Wednesday - March 07, 2007
Through The Looking Glass
- Commander Dave Bowman: “2001 - A Space Odyssey”
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-- Astronomy Picture Of The Day
Lost!
Lost again, y’all. I’m over my favorite USAF base in the whole, entire world - it’s home. It’s down South and if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time at all you probably have a good idea where it is.
Final hint: In February 1910, the Wright Brothers decided to open one of the world’s earliest flying schools at this site that would subsequently become a USAF base. The Wrights taught the principles of flying, including take-offs, balancing, turns, and landings. The first recorded heavier-than-air night flights in aviation history occurred here on May 25, 1910. The school closed on May 27.
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(Photo from Google Earth Desktop)
Trouble Afoot
Lt. Smash is worried about the punks.
FOUND on DC Indymedia, a post by “A”:
Anti-authoritarian bloc on the 17th?
About the demo on March 17th:
People who are planning a black bloc, youth bloc, SDS bloc or something like that should announce it so more than 10 people can join in and make it worthwhile.
And this reply, by “dylan”:
bring some paint so we can spray the wall.For those who haven’t been following along, the demo “A” refers to is ANSWER’s “March on the Pentagon.”
And the wall “dylan” wants to spray paint is the Vietnam Memorial.
I loved this comment by one of his readers:
Comrades,
I’ll be in Washington on the 17th, with my cane and my resolve to protect the monumnents (all of them) from desecration.
More than 30 years ago, I was one of those who was covered in paint and blood by the local SDS chapter, all because I was wearing the uniform of my country. I never forgot that day, and i have never forgiven those who comitted that act. payback is a bitch.
I truly hope that some smart-ass punk tries to vandalise the wall, or whatever monument I am helping to defend. I’ve waited decades for this time. I could care less hat happens to me. I’m older, and in failing health, my kids are grown, and I’ve got time enough to spend supporting my comrades in arms.
Go ahead punks, make my day. For decades, you’ve been given carte blanche with your pansy-assed protesting and chic marxist dribble. Now you’ll come up against some folks who’ve had enough of your crap.
Time to face reality, boys..... I won’t throw the first punch, but I’ll damned sure throw the last one.
If you’re in DC on St. Paddy’s Day, I might suggest a visit to the memorial.
Motivational Poster Of The Day
The Jerk
Gary McCoy - The Illinois Suburban Journals
Illegals Nabbed In Boston
Illegal aliens in Boston working in factories making supplies for our troops because DoD contractor landed a huge contract that was bigger than they could handle without grabbing illegal aliens off the street. Now the illegals have been arrested and will be deported. Our troops will be shortchanged while a new contractor is found. There are so many things wrong with this story I’m getting a major headache sorting it all out. What do you think ....
Major Raid Targets Illegal Immigrants Near Boston
BOSTON (Reuters) - Wed Mar 7, 2007 10:46am ET163
Federal officials detained 350 suspected illegal immigrants at a Massachusetts factory that made supplies for the U.S. military in one of the biggest such raids in New England, authorities said on Wednesday.
The immigrants had been making leather goods, including vests, grenade pouches and backpacks for soldiers in Iraq, and are now being held at a former Army base near the town of New Bedford where they were working, officials said.
Workers who are in the country illegally will be charged and deported, officials said. Most of those caught were from Latin America.
Federal officials said they investigated the Michael Bianco Inc. factory in the former whaling town south of Boston for months and used an undercover agent to pose as an illegal immigrant.
Tuesday’s early morning raid by officials from the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies came at a time the U.S. government is trying to reform its immigration laws and crack down harder on people who enter the country illegally and those who employ them.
The factory won millions of dollars in contracts from the U.S. Defense Department in recent years and officials said it came to rely on illegal workers to meet rapidly growing demand for its products.
Prosecutor Michael Sullivan, the U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts, said agents arrested the factory’s owner, his payroll manager, plant manager and office manager.
on 03/07/2007 at 12:54 PM
Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Military • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
News Of The Weird
- “Unzipped Fly Leads Officers to Pot Stash” - ABC NEWS
- “Jesus Might Be Alive and Well in Houston” - ABC NEWS
- “Cannabis Grandmother Spared Jail” - BBC
- “Indian Cow Eats More Chicken” - CNN
- “Elvis Voters Alert Suspicious Minds In New Guinea” - CNN
- “Drill Sergeant Accused of Forcing Trainee to Dress as Superman, Submit to Sex Acts” - FOX NEWS
Irish Eyes Are Smiling
Brian Fairrington - Cagle Cartoons
Needed This St. Patrick’s Day – Ronald Reagan
-- By Tom Purcell
For 27 years, it’s been a favorite watering hole for Washington insiders. Some of Reagan’s advance men had been regulars. They secretly arranged the president’s visit.
