1) Note to all those Christian-hating leftists out there ranting about “theocracy”: THIS is what a theocracy looks like.

2) Looks like a group of African-American politicians have strayed off the Democrat plantation. Will the voters in their county follow, and help elect Michael Steele to the US Senate?

3) Another reminder about why the issue of judicial nominations requires that conservatives get out and vote for Republicans in this year’s Senatorial races – Justice John Paul Stevens.

4) Democrat candidate steals signs to suppress opponent’s message – but of course, it is the GOP’s fault. I guess that is because the Dems are the party of no personal responsibility.

5) Looks like the terrorists are getting another pass from the UN. How much longer until the Israelis are forced to go after the Hezbollah rats in the sewer that is south Lebanon?

6) Drew Brees tells his Democrat mama – I don’t support you, so quit using me in your campaign ads!

Posted by: Greg at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1) Not only is illegal immigration a crime, but it appears to have become the province of organized crime. Those “good, hard-working people willing to do jobs Americans won’t” are being charged hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars by traffickers in human flesh. It is almost a latter-day slave trade. No wonder the Democrats are unwilling to act to stop it – after all, they supported the trade in human beings in the 1800s, too.

2) The Duke Rape Case continues to implode. First we find out the DA has yet to interview the victim, now we find out that she may have asked to be marked up during her ride home. The morals of those young men may be suspect, but it continues to look more and more like their actions were not criminal.

3) Which party is the Party of the Rich? Take a hint from the top political donors in this country – they support the Jackass Party.

4) What should the GOP focus on for the next week? Judges. Judges. And Judges.

5) I could be happy with a Mitt-Jeb ticket in 2008 – but would still prefer seeing a Mitt-Condi ticket instead. But then again, I’m one of those conservatives who like Mitt Romney.

6) IsraelÂ’s preemption of terrorist violence is justified under international law and the UN Charter. An excellent article explaining why appears at TCS Daily.

7) When will Gary Kubiak realize that David Carr is not consistent enough to start for the Houston Texans – and that Sage Rosenfels is? Texans fans want to know – and soon.

Posted by: Greg at 12:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I certainly think this rather disgusting "toy" would qualify. Thankfully, public pressure got it pulled -- sort of.

A "sexy" pole-dancing kit has been pulled from the toys and games section of a website run by Britain's biggest retailer after protests from outraged parents.

The Peekaboo pole-dancing kit, which has a "sexy garter" to help "unleash the sex kitten inside" was sold in Tesco Direct's toys and games section, the Daily Mail newspaper reported.

"Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars," its blurb reads.

"Unleash the sex kitten inside ... simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!"

The £50 ($125) kit includes a 2.6 metre chrome pole, a 'sexy dance garter' and a DVD demonstrating suggestive dance moves, the report said.

Do we really want our children to be "strippers in training?

Posted by: Greg at 02:52 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I don't agree with the content on the mailers in question, but I still believe that there is a right to say what is said. Allowing government employees to stifle that right is unacceptable.

Vancouver postal workers have walked off the job to protest an anti-gay pamphlet theyÂ’re being asked to deliver to hundreds of homes.

They say the brochure distributed by a religious group amounts to hate mail -- but they face disciplinary action if they refuse to handle it.

Ken Mooney, the Vancouver president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, says the walkout sends a message that posties will not “participate in the dissemination of homophobic material.”

The pamphlet says AIDS is “the plague of the 21st century” and calls homosexuality “ungodly, unhealthy and unnatural.”

Mooney says postal workers are “deeply offended” by the mailing, which he says subjects members of the gay community to “scorn and hate.”

Frankly, I'd take offense at large parts of the message and much of the language in the pamphlet. I'd drop mine in the nearest garbage can after first using it to scoop up the dog crap in the back yard.

But I don't see where the union or individual postal workers have any place determining what goes through.

And I applaud Canada Post for indicating that those who refuse to deliver the flier will face serious punishment.

Posted by: Greg at 10:57 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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1) ACORN, long connected to voter registration fraud cases around the country, is now accused of more voter fraud in St. Louis. “Hundreds of fraudulent voter address changes have been submitted to St. Louis County election officials.” Just trying to win one more for the Democrats.

2) Female circumcision. Just gotta love those Islamic folk remedies for promiscuity in two-year-olds. Can the sentence include using the same scissors of the “dad” who did this to his daughter?

3) More charges in this espionage case – American military secrets being given to the Red Chinese.

4) Looks like the Foley outing came from within the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. The staffer involved has been fired – for unauthorized use of the organization’s computer equipment, not for violating Foley’s right to keep his sexual orientation a secret. None of which, of course, mitigates teh fact that Foley is a perv.

5) Some folks think their ethnicity entitles them to do what they want – even if it is against the rules and disrupts school. And these claim they want to join the US military? They sure don't seem loyal to THIS country.

6) Imam to rape victims – It’s your fault for dressing like a whore. "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."

7) This clown would be a great companion for my Holocaust-denier troll KKKen – an Australian convicted of intentionally spreading the virus that causes AIDS is challenging the existence of the HIV virus in court.

Build it so they wonÂ’t come! Bush signs border fence bill.

9) Coming home! The Bnei Menashe (children of Manasseh) will return to their ancestral homeland in Israel after 27 centuries of exile from the land God gave to their ancestors at the time of Moses.

10) Freedom of speech trumps Islamo-censors in Denmark.

Posted by: Greg at 09:20 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Let's be honest -- we all know he did it, even if the prosecution did screw up the case so badly that they could not possibly have gotten a conviction. And while I may reject the notion of a civil liability for a crime following a Not Guilty verdict in a criminal trial, that doesn't change my certainty that OJ killed Ron and Nicole.

Now he may have confessed -- hypothetically, of course.

ELEVEN years after O J Simpson walked free from America’s most controversial murder trial, the former star athlete is at the centre of a row over reports that he is being paid $3.5m for an autobiography in which he describes how he “hypothetically” might have murdered his ex-wife and her male friend.

* * *

The National Enquirer’s account could not be verified this weekend but the newspaper provided extensive details in a four-page report on what it called a “tell-all blockbuster”. Simpson is said to describe how he “grabbed a knife from a man who accompanied him to Nicole’s home — and moments later found himself covered in blood and looking down on the bodies of Nicole and Ron”.

The other man is identified only as “Charlie”. No mention of an accomplice or witness emerged at either of Simpson’s trials, but according to the book, “Charlie” had earlier paid Simpson a late-night visit and passed on gossip about Brown and other men, prompting Simpson to “explode” in rage.

“Simpson prefaces these key pages by almost half-heartedly claiming that this part of the book is ‘hypothetical’,” the Enquirer reported. Simpson is said to have written that he stormed around to Brown’s Los Angeles home to confront her. He grabbed a knife he kept in his Ford Bronco car, but “Charlie” snatched it away from him.

According to the Enquirer, the book describes a series of arguments between Simpson, Goldman and Brown. Simpson snatched his knife back from “Charlie” and launched into a “blur” of violence.

When he saw the couple lying dead on the pavement, “OJ says he was in a daze, asking himself who’d done it,” the Enquirer reported. “He was still trying to work out what happened when a terrified Charlie whispered ‘Jesus Christ, OJ, what have you done?’” Simpson’s lawyers made no comment on the allegations last week. Other legal sources said there was no danger that Simpson could be prosecuted again for the crimes — however “hypothetical” his confession — under America’s double jeopardy laws forbidding retrial after acquittal.

Granted, this is originally from the National Enquirer, but they have been known to get scoops like this from time to time. And this would explain why OJ Simpson is playing golf rather than looking for the real killer like he promised.

By the way -- might "Charlie" be OJ's old buddy, Al Cowlings?

