The Guild 10-31-2003 Happy Halloween!

[ladyinred]

OMG! This Boobs thing sounds hilarious! I would be falling out of my chair laughing it is so bizarre! These women obviously have no shame! (or pride)

[lodwick]

We are praying for no candy-beggars this evening...the dogs are poised to give them a fine welcome.

I truly dislike what this "holiday" has become.

Cheers T.

[lodwick]

Hilarious.

That doofus claims to have been in the service?

Picture dukakis in the tank...

[mountaineer]

Maybe Ketchup John should look down the barrel, just to make sure it's loaded.

[mountaineer]

Did you all see that shooting that occurred outside the courthouse where Robert Blake was attending a hearing in his criminal case (story here)? As a news reporter, I'm sure it was exciting for all those video crews to photograph the crime in progress - the man shooting his attorney at extremely close range - but as a human being, I'm a little perturbed no one tried to help! They all just kept the cameras rolling, and it was an off-duty auxiliary cop who finally bothered to nab the assailant as he walked away, while the lawyer lay bleeding on the ground. Good grief.

[Timeout]

Hey, C!

I would love to go to Scotland. What a great experience.

But my sister thought the food was AWFUL! She said they eat BAKED BEANS for BREAKFAST. Egads!

[lodwick]

BAKED BEANS for BREAKFAST

Well, we know that's not right. Yikes.

[Iowa Granny]

I'm certainly not an expert on pheasant hunting, but it appears to me he has a very peculiar shooting stance.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I am trying to figure out if he's wearing a hat or if it's his hair.

[Iowa Granny]

I had to go back to look at the picture to see the hair again. I'm wondering if he has a gray stocking cap on the top of his head.

It was nippy out there today, so it's entirely possible. I am very suprised he didn't have on a blaze orange cap. I think those are mandatory in Iowa.

Do you know where he was hunting today? Surely not in Iowa.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

The caption says that he's hunting in Massachusetts with a double barrelled shotgun.

It looks like there isn't a hat, it's just bizarre hair.

[Iowa Granny]

He said; He said


While Iowa Democrat Party Chairman Gordon Fischer wants the gay bashing story to go away, Dean and Gephardt staff don’t seem to agree. In a separate story the Des Moines Register explores the strong feelings about the incident where Gephardt staffer Mike Kelley is accused by Dean staffer Hunter Allen that Kelley pushed him and called him a faggot. Fischer is reported to have called the two campaign staffs and urged them to get back to focusing on beating Bush rather than continue to propel the gay bashing story. However, both campaign staffs are heated in their resentment of the other campaign’s response to the incident.

Steve Murphy, Gephardt's campaign manager, responded to Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, calling the allegation false. Part of the Gephardt stance on the incident is there is no video or audio recording of what was said. They point to the fact that Allen had a tape recorder to tape Gephardt’s remarks. So, where’s the tape? The accuser Allen was at the Gephardt appearance to tape record Gephardt’s speech for the Dean campaign. It is reported and agreed to by Allen that he disrupted the Gephardt meeting by taking a phone call and was dressed down by the Gephardt campaign. He also irritated Gephardt staff when he participated in the press conference following the speech. The incident between Kelley and Allen occurred outside, and even though there were press and others passing by no one can substantiate either side in the incident. "You are an astute enough political practitioner to know that making unsubstantiated allegations of this nature is one of the lowest forms of political dirty tricks," Murphy wrote to Trippi in response to Trippi’s call to fire Kelley, according to the Des Moines Register.

The Register reports Dean’s campaign reaction:

Sarah Leonard, Dean's spokeswoman in Iowa, responded: "It's outrageous for someone to question the honesty of our staff person. This is an openly gay young man who was a victim of hate speech. "No, it was not caught on tape. Hate speech is rarely caught on tape. That doesn't mean it is rarely used." News organizations including Fox News, Sunday Times of London, ABC News and MSNBC have all fairly consistently filled reports or made comments that Allen is the least accurate in his account of what happened. Quoted in the Des Moines Register:

But a newspaper reporter, who says he was standing next to Allen, described Allen's behavior as "clearly very provocative," and said he understood why Gephardt staffers sought to remove him. "If anything transpired, for my money, it was Allen who started it," said Tony Allen-Mills, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Sunday Times of London. Leonard, representing Dean, said: "We're not backing off of this. We realize that the Gephardt campaign has chosen to deny and attack rather than deal with this serious situation, so we've decided to move on," quoted in the Register.

Chairman Fischer believes that this will now die down. We will see.

http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com/CandidatesUpdates/News/news2.htm

[BigWaveBetty]

Good Morning!

My computer was suffering from gremlins and/or sun spots yesterday. One minute I'd be zipping around the web and the next all that would show up after waiting and waiting was that dern 'Page cannot be displayed', so I gave up.

I'm enjoying the Gephardt - Dean staffer flap. It's so much fun to watch flying monkeys fight!

[BigWaveBetty]

I hope you had a Happy Halloween ladyinred. How nice the weather turned cool just in time, it's hot in those costumes!

We didn't have too many trick or treaters and now I'm stuck with a load of candy. But I know the year I decide to buy a smaller amount, that's when a boatload of trick or treaters will descend on our neighborhood.

[Iowa Granny]

Good Morning. Moving very cautiously this morning. New pain in a new area. Lower back, right hand side,, I have no idea what brought this on.

I must shop today for a "Baby Bath" for Jenah Lynne who will be celebrating her 3rd birthday on Sunday evening.

[BigWaveBetty]

Sorry to hear about your new pain. It probably comes from those nasty dimocrats.

What is a "Baby Bath"? My grandbaby wanted some kind of bath gadget but her mom and I can't decipher exactly what she's talking about, maybe the Baby Bath is it?

[BigWaveBetty]

That was about the time she declared she would be "an uber-bitch" like rivals Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey, Hyman quoted her as saying.

The way I hear it Rosie had demonstrated her uber-bitch qualities to her talk show flunkies daily.

[BigWaveBetty]

Oh no, Juliette Huddy is wearing those awful fishnet stockings today.

[BigWaveBetty]

Oh no, Juliette Huddy is wearing those awful fishnet stockings today.

[BigWaveBetty]

This is the organization, according to the dims, that we should entrust to keep the Iraqi people safe?

Report: U.N. Responsible in Baghdad Blast

The U.N. investigators cited in the report seen Friday paint a picture of an organization that was ``strongly influenced by considerations of image, politics, funding, and enthusiasm to deliver programs'' in deciding to send U.N. staff back to Iraq after the U.S.-led war - and that didn't pay enough attention to their security.

U.N. agencies and departments widely ignored the ceiling of 200 international staff in Baghdad set by security staff, according to the report. At the time of the bombing, there were about 350 international staff in Baghdad, and by some independent accounts as many as 560, the report said.

The report also said U.N. staff ignored warnings of an attack.

On Aug. 10-11, there were indications of an attack in the Canal Road area near the hotel in the next 10 days, the report said, and the daily U.N. security reports on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19 clearly identified the threat of an attack on the United Nations using ``improvised explosive devices.'' But little attention was paid to the deteriorating security conditions, it said. Full story