Associated Press: LeBron James' 35,440-square-foot house under construction Bath Township is shaping up as a castle fit for a king -- with a theater, bowling alley, casino and barber shop. Good for him I suppose, but a bit odd. Is he aware that he is not actually a King? Either way, maybe everyone with that much money would do something like that, so no big deal.

The same week of this national headline, there was also a spat with New York Knick Stephon Marbury. Before a game with the Knicks, Lebust took a shot at Marbury's shoes, saying he couldn't endorse such a cheap shoe. Marbury responded, "I'd rather own than be owned."

See, Marbury started his own shoe company of affordable shoes - the shoes are only $15. Marbury's goal is to give younger, under-privileged kids a chance at a "cool" and affordable shoe. Marbury explained, "once parents and their kids begin to see that other pro athletes are getting down with this, then it just makes a world of difference." All-Star Ben Wallace has also signed on with Marbury. Wallace and Marbury remember struggling financially to ever be able to get the newer shoes - the requisite embarrassment of a young kid followed, I presume.

Meanwhile, LeBust thinks it is better that he is involved in pressuring parents to buy $200 shoes. King Layup explained, "me being with Nike, we hold our standards high." Your high standards? Nike uses the same damn labor and comes up with a similar product. They just jack up prices to cover their insane marketing costs and to bring in greater profit per shoe .

So listen up young parents: LeBust insists you buy outrageously expensive shoes, or your kids will be losers. Forget the electric bill. Forget taking a day off of work. Get LeBust's shoes! Next step to success: get a 35,000 square foot home.

Hibbert v. Oden - Tip off 6:07pm Saturday

"Do you think the United States should or should not set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq that would have MOST troops out by September 2008?"

------------------Should----------Should not---------Unsure
All ---------------- 59% ------------- 37% ------------- 4%
Republicans ------ 36% ------------- 63% ------------- 1%
Democrats -------- 77% ------------- 20% ------------- 3%
Independents ----- 59% ------------- 34% ------------- 7%

CBS News Poll. March 26-27, 2006. N=831 adults nationwide. MoE 4% (for all adults).

Also, the Senate passed a spending bill this morning that "orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008."

New data on the income gap. This is the biggest problem our current economy. I keep hearing we are turning into a service-based economy. Well, a middle class cannot exist if it depends on all service jobs, when those same people guaranteed minimum standards (like health care and a useful minimum wage).

Then there is the problem with giving the rich unfair breaks. I also just learned a new example All those people that were flipping houses in the last few years, do not pay taxes if they kept the house for two years. So those people made up to $600,000 on a home home and did not pay an ounce of taxes on those gains. All the while, those people who were not paying taxes, drove home prices up with their games and now have a lot of average people trying to get into the market priced out. There is a better and more fair way to do this.

The idiot that directly oversaw the Walter Reed Hospital, was given farewell huge party. These people just don't get it.

Republicans claim a withdrawal date from Iraq will cause insurgents to sit back until we leave, then attack again. Why is that so bad? I mean, under this scenario, they will calm down and quit killing Americans in the next year. Then we can focus on training Iraqis and give them a calm before a potential storm. Then in a year or so, if they are not willing to fight for themselves, what can we do? And if full blown genocide starts, we can step in (but it would have to be worse than genocide in Darfur, because that is not enough for us to care).

I fully respect Kyle's decision to yank Bob's post. That is what Kyle is here for. Well, I finally read the post. I think Bob explained himself fully in his follow-up (my comments are down there as well) to where people should feel comfortable with the situation. Either way, I must confess one thing: it was nice to see someone else getting attacked like he was the devil for once (just kidding Bob).

In this week's episode we discuss Mississippi, the Summit County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner, new polling number on Hillary, and of course Ohio State.

Press play. The video works.

I've been working on this website for a long time. It will be three years this summer. During that time I have rarely taken the step of asking one of my co-bloggers to take down something they have written. It takes extraordinary circumstances for me to do so. Yesterday, I contacted Bob we discussed his post on Tony Snow's cancer and decided it was best to take it down. I want to apologize to our readers who were rightly offended by the content of the post. We are better than that. I hope that you will forgive the poor judgment and stick with us. Thanks.

Two disturbing signs of a warmer climate have emerged in the form of overpopulated cats and early-arriving geese.

