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April 29, 2006
One Of My Most Endearing Qualities, As Far As My Bride Is Concerned...
Is my punctuality. Actually, if the truth be told, it drives her insane. You see, I really hate being late for anything. I mean really really hate it. If you tell me to be at your house at 7 I'm there at 6:45. If we have to be somewhere at a given time and it's a 30 minute drive, I want to leave an hour early just, you know, in case there's traffic or something. I showed up at her apartment 2 hours early for our first date, for gosh sakes. So I found it somewhat gratifying this morning when I encountered someone who is worse than me.
I had to get the car inspected. New Jersey a few years ago went from annual car inspections to a system where older cars are done every other year and new cars every four years, at least for the first go around. So naturally over the course of the past two years I forgot to look at the sticker in my windshield, and when I did the number '4/06' therein didn't really register. Until yesterday, that is, when I realized that I had to face the dreaded last day of the month crowds at the motor vehicle inspection line on a Saturday morning.
The inspection station opens at 7 am, and based on past experience I knew, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that it would be a zoo this morning so I had to get there early. I mean, in the past if you got there at 7 you were looking at a minimum 45 minute wait. So I set my alarm for the usual 5:28 wakeup and was out the door at the usual 5:43. But to show how casual and relaxed I am now, I didn't take the fastest route to the DMV but rather the more mature scenic route so I could hit a Dunkin' and get a big cup of coffee. See? I've mellowed, baby. Anyhow, I got to the station at 6:10...and I was second. I was so tickled; I could now truthfully inform my bride that there was someone out there worse than me.
The DMV station in Eatontown has got the standard sort of long swoopy driveway that curls about and leads into the inspection bays. A few years ago they added a ticket machine, much like one at a parking garage, that gives each car a ticket as you go by and you then hand the ticket to the person who checks over your license, registration and insurance card as you pull into one of the three bays. There is, oh, about 150 yards of curvy lane from the machine to the bays. I'm really not quite sure what purpose this ticket serves but the bureaucracy seems to think it's spiffy. Anyhow, access to the ticket machine was blocked by a little chain stretched across the road right in front of it, and there's a sign on the chain that says "Form Line Here" or some such not-unreasonble command an hour before the place opens.
Anyhow, so we're sitting there, and I'm feeling good about being number two. Cars start lining up behind me and I'm doing the "I'll be done before you" dance in my mind. I did start to get a little nervous, though, because I knew that usually once you got nearer to the bays the lane split into two lanes so they could squeeze more cars into the line, and I was afraid I might, you know, choose the wrong lane or something and someone would pass me. But I was able to console myself that getting inspected third was just about as good as being the second car into the bay. And that helped. A little.
So the minutes crept along and the number of cars behind me grew (Yes!) though not, it must be admitted, to anywhere near the volumes of the past, which only makes sense, I guess, as in any given month only half as many cars at most are being inspected now. There wasn't much to occupy my attention, really, just the squirrels chasing eachother about, the Motor Vehicle employees driving by on their way in and the guy in front of me who seemed awfully fidgety. I mean awfully fidgety. Dude, sit still already!
At 6:51 he gets out of his car, looks at his watch and then back at me and says "It's 7 o'clock, isn't it?" He then walks forward and unhooks the Chain, gets back in his car, moves up, pushes the button to get a ticket and drives around the building to the bays.
I sat there stunned.
I hear all these cars behind me start up in an Indy 500 roar of jubilation, and as they creep forward and apply thousands of tons of psychological pressure on me I'm thinking "We are soooo screwed." I mean, bureaucracies do not take well to such wanton displays of initiative, especially state ones. Hear I was, pleased at being in the presence of someone who was more anal than I; now I discover he's an ass too.
But what could I do? Of course I caved. I crept forward, got my ticket and began the long drive around the building. I opened my window as I saw the perturbed looks on the employess as the first car drove by, and I heard several voices say "Who opened the gate?" and all the while I'm thinking I'm staying way behind this guy and try and disassociate myself from any knowledge of his existence. I pull up to within about ten feet of him (but no closer) at the stop sign in front of the still-closed inspection bays...and wait.
Sure enough, in a minute or so a very official looking fellow comes over and begins to just ream the bejeebus out of this guy..."Sir, are you the one who opened the chain? That is NOT your decision" and so on, and me and the guy behind me are just sinking in our seats, both of us trying to think of ways to say "It's his fault!" without sounding too 3rd grade-like when the fellow moved on to chastise us, but he seemed to realize, quite correctly mind you, that the first car was wholly and entirely at fault. Whew. A few minutes later they opened the three bay doors and we peeled off into them for our inspection.
Shockingly, Mr. Chain failed.
Hehehehehe.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:38 AM | Comments (11)
April 28, 2006
Damn Straight
About time he said something on this issue I agree with:
When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.""I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English," Bush said.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:23 PM | Comments (6)
On It's Face
...this...
Shell unveils plans for 'biggest refinery in US
Anglo-Dutch oil group Royal Dutch Shell has announced plans to make its jointly owned Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, the biggest in the United States.
...is great news. Then you think, "But isn't that the same Port Arthur hidden by Hurricane Rita?"
Doesn't help jack if it's underwater or all blowed up.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:54 PM | Comments (4)
Our Counter Slogan for National Illegal Monday?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:54 PM | Comments (3)
Senator Martinez Replied to My Email
...bless his little, pointy head.
...In addition to tightening border security, we must obtain better information regarding the illegals living here because it is critical to our national security to know who is living within our borders. Our estimated illegal population is equivalent to the population of Ohio. If we hope to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of hiding we must provide them with the proper incentive to come forward. We cannot offer amnesty; instead, I believe we must establish a way for those with jobs to gain interim legal status to work after paying stiff fines, back taxes, and clearing a background check.
Blahblahblah. Bring them out of hiding? Who cares about that? My opinion is leave them hiding ~ but when you FIND them, back to Mexico they go and make it IMPOSSIBLE for them to get back HERE. Plus a hefty body slam for their employer. "¡usted NO puede!".
And it's "The Star SPANGLED Banner", a$$holes.
NOT the "Star SPANGLISH".
Dear Ms. th sister:Thank you for contacting me with your support for legislation that would strengthen our border security to stop the flow of illegal immigrants entering the United States. I appreciate hearing from you and would like to take this opportunity to respond.
I strongly believe that to protect our homeland and halt the flow of illegal immigrants, we must strengthen our borders. I also understand that any new immigration law passed by Congress must first and foremost seal our southern border with Mexico to stem the constant stream of illegal immigrants who enter our country daily.
On October 28, 2005, President George W. Bush signed into law the Homeland Security Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006 (P.L. 109-90), which includes more than $30 billion for national security. It specifically set aside $2.3 billion for the Border Patrol to improve and expand its stations, to install and improve fencing, lighting, and vehicle barriers along the border and to acquire technologies, such as portable imaging machines, sensors and automated targeting systems that focus on high-risk travelers and goods.
Securing our borders and enforcing existing immigration laws must be our top priorities. As the Senate considers the President’s fiscal year 2007 budget request and comprehensive immigration legislation, I will work with my colleagues to ensure substantial resources are made available to the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol.
American employers also need to take responsibility when determining the immigration status of individuals they hire. Too often illegal immigrants attempt to enter the United States chasing employment from unscrupulous employers who accept fraudulent citizenship documents. This hurts both American workers and immigrants whose sole aim is to work hard and get ahead. It is imperative that we implement a simple, fool-proof, and mandatory mechanism for all employers to check the legal status of new hires, and we must penalize employers that continue to hire illegal employees.
In addition to tightening border security, we must obtain better information regarding the illegals living here because it is critical to our national security to know who is living within our borders. Our estimated illegal population is equivalent to the population of Ohio. If we hope to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of hiding we must provide them with the proper incentive to come forward. We cannot offer amnesty; instead, I believe we must establish a way for those with jobs to gain interim legal status to work after paying stiff fines, back taxes, and clearing a background check.
Thank you for sharing your thoughtful comments with me. As the Senate considers this important issue, I will keep your views in mind. If you have any additional comments, please contact me. For more information about issues and activities important to Florida, please sign up for my weekly newsletter at http://martinez.senate.gov.
Sincerely,
Mel Martinez
United States Senator
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:41 AM | Comments (4)
Damn Your Tax Cutting, Chimpy McEyes!!
GDP growth strongest in 2-1/2 yearsBastard! (Scottie mug, anyone?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:30 AM | Comments (3)
May Day Follies
I have to say that this sort of thing may well backfire.
(AP) SACRAMENTO California's state senators on Thursday endorsed Monday's boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants and their allies as supporters equated the protest with great social movements in American history.By a 24-13 vote that split along party lines, the California Senate approved a resolution that calls the one-day protest the Great American Boycott 2006 and describes it as an attempt to educate Americans "about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy."
Sorry, but if I see a mob of marching shouting folks talking about how we stole the land from them I can assure you that they are not going to get any sympathy from me to legalize their illegal activities. Nor, frankly, do I have tender feelings for the folks who hire them. If I have to cut my own grass or pay a little more for a sandwich to be delivered from the deli then I will.
We can not simply wave a wand and bless the continual breaking and flouting of laws and then expect that these very same people who are being rewarded for breaking our laws will suddenly morph into model citizens. It's ludicrous, and we'll have the exact same problem again in a few years. Clearly, however, deporting 11 million people is not possible, so we need to firstly stop anymore from coming via physical barrier and also by discouraging the incentive, i.e. prosecuting the people who hire them. Next we need to go through the illegals that are here and deport any with criminal records. The remainder then we come up with a program for so that they can work towards citizenship over a several year period, with any violations during that period resulting in deportation. I'm against any sort of 'guest worker' program because that creates a permanent, legalized sub-citizen in our society; I seem to recall we killed several hundred thousand of ourselves the last time we had to get rid of such a system.
Anyhow, let's discuss.
Update: Michelle Malkin has the scoop on how the "Nation of Aztlan" charmers are getting involved. Nice.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:34 AM | Comments (43)
April 27, 2006
The Dogg Collared
Rap superstar Snoop Dogg was in police custody on Thursday after being arrested with five other men following a disturbance at London's Heathrow airport, a police source said.The 34-year-old star, a former member of the notorious Los Angeles Crips gang, was held after a fight broke out when police were escorting him and his entourage out of the airport on Wednesday evening.
...Media reports said Dogg was waiting for a flight to Johannesburg in South Africa.
A British Airways spokesman told the Daily Mirror: "There was an incident involving a group of passengers at our lounge where some passengers were rude and abusive to our staff and that is something we do not tolerate."
British homies don play dat minizzle schizzle.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:50 PM | Comments (7)
Who is Radley Balko and Why
...is he channeling James Frey? Working subtitle:
How 'Ha hah ~ Buy This Mug!' became
"Bloggers who sell Scottie mugs HATE ANDREW SULLIVAN to a million little PIECES !!!"
Which we don't, of course. Our scrupulously researched empirical data flow charts...
...overwhelmingly support this conclusion. (Science, my friends, is a great tool.)
My post of two o' clock yesterday morning ~ admittedly a shameless attempt at mug promotion ~ has morphed into something unrecognizable through Mr. Balko's fertile imagination and lackluster research. (He was kind enough to trackback.)
Now, "they need a mug" and "where to GET a mug" firmly in your upper register? Great. THIS is what Mr. Balko read and posted:
Blog chatter over the Tennessee torture case has taken an unfortunate turn into petty Red State-Blue State territory.Andrew Sullivan picked up the story yesterday, and pondered a link between CIA torture and torture by drug cops, suggesting that when the federal government condones torture overseas, we probably shouldn't be surprised when government agents at home are given light sentences for torturing drug suspects. He then suggested that the Bush administration's rather callous approach to civil liberties on other fronts might play a role in this kind of behavior from law enforcement at the local level.
That caused Glenn Reynolds to approvingly link to two sites mocking Sullivan for, as they put it, "blaming Bush for police brutality." That then degenerated into a childish "blame Bush for everything" caricature of Sullivan's position.
Yup. That second dastardly link is to our scottie mug. But I must have missed all the Sullivan mockery implied in those two sentences of mine. And he takes a crack at you guys, too! (This from a guy who doesn't allow comments on his site.)
But he's not done...::sigh::
...But Reynolds and the sites he links to mischaracterize what Sullivan wrote about this administration's more general record on civil liberties, seemingly intentionally...
Was ist daß?! We're just selling mugs! Where's Reverend Jesse when we need him? Mr. Balko has constructed a virtual novelette, full of conflict, pathos and bullsh*t. So I wrote him a little note.
Concerning the Coalition of the Swilling and our "Blame Bush" mugDear Mr. Balko ~
Thank you for your trackback and your notice. It's quite an honor to have you visit us. (I have linked to several of your Corey Maye posts.) But I'm afraid I'm going to have to point out what I feel is a misinterpretation ~ no, let's use 'mischaracterization' ~ of the "Blame Bush" mug and post. Written as a dig at Andrew Sullivan?! Where on earth did you get that idea? I sure wish you had clicked through the link to our Swill page. (Like the song says "That's what links are for...") There you would have found our original, Andrew Sullivan-free 'Blame Bush' post, written in JANUARY. The genesis of the mug/post/all of it was a complaint we received from one of the fourteen in-country United States Marines the Swilling had adopted. Since October, packages had been flying overseas and then we got an urgent "Please send Atomic Fireballs ~ There are NONE in Iraq!" In the spirit of the times, we figured it HAD to be Bush's fault, the design came to me at zero dark thirty a few days later and we were off. I am a stickler for reference and attribution ~ I've recently had a fact based dustup with Meryl Yourish, for example ~ so EVERY Bush sin listed is a corresponding link to the news/source.
http://www.coalitionoftheswilling.net/archives/2006/01/blame_bush_1.html
You will see no mention of Mr. Sullivan, torture in Tennessee or whether Brett Favre will play this year ANYWHERE in the post. And our post handsomely predates ALL of them by three months. The other link was a result of my seeing the "I Blame Bush For [Insert...]" title. I was thinking 'jeez, we've already done that!' and suggesting that someone could use a mug. I'm sure you can attest, if you revisit our post AND the trackback to theirs, that I do indeed mention they could use a mug. I could sure use someone to BUY one. It was capitalism, greed and good humor, pure and simple.
As for your:
"to two sites mocking Sullivan for, as they put it, "blaming Bush for police brutality." That then degenerated into a childish "blame Bush for everything" caricature of Sullivan's position."
...as well as...
"the sites he links to mischaracterize what Sullivan wrote about this administration's more general record on civil liberties, seemingly intentionally."
...dang! I'm hardly as nefarious as all that. You give me way too much credit and are WAY OFF the hyperbolic mark. I also should disabuse you ~ I could care less about Andrew Sullivan, in any way, shape or form, have no clue what he's written in any capacity as I don't read him in any capacity and haven't the luxury of time to construct an assault on his opinions. Nor do I possess the wherewithal to design and offer goods specifically to impugn whatever it is he's said. We don't work with Cafe Press ~ our goods are locally done and they get paid when I order. (And you believe by virtue of a post with NO mention of Andrew Sullivan, by a blog that Andrew Sullivan doesn't have the foggiest notion exists, that said blog 'intentionally' 'mischaracterizes' what the unmentioned Andrew Sullivan said?!) Bingley, on the otherhand, has always spoken well of him and actually had quotes from his emails posted on Mr. Sullivan's site. So there are no axes to grind from his end either.I will assume, for the sake of argument, that your "degenerated into a childish "blame Bush for everything"" referred to the comments as well? They are dear regulars, the lot of them. One was green with envy at our double Instalanche ~ a very gratifying reaction ~ while the others let fly in the spirit of the theme (which, IF you'd read our original post's 25 comments, you'd know they delight in). That's the advantage of being small like us ~ we develop a sense of intimacy with our readers unavailable to you big, BIG guys. There's a 'secret code', a giddy patter that springs up when it's an inside joke (mention 'goat' ~ you'll see what I mean) or awful pun, and blaming Bush is one of them. It's one of the best things about our blog.
I'd like to believe you'd read the comments. But alas, no. You will find NO mention of Andrew Sullivan. NO Sullivan slurs, sullies or schmears in EITHER the post or the comments you so fiercely deride. I believe you have 'mischaracterized' us, "seemingly intentionally." You pulled Andrew Sullivan out of a hat, NOT out of my post. (I believe Mr. Sullivan owes moi an apology, too, since it seems he also cannot follow a link to determine if someone is picking on him or not. He defers to you. That fact that his name is wholly absent should be his FIRST clue.) All in all, it was a pretty selective skewering on your part ~ is it a 'Glenn Reynolds' thing? I mean, there we were, with one funny mug and a three month old marketing concept, while there appears to be a wealth of targets at the other site ~ trackbacked blogs who WROTE about Andrew Sullivan!
So, there you have it. The mug is a JOKE. A slice of the absurd. The post is a winkwinknudgenudge revisit of our original laughing place. How we were tarred with your anti-Andrew conspiracy brush, I have no idea.
Pleasantry, pleasantry, blahblahblah, lovely evening,
signed
th sister
So, since I've really liked the guy, I shipped this "WTF?!" off (with a copy to ANDREW SULLIVAN, who is BUSY and IMPORTANT) and am waiting for some sort of reply. Knowing he's also BUSY and IMPORTANT and has IMPORTANT FRIENDS and CAUSES and STUFF to WRITE, I've cut him a huss. In the meantime, his happy little backtracking a$$ has plastered the Swilling and his brand of fiction out there for God knows who to read and 'mischaracterize' us, 'probably intentionally'. Call me names? Duck off a goat's baaack. Make sh*t UP? A whole 'nuther story.
And I sold a whopping two mugs. I should have listened to jeffS and got working on those "BITE ME" t-shirts.
I sure could use one now.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:13 PM | Comments (25)
Oh Golly: Iran Now Has Nuke-Capable Missles...
...that can reach Europe:
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran has received a first shipment of missiles from North Korea that are capable of reaching Europe, Israel's military intelligence chief was quoted on Thursday as saying.Known in the West as BM-25s, the Russian-designed missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles, giving them a longer reach than the Iranian-made Shihab-4 missiles which are capable of hitting Israel...
The BM-25 was originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where it was known as the SSN6, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Haaretz reported.
