O.J., Blackwater and various other reasons to move to Canada

The Simpson Life: Readers often ask, does Bites believe in science? Absolutely. Bites is 100 percent certain that one day forensic historians employing only the highest scientific standards will declare O.J. Simpson to be the father of reality TV. Simpson, in case that tin-foil hat of yours actually does filter out the MSM, is back in the news this week after being arrested for allegedly robbing at gunpoint a group of sports-memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas.

Ah, Juice. Somewhere between now and that record-breaking day on a snow-covered football field in Buffalo three decades ago, something went horribly wrong. What was it, O.J.? What led you to hack up your wife, Nicole, and her friend in a Brentwood walkway? To that moment the not-guilty verdict was read in court and your mask finally slipped, if only for an instant, revealing the slack-jawed face of an honest-to-god sociopath? To a Las Vegas hotel room last week, where you and your cronies attempted to recover an autographed photograph of yourself with J. Edgar Hoover you claim was stolen from you?

“You can’t rob something that is yours,” Simpson’s attorney explained. “If at some point somebody else pulls out a firearm, it’s still not a robbery for the person who wants his property back.”

No, Juice, of course you didn’t do it. And by the way, welcome back. We haven’t been so entertained since the Trial of the Century.

Keep on rolling: That Mississippi moon just keeps shining on Blackwater USA, the world’s largest mercenary army. Earlier this week, the private security firm was asked by the Iraqi government to leave the country after several of its mercenaries killed eight civilians in a firefight. Blackwater operates in Iraq with virtual impunity, thanks to laws put into effect by neocon stooge L. Paul Bremer, the former director of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance in Iraq.

The company first appeared in Bites last April, after author Jeremy Scahill, in his book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Largest Mercenary Army, reported members of the firm had met with the Schwarzenegger administration. The purpose of the meeting? Perhaps Blackwater’s desire to build a large military base near San Diego, or its efforts to privatize state emergency services in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Neither Schwarzenegger nor Blackwater denied the meeting when it was first reported in a Virginia newspaper and later repeated in Scahill’s book. But when Bites did some calling around, no one from either camp would own up to the meeting. Schwarzenegger’s spokesman stuck to the denial, but Blackwater eventually conceded that someone from its office had contacted the governor’s office by telephone.

Naturally, both organizations claimed the appointment by Schwarzenegger of a former registered lobbyist for Blackwater to a post in the California Department of Homeland Security was a complete coincidence.

Of course it was.

Body count: Meanwhile, the death toll in Iraq continues to mount. Last week, the British polling firm ORB released a new demographic survey that estimates the number or Iraqis killed since the war began four years ago may be as high as 1.2 million. Add that to the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis killed as a result of the draconian sanctions placed on their country in the decade prior to the war, and you have what can only be called genocide.

Neither the Iraqi nor U.S. government provides figures on civilian deaths, but both agencies dispute ORB’s figure, which was arrived at using well-accepted demographic methods for estimating casualties in a war zone. More conservative estimates, based on reports in government-controlled newspapers, place the death toll at around 75,000. But who you gonna believe? The reality-based community or the occupation’s official mouthpieces?

Bites has already made that call.