Cats
Mild weather in Canada has caused a kitten explosion. The cats who are normally finding warm shelter are out and about this year, friskier than ever. The result: kittens! Lots and lots of kittens! Most humane societies already can't keep up with the current population of strays. "Kathy Duncan, animal services manager for Oshawa, deplores the "disposable" attitude toward cats. Less than 3 per cent that end up in Oshawa's pound are claimed, she said. The growing population means more animals have to be euthanized because there aren't enough adoptive homes to go around." (Visit the Summit County Humane Society to adopt a local kitty, or volunteer)

Geese
Tens of thousands of snow geese have arrived south early this year, and have destroyed grass that farmers normally reserve to feed their cattle. "Climate change enters the picture because the snow geese breed and nest on Wrangel Island, Russia, which Davison described as "a volatile arctic environment." Now that the climate has moderated in that frigid region, more eggs are hatching out and more chicks are surviving."

The damage is starting to affect small dairy farmers' bottom lines as they lose the crop they were going to sell or feed to their animals, and now they have to buy more hay to feed their animals.

"In Oien's case, thousands of snow geese last year ate $10,000 worth of the grass that he was going to feed his cows. He had to spend another $10,000 on store-bought hay to replace his loss."

These are just 2 examples of the havoc global warming is wreaking on us. It's costing money and lives, and it's happening fast! Have you seen any examples of global warming's impact?

In order to spare the site any further backlash and its readers further outrage I have taken down my most recent post. In it I joked that Tony Snow deserves his Cancer.

I apologize to the staff, especially Kyle who had no knowledge of the post and any one who was offended by it.

Before I close the book on this, let me first say that I've been living for the past two years with a 12-year Cancer survivor and also my mom recently went through Chemo. So I'm not unfamiliar with the pain and suffering Cancer causes. But just because my loved ones suffered from the disease doesn't make me any more sympathetic towards Mr. Snow's suffering.

You may disagree with me, but it is my opinion that this administration fixed intelligence, openly lied to the American people and pushed us into a war of choice for the sake of their cronies' profits and their personal agendas. A war which has caused immeasurable pain and suffering to hundreds of thousands of people which they have zero compassion for.

So when I saw a touch of pain and suffering visit the administration's mouth piece I was far from sympathetic. I don't believe in Karma or Final Judgement, I do however think that the parties involved in this degree of public deceit, the selling of an unjust war, should personally reap what they've sown.

Anything that denies these individuals long, healthy, cooshie retirements in gated communities with well-groomed golf courses is good in my eyes. That is my opinion, for better or for worse. I should have been more sensitive though to all Cancer survivors in my delivery. For this, I apologize.

If there is one thing that I'll take away from this incident it's this:

We know that the public at-large suffers too from a serious disconnect when it comes to the pain and suffering of distant innocents. When we read about a market being bombed in Baghdad; when we hear about the torture of detainees; when we skim an article about a US soldier who lost his legs, we cannot fathom the pain and suffering being described to us. Liberal or Conservative, if we're honest with ourselves we'll admit that reading the morning paper over coffee, we're categorically desensitized.

The exception, as we learned today, is Cancer. Unlike roadside bombs, beheadings and sectarian killings, we've all had first-hand experience with the pain and suffering Cancer causes. I think that this is why the reaction to my post was so intense. Not because I made a joke about one man's ill health, but because I made a joke involving Cancer.

If Mr. Snow had been critically injured in a car accident and I had satirized the situation, I can't imagine that the response would have been as extreme. Hell, the entire nation, including Leno, satirized the poor guy that Cheney shot in the face.

In closing:

When two sports teams have an intense rivalry, and one of the team's coaches dies, both teams come together like family to pay their respects, realizing that matters of life and death are much bigger than any game. I think most people view this Snow situation in these terms.

Bob, we're talking about a man's life. A person with a wife and children who love him. This is bigger than any disagreements in partisan politics. Well politics is not sport. This is not some intellectual game between a red and blue debate team. The actions and deception of this administration have caused the real life pain, suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with wives and children who loved them no less than Mr. Snow's.

I sincerely apologize to all those who've been touched by Cancer who were upset by my post, but I cannot extend the slightest sympathy to a man whose livelihood is marginalizing and obscuring the suffering of multitudes.

It has been verified that Alberto Gonzalez was at an hour long meeting about the US Attorney firings, just one week before the firings. This directly contradicts the liars previous statement. He is lying and absolutely must be impeached, since Bush won't give him the boot. But these Bush clowns still think it is reasonable that these other liars should not have to testify under oath about this?

And yesterday a funny moment happened during a White House briefing. Remember, these absurd Republicans don't want Gonzalez/Rove/Miers/etc to testify or for there to even be a transcript of their statements to Congress. Well, Tony Snow's backup liar cited a CNN transcript to try to clear up Gonzalez's inconsistencies. An astute reporter said, doesn't this "illustrate[s] perfectly why a transcript is necessary." Snow's backup responded, "I understand the inconsistency."

