Dowbrigade

About
40 models are living on the side of a building as part of New York City’s
first-ever live billboard. Pedestrians are able to view the models as
they live in the billboard throughout the day and night.

The three-story display is a new fragrance advertisement from the Calvin
Klein Cosmetics Company.

Young models on the billboard have been instructed to create an illusion
of a big party 24 hours a day. The billboard features music as well.

The models will work through shifts through Wednesday night. They were
reportedly told not to drink on the billboard or perform risque behavior.

Let us get it straight. Calvin Klein is throwing an all-night party
without any drinking or risque behavior? Are we supposed to assume all
these hot models are high on life, or that they have consumed heroic amounts
of designer drugs and vitamin "E"? Are the people WATCHING allowed
to drink?

from NYC Channel
6

Once again, a blogger (OK, stretching
the definition here, but bear with us) has been fired from his job for
something he posted.  Only this time, it hits pretty close to home.  The
firee is ex-Boston Herald sportswriter Michael Gee, and he was fired
from Boston University, where he had been recently hired to teach journalism.

It didn’t take former Boston Herald sports columnist
Michael Gee long to lose his gig at Boston University. Just two weeks
after being hired to teach an introductory journalism course this
summer, Gee was asked to leave because he posted ”offensive" comments
on a website, according to Bob Zelnick, chairman of the journalism
department
at BU.

What exactly did he post? And how did the powers that
be at BU get wind of it? Here is the gist of his comments, posted at
a site called www.sportsjournalists.com:

"Today was my first day teaching course 308/722
at the Boston University Dept. of Jounralis (sic). There are six students,
most
of whom are probably smarter than me, but they DON’T READ THE PAPER!!!
Not the Globe, Times, Herald or Wall Street Journal. I can shame them
into reading, I guess, but why are they taking the course if they don’t
like to read.

But I digress. Now here’s the nub of my issue. Of my six students, one
(the smartest, wouldn’t you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you’ve ever
been to Israel, she’s got the sloe eyes and bitchin’ bod of the true
Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense
danger, Will Robinson."

What’s so bad about that? The irony of the case, of
course, it that it is the RELIGIOUS slur rather than the SEXIST slur
that got this dope fired. An educational institution that
is home to a student sex magazine called "Boink" cannot very well fire
a teacher for simply noting the exuberant physical endowments of one
of his students, especially as part of an introspective evaluation of
the difficulties of his didactic duties.

This Rove story definitely has legs. If we listen to the liberal press,
Rove long ago sold his soul to the devil in return for charmed political
instincts without which George Bush will revert to being just another
out-of-his-depth sanctimonious redneck braggart. Republicans are circling
the wagons and hunkering down while waiting for the ruckus to die down.

Meanwhile, the shitstorm from the blogosphere won’t let up. The administration
is ever-so-close to falling into the damage-control, coverup trap. The
opposition have visions of a wounded White House limping into the mid-term
elections.

They say loyalty is the hallmark of the Bush White House.  Could
it also be the fatal flaw that brings down the whole shady gang, or will
George find the spine and ruthlessness to lop off his own right arm in
pursuit of his persoanl and ideological goals?

Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant, said the Plame matter has developed
into a Washington scandal in which the apparent coverup is worse than
the crime.

”Everything is so tightly controlled in this White House," Fenn
said, referring to the Bush administration’s famously discreet operation.
”I’ve got to believe this goes all the way to the top. I think that
what we’ve got here is typical damage control — obfuscate, cover up,
and hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the behind."

from the Boston Globe

Now that various investigations are underway,
and people are on the record as affirming or denying, it seems certain
that this affair will,
in the great American tradition, wind up in court. Dems will try their
damnest to get Rove convicted, at least of perjury. Would Bush keep his
word and fire his good buddy and political lodestar? Stay tuned…..

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that
he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine
reporter
Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according
to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost
from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame’s name
to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial
information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them,
the sources said.

from the American Prospect