I understand he’s Michael Phelps…but even this is a media trashing

February 4, 2009 · Posted in Featured, People in the news, Rant, Social Issues, Society, Sports, Things to think about, Topic Blogs · 5 Comments 

This is the one, rare time in which the media is pissing me off on this Phelps thing.  Who cares.   Yeah, I typically like my athletes to be role models and portray a semi-positive image, but this media attack on his puff of a bong is just flat out an assault.

Who the hell has it in for him?  Phelps made a mistake, he’s young and he’s in school.  He’s probably one of the most humble Olympic champions we’ve ever seen.  He’s a normal 20 something kid who was at a party –  and I don’t blame him, I blame the azzhole (s) who posted that pic.   This story was spreading like a wildfire, but thankfully it is losing steam quickly.  If he loses endorsements, big f’ing deal.  He’ll be back at the next Olympics, he’ll probably demolish some more records, and everyone will be like – what pic?  He’ll turn into yet another story of “drug abuse” or “recovery”…everyone will be sitting in his lap again like they were last summer.

To hell with the poster and the money you got for posting it…maybe someone can snap a picture of you masturbating or taking a bowel movement and post it all over the internet.  Blame the media as well.  Phelps has been a poster boy for every cereal box in the country since the Olympics and you put him there.   Phelps actually hired an agent to handle all of his endorsement offers, so much so that he was forced to turn down millions of dollars because of too many offers coming his way.

I think everyone forgets that Santonio Holmes has a laundry list of illegal off the field hi jinks prior to him becoming the poster child of Super Bowl XLIII.   He wins the MVP and every news agency wants to interview him…awwww…we learned that he used to deal drugs when he was a FL high school student…and it was football that was his ticket off the streets…awwww.  Yeah,  Holmes is a great football player -  but he’s a thug people.

Hey Michael, here’s a tip, don’t smoke a bowl with a camera near by nor with people who apparently are not your close friends.  Someone in that room was not being cool, either the bong got cashed out on its way around the happy circle, or someone dropped the Doritos bag.   Interesting how I watched that new show Homeland Security the other night and if border patrol officers can go easy on kids transporting pot in a motor vehicle across an international border – then Phelps can have his hit and nobody should care.

What a bunch of crap – he said he was sorry – the boy can swim – leave it alone.

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Blagojevich on “The View”…a true master of distortion and diversion

January 27, 2009 · Posted in Featured, Government, People in the news, Political Figures, Political Issues, Politics, Social Issues, Things to think about, Thoughts on the economy, Topic Blogs · 1 Comment 

He is either a case study of the interview dodge artist or has received really bad advisement from his legal team.  He never answers the question about whether or not he actually made remarks about selling the senate seat.   I literally can’t follow him either and this is a ballsy and self centered appearance he made on The View yesterday. 

This was one of the first major public appearances in which he addressed the charges against him and the looming impeachment precedings.  We won’t go into his laundry list of misdoings.  However, there is a great website which has transcripts from when he was bugged.

I don’t know about this View appearance but it’s really hard not to see right through this loser.  He has a history of low approval ratings and shaky activities as Illinois governor – so how can you not laugh under your breath.   Accused of a being potty mouth is one thing, but his adamant berating of the impeachment process is a joke.

Indeed a very charismatic (though be it funny looking) dude- the guy his well spoken and makes is sound like he is a legitmately innocent man.  After a while , it simply becomes rambling, defensive babble that forces you to stop listening.  If he is biting back at his accusers like this- no wonder he’s in deep shit.   I have to admit- the average guy bumping into him in a bar would probably enjoy throwing some beers back.   On the flipside – he has that very secretive “I know things about you” type of demeanor which is creepy. 

Hey Roddy – you’re done and you opened your mouth one too many times considering you are a public official.  Here the first series of tapings from the show on Monday.

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The worst spy breach in decades, and you never heard about it

December 4, 2008 · Posted in Featured, Government, People in the news, Politics · 2 Comments 
Estonian capital city Tallinn: For the former Soviet state, the scandal has become the downside of a political success story.

Estonian capital city Tallinn: For the former Soviet state, the scandal has become the downside of a political success story.

Der Spiegel a German based international news organization broke a very interesting story last week, and for some reason the U.S. media chose not to cover it, but at our local bar nothing skips our ears or eyes, so here is the story for our informed readers.

