Quick Takes on Today's News-

Scandals plunge stocks to new low for year 'Confidence has been completely destroyed' : Looks like W.'s speech really worked.

Speaking of which...

Bush raps loan practice that aided him President's anti-fraud crusade asks companies to halt the sort of stock purchase he made in 1980s

and

Video of Cheney extolling virtues of Arthur Andersen surfaces : How much are you willing to bet there'll be a "terrorist warning" soon.

Two Israeli's fired in boycott of (European) Universities
Okay, so the Web story has a different headline, but this is was the headline in the Chron today. I read a couple of months ago a story about why European's tend to be pro-Palestinian. The article said that one of the reasons is because most Europeans don't know many Jews. The reason, of course, is because they killed most of them. Oh yeah, technically the Germans did, but it's not like most Europeans didn't go to the Nazi's and point the Jews out to them (I'm looking at you France, Poland, Russia and the Vatican).

2 Teams Faced Close Call on Payroll: Typical baseball. The day after it completely embarassed itself at the All-Star game, Selig goes out and drops this load of crap, that two teams were gonna go bankrupt any day now. Brilliant PR move, there, Bud. While everyone is talking about how lame you are, you go and drop some more bad news on everyone. And it's not like anyone believes you because you've cried that wolf a hundred times before. I think the only people who believe Bud are the same people who believe there's value in Ted William's frozen dead body.

By the way, supposedly one of the team's was the Tigers. Didn't they just build some brand new, tax supported stadium?

Finally, a great article by Maureen Dowd on the Smugness of King George. I so love the line that Bush is someone who is "born on third base" but thinks "he hit a triple."

Bush talks like a populist but . . .