Saturday, May 31, 2008

Nine O'Clock And All Is Swell...

...tering.

You know it's almost summer when the garden thermometer reads 87 at this time of night. That of course means the gators will be spending more time in the water to stay cool, and when they finally do beach themselves they'll be so tired as to appear comatose.

Do the term "Shootin' Ducks" mean anything to ya...

Obama The Fave Among Gangbangers Too...

Who will be the next US President
Barack Obama 65.9%
Hillary Clinton 18.5%
John McCain 15.6%

Total votes: 19155

From the Street Gangs Resource Center, and thanks to The War on Guns.

The burning question from all of this is whether or not Hillary can make a quick pitch for gang votes. Maybe dress up Bill as a banger then send him out to psyche the crowd. He could then barge into the democrat convention with his homies and demand they send Obo packing. We all know how the spanish don't get along with the blacks, so there's gotta be a sizeable chunk of gangers who would follow Hillary anywhere as long as she keeps up the racist attacks.

Foreign Students Living High On Our Hog

WASHINGTON (May 2008) – "Lobbying groups frequently claim that foreign students are a benefit to America’s balance of payments, comparable to a booming export sector. For instance, the Institute for International Education (IIE) asserts that foreign students contributed a net $14.5 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2006-07 school year by paying for tuition and living expenses with resources from abroad, representing a net inflow of nearly $25,000 per year, every year, from the average foreign student.

To assess these claims, the Center for Immigration Studies has published a new Backgrounder, “Who Pays? Foreign Students Do Not Help with Balance of Payments,” written by immigration researcher David North. Acknowledging other, non-financial reasons the United States might benefit from admitting foreign students, North examines the most recent IIE report on foreign students’ monetary contributions and compares it to two other studies on the subject. His report finds that the balance-of-payments claim is totally without merit.

The complete report is available online at http://www.cis.org/articles/2008/back608.html and includes the following findings:

# The IIE assumes that the only cost to the domestic sources is tuition. However, partially hidden subsidies from U.S. sources, such as endowments and taxpayer contributions to state schools, are not taken into consideration.

# The IIE report relies on questionable data collection techniques, using foreign student advisers as a primary source for determining whether students’ funding originated overseas or domestically. In the most recent year, little more than half of the foreign student advisers surveyed even responded to the survey’s question on the origin of students’ resources.

# While the IEE claims that two-thirds or more of foreign students’ funding comes from abroad – i.e., money pumped into the U.S. economy from abroad – other, more rigorous studies that surveyed the students themselves have produced very different results. In prior research, the author found that only 10.4 percent of the foreign students’ incomes came from overseas, the rest coming from U.S. sources. A multi-agency survey of doctoral students found that only 9.7 percent of foreign students’ resources came from overseas."

From "US sources" means of course you and me. Government grants. Billions flushed down the Hillary. Click the included link to read the whole thing.

The Siderlock Is Making It Big


"Lone Wolf Distributors introduces SIDERLOCK®, the new security trigger for use with all Glock pistols. This unique cross bolt security trigger replaces the original Glock trigger providing an infallible stop to any rearward trigger movement. SIDERLOCK® works under a simple concept: Quick, positive deployment of a cross bolt safety pin that allows simple and fast displacement in either direction. Pushing the safety on restricts rearward trigger movement. Push the safety off the trigger works as intended. Easily installed or removed, works for left or right hand use. Provides additional assurance avoiding any accidental discharge. Lifetime guarantee on materials and workmanship."

Lone Wolf is just now introducing them for sale, but the Siderlock has been around for a while, and seem to be selling like hotcakes. I truly hoped that this product would be a flash in the pan fad that'd go the way of the Dodo, but it sure looks like it is here to stay.

The single best security trigger is the one you respect and don't milk. Nothing yet invented can replace common sense and carefulness. Attention to detail used to be paramount. Now its one gimmick after another to take the place of wits.

NRA Outrage Of The Week

"This week’s outrage comes to us from Winchendon, Massachusetts where, in yet another case of “zero-tolerance” enforcement defying common sense, fourth-grader Bradley Geslak was suspended from Toy Town Elementary School for bringing a Memorial Day souvenir to school.

According to a May 29, Telegram.com article, a uniformed veteran gave the 10-year-old two empty rifle shell casings from blanks used during the town’s Memorial Day celebration Monday morning. Bradley gave one of the empty casings to his grandfather and kept the other as a souvenir. The trouble began when he took his souvenir to school the next day.


“He was just playing with it at lunch,” explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He wasn't showing it to anyone; he had it in his hand and was playing with it.”


A teacher saw him with the harmless piece of brass and confiscated it. Ms. Geslak was then called at work and told to come and pick up her son, who had been suspended for five days!


Ms. Geslak arrived at the school to find her son in tears. “I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” she said. “It was just an empty shell, not even from a real bullet. A sharpened pencil would be more dangerous than this piece of metal.”


“He was so proud to have been given them. His dad’s a veteran, his uncle’s a veteran, both his grandfathers are veterans. Memorial Day is a big thing to us. It’s a very important holiday and we have a big celebration every year,” Ms. Geslak said.


Ms. Geslak, who will be forced to miss work in order to stay home with her son, says she is worried about what having a “weapon-related suspension” on his school record will mean to his future.


To add insult to injury, the family says a school official told them that the shell would not be returned, and that the next step might involve assigning a probation officer to Bradley! Yes, you read that right, a probation officer.


A young boy punished over a harmless souvenir. By any standard, that’s outrageous.

If you’d like to express your concern over this incident, please visit http://www.winchendon.mec.edu/. To leave a voice message for Brooke Clenchy, Superintendent of Schools, please call 978-297-0031.


It's a shame that a 10-year-old had to be victimized like that, but we are after all talking about Massachusetts. When these lunatics say "zero-tolerance" they MEAN it, and for heavens sake how come his mother hasn't been paying attention. This isn't some grown-up who can fight such a raw deal, someone we can get behind and help with advice and support, this is a little kid. You can email the school all you want but it isn't going to make a lick of difference because the people who live in Massachusetts have to take back their rights from the bottom up, and the reason they do not is the simple fact that most of them believe such zero-tolerance nonsense to be just swell.


Lunatic liberals don't get elected to public office, and schools don't get staffed with teachers who believe that a good hug-a-thon is all thats needed to save the world unless the voters WANT it that way. Mass, NJ, NYC, and much of California are populated by folks who despise the American way of life and unless a whole lot of real people move in to outnumber them there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.


That's what makes this case of child abuse so hard to swallow. They think they're doing the right thing, they're in charge, and they've found enough traitors to defend them in the name of law & order.

Finally, To End Video Saturday: "Does Your Dog Bite?"

Sister Hazel: All For You



One of the few bands ever to sound better live than pre-recorded. YouTube disallows embedding their live version, but you can see it here.

Finally, The Day The Music Died. Song And Video

Chantilly Lace

The Real Peggy Sue, And Richie Valen's Donna

Live Version Of Peggy Sue

3 instruments, count 'em. The freshness, the verve, the beginnings of real rock & roll. To this day, Buddy Holly remains my favorite male vocalist.

True Love Ways



Full orchestra, and Buddy's heartfelt lovesong.

His wife has never been to his grave site. At the very end you'll see the plane, and Buddy's body lying in the foreground. Richie was nearby, and the Big Bopper traveled over 40 corn rows before coming to rest. The Bopper had a revolver in his luggage (he insisted upon being paid in cash and NOBODY was stealing HIS money), and it wasn't found at the crash site, not at first. Turned up a farmer had picked it up, and a round had been fired, leading investigators to think that perhaps the gun discharged, hitting the pilot or damaging the instrumentation. But the farmer finally fessed up that he had shot the thing.

