sell a bank that was being investigated by everyone from the fbi to the 9/11 commission for allowing money-laundering to happen.

a bank whose former manager yesterday pleaded the fifth as a Senate panel investigation tried to get to the bottom of the fact that fomer Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was allowed to bring in a 60-pound suitcase to a branch filled with $3 million in cash wrapped in plastic without raising an eyebrow.

but Riggs bank is a special bank. the president’s uncle, after all is the CEO of its investment branch, so when the 9/11 Commission spent 28 pages reporting about how the Saudis funded terrorists through the bank, the president redacted those pages.

riggs bank, who the Associated Press described as having a “near exclusive franchise” on the banking needs of Washington DC embassies, serving 95% of them including the Saudi embassy, the one who funded at least the two terrorists in san diego and probably more.

so special is this bank that the instapundit wont even talk about it. has never ever mentioned riggs bank, and probably has no plans on mentioning it, especially since it will soon just be PNC Bank, and Riggs Bank nevermore.

why does the instapundit take it easy on Riggs?

probably because the president’s uncle johnathan, gw bush’s brother, is probably knee-high in dirt from these dealings, and the attitude has always been from conservative bloggers that it’s not news unless drudge says its news.

and drudge sure aint gonna talk about it.

why on earth would drudge or the instapundit be interested in a once-respected bank being run by the president’s uncle that is being embroiled in controversy and fines and bad dealings?

i dont know… cuz its news. 9/11 news at that.

things are completely fucked when you have to go to the busblog for your news.

new blog showcase + ev explains the new blogger features + amb

tonight 7/16

the C, the echo

jerry cantrell, roxy

berlin, hollywood park

hr, alex’s bar

diana krall, greek

dazz band + sos + zapp band, vault 350

lewis black, the canyon

tomorrow 7/17

ike turner, harvelle’s

the magnetic fields, wilshire ebell theater

jurassic 5 + pete yorn + flea, avalon

wasp, house of blues

sha na na, the canyon

rick royale, lava lounge

glen phillips, largo

hr funkenstuff, roxy

lori carson, mccabes

patterson hood, spaceland

wu tang clan + redman + dialated peoples + sage francis, orange pavillion  

sunday 7/18

etta james, the canyon

modest mouse , avalon

mellow man ace, key club

rooney, wiltern

young dubliners, warner park

monday 7/19

sonic youth, henry fonda

modest mouse, wiltern

tuesday 7/20

TSAR + shapes of racecars, spaceland

linda rondstat, universal

jill sobule, largo

wednesday 7/21

boz scaggs + casandra wilson, hollywood bowl

becky, sixteen-fifty

tracy bonham, the hotel cafe

thursday 7/22

india.arie, royce hall ucla

gomez, avalon

walkment, sixteen-fifty

zilla, knitting factory

friday 7/23

the polyphonic spree, el rey

string cheese incident, wiltern

jewel, disney concert hall

bow wow wow, key club

makeout city + wizbang + dc thornton

i hope you realize that the only way that people will not hate you is if you win it all this year.

hopefully against the heat.

your twenty-five years old. you have three rings, but now you have lost the greatest coach of all time, you’ve lost the second greatest center of all time, and the greatest nba announcer of all time.

two and a half years ago  you lost the greatest general manager of all time.

since then you’ve gone to the finals and lost twice. this last time, embarrassingly.

your in the middle of a rape trial.

against a white girl.

a young white girl.

los angeles, i hope you realize, doesn’t care about your rape trial.

los angeles is interested in you winning the nba title.

immediately.

you have a few nice things working in your favor:

• your young black talented and rich
• you have one of the greatest players of all time in magic to give you advice
• you get to play with one of the best point guards ever who no longer has to try to run the triangle, which was a bad offense for him
• you have a great new coach to play for whose number one concern all year will be how to get you the ball.
• you probably didn’t rape that white girl.
• and if you pull this off, without shaq, people will have a good reason to compare you to mj.

somehow i don’t think you will be able to do it.

somehow i think your an orange county punk who probably should have gone to college

somehow i think your breaking up a dynasty that you could have been part of for a long long time but instead you acted like a diva bitch and ran off the two best things anyone could ask for: a great coach and a great center.

somehow i think i will start paying more attention to the clippers next year

somehow i think that when people utter the old phrase “be careful what you wish for”, they will think of you number eight

and they will look down

and shake their head.

eric case + everything is wrong + new yorkish

the president of the united states is actually going to turn his back on the NAACP and not meet with them, still upset, reportedly for their accusations that the civil rights group has made against him, the Associated Press reports today.