But they just need them for peaceful purposes.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:53 AM | Comments (10)
NIMBY Ted (Not "Nimble" Ted)
Ah yes, the Champion of the Poor is all for alternative energy (because BushyMcChimpler is in Oil's pocket, natch)...just so long as it doesn't affect the view by his multi-gazillion dollar vacation home:
WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound......Environmental groups have launched an aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon Kennedy and back a promising source of renewable energy. If the wind farm becomes a reality, advocates say, it could provide three-fourths of the Cape and Islands' energy needs and could set an example for the nation.
The maneuver to stop the wind farm ''is clearly a backroom deal, and they're going to get called publicly on it," said John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA. ''The Democrats are going to kill the first big offshore wind farm in the United States because of their relationship with Ted Kennedy."
I'm agreeing with Greenpeace.
What have I become?
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 10:41 AM | Comments (14)
On the Morning of This Date in 1805
"...to the shores of Tripoli"...hadn't made it to the Marines' Hymn...yet. Courtesy of Lt. Presley Neville O' Bannon and his galiant company, it did so by mid-afternoon.
...At long last, on April 25, they arrived at Derna. Surely by then, many in this small army must have been happy at the prospect of battle, as opposed to dying a miserable death in the desert. A message was sent to the governor of Derna to surrender. His defiant reply was, "My head or yours." Shortly after this, the attacking force was bolstered by the arrival of the USS Argus, USS Hornet, and USS Nautilus in the harbor.It was decided that Hamet and his Mamelukes would attack the governor's castle, while O'Bannon, with his Americans, along with the Greeks and Turks, would lead an assault on the harbor fort. The naval guns would assist by bombarding the objectives.
As the attack began, the firing from the governor's castle proved too much for Hamet's force, and they held back. With enemy reinforcements known to be on the way, the attackers were in dire need of a quick victory. Eaton ordered O'Bannon to lead his men in a frontal assault on the harbor fort. Two hours of desperate fighting ensued, but finally O'Bannon and his men drove the Tripolitans from the fort and captured the guns there before they could be spiked. This would prove to be important.
O'Bannon had carried a U.S. flag with him, and now, for the first time in history, the Stars and Stripes was raised over foreign soil.
It's a great read.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:12 AM | Comments (5)
Everything You Never Ever Wanted to Know
...about Cynthia "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" McKinney. Just like novel, it builds to a climax.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:10 AM | Comments (4)
Buh-Bye Byers
Oh what are we to do? David Bernstein has a post up at Volokh about a poor harrassed ex-Duke law proffessor who has been hounded out of academe here in the eevull States and forced to return to the safety of Canada:
The moment was upon me. My heart bursting with pride, I looked the immigration officer in the eye and said, as simply and non-judgmentally as possible: "I have chosen to live permanently in Canada."
That's all fine and good; I'm glad he's proud of his native land and wants to live there. But why did he feel forced to leave the US? Well, let's see:
Six years ago, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson estimated that 660,000 Canadians were living and working illegally in the United States. Most Canadians blend in easily. But after Sept. 11, 2001, fear replaced curiosity as the standard response to things unknown. Before 9/11, my wife's English accent often generated a friendly response, including the comment "You sound just like Princess Diana." After the attacks, the warm chatter gave way to a strained silence.
While surely some of my southern brethren rightly saw her offensive accent as a chance to exact some payback for the grievous wrongs the British have done to us over the years (I'm thinking especially of them making Dolly Madison have to move so quickly and also whoever that bastard was who chased Mel Gibson around in The Patriot) there's just this small voice in me that says maybe, just maybe it wasn't perhaps the accent that chilled those previously warm conversations but perhaps the content...
My wife and I had moved to North Carolina in 1999. The stock market was booming, most Americans felt prosperous and secure, and Bill Clinton -- despite Whitewater and Lewinsky -- was still capably in charge. It seemed obvious that one of two smart, experienced, open-minded internationalists, Al Gore or John McCain, would follow in January, 2001.But then we were amused, perplexed and finally disgusted at the dirty tricks deployed in the 2000 election campaign, first to defeat Mr. McCain, and then to steal victory from Mr. Gore. And we felt nothing but horror as the Twin Towers collapsed, knowing not only that thousands of lives had been lost, but that Mr. Bush's neo-conservative advisers would seize their chance to plot a militaristic course.
My instinctive response was to put words to paper. Five days later, on Sept. 16, 2001, my article, "The hawks are hovering. Prepare for more bombs," appeared in London's Independent on Sunday. I continued to write, almost exclusively for British papers, chastising the Bush administration for its unnecessary violations of human rights and international law.
Hmmm, so maybe-schmaybe people found your foaming a bit...tiresome? Those ignorant rural hicks at Duke just maybe couldn't appreciate your subtle nuanced grasp of world affairs (shown by your profoundly brave display of writing zeal in, er, foreign newspapers) and insights into the neo-zionist cabal that controls our every move like scripted puppets dancing along on the trip wires of facist christo-oppression?
Or maybe you're just a pompous ass.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:31 AM | Comments (3)
April 26, 2006
"Now Where Did I Leave That Bio-Weapon..."
It really is amazing when you keep hearing stories like this:
NEWARK, N.J. - In the past year, two New Jersey laboratories have been unable to account for plague-infested mice and vials of deadly anthrax spores, and top state officials are scrambling to devise better ways to safeguard deadly material.In both cases, authorities say they think the items in question weren't actually lost, but were simply unaccounted for due to clerical errors.
"Clerical errors." They think.
Great...
All this money being spent, and they can't keep track of anthrax and plague samples?
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:21 PM | Comments (10)
My Indian (Sorry! "Native-American") Name Is...
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:24 AM | Comments (10)
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...
Uncle Ivan let the atoms play...
I remember taking a Commodity Options Trading course in 1989 or so. The guy teaching it told the story of how he was long some Wheat and Corn Calls one time that were close to, but not in, the money, so he let them expire without exercising them...the day before Chernobyl. He left $5 million or so on the table with that.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:30 AM | Comments (4)
Some Alternate Fuel Research
Is it me, or has Popular Mechanics quietly become the most respected news service in the country? My goodness, they do great in-depth research and present the facts on a variety of issues. They really put the NYT and other dino-papers to shame. Here's their latest look at alternative fuels:
In the lab, many gasoline alternatives look good. Out on the road, automotive engineers have a lot of work to do, and energy companies have new infrastructure to build, before very many people can drive off into a petroleum-free future. And, there's the issue of money. Too often, discussions of alternative energy take place in an alternative universe where prices do not matter.
Read the whole thing and let's discuss.
(h/t to Insta. When does he prepare for class? Heh.)
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:25 AM | Comments (36)
Heh
...sounds like they need a Swill "Bush Kills Puppies" mug to me!
I Blame Bush For [Fill In The Blank]
Did rain ruin your weekend? Blame Bush's environmental policies! Did your ball club lose? I'm not sure why that is Bush's fault, but I know it is.
And danged if I don't know right where to get one...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:56 AM | Comments (8)
April 25, 2006
The U of W Student Senate
...has a change of heart.
After a sometimes-heated debate and an unusual roll call vote, the University of Washington student government Tuesday night backed the creation of a campus memorial to honor former students who have received the Medal of Honor.The vote followed an earlier attempt by a UW student to create a memorial in recognition of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a pilot with the Flying Tigers and later the Marines in World War II.
The UW student government rejected the proposal for a Boyington memorial by one vote at a February meeting. News of the decision -- and comments some students made that questioned if the university should honor a Marine who killed people, or a rich white man -- became public, and hundreds of people wrote the university and undergraduates, many expressing outrage at the students.
Several students brought up that public scrutiny during their nearly hourlong debate and vote, which was recorded by a national television news crew.
UW junior Deidre Lockman said the meaning of the memorial had been "hijacked" by people for political purposes, noting the "horrible" treatment some students received from the public after they voted against the Boyington memorial. She feared that some students might be intimidated by the public reaction.
"The true intention of this resolution will not be achieved," she said.**
...The UW's Medal of Honor memorial would honor five former UW students: Boyington, Deming Bronson, Robert Galer, Robert Leisy and William Nakamura.
FIVE Medal of Honor winners. Wow.
**ths notes: "HUH?" I wish I could've gotten someone to pay for a college education, so I could be completely incoherent in my pretentiousness.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:25 PM | Comments (5)
They're Just Asking Themselves
...NOW?
The blasts that ripped through an Egyptian resort brought calls for an end to violence from Arabs across the region Tuesday, many of whom questioned why Muslims seem to have become a prime target for terrorists...."What message are they trying to send? What are they trying to do?" she asked. "I don't think these people care" if Muslims or Arabs are killed.
Seeing as how they live among you, maybe you could ask them yourselves. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Meanwhile, rat after rat is clinging to the dangling ropes of a sinking ship ~ disavowing any connection to bombs that kill Muslims ~ waiting to fling themselves overboard in case the Islamic word starts to look for the monsters within..
Arab governments were quick to condemn the attacks - as were radical Muslims who have tried to distance themselves from al-Qaida and other global Islamic radical groups that deliberately attack Muslim and Arab civilians.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:05 PM | Comments (2)
Odd Names
...to be on opposing sides of an issue, huh?
Former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, Teamsters President James Hoffa and civil rights leaders marched with striking service workers and about 200 supporters Tuesday at the University of Miami....No Americans should be working full-time and still living in poverty," Edwards told the crowd. "This struggle is about earning a wage, about having health care benefits, about everyone in America, not just a few, having a shot at the American dream.
University President Donna Shalala has said the school would not take a position on the unionization of striking janitors at the campus. But the university took out an ad Tuesday in The Miami Herald criticizing the union's organizing tactics, which it said are disrupting the school's academic programs.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:55 PM | Comments (1)
Ebola Should Be Getting Nervous
Dad shoots at computer:
Dunedin, Florida - A Dunedin dad probably made his point about his son spending too much time on the computer. Pinellas Sheriff's deputies say he shot at the monitor as his son sat near-by. Forty-four-year-old Joseph Langenderfer was arrested Monday afternoon at his home on Frances Street.
Certainly we've all felt that way at times. But the best part of the story is the clarification at the end:
Langenderfer is in the Pinellas County jail charged with one count of attempted murder, (accused of trying to kill his son, not the computer.)
Heh.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:10 PM
Life Sucks
...or so they tell me. Therefore I have NO idea who these happy bastards are.
Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said Tuesday.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:19 AM | Comments (6)
Looks Like Monica Choked
She came ashore on a more southerly route and weakened quite a lot:
"Cyclone Monica was completely downgraded to a tropical low a few hours ago,'' Gordon Jackson, senior meteorologist at Darwin's Bureau of Meteorology told smh.com.au at 4pm."The actual system has moved through Darwin as a weak low. We ended up with some rain and some gusty winds. It's moving out to sea now,'' he said.
He said Monica had taken a more southerly course than expected.
"The path it took took it over a lot more land. Originally it was expected to be nearer the coast and [that] would've maintained its [strength].''
Thank goodness.
"There's bugger all, mate," the community's clinic manager Chris Jones said. said this morning.
Not being a speaker of Australian, I think that's good news...
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:07 AM | Comments (7)
Maybe We Should Legalize Drugs...
If it will lead to more stories like this:
A man who spent five hours naked and stuck in the chimney of his stepmother's home was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, police said.Police say Michael Urbano, 23, locked himself out of the house early Saturday morning and decided to get in on a cable TV wire through the chimney. But the wire broke and Urbano fell, getting stuck about three-quarters of the way down. He was freed when a firefighter pushed him to safety.
If, for some reason, you feel the urge to go outside when you're nekkid, for gosh sakes don't lock the door!
And don't try to play Santa.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:00 AM | Comments (3)
April 24, 2006
General Van Riper
...has added his voice to "the Generals". If you're lucky, you might remember what this retired Marine Corps Lt. General is most famous for ~ it was called "Millennium Challenge 02", a DOD war game where he played the dictator's part.
...What really happened is quite another story, one that has set alarm bells ringing throughout America's defence establishment and raised questions over the US military's readiness for an Iraqi invasion. In fact, this war game was won by Saddam Hussein, or at least by the retired marine playing the Iraqi dictator's part, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper.In the first few days of the exercise, using surprise and unorthodox tactics, the wily 64-year-old Vietnam veteran sank most of the US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf, bringing the US assault to a halt. What happened next will be familiar to anyone who ever played soldiers in the playground. Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in US history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their dead troops back to life and "refloated" the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as their marines performed amphibious landings. Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. Instead, he sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game - grandiosely entitled Millennium Challenge - staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on August 15, with a US "victory".
If the Pentagon thought it could keep its mishap quiet, it underestimated Van Riper. A classic marine - straight-talking and fearless, with a purple heart from Vietnam to prove it - his retirement means he no longer has to put up with the bureaucratic niceties of the defence department. So he blew the whistle.
His driving concern, he tells the Guardian, is that when the real fighting starts, American troops will be sent into battle with a set of half-baked tactics that have not been put to the test.
"Nothing was learned from this," he says. "A culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future."
Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:34 PM | Comments (18)
Okay, So Ken Lay Gave His Testimony Today
"I think it all began with the deceit of Andrew Fastow and probably not more than one or two other people," Mr Lay said.
Pretty much "Andrew made me do it".
Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:01 PM
Peachy. Like They Don't Have Enough to Do
U.S. troops aren't just training Iraqi forces, they're also keeping an eye on them, watching for signs they could be moonlighting in the Shiite death squads that target Sunnis.Bound and tortured bodies - both Sunni and Shiite - turn up every day in the capital, dumped in the streets. Sunni Arabs say their people are the victims of Shiite militiamen who have infiltrated government forces, especially paramilitary commando units of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry.
Where are we supposed to get all these babysitters from?
...But mention of the commandos still invokes fear and hatred among many Sunni Arabs.To allay those fears, American soldiers have handed out thousands of cards that encourage residents to call authorities if they see commandos, or fighters posing as commandos, on suspicious missions without U.S. troops.
The calls go directly to U.S. headquarters instead of the Interior Ministry.
So far, U.S. troops haven't caught any renegades, Butts said. They get a tip and "we'll be out there in 10 to 15 minutes, and no one will be there," he said. "There are a lot of rumors ... A lot of people are scared." U.S. troops in Dora have orders to halt unfamiliar patrols and confirm their identities.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:48 PM
BREAKING NEWS
17 Dead at Just 1 Hotel After Egypt Blasts
Egyptian Resort City Blasts Kill at Least 17, Wound More Than 150 at Just 1 Hotel, Doctor SaysThree explosions rocked the Egyptian resort city of Dahab at the height of the tourist season Monday night, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 150 at just one hotel, according to the doctor who runs Egypt's Sinai Peninsula rescue squad.
Dr. Said Essa said he was headed to the scene of the blasts and that his casualty figures were for victims at the el-Khaleeg Hotel only. He said there were casualties from the other explosions but he had no details.
Al-Jazeera television said one of the blasts hit a restaurant, and authorities said more than 20 ambulances and police cars were rushing to the el-Masbat section of the city.
Damn, damn, DAMN.
UPDATE: More from Breitbart.
Three explosions shook the Egyptian Sinai resort of Dahab on Monday, killing 30 people and wounding more than 100, rescue and security officials said....The explosions took place at the Nelson Restaurant, the Aladdin Cafeteria and the Ghazala Supermarket, the Interior Ministry said.
An official with the local ambulance service said many of the dead appeared to be foreigners...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:19 PM | Comments (1)
You HAVE to Ask Yourself
...'why', as in "WHY dey do dat?"
Phoenix Police Shoot Dead Hostage Taker
Sounds like overkill, n'est pas?
(Do they ever, like, read these headlines out loud to themselves?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:28 PM | Comments (10)
Holed Everything!
A large sink hole opened in the middle of a house, killing a 27-year-old man who plummeted 10 feet and was covered by the rubble, officials said Sunday.The two-story home, built in the 1980s, might have been sitting atop a decades-old underground mine, authorities said. Recent rains possibly softened the ground under the home, in an isolated area near Lake Alta, northeast of Sacramento.
“It’s unbelievable,” Placer County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Dena Erwin said. “From the front of the house, it’s absolutely normal. Then, in the middle of the house, is this enormous hole.”
Dang!! Poor guy. I thought that stuff only happened in South Florida...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:28 AM | Comments (7)
On the 'New' Iraqi Prime Minister
...from Mash.
We have brought democracy to the Middle East. We have handed over Iraq to an Iranian nurtured and funded Islamist alliance (Dawa and SCIRI). I do not believe this is what the American people bargained for when we embarked on the invasion of Iraq. If we are holding out the hope that these Islamist parties whose stated goal is to bring about an Islamist revolution in Iraq will somehow smell the sweet scent of Democracy and become torchbearers of freedom and liberty, we are likely to be as disappointed as Dick Cheney was when we were not greeted as liberators. This is a far cry from the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction and the defeat of al Qaeda.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:23 AM | Comments (7)
Scotch
...that idea.
An Indian court has ruled that Indian whiskey manufacturers cannot use the words "Scot" or "Scotch" to describe their products, in compliance with World Trade Organization rules, a newspaper reported Monday.The words "Scot" or "Scotch" identify whiskey produced in Scotland, and no Indian manufacturer can use it to promote or market its product, the Deccan Chronicle newspaper quoted Judge Madan B. Lokur of the Delhi High Court as saying.
...The judgment was given on a lawsuit filed by the Scotch Whisky Association of the United Kingdom seeking to restrain Golden Bottling Limited, an Indian whiskey manufacturer, from using the name "Red Scot" to sell its whiskey.
Indian SCOTCH?! What's next ~ "Gunga Gin"?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:05 AM | Comments (17)
The New Orleans Election Glass
Was it half full...
...but the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday the low turnout should be a mandate to further encourage participation among voters unable to return.Jackson said the election would be challenged in court regardless of the outcome because voting rights need to be protected.
...or half empty?
Stonecipher, however, said the turnout may not be a sign of disenfranchisement, but rather an indication that many registered voters don't plan to return.
