All The Presidents Men The title says it all about the era, the event, the man who fell down and all the men who couldn’t put him, or the presidency, back together again.

On these cold, foggy summer nights, we’ve been taking our time watching the Alan J. Pakula film, produced by and starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. It’s a lot slower than our family favorite:  Dick, which is a must see for anyone who loves Will Ferrell and might enjoy the thought of Henry Kissinger get high on hash brownies.

Watching ATPM again, I was reminded of how slowly, painfully slowly, Woodward and Bernstein worked that story. The gum-shoe reporting, the drudgery of knocking on doors of a long list of people who might possibly know who might have authorized whom to make payments of whatever amount of money to people who might have been connected to some guys who happened to get caught breaking into a swank apartment complex one weekend night. It was a small story made up of messy loose ends with notes written on scraps of paper and a few columns at first in the Metro section, begrudgingly delegated by grumpy middle manager editors saying the paper couldn’t afford to lose its shirt on such nonsense.

These now famous reporters were green city desk neophytes at The Washington Post, fresh on the job, and, in Bernstein’s case, nearly out on his ass.  They didn’t always get along and weren’t necessarily good at what they did.

But they never gave up. Woodward and Bernstein pestered and badgered people and when it seemed they’d gone too far, their hands shook when people told them off on the phone.

Why did they pursue the story to the level they did?  Ben Bradlee, as portrayed by Jason Robards in the movie (I haven’t read the book in decades) stayed on his reporters’ case until they could prove every last thing.

They had three names?  They needed all five. They had two sources? They needed three. The GAO audit on CReeP was coming out? The paper wouldn’t run the result until the report was out – not that it was due to be released.

Watching the film, when “Woodstein” figure out that Mitchell authorized the payments to the burglars, I got goose bumps. Imagine the overwhelming sense these guys must have had suspecting that this odd break in and these even odder amounts of money might then be traced all the way up to Nixon. That attempts to discredit Muskie had been going on for more than a year. That there might in fact be a connection between the White House and the Democratic candidate the Republicans wanted Nixon to face for re-election.

And then there’s Deep Throat in the parking garage saying everyone in the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department knew full well what’s going on. WTF we might mutter today.

So, when Spiro Agnew delivered that first “non-denial denial”, I had a sense of déjà vu in the present tense. Seeing the real news clip of him in the movie, followed by Redford asking, “What did he just say?” I recognized that Palin is merely the latest and greatest incarnation of this entire scenario.

Many of you have theorized that the plan to put her in place started with the starbursts cruise and the king crab lunch in Juneau. Some of you even believe that the Down syndrome baby as a political ploy surfaced as far back as then.

Certainly, we know from The New Yorker that the rumors of her daughter’s pregnancy and Palin’s cover-up were alive and well in Juneau and Anchorage in early spring 2008. And reporters on the scene then wrote of the Gasp! Shock! Surprise! of learning their fearless leader was so pregnant - yet so darn svelt - not long after.

The baby arrived one convenient month later, accompanied by a bizarre story that should have strained anyone’s bullshit meter. But as one long-time journalist in Alaska told me, the focus was by then on the Branchflower report. No one thought Palin could survive that. Besides, she was never around. A dubious tale of tight abs was not really on any reporter’s radar.

But let’s say it had been – and no, I don’t mean that lame ass excuse of a story that the Anchorage Daily News supposedly was working up, and the even sorrier display of “beat me master because I like it” blogging that the paper’s top editor did. Let’s say that a couple of reporters had said to Dougherty, “What did she just say?” about any number of the odd, non-denial denials that Palin proffered about her vaginal fluids and restful plane flights.

If history is any indication – and evidently Ben Bradlee knew what he was doing  - a couple of reporters might have been knocking on doors. Behind those doors would have been nurses or technicians or office workers or friends and foes of Palin who might have gone on deep background and said something. The very same people who feared for their jobs, feared they were being followed, were deathly afraid to talk and who might not have added to the narrative anyway. Woodward and Bernstein kept trying. Every name on that ever-lasting CReeP list got checked off, one by one.

Or, as the ignominy around this absurd fish picker tale, which if true loudly displayed what a careless, risky moron this woman was, mounted, they would press the doctor, over and over, to make a public statement in front of a bank of cameras (all two TV stations) a few radio microphones and a few print reporters' tape recorders.

