VICK PLEADS GUILTY

Well, this phase of the story is pretty much over, except, that is, for the sentencing. Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dog fighting charges. Sentencing is set for next Monday. Vick could get as much as five years in a federal prison, though most legal experts think it likely he'll be sentenced to anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

There was some pretty strong pressure for Vick to plead out. If that federal grand jury had come in with a superseding indictment alleging gambling it is quite likely that his NFL career would have been through. At least with this plea deal Vick might have the opportunity to resume his football career, possibly in the 2009-2010 season.

How are Vick fans reacting? Some with disgust for what he has admitted to doing, some with distrust of the "man" who is effectively ending his career – at least for the time being.

Here's one particularly pathetic posting that appeared on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website yesterday. The question was "Can Michael Vick redeem himself?"

Mike doesn't have to do a thing. Sometime over the next few months it will all come out that this was one big set-up and then all of you so called fans will be sorry that you don't have mike as your qb.

Here's another posting ... a rather good one:

Can he at least rehabilitate himself in the public's eyes? Sure he can. Look, I've lambasted him here as much as anyone. That being said, I'll listen seriously to anyone who sincerely apologizes, and then through his actions, shows he really means it.

Michael, drop the cocky, thuggish attitude. Say you're sorry, and mean it. Go on talk shows, and come clean about what you did. Give money (a lot) to animal-related and other charities. Straighten up your life, and drop your thuggish friends. TALK to kids, and teach them that "being from the 'hood" is no excuse to wallow in violent and lawless behavior.

Do all that, and I'll listen... seriously, too. And, I'll be the first to give you a second chance once you've paid your debt. Fair enough?

And ... as if you didn't know it would happen ... there are those who insist on making it a racial thing. Rachel was holding this race card for this particular hand, and just had to play it with this comment:

I don't understand the hate...The word "thug" is only a politically acceptable replacement word for the "N" word. What is a thug? and who and what defines who one is? Michael Vick will be well because I dont believe he is filled with the hate that is being directed towards him from all of these "haters" who are just that because of who and what he is. I only see the term "thug" applied to the media activities and actions or high profile black men.

And this gem:

Not in this time he would have been better off killing a black man. Then the white public and the feds wouldn't be so hard on him. There is justice for white america and a differrent justice for black america. Face it where I grew up dogs did't live in our houses, we didn't and don't kiss them in mouth nor do we value them above humanity. Don't care what anyone of you say Vick was a threat from the time he came into the league. Now that Vick and DJ are gone the falcons look like the birds of old. Welcome back blackouts.

And wherever people are posting messages you'll find someone like this who has obviously taken some time out from writing prose on bathroom stalls:

He can redeem himself in the eyes of his family and GOD. He doesn't owe his fans anything but a good game. For all of you who say he should be banned from football, What does Dog Fighting Have To Do With Football. When he serve his time the slate should be wiped clean. Remember he is very talanted. If he is banned from football he can play MLB.

Enough plowing through the AJC message boards. You think listening to talk radio is bad? At least we have screeners.

Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a good story by Steve Hummer, "The rise and fall of Michael Vick." There are really so many elements to this story. You have the growing thug culture in professional sports, the coddling of athletes from high school onward, coddling that includes both excusing and enabling criminal activities. Then there's the absurd level of celebrity worship in this country, the urban gangsta culture that cripples so many of our young black men before they even get a good start. More specifically, there's the pit bull thing. Most Americans would be shocked to find out how pit bull fighting permeates urban culture, especially here in Atlanta where the laws against this activity are amazingly weak.

Sentencing is next week. There's more to be written, more to be said. At the very least this is a tragedy for the Atlanta Falcons, for teammates who saw Vicks self-destructive behavior and either chose or were unable to do anything, for fans who had so much optimism about the Falcon's future, and, of course, for Vick.

Will he ever play in the NFL again? Hard to say. Certainly not for two years. There's a part of me that hopes he gets to stage a comeback and redeem himself.

Not a dry seat in the cockpit on the flight deck.

JUST A REMINDER ... WE ARE STILL RUNNING AMERICA

A study was just released confirming that opposition from "key talk radio" hosts killed the immigration bill in the Congress this summer.