If they re-elect Mayor Nagin (Noggin), my guess is half a$$ed, but that's just me. Why do I keep thinking of the Palestinian elections when I see who the voters went for ~ of ALL the choices, they went for the bad ones. Not a damn thing's gonna change when they had a chance to start fresh. That Noggin could get even three votes is astonishing, less mind have a legitimate (always a word used loosely in NOLA context) shot at retaining his seat. What a testament to ignorance and intransigence. The voters had chance to get rid of that seedy, sleazy, smokey pall that hangs over politics there in the Crescent City. Damn. Talk about blowing it in the eyes of your fellow Americans ~ those same taxpayers who are being harangued into paying for NOLA 'business as usual'. NOTHING'S going to change. I believe people are going to have a problem with that.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:25 AM | Comments (4)
Monica Update
Holy cow:
The VERY DESTRUCTIVE core of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica with gusts to 350 kilometres per hour is currently affecting parts of the coast between MANINGRIDA and GOULBURN ISLAND, and is expected to approach the DARWIN-DALY and TIWI ISLAND area on Tuesday afternoon with gusts to 220 kilometres per hour.
For those of you playing along at home, 350 kph is 217 mph.
Wow.
THS UPDATE:
She seems to be pooping out rapidly, thank goodness.
Tropical cyclone (tc) 23p (monica), located approximately 130 nm east
of Darwin, Australia, has tracked southwestward at 11 knots over the
past six hours. Animated enhanced infrared and recent microwave imagery
indicate that tc 23p is now located over land. The deep convection
associated with tc 23p has dissipated rapidly over the past 06 hours
as it moves inland. This is the final warning on this system by the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center (navpacmetoccen). The system will be
closely monitored for signs of regeneration.//
I hope everyone's just a little waterlogged when the all clear sounds.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:42 AM | Comments (3)
April 23, 2006
Keep Our Australian Friends In Your Prayers
Typhoon Monica is really going to suck:
Monica is now over Australia's Wessel Islands, making Monica a far worse hurricane than anything seen in the Atlantic last summer. At 879 mb, Monica is stronger than the dreaded hurricanes Wilma, Katrina and Rita ever were, never mind at landfall. The symmetry seen is Monica is flawless and it is rare to every see a tropical system look so well-defined.... The models are very consistent with a track just along the northern coast turning inland near Darwin. Such a pass by a category 5 cyclone along the coast would be very devastating to the whole region. Darwin residents should be prepared for a strike on Tuesday.
Look at this bitch:
Please take care guys!
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:07 PM | Comments (16)
A Case of the Pot Calling the Kettle
...um...black? (Can I say that?)
Cynthia McKinney is caught on tape referring to her aide as 'a fool.' WGCL's Renee Starzyk reports.
Who you callin' a fool, fool?
Then she compounds the FOOLISH stoo-pidity by returning to tell the CBS crew what video/audio they can and cannot use. Oh yeah. They paid attention.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:48 PM | Comments (1)
BREAKING NEWS
"Fries with the Extra-Long Cheese Coney?"
Mayor Noggin takes orders at Sonic.
"I need to make sure my 3 week probationary period is over in case the run-off don't go my way. But I am offering complimentary Fresh Fruit Slushes if they'll vote for me." - ©TPI
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:14 AM | Comments (4)
Poor Little Angel Puddin'
They had to put the colt down.
Bastards.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:53 AM
April 22, 2006
Speaking Out
...all over the Sunshine state.
On Thursday, Dale Meares, 63, a Canada native who became a U.S. citizen, told Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, that illegal immigrants "make her blood boil.""It is so wrong," said Meares of Clermont, her voice quavering. "Thousands say they have rights. They don't have any rights unless they earn them. Legal citizens are being spit in the face - it's like an insult."
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:40 AM | Comments (3)
Oh, PUH-LEEZ
First Tiger says "spaz" (like any of us might ~ Bingley lives the dream that is 'spazdom') and now it's frickin' ICE CREAM.
Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry’s have apologized for causing offense by calling a new flavor “Black & Tan” — the nickname of a notoriously violent British militia that operated during Ireland’s war of independence.I dunno ~ upon reflection, that cross section of a pint of ice cream looks like the ATOMIC BOMB,The ice cream, available only in the United States, is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name.
“Any reference on our part to the British Army unit was absolutely unintentional and no ill-will was ever intended,” said a Ben & Jerry’s spokesman.
...you insensitive BASTARDS!!!
Send me TONS of black and tan ice cream immediately
(THIS 
...is a suitable substitute.)
or I'm calling Reverend Jesse 'Rainbow' Jackson down on your ass.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:41 AM | Comments (8)
April 21, 2006
Happy 80th Birthday, Your Majesty
We'll raise a glass in your honor.
Swillers ~ The Queen!
Brilliant!
Thank you ma'am and I think I'll have another!
Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:01 PM | Comments (6)
Interesting take on minimum wage.
The Prof has an interesting write up on it. Could a higher minimum wage increase teen drop-out? I'm not a fan of the minimum wage, but this be easy to prove by looking at drop-out rates around increases in the minimum wage. Just not sure how large the effect would be.
Update: Link fixed. Duh!
Posted by Crusader at 01:56 PM | Comments (3)
Using Mark Steyn To Smuggle A Grenade?
Who knew he was so talented?
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- A Salvadoran woman is in some trouble after she allegedly tried to smuggle into the country's main prison a military grenade and marijuana hidden in her [Mark Steyn]*.The cylinder was about 10 inches long and 4 inches wide. Officials didn't say what prompted them to check Lidia Alvarado, 44, but authorities have raised the security level at jails across the country, fearing inmates may be planning something.
Alvarado was visiting two inmates serving 25 and 30 years when she was arrested. She now faces drug and weapons charges.
Police who inspected the M-67 grenade said it was in working condition.
No word on the condition of Mark Steyn.
(hat tip to Ace)
* I didn't want to upset THS by writing 'vagina'.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:28 PM | Comments (17)
Mr. Summers, Your Dancin' Shoes Are Ready
... or "Cut a Rug", Part Deux. (Suitable for the George Michael fete FEET...?)
-A caged russet toe trimmed in green leather piping is paired with a captivating feathered ankle strap aloft a 4" wooden heel. Velcro closure.
"CAPtivating" ~ gah-rrrowlll. Velcro, too ~ so you can kick them off in youthful exuberance any time the fancy strikes you! (But, even on sale, at this price? I would counsel gentle flinging...)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:34 AM | Comments (11)
Makes It Easier to Post Bail, Though
A Florida Lotto jackpot winner who waited weeks to claim his money so he could first finalize his divorce was shot and wounded by police Thursday after authorities said he refused to drop a handgun.Stoopid goober.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:14 AM | Comments (4)
Execution Iraqi Style
The decapitated heads of two police officials were found early Thursday dumped in front of a government building......only THIS was in Acapulco, MEXICO. Their offense?
The heads of police commander Mario Nunez Magana and officer Jesus Alberto Ibarra were found at the same site where four drug traffickers died during a shootout with law enforcement. The heads of the two - who were involved in the Jan. 27 shootout - were accompanied by sign that warned, "So that you learn to respect."The governor then warned the criminales about his new hardware...
"The criminals should watch out because the good weapons are on their way," he said Thursday....and I'm sure they're shaking in their huaraches. It's been a rough year on the Mexican Riviera...
...more than a dozen high-profile shooting deaths as well as several grenade attacks on police stations.Federal investigators link the violence to a turf war between drug gangs in northern Mexico for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.
...but at least they have someplace to hide out until the heat is off. Si, se puede.
Michelle Malkin talks "catch and release".
What I WISH He'd Say - by ths
President Bush Responds to Threats From Reconquistas
"I got yer 'si, se puede' right here, you pinche pisados..." -©TPI 2006
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)
That Noise You Heard Was Vera Wang's Sigh Of Relief
George Michael will wear a suit at his "formalizing":
"We'll probably do it on our 10th anniversary. We'll probably do the formal legal thing then the party.But no-one is going to be getting into a dress. Neither of us have the body for it now.''
Let us all be thankful.
Oh, and he's having a cat fight with Elton.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:51 AM
April 20, 2006
BREAKING NEWS
President Bush Responds to Threats From Iranian President
"I got yer nuke-yoo-lar right here, big guy..." -©TPI 2006
Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:18 PM | Comments (1)
I Hate to Tell You
Sometimes the old folks get the worm.
A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday.
Or at least more action than the average guy. Sounds pretty "on your toes" to me.
UPDATE: I HAD to share the MSNBC headline.
Beware the door-to-door free breast exam guy
76-year-old Florida man arrested after two women take him up on the offer
GOD, I hope they weren't blondes...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:52 PM | Comments (8)
I'm Sure Drudge Did This on Purpose
...these two links, one over the other.
33%: Bush Approval at New Low...There's a curious disconnect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK MARKET BULL: DOW HITS 5 YEAR HIGH...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:47 PM | Comments (1)
After Having a Rumble About Facts
...with another blogger, I'm running down quotes contained in this RECONQUISTA email I just received from a friend. Since they're scorchingly inflammatory (St. Bingley Bastard's started enough hate and discontent for one afternoon with his geriatric bashing ~ I'd be remiss if I added something that's pure bloggery.), if they pan out, I'll post it. In the course of my Googling/Snopesing away, I did stumble across this entry, concerning a speech given last year by a former governor of Colorado. Reprinted in it's entirety in the extended section if you've never read it.
I HAVE A PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA
RICHARD D. LAMM
I HAVE A SECRET PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. IF YOU BELIEVE, AS MANY DO, THAT AMERICA IS TOO SMUG, TOO WHITE BREAD, TOO SELF-SATISFIED, TOO RICH, LETS DESTROY AMERICA. IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO DO. HISTORY SHOWS THAT NATIONS ARE MORE FRAGILE THAN THEIR CITIZENS THINK. NO NATION IN HISTORY HAS SURVIVED THE RAVAGES OF TIME. ARNOLD TOYNBEE OBSERVED THAT ALL GREAT CIVILIZATIONS RISE AND THEY ALL FALL, AND THAT "AN AUTOPSY OF HISTORY WOULD SHOW THAT ALL GREAT NATIONS COMMIT SUICIDE." HERE IS MY PLAN:I. WE MUST FIRST MAKE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY. HISTORY SHOWS, IN MY OPINION, THAT NO NATION CAN SURVIVE THE TENSION, CONFLICT, AND ANTAGONISM OF TWO COMPETING LANGUAGES AND CULTURES. IT IS A BLESSING FOR AN INDIVIDUAL TO BE BILINGUAL; IT IS A CURSE FOR A SOCIETY TO BE BILINGUAL. ONE SCHOLAR, SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET, PUT IT THIS WAY:
THE HISTORIES OF BILINGUAL AND BICULTURAL SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT ASSIMILATE ARE HISTORIES OF TURMOIL, TENSION, AND TRAGEDY. CANADA, BELGIUM, MALAYSIA, LEBANON-ALL FACE CRISES OF NATIONAL EXISTENCE IN WHICH MINORITIES PRESS FOR AUTONOMY, IF NOT INDEPENDENCE. PAKISTAN AND CYPRUS HAVE DIVIDED. NIGERIA SUPPRESSED AN ETHNIC REBELLION. FRANCE FACES DIFFICULTIES WITH ITS BASQUES, BRETONS, AND CORSICANS.II. I WOULD THEN INVENT "MULTICULTURALISM" AND ENCOURAGE IMMIGRANTS TO MAINTAIN THEIR OWN CULTURE. I WOULD MAKE IT AN ARTICLE OF BELIEF THAT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL: THAT THERE ARE NO CULTURAL DIFFERENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT. I WOULD DECLARE IT AN ARTICLE OF FAITH THAT THE BLACK AND HISPANIC DROPOUT RATE IS ONLY DUE TO PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION BY THE MAJORITY. EVERY OTHER EXPLANATION IS OUT-OF-BOUNDS.III. WE CAN MAKE THE UNITED STATES A "HISPANIC QUEBEC" WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT. THE KEY IS TO CELEBRATE DIVERSITY RATHER THAN UNITY. AS BENJAMIN SCHWARZ SAID IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY RECENTLY:
...THE APPARENT SUCCESS OF OUR OWN MULTIETHNIC AND MULTICULTURAL EXPERIMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED NOT BY TOLERANCE BUT BY HEGEMONY. WITHOUT THE DOMINANCE THAT ONCE DICTATED ETHNOCENTRICALLY, AND WHAT IT MEANT TO BE AN AMERICAN, WE ARE LEFT WITH ONLY TOLERANCE AND PLURALISM TO HOLD US TOGETHER.I WOULD ENCOURAGE ALL IMMIGRANTS TO KEEP THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE. I WOULD REPLACE THE MELTING POT METAPHOR WITH A SALAD BOWL METAPHOR. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INSURE THAT WE HAVE VARIOUS CULTURAL SUB-GROUPS LIVING IN AMERICA REINFORCING THEIR DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN AMERICANS, EMPHASIZING THEIR SIMILARITIES.IV. HAVING DONE ALL THIS, I WOULD MAKE OUR FASTEST GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP THE LEAST EDUCATED - I WOULD ADD A SECOND UNDERCLASS, UNASSIMILATED, UNDEREDUCATED, AND ANTAGONISTIC TO OUR POPULATION. I WOULD HAVE THIS SECOND UNDERCLASS HAVE A 50% DROP OUT RATE FROM SCHOOL.
V. I WOULD THEN GET THE BIG FOUNDATIONS AND BIG BUSINESS TO GIVE THESE EFFORTS LOTS OF MONEY. I WOULD INVEST IN ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND I WOULD ESTABLISH THE CULT OF VICTIMOLOGY. I WOULD GET ALL MINORITIES TO THINK THEIR LACK OF SUCCESS WAS ALL THE FAULT OF THE MAJORITY - I WOULD START A GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY BLAMING ALL MINORITY FAILURE ON THE MAJORITY POPULATION.
VI. I WOULD ESTABLISH DUAL CITIZENSHIP AND PROMOTE DIVIDED LOYALTIES. I WOULD "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY." "DIVERSITY" IS A WONDERFULLY SEDUCTIVE WORD. IT STRESSES DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN COMMONALITIES. DIVERSE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE ARE MOSTLY ENGAGED IN HATING EACH OTHER-THAT IS, WHEN THEY ARE NOT KILLING EACH OTHER. A DIVERSE," PEACEFUL, OR STABLE SOCIETY IS AGAINST MOST HISTORICAL PRECEDENT. PEOPLE UNDERVALUE THE UNITY IT TAKES TO KEEP A NATION TOGETHER, AND WE CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS MYOPIA. LOOK AT THE ANCIENT GREEKS. DORF'S WORLD HISTORY TELLS US:
THE GREEKS BELIEVED THAT THEY BELONGED TO THE SAME RACE; THEY POSSESSED A COMMON LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; AND THEY WORSHIPED THE SAME GODS. ALL GREECE TOOK PART IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES IN HONOR OF ZEUS AND ALL GREEKS VENERATED THE SHRINE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI. A COMMON ENEMY PERSIA THREATENED THEIR LIBERTY. YET, ALL OF THESE BONDS TOGETHER WERE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO OVERCOME TWO FACTORS . . . (LOCAL PATRIOTISM AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS THAT NURTURED POLITICAL DIVISIONS . . .)IF WE CAN PUT THE EMPHASIS ON THE "PLURIBUS," INSTEAD OF THE "UNUM," WE CAN BALKANIZE AMERICA AS SURELY AS KOSOVO.VII. THEN I WOULD PLACE ALL THESE SUBJECTS OFF LIMITS - MAKE IT TABOO TO TALK ABOUT. I WOULD FIND A WORD SIMILAR TO "HERETIC" IN THE 16TH CENTURY - THAT STOPPED DISCUSSION AND PARALYZED THINKING. WORDS LIKE "RACIST", "XENOPHOBE" THAT HALTS ARGUMENT AND CONVERSATION.
HAVING MADE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY, HAVING ESTABLISHED MULTICULTURALISM, HAVING THE LARGE FOUNDATIONS FUND THE DOCTRINE OF "VICTIMOLOGY", I WOULD NEXT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS. I WOULD DEVELOP A MANTRA - "THAT BECAUSE IMMIGRATION HAS BEEN GOOD FOR AMERICA, IT MUST ALWAYS BE GOOD." I WOULD MAKE EVERY INDIVIDUAL IMMIGRANT SYMPATRIC AND IGNORE THE CUMULATIVE IMPACT.
VIII. LASTLY, I WOULD CENSOR VICTOR HANSON DAVIS'S BOOK MEXIFORNIA — THIS BOOK IS DANGEROUS — IT EXPOSES MY PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. SO PLEASE, PLEASE — IF YOU FEEL THAT AMERICA DESERVES TO BE DESTROYED — PLEASE, PLEASE — DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! THIS GUY IS ON TO MY PLAN.
"THE SMART WAY TO KEEP PEOPLE PASSIVE AND OBEDIENT IS TO STRICTLY LIMIT THE SPECTRUM OF ACCEPTABLE OPINION, BUT ALLOW VERY LIVELY DEBATE WITHIN THAT SPECTRUM." — NOAM CHOMSKY, AMERICAN LINGUIST AND US MEDIA AND FOREIGN POLICY CRITIC.
Both Governor Lamm and the writer of the e-mail misidentify the author of the book Mexifornia, whose correct name is Victor Davis Hanson.
Last updated: 16 June 2005
Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:30 PM
Someone We Should Curry Favor With
Insta reminds me of another very interested player in this whole Iran nuke mess: India. Imagine how they feel with another nuclear-armed muslim nation just a short missle lob away. And one that makes Pakistan's ruler look like a clone of Gandhi's, at that. Hindus are shown about as much tolerance, love and respect by the RoPers as Christians and Jews are.
Yes indeedy, more oil for the pyre.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:32 PM | Comments (3)
This Is A Shame
They've confirmed the body is his:
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Authorities were searching early Thursday for a small plane registered to a famed test pilot that vanished from radar on Wednesday on a flight from Prattville, Alabama, to Manassas, Virginia.Crossfield, 84, was the first man to fly the X-15 rocket-powered jet and made aeronautical history in 1953 by becoming the first pilot to fly faster than Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).
But 84 year old men, I don't care how experienced, should not be able to fly solo. Sorry. It's bad enough they can still drive with out being tested, but flying? No. Yes, I'm an insensitive bastard and I should show 'respect' because 'this is how he would have wanted to go.' Bull. He could have crashed into a school or your house.
I'm sorry he died, but it should have been in his sleep.
Update: Rob in the comments suggests
If his pilot's license has to be renewed at shorter intervals than younger pilots like driver's licenses are in most states, I think that's fair enough.
