In the seventh inning, during Ronan Tynan's "God Bless America," they booed the sight of Cheney on the right-field video screen.

Everybody should have a right to protect themselves from baseless and debasing sexual innuendo, particularly the kind that ridicules and humiliates. According to a US federal judge, however, that right does not extend to dolls - even Barbie.

Just shut up and drive Junior!!!!!!!

--F.J. Mitchell


Dale Jr. is also a big fan of gangsta rap and one of his best friend is none other than Snoop Dog, as I recall. Dale Sr. must be spinning in his grave. There's no doubting Junior's talent as a driver, but if you're looking for role models in NASCAR, you can do better than #8...

--Spook86 [Note: Little Freeper racism?]


there is no sport more tied with sponsors than NASCAR.....isn't KFC a new Jr. sponsor? [Mote: More Freeper racism?]

--rface


Earnhardt's new sponsor KFC privatley asked Junior not to alienate its biggest (pun intended) customer. That's all. [Note: Even more Freeper racism?]

--Cooter


If we ruined the careers of the Dixie Chicks we can ruin the careers of Michael Moore and Dale Jr. [Note: Think sold out concerts.]

--pete anderson


I have always thought Jr. to be a buttwipe! [Who could kick this Freepers ass.]

--lawdude


DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS. THOSE OL' REDNECK BOYS IN ALABAMA WILL STRAIGHTEN HIM OUT. [Caps Lock, "moran."]

--no dems


It's gonna backfire on the kid. He's gotten way too big for his (and his father's) britches. [Sr. has some big britches.]

--sarasota

Former Van Halen rocker David Lee Roth has quit music to become a paramedic.

...

Roth has moved from California to New York, and is living in a small apartment while he trains as an emergency medical technician.

He adds, "I want to be working in the outer boroughs. This city promises great color and insight in each and every neighborhood.

"On the upper East Side, it's gonna be heart attacks and stomach aches. But in other neighborhoods, it's all trauma."

While we all love Phil Liggett like that crazy old uncle who just got out of rehab, we trust his commentary about as much as we trust that uncle around our unlocked liquor cabinet. Has there ever been such a legendary sports announcer who is so often absolutely wrong in almost every prediction he makes about a race? I personally love watching the mountain stages, because almost as soon as Uncle Phil says that a rider has been written off for dead, you see that rider launch an attack like he just strapped a Saturn rocket booster to his back. Drunk Uncle Phil's alternate view of reality is fun, but it would make a great moment for us in the audience to see him get called on his completely ludicrous comments.

You at VeloNews have connections with Bob Roll. Can you get him, just once this Tour, to respond to Liggett with, "Are you still drunk or are you senile?" or, "Phil, I think 'Little Robbie McEwen' is gonna whip your ass if he hears you call him that again?" You just know that Bobke has it in him.

Monica Lewinsky says she feels betrayed by Bill Clinton's failure to acknowledge how he destroyed her life in his newly released memoirs.

The A.M.A. has its crisis states marked in red on a map of the U.S. on its Web site. One of the red states is Missouri. But a press release in April from the Missouri Department of Insurance said, "Missouri medical malpractice claims, filed and paid, fell to all-time lows in 2003 while insurers enjoyed a cash-flow windfall."

Another red state on the A.M.A. map is New Jersey. Earlier this month, over the furious objections of physicians' representatives, a judge ordered the release of data showing how much was being paid out to satisfy malpractice claims. The judge's order was in response to a suit by The Bergen Record.

The newspaper reported that an analysis of the data showed that malpractice payments in New Jersey had declined by 21 percent from 2001 to 2003. But malpractice insurance premiums surged over the same period. A.M.A. officials told me yesterday that they thought the New Jersey data was "incomplete," but they did not dispute the 21 percent figure.

Last summer a legislative committee in Florida, another red state, put insurance executives, lawyers and medical lobbyists under oath in an effort to get to the truth about malpractice costs. When questions about frivolous lawsuits arose, Sandra Mortham, the chief executive of the Florida Medical Association, told the panel, "I don't feel that I have the information to say whether or not there are frivolous lawsuits in the state of Florida."

Ruby Fair, 91, resides in a Louisville nursing home, with her care paid for since 2001 by the state's Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

The 162 acres she inherited in Louisville, in east Georgia, is the only thing she owns of value. But that former farmland — in her family for decades — may go to the state under a new program that seeks to recover the state's costs for delivering long-term care.

Fair's son Roy and her daughter Pat Lamb were among family members and advocates for the elderly who testified Thursday at a state Department of Community Health public hearing on Georgia's plan to go after the homes and other assets of people receiving long-term care under Medicaid. The program starts in August.

