This is Mike from my old unit, 1st MI. Mike doesn't mind being a sex object. In fact, he prefers it. Mike will be heading overseas soon and is probably very disappointed that there are no longer any of those "patriotutes" like there were in WWII. Damn that Greatest Generation!
Country Store has the scoop.
In one 24-hour period, he invoked his service:
• To fend off attacks by his Republican rivals;
• As evidence he will fight to expand healthcare;
• As evidence he understands the complicated landscape in Iraq;
• To explain his love of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
There should be a new drinking game where you'd chug whenever Kerry said the word "Vietnam".
General Janice Karpinski is a disgrace to the uniform. With friends like her, we don't need enemies.
What a disgusting business. I want the whole lot of them busting rocks in Leavenworth. I bet the guards there know how to conduct themselves like professionals.
Good stuff from Howie Carr of the Boston Herald on the ostentatious wealth of John Kerry, Man of the People.
We're all learning so much in this campaign about the kind of lifestyle that is created when a gigolo marries a gold-digger.
(Via Lucianne.)
The local folks up in Santa Rosa County have come through for Dustin.
A soldier who lost both his legs in Iraq will return to a brand new home, built and paid for by the residents of Santa Rosa County.
When Dustin Tuller, 28, returns to northwest Florida in mid-May, he'll have a newly constructed home for him, his wife and four children on 40 acres his parents own in Allentown.
Injured Panhandle soldier will return to new, donated home
Last update: 27 April 2004
MILTON -- A soldier who lost both his legs in Iraq will return to a brand new home, built and paid for by the residents of Santa Rosa County.
When Dustin Tuller, 28, returns to northwest Florida in mid-May, he'll have a newly constructed home for him, his wife and four children on 40 acres his parents own in Allentown.
Tuller, a member of the Florida National Guard's Company B, 3rd Battalion, 124th Infantry, lost both legs after he was shot four times while leading a Dec. 23 raid in Baghdad.
The now-retired Army staff sergeant is currently undergoing intensive rehabilitation at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.
"His spirits are good, and he's highly motivated and ready to come home," Santa Rosa County Commission Chairman Don Salter said Monday. "And we're going to help him."
Construction of the 3,400-square-foot home is expected to completed in about a month. It will have four bedrooms and be tailored to meet Tuller's demanding physical needs.
Santa Rosa County officials said hundreds have donated to the cause, such as Whitworth Builders Inc., of Fort Walton Beach, which designed the house, as well as various companies and individuals who have promised everything from free labor to insulation, an irrigation system, plumbing, wiring, heating and air conditioning, termite treatment and even interior design.
Pete Gandy, chief executive officer of Santa Rosa Medical Center, said the hospital will offer Tuller a yet-unspecified job. A trust fund in his honor has raised about $18,000 to help cover family expenses.
"People do believe in the effort," said Tuller's father, David. "They do believe in supporting the troops."
The guy who gets $1,000 haircuts will also get a manicure.
Actually, the guy who gets his face injected with poison has decided there're no limits to self-love and pampering.
The Boston Globe thinks Kerry's meltdown on GMA might have been his "I Have A Scream" moment.
IF JOHN KERRY hadn't already clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, his medals meltdown on "Good Morning America" this week would have sunk his campaign. Much as Howard Dean's crazed "I Have A Scream" speech jolted voters into wondering whether someone so hotheaded should be allowed anywhere near the nuclear trigger, Kerry's abusive tirade on ABC gave millions of viewers a foretaste of how far presidential discourse will sink if Kerry becomes president.
Not one voter in 100 would vote against Kerry for trashing his Vietnam War medals when he was 27 years old. What he did with his combat decorations in 1971 has no bearing on whether he is fit to be president today. That long-ago episode is an issue today only because Kerry's versions of it have changed so many times and because it so perfectly typifies his lifelong habit of saying one thing today and something else tomorrow -- and then denying having done so.
So what does Kerry say he did with those medals? As with so many of his shifts and flip-flops, it's all on the record.
