TODAY'S HERO INACTION

A Jacksonville, Fla, sheriff's deputy is on suspension after taking his sweet-ass time responding to a priority call to help a five year old child who was beaten, hit and repeatedly slammed around the room by her guardians.
According to reports, the nearest deputy was less than three miles away when the neighbors called 911 and asked for immediate help. And instead of responding to the priority call, the deputy elected to stop a driver to cite him for an expired license tag. The beating continued until the hero-who-puts-his-life-on-the-line-every-day arrived 24 minutes later.

HE MAY BE A PUPPET, BUT HE'S NO DUMMY

Proving he's smarter than our own Fearless Leader, and knows a train wreck when he sees one, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his boy in Iraq to pack their trash and get ready to scamper back to safer environs. Although the news was made public yesterday, the word came as neither a surprise nor a hasty decision. Great Britain has been pulling its combat troops out of the country for some months.
Despite the fact that the British drawdown marks a further disintegration of the more than 40-nation coalition that began the occupation, George "What Me Worry" Bush called the move "a success." There is no word on how the president is defining that term.

CATHOLIC CHURCH, POLICE BATTLE FOR TOP SPOT AS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

The police team suffered another minor setback yesterday in their bid to overtake the American Catholic Church and the mafia as top criminal enterprise in the nation.
The blow came when a referee red-carded a rookie cop in Anne Arundel County, Md, for forcing an 18-year-old girl to expose her breasts to him so he could "cop" [Oh, so thaaats where the term comes from!] a feel and photograph them with his camera phone.
Odds makers say, however, the penalty is unlikely to affect the game's outcome, as the Police have a staggeringly huge budget and are generally able to hire new players at will.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church revealed this week that its San Diego Diocese will likely file for bankruptcy protection after field judges there affirmed it must pay a several parties after being found guilty in lawsuits alleging members of that franchise sexually assaulted and abused several children. While the finding is expected to take the franchise out of the at least temporarily, it may not matter as the Portland, Oregon franchise appears to be ready to come back online after a break on the bankruptcy sidelines. Owners there have reportedly offered a $45 million payment plan to more than 150 victims of sexual assault and abuse, and that is well below the previous $75 million settlement offer made before the franchise was able to cloak itself in the protection of bankruptcy.
But both organizations still lag far behind more traditional and deeply entrenched crime organizations in their race for the gold. A spokesman for the Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union this week called the two organizations "pikers who keep tripping over their own deeks..... Joo have to remember, esse," he said, "in a criminal society, the only real crime is getting caught."

PAGING YOSSARIAN; PLEASE PICK UP THE WHITE COURTESY PHONE

The Washington Post is moving a story today about the dean of West Point, Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan, putting in an appearance, last November, on the set of Fox's '24' series to ask that the show dial back its depiction of inflicting torture on terrorists. The issue the good general had, it seems was not based upon any broad moralistic prohibitions but on the fact that his students point to the show as an example of the wonderful intelligence that can be gleaned from an exuberant application of physical and psychological torture. .... Okay, let's stop here for a moment to think about this. And never mind the fact that there are serious questions about the ability of these so-called "best and brightest" students' ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality, although it does raise the question of whether these dumb bastards should be allowed to even carry weapons. Instead, let's ponder the fact that Uncle Sam may be picking up the tab to educate sociopaths in the ways of warfare and weapons... Do the nation's military academies not conduct a metal health evaluation on their student prior to admitting them to school? And, if they do, is the bar set so low as to attract those who are likely to commit wholesale slaughter with little or no remorse?

THESE WARSHIPS.... WHAT WARSHIPS? WHAT BUILDUP? WE'RE THE GOVERNMENT, WOULD WE LIE

The Greman Press Agency is moving a story today saying the U.S. Navy is denying they are increasing their presence in the Persian Gulf. This, despite the fact it is very difficult if not impossible to hide an entire-freaking-carrier group. According to the report, a senior official with the 5th Fleet did confirm they are keeping an eye on what he called "unprecedented time of instability and insecurity in the
region."
The Navy's movement of the a second carrier group into the region is seen by many as preparation for some kind of incursion into Iran, although high government officials deny any move to open a second front in the region is imminant or even planned.

"NO, REALLY. WE HAVE NO PLANS TO ATTACK IRAN. WE DIDN'T PLAN TO ATTACK IRAQ, EITHER"

Trying to get out in front of published reports that what is laughingly called the "Bush Brain Trust" has formulated a plan to invade Iran, the administration has its pimps out on the talking head circuit doing the Repiglican Waltz. It's a easy dance to learn; simply side-step and deny, side-step and deny. Of course, it has to be easy if a doddering old fool like Ronald Reagan had to learn it.... Yesterday, it was Tony Snow's turn at the mic on VOA.Thing is, they're doing a lot of denying for something that's supposedly not even on the radar, and there's a lot diplomatic insiders telling the public and news media that the administration is likely to gin up scenario similar to the Gulf of Tonkin attack. Aren't you guys happy you voted for a Repiglican Administration?

