Bill Cosby Asks "What the Hell Was He Doing With the Pound Cake?" - 1:42 p.m.
On Monday May 17th at Howard University's 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Bill Cosby gave a speech where he tore a new asshole into "the lower economic people." Yes, that's a quote - not the asshole, the lower economic part. In short, Dr. Bill said black people need to get better jobs, better education, and represent some kind of intelligence. You can't argue with that. I know people who don't work, have dropped out of school, and don't plan to go back, or work, in the future. They know a whole lot about video games and rap, but beyond that they're absolutely clueless. So here is Bill Cosby giving this rant on the need for education and higher personal standards but he delivered kinda raw, or as Ice Cube might say.. with no Vaseline.

"People putting their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? . . . People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up . . . and got all type of needles (piercing) going through her body? What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a . . . thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail. .. Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. . . . They are standing on the corner and they can't speak English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads."

"People used to be ashamed. . . . [Today] a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands,' or men or whatever you call them now .. The idea is to one day get out of the projects. You don't just stay there. We have millionaire football players who can't read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. . . . Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard."

There have been various stories saying that the Washington Post took some of the quotes out of context. Bill Cosby did a little dance himself saying that he was referring to young black males who drop out of school. There are too many quotes in there that show it's not only about the homies..example: "With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail." What guy do you know named Shaniqua? And don't say Martin Lawrence. Regardless, I agree with his general idea, but he used a broad brush, picking up on stereotypes like names and women having kids with eight different fathers. The underlying message can't be ignored though - don't be stupid, stupid.

Michael Moore Wins Top Honors for Farhenheit 911 - 1:39 p.m.
A few weeks ago that Disney executives have decided they would not allow Michael Moore's new documentary film Farenheit 9/11  to be distributed by Miramax, a Disney subsidiary. The reasoning one Disney exec gave was. "It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle."
If their intention was to squash Moore's film for political commentary, they did the exact opposite by making it more of a political statement than it would have been had they just released it.

Over the weekend, Michael Moore received the Palme D'Or, the top prize at the Cannes film festival. It's the first documentary to receive the award since Jacques Costeau's "The Silent World" in 1956. Cannes is held in France, so some media commentators are saying it was the French giving the US a jab in the side, once again. Michael Mooores responds on his site.. "Please know that of the nine members of the Festival jury, only ONE was French. Nearly half the jury (four) were Americans and the President of the jury was an American (Quentin Tarantino). But this fact won’t stop the O’Reillys or the Lenos or the Limbaughs from attacking the French and me because, well, that’s how their simple minds function."

Regardless of the makeup of the jury, I agree that it was a statement to Disney, letting them know this is a film that should the public should see. There is nothing wrong with that, nor am I saying that the film stinks, but it's not crazy to think members of the film community would stand up for a fellow artist when his work is being held down over some political crap. The funny thing is Moore was booed by the Hollywood bourgeois at the Academy Awards, but these are different times. It's less controversial to be against the war - almost cool - which is easy when the reconstruction of Iraq is obviously outside the lines of Bush's blueprint. Tarantino responded to the critics using my word (hah ha) "political crap" .. "I knew this political crap would be brought up," said the outspoken Tarantino. "I think judging a film by its politics is a bad thing. If this movie was saying everything I wanted it to say, but not saying it with the best filmmaking, I would have opposed it."

In Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore follows the events leading up to 9/11, the resulting march into Iraq and the effects it has had, especially on the soldiers. Using footage from foreign reporters and independent sources, Moore gives another view of what's been going on with the war on terror. He gets comments from soldiers in the hospital and in the field, all wondering what the hell they're doing there. Ironically, in one scene a soldier is shown holding (or pointing to) a hooded Iraqi prisoner's erection - why he has an erection is anyone's guess - but the clip was taken months before the Abu Garaib prison scandal broke. Absent the major media coverage a scene like that would have been blasted as being outrageous.