But it appears no one did press for that. Why? Because Bill McAllister was now her press go-to-guy and was this one the mother of all stories, pardon the pun, that he couldn’t report on, so he’d make darn sure no one else did either?

I am told that he was as surprised as the next person to find out Palin was pregnant. So, McAllister didn’t know?  Did he press to find out? Or did he not engage any press who asked to find out?

Did any one single reporter up there bother to say “You know, I was just going back over my notes and…” to anyone in power up there?

(Maybe there were a couple of Woodsteins in Alaska, and we just don’t know that they never got to the point where they could write the story and have it pass the legal department.)

Or was my source right:  Branchflower gave way to McRogue, and the clown car of kids, a pregnant unwed teen mother, a special needs baby, redneck grandparents, and an uneducated father figuring out how to knot a tie. Think about it. That campaign bus was a cluster fuck of the highest order. And bodily fluids conveniently receded into the distance.

This is a long-winded way of answering what someone asked me in a comment. If reporters like McGinniss, Sullivan and me say that there is a piece missing, and that piece is a “Bradlee level” lack of proof allowing anyone to report that she didn’t give birth to Trig, then what about the pieces that are not missing: that is, that there is no proof that she did give birth to this baby.

I hear your question, yet I see it the other way around. There is no proof that she didn’t. And the presumption of innocence prevails.

No, I know that the March 14th photo defies all possible belief. I understand that the grey museum photo, replete with very odd crotch and white square under the shirt is a form of evidence. But it’s not proof. Not in the Ben Bradlee world.  In that world, three people would have to present evidence of the hoax or the cover-up. There would have to be some paper trail of plane tickets or money that changed hands for a birth certificate or adoption paper.

I know that Sarah had Todd toddle off to Dallas with her. That she got rid of security right around the time she would have to adjust her prosthetic every day in the car. I get all that.

But what I also get is that she doesn’t have to prove that she gave birth. She has a baby that she pokes her finger at, coos toward, and then routinely walks away from. That’s all she needs for the general population to believe her.

Just as President Obama doesn’t have to prove he went to Columbia University. Someone else has to prove he didn’t. And they can’t do that. Why? Because either the university has confirmed that he did. Or because Obama’s records are private and no one will verify that he did.

And that is where CBJ and the Daily News come in. What is an appropriate story, and I’ve said this before, is the “why do the hoax rumors persist?” story.  That is what the Daily News started on, that’s what they should have finished. That the doctor would not confirm on the record that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig is indeed part of the story. My only conclusion as to why Dougherty chose instead to play a game of “spank me very much” with Palin is what my journalist source suspected: the paper got into an off-the-record deal that backed them into a corner.

What those of us who say – and I say this religiously – the story just doesn’t add up – need, is the piece of paper, the doctor’s statement, the exact quote on background or the information on deep background. Even it it’s to say, “she did gave birth to him.”

But as far as I know, no reporter who has gone up there to write a book, has been able to prove that Sarah Palin is this boy’s birth mother – or that she’s not.

So don’t get me wrong. I still find the tale of Trig’s birth as odd and suspicious as hell. This woman can’t tell the truth. This woman doesn’t tell the truth. And we know from Nixon’s story that the “hoax” was in play a full year before the Watergate break-in. That he was smiling and waving and winning by a landslide knowing full well that his covert ops were in play. So with Palin’s bizarre tale, absolutely anything is possible, also, too.

But we also know that it took two, tortuous, lonely, and isolating years for Woodstein, a few editors, and Katherine Graham, with her proverbial tit in a wringer, to nail down the biggest political story of my lifetime. The Post was laughed at, ridiculed and vilified as a partisan hack rag.

And then there’s Bradlee quoting a Gallup poll showing that a full 50% of the country neither knew, nor cared about Watergate. Sound familiar?

As a previous commenter wrote:  the people who don’t have power have to decide that they want it and then decide how they are going to get it.

That’s what bloggers and readers are trying to do. Invent the new way to do this. Have an alternative line of authority, if any, to answer to. However, I still think that the criteria for “making the case” remains the same. Palin might call it a “time tested truth.”

And don’t forget:  I am the mother of a 36 and 5/7 weeks, 5 pound, 14 ounce medically fragile preemie who was born at night, not in the morning, in only one city, and treated by a handful of medical professionals who would willingly verify our relationship...and who looked like this at 12 hours old:

I work a lot with a veteran police detective. Thirty years on a major metropolitan police force. If it's out there, he's seen it. If it's been done, he's busted it.