FORMER BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SAYS THE WHITEHOUSE IS COOKING UP IRAN CONFRONTATION..... YA, YA , SIEG HEIL TO YOU TOO

"We have no intention of attacking Iran. The president said that. The secretary of State said it. I have said it before." - Defense Secretary Bob Gates on CNN Feb. 12, 2007

Is that a fact? Well, it depends upon whom you believe. In a televised interview of
former National Security Council Director for Iran and the Persian Gulf Affairs, Hillary Mann, she told CNN reporter Miles O'Brien a quite different story about White House plans:
M. O'BRIEN: So shall we take that at face value, or is the Bush administration drumming up support for another war? Hillary Mann left the Bush administration in 2004. She's a former National Security Council director for Iran and the Persian Gulf Affairs. She joins us from Washington.

Ms. Mann, good to have you with us.

HILLARY MANN, FMR. DIR., NATIONAL SECURITY COUN.: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: What do you think? Is the administration trying to gin up a war against Iran?

MANN: What I call it is a -- they're trying to push a provocative accidental conflict. They're pushing a series of increasing provocations against the Iranians in, I think, anticipation that Iran will eventually retaliate, and that will give the United States the ability to launch limited strikes against Iran, to take out targets in Iran that we consider to be important.

M. O'BRIEN: So you believe the U.S. is looking for a pretext for some sort of attack?

MANN: Pretext, not for an all-out invasion like what happened with Iraq, but a pretext to take out -- to degrade some of the nuclear facilities and to take out some of the buildings or the headquarters in Iran of the Revolutionary Guards, for example. And other power centers for this government that this -- that our administration finds to be so difficult and anathema.

M. O'BRIEN: Why? Why would the -- at this point, with all that the U.S. is dealing with in Iraq, why would the U.S. focus on Iran at this point?

MANN: I think it's -- we're now almost into year four of the Iraq war. It is, of course, by all accounts, is not going well, even by the Bush administration's accounts. The Bush administration has long seen Iran -- the Iranian government as fundamentally illegitimate.

The theocratic government there, the president has repeatedly said, in both public and in private, that he sees that government as illegitimate. It represses its people, and as long as it stays in its form, there can never be the democratization and peace and stability that he thinks needs to come to the Middle East.

That has long been the policy. That I think now what you see is the opportunity, both in terms of what is happening on the nuclear issue, what's happening in Iraq and on the terrorism front. Now is the opportunity to increase the provocations on Iran to force them to do something to us that would allow for a retaliation.

M. O'BRIEN: What is Iran's goal, do you think?

MANN: Iran's goal in Iraq or in the region?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, in Iraq -- and, I guess, extend that out to the region, as well.

MANN: I think Iran's goal is -- as they see themselves, you know, from my experience with them -- they see themselves as a very important power, as an anchor power in the Persian Gulf. They see themselves almost tantamount to Saudi Arabia. A very large country sitting on enormously important energy resources, geo-strategically critical both to the United States, to China to the former Soviet Union, to other powers in the Gulf.

I think what they are looking for is a recognition of their importance in the Gulf, their legitimacy, and for somehow for that -- for their role to be -- to be normalized in the Gulf and then, of course, worldwide, some acceptance of the Islamic Republic.

M. O'BRIEN: So, what would you suggest? What should the U.S. do to try to neutralize that potential threat?

MANN: I think we should do what Nixon and Kissinger did with China in the early 1970s. We should respond positively, constructively to Iranian overtures, to enter into comprehensive talks with Iran and to strike a grand bargain.

A grand bargain would mean we would have to make some concessions, and it would mean the Iranians would have to make some important concessions. But at the end of the day I think there is a path. The Iranians have put this on the table before.

There is a path to go forward to resolve the outstanding differences between the two countries, and eventually normalize the relationship, like the U.S. and China, like with what we did at the end of the Vietnam War in opening China to the United States.

M. O'BRIEN: Hillary Mann, thanks for your time.

MANN: You're welcome.

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McCAIN DONS LIPSTICK, SHORT SKIRT, THEN BENDS OVER FOR 'CHRISTIAN' RIGHT-WING VOTE

Having narrowly lost the contest for his party's support for presidential candidate in the 2000 election cycle to a man intellectually inferior to Homer Simpson, John McCain has apparently decided to dumb-down his message and public persona in hopes of garnering party support for the 2008 cycle. In effect, whoring himself out to the so-called "Christian" lobby, believing they are still the king-makers in the Repiglican Party.
In doing so, McCain marked himself not only as a whore, but an ignorant whore, blind to the fact of a clear political sea-change where the unwashed trailer trash who both lead and populate the vestiges of the 'Moral Majority' are quickly being marginalized and sent packing back to the fires of Hell from which they crawled during the Reagan Regime.
His pandering to that group makes a mockery of his 2000 'Straight-Talk Express,' and brings into serious doubt his integrity both now and during his last campaign.