“(President Bush) has many friends who belong to the NAACP and respects their proud history of championing civil rights,” White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. “Differences of opinion and opposing views are of course part of the national debate. Yet the current leadership of the NAACP has clearly crossed the line in partisanship and civility, making it impossible to have a constructive dialogue.”

Impossible?

How would the President know that it’s impossible to talk to a group when he hasnt talked with them in four years?

Mr. Bush will certainly debate Sen. Kerry. Will he decline any debates with the Democrat since they will surely cross the line of partisanship?

And what is crossing the line of partisanship, anyway? Isn’t it balking at an invitation with a group year after year after year simply because they traditionally overwhelmingly vote against you?

They’re still Americans. Don’t they deserve to be included in the dialogue? Aren’t their concerns and issues important?

Isn’t the message that the President is sending one that says, “disagree with me once, shame on me… you… disagree with me twice… wont get fooled again”?

or something?

i thought the president was a cowboy.

i thought the president wasnt afraid to stand his ground and answer his critics.

i thought this president was proud of his accomplishments over the last three and a half years.

and as dumb as this president is portrayed in Fahrenheight 9/11, you’d think the yale grad would think he could take on a bunch of minorities who certainly are wrong about comparing his anti-abortion stance toward the taliban, and being upset about the rapidly deteriorating inner-city education problem, or the high unemployment rate for blacks.

guess i was wrong. again.

“The president may be too busy to talk to you,” Kerry told the NAACP today in Philadephia, “but I have news for you: He’s going to have plenty of time after Nov. 2.

“I will be a president who is truly a uniter, not one who seeks to divide one nation by race or riches or by any other label.”

The NAACP has about 500,000 members. There are 36 million African-Americans in the USA, approximately 13% of the nation’s population, according to the March 2002 census; which also reports that 11.9% of Black men were unemployed at the time of the survey, while only 5.7% of white men were unemployed.

Also of interest is the fact that although Blacks account for only 13% of the population, they accounted for 23% of american poverty.

If the president and his party of economic superstars wanted to prove their mad skillz, i cant imagine an audience who would benefit more that enlightenment than the NAACP.

the president missed a great opportunity.

bunnie + bunny + kevin

possibly coming to the cubbies.

im not so sure about it.

the problem is simple, and my pal karisa will be mad at me for it, but i dont want the cubs to be in a three-way trade with Arizona and Boston because sure the Cubs will get a star shortstop and mightilly beef up an already powerful lineup

and they will only have to give up some minor leaguers to get Mia Hamm’s sweetie

but i dont want the Red Sox to have a rotation that includes Pedro, Schilling, and The Unit.

call me crazy, but whats the use of getting a shortstop if it means having to face that firestorm of arms in October?

i would much rather just get struggling shortstop Orlando Cabrera from montreal in exchange for those very same minor leaguers.

and some will say, but the Yankees will get crushed by the Red Sox if they get Randy Johnson, and those people are fools.

if the Sox get the big unit, steinbrenner will just get someone else. the cubs cant survive such an arms race. they can, but they wont.

it’s my opinion that its completely in the best interest of the Cubs to totally lay low and not wake the sleeping giants who are the yankees and who are up some 7 games in the East.

they dont need to stack the deck any more against either the Sox or the Cubs.

what the Sox need to do is trade their man Lowe and some others to Houston and get the Rocket back where he belongs.

after that piazza-aided schellacking that he took in the all star game, im sure clemens would like nothing more than to retun to boston, join up with a real rotation, and beat the team who let him go.

this of course would inspire the yanks to make a bid for the big unit, but perhaps if the cubs really did get cabrera for prospects, they might be willing to move greg maddux, glendon rusch, and kyle farnsworth to the diamondbacks and pay johnson for a half a season.

but thats me, mr. vegas.

danielle + sk smith + andy dolan

creator of Entertainment Weekly, creator of the Daily Stern, and inventor of the word Blook, jarvis’s the buzzmachine is one of my favorite blogs and one of my daily reads.

i like the buzzmachine because jeff blogs the way you should: often, in detail, with links, and with good analysis.

i like that he has comments and keeps his stats public.

i like that he tries not to say fuck because his kids read his blog,

but sometimes he says fuck anyway

and i like that even better.

whats great about his comments is that he proves that even if you get 12,000 hits a day that doesnt mean that you will get a ton of comments, and those that you get wont neccisarilly be all that intelligent.

it makes me grateful that even though i get less than ten percent of his hits, i get on average more comments and most of them are more-enlightening.

i would like to see a few more pictures on jeffs blog. i would like to see him talk a little more about why he likes Howard Stern. and i would like him to encourage his commentors to write better comments and quit hiding behind fake email addresses.

i would also like to see him get a sit down interview with Stern and publish it on his blog.

other than that, i think the blogosphere is grateful for his centrist views on politics, and his hands-on opinions on technology.

and no one has covered the Stern vs FCC battle in greater detail, and for that we should all give him praise on his birthday.

as 9/11 was the impetus for many “warbloggers” to find their nitche, i might say that jeff found his when Howard was dropped by Clear Channel several months back.

and today mr. jarvis is 50…

i remember my 50th birthday…

WWII was in full swing and i was helping the cause by collecting nylons from the ladies in the neighborhood.

the cubs had assembled a mighty fine team and movies cost two cents.

ah the good old days.

