So maybe its not such a great idea to jump into the online poker game right now - U.S. steps up fight against gambling on the Internet.

But in early April, federal marshals seized $3.2 million from Discovery Communications, the television and media company, in an aggressive effort to crack down on a new target: Internet gambling. The money initially belonged to Tropical Paradise, a Costa Rica-based Internet casino operation that in October paid Discovery for television spots to advertise an online poker room, ParadisePoker.com.

According to court documents, the government seized the funds and told Discovery, which is based in Silver Spring, Maryland, that it could be party to an illegal activity by broadcasting such advertisements.

While its good to see the NY Times admitting mistakes in its Iraq war coverage (the leadup, not the actual conflict), I can't help but feel they may be overstating their apology here. The gist of their apology is that they overstated the case for Iraq's WMDs. The problem is that we've already found a sarin gas shell, which means the possibility of finding more still exists.

So what happens if 6 months from now, we run across a cache full of sarin shells, or some other kind of WMD? Then what? Is the NY Times going to apologize for their hasty apology? Or are they now locked into the story of 'there are no WMD'. Sentences like the following from the linked article are what concern me:

No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were found in Iraq after the invasion.

Such a blatently false sentence in an article about the NY Times coming clean is troubling to say the least.

Jim picks up on something I was going to write about - the HBO show Deadwood and the word 'cocksucker'. You can't talk about one without mentioning the other.

Tonight the word "cocksucker" was said 38 times. In a 50 minute show. That�s a "cocksucker" for ever 1.32 minutes of airtime. That, my friends, is a lot of "cocksuckers."

The thing is, I barely noticed it was said more than in the previous episodes. The word is used so damn often, there ought to be a drinking game for it. Just make sure you have a big supply of booze, you'll need it.

Deadwood also drives Stacy nuts. 'Soap opera for guys' she says. 'I don't think they used the word 'cocksucker' way back then, she says.

Kramer had it right, clowns are creepy. And to prove it, here's the mugshot of a Ringling Bros. clown who was arrested this week on 10 felony charges of child porn. He picked a really appropriate name too, Spanky. Here's our local wierdo, Troubles.

In their zeal to believe everything bad about the Bush administration, how many lefty bloggers have fallen for the military digital camera ban that Rumsfeld supposedly has ordered. The Register says its a hoax.

Because MiniEd has been dying for it: a breakdown of the meaning behind colored 'sex bracelets'. But don't get too excited fellas:

Tricia: It was all just kind of a joke, though, 'cause you could always change the meanings depending on what you wanted to do. Like if you were with a guy and you didn't like him that much, you could just say, "Oh no, purple doesn't mean doggy style; it means holding hands." You could just make it up.

Does anybody know about or have experience with Neteller? They are a Paypal type organization that I want to use to get some money into an online casino. Of my options for the casino in question - Poker Room - they seem to be the best, but I just can't quite convince myself to fork over bank account info without doing some investigating first.

Just got back from Shrek 2. Like most sequels, it doesn't live up to the original - but this one at least comes close.

The 1st half to 2/3rds of the movie is flat out slow. Not much comedy, lots of anguish and time filler crap. Its not until Shrek gets arrested that it gets really funny. But, from there on out, this movie is great. Lots of action, lots of jokes - and the arrest scene itself is comedy gold.

A high school student was suspended for running a write-in campaign for class vice-president. Seems he didn't meet the new GPA requirement to be an official candidate, and didn't like the rule, so he put up some posters and launched his campaign.

But the school didn't stop there, 6 more students were suspended over the episode. Their crime - insubordination - for wearing little stickers on their shirts in support of the then-suspended write-in candidate.

Welcome to democracy kids!

Well, somebody had to fill the void left by the departure of the Iraqi Minister of Information, and it looks like our winner is in Cuba: Castro's Doctor Says He'll Live To 140.

But Mr Castro is healthy enough to live at least 140 years, said Mr Selman, who heads a "120-years Club" that promotes wholesome habits for the elderly.

"I am not exaggerating," said Mr Selman, who believes people are capable of living five times the number of years it takes for the human body to fully grow - which he said is around 25 years.

Somebody is selling live cicadas on eBay. The Buy It Now is $4.99 which seems steep considering they don't even come with recipes.

Cicadas Kill! Run for your lives!

FACT: Cicadas are vicious killers.