Disney still refuses to distribute the movie, but with the hoopla over the film winning the Cannes award the pressure will be on to let it out of the gates. Michael Moore says he's still hoping to make the scheduled July 4th release date. Now tell me.. could there be any better promotional push for a flick then this? I'd like to say Disney planned it all along, but I don't think they're smart enough for that. It's just another dumb, scared of "the man" move that an outsider was able to capitalize on.

In Moore's words.. "I think it's pretty embarrassing that a guy like me with a high school education and with no training in journalism can do this. What the hell is going on here? It's pathetic."

The Finals Start Tonight: The T-Wolves vs. The Lakers - 12:06 p.m.
The only people that care about the Nets losing to the Pistons last night are my sister and Jay-Z. For all the trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, Kenyon Martin, Jason, Kidd, Richard Jefferson.. that team is a real snoozer. The thought of yet another trip to the Finals, only to lose to whoever's waiting on the Westside, was not something I was looking forward to. Not to say that any team coming out of the East will put up a decent challenge in the Finals - but folks in Indiana are talking mad ish, so you never know.

My team since the start of the season has been the Minnesota Timberwolves. I'd like to say it was all about Latrell Sprewell being traded to them from the Knicks, but it was really about the holiday NBA Live tournament at the crib between me, my nephews and my brothers. Using Minnesota I did nothing but kick ass on the brethren. Hah Ha! So of course when the new basketball season started, and with Sam Cassell added to the lineup, I was ready to see that performance become a reality on the court.

Sure enough, Minnesota has been the surprise team of the season. The Timberwolves finished first in the Western Conference, Garnett grabbed the MVP, and Wednesday night they bumped off the Sacramento Kings.

I feel bad for Chris Webber, but he's had many chances to knock the Lakers off their pedestal. It's time for somebody new.. Yeah, San Antonio won the title last year, but it's like they never even played. Who remembers that final? The Nets vs. San Antonio. That's like a game with invisible men. The bad thing is that Minnesota is facing a rested and confident Laker team that got a little scare from the Spurs. Losing the first two games reminded them why they put together a senior All-Star squad during the offseason; the last thing anyone needed to see was Kobe tearing up again.

Me.. I'm all for seeing Kobe cry. Hell, why not form a circle, hug up and do a group cry with Gary Payton and Karl Malone leading the way. Them more for the shame of trying to get a cheap ring in the first place. For that to happen Sam Cassell is gonna have to tough out his injured back, Sprewell and Szczerbiak are gonna have to hit shots, Garnett will have to play 40 minutes, and the biggest thing.. Shaq has to have his toe stomped on. No one wants to see a guy injured on purpose, but this is the Western Conference finals, if the ref isn't looking who cares if some friendly toe mashing goes on? I say pull out all the stops, when Kobe's at the foul line ask him what really  happened in that hotel room.. nothing wrong with that, it's just a question.

The T-Wolves were 3-1 over the Lakers during the regular season, but they played a half-dazed, half-injured version of the Lakers. No matter the odds.. Win or lose, I'm riding with the Wolves. Hmmm.. one more thing. While looking for a picture for this blurb I saw this story about Garnett apologizing for making gun references before Game 7 against the Kings. The quote had me laughing.. "This is it. It's for all the marbles. I'm sitting in the house loading up the pump, I'm loading up the Uzis, I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war." He apologized saying that he's a young man and just got a little excited, dude really had to explain this.. "I was totally thinking about basketball, not reality."

Jill Scott Readies New Album - 12:52 p.m.
Erykah Badu is the Queen of Neo-Soul.. Well, I don't know if that's official. Let's just say it's true due to the fact that there were very few headwrapped, sistas singing about apple trees and Tyrone before she hit the scene.

If there's any dispute about Erkyah Badu's Queen status, Jill Scott would be the only legitimate contender for the crown. I'd go as far to say Erykah who? In my opinion Jill Scott is way more soulful and down to earth than Erykah. Where Erykah flirts with the abstract poetics, Jill Scott's music is a direct line from her heart to the pen to the plastic CD spinning in the changer.