The Genius That Was Buddy Holly: Everyday



A Glockenspiel, the drummer patting his lap, and the genius of Buddy Holly

THEY FINALLY DID IT...


Japanese Scientists Create World's Smallest Ramen Bowl

TOKYO — Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small it can be seen only through a microscope.

Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter 1/25,000 of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.

The Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes, Nakao said.

Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about one-ten-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair.

Carbon nanotubes are being explored for a wide range of uses in electronics and medicine because their structure endows them with powerful physical properties such as a strength greater than steel.

The ramen bowl experiment included a string of "noodles" that measured one-12,500th of an inch in length, with a thickness of one-1.25 millionth of an inch.

"We believe it's the world's smallest ramen bowl, with the smallest portion of noodles inside, though they are not edible," Nakao said, adding that he hopes to make many more of these bowls so that people may use them to satisfy Yurei, or Japanese ghosts, leading them to finally find peace in a serene noodle ceremony.

"We make them small then give them away so everybody can have one," Nakao said, dismissing criticisms that such expensive technology should be used for placating ghosts.

"Everybody have problems with ghosts of ancestors always bothering them, especially mothers-in-law so this way we can chase away such tiny spirits and finally have some peace," he concluded.

Video Purportedly Showing Space Aliens Shown


A video purportedly showing aliens has been shown to the press, the Denver Post reports.

The approximately three-minute-long video, in grainy black and white, appears to show a creature with big eyes looking through a window into a house, the Post said. But it was unclear if it was a puppet or an alien.

Click here for more from the Denver Post.

Jeff Peckman, who has proposed the city of Denver create an 18-member extraterrestrial affairs commission, screened the video for the media Friday at Metropolitan State College.

"This one looked very gentle and very innocent and youthful," Peckman told FOX News on Friday.

The video shows a white creature with a balloon-shaped head that pops up and down in a windowsill 8 feet above the ground, according to the Post.

Peckman said the head popped up on the windowsill four times, the face white with large black eyes that appeared to blink.

PICTURED: Still shot of purported space alien.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Dummies All Around


Brit SWAT Versus Lara Croft Mannequin

"When police spotted a gun-wielding suspect lurking in the shadows of a suburban front room, their response was swift.

Armed officers burst into the house, shouted at the owner to lie on the floor, and ordered him to surrender his weapon.

But efficiency turned to embarrassment when the "gunman" turned out to be a life-sized model of the video game character Lara Croft, complete with trademark outsized pistols.

Computer shop owner David Williams, 42, had taken the dummy home to put it up for sale on the auction site eBay.

As the source of the confusion dawned on all concerned, it might have been the moment for an apology from the police.

Instead, however, Mr Williams was taken to the cells and held for more than 13 hours before being released.

He is now on bail for a suspected firearms offence, and Lara Croft remains impounded as evidence.

"It would have been laughable if it hadn't been so terrifying," he said yesterday. "One of the police held a gun and yelled, 'Where's the weapon, where's the weapon?'

"I didn't have a clue what was going on, I assumed they'd got the wrong house. I couldn't believe it when I realised they'd mistaken a Lara Croft dummy for someone with a gun."

Father-of-two Mr Williams had phoned police after receiving nuisance phone calls, and officers arrived at his house in Dukinfield, near Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, shortly before midnight.

He says he did not hear them arrive, but unknown to him one officer had seen the dummy's silhouette through the front window and called for armed back-up.

Soon afterwards, the street was cordoned off and a team of armed officers burst in through Mr Williams's back door.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said officers peered inside after Mr Williams failed to answer his front door.

"They believed they saw a silhouette of a person pointing what appeared to be a firearm inside the house," she said.

They followed "correct procedure" by withdrawing to await armed officers, she added.

"Officers then went into the house and found a mannequin holding a toy weapon."

Mr Williams, who says he is speaking to lawyers about a possible claim for wrongful arrest, will hear whether he faces further action when he answers bail next month."

Yes indeed. ALWAYS follow correct procedure when confronted with a dummy. Especially one that is armed.

Homeless Woman Lived Undetected in Japanese Man's Closet for a Year

TOKYO — "A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.

"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman "neat and clean."

And all this time he probably imagined himself infested by fairies. But nope; no prancing dandy's just some poor woman.

Teacher Beat, Killed Blind Boy for Not Learning Koran

"A young blind boy has died after a teacher at his Islamic school in Pakistan hung him upside down and beat him for not learning the Koran, Agence France-Presse reported Friday.

Teacher Qari Ziauddin allegedly hung Muhammad Atif, 7, from a ceiling fan at Qari Latif Islamic school near Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered an investigation into the boy’s death, AFP reported.

"The Prime Minister has expressed his deep sorrow and concern over the tragic death of Muhammad Atif, who reportedly died as a result of corporal punishment by his teacher,'' an official government statement said.

Pakistani police said Ziauddin has been arrested and charged in Atif’s murder. The police also report Ziauddin did not take the boy to the hospital after his condition deteriorated following the beating.

Local police official Akram Niazi told AFP an autopsy report confirmed that physical torture caused Atif’s death.

"Qari Ziauddin hanged Atif upside down with a ceiling fan in the school after beating him with sticks, which caused his death,'' Niazi told AFP."

Am awaiting what I'm certain will be a strong condemnation of this atrocity from the islamic-defenders.

Not holding my breath though.

Those Expensive Ivory Towers

"A college can only charge as much as students are willing and able to pay. In recent decades, though, federal (and some state) lawmakers have forked over ever-more money to student aid - enabling colleges to charge exorbitant prices.

Consider the per-pupil cost of tuition, fees, room and board, as tracked by the College Board. At private US four-year institutions, the "price" of college rose to an average of $30,367 for the 2006-07 school year - up 208 percent over the last two decades. At public four-year institutions, the rise was almost 216 percent.

Overall inflation in that period? Consumer prices rose about 84 percent. It's clear that Higher Ed's got a big problem.

How do we know the problem isn't just that colleges' own expenses are rising?

Consider two costs - energy and staff.

Energy costs have ballooned nationwide - but they've risen faster on campus. A recent Forbes analysis found that the cost of "heating, cooling and powering" colleges rose 124 percent between 1983 and 2007, while businesses saw only a 60 percent rise. Our colleges and universities plainly haven't felt the same pressures to achieve energy efficiency.

And, in an era when the private sector has been pruning management fat, Higher Ed's been adding it: Federal education statistics show that the number of campus executives and administrators per hundred students grew by more than a fifth from 1976 to 2005.

In other words, colleges and universities have been able to raise prices with impunity - and even add to their fat - because government's ensured that students can pay.

It's a vicious cycle: Parents and students complain that the cost of college is too high. Politicians, seeking votes, boost aid. Colleges, competing for better-heeled students, offer nicer amenities and charge higher tuition. Parents and students complain again - and the addiction deepens.

The only people with the power to force Higher Ed into rehab are the politicians, who could slow down aid and get the Ivory Tower on the road to recovery. But few pols are willing to engage in "tough love."

Indeed, the credit crunch offered politicians built-in cover to begin weaning Higher Ed off of easy money - by claiming that bigger problems forced their hands. Instead, they once again increased the flow of taxpayer dollars.

There's no other conclusion: The Ivory Tower is addicted to taxpayer cash, and Washington is happy to keep the junkie hooked."

Here's an example of the old shell game being played with OUR money:

In Gainesville, University of Florida students have a transportation fee added into their tuition. This then allows them to ride any bus in the city just by flashing their student ID card. The teachers get a free ride as well, so we're talking about 65,000 pre-paid, 'round the clock bus rides each and every day. For those who cannot afford it, government grants step in to make up the difference.