Posted by: Greg at 02:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1) They’ve never been willing to interfere with Hezbollah terrorist attacks, and have even flow the Hezbollah flag with their own. Now the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon -- so-called "peace keepers" -- wants to shoot down Israeli airplanes engaged in acts of self-defense. Is it “US out of the UN/Un Out of the US” time yet?

2) The Vatican says Christians and Muslims must stand together against terrorism. WeÂ’ve done it, they havenÂ’t. Dialogue and understanding can go nowhere until they do.

3) Gee – they may as well be talking about my Democrat critic.

Activist efforts to limit America's free marketplace of ideas -- such as the tactic of slandering commonsense criticism as "Islamophobia" -- are contrary to the very foundation of democratic governance.

Just because a liberal or minority disagrees with a comment does not make it racist, bigoted, or hateful – or even wrong. By the way, you might consider checking out the proposed methods of dealing with jihadi terrorism – they are spot-on.

4) More global warming hysteria – which overlooks the fact that Greenland is called GREENland for a reason. Receding glaciers are a reversion to the status quo at the time of Greenland’s discovery condition in the time of Eric the Red and Lief Ericson. I'm curious -- what produced the "global warming that created those conditions? Or had something happened to cause "global cooling"? Or -- horrors -- might the current warming trend be part of a centuries/millenia-long pattern of warming and cooling?

5) Somehow this got overlooked in reporting of the defensive action by Israel against Hezbollah’s terrorists – Hezbollah was using cluster bombs against Israel. Israel was roundly condemned for doing so, but the actions of Hezbollah were covered-up. Could it be another sign of the anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist stance taken by the world media?

6) Muslims Gone Wild! Another example of Islamic tolerance and respect for human rights.

7) Run silent, run deep, Check out the most silent and deadly attack submarine on earth – part of the fleet of the SWEDISH navy!

Do-it-yourself abortion on day of scheduled delivery not illegal – judge dismisses charges against woman who shot herself in the stomach to murder her baby. Pro-choices support the decision in this article. Does anyone want to defend it here?

9) Why should anyone with sense oppose socialist socialized medicine? Maybe you should consider this horrendous outcome that puts economic efficiency ahead of human life.

10) Is it treason yet? CNN shows terorist "snuff films" of sniper attacks on US troops. I’ll bet they would have gladly aired Nazi propaganda films of the “heroic” SS defending their positions against the Allied “invaders” to present the “unvarnished truth” about D-Day, spliced with clips of an exclusive interview with Adolph Hitler.

11) Dem staffer suspended for leaking classified information to the press (and therefore to the enemy). Democrats are outraged – that the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee would take action to safeguard our nation’s military and intelligence secrets. I guess the only thing they believe should remain hidden from public view is the Plame Name. More from Michelle Malkin and Captain Ed.

12) Don’t speak ill of any Islamic practice – it could “incite” Muslims to violence. And your friendly neighborhood supporters of terrorists at CAIR want to make sure doing so does. My take – “Hurrah for John Gibson!”

13) You've got to see the picture with this story -- Bambi was feeling mighty playful when he saw this cross-country runner.

Posted by: Greg at 12:35 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Some articles of note that you might want to look to.

1) We were told that the Enron case conviction of Ken Lay proved that the law applied the rich and powerful just like it does to everyone else. Guess what – now folks are upset because the law is being applied to Ken Lay just as it is to everyone else!

2) HmmmmmÂ…. Top Dem makes a statement indicating that a black Republican is a slave. IÂ’m curious, where are the leftist sensitivity police on this one? Malkin has more.

3) Italian journalist who converted to Islam kidnapped by jihadis in Afghanistan – who demand the return of an Afghan convert to Christianity for application of the sharia penalty for apostasy )which is, of course, death). Am I the only one who smells a set-up here? Better idea – the civilized world will keep the Christian and the followers of the Religion of barbarism can keep their co-religionist. Malkin weighs in on this one

4) Service dog dies after saving owner from fire cause by cat – while trying to save the cat.

5) We are a nation of over 300,000,000. Notice the statistics on foreign-born individuals –and realize that the population would be 10-20 million less if we actively deported border-jumping immigration criminals.

6) One of these could ruin the whole day of our enemies. And to think such weapons wee the stuff of science fiction only a few decades ago!

7) Donna Shalala proves she is still a typical Democrat – "I believe that the young men we have recruited for our football team are young men of great character. But they did a very bad thing." Wasn’t that what she said about Slick Willie, too?

Arab-American group sues to find out if terror deportees disproportionately Arab and Muslim – tells America to ignore the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were disproportionately Arab and Muslim.

9) Muslim group condemns second Koran in toilet at university in NYC. Conveniently, the group fails to condemn murders of Christians or honor killings by fellow Muslims.

10) For that matter, the group in the above story also has failed to condemn this attack upon a pro-Israel editor in Pakistan – or his trial on sedition charges for advocating diplomatic relations between that Muslim country and the Jewish state.

11) Gay terrorist Mike Rogers – making homophobia a legitimate political strategy since 2004. I guess “It’s just about sex” only applies to Democrats. Captain Ed has a great commentary on Rogers’ strategy of left-wing homophobia. IowaHawk has this humorous insight on possible Democrat moves to make use of Rogers' efforts.

12) Desperate Democrat rips opponent over her cheesy romance novel. Have you no issues?

13) It may surprise you to discover I support the plaintiff in this suit – but think any damage award should be nominal. After all – how much “emotional distress” should a reasonable individual have over a dismissed ticket? But then again, she does appear to suffer from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome).

14) But look what has been banned as “patently offensive” speech at Marquette University.

“As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.”
-- Dave Berry

15) During his days as Russian dictator, didnÂ’t this guy defend the Berlin Wall, which was designed to keep the people of East Germany prisoners of their own government? ShouldnÂ’t he have faced a trial for crimes against humanity by now?

Posted by: Greg at 12:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'd like to applaud the American Federation of Teachers for opposing this anti-Semitic move by an Irish educator's organization.

he American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is calling on Irish academics to oppose demands to boycott Israel. The union, which represents 1.3 million members across the US, sent a letter to four Irish teachers and academics unions, urging them to oppose the boycott which has been proposed by several Irish academics in recent weeks.

"Boycotts of this nature only help those who wish to curtail the academic freedom faculty members hold dear," wrote Edward J. McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers in the letter to his Irish colleagues.

The American union also notes that the Irish academics' singling out faculty members from Israel, which is a democratic country, while ignoring those from other countries "raises more questions than it answers."

The boycott call voiced by 61 Irish faculty members in a letter sent to the Irish Times in late September. They called for the EU to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions in protest of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians and its conduct during the Lebanese war.

Yep, they only oppose democratic Israel -- not dictatorships rife with human rights violations like Cuba, North Korea, or Libya. Only Jew-hatred can explain such a move. And while I am not a member of the AFT (indeed, I am a building representative for another teacher's organization), I wholeheartedly endorse their position.

Posted by: Greg at 02:00 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Hey, I figure I should just come out and say it. After all, that seems to be the signal being given by yet another extension of federal housing benefits to those living in Houston more than a year after their city was devastated by the hurricane and subsequent collapse of the levees.

Houston social service agencies and Hurricane Katrina victims living in the city welcomed a decision by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to extend housing subsidies past an Oct. 31 deadline for recertification for at least another four months. The specter of thousands of jobless people being thrown out of their apartments onto the streets still remains, but the FEMA action provides a window of opportunity to prevent that from happening.

The federal disaster relief agency dropped its requirement for extensive documentation for housing assistance recertification after few of the estimated 21,000 evacuee households in Houston made submissions. Instead, a simple one-page form is being accepted, with an automatic extension of all housing payments through the end of February.

