Earlier today on Hive TV

Al Gore's Massage

Looks like Al and Tipper aren't getting divorced because of a misplaced aluminum can or 'drifting apart' -- no, more like a half-assed Clinton attempt to get a happy ending. Didn't he learn ANYTHING after hanging out with Bill for eight years?

Apparently calls to the hotel masseuse in Oregon at 10:30 is a call for an actual masseuse. Elliot Spritzer at least got that part right.

Anyhow, since no one in the States are talking about Mr. Gore's botched debauchery - that's where I come in - here's a Sim-like computer generated version of the masseues's perspective of how it went down that evening... and judging by the look on her computer generated face, she did not go down on anyone. This re-enactment was created by Taiwanese "news service" NMA to re-create the allegations made against Al Gore. And that's news service, the same way Entertainment Tonight is news.

Funny. He still looks a little stiff.

The Week In Review/Sunday Comics

Tiger Woods changed his name to Cheetah.
Mr. Obama had a 'jobs summit.' He created 30,000 more positions in Afghanistan. The plan is to escalate the war, so that we can bail out. Sounds very Nixon-eeze to me?
So what's a Taliban to do?

And Blasphemes started keeping track of the Advent, and researched all the stories, fan fiction, and the general fun of the Nativity tale.

Hope you had a great week, we'll see you again tomorrow.

Bloggers Regulated

The government wants to make it a little harder for bloggers to shill products online for fun and profit. Wait? You mean I could be making money doing this?! Yes, I'd like to learn more... And fun? Fun?! What?

New guidelines released by the Federal Trade Commission say bloggers must disclose any money or freebies they receive in exchange for writing product reviews, a fast-growing and loosely regulated way for companies to market everything from diapers to movies. I could have been getting free diapers!? Free movies?!

The move is an effort to apply the same rules that already cover broadcast stations, newspapers and magazines to the Wild West marketplace of the World Wide Web. Really? Wild West World Wide Web? Who writes this crap?

Obviously someone who owns a media outlet complained that bloggers have different rules and were all butt hurt about it, so, at some cocktail party they complained to their Congressman (who probably had zero idea what he was talking about and went to wipe his tie off thinking he had a booger). Congressman A then mentioned it to his intern, who did understand - and then filed a report to the FCC to make new rules for bloggers. Thanks a lot, bootlicker! Just a guess on how that process worked itself out.

Because fighting two wars, a no-recovery recession, mounting unemployment. North Korean and Iranian nukes, and health care aren't keeping the government busy enough, the power of the Federal Government needs to make sure that someone didn't get a free movie ticket and then wrote about it.

Todd and Sarah Palin to Divorce?

Blasphemes has learned today that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage (including a former Palin staffer) have confirmed the split.

A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska last week.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other for most of last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring.

Okay - THAT makes sense. I can finally sleep knowing why she REALLY quit the State House.

Sweet Jebus John Edwards

Edwards acknowledges probe over campaign funds

Once a dirty cheat, always a dirty cheater?

Well, you tell me, folks...

Failed presidential candidate John Edwards, whose political action committee paid more than $100,000 to his mistress' [sham of a] production company, acknowledged Sunday that federal investigators were looking into how he handled his campaign funds. He just keeps falling deeper and deeper into the quicksand, doesn't he?

Hold on, the former North Carolina senator said he was confident no money was used improperly. Sure, and the kid still isn't yours either, right John?

A quick reminder for those of you who can't remember... John Edwards' political action committee has been under scrutiny for making payments to a woman with whom he had an affair. Edwards admitted the affair with Rielle Hunter in August after months of denying tabloid reports about the relationship. And months of denying fathering the son. Much like Michael Jackson when he sang about Billie Jean. But Michael Jackson was a tad more genuine in his answers.

"I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly," Edwards said in the statement. "However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true. We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter."

You bet John. Just keep smiling and combing that hair. I haven't seen a politician as obsessed with his hair this much since Rod Blagojevich. Anyone with hair that pretty HAS to be telling the truth, right?

His political action committee paid Hunter's firm $100,000 for "video production" in a four-month span in 2006, and then paid an additional $14,086.50 on April 1, 2007. At the time, the PAC only had $7,932.95 in cash on hand, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission. That's a lot of money. Especially to someone who only figured what that lens cap thingy was on her second day.