My cop friend tells me that there are three kinds of people he never trusts:  junkies, hookers and snitches. They are con artists, he tells me. Plain truth.

But hold on, I say here and now. Consider this:

Shailey Tripp, who many of you know from Gryphen's blog, is a woman who readily admits to accepting money for providing sex.  And today she has posted a new story on her BLOG in which she has something to say about her 2010 arrest and info the Anchorage Police Department released about it.  

Shailey's blog tells the back story. And it links to other sources. For now, here's what I can say. I am looking at Shailey's arrest records, which I have copies of right here in my hands, including reports written by at least four officers who were part of the vice squad unit that busted her. As Shailey points out, at least one officer did indeed list as part of the items seized during a search of Shailey's office, "books with client phone numbers in them."  In the Property & Evidence report, I can see that a 1) Notebook 2) Datebook 3) Ledger 4) credit card machine 5) multiple cell phones were taken by police. I don't presume to know whose names were in those books or which clients Shailey knew. I only know that I see what she's saying in her blog post to be true on that score. 

Furthermore, she makes the point that the bust was not the result of an investigation into prostitution initiated by the APD based on Internet advertisements.  I have copies of those ads and can readily see Shailey's phone number on them. They were dated February 2010. No doubt they played a part in the investigation.

But I can also see the APD report, #10-3948 dated January 24, 2010, written by a known officer, stating the names, addresses, phone numbers, DOB, eye and hair color, and license numbers of two women who filed complaints a full six weeks before Tripp's arrest. And at least two weeks before the Internet and newspaper ads appeared.

Perhaps people had reason to complain. Perhaps these pieces of the investigation were all parts of a whole. But her blog post today lines up, at least for me, at least for now. Just sayin'. 

Favorite commenter and contributor, Viola-Alex, is back in action, following her boots-in-Walmart report from Texas. This time, she has been busy chatting up and nailing down a long-time member of the dreaded MSM to get his take on Rupie and Mrs. Todd P., among other things. H/T to V-A for taking the time to toss back a few and get as close as we can to having a veteran reporter explain the unexplainable. He and I also communicated and, yes, this reporter is who V-A says he is. Take it away, Viola-Alex:

                                                    * * * * * * * * 

For insight into modern media, I often turn to my old friend, The Reporter. The Reporter  worked  for twenty years in New York,  writing and editing for a variety of magazines and newspapers, including a ten year career on staff     
of The New York Times.  This dialogue is reconstructed, with his permission, from several cocktail-hour chats within the last few weeks.

V-A:  Why does the press let Palin get away with so much?

Reporter:  I can’t speak for Management.  Who knows why they do what they do, except that they’re in the business of making money.  But for a reporter, Palin poses a few problems.

V-A:  Like what?

Reporter:  Her stupidity, for one. The woman can’t speak credibly about anything.  If a reporter puts her on the spot, it can backfire.  The reporter comes off as mean-spirited, and the public sides with Palin, the poor idiot who was made to look bad. 

VA:  Like in the Katie Couric interview.

Reporter:  There’s no telling what will come out of Palin’s mouth, and even just reporting what she’s said or done can leave a reporter with a story that doesn’t make sense. 

V-A:  Have you seen the interview with Oprah, where Sarah comes on the screen with curly hair?  Oprah asks Palin about her unexpected hair-do, and Palin says, “You like it?  I tried to look like you!”   It’s a totally nutjob comment.  Is she serious?  Is it a joke?  Palin almost hijacks the interview, and Oprah is visibly speechless. 

Reporter:   Oprah speechless?  That I’d like to see.   Another Palin problem is unpredictability.  If you print her nonsense, you look like the idiot, not Palin.

V-A:  What about Tina Brown’s  Newsweek boob cover? 

Reporter:  Tina is Management now.  She’ll do anything to sell a few copies.

V-A:  But clearly  Palin’s sex appeal influences reporters, too.

Reporter:  Of course it does.  I remember when it was going around the [New York] Times newsroom that Frank Bruni’s BOOK  on George Bush may have helped him get re-elected.   It seemed to us that Bruni had a mighty big crush on Bush.  Some people later blamed Bruni because his portrait --  all boots and awshucks cowboy--  made Bush seem harmless.