FACT: Cicadas prey on innocent children and pets.

FACT: Cicadas are seething with deadly venom and flesh-eating bacteria.

FACT: This year Cicadas in Cincinnati will kill more people than snakes, spiders, scorpions, and sharks combined!

The current headline breaking news item at Fox (and Reuters and The Scotsman): Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq. The sarin was found in an artillery shell that exploded in an apparent attempted roadside attack.

All of which makes this little exchange in a previous comment thread more than a bit funny.

[23] - Brooke: Besides I have a good friend who is an officer with the 82nd airborne and he pesonally captured several vials of viable sarin gas in the early days of the war.

[24] - Nate: Sarin? Don't make me laugh. The way the Bush administration has played up every possible shred of evidence of Saddam's weapons activity, I have no doubt that that would have been plastered all over the news as evidence of the correctness of the decision to go to war.

A big update on the Boston Globe and the fake Iraq prisoner abuse photos they published.

Lies, damn lies and RIAA sales statistics.

The Boston Globe is apologizing for running porn photos in yesterday's paper which were purported to be of US miltiary personnel raping Iraqi women, but were actually taken from the porn site Sex In War. The photos in question were known to depict porn and not rape at least as early as May 4th.

The problem is that the Globe still isn't addressing the real issue. Running graphic photos is a mistake, and a simple one at that. Running photos that have been shown to be fake over a week earlier and calling them 'unverified' is not a simple mistake, its irresponsible.

One of the additionally unfortunate elements of the photo was that it made the accompanying story on Turner seem less skeptical. "Our intent . . . was to bring some scrutiny to allegations" by Turner "specifically his claims that he had evidence of extensive abuse committed by US soldiers," says Metro Editor Carolyn Ryan. Instead, the photo seemed to give weight to his case.

Imagine that. You take a public figure who's respected enough to generate news by simply calling a press conference, and when he produces photos established to be fakes, you simply run the photos and what he said, and say its 'unverified'. Well, thats bullshit. It was verified - as fake. And if its so important to 'bring some scrutiny to allegations' by Turner, why the hell didn't the Globe staff scrutinize the photos and his story before running it. At least some Turner's collegues have condemned him.

If you want to condem Chuck Turner, here's his contact page.

The Great Satan has a disturbing/funny round-up of the Nick Berg conspiracy theories floating around on the DU boards. There is also a transcript of a Dem Congressman insulting one of his constituants and claiming he (the constituant) can't spell. Classy stuff all around.

UPDATE: Now Al Jazeera is claiming 'bloggers' are questioning the authenticity of the Berg video. I wonder who those bloggers could be?

How long until little kids find out about this one and figure it's a good excuse to get out of bathing? Researchers have found that shampoos (and soaps) contain an ingredient that robs your brain of the ability to make memory cells.

Wow. Movable Type just basically priced itself out of the blog market, unless you only have 1 author and 3 or less blogs on an installation. Here's the MeFi discussion.

Not suprisingly, their pricing structure is going over like a rock. More discussion here.

I'll either find another tool to use, or not upgrade to the 3.0 versions. We'll see how this plays out over the next week, but I'm guessing that their prices are set at such a level that they won't generate near the revenue they were expecting.

UPDATE: The discussion on MeFi and other places is definately turning more harsh as it continues, with many people complaining that their MT license fees would run about $150 - at a minimum. Thats not horrible, but when we are talking about folks that have a little-read semi-personal site with maybe 150 visitors a day, its way too much money. For a company that was once as plugged-in to the weblog community as Six Apart was, it seems to me that they failed to ever take a look at how their existing 'normal' users were using their software before creating a pricing structure. Requiring any installation with more than one author to pay a minimum of $70 is rather crazy.

Its too early to tell if Lynndie England is telling the truth when she claims she was ordered to mistreat the Iraqi prisoners. Honestly, it wouldn't suprise me either way. But her credibility and the support from her relatives in the media isn't going to go very far with the public if the NY Post story about photos of her having sex with other soldiers on these prisoner abuse CDs is true.

In an interview this morning on A-B-C's "Good Morning America," Jessica Klinestiver said she was upset and felt her sister was being a scapegoat. Klinestiver says she's outraged because it's not like her sister to do anything like what's been portrayed in the pictures.