I think that's reasonable.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:58 PM | Comments (20)
Oh, You Almost Fooled Me
...NOT. You know those high school/"college" (and I use the term loosely here) kids who bang on the door, trying to sell magazines to win the "Major Award"? The company that sucks them in has come up with a new spin on the same game. Instead of the most subscriptions, now you're "voting" for them. How? Well, you...yup. Pony up for overpriced magazine subscriptions which, by virtue of how overpriced, are assigned X amount of "votes". I have only two suggestions for these irritating door-to-door kids.
1) Don't get suckered in in the first place. (For all the walkin' you're doing in the hot Florida sun for NO return, you might oughta try McDonald's, 'cause at least it's airconditioned, fry boy or not. Or Cynthia Tucker for $6 an hour.)
2) If I bother to peek out the front door and you begin your earnest, cheerful spiel, the chances of parting me from the subscription cost would vastly improve if you weren't dressed like Randy from "My Name is Earl" and Jam Master Jay.
Honestly. This is for your own good.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:51 PM | Comments (8)
All Hail The Grauniad!
Oh mighty Grauniad! That bastion of the MSM who yesterday confused Mark Steyn with a vagina. Well, today we learn that Big Business (cue the scary organ music) is all excited to commence ethnic cleansing in New Orleans:
Big business sees a chance for ethnic and class cleansing...Organised money has something else in mind: the destruction of many of those communities and permanent removal of those who lived in them, a city that follows the gentrification patterns of racial removal and class cleansing that have played out elsewhere in the US.
My goodness, we'd better call in the UN!
(Thanks to The Daily Ablution)
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 10:33 AM | Comments (5)
A Reminder of Yesterday's Anniversiary
(noted by Miss Emily here.) And I'm not talking Lexington-Concord.
6 Branch Davidians to Leave PrisonThirteen years after the Branch Davidians' armed standoff with federal agents ended in an inferno that killed nearly 80 people, six sect members who were sent to prison are about to be released from custody.
Most of those who will be freed over the next two months escaped from the compound near Waco as it burned to the ground on April 19, 1993 - 51 days after a shootout that erupted when federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest religious leader David Koresh for stockpiling guns and explosives.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:07 AM | Comments (4)
United 93
A couple of reviews are appearing today, and both are very positive. From what they say it seems like this movie has been shorn of all the usual cliche crap that Hollywood loves to attach to true stories, and I'm glad. There's one part of me that is almost afraid to go see it, afraid of the emotions it will revive. Hell, I had a good friend who went to the airport that morning to get on 93 to fly to San Francisco, but since he got there so early United let him catch the earlier flight, and so he's alive today.
But there's a bigger part of me that really wants to see this, that wants everyone to see it, to remind us of why we are doing what we are doing. Oh sure, there have been mistakes in planning and execution and foresight along the way, and there has and will continue to be proper criticism of our failings, but son of a bitch let us never ever forget why we are doing it, and that we need to continue fighting to ensure that it never happens again.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:58 AM | Comments (2)
Oh, Really?
On the streets of Mexico City, the word is spreading. Cristina Robles, an elegantly dressed business woman who has just done the family shopping at Superama, a supermarket chain owned by US retailer Wal-Mart, says she will support the ban. "I am not going to buy anything American," she says. "I know it is not easy because there are a lot of illegal immigrants but the US has to treat them the same as any other worker."Well-to-do Mexicans swear off Wal-Mart for a day to lecture the U.S. how to deal with the millions of illegal POOR Mexicans hanging out here. Take THAT, capitalista peegdogs! (And it's a dirty little secret ~ no one here likes to admit they shop at Wal-Mart either.)
Joaquín García Nava, owner of a corner cafe in La Condesa, a swanky neighbourhood in central Mexico City, agrees. "For me, the protest serves a double purpose: I get to support the immigrants and I also get to express my slightly anti-Yankee sentiments."A two for one deal! Bueno. Make mine a double latte. Besides, he needs the gringo dollars.
Antonio Pereyra, a local government official, says people feel strongly about the need for immigration reform in large part because of their increasing dependence on remittances – money sent home by immigrants in the US. "Every single family has at least one member working in the US and without the money they send back home every month many would not be able to survive," he says.To paraphrase something I heard ~ if you're strong enough to face the dangers and survive the desert, then you're strong enough to keep your illegal ass HOME and change YOUR country.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:11 AM | Comments (4)
April 19, 2006
There is Filth Among Us
...cretins of monstrous proportions, whose indescribable cruelty knows no bounds.
Five dogs and 10 horses were found shot Tuesday in Beulah, where residents are comparing the animal- cruelty incident to a horrendous round of target practice....Nearby resident Emily Healy said neighbors were joining forces Tuesday to support Davis, 78, who returned to his property Monday about 8:30 p.m. to find the chain on his fence cut and the lock missing.
Once through the gate, Davis found several of his animals shot to death, some with multiple wounds, according to a sheriff's report. Four horses also were shot but were still alive. Several other horses were missing.
"These animals were his life," Healy said. "It was a horrific act for no good reason. The people who did this are some unbelievably cruel folks. It was like horrible target practice. "
Deputies arrived Tuesday to find the slain animals scattered across the property.
A 5-week-old brown colt struggled to breathe in the horse corral.
Another 7-week-old brown colt was dead. It had been shot in its right side.
Two mare quarter horses were alive, but struggling. Both had been shot in the stomach. One was wounded in the right rear leg.
Deputies found another quarter horse in a wooded area near the corral. It was bleeding from the nose and shot in both sides of its stomach and in its left front leg.
Shell casings were strewn around a dog pen where four English setters lay dead. About 200 yards away, another setter was dead in its pen.
There's only three horses left alive ~ one of the mares died last night. The vet who tried valiantly to save her all night long was in tears describing her suffering this evening. She'd been broken up last night, talking about the
I will lay money that the same criminals behind this have families ~ that they're spawning and breeding and passing on these wonderful, compassionate traits to a whole 'nuther generation. Or worse. Treating their children's fragile young lives with the same high regard shown these animals.
** I had the wrong colt. The poor baby is only
...6 WEEKS OLD.
After the massacre, a fight for life for attacked animals
Suspect sought in animal shootingDr. Keith Weekley ran his fingers along the coat of a 6-week-old colt as the partially paralyzed animal struggled with unsteady breath after unsteady breath.
The veterinarian gave the fragile rear legs a gentle push.
"He should be pushing back," Weekley said. "But he can't move his legs."
The colt was shot in the top of its spine Monday night, when gunfire was sprayed inside a 113-acre lot in Beulah. Five dogs, English setters, died on the scene. Seven horses were confirmed dead Wednesday. Three other horses remained in treatment at the Northwest Florida Large Animal Clinic on Quintette Road in Pace.
My God. There are no words for the animals who did this. They are beyond redemption.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:50 PM | Comments (7)
Danube Water Everywhere
...as well as the "if something's got to be done we'll...let someone do it for us" school of crisis management.
TV footage also showed young men playing soccer in Bistret and smoking cigarettes while watching gendarmes and soldiers rushing to fill the breach with sandbags.“There are enough people there. If needed I will go to help,” a 20-year-old villager told private TV station N24.
Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu appealed to people in the endangered areas to help rescue teams reinforce dykes.
“I heard that some local people did not want to help. I can tell them that we are working to defend their houses and any additional hand is welcomed,” Tariceanu told the state radio.
Didn't we just see those people...?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:56 AM | Comments (1)
Well, If This Statement is True
"I am very optimistic, this is a time of hope in the kingdom. Things that have been happening under King Abdullah are amazing," said Dowayan, who hails from the relatively relaxed Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on the Gulf....then I'm afraid he's probably not long for this world.
UPDATE: A related "wow" in the extended section.
I just found the most interesting board discussion and I wanted share a snippet. The last paragraph is jaw-dropping. It shouldn't be, knowing what we read online and see on the telly every day. But it is.
It never ceases to astonish me how twisted Islam and Koranic interpretations can be.
Dear Michael:I have to say you raise a very interesting topic. The government in Iran claims that it gives women many rights. Somehow they think it is something of theirs to give and giving women the few rights that they have should be counted as a positive thing in favor of the government, especially when they compare themselves to the neighboring Arab and Islamic countries.
What they fail to understand and what is most troubling and painful to many Iranians, is the fact that we are culturally different from our neighboring countries and our women demand and struggle to achieve equal rights with men and not just a few more rights! So when more people start responding to your questions, you may see some supporters of the regime trying to compare us to our neighbors claiming how much rights we have in our country. And when I say “we” I’m counting both women and men, because I feel it’s both genders responsibility to stand for equal rights.
Interestingly enough the mentality that the Mullahs (the religious clergy men in power) is not only degrading towards women, but also towards men! They see men as animals unable to control their sexual urges and behavior. And it is for this reason that they ask women to cover themselves and it is for this reason that the system in Iran unfortunately blames rape victims as well for not adhering fully to all the rules and regulations in every second of their lives.
…
Amir Women's rights 2 10/3/2004 7:47 PM
…But for you to understand how much respect women have in Iran I will only present you with an interesting part of the Islamic law in Iran:
DIEH in Islamic law means blood money. In certain cases, say manslaughter or injury, the person founded guilty has to pay DIEH to the victim or victims family. Now a MAN’s DIEH is ONE FULL DIEH. A WOMAN’s DIEH is ONE HALF of a man’s DIEH! Surprisingly a man’s left ball (if injured say in a fight) is worth 2/3 of a full DIEH. Now I’m sure your math is very good and you can tell that 2/3 is higher than 1/2. Therefore you can assume that a man’s left ball is even worth more than a woman’s life as far as the Mullahs are concerned! (And please don’t ask why the left ball! I gave up trying to figure these people a long time ago!)
…and I leave you with that.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:49 AM | Comments (3)
More Specifics
...on the Duke lacrosse player's alibi.
ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Key Evidence Supports Alibi in Potential Rape Defense for One Indicted Duke Player...Over the last few days, sources close to the defense have given ABC News an exclusive look at the evidence behind one player's alleged alibi — evidence that includes electronic records, photographs and witness statements. If that material is authentic, it could prove that it was practically impossible for him to rape, kidnap or assault the alleged victim.
Seligmann's argument is simple: He is innocent and he has an alibi. He attended the party that night, but documents, photos and witness testimony show that he wasn't there long enough or at the right time to attack the alleged victim.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:41 AM | Comments (1)
Cynthia Tucker
...comes face-to-face with what I've posted on and railed about, time and time again. She was honest enough to write a column on it.
The black men I know best are all hard-working, accomplished professionals. They include my brother, a physician, and my buddies -- lawyers, college professors, political consultants, journalists. I live in an insular world of middle-class affluence, rarely stumbling into the troubled universe of marginalized underachievers....I was to find men willing to help him paint, lift, scrape, fill, dig. The pay was hardly exorbitant -- $6 an hour. But it seemed reasonable for unskilled labor. So I looked among unemployed high school classmates, members of my mother's church and men standing on nearby street corners.
The experience brought me face-to-face with every unappealing behavior that I'd heard attributed to idle black men but dismissed as stereotype.....
Education. EDUCATION. A reverence for EDUCATION MUST become a driving force in the lower class black community. No more handwringing and moaning about lousy schools. You can still learn to read and write and add numbers in a lousy school ~ the difference is the community that makes the most of what it's got at hand. PARENTS who WANT their children to be better, who will NOT accept an illiterate child, who will protect and bolster their child's thirst for knowledge from the hip-hop gansta losers who would shame them from BEING someone. Shame them from their EDUCATION, from their ticket OUT of the cruel little world they inhabit, where such ne'er do wells and malcontents are the big dogs. And where everyone's a victim.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:21 AM | Comments (8)
Breaking News
White House spokesman Scott McClellan is resigning post.
Guess he's had 'bout enough, huh?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:48 AM | Comments (3)
Why I Commute By Boat
Stranded up in the air for 11 hours ain't my cup of tea.
I wonder if Jaws was in town yesterday...
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2006
If You Say So...
"This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does.""The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."
-Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment
Oh, I'll betcha. His firm sells what, you ask?
That would be Internet-connected sex devices for $200, Alex.
A blow-up doll's...
...gonna cost you these days.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:28 PM | Comments (22)
Something Else You Should Read
I'm sorry I didn't get to this great post by John until now.
...If the US, rather than the USSR, had fallen to impotence in the Cold War, I would now be backing the Soviets against the Islamists, because the Soviets shared fundamental worldviews with us that, although twisted by a corrupt system, could have been reformed. I do not see the same humanity with which I can find a common ground in the medieval Salafists. The first time I was in the USSR, one of my friends (an ex-paratrooper) said in a drunken, midnight conversation that he was glad that he and I were sharing a glass of samogon, and had not first caught sight of one another over the sights of our rifles. I can not imagine one of Osama’s troopers saying that to me if I were to travel to Tora Bora and did not submit to the superiority of Islam.I did not engage in flag waving or in putting yellow ribbons on my car after September 11. I see the war as a sad necessity, like shooting a beloved dog that has contracted rabies. It has to be done, but in the process we are destroying life and wounding a piece of our own collective soul. However, no person and no nation can get through any length of time on this Earth with an unsullied conscience, and to insist otherwise is to remain a mental child and shirk adult responsibilities and their attendant compromises and consequences. So I do see much reason for pride in stepping up to the task of fighting Salafism, and not farming it out to someone else or pretending that a threat does not exist – and for defending the interests of a modern way of life that benefits the entire world...
Go read the rest.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:01 PM | Comments (4)
Now He Wasn't Even There?
One of the two Duke University lacrosse players arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping a 27-year-old woman at an off-campus party had been arrested in the fall for assaulting a man in Washington, D.C., and the other was not present when the alleged crime occurred, sources told ABC News.Multiple sources told ABC News that Reade Seligmann, 20, was not present in the house at the time the alleged victim says the crime occurred. Sources say this is established through different witness accounts, as well as cell phone and credit-card records.
This quagmire is making sucking sounds.
UPDATE: The sucking is getting louder with this timeline linked description of the party photos from a local ABC affiliate. Dang.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:19 PM | Comments (6)
The Subject Line in a SPAM Email
...seen as I sent it to SPAMMY hell, set me to Googling, and lo and behold ~ it's true.
Voter registration and citizenship education initiatives are set to begin in several states after a "Day Without An Immigrant" campaign planned for May 1, an event which asks immigrants nationwide to stay home from work and school, and refrain from buying American products."Marches will only get you so far," said Armando Navarro, coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, an umbrella organization for Hispanic activist groups in Southern California. "There has to be an electoral component to get the Republicans out of the majority."
Does 'refrain from buying American products' cover the tortillas and sauces made by Mexicans in American factories? Or strawberries picked in California fields by immigrants? If you buy Danish cheese, for instance, you're still supporting the American long shoremen who unloaded at a U.S.port and the truck drivers who delivered it to the American grocery store warehouse and then the American grocery store you bought it at. The second you put your quarters on the counter, you're buying American. I mean, what are they not going to buy? It's hard to boycott a certain country's products when you live in that certain country...isn't it?
UPDATE: OMG, it wasn't SPAM ~ well, not in the biblical sense. Michelle Malkin got one, too!
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:08 PM | Comments (3)
I Hate to NitPick Semantics
UPDATE: I've actually been called a 'poophead' ('smug' even!?!) in public by my brother, St. Bingley Bastard. So I am taking my semantics ~ which I do truly love to argue, so there ~ to the extended section to sulk. A pox on it.
UPDATE REDUX: I have also sent a Clintonesque apology the the maligned pundits:
My brother says I was petulant and smug. (Or was it smog? Smaug?)
Regardless, I'm sorry if I appeared so.
ths
...but since they (Jonah Goldberg's "Gotchya" and Prof. Reynolds with "Ouch ~ Zinni is fact checked") started it with this:
Former Clinton CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni — the most prominent of the retired generals attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — now says that, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, "What bothered me ... [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn't fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD."But in early 2000, Zinni told Congress "Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region," adding, "Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions ... Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months."
...I wanted to share my take on this shocking revelation.
Dear Professor Reynolds (I'm asking Jonah Goldberg too, but he doesn't talk to me either.) ~
How does PROBABLY as in ( doubtless, likely, presumably, but WE'RE NOT SURE) ""Iraq PROBABLY is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions ... "
negate
NO, as in "...There was NO SOLID PROOF, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD." ?
The way I'm reading Zinni's Congressional testimony tells me probably means 'not sure', 'can't say definitively' and his later statements about 'no solid proof' are a continuence of (and entirely consistent with) that. If he'd said "Iraq HAS..." or "Iraq IS..." without a qualifier, then I'd agree with a 'gotcha'. But I sure don't see one worth crowing about here.
tree hugging sister
And don't hand me the 'and retains'. That's still part of the 'PROBABLY" sentence. (He didn't say "Probably blahblah, BUT retains...") I mean, dang. If you're trying to nail someone, you've got to do better than accuse him of being sure of what he wasn't sure of, when he already said he wasn't sure. Twice. I'm sure of it.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:41 PM | Comments (14)
"She attacked life,"
...Army guard Micky Mallette said.
Dixon only spent a half year of her life at West Point, and still the guardians of American power and might decided she should rest right next to Glenn Davis and Red Blaik, the Heisman winner and the legend who taught Vince Lombardi how to coach.It was 12:25 p.m. when all family members and generals and cadets had cleared from the cemetery, when the trucks rolled up to the coffin and a grim circle of men started breaking the tribute down. The chairs and tarps were folded up, the canopy was removed. The wreaths and roses were placed to the side, and the casket was lowered into the earth, taking away a Catholic girl in the Good Friday rain.
They buried Maggie Dixon at West Point.
...The rain wouldn't fall on her burial day until the mourners had left her casket. Maggie Dixon died with an oversized heart, and the officers and gentlemen at West Point didn't need a coroner to tell them that.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:25 AM | Comments (3)
I Wonder How Rev. Jesse Will Spin This
...IF he mentions it at all.
The number of businesses owned by black entrepreneurs grew more than four times the national rate for all businesses from 1997 to 2002, the federal government said Tuesday.Black entrepreneurs owned 1.2 million businesses in 2002, an increase of 45 percent from 1997, according to a report by the Census Bureau.
..."I'm proud," said Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. "We're the fastest-growing segment."
Alford said black entrepreneurs have been helped by improved education levels and increased incomes among black consumers and business owners.
Blacks as a group still trail whites in education and income, but they have made gains in the past half-century. In 1950, only 14 percent of black adults had high school diplomas, compared with 36 percent of whites, according to the Census Bureau. The gap narrowed by 2000, when 72 percent of black adults had at least a high school diploma, compared with 84 percent of whites.
"We've got the first generation of significantly educated people," Alford said.
"There's a black middle class like never before."
That's just terrific! Now, if they keep the ball rolling on education, they'll change a LOT of lives.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:51 AM
The Modern-Era's Patron Saint
Thanks to Insta for the pointer to this great essay.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:28 AM | Comments (7)
Nope, No Bias In This Headline
"Marines fire on mosque to repel attacks"
I mean, they couldn't say "Terrorists Hide In Mosque To Attack Marines," now could they? And I love the aside: "18 bodies with signs of torture found around Baghdad." Yawn, so boring how those Shi'ites and Sunnis keep hating eachother.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:10 AM
2 Duke Players Arrested
Well, so let's see how this plays out now. From what I've seen it sure doesn't seem like there's a lot of evidence to support the charges.
But I do sleep better knowing that this high level of MSM quality is on the job:
Throughout Monday, there were many more reporters on the sixth floor of the courthouse than the 18 members of the grand jury panel. Reporters tracked the district attorney's movements in minute detail. Just after noon, Nifong emerged from his office and walked across the hallway to the bathroom.Reporters surrounded the bathroom door in a crowd that included five television cameras, three still photographers, sound men with boom microphones and at least a dozen print reporters. At the sound of flushing, the group tensed, raised cameras and prepared. Nifong did not emerge with news.
I hope he at least emerged with clean hands.
As Insta says, see La Shawn Barber for more details.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:39 AM
What To Say When Invited To Dinner At The Cruise's:
"Sorry, Tom, I'll just stick with the marinara, thanks."
Oh ick. I mean, really.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:31 AM | Comments (8)
Dang
Exclusive: Guard Who Saw Alleged Duke Victim Says No Sign or Mention of Rape
ABC News has obtained a tape in which a security guard — who may have been the first person to see the alleged victim of a Duke lacrosse gang rape after the alleged attack — says there were no signs or mention of rape or sexual assault.ABC News has obtained an audio recording of what is purported to be a private investigator interviewing a security guard at a Kroger grocery store. It was this security guard whose call to 911 brought police to the Kroger parking lot, where they found the woman who claims she was raped by lacrosse team members.
The guard was on duty at the store on the night of March 13, when the two women pulled into the store's parking lot in a dark sedan. The alleged victim, who says three men held her down in a bathroom and kicked, strangled and raped her, was in the passenger seat.
On the tape, which was recorded April 3, three weeks after the lacrosse party, the guard can be heard saying, "There ain't no way she was raped — ain't no way, no way that happened."
The security guard is female. And they've returned two sealed indictments. Dang. What a sh*t sandwich.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:11 AM
April 17, 2006
Tell Me Again
...how they pay taxes and therefore aren't a burden?
Only two of Laurau Cuevas' three children can visit the doctor anytime they get sick. Like her mother, the oldest is an illegal immigrant born in Mexico.Every sickness brings a dilemma.
"She doesn't have Medicaid like the others," Cuevas said in Spanish about her 9-year-old daughter. "When she really needs to go, we have to figure out how to pay the bill."
From this paragraph, I understand that these illegal immigrant parents have two U.S. born children who are ON MEDICAID. Last I heard, we taxpayers foot those bills. And as her oldest is also an illegal, what happens when push comes to shove and she winds up in an emergency room? Not to mention that I'm sure all three are in our local schools and on the breakfast/lunch program, which is...yeahyeahyeah...taxpayers footing the bill. Don't make her sad story the lead in the article if you're trying to get my sympathies roused. The meter's pegged.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:48 PM | Comments (1)
You're Doing a Heckuva Job
...Donnie.
The Pentagon has intensified efforts to shore up the position of Donald Rumsfeld, issuing a memo to retired military leaders encouraging them to speak out on behalf of the defence secretary.
Anybody else wanna say so?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:54 AM | Comments (8)
A Bittersweet Note From Last Thursday
Last F-14 Tomcat fighter to fly a combat mission arrives at NAS Pensacola
The last F-14 Tomcat fighter to fly a combat mission arrived aboard Naval Air Station Pensacola Thursday, April 13 at 11:45 a.m. Lt.Cmdr. Mark Stufflebeem and Lt.(j.g.) James Cunningham, pilots from VF-213, had the honor of flying the aircraft to the air station. The F-14D aircraft, Bureau Number 161159, that served with the Navy's Fighter Squadron 213 (VF-213), the Black Lions, as part of Carrier Air Wing Eight, embarked in USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), will become a display aircraft at the National Museum of Naval Aviation. The F-14 is being replaced by the latest version of the Boeing F/A-18, the F/A-18F Super Hornet.
At least it'll be safe and loved here. The museum is a fabulous, reverent last call for warbirds.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:17 AM | Comments (19)
Your Tax Dollars at Work
6 Killed in Suicide Bombing in Tel AvivA Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near a fast-food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday, killing six people and wounding at least 35 others, police and medics said.
If you voted for Hamas, that is.
UPDATE And thank YOU, Mr. Zuhri for making my point.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said on Monday that the Tel Aviv attack was part of the Palestinians' right of self-defense."Resisting Israeli aggression was rightful as long as it continues," Abu Zuhri said.
"The occupation seized money of the Palestinian people and urged the world not to assist the Palestinians, so this attack took place before those who agree with this aggressive attitude," he said.
Besides a confused, collective "HUH?!", I'm of half a mind to cut off the dollars-for-donuts they're still getting from us.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:05 AM | Comments (2)
Full Of Sound And Fury
Did you guys see that WashPost article that Tim linked to? If you can stomach it read the whole thing. It's a very interesting look into the life of one of the evidently more popular frothies (I'd frankly never heard of this woman until the article, as I don't visit any of those sites). I read her reaction to the story briefly, and it seems her major beef with it is the rather unflattering picture they used. I dunno, based on how she acts in the article and on her writings it seems to me that picture is probably pretty darn accurate; I've certainly run into several folks who get that fired-up glazed crazed look in their eyes too.
But I'm just evul, I reckon.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:43 AM | Comments (8)
April 15, 2006
I'd Hate to See This Investigation
...De-layed. I'm sure it's all an honest mistake...or a witch hunt.
A fundraising effort by Democratic legislators intended to help elect party members to the state House and Senate produced more than $1 million in questionable campaign donations during the past two years, state records showed.The Miami Herald reported Saturday that two political committees organized to raise money to help elect and retain Democratic legislators accepted donations in excess of the $500 cap on individual contributions for political campaigns set by state law.
Between July 2004 and last December, Florida House Victory accepted 214 contributions over the limit, raising $830,803 in excess of the $500 cap before the committee finally closed down, records showed. About $759,000 of the money raised went to the Florida Democratic Party, records showed.
Florida Senate Victory took in 54 contributions over the limit, or $211,246, before it was dissolved and re-created as a "committee of continuous existence," records showed.
Does that last sentence remind you of anyone...
...as in "Nuthin' up ma sleeve!"
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:42 PM
"A History of Violence"
We got half-way through it before an early wake-up for Snapper Season called. Yeah, it's gruesome, Viggo "The Chin" Mortenson is the man-of-few-words hero, his wife says 'baby' waaaay too much, blahblahblah. None of that's really bothering me. But I'll tell you what's annoying the CRAP out of me ~ the product placement for the Post Honey Bunches of Oats. 
If I see that box passed across a kitchen table with the label side perfectly angled for the camera to focus on it ~ three times and counting in three different scenes ~ one more TIME, we can add another chapter to the history.
Oh, you betcha.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:59 PM
For Diptera
...because I love him.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:15 AM | Comments (4)
See This Little Fishie Here? He Called a Red Snappah
And his little protected tail fins are why I'm gonna be cookin' breakfast for major dad and the Squid Terrorist at 0430 Central time (That's 4 1/2 hours from now.), since his little fishie fishin' season open fust thang tomorrow moanin'. And the sharks are circling.
And salivatin'.
And ah am a good wife ~ I don care what the bathroom wall says.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:48 AM | Comments (2)
If I Tell "The Welfare" to Pi$$ Off
...does it mean they take my baby? (PROMISE?)
New Jersey doctors will be required to educate expecting mothers and their families about postpartum depression and screen new moms for the disorder under a new law signed Thursday.
He's almost 24 now, but there are still days I swear I'll let them have him.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:34 AM | Comments (1)
April 14, 2006
Slip of the Puddies?
Our football post had me waxing nostalgic, so I went a Googling. Found this gotickets.com page and had to read it thrice before I was sure...
The past few seasons haven’t been the best when it comes to purchasing New York Jets tickets. Due to an uncanny string of injuries to, most notably, their quarterbacks, not to mention other key players, the Jets haven’t been able to develop consistent on-the-field success and Jew York Jets tickets haven't pleased the fans. But the 2006 New York Jets schedule looks good for a team searching for a new identity. Thanks to new head coach Eric Mangini, the youngest head coach in NFL history, and the return of their star starting quarterback, Chad Pennington, the Jets fans are getting excited for a promising season at the Meadowlands.
...that I did! I did see a puddy-tat!
UPDATE: It wasn't about Chad Pennington, Rob. Must be a nod to Passover.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:07 PM | Comments (8)
Wait a Minute!
That isn't Nicole Kidman...
A Coffeeville High School teacher has been arrested and charged with having sex with at least four students and involving at least one of them in a plot to kill her husband.
Oh, right. She's a teacher ~ that was the other blonde. Man, I'm mixin' my movies up left and right today.
UPDATE: I really am backwards ~ "To Die For" is about a newscaster but it's based on the...get ready...blonde,get your 15 yr. old lover to whack your hubby teacher, Pamela Smart. Whew.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:38 AM | Comments (4)
We're Torn on This One
major dad and I have talked about it and all the opinions swirling around...
A retired Army general on Friday continued the volleys of criticism against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his handling of the Iraq war...
...is it right, is it wrong? Should they keep their mouths shut regardless, or do they have an obligation to speak up? One of the stupidest criticisms I've read is to the effect of "it's not helpful when the civilians feel they can't trust the military..." Hello. The reverse is also true, as the civilians have the final say and the military pays the consequences. I only wonder what would have happened in Vietnam, if the retired generals had spoken up. Maybe we could have cut out that cancer and saved some lives. Maybe the military could have come home proudly, instead of shambling and despised.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:51 AM | Comments (12)
Quote of the Week
"Bottom line: It is hard to see how the GOP is not like the Titanic, except it is aiming for the iceberg."Odd he should choose that analogy. John Wilkes Booth had a ticket for a performance at Ford's Theater on April 14th in 1865, while a scant 47 years later this same night,
-Hugh Hewitt
"The Band Played NEARER MY GOD TO THEE
as the ship went down".
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:34 AM | Comments (7)
Oh, Come On!
Everyone knows it's the safest place to hit a Marine.
Marine Unfazed by Sniper Shot to HeadThe young Marine had just shot a suspected insurgent and was walking back across the villa's rooftop when he keeled over from a terrific thud to the back of his head.
A sniper had fired a single, well-aimed bullet that tore through the top of Lance Cpl. Richard Caseltine's helmet, traced a path along the edge of his skull and buried burning bullet fragments in the back of his neck.
Less than a minute later, the 20-year-old from Aurora, Ind., was up on his feet - crouching, shaking and miraculously, still alive.
We're glad you're still around, LCpl. This is gonna make one helluva sea story.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:22 AM | Comments (5)
The "Five Easy Rider Pieces" Sandwich Scene
...suddenly doesn't seem quite so menacing.
..."It was an accident. I didn't do it on purpose," ...
The hell you didn't.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:15 AM | Comments (4)
Iguana Get Really Pissed
...if you don't do something about these lizards...
Death and taxes may be life's only certainties, but for folks in this upscale island town, add iguanas. And another tax.During the last three decades, the resort community on Florida's Gulf Coast has been overrun by the black, spiny-tailed, nonnative lizards that demolish gardens, nest in attics and weaken beach dunes with burrows.
..."They eat your flowers and their feces is everywhere," she said, adding that she's killed dozens. "Some people toss them in the canal and the hermit crabs feed on them."
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:11 AM | Comments (2)
April 13, 2006
On ESPN's NFL Draft Preview
...Sean Salisbury and Mike Golich were "talking" about Brett Favre holding the Packers hostage and/or vice versa. And then it was stated that "c'mon! He's one of the top five quarterbacks of all time." major dad and I were off and musing/debating/arguing fiercely. Consensus reigns and herewith, our top five, with worthy top five candidates noted in the fifth position.
Joe_Montana_Photo.jpg)
1. Joe Montana
2. Johnny Unitas
3. Roger Staubach
4. John Elway
5. Bart Starr, Dan Marino, Sammy Baugh, Fran Tarkenton
*major dad adds: No grousing about "he never won a Super Bowl". It's a team sport.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:58 PM | Comments (12)
This Wicket
...just keeps getting stickier...
A woman who claims she was raped by members of Duke University's lacrosse team was described as "just passed-out drunk" by one of the first police officers to see her, according to a recording of radio traffic released Thursday.The conversation between the officer and a police dispatcher took place about 1:30 a.m. March 14, about five minutes after a grocery store security guard called 911 to report a woman in the parking lot who would not get out of someone else's car.
The officer gave the dispatcher the police code for an intoxicated person. When asked whether the woman needed medical help, the officer said: "She's breathing and appears to be fine. She's not in distress. She's just passed out drunk."
World News Tonight played the recording of the call. What happened when she woke up?
TUESDAY, MARCH 14 -- At 12:53 a.m., a woman called 911 to report that a man had shouted racial slurs at her and a friend as they walked by a house owned by Duke and rented by several players.
At 1:22 a.m., a security guard at a Kroger grocery called 911 to report that a woman outside the store had refused to get out of her car and that she appeared intoxicated. After the police arrived, she accused three lacrosse players, whom she identified by first names, of forcing her into a bathroom at the house and sexually assaulting her for 30 minutes. The woman said she and another woman had been hired to perform as exotic dancers for a party at the house.
The devil's in the details.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:00 PM | Comments (3)
So What Happened On South Park?
I didn't see it, as I was off a'sedering, but there's an interesting discussion going on at Volokh.
Any of you folks see it?
Update: Welcome Volokh readers! So now we know:
Disgusting.
I'm not sure if it's been reported yet, but for what it's worth, I just got off the phone with a Comedy Central spokesman. I asked him about last night's episode of South Park in which, at a moment right before the prophet Mohammed was supposed to make a cameo, the words, "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network" appeared on the screen.I asked him whether this truly was Comedy Central's decision or whether this was just another gag (with South Park, you never know). He said:
They reflected it accurately. That was a Comedy Central decision.
Just in case there was any confusion, that settles it. Comedy Central censored the image.
Where are you now, Jon Stewart? Oh sure, it's easy to be bold and brave when you are parodying Bush, Cheney, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc., because you know there are no consequences. Will you have the courage to stand up for freedom of speech now? Where is the Jon Stewart whose first post-September 11th monologue was one of the most moving things I've ever seen? Now is the time to step up to the plate.
ths UPDATE: That incredible Jon Stewart opening monologue of September 20th, 2001 ~ for those who want to tear up again. Hits me in the solar plexis everytime. As Bingley says, where is that guy now?
Michelle Malkin has a complete round up.
Update and Bumpity-bump: Wow, the cravenness Of Comedy Central knows no bounds:
Comedy Central Releases Brief Statement on Decision to Censor Mohammed.--I just had an amusing off-the-record conversation with someone at Comedy Central. They have released a simple public statement on their decision to deny South Park the right to show a depiction of Mohammed in their Wednesday episode, Cartoon Wars--Part II:
"In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision."
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 04:01 PM | Comments (4)
Base Ball
Insta has the following comment about the Democrats not coming out tougher than Bush on immigration
I've been kind of surprised that the Democrats haven't done more of this, given their African-American and labor constituencies. It strikes me that both parties are doing their best to ignore the base on this issue, and I'm not quite sure why that is.
I don't think they are ignoring the base; they are both actively courting their new base. Look, the Democrats have got the black and the labor votes pretty much locked up, and the Republicans have there various conservative elements as well. But they are both vying for the latin/hispanic/whatever you want to call it base, which all the demographics show is the base of the future, especially when at the end of the day most of these 11 million are going to end up as voting citizens. So the game is really about who can attract these folks to their party, sadly, and not about something silly like, oh, say what's best for the country.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)
Snippet of the Day
...Her overtures to the blogs, even ones like Daily Kos where the largely liberal crowd finds the San Francisco representative too accommodating to centrists...They're talking about Pelosi !
Whew! Brain freeze.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:40 AM | Comments (5)
On a Lighter Note
“It is high time now that Muslims in Europe pressed for their rights like enacting laws banning aggression on Islam and enhancing Islamic education”.Agora's covering an interesting convention. It would appear to be a "Shriners Free" affair, judging by the lack of humor displayed by the speakers.
“The insult of prophets in the name of Freedom of Speech is a crime which cannot be ignored. We therefore ask the European Union to adopt laws to prohibit that kind of insults.”...The delegate from Denmark was Imam Abdul Wahid Petersen who has declared himself in favor of making Sharia the law of the land.
Jeez! Lighten up, Abdul!
Anyways, it can't be much of a convention without...you know who.
What a shame ~ those guys can parrrrrr-TEE!
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:30 AM | Comments (2)
I'm Confused
Is it ten years before he 
...has this...
...or 16 days?
Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said.Iran will move to ``industrial scale'' uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.
UPDATE: Jim at the Gateway Pundit links to a Democratic version of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in an update at the post's end. (I'm a chicken sh*t and not linking because there's 234+ comments and those people scare me.)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:17 AM | Comments (7)
What KIND of Idiot
...pays that much money for a dog purchased on a street corner? (To be fair, the goofy little couple that originally owned our Ozzie paid twelvehunnert dollah to a BREEDER ~ for a 'companion' dog, no less ~ and STILL owed $700 when I gave them $200 for him.)
Puppies are often purchased in Mexico for between $50 and $150, then sold at street corners, parking lots and flea markets in Southern California for between $300 and $1,000 each, according to the Border Puppy Task Force.
The smuggled puppies were found during a border stop.