That same day, according to the records, Edwards' presidential campaign paid the PAC $14,034.61 for what is listed as a "furniture purchase." Well, have you shopped at Babies R Us for cribs and diaper changers? That stuff is pricey, you know?

You might ask, hey, what's the big deal? John funneled some of that fat campaign money to his mistress's kid's nursery, so what? Willfully converting money from a political action committee for personal is a federal crime. And - as we all know getting caught was the real crime that John committed here.

Since announcing the affair, Edwards has remained largely secluded. His wife, Elizabeth (the one with the cancer), will soon be releasing a book talking about the affair. She's upset with John... for some reason?

Newt's Demands

Before D.C. Gets Our Money, It Owes Us Some Answers [by Newt Gingrich]

Watching Washington rush to throw taxpayer money at Wall Street has been sobering and a little frightening.

We are being told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has a plan which will shift $700 billion in obligations from private companies to the taxpayer.

We are being warned that this $700 billion bailout is the only answer to a crisis.

We are being reassured that we can trust Secretary Paulson "because he knows what he is doing".

Congress had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy.

Imagine that the political balance of power in Washington were different.

If this were a Democratic administration the Republicans in the House and Senate would be demanding answers and would be organizing for a “no” vote.

If a Democratic administration were proposing this plan, Republicans would realize that having Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Dodd (the largest recipient of political funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as chairman of the Banking Committee guarantees that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Paulson plan that will emerge will be much worse as legislation than it started out as the Paulson proposal.

If this were a Democratic proposal, Republicans would remember that the Democrats wrote a grotesque housing bailout bill this summer that paid off their left-wing allies with taxpayer money, which despite its price tag of $300 billion has apparently failed as of last week, and could expect even more damage in this bill.

But because this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused.

It’s time to end the silence and clear up the confusion.

Congress has an obligation to protect the taxpayer.

Congress has an obligation to limit the executive branch to the rule of law.

Congress has an obligation to perform oversight.

Congress was designed by the Founding Fathers to move slowly, precisely to avoid the sudden panic of a one-week solution that becomes a 20-year mess.

There are four major questions that have to be answered before Congress adopts a new $700 billion burden for the American taxpayer. On each of these questions, I believe Congress’s answer will be “no” if it slows down long enough to examine the facts.

Question One: Is the current financial crisis the only crisis affecting the economy?

Answer: There are actually multiple crises hurting the economy.

There is an immediate crisis of liquidity on Wall Street.

There is a longer time crisis of a bad energy policy transferring $700 billion a year to foreign countries (so foreign sovereign capital funds are now using our energy payments to buy our companies).

There is a longer term crisis of Sarbanes-Oxley (the last "crisis"-inspired congressional disaster) crippling entrepreneurial start ups, driving public companies private, driving smart business people off public boards, and driving offerings from New York to London.

There is a long term crisis of a high corporate tax rate driving business out of the United States.

No solution to the immediate liquidity crisis should further cripple the American economy for the long run. Instead, the liquidity solution should be designed to strengthen the economy for competition in the world market.


Question Two: Is a big bureaucracy solution the only answer?

Answer: There is a non-bureaucratic solution that would stop the liquidity crisis almost overnight and do it using private capital rather than taxpayer money.

Four reform steps will have capital flowing with no government bureaucracy and no taxpayer burden.

First, suspend the mark-to-market rule which is insanely driving companies to unnecessary bankruptcy. If short selling can be suspended on 799 stocks (an arbitrary number and a warning of the rule by bureaucrats which is coming under the Paulson plan), the mark-to-market rule can be suspended for six months and then replaced with a more accurate three year rolling average mark-to-market.

Second, repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. It failed with Freddy Mac. It failed with Fannie Mae. It failed with Bear Stearns. It failed with Lehman Brothers. It failed with AIG. It is crippling our entrepreneurial economy. I spent three days this week in Silicon Valley. Everyone agreed Sarbanes-Oxley was crippling the economy. One firm told me they would bring more than 20 companies public in the next year if the law was repealed. Its Sarbanes-Oxley’s $3 million per startup annual accounting fee that is keeping these companies private.

Third, match our competitors in China and Singapore by going to a zero capital gains tax. Private capital will flood into Wall Street with zero capital gains and it will come at no cost to the taxpayer. Even if you believe in a static analytical model in which lower capital gains taxes mean lower revenues for the Treasury, a zero capital gains tax costs much less than the Paulson plan. And if you believe in a historic model (as I do), a zero capital gains tax would lead to a dramatic increase in federal revenue through a larger, more competitive and more prosperous economy.