The study was conducted by the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is part of the Pew Research Center.

Basically what they did is monitor conservative talk radio shows (Rush, Hannity and Savage ... darn I didn't make the cut) and see how much of their time was devoted to the defeat of the amnesty bill.

The results confirmed that talk radio covered immigration "much more intensively" than the mainstream media. Last quarter it was the most discussed issue in talk radio, followed by the 2008 campaign. On the other hand, immigration was the fourth-biggest story for mainstream media coverage.

The director of Project for Excellence in Journalism, Tom Rosenstiel, said that the influence of talk radio on the immigration debate included "the impact on presidential campaign polling ... and the fact that other conservative base issues such as abortion and gun control have moved to the back of the stove."

Rosenstiel also says that talk radio has the ability to "magnify issues."

Frankly, I don't care. If they didn't want to include me in the study, then just screw them. I'm really hurt here.

JANE FONDA'S TALK RADIO

While I was busy not running America, Jane Fonda was trying her hand in talk radio too. She launched GreenStone in September of 2006 with Gloria Steinem. Never heard of it? Well, don't feel pregnant.

Alas, GreenStone is now a thing of the past. It signed off officially last Friday. Another failed effort at left wing talk radio. That graveyard is getting rather full.

Apparently the "new left-wing radio network that plans to appeal to women listeners and counter the dominance of conservative talk radio" failed to gain any listeners or popularity. It was only picked up by eight affiliates. I've added eight affiliates in the past two weeks!

GreenStone was supposed to be "de-politicized, de-polarized talk radio by women hosts for female listeners," and would be different from other "ultra-right" talk radio, which is "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very much male-dominated."

Steinem is calling this a loss for all women. So ... all you women out there ... why don't you call in today and tell us how you're coping with the loss! If you can't call in, just send us an email. Tomorrow we'll post some of the best stories on how women are coping with the loss of GreenStone. Should be good.

FAILING GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TEACHERS

In the state of Massachusetts, more than half of minority applicants for teaching jobs failed the state licensing test. Government school teacher applicants are required to take this Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure. The astounding failure rate of blacks and Hispanics has become such a problem that the government has erected its own special task force to find out why minorities don't perform better. (By the way, the failure rate of white applicants is 23%.)

The state is concerned that federal rules attempting to improve teacher quality are too strict, and the state is in jeopardy of losing funding if they don't license all of their teachers. Yeah ... that's the way it goes. The hell with providing the best education possible for your captives, just worry about losing federal funding.

Education officials are also upset because this is hurting their progress in diversifying the school systems. They are so desperate that they are considering other ways to assess teacher competency. Truth be told, they're trying to figure out ways to assess competency that really won't assess competency. Of course we're getting the argument from deans of education schools saying that the tests are culturally biased and the quality of education that minorities receive is not good enough.

Yeah .. it's always about race. It's never because some people just didn't learn.

Minority applicants say that the tests include questions that only white applicants and/or people with a liberal arts background could identify with ... this include questions about ancient literature or the stock market.

Luckily the minorities have a liberal lawyer to the rescue. A lawyer from Cambridge is filing a class action lawsuit against the Massachusetts state Department of Education and the company who created the tests. I assume the minority clients who failed the test multiple times are claiming that the tests are biased and it is therefore not their fault that they failed.

Oh just in case you are interested, here is a link to the practice tests for these culturally "biased" tests.

Bottom line ... these people are working hard to put incompetent teachers in your child's classroom. Par for the course.

THE BBC IS AFRAID TO OFFEND WHO?

Well I shouldn't be too shocked about this one. The BBC was going to produce an episode of a show called "Casualty." The script called for a fictitious terrorist attack, conducted by a young Muslim girl. The young female would detonate a suicide bomb in London's Canary Wharf.

The BBC said no ... because the material would be offensive. Offensive to whom? Why Muslims of course. God forbid we should ever do anything to offend one of the Earth's precious Muslims.

The corporation's editorial guidelines department told them to change the episode so that instead of Muslims, the plot line would include animal rights extremists.