It’s the worst spy scandal since the end of the cold war, and potentially more harmful than even American spy Aldrich Ames.  Here is the story for you to read. -

For years an Estonian government official has apparently been collecting the most intimate secrets of NATO and the EU — and passing them on to the Russians. The case is a disaster for Brussels.

Communications between the suspected top spy and his commanding officer seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. Investigators allege that in order to send messages to his Russian contact, Herman Simm, 61, used a converted radio which looked like a relic from yesteryear’s world of consumer electronics. But there was nothing old-fashioned about what Simm, a high-ranking official in the Estonian Defense Ministry in Tallinn, reportedly transmitted to Moscow over the years. It was the very latest intelligence information.

Although Simm was arrested with his wife Heete in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Sept. 21, this spy story — which has been largely kept under wraps until now — primarily concerns the European Union and NATO based in faraway Brussels. Since Simm was responsible for dealing with classified information in Tallinn, he had access to nearly all documents exchanged within the EU and NATO. Officials who are familiar with the case assume that “virtually everything” that circulates between EU member states was passed on to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR — including confidential analyses by NATO on the Kosovo crisis, the war in Georgia and even the missile defense program. Investigators believe that Simm was a “big fish.”

Meanwhile, a number of investigative teams from the EU and NATO have flown to Tallinn to probe the extent of the intelligence disaster. The investigation is being led by the NATO Office for Security, which is headed by an American official. As investigators pursue their work, they continue to unearth mounting evidence pointing to the enormity of the betrayal. A German government official has called the situation a “catastrophe,” and Jaanus Rahumägi, a member of Estonia’s national parliament who heads the parliamentary oversight committee for the government security agency, fears “historic damage.”

NATO officials in Brussels are comparing Simm’s alleged spying to the case of Aldrich Ames, a former CIA agent who for years funneled information to the Russian intelligence service, the KGB. However, the extensive fallout of the Estonian leaks makes this the worst espionage scandal since the end of the Cold War.

The case reveals how vulnerable the alliance has become in the wake of the expansion of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe. When the decision was made to allow Estonia — a tiny country with a population of only 1.3 million — and six other countries into NATO and the EU in 2004, then-German Defense Minister Peter Struck of the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) expressed delight with this “great step on the way toward an undivided and free Europe, toward more security” and toward “a stronger NATO.”

In Tallinn the downside of this political success story is now rearing its ugly head. Within the alliance, Estonia is not treated much differently than Italy or Germany when it comes to sensitive information. For a large power like Russia, which has always more or less rejected NATO and observed the expansion of the EU with suspicion, taking a slight detour through the Baltic States was the perfect way to reach into the heart of Brussels with a reasonably low level of risk. Thanks to Simm’s alleged help, the Russians apparently achieved this with ease.

Investigators now assume that Simm established contact with the Russian intelligence service as early as the late 1980s. At the time, Estonia was striving for independence and it was clear that Moscow would eventually lose the Baltic Republics. Now was the time for Russia to secure its influence. When Estonia’s NATO membership was first discussed “in the mid-1990s, Simm was officially recruited by the Russian government,” claims Rahumägi. There is evidence indicating that the relationship was fairly loose to begin with. It’s possible the KGB successor organization, the SVR, kept Simm as a “sleeper.”

Simm rapidly advanced through the ranks, and in 1994 he became the Estonian chief of police. Later, he was transferred as a department head to the Defense Ministry, where he was responsible for the secret coordination with NATO and the EU. After Tallinn joined the EU in 2004, his position became tremendously valuable to Moscow.

It remains to be seen whether money was a motive for Simm’s alleged actions. What is clear, however, is that the high-ranking ministerial official from Tallinn owns half a dozen plots of land and properties, including a farm near the Baltic coast and a lavishly renovated, whitewashed residence in the small city of Saue near Tallinn. Investigators began to observe this house when an increasing number of clues about the Simm’s alleged contact man started to surface. The contact man is believed to be an SVR agent traveling around European on a fake Spanish passport. Meanwhile, officials at the Estonian Public Prosecutor’s Office are hoping to press charges against Simm in early 2009.

Right now, NATO is extremely interested in “deciphering the Russians’ game plan,” sources in Brussels say. Later, though, the case is expected to result in far-reaching changes in the manner in which classified material is handled within the alliance. A comprehensive probe to seek further leaks in Eastern Europe is also expected.

“We have to assume,” says a Brussels official, “that the Russian intelligence apparatus maintains a number of Simms in the Baltic States.”

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