Here we are, over a year later, and these folks still are not working and pulling their own weight. Indeed, the only substantive contribution they have made to the Houston community is their impact upon the crime rate, which has skyrocketed since September 2005. And for all Mayor White and others say that 18 months is the upper limit for FEMA assistance of this sort, I've no doubt that come the first of the year we will be hearing the Katrina sob stories again. After all, I've got some Katrina kids, here for a year, still trying to use the hurricane to explain why they don't have basic school supplies. They don't have because they don't bother -- and that explains the housing and employment situation for many of these folks.

Enough is enough -- either cut off the asistance or concede teh reality that we will be supporting these folks and their descendents until the end of time.

Posted by: Greg at 07:25 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Let me begin by noting that I just love the headline for this news story from the Sacramento Bee – it is so marvelously and subtly misleading.

U.S. agents question teen

Girl ran anti-Bush page on MySpace

Those fascists! How dare they harass this poor child for exercising her First Amendment rights.

Only if you read the story do you find it is more than an “anti-Bush” site.

The latest Sacramento resident to be questioned by federal agents in possible threats against President Bush is a 14-year-old girl with a heart on her backpack and braces on her teeth, a freckle-nosed adolescent who is passionate about liberal politics and cute movie stars.

Her name is Julia Wilson, and she learned a vivid civics lesson Wednesday when two Secret Service agents pulled her out of biology class at McClatchy High School to ask about comments and images she posted on MySpace.

Beneath the words "Kill Bush," Julia posted a cartoonish photo-collage of a knife stabbing the hand of the president. It was one of a few images Julia said she used to decorate an anti-Bush Web page she moderated on MySpace, the social networking Web site that is hugely popular among teenagers.

Yes, you read that right – “Kill Bush”. A graphic of a knife stabbing the president. Sounds like a possible threat that needs to be checked out, and possibly a violation of federal law. Certainly more than merely an “anti-Bush” site.

This brainless child’s parents are very upset – but not at their daughter. No, they upset that the Secret Service would DARE question her baby – especially without one of them present.

Federal law prohibits making serious threats against the president, and Julia and her parents say what she did was wrong.

The couple are disturbed, however, that federal agents questioned a child at school -- without her parents present. And First Amendment lawyers question whether the Secret Service over-reacted to a 14-year-old's comments on a Web site made for casual socializing.

"I don't condone what she did, but it seems a little over the top to me," said Julia's father, Jim Moose. "You'd think they could look at the situation and determine that she's not a credible threat."

Actually, you fool, they donÂ’t know what the situation is until they investigate. Suppose that, instead of an ill-informed little brat raised by overly-indulgent parents, the site was operated by a nascent Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris? No one took them seriously before they attacked their high school and murdered 13 people. How was the Secret Service to know that your daughter wasnÂ’t a mentally and morally disturbed sociopath? What is over the top, sir, is that you think they should NOT have pursued the matter as they did.

Here is how Julia Wilson's family tells their story:

Two Secret Service agents arrived at their Land Park home about 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, Kirstie Wilson said. They told her they wanted to speak with her daughter about threats to the president that she had posted on MySpace.

"She was in molecular biology, and I said I really didn't want to take her out of class for this," Kirstie Wilson said. "I said I'd make sure she came right home from school."

She asked the agents to come back in an hour, and they left.

Then Wilson sent her daughter a text message instructing her to come straight home from school.

"... there are two men from the secret service that want to talk with you. Apparently you made some death threats against president bush. Dont worry youre not going to jail or anything like that but they take these things very seriously these days," Kirstie Wilson wrote.

"Are you serious!?!? omg. Am I in a lot of trouble"? her daughter replied, using common teenage shorthand for "Oh, my God."

Kirstie Wilson called her husband. While they were on the phone, she received another text message from her daughter: "They took me out of class."

I guess that the Wilson family believes that law enforcement should schedule their appointments with potential assassins at the convenience of them and their families – you know, just to allow them to gather up their weapons of choice and go underground until they can do commit their murder.

And one more thing about this case, Mom and Dad were completely unaware of what their child was doing on the internet. They are lucky that all she lured out of the woodwork was a pair of nice Secret Service agents wanting to question her about her potentially criminal activity. They are lucky that she wasnÂ’t abused or abducted, or lured to the Middle East for a child marriage and conversion to Islam. Rather than bitching, they should hit their knees that they were spared any of those true horrors.

By the way, this was not an isolated incident for young Julia. She started the space last year calling it "People who want to stab Bush". Why MySpace didnÂ’t delete the account then for violating its terms of service is a mystery to me. She then changed it to "So Bush is an idiot but hey what else is new?", but left the graphic. It appears, though, that she never considered that her art work was also a potentially illegal act.

I think this stupid little child need to change the name of her group now. How about the title of this blog post -- “So Julia Wilson and her parents are idiots, but hey what else is new?”

UPDATE: I've run across several additional articles, and found a couple of quotes that make my blood boil.

The first couple are from Julia's over-indulgent, under-involved "parents".

"She obviously is not a threat to society, if you look at her age, her family background, the cartoonish nature of the MySpace page," said her father, Jim Moose, an environmental lawyer.

"She is just a typical teenage girl who made a mistake," said her mother during an interview at their neatly landscaped home.

First, Mommy Dearest, she is a girl who potentially committed a crime, not merely "a typical teenage girl who made a mistake". She deserved to be questioned. And Daddy Dearest, it is clear that you are a typical liberal hypocrite -- after all, your argument is that law enforcement should look and find out that this is a rich white little girl from a good home and therefore miraculously divined that she was no threat, because we all know that it is only "those people" (black, Hispanic, poor) who commit crimes.

Then there is this whine from the little anti-American felon-in-training herself.

Julia Wilson said the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.

"They yelled at me a lot," she said. "They were unnecessarily mean."

In other words, they told you what could happen if you were charged as a juvenile. They didn't get you a double half-caf latte with extra milk before asking you any questions and they raised their voices, so you got your feelings hurt over that because Mommy and Daddy have told you that the universe revolves areound Uranus and you therefore don't have to accept the authority of anyone but yourself. Too bad they didn't cuff you and take you in for further questioning -- then maybe you would learn that your conduct was seriously wrong.

UPDATE 2: One more stupid comment from this self-centered little imbecile.

On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.

"I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack - it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person," said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."

Four observations, you self-absorbed little brat:

1) John Wilkes Booth was a popular actor. He was pro-secession, and pro-slavery, but he would never try to kill the President.

2) Lee Harvey Oswald was a family man with a baby who was also a Communist. He'd never try to kill the President.

3) John Hinkley came from a good home in a nice neighborhood. he would never try to kill the President.

4) How many terrorists were "good Muslims" carrying a Koran? How many criminals are wearing hearts, crosses or other "nice" symbols when they are arrested -- or when they commit their crime?

UPDATE 3: Looks like the young lady is capable of learning and has some common sense after all. I dislike her politics, but support her next move.

And I'll post here my offer from the comments -- if Julia and/or her parents wish to comment here they are welcome, and if they wish to submit a piece for me to publish as a featured piece on this site I will be glad to host it. I'm willing to let them get out their side of teh story.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Conservative Cat, Blue Star Chronicles, Samantha Burns, Pirate's Cove, Bullwinkle Blog, Stuck on Stupid, Adam's Blog, Third World County, Clash of Civilizations, Right Nation, Is It just Me?, Uncooperative Blogger, Stop the ACLU, The World According to Carl, Church & State, Amboy Times, Woman Honor Thyself, Jo's Cafe

Posted by: Greg at 12:33 PM | Comments (210) | Add Comment
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Am I the only one troubled by this “culture of surveillance” that is developing in too many pats of the country?

Security and terrorism won't be an issue if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games because, by that time, there'll be a surveillance camera on every corner, Mayor Daley said Wednesday.