Just before noon, the pub was half-packed when Reagan and his entourage arrived. As news got around, the pub quickly filled to capacity. While Reagan enjoyed a pint of Harp and some corned beef and cabbage, Troy was so busy tending to patrons, he didn’t have time to react to his famous patron.
“He had an energy about him that put you instantly at ease,” Troy told me. “He made it easy to carry on as though he was just another patron, so that is what I did.”
Troy took the stage and led the audience in “The Wild Rover.” He directed sections of the audience to compete with each other to see which could sing and clap the loudest.
“You have to clap louder, Mr. President,” he said to Reagan, prompting the president, not used to being given orders, to laugh.
Troy next led the audience in “The Unicorn Song.” While Troy sang the words, the audience mimicked the animals referenced in the song:
“There were green alligators and long-necked geese, some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees. Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born, the loveliest of all was the unicorn.”
Reagan turned to watch a group of young women act out the song. His face showed curiosity and delight – he’d never seen this song performed before.
But that was how he was: At the same time he was the world’s most powerful man, the man who felled communism and restored American optimism, he was a man of youthful innocence who found immense pleasure in the simplest things.
When Troy finished, he handed the president the microphone. The normally raucous crowd became extraordinarily quiet.
Reagan spoke off the top of his head. He graciously thanked Troy for having him for lunch. He said it was a great surprise. He talked about his father, an Irishman.
“When I was a little boy, my father proudly told me that the Irish built the jails in this country,” he said, pausing expertly. “Then they proceeded to fill them.”
The crowd laughed heartily.
“You have to understand that for a man in my position, I’m a little leery about ethnic jokes,” he said. The crowd roared. “The only ones I can tell are Irish.”
He talked about a recent trip to Ireland. He visited Castle Rock, the place where St. Patrick erected the first cross in Ireland.
“A young Irish guide took me to the cemetery and showed me an ancient tombstone there,” he said. “The inscription read: ‘Remember me as you pass by, for as are you so once was I, and as I am you too will be, so be content to follow me.”
As Reagan paused, the crowd eagerly awaited his follow up.
“Then I looked below the inscription, where someone scratched in these words: ‘To follow you I am content, I wish I knew which way you went.’”
The crowd roared loud and long, causing the president to deadpan to his advance men: “Why didn’t I find this place seven years ago?”
The pub visit was videotaped by Reagan staffers and released to Troy 10 years after Reagan left office. I watched that video and got to see a snapshot of pure, unscripted Ronald Reagan.
It shows how powerfully and eloquently the man was able to engage any audience, large or small, just by being his genuine self. As we begin the process of selecting our next president, we sure could use another fellow like him.
I’ll be sure to offer up a toast to the Great Communicator as I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year:
“To follow you we were content, and grateful for the way we went.”
Tom Purcell is a humor columnist nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons. For comments to Tom, please email him at Purcell@caglecartoons.com
Tuesday - March 06, 2007
Lost!
Hehehehehehe ...
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Open Letter To The President
President George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Mr. President,
I’m sure you have heard the breaking news by now that the jury has returned a verdict in the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. trial. In case you haven’t heard the jury found him guilty on four of the five counts he was charged with and he faces more than 20 years in prison. That’s going to be pretty tough for a 56-year-old man. I’m 58 myself and I wouldn’t look forward to 20 years in the slammer.
Now I’m sure you’re already reaching for your Presidential fountain pen to sign a Presidential Pardon for “Scooter” because you know as well as I do that he just got caught up in the ridiculous Plamegate fantasy that Plame, her husband Joe Wilson and the NY TIMES concocted to embarrass you, the Vice President and your entire administration. That’s all well and good sir and I want to thank you in advance for pardoning this tired old man but before you sign that paper I want you to consider this, please ...