In other news, sadly, Elizabeth Edwards' cancer has returned. After a tough decision, and the urging of Elizabeth to continue on, John Edwards is continuing his Presidential run. Of course, some animal right-wingers have attacked John Edwards for continuing to campaign, and have gone as far as basically saying her cancer was the boost his campaign needed. Sick.

I am not going to put the absurd text on this cite, but you can check out here the disgraceful conduct by an Army recruiter that went insane on a gay kid that wanted to join the army.

Remember the disgusting Jean Schmidt, the Republican hack (pun intended....read on) that made her name by calling Veteran John Murtha (D-PA) a coward on the House floor. Well, Karma is a bitch.....last week she fell in a pool of vomit in a Congressional bathroom. One observer said, "it's literally all down her back." Ha.

I just got back from a week of volunteering here:
I took photo on the left of City Hall one year ago on my first visit. I took the photo on the right last week. These two images of City Hall help to illustrate my overall impression of the lack of progress that has been made in the little town. The City Hall has been demolished, but not there is just the empty tile foundation. In the background you can now see the library, which has been replaced by a small trailer about 10 blocks away.

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and Pass Christian on August 29, 2005:









Not much has changed in Pass Christian. The east side of the town has seen some recovery and some of the neighborhoods have a fair number of houses rebuilt. Many of the homes in the neighborhoods where I walked were abandoned and no one was there to work on them. Some of the homes closer to the coast had small white FEMA trailers sitting in shady spots next to houses that ranged from completed restoration to no change since the hurricane.

Most of these pictures were taken on the west side of town which currently has no power, sewer, or water. As we worked doing debris removal along the sides of the roads, we pulled clothing, wallets, toys, coins, cds, and just about any other personal item you can think of out of the Mississippi weeds. Some of the items were partially embedded in the soil and as we pulled them out it helped to reinforce how much time had passed since the hurricane.

As I worked, I wondered why this stuff hadn't been done by someone else a long time ago. Why was there still trash everywhere after 20 months? But, I also felt a satisfaction in knowing that I was working in a place that needed my unskilled labor. The University of Akron sent down 57 students who made a drop in the bucket contribution to a community that needs a lot more. Still, it was satisfying to be seen by the people there. Many of the cars that drove by would yell "thanks y'all" and some handed out cold Powerade. It was nice. I felt proud. I felt a connection to the place through my labor. I'd like to go back there on vacation someday to see the place alive.

The Good: House Democrats passed a bill that will bring an end to Bush's disastrous Iraq war.

The Bad: The bill still allows this disastrous war to continue for another year and a half.

The Ugly: The bill provides for $124 billion in new spending. About $111 billion is for Iraq/terrorism stuff. The remaining $13 billion is for non-Iraq/domestic spending. $6.4 billion to Katrina-related stuff is fine with me, which I will not question, because they got to get what they can, whenever/however they can. However, the rest is mostly for agricultural subsidies - I hate it.

Lets be clear, the Republicans did the same thing in past authorization bills. In fact, their pork-barrel politics was the worst this country has ever seen. However, that does not excuse Democrats from doing this, especially when they know every right-winger is going to go insane on this. The Republicans forget how they were exponentially worse in their spending, yet they are going to every media outlet yelling this.

House Leader, Steny Hoyer defended the bill in an editorial:

I guess. But being not as bad as the Republicans doesn't always cut it. I am happy Republicans are out, but this type of stuff does not win lasting majorities. There is no reason for this crap, especially when they know the bill is going to get vetoed (because Republicans/Bush is an insane war monger that wants to keep this war going at any cost).

The House has passed a bill bringing the troops home from Iraq if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain benchmarks by September 2008. That's over a year to do what Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others said could be done in a matter of months - establish a functioning democracy and live in peace. (those aren't the requirements of the bill - that's what Rummy and Cheney thought could be done lickety-split)

Bush has promised to veto the bill. Good for him. I wonder if that means he's got a better way to enforce goals on the Iraqi government. Send more troops maybe? He's a failure.

This wouldn't have been an issue if BushCo had listened to people who didn't agree with them all the time. They could have planned for an insurgency and how to deal with it, plan for infrastructure failures and how to prevent them, etc. If BushCo had managed the war with even the slightest bit of basic competency, we wouldn't have to be creating dates for ending the war.

Update: There's a Democratic presidential candidate health care forum tomorrow that you can view online starting at 12:15 EDT (9:15 PDT). The live webcast will be available throught this site.

First, I am pretty tired of the "culture of" description of everything. Culture of corruption, Culture of indecency, what next... the Culture of bad pet food?

However, the mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky A