Upfront

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a Peanut Festival (where else?), wondering about allergies and, more so, the Polish sausage he just inhaled, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Osama, You're Next!
So maybe he did have sex with a 13-year-old girl and plead guilty to it in 1977, then fled to France so he wouldn't have to serve any time. But he couldn't accept his Oscar for Best Director for “The Pianist” in 2003 for fear of arrest – wasn't that punishment enough? Guess not: Someone in bankrupt and burning California (where teens having sex with actors is suddenly taboo) took the time to regularly track Polanski's whereabouts until, at last, the director was taken into custody while flying into Switzerland on Saturday. Of course France (where sex with minors is deemed chic) still sides with Polanski – an even dirtier old man at 76, however talented – with the country's culture minister citing the director's “exceptional artistic creation and human qualities.” Up Next: Michael Bay is arrested for “Pearl Harbor” and “Transformers 2.”

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from where your relatives and America started – Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, Virginia – on assignment for Or-Bust.

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from the Adirondack front porch where U.

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from Brooklyn, where only the dead know, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Fraud in Afghanistan? You're High!
Based on over 2,000 complaints and growing evidence of fraud, Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (located beside the Opium Poppy Ministry of Defense) has ordered a partial recount of the disputed August 20th presidential/puppet-to-be election. Bush's best buddy, Hamid Karzai, can't get re-elected without a coup of his own government, so his awesomely named challenger, Abdullah Abdullah may have a chance. One polling station reported (without naming the ballot box stuffer) nearly 100% of votes cast for a single candidate. Sounds like Florida in 2000, or Ohio in 2004, don't it? One other note: Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother to the current president of Afghanistan, is chairman of the provincial council in the Kandahar region, which is the most productive – and profitable – opium poppy producer in the world. Note #2: In August, British troops seized several tons of raw opium from a farm owned by Karzai, which Karzai quickly denied. Note #3: Two more U.S. troops were killed in a bombing in Kabul; we now have a record level 62,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the Pentagon set to ask for more, and Britain readying to pull out.

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a town called “Little Valley” (which is actually a little valley) in New York, totally sane, sober, and unfamiliar with rain after a lovely summer in Bend, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
A New Bar for Bad Behavior
Phillip Garrido liked building in his backyard – storage sheds covered with camouflage and other extremities that his neighbors questioned. And authorities overlooked, despite the fact Garrido was a registered sex offender in Antioch, California, and visited on several occasions by police and parole agents. Oops! He was hiding and raping Jaycee Dugard on-site for 18 years, since kidnapping her at the age of 11 and fathering two children with the now-29-year-old woman. Authorities are presently digging in that same backyard for the remains of several unsolved murders and missing persons. Let's hope they have better luck and look a little harder this time.

MJ Murdered!
Unidentified sources with the LAPD confirmed what we all knew in our hearts, The King of Pop's death was no accident. LA's coroner has reportedly determined that Jackson's death was more than just another junkie accidentally overdosing. And make no mistake, whatever MJ once was, he was by the end of his life a junkie. The LA Times reported this week that Jackson spent the last hours of his life pleading with his personal physician Conrad Murray for his “milk” – Jackson's pet name for the powerful sedative propofol. Jackson had recently gotten hooked on the drug (with the help of Murray) as a sleep aid.

Editor's note: Guest columnist sits in this week for Mick McMenaminuses who has departed for parts unknown with flask full of cheap whisky and a newly minted Chase Visa card. Godspeed, Mick.

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He has most recently been seen in PDX, then fleeing to swim across the Columbia, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
She Made It!
Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic and third female to wear a long, black robe and decide on important issues like how to use archaic maritime laws to spare Exxon-Mobil a few billion for the Exxon-Valdez spill, and whether the parents of stoners have the right to sue public schools to recoup the cost of “special education.” Congrats, Sonia! Prediction: In the next Supreme Court session, Justice Sotomayor will be the swing vote on whether Gata Gonzales illegally withheld important information from a bunch of white guys before taking all of their money in Texas Hold'em… Must a wise Latino woman show her cards first? In a related note: The Senate's 68-31 vote to confirm Sotomayor proves that the GOP has officially accepted its minority party status for the next four decades, after foolishly stonewalling a nominee from the fastest growing group of Americans.

The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is now missing and most likely deported, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
What Can't Bill Clinton Do?
When he isn't advising Hillary on foreign policy and interns on career paths, former President Bill Clinton is meeting with – What? Really? “Dear Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-Il in North Korea? Wait – Fact check! Oh ok, this makes sense: Clinton was in Pyongyang on Tuesday to try to free two CurrentTV “journalists” (Bill's VP Al Gore owns CurrentTV, enough said) who were sentenced to twelve years of hard labor after being arrested on the North Korea-China border earlier this year. Further clarification: Laura Ling and Euna Lee are getting so much attention because one of them is related to a celebrity, and hey, Bill digs babes. Regarding the unusual visit by the VIP, Asia analyst Mike Chinoy offered the obvious, “I suspect that it was made pretty clear in advance that Bill Clinton would be able to return with these two women; otherwise it would be a terrible loss of face for him.”

The
author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as
America. He is reporting from a ditch outside your home, thanking streaming
video, you, Stu and the High Desert Animal Hospital that Season One is done, on
assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.

The Curious Case of the Professor and Police
"You boorish Paddy! Egress my domicile or shall I berate
you further?" That's my take on what Henry Louis Gates Jr. said to Cambridge
cops last week. First it was Jacko "dying" and now a Harvard professor getting
arrested for disorderly conduct (charges were dropped within two days).Which
African-American will Obama turn to next in order to distract us from the
health care boondoggle (which no longer includes the words "universal" or
"single-payer")? This curious case-the arrest and health care initiative-only
gets more interesting: The 911 tapes have been released, contradicting
arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley's report that caller Lucia Whalen
mentioned "black" men entering the house and that he spoke with her at the
scene. She didn't, on both counts. Sure Gates probably berated the officers
eloquently after being found in his own home with ID and, yes, Gates is an
insufferable intellectual who feigns interest in common folks' problems on PBS.
But he was the wrong guy to arrest.Boston is hardly a beacon of racial harmony,
pity the next non-Harvard professor found snooping around Cambridge. Makes you
really appreciate living in Central Oregon, don't it? Our cops are pretty cool,
and the only minorities to be found are obese people visiting from Houston. One
final note: To repair race relations, Obama has invited both Sgt. Crowley and
Professor Gates for beer at the White House. How they will laugh and laugh!