"By the time 2016 [rolls around], we'll have more cameras than Washington, D.C. ... Our technology is more advanced than any other city in the world -- even compared to London -- dealing with our cameras and the sophistication of cameras and retro-fitting all the cameras downtown in new buildings, doing the CTA cameras," Daley said.

"By 2016, I'll make you a bet. We'll have [cameras on] almost every block."

Now how, exactly, will these cameras be used? Will they be strictly limited to providing evidence of crimes for investigatory purposes? Will they be monitored and reviewed looking for offenses – and will such monitoring be for major crimes of revenue enhancing offenses? Or will they be a surveillance tool – which, given the Chicago Police Department in monitoring political dissent, could mean that those whose views offend the powers that be could have their movements monitored and documented with staggering consequences.

Posted by: Greg at 09:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This declaration from international HIV expert marginally talented actress Scarlett Johansonn tells us more about her morals and activities than about what responsible adults should be doing.

While most people have a dental check-up every six months, Scarlett Johansson has revealed that she has two HIV tests a year. She said it was "part of being a decent human to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases".

* * *

"I do think on some basic level we are animals and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly. But, as much as I believe that, I work really hard when I'm in a relationship to make it work in a monogamous way.

"I get tested for HIV twice a year. . . One has to be socially aware. It's part of being a decent human to be tested for STDs. It's just disgusting behaviour when people don't. It's so irresponsible."

No, most of us simply have sufficient self-control to keep needles out of our veins, keep our pants on, and stay in stable monogamous relationships. Those are the actions of decent human beings. Failure to engage in them is disgusting and irresponsible.

Posted by: Greg at 10:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, a ban on a symbol is a ban on a symbol -- even if the symbol is being mocked and deprecated.

Juergen Kamm, the owner of a small German mail-order business, makes a modest living fighting neo-Nazis. His firm sells sloganeering T-shirts, music albums and books as part of a campaign to rid the country of extremists. "Smash Fascism!" one hot-selling button urges.

Last week, however, a court in the city of Stuttgart ruled that under German law Kamm might as well be a Nazi himself. His crime? Selling items bearing swastikas, the Nazi symbol that has been forbidden here since the end of World War II.

Never mind that Kamm's company, Nix Gut, loosely translated as "No Good," displayed the swastika only inside a crossed-out circle or as part of other designs intended to impugn Nazis and their ilk. A panel of judges agreed with state prosecutors in Stuttgart that any reproduction of the symbol, no matter the context, risked making it socially acceptable again in Germany.

"The danger of familiarization is ever present," said presiding Judge Wolfgang Kuellmer. "In particular, this mass-market business risked undermining its taboo status."

I hate the swastika. I also hate the ubiquitous Che photo. But I wish that they are never banned -- because making them illegal just makes them attractive to a small segment of non-conformist, not just the moral midgets who accept the underlying philosophy.

Free speech is the key to killing malignant ideologies -- from Nazism to Communism to Islamism.

Posted by: Greg at 02:00 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Come on, guys -- get your mind out of the gutter.

I'm talking real, Texas-sized meat. Indeed, 72 ounces of sirloin goodness.

You used to have to travel to Amarillo to get it, but now it is just a mouse-click away -- meaning you can eat your meat in the privacy of your own home, instead of on display before a curious audience.

Since 1960, the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo has vigorously promoted its free 72-ounce steak dinner to thrill-seekers, hungry truckers and anyone else willing to pit human digestive capacity against 4 1/2 pounds of beef.

Now, they're offering the home version.

"At this point, I would say (the 72-ouncer) is accounting for at least 35 to 40 percent of total sales," said Kathie Greer, who oversees Big Texan's new mail-order business, www.ilovesteaks.com.

Although the gargantuan top sirloin is free in the fabled restaurant — provided the customer puts up a $72 deposit and also polishes off a salad, shrimp cocktail, baked potato and dinner roll in one hour — it costs $99.95 to get the same slab of beef delivered with extras, including an apron and spice rub.

"Already, in three months, we've sold more than we sold the entire previous year," she said.

The restaurant has long sold mail-order meat but didn't dedicate a Web site to it until this summer.

Of course, long-distance conquests of the signature cut don't count toward Big Texan's records. Of about 42,000 in-house attempts, only about 8,000 have succeeded. Women make up a small minority of contestants, but have won their meals about half the time while the macho men have racked up an impressive failure rate.

If you ever get a hankering for a huge steak, Greer offers a tip: Make it medium rare. Overcooked steaks can be dry.

So try your luck with a Texas legend!

Posted by: Greg at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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After all, the Democrats blamed every negative event over the last six years on George W. Bush -- including a recession that began a year before he became president and misdeeds at Enron that happened under Clinton's watch -- so it is obvious that the good news is also entirely the responsibility of George W. Bush.

The nation's unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent last month, down from 4.7 in August, and average wages rose by 4 percent over the previous year -- the best performance for both measures in five years.

The monthly Labor Department report released yesterday revealed that 51,000 new jobs were reported last month, a disappointing figure, but job gains were stronger than reported earlier for the previous year and a half.

"The economy is actually stronger than these employment numbers suggest," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J., economic-advisory firm. The figures were mixed and elicited widely varying reactions from financial markets and analysts.

Add to that record-high stock prices and dropping oil prices -- along with a deficit that is decreasing at a rate even greater than that predicted by the administration, and it is clear that George W. Bush and the GOP Congress are doing a fantastic job with the economy.

Let's hope America doesn't mess with a good thing and elect the Democrats to enact the economy killing policies they support.

Posted by: Greg at 01:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is not a positive development.

North Korea declared Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test to bolster its defenses against the United States, raising tensions in the region and marking the communist government's first unambiguous pledge to prove it has become a nuclear power.

Though North Korea has previously said it possesses nuclear bombs -- U.S. intelligence officials have estimated it could have as many as 11 -- a test detonation would dramatically change the region's power dynamics. Analysts have said the United States and area neighbors including China, Japan and South Korea would be forced to deal far more harshly with the North Koreans.

A test would be a "very provocative act," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to Cairo. It would create a "qualitatively different situation on the Korean Peninsula" that would spill over into the entire region, she said. Rice declined to predict what the U.S. response might be.

In a statement issued through the official KCNA news service, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government would "conduct a nuclear test under conditions where safety is firmly guaranteed." The statement did not say when the test might occur, but added that the North's "nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression."

If such a test occurs, the US and other nations must respond to eliminate the remaining weapons and North Korea's nuclear program.

I'd suggest bombing North Korea back to the Stone Age, except for the fact that most North Koreans are already living in conditions pretty close to that due to the policies of the corrupt dicatorship of Kim Jong-Il. I guess we'll just have to bomb them back to the Paleolothic Age from the Neolithic.

And by the way -- what president's ineffective policies allowed for the North Koreans to develop nuclear weapons while receiving US assistance? The same president whose ineffective policy on terrorism allowed Osama to remain at large to plan the 9/11 attacks. Thanks, Bill!

Posted by: Greg at 10:21 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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They are hungry – and they won’t take no for an answer.

A fierce squirrel attacked a 4-year-old boy at Mountain View's Cuesta Park last week as the rodent tried to wrestle a muffin out of the boy's hands, leaving him with scratch and bite marks that prompted a series of precautionary rabies shots.

The skirmish wasn't the first time the park's numerous tree squirrels targeted picnickers.

Mountain View Community Services Director David Muela said today that as many as six people have been bitten or scratched by squirrels since May, and that the attacks have become more ferocious in the last month. One squirrel even went so far as to jump into a child's stroller.

So while the city says “Do Not Feed The Animals”, I’d recommend that you put down the sandwich and step away carefully in the that no one gets hurt by these furry felons.