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean Yes sir, I’m sure you know who these men are too. They are border guards who were unjustly imprisoned for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler caught in the act of smuggling drugs into this country. They were convicted mainly based on testimony from the drug smuggler himself who cut a deal with the federal prosecutor, who let him go free in exchange for his testimony. This drug smuggler was later caught again trying to smuggle drugs into the country but the two men named above are in prison and one of them was badly beaten by Hispanic prisoners recently.
Now here’s the deal, sir. If you pardon “Scooter” Libby and leave these two men, who were doing their job, guarding our borders, to rot in jail and be beaten by the very illegals they have worked so hard to stop - I will not take it kindly. I’m sorry sir but that’s just the way it has to be. I know you’re compassionate and I am asking you to do the right thing by pardoning all three ... “Scooter” and the two Border Patrol agents.
If you free your friend without freeing the two border guards, I’m afraid our friendship is at an end, sir. I have stood by you and valiantly defended you for six long years, through thick and thin and all I’m asking in return is that you examine your conscience and make this right. I hate to lose a good friend but I will have to insist on your honoring my small request.
Thank you and may God bless you and your family and God bless America.
Respectfully,
Allan C. Kelly
(The Skipper)
St. Louis, MO
06-MAR-2007
on 03/06/2007 at 01:07 PM
Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Politics • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Motivational Poster Of The Day
Chocolate Lawsuit
One billion dollars for levee repairs and $76 billion for “the city’s tarnished image and tourist industry losses”? If this was anybody else but Ray “Chocolate” Nagin, I’d say it was a joke. But no. Sadly, Nagin looked around his city and realized he was short on chocolate - the green kind. Probably due to the city’s population being less than half of what it was before Katrina.
Unfortunately, the half that did come back are committing as much if not more crime than before. Murders, rapes and robberies are back to pre-hurricane levels so Mayor Ray needs lots of greenbacks to fix the city’s image. What does he figure to do with all that money, buy the criminals off? Probably. One thing you can be sure of - if he wins the lawsuit, at least half will wind up in certain politicians bank accounts. It is Louisiana, after all and we are talking about Democrats. That is a combination only Satan could love ...
Mayor Nagin: We ‘Piled It on’ in Suit Against Army Corp of Engineers
NEW ORLEANS (FOX NEWS) - Saturday, March 03, 2007
The city “looked at everything and just kind of piled it on,” Mayor Ray Nagin said. “We got some advice from some attorneys to be aggressive with the number, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
New Orleans has joined big business and thousands of homeowners in filing claims seeking compensation from the corps for damages sustained when the levees broke during the 2005 storm, flooding 80 percent of the city. The claims allege poor design and negligence by the corps led to the failure of flood walls and levees.
The city attorney’s office also considered such things as “decreases in the city’s image, tourist industry activity and potential business industry, losses in the tax base and generated revenue, and a decrease in the city’s overall population,” in making the assessment, according to a statement from City Hall.
A spokeswoman for the mayor could not explain how the city quantified losses not tied to infrastructure. A 43-page form filed with the corps, reserving the city’s right to sue for $77 billion, also provides little insight. It does not quantify “loss of tax revenue,” for example, and supporting documents for city-owned properties, such as a police crime lab and libraries, omit any estimates of property values of flood-related damages, The Times-Picayune newspaper reported Saturday.
on 03/06/2007 at 06:20 AM
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Corruption and Greed • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Trackbacks (1) • Permalink
Equal Time
In the last 48 hours, since I posted the “Faggot Poll” below, I have received 37 e-mails from homosexuals accusing me of homophobia in every way, shape and form. A few of them demanded “equal time” to explain how “hurtful” and “demeaning” the word “faggot” is to them.
However, in the interests of “Equal Time” and under the rules of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, I present the following as a counterpoint to the whole Ann Coulter “faggot” kerfuffle. Happy reading ....
Review:
Michael Thomas Ford garnered lots of laughs in 1998 with Alec Baldwin Doesn’t Love Me and Other Trials from My Queer Life. The follow-up collection of pieces from his syndicated column, That’s Mr. Faggot to You, continues Ford’s exploration of contemporary gay life. In the title essay, reports of a teenager who successfully sued his school district for failing to prevent physical and mental abuse by his classmates prompts Ford to recall his own traumatic high school experiences and leads him to recognize that, years later, “he is happier, more successful, and a great deal more attractive” than his classmates.