They were seized after a Customs and Border Protection officer noticed a paw reach out from under the front seat Tuesday evening at San Diego's Otay Mesa border crossing, authorities said.
Is there anything Mexican smugglers are not into?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:34 AM
April 12, 2006
HAH!!
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:09 PM | Comments (12)
That's Peachy
Sensing change, migrants rush to the borderSeems they all want to get here in time to get grandfathered in. Oh yeah, Señor Bush ~ we need a wall. A BIG, FREAKIN" W - A - L - L, wall.
Mexicans hurrying to Arizona anticipating passage of guest-worker plan
This looks about right.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:18 PM | Comments (2)
Oh Lordy, Here We Go
...Nifong's vow, however, did not satisfy angry community members in the audience. Mostly African-Americans, they asked why he had not taken harsher actions against the accused Duke players.The alleged victim is black and a student at North Carolina Central University, a historically black college. The lacrosse team members accused of the sexual assault are white.
"Why weren't they arrested?" one member of the audience asked. "Why haven't these records been made public? Is there a double standard of justice and law?"
...However, one woman wondered why Duke University's doctors had been allowed to examine the alleged victim and suggested that they could have disposed of incriminating evidence.
"Why is Duke Medical Center allowed to investigate, to check this female?" the woman asked. "This is a conflict of interest. I believe info has been tampered with."
It's always a conspiracy.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:03 PM | Comments (7)
Si, Se Puede?
A leading fundraiser for an Islamic charity allegedly linked to terrorists who has spent nearly two years in federal custody should be deported to Jordan, an appeals panel has ruled.The opinion released Tuesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned a judge who blocked Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan's deportation last month on grounds that he would be tortured because of his alleged ties to Hamas.
The judge also had recommended that Hamdan, of Buena Park, be released from custody.
...Hamdan was accused of having ties to terrorism but was never criminally charged. Instead, he was convicted of overstaying a student visa he got 27 years ago and ordered deported.
Great. Get 'im gone. My only concern is his being ordered released ~ isn't that when they slip off into the night for another 27 years?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:08 AM | Comments (2)
BASTARDS!
Dear Wine Lovers of Florida,
Your newly-won ability to purchase wines from any winery may be rescinded.House Bill 247 and Senate Bill 144 both include a shipping ban on wineries that produce 250,000 gallons or more. The wholesaler lobby has snuck the "cap" provision into these two bills, which is discriminatory and works against consumer choice and fair trade.
If these bills pass, you will be cut-off from your favorite wineries!
We say, “Don’t Cap My Wine!” We support Senator Dockery’s bill, Senate Bill 282, which tracks the model direct shipping bill working well for consumers, wineries and regulators in many other states. But we need to broaden our communications to all Florida legislators to support SB 282 and oppose HB247 and SB 144.
Free the Grapes has thoughtfully provided a link to personalize a message to your State Representative, which I will be taking advantage of shortly. (Bless their little purple hearts for doing such a grape job!) I don't order much wine personally, but Bingley, when the mood strikes him, is a hugely generous botello de vino sender and I used to have to drive over to Alabammy to pick the bottles up. And that's just wrong, dammit.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:47 AM | Comments (2)
Home For A Few Days
Spring is in the air, I'm sitting on the back deck with a cup of coffee, and my bride has to go to work whilst I watch the birds ravage the feeder.
Life is pretty good!
Hope she can figure out how to make less noise when she gets ready in the morning though; geesh!
hehehe.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:33 AM | Comments (10)
April 11, 2006
If Dick Morris Can Be Gold Plated Now
...sure. Why not 'Brownie', too?
In one of the most amazing turnabouts in recent times, officials in Katrina-ravaged St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana are looking to hire the man most vilified in the aftermath of the disaster: former FEMA Director Michael Brown.The consulting firm formed by Brown after losing his job at FEMA, has been approached by St. Bernard Parish to help businesses and communities negotiate the maze of federal bureaucracy.
Isn't this a great country? You can get canned for being an ineffectual, abysmal failure (or responsible for one) and six months later they're paying you the moon. I haven't got the hang of this yet, but I will. Hopefully before Ken Lay gets hired somewhere and takes my spot. (Bastards. Someone's always taking my spot...)
UPDTAE: It's all academic now.
Former FEMA chief Michael Brown says he'll still offer advice to hurricane-battered St. Bernard Parish, but he won't serve as a paid consultant because it would just stir up controversy.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:32 PM | Comments (16)
A Belated But Heartfelt...Happy BIRTHDAY
...you big ape. Now, pucker up.
Cheeta the chimp, star of a dozen “Tarzan” movies in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrated his 74th birthday with sugar-free cake.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:56 PM | Comments (5)
Put Another Log on the Fire
A lawyer for U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said Monday that State Farm Insurance Co. is destroying documents that could show the insurer has fraudulently denied thousands of claims by Lott and other policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.Zach Scruggs, one of Lott’s attorneys, says his client has a “good faith belief” that several State Farm employees in Biloxi are destroying engineering reports that gave conflicting conclusions about whether wind or water was responsible for storm damage.
Like thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, Lott’s claim was denied because State Farm concluded that Katrina’s flood water demolished his beach-front Pascagoula home. State Farm says its policies do not cover damage from rising water, including wind-driven water.
Ya think someone would have had a little forethought ~ had the corporate image in mind and maybe paid off the Senator's claim? It's easier to screw over the little guys when the big guys are happy, duh.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:03 PM
Not Many U.S. Navy Ports O' Call in Poland
That should have been their first clue.
Eight sailors were charged Tuesday with fraudulently marrying Polish and Romanian women to obtain an increase in their basic housing allowance from the Navy and allow their brides to apply for citizenship.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:45 PM | Comments (7)
Damn You Yanqui Bush!
For er, um, spoiling the Prophet's birthday party (pieces be upon them):
(CNN) -- An explosion at a celebration of Prophet Mohammed's birthday has killed at least 40 people and sparked a confrontation between Muslims and Karachi police, according to Pakistan's interior minister and local media reports.No claims of responsibility were made after Tuesday's blast, but sectarian violence between Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims has killed hundreds in Pakistan, and Karachi in particular, over the past two decades.
Yawn... Sunni's killing Shi'ites or vice versa; seems like everything is normal again with the RoP.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:07 PM | Comments (2)
It Would Seem Nothing Can Be Heinous Enough to Be 'Unforgivable'
...in the Spanish legal system.
The suspects accused of murder will probably face jail terms of thousands of years if convicted, although they could only be held in jail for a maximum of 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment. Spanish prosecutors routinely request symbolically long jail terms in terrorism cases.
Now is not the time to do penance for the Inquisition.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:05 PM
Barkeep, Bring Me Another
And, yes, put it on Mr. McCabe's tab; he said it was fine:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- As if custom-made hats, premium box seats and limo rides weren't enough, the Kentucky Derby will now feature the $1,000 mint julep.Sip this drink slowly.
The sweet cocktail will be made with one of the state's finest bourbons and served in a gold-plated cup with a silver straw to the first 50 people willing to put down the cash at the May 6 race.
Mint from Morocco, ice from the Arctic Circle and sugar from the South Pacific will put this mint julep in a class of its own, the distillery selling the drink said.
Now if only the stirrers had been used to club seals it would be perfect.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:26 AM | Comments (19)
A Step in the Right Direction
This is good news.
The headwaters of the Everglades will soon flow freer now that all the land has been purchased to restore the Kissimmee River's meandering path.State water managers say they have completed the acquisition of about 103,000 acres of land that will allow much of the water to return to its natural state in the river basin, flowing south through Lake Okeechobee and on into the Everglades.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:44 AM
April 10, 2006
I KNOW This is Piling On
...the NY Post and their gossipy problems, but dang. For what these people get paid over and under the table, they could get the simple things straight.
OUR PAL Charlie Rose, of the talk-show biz, is one lucky man. When he experienced shortness of breath while working in Syria, he was helped quickly on a plane to Paris and out of the Middle East by Syria's king himself!
Syria's KING?! You mean the guy Rose was interviewing when he got sick?
THIS dictator's son who got to be dorctator when his daddy the murdering old bastard died? THAT "KIng of Syria"?
Liz Smith. YOU are a moron. An overpaid, over the hill, gossipy, ignorant, pretentious old biddy moron.
(And who the F*CK is your editor?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:34 PM | Comments (5)
That's About How Much the Bill Was
...when we moved here and Earthlink gave Ebola a 'local' number for our internet access. At the time, he was a world famous Jedi Knight and hours online were the norm. Thanks to Earthlink, they were long distance hours online.
A Malaysian man (Pensacola Mom) said he nearly fainted when he (she) recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:03 PM
Message In A Vacuum
I took a stroll up to City Hall today to see the big illegal immigration protest. I had to leave my job early, but I figured it might be interesting. I have to say, the NYPD did a great job in containing the crowd. They had all the side streets blocked off a full block away from them, and they were only allowing people who lived or worked on those bordering blocks into the area, so the protestors were putting on a show solely for the media. I am a little disappointed, as I wanted to get some pictures of the signs and see how they compared to the ones THS linked to and took.
I've got a picture or two I'll put up later.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:29 PM | Comments (3)
Hard to Be a Rapist
...if your sperm wasn't even there. The Duke DNA tests have come back with no matches.
DNA testing failed to connect any members of the Duke University lacrosse team to the alleged rape of a stripper, attorneys for the athletes said Monday.Citing DNA test results delivered by the state crime lab to police and prosecutors a few hours earlier, the attorneys said the test results prove their clients did not sexually assault and beat a stripper hired to perform at a March 13 team party.
...“No DNA material from any young man was present on the body of this complaining woman,” said defense attorney Wade Smith.
There is going to be an uproar. This has been turned into a class/racial war of words, from black preachers holding prayer services on the frat house lawn for ABCNews to film, to a scathing indictment by a part time Duke prof in the NYT this weekend. Who backs away now and says "we were too quick to judge" when they were so quick to say "we told you so"? Granted these guys are pigs (like that's a surprise with today's Lawrence Phillips type college athlete) and need to be hammered as such, but they've been demonized and hung out to dry for something that apparently never happened.
AFTERTHOUGHT: And you know what? If poor, piteous, goggle-eyed Ms. Wilbanks could be charged with making false statements for a misadventure that basically caused concern, anxious moments and inconvenience, what's the penalty for ruining 46+ young lives with your lies, if they are proven to be so? I would be heartened if the black leaders in Durham who were so quick to rain invective are as quick to call for reconciliation and recompense, as well as every sports writer and major newspaper in the country. (Hello, ESPN's Sports Reporters? NYT?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:33 PM | Comments (11)
The Wheels of Justice Move
...EVER so slowly...
Prosecutors have dropped charges against a retired teacher who was beaten by New Orleans police during an arrest caught on videotape shortly after Hurricane Katrina, he and his lawyer said Monday.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:17 PM
Montezuma's Revenge
DATELINE: Pensacola. Yes, I went to our local rally.
(To be honest, I didn't even know we were having one until we passed them on the way to the airport. I shot back home and grabbed the camera.) There were couple hundred souls, 95% Hispanic, shuffling around the median. As I passed by on my way back the first time, I noticed several white contractors, each with a gaggle of Mexican workers in tow behind them ~ all with clean hair and faces, wearing identical new blue jeans, pristine white t-shirts and new hats. Clean illegals are a whole lot less threatening than how they usually look, I guess. Pretty frickin' calculated.
Maybe I should have titled this "Ivan's Revenge" instead, because if this was being held in April '04, there wouldn't a' been but twelve of them out there.
There was some half-hearted chanting. Hardly a Mexican flag to be seen.
Scattered among the crowd were isolated juedo faces...
...who, of course, carried the fancy printed, all purpose solidarity/protest banners.
Can you tell the local news mobile just showed up?
Half the group surged toward the center of the grassy area, gesturing, hands in the air. (There were handlers/cheerleaders coordinating the whole thing. Nothing spontaneous about it.)
And then there were the scenes that reminded me of the Parque El Centenario in Merida ~ loads of fellows hanging out, following the shade around under the trees as the day went by.
No counter protests to be seen ~ in fact, I was the lone prowler on the edge of it. (I figure most citizens had to work on a Monday, n'est pas?) Anyone on the sidewalk was a courthouse worker taking a cancer break, folks waiting on the ECAT bus to come along, bystanders doing and going somewhere else. Most looked sort of bemused by the whole 'foreign' thing ~ I would see them lean over to the person beside them as if asking 'Huh? What'd they just say?' An older fellow I was standing next to asked me "Do you know what it's about?" I explained and he said "well, they must be starving in Mexico." I replied "There's starving folks in Serbia and Sudan waiting to get here legally. So what do we say to those people?"
He couldn't answer.
UPDATE: Well, the local media doesn't disappoint. They're claiming over a thousand people showed up, even though the reporters on the scene say "hundreds". Another reason to scoff? Instead of crowd scenes, they interviewed individual protestors and did the old 'lay the camera on the sidewalk to catch the feet walking by' shot. What you see in my pics is the crowd. I'll stand by my 'couple hundred' original estimate.
FLORIDA UPDATE: I'm so with this guy:
David Caulkett, founder of the Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, questioned the strong showing of American flags at more recent protests, after many demonstrators waved Mexican flags at protests in Los Angeles last week."This week the theme is American flags and citizenship. Why the sudden change of loyalty? What is the true sentiment?" he said. "Who is financing all of these protests?"
Caulkett also criticized South Dade Senior High School in Homestead which offered students buses back to campus after they walked out of classes last week and protested at City Hall.
Read the WHOLE artricle ~ there's plenty to get angry about AND agree with.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:19 PM | Comments (16)
Le Backbone
...they have non.
President Jacques Chirac, bowing to intense pressure from students and unions, announced plans Monday to replace a contested employment law that set off massive protests and strikes across France.Chirac's office said a new plan focusing on youths from troubled backgrounds will replace the "first job contract," which would have made it easier for employers to fire any worker aged under 26.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:36 AM | Comments (6)
Nicholas Kristof
...in the NYT yesterday.
...But I've changed my mind on a guest worker program, because of growing evidence that low-wage immigration hurts America's own poor.The most careful study of this issue, done by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the surge of immigration in the 1980's and 1990's lowered the wages of America's own high school dropouts by 8.2 percent. "The large growth and predominantly low-skilled nature of Mexican immigration to the United States over the past two decades appears to have played a modest role in the widening of the U.S. wage structure," the study concluded.
Another study, by Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, reached similar conclusions. Between 2000 and 2005, he found, immigrant workers with a high school degree or less rose by 1.5 million, while employment of native workers at that education level fell by 3.2 million.
It's often said that immigrants take jobs that Americans won't take. But look at employment statistics, and you see that even among maids and agricultural workers, only four out of 10 people are immigrants.
...The broader problem is that our immigration program is structured so as to bring in cheap laborers more than brilliant minds. At last count, only 16 percent of admissions for permanent residence went to those with employment qualifications, while the great majority went to applicants on the basis of family ties.
When I lived in China, American diplomats complained that under the law they had to deny visas to brilliant physicists while granting immigrant visas to elementary-school dropouts who had a relative in Chicago.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:09 AM
Has Anyone Heard?
Is Jimmay Cartah and the U.N. monitoring this?
Hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees from as far away as Texas and Georgia have signed up to board buses and return to Louisiana in order to vote on the future of New Orleans.The evacuees are returning to cast early votes Monday in elections for mayor and city council, the first major test of the city's post-Katrina electoral system.
The busing is both practical and symbolic, said Kevin Whelan, spokesman for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
"Part of it is obviously turning out real voters. But it's still, obviously, a small percentage of the entire electorate," he said.
Displaced residents can vote Monday through Thursday and Saturday at early voting stations in Lake Charles, Shreveport, New Orleans and seven other cities around the state. The offices will be closed for the Good Friday holiday.
Sounds like how the Democrats got all those voters to the polls in East Saint Louis.
Strikes me as ripe for abuse. ( What happens if you get on a votin' bus to NOLA and Houston doesn't let you come back?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:04 AM
This Weekend's March in Dallas
...aired some provocative thoughts.
A Swill Salute to mjolnir910 via Little Green Footballs.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:59 AM | Comments (6)
Why Pay To See A Movie
When the Hollywood folks give us so much entertainment for free?
Reminiscent of Al Franken on the Late Show last October, on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, actor Ben Affleck charged that President Bush “probably also leaked” Valerie Plame's name and so “if he did, you can be hung for that! That's treason!” In full rant, an apoplectic Affleck asserted: “You could be killed. That's not a joking around Tom DeLay 'I'll do a year, I bribed the state officials with corporate money.' That's like they shoot you in the battlefield for doing that.”
I think there should be some some of requirement that certain actors appear on a talk show at least once a week to discuss the main issues of the day.
No wonder no one is going to the movies anymore, as the scripts just can't compare to this stuff.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:06 AM | Comments (5)
April 09, 2006
This Won't Affect Bingley at All
...but here at Casa de Major Dad? We're bummed.
Federal regulators voted to impose severe restrictions on salmon fishing off the coasts of Oregon and Northern California to protect dwindling populations in the Klamath River.The Pacific Fishery Management Council decided Thursday to close most of the 700 miles of coastline to commercial salmon fishing for much of May, June and July, the most productive months of the season, which runs from April-October. Federal fishery officials said the closures were the broadest ever imposed on the West Coast salmon fishery.
“This is going to be a horrible year,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association. “It's not a total closure, but it's the closest thing to it.”
It's been rough out there for the fishies.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)
April 08, 2006
Well...
“There’s never been a time when the bourbon was as good as it is today,” says Bill Samuels....okay!
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:55 PM | Comments (3)
What's Left of the Escambia Bay Bridge
...will be going in the Gulf as the newest artificial reef.
The damaged Interstate 10 bridge over Escambia Bay is set to become a concrete haven for fish and other marine life.The 2 1/2 mile bridge is in line to be sunk in the Large Area Artificial Reef Site, which encompasses about 125 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles south of Pensacola, officials said.
Hurricane Ivan wrecked the bridge in September 2004, with pieces of the structure ripped away by the bay's roiling waters. A wider, taller, $243 million bridge is under construction.
Workers could begin dismantling the old I-10 bridge in January or February. The contractor has a $10 million incentive to finish the new eastbound span, which will handle four lanes of traffic, by Dec. 29.
Well, newest next to the Oriskany.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:46 PM
April 07, 2006
The Unthinkable is Being Thought ~ The Rumors Are True!!
