Harrah's has welcomed Richard Brodie back to the WSOP, which is good news for him, but I still can't understand why they still won't allow a recreational player to play video poker in their establishments. There's nothing dumber than stopping someone from playing when the odds are in your favor and you've got deep pockets.

The Quiet Lion's return to the WSOP reminds me that his blog is the first place I learned about last year's WSOP main event chip scandal: 2.2 million chips were inadvertently slipped into play at the end of the event. (More here and here.) Reports suggest that things this year aren't offer a great start, either.

Little Green Footballs exposes its TDS as it defensively pimps an anonymous government source who claims (without offering specifics) that the JFK plot probe is widening (everybody in the real world knows that it has been overhyped).

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sounds off on the terrorist threat in the aftermath of the JFK plot:

(CBS) NEW YORK While questions continue to arise about the alleged plot to blow up a fuel pipeline beneath JFK Airport and surrounding neighborhoods, some are questioning why New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't had a louder voice since the plot was foiled on Saturday.

On Monday, Bloomberg finally weighed in, but his response was not what some would have expected.

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.

That "What, me worry?" attitude pretty much sums up Bloomberg's advice to New Yorkers on the terror plot. As far as he was concerned, the professionals were on it, so New Yorkers shouldn't let it tax their brains.

"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added.

Richard Brodie says he was banned from all Harrah's properties because he managed to win at video poker (the consequence of luck, not skill and not cheating).

I also heard a story that a guy witnessed a casino manager at The Venetian close a craps table because the guy rolling the dice was winning too much. I didn't believe the story about the craps table, but I do believe Richard -- which makes me wonder if the craps story is true.

Whatever the case, if you're a casino manager and you stop a recreational gambler from gambling, you're the stupidest person in the world.

UPDATE: There's intelligent life at Harrah's after all. Brodie can play.

(Via atrios) The lapdog MSM figures out a way to keep the JFK story alive. Wanna' bet against them getting suckered in again next time?

Credibility of JFK terror case questioned
BY CAROL EISENBERG

June 6, 2007

When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," which might have caused "unthinkable" devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.

The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.

And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf's initial characterizations seem more questionable -- some go so far as to say hyped.

"I think her comments were over the top," said Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "It was a totally overstated characterization that doesn't comport with the facts."

Greenberger said he has no argument with police pursuing and stopping the alleged plotters.

"I think they were correct to take this seriously," he said. "... But there's a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating what they have. I think they feel under tremendous pressure to vindicate the elaborate counterterrorism structure they've created since 9/11, including the Patriot Act."

Mauskopf declined to comment Tuesday, but Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) dismissed criticism of law enforcement as "the price of success when you haven't been attacked in six years. We've gone from criticizing them for not doing enough immediately after 9/11 to now criticizing them too much."

It's telling that the leader of the prosecution refuses to comment on article challenging the credibility of her claims that the plot was "chilling." It's not like she doesn't want to talk to the press in general -- just three days ago she held a press conference on the indictments.

At least all this baloney is keeping Jon Stewart's ratings up:

I think this was a great answer.

On Sunday, Brit Hume used the racist slur "spear chucker" on the nationally broadcast Fox News Sunday program.

I think he should be fired by Fox News for his comment, but many people disagree, arguing that Hume must have been unaware that "spear chucker" is a racist epithet used to demean blacks.

But Brit Hume is completely aware of the term's meaning. As duha at Daily Kos points out, Hume wrote an article about the phrase last year.

Columnist Creates Uproar With Racial Epithet to Describe Colin Powell

Monday, May 15, 2006

By Brit Hume

A newspaper columnist in Ohio has created an uproar among readers who objected to his use of a racial epithet to describe former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In a column attacking Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, The Cleveland Plain Dealer's liberal Metro columnist Sam Fullwood wrote that Powell "flamed out after his ego no longer allowed him to be an unquestioning spearchucker in Mr. Bush's war."

Fuller, who is himself black, admits that he deliberately used "provocative, incendiary — but not hurtful — language" to "get people engaged," but says he doesn't consider the term to be offensive.

So Brit Hume says -- in his own words, not mine nor anybody else's -- that "spear chucker" is a "racial epithet."

And he uses that very same racist epithet on the air to describe a political opponent.