Her debut Who Is Jill Scott?  bubbled up from the underground, propelled by word of mouth, it had a longer shelf life than the initial marketing budget fueled. By the end of the year she had an arm full of awards, a platinum plaque, and a bunch of people like me comparing her and Erykah Badu - as if only one female singer can sing about more than booty shaking and popping bubble gum. It's human nature to sort things out by onesies and twosies.. so I stand accused.

If her first album asked, "Who is Jill Scott?" The last 2-3 years beg the question.. "Where is Jill Scott?" She recorded a live album, that while appreciated, didn't deliver the new material I really wanted. Well.. Jill Scott is finally back in the studio recording a true sophomore album called Beautifully Human, Words and Sounds, Vol. 2. She tells writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, "I could have just run back in and gone into the studio, but I would have been singing completely and totally about life on the road. I needed to come back home, go grocery shopping, get a cat, spend some time with my husband . . . just do everyday things."

Puffy Puts Chopper on Bad Boy South
In the Making the Band 2 finale P. Diddy basically said, "the hell with this band crap, let's do solo albums." Ness and Babs were the two that Diddy felt could make a decent album. That left Chopper and Sara to twist in the wind.

On Friday MTV reported that Puff had a change of heart and will sign Chopper as a solo artist to his new label Bad Boy South. As in Making the Band 2, Chopper was summoned to New York for a meeting. He told MTV, "They have you waiting up in the office all day just to tell you one thing. I was in the office all day and they said, 'It's confirmed, you're Bad Boy South.' I probably did three flips when they told me that."

Chopper is not the best with a pen, extremely lightweight with the lyrics. What he has going for him is personality, if anything makes the album a success it'll be that. He wants to collaborate with Juvenile, Lil Wayne, and get some beat work from Mannie Fresh and Jazze Pha - basically he wants to be a Hot Boy. If Puff didn't scoop him back up, you'd think he would have ended up on Cash Money anyway. No matter who he collabs with, I can't imagine paying $14.99 for a Chopper album.

And the rest of Da Band... Ness and Babs who were immediately tagged as "the new Bonnie and Clyde of rap." Babs says it's going to be a double album project with their solo albums packaged as a whole - similar to Outkast's last album. No word on who Babs will work with, but Ness's album is tentatively titled, Nessessary. On one track he'll team up with Beanie Sigel for a Philly version of the Jay-Z/Biggie collabo "Brooklyn's Finest." And it looks like he's gonna have high-powered production, D-Dot, Just Blaze, and Rockwilder have offered to work on the album.

The disbanded band.. Sara is said to have a movie deal and Fred is on allhiphop.com saying how everyone but the group made money from Making the Band 2. That's why he quit the group. He's doing his solo hustle. Just what is Fred hustling? A new group called the Hardheadz, a clothing line called Eddie Kane, and a diaper/pacifier line. That's a full plate. For his sake he better had learned something from the show considering that he did a whole lot of laying around - editing or not. That leaves Dylan.. at press time he was sitting in his lawyer's office trying to figure out the consequences of his actions, yet again.

What's up with the Gas Prices? - 1:48 p.m.
If you've got a car there is no way to escape rising gas prices. This weekend I dropped $20 and only got 8 gallons of gas. WTF. It was only four years ago that gas prices in the city were just above $1, some stations had 89 cent gas. When you roll up to a station today, your looking at $2.10 - $2.30. On paper it doesn't sound like much of a difference, but after you hand over a crisp twenty that pump feels mighty stingy giving up a gallon per $2. Makes you wonder if the meter is right. I'm there shaking the nozzle to get every drop.

There was a time that I thought that the rise in prices was due strictly to greed of the oil companies. After hearing about peak oil and reading "The Oil Factor" I'm convinced that it's due to two things: the dwindling supplies of oil and the fear that what's available will be disrupted by violence in the Middle East. The violence is clearly based on the Iraq situation. The stock market is down today because a high ranking member of the Iraq governing council was killed today. Sadly, that makes the smooth transfer of power look less and less likely. The transfer will occur, Bush needs it politically, but the insurgents will keep up attacks on whoever's in power, making Iraq a real mess.

An unstable Iraq only puts the surrounding countries on the defensive - as the turmoil could cross into their borders.