They may finally bury Lenin.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:21 PM | Comments (4)
Gamble Lost
A worker on the property found the woman's savaged body, said Sheriff Mansavage.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 02:22 PM | Comments (10)
I'm #1!
We just had a visit by someone who found us via this Google search.
Yessssssss!!!!
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:40 PM | Comments (19)
What a Load of Tripe
One problem, many causes
Holzer sees many reasons for the bleak situation: unemployment, enduring bias in American life, the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs.“When you look at what’s responsible, there’s a lot of stories," he said. "The labor market changed a lot. There was a disappearance of good jobs for less educated men. For blacks you have continuing problems of discrimination, job flight from the cities."
So get EDUCATED, huh? (Oh, STFU about the discrimination as an excuse.) My/yours/our tax dollars put that education right there. They get breaks for college tuition, etc, ad nauseum, that your middle class ~ black, orange, green, venusian or white ~ has no access to. Make yourself responsible for your child's education, even if you're illiterate yourself. Make yourself better by WORKING with your child. Quit fighting the teachers and looking for the next federal program your kids can qualify for, so you can abdicate more of that responsibility.
I will tell you the big problem here ~ there is an unending harrassment of young, smart black boys in the elementary and middle schools by other black kids. The best and brightest black kids (and I'm not talking just brains) ~ the upstanding citizens, future rocket scientists, doctors, Presidents, anything they want to be ~ are being beaten down literally and figuratively by the hoodlums and ne'er do wells who see an education as a threat. They are perpetuating a culture of gansta street hip, "don't need nothing from nobody, gonna be a pro b-ball player and show these motherf*ckers" that is a cancer eating away at the black community. The ability is there. The potential is there. Somebody needs to protect the kids who want to be something.
You can only be beaten down by your peers for so long before even the strongest little guy cracks. Someone needs to be there and it's NOT the government's home or family. So. Hmmmm...any suggestions?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:40 PM | Comments (4)
And he was grabbed by brownshirts and hauled off immediately after, right?
To be taken to the Gulag, I assume.
Wait, you mean he wasn't?
"In my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of my leadership in Washington," Taylor told the president. "And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself."
He must have been assaulted by a brownshirt, at the least, right?
Afterward, Taylor was approached by Barry Richards, a 42-year-old town manager from nearby Cabarrus County. Richards shook Taylor's hand and told him how glad he was that Taylor had spoken.Exxxxcelllent....[/Mr. Burns voice]
Then came the punchline.
"I 100 percent disagree with everything you said, but I'm glad you said it," Richards said.
Curse you Chimpy and your Rovian mind games!
Bingley Update: Gateway Pundit has more on this, though I would say that this man is not what I would call a "typical" liberal, in that he was rather polite and respectful.
Posted by Crusader at 12:50 PM | Comments (3)
Hurray For South Park
They're the only ones in our Media with any courage.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:32 PM | Comments (2)
Too, Too Young
Army women’s basketball coach Maggie Dixon, who led the Black Knights to their NCAA tournament debut last month, has died. She was 28.Golly. That's awful.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:21 PM
Amazing How Quickly One Becomes Less Militant
...and a tad more amenable...
Hamas Hints at Recognition of Israel
RAMALLAH, West Bank - A senior Hamas official said Friday the group is ready to accept a "two-state" solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the Hamas prime minister said he is unaware of plans by the Islamic militants to change their hard-line government platform
...when the pocketbooks snap shut.
The European Union has cut off direct aid payments to the Hamas-led Palestinian government because of its refusal to renounce violence and recognise Israel, the EU’s executive office said today.“For the time being there are no payments to or through the Palestinian authority,” European Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin said in Brussels.
UPDATE: We have, too.
The United States has decided to suspend direct assistance to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, while increasing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through U.N. agencies, the State Department said on Friday.
Sucks to be them.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)
Sign me up to move to the UK!
With a system like this, how can they not sleep well at night?
Some serious offences - including burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine - may now be dealt with by caution if police decide that would be the best approach.
And a string of crimes including common assault, threatening behaviour, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent, should normally be dealt with by a caution, the circular said.
All the time and money a caution could have saved me. Sheesh.....
Posted by Crusader at 11:11 AM | Comments (5)
I'm So Sick of You
Isidro D. Ortiz, a political scientist and professor of Chicano and Chicana studies at San Diego State University, said the flag is primarily a symbol of Mexican pride. But, in the current climate of the United States, Latinos also wave it to express dissatisfaction with how they are treated, Ortiz said."(Immigrants) have been trying for some time to imagine themselves as a part of the United States," he added. "What they've experienced is refusal."
..."A lot of immigrant families in southern Arizona are telling one another to carry the American flag in their hands, but hold the Mexican flag in their hearts," she said.
...and I'm not afraid to say so. An expanded version of the (St. Paddy's Day) article below does nothing to warm the cockles of my cold, cold liberal heart.
UPDATE: Speakin' of which, MSNBC.com is reporting that the immigration bill has "failed a key senate vote, passage in doubt." No link yet.
AP's got it.
The Senate sidetracked sweeping immigration legislation Friday, leaving in doubt prospects for passing a bill offering the hope of citizenship to millions of men, women and children living in the United States illegally.A carefully crafted compromise that supporters had claimed could win an overwhelming majority received only 38 of the 60 votes necessary to protect it from weakening amendments by opponents.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Find out where YOUR Senator stands/sits. I've emailed old gooberhead Martinez already. And was terse...but polite.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:35 AM | Comments (2)
Uncensored and Exposed
The real tree hugging sister.
The political description that fits you best is...LIBERAL
LIBERALS usually embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but tend to support significant government control of the economy. They generally support a government-funded "safety net" to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations, defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles.
The RED DOT on the Chart shows where you fit on the political map.
Talk about out in LEFT field! Blame all those years I spent in California, then. (Liberals don't accept responsibility very well either.)
Have at it, kiddies. Find the real you.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:11 AM | Comments (27)
Besides NOLA, LA Needs Some Petty Cash
...to help out with their 'homeless' problem.
The vast homelessness problem in Los Angeles County can be solved in a decade by spending up to $15 billion on affordable housing and other preventative services, officials said Thursday after a three-year study.
Granted, that's a staggering amount. STAGGERING. Once I got past it and kept reading, this sentence caught my eye:
Elsewhere Thursday, Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed a bill to ensure that attacks on the homeless are prosecuted just as stiffly as attacks on people because of their age, race or sexual orientation.
You mean they weren't before this superfluous law? And does this mean if I'm mugged just because they could, I'm NOT entitled to vigorous prosecution of the thugs, since there was no particular reason they did it ~ I was neither old, paleface or goatloving, so they blow it off?
I am so sick of these bullsh*t special 'hate/love/peace/happiness' crime categories. A life is a life is a life, whatever it's wrapped in.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:41 AM | Comments (5)
The Mess At Homeland Security
Michelle Malkin has a huge post up on the mess that is DHS.
Sickening. And infuriating.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:21 AM
Sput...SputSput...Sputtering Along
...damn his big, brown, liquid pool Chimpy eyes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added 211,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate unexpectedly slipped back to a 4-1/2-year low 4.7 percent, the government said on Friday in a report likely to keep concern about potential inflation pressures on the burner.The pace of hiring last month was stronger than the 190,000 jobs that had been forecast by analysts, who also had expected the unemployment rate to be unchanged at February's 4.8 percent.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:55 AM
A Neat Story
Baseball behind enemy lines.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:50 AM | Comments (1)
April 06, 2006
Wonder who he'd rescue first in a farm fire....
One wonders....
Posted by Crusader at 01:36 PM | Comments (7)
When I Said "They're Racist"...
What I meant was "I apologize."
Damn, won't you Media guys ever get the quotes right?
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:39 PM | Comments (1)
I Think SHE's Conveniently
Hundreds of protesters gripped Mexican flags as they marched for immigration reform in the past few weeks, but they say a display of cultural unity is being mistaken as a lack of loyalty to the United States.The displays turned off many Americans...
"Nobody gets upset with the Irish on St. Patrick's Day," said Gabriela Lemus, director of policy and legislation at the Washington, D.C.-based League of United Latin American Citizens, the group that organized most of the recent protests and is heading the dozens of marches and rallies scheduled across the nation Monday.
News flash: Self serving, ignorant tripe like that also turns off many Americans. Revelers in green
sweatshirts and lapel pins on the same one day a year don't come close to the image of hundreds of thousands of Spanish chanting, MEXICAN flag waving ILLEGALS and their supporters defiantly marching to protest the very foundation of this country ~ our LAWS. Occupying government buildings and threatening speeches have nothing in common with NY transit cops in emerald green berets for a day. If I remember my history correctly, the vast majority of the 3.5 million Irish came over by boat, passing through immigration facilities at Ellis Island, Boston, and Philly.
Legally.
I think the Mexican illegals have found America vastly more accomodating than the LEGAL Irish immigrant 100 years ago.
The Chicago Post wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses...Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country."
Heard that before?
Not only the men worked, but the women too. They became chamber maids, cooks, and the caretakers of children. Early Americans disdained this type of work, fit only for servants, the common sentiment being, "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place..." The Blacks hated the Irish and it appeared to be a mutual feeling. They were the first to call the Irish "white nigger."
Remember...
"We'll take the Niggers and the Chinks, but we DON'T WANT the IRISH!!"
Nah. As far as most things go, the ILLEGAL immigrants of today have nothing in common with the Irish. Nice try.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:42 AM | Comments (8)
Missing Link Fossil Discovered?
This is interesting:
Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago. Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action - like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.
Oops! No, it's not him.
As such, it will be a blow to proponents of intelligent design, who claim that the many gaps in the fossil record show evidence of some higher power.
I'm sure it will be trumpeted as such, and for many of the more legalistic adherents to ID it will be a blow. But to this believer in God it's no big deal, frankly; it's kind of neat. I love dinosaurs and all that stuff.
Scientists have previously been able to trace the transition of fish into limbed animals only crudely over the millions of years they anticipate the process took place. They suspected that an animal which bridged the gap between fish and land-based tetrapods must have existed - but, until now, there had been scant evidence of one.
They suspected that an animal which bridged the gap between fish and land-based tetrapods must have existed? Now, is that a silly sentence, or what? "I suspect the data I need for my theory exists" well no duh.
The near-pristine fossil was found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, which is 600 miles from the north pole in the Arctic Circle.
It had been clubbed to death...
Update:
Per Dave J's comment below:
My God, he's right!
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:50 AM | Comments (15)
April 05, 2006
John Lewis to McKinney
"S your McMouth TFU."(Okay. Not exactly. But close enough.)
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil-rights pioneer and the senior member of the Georgia Democratic congressional delegation, told Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) to stop making political hay out of her scuffle a week ago with a U.S. Capitol Police officer.“I told her she needs to lower the temperature and stop holding the press conferences,” Lewis said, recounting his conversation with McKinney on the House floor yesterday. “I don’t think it had any impact because she is still going on all the TV shows.”
Lewis said other members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) had also told McKinney to back off, adding that she had little support in the group. It held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the issue...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:49 PM | Comments (1)
Muslim Enclaves in Our Cities
David Kennedy Houck writes about "The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution". Very sobering, but I can't help wondering after reading it: Are not American Indian tribes afforded all these special dispensations from our rule of law already? Don't they operate their own little fiefdoms free and independent of oversight ~ rules and regulations that apply elsewhere have no power within the reservations? I'm thinking specifically of the lawsuit brought against the Thunder Valley Casino by seven women, who have been told to take what would be a Federal sexual discrimination case to a "tribal council", as neither the Feds nor the state have any jurisdiction.
Native American casinos are a $20 billion a year industry. But because many of the casinos are on sovereign Indian land, many state and federal laws do not apply to them....The plaintiffs want state and federal legal protections for non-Native Americans working on tribal grounds.
Hello? "Non-native Americans"?! (WTF kind of CRAP is that?) How about "citizens" being afforded the protections of the laws of this country no matter WHERE they set foot IN this country?
How do we keep the same from happening when Sharia wants sovereignty over a 13 year old girl in Baltimore?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:33 PM | Comments (17)
How Nice the Government Got More Than It Paid For
...if the thing really does take-off and land itself.
...Naval officials looking into last week's MV-22 Osprey mishap are considering whether recent maintenance work done on the aircraft may have somehow contributed to the incident, according to a Marine Corps general and Pentagon sources.The cause of the mishap remains undetermined, but the aircraft suffered “major damage to its wing and right engine” March 27 at New River, NC, according to a statement issued by the service after the incident. The aircraft damage “resulted from an inadvertent takeoff followed by a hard landing” on the base's flight line during a post-maintenance functional check flight, according to the statement.
"Inadvertant" as in "WTF?!" Hahahaha! I didn't see this on 60 Minutes, or anywhere else for that matter. And how typical ~ blame the LCpl fixin' the thing when your multi-gazillion dollar trainwreck acts a little hinky.
Naval officials looking into last week's MV-22 Osprey mishap are considering whether recent maintenance work done on the aircraft may have somehow contributed to the incident...
The best little tidbit in the article?
Naval officials are also reviewing a particular incident in 2005 that is somewhat similar to the March 27 mishap, a service official told Inside the Navy . The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did know the specifics.
Last year something(what) similar? It was doing this last year? In my best Jewish grandmother voice I ask, "Who knew?"
Marines exit the Osprey after being told their mothers were going to kill them if they caught them anywhere near that plane.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:34 PM | Comments (9)
It's Masters Time!
One day, out of the blue, Tiger says to Feherty: "What do you call a black guy flying an airplane?" "Umm, I don't know." "A pilot, you f---ing racist."
Go Tiger! Win it!
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:48 PM | Comments (9)
Jeez ~ Those Porkie Guys in Congress
...are real pissers.
Some of the spending included $1 million for a water-free urinal conservation initiative and $13 million to partly fund the World Toilet Summit.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:54 PM | Comments (23)
I Sense a Disturbance in the Force
Cmdr. Jon Winters was startled last May to see his name on top of the short list to be deployed for seven months to Iraq.It was unusual because he was on shore duty in Pensacola -- traditionally meant to give sailors a reprieve from deployment and a time to catch up with family or further their education.
But as the war in Iraq enters its third year, the Navy is sending more sailors to help out on the ground, Winters among them.
It was a different life for the 25-year veteran: reporting to an Army colonel; carrying an AK-47 even during chow; and learning a new lingo.
...The Navy has sent sailors, called individual augmentees, to Iraq since the war began. But in recent months, that number has spiked to an all-time high. Navy spokesman Lt. Trey Brown said the 4,000 sailors serving on the ground in Iraq will total 5,000 by the year's end.
"We are at our highest numbers since Iraqi Freedom, and we are continuing to grow," he said. "The Navy is looking at this from a total force structure to see who is available that has the right skill sets that is being asked by the military."
...Recently, more than a handful of instructors were sent to Iraq at one time. Some students who fail the flight program because of medical conditions, for example, are given the option of going to Iraq on ground missions instead of leaving the Navy.
Be all that you can be, huh? They sure need a lot of bodies to keep that well-oiled "Army of One" crap going. (Jeffs? Meet any squid conscripts in desert cammie while you were there?)
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:29 PM | Comments (5)
But Was It Plastic?
And did Cheney shoot it?
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- Fossils discovered in southern Utah are from a new species of birdlike dinosaur that resembled a 7-foot-tall brightly colored turkey and could run up to 25 miles per hour, scientists said Tuesday.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:00 PM | Comments (7)
Would That Make This
...a "Speedo Wax"?
Press ... rip ... YEOW!That guttural scream you hear rattling the door of a back room in your local day spa just may be coming from a man getting his [nether regions] hair waxed. Yes, it’s true. Men are grooming, uh, down there.
The other day I saw "Nair For Men" for the first time and assumed it was for hairy backs and knuckles. (Of course, if you drag those like certain folks do, the hair wears off naturally.)
I live in a bubble.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:38 AM | Comments (15)
Mary, Mary, QUITE Contrary
Landrieu threatens blanket holds to get levee fundingSen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) threatened yesterday to hold President Bush’s executive-branch nominees hostage until the administration agrees to a series of demands that would increase funding for coastal Louisiana.
In a letter sent to Bush yesterday, the Louisiana Democrat threatened to place holds on the president’s nominees, raising the prospect that the Senate could be tied in knots as Bush tries to fill a variety of vacancies, including the top jobs at the Interior Department and the Office of Management and Budget.
“Because this is literally a life-or-death situation for the people of my state, I am compelled to notify you that I will exercise my power as a member of the Senate to stop further consideration of all executive appointments until significant progress is made on such a request and commitment,” Landrieu wrote.
Just great. Louisiana knows extortion, cher.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:12 AM | Comments (15)
There's a Reason Momma Told You
...to keep your hands to yourself.
...The 38-year-old jogger was heading south on the wide shoulder of tree-lined West Village Drive in Carrollwood about 9:30 a.m. Saturday.As she neared Burrington Drive, a 1994 Ford Thunderbird pulled alongside her, driving in the wrong lane. The jogger was nearly knocked to the ground when the driver reached out and grabbed her buttocks, a Hillsborough County sheriff's report states.
...Vanfossen, who works as a cook at a nearby KFC restaurant, borrowed the car from his mother. The woman he is accused of groping happens to be a sheriff's deputy.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:40 AM | Comments (7)
Allegedly?
I've noticed what may be an interesting pattern regarding MSM coverage of events. When people are accused of crimes the standard used to be the use of the word "allegedly" until their innocence or guilt was proven. Now, it seems that sometimes it's used and sometimes it isn't.
"Allegedly":
Teacher/Student Sex
Fightin' Fists of Georgia
Jihadis
No "Allegedly":
Homeland Security Scumbag
DeLay
CIA Torture Flights
Gitmo Torture Dogs
Anybody pick up a pattern here?
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:47 AM | Comments (2)
Spring has Sprung.....
In Norf Cackalackie.
[Bingley update: It is currently snowing in Manhattan. Like hell.]
Posted by Crusader at 06:35 AM | Comments (10)
Taking a Turkey Baster
...to the next level. (Does this man have nothing better to do?)
The Rev. Jesse Jackson says Major League Baseball and San Diego police failed to protect Barry Bonds and should be trying to find out who threw a syringe at him in the Giants’ opener.
It would be like trying to find a needle...never mind.