I know it is hard to believe that Brit Hume would use a racist slur on national television, but arguing that "he wouldn't say that" is a difficult task when in fact he actually did say that -- and he knew what he meant.

Fox News is an overtly racist network. We shouldn't let Brit Hume off the hook.

If this is true, I think it is fair to say that the Bush Administration has redefined lunacy.

The day after FOX News anchor Brit Hume used a racist slur to describe a Democrat, a different FOX news anchor announced the indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (who is black) while running B-roll of Rep. John Conyers (who is also black).

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is on the case:

As you know Rep. Bill Jefferson (D-LA) was indicted today on 16 counts of public corruption. See this link for TPMmuckraker's coverage of the case.

But apparently Fox News Channel can't tell one African-American member of Congress from another, in this case Rep. Jefferson from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee ...

Not surprising coming from the network of Brit "I like slinging racist slurs" Hume.

Update: Maybe I'm being unreasonable. After all, Conyers, on the left, is almost a mirror image of Jefferson, on the right (sic). Even their hairstyle and mustaches are similar.

Update II: Here's Fox's limp apology. I didn't expect much from them, but at least they could have explained how in the world they made the mistake.

dnA at Too Sense has posted a hilarious Richard Pryor/Chevy Chase clip that should give you some insight into Brit Hume's use of a racist slur.

Brit Hume has crossed a line that no network news anchor should be allowed to cross: he used a racial slur to describe a political adversary of Senator Fred Thompson.

On June 3rd's FOX News Sunday, Hume called former Senator John Glenn a "spear chucker" which the Urban Dictionary defines as a synonym for the N-word. Here are first two Google links for the epithet:

Spear chucker: A derogatory phrase for a black male...

Spearchucker: a black person, aluding to native hunters in Africa

This is an open and shut matter. It is completely unacceptable for a news anchor to use this kind of derogatory language, especially when his network has a track record of overt racism.

Please contact FOX News and ask for Brit Hume's immediate dismissal.

Here's an example of FOX's outrageously racist programming:

Update: A friend just e-mailed me asking whether I thought the fact that Glenn is white mitigates what Hume said. My answer was no -- imagine if Hume had said "You wouldn't normally expect Duke Cunningham to be a Willie Horton, but he did get sentenced to 8 years in jail." It's also true that Hume's statement does not make a whole lot of sense, but that is pretty typical for him.

Update II: Brit Hume is completely aware of the meaning of the phrase. In 2006, he wrote a column about the phrase, calling it a "racial epithet." (Courtesy of duha at Daily Kos.)

Columnist Creates Uproar With Racial Epithet to Describe Colin Powell

Monday, May 15, 2006

By Brit Hume

A newspaper columnist in Ohio has created an uproar among readers who objected to his use of a racial epithet to describe former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In a column attacking Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, The Cleveland Plain Dealer's liberal Metro columnist Sam Fullwood wrote that Powell "flamed out after his ego no longer allowed him to be an unquestioning spearchucker in Mr. Bush's war."

Fuller, who is himself black, admits that he deliberately used "provocative, incendiary — but not hurtful — language" to "get people engaged," but says he doesn't consider the term to be offensive.

Words can't express how mind-bogglingly amazing it is to read this (emphasis added):

JFK TERROR PLOT: three under arrest; Feds: Anger fueled airport bomb plot
BY TOM INCANTALUPO

Newsday, June 3, 2007

The alleged plot to blow up Kennedy Airport's fuel system, intended to be more destructive and deadly than the Sept. 11 attacks, was driven by a deep-seated hatred of the United States and the West and now spotlights the Caribbean as another region of the world that increasingly poses a terrorism threat.

Newsday and other media outlets that relentlessly promote crap like this ought to be ashamed of themselves. Instead, their mangers count revenues from increased viewership and readership generated by sensationalizing the terrorist threat.

After nearly seven years of uninterrupted bull from the Bush Administration, it's pretty obvious that every single utterance it offers should be assumed false until proven otherwise.

Yet the MSM is largely lapdogging over this whole JFK plot, which is a clear case of mega-hype. The central villain is a 63 year-old American identified by a convicted drug felon who had no means to execute the plot and was described by one of the law enforcement officials as a "sad old guy." Apparently, this "chilling" terrorist plot was led by someone "who sells books on street corners and exports broken air-conditioners to Guyana."