"Are they going to bear down this hard on our elderly population and go for the jugular vein?'' Lamb said.

"This is Vietnam revisited in every way," Cleland, who lost two legs and an arm in a 1968 grenade explosion, said in an interview Wednesday. "I thought I'd never see it again in my lifetime. I thought we'd learned some basic lessons."

...

"The human loss of this misguided policy in Iraq is excruciating," said Cleland, who is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Vietnam veteran Sen. John Kerry. "It's the untold message of war, and one of the reasons I wanted to be involved in telling it was to make sure that people understand the costs involved."

...

The film paints a parallel between wars past and present during Cleland's conversations with Pvt. Alan Lewis, 24. Lewis' Humvee hit an antitank mine in Iraq on July 16, 2003. He lost his legs.

Cleland and Lewis talk in the film as they sit across from each other, the old soldier in his wheelchair and the young one stretching out new prosthetic legs.

Cleland also visits the family of Spc. Jamaal Addison, the first soldier from Georgia killed in Iraq.

"I'm hoping that this film sheds light on the fact that there were a lot of assumptions and misconceptions regarding the war that led us into this hell," said Addison's father, Kevin, a postal employee from Decatur. "It's gotten worse over time, and there's no sign of it getting better."

When asked three times at a recent news conference whether the United States was torturing prisoners overseas, President Bush could have said no. "No" would have been the appropriate response from someone who prides himself on simple, direct language.

But the president did not say no.

Instead, each time he was asked, Bush sidestepped the torture question by saying that he had ordered American officials to abide by U.S. law and treaty obligations.

"The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations," he said the first time.

"What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law," he said the second time he was offered a chance to repudiate torture.

"Look, I'm going to say it one more time," he said the third time. "Maybe I can be more clear...

They say the blind man, Samuel McClain, drove the golf cart Saturday along two miles of winding paths through Peachtree City before crashing into a parked car.

Along the way, Michael Johnston gave the driver directions, after having drunk six or seven beers and "admittedly under the influence of alcoholic beverage," police said.

A doctor's proposal asking the American Medical Association to endorse refusing care to attorneys involved in medical malpractice cases drew an angry response from colleagues Sunday at the annual meeting of the nation's largest physicians group.

Many doctors stood up to denounce the resolution in passionate speeches even after its sponsor, Dr. J. Chris Hawk, asked that it be withdrawn.

Administration's moral compass lost.

I immigrated to this country from Holland in 1952, having lived through the Nazi era, and have always been emboldened by America's quest to right wrongs. Other than during the McCarthy era, this country has stood for justice and the rule of law. We corrected the wrongs of child labor, women not being allowed to vote and Jim Crow. We have always moved forward, closer to a more perfect union.

However, the prisoner abuse scandals at Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq have made it clear that the Bush administration, using Sept. 11 as an excuse, has taken us backward. Ignoring the rules of the Geneva Convention has put our own soldiers at risk and cost this country its moral standing in the world. I think the administration has lost its moral compass.

And shame on those who excuse this behavior as a necessity of this war because it is against a globalized enemy. What will they say when our solders are captured and treated like we treated the Iraqi prisoners; what will be their righteous indignation then?

LEO KLEIN
Marietta

Thou art hypocrites

The ridiculous assertion that Southerners support President Bush because he's a Christian is more than I can stomach ("Southern Christians like Bush's faith," Letters, June 9). Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are Christians, and conservative Southerners seem to harbor an intense hatred for both of them.

Maybe Bush practices a particular brand of Christianity that can be detected only by a particular brand of Southerner. I'm familiar with it. It's called hypocrisy.

ERIC PEARSON
Atlanta

U.S. Senate candidate Cliff Oxford, trying to neutralize domestic violence allegations by his second wife, now has been accused by his first wife of trying to browbeat her family into silence.

Oxford's second ex-wife, Caryn Oxford, has said she will support his candidacy despite their acrimonious divorce, which included allegations of domestic abuse. But Oxford's first ex-wife, Christie Oxford, will not be cheering his high-profile run for office.

Remember, a vote for George Bush is a vote for photos of butt-nekkid men on my television.

...and thats nasty if you ask me.

For now, Miller is keeping mum about his plans. Asked whether he would attend the GOP convention, Miller replied, “I don’t know. I’m not going to the Democratic convention.”

...

Miller no longer attends the party’s weekly luncheon meeting, after slamming Democrats in his book, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.

A House subcommittee told the Bush administration Wednesday to rethink some of its plans for nuclear weapons, including development of a "bunker buster" warhead.