Trouble is, less than a third of those eligible ride the buses, as is evidenced by the literal thousands of scooters and beater-cars clogging the highways and byways. The city makes out like a bandit though, as the University along with the Federal Government assure that mass transit here ALMOST breaks even. Whenever the Regional Transit System is in need of a few extra bucks...say when there are no students in class and bus routes are shut down but the drivers and mechanics and maintenance and management and campus police department still need to be paid to do nothing...the city calls for help from the University and "new and improved" routes are added to the schedule in order to induce Uncle Sam to fork over some extra cash.

Which it does, and with a smile. We therefore subsidize not only the University, but the Transit System, the road workers, the cops, and anyone remotely associated with this shell game. They all proudly point to a balanced budget and the University crams more and more students into a finite space each and every year because there's gold in them 'thar kids.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

"Only rangers need loaded guns in national parks"

Arizona Daily Sun editorial

"The recent armed carjacking at the Grand Canyon has again raised fears of violent crime in our national parks and led to a call to allow visitors to carry loaded weapons in self-defense. If there was a crime wave, either at the Canyon or in the park system generally, we might be more concerned. But here are the figures for 2006, the latest year for which data are available: Out of 272 million visitors, there were 11 killings, 35 rapes or attempted rapes, 61 robberies, 16 kidnappings and 261 aggravated assaults."

...

"As we've noted in this space before, national parks like the Grand Canyon are seen as sanctuaries not just for game animals but also humans seeking to connect with a natural grandeur that has little room for firearms. If society has drawn the line and banned guns from this country's special places, violators deserve especially long sentences as a deterrent. Combined with a beefed-up ranger presence at the busier parks, serious prison time for gun violators will send a message that the Park Service is as serious about violent crime as it seems to be about gun rights."

Now, I can certainly understand how a person incapable of defending himself would feel the need to hire more and more armed men for protection. With taxpayer dollars of course.

Problem is, there are those among us quite good at self-defense, and don't need to ask (demand?) our fellow Americans to fork over their hard earned bucks to employ even more hordes of bodyguards just to feel safe while out camping.

And how dare an editor of a rag like the Daily Sun take it upon himself to demand you and I disarm just because he can't cut the mustard. This slimeball would squeal like a stuck pig were someone to suggest an abridgment of the 1st Amendment but hasn't a qualm about eradicating the 2nd.

Massachusetts Gun Owners Begin An Overdue Awakening

"Gun owners are complaining that local police chiefs have too much leeway in considering applications for the state's concealed weapons license, creating a frustrating patchwork of gun regulations that vary from town to town.

In a letter to the state attorney general's office, gun owners say that police chiefs throw up roadblocks that are unnecessary, and possibly illegal, for gun owners to obtain a Class A license that allows the holder to carry a concealed handgun or own rifles with a large capacity for ammunition.

"You don't know what you are going to get into with your local police chief," said Daniel S. Noreck, a 59-year-old electrical engineer from Mansfield.

Noreck said he was required to supply two letters of reference when he renewed his license in Mansfield. That was not required in the town in which he lived before, where he received his original license.

To get a Class A license, state law says an applicant must be 21, a US citizen, and never convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor with a sentence longer than two years. Applicants must also complete a firearms safety course. The license is good for six years.

But the law also gives municipalities and local police chiefs broad discretion to force applicants to meet other requirements.

For example, communities such as Easton, Mansfield, Sharon, Walpole, and Worcester require two or three letters of reference for certain kinds of licenses. Braintree requires five. Brookline requires licensed owners to pass a gun certification test when they renew their licenses every six years. Boston requires membership in a gun club. Andover requires a note from a doctor.

"There are 351 different standards for getting a gun license," said Ken Sherman, a Navy veteran and gun owner for 40 years who decided not to move from North Grafton to Falmouth a few years ago when he learned that he might not be able to renew his license. "It is what each chief wants."

For their part, local chiefs shrug off the complaints. Their requirements are legal and it's good that local communities have some control over who is armed, they say.

In Braintree, Chief Paul H. Frazier said he has had few complaints - maybe six over 15 years. The requirement for five letters of reference has been in place for about 20 years.

"Not all communities are the same," said Falmouth Chief Anthony J. Riello, who is president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association. "Braintree is different from Falmouth, Pittsfield is different from Braintree and Falmouth."

John Rosenthal, founder of the nonprofit group Stop Handgun Violence, said he is happy with the way the Class A restrictions work.

"We make it at least a little bit harder for criminals and terrorists to get guns, and we have the lowest firearm fatality rate in the nation, second only to Hawaii. Gun laws work in this state."

Some chiefs are frank about being tough in handing out licenses.

"There has to be a need before I'm going to be giving you a license to carry with no restrictions," said Quincy Chief Robert F. Crowley. The problem with some gun organizations, said Crowley, is that they want Massachusetts to issue licenses to anyone who is not explicitly disqualified.

"I think that is insanity."

And shame on the good (?) citizens of Massachusetts for giving positions of authority to traitorous little dictators such as Chief Crowley and his brotherhood of law breakers. Then again, any dump that would hire a killer like Ted Kennedy for all these years probably deserves what it gets. And if all of these "restrictions" are so bloody effective, then why are there MORE criminal acts committed with guns now than BEFORE the infamous '68 gun control act?

Lions Eat Game Farm Worker in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — "Police say six caged lions left only fingers and intestines after eating a worker giving them water.

The lions attacked the 49-year-old man Tuesday after he went inside their cage to deliver water, police said Wednesday.

The man had been working at the Uitspan game farm in northwest South Africa for at least two years, police said. No one witnessed the attack.

Environmental affairs was called to the game farm, which cages lions and other animals for tourists' viewing, to discus the fate of the lions."

The thing to do here, is to put up signs, lots of signs, prohibiting such activity. For we all know that to prevent animals from engaging in such behavior, all one need do is make it illegal, and don't forget those signs.

Just fingers and some gut? They ate his head?

Woman cited for carrying shotgun in Longview WA

RCW 9A.84.030

Disorderly conduct.


(1) A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if the person:

(a) Uses abusive language and thereby intentionally creates a risk of assault;

(b) Intentionally disrupts any lawful assembly or meeting of persons without lawful authority;

(c) Intentionally obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic without lawful authority; or

(d)(i) Intentionally engages in fighting or in tumultuous conduct or makes unreasonable noise, within five hundred feet of:

(A) The location where a funeral or burial is being performed;

(B) A funeral home during the viewing of a deceased person;

(C) A funeral procession, if the person described in this subsection (1)(d) knows that the funeral procession is taking place; or

(D) A building in which a funeral or memorial service is being conducted; and

(ii) Knows that the activity adversely affects the funeral, burial, viewing, funeral procession, or memorial service.

(2) Disorderly conduct is a misdemeanor.

[2007 c 2 § 1; 1975 1st ex.s. c 260 § 9A.84.030.]

Notes:

Effective date -- 2007 c 2: "This act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and takes effect immediately [February 2, 2007]." [2007 c 2 § 2.]
______________________________________________________________

LONGVIEW, Wash. -- "Longview police found a woman standing in front of a U.S. Bank branch.

Police say they held 27-year-old Lauren K. Smith at gunpoint until she agreed to drop the weapon.

Smith told police that she had been on her way to pawn the shotgun at a pawn shop shortly before 5 p.m. on Friday when her car broke down. She says she then began walking up the street with the weapon.

Smith was cited for disorderly conduct, which carries a $250 fine, and released. The shotgun was handed over to one of Smith's relatives."