I think the reason MSM does this is that terror sells: 24 is the best drama on broadcast TV, and whenever the news can offer a Jack Bauer-like scenario, it figures its ratings and circulation will increase. The medium is the message; OJ Simpson's trial never would have been the story that it became before cable news networks and televised trials.

Now, since terror instills fear, is exciting, and sells television ads and newspaper copies, the media has mostly abandoned its responsibility to tell the truth.

Fortunately, the structural problems inherent in our media system can be overcome through the internet. One of the most frequent attacks on blogs is that you can't trust them to tell you the truth. That critique has some merit, but compared to the mainstream media, blogs and internet-based journalists are the fountain of truth.

Felix Hernandez is scheduled to start tonight for the Mariners. It will be his fifth start since going on the disable list in April.

During Felix's first two starts this season, it appeared that he had finally fulfilled his promise and emerged as one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. He struck out 18 over his first 17 innings, allowing just 8 baserunners and no runs.

But a pitcher's health is a fickle thing, and Felix hurt himself during his third start, pitching just one-third of an inning and giving up three earned runs. He was on the disabled list for nearly a month and since returning has given up 14 earned runs over 20 innings pitched for an ERA of 6.30. He's average just 5 innings per start, and has a record of 1-2. His WHIP is 2.0 (up from ~0.5). He's averaged one fly ball per inning (up from .75 in 2006), and is averaging 18 pitches an inning (up from 16 in 2006).

In his last start, Felix pitched six innings, giving up three home runs and seven earned runs.

I certainly hope he'll be able to turn things around, but I'm a bit pessimistic. I remember reading somewhere that pitchers who get hurt before the age of 23 have a much harder time recovering than ones who get hurt after the age of 23. Felix is 21 and has been throwing a slider, which is very tough on the arm, for years.

After Felix got injured, I asked a gambling friend of mine what odds he'd give me if I were to bet against Felix ever winning 10 games in a season, or, more cautiously, 15. He still hasn't given me an answer. Regardless, it's the beginning of the third month of the six month season and Felix already has three wins. Hopefully, after tonight's game, he'll have four. But I still wouldn't bet heavily on him getting 10 and certainly not 15.

This weekend, the Bush Administration highlighted its latest domestic anti-terrorist success: the apprehension of a 63 year-old American, Russell Defreitas, who plotted to blow up JFK airport.

How serious was this plot? Here's the government's view:

''The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable,'' U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it ''one of the most chilling plots imaginable.''

Or was it a tad less serious? Here's a more sober assessment:

Much of the U.S. government's case is built on information obtained with the help of an FBI informant who is not named in the complaint but is described as having been convicted of federal drug trafficking and criminal-conspiracy charges. The informant's sentence for his latest conviction "is pending as part of his cooperation agreement with the government," according to the complaint filed Friday and unsealed Saturday.

Defreitas "had some ideas" about what he wanted to do, said the U.S. law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But he was a long way of from being operational or even coming close to getting explosives or posing a direct threat to JFK." The official characterized the seriousness of the plot as "a notch below Fort Dix" — the recent case in which a group of Muslim men in New Jersey were charged with planning a sniper attack on the military base.

A notch below the Fort Dix Six? Good lord. These are the guys who planned to assault a damn fort with a couple of firearms. They trained with paintball guns and they got caught when they tried to burn a DVD at a local Circuit City store. That didn't stop Brian Williams from bloviating:

Good evening. A lot of government officials from the president on down have hinted over the years that if we ever really knew about all the unsubstantiated national security threats that are out there, we'd never leave our homes in the morning.  Of course most of those threats pass without us ever knowing about them, but this morning as millions of Americans were leaving home for work they heard about this story...six young men in their twenties, accused of planning to shoot up...Fort Dix in New Jersey. The FBI says this was a case of home grown terrorism inspired by the internet and thankfully foiled.

The corrupt new television news establishment, its meager intellectual talents already depleted by the the influx of its weekend crews, presented the JFK plot as confirmation of Brian Williams' poetry.

The L.A. Times, however, did some decent reporting.