Jeff Jarvis’s BuzzMachine

he los angeles lakers have traded shaq to the miami heat for lamar odom, brian grant, caron butler, and a future first-rounder,” tony kornheiser said on today’s Pardon the Interruption. “It is an incomprehensibly stupid move by the Lakers, and if David Aldridge has half a brain he will agree with me. How ’bout it.”

“You never trade Shaquille O’Neal.” aldridge replied. “You go from being invincable, to vincable.”

john woo caught me in the hallway, his head was down, he said it softly but i nearly beat him to it.

they did it, he said.

i know, i said.

this wasnt a they did it like omg they did it. this was a they did it like the republicans have stolen the election they did it.

like we always knew it was possible, but we didnt think it would actually happen, right infront of us, right when we were already down and beaten.

shaq was traded to the miami heat today for lamar odom, brian grant, caron butler and a #1 draft pick in 2005.

hardly a king’s ransom, particularily because grant is an undersized center and odom is an unproven burnout, and caron butler is a third year hopeful who scored twice as many points in his rookie year than he did last year.

shaq, meanwhile, is a presence that is going to be nearly impossible to replace, and brian grant is not the answer.

people say shaq is old. shaq isnt old. not even at 32. they say he’s out of shape, and i say theyre looking with their eyes and not the stats. shaqs numbers only got better as the season went on.

the fact is people in LA never fell in love with the big aristole the way that they fell in love with kareem, magic, worthy, and now kobe, and its ashame because shaq was hollywood, he was hard, he was funny, he was tough, and for his size he was as durable as it gets.

if kobe actually signs with the lakers, he is still unbelievably unsigned, the lakers will have the kobe show which vince carter, t-mac, and the answer proved doesnt win titles.

if he doesnt sign

and why should he

the lakers have a 41 year old power forward

no center

a new coach

and not much else except you boy

fuck that, id divorce my wife go to new york and win the first title for the knicks in a hundred and ten years.

lakers fucked up.

kat + waiting on instapundit‘s two cents on the failed ban on gay marriage + aint no bad dude

in lots of ways shes been an idyllic wife, standing by her man through thick and thin. she’s an educated, well-spoken, sober voice of the left.

i can see why people like rush limbaugh dont like her, even fear her. shes smarter than he is, has real power, and speaks to more people than just the grayhaireds and the unemployed.

but why would the dems not find time in their convention to have hillary clinton speak?

“It’s a slap in the face, not personally for Hillary Clinton (news – web sites), but for every woman in the Democratic Party and every woman in America,” Judith Hope, a major party fund-raiser and former chairwoman of the NY State Dem Party told the Associated Press.

According to the article, the former first lady “would appear at the convention’s opening night as part of a special segment featuring all the women senators, but she was not expected to speak.”

“To include the wife of the governor of Iowa, who I’m sure is a wonderful woman, and to not include Hillary Clinton is just such a glaring injustice,” Hope said. “It is, frankly, very stupid.”

Most see Ms. Clinton as the likely presidential candidate in 2008 should Kerry/Edwards lose. Why the Dems wouldn’t be reaching out to American women as the party of inclusion, and the party who have a good shot of giving this country its first woman president is beyond me.

Any problem that they had with her husband, they certainly dont have toward her. So whats the deal?

Unless of course this is all just a big fakeout, a planned ommision, if you will, to inspire a groundswell of support for the senator from new york, which will culminate in a dramatic and powerful speech this summer in boston.

as someone who witnessed hillary when she stumped for her husband back in ’91, i can attest to the fact that she can deliver the goods.

and she doesnt need a cadre of handlers to tell her what she should be saying or how to say it.

plus shes almost as pretty as edwards.

the dems should be embracing this woman who has gone through the ringer with her husband and has come out the other end even more powerful and solid than ever before.

i can’t wait to vote for her.

sk smith + britcoal + nico

mr. matthew lee welch brought up the concept of theo-cons, republicans who are rooted in Christianity who push moral agendas into american policy.

