The WeekEnder: August 3-5, 2007

We're just four days away from the primaries here in Michigan - and it's time for the sixth installment of The WeekEnder! The WeekEnder is a weekly series that will provide a hodgepodge of information to fill your soul, make you laugh, make you cry, and inspire you.

• Freshman senators seek to check use of private contractors in Iraq
• Senate leader supports censorship of opposition blog
• A different kind of communion
• Are the Tigers being cursed?
• The premier progressive blog
• I Scream for Howard Dean
• Can this kid play soccer!
• LuberalLucy's words of warning
• How would they respond?
• For Freedom?

Senate's Freshman Democrats seek to curb private contracting

Don't tell me that freshmen don't get it:

The Senate’s nine freshman Democrats announced a new effort Wednesday to rein in the use of private contractors to rebuild Iraq and to do an array of war-related jobs normally assigned to the military, The Virginian-Pilot reported Thursday.

According to the report, the group will ask Congress to create a "Commission on Wartime Contracting" that would assign auditors already employed by the federal government to ferret out waste and mismanagement in the more than $300 billion Iraq reconstruction effort.

A special inspector general on Iraq reconstruction reported two years ago that $9 billion of $32 billion spent by the State Department on Iraq reconstruction “could not be accounted for,” Jim Webb, D-Va., is reported as saying. “I think we all deserve better than that.”

The panel also would explore legal questions surrounding the use of contractors to do such jobs as interrogate prisoners and provide security for top U.S. generals, Webb is reported as saying.

State Senate GOP leader blocks Blogging for Michigan
What is Mike Bishop afraid of?

Apparently bankrupting the state isn't all Michigan State Senate Republican Leader Mike Bishop wants to do. This time he's gone after one of Michigan's best lefty blogs, Blogging for Michigan.

After a post went up today on BFM about the wrong-doings one of Bishop's cronies, out-of-touch Senator Bruce Patterson (R-Canton), Mike Bishop's Chief of Staff Matt Miner, called Secretary of the Senate Carol Viventi and instructed her to block access to all blogs from the Senate offices.

Pastor serves marijuana as communion
Can we get the Pope to bring this to Catholicism?

The mail-order minister of a Hollywood church that burns marijuana during services and allegedly sells it to members says that’s protected under federal law because the drug is a religious sacrament.

But Judge Mary Strobel has ruled that the Reverend Craig X. Rubin can’t use federal law as a defense because he faces only state charges.

Rubin, who’s representing himself at his drug trial, says members of his Temple 420 believe that marijuana is the tree of life mentioned in the Bible.

Blog highlight of the week: The Decider Curse?
Last year Michigan gubernatorail candidate Dick "Amway Guy" DeVos cursed the Detroit Tigers. Now is his pal Dubya Bush doing the same?

The Red Sox had the Curse of Bambino it took them 86 years to shake that. The Cubs still have the Curse of the Billy Goat that has been running since 1908. Now we have the curse of the "Decider." After the 2007 Allstar break President Bush once again proved he could F*ck a junkyard. He took one the hottest team's in baseball heading into the break and turned them into the Bad News Bears. The "Decider" must have realized he cannot do anything right and new picking our Tigers to win the World Series would of course send them into a spiraling trend crushing the hearts, of all those, Union loving, Clean air appreciating, Blue Staters in Michigan.

Lets just hope he manages this Curse like he manages the Department of Justice. If that is the case I think Jim Leyland can overcome this.

Link of the week: Daily Kos
What can I say for Daily Kos? In five years the site has grown into being the premier blog for the Left. A community of over 100,000 persons, Daily Kos (AKA Kos or dKos) is one of my favorite blogs, if not my favorite, besides my own (of course). In addition to several stories and open threads, some of my favorite Kos features include (but are not limited to) Diary Rescue, Presidential Straw Polls, Cheers and Jeers, Teacher's Lounge, Forgotten Founding Fathers, and many, many more.

Many Kossacks are currently in Chicago as part of YearlyKos2007; Presidential candidates, Howard Dean, and many othes are speaking at YearkyKos.

Photo of the Week: Dean at YearlyKos
And speaking of which, this appeared on Kos's front page:




Video of the Week: Soccer Prodigy
Related story here.



Quote of the week: LiberalLucy (a.k.a. Julielyn Gibbons
"Hell hath no fury as a lefty blogger scorned."

Joke of the Week: How would Hillary and Barack react?
(Hat tip: JustWinBaby at Daily Kos)

Both Obama and Clinton were asked what they would do first if a major US highway bridge collapsed while they were President.

Obama said he would make sure first responders had everything they need.

Clinton said the first thing she would do is retaliate.

Final thought
The so-called "Young Americans for Freedom" may be young, and they may be Americans, but they're not for freedom... at least not freedom of religion.