Slowplay.com

Former French interior minister Charles Pasqua has given the United States Senate the proverbial two-fisted flip-off over its probe into the oil-for-food scandal. Pasqua, who has been implicated in the scandal, claims that the investigation into his alleged misdeeds is part of a “general campaign under way in the United States against France.” The International Herald-Tribune reports:

Charles Pasqua, a former interior minister of France who has been accused by U.S. lawmakers of involvement in corruption in the oil-for-food program for Iraq, said Monday that he was caught in the cross-fire of what he called a U.S. campaign against France.

At his first press conference to deny claims that he received millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein’s regime, Pasqua said he had no link to a Swiss company that supposedly handled oil allocations on his behalf.

“I have the impression that I am being used, used in this campaign,” the former interior minister said. “And I don’t intend to sit idly by.”

This pundit hopes that Pasqua’s intention to not “sit idly by” doesn’t mean that he plans to unleash the full force and might of France’s military arsenal on the United States.

Last week, a U.S. Senate committee presented what it said was evidence that Pasqua and a British lawmaker, George Galloway, had received oil allocations from Saddam in return for backing his regime and its campaign against UN sanctions on Iraq.

…

Pasqua said he had asked the president of the French Senate, of which he is a member, for a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the allegations. He said he had not received a reply.

I don’t know what happened with Pasqua — very few people do know for certain. He may be Mother Theresa, he may be former French Foreign Minister Talleyrand (fond of chasing bribes… and women… Talleyrand is perhaps most famous to Americans for his role in bringing about The XYZ Affair, the 1798 gaffe which nearly led to a war between the U.S. and France). I must, however, point out this very strange pre-emptive defense already implemented by Pasqua:

“I have never been to Iraq. I have never met Mr. Saddam Hussein. I never received anything from the Iraqis, in any domain,” Pasqua said.

“If my name appears on documents as having benefited from allocations, it can only be the result of fraudulent behavior committed by certain people who used my name,” he said.

This is an awfully specific “hypothetical” allegation. “If my name appears on documents”? It sounds like, perhaps, Mr. Pasqua has stepped in it with this comment. We’ll see how it plays out.

Researchers may be on the verge of developing a vaccine that will help smokers kick their nasty habit. Nicotine — perhaps the most addictive substance on the planet — was neutralized by a special virus in the Swiss study. The scientific name for the vaccine is Finano Licensia, Latin for “A License to Print Money.” You won’t find that tidbit in this report from Forbes.com:

An experimental anti-nicotine vaccine has shown encouraging results in helping smokers kick the habit, according to a study presented to a major conference of cancer specialists here.

Almost 60 percent of the 341 smokers who took the vaccine stopped smoking for at least six months, said Jacques Cornuz, a Swiss researcher who led the vaccine study.

Cornuz, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland, said about a third of those who developed lower levels of antibodies stopped smoking, about the same fraction as those who received a placebo vaccine.

The vaccine, developed by Cytos Biotechnology of Zurich, is based on a bacteriophage virus which attacks bacteria. The bacteriophage in the vaccine neutralises the nicotine before it can stimulate the brain, according to Cornuz.

Cytos Biotechnology now hopes to carry out more widespread medical studies to show the vaccine is safe and hopes to bring it on the market around 2010.

HundredPercenter has some blog traffic numbers. Very interesting.

BLOG TRAFFIC DOWN
17.7% SINCE NOVEMBER:
HundredPercenter has just completed a study analyzing monthly web
traffic of 100 websites, big, small, political, non-political, conservative and
liberal– from November 2004 to April 2005.

Slowplay.com’s traffic up 2075% in the period he tracks.

I must admit that I’ve been looking forward to The Huffington Post. Sure there is going to be a lot of garbage to sift through but with that many celebrity “bloggers” there is bound to be something interesting on there once in a while.

The celeb-blog kicked off today with 63 posts. So far, nothing really that interesting. The best so far is hollywood liberal Larry David supporting John Bolton in his typical “Curb You Enthusiasm” style:

I know this may not sound politically correct, but as someone who has abused and tormented employees and underlings for years, I am dismayed by all of this yammering directed at John Bolton. Let’s face it, the people who are screaming the loudest at Bolton have never been a boss and have no idea what it’s like to deal with nitwits as dumb as themselves all day long. Why, even this morning my moronic assistant handed me a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it. I was incensed.