Yes, the cossacks are at it again. Shaking with fear, they drew down on a woman who was not breaking the law, just because they can.

Bastards.

Socialist Anti-Gun Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill On Lifelong Weapons Permits

"Gov. Janet Napolitano on Tuesday vetoed a pair of proposals to expand gun rights in Arizona, arguing the measures would have needlessly put law enforcement and the public at risk.

Senate Bill 1106, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Gray, R-Mesa, would have created a state-issued, concealed-weapon permit valid for a lifetime. Under current law, a gun owner must renew the permit every five years, and each time undergo a new criminal background check.

"The concept of lifetime validity for a concealed-weapons permit is unwise public policy," Napolitano, a Democrat, wrote in a letter that accompanied her veto.

She noted that state licenses for food-service workers in Arizona are valid for only three years, after which chefs, waiters, bartenders and dishwashers must take a new exam on food safety to renew their licenses."

Damn. Someone help me out here. I just can't find Food Service anywhere in the Constitution...

Whose side are police unions and the media on?

I left that duh-worthy headline intact on purpose...so read on MacDuffs

With pending legislation that reinforces the popular concept that a person's home is their castle, and a pro-gun Democrat governor who fully supports it, the anti-gun media has had a tough time sustaining the type of barrage against SB184 that was typical of their past assaults against HB12 (Ohio's Concealed Handgun Licensure Law) and HB367 (Ohio's Statewide Gun Control Preemption Law).

Their opportunity came last week, however, when the leadership of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police labor union realized that someone has taken their veto stamp away from them. These elitists are having trouble adjusting to the fact that they are subject to citizen control and the citizens have reasserted control over their objections, and the anti-gun media are only happy to give union leaders' dog and pony show plenty of coverage.

But as an Associated Press story that is being run in newspapers, radio and television across the state shows, more media coverage isn't necessarily a good thing, either for the police unions OR the journalists who cover them."

It isn't exactly news that both cops and robbers (modern day journalists and/or liberal politicians, to those not in the know) are generally AGAINST people being able to defend themselves because that takes the power from the few and distributes it to the many.

The old timers used to call it...what was it now...oh yeah, E Pluribus Unum. Click the headline link for the full magilla.

Nevada CCW Holder Shoots Murderer

On Sunday May 25, 2008 at approximately 2:30 a.m. the Winnemucca Police Department was dispatched to the Players Bar and Grill located at 1062 South Grass Valley Road on the report of numerous shots fired and multiple gunshot victims. A combined law enforcement team consisting of Officers from the Winnemucca Police Department and Deputies from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office responded to the dispatch call and secured the scene. There were approximately 300 patrons in and around the bar. No shots were fired by law enforcement during the incident.

The officers on scene discovered three adult males who had died from obvious gunshot wounds. Two additional gunshot victims were also located. One of these victims, a 34 year old male, was transported to Humboldt General Hospital via private vehicle. The other victim, a 22 year old female, was transported via Humboldt County Ambulance. Both of these injured parties were treated and admitted to Humboldt General Hospital in “stable condition”. Both victims have now been released from the hospital.

The initial investigation indicated that there had been two separate shooters during the incident. One of the alleged shooters, Ernesto Fuentes Villagomez, age 30 of Winnemucca, was among the three men who were dead on arrival. The other was a 48 year old Reno man who was initially taken into custody at the scene as a person of interest.

The subsequent investigation lead detectives to believe that Villagomez entered the bar and at some point began firing multiple rounds. At least two of these rounds struck and killed the other two decedents, Jose Torres age, 20 and his brother Margarito Torres, age 19 both of Winnemucca. At some point during this shooting spree Villagomez allegedly stopped and according to witnesses reloaded his high capacity handgun and began shooting again.

It was at this point that the second shooter, the Reno resident, produced a concealed handgun and proceeded to fire upon Villagomez who succumbed to his wounds. The Reno resident was in possession of a valid Concealed Carry Permit issued through the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

After further investigation as well as ongoing discussions with Humboldt County District Attorney Russell Smith, the decision was made that the shooting of Villagomez by the Reno man was a justifiable homicide as outlined in Nevada Revised Statute 200.120 and 200.160. Because of this the Reno man was released from police custody.

Although the shooting occurred during the Runnamucca event weekend there is no evidence linking the incident to any rival motorcycle gangs or clubs. Additionally, each of the decedents and victims were all Winnemucca residents. The investigation is currently pursuing a lead that indicates that this event may have been the result of a long standing feud between several families. There have been no further acts of violence reported in relation to this incident.

The Winnemucca Police Department utilized the services of the Washoe County Crime Lab to assist with the processing of the crime scene. Additional support in the investigation was provided by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, the Department of Public Safety – Investigation and Highway Patrol Divisions, and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office."

Good job, Mystery Shooter.

And sure the police don't credit any of this to gang warfare because that would be sooooooo racist. No problem was ever solved by making believe it didn't exist; the sooner these cretins calling themselves peace officers and their overlords realize this the sooner they can back to protecting citizens in need of protection.

Dunkin' Donuts Pulls Rachael Ray Ad Over 'Terror' Symbolism


BOSTON — "Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because "the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."

In the spot, Ray holds an iced coffee while standing in front of trees with pink blossoms.

Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. Critics who fueled online complaints about the ad in blogs say such scarves have come to symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The kaffiyeh, Malkin wrote in a column posted online last Friday, "has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons."

Tempest in a coffee pot or not, anything popularized by Yasser AraRAT should automatically ring the wrong bells.

And to offer that well gee, lots of folks who are not terrorists wear such scarves is akin to saying that since the swastika is over 3000 years old it isn't a big deal to go parading around with that either. I can't help it if the clueless and not-so clueless don symbols of the raving madmen who've killed thousands of Americans, but I CAN be pissed about it.

Do I think that Rachel Ray did this on purpose?

But of course. She's a leftwing celebrity and leftwing celebrities adore these criminals.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

CARBON BELCH DAY

Global Warming Skeptics Plot 'Carbon Belch Day'

Conservative grassroots group Grassfire.org wants people to waste as much energy as possible on June 12 by "hosting a barbecue, going for a drive, watching television, leaving a few lights on, or even smoking a few cigars."

The point: the group wants to "help Americans break free from the 'carbon footprint guilt' being imposed by Climate Alarmists."

Grassfire.org says it's skeptical over claims that man-made sources of carbon dioxide emissions -- from automobile exhausts to manufacturing plants -- are raising the Earth's temperature at a dangerous rate. Theories about global warming were highlighted by former Vice President Al Gore's 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Grassfire.org president Steve Elliott, in a statement, said such theories are off the mark. "It's time for Americans to purge ourselves of the false guilt that Al Gore and the Climate Alarmists have placed on us," Elliott said.

Grassfire.org said it chose June 12 as the day it wants Americans to rev up their SUVs because it coincides with expected debate in Congress over a $1.2 billion carbon tax rebate program. "Carbon Belch Day will have at least as much impact on the so-called 'planetary emergency' of man-made global warming as the goofy save the earth mandates telling us to turn our lights off for an hour," said Elliott.

Cities around the world went dark for an hour on March 31 to mark "Earth Hour," an event created by the World Wide Fund for Nature to inspire people to find ways to use less energy.

Grassfire.org is the latest group to question whether global warming is a real phenomenon, or whether it's as severe as portrayed in Gore's film. London's Daily Telegraph this week called environmentalism "the new secular faith."

The paper said the United Kingdom's carbon credits program for industry is "just like the medieval trade in indulgences, where remission for sins was granted by the Church once the sinner confessed and received absolution."

Noted physicist Frederick Seitz, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, has also questioned the accuracy of global warming theories, as have a number of other academics."