V-A:  So Palin’s appearance becomes the story.

Reporter:  It definitely  loops the coverage.

V-A:  What do you mean?

TVR:  The news feeds get their fill. 

V-A:  Because it’s safer to follow her appearance than anything she does or says.

Reporter:   I put everything at the feet of reporters.  Few writers know how to report a story. They take what they’re given, no questions asked. That’s the climate now.  Not because of Management, but because of individual integrity. 

There's a Times reporter who it appears has got the hots for all the tumblers and stunts in the musical Spider-Man.  He keeps writing awe-struck articles in its support, and the producers keep pouring millions into it, even though it’s a massive failure twith five serious injuries.  
    
V-A:  One reporter can be that powerful?

Reporter:  A show that should have closed months ago, in my opinion, is still up because of constant coverage. The reporter made it “news.” 

V-A:  What about the News Corp. reporters in the Murdoch scandal?

Reporter:  They were just doing their jobs. 

V-A:  Bribing politicians and police? Hacking phones and emails?

Reporter:  If they’d done that on Sarah Palin’s  pregnancy,  you’d be handing them the Pulitzer Prize.  It’s not that their methods are questionable, necessarily, because good reporters stop at nothing to get their stories.   It’s the silliness of the stories.

V-A:  I’m afraid to say you’re right.

Reporter:  Of course I’m right. What interests me more about Murdoch was his purchase of the Wall Street Journal. His advisors were against it. He lost money on the transaction. In the midst of his billions, he suddenly had a weakness for quality.   I find that curious.

V-A:  Since Murdoch, Wall Street Journal readership is up—what?--   over 20 percent.

TVR:  While the Times is hemorrhaging readers.  Murdoch wanted to out-Times the Times, and he has.

V-A:  What’s the WSJ’s  coverage of Palin like?

Reporter:  Couldn’t say.  I don’t read stories about her.

            (I pull out my laptop and google “wall street journal” +  “sarah palin.”)

V-A:   Listen to this. (Reading from google links.)  Back in November 2010-- “Palin Lashes Out at WSJ Reporter.”  WSJ’s Sudeep Reddy charges Palin with “inflation hyperbole” then Palin attacks him personally on Facebook.  Reddy has the last word by citing the facts Palin clearly misread.  Almost 500 comments!  Even HuffPo picked up the story.  This proves your point.  Here’s one good reporter!

Reporter:  Or the WSJ is trying  to shove Palin off the stage to make way for a real candidate. 

V-A:  Oh.

Sarah Palin claims that she physically delivered a baby April 18, 2008.  Is that the Ironclad Truth or is it Frontier Fiction?  In Part 1, I argued that the weaknesses in her story point toward fiction.  The details don’t add up.  However, the ironclad evidence for proof one way or the other is still elusive, primarily because of privacy laws.

In this Part 2, I am going to present a hypothetical timeline that excludes Sarah Palin as the natural mother to the child we know as Trig.  I want you to open your mind, consider it, and give us your feedback.

In the world of Architecture, there is the concept of “drivers”.  Drivers are the facts and variables that one has to work around to plan a building.  They might be load-bearing pillars, location of elevators, heating/AC, electrical, communication or regulations stipulating what the building must have.  I am going to take the information I have and approach it from the point of view of what facts and variables drive the birth narrative.  I am going to use dates, legal documents, photos and basic knowledge of human physiology to explain what I think occurred.  You’ll notice I am not going to apply much in the way of statements by people involved – if I miss something crucial, let us know.  Kind of Joe Friday’ish, but I WILL take some leaps.  And I am going to start at the end with the Petition for Custody of Tripp.

On February 16, 2009, Greta Van Susteren interviewed Bristol and Tripp was introduced to the world, so we know he existed on that day.  Doubt has been cast on his birth date just like Trig’s.  We have no birth certificate; just a dubious article in People with questionable sourcing.  We have an undated photograph of a presumed Tripp being held by Levi with Levi wearing an ID/security bracelet typical of new fathers.  However, we do have evidence: 

In the Petition for Custody filed by Bristol Palin on November 4, 2009, via her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, in the Superior Court for the State of Alaska Third Judicial District at Palmer under the heading “Factual Overview” is this opening paragraph: “On December 27, 2008, Bristol Palin gave birth to Tripp Johnston-Palin. It is undisputed that Levi [Johnston – stated earlier in the petition] is Tripp’s father.  Although the parties were at one time engaged, they did not marry.  Subsequent to Tripp’s birth the couple terminated their personal relationship.”