The point of the show is to demonstrate how emergency responders handle extreme situations. A cast member said, "This will be a very controversial piece but it's strong enough to watch and come to a human conclusion."

Anyway .. who ever heard of Muslims setting off bombs to kill civilians?

Put these idiots in power back in the 1940's and we wouldn't have all those great war movies. Instead of fighting Japs and Krauts John Wayne would be fighting Martians and penguins.

NAFTA SUMMIT AND PROTESTORS

All we really have to say here is take a look at some pictures of the protestors. Nuff said.

YESTERDAY IN HISTORY

Today, as 147 years ago, the 8-hour work day is for those who are satisfied with the status quo, those who have no real desire to advance economically. Be satisfied with your 8-hour day and you will probably going to advance beyond where you are right now. If you want to grow, if you want to rise above the middle class ... drive home in the dark.

JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THIS

Kirsten Powers was a guest on the O'Reilly Factor last night. The subject was the Mexican woman, Elvira Arellano, who was deported back to her homeland yesterday after twice sneaking into this country illegally and the using a false Social Security card to obtain employment cleaning airplanes at O'Hare airport in Chicago.

What Kirsten Powers said was so incredibly inane, so ponderously stupid, that I just had to go online and try to find out a little about her. She's a columnist for the New York Post, a regular contributor on Fox News, and a former employee of the New York State Democratic Committee. Well, the Democrat committee sure works. Oh .. and she also served the Clinton administration as a deputy assistant trade representative.

So ... what did she say that was so incredibly vapid? In arguing against deporting convicted criminal Elvira Arellano, Kirsten Powers said that she believes that people – all people -- have a "human right" to live in the United States.

God save us. What do you want to bet she ends up working in the next Clinton administration.

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

Here's another gem to add to our collection of redneck doghouses. More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

More Democrats are seeing positive results in Iraq. In the meantime, the moonbat left is still demanding "immediate withdrawal."

This is an excellent column about the National Education Association and the causes that it supports ... you'll be shocked to see how much power (and money!) they want to take away from you and give to government.

There's pork in homeland security grants! Who woulda thunk it? Are you folks starting to see the extent to which we've lost control of our federal government?

OK ... enough callers have expressed these same sentiments, so let's include this article. Some leading conservatives have expressed concern over Bush and the "North American Union." Considering what a disaster the European Union has turned out to be, perhaps they're on to something.

The FairTax makes it into another mainstream media article. This one in the Wall Street Journal and alludes to FairTax.org influencing the Iowa straw poll by paying for tickets to vote. Now when you see that bar graph there? Sorry, but it is incorrect.

According to a Financial Times poll, the British are more suspicious of Muslims than Americans and other Europeans. We're behind here. To not be suspicious of Muslims is to be walking blindfolded through a minefield.

The Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate Armed Services Committee visited Iraq, reporting that they are concerned about Iraq's political climate and that the U.S. may be creating a militia that we have to deal with again in the future.

Canadian communists are not happy about Bush's meeting, about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, with the president of Mexico and Prime Minister of Canada.

Time Out London published an article about all of the advantages Western culture would gain under total Islamization. A look into the future?

Investigators in the London airport plot recovered an email from the bomber who died from burns from the attack. The email, sent to a relative, said that he wanted to die for Allah, and it was sent just before the attempt at Glasgow.

Yesterday we were talking about Mormons and how Mitt Romney's faith will affect his candidacy. This author thinks that he can overcome this obstacle be he doesn't want to.

Remember the boys who were going to have to register as sex offenders for slapping girls' butts in their government school hallway? A judge dismissed the charges.

This is for all you government educated folks. Schools in Norway arm their students with gun and ammunition ... so that they can defend themselves against polar bears if necessary.

Two bank workers in China want to get rich quick so they stole $8.2 million over the course of the month. Then with their newly acquired fortune they went and bought ... lottery tickets.

A family in Florida was awarded $25.8 million after a 19-year-old pharmacy tech improperly filled a prescription, which resulted in the client's death.

Apparently frozen smoke is going to save the world. This makes me so happy.

A journalist infiltrated the Heathrow protest we were talking about yesterday.

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