I'll be posting more about CARBON BELCH DAY as time goes by, and we should all think about doing our part to pitch in and create as much carbon as possible on June 12.

Ann Coulter On Appeasement

"After decades of comparing Nixon to Hitler, Reagan to Hitler and Bush to Hitler, liberals have finally decided it is wrong to make comparisons to Hitler. But the only leader to whom they have applied their newfound rule of thumb is: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

While Ahmadinejad has not done anything as starkly evil as cut the capital gains tax, he does deny the Holocaust, call for the destruction of Israel, deny the existence of gays in Iran and refuses to abandon his nuclear program despite protests from the United Nations. That's the only world leader we're not allowed to compare to Hitler.

President Bush's speech at the Knesset two weeks ago was somewhat more nuanced than liberals' Hitler arguments. He did not simply jump up and down chanting: "Ahmadinejad is Hitler!" Instead, Bush condemned a policy of appeasement toward madmen, citing Neville Chamberlain's ill-fated talks with Adolf Hitler.

Suspiciously, Bush's speech was interpreted as a direct hit on B. Hussein Obama's foreign policy -- and that's according to Obama's supporters.

So to defend Obama, who -- according to his supporters -- favors appeasing madmen, liberals expanded the rule against ad Hitlerum arguments to cover any mention of the events leading to World War II. A ban on "You're like Hitler" arguments has become liberals' latest excuse to ignore history.

Unless, of course, it is liberals using historical examples to support Obama's admitted policy of appeasing dangerous lunatics. It's a strange one-sided argument when they can cite Nixon going to China and Reagan meeting with Gorbachev, but we can't cite Chamberlain meeting with Hitler.

There are reasons to meet with a tyrant, but none apply to Ahmadinejad. We're not looking for an imperfect ally against some other dictatorship, as Nixon was with China. And we aren't in a Mexican stand-off with a nuclear power, as Reagan was with the USSR. At least not yet.

Mutually Assured Destruction was bad enough with the Evil Empire, but something you definitely want to avoid with lunatics who are willing to commit suicide in order to destroy the enemies of Islam. As with the H-word, our sole objective with Ahmadinejad is to prevent him from becoming a military power.

What possible reason is there to meet with Ahmadinejad? To win a $20 bar bet as to whether or not the man actually owns a necktie?

We know his position and he knows ours. He wants nuclear arms, American troops out of the Middle East and the destruction of Israel. We don't want that. (This is assuming Mike Gravel doesn't pull off a major upset this November.) We don't need him as an ally against some other more dangerous dictator because ... well, there aren't any.

Does Obama imagine he will make demands of Ahmadinejad? Using what stick as leverage, pray tell? A U.S. boycott of the next Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran? The U.N. has already demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad has ignored the U.N. and that's the end of it.

We always have the ability to "talk" to Ahmadinejad if we have something to say. Bush has a telephone. If Iranian crop dusters were headed toward one of our nuclear power plants, I am quite certain that Bush would be able to reach Ahmadinejad to tell him that Iran will be flattened unless the planes retreat. If his cell phone died, Bush could just post a quick warning on the Huffington Post.

Liberals view talk as an end in itself. They never think through how these talks will proceed, which is why Chamberlain ended up giving away Czechoslovakia. He didn't leave for Munich planning to do that. It is simply the inevitable result of talking with madmen without a clear and obtainable goal. Without a stick, there's only a carrot.

The only explanation for liberals' hysterical zealotry in favor of Obama's proposed open-ended talks with Ahmadinejad is that they seriously imagine crazy foreign dictators will be as charmed by Obama as cable TV hosts whose legs tingle when they listen to Obama (a condition that used to be known as "sciatica").

Because, really, who better to face down a Holocaust denier with a messianic complex than the guy who is afraid of a debate moderated by Brit Hume?

There is no possible result of such a meeting apart from appeasement and humiliation of the U.S. If we are prepared to talk, then we're looking for a deal. What kind of deal do you make with a madman until he is ready to surrender?

Will President Obama listen respectfully as Ahmadinejad says he plans to build nuclear weapons? Will he say he'll get back to Ahmadinejad on removing all U.S. troops from the region? Will he nod his head as Ahmadinejad demands the removal of the Jewish population from the Middle East? Obama says he's prepared to have an open-ended chat with Ahmadinejad, so I guess everything is on the table.

Perhaps in the spirit of compromise, Obama could agree to let Iran push only half of Israel into the sea. That would certainly constitute "change"! Obama could give one of those upbeat speeches of his, saying: As a result of my recent talks with President Ahmadinejad, some see the state of Israel as being half empty. I prefer to see it as half full. And then Obama can return and tell Americans he could no more repudiate Ahmadinejad than he could repudiate his own white grandmother. It will make Chris Matthews' leg tingle.

There is a third reason to talk to dictators, in addition to seeking an ally or as part of a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Gen. Douglas C. MacArthur talked with Japanese imperial forces on Sept. 2, 1945. There was a long ceremony aboard the USS Missouri with full press coverage and a lot of talk. It was a regular international confab!

It also took place after we had dropped two nukes on Japan and MacArthur was officially accepting Japan's surrender. If Obama plans to drop nukes on Ahmadinejad prior to their little chat-fest, I'm all for it. But I don't think that's what liberals have in mind."

Most people of good will know full well what the democrat game is. America is too wealthy, too evil, and needs to be taken down a peg. Thats why liberal wear CHE tee-shirts, disrespect the American way of life, and push for government intrusion in virtually every facet of our daily sojourn around Sol 3.

Which is why monsters like Ahmadimeadozen get along so fabulously with the likes of Barry Hussein, and don't think Barry doesn't know it. Of COURSE they'd have one helluva chitchat, they do happen to agree on so very many things and have an awful lot in common.

At least Chamberlain understood that Hitler was a madman. The liberals think that all madmen are simply mad-men because the actions of America drives them insane.

Illegal guns cited in rise of shootings and murders

Crime in NYC Taking A Turn For The Worse


"The flood of illegal handguns on the city's streets is taking a disturbing toll: The number of murders and shootings have risen significantly this year.

The latest crime statistics reveal that 190 people have been killed this year, compared with 172 during the same period last year — a 10.4% increase.

The number of shootings is also up, with 499 documented incidents, compared with 444 during the same period last year — a 12.3% jump.

The latest stats track the bloodshed through Sunday — and don't include one of the bloodiest 24 hours in recent memory when 10 people were shot from Monday night into yesterday in Harlem. Seven of the victims were teens.

"The shootings in Harlem are evidence of the apparent ease with which teens are able to acquire illegal guns and to use them without regard to consequences," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday.

The NYPD closed out last year with 496 homicides, the fewest number of murders since reliable records were first kept more than 40 years ago. Overall crime also fell last year by 6%.

This year, overall crime is down 2.7% through Sunday, but several major categories of violent crime — murder, rape, robberies and shootings — are up.

Gun arrests also are down 10.7% compared with the corresponding period last year.

"Although New York remains the safest big city in America, I know that's a small solace to anyone who has personally been affected by a serious crime," Mayor Bloomberg said.

Police historian Thomas Reppetto said the NYPD needs more cops patrolling the streets if it's going to continue to push down crime to record levels.

The police force has shrunk 12% since its peak head count of 40,800 in fiscal year 2001. Budget cuts will drop the official head count to 36,838 officers, but right now there are roughly 35,000 cops on the payroll as the NYPD struggles to fill openings.

"You can't do what you used to do with 40,000 with 35,000 [cops]," Reppetto said yesterday. "Other major cities are seeing an increase in murders. We don't want that taking root here."