Maybe if I ask real nice, Jeep will actually mass procuce one of their latest concept vehiches - the Jeep Rescue. Its like a miniature H2. Big image.

Kos admits that the Democrats are the party of appeasement! Just not in the way that popped into your head there. ;)

Oh, and here was Kos' reaction to the news that American independant contractor Nick Berg was decapitated after being taken hostage by terrorists in Iraq:

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

Oops, that was his reaction last time some American contractors were killed on tape. This time Kos' reaction was more civilized. I'm still not sure which reaction I believe.

UPDATE:Kos now has 2 posts about this topic. In one a Republican congressman is an 'asshole' for adding fuel to the fire - there is no similar ire directed at the terrorists. In the 2nd, Kos lays Berg's death at Bush's feet.

So I see that a lefty congressional candidate has co-opted the WW2 poster that this site is designed around as a graphic exclaiming 'Rumsfeld Must Resign'. But why did he crop out the warplanes and soldiers from the graphic?

Its interesting that Cheney has been criticized for seeking and getting a deferment to keep himself out of the Vietnam war, yet John Kerry also sought, but was denied, a deferment to keep himself out of the Vietnam war. [via Musil]

The quotes from the Right in the article are way overplayed. This is more of an 'hmmm' item than a 'gotcha'

Congress is looking at amending DCMA to allow for backup copies to be made of DVDs. This will end up being a huge fight if it gets that far.

Everytime Bush says something stupid about Rumsfeld, he probably loses an electoral vote or so.

"Thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You are doing a superb job," Bush said at the beginning of televised remarks to reporters.

I'm torn on whether Rumsfeld should be fired or resign, but I can see no possible way to describe his job performance as superb. I'd hate to see what would have to happen for him to get a poor performance review from Bush.

Mickey Kaus is tearing up John Kerry

PS It's always an underling's fault with Kerry, isn't it? He doesn't fall! The Secret Service guy got in the way. He doesn't engage in 'Benedict Arnold' demagoguery! It was those wacky speechwriters. He didn't want Carter or Baker as envoys. That was an aide's mistake. Do we think that if Kerry were president he'd take any blame for the Abu Ghraib abuses? ... P.P.S.: And does Bob Shrum think Kerry will be loyal to him if his big new TV ad buy doesn't 'move the needle'? ... [But how is Kerry going to wriggle out of promises he personally made to the Jewish leaders?--ed. It turns out they were actually meeting with Kerry's overzealous body-double! You can hardly hold Kerry himself responsible for his stand-in's constant screw-ups.

Michael Moore is exposing himself as a liar. Were the rest of us not doing a good enough job?

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film...

Moore2: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

Moore told CNN that Disney had "signed a contract to distribute this [film]" but got cold feet.

But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.

Matrix co-creator Larry Wachowski (who we already knew was a cross-dresser) is going to have a sex change operation.

According to those close to the extremely reclusive duo, Larry is about to finally become "Linda.'' Wachowski, who has been living and dressing as a woman for some time, reportedly is preparing to take the final step and have sex-change surgery. As always, it was impossible to get any comment from the press-shy Wachowskis, but several longtime friends of the Rogers Park native confirm Wachowski is planning to complete the process of becoming a woman.

Cattle Hunter - it made me laugh.

Combining the sport of 'Trophy Hunting' and cattle farming for consumtion, CattleHunter.com has turned an otherwise mundane process of slaughtering cattle into an enriching life experience for disabled teenagers and adults.

The US/British abusing inmates in the Iraqi prisons reminds me a bit of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Having only general knowledge of what went on in the Experiment, it seems that perhaps our MPs and guards were falling into the same type of 'syndrome/pattern of activity' as the guards in the Experiment did.

John Kerry, March 19th: "I don't fall down" after falling down on his snowboard, blaming it instead on a secret service agent, claiming he was 'knocked' down.

May 2, John Kerry falls down while riding his bicycle with no secret service agent to blame it on this time.

But this isn't inconsistent, or unnecessary bragging on the part of Kerry. Nah, these weren't really falls, Kerry was just flipping over.

Tomas has an important post for anyone using GMail that discusses a quirky security flaw that can expose your 'secret question' password. Hint: if you don't have a pet, you are probably safe.

The official site for the new Will Ferrell movie - Anchorman is up, along with a trailer and some extra footage. It looks like it'll be funny.