by Last Night in Little Rock

Bill O'Reilly, of Fox News' O'Reilly Factor who was against sexual perverts on his show before it was popular, has apparently, at least in MSNBC's Tucker Carlson's view, proved himself to be a real sexual cretin, blaming a woman's rape and murder on her wearing a miniskirt and being inebriated, essentially saying that "she was asking for it." In Carlson's August 7th show, we see this:

CARLSON: Welcome back. Time now for "Beat the Press."

First up, FOX's Bill O'Reilly. On his radio show last week, O'Reilly discussed the rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore. See if you can tell who he thinks is responsible for the killing of that New Jersey girl. Here he is.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, RADIO HOST: She was 5'2, 105 pounds, wearing a mini skirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is going to pick that up at 2:00 in the morning. She's walking by herself on the west side highway, and she gets picked up by a thug, all right? Now she's he out-of-her-mind drunk.

(END CLIP)

It's over for bicycling champ Floyd Landis.

Floyd Landis was fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considered him its champion Saturday after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowed levels of testosterone.The head of France's anti-doping commission said the samples contained synthetic testosterone, indicating that it came from an outside source.

The Swiss-based team Phonak immediately severed ties with Landis and the UCI said it would ask USA Cycling to open disciplinary proceedings against him. "Landis will be dismissed without notice for violating the teams internal Code of Ethics," Phonak said in a statement. "Landis will continue to have legal options to contest the findings. However, this will be his personal affair, and the Phonak team will no longer be involved in that."

by Last Night in Little Rock

Yesterday, the day after President Bush vetoed the federal stem cell research bill, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the state finance director to loan up to $150M to "the state's voter approved stem cell research institute, catapulting California into the lead as the nation's top public funder of the divisive research."

The California system is based on a $3B bond issue that is in litigation, but a state trial judge upheld the system in a "strongly worded ruling" that is subject to appeal. Schwarzenegger ordered the loan even though it is possible it might not get repaid.

Legal eagle and television commentator Mickey Sherman and Fox News Legal Analyst Lis Wiel got married last night at Valbella in Greenwich, CT. Both are great friends and I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend in person. Here's the invitation.

Mickey's good friend Michael Bolton sang as they walked down the aisle.

Congrats to both, they are great together and individually. I wish them both many, many happy years to come.

Patsy Ramsey, the mother of Jonbenet Ramsey, has died of ovarian cancer at age 49.

Rest it peace, Patsy. You endured not only the heartbreak of losing your daughter, but of being accused for years in the court of public opinion of having something to do with her murder.

Someday Jonbenet's killer will be found through DNA testing and you will be vindicated once and for all. Our thoughts are with John and Burke Ramsey today, how sad that they must endure yet another tragedy.

Note to commenters: In respect for the passing of Patsy Ramsey, there will be no comments allowed attacking her or speculating she was responsible in any way for her daughter's death.

Update: The Washington Post has a more thorough article about Patsy.

by TChris

Let's hear it for Mother Nature. Two cloned mules won their qualifying heats, but finished third and seventh in a race won by a mule that was born the old fashioned way.

Conflicting reports continue concerning Rolling Stone Keith Richards' fall from a palm tree on Fiji. While the New Zealand Herald reported he had two brain surgeries, and possibly sustained brain damage, the Rolling Stones deny it.

The Stones' New York-based publicist, Fran Curtis, issued a statement denying a report in the New Zealand Herald that Richards, 62, had undergone two surgeries since his accident and that doctors were concerned about brain damage.

"Keith Richards did not undergo a second operation. The first and only operation was done on Monday, May 8, and was 100 percent successful," the band's statement said. "There was no brain damage. He continues to improve as expected."

Background here.

May 15 is the final day to sign up for Medicare drug enrollment. The article lists four primary groups of people who have not enrolled:

At the top of the list are those who have no drug expenses now. "They don't think they need a plan. But that's not right. You should enroll so you preserve your options for the future," he said. "The second group just thinks it's for low-income citizens. That's not true either," he said. Procrastinators make up the third group. Finally, some people just do not want to sign up for a government program, he said.

Unless I'm totally missing something, and I hope I'm not because I have not signed up my mother for the plan, there is another group for whom it does not make sense to sign up: Those with health insurance that pays prescription drug benefits. So long as the insurance company has sent you a letter saying that your current plan provides equal or better benefits than Medicare (called "creditable coverage"), there is no reason for you to enroll. The letter will be sent annually, and if the coverage goes below Medicare levels, you will be able to enroll in Medicare at that time without paying higher premiums for late enrollment. Here's the pertinent paragraph:

How popular is Ambien? I took this photo at baggage claim last year while picking up the TL kid. It was a large indoor billboard right by the carousels. More on that here.

The Washington Post has a funny article about Ambien users today.

After all these beautiful nights together, according to recent news reports, the Ambien zombies are arising against their will to gorge themselves at the fridge, or take the wheel, or do something illegal. It wasn't me, officer; it was Ambien.

...We are lagged-out, pajama-wearing drifters -- lost in the gap between slumber and wakey-wakey, even though Ambien's manufacturer, Sanofi-Aventis, implores users to follow the directions, as always: Take the drug only when you're on your way to (or already in) bed, and only when you have seven or eight uninterrupted hours to devote to sleep; don't take it with booze; make sure your doctor knows if you're taking anything else. Which is good advice, but is often met with "blah blah blah."

Rolling Stone Keith Richards has been hospitalized for a concussion in New Zealand. He fell out of a palm tree during a vacation at the Wakua Club in Fiji.

If you'd like to know more about his vacation, Thursday I happened to run into a woman I know who spent the week at the same resort and had just returned the night before. There were only 6 guests that week (it's on a private island): Keith and his wife Patti Hansen, Ron Woods and his wife and Nancy and her husband. I wrote up her account of the week over at 5280.com, where I blog about Colorado issues.

She reports Keith and Ron were great company. They went in the water, lounged around, read books, drank and yakked it up with the island's other four guests. The rockers shared bottles of vodka during the day and switched to rum drinks at night. Bob, a doctor, even made a housecall to their burre one night.

Too bad Nancy and Bob didn't stay an extra day -- Bob could have been on hand Thursday when Keith fell.

Former CNN Cross Fire host Bill Press unexpectedly spent Easter weekend in the hospital, emerging with a new pacemaker. He writes about it here.

Blogger Cathy Seipp yesterday wrote about her troubles with Blue Cross Blue Shield --a healthy, non-smoker, she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer four years ago. Her op-ed about it was in yesterday's LA Times. Kevin Drum wrote about Seipp's article here.

How can we not provide health insurance to everyone? As Press writes:

How can we, the richest nation on the planet, give tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy - while 45 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever?

If we can afford the war in Iraq...If we can afford $10 trillion in tax cuts for the rich...We can afford basic health care for all Americans. The only reason we don't have universal health care is because - We have our priorities ass-backwards.

My solution: Boot the Republicans from Congress in 2006.

Arianna takes a break from Washington politics today to write about gender politics and how women are different when it comes to money. She's in the midst of writing a book, On Becoming Fearless: Advice for Women.

She grabbed my attention with the "bag lady" line.

But fearlessness about money isn't just about having money. Which is to say, having a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean you've conquered your fears surrounding money. Poverty consciousness is the fear that no matter how much wealth you have, it's never enough. Some of the richest women I know are still driven by a fear of ending up as bag ladies.