“You stupid ignoramus,” I screamed, doing all I could to restrain myself from tossing the luke-warm liquid in her face. “There’s too much freaking (I didn’t say freaking) milk in here! What the freak is wrong with you?!”

Laurence Simon has a site up - Huffington Is Full of Crap - that allows you to comment on the posts.

Outside the Beltway has some analysis on the first day and the future of the blog.

Traffic figures are unknown but according to Alexa rankings HuffingtonPost was beating Slowplay.com before debuting.

The NBA has ended its investigation into recent allegation made by Houston Rockets head coach Jeff Van Gundy. Commissioner David Stern fined Van Gundy $100,000 and threatened to ban him from the league for comments he made about NBA officials.

Van Gundy has since clarified that the “official” he claimed was the source of the information was an actual league official and not a referee.

Van Gundy’s take (from the Houston Chronicle):

“I stand by my original comments (May 1) and was quoted accurately,” he said today in a statement. “As Russ Granik correctly said in his statement today, the contact I spoke of that day was with league personnel. When I referred to an NBA official, people inferred that I was talking about a working NBA referee, instead of an official with the league. I was purposely vague because I had given my word that I would keep his name out of it.

NBA statement:

“Over this past weekend, coach Van Gundy publicly apologized for his comments last week suggesting bias in the leagues refereeing relating to Yao Ming. He has also confirmed directly to an NBA representative that, during the Houston/Dallas playoff series, he did not have any communication with a referee (working or non-working) other than, of course, during an ongoing game. In fact, his only conversations with league employees during the series were with league personnel in the normal course. In light of these circumstances, we now consider the matter to be closed.”

Paul Pierce tried to end the season for Boston tonight. Lucky for him, he failed. The Indiana Pacers were handed a golden opportunity to clinch the series after second year player Kendrick Persons missed two free throws. They failed. The game went into overtime and the Celtics pulled out the victory without Pierce and LaFrentz (aka “The Jayhawk Job Squad”). The series now goes back to Boston for game 7.

The way the Pierce situation almost unfolded would have been another suspicious move by NBA officials. Here is an ESPN recap:

Boston led 84-83 at the time, and Pierce had just been intentionally fouled by Tinsley as the Pacers tried to stop the clock. Tinsley hit Pierce in the neck while fouling him, and Pierce appeared to swing his elbow in anger.

Referee Steve Javie did not immediately make a call. But after huddling with the other two officials, Pierce was assessed his second technical foul of the game — an automatic ejection. Reggie Miller hit the technical foul shot to tie the game,

Just the fact that the call was delayed for so long makes it look questionable. Some may argue that the refs wanted to make sure they got it right, but come on, you don’t get an easier technical than that. Did they have to push their David Stern waist band emergency button to get permission to make the call?

Anyways, it ended up being the correct call so you have to give the refs credit… I guess. However, if that was Ron Artest who threw that elbow do you think he would be playing in Game 7? You better believe Paul Pierce will be.

In semi-unrelated news, here is a nice piece on Game 5 from MSN/Fox Sports’ “Dime Magazine”. Apparently the reporter forgot to watch the game:

Boston was up by 15 points with about four minutes left in the third quarter, but the Pacers came storming back thanks to Mel-Mel The Abuser, playing for the first time in about ten weeks.

Actually, Indiana, not Boston, was up 15 and tried to blow it. And it wasn’t just a swap of names because there was certainly not a “storming back” of any kind as Boston slowly chipped away at the lead throughout the fourth quarter. But with that actual storyline you couldn’t get a “Mel-Mel The Abuser” reference in, so we’ll let it slide.

Can anyone explain to me why last night’s cable news docket was filled with speculation about how jilted Georgia groom John Mason could possibly still want to marry Jennifer Wilbanks, the woman who faked her own kidnapping to run off for a Las Vegas sojourn? Mason put the engagement ring that Wilbanks left behind when she left Georgia back on her finger upon her return. Is it a somewhat surprising development? Perhaps. But I see no need for the national media to get themselves involved in this. That said, here’s part the story, from CBS News:

The man whose jittery bride-to-be skipped town days before her lavish wedding and claimed she had been abducted says that his fiancée wants the “whole world to know she’s very, very sorry.”

John Mason is defending his fiancée’s decision, and says he still wants to walk down the aisle with her. The guilt she is dealing with “has got to be consequence enough to me,” Mason said Monday in an interview with Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” show.

It was Mason’s first public statement since he learned on the morning of his wedding day that his intended, Jennifer Wilbanks, had gotten cold feet.