Kelly has said the department's low starting pay — raised just last week from $25,100 to $35,881 — has undercut recruitment.

Rank-and-file cops said they have noticed the reduction in manpower. It had been common for precincts to send out four to six patrol cars a night, said a police source. But "now some precincts are lucky if they can send out two sector cars a night," the source said.

"People are pulled for counterterrorism jobs, special details like the Pope. When you don't have enough people to begin with, that just means fewer eyes on the street keeping a small beef from blowing up."

Police officials said as many as three gunman were responsible for shooting the six teens at a holiday barbecue and basketball game at Marcus Garvey Park on Memorial Day. Cops arrested a 15-year-old boy and charged him with possessing an illegal gun. It was not immediately clear if he was one of the shooters.

"You know things are getting hard if you say, ‘Thank God, my child was only wounded,' " said Harlem resident Stacey Briggs, who ducked for cover when shots rang out."

Now, I could be wrong but having been born and raised in our biggest city at least my perspective is first hand. Believe it or not, lots and lots of people have the very same access to illegal guns, you can even look it up. So when among 8 million folks the same ones keep using guns to hurt innocent people it sort of strikes me odd that the city hasn't gotten a handle on the whys and wherefores of such crime. Oh heck, but of course they know. And the reason they don't want you or I to own guns, is for fear these people will come steal them.

We ALL know whats wrong. Damned few politicians and heads of law enforcement will do anything about it except to burden the innocent.

Jokers Who Played The Race Card

by Dick Morris


May 28, 2008 -- "IN its final days, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign has come to echo George Wallace's 1968 run.

Like Clinton, Wallace as a candidate stalked the Northeast exploiting white anger. Like her, he bypassed the nation's more educated and liberal parts to focus squarely on those who felt left behind, rallying animosity against elites.

But behind the mask of populism, it was race that fueled Wallace's campaign from the start. And it is race that has brought new life to Clinton's campaign in its final days.

Like Wallace, Clinton doesn't address racial prejudice squarely, but cloaks the appeal to our darker fears in seemingly neutral issues. He used opposition to school busing; she has played off Obama's alleged elitism and ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

To be fair, neither appeal is totally invalid.

Busing failed to integrate our schools and led, instead, to greater segregation as whites fled to the suburbs and/or to private schools.

Rev. Wright, meanwhile, is enough to scare the daylights out of anybody. To have a president who sat willingly in his pews, absorbing and seemingly condoning his hatred, is a worrisome prospect indeed.

But the basic fact remains that Clinton, like Wallace, is relying on race. Their tactics are similar, appealing to the same kind of voters for parallel reasons.

No, Clinton isn't a racist - but she's still using race to win elections. (So, by the way, did Bill Clinton in 1992, with his criticism of Sister Souljah and his much-publicized backing for capital punishment.)

Racism is as racism does. When a politician consciously exploits racial divisions, fears and animosity to win an election, he or she deserves condemnation.

But Hillary Clinton is neither a racist nor a populist; she's an opportunist. Discovering that the establishment consensus has left behind millions of disgruntled voters - the angry white men of yesteryear - she, like Wallace before her, is creating new fissures in the electorate in the hopes of upsetting a harmony that doesn't serve her ends.

Her advocates say that Clinton has found her voice. But this new voice is but an echo of a a discordant note in a discredited past.

In the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia and the former factory towns of Western Pennsylvania and Central Ohio, the anger into which this voice taps remains alive, hot and glowing. But most of America has moved beyond prejudice, beyond diversity, beyond even tolerance, into a post-racial era.

It was a proud feature of our politics in 2008 that we seemed to have crested this wave of progress - until Clinton, embittered by frustrated ambition, blew on the smoldering embers of racial fear to stage a comeback for the nomination.

It isn't her proudest moment."

Aside from the obvious (?) gender difference, the biggest thing separating Hillary from George is he looked better in pants. Oh yeah, and he didn't have a mullet, either.

He Lies...Sees Dead People...And Is Obviously Out To Top Hillary's Record For Disingenuous Tomfoolery ...

"Barack Obama’s campaign scrambled Tuesday to set the record straight after the Democratic presidential candidate said on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.

There were two obvious problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.

As the Republican National Committee seized on the discrepancies, Obama’s campaign clarified that the Illinois senator was actually referring to his “great uncle,” and that he had confused Auschwitz with another concentration camp. The campaign said he meant to refer to Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

“Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II — especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically.”

The campaign said his great uncle, Charlie Payne, served in the 89th Infantry Division, and that the unit was among those to liberate Ohrdruf on April 4, 1945.

According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Web site, Ohrdruf was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops in Germany. The site said the 89th Infantry Division was later recognized as a “liberating unit” by the museum and the Army’s Center of Military History.

The explanation from the Obama camp came after his remarks were put under the microscope by the RNC.

“Barack Obama’s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief,” said RNC Press Secretary Alex Conant."

I myself am of the opinion that Obama's Memorial Day speech where he praised our war dead then said he saw some of them in the audience, is a lot worse than his obvious avuncular misspeak. Whereas Hillary Clinton is an accomplished liar, Senator Obama doesn't quite lie on his feet as well and is usually caught on the spot instead of us having to wait for the truth to out.

Look at it this way; take everything he says as a fabrication and leave it at that. But this ability to have truck with the dearly departed is spooky.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Jimmy Carter Spills The Beans About Israeli Nukes...

“Secrets are edged tools,
That must be kept from children
And from fools.”
- English poet John Dryden.

"So now we know. Maybe it matters to you, maybe it doesn’t. If you’re Iranian President Ahmadinejad, my guess is that it does matter. Thanks to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter we’ve been advised that Israel has “150 or more” nukes in their arsenal.

Seriously, is this something that needed to be broadcast by a former U.S. President? Hot on the heels of his recent trip to the Middle East to sit down with Hamas officials for some bizarre reason, Carter was in the United Kingdom this past weekend for a conference when he decided to hold forth on Israel’s nuclear holdings.

Speaking at something called the Hay-on-Wye festival in Wales on Sunday, not to be confused with the Ham-on-Rye spectacular held at my place the same day, Carter was asked about the Iranian nuclear threat. In response he offered the following:

“The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred and Israel has 150 or more.” To the surprise of those in attendance the former president added that “… I believe Switzerland has a dozen or so, those Belgian bastards have 7, I’m pretty sure they’ve got one in Togo and dollars to donuts they’re hiding a couple in Canada.”

Now I understand perfectly why many folks would look at Carter’s statement and say “…uh, so what.” Possibly, those same folks would mutter “… who cares.” Maybe even a “… big deal, everyone knows they have nukes.”

Right. But that’s not really the point. The issue here isn’t whether the former president wandered off the reservation and lent credibility and specificity to a previously generally accepted notion. He did. The point is that, in the eyes of the Iranians, Carter provided a specific number informed by his years in the White House, and in doing so possibly provided leverage in their own efforts to develop a nuclear capability.

It doesn’t matter if he was perhaps making his own best guesstimate or perhaps reciting a number he’d seen in a news article in the past… the assumption in Ahmadinejad’s office will be that Carter, based on his time as U.S. President with access to highly classified intelligence, knows that Israel possesses “150 or more” weapons. And in seeing this information out in the public, attributed to what the world perceives as a highly credible source, Iran will use that information to its advantage.

Let’s try a multiple choice question: In our ongoing efforts to influence, pressure, cajole or encourage Iran to cease and desist their efforts to create a nuclear capability, we could describe the former president’s comments as…

a) Unhelpful
b) Distracting
c) Potentially damaging
d) Confusing to the Welsh
e) All of the above


If you chose “e” then you are an insightful student of foreign policy and likely far more clever than the PWB’s interns number one and two.

