When the county won't give you no more methadone

From Lileksville, USA, comes a sordid little story about someone accused of stealing narcotic medication. Refreshingly, this time Cindy McCain doesn't seem to be directly involved:

A nurse who works at the Hennepin County Jail and is married to a sheriff's deputy was charged Thursday with two felony theft counts for allegedly removing methadone from the jail dispensary.

Sarah DeSpiegeleare is charged with stealing methadone intended for an inmate on two occasions over several hours, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. She also was charged with one count of drug possession.

DeSpiegeleare's husband, Hennepin County Deputy Steve DeSpiegeleare, a courthouse and jail guard, is well regarded by his colleagues and was recently assigned to work on logistics for the Republican National Convention.

The Republican National Convention? Maybe this is related to the Baroness of Budweiser after all.

(Cross-posted at Roger Ailes.)

Roger that

Having learned nothing from last year's debacle, when I tried to sell his blog to a gang of bikers for a handful of magic beans, Roger Ailes has once again given me permission to guest-post at his site while he is on vacation.

I will be joined in that endeavor by a guy named Ron, who is an active duty soldier in the US Army (since I'm a dirty fucking hippie, I'm supposed to hate him or something, I guess), and the redoubtable Kikuchiyo Jones, of whom little is as yet known.

Come check out the fun!

Out ot time

The latest issue of the Free Times, Cleveland's best alternative weekly tabloid, is also its last issue. The paper, along with its competitor Scene, was recently purchased by Times-Shamrock Communications, which will merge content from both papers and publish as Scene effective next Wednesday.

I will miss picking up the Free Times every Wednesday. It has been part of my weekly reading habit since its inception in 1992. I hope the "new" paper can find a way to incorporate the best features from each paper, and I especially hope they find a place for this woman. She writes too well to be giving it away for free.

An amazing coincidence

The other day I stuck an Obama '08 sticker on the rear bumper of my car.

Today I noticed that someone has keyed my rear passenger door.

Things I've learned while on vacation

• Dennis Lehane is a very good writer.
• Lynda LaPlante is not.
• Ducks do not seem to be afraid of deer, even when the deer come right up to them in a shallow lake.
  
• Lots of liberals have no fucking sense of humor.
• John McCain thinks that a woman being beaten and raped by a gorilla = comedy gold.
• If you're looking for a restaurant in Cleveland that serves until midnight six nights a week, this is the place you want.
• Buying a hot dog from a vendor at Yankee Stadium in the 1950s wasn't a very good idea. I'm sure things are much more sanitary now.
• Writing this kind of blog post is a lazy man's dream. Expect more like this in the weeks to come.
  

Covered

The coffee shop where I've been whiling away my vacation has XM Radio. The barista gets to choose the station it's tuned to. Today the owner was on duty and he had it tuned to Channel 74, B.B. King's Bluesville.

At 4 p.m. they played one version after another of the Lead Belly song "Black Betty," perhaps best known via the 1977 Ram Jam recording. They played Lead Belly's version, and Ram Jam's, and like six others, including versions by the Young Fresh Fellows, Nick Cave, and others I didn't catch.

It was pretty interesting. I suppose people who didn't care for the song weren't too thrilled but it being XM, they had dozens of other channels to tune to for a while.

Random Flickr-blogging: img_1150

IMG_1150, originally uploaded by rawkmom.

"Yeah, it would be cool to run for vice-president, but Senator McCain, I think you're talking to the wrong Michael Huckabee."

IMG_1150, originally uploaded by ritwikdey.

"Yeah, he's dead, all right. Which reminds me, can you give me a ride home?"

IMG_1150, originally uploaded by Sombra Azul.

"You were right . . . that was much simpler than walking back to the hotel."

Explained.

Strictly theoretical

You know what would really suck?

Let's say you have a crappy dial-up Internet connection at your place. Then one day a new neighbor moves in nearby, and suddenly your laptop detects an active wireless connection, not password-protected.

Let's say you begin to use that connection to go online, and that you come to depend on it. For about a year, you have a high-speed Internet connection available at your residence, and it doesn't cost you a dime. Sites which used to take forever to load now display almost instantaneously! That old 56K modem can kiss your ass, baby!

And then one day, one horrible, lousy day, you wake up and see young guys with trucks outside your neighbor's place, and then later you find that you longer have access to that free wireless signal. You keep trying and trying, but the signal is gone, moved away with the neighbor. You go searching for the cord which connects your laptop to your outside telephone line, and return to the old 56K connection you thought you'd left behind forever.

That would really suck, wouldn't it? Hypothetically, of course.

Dedicated to the memory of Tony Snow

Roger Ailes has the definitive tribute.

At this point, they might be referring to the hallway light near the bathroom

Tonight I'm going out to see that film about the four old geezers who, aided by some younger men, go out on a mission fraught with peril.

No, not this film. This one.