back on board after the immigration bill fiasco. Amazingly, heirhead Paris Hilton ends up doing more time for drunk driving than a high government official convicted of perjury/obstruction of justice. And we don't even get to see Scooter crying for his mommy in the courtroom before his ass is put in stir. This comes down to Dick Cheney once again saying Fuck you libs, can't touch us. But what did you really expect from an organized criminal enterprise barely disguised as a governing body, like something straight out of a bad Sopranos episode. One thing to remember is that the #1 issue among voters in the 2006 election was corruption, so this could be a blessing in disguise in the long run if the Dems manage to spin it right.

Well, WFAN finally gave us something even worse on morning radio than blowhard Mike Francesa pontificating on subjects he knows nothing about: his afternoon partner, dopey Chris Russo, droning on and on, segment after dreadful segment, about Wimbleton tennis. Nobody cares. NOBODY! This is atrocious radio entertainment.

While hosting the morning slot last week, know-it-all Francesa hinted a few times, in his typically obnoxious way, that the I-Man himself soon could be coming back to the 'FAN fold in some way, but mysteriously left it at that.

Speaking of Imus, longtime listeners will remember how the news-obsessed I-Man would point out network newsbabes he was keeping an eye on. Well, I got one: Lara Logan of CBS. Sometimes she does stuff for 60 Minutes, but you'll see her almost nightly on the evening news reporting from Iraq or other hot spots. She's stunningly beautiful and obviously smart, but her sexy British accent (actually South African) is what puts her over the top. Memo to network honcho Les Moonves: Much more of her, much less of Katie Couric.

Mike Lupica of The Daily News has not only become increasingly annoying, courtesy of his steady stream of anti-Yankee cheap shots, but also more and more confounding lately. I used to respect his opinions even if I rarely agreed with them, whereas now, save for his occasional anti-Bush or Cheney column, I find myself disagreeing with almost everything he writes, while growing to detest almost everything about him. Is it just me, or have I tapped into something larger as usual?

Somehow there's no
th
ere there anymore when it comes to Lupica, despite (or maybe because of) his overexposure; he's lost what little touch he once had and now he seems to be adrift, flailing around in an effort to hit all the right Man of the People-type notes. How else to explain his sports novels for young people series that the News is always hyping, or whatever his corny-ass books for teens are called.

Lupica has on occasion "confessed" that it was the muckraking of writers like Jimmy Breslin that inspired him to get into the newspaper business in the first place. That's just a bad joke now, witness his recent column about American Idol being great family entertainment instead of the absolute dreck we all know it is. In his most recent Sunday column, the first half of which is taken up by yet another Yank-bashing screed, he writes,
"I haven't seen "Live Free or Die Hard," but my position has always been that Bruce Willis couldn't make enough "Die Hard" movies to suit me. " I mean, how pathetically mediocre is that sentiment? Stick to sports, Little Mike. Lupica becomes more like Larry King every day, and obviously that's in no way intended as a compliment.

Even when Lupica comes back down to earth and deigns to weigh in on one of the sports people actually watch, I am left scratching my proverbial head
once again. What do you make of this little beauty he threw at his readers last Sunday, when we all would have better off if he had instead tossed it in the trashcan? Out of absolutely nowhere and apropos of nothing previously mentioned in the column up to that point, he writes: "Say it again: The next time the Pistons are in the NBA Finals, send up a flare. And who cares about the Pistons, anyway? The Dallas Mavericks are my team." Whaaaahhh? Come back to us, little guy, if only for your family's sake.

And speaking of no there there, Steve Malzberg, half a schmendrick when it comes to politics and a total putz when it comes to almost everything else, has replaced Lionel evenings on AM radio outpost WOR-710. He comes on right after reactionary madman Michael Savage stops polluting the airwaves at 9:00, ensuring a fair & balanced look at the issues. I listened to Malzberg for literally less than 5 minutes the other night before I had to flee in disgust, but that was more than enough time for miserable Malzberg to repeatedly insist that the terrorists were waiting for the Democrats to take over the White House before striking the U.S. in a major way again. I'm tellin' ya, I'm tellin' ya, he stridently assured his few remaining listeners, with the absolute certainty common to the delusional right-wing punditry, but alas offering no plausible proof or reasonable justification for his ludicrous position.

Francesa's take on Michael Moore: "He's a good filmmaker, but who made more money from the War than him? This is a guy who takes private jets to talk to college kids!" I can think of a few guys right off the bat who are getting obscenely rich off the fiasco in Iraq. One is the vice president with his lucrative Halliburton shares, the other is Rudolph Ghouliani with his lucrative homeland security contracts ... each of these "sickos" in his own way has cashed in big on 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq.

Funny thing is, usually Francesa is first on line sucking up to the rich and famous, because he no doubt counts himself in such rarefied company. Witness his cringe-inducing, butt-kissing interviews with the former mayor, who jets around the country and charges much higher fees than Michael Moore to deliver his scary stump speeches,which exploit his self-inflated role in 9/11 while shrilly lecturing America on who should lead the endless war on terror (Republicans) and who should not (Democrats). It will be a great day indeed when Rudy Ghouliani is mathematically eliminated from the race, because even in these scary End Times, you can ghoul some of the people some of the time, but you can't ghoul all the people all the time.