Take 1:
Q. Did Kerry throw his combat decorations away in an antiwar protest 33 years ago?
A. Yes. As The Boston Globe reported on April 24, 1971, "John Kerry . . . said before he threw his medals over the fence: `I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try to make this country wake up once and for all.' "
Take 2:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Yes. In a Nov. 6, 1971, interview with WRC-TV, he recalled that the protesters had decided to "renounce the symbols which this country gives . . . the medals themselves." When the interviewer asked, "How many did you give back, John?" he answered: "I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine." The interviewer noted that Kerry had won the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts. Kerry: "Well, and above that, I gave back my others."
Take 3:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. No. In 1984, running for the Senate against a World War II Air Force veteran, he claimed he had refused to do so. "After showing a reporter his medals and ribbons on display in his Back Bay apartment," The Boston Globe reported on Oct. 15, 1984, Kerry "said he had disagreed with other protest leaders on throwing away medals." The medals he was seen tossing, Kerry added, were those of a "veteran from Lincoln [Mass.], at his request."
Take 4:
Q. Did Kerry throw his decorations away 33 years ago?
A. Medals, no; ribbons, yes. During his 1996 reelection campaign, he told the Globe that he only threw the ribbons pinned to his uniform. "Asked why he didn't bring his own medals to throw since it was planned weeks in advance," the Globe reported on Oct. 6, 1996, "Kerry said it was because he didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them." The medals he was seen tossing, he claimed, belonged to two other veterans -- the one from Lincoln and one from New York. "Kerry says he can't remember their names."
The variations don't end there. For example, his explanation that he "didn't have time to go home and get" the medals -- i.e., he would have trashed them if he could have -- is sharply at odds with his earlier "explanation" to the Boston Herald: "They're my medals. I can do goddam what I want with them."
On Monday's TV show, after being shown the tape of his younger self claiming to have thrown "six, seven, eight, nine" medals onto the trash heap, Kerry heatedly insisted that he had pitched only his ribbons, not his medals. Then he insisted even more heatedly that "ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable. . . . there was no distinction . . . I think, to this day, there's no distinction between the two."
Well, if ribbons and medals are identical, then by his own admission he did throw away his medals. So why does he angrily maintain that he didn't?
Kerry could acknowledge that his various statements on the subject are inconsistent. He could apologize for his deception. He could even resort to the Bush Sidestep: "When I was young, I did a lot of foolish things." Instead he attacks the president over his National Guard service -- an assault he has now escalated on the campaign trail -- and accuses ABC of "doing the bidding of the Republican National Committee."
But the questions won't go away just because Kerry snarls at the questioners. By itself, the medals incident matters hardly at all. But as a surrogate for all the issues on which Kerry has ducked and dissembled, it matters very much.
"The candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner," the Village Voice remarked in an editorial this week. The Village Voice! If that's what they're saying on the far left, what must be going through the minds of the mainstream?
A man with a sense of humor is selling his ex-wife's wedding dress on E-bay.
(Via Confessions of a Political Junkie.)
Welcome to the new site of the Florida Cracker.
There are still some final touches to be done, but I'll be doing my blogging from here from now on.
It's Wednesday and y'all have been waiting all week for more Duane Allman.
Here he is when he was working at Muscle Shoals. Wail on, Skydog!
And here's another just for being so sweet:
Ace of Spades is moving into a new home. His curtains are up, so he's ready for visitors.
I'm in the mood for some Dead Man Eating
Hey, DME! What's for supper for South Carolina murderer Jerry McWee?
Steak, jumbo fried shrimp, broccoli with cheese, french fries, lemon meringue pie and iced tea.
Yum, yum!
I'm sure y'all have seen this article from the Village Voice, since it was on Drudge, but I really like it.
John Kerry Must Go
Note to Democrats: it's not too late to draft someone else
With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.
With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.
What to do? Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike. Then they can return to business as usual—resurrecting John Edwards, who is still hanging around, or staging an open convention in Boston, or both.
If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean.
Ooh, staging an open convention. That means this.
Kerry a cheapskate
Well, this does it for me. I just cannot abide a cheap man.
Fellas, reaching for your wallet quickly and often makes you look handsome!