There is also a Child Custody Jurisdiction Affidavit that appears to be filled out in Bristol’s handwriting and she signed the form under penalty of perjury.  It states that, “I, Bristol Palin, say on oath or affirm under penalty of perjury that: 1. The following child(ren) are the subject of the present custody proceedings: Child’s Name: Tripp E. Johnston-Palin, Place of Birth: Wasilla, Birthdate: 12/27/08, Sex: M.”  She only indicates one child.

Yes, I know people lie in court all the time.  But, there are two facts that could easily be disputed and a third one that would just take a little longer.  If Levi read this petition and knew the facts were stated incorrectly, he could do the following: as Tripp’s father he could go to the county courthouse and obtain his own copy of Tripp’s birth certificate to dispute the DOB; he could request and produce a copy of a marriage license; and he could demand DNA testing to prove paternity.  He could have done this anonymously through his attorney.  But, he did not dispute the facts and in fact, he noted in his legal statements that he agreed with them.  Also, both attorneys are officers of the court and both attorneys signed the legal documents.  If either or both of them signed their names to false statements, the simple truth is they could be disbarred, even in Frontier Alaska.  Just a little levity there. 

So Tripp was born on December 27, 2008, apparently at or close to term.  That means he was conceived in early April 2008, around the 5th. 

As far as Trig is concerned, it means one of two things:  either Bristol is not Trig’s mother or Trig was born earlier than April 18, 2008 and she could be his mother.  The latter scenario means that the photography session with the Heaths and the media was contrived. 

The former scenario means that either we’re completely off base and Sarah is his natural mother or someone else is and it isn’t Bristol.  Frankly, I am not sold on going too far afield from those two possibilities.  Let’s explore the possibility that Trig was born earlier and that Bristol is his birth mother and Sarah is his adoptive mother.  I am going to use a conception date of June 9, 2007 (LMP May 26th) with a due date around March 1, 2008.  

The Alaska first family (“Christmas”) photo supports that Bristol would have been about 12-14 weeks pregnant.  The undated but possibly October ’07 photo of Bristol with a snug stretchy green top supports that she was 4-6 weeks more advanced in her pregnancy.  She was home-schooled and absent from regular school in the fall and winter of 2007, the so-called mononucleosis absence.  

There is a 2/6/08 email to her mother that she is in a library thinking it would be a great idea for Piper to get a cell phone so she, Bristol, could text her, Piper.  She had a car accident on February 8th; I am ignoring the statement that a witness said she didn’t look pregnant – it could have been a friend or supporter, so we have to discount that.  A car accident, even a minor one, can stimulate labor.  That moment before impact produces the release of stress hormones.  The critical factor is whether those stress hormones might have been produced in significant enough amounts to precipitate labor.  The reason for that is hypothesized that those hormones send a signal to the brain that the intrauterine environment has become hostile to the survival of the fetus and the fetus would be better off out.  It is a primitive physiological reaction that can produce a severely premature infant.  I think she may have been thrown into labor that may have waxed and waned for a few days and then delivered sometime around the 10th to the 15th.  We have pretty consistent notations that Trig’s birth weight was a little over six pounds.  I am going to use six pounds.  A pregnancy is considered at term at 37 weeks and at that time the baby typically weighs around five and one-half pounds, give or take a few ounces.  I think Trig was born between 37-38 weeks.  The birth announcement card email says he was 18” at birth, again consistent with 37-38 weeks.  