In trying to figure out a logical reason for why the former president thought it necessary to illuminate us with his inside knowledge of Israel’s holdings, I’ve come to the conclusion that he has such a disdain for the current administration that he honestly could care less what impact his actions or words have on current proceedings.

Some have speculated that perhaps he simply slipped. Personally I don’t believe this was a “Grandpa” moment. He’s too smart and well informed on the Middle East to miss the relative significance of his comments. Unfortunately, his willingness to out Israel’s capabilities may impact on the next administration’s efforts to deal with Iran.

Carter, and many others to be fair, believe that what we need to do is be more engaging with Iran… talk more and perhaps pressure less. More carrot, less stick. I don’t know about you, but if I’m looking to spend more time at the conference table, I may not want to show my cards in advance. Giving the Iranians a number that they can throw back at us, such as “150 or more”, is probably not the best way to start the game. It’s like calling “all in” before the hand has been dealt.

Before we wrap it up, and not to be churlish, but did anyone see the headline earlier today about the IAEA’s latest report on Iran? It actually made news the same day as Carter’s comments, which some might call sublime. Of course others would attribute it to the vast international conspiracy to discredit Iran. Apparently the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report indicating that Iran might be withholding information needed to determine whether they’ve been trying to develop nuclear weapons. Really?

Maybe now that they know about Israel’s 150 nukes, Ahmadinejad will see the light and respond with an honest and transparent discussion of Iran’s program. Does anyone know the Welsh translation for What a Load of Crap?"

What IS it with modern day democrat ex-Presidents?

We learn that Bill Clinton sold everything but our collective social security numbers to the chinese, and Mr. Peanut does his level best to give away whatever state secret he deems necessary in order to beef up islamic-terrorism.

Good thing we change the launch code for our nukes now and again, isn't it? Another reason to keep Hillary and Obo away from the Oval Office. Let either of those two in and eBay would be hard put to keep up with alla them bids on the exact locations of our Boomers.

Man Hunting Skunk Accidentally Shoots Self in Head, Dies

ELWOOD, Utah — "A Box Elder County man accidentally shot himself in the head while pursuing a skunk on his family farm.

The county sheriff's office says 27-year old Kelly Barfuss died from his injury. He was going to shoot the skunk from the passenger side of a pickup, but decided to pull the .22 caliber handgun back into the cab.

Chief Deputy Kevin Potter says the gun was cocked and something caused it to fire.

Barfuss and his uncle were watering at the family farm Saturday night. He was flown to a hospital in Ogden, where he died. Barfuss' death is considered an accident."

"Something caused it to go off."

Squeezing the trigger will do that. Most every time.

Case solved.

Hulk Versus Abomination...Street Fight

AWESOME

Monday, May 26, 2008

BLOGS4BORDERS Video Blogburst

LAETITIA Doin' Her IPSC Thang With a GLOCK 17

Testing

SPEAKEASY SPEED TEST: Download Speed: 12613 kbps (1576.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Internet speed seems okay. (like I've a clue as to what okay is)

New PC

We're busily transferring our favorite places, etc to the new pc just out of the box and the usual glitches abound. Well, actually everything is working great guns except the printer doesn't want to make nice with the new puter.

So if I'm AWOL for a time thats why.

Exclusive Pics From Martian Lander...

And Ride Fast Has One.

Admiral Mullen To The Armed Services: Stay Out Of Politics

WASHINGTON: "The highest-ranking U.S. military officer has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the United States approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

"The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times," wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

"As the nation prepares to elect a new president," Mullen wrote, "we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times."

"Keeping our politics private is a good first step," he added. "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting U.S. military personnel around the world, including, "What if a Democrat wins?" and, "What will that do to the mission in Iraq?"

"I am not suggesting that military professionals abandon all personal opinions about modern social or political issues," Mullen wrote. "What I am suggesting - indeed, what the nation expects - is that military personnel will, in the execution of the mission assigned to them, put aside their partisan leanings. Political opinions have no place in cockpit or camp or conference room."

He noted that "part of the deal we made when we joined up was to willingly subordinate our individual interests to the greater good of protecting vital national interests."

Mullen took his message directly to the U.S. Navy's newest officers on Friday, when he spoke to the Naval Academy's graduating class. Military personnel are obligated to give their unvarnished, even critical, advice to their civilian leaders, he told the class.

"If it's followed, great," Mullen said. "If it's not, we only have two choices: obey the orders we have been given, carrying them out with the professionalism and loyalty they deserve, or vote with our feet."

"That's it," he added. "We don't get to debate those orders after the fact. We don't get to say, 'Well, it's not how I would have done it,' or, 'If they had only listened to me.' Too late at that point - and too cowardly."

Translation: If there are enough fools in this nation to elect Obama or Clinton then lets all retire.Obama thinks he can talk the world into peace and all Hillary needs is a button to push in order to nuke the Iranians.

Bride And Groom Shot During Arkansas Wedding Ceremony

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An apparent stranger shot the bride, groom and two other people at an outdoor wedding in rural Arkansas, then was arrested after being chased by outraged guests, a sheriff's official said Sunday.

The wedding was just ending Saturday when the suspect approached with a 9 mm pistol and opened fire, Pope County sheriff's Lt. Aaron DuVall said. No one else was hurt.

About 50 people, including children, had attended the ceremony along Piney Creek north of Dover at a spot the lieutenant said was popular for picnicking and swimming. Dover is 64 miles northwest of Little Rock.

The suspect "was not associated with the wedding at all," DuVall said. "No one knew him."

Police arrested Patrick Paul Duvall, 29, after a he was chased into a Russellville restaurant parking lot, said the sheriff's lieutenant, who is not related to the suspect.

DuVall declined to identify the four people who were injured, but he said the bride, groom and a third victim remained in the hospital Sunday. One victim was treated and released.

Without the victims' names, it wasn't possible to get information from hospitals on the patients' conditions, and authorities are hampered by the fact that of the 184,564 residents of Little Rock, 84% of the population is named DuVall, or a variation of Clinton. Hospital spokesperson Clinton DuVall said that Little Rock General has put out an emergency bulletin asking for blood donors but declined to identify the blood needed, offering that "Most everybody here can give blood to one another so we don't even bother typing 'em."

Who Ever Said The Chicoms Didn't Have A Heart...

Quake Victims Can 'Replace' Child

China announces exception to one-child policy for some families affected by devastating earthquake

Madison's Space Pistols Probed


"Given pride of place in an unassuming museum on the East Coast of America is a pair of 200-year-old duelling (sic) pistols shrouded in mystery.

The intricately decorated guns were said to have been forged from the iron of a fallen meteorite.

They were a unique gift from the commander of a South American region, which would later become Argentina, to the fourth US president, James Madison.

"Permit me therefore to present to your Excellency... a specimen of the first essays of the manufacture of arms established in the provinces of Buenos Ayres and Tucuman," wrote General Ignacio Alvarez in an accompanying 14-page letter.

Over time, they passed into the hands of Madison's successor - James Monroe - and are now on display at a museum dedicated to him.

Since that time, the story of their origin has gone unquestioned.

Now, scientists armed with a battery of hi-tech machines have probed the pistols in unprecedented detail.

Their findings cast doubt on the accepted theory of their origins and have thrown up a whole new set of questions for historians about the guns and the motives of the original protagonists.

"It's made the mystery even more mysterious," Meghan Budinger, curator at the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library, told BBC News.

Click Here For The Mystery's Unraveling...Sort Of...

THE LAST DOUGHBOY

by George Will

May 26, 2008 -- CHARLES TOWN, W. VA.

"NUMBERS come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America's involvement in the First World War and 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking.

