News you probably missed: Colorado Rockies visit wounded vets at Walter Reed

Phil Rogers covers baseball for the Chicago Tribune, and this snippet (free registration may be required) comes from his Sunday column:

Some socially conscious teams take time to visit veterans at Walter Reed Hospital when they visit the Nationals in Washington. The Rockies were the latest, going Tuesday. The visit was voluntary, but the entire Colorado roster turned out to spend time with wounded soldiers. (Emphasis mine)

"For someone who has never spent a day in the service, to see what they have gone through, you feel so inadequate when they say, 'Thank you,"' Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "They have given so much for their country and are so proud of their country. There's a guy with no legs who says it's not bad. He can get a set of legs. He tells you it's the guys with no arms that have the tough deal."

Nice work, fellows.

MLB.com has more, and visitors don't have to register.

I did a Google news search, and discovered that few news outlets bothered to cover the Rockies visit to Walter Reed.

Technorati tags: Colorado Colorado Rockies Military Iraq Walter Reed Veterans Baseball MLB MSM

USA Today: Oops! Nasty crime, wrong state

Very good friend-of-the-blog and Illinois native Third Wave Dave sent me a USA Today story about an angry woman who clobbered a dog breeder over the head with a dead Chihuahua.

Dave knows I'm a chronicler of the decline and fall of Illinois.

However, the towns listed in the story, Wentzville and St. Peters, didn't sound familiar to me.

There's a reason for that. Those burgs are in Missouri.

Here's the headline of the USA Today story:

Ill. woman charged in alleged dead puppy attack

No one is perfect. Just yesterday I got the date wrong for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth.

Technorati tags: Missouri Illinois St. Louis Pets USA Today MSM Chihuahua

More on Truthout's Jason Leopold from the Washingon Post

Yesterday I had a post that briefly went in to Leftist writer Jason Leopold of Truthout's "scoop" that Karl Rove had been indicted for his "role" in Plamegate.

Via Pajamas Media comes this Joe Lauria article from the Washington Post.

In his nine-year reporting career, Leopold has managed, despite his drug abuse and a run-in with the law, to work with such big-time news organizations as the Los Angeles Times, Dow Jones Newswire and Salon. He broke some bona fide stories on the Enron scandal and the CIA leak investigation. But in every job, something always went wrong, and he got the sack. Finally, he landed at Truthout, a left-leaning Web site.

I met Leopold once, three days before his Rove story ran, to discuss his recently published memoir, "News Junkie." It seems to be an honest record of neglect and abuse by his parents, felony conviction, cocaine addiction -- and deception in the practice of journalism.

Leopold says he gets the same rush from breaking a news story that he did from snorting cocaine. To get coke, he lied, cheated and stole. To get his scoops, he has done much the same. As long as it isn't illegal, he told me, he'll do whatever it takes to get a story, especially to nail a corrupt politician or businessman. "A scoop is a scoop," he trumpets in his memoir. "Other journalists all whine about ethics, but that's a load of crap."

Leopold is a deeply troubled man who needs help. And, at least for now, he needs to stay away from blogging.

Oh, from Amazon.com, this is what Publisher's Weekly said about News Junkie last month:

Leopold, one of the reporters who broke the Enron story, is now breaking his own story: how he got addicted to cocaine, committed grand theft, cleaned himself up and found happiness as a "news junkie." While residential rehab programs and an incredibly committed wife were key to his turnaround, what saved his life was his discovery of the adrenaline high of news scooping. After a few small successes, Leopold got lucky when he began investigating insider trading by aides to California's Gov. Grey Davis and stumbled onto the extraordinary scandal of Enron's manipulation of utility deregulation in California. By the time Leopold was pressured into resigning from Dow Jones in 2002, he was one of the few reporters who'd actually interviewed Enron president Jeff Skilling. He then rushed to publish a flawed exposé of the secretary of the army's Enron connections, seriously damaging his journalistic credibility. Disillusioned by the institutional biases of mainstream media, Leopold finally decided to freelance with independent, Internet-based news services. While there's a lot of lying admitted to in this scrappy memoir, from Leopold's hiding of his criminal past to his playing of sources to get his scoops, it's (probably) not an untruthful memoir—indeed, it might become required reading for aspiring journalists.

Required reading, on how not to be a journalist.

Technorati tags: Jason Leopold PlameGate Karl Rove Truthout Journalism Enron Jeffrey Skilling

Technorati problems

For the past few days Technorati has been missing a lot of my tags, and those from other blogs.

When I tried to "ping" Technorati earlier this morning, I received an error message that the task couldn't be completed, because too many people were pinging. This doesn't make sense on a Sunday, as Martey Dodoo noticed.

