News-Record.com

Well, now that I'm back from my drug-addled weekend, let's get to some of the news that had the temerity to take place during my, uh, unconsciousness ...

The basketbrawl game: I only have one complaint about NBA Commissioner David Stern's handling of this incident -- the punishments were too light. Everyone involved except Ron Artest should have been tossed for the season, and Artest should have been banned from the league. For life. And any season-ticket-holders identified as having taken part in the melee ought to forfeit their tickets. Oh, and criminal charges all around.

Disproportionate, you say? I disagree. But if you think so, well, just be advised that this is the kind of situation in which I fail to see the merits of a proportionate response. If responses to this kind of thing were more often disproportionate, a lot of athletes would think twice about jumping into the stands, a lot of teams and venues would think twice before selling beer after halftime, and fans would think twice about the notion that their overpriced tickets give them license not only to express their views but to hurl projectiles at the objects of their invective.

Congress couldn't agree on intelligence reforms before leaving town for the holidays, but it could spend $2 million on a presidential yacht. Y'know, some jokes just write themselves.

Seems a TV journalist recorded the shooting of an Iraqi prisoner by a Marine and now wishes to talk about it. I'm not passing judgment on the Marine until I know a lot more than I do now about the facts and the context. But I will say this for the photojournalist: He seems to have kept his ethical obligations to all parties in this mess uppermost in his mind and to have handled himself well in a horrible situation. More like him in TV news, please.

Whoever inserted the provision over the weekend in the omnibus spending bill that would have allowed congressional committee chairs unfettered access to any individual or company tax return needs a kharmic enema. If it was an IRS staffer (the least likely scenario, in my humble opinion -- what IRS staffer would want to give that kind of power to Congress?) or a congressional staffer, the culprit should go to jail. If it was a member of Congress, he/she should be impeached and removed from office. This is the kind of thing that makes the tinfoil-hat brigade look a lot more informed.

OK, chew on that for a while. I'm gonna go do some work.