He could always hire Hammerin' Cynthia McKinney as a bodyguard.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:36 AM
April 04, 2006
And Nope
I don't think I agree with this at all.
Gun advocates and business owners watched a contested bill to let gun owners bring their guns to work and keep them locked in their cars crawl out a first committee Tuesday.It took six tries for lawmakers in the House Judiciary Committee to move the bill (HB 129) past its first stop. They offered a tweaked version: Gun owners could keep their weapons locked in their cars at work, unless businesses- like security outfits and hazardous waste companies - showed a compelling safety concern to ban the practice. This could include banning individual employees, who have a history of violence or problems with the company. Plus, businesses wouldn't be responsible for any crimes.
Jeez, thanks a lot. I'm not responsible ~ some comfort that. Does a business owner have no 'rights' as far as what's allowed on his property? It's been hard enough keeping people with grudges from coming back and blasting their old supervisor along with half the staff as it is. What if his gun is in the car the day they fire him? Just that much easier to kill people. And don't try to tell me that all those guns that could be in cars in parking lots will deter/save the blastees. A gun for self defense is only as useful as your ability to get to it.
We have a right to carry (and 'Castle Doctrine') here, and there've been 'a million permits issued in a state of 17 million residents', but that's hardly indicative of how many guns are riding the street in your average citizen's car at any given time. To my knowledge, there's only been two instances of 'shoot first, ask later' happening in Escambia since the law went into effect, so we've hardly devolved into the Dodge City scenario they were all predicting. But forcing business owners to allow firearms on the premises if they choose not to? I think the NRA is overreaching.
This whole argument is academic, of course ~ predicated on folks admitting they have a gun in the car in the first place. And who in their right mind would do that?
UPDATE: Two minutes later, I find a case in point:
The ex-wife of country music star Garth Brooks was kidnapped at gunpoint by a man who worked on her farm after she cooperated with a bail bondsman who wanted to arrest the worker, authorities said Tuesday.Sandy Brooks had allowed the bondsman onto her property Monday to apprehend the man, who was wanted on an outstanding warrant. The worker responded by drawing a weapon, forcing her into a car and ordering her to drive away...
How weird is that?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:46 PM | Comments (16)
Oh, GACK!
The deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said.Brian J. Doyle, 55, of Silver Spring, Md., was arrested on seven charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla.
Doyle had a sexually explicit conversation with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he saw on the Internet on March 14, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
What a pig. I also noticed there were no "allegedlies" sprinkled through the report.
Stick a fork in him ~ he's done.
UPDATE: 'Twould seem MSNBC has noticed that lack of "allegedlies", too, as they've seen fit to add the word to the main page link.
Sex sting
Homeland Security official arrested over alleged Internet child seduction. • FULL STORY
.MORE TOP STORIES
• Iraqi PM rejects new call to quit
• WP: DeLay still defiant | • Video
• Md. women win NCAAs | • Images
Skip navigation Web MSNBC Updated: 7:39 a.m. ET April 5, 2006 MSN Home Hotmail Sign In
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:48 PM | Comments (5)
Never, EVER Do
...this:
Marco Island authorities say an eleven-year-old tourist was cut on his right hand and thigh after a reported shark attack....Ausum was walking along the beach with his father when he dove into a school of fish just before he was bitten.
There can be more than one kind of fish in a school.
UPDATE: ::sigh:: Or this, either.
Part of a teacher's hand was blown off when a 40 mm round of ammunition the instructor used as a paperweight on his desk exploded in his classroom....Colla found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago, Huston said. He used it as a paperweight and "obviously he didn't think the round was live," Huston said.
Let's just leave it at "obviously he didn't think."
UPDATE: Good Lord. He was bug schmushing with it.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:55 PM | Comments (1)
What Is Up With The World?
First a French court actually imposes a penalty on a terrorist.
Now comes word that a NY court has actually refused to find a new 'Right' in the Constitution:
A state judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that sought to force the city to allow private, social dancing in restaurants, clubs and bars......A group calling itself the Gotham West Coast Swing Club and several people said that because the city's cabaret law barred them from dancing with other people it unconstitutionally infringed on their right of free expression....
...The judge disagreed. He said dancing is not constitutionally protected expression and the city has the right to regulate circumstances under which eating and drinking places can let patrons dance.
I feel faint.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 06:03 PM | Comments (6)
Tough on Terrorists
That's the French for vous, cherie.
A Paris court fined the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" more than $6,000 Tuesday for saying in a French television interview that terror attacks sometimes were "necessary."...The court did not convict him for expressing pleasure that "the Great Satan" - the United States - suffered the Sept. 11 attacks, saying those comments were his personal reaction.
Carlos might be "the Jackal", but I've got a good guess who "the Jacka$$es" might be...
Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:11 PM
Naked, Armed With Blowpipes
...and bearing monkeys on their heads,(I know. You thought the post was about BIngley. It's not.)
...members of Colombia's last nomadic indigenous tribe emerged from the Amazonian jungle at the weekend after spending months on the run from Marxist guerrillas.Bemused townspeople in the southern city of San Jose de Guaviare looked on as 76 hunter-gatherers of the Nukak Maku tribe walked into its central square and told of their flight from the rebels, who are considered one of the greatest threats to their existence.
"The guerrillas told us they did not want to see us ever again," said one of the few Indians to speak any Spanish.
Hard to believe the jungle's gotten that small. Is it any less a loss than Budda statues?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:48 PM | Comments (1)
A Useless Fact
...via Kcruella.
On Wednesday the 5th of April, at two minutes and three seconds after
1:00 a.m., the time and date will be:
01:02:03 04/05/06
UPDATE: ::sniff:: Even World News Tonight mentioned it, BINGLEY.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:52 PM | Comments (23)
I'd Like to Remind the...um...Strident Rep. McKinney
...why the Capitol Police are touchy about identification.
Investigators are still attempting to explain how and why a lone gunman opened fire in the crowded U.S. Capitol on Friday, killing two police officers and wounding a tourist. The accused gunman has been identified as Russell Weston, age 41. Weston shot his way past Capitol security on Friday afternoon and entered a private area housing the offices of the Republican leadership in Congress....Witnesses said panic broke out after the gunman stormed through the Document Door entrance usually reserved for lawmakers and their staff at 1540 EDT. The gunman entered the building but walked around the metal detector just inside the entrance. According to several sources, Chestnut asked him to go back through the detector but was shot in the chest with a .38-caliber handgun. Witnesses said he turned down a short corridor and pushed through a door marked "Do Not Enter" which leads to a group of offices used by senior Republican representatives.
That was a white man doing the gate running and the shooting, instead of...
McKinney, 51, scuffled with a police officer on March 29 when she entered a House office building without her identifying lapel pin and did not stop when asked. Several police sources said the officer, who was not identified, asked her three times to stop. When she kept going, he placed a hand somewhere on her and she hit him, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
...but the paragraphs describing both initial confrontations sound pretty damn close. She needs to STFU and then someone needs to vote her arrogant dumb a$$ out the door.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:26 PM
Wow.
The only conscientious objector to receive a Medal of Honor in World War II has been buried at a national cemetery with a 21-gun salute, although he refused to carry a weapon while serving as an Army medic....While under enemy fire on the island of Okinawa, Doss carried 75 wounded soldiers to the edge of a 400-foot cliff and lowered them to safety, according to his citation.
During a later attack, he was seriously wounded in the legs by a grenade. According to the citation, as he was being carried to safety, he saw a more critically injured man and crawled off his stretcher, directing the medics to help the other wounded man.
I'd never heard his story.
...By now, his fellow soldiers were used to his reading the Bible and praying, so it didnt seem unusual when, on that April 29th morning in 1945, he suggested that they might want to pray. They were facing a sheer 400-foot cliff that split the island of Okinawa known as the Maeda Escarpment. It would be necessary to attack and capture this area. The men of Company B bowed their heads as Doss offered a prayer for safety. Then they began to struggle up the sheer cliff face.His unit captured the 400-foot Maeda Escarpment in an incredible sweep in which not one man was killed and only one minor injury was sustained. When a photographer arrived to capture the moment and asked how they pulled it off, Doss' company commander answered, "Doss prayed!"
Read it. You'll smile.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:52 PM | Comments (7)
Glad to Be Able to Help
...even a little.
California wine sales hit another high
Easing of rules on wine shipments seen boosting market
Does my heart good.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:28 PM
Wouldn't That Be Loverly?
"Even though we expect to see the current active period of Atlantic major hurricane activity to continue for another 15-20 years, it is statistically unlikely that the coming 2006-2007 hurricane season, or the seasons that follow, will have the number of major hurricane U.S. landfall events as we have seen in 2004-2005," Gray said in a statement.Dear Dr. "Nothin' But Bad News" Gray ~
I hope you're right.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:31 PM | Comments (2)
Bolstering Bingley's Theme
..."that the definition of "slander" is "to quote."", I offer this statement from an ABC spokesman concerning the now suspended author of the "Bush makes me puke" emails on Drudge last week.
An ABC spokesman told us, "This is a vendetta being waged by a very determined and unethical individual who wants to smear John."
On the other hand, if one took a snippet of the original...
"...I'm going to puke," Green declared. "Bush makes me sick."
...and did a name swap...
"...I'm going to puke," ROVE declared. "KERRY makes me sick."
...I'm sure it would have been front page NEWS, vice a 'schmear'.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:32 AM | Comments (14)
Talk About Radioactive...
That would be Katharine Harris. She oughta take a deep, DEEP breath and get a clue. And a GOOD therapist.
Changing locks on her campaign headquarters and accusing her staff of disloyalty and her own party of spying on her are signs of erratic behavior that some Katherine Harris staff members say has worsened since her father's death.Harris is restaffing her campaign and will announce new key staff members today, a campaign spokeswoman said Monday.
But in the past 10 days, Harris has:
•Had locks changed and posted a security guard at the door of her campaign headquarters in Tampa and had former staff members escorted in to retrieve their belongings.
•Told a gathering of supporters in Cocoa Beach on Saturday that the Republican Party had "infiltrated" her campaign staff to put "knives in my back."
•Told a reporter that a longtime, trusted political adviser had leaked a story about her staff members quitting, then called back to retract the comments.
•Announced hiring her new staff without identifying them.
Those events come atop previous reversals and contradictions, including her announcement last month that she would spend her inheritance from her father on her campaign, which she changed, saying she would sell her assets.
Former campaign manager Jim Dornan, who left in November, called the most recent events in the campaign "unbelievable."
"It smacks of real paranoia," he said of the headquarters lockout and comments about infiltration. "That campaign staff was so loyal to her, and to be treated like that is absolutely unconscionable."
Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:20 AM | Comments (6)
Oliver Has Spoken
Continuing our theme from yesterday, the ever-clear minded Oliver Stone has weighed in:
Movie-maker OLIVER STONE has blasted media groups who "slander" celebrities for their political comments - because intelligent stars have every right to question their leaders. The Vietnam veteran, who is a fierce opponent of the US leadership, is appalled every time a celebrity is rudely mocked for making his or her thoughts about PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH and the war in Iraq public, and he urges journalists to be more supportive. The NATURAL BORN KILLERS director says, "We're Hollywood wackos and all that stuff, left-wing... (It's) an easy and facile dismissal. "I'm still a citizen, I've served my country as a veteran, I've had many jobs before the film business. I know something of life, having lived to this age. "We have a right to speak and every time we speak: 'You're an actor, a showbusiness director,' we're making it up! "This is not a way of dealing with people. This is slander."And I for one am glad he has, as, moron that I am, I was not aware that the definition of "slander" is "to quote."
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:35 AM | Comments (6)
April 03, 2006
Yankees
7-1 over Oakland in the 3d. I can't stand the suspense. Kcruella's right ~ I'm going to bed, leaving two words to linger on the midnight air...
A
Rod.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:16 PM | Comments (3)
There is Mucho Joy in Casa de Major Dad Tonight
Our cardinals have returned. They finally came back post-Ivan for a brief few weeks last summer, only to be driven away by Dennis and Katrina. We've been faithfully keeping the feeder full this past 18 months hoping they'd find their way home.
This is the first chirp chirp in the backyard. (Integrity Alert ~ stolen picture...)
I will have a drink.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:25 PM | Comments (8)
Downsizing is a Tough Pill to Swallow
Musab al-Zarqawi replacedIRAQ'S resistance has replaced Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as political head of the rebels, confining him to a military role, the son of Osama bin Laden's mentor said in Jordan.
"The Iraqi resistance's high command asked Zarqawi to give up his political role and replaced him with an Iraqi, because of several mistakes he made," said Hudayf Azzam, who claims close contacts with the rebels.
"Zarqawi's role has been limited to military action," said Azzam, whose late father Abdullah Azzam was the mentor of bin Laden, the al-Qaeda boss."Zarqawi bowed to the orders two weeks ago and was replaced by Iraqi national Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi," Azzam said.
Saw this yesterday via The Counterterrorism Blog and wondered if it had any credence. Low and behold, it's just showing up on MSNBCcom, so I figured it was safe to share.
I sure wish they'd whacked the little f*cker, instead of moving him down a notch. But hopefully now this means he's vunerable and schmaybe a 'patriot' (or a pragmatic businessman...) will sell him out.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:07 PM
McCarthy! Puritans! Lions! Tigers! Bears!
I am so tired of hearing these Hollywood "artistes" talking about the pall of repression that they are tirelessly struggling under. Basic Instinct 2 had rather...limp box office receipts in its opening weekend. Do they blame the actors? Do they blame the directors? Do they blame the script? Hell, do they Blame Canada?
No! They blame Bush!
Paul Verhoeven, director of the first "Basic Instinct" (which scored $353 million worldwide) as well as the widely ridiculed "Showgirls" (now regarded as something of a camp classic), attributes the genre's demise to the current American political climate."Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."
Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987's seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale "Fatal Attraction," agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.
"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"
Oh puh-lease. Maybe it's 'cos, you know, the script and the direction...suck?
At least finally at the end of the article they find someone who isn't a nut:
"For producer JC Spink, the genre's demise has little to do with politics, scripts or willing talent and everything to do with the Internet, which became ubiquitous in American homes around the same time studio executives were suffering through such debacles as "Body of Evidence," "Showgirls" and "Jade.""Why pay $10 to see something at the movies that you can see for free on the Internet?" Spink asked. "I think the genre is suffering because sex is more pervasive in our society now than it was 10 years ago, from Vanity Fair ads to reality TV. I mean, there's porn stars on reality TV."
And even Verhoeven grudgingly admits in the end that the scripts stink. Geesh. But I guess the scripts are poor because of the theocratic climate of fear, so the writers (those few who haven't been dragged off to the Gulags yet, obviously) can't think erotic thoughts.
Yeah, that's it.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 10:10 AM | Comments (31)
Rev. Jesse Stirring the Pot
...and not the way ~ or the reverend ~ you'd think.
...Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.
Wow.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:38 AM | Comments (6)
Ah, the Smell of It!
"It" being the stench from New Jersey's politicians.
DID New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez share a secret Hoboken love nest with a former aide with whom he was rumored to be having an affair?
Yeah, yeah, big deal, huh? But this gets downright confusing.
...That same Hoboken address also appeared on a search of Kay LiCausi, Menendez's former chief of staff with whom staffers to former Gov. James McGreevey claimed he was having a long-term affair.
McGREEVEY?! I thought he was on the down low. And then THIS...
Menendez, 52, was found to have helped steer at least $200,000 worth of business to LiCausi after she left his employ to become a lobbyist and political consultant.
...sounds like John Corzine.
I can't keep them all straight ~ they all sound so much alike. Print the sentence, but leave the name blank and insert as necessary. You could use the same paragraph for years.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:23 AM
"Slither" Might Well Be Worth Seeing
...if just for this reason alone.
...The first-time director, who wrote the screenplay for the 2004 remake “Dawn of the Dead,” also has assembled a far finer cast than the genre typically presents, led by Nathan Fillion of the cult TV series “Firefly” and its big-screen spinoff “Serenity.”As Bill Pardy, the police chief in a hillbilly town overrun by killer slugs and flesh-munching zombies, Fillion expands on the droll flair he mastered as skipper of the rickety spaceship Serenity.
“Slither” also lets Fillion cut loose and get really goofy, all the while maintaining his boyish rogue’s charm. This guy deserves to be a major star.
Agree whole heartedly. The movie review's pretty darn good, too. I don't know that I could get over my inherent squeamishness about such things to watch it though, droll or not.
By the by, Major Dad and I just finished watching the "Firefly" boxed set ~ Ebola had a charitable moment and lent it to us ~ and we are completely hooked. It was dynamite viewing. We're also pissed that it was so poorly marketed when it was on. Who had any idea a) what it was about and b) what a treasure it was ?
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:07 AM | Comments (6)
It's Been Interesting
Very interesting seeing how the MSM has handled the Jill Carroll statements about how her captors were, in fact, scumbags. Is it me or does it seem rather, well, low key? When she was first released the video she made was trumpeted as much as her release
American journalist Jill Carroll, who was released this week after being held hostage in Iraq for almost three months, has slammed the United States and praised Iraqi insurgents in a video posted on an Islamist Web site.
And people rushed to judge her
Counterterrorism expert Laura Mansfield speculated that Carroll may have made the comments after being subjected to her captors' thinking for 83 days. It would not be surprising for Carroll to come away with a "heightened affection" for the mujahedeen, she said."That's what she's been spoon-fed for nearly three months," Mansfield said.
But it seems her father knew the real reason
Her father, however, told The Christian Science Monitor -- the paper she was freelancing for when she was abducted -- that she made the video to meet a final demand made by her captors, the newspaper reported Friday. The article's headline was "Jill Carroll forced to make propaganda video as price of freedom."
So now the MSM can't resist tweaking things a little
CNN cannot authenticate the source of the video. It is not clear when or where it was taped..."During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video," she wrote. "They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.
"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not."
She even lambasted her captors, who allegedly killed her interpreter, Alan Enwiya, when they abducted her in western Baghdad in January.
Allegedly? Allegedly??
Tell that to his alleged family who was allegedly given his allegedly bullet-riddled body.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:00 AM | Comments (2)
April 02, 2006
Raise a Cheer and a Beer
It's
Opening Night !!
Bay-sah-bah-roo ~ yeah, buddy!
Yan-kees at Oakland tomorrow night.
Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:16 PM | Comments (16)