Technorati tags: Technorati Blogging Internet search engine

Michelle Malkin joins Pajamas Media Blog Week in Review podcast

One thing I like about Pajamas Media's Blog Week in Review is that I always learn something new. Usually more than one thing.

Pajamas blogger Michelle Malkin is a guest panelist this week. I visit (and link) to her blog regularly, but I had no idea that she has a video blog site up called Hot Air.

The agreed-upon-among-the-panelists good news from Iraq is discussed, but the banter turns a bit nasty as Eric Umansky and Tammy Bruce bicker on whether Turkey is a democracy. I agree with Tammy, Turkey has elections, but it isn't a democracy.

The non-indictment of Karl Rove is now an Internet legend is the unanimous opinion among the panelists. Jason Leopold's Truthout blog is still operating, but what little credibility he had is gone. Truthout reported that Rove would be indicted, but in a weasely retraction by Truthout's March Ash posted the following week, that Leopold erred in "getting too far out in front of the news-cycle."

That statement will be used as a punchline on countless FreeRepublic threads.

Another Blog Week in Review topic is the trial of Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for defaming Islam. The trial is not taking place in Saudi Arabia but in Italy.

Moderator Austin Bay recommends this Opinion Journal article from last year about Fallaci, and I guess, the decline of Western civilization in Europe.

As always, Ed Driscoll does a superb job producing the podcast.

Technorati tags: Pajamas Media Italy Italia Fallaci Islam Karl Rove Turkey Türkiye Iraq podcasts Podcast Podcasting iPod blog Truthout

Pakistani man accused of blaspheming Islam murdered outside courtroom

Here we go again....freedom of speech is not alive and well in the Muslim world.

Pakistani contractor Abdul Sattar Gopang, who was accused of insulting Islam by civil authorities, was murdered Friday outside a courtroom.


From the Arab News:

Police described the attackers as "religious fanatics." The two were arrested on murder charges, policemen Rai Tahir said. Two policemen were wounded while trying to arrest the attackers.

"They have no regrets, they're smiling," Tahir said.

More...

In Pakistan insulting Islam, the Holy Qur'an or the Prophet is considered blasphemous and can be punished by death.

While death sentences have not been carried out, there are occasionally instances of enraged mobs attacking and killing people accused of blasphemy, including desecration of the holy book.

One of the accused murderers is a madrassa student.

Technorati tags: Islam Pakistan crime الإسلام blasphemy Muslim

University of Colorado's ethnic studies department feels it's under attack

Drunkablog is reporting that Ward Churchill's successor as chairman of the school's ethnic studies is whining that the board of regents at the University of Colorado isn't supportive of his department.

I'm pretty sure the department in this PC age is safe and will carry on and on.

But Drunkablog's post got me thinking: Merging that ethnic studies department and others like it (women's studies?) into the history or sociology departments isn't a bad idea. College tuition costs are out of control, an easy way to cut costs is to eliminate departments and slice into the bureaucracy.

It's a brilliant idea, which is its doom.

Technorati tags: Ward Churchill Colorado Academia Education tuition political correctness

Mr. Right has a Bush-Rove photo caption contest

Go to Mr. Right's blog, he's got a photo caption that both the Left and the Right can have fun with this Father's Day weekend.

Technorati tags: humor Humour Jokes Bush caption Karl Rove Fitzmas

Grandma's Marathon in Duluth is Saturday: UPDATED

It's surprising for non-runners to learn that one of the most coveted marathon race entries is Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.

The race always sells out, and hoteliers in Duluth and neighboring Superior, Wisconsin have given the event their ultimate seal of approval: rate gouging and 3-night minimum stay requirements.

On the positive side, runners who participate love the race, and downtown Duluth is turned into a Mardi Gras for sweaty runners.

I haven't run it, but Grandma's is on my to-do list.

The race name? It comes from a popular Duluth eatery.

UPDATE 8:30PM CDT: Actually the race was today, not Sunday. And we have the winners here!

Technorati tags: Marathon running Minnesota Duluth

Iraq the Model Pajamas podcast Live from Baghdad I and II

Shortly after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Belmont Club's Richard Fernandez interviewed Omar of Iraq the Model in a Pajamas Media podcast, Live from Baghdad I.

Omar comments on Zarqawi's death, calling it "the happiest news we've got in a long time."

In Live from Baghdad II, Omar talks about the security crackdown in post-Zarqawi Baghdad, and mentions that the mosque where Friday's suicide shoe-bombing took place is no stranger to violent attacks.

Technorati tags: podcasts Podcast Podcasting iPod blog Iraq العراق Baghdad War on Terror Zarqawi Pajamas Media