In other essays, he discusses the you-and-me against-the-world relationship he has with his black Labrador, proposes a new line of Christian-friendly action figures (including a Jonah and the Whale Play Set, “appropriate for bath-time use or fun in the pool"), and even manages, despite his uncertainties, to offer an adolescent nephew dating advice (concluding that “guy problems were guy problems, regardless of who the person creating the dilemma was or how many holes she or he had"). That’s Mr. Faggot to You is a humorous slice of contemporary gay life that’s bound at least to elicit a smile from any reader.
Cranky, bemused and extremely funny, Ford (Alec Baldwin Doesn’t Love Me) is brilliant even on potentially mundane topics like high school reunions ("Michael Thomas Ford is very proud to announce that he is still queer… [and] happier, more successful, and a great deal more attractive” than his former schoolmates) and the giving of advice to his 12-year-old nephew about girlfriends (it wasn’t so bad, once he mentally substituted Roberto and Jesse for Amber and Megan in the junior-high love triangle). Ford is peeved at a number of people, including Baptists boycotting Ellen, a certain senator from North Carolina and former ACT-UP leaders who now want gay men and women to be “just like everybody else.”
No More Ninjas In Britain
OK, people. Show of hands here. Raise your hand if you didn’t see this coming. - - - - OK, I see. It seems no one is surprised at this latest Nanny State Nuttiness.
Yes, believe it or not, Britain is now banning citizens from owning sharp knives. Rumor has it that in June the Liberal government will add sharp sticks and rocks to the list of banned items.
Finally, sometime next year the use of the phrase “self-defense” will be severely punished as being politically incorrect and a threat to society as a whole. Individuals who are attacked by criminals will be encouraged to keep a stiff upper lip and not resist as they are beaten, stabbed and shot to death.
The second verse of “God Save The Queen” (the British national anthem) pretty much sums it up ...
O Lord, our God, arise, Scatter her enemies, And make them fall.
Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all.
Samurai Swords To Be Banned
(TELEGRAPH-UK) - 2:08am GMT 06/03/2007
Breaching the ban, which is targeted at cheap imitation samurai swords rather than the more expensive genuine collectors’ items made by licensed swordsmiths in Japan, would result in up to six months in jail and a £5,000 fine.
Collectors and martial arts enthusiasts owning or using genuine samurai swords would be exempt from the ban. According to Home Office estimates, there have been at least 80 serious crimes involving the swords in England and Wales over the last four years.
One MP recently warned that they were being used by criminal gangs as the preferred weapon of choice after guns. Last month, amphetamine addict Hugh Penrose was jailed for at least 19 years for hacking a 21-year-old woman with a samurai sword and then deliberately running her over.
In October, Bradley Moran was jailed for 17 years for murdering another man with a samurai sword following an argument in a nightclub. It is currently legal to buy samurai swords - which are freely available at martial arts shops and on the internet - provided they are not brandished in a public place.
The Home Office now wants to ban their sale as part of a wider crackdown on knives and bladed weapons. Carrying a samurai sword in a public place already attracts a maximum jail sentence of four years.
Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, said today: “Samurai sword crime is low in volume but high in profile and I recognise it can have a devastating impact. “Banning the sale, import and hire will take more dangerous weapons out of circulation, making our streets safer.
“We recognise it is the cheap, easily-available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine, more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts.”
“It is already illegal to have a samurai sword in a public place but I want to restrict the number of dangerous weapons in circulation to enhance community safety.”
The plans are outlined in a consultation paper, Banning Offensive Weapons, published by the Home Office today. At present there are 17 weapons, including knuckle-dusters and batons, on the Offensive Weapons Order.
Barking Southerner In Disguise?
Reader Survey Poll
Just vote “NO” if you feel Ann should not apologize.)
G.O.P. Candidates Criticize Slur by Conservative Author
WASHINGTON (NY TIMES) - March 3, 2007
The remarks by Ann Coulter, an author who regularly speaks at conservative events, were sharply denounced by the candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Their statements came after Democrats, gay rights groups and bloggers raised a storm of protest over the remarks.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference before an overflow crowd on Friday, Ms. Coulter said, “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Mr. Edwards’s aides responded with an e-mail message that attacked Ms. Coulter and urged supporters to donate to Mr. Edwards’s campaign. “John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power,” said his campaign manager, David E. Bonior. “Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter’s resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion.”
Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”
- More ...
on 03/06/2007 at 01:00 AM
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Politics • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
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