The other deal is peak oil. In short, peak oil means the world's oil supply is running out. Oil isn't an infinite resource and it doesn't grow like trees. It's just there, once it's sucked out of the ground, that's it. Check this NY Times headline - "The Oil Crunch" and this piece from ABC News - Dried Up? According to the research we're reaching the point that other energy supplies must be developed. Reading about peak oil will make you feel as if the world is about to come to an end. I ran into that same thinking with the Y2K thing - when all computer dependent machines were supposed to shut down or freak out at the strike of 12 of the year 2000.

For that reason here's another side of the peak oil story.. this researcher says the whole peak oil thing is crazy. That oil doesn't come from dead dinosaurs as you may have been taught, and it is a renewable resource. No matter who's right, your gonna see the law of supply and demand go into effect. As the world demands more oil the price will continue to rise through greed or truly tight supplies. I'm willing to bet that three years down the line we'll all be looking back at $2.50 gas as the good old days, because we'll be paying $3.20 or more.

What to do? Well, two Canadian residents protested high gas prices by filling up their gas tanks and short changing the attendant with the dinero. Last week Terry Blake made headlines in Canada when he filled up with $25 worth of gas and said he would only pay $20. Skipping out on your bill is a criminal offense, but the Toronto Star reports that Blake was able to escape the arm of the law when his.. youngest son .. went down to the station to pay the extra $5. Hah! How funny is it that the kid is paying pop's $5 tab? Inspired by Blake's act, on Friday, another man, Donald Pierce filled up with $25 and said he would only pay $15. Pierce didn't have any kids willing to pay the extra dough, he was charged with theft by Canadian police.

While we are all upset over gas prices, a quote from a Canadian gas station attendant puts their side in perspective, "I'm just the messenger. I get the message telling me what to charge for the gas and I'm accountable for all that gas, and I have to pay the money for it." P.S. - Yes, those are leopard print drawers.

American Civilian Gets Beheaded by Terrorists - 12:58 p.m.
Yesterday a video clip was posted on an Al-Qaeda message board showing the beheading of an American citizen, Nick Berg. You can't fathom how crazy it was until it sinks in that.. this wasn't a movie. After having Berg identify who he was, they reeled off some Al-Qaeda bible verses and then the guy standing behind Berg calmly pulls out a knife, pushes his head towards the floor, sticks the knife in his neck and proceeds to saw it off. This is something we've seen in Lords of the Rings.

Berg can be heard screaming and once the beheading is complete.. they hold his head up for the camera. His body was later found hanging off a bridge in Iraq, with the head beneath the body. As I write this, I'm trying to imagine the cold heart you must have to saw off someone's head. That's just insane.

26-year-old, Nick Berg went to Iraq on his own. He wasn't part of the military, nor did he have a job lined up. Dude just hopped on a plane and made his way to the streets of Baghdad. A supporter of the war, his intention was to help rebuild the country. A few years earlier, he visited Kenya and Ghana where it's said he helped teach villagers brick laying techniques. Nick called his family on March 24th and said he would be coming home on March 30th.

While walking the streets of Iraq, he encountered Iraqi police at a checkpoint. They asked him why he was there and decided to turn him over to US military officials who detained him for 13 days. It was during that time, on March 31, Berg's parents in Westchester, Pennsylvania got a visit from FBI agents trying to confirm Nick Berg's identity. I guess the FBI wasn't satisfied with their answers.. they kept Nick in custody. On April 5th, protesting his detention, his parent's filed suit in Pennsylvania's Federal Court. The following day, Nick was released by the military.

On April 9th, Nick called his parents telling them he would be leaving Iraq by way of Jordan. It was the last time they would hear from him.

Berg's parents are blaming the US military for holding him for so long. They believe he could have left before things got crazy over there. I was under the impression that Iraq was locked down, that you couldn't just fly over and have a latte at the neighborhood Starbucks. It's obviously not somewhere you'd want to visit, walking around with a business card and shaking hands with the locals. Talk about being in the wrong place. :! His killing is definitely a horror story. The obvious question is does this justify the treatment of the Iraqi prisoners in Al-Ghraib? I say no. Until we come out and officially state that it's an eye for an eye, we cannot justify sticking glow sticks up their butts. You can't tell people one thing and do another. We ask that our hostages be treated with respect, that they not be harmed because we're humane to them.. in the meantime we're building butt pyramids.

