Michael Jackson has been found Not Guilty on all ten counts in his child molestation trial.

In the eyes of most, this is a complete vindication for pop star Michael Jackson, though in the eyes of some, Jackson's musical career -- at least in America -- may never be able to recover.

Personally, I was surprised - I anticipated a split verdict, but not a full acquittal.

The breakdown of the charges and verdict: Count 1 - Conspiracy, not guilty. Counts 2-6 - Molestation, not guilty. Counts 7-10 - Giving alcohol to a minor in order to commit a felony, not guilty.

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A verdict has been reached in the Michael Jackson child molestation case.

According to the Associated Press, we should see a verdict around 5P ET.

Live radio coverage via WSB Radio Atlanta (WMP).

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DNC Chairman Howard Dean continued his foot-in-mouth commentary yesterday in Chicago.

"My view is FOX News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and I don't comment on FOX News," Dean said. That was in response to vice president Dick Cheney calling Howard Dean "over the top" on Fox News on Sunday.

Most liberals won't view this Deansim as part of the over-the-top rhetoric that Dean has engaged in over the past few weeks, as many of them truly believe that Fox News is a "propaganda outlet."

But one question begs answering: if Cheney said this on another network's Sunday morning talking head show, would Dean have attacked that networks as a Republican propaganda outlet?

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California's Corcoran State Prison is the most likely destination for Michael Jackson if he is convicted in his child molestation trial, which is now before the jury.

But Jackson would hardly be the only high-profile inmate there.

Occupants of its 8-by-12-foot cells include Charles Manson and Juan Corona, who killed 25 migrant farmworkers in the 1970s. The unit housed Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, until he was moved to a harsher lockdown in 2003.

Each cell has a concrete bed, sink, desk and toilet.

Televisions and radios are allowed, if the inmate can afford them. Night lights also are allowed.

Inmates wear denim jeans, blue shirts and brown boots, and are issued white T-shirts, white boxer shorts and a denim jacket.

Staff members, not inmates, prepare and serve food.

Inmates can use the day room to read, play chess or watch television. The exercise yard is available for about 5 1/2 hours a day. There's a basketball court and a bar for chin-ups, but no free weights.

Residents can shower daily. They have access to a law library and may receive weekend visitors for as long as five hours a day. They share one telephone and make calls during certain hours.

By 8:45 p.m., they must be back in their cells, but there's no official "lights out" time.

I can see it now: "Michael Jackson's new CD, 'Live From Jail with Charles Manson!'"

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At the 11A ET update, Arlene's sustained winds are up to 60 MPH, from 45 at the 5A and 8A update. This may portend Arlene strengthening into a Cat-1 Hurricane before landfall sometime tomorrow.

Hurricane Watches and Tropical Storm Warnings are now up along the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida panhandle coasts.

Heavy rains will extend well inland -- mind you, I've got to drive down to Georgia Southern to drop my daughter off Sunday, so I guess I've got to fight the rains while I go.

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Fox News Channel reporter Brian Wilson opened his mouth and boomed out a question to DNC Chair (and shoe leather taster) Howard Dean during a press conference with he and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid yesterday that has the Washington press corps all in a huff.

Amid all the other questions, Wilson had the "audacity" to bellow out a question asking Dean to expound on his "white, Christian party" remark of the other day, and linking it with Dean's well-known "hatred" of Republicans.

Let's join the presser in progress.

"You know," Dean interjected, "I think a lot of this is exactly what Republicans want, and that's a diversion." He bemoaned the "media circus" of the last two weeks and said that he and Reid were not concerning themselves with that -- only with vital things like Social Security, national defense and jobs.

"And all this other stuff is all fine and good, and we understand how exciting it all is to you," Dean said, shaking his head.

The press chorus then devolved into a cacophony of competing screams. (And Dean knows screams!) After several seconds, a booming voice cut through the noise. It belonged to Brian Wilson, a Fox News correspondent who was standing in the middle of the crowd. He asked Dean "if people are focused on the other things that you've said about hating Republicans, about Republicans being dishonest and then this latest comment about the Republican Party is full of white Christians. You say you hate Republicans -- does that mean you also'' hate white Christians?

Dean didn't respond and Reid talked about having a "positive agenda." Wilson was so insistent that at one point, Durbin asked, "Does he run the press conference?" After Reid took the one question of the morning that was not about Dean (it was about Iraq) there were a host of disjointed and semi-decipherable follow-ups (none of which was about Iraq).

