June 2011

As you have most likely heard by now Anthony Weiner has admitted to sending the lewd photos of himself over the internet, including the now infamous bulge shot.

I can't begin to explain how frustrating this is. It's not for the main subject of this story, his bulge and internet habits, but rather for his handling of the whole situation. Weiner went out and made false claims of being hacked and a lot of his supporters, including myself, accepted that story. He lied to us all and that is inexcusable.

If Weiner would have come out last week and said "hey I made a stupid mistake and there might be more of these out there. I apologize for this", but he didn't. He became defiant and took to lying, knowing tons more evidence was floating around the inter-tubes.

Stupid? Stupidity doesn't even begin to describe this!

Then we have the whole Andrew Breitbart angle. Breitbart has no journalistic standards what-so-ever and sure didn't exhibit any in the handling of this story, but he did get it right. I know a lot on the left will still take to blaming Breitbart, but let's be honest with ourselves; if some blogger on the left got a picture of Boehner's flannel-clad boner that he sent to some girl, it would be picked up by every other blog on the left. That's the name of the game we all play.

There is one place that I still lay blame on this story and that is with the media. Yeah they should have reported it, but they have also kept on this story non-stop. Part of the blame does go to Weiner and his crap story at the beginning, but this story still garnered much more attention from the media than did the Mark Foley story, which is very similar except the fact that Weiner wasn't engaging in this activity with underage children.

But how does Weiner get off?

Every year this country dumps $15 billion into the war on drugs. This number has continued to grow every year, yet the drug "problem" in the United States continues to grow.

So while we are talking about trimming the fat from the budget, how about we start with this huge waste? It seems a lot of world leaders are thinking the same thing:

It isn't working. It never has worked. And so long as it continues to be fought in its current form, the "war on drugs" will do little to curb the spread of illegal narcotics or prevent hundreds of thousands of people from continuing to lose their lives each year as a result of the international drug trade.

So says a panel of world leaders who called yesterday for the biggest shake-up of drug laws in half a century. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," declared the Global Commission on Drug Policy. "Fundamental reforms... are urgently needed."

Now that makes sense, but not as much as what they are recommending as an alternative:

The Commission, which counts the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan along with former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia as members, believes governments must now experiment with "legal regulation of drugs." "This recommendation applies especially to cannabis," reads a major report it published in New York yesterday. "But we would also encourage other experiments in decriminalisation."

The right refuses to buy the fact that Anthony Weiner's Twitter account may have been hacked in order to send out a lewd photo. As matter of fact the entire incident revealed a huge vulnerability in yFrog, the photosharing service the image appeared on, and the right still refuses to accept it.

Their reason for not accepting the hack story? Because Wiener hasn't contacted the FBI about the hack. But how about this story of a Twitter account being hacked?

Aides to the Republican speaker of the Ohio House say his Twitter account was hacked by a person who tweeted support for liberal causes.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that in other phony posts Speaker William Batchelder appeared to criticize Republican Gov. John Kasich or promote former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

House Republican caucus spokesman Mike Dittoe says someone who follows Batchelder on Twitter noticed the tweets Monday night. A GOP attorney had the company eliminate the messages.

So a Republican's Twitter account was hacked, a lawyer has handled it and there is no word about the authorities investigating yet I don't hear the right crying b.s. on the hack story. I'm sure the wingnuts and media will totally buy the story that his account was hacked and not question anything about it.

However this story does prove something - Twitter accounts can be hacked! Of course the right will say "sure they can, only when it's nasty liberals hacking the accounts of god loving Republicans!".