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I won't stop for the cheapest gas in my town -- and not just because I can find cheaper gass on my way to school in the morning or on my way to my night class in the evening. Since every gallon I pump here in town would be money in the pocket of Hugo Chavez, I'm willing to spend a little more to register my distaste.

And Seven-Eleven (which does not, unfortunately, operate in the Houston area -- I need a Slurpee fix) has joined the boycott.

The devil might wear Prada, but will his fellow citizens fill up their tanks with Citgo?

One retail chain won't find out. Faced with a barrage of calls from customers and bloggers calling for a boycott of Citgo gasoline stations, 7-Eleven Inc. said yesterday that the Citgo signs are going to start coming down from its convenience stores.

The boycott calls were the result of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's fiery speech at the United Nations last week in which he called President Bush "the devil." 7-Eleven said that the end of its 20-year supply agreement with Citgo Petroleum Corp., owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, was not the result of that speech but rather that it had decided in the spring to launch its own gasoline brand and switch to three new U.S. suppliers.

But the chain moved up the announcement of those plans in response to the outcry over the Chavez speech. "We sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez," 7-Eleven public relations director Margaret Chabris said in a statement that waded into the political fray. In an interview, she added: "Customers started calling last week and saying that they didn't like what Chavez said. And they wanted to know what we were going to do."

I'm glad to see a little corporate responsibility -- nd patriotism -- here. Wll done!

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And it seems that some criminals can't give up a life of fraud, either.

This case is just stunning, given why "she" was even on the streets to begin with.

A transgendered inmate freed from prison last year because she was dying of AIDS has been charged with using a forged Maryland death certificate to get new criminal charges dismissed.

Dee Deirdre Farmer, 41, was charged Wednesday with forging a Baltimore Circuit Court order to change the death certificate of a man named Charles Smith to reflect that Farmer was the person who had died. Charging documents showed that Farmer got criminal charges in Virginia dismissed using a forged Maryland death certificate.

In a landmark case, Farmer sued federal prison officials over a 1989 rape that occurred about a week after Farmer entered a federal maximum-security prison for men in Terre Haute, Ind. Farmer had arrived with male sex organs and breast implants, after undergoing estrogen therapy.

The lawsuit claimed the government had violated Farmer's constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment by ignoring the risk that a feminine-appearing inmate would be raped by other prisoners. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1994 that prison officials can sometimes be held liable for inmate assaults revived Farmer's lawsuit, which had been dismissed by lower courts. After the Supreme Court decision, however, she lost the case at trial.

Farmer was serving a 20-year federal sentence for credit-card fraud, followed by a 30-year sentence for credit-card fraud in Maryland.

In February 2005, Chief Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals freed Farmer from a state prison near Hagerstown, saying the inmate, then described as blind, bedridden and dying of AIDS, was no longer a threat to society.

''When I cut him loose, my recollection is that it was on the basis of documentary evidence that he was HIV-positive and that his life expectancy was very, very short,'' Murphy told The (Baltimore) Sun on Wednesday. Murphy said he decided to release Farmer on probation ''in the hopes that that might encourage him to remain crime-free while he was out with what little time he had left.''

Well, we see how well that worked.

Lock this messed up individual away, and dispose of the key.

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More examples of the face of “pro-choice” America.

COLUMBUS, Ga. -- Police have arrested the mother and two cousins of a pregnant 16-year-old who are accused of forcing the teen to drink turpentine in an attempt to induce an abortion.

Rozelletta B. Blackshire, 44, was charged with criminal abortion and first-degree cruelty to children, Columbus Police Sgt. Debra Bohannon said. The teen's cousins, Shonda Y. Blackshire, 26, of Columbus, and Monica M. Johnson, 28, of Eufaula, Ala., also were arrested Friday and charged with criminal abortion.
Investigators haven't determined whether the turpentine harmed the teen, who is three months pregnant, or the fetus.

"There's no medical evidence that would support you could induce an abortion by giving her turpentine," Bohannon said. "Still, it's not made to ingest. It's not good to ingest."

Bohannon said the girl's mother and cousins twice forced her to drink turpentine between Sept. 12 and Sept. 20.

The women might have wanted the teen to have an abortion because her pregnancy could have exacerbated an unrelated health problem, Bohannon said. The girl is in protective custody.

Police were notified after the girl told her school counselor that her mother made her drink turpentine.

Bohannon said they already were investigating a sexual assault case involving the pregnant teen. Investigators believe the girl conceived during that assault.

I guess that some folks are “pro-choice” as long as the “choice” is abortion.

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More examples of the face of “pro-choice” America.

COLUMBUS, Ga. -- Police have arrested the mother and two cousins of a pregnant 16-year-old who are accused of forcing the teen to drink turpentine in an attempt to induce an abortion.

Rozelletta B. Blackshire, 44, was charged with criminal abortion and first-degree cruelty to children, Columbus Police Sgt. Debra Bohannon said. The teen's cousins, Shonda Y. Blackshire, 26, of Columbus, and Monica M. Johnson, 28, of Eufaula, Ala., also were arrested Friday and charged with criminal abortion.
Investigators haven't determined whether the turpentine harmed the teen, who is three months pregnant, or the fetus.

"There's no medical evidence that would support you could induce an abortion by giving her turpentine," Bohannon said. "Still, it's not made to ingest. It's not good to ingest."

Bohannon said the girl's mother and cousins twice forced her to drink turpentine between Sept. 12 and Sept. 20.

The women might have wanted the teen to have an abortion because her pregnancy could have exacerbated an unrelated health problem, Bohannon said. The girl is in protective custody.

Police were notified after the girl told her school counselor that her mother made her drink turpentine.

Bohannon said they already were investigating a sexual assault case involving the pregnant teen. Investigators believe the girl conceived during that assault.

I guess that some folks are “pro-choice” as long as the “choice” is abortion.

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Well over two years later, the two robot explorers of Mars continue their work, succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of NASA scientists.

When the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit reached their distant destination in early 2004, NASA scientists hoped the vehicles would probe the planet's frigid landscape for 90 days before they pooped out or were undone by the harsh Martian environment.

More than 900 days later, however, both robotic explorers are going strong -- and Opportunity is literally on the cusp of what is likely to be its greatest accomplishment.

After enduring an 18-month trek through rugged terrain, dust devils and daily temperature swings approaching 200 degrees, the rover is scheduled to arrive today within easy lens view of a deep and geologically revealing crater. By tomorrow, if all goes well, the little robot that could will be right at Victoria Crater's edge and in position to peer inside and send back images like none seen before.

"Exploring Victoria is something we joked and fantasized about but never really thought we could realistically get to it," said Steven Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments. "This is the absolutely highest-priority destination we could have reached."

The reason is that Victoria is an impact crater about 200 feet deep and half a mile wide, with sheer cliffs and layers upon layers of exposed rock. Before Victoria, the deepest crater the rover visited was Endurance, which is a mere 23 feet deep.

This mission could tell us much about the geology of the Red Planet. Well done, NASA!

On the other hand, a private space flight program was less successful in its attempt to launch yesterday.

The first rocket launched from New Mexico's spaceport failed to reach suborbital space Monday, wobbling and dropping back to Earth barely a tenth of the way into its intended journey.

The unmanned, 20-foot SpaceLoft XL rocket, among the first to be launched from any commercial U.S. spaceport, was carrying experiments and other payloads for its planned journey 70 miles above Earth.

The rocket took off at 2:14 p.m. and was supposed to drop back to Earth about 13 minutes later at White Sands Missile Range, just north of the launch site. But three miles from the launch site, witnesses saw the rocket wobble, then go into a corkscrew motion before disappearing in the clear sky.

Something went wrong shortly after takeoff. Officials with UP Aerospace, the Connecticut-based company that funded the launch, said the rocket reached only about 40,000 feet.

