Apparently the current one has some problems…

This is what seems to be the thrust of a Times article about the trial, which may start as early as today now that the week-long jury selection has ended.

The jurors include a woman who said she had worked for decades as a curator of prints and drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a retired postal worker who said in jury selection that Judge Walton sentenced her son to jail on drug charges years ago.

The jury includes a former reporter for The Washington Post who said his editor was Bob Woodward, a Post journalist who is expected to be a witness in the trial. The former Post reporter also said that until recently he was a neighbor of Tim Russert of NBC News, who is also expected to be a witness.

Top notch reporting, New York Times!

• The New York Times is already lost in fantasy about who will replace Hillary in the Senate when her office moves down Pennsylvania Ave. a few blocks. [NYT]
• Not everybody is stoked about High Def. Porn who make porn and the people who watch it, for example. Damn, that shit is stank. [NYT]
• Did you know that Barrack Obama is an Islamofacist terrorist? The Washington Times offers a glimmer of the slime to come. [WaPo]
• Not to worry: Proposed California spanking ban would only effect parents of children. [NYT]
• Paris gets 3 years probation for DUI. That’s totally, like, a really long time to have to drive without being all fucked up. [The Superficial]
• Prisoners outlive people who are not prisoners. Another reason to close GitMo. [ABC]
• Thieves caught after their stolen GPS devices lead police to their home. Duh. [ABC]
• India has a space program. [AJE]
• Tom DeLay pleads for honest and open debate in Washington. Hey Tom, here’s an idea for your blog: shut the fuck up. [TDB]

Certainly not us, but we’ll mention it since we just now noticed. Apparently, New Mexico Governor, Former United Nations Ambassador and four-time Nobel Peace Prize loser Bill Richardson announced that he is running for vice president yesterday. He’ll make an attractive pick for the bottom half of Hillary’s ticket and we like that he looks a little bit like a mobster.

If you’re anything like us, you may have been momentarily thrilled when you read that enough Republican senators are backing the resolution against Bush’s troop increase to ensure that it passes in that chamber. That’s right! There are actually as many as 5 Republican senators willing to show some principle (John Warner, Chuck Hagel, Susan Collins, Gordon Smith and Norm Coleman, who is a total dick, but up for re-election) So what does this mean for the president’s plan?

You guessed it: Absolutely fucking nothing - it’s a non-binding resolution, and thus, Republicans and conservative Democrats are willing to vote for it. Cause of it was an actual piece of legislation with some actual power to actually stop the deployment of more troops to Iraq, it would flop like fat old Aunt Agnes off a diving board into an empty swimming pool.

Yeah, ok, so we guess this is better than nothing from a completely rhetorical standpoint. But from a practical standpoint, this resolution is totally fucking meaningless, no matter how many Republcans vote for it. The Demcrats don’t want to imperil their shiny, new majority by demonstrating any sort of leadership, which, of course, begs the question why bother letting letting them keep it?

Our source on this one is the Listening Post blog over at Wired, but they’re saying that Germany is pushing for an international ban on violent video games after some Counter-Strike enthusiast shot up his school. Despite the fact that we spent several hours playing Super Mario World this evening, we think video games are pretty stupid for the most part. Except Civilization. That game is fucking rawk. Though it probably should be banned because it’s more addictive that crack. But the point is this: it’s shocking to us that Germany would strive to do something dumb and reactionary, but that’s what kind of policy-making a ban on violent games would be. People don’t do violent things because they’re into violent games; the opposite is true. A ban on creativity and and free speech ain’t about to cure social ills.