"Leaving a bad tip..."
My favorite part of this story is the quote at the end of the story from the spokesman for Red Robin Gourment Burgers.

CANTON, Ohio (AP) -- Talk about leaving a bad tip at the restaurant.

A 22-year-old woman found the severed tip of a thumb in her lunch salad at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.

Stark County Health Commissioner Bill Franks said a worker at the restaurant, in the Canton suburb Jackson Township about 70 miles south of Cleveland, was chopping lettuce Monday night when he cut off part of his left thumb, including part of the fingernail.

Employees searched for the fingertip, but could not find it. The area was cleaned and sanitized, but the lettuce was placed in a cooler and then used for salads on Tuesday.

"It wound up being served at lunch time Tuesday to a 22-year-old woman," Franks said.

She had eaten most of her salad when she put the fingertip in her mouth, Franks said.

She first thought it was a piece of gristle, a health department report said.

Red Robin spokesman Dwayne Chambers said employees, in their haste to get the injured man to a doctor, failed to follow the chain's procedures and throw out all food in the area.

"We clearly had a breakdown," he said. "We are incredibly sorry about what happened."

Chambers said he spoke with the woman. "She obviously was pretty upset," he said.

See ya for a while
I'm going to Red Sox spring training for the next week and a half. I'm returning on Tuesday, March 16 so there won't be any postings until then. I'll be having fun in the sun but check back week after next.

Thanks!

Clinton for VP?
Read Josh Marhsall's www.talkingpointsmemo.com for analysis of the President's nothing-is-my-fault strategy for the upcoming election. It simply echoes everything I've been saying about the Republicans refusing to take responsibility for anything.

Of course, the Kerry VP speculation is running wild. There was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times that speculated Kerry's best move would be to tap Clinton as VP. Not Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton! It looks like it would be legal since he wouldn't be running for President but for VP.

Can you imagine the shock waves from that one? While it's extremely doubtful it would happen, I would love to see it, if for no other reason than to shake things up.

Molly says...
Molly Ivins is awesome. Let me say that first. Here's something from a recent column of hers:

"In one of the mind-boggling deceptions wrought by said (corrupt) CEOs, the cost of the war isn't in Bush's budget, even though Bush is blaming his budget deficit on the cost of the war. Honest: War cost is not in there. Bush will ask for another supplemental budget after the election to cover it. And at this rate, it won't be the estimated $40 billion to $45 billion, it'll be another $87 billion.

It is a source of continuing frustration to me that we have so many big problems, I rarely get to report on the little things this administration is doing that are just as telling. Here's an example: Last week, Bush dismissed two members of his own handpicked Council on Bioethics. One is a scientist, and the other a moral philosopher -- and both are advocates of stem-cell research.

According to The Washington Post, "In their place he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the 'threats of biotechnology.'"

Go get them, Molly. Welcome to Christian American. Other faiths need not apply.

Potential life changing experience
I almost ran over a kid last night with my pickup truck. He couldn't have been more than 4 years old. I was driving about 30 miles an hour through a residential neighborhood at about 8 p.m. The kid ran from behind a van and I swerved to miss him. I did, but only by about five feet. If I had kept going straight, I would have run him over.

He was running towards his mother, who was in the car across the street. She looked like she was getting the car ready for them to leave, like I do with my nine-month old when I get the car seat ready. My guess is that she left him in the house while she got the car ready and he ran out on his own.

You always hear people say, "He came out of nowhere..." and it's true. It all kind of happened in slow motion. I distinctly remember what he looked like: Hispanic, dark hair, colored striped shirt. In my rear view mirror, as I drove away, I saw him cross the street and his mother take him by the hand, walking him back towards the house.

There's a chance she didn't even notice the whole episode. And he didn't appear to be rattled in the slightest. Me, I couldn't sleep last night.

Coulda got him...
All the wowsers in the world love to repeat: Clinton could have had Bin Laden; he just chose not to. Let's see how they react to this one from NBC News:

"With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

`People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of pre-emption against terrorists.'


-- Roger Cressey
Terrorism expert


"Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

"People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late -- Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. "Here's a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we're suffering as a result inside Iraq," Cressey added.

Listen up!
I've told you this a few times, but here goes again: Listen to Randi Rhodes over the internet on weekdays from 3-7 EST. Go to www.therandirhodesshow.com and click on listen live. Then, spread the word.

Excited about Kerry?
I'm still going to cast my vote for Wes Clark today, even though he's no longer officially running. Screw it... I figure I put in all that time, I might as well get some satisfaction.

In November, I'll pull the lever for Kerry, even though it's hard to get too excited about it. The closest correlation I can come up with is the 1996 race. Clinton was still very popular with his base (as is GW Bush) while Dole did very little to excite anyone. People were motivated to vote for him simply because they didn't like Clinton.

A lot of people will pull the lever for Kerry for the same reason. I don't see people getting very excited about him, but they figure anyone is better than Bush. So far, Kerry has shown a strong inclination to fight back when attacked. Believe me, he's going to need it.

The Passion of Bill O'Reilly
I saw Sean Hannity screaming last night that the Democrats were evil for politicizing the war on terror. Of course, Alan Colmes whimpered something about extremists on both sides of the aisle before wetting himself and them leaving to wash Hannity's car.

I almost fell out of my chair when I heard old Luggage Head Hannity. Politicizing the war on terror? Who would do that? Why, that's downright sleazy and un-American. That would be like a political party holding its nominating convention in New York and moving the date as close to 9/11 as possible to capitalize on that national tragedy. Whoops. That's what the Republicans did. Hmmm.

I was thinking that last night, then this morning I read www.democraticunderground.com. Every Monday, they have their top ten conservative idiots of the week. In today's list, they make reference to the 9-11 hypocrisy. This week's list is especially good, although it might make you a little sick to your stomach.

Bill O'Reilly is on the list, but it's not for the reason I anticipated. O'Reilly, who uses the word "secular" in every sentence he spits out, is acting as point man for Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion." He was on a bunch of shows last week, including "The View", and he was slamming anyone who dared question "The Passion."

On some of those appearances, he did mention the minor fact that Gibson's production company has optioned a fictional book that O'Reilly once wrote. That disclaimer isn't enough; it should run as a crawl underneath O'Reilly's image everytime he goes nuts defending Gibson.

This isn't about Mel Gibson. He has the right to make whatever kind of movie he wants. It's about O'Reilly's righteousness, which appears to be driven only by his desire to see his book end up on the big screen.

Next thing you know they'll make a movie called "Who's Looking Out For You?" Who could they get to play O'Reilly? Maybe Joe Don Baker or Fred Thompson. I can only imagine the Dirty Harry fantasies O'Reilly has when he puts on his jammies at night.

Fold
So Dennis Hastert relented and allowed the 9-11 commission two more months to complete their report. I'd love to know the inside scoop on this one. My guess is the Administration plans to stonewall so hard that it doesn't matter if they have two more years to put a report together. Josh Marshall has an insightful piece on this topic at www.talkingpointsmemo.com.