Among the stipulations announced Monday for Vick's eventual reinstatement: Vick is required to have counselors and mentors guide him through his attempted comeback (former Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy is serving as the NFL's liaison). Vick must keep Goodell apprised about his living arrangements if/when signing with an NFL team. Vick even needs to tell Goodell how he will "manage his financial affairs" and follow that plan.

Both Connecticut's Chris Dodd and North Dakota's Kent Conrad steadfastly deny any knowledge or fact of preferential treatment in their real estate loans from Countrywide Mortgage, but the fact the story keeps hanging around is disquieting. And apparently it has been doing quite a bit more than hanging around, there have been hearings and testimony.

[snip

First off, let's be clear, there has been no finding of wrongdoing as to either Dodd or Conrad. Secondly, even if it were to be all true, it does not look like the benefits were particularly valuable monetarily. Still, it is tiring seeing the constant privileged status our elected officials in Washington claim for themselves.

These are two critical Senators for the Democratic majority, and here we are in the biggest legislative struggle perhaps in decades over healthcare reform talking about their ethical propriety. It is not helpful. I don't care if the two Senators' gain was penny ante in the long run, it is the fact they were brazen enough to think it okay to take a little cut. Because as members of the "world's greatest deliberative body" they from all appearances simply felt entitled. Like Kobe Bryant and Ben Roethlisberger, even if they are totally innocent, the mere fact that they allowed themselves to be placed in such a position speaks ill.

It has, at a minimum, the appearance of impropriety and, right now, that is too much.

Enough.

Who knew it took this long to weed through this kind of stuff?  I wonder how long other candidates and other presidents took - it would be interesting to see - because even though he raised more money than anyone, he had the benefit of all the latest technology and many of these should have been checked pretty instantly (and weren't, because as we all know - the camaign turned off the credit card verification number function on the website).

I got rid of all my cable at the end of this season's "Breaking Bad"  because I was wasting too much time watching "America's Next Top Model" marathons, so unfortunately, no "Nurse Jackie" or "Weeds" for me...

Kind of boring when they spend half an hour talking about how much in love they are....a little repetitive.  

Senate finance committe nixed the public option today.

After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits two key Democratic priorities but incorporates provisions to slow the explosive rise in medical costs, officials said.

These officials said participants were on track to exclude a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite President Barack Obama's support for such a plan.

The lawsuit, Shepard Fairey et al. v. The Associated Press, now concerns two main questions. Was Fairey's use of the photograph fair use, and thus protected by law, or was it a copyright infringement? And who owns the copyright to the photograph, Garcia or the AP?

Garcia says he was a freelancer when he shot the photograph for the AP, and thus the work-for-hire doctrine does not apply, though the AP says Garcia was an employee and so the AP owns the photograph.

Both Garcia and the AP have registered the photograph with the U.S. copyright office, and Fairey has registered his posters as well.

Charles Ogletree, one of Gates's lawyers, tells the Globe that the meeting [Beer Diplomacy] will be on Thursday and that both Crowley and Gates can bring family members. The White House would not immediately confirm those details.

ABC News has learned that the autopsy of Michael Jackson found the powerful anesthetic propofol, as well as several prescription drugs, in his system, and law enforcement sources say that investigators believe their final report will list the propofol as a "contributing factor" in his death.

Jackson's personal doctor, Conrad Murray, who was with him when he died June 25 at his rented California home, has been identified in court papers as the subject of a manslaughter investigation.

Late today, The Associated Press reported that a law enforcement official said investigators believed Murray administered the shot of propofol that would end Jackson's life.

Chernoff declined to comment on the report, saying only, "We will not be commenting on rumors, innuendo or unnamed sources.

I've been listening to the sportstalk radio and a lot of call in folks have been comparing vick to donte stallworth, the nfl player who killed a pedestrian while driving drunk.  the comparison and the punishments meted out to both seems unfair to some because stallworth's victim was a human being and vick's victims were animals.

set aside the probability that many in a progressive community would value animal life equal to human life, remember we're talking about sportstalk radio here.

so anyway, i've been wanting to call in and point out the one of the most important aspects of the law is determining motive and intent.

that while stallworth's crime deserved punishment, it was an accident albeit a maliciously negligent accident. really, the point is donte stallworth does not sit around planning ways to kill pedestrians.

in contrast, vick sat around with likeminded individuals and planned the destruction of animals with the express purpose to make money from it.  people seem to forget that.

so.  when i learned that vick would be re-instated i was outraged.  but not surprised.  but i did not know the re-instatement came with a five game suspension which means that any team (what few teams there are) interested in vick has to write off 1/3 of a seasons worth of return on their investment.