Well this may come as no surprise to you, but the Mets are officially out of the Major League Baseball playoff hunt (and a little early) this year.  The New York "built like a house of cards in the wind" Metropolitans have suffered their most mortal blow:  Johan Santana is out with bone chips in his supremely expensive left elbow.  The team is in the world's greatest city (which happens to house some of mankind's most gifted doctors, trainers and massage therapists), yet whoever the Mets used to circumspectly press out their groin strains and administer health care should be shot with a shell full of rock salt!  Every starting position that the Mets have has been injured this season.  Every starting pitcher, closer, set-up guy, or starting fielder has been maimed in some way that put them on the disabled list and many of the back ups to these players have wound up getting hurt also.  In many areas of Citi Field it is no longer uncommon to see a third, fourth, or even fifth string player with a glove, or you might also see an array of ambulances, random Mets' employees running with crutches, runaway golf carts laden with confused players that think they fought in World War II and did not just get hit in the head with a baseball, or - dare I say it - Mr. Met lying face down in a casket.  My favorite mascot is going to need some serious off season voodoo/or magic to wake him up from this!

This article says it all:
Ex-employees claim Blackwater pimped out young Iraqi girls

Share on Facebook By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: August 7, 2009
Updated 1 day ago







Since the revelation earlier this week of allegations by two former employees of security firm Blackwater that its owner was complicit in murder in order to cover up the deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians, explosive charges have continued to emerge.

Perhaps the most shocking of those charges — quoted by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Thursday from the employees’ sworn declarations — is that Blackwater was guilty of using child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and that owner Erik Prince knew of this activity and did nothing to stop it.

The declarations describe Blackwater as “having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.” They add even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he “failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men.”

One of the statements also charges that “Prince’s North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring, which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince’s top executives.”

According to the two former employees, Blackwater supervisors in Iraq sometimes sent men back to the United States for wanting to “kill ragheads,” excessive drinking, steroid use, or failure to follow weapon safety procedures, but “Mr. Prince and his executives would send them back” with a reprimand to the supervisor for costing the firm money. Blackwater even fired “those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men.”

The former employees additionally state that Prince was engaged in illegal arms dealing, money laundering, and tax evasion, that he created “a web of companies in order to obscure wrong-doing, fraud, and other crimes,” and that Blackwater’s chief financial officer had “resigned … stating he was not willing to go to jail for Erik Prince.”

Prince has repeatedly insisted his company has done nothing wrong and Blackwater — now renamed Xe — continues to fulfill its contracts with the United States government.

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Aug. 6, 2009.

Many new and interesting additions have been made to the strictly picture RUNE WORKS Section.  Check out the "Brick Walls of Boston" and many others!  The Tower is up too.