Judge Rapkin, who was so darned kind to killer Joseph Smith, has decided not to run for re-election. No way was this guy going to be voted back into office.
The police have moved ahead and are prosecuting Kerri Dunn. I think it was the insurance fraud that forced their hand. Insurance fraud investigators are not the least bit PC.
Professor charged in hate-crime hoax
A visiting psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., was formally charged by prosecutors Monday in connection with a hoax hate crime that triggered protests and a one-day shutdown of the Claremont College campuses last month.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office charged Kerri Dunn, 39, with one misdemeanor count of filing a false police report and two felony counts of insurance fraud.
Prosecutors alleged that Dunn falsely reported that an unknown vandal spray-painted her car with racist and anti-Semitic slurs on March 9, as she was speaking at a campus forum on racism. Officials said Dunn also submitted a false insurance claim, never paid, for items supposedly taken from her 1990 Honda Civic and for damage to the car, which had its windows smashed and tires slashed.
Dunn is scheduled to surrender to authorities at Los Angeles County Superior Court in Pomona, Calif., on May 19, the date of her arraignment.
If convicted, Dunn could face up to three years in state prison, prosecutors said.
In a prepared statement, District Attorney Steve Cooley said, "False accusations that imply hate crimes prey on the legitimate concerns of the public who truly abhor violence based on race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. And those who make false claims should realize there is a penalty for doing so."
Reached by phone Monday at her home in Redlands, Calif., Dunn declined to comment.
Her lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, declined to be interviewed. He issued a news release saying Dunn "maintains her innocence and hopes that this case will not divert attention from the racism problems on the Claremont College campuses."
FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said that federal authorities were investigating the case and that Dunn could face federal charges of making false statements to FBI investigators.
When the damage to Dunn's car originally was reported, she and student activists linked the incident to a string of racially charged episodes on the Claremont campuses.
Sassy got ahold of the Barbie sex tape and is posting stills. Why would Barbie do this?
Here's an excellent article on the Lee County woman who fought off an alligator attack the other day. I had my conversational English students read this one out loud to me tonight. They all say "Oh, my God!" very well. Who doesn't like a good alligator story?
Trappers on Wednesday night haul away the 9-foot, 7-inch alligator that attacked a 74-year-old Sanibel woman and pulled her into a canal.
Where on earth did those tons of chemicals seized in Jordan come from? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
"I cannot tell a nuance. I cut down the cherry tree."
-young George Washington
I posted last Thursday about the Japanese activist-hostages getting a cold reception back home.
Tony, in a comment at Tim Blair's, gives an update that the "hostages" were asked to pretend to be scared in the video. It was all an act.
The Anchorage Daily has a multimedia report on what can happen when a cop over-reacts.
There are three re-enactment videos but the audiotape of this encounter is especially gripping. Two State Troopers go to investigate a man sitting in his car. The man is lucid and coherent. He's half-paralysed though and doesn't respond quickly enough. He gets pepper-sprayed. Less than ten seconds after that he gets shot four times.
The entire encounter takes 58 seconds.
Oh, and it was ruled justifiable. Scary.
(If you get a login request use floridacracker61@yahoo.com and cracker.)
Here's an appropriate site on this our Australian cousins' ANZAC Day.
Well, I've been a busy little beaver. Not here, though - on the other blog. Isn't that thrilling? No?
I understand "The Enviro-Friendly Man of the People (who, btw served in Vietnam)" has SUVs, foreign cars, mansions, an iffy service record and a gazillionaire wife who's now put in for an extension on her taxes rather than make them public. Does that about cover it? Oh yeah, and he tends to vacillate in his opinions and is brittle when it comes to criticism. The mainstream press seems to be falling out of love with him.
It's because he doesn't have a plan. He's just an average politico with deep pockets.
Being anti, anti, anti is no way to live. People want someone to step up with a positive plan and move them forward. It's no surprise to me that President Bush is doing so well in the polls.
The Buffalo paper has an outstanding commentary on Pat Tillman.
The Nork coverage has been interesting. Maybe, like the Chernobyl disaster, this will help open up a secretive society.
Next thing they'll be asking the FBI to help them catch a serial killer.