It was not immediately clear where the craft landed or what condition it was in. Launch logistical coordinator Tracey Larson said it was possible that the rocket and its payload could have survived the crash.

However, having seen the film of early NASA efforts, with rockets tipping over or crumbling on the pad, I still maintain hope for the private sector efforts.

Posted by: Greg at 10:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't even know how to categorize this story. It isn't a news story in the sense I usually think of it. Neither is it exactly an education story. It certainly doesn't qualify as entertainment, where I usually put sports stories. And it is something more than a religion or race peace. It is all of those -- and something more.

It is a story that moves the human heart, if one's soul has not been completely deadened.

It is a story to make one weep with joy, with sadness, and with hope.

It is the story of how one life can be changed, and how the acts of love and kindness that do so change all involved.

It is the story of Michael Oher.

When the file on Michael Oher from the Memphis City Schools hit his desk in the summer of 2002, Steve Simpson, the principal of Briarcrest Christian School, was frankly incredulous. The boy, now 16, had a measured I.Q. of 80, which put him in mankind’s ninth percentile. An aptitude test he took in eighth grade measured his “ability to learn” and placed him in the sixth percentile. The numbers looked like misprints: in a rich white private school like Briarcrest, you never saw single-digit numbers under the column marked “percentile.” Of course, logically, you knew such people must exist; for someone to be in the 99th percentile, someone else had to be in the first. But you didn’t expect to meet them at the Briarcrest Christian School. Academically, Briarcrest might not be the most ambitious school. It spent more time and energy directing its students to Jesus Christ than to Harvard. But the students all went on to college. And they all had at least an average I.Q.

In his first nine years of school, Michael Oher was enrolled in 11 different institutions, and that included a gap of 18 months, around age 10, when he apparently did not attend school at all. Either that or the public schools were so indifferent to his presence that they neglected to register it formally. Not that Oher actually showed up at the schools where he was enrolled. Even when he received credit for attending, he was sensationally absent: 46 days of a single term of his first-grade year, for instance. His first first-grade year, that is; Michael Oher repeated first grade. He repeated second grade, too. And yet the school system presented these early years as the most accomplished of his academic career. They claimed that right through the fourth grade he was performing at “grade level.” How could they know when, according to these transcripts, he hadn’t even attended the third grade?

Simpson, who had spent 30-plus years in area public schools, including 29 in Memphis, knew what everyone who had even a brief brush with the Memphis public schools knew: they passed kids up to the next grade because they found it too much trouble to flunk them. They functioned as an assembly line churning out products never meant to be market-tested. At several schools, Michael Oher had been given F’s in reading his first term and C’s the second term, which allowed him to finish the school year with D’s — they were giving him grades just to get rid of him. And get rid of him they did: seldom did the child return to the school that passed him. The year before Simpson got his file, Michael Oher passed ninth grade at a high school called Westwood. According to his transcripts, he missed 50 days of school that year. Fifty days! At Briarcrest, the rule was that if a student misses 15 days of any class, he has to repeat the class no matter his grade. And yet Westwood had given Michael Oher just enough D’s to move him along. Even when you threw in the B in world geography, clearly a gift from the Westwood basketball coach who taught the class, the grade-point average the student would bring with him to Briarcrest began with a zero: 0.6.

If there was a less promising academic record, Simpson hadn’t seen it. Simpson guessed, rightly, that the Briarcrest Christian School hadn’t seen anything like Michael Oher either. Simpson and others in the Briarcrest community would eventually learn that Michael’s father had been shot and killed and tossed off a bridge, that his mother was addicted to crack cocaine and that his life experience was so narrow that he might as well have spent his first 16 years inside a closet. And yet here was his application, in the summer of 2002, courtesy of the Briarcrest football coach, Hugh Freeze, who offered with it this wildly implausible story: Big Mike, as he was called, was essentially homeless and so had made an art of sleeping on whatever floor the ghetto would provide for him. He crashed for a stretch on the floor of an inner-city character named Tony Henderson, who at nearly 400 pounds himself was known simply as Big Tony. Big Tony’s mom had died and as her dying wish asked Tony to enroll his son Steven Payne at a “Christian school.” Big Tony had figured that as long as he was taking Steven, he might as well take Big Mike, too.

A school took this boy in. So did a family. And with a lot of hard work and determination, they helped this young man overcome a bad start and make it to college.

And, incidentally, become an All-American football player.

I hope that one day we get this young man on our team down here in Houston. Not just because I believe he will help the Texans out with his talent.

But because I believe he will be an asset to our community, and an inspiration to my students.

Posted by: Greg at 12:59 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
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This is just too weird!

A teddy bear has been implicated in 2,500 deaths. Of trout, that is. State officials say a teddy bear dropped into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.

Hatcheries supervisor Robert Fawcett said the bear -- who was dressed in yellow raincoat and hat -- is believed to be the first stuffed bear to cause fatalities at the facility.

"We've had pipes get clogged, but it's usually with more naturally occurring things like a frog or even a dead muskrat," he said. "This one turned out to be a teddy bear and we don't know how it got there."

The deaths prompted Fawcett to release a written warning: "RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS into the fish hatchery water IS NOT PERMITTED."

He said it's not known who dropped the bear, but urged anyone whose bear ends up in a hatchery pool to find a worker to remove it. "They might save your teddy bear, and keep it from becoming a killer," he said.

"It's kind of a cute little teddy bear and people wouldn't think that a cute little teddy bear would be able to kill fish."

But are teddy bears an endangered species?

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Private Francis Lupo was listed as "Missing, Presumed Dead" at the end of World War I. Now, nearly nine decades later, he is coming home.

Missing in action, presumed dead.

And eventually he faded from living memory. His generation passed away, with everyone who loved him, everyone who mourned him. Time rendered him faceless. He was just a name, one of hundreds chiseled in limestone in a cemetery chapel 4,000 miles from home.

LUPO FRANCIS PVT 18TH INF

1ST DIV JULY 21 1918 OHIO

A lost doughboy.

But now he is found.

Discovered by chance, unearthed in 2003 by archaeologists looking for ancient remains, Pvt. Francis Lupo of Cincinnati has returned from the front at last, nearly 90 years after boarding a troop ship for France. Tomorrow, the Army will bury him again, this time with honors at Arlington National Cemetery, laying to rest possibly the longest-missing U.S. soldier ever recovered and identified: a ghost of World War I.

Lupo, killed at 23, most likely on his first day in heavy fighting, will get a fine Arlington send-off, with all the Army's Old Guard solemn pomp: a horse-drawn caisson; a bugler; rifle volleys; a tri-folded American flag for his next of kin, a niece born 15 years after the armistice.

May the day come when there are no more American soldiers listed as "Missing, Presumed Dead".

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some folks do really stupid things when they drink.

A drunken Chinese migrant worker jumped into a panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo, was bitten by the bear and retaliated by chomping down on the animal's back, state media said Wednesday.

Zhang Xinyan, from the central province of Henan, drank four jugs of beer at a restaurant near the zoo before visiting Gu Gu the panda on Tuesday, the Beijing Morning Post said.

"He felt a sudden urge to touch the panda with his hand," and jumped into the enclosure, the newspaper said.

The panda, who was asleep, was startled and bit Zhang, 35, on the right leg, it said. Zhang got angry and kicked the panda, who then bit his other leg. A tussle ensued, the paper said.

"I bit the fellow in the back," Zhang was quoted as saying in the newspaper. "Its skin was quite thick."

Other tourists yelled for a zookeeper, who got the panda under control by spraying it with water, reports said. Zhang was hospitalized.

Newspaper photographs showed Zhang lying on a hospital bed with blood-soaked bandages and a seam of stitches running down his leg.