It is very difficult to judge the size of the baby in all the photos where he is wrapped in a blanket.  I am excluding the Heath photo for the moment.  One of the difficult set of facts to reconcile about the photos is how Trig looked so big wrapped up in what we know is the hospital and so dinky in the photos where he is in an onesie at home.  How could they be the same baby and how could the February and May dates work?  I don’t minimize the challenge here.  It’s a bitch.  Here are the three variables that I am tossing around: 1) you can’t estimate body size well from a photo of a baby wrapped in a blanket and unwrapped babies reveal that they are indeed smaller than a wrapped baby appears, 2) we know that newborns lose weight in the first week of life, and 3) the dating we have of the photographs in question is highly unreliable and images can be manipulated with software.  I think it is possible that the photos we have of a baby being held by Levi in his green shirt and Willow, all in the hospital, and the photo of Piper at home holding the blanketed baby are all the same baby who is a newborn.  I think the unwrapped baby is the same baby one to two weeks later.  All taken in Feb. ’08.  I think the “Johnston” tattoo was photoshopped in.  The cake may have been to celebrate the baby’s birth or photoshopped or irrelevant.  What is odd about the sepia-toned picture of Sarah and Sadie and the baby is two-fold.  The proportions between the size of Sadie and the baby as a unit and Sarah next to them are off a little.  Sarah seems too big.  If you look closely at the two photos of Sadie holding the baby, they look like they were taken just moments apart, as though Sadie looked up, photo snapped, she looked down and another snapped right away.  I say that because her hands seem like they are in the same placement in both photos and it just seems to me that during the staging of Sarah being in the picture that Sadie would just naturally shifted her hold a little at least.  

Regardless what it was that prompted Sarah to change her behavior, it seems to have begun in the second half of February 2008 in service of presenting a pregnancy and then a newborn child.  From around 2/23 to 2/26, she was in Washington, met with the McCains and attended a conference.  When she was on camera, she had her scarves to her waist; when she was relaxing, she was apparently in jeans.  The official announcement we know was March 5, 2008.  As I said in Part 1, her attempts to appear pregnant were pathetic, but the camouflage obscured her abdominal appearance enough for a fake pregnancy to not be easily or definitively identifiable to the casual observer.  She didn’t even bother to move like a late pregnant woman. 

In late February, Trig was under six pounds.  Six or seven weeks later on April 18th, could he have weighed seven pounds, maybe seven and one-half pounds?  I think the baby that Sally Heath is holding on 4/18 and Todd Palin is holding on 4/21 is a bigger version of the baby we saw in the photos I mentioned above who has grown in the intervening weeks.  

Okay, now I am really going to “go off the reservation” into crazy talk for a minute.  I think there MIGHT be a viable explanation for the ruffled ear.  The enlarged photographs are very hard to interpret accurately.  There is just too much distortion.  Of course the ear cartilage is rather pliable in utero.  One thing that could have happened is that the ear got folded over severely up against the pelvic bones and gotten some adhesions holding the fold in place.  After a reasonable amount of time, those adhesions could have been snipped and allowed the cartilage to spring back into a more normal appearance with more corrective surgery being done when he is older.  Another thing that could have happened is something called amniotic bands.  Sometimes some amniotic fluid thickens in places and gets fibrous and becomes a pressure point on sensitive tissue.  For example, I used to work with an anesthesiologist who had two fingers that were half as long as normal fingers because of pressure from the amniotic fluid.  The fingers did not develop properly and were essentially amputated in utero.  In looking very closely at the ruffled ear, I can see where the edge of the cartilage looks folded over in three places I think and I can envision those spots being clipped with scissors, a little cauterization to stop the bleeding, maybe a tiny suture.  I have not talked to any ENT surgeon about the ruffling, and I am no expert and, certainly if that is a major malformation, then that is another ballgame.  If the defect is relatively minor and repairable, then the photographic evidence as it currently exists blends pretty well together, I think, and helps us stay out of the borrowing babies, stealing babies, multiple babies, switching babies, etc. territory.

Lastly, a mid-February delivery date allows enough time for Bristol’s body to heal enough for sex, to begin ovulating again and conceive in the first week of April.  Back-to-back babies as a teenager.  That’s a real Wild Ride!                              

It’s been one week since Scribd launched Float, its app for the iphone.

I was so pleased to be included as a suggested person to follow (which means, essentially, you can see what I am reading) and to have my new novel Finding Clarity available under Scribd’s Books and Lit (right above Peter Pan and Huck Finn.)

I’ve been playing around with the app for a week and have good things to report.

-  First, I love the icon. The bright red balloon on the sky background really pops on my iphone. The graphic makes me want to go there.

-  It's great that I can see my Scribd feed and follow Twitter and Facebook as well if I want. No need to have 3 different icons on your phone when it can all be combined under one “heading.”

-  Float formats everything I could read on my computer, onto the iphone, so gone is the madness of having to try to read documents in a browser. Letters are large (and can become even larger if you wish) and Float offers many fun ways to read (in the dark; save your eyes; computer green; Gutenberg Bible font etc.)

