Day: March 27, 2007

For those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest and have attended at least one Seattle Seahawk football game, or watched the Seattle Mariner’s play baseball, we mourn the loss of a local institution.

Bill the Beerman.

Bill Scott started out as a vendor with a tray of beers and a voice that could fill the Kingdome. He ended up selling his enthusiasm to sports crowds across the country.

He was Bill the Beerman, a Seattle original who didn’t need a uniform to work a crowd. Just his signature overalls, a jersey and perhaps a hat.

Scott died Sunday morning at home in Seattle of cardiac arrest. He was 58. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer more than five years ago.

Seeing was believing. This guy could control the response of thousands…and I do mean thousands of people. We’re not talking a little cheering section, but (in the day) the entire Kingdome would respond to his command.

There won’t be another like him. Godspeed, Bill.

Wanna know why so many people have such low regard for Congress?

Senate war bill features $20B in pork

Like their counterparts in the House, the Senate has larded its version of an “emergency” war spending bill with nearly $20 billion in pork-barrel outlays, including $100 million for the two major political parties’ 2008 presidential conventions.

The $121 billion bill includes $102 billion for the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as $14 billion for Hurricane Katrina aid and more than $4 billion for “emergency farm relief.”

“Congress will have to make the choice between booze and balloons or bullets and body armor,” John Hart, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

But this isn’t just your average run-of-the-mill pork.

The $100 million for the political party conventions — $50 million for the Democratic convention in Denver and $50 million for the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn. — is included in a section described as “Katrina recovery, veterans’ care and for other purposes.”

Puh-leeze.

50% of voting age Americans say they won’t vote for Hillary if she’s the Democratic nominee for president.

Nearly half of the respondents said that they dislike Clinton’s political opinions and Clinton as a person. Fifty-two percent of people also said that “she does not appear to connect with people on a personal level.”

Ah, Clinton’s ‘Achilles Heel’. Unfortunately for Hill, her lack of connectedness is a character trait, and one that’s hard to turn on and off in a campaign season.

White House presidential spokesman Tony Snow’s cancer has returned. Worse yet, it has spread to his liver.

Snow, 51, had his colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer. A small growth was discovered last year in his lower right pelvic area, and it was removed on Monday. Doctors determined that it was cancerous, and that his cancer had metastized, or spread, to his liver, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

She said Snow is resting comfortably after his surgery and has pledged to aggressively fight the disease with an as-yet-to-be-determined treatment course.

“He said he’s going to beat it again,” Perino said in an emotional morning briefing with White House reporters. “When I talked to him, he was in very good spirits.”

While some might say cancer in 2007 isn’t as bad as cancer in 1997, no cure remains for the disease. And I can’t even imagine the emotional toll that occurs when one believes their cancer has been removed only to find out later that it’s back with a vengeance. In that case it’s hard to know what kills some folks – the cancer or the accompanying depression.

Send a prayer up for Tony today.