Erick of Confessions of a Political Junkie is trying to start something with Karl Rove. Erick's going to lose. Karl will be stepping out of the shadows at any moment.
A dog of war comes home
Bashur the Iraqi dog gets a ticket to the good life.
I see other people read the book "Animals You Will Never Forget" when they were kids and remember the stories as vividly as I do. What a great book. Bashur's warning of incoming reminded me of the story "The Dog from No Man's Land".
Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to embed one of those little radios into my posts.
For now, I'll make do with giving y'all a link to a nice and fitting song by John Michael Montgomery called "Letters from Home".
I'm over at my new site trying to pretty it up. MT is in and I have a ticket in to have this site's content moved over. I have no idea why I'm moving this content, but I am.
If any of you MT'ers have a bit of advice that you wish someone had told you when you were starting up your new MT blog, please let me hear it.
Did y'all see this? This is awesome.
Military Phone Card Donation Program Goes Public
The Department of Defense announced today that any American can now help troops in contingency operations call home. The Defense Department has authorized the Armed Services Exchanges to sell prepaid calling cards to any individual or organization that wishes to purchase cards for troops who are deployed. The Help Our Troops Call Home program is designed to help servicemembers call home from Operations Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
For those wishing to donate a prepaid calling card to a military member may log on to any of the three Armed Services Exchange web sites: the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the Navy Exchange Service Command, and the Marine Corps Exchange. Click the Help Our Troops Call Home link. From there, a prepaid calling card may be purchased for an individual at his or her deployed address or to any service member deployed or hospitalized. The Armed Services Exchanges will distribute cards donated to any service member through the American Red Cross, Air Force Aid Society and the Fisher House Foundation.
(Via FR.)
President Bush visited Southwest Florida today to speak on environmental issues. Nice to have him back.
I thought this APF article was a bit fanciful:
Bush lands in a crocodile swamp to promote conservation
NAPLES, United States (AFP) - President George W. Bush landed in a tree-lined mangrove swamp as part of an election campaign tour to push his record as a protector of the environment
In front of about 250 people, amid crocodile-infested swamps on the western edge of the Florida Everglades, Bush said his administration was expanding the nation's wetlands and had moved to stop oil and gas drilling
The Boston Globe is all over the records posted on the Kerry website.
Vietnam combat records posted on John F. Kerry's campaign website for the month of January 1969 as evidence of his service aboard swift boat No. 94 describe action that occurred before Kerry was skipper of that craft, according to the officer who said he commanded the boat at the time.
(Via Lucianne.)
I understand that images like this make men feel unhappy about their bodies. Not everybody can be USDA prime, fellas.
Love.that.drawstring.
UPDATE
There's no need for you boys to be envious of this:
After all, you have very good blogs.
Those returned Japanese peace-activist hostages are catching some well-deserved hell back home
The young Japanese taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare.
The first three hostages, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, first appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.
"You got what you deserve!" one Japanese held up a hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill them $6,000 for airfare.
Treated like criminals, the three have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes. The kidnapped woman was last seen arriving at her parents' house, looking defeated and dazed from taking tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped her walk and bow deeply before the media, as a final apology to the nation.
Don't you hate it when you're gardening in your backyard and an alligator comes up and bites you and drags you into a lake?
If that lady's husband hadn't have been home, she would have been killed.
It's also aggravating when you're out in the backyard and you fall and hurt yourself and then an alligator comes up and wants to dine on you.
This lady survived because her dog fought the alligator for her.
Then there's the two-year-old girl who was killed, and the twelve-year-old boy. Attacks are up and deaths are up.
Yet if you shoot one that comes on your property and threatens you and your dog, you're liable for two-months' jail-time and a $500 fine.
As a fellow who found himself in this situation said, "I'm not the first that shouldn't have been charged and I certainly won't be the last. I think something in the law needs to be changed. Apparently the alligator is king."
Michael Moore feels peckish, eats city. Ace is on the scene.
Jesse Jackson is doing his shakedown routine on the Coca-Cola company
A group that monitors corporate ethics says the Coca-Cola Co. is "finding out the hard way" that cooperating with the Rev. Jesse Jackson -- and contributing to his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition -- doesn't stop Jackson from complaining or protesting.
Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, is urging the Coca-Cola board of directors to stop giving money -- and stop making policy concessions -- to Jackson.
Why a corporation would have anything to do with this race-baiting goon is beyond me, especially a company as huge a Coca-Cola. If they can survive the debacle of "New Coke", they can survive the threats of Jackson.
Here's Duane Allman up to no good.
His brother said that if he hadn't been killed in the crash, he would probably have drunk himself to death.
I think he could have gotten his act together instead.
Wail on, Skydog!
Michael of Ramblings' Journal casually mentions that Condi's boyfriend is former football player Gene Washington. I didn't even know Condi had a boyfriend. She has time for a life? I know she took some time off to go watch tennis, but that goes without saying.
Anyways, I had to look him up. This is the fellow. He's the NFL director of football operations. He's the guy that doles out the fines.
The Monterey Herald has a list of "Things you probably didn't know about Condoleezza Rice," including, her school guidance counsellor told her she wasn't college material, and she works out to Led Zeppelin.
Here's an interesting article on why so many hate crime hoaxes happen on college campuses.
Colleges perfect milieu for hate crime hoaxes
More than 20 hate crime hoaxes have been suspected or confirmed at college campuses nationwide in the past seven years as students draw on the socially conscious atmosphere of a college campus to perpetrate their fraud.
"A person who is a victim of a hate crime can probably expect to get almost universal sympathy on a college campus. Out in the world at large, that's not necessarily true," said Mark Potok, who has researched hate crime for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"But on a college campus, you are very likely to get the support of the administration, the faculty and virtually all the students. It tends to put you in the limelight very quickly."
Last month, a visiting psychology professor at Claremont Colleges told police her car was vandalized and spray-painted with anti-Semitic slurs after a forum denouncing intolerance. Claremont police first called the damage to Kerri Dunn's car a hate crime, but now allege Dunn did it herself.
Dunn has denied any wrongdoing. The FBI and the Los Angeles County district attorney's office are investigating.
Those who track college hate crime hoaxes said a professor perpetrator would be unusual -- but students more frequently portray themselves as victims. In some cases, the students want attention, in others they are simply immature or may even be mentally ill.
In 2002, the last year for which numbers are available, 7,462 hate crimes were reported nationwide; of those, more than 10 percent occurred at schools or colleges, according to the FBI.
For the same year, 2,009 such crimes were reported in California, where 175 occurred at schools or colleges, according to the California Department of Justice.
At least 20 cases of suspected or confirmed hoaxes have occurred since 1997 nationwide -- and many may go unnoticed, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Several researchers also said the liberal atmosphere at many of the nation's colleges creates an environment ripe for deception.
"There's the preconception that if a charge is made, it's true," said John Perazzo, author of "The Myths that Divide Us." "One common thread running through many such incidents is the accuser's sense of victimhood."
Sometimes hoaxes are staged for what seem like relatively trivial reasons. A San Francisco State student, Allison Jackson, now 21, reported to police in September that someone wrote a racial slur on a dorm room door.
After being confronted with a handwriting analysis, Jackson said she faked the incident, according to a campus police report, because she wanted "a roommate change" and housing officials were taking too long to respond.
Jackson, who is black, wrote on the door, she told police, "because that was the drastic event that was going to get us moved."
In another San Francisco State incident last September, a black student named Leah Miller, now 19, admitted to scratching another racial epithet on a dorm room door and to writing herself a note with the same wording. She apologized to police, saying she had "tried to be part of something."
Jaime Alexander Saide, 19, told police at Northwestern University that he discovered a racial slur against Hispanics scrawled on the wall near his room and on a paper stuck to his door last November. Three days later, Saide told police that someone grabbed him from behind, used the same slur and held a knife to his throat.
Saide's account prompted a "Stop the Hate" campaign and the young man became famous around campus. But 10 days after the alleged attack, Saide admitted to fabricating the incidents, said William J. Banis, a vice president for student affairs, in a prepared statement.
Saide was arrested for filing a false police report and faces two felony counts of disorderly conduct, said his attorney, Barry Spector, who declined to comment on his client's motives. Saide also declined to comment, saying: "I just want to move past all of this."