The panel refused to provide money for development of a nuclear bunker buster, a weapon that can destroy a deeply buried target. It also denied funding for research into the feasibility of a low-yield "mini-nuke" warhead and for work on a new plant to produce plutonium triggers for the warheads.

"God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"

-- Ann Coulter, "Hannity & Colmes," Fox News, 6/20/01


"[Environmentalists] are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party ... I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."

-- Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, 8/19/96


Pete: "You probably weren't even born when Kennedy was killed, right?
Wayne: "Ted Kennedy was killed?"
Pete: "Yeah. There'll be a party at my place later." [Laughter].

-- Fill-in hosts for Kim Peterson, WGST/Atlanta, 9/11/03


"Kurt Cobain died of a drug-induced suicide, I just -- he was a worthless shred of human debris."

-- Rush Limbaugh, Lumberjackonline.com, 4/8/94


"[Gun-control activist Sarah Brady, wife of former White House press secretary Jim Brady] ought to be put down. A humane shot at a veterinarian's would be an easy way to do it. I wish she would just keep wheeling her husband around, wiping the saliva off his mouth once in a while -- and leave the rest of us damn well alone."

-- Talk-radio host Bob Mohan, New York Times, 1/1/95

The liaison can be dated from the summer of 1982, two years into the bloody Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was losing, with Iranian forces advancing deep into Iraqi territory. Saddam was desperate for help, and he found it at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Ronald Reagan decided that Iraq must not be defeated. Almost immediately, despite the fact that Iraq was then on the official list of terrorist nations, U.S. support began flowing to Baghdad, including precursor chemicals for chemical weapons.

The friendship was not without occasional disputes. In 1986, it emerged that Reagan, while aiding Saddam, was also providing assistance to the Iranians. In fact, during a bloody battle on the Fao Peninsula in January that year, both sides were operating with U.S.-supplied intelligence data. Reagan had to apologize to Saddam for two-timing him, make up for it by stepping up assistance to the Iraqi dictator.

There was one last favor for Reagan to bestow on his Baghdad pen pal. After an Iraqi chemical attack slaughtered some 5,000 Kurds in the city of Halabja in March 1988, there were moves both internationally and in Congress to issue protests and sanctions. The Reagan administration quietly stymied all such efforts. That's what friends are for.

In the light of their friendship, it would be only fitting if Saddam, wherever he is, were allowed to join with other world leaders, past and present, in expressing his condolences at the passing of a faithful ally.

-Andrew Cockburn, co-author of "Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein"

Trooper reflects Atlanta's tripartisan support

Attending the Libertarian Party's recent national convention, my wife and I found the downtown facilities excellent and Atlanta one of the friendliest cities we had ever visited.

A Georgia state trooper was so concerned about our safety that he decided to stop us alongside five lanes of I-75 traffic to cite me for not wearing a seat belt. I don't think he was a Libertarian, though.

I did not say anything yesterday about Ronald Reagan's death. The day a person dies he has a right to be left alone.

But yesterday is now history, and Reagan's legacy should not pass without comment.

Reagan had an ability to project a kindly image, and was well liked personally by virtually everyone who knew him, apparently. But it always struck me that he was a mean man. I remember learning, in the late 1960s, of the impact Michael Harrington's The Other America had had on Johnson's War on Poverty. Harrington demonstrated that in the early 1960s there was still hunger in places like Appalachia, deriving from poverty. It was hard for middle class Americans to believe, and Lyndon Johnson, who represented many poor people himself, was galvanized to take action.

I remember seeing a tape of Reagan speaking in California from that era. He said that he had heard that some asserted there was hunger in America. He said it sarcastically. He said, "Sure there is; they're dieting!" or words to that effect. This handsome Hollywood millionnaire making fun of people so poor they sometimes went to bed hungry seemed to me monstrous. I remember his wealthy audience of suburbanites going wild with laughter and applause. I am still not entirely sure what was going on there. Did they think Harrington's and similar studies were lies? Did they blame the poor for being poor, and resent demands on them in the form of a few tax dollars, to address their hunger?

...

The firing of the air traffic controllers, winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees that cause pollution, Elliott Abrams lying to Congress, ketchup as a vegetable, colluding with Guatemalan thugs, pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, public housing cutbacks, redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement, James Watt.

Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals, tax credits for segregated schools, disinformation campaigns, "homeless by choice," Manuel Noriega, falling wages, the HUD scandal, air raids on Libya, "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa, United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers, attacks on OSHA and workplace safety, the invasion of Grenada, assassination manuals, Nancy's astrologer.