Someone asked whether Dean would "change his ways," or if he planned to be "less confrontational in the future" or whether he "regrets" anything he has said. An aide to Reid announced that the photo op was over.

"We'll decide when we're ready," Wilson said. Later, Durbin would recount the scene with some exasperation. He chided the media for avoiding important issues in favor of trivial matters. "Please, for a minute, get to the substance," he said to a group of reporters. "You guys should be ashamed of yourselves."

Hey Howard! If it'll make you feel better, I can send you a fruit basket! I'll even include a pair of Odor Eaters to make that shoe leather at least smell a bit more palatable!

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Natalee Holloway, the Alabama high school student missing in Aruba, is generating plenty of press, but the lead on the story -- at least according to news sources in Aruba -- is Scared Monkeys.

Move over, CNN and company, the new media continues to roll on.

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CourtTV reporter Diane Dimond, along with the CourtTV network, have obtained a court injunction against a crazed Michael Jackson fan (What you bet he still lives in his mother's basement?) who has been threatening the reporter while she reports on the Jackson trial.

The 20-year old male from Knoxville, Tennessee has been yelling and allegedly "threatening" Dimond for weeks.

"It's turned ugly," a media source explains.

He was served with papers today on the Santa Maria court campus.

The fan has been chanting "bitch, bitch, bitch" as Dimond works and files her reports.

Jackson supporters believe Dimond has been operating as the prosecutor's unofficial advocate and mouthpiece.

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TD-One has strengthened into Tropical Storm Arlene, with sustained winds of 40 MPH in the western Caribbean.

It's anticipated to pass very near the western edge of Cuba and enter the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Hurricane Center expects Arlene to hit the Gulf Coast between Biloxi and Pensacola this weekend.

Stay tuned.

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Tropical Depression One has organized in the western Caribbean.

Current projections have TD-One becoming Tropical Storm Arlene by sometime on Thursday.

National Hurricane Center forecasters are presently projecting landfall on Saturday on the Gulf Coast somewhere between New Orleans and Mobile.

Of course, this is all subject to change -- as is anything relating to tropical systems, so stay tuned.

The image above (from WWL-TV/DT New Orleans) updates every 30 minutes or so.

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Remember the story about the moonbat with the F DUBYA California plate last fall?

Well there's another one. This time in Washington state.

This time, the moonbat in question drove around for four months until a bureaucrat forced him to get a different plate.

He's decided to put it up for sale on eBay.

This is an original license plate accidentally issued by the State of Washington.

I had this plate on my car for 4 months before receiving a letter from the DOL informing me that they determined my plate to be "Offensive to good taste and decency."

This is a used plate but in excellent condition. No scratches or dents. It is a one of a kind. Well, actually 2 of a kind. I'm keeping the other one. You can have either the front one pictured, or the rear plate with the actual tabs so you have proof that it is an authentic, state issued plate.

Bid early and bid often...

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In a 56-43, primarily party-line vote, the US Senate finally confirmed the nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the federal appeals court, ending more than two years of partisan wrangling, back-biting and finger-pointing by Democrats who felt she was an "activist jurist."

Rogers Brown was called all sorts of names, including some racially-tinged ones, by Democrats who felt that she had some sort of an obligation as a black woman to be more in line with their politics.

Senators quickly followed by ending another long-term filibuster, clearing the way for a vote Thursday on former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor as outlined in an agreement last month that averted a showdown that could have brought Senate action to a halt.

The Senate voted 56-43 to confirm Brown to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and 67-32 to end the filibuster of Pryor's nomination to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- the last of the three nominees Democrats agreed to clear in exchange for Republicans not banning judicial filibusters.

If that happens, all this posturing will seem like child's play. And the "gentlemen's agreement" brokered by the "Gang of 14" will go up like so much charcoal in a barbeque pit.

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Goggle-eyed 22 year-old Gregory Allan Despres showed up at the border crossing at Calais, ME on April 25 trying to enter the US. Despres was wearing a bulletproof vest and had a virtual arsenal of bladed weapons on him, including a homemade sword, knives, a hatchet and a chainsaw with blood on it. Oh, and his clothes were covered in blood, too.

What did the authorities at the border do? They confiscated his arsenal and let him go.

The next day, RCMP Mounties found the bodies of 74 year-old Frederick Fulton and his wife, 70 year-old Veronica Decarie in the mining town of Minto, NB. They had been hacked and stabbed to death, and just happened to live next door to Despres.

