DeLaWho? DeLaWhat? DeLaWhere?

via The New Yorker
ANNALS OF NATIONAL SECURITY

THE COMPANY WARS
by Seymour M. Hersh
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.

Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17

George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush’s reëlection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America’s support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing.

“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”

Bush and Cheney may have set the policy, but it is Rumsfeld who has directed its implementation and has absorbed much of the public criticism when things went wrong—whether it was prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib or lack of sufficient armor plating for G.I.s’ vehicles in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for Rumsfeld’s dismissal, and he is not widely admired inside the military. Nonetheless, his reappointment as Defense Secretary was never in doubt.

Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term. In interviews with past and present intelligence and military officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld’s responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon’s control. The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) “The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “They don’t even call it ‘covert ops’—it’s too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it’s ‘black reconnaissance.’ They’re not even going to tell the cincs”—the regional American military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. “Everyone is saying, ‘You can’t be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,’” the former intelligence official told me. “But they say, ‘We’ve got some lessons learned—not militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of there.”

For more than a year, France, Germany, Britain, and other countries in the European Union have seen preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as a race against time—and against the Bush Administration. They have been negotiating with the Iranian leadership to give up its nuclear-weapons ambitions in exchange for economic aid and trade benefits. Iran has agreed to temporarily halt its enrichment programs, which generate fuel for nuclear power plants but also could produce weapons-grade fissile material. (Iran claims that such facilities are legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or N.P.T., to which it is a signator, and that it has no intention of building a bomb.) But the goal of the current round of talks, which began in December in Brussels, is to persuade Tehran to go further, and dismantle its machinery. Iran insists, in return, that it needs to see some concrete benefits from the Europeans—oil-production technology, heavy-industrial equipment, and perhaps even permission to purchase a fleet of Airbuses. (Iran has been denied access to technology and many goods owing to sanctions.)

The Europeans have been urging the Bush Administration to join in these negotiations. The Administration has refused to do so. The civilian leadership in the Pentagon has argued that no diplomatic progress on the Iranian nuclear threat will take place unless there is a credible threat of military action. “The neocons say negotiations are a bad deal,” a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) told me. “And the only thing the Iranians understand is pressure. And that they also need to be whacked.”

The core problem is that Iran has successfully hidden the extent of its nuclear program, and its progress. Many Western intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, believe that Iran is at least three to five years away from a capability to independently produce nuclear warheads—although its work on a missile-delivery system is far more advanced. Iran is also widely believed by Western intelligence agencies and the I.A.E.A. to have serious technical problems with its weapons system, most notably in the production of the hexafluoride gas needed to fabricate nuclear warheads.

A retired senior C.I.A. official, one of many who left the agency recently, told me that he was familiar with the assessments, and confirmed that Iran is known to be having major difficulties in its weapons work. He also acknowledged that the agency’s timetable for a nuclear Iran matches the European estimates—assuming that Iran gets no outside help. “The big wild card for us is that you don’t know who is capable of filling in the missing parts for them,” the recently retired official said. “North Korea? Pakistan? We don’t know what parts are missing.”

One Western diplomat told me that the Europeans believed they were in what he called a “lose-lose position” as long as the United States refuses to get involved. “France, Germany, and the U.K. cannot succeed alone, and everybody knows it,” the diplomat said. “If the U.S. stays outside, we don’t have enough leverage, and our effort will collapse.” The alternative would be to go to the Security Council, but any resolution imposing sanctions would likely be vetoed by China or Russia, and then “the United Nations will be blamed and the Americans will say, ‘The only solution is to bomb.’”

A European Ambassador noted that President Bush is scheduled to visit Europe in February, and that there has been public talk from the White House about improving the President’s relationship with America’s E.U. allies. In that context, the Ambassador told me, “I’m puzzled by the fact that the United States is not helping us in our program. How can Washington maintain its stance without seriously taking into account the weapons issue?”

The Israeli government is, not surprisingly, skeptical of the European approach. Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister, said in an interview last week in Jerusalem,with another New Yorker journalist, “I don’t like what’s happening. We were encouraged at first when the Europeans got involved. For a long time, they thought it was just Israel’s problem. But then they saw that the [Iranian] missiles themselves were longer range and could reach all of Europe, and they became very concerned. Their attitude has been to use the carrot and the stick—but all we see so far is the carrot.” He added, “If they can’t comply, Israel cannot live with Iran having a nuclear bomb.”

In a recent essay, Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (and a supporter of the Administration), articulated the view that force, or the threat of it, was a vital bargaining tool with Iran. Clawson wrote that if Europe wanted coöperation with the Bush Administration it “would do well to remind Iran that the military option remains on the table.” He added that the argument that the European negotiations hinged on Washington looked like “a preëmptive excuse for the likely breakdown of the E.U.-Iranian talks.” In a subsequent conversation with me, Clawson suggested that, if some kind of military action was inevitable, “it would be much more in Israel’s interest—and Washington’s—to take covert action. The style of this Administration is to use overwhelming force—‘shock and awe.’ But we get only one bite of the apple.”

There are many military and diplomatic experts who dispute the notion that military action, on whatever scale, is the right approach. Shahram Chubin, an Iranian scholar who is the director of research at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told me, “It’s a fantasy to think that there’s a good American or Israeli military option in Iran.” He went on, “The Israeli view is that this is an international problem. ‘You do it,’ they say to the West. ‘Otherwise, our Air Force will take care of it.’” In 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, setting its nuclear program back several years. But the situation now is both more complex and more dangerous, Chubin said. The Osirak bombing “drove the Iranian nuclear-weapons program underground, to hardened, dispersed sites,” he said. “You can’t be sure after an attack that you’ll get away with it. The U.S. and Israel would not be certain whether all the sites had been hit, or how quickly they’d be rebuilt. Meanwhile, they’d be waiting for an Iranian counter-attack that could be military or terrorist or diplomatic. Iran has long-range missiles and ties to Hezbollah, which has drones—you can’t begin to think of what they’d do in response.”

Chubin added that Iran could also renounce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It’s better to have them cheating within the system,” he said. “Otherwise, as victims, Iran will walk away from the treaty and inspections while the rest of the world watches the N.P.T. unravel before their eyes.”

Continued...

After seeing a sign of a inauguratal protestor, similar to this picture , my roommate and I wanted to see if we could find any merchandise with this logo emblazoned on it. So I did the following and I recommend you all do the same.

Follow these steps:
1. type in the phrase, "worst president ever" into the Google Search Engine.
2. Click the "I'm feeling lucky" button

sit back and laugh or cry at the resulting page.

Here is a list of corporate and private donors (from Inaugural05.com)who paid for a portion of the outrageous bill associated with the archaic presidential inauguration. One would think that during this time of war in addition to the recent natural disasters, that the money could be spent for a more worthy cause.