This beheading isn't a surprise, for some reason these crazy muthas like cutting heads off. They have beheaded two Russians and there was also the killing of Daniel Pearl. So we know what they're about. At the same time, the prisoners we have in custody aren't tied to these killings. They probably support it.. but like Bin Laden's ties to 911, and our chasing down Saddam instead, they're guilty by loose association. The Red Cross who first reported the prison abuses, says nearly 90% of the prisoners are being held without cause. I don't know about that.. 90% sounds kinda high and it's said the terrorists offered to trade Nick Berg for some of the prisoners in Al-Ghraib. The military turned them down. In any case.. one love to the Berg family. This Iraqi freedom operation is causing pain to mad families, most of who we only hear of by number alone.

What gets me is that all we had to do was flush out the mountains of Afghanistan and instead of Saddam, find Bin Laden in a foxhole. That would have been akin to cutting the head off the snake. The killers on this tape are associated with Bin Laden, so here they are continuing to flourish. No one protested the march into Afghanistan because we had reason to believe that Bin Laden was there. Going to Iraq did nothing but confuse things and provided breeding ground for terrorists that didn't previously exist. With Saddam you had one crazy guy to look after, now you have twenty that you can't even talk to. Even to experts, this war is nothing but confusing, annoying, and they agree, will continue for some time.

50 Cent Pulls an I-20 at the Hippodrome - 1:49 p.m.
Last year's favorite rapper, 50 Cent got to fighting in the club this weekend. At the Hippodrome in Springfield, Massachusetts, 50 came out on stage for a surprise performance. A guy in the 1400 strong crowd decided he could give a damn about a 50 Cent. Getting a firm grip on his $3.00 bottle of water, the guy flung it towards the stage. SPLASH. 50 got whipped across the body with Poland Spring laced with spill back from the guy's saliva.

Realizing he just got dissed in front of a thousand possible gossip hounds with access to computers who could take the story to the internet message boards as soon as they got home.. or text message familia on the Motorola.. 50 took off his jewelry and jumped in the crowd to get some respect.

Somewhere in the back the DJ was scrambling to find I-20's "Fighting in the Club." There is nothing like a good club fight to the sounds of rowdy music. 15 - 20 people followed 50 into the crowd, the result should have been a stomp out, but Michael J. Barrasso, one of the club's co-owners, said the crowd was so thick he couldn't tell if there was a shoving match or if someone was getting punched in the face.

Security got 50 back on the stage and he finished whatever song he was performing. That's when the DJ in the back said, "forget "Fighting in the Club," where is my copy of "Dirt of Your Shoulder"? This guy is cool enough to scrap and rap at the same time. That's a multitasking mufucka." 50 smiled and then it was, "thank you for coming out.. goodnight!"

Police arrested arrested 23-year-old Trevin Smith of Springfield, CT and 27-year-old Charlton McLaughlin of Hartford, CT on charges of disturbing the peace. Springfield police were out in full force, taking about an hour to clear out the club. Around that time there was a disturbance about a block away. Shots rang out.. maybe it was the 2004 version of the DC sniper.. what is known is that a man checked himself into the Mercy Medical Center emergency room with a gunshot wound to the leg. He didn't say who did what.. or if it was related to the 50 incident.

The club owner was all confused saying, "Nothing like this has ever happened before (at the club)," he said. "It's really unfortunate and he won't be invited back. That's for sure."

What the hell did he expect from a 50 Cent? Everyone loves the thug business until it gets real.. then they're crying and wiping tears talking about how out of control they are and how the person needs Jesus. I don't know if it was Jesus himself, but somewhere in the bible it says something about if you deal with the devil don't be surprised when you get burnt by his mischievous deeds.