...the scheme was so nascent that there was no developed plan for how the plotters would get explosives, let alone gain access to the tanks and pipelines they hoped to target

...officials downplayed the danger to travelers, stressing that the plot was far from 'operational' and that there was no intelligence to suggest an imminent threat in the United States. Officials also said there was no indication of any links to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

...The main figure in the alleged plot was identified as Russell Defreitas, a 63-year-old U.S. citizen from Guyana who worked at JFK handling cargo until 1995. He was arrested at a Brooklyn diner Friday night. Two other suspects were said to be in custody in Trinidad, while a fourth remained at large. ... a federal law-enforcement official said the suspect seemed more like a "sad old guy who's got a lot of spit and vinegar in him."

...

The case is the latest in a series of alleged domestic terrorist threats involving Muslims residing legally in the United States, including one last month targeting the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.

And it appears to carry some of the same complications of those earlier investigations and prosecutions — including the reliance on a paid FBI informant with a lengthy criminal record, and questions about some of the alleged plotters' intentions and capabilities.

It seems like our nation's leaders are up to their same old tricks. They got some guys who wanted to do bad, for sure, but this not a case of Jack Bauer-style heroism.

It would seem quite obvious that even though these guys might not have had the capacity to carry-out such a dastardly plan, their plan would have had a devastating impact. Yet the Los Angeles Times debunks that myth as well:

Alleged plot's damage would have been limited
Jet fuel doesn't explode easily, experts say, and fire would not have spread along airport pipelines.

By Megan Garvey, Times Staff Writer
June 3, 2007

The premise is right out of a disaster movie: Ignite the massive fuel tanks required to keep an international airport up and running each day, stand back, and watch a chain reaction of explosions throughout the labyrinth of pipelines running underneath the tarmac.

But aviation experts cautioned Saturday that the alleged plot targeting John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York would have faced many hurdles, not least of which is the fact that jet fuel does not easily explode.

"The level of catastrophe that may be created is much more limited than most people would expect," said Rafi Ron, former head of security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport. "The fuel that we are talking about is mostly jet fuel, which, unlike the gasoline most people put into their cars, is not that susceptible to explosion."

It is nearly impossible to escape the conclusion that the Bush Administration is once again lying to us about the domestic threats posed by terrorism. Even more galling, they are simultaneously weakening our national security by fighting the war without end in Iraq, which is now well on its way towards claiming four thousand American lives.

This is a good time to remember that on August 6, 2001, President Bush and his national security team were warned about 9/11 and did nothing to stop it. In a daily briefing from the intelligence community to the president, the Bush Administration was told:

Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. ... The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S. ... Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack. Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. ... FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.

Of course, the warnings were ignored and we all know what happened one month later.

But this presidential briefing should remind us that terrorists like Ahmed Ressam, of whom most Americans have never heard, and the 9/11 hijackers are the real terrorist enemy.

On the other hand, to the best I can tell, jokers like the ones apprehended this weekend, the Fort Dix Six, and the Seas of David cultists are all just a bunch of wannabes.

It's enough to make you ask: is there still a terrorist threat?

The 38th World Series of Poker has finally (sic) begun -- a little more than nine and a half months after the 37th WSOP concluded. It used to be that the WSOP was held every April, but beginning in 2005, it was moved to July. Now, apparently, it's been moved to June. Let's hope they quit changing the date around...one of this days, I might actually play in the main event.

The first event was a $5k mixed Hold 'em event, but the first huge-field event was the $1,500 no-limit event which began yesterday. 2,998 players entered, up from 2,776 last year, an 8% increase. This year's first event was on Saturday, compared to last year's on a Tuesday.

The second big-field event was $1,500 pot-limit. There was a huge drop-off from last year's numbers: the field size shrunk by 30%. There were 780 players in Sunday's event, compared with 1,102 in last year's event, which started on a Wednesday.

Even though the decline of the pot-limit event is disappointing, 780 players is still huge. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the WSOP plays out, especially in light of the declining rate of growth in poker's revenue and the absolute decline in the number of poker players.

Meanwhile, the field size at the WPT's Mandalay Bay $10k event, which overlapped with the start of the WSOP, shrunk dramatically, from 346 players this year down to 228 last year, a 34% drop. The first WPT event of the new season was the Mirage Poker Showdown which drew 309 players, down 20% from last year's 384 entrants.