-  Swipe left to right and the pages stay neatly paginated. Scroll up and down if you prefer. Float knows where to go and what to do.

-  The Favorites page is what makes Float the great coordinator of iphone apps. Social Feeds are listed at top (Scribd, Twitter and Facebook) followed by Websites marked by their colorful icons. A dozen can be listed (some come with the app and you can add more from lists of participating partners.) I’ve got Huffington Post next to Robert Reich, above the Daily Dish, across from the Smithsonian, which is poised next to Gawker and Talking Points Memo.  News, gossip, literature: you choose your source and Float makes it very easy. And you can eliminate all those app icons from your iphone “desktop.”

-  People is the next category on this sort of “home page.”  I see many of the people I follow on Scribd and I can add more.  For example, I am one of the people Float suggests you follow and I’ve met more there than I knew about from Scribd.

-  My List shows you some of the articles that I have “bookmarked” and can read later “off line” if I wish. There is also my Library, which I can keep private, and my activities, which shows you what I’ve uploaded on Scribd on the computer.

-  Perhaps the only problem I have, and it’s minor, is with the People section on my “Home” page, or Favorites page.  I don’t know yet how to move the people I really want to follow to that page, and let the others, who seem to be programmed in there, float into the distance. 

-  Same with my Websites. As on an iphone, I would like to be able to press the icon, have it shimmy and shake, thereby allowing me to drag it to the top line or move it next to a similar category. It’s very possible that this is possible, but I’m not sure how.

-  One of the delightful things I discovered is that I can “float” anything I’m reading to my other social media, that is, Scribd – the online feed – and Twitter. In fact, I was thrilled when I found my comment and the writer’s response on the Scribd feed, for something I sent from Float on my iphone.

The Scribd folks should be commended for months of hard work and stellar engineering on Float. I’ve long wanted to be able to read articles while standing in line at the bank or waiting for a BART train. Now, I can pick up on a novel (including my own!), an article or even the Scribd feed.

For more on the Float launch at the Braintech conference in Aspen, click HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE.

Thank you Scribd for floating us into the future!

Welcome back to Girls On The Bus, a series of short, but shrewd, analyses of Mrs. Todd P., Mickey B., and other assorted nut jobs causing weather disturbances here and abroad.

My partner in satirical and boldly biased analysis is wonder woman writer, feminist, and managing editor and columnist for Politicususa, Sarah Jones. 

LN: Speaking of abroad, Sarah, and no, I’m not saying “a broad” as in a tough lady (think: Maggie T.), I am saying abroad as in Europe, as in London, as in, how many ways are there to say “clinker” in British English?

SJ:  You must be talking about Rebekah Brooks, former chief of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Europe, who’s been arrested only days after resigning, as well as Sir Paul Stephensen, head of Scotland Yard who also just resigned.

LN: So many people, so little time. THIS NYTs LINK is a good way to keep all those illustrious players straight in our minds. 

SJ: After the select committee meeting it appears as if Rebekah Brooks will be taking the fall for the Murdochs. I’m still wonderig what was in the bag found in the rubbish bin outside of the flat she shares with her husband, who is good friends with the Prime Minister. I can’t make sense of how his bag ended up in the garbage bin and then taken to police. Was it a deliberate dump? Surely they would be smarter than to dump evidence in a bin near their flat. Or maybe there’s nothing in the computer bag….Who knows.

LN:  Well, we know there’s been the suspicious death of a key whistle blower in the case and now a pie throwing contest in Parliment. What troubles me most is not that someone tried to smear shaving cream all over Mr. Murdoch, but that his wife let loose the smackdown of all ages. Frankly, it’s one thing to leap up to protect your loved one, perhaps by  blocking a body or pushing away a pushy person.  It’s another to literally smack a man. What I saw was coiled rage.

SJ: I’m not clear on how someone carrying shaving cream on a plate got let into the meeting. If I were a more suspicious person, I would suspect this was a stunt pulled to garner sympathy for Rupert, which it certainly did. The commentary was all about how frail he appeared prior to that, and then the Right really got outraged over the incident. While I don’t support anyone accosting anyone, it was a shaving cream pie – he was never in harm’s way, and that’s not something he can say of his hacking victims. You’re right about his wife, I wondered about her reaction as well. I think it spoke volumes about how they deal with “opponents” instincitvely, and it was even more troubling the way pundits applauded what she did. Someone else had already stopped the guy.