Fourth, immediately pass an “all of the above” energy plan designed to bring home $500 billion of the $700 billion a year we are sending overseas. With that much energy income the American economy would boom and government revenues would grow.


Question Three: Will the Paulson plan be implemented with transparency and oversight?

Answer: Implementation of the Paulson plan is going to be a mess. It is going to be a great opportunity for lobbyists and lawyers to make a lot of money. Who are the financial magicians Paulson is going to hire? Are they from Wall Street? If they’re from Wall Street, aren't they the very people we are saving? And doesn’t that mean that we’re using the taxpayers’ money to hire people to save their friends with even more taxpayer money? Won't this inevitably lead to crony capitalism? Who is going to do oversight? How much transparency is there going to be? We still haven't seen the report which led to bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is "secret". Is our $700 billion going to be spent in "secret" too? In practical terms, will a bill be written in public so people can analyze it? Or will it be written in a closed room by the very people who have been collecting money from the institutions they are now going to use our money to bail out?

Question Four: In two months we will have an election and then there will be a new administration. Is this plan something we want to trust to a post-Paulson Treasury?

Answer: We don’t know who will inherit this plan.

The balance of power on election day will shift to either McCain or Obama. Who will they pick for Treasury Secretary? What will their allies want done? We are about to give the next administration a level of detailed control over big companies on a scale even FDR did not exercise during the Great Depression. Is this really wise?

For these reasons I hope Congress will slow down and have an open debate.

And in the course of that debate, I hope someone will introduce an economic recovery act that makes America a better place to grow jobs. I hope the details will be made public before the vote.

For more details on my action plan for getting the American economy back on track and building long-term economic prosperity, you can read this message recorded yesterday to American Solutions members.

This is a very important week for the integrity of the Congress.

This is a very important week for the future of America.

If Washington wants our money, then it owes us some answers.

Cap'n: Whoa, I can't believe how well Newt Gingrich (of all people) pretty well nails this one.
Sure I'm trolling for comments - but what don't you agree with?

Underwear Auction

Man cheats on his wife, sends a sexy text message to the wrong person, and his mistress's underwear ends up for auction on ebay. And you thought Edwards was doing it wrong?

Link-O
The eBay listing, entitled "Empty condom packet & a photo of The Tart's knickers", also comes with a detailed account of the events leading up to her discovery, in which the woman returned from work to find her husband of 22 years watching a DVD and discouraging her from entering their bedroom.

In the room she found the empty condom wrapper under his pillow and "the Tart's knickers . . . at the foot of the bed".

Anna also promises that this listing will not be the last in the matter, stating that her husband's Harley Hog is "the next item that will probably be sold on eBay at a start price of 99c and, of course, with no reserve!" Several bidders have already expressed interest in the motorcycle.

The Edwards Affair

The next president must be "honest and sincere. We don't need the world's greatest politician as president. We need somebody we can trust." - John Edwards, New Hampshire 2008

Dear Cap'n, Why do you give such a sh*t about this John Edwards thing? Really? Who gives a rat's ass? And if you're trying to say that Democrats are cheaters I've got two Republicans Newt and DeLay - and they're not the gay cheaters!

Signed, Artie Lang

Dear Artie,

Hope all is going well in rehab. Sorry you missed out on the Bob Saget roast on Comedy Central. To address your fine letter about my concerns and coverage of the John Edwards 'affair': First he cheated. Second, on the job. Third, he lied and had co-workers cover it up. Four, he got caught. Five, he lied some more. Six, he still hasn't really apologized.

Here's a little snippet of his "apology"...

From John Edward's statement: (here's the rest of it)
In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough.

I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly.

He follows this by devoting a whole paragraph to the assertion that "the child is not mine." In the statement he hopes to distract from the fact that, he cheated on his wife, his wife with terminal cancer, with a woman he worked with, then continued to lie about it even when confronted by the facts - and only up until it was too late - and then admitted it on a Friday, (where bad political news goes to be hidden) - and the same Friday of the Olympics Opening ceremony - in a blatant attempt to bury the story so that it would soon be forgotten.