ACS State & Local Solutions, Inc. Washington DC $250,000
A.G. Spanos Stockton CA $250,000
AFLAC, Incorporated Columbus GA $100,000
AFLAC, Incorporated Columbus GA $150,000
A. J. Scribante Omaha NE $100,000
Alan B. Fabian Cockeysville MD $100,000
Al Hoffman, Jr. Fort Myers FL $100,000
Alagem Capital Group, LLC Beverly Hills CA $250,000
Alexander F. Treadwell Westport NY $100,000
Altria Corporate Services, Inc. New York NY $250,000
American Bankers Association Washington DC $25,000
American Chemistry Council Arlington VA $25,000
American Financial Cincinnati OH $250,000
American Health Care Association Washington DC $50,000
Ameriquest Capital Corporation Orange CA $250,000
Amgen, Inc. Thousand Oaks CA $100,000
Andrew C. Taylor St. Louis MO $100,000
Anheuser-Busch Cos., Inc. Washington DC $100,000
Argent Mortgage Company Orange CA $250,000
AT&T Washington DC $250,000
Bank of America Corporation Charlotte NC $250,000
Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, LLC Washington DC $25,000
Bensco, Inc. Metairie LA $100,000
Benson Football Metaire LA $100,000
Benson Mineral Group, Inc. Denver CO $100,000
Beverly Enterprises, Inc. Fort Smith AR $50,000
Beverly Enterprises, Inc. Fort Smith AR $20,000
Bill G. Hartley Tyler TX $25,000
Blank Rome, LLP Philadelphia PA $200,000
BlueCross BlueShield of Florida, Inc. Jacksonville FL $100,000
Bob Tuttle Beverly Hills CA $25,000
Boone Pickens Dallas TX $250,000
Bradford M. Freeman Los Angeles CA $100,000
Bristol-Myers Squibb Washington DC $250,000
Broadcast Music, Inc. Nashville TN $25,000
Burlington Norhtern & Sanata Fe Corp. Topeka KS $250,000
Burton J. McMurtry Portola Valley CA $50,000
California Farm Bureau Federation Sacramento CA $100,000
Carl H. Lindner Cincinnati OH $250,000
C. Edward McVaney Greenwood Village CO $100,000
Century Homebuilders, LLC Miami FL $100,000
Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Coral Gables FL $25,000
Charles D. Miller Pasadena CA $100,000
Cherie and Robin Arkley Eureka CA $100,000
CheveronTexaco Concord CA $250,000
Cinergy Corporation Cincinnati OH $250,000
Cisco Systems, Inc. San Jose CA $100,000
Clearwire Corporation Kirkland WA $100,000
Computer Associates International, Inc. Islandia NY $100,000
Corporate Capital, LLC New Orleans LA $250,000
Cove Partners, LLC Santa Monica CA $100,000
Cove Partners, LLC Santa Monica CA $25,000
Credit Union National Association Madison WI $50,000
CSC Federal Sector Headquarters Falls Church VA $25,000
David Girard-diCarlo Washington DC $50,000
Direct Supply, Inc. Milwaukee WI $25,000
Donald J. Carty Dallas TX $100,000
Dr. Miriam Ochshorn Adelson Las Vegas NV $250,000
Duane Acklie Lincoln NE $100,000
Dwight C. Schar McLean VA $100,000
Edison Electric Institute Washington DC $25,000
Edison Electric Institute Washington DC $25,000
EDS Plano TX $100,000
Elliott Broidy Los Angeles CA $250,000
Entrepreneurial Capital Corporation Newport Beach CA $100,000
E-Team Communications Austin TX $50,000
Exxon Mobil Corporation Washington DC $250,000
Fairfax Reality, Inc. Salt Lake City UT $100,000
FedEx Corporation Memphis TN $250,000
First Data Corporation Greenwood Village CO $250,000
Ford Motor Company Dearborn MI $250,000
Frank Baxter Los Angeles CA $100,000
Frederick R. Meyer Dallas TX $25,000
George Richmond Earth City MO $50,000
GMAC Horsham PA $100,000
Golden Eagle Industries, Inc. Charlotte NC $250,000
H. Edward Baher Bluffton SC $250,000
Horizon Bay Management, LLC Tampa FL $25,000
Hratch Kaprielian New York NY $25,000
HSBC USA Inc. Mt. Prospect IL $25,000
Hunt Consolidated, Inc. Dallas TX $250,000
Hunter Engineering Company Bridgeton MO $100,000
Ilene L. Flaum and David M. Flaum Rochester NY $100,000
Independent Community Bankers of America Washington DC $100,000
International Paper Memphis TN $100,000
International Traders, INC Nashville NC $30,000
Intervest Construction, Inc. Daytona Beach FL $100,000
J. Ronald Terwilliger Key Largo FL $100,000
Jack Overstreet Englewood CO $100,000
James A. Haslam, II Knoxville TN $50,000
Jerome V. Ansel Boca Raton FL $100,000
JM Family Enterprises, Inc. Deerfield Beach FL $25,000
John Elliot Associates Charleston WV $30,000
John L. Kemmerer, III Morristown NJ $100,000
John W. Childs Boston MA $100,000
JPMorgan Chase Houston TX $100,000
KB Home Los Angeles CA $100,000
Kenneth J. Kies McLean VA $25,000
Kojaian Ventures, LLC Bloomfield Hill MI $250,000
Lawrence Auriana Greenwich CT $100,000
