WTF Is It Now?!?

Quotes of the Day
"Too many of them are so cowed by Bush you can almost hear them moo." - Paul Begala on the repub-lite party pink tutu'd lapdogs spineless pussies Democrats, in the BuzzFlash interview.

"As for Vin Weber and the other shrieking Republicans, their conduct during the Clinton years offered no hint of the delicate sensibilities they now display. Their tantrum is undignified and silly, too. Inappropriate remarks are a hazard of unscripted wakes and memorials, as anybody who has attended a few of them probably knows. In fact, with the human emotions arising from this tragedy, and the tensions surrounding the upcoming election, it's fortunate that nothing worse happened in front of TV cameras and 20,000 people. The opportunism of Rush Limbaugh and the other whiners was entirely predictable. No complaints need be entertained from the ghouls who have exploited so many deaths for political reasons, from Vince Foster to the children of Susan Smith." - Joe Conason, on the repukes' hypocritical hissyfit after the Wellstone memorial.




Shot by a hog and you're to blame...
A man was fatally shot Saturday in a hog butchering accident, the Becker County (Minnesota) Sheriff's Office said. Authorities said the hog was shot with a .22-caliber rifle by one of the men doing the butchering on a farm near Frazee. The animal fell backward but then jumped forward, knocking the shooter down and causing the rifle to discharge. The bullet struck John Matson, 55, of Frazee. He died at MeritCare Hospital in Fargo. The shooting was ruled an accident.





Busted!
The NY Times gets called - and spanked - on their "coverage" of the Washington anti-war rally, in Editor and Publisher:

Did 'New York Times' Blow Coverage of Antiwar March?
The story in The New York Times looked about right: top of the page, a five-column head, and a huge photo of marchers outside the White House. After all, as the story made clear, the demonstration in Washington, D.C. had far exceeded everyone's estimates, with turnout at least 100,000, or more, making it probably the biggest antiwar protest in the nation's capital since the height of the Vietnam war. No wonder it got major play.

There was just one problem: The march took place last Saturday and the story did not run until today.

The story, on A17, by Kate Zernicke, had "make-up article" written all over it, possibly in response to many organized protest letters sent to the Times since the paper's weak, and inaccurate, initial article about the march on Sunday.

That much-briefer Sunday piece had observed, "Fewer people attended than organizers had said they hoped for...Participants said the shootings in and aournd the city in the last three weeks had kept people from planning to visit Washington."

In today's article, however, the Times disclosed that the marchers formed a "two-mile wall" outside the White House, that march organizers had taken out a permit for just 20,000 attendees (and five times that many came) and expected just 30 buses loaded with marchers (and 650 buses showed up). The article, showing further evidence of "make-up" mentioned other demonstrations last week, and those planned for the future around the country, quoted several antiwar activists, and described numerous other anti-war efforts, including vote referendums and online petitions.