The Beijing Youth Daily quoted Zhang as saying that he had seen pandas on television and "they seemed to get along well with people."

"No one ever said they would bite people," Zhang said. "I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don't remember much."

Almost had ourselves a Darwin Award winner here – he’s certainly entitled to an honorable mention.

By the way, I think this story contains a line that can be used as a really great euphemism -- "touch the panda with his hand."

Posted by: Greg at 11:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here are a couple of low-lifes who just need killing.

Two Baytown men have been charged with capital murder in the death of Barney Goodman, a disabled Vietnam veteran who was robbed and beaten with a baseball bat.

Kenneth Dollery, 22, and Hollis B. Buckley, 21, both unemployed, were arrested at a mobile home park in Baytown Thursday.

Both have given statements admitting their involvement in Goodman's death, said Liberty County Sheriff Greg Arthur.

Goodman, 57, who had served a stint in Vietnam in the U.S. Marines, lost both his legs last year to diabetes, said his brother, Richard Ford.

"My brother had just learned to walk again with artificial legs," Ford said. Goodman also recently survived cancer.

Before his health deteriorated, Goodman had been striving to become a country music singer.

As for the two suspects charged in the killing, Ford said, "They didn't have to do it. He had no legs. They just didn't want a witness left behind."

Arthur said the two suspects, who are cousins, told authorities they were angry with Goodman and "wanted to teach him a lesson" because he owed Buckley's mother a month's rent. Goodman and the suspects were living in the same mobile home with Buckley's mother, said Liberty County Sheriff's Capt. Chip Fairchild.

Goodman died Saturday at a Houston hospital from internal injuries after being beaten on Friday. According to investigators, Goodman agreed to go with the suspects in their car without realizing their intent.

Investigators say the suspects drove Goodman from Baytown to a bridge on FM 2090 just over the Liberty County line. Arthur said they beat him underneath the bridge, threw his artificial legs into the San Jacinto River, and left him there.

Goodman took several hours to claw his way up a 40-foot riverbank and waited until a motorist stopped to render aid. Taken to the hospital, he identified himself and gave a vague account of an attack by two men before passing out. He was unable to be interviewed by investigators before he died.

A capital murder conviction carries a possible death sentence. Goodman was buried Thursday in Baytown.

To the prosecutors -- No plea deal; no mercy.

Posted by: Greg at 10:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Maybe they will launch on Friday -- or have to wait until next month.

NASA hopes to figure out what caused the latest problem keeping Atlantis earthbound: an electrical short in a 30-year-old motor.

If the agency determines by Thursday night that the cause of the short is not serious, NASA can try to launch the shuttle Friday morning.

If it doesn't launch Friday, the space agency may have to wait until late October _ or relax daylight launching rules instituted after the 2003 Columbia accident and try again at the end of September. Once the Russian Soyuz comes back, NASA may attempt a launch as early as Sept. 28 or 29 even though the launch would be in darkness, spokesman Allard Beutel said.

NASA rules say shuttles have to be launched in daylight so that the big external fuel tank can be photographed for evidence of any broken-off pieces of foam of the sort that doomed Columbia.

There is a slight chance of a Saturday launch, but NASA would have to shorten its construction mission on the international space station, something Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager, has said he would not like to do.

Here's hoping that all can be resolved in time for a Friday launch.

Posted by: Greg at 10:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Will someone explain to me why certain busy-bodies have a problem with the butchering-up of horses for sale as food abroad? I guess I don't see the problem -- except that it gives ranting liberals one more stupid "cause" to whine about.

Imagine if 100,000 dogs and cats were slaughtered each year in this county for meat to be sold for human consumption overseas. Imagine if the animals were purchased at dark auctions, transported to foreign-owned and tax-subsidized slaughterhouses in deplorable conditions, stunned with a metal bolt into their heads, and then sliced while alive into body parts.

Now, imagine there is a congressional effort to ban this barbaric treatment. But instead of becoming the political no-brainer of this or any other election year, it comes to the floor of the House of Representatives with its passage in doubt. Why? Because the slaughterers and their hacks in government scare people into thinking that stopping the slaughter actually is bad for the cats and dogs.

Actually, given the number of dogs and cats euthanized each year as unwanted, I would have no objection to some good coming of their deaths in the form of feeding the hungry -- or even sating gourmet palates in places like France. And I say that as a dog lover whose own canine companion is spoiled beyond belief.

The article I quoted from above is long on emotion and short on facts. Here's hoping that Congress ignores the liberal hysteria and gives the legislation it advocates teh deep-sixing it truly deserves.

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This is a new and different excuse for speeding

A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday.

The driver was caught traveling 161 km/hr (100 mph) in a 100 km/hr zone in eastern Ontario Sunday.

"A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident.

Local police said it was the first time they had ever heard of such an excuse.
"I've never been to Switzerland but obviously they must have a problem with that there," said police spokesman Joel Doiron, adding that in his 20 years of service he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario.

In a related story, a Texas A&M alum was cited for moving too fast in a local singles bar. He claimed he was taking advantage of the ability pick up girls without hitting on a goat.

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It is hoped that the problem can be resolved in time for a Thursday launch.

NASA scrubbed plans to launch the shuttle Atlantis today on a long-delayed assembly mission to the international space station when it discovered problems with an onboard fuel cell.

The space agency made tentative plans to try again Thursday with a lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center at 11:03 a.m. CDT.

However, shuttle managers intended to spend several hours today trying to diagnose the cause of a voltage spike in one of three fuel cells that generate electricity aboard the shuttle once it lifts off, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.

* * *

The fuel cell problem was discovered just after midnight, before the launch control team began loading the shuttle's external fuel tank with liquid oxgen and hyrdrogen propellants.

If the problem cannot be resolved in time for a Friday launch, it will have to be delayed into next month to avoud conflicting with a Russian launch to the ISS.

Posted by: Greg at 10:26 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This could result in the overturning of the big Vioxx verdict in Texas. You see one of the jurors owed money to the plaintiff, and had a history of borrowing large sums of money from her.Yet none of this was disclosed during jury selection. Furthermore, phone calls between the juror and the plaintiff appear suspicious.

Attorneys for Merck & Co. want to see bank and cellphone records that could show the extent of a juror's financial relationship with a plaintiff who won a $32 million verdict against the drug company in the death of a 71-year-old man who took Vioxx.

Jose Manuel Rios, a $22,000-a-year school janitor who served on the panel that found Merck liable for Leonel Garza's fatal heart attack after taking the painkiller Vioxx, testified in a post-trial deposition to borrowing up to $10,000 interest-free from Garza's widow, Felicia, the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Merck. He said the loans included $2,500 that was paid off just weeks before he was selected as a juror in the case.

He said Felicia Garza also loaned money to others in the community.

Tilden Katz, a spokesman for Merck's legal team, said Merck attorneys were hoping the documents would help them ``get to the bottom of" the financial relationship.

``Everyone is entitled to a fair trial," he said. ``A financial relationship with a juror raises a serious question as to whether the Garza trial was consistent with these vital principles."

Plaintiff attorney Joe Escobedo did not return a call for comment.

Rios produced cellphone records that showed calls from his number to Garza's. He told lawyers his wife, a teacher's aide, made the calls on school business. Merck lawyers say the timing of the calls, including evening calls made days after he received his jury summons and the day before jury selection, is ``highly suspicious."

Merck lawyers requested Rios's deposition in June, after a fellow school employee alerted the local attorney to the loans.

Oneida Saenz, a textbook data specialist for the Rio Grande City school district, said she observed the financial transactions beginning in the fall of 2003.

Saenz said that she spoke to Rios in March.

``He said, `I can't wait to get back to court,' and I said, `You don't want to get me started. You know you don't belong there,' " the affadavit reads.