Soldiers Left to Burn in the Frying Pan
I made a joke last week about the soldiers involved with the Iraqi prison scandal being influenced by the buzz off a couple cans of beer. Really, I don't think they were drunk off liquor at all, it's more a case of being drunk off power and the disrespect of the people you are imprisoning. The abuse that went on in Abu Gharib prison is an offshoot of the mentality that some correction and police officers exhibit here in the states.

As in those branches of authority, not everyone is a bad guy or girl, but those that are tend to think of the people they abuse as less than human and deserving of every ounce of disrespect. Let me go a step further and say that the arrogance.. and belief that what happened in Abu Gharib prison was right, is confirmed by the photos being taken in the first place. It's as if they would be tacked on the wall as fond memories of a family vacation. What is the purpose of incriminating yourself on film (and videotape) unless they were taken with the thought that nothing was wrong with what took place?

Without getting into the right and wrong of that thinking.. everyone has already decided where they stand on that.. what is the deal with the accused soldiers being pushed in front of the media as crazy, lone renegades. This past weekend, this republican senator was popping up on all the news stations talking up the idea that there were only six soldiers involved. He'll have you believe that they decided to do these things, on their own, one late night when their superiors left for the day. It's like the parents went on vacation and it's "risky business," time to party.. "Soldiers Gone Wild!" .. Break out the Iraqis and let's have them jerk off on each other.. let's pile them in butt pyramids.. that's funny.. and while we're at it, let's piss on them.

Anyone that thinks the soldiers did this in the dark of night, and then cleaned things up when the superior officers came around, has got to also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. While the soldiers involved definitely need to be disciplined, the person or persons in charge of the prison need to be questioned as well... at the minimum. Here we have this guy Jeremy Sivits aka the sacrificial lamb on the front of the morning papers, but for some reason no one can even find a question for the people he reported to.

The record is skipping all over the verses, the meat of the thing, and getting right to the chorus of .. "Ok, we charged the soldiers.. now can we get past this crap." No. We can't get past shit. Donald Rumsfeld needs to run across the desert sands with nothing but a thin little thong on, aka the banana hammock. Bush needs to be forced to read a book with big words.. and then try is hardest to explain it without looking clueless. Colin Powell and Condi Rice need to hold hands with the paper machete Iraqi governing council and sing "We are the World," with Keith Sweat being pulled out of "it's a wrap land" to do that begging whining thing he does so well to bring it home. Things of substance must take place. That's jokes, (hah hah, funny).

I'm no advocate for making the country look weak.. I have to live here too, and right is right. It's seems like what will be done about this scandal will be a halfway measure that won't scoop up everyone that smeared baby doo on our worldwide reputation.

The Iraqi Prisoner Butt Pyramid - 1:34 p.m.
On Monday when photos of the tortured Iraqi prisoners began to circulate, I didn't think much of it. Mainly because, we hear about police abuse all the time, and truthfully, it was hard to make out what was going on. It looked like a pile of lifeless bodies with hoods on and things blurred out. Sure there was the caption they were alive and being tortured.. but *whosshh* I still didn't get what the big fuss was. Yesterday, I took a minute to take a clear look at the pictures of the prisoners and the smiling faces of the US soldiers. All you can say is.. What the hell were they thinking? It's like they took lessons from R. Kelly on how to fuck yourself with a low budget video. If your gonna do some torturing, turn the camera off. What do you do with the pictures, send them home in the Mother's Day card?

The soldiers have these guys with hoods on their heads, stacked up in a butt pyramid. There is another one of a female soldier rocking a prison pose, smiling and pointing at the guys d-ck. And the one with the prisoner totally covered, looking like he's floating in the air like something out of The Blair Witch Project. These fools were having a good time. It's only on blast because it's so out of control, and the smiling faces make it worse.

This situation has been under "investigation" since the beginning of the year. Early in the war, there were reports of prisoners being tortured in Guatanamo Bay. The story never took hold and disappeared. The same would have happened here - Donald Rumsfeld would have been in press conferences telling reporters they're crazy to think we would do such a thing and ask for the next question. The fact that 60 Minutes got hold of the pictures made this something they couldn't hide.