So other than all that, Artie, I don't care about his sex life. You're right to point out Newt and DeLay - and they also don't have political careers anymore. And for good reason. What I do care about, Artie, is that John Edwards never has had a shred of integrity or honesty. As you know, I've never liked his phony-baloney career built on down-home little guy North Carolina working-man values centered on his 31-year marriage to Elizabeth and on their four children. You better believe I'm going to say "I tolda' so."

On top of his sham image and values nonsense talking points... As a candidate, he doesn't have the political common sense to not screw around when under the massive campaign microscope. And then lies about it when he gets caught!

"The story is false, it's completely untrue, it's ridiculous," -John Edwards, October 2007 after the National Enquirer broke the story.

John Edward's political defects show him for the empty-suit and a haircut that he is. His character and personal defects aside, do you want the most powerful political leader in the world to not be able to figure out how to hide a little personal fling with an under qualified campaign staffer?

The ability to have sex with numerous young and nubile women has been, is, and will probably always be one of the fringe benefits of high office. Kennedy, Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt: they all had side poon - hell maybe everybody did. The point is, because there's not a lot of evidence shows that they were all better at hiding their indiscretion. And yes, Bill Clinton got caught and was able to survive, but 8 years later he had to pay the piper by campaigning for Hillary. Edward's stupidity in getting caught, and stupidity in lying about it shows he's not capable of holding the highest office.

I expect a bit more from my President, and my Presidential candidates. Getting caught with his pants down and trying to talk his way out of it is not one of those expectations. I feel sorry for all those people who voted or campaigned for him - because he cheated on all of them too.

"If you want to beat me up, feel free," Edwards said in his Friday statement. "You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help."

I seriously doubt that, John. I seriously doubt that.

Hush money through marked up viral ads

Silicon Valley Insider reports:

John Edwards' political action committee paid his mistress, Rielle Hunter, $114,000--ostensibly to produce four short web videos for the campaign, ABC News reports. Given that Edwards has now finally admitted he had an affair with Hunter (and, according to the National Enquirer, which first broke the affair story, fathered a "love child"), it's possible that this is the first instance of hush money essentially being laundered through YouTube.

Also notable: Rielle Hunter may be the best-paid web video producer in the business. AP:

In 2006, Edwards' political action committee paid $100,000 in a four-month span to a newly formed firm run by Hunter, who directed the production of just four Web videos, one a mere 2 1/2 minutes long.

The payments from Edwards' One America Committee to Midline Groove Productions LLC started on July 5, 2006, five days after Hunter incorporated the firm in Delaware.

Midline provided "Website/Internet services," according to reports that Edwards' PAC filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Midline's work product consists of four YouTube videos showing Edwards in informal settings as he prepares to make speeches in Storm Lake, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, as he prepares for an appearance on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and travels in Uganda in 2006.

Edwards' PAC followed the six-figure payment with two smaller payments totaling $14,461, the last on April 1, 2007.

$28,500 per video? That's a little high, even for an agency market average. The going rates for professional video production - should range about $5K per video. And $5K for 2 minutes is already on the high end. Edwards paying 28-29 K does smell kind of fishy. Perhaps if she were part of an established company that wasn't founded 5 days prior?

Yep, He's a Dirty Cheater

Yes, John Edward's hair DID have an affair with that woman.

EXCLUSIVE: Edwards Admits to Sexual Affair; Lied as Pres. Candidate

In ABC News interview, Edwards says he cheated, but did not father child.

Ah, John, are you done lying yet? Let's get Maury Povich on the phone.

I believe that's when the oral sex took place

West Virginia governor's nephew testifies that the prostitute he paid wasn't all that memorable: "I believe that's when the oral sex took place." (link)

Ah, another day, another politician cheating on his wife. At least (I assume) this one isn't dying of cancer.

Oh, what? It wasn't the Gov, but just his nephew? Then who gives a shiat? I DO!
The details about "Cinnamon" giving a "non-therapeutic back massage" are hilarious!

But I'll quote something from the comments page of the original story:

Grannys Girl 66

The Manchin's are just like any other family. Everyone has dirty laundry to air. Whatever is done in the dark will come to the light. First the fake degree for the daughter and the now the nephew has sex issues and who knows what is next for this famous family???? I bet Joe Manchin will not be so popular when it comes to election time this year.

The picture is unrelated, however, it's what popped up when I googled Call Girl Cinnamon. One only wonders what the real call girl Cinnamon looks like...