LN:  England to me is the land of the RAF, Churchill, and Connan Doyle. Okay, and Daniel Craig, but I digress. The Brits are the ultimate sleuths, real men without guns, and yet they’ve gone and soiled the whole thing in my mind by taking freebies at spas and looking away while reporters stole a dead girl’s phone messages.  Yes, the tabloids over there have always been, well, so tabloidy but I didn’t think they’d all be in bed together. And now the PM tossing a tosser under the bus? Are there no fables left in our lifetime?

SJ: We’ve allowed media conglomerates to have such power that they have way too much control, access and power to our elected officials. We see that in Britian very clearly, but what remains to be seen is what was going on and is going on here. Until we see major changes to the regulations governing media conglomerates dominating an entire market, we have little chance of losing the inevitable cycncism that results from being lied to by the media (WMD). It’s so troubling and such a shame, that I had to make a list of hard-working, indpendent journalists in order to remind myself that there are still folks out there, doing the critical work that must be done to keep government in check. The Guardian UK and NYT deserve huge kudos for their work on the News Corp/News International hacking.

LN:  Well, this is giving me a headache. And you know what else gives me a headache? Mickey B’s migraines. It’s not that  Minnesota’s most famous migraine sufferer is to blame, it’s that Karl Rove is now calling for her full medical records so we can know if she’s fit to be president. Excuse me? So, we can now call for full disclosure on menopausal issues, yet a curiously conflicting account of a peri-menopausal pregnancy is off limits?  Sarah, explain to me how the wind blows in Roveland.

SJ: As if! There are no standards, it’s a matter of whom they support and whom they do not support. Bachmann is threatening their electable, viable candidates. The Daily Caller’s piece  on Bachmann’s “pill-popping” and “incapacitiated” state was so full of sexism it was gag-worthy, and believe me, I don’t relish defending Bachmann from sexism when she sells it every day.

LN:  What would I do without a good ride on the bus with you, Sarah.  I think you deserve a spot of tea for taking this time to talk with me and my readers today.

SJ: Thanks Laura, it’s always a pleasure chatting with you.

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((LN:  And now for something entirely different:  a few folks from the '70s, on their bus and havin' a ball. H/T dear reader who loves it when Sarah visits my blog)). 

In local news today...I was saddened to be sent this news from a friend about a very wealthy family (or so I thought) in our community. 

Click on the Madoff link to the left to see the story on KGO-TV.  I was room parent for four years for a child of the guy in the yellow jump suit and it distresses me greatly to think of how the boy and his siblings are doing through this ordeal.

The dad is charged with nine counts of fraud for allegedly swindling dozens of people out of millions of dollars. The allegation is that he "made off" with their money, including kids' college funds.

I recall the fantastic birthday party for the son who invited the entire 7th grade. The magnificent house, located behind electronic gates, was dressed up as a casino, replete with blackjack tables, roulette wheels and professionals to man each station. I recall the Range Rover and designer duds, and the fact that the boy had an iphone before even my husband did! The family seemed close knit, lovely, well-mannered and oh-so-prosperous.

But I gotta be honest: I also recall handing homeroom rosters and volunteer sign-up sheets to the parents for four years in a row, and not once did they look me in the eye, sign up for anything or mutter a word of thanks. Evidently, there were bigger fish to fry.

Now we find out that the District Attorney intends to prove that the man in the cuffs and yellow jail suit managed little more than a house of cards, a ponzi scheme of the type, though perhaps not the magnitude, that put Bernie behind bars. 

Clearly, people in the community are angry, and some have even begun culling information into a BLOG. That tells me one thing:  there is more info coming down the pike about these alleged activities.

One of the recurrent themes in my new novel - Finding Clarity: A Mom, A Dwarf and a Posh Private School in the People's Republic of Berkeley - is that the appearance of altruism is often a disguise for deceit. And that goes for the fat cats who fund your kid's school, be it public, private or parochial. 

Doesn't matter if your six kids do go to private school or if your vacations are grander than that of the average bear. What matters is that things don't always add up and they aren't always what they seem. As I said, the kids always seemed well behaved, gracious and fond of one another. The father? It never made any sense to me. No matter how wealthy or what a big shot investor I always heard he was, his appearance, his comportment - none of it added up. None of it.

So, the moral of the story might be that when it doesn't make sense, it doesn't for a good reason. You know of what I speak.