Drug tests, lie detector tests, Fawn Hall, female appointees (8 percent), mining harbors, the S&L scandal, 239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut, Al Haig "in control," silence on AIDS, food-stamp reductions, Debategate, White House shredding, Jonas Savimbi, tax cuts for the rich, "mistakes were made."

Michael Deaver's conviction for influence peddling, Lyn Nofziger's conviction for influence peddling, Caspar Weinberger's five-count indictment, Ed Meese ("You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime"), Donald Regan (women don't "understand throw-weights"), education cuts, massacres in El Salvador.

"The bombing begins in five minutes," $640 Pentagon toilet seats, African-American judicial appointees (1.9 percent), Reader's Digest, C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed), 200 officials accused of wrongdoing, William Casey, Iran/contra. "Facts are stupid things," three-by-five cards, the MX missile, Bitburg, S.D.I., Robert Bork, naps, Teflon.


-David Corn, The Nation. March 2, 1998

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the former friend and adviser to Michael Jackson, has attacked the Material Mom, calling her a "slut" and a "vulgarian."

In a startling essay for SomethingJewish.Co.UK, the Rabbi blasts Phillip Berg, the head of the Kabbalah Centre, for letting the Material Girl be the religion's highest-profile spokesperson.

"Earth to Phillip Berg: Do us all a favor and dump Madonna as your principal spokesperson," Boteach writes. "Sorry to be so crass, but Madonna is a slut. Yes, she may sing, and she may dance. But she is famous for being a slut. And no religion dare have a slut as its principal representative."

As President Bush begins a week of foreign diplomacy, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice insists that he will one day rank alongside such statesmen as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

...

"When you think of statesmen, you think of people who seized historic opportunities to change the world for the better, people like Roosevelt, people like Churchill, and people like [President Harry] Truman . . ." she said. "And this president has been an agent of . . . historic change for the better."

Don King, the wild-haired boxing promoter, is touring the country with Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie to tout President Bush's re-election.

...

King's rap sheet makes him an odd choice for Bush front man. He was convicted in the 1967 beating death of a man who owed him money and spent nearly four years in prison. In 1954, he killed a man who was robbing a numbers house he operated in Cleveland, but it was ruled self-defense.

King also has beaten tax evasion and fraud charges, faced numerous lawsuits from boxers and their handlers and endured three grand jury investigations and an FBI sting operation -- all while cementing his status as one of the world's top boxing promoters.

Unsuspecting commuters trying to exit I-85 north to Ga. 400 got a blood-boiling surprise Wednesday morning when they found one of two exit lanes had been crossed out.

The resulting bottleneck backed up traffic for miles, ticking off confused drivers who could have sworn there were two lanes the day before

...

[Spokeswoman Vicki] Gavalas said department engineers believe once drivers get the hang of the single-lane setup they will merge sooner and reduce backups.

"We think there is a bit of a learning curve," Gavalas said. "We're asking folks to bear with us the next couple of weeks as we evaluate the impact."

CBS News obtained a videotape showing potty-mouthed Enron traders gleefully cheering on a forest fire that shut down a major transmission line in California ("Burn, baby, burn") and generally gloating over bringing on and cashing in on the energy crisis in the West four years ago.

We had to close our small business, which included two carpet retail stores, because we could not compete with big business. Now we hear that Georgia spent millions to help big business ruin small businesses ("$19 million in public money spent on Wal-Mart in Georgia," Business, May 25). That is using our tax money against us.

I was amused by professor David Franklin's overwrought sense of self-importance as he castigated Zell Miller.

It is clear that ol' Zell has mellowed -- a few years ago, he would have gone to teach at Young Harris College anyway and dented that young prof's ego by whipping his butt.

The preoccupation with Weapons of Mass Distraction gets back to a stubborn fixation with the September 11th template, assuming any sequel is bound to unfurl around a do-it-yourself arsenal similar to that used by the original 19 skyjackers. Terrorists, the intercepted messages and payrolled tipsters inform us, are again targeting airliners. But while I don't know exactly what an al-Qaida operative might have in store, I'm skeptical of one thing, which is the likelihood of another suicide skyjacking. The skyjack model, it's critical to note, is forever changed, as never again will anybody believe a purloined plane is headed to Havana, Beirut, or anywhere but into the side of a building. I can't imagine anybody making it two steps up the aisle, to say nothing of into the cockpit, with less than a bucket of pinless grenades balanced on his head.

...

Antipodal as it may sound in the current climate, the true deadly weapon on Sept. 11 wasn't anything tactile. It was surprise. The tool of choice, had it been boxcutters, butter knives, or bare knuckles and a shod foot, was effectively unimportant. We needn't scapegoat airport workers, the FAA, or anybody who wears the uniform of an air carrier.