if you've been anywhere near a media outlet in the past 24 hours, you've surely heard that scott peterson was sentenced to the death penalty. in fact, you might not have heard anything else... and if you did, chances are good you heard that robert blake has been acquitted.

so scott peterson is a white dude who killed his wife. robert blake is a white dude who apparently did not kill his wife. judging from the amount of coverage, murder must not happen very often around these parts, right? it's not like thousands of people are murdered each year.

meanwhile, while you were hearing about peterson, you probably weren't hearding that the senate moved one step closer to drilling in ANWR. it was a vote to strip the ANWR provision from the current senate budget bill, and it lost by a 49-51 vote, so you know that pretty much all senate democrats and even a few republicans voted against. but that wasn't enough... there's a chance the budget bill won't pass the senate, but if/when it does, it goes to the hosue... and the house has repeatedly voted in favor of drilling in ANWR. after years of fighting on this issue, it appears bush will have his way and the seals will be replaced by drills. but clearly that's not as important as scott peterson, who killed his wife. or robert drake, who didn't. or michael jackson, who likes porn and little boys.

also seemingly overshadowed by the peterson and blake cases is the fact that bernie ebbers was convicted the other day. ebbers was ceo of worldcom, a company that defrauded millions of people out of billions of dollars. ebbers's defense was basically: "the buck stopped before it got here." he claimed that he was totally ignorant of the massive fraud that took place under his watch. that's a defense that bush has used quite a lot in the past few years, although bush has enough resources and cronies to keep him out of court. that's fortunate for bush, because the ebbers jury responded by effectively saying "how fucking stupid do you think we are?" now he's convicted and he faces up to 85 years in prison... though it could be 85 years before he finishes the appeals process.

but who cares about some corporate criminal with millions of victims? i mean, it's not like he killed his wife or anything.