The case, which ended in April, was the sixth to reach a verdict among more than 11,000 lawsuits involving the blockbuster painkiller . Plaintiff attorneys hailed it as the first in which a jury found short-term usage was one of the factors leading to a heart attack.

Merck attorneys said Leonel Garza only used the drug for a week, which wasn't long enough for it to cause heart attacks. Plaintiff attorneys said he took the drug for 17 days.

Garza was a smoker with a 20-year history of heart disease, but plaintiff attorneys said recent medical tests showed his veins to be clear and his heart attack risk to be low.

Sounds to me like this was an attempt to play the jury-lottery -- and that the plaintiff and her legal team sought to rig the verdict. Toss the verdict out -- and the suit along with it.

Posted by: Greg at 03:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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But I promise to continue calling him an @$$hole.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin vowed never again to call the World Trade Center site a "hole in the ground" during a visit to New York on Friday to let investors know his hurricane-devastated city is reopen for business.

Nagin stopped short of again apologizing for using that description of the Twin Towers site -- where 2,759 people died in the September 11 attacks -- during a U.S. television interview that aired last week.

"I tell you what I will never do again is refer to that site as a hole. It's a sacred site that is presently in an undeveloped state," Nagin told a news conference to launch the New Orleans Rebirth economic development tour.

Nagin had drawn criticism for his remarks in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" when asked why it was taking so long to clean up New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,339 people and caused $80 billion in damage.

"You guys in New York City can't get a hole in the ground fixed and it's five years later. So let's be fair," he said on "60 Minutes."

Nagin apologized for the comment on Sunday.

If the WTC comment were his only offense, I might give him a pass. But from his incompetent handling of the evacuation of New Orleans to his histrionic attempts to blame the Bush administration for the failures of his administration and that of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, to his "chocolate city" comment to this latest outrage, it is clear that the man is an idiot -- and that the people of his city are even dumber than he is because the reelected him.

Posted by: Greg at 03:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A new launch vehicle has been chosen -- and it looks like we are eight years from flight.

Lockheed Martin Corp. won a multibillion-dollar contract yesterday to build a vehicle to replace NASA's space shuttles, put a human on the moon for the first time since 1972 and be the precursor to a manned spaceship to Mars.

The award marks NASA's most concrete step to fulfill President Bush's two-year-old, $230 billion promise that the space agency would return astronauts to the moon and restore excitement about space exploration. NASA has planned to replace the shuttles since the mid-1980s and has spent almost $5 billion to do so -- with little success so far.

"It's just thrilling, for all of us," said Skip Hatfield, NASA's project manager. The vehicle, known as Orion, is the embodiment of the "very future of human space flight," he said.

Orion will look somewhat like the three-man Apollo command module but will carry as many as six astronauts. Like the shuttle, Orion will be able to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station.

Orion is expected to make its first manned flight by 2014, four years after NASA's three operating shuttles are retired. NASA said it hopes for a moon landing by 2020.

Unlike the shuttle, which lands like an airplane on a runway, Orion will descend with the aid of a parachute to landings in the ocean or on land. NASA plans to build two of the vehicles, one for manned flight and the other for unmanned. After judging how often the spaceships can be reused, the agency will decide how many more to buy, Hatfield said.

Since this part of Houston is, in many ways, a company town, I'm particularly gratified to see that so many friends now have some idea of where the space agency is headed next.

First, back to the moon.
Next, on to Mars. . . and beyond.

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After being stolen in broad daylight back in 2004, "The Scream" has been recovered by police and will eventually be returned to public display.

"The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two years and nine days after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum.

"'The Scream' and 'Madonna' are now in police possession," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage is much less than we could have feared."

He said the pictures were recovered on Thursday afternoon in "a successful police operation" but dodged questions about how it was done. He said no ransom had been paid "as of today."

"The Scream," Munch's most famous work, is an icon of existential angst showing a terrified figure against a blood-red sky. "Madonna" shows a bare-breasted woman with long black hair.

The picture has become a pop-culture icon over the last several years, but has long been a favorite of art lovers. I'm thrilled to learn that this piece will be returned to its public very soon.

In honor of the recovery, all of today's posts will feature "The Scream" -- with a special caption appropriate to the story.

I'm baaaaaaack!

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We finally have regulations issued under the texas law mandating parental consent for minor seeking abortion. parents will be required to give that consent in writing, not verbally.

After 13 months of intense pressure from opposing factions, the state has adopted rules requiring written — and notarized — parental consent forms for girls under age 18 to get abortions.

The new forms span six pages, warn of medical risks and tout "women's right to know" brochures backed by abortion opponents, said those on opposite sides of the issue.

"There was just so much heat from so many different sources," said Dr. Donald Patrick, executive director of the Texas Medical Board, which adopted the rules. "We were trying to tread a pretty fine line. It's just sometimes hard to do when there are two diametrically different points of view."

The board plans to send a copy of the medical records rules regarding parental consent to the Texas Register next week.

The rules would take effect 20 days later.

Patrick said the governor's office backed the final form approved late last week, which requires parents' written consent be notarized, an administrative rule not required by the consent law.

Given the number of cases of fraud that have been foundin consent cases, where someone other than the parent misrepresents tehmselves to authorize the abortion (including the responsible male, who is seeking to hide the evidence of statutory rape), the requirement that the signature be notarized is a good one.

Personally, I'd require that the parents sign in blood. Just as a reminder that they are authorizing the killing of their own innocent grandchild.

Parental consent? Informed consent?
What do they think this is -- a medical procedure?

Posted by: Greg at 10:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And I'm sure the crew and all the mission personnel are chompng at the bit!

NASA decided to try to launch the space shuttle Atlantis next Wednesday to resume construction of the International Space Station, after a delay caused by a lightning strike and the threat of bad weather. Hopes of a liftoff before the Atlantis’s launching window closes late next week had been rekindled after Hurricane Ernesto lost intensity on its approach to Florida. “We had no damage,” Bruce Buckingham, a Kennedy Space Center spokesman, said after the hurricane left the Atlantic Coast of Florida and headed north. “Zero. Nada.” Launching pad technicians have begun reattaching equipment needed to prepare the shuttle.

Please, not another weather delay!

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Well, given the demonization of our military personnel by the lft, we knew it would come to this.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is searching for five people who allegedly attacked a uniformed National Guardsmen walking along 138th Street in Parkland Tuesday afternoon.

The soldier was walking to a convenience store when a sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside him and the driver asked if he was in the military and if he had been in any action.

The driver then got out of the vehicle, displayed a gun and shouted insults at the victim. Four other suspects exited the vehicle and knocked the soldier down, punching and kicking him.

“And during the assault the suspects called him a baby killer. At that point they got into the car and drove off and left him on the side of the road,” Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Notice, of course, that none of the scum were willing to make it a fair fight -- five-on-one and a gun gave tehm all sorts of courage that they lack as individuals.

H/T to Michelle Malkin, who also lists a number of such instances in the recent past.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 PM | Comments (88) | Add Comment
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Sounds like a pleasurable way to get cheap gas.

A SYDNEY brothel owner has resorted to offering petrol discounts to clients in a bid to boost business.

Madam Kerry's brothel in western Sydney offers clients a discount of 20c a litre if they use one of its "service providers".

Kerry said high petrol prices were hurting the sex service market as much as any other industry.

"We wanted to think outside the box, we have gone quieter with the high petrol prices and we wanted to find a way to give something back to our clients."

And on top of the money back from the brothel, motorists could still claim the 4c discount offered by service stations aligned with supermarket chains.

"They just need to bring in the docket," Kerry said.

Ah, the entrepreneurial spirit is at worl!

But I will say this -- I'm surprised the line I put in italics made it into a story that deals, even tangentially, with prostitution. "Think outside the box"? "Give something back to our clients"? Incredible!

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