Police found the body of Mr. Fulton, a country singer, on the kitchen floor, just a few feet from his head, which had been stuffed in a pillow case and shoved under the breakfast table.

According to a U.S Attorney's complaint, filed by the U.S. Attorney's office as part of the extradition case and obtained by the Citizen, after he was stopped at the border Canadian and American authorities consented to his release into the United States.

At the time he crossed the border he was free on bail. That morning -- April 25 -- he was to have been sentenced for threatening to kill his neighbour's son-in-law. Mr. Fulton and Ms. Decarie had just been slain.

Eddie Young, a 38-year-old fish-plant worker, sat next to Mr. Despres in the customs office at Calais, Maine, while the agents processed them. Mr. Young was on his way to catch a flight to Mexico with friends, but was detained when the officers noticed on his file a 20-year-old drug conviction in Ottawa.

"When he come in, they opened his bag up and they took out," Mr. Young said in an interview. "It looked like large bayonets to me, but they could have been a little bit longer for swords, and then two pairs of brass knuckles fastened to his bag, a chainsaw and what looked like a flak jacket."

When asked about detaining him when he showed up at the border in the first place, a US Customs spokesperson showed just how little regard the Feds have for border security.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," said Bill Anthony, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. We're governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations," Mr. Anthony told the Associated Press.

None of Mr. Despres' weapons are prohibited by law in the United States. The customs spokesman conceded it "sounds stupid" that a man carrying a bloody chainsaw couldn't be detained. "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chainsaw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint," he said.

And to think: these are your tax dollars at work.

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I missed the battle of the college photos yesterday...

But given the choice, I'll go with the Beav over Herman any day.

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Members of the Congressional Black (Democratic) Caucus (all House members except IL Senator Barak Obama) are planning on marching into the Senate chamber to protest the judicial nomination and (hopefully) eventual passage of CA Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown.

A report in Wednesday's Washington Post says some liberals are "questioning the wisdom" of the deal that allowed a confirmation vote on Brown and two other controversial nominees - in exchange for Republicans agreeing not to invoke the "nuclear option."

"Our problem with the compromise is the price that was paid," the Post quoted Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) as saying on Tuesday.

Liberals accuse Brown of being "hostile" to civil rights and many other elements of the liberal agenda.

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Just damn.

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The Democratic party continued to suffer from collective indigestion, brought on by DNC Chairman Howard "YARRRGH!" Dean's foot-in-mouth disease this week.

Dean, at an appearance in San Francisco, called the GOP a white, Christian and unfriendly party.

(Dean) said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people," Dean said Monday, responding to a question about diversity during a forum with minority leaders and journalists. "We're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities."

Someone needs to pull Dean's coattails and remind him that insulting potential new voters is not the way to win friends and influence people. Then again, maybe they shouldn't. That way I can pop some popcorn and continue to watch Dean's meltdown, taking the Democratic party along with him.

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Though evidence has surfaced pointing toward a fradulent result in the Washington state gubernatorial race from last fall, a judge upheld the original election result, ensuring that Democrat Christine Gregoire holds the office.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges denied Republican claims that election errors, illegal voters and fraud stole the election from GOP candidate Dino Rossi. He announced his decision in court, saying the state's election process was flawed but that he was not the proper person to remedy those flaws.

"This court is not in the position to fix the deficiencies in the election process," Bridges said. "However, the voters are in a position to demand of their legislative and executive bodies that remedial measures be taken immediately."

Republicans were seeking a new election in November. They have said they plan to appeal Bridges' decision to the state Supreme Court.

So the moonbats win one.

No matter. They've shown their collective hands, and those hands are not clean.

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Al Jazeera, famous for showing beheadings of Westerners on behalf of Al Qaeda, has announced that they won't show a new PETA ad because of the ad's depicted scenes of animal cruelty.

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab television network famous for airing images of beheadings and mutilated bodies, rejected a 30-second commercial from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showing abuse of Australian sheep.

The sheep, raised for wool, are later shipped alive to the Middle East for slaughter. The footage shows lambs partially skinned alive during a procedure called "mulesing." Sheep are repeatedly kicked as they are loaded onto what PETA calls "death ships." Other sheep are are shown being dragged and kicked in the head as their throats are slit while other sheep watch.

PETA urged Al-Jazeera to reconsider accepting the ad, which is part of PETA's international campaign calling for a boycott of Australian wool until mulesing and live exports are stopped.

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