A hearing is scheduled for next month.
Actual or suspected hoaxes can have lingering effects.
At Miami University in Ohio, a display of racist and homophobic fliers six years ago -- a suspected hoax that was never solved -- still bothers President James C. Garland. People come away believing that "racial incidents and race relations are really not an issue, that it's all a trumped-up hoax or manufactured to make political points," he said.
John Kerry refuses to release military records
Kerry, in an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," was asked whether he would follow President Bush's example and release all of his military records. "I have," Kerry said. "I've shown them -- they're available for you to come and look at." He added that "people can come and see them at headquarters."
But when a reporter showed up yesterday morning to review the documents, the campaign staff declined, saying all requests must go through the press spokesman, Michael Meehan. Late yesterday, Meehan said the only records available would be those already released to this newspaper.
If John Kerry wants to give the impression that he has skeletons to hide, he's doing a good job. You can't run for President and be secretive about your past at the same time.
(Via Lucianne.)
Since Cracker Barrel Philosopher has stripped off his blog-mask, I think it's time I reveal my true identity as well.
Mya the dalmation has been in the news around here a lot lately. She got bit by an Eastern Diamondback rattler over in Hendry County, her people drove her down to an animal hospital in Broward County, and Capt. Al Cruz, head of the Dade County Fire Department's anti-venin unit, drove up from Dade County with the anti-venin to save her life.
Everyone's been very concerned about her, but the vet says she got treatment in time and will pull through.
Captain Al Cruz of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Antivenin Unit watches Dr. Brian Roberts hang half of the second run of snakebite antivenin for Mya, a 2-year-old Dalmatian that was rushed from Clewiston to the Animal Medical Center in Cooper City after being bitten by a rattlesnake Sunday.
More on the latest nastiness in Madrid.
I wonder when the Spanish will realize what they're dealing with.
UPDATE: Islamic revenge?
Lovely. This brave man can't even be allowed to rest in peace.
Coffin of police agent killed in suicide blast vandalised
A coffin containing the body of a Spanish police agent killed in the suicide blast by alleged Madrid rail bombing suspects was taken from its grave, doused with fuel and set on fire, a radio station reported on Monday.
Cadena SER said the coffin was pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery late on Sunday and dragged some 500 metres before being burnt. No motive was immediately apparent.
National Police spokesman Antonio Nevado confirmed the tomb had been desecrated, but gave no further details.
Cadena SER said police took the body to Madrid's Forensic Institute for tests.
Special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras was killed when seven suspected terrorists blew themselves up in an apartment outside Madrid on April 3 as police moved in to arrest them.
At least three had been accused of carrying out the Madrid rail bombings on March 11 which killed 191 people and injured 1900.
Eighteen people have been provisionally charged for their alleged role in the rail bombings. Police believe other suspects are still at large.
Officer Janice Biggs, from St. Louis, Missouri, was shot several times, but is expected to live.
The gunbattle began as three U.N. vehicles carrying 21 U.S. correctional officers, two Turkish officers and one Austrian were leaving the prison, which was guarded by five Jordanian special police unit officers, officials said.
The correctional officers had arrived in Kosovo just 10 days earlier and were training at the prison.
Biggs said the shootout "reminded her of a Clint Eastwood movie," said her father, Jim Biggs.
Isn't this a cool (big!) pic? It's from the Corkscrew Swamp near my home.
Lucky break in the Kosovo ambush
Beth Mechlor of Topeka, Kansas, was riding in the same car as the two slain Americans. She was shot, but she'll make it. It was her first day of work.
A U.S. officer on the scene said it was "clearly an attack against Americans."
Disfigured Iraqis getting new ears
Rolling on a gurney toward the dank operating room of Al Kindi Hospital recently, Khalid Abid Nimer flashed back to a decade earlier, when he had made a similar trip in the same hospital for a far different operation.
Back then, Nimer's arms were bound and his eyes were blindfolded to prevent him from seeing the reluctant surgeon who was ordered to carry out one of Saddam Hussein's sadistic punishments: cutting off the right ears of Iraqi men deemed to be traitors.
(Via Soldiers News Blog.)
UPDATE:
Damn, they're getting new hands too. Bionic ones at that.
For nine years, the seven Iraqi businessmen have worn the scars of Saddam's brutality.
Each has a cross carved between their eyes, and their right hands are crudely lopped off at the wrist.
Now this one-handed band of brothers have come to Texas, where they are receiving high-end, bionic prosthetics that will let them once again complete ordinary tasks with ease, without stares from strangers.
Their unlikely journey, with its happy turn in Houston, began horrifically on the other side of the world.
In 1994, with the Iraqi economy faltering, Saddam Hussein decided to make an example of businessmen he accused of trading in international currencies.
After trailing suspects and tapping their phone lines, Saddam's secret service rounded up nine men whose livelihoods ranged from real estate to jewelry sales, swept them away from their workplaces, and took them to jail.
The men waited five months for a cursory trial with mute defense lawyers. Then they were sentenced to having their right hands amputated.
The fate carries special significance in Muslim society, where right hands are cut off for only the most egregious crimes, and those who lose them are ostracized.
Crowded in a cell inside the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where they had to take turns sleeping because of the limited space, the men waited another three months.
And in March 1995, just after finishing their morning prayers, they were taken to a makeshift clinic and anesthetized.
They awoke to searing pain and the realization of their fate. Their sentence had been carried out.
A member of the secret police delivered to Saddam evidence of the men's punishment in the form of a videotape of their torture and their severed hands, preserved in jars.
Eight years later, a surprise turn of events would start some of the men on a restorative journey to America.
The Prime Minister of Canada shows himself to be a tad confused about WWII.
Prime Minister Paul Martin rewrote Canadian military history Wednesday as he described the great Canadian contribution to the liberation of Europe in 1944 as the invasion of Norway instead of Normandy.
"Sixty years ago, Canadians were working alongside their British and American allies planning for the invasion of Norway and the liberation of Europe," Martin said in an address to 350 soldiers at the CFB Gagetown training base outside Fredericton, N.B.
A few minutes later, he repeated the gaffe.
"Today, it is every bit as important that Canada step forward -- just as we did during the invasion of Norway," he said, prior to announcing a series of military spending initiatives that have been in the works for some time.
The White House declined to criticize Israel's missile strike assassination of a top Hamas leader Saturday, saying instead that Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks and urging Palestinians to use restraint in responding.
Hamas has selected this guy for the dangerous job of being their next top leader.
What the heck?
U.N. Police Die in Kosovo Prison Shootout
A shootout at a prison in Kosovo killed three international police officers, including two American women, and wounded 11 others, a U.N. spokesman said. At least five Americans were among the wounded, a doctor said.
Witnesses and international sources in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica told The Associated Press that the U.N. police officers started shooting at each other and that the shootout lasted for about 10 minutes. The information could not be immediately confirmed.
Four Jordanian police officers were arrested in connection with the incident, a NATO source told AP on condition of anonymity.
The UN OK-Corraling each other? Two of the three dead are American women, and four Jordanian UN guys are under arrest?
UPDATE: They were fighting about Iraq.
Three die in Kosovo police fight
Two Americans and a Jordanian have been killed after
violent emotions over Iraq boiled over into a shootout between members of the U.N. law enforcement mission in Kosovo.
U.N. police spokesman Neeraj Singh said three police officers -- two American and one Jordanian -- were killed and 11 others
wounded.
Unconfirmed reports spoke of up to five dead and 14 wounded in a 10-minute exchange of fire on Saturday at the U.N. compound in
the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica -- usually the scene of peace-making interventions by U.N. police and NATO troops.
The deputy head of the Serb hospital in Mitrovica, Milan Ivanovic, said one of the dead was an American woman, hit along with four
female U.S. colleagues.
U.N. police sources said four Jordanian police officers had been arrested in connection with the shooting, but could give no further
details on the cause. Other police sources said it began with a row over Iraq followed by gunfire.
The fire-fight between fellow members of the U.N. force was unprecedented in five years of peacekeeping in Kosovo, where police