Lawrence Lacerte Dallas TX $25,000
Leach Capital, LLC San Francisco CA $100,000
Linger Longer Development Co. Greensboro GA $100,000
LMD Properties, LLC High Point NC $50,000
Lockheed Martin Corporation Arlington VA $100,000
Long Beach Acceptance Corp. Paramus NJ $250,000
Lydian Asset Management Westport CT $25,000
Marathon Oil Corporation Houston TX $25,000
Marc S. Goldman Hoboken NJ $100,000
Marc S. Goldman Hoboken NJ $150,000
Marna D. Schnabel Los Angeles CA $100,000
Marriott International, Inc. Washington DC $250,000
Marriott Vacation Club International Washington DC $250,000
Matthew R. Simmons Houston TX $100,000
Max M. Fisher Detroit MI $100,000
MCI Ashburn VA $25,000
Michael W. Murphy El Dorado AR $25,000
Microsoft Corporation Redmond WA $100,000
Morgan Stanley Jersey City NJ $100,000
Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Dallas TX $100,000
Nancy and Rich Kinder Houston TX $250,000
National Association of Home Builders Washington DC $250,000
National Association of Realtors Chicago IL $50,000
Ned L. Siegel Boca Raton FL $100,000
Nelson Peltz New York NY $250,000
New Breed Corporate Services, Inc. Greensboro NC $25,000
New Breed Corporation Greensboro NC $25,000
New Century Mortgage Corporation Irvine CA $100,000
New Energy Corp. South Bend IN $250,000
Nicholas Taubman Roanoke VA $50,000
Northrop Grumman Los Angeles CA $100,000
Nuclear Energy Institute Washington DC $100,000
Occidental Petroleum Corporation Los Angeles CA $250,000
Office of the Commissioner of Baseball New York NY $100,000
Oracle Corporation Rocklin CA $100,000
Peabody Holding Company, Inc. St. Louis MO $100,000
Pepsi-Cola Company Purchase NY $100,000
Perennial Strategy Group, LLC Washington DC $25,000
Pfizer, Inc. New York NY $250,000
Phil Wendel Charlottesville VA $100,000
Pilot Corporation Knoxville TN $50,000
Piper Rudnick Washington DC $25,000
PricewaterhouseCoopers Tampa FL $25,000
Qualcomm Incorporated San Diego CA $100,000
Retzer Resources, Inc. Greenville MS $25,000
Richard Warren Lake Forest CA $100,000
Rick J. Caruso Los Angeles CA $100,000
Robert Day Los Angeles CA $100,000
Robert C. Rhein Interests, Inc. Cincinnati OH $100,000
Robert Frank Pence McLean VA $100,000
Robert W. Johnson, IV New York NY $100,000
Rooney Holdings, Inc. Tulsa OK $250,000
R. T. Farmer Cincinnati OH $100,000
S. Davis Phillips High Point NC $250,000
Sallie Mae, Inc. Reston VA $250,000
Sam & Marilyn Fox St. Louis MO $100,000
SBC Communications, Inc. Washington DC $100,000
ServiceMaster Memphis TN $25,000
Sheldon G. Adelson Las Vegas NV $250,000
Southern Company Atlanta GA $250,000
Stanley P. Whitcomb, Jr. Bonita Springs FL $25,000
Stephen A. Schwarzman New York NY $100,000
Stephens Group, Inc. Little Rock AR $250,000
Strongbow Technologies, Corp. Burtonsville MD $250,000
Susan and Michael Dell Austin TX $250,000
TC Management Partners IV, LLC Washington DC $100,000
Terry & Jane Semel Beverly Hills CA $125,000
The Boeing Company Arlington VA $100,000
The Coca Cola Company Washington DC $100,000
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. New York NY $100,000
The Home Depot Washington DC $250,000
The Limited Service Corporation Columbus OH $100,000
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC Chevy Chase MD $250,000
The Shaw Group, Inc. Baton Rouge LA $100,000
The Timken Company Canton OH $250,000
The Washington Post Washington DC $100,000
Thien H. Nguyen Redington Beach FL $100,000
Thomas F. Petway, III Jacksonville FL $100,000
Thomas F. Stephenson Atherton CA $225,000
Time Warner New York NY $250,000
Titus Electrical Contracting, Inc. Austin TX $100,000
Tom Benson Metairie LA $50,000
Town and Country Credit Irvine CA $250,000
Toyota Motor North America, Inc. New York NY $25,000
TRT Holdings Inc. Irving TX $100,000
Tyson Springdale AR $100,000
Union Pacific Corporation Washington DC $100,000
United Parcel Service Roswell GA $250,000
United Technologies Hartford CT $250,000
UST Inc. Greenwich CT $250,000
Valhi, Inc. Dallas TX $100,000
Vernon G. Buchanan Sarasota FL $100,000
Wachovia Corporation Jacksonville FL $250,000
Washington Group International Boise ID $25,000
Washington Television Center Washington DC $250,000
Waste Management Service Center Houston TX $100,000
Well Care Health Plans, Inc. Tampa FL $100,000
William Earl Riggs Pleasantton CA $100,000
William O. DeWitt, Jr. Cincinnati OH $100,000
Williams & Jensen, PC Washington DC $50,000