“We would still welcome her back to the family,” Mason father Claude said Tuesday on CBS News’ The Early Show.

“I just said, ‘John, you just know what’s best for you. We’ve tried to help you through this as best we can, and it’s your decision to make,” Claude Mason told co-anchor Harry Smith. “‘And if you decide you still want to marry her, be happy. Go with what makes you happy.’”

The recent life and times of Houston Rockets’ coach Jeff Van Gundy have been a wild ride. His team won the first two games of its best-of-seven playoff series at Dallas, but has since turned in a three-loss tankjob — two of those losses at home — to reach the brink of elimination. Van Gundy has been fined a league-record $100,000 for public comments he has made that have been critical of NBA officials, and, according to Commissioner David Stern, they might just be getting warmed up (Reuters):

“If he’s going to say things like that, he’s not going to continue in this league,” Stern told reporters in Houston.

…

“If the attitude reflected in those comments continues to be public, he’s going to have a big problem with me as long as I’m commissioner,” Stern said.

Stern said the league was upset both at what Van Gundy said and his refusal to divulge the official he claims told him that referees “were looking at Yao harder because of (Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s) complaints” to the league office about officiating, The Houston Chronicle reported.

Having both coached and officiated basketball in my life (though never on any meaningful level, I should point out), my view on this sort of thing is that coaches generally should not be allowed to blast officials in the media. While a fine of $100 Gs may be excessive, there’s certainly a league interest in keeping this kind of stuff off limits to coaches. But in this particular case, the primary fault lies with the league and the officiating crew — or, namely, the one non-playoff official who “called [Van Gundy] and had warned Yao was mentioned in an online evaluation from supervisor of officials Ronnie Nunn.” According to Van Gundy, the new officiating outlook was “because of (Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s) complaints” about calls in the first two games of the series. Commissioner Stern is upset by the fact that Van Gundy won’t divulge the identity of the official.

Assuming what Van Gundy has said is true — leaving aside the comment about Cuban’s influence for a moment — this is a horrifying situation for the NBA. An off-the-record comment from an official to a coach, relaying information about official evaluations and what to watch for in the future is about as big a gaffe as a referee can commit, short of admitting to taking a bribe. Stern clearly wants to discipline (read: fire, as well he should) the official if this is, in fact, true, and Van Gundy is vexing him by refusing to out the ref. It’s a disgrace that Stern — thought by many to rule his league like a tyrant — is now stomping around blaming Van Gundy for a situation that is wholly the creation of the league’s incompetence. Did anyone expect Van Gundy to hear such things from an official and not go public with it?

If I were Van Gundy, I’d never give the NBA the information they desire. From now on, this referee will be beholden to Van Gundy to protect his secret (and his job). In future games involving this official and one of Van Gundy’s teams, Van Gundy practically has one ref on the take. The price of the ‘bribe’? $100,000.

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, the mother of two of the King of Pop’s children, is expected to take the witness stand this week in Jackson’s child molestation trial. A judge ruled on yesterday that Rowe may take the stand against Jackson. She is expected to testify that she was part of a plan to rehabilitate Jackson’s image after a February 2003 documentary — or hit piece, depending on your point of view — called Living With Michael Jackson aired. The documentary was particularly damning, as it showed Jackson nuzzling the teenager who later accused him of molestation. In the documentary, Jackson gave his reasons for sharing his bed with young boys. Reuters reports:

Prosecutor Ron Zonen said [Rowe] would tell jurors that Jackson’s henchmen pressured her into giving a “highly scripted” videotaped interview supporting him in exchange for visits with her two children.

…

Jackson defense lawyer Robert Sanger urged Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville to bar Rowe from testifying, saying there was nothing improper about scripted questions during an interview. Sanger said that the defense would need to cross-examine Rowe at length, prolonging a trial that is already in its third month.

Melville, during a hearing outside the presence of the jury, said he would allow Rowe to take the witness stand but would work to limit the scope of her testimony.

A run on shares of Genentech, Inc. has driven the company’s market price up after it announced that its drug, Herceptin, helps women who have early-stage breast cancer. SitePunch.com reports:

Trial data over a period of five years that included more than 5000 study subjects showed that the drug in combination extended the life expectancy of women who carry a specific genetic mutation that appears in about 30 percent of all breast cancer cases.

Patients that carry the mutation usually have tumors that grow faster and recur more often compared with other types of breast cancer.

The study showed these breast cancer patients treated with the drug were about 52 percent less likely to have tumors recur compared with those not given Herceptin.