i say this without the least bit of sarcasm, but i am, in theory, in full support of such a concept.

the biggest problem that i have with this fine land is its shame in regards to religion. in order to distance ourselves from the religious zealots of the rest of the world, american politians oftentimes hide their spirtual beliefs so as not to be branded a Jesus-freak puppet or an echo chamber of the vatican.

westerners, and particularilly americans, have proved that they can balance their religion and their politics. most of us believe that God, infact, does NOT counsel the president of the united states to go to war with certain countries and/or to give tax breaks to the rich.

we have proven that you can have a moral compass that can work in conjunction to the bill of rights. we have proven that you can be a Christian nation minus Reformation.

what we have yet to prove is that we can govern a Christian nation by the teachings of Christ who preached things like “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none” (welfare), “turn the other cheek“, and His “new” commandment of “Love one another like I’ve loved you.”

if President Bush claims to be a Christian, I would like to see him rationalize his policies to the above.

i would also like to see more bible reading.

what i wouldn’t like to see is bible-thumping. America is great, in part, because of its diversity. i see no problem with a Christian president saying, “it is my belief that…” or “my faith teaches me… but I know yours might be different.” in fact i would encourage it.

ultimately i think that more religion in america, particularilly Christianity, would make for a less-violent country. i see very few places in the good book where it encourages preventative strikes on foreign lands.

and hardcore Christians, who see the Lord as their ultimate savior, and Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, should have a difficult time spending more money on “defense” and less on education.

if the Lord is our shepherd, after all, then whaddup with all the aircraft carriers?

but thats me, and i am obviously not reading the same bible as they are because within the second page of my bible it says that all the green seed-bearing plants are here for our use.

which to me means legalize it and free tommy chong.

so yeah, i would love to see the theo-cons out there, as well as the theo-libs.

sad thing is most of them are too chickenshit to stand up for what they truly believe in, and the others dont even know what they believe in, they just think that theyre supposed to believe in Jesus for some reason.

me, i believe, and i pray, and i trust. and hopefully ive shown in three years writing this that you can be a Believer, and the actions will mirror the beliefs far better than the words ever could.

simon world + matt welch + silverbake

so i wore shorts since its damn near ninety degrees here in hollywood.

when i got to my cubicle my commander had left a post-it note that he wanted to meet with me.

when the meeting was over i returned to my desk and i was thinking, what more could this fucking place do to me? which is a very victim-y way to think about anything, but its all i could come up with.

turned out one of my favorite people, the fella who sits next to me, had filled out a formal complaint about the fact that i had the nerve to play music at my desk.

a while back we made a deal that i would not play music until after noon, the halfway point of most of our days. i was pretty good about holding up my end of the bargain. but now even that amount of music was too much and i was being asked not to play music unless he was in the bathroom or away from his desk.

i dont know why some things bother me and some dont. call me a freak. the low pay, the extremely low pay, doesnt bother me.

the lack of opportunity: no biggie.

the lack of praise or respect for the fucked up work that im forced to deal with on the daily: whatev. ive grown to realize that there are very few perks to working at the xbi and kudos is low on their list.

people ask what the busblog is. what this is all about. and what the xbi is. and this morning taking the long walk from my commanders office to my little desk on the other side of the complex, i was realizing that the busblog is the written expression of endurance. of putting up with so much nonsense and not cracking. of turning shit into shinola.

its no accident that this blog didnt exist before i started at the xbi. and theres a little part of me that deals with all this whatever this is because the end result is writing that i dont mind putting my name on, because it isnt a daily barrage of venting, it isnt whines from the wilderness, it isnt bitchings from the balcony.

and the biggest struggle in this standoff regarding music is that i like the guy, and i know he has no love for music, and he knows how important music is in my life.

in the past i would be playing something and someone would ask me about it and i would talk about the songwriter, the guitarist, the producer, the label, the politics around it, the lyric that refers to a completely different song from a completely different person. i might even talk about one of the times that i saw the band. music to me isnt just the fa-la-la that it might be to someone else.

similarilly the groans from the guitars of lee rinaldi and thurston moore that i hear arent the shrieks that others hear. the tinklings of tones from thelonious monk that i enjoy isnt the background sounds that others here. and the walk of bass notes from john paul jones is more than just a fond recollection of past days that others might hear.

and being asked not to do something that i find nearly a neccessity to get through the day is horrible to me.

so im torn. and im tired. and ive hit the end of the road. i want to quit now. i want to stop this insanity. i dont want to have to fight for every little shred of happiness that im forced to wrestle over in my walk to earn my daily bread.

and im not getting laid.

damn good thing nothing in here is true.

her name is gruel + steph + andy dolan + and cheney too