From the "an(n)als" of the 2 blowhards

The Fartiste

Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --
Have you ever run across the 19th century French music-hall star Joseph Pujol? He was quite a phenonemon, a huge star who was known as "le petomane," or "the fartiste." That's right: Pujol was a specialty act, and virtuoso farting was his specialty. He had a long and busy career, and performed his act all over France. He had his greatest success at the Moulin Rouge, where he outgrossed (if that's the right word) the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Here's a description of Pujol's opening night at the Moulin Rouge:

Then Le Petomane performed some imitations, using the simple, honest format of announcing and then demonstrating. He displayed his wide sonic range with tenor, baritone, and bass fart sounds. He imitated the farts of a little girl, a mother-in-law, a bride on her wedding night (tiny), the same bride the day after (loud), and a mason (dry-- "no cement"). He imitated thunder, cannons ("Gunners stand by your guns! Ready-- fire!!"), and even the sound of a dressmaker tearing two yards of calico (a full 10-second rip). After the imitations, Le Petomane popped backstage to put one end of a yard-long rubber tube into his anus. He returned and smoked a cigarette from this tube, after which he used it to play a couple of tunes on a song flute. For his finale he removed the rubber tube, blew out some of the gas-jet footlights from a safe distance away, and then led the audience in a rousing sing- along.

Here's one account of Pujol; here's another; here's a third. Those funky Frenchies: Marseilles even commemorates its native son with a "Rue Pujol."

All this reminds me of a passage in Jean Renoir's biography of his painter father. (A wonderful book, by the way.) Jean, who spent many childhood hours hanging around his father's bohemian models -- lucky boy -- wrote that one thing he recalled about the bedrooms of these legendary 19th century love goddesses was that they often smelled of full chamber pots.

Best,

Michael

As my historical geology professor described the 6 days which he spent without power as a result of the numerous weather systems that traveled through Ohio, he theorized that losing power during Christmas was God's way of punishing Ohio residents for voting Red in November's election.

peep the legwear...oh yes...shorts

From the people who bring you painful and informative injuries like T.O.'s recent leg injury (these valuable educational tools arecommonly put into song..."leg bones are connected to your ankle bone, your ankle bone...etc.") ***,
these same people have taught us how valuable our own head truly is,

the same group who taught the masses about the female body (janet's booby) ***,
is now teaching us all about the human's rear end (via the phantom moon that Randy Moss laid on the Packers fans) (@$$).

Apparently Moss, who did not expose his ass to fans for fear that his buns might be frozen off by the cool Lambeau temps, was alluding to something that Packers fans routinely do to the bus of the visiting team as they pass by.

*** - picture not included...enough already...nobody wants to see that again.

@$$ - picture unavailable...but would like to see this amusing celebration at least once.

Here is the story from ESPN.com

NEW YORK -- Randy Moss is almost sure to be fined for pretending to moon fans in Green Bay during a playoff win, according to NFL rules.

“It's not the kind of thing you want to see on national TV, but I understand what it was all about. ... The fans in Green Bay have
a tradition in the parking lot after the game where they moon the visiting team's bus. ”
— Colts coach Tony Dungy

The league is looking into the star receiver's antics in the Minnesota Vikings' 31-17 win over the Packers on Sunday and will announce its ruling later this week.

When asked for a reaction to the touchdown celebration Sunday night, an NFL spokesman told ESPN's Chris Mortensen: "Randy Moss can expect to be hearing from us."

When asked by AP whether the oft-fined Moss would be penalized again, a league spokesman recited NFL rules mandating discipline for "obscene gestures or other actions construed as being in poor taste."

A fine for the first offense under those guidelines is $5,000. Moss has not previously been fined for such action, but paid a $25,000 penalty in 1999 for squirting an official with a water bottle.

In the last year, the NFL has dealt with a couple of highly publicized situations that many fans found objectionable. There was the Janet Jackson breast-baring episode during the halftime show of the Super Bowl in February and the steamy "Monday Night Football" introduction this season featuring Philadelphia receiver Terrell Owens and "Desperate Housewives" star Nicollette Sheridan.

On Sunday, Moss caught a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter and headed toward the goalpost. He then turned his back to the Lambeau Field crowd, bent over and pantomimed pulling down his pants.

"Just having a little fun with the boys," Moss told a Fox reporter as he left the field. "I hope I don't get in trouble by it, but if I do I'll take the heat."

Moss, making $5 million this season, declined comment Monday.

Vikings coach Mike Tice said he spoke Monday with Art Shell, executive director of the players' association.

"The league has called me," Tice said. "I didn't see it until last night."

Tice added he always thought of Green Bay fans as having "a tremendous amount of class" but that he didn't think they acted that way Sunday.

Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said he saw Moss' action and, "I thought it was kind of humorous."

"It's not the kind of thing you want to see on national TV, but I understand what it was all about," he said.

"Anyone who has played in the NFC Central knows what that's about. The fans in Green Bay have a tradition in the parking lot after the game where they moon the visiting team's bus," he said. "It's kind of a unique sendoff."

"I had seen it seven times because when I was with the Vikings, we lost to them seven times up there," he said.

Fox did not show a replay of Moss' display during the game.

"It was inappropriate to replay it in the context of the game," Fox spokesman Lou D'Ermilio said.

ESPN declined to show the replay Sunday because, "in the end, we decided a conservative approach, taking a breath rather than rushing to air, would be prudent," spokesman Josh Krulewitz said.

He added: "In hindsight, we could have shown it once the day it happened while being very mindful of not being gratuitous about it."

Krulewitz said replays were to be shown Monday "conservatively, based on the NFL's and the Vikings' reaction to it."

Last month, Denver quarterback Jake Plummer was fined $5,000 for an obscene gesture.

Randy Moss
Moss

Moss was originally fined $40,000 in 1999 for squirting an official, but it was reduced to $25,000 on appeal.

Moss verbally abused corporate sponsors on the team bus in 2001. That resulted in the team fining him $15,000 and forcing him to attend anger management classes.

In December of 2002, he was fined $1,200 by a judge after being charged with bumping a traffic officer with his car in downtown Minneapolis.

And last week, he was chewed out by teammates for leaving the field before the end of a loss in Washington. Center Matt Birk, one of the Vikings' leaders, confronted him and quarterback Daunte Culpepper also was upset.

Moss, his hair poofed out in a giant Afro, had four receptions for 70 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday's game.

After Moss' second score and resulting show, Birk just shook his head and smiled.

"That's Randy," he said. "You take the good with the bad."

If you are a fan of the Chappelle Show then check out this new and improved soundboard on his Comedy Central Webpage. Many laughs to be had from soundclips of such characters as Rick James, Tyrone, Sam Jackson, Playahaters, Prince, Lil Jon, Dave (himself), Black Gallagher, and Tron.

Led Zeppelin, Jerry Lee Lewis and the late Janis Joplin are among those slated to be honored with the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys on February 13th at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

The other recipients are jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton, country pioneers the Carter Family, soul hitmakers the Staples Singers, country star Eddy Arnold, jazz drummer Art Blakey, composer Morton Gould and blues pianist Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins.

Songwriter extraordinaire Hoagy Carmichael, Soul Train creator Don Cornelius, Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion and recording artist and radio personality Dr. Billy Taylor will receive the Trustees Award, presented to important figures in music who contribute in a non-performing capacity. Producer Phil Ramone (Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel) will be honored with a technical Grammy.

from The Rolling Stone

Okay Okay Okay...Led Zeppelin, Mr. Jheri Lee Lewis, and the late Janis Joplin are going to be honored...that's fine and dandy...Congrats. Let's hear for Jelly Roll Morton, the Staples Singers, Art Blakey, Hoagy Carmichael, Don Cornelius, and Alfred Lion. These undercard honorees deserve just as many props. Alfred Lion founded one of the most influential Record Labels in the Jazz's history, Blue Note. Check the Staples Singers out on a recent complilation of STAX music. This complilation is simply breath taking. STAX was just as important as Motown was.

Last night's Daily Show was a good one, I don't know if any of y'all caught a glimpse of the handsome young man sitting in on the inside edge of the third row of the stands closest to the news desk...oh yeah that was me. After much effort was put forth to get the tickets (thank you to me Mum), I attended this years first The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. My Dad and I made the short drive up to New York and visited with my short but still power wielding Croatian Grandmother (his mother) and her two sisters. After a delicious meal and a confusing game of rummy, we headed over to the Daily Show Studios to wait in line for a couple hours. Between the newlyweds behind us and the four men in front of us, entertaining and annoying conversation was plentiful. After being herded into the studio, being hyped up, and a short discussion time with Jon himself, the show began. By the way, the set is quite small, they do wonders with the camera angles. One of the more amusing sights, was the "Spinal Tap" originating and Stonehedge-esque The Daily Show monument. This dinky set of letters looks like a bunch of baby blocks stacked on top of each other. The show was great and as always filled with humor and wit. If your ever in NYC, check the Daily Show out...it's a blast....I recommend reserving the tickets months in advance.