The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an Army recruiter who believed, or pretended to, the fibs he had unavailingly told to Marine and Navy recruiters in Kansas about being 18. He grew up on a Missouri farm, not far from where two eminent generals were born - John "Black Jack" Pershing and Omar Bradley.

"Boys in the country," says Buckles, "read the papers," so he was eager to get into the fight over there. He was told that the quickest way was to train for casualty retrieval and ambulance operations. Soon he was headed for England aboard the passenger ship Carpathia, which was celebrated for having, five years earlier, rescued survivors from the Titanic.

Buckles never saw combat but "I saw the results." He seems vague about only one thing: What was the First World War about?

Before leaving England for France, he was stationed near Winchester College, where he noticed "Buckles" among the names that boys had carved in their desks. This ignited his interest in genealogy, which led him to discover that his ancestor Robert Buckles, born in Yorkshire on May 15, 1702, arrived at age 30 in what is now West Virginia.

After Corporal Buckles was mustered out of the Army in 1920 with $143.90 in his pocket, he went to business school in Oklahoma City for five months, then rented a typewriter for $3 a month and sent out job applications. One landed him work in the steamship business, which took him around the world - Latin America, China, Manchuria. And Germany, where, he says, in 1928 "two impressive gentlemen" told him, "We are preparing for another war."

Behind glass in a cabinet in his small sitting room are mementos from his eventful life: a German army belt with a buckle bearing words all nations believe, "Gott Mit Uns (God Is With Us)." The tin cup from which he ate all his meals, such as they were, during the 39 months he was a prisoner of the Japanese - because he was working for a shipping company in Manila on Dec. 7, 1941.

Widowed in 1999, this man who was born during the administration of the 25th president recently voted in West Virginia's primary to select a candidate to be the 44th. His favorite president of his lifetime? The oldest, Ronald Reagan.

Buckles is reading David McCullough's "1776." That date is just 18 years more distant from his birth than today is.

This Memorial Day, Buckles will be feted back in Missouri, at the annual parade and fireworks in Kansas City. Perhaps he will journey to Bethany, to the house on whose porch he sat at age 3, 104 years ago.

He was born in February 1901, seven months before President William McKinley was assassinated. If Buckles had been born 14 months earlier, he would have lived in three centuries. He has lived through 46 percent of the nation's life, a percentage that rises each morning when he does.

On June 28, 1914, an assassin's bullet in Sarajevo killed the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The war that followed took more than 116,000 American lives - more than all of America's wars after the Second World War. And in a sense, the First World War took many more American lives because it led to the Second World War and beyond.

The First World War is still taking American lives because it destroyed the Austro-Hungarian, Romanoff and Ottoman empires. A shard of the latter is called Iraq.

The 20th century's winds of war blew billions of ordinary people hither and yon. One of them sits here in a cardigan sweater in an old wood and stone house on a rise on a 330-acre cattle farm. In this case, and probably in every case, the word "ordinary" is inappropriate."

My pal, and most senior Hogtown Irregular Archie Anderson, died last July 22, two weeks after his 106th birthday. Like myself, Archie was not born in Florida but was elevated to High Marshall after rigorous testing to assure all of Hogtown that he had what it took to don the red, white, and blue Zoot Suit that we are all sworn in wearing. In Archie's case, being one of the few surviving Doughboy's was of course quite sufficient, but he dazzled everyone with his knowledge of all things martial just in case.

Today we remember you, and all of the Doughboy's who never made it to Hogtown, Archie.

Memorial Day


"By the end of the Civil War, Americans came to realize the most devastating event in the history of the United States. It is estimated some 620,000 Americans were killed. Nearly everyone in the country had known someone that was killed during the war. While the Union side came to be known as the victor, both sides came away feeling devastated.

Memorial Day was originally conceived as a day to memorialize the solidiers who lost their lives in the Civil War. It was first called "Decoration Day", in reference the decorations that were laid on tombstones, and hung from buildings.

The first time Decoration Day was first started is not exactly known. Officially, the date is known as May 30, 1868. However, the practice of memorializing Civil War dead, and decorating their graves goes back earlier.

The earliest known evidence of such observance goes back to various women's auxillary groups in the North and South, when ladies organized events to honor their war dead by decorating graves. The earliest recorded event took place on April 25, 1866 in Columbus, Mississippi when a group of women formed an association to decorate the graves of civil war soldiers, starting with those who died in the Battle of Shiloh.

The towns of Macon, Georgia, Columbus, Georgia, and Richmond, Virginia all claim to be the birthplace of Decoration Day, having first celebrated it in 1866. The town of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania claims to have celebrated the first Decoration Day in 1868. Carbondale, Illinois claims to have celebrated it first on April 29, 1866. In all, some 25 cities claim to be the birthplace of Decoration Day, most of them in the South.

To settle the dispute, President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclaimation in 1966 naming Waterloo, New York to be the official birthplace of Memorial Day.

The origins of Waterloo being the birthplace of Memorial day goes back to Henry C. Welles, a town druggist, who apparently conceived the idea in the summer of 1865 by mentioning it to a friend. Sometime later, he mentioned it again to General John B. Murray, a civil war hero, and plans were finally put in place to organize an event, which was held on May 5, 1866. A similar event was held again a year later on May 5, 1867.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, the first commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, proclaimed May 30, 1868 as the official day for decorating the graves of civil war dead. The town of Waterloo, New York, as well as several other towns joined together to celebrate the first official Decoration Day on that date. Interestingly, Logan was the guest speaker at the decoration event that took place on April 29, 1866, in Carbondale, Illinois. It appears that experience led to his proclaimation.

Why Logan chose May 30th as the official day is also interesting, since the prior Decoration days in Waterloo were held on May 5, and the earlier Decoration event in Carbondale was on April 29. A possible explanation to this goes back to a french emigrant woman named Cassandra Oliver Moncure, who in 1866 organized a Decoration event in Virginia and picked May 30th. She explained that May 30th is the "Day of Ashes" when Napoleon's ashes were returned to France from St. Helena.

By the end of the 19th Century, cities all over the country were celebrating Decoration Day on May 30.

In 1971, Congress and the President passed a law that officially coined the name, "Memorial Day" and officially marked the last Monday in May as the official day. Many of the Southern States, however, have adopted their own dates:

  • Mississippi celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on the last Monday in April.
  • Alabama celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on the fourth Monday of April
  • Georgia celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on April 26.
  • North and South Carolina celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on May 10.
  • Louisiana celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on June 3.
  • Tennessee celebrates "Confederate Decoration Day" on June 3.
  • Texas celebrates "Confederate Heroes Day" on January 19.
  • Virginia celebrates "Confederate Memorial Day" on the last Monday in May.

"On December 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, which created a new commission, the "White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance". It's goal is to 'promote the values of Memorial Day by acts of remembrance throughout the year and to encourage Americans to demonstrate their gratitude by giving back to our Nation.'"

What Better Way To End The Titilating Trifecta Than With Tennis Player Ashley Harkleroad


PARIS (AP) - "Ashley Harkleroad, the 61st-ranked American who lost to Serena Williams 6-2, 6-1 on Sunday in the first round of the French Open, said she posed for the August edition of Playboy magazine.

"I thought about it, and it was something that I did," Harkleroad said after the match. "I'm proud of my body. I was representing a female athlete's body."

The 23-year-old noted other athletes who have appeared in the magazine, including Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard and former volleyball player Gabrielle Reese.

"I'll be the first tennis player ever. That's kind of cool," Harkleroad said."

Betcha the old dude in the background, Mr. ball-chaser, would agree wholeheartedly with that, Ashley.