This comes right after Thomas Hamill escaped from Iraqi insurgents. He said he wasn't tortured.. although they did threaten to kill him. The lil gag by the US soldiers will surely change circumstances for the next person that gets snatched from the streets. With that in mind, was it right for 60 Minutes to release the photos? I won't get into all the reasons why this war has caused more problems than it solved. Right now, we need a solution. The plan that's in place, sending more and more soldiers.. 47000 being called this week sounds like a mutated plot line from The Neverending Story.

Check out people discussing a possible draft.. you know, after whomever is elected gets nice and comfy. Young People Debate the Draft

The Sopranos: Vito Has Some Breakfast Sausage - 2:10 p.m.
This isn't news of any kind, it's just the funniest thing I've seen this season on The Sopranos. Meadow's boyfriend, Finn DeTrollio is working the summer at a construction site. The first day on the job he gets treated like a jerk-off until someone mentions that he is hooked up with Meadow. Instantly, he's in the loop. "Take it easy," the mob guys tell him. Kick up your feet, as a matter of fact, take a nap if you want. These guys do zero work, they sit around, eating, drinking and talking shit until the Flintstone alarm goes off.

This first day a guy cracks a joke, breaking balls. The guy on other end of the joke, says, "Yeah alright.." Gets up like everything is lovely and smacks the guy in the face with a bottle. *smash* Blood and glass is on the guy's mouth and forehead. Meadow's boyfriend, Finn is like what the f is this? Scared shitless, he goes home and tells Meadow that they are animals.

The next day, Finn gets to the job and he's working like he's supposed to. The guys tell him to relax and take a nap.. be like them. What the hell is wrong with you? He cautiously sits down and it looks like he's gonna finally gonna wise up and be a part of the crew. Later that night he meets Meadow at an all night beach party. He tells Meadow that it makes no sense to go home. He's gonna go to the construction site early and crash in a trailer that this chick told him about - he and this girl had been talking at the job. As he pulls up to the site, he sees a security guard sitting in a car looking strange.. what's his problem?.. it looks like he's getting head from somebody.

I'm thinking it's the chick Finn was talking to earlier. Then up comes this globe-like head. It's goddamn Vito! Big, huge, mob tough guy, Vito.. is having some breakfast sausage. Where's the pancakes Vito, where's the pancakes?

Vito and the security guard look at Finn who puts his head down and scurries off, trying to act like he didn't see anything. That afternoon, he goes into a portable bathroom, opens the door to leave and who's outside the door? Vito. "Man, your pissing like a race horse in there," he says. Vito has this strange, glazed look, it seems like he's gonna threaten Finn to keep his mouth shut. He asks him what his last name is.. Finn tells him, which would gives ol Vito a way to track him down or hang his parents off a bridge if necessary. Then here it comes.. Vito pulls out two tickets to a Yankee game, saying how good the seats are and how they're gonna go together.. Vito tell him to make sure he's there on time.

I'm laughing my ass off cause Vito is about to turn this guy into his bitch. *singing: Secret lovers, that's what we areee!  He wants a piece of his ass.. literally. What the hell is Finn gonna do? If he tells anyone about what he saw, he's gonna end up in a bag. If he doesn't go along with the fun, well, who knows. In the face of being violated by Porky Pig, Finn goes home and packs his bags. When Meadow asks him what's up, he tells her he's leaving the state. They have an argument that bordered on a soap opera parody. Finn tells Meadow the Vito story and it just sounds crazy. The next day he asks Meadow to marry him.. I'm thinking to make sure he doesn't get murdered by Vito. He wouldn't dare mess with Tony Soprano's son-in law.. right?.

A few people on The Sopranos message board are pissed that a homosexual theme was put into the show. I'm thinking it's in line with people's real life after hours freakitudes. Last season, Ralphie was shown loving the dildo action. *Ughh* This is a funny, ass twist in the show that the writers hopefully follow up on. More than likely it'll end up like most Soprano story lines.. lost in the woods like that Russian guy. Remember him?