As the Worm Turns

So the OJ book, If I Did It, will hit the shelves after all. Amazing.

Here's how it happened. Mr Goldman quickly overcame the disgust he expressed publicly last year and realised that the unpublished manuscript of If I Did It was an asset he could legitimately chase as part of Simpson's unpaid legal settlement. In other words, he decided the publicity the book would give Simpson might be less objectionable if the profits went into his pocket, rather than Simpson's. Mr Goldman went to a bankruptcy court to have the rights signed over to him and, in August, won his case. The new edition of If I Did It differs from the original in several key respects. Its authorship is attributed to "the Goldman family" instead of OJ Simpson and it includes new material by members of the Goldman family and the society crime writer, Dominick Dunne. The cover cleverly conceals the word "If" to the point of near-invisibility so, on first glance, the book appears to be called I Did It. The new subtitle, Confessions Of The Killer, rams home the point that Simpson is no longer toying with the idea of having killed his estranged wife and her lover. Rather, he really is confessing to the crime.

The whole thing is still pretty sick, but as a story of chutzpah being met with more chutzpah, Fred Goldman's style is pretty unique. An if a famous football player killed my son and walked, who am I to say that, given the chance, I wouldn't hijack his dumb book project?

Michael Medved on "9/11 Delusions"

From his Townhall.com commentary email, Michael Medved writes about the so-called "9/11 Truthers".

The sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks should have inspired remembrance and gratitude, since so far we've been spared the horrors of another terrorist assault on American soil.

But unfortunately, commemorations this year were marred by a disturbing trend in our culture: polls show more than 30% of our fellow citizens believe 9/11 was an "inside job." The so-called "9/11 Truth Movement" obsesses on a range of ludicrous suspicions about Building Seven, a missile--not a plane--striking the Pentagon, dynamite charges at the base of the twin towers, and so forth.

Aside from the poisonous impact on public discourse of such lunatic notions, the people who focus on these theories do incalculable damage to themselves. Someone who entertains the idea that his own government is part of a mass-murdering conspiracy will not only destroy his political effectiveness, but also make success in career and marriage far less likely.

Normal, productive individuals would prefer to avoid long-term association with paranoid nuts.

Emphasis mine. 30 percent? That's too many to ignore. Not that I know what to do about people that buy into this stuff. If only the human brain could be rebooted....

Meanwhile, guess who has joined this "truth movement"? Yes, Fidel Castro! This puts him at odds with OBL who claimed that he actually did plan the 9/11 attacks, not the CIA or the President's grandmother or whoever. But there is probably some beard-envy toward Osama on Fidel's part. From the article:

"What is most dramatic is the affirmation that the truth about what happened may never be known," he said.

Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006. He has appeared in photographs and eight videos, the last of which aired on June 5.

It's great to know that Castro is so concerned about the truth.

"If he was from Venus..."

If only you could bottle this

HT Anchoress by way of Maternal optimist.

I can totally appreciate this since I often laugh uproariously at things which are seemingly unfunny to others. Granted I'm not this cute, but hey, works for me, and it's cheaper than renting a DVD.