kdog: "Where's the hope and change DeBlasio/Bratton?  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

... this isn't some TV show, where everything is neatly resolved in one episode. Given that Bill de Blasio's only held the mayor's office for seven months, I would expect that it's going to take a little more time than that to alter the collective mindset of an entire police bureaucracy, never mind one which has been in place and set in its ways for the better part of a century or more.

And if you can't see that, then you're likely as much a part of the overall problem as the cops on the street. Because from a political standpoint, you're really nothing more than a fair-weather constituent who can hardly be counted upon to support the mayor in his struggle to reform the manner in which NYPD conducts business. And rest assured, if and when Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton do finally undertake the reform of NYPD's ranks, they will face significant political pushback.

And when I'm talking pushback, I mean the sort of emotional button-pushing "law and order / quality of life" folderol that once got you the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Bernie Kerik as Hizonner and Commish, respectively. Giuliani's 1993 election not only retarded the cause of NYPD reform for almost an entire generation, it actually served to exacerbate the department's longstanding ethical and behavioral issues, in particular its often rocky relationship with the city's various minority communities.

You don't think that can't happen again? Well, it can and it will, if you and your fellow decent-minded New Yorkers don't show some testicular fortitude of your own and demonstrate to Mayor de Blasio that you have his back. Because honestly, why would either de Blasio or Bratton even attempt such a monumental task as the reform of NYPD, if they felt that the average NY voter has no real stomach to sustain such an effort on their part?

Human nature being what it is, there are very few elected officials who are willing to allow their professional fate to rest in the hands of such a fickle voter base, and even fewer appointed officials who would willingly fall on their swords for reform simply as a matter of principle.

As I've said earlier, if you seek real change, then you must resolve to become an effective instrument of that change. And that requires you to play the long game politically, which means standing behind the guy you supported for NY mayor in the recent election, and affording him and his team a real opportunity to prove themselves -- not throwing up your hands in impatient despair after only seven months, and writing them off for the duration.

So, when I hear people in the media, and the general public, state some version of "Ray Rice beat up his now-wife," I have to ask myself why people are so willing to state something they don't know to be true.  It's like they don't really care what happened, they just saw the aftermath and made up their minds what happened before those elevator doors opened.

Reporting on this has been all kinds of terrible, with people who are supposed to know better seeming to deliberately be misleading the public.  Well, nothing new there.

Don't get me wrong, please: I am not condoning any act of violence against women.  I'm not making excuses for Rice, I'm not assigning any blame to his wife.  Saying a woman provoked a man to hit her is the same as saying a woman "asked" to be raped or abused because of what she was wearing.

I've had two thoughts on the whole thing: (1) if there was video of him cold-cocking her, I truly believe it would have made its way into the media.  That leads me to think it wasn't as clear-cut as him just hauling off and hitting her.  I think they were probably both hammered and close to falling-down drunk, and something between them got out of hand.  Which still doesn't excuse the incident.

(2) We're still waiting for the Jim Irsay punishment, and someone today suggested the Ray Rice leniency was because what they're going to hand out to Irsay will be even more lenient.

Please don't make the mistake everyone else is making, and compare this to the violations of the substance abuse policies - those are collectively bargained consequences, and every player in the NFL knows what those consequences are; the same is not true for violations of personal conduct.

But at least tell the truth: he did not knock her out in public.  He just didn't.  We don't even know if he did knock her out - maybe he pushed her and she passed out.  Still not right, but please: there is no video that any of us have seen of him knocking her out.  There just isn't.

If there was video that showed that, why did law enforcement let them go home together?  Don't you think that if he'd cold-cocked her, this would have been elevated to something a lot more serious from a legal perspective than simple assault?

There's been more intervention in this case than the average domestic incident - and that's a good thing.  If this incident kept these two people from spiraling into something much, much worse, that's a good thing, too.  

Sane policies don't dictate that you fight wars in a proportional manner.

If you aren't interested in defending yourself, your family, your friends, and your country then you should just surrender.

Israel has chosen to fight.

It is sad that Hamas, a well known Muslim terrorist organization, has decided to hide its weapons in schools, hospitals and other locations were civilians are sure to be.

But they have.

Just as a surgeon must remove good tissue while cutting out a tumor, Israel must kill civilians will stropping the cancerous rockers and tunnels.

The problem is that there can only be one hottest car on the block. So the lawyer who buys a Porsche is foiled by the C.E.O. who buys a Ferrari, who in turn is foiled by the hedge fund manager who buys a Lamborghini. This arms race leaves these desires unsated; there's still only one at the top of the heap.

Good think that there is an art market which is currently on fire.

More than likely it will be strong for the next 15 or more years.

Newsmax Media today announced that it has reached a distribution agreement with satellite TV provider DISH Network Corp. for Newsmax TV, expanding the reach of the forthcoming news, information and lifestyle channel to nearly 35 million satellite homes and businesses when it soft launches on June 16.

The new distribution deal puts Newsmax in more than one-third of U.S. cable and satellite homes. Last week the company announced a distribution deal with DIRECTV, the nation's largest satellite provider reaching more than 20 million subscribers.

In announcing the DISH agreement, Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy said he expects Newsmax TV's distribution to grow by the time the channel, which targets the interests and needs of an underserved Baby Boomer audience officially launches this fall.

"Newsmax TV's agreement with DISH further accelerates our path to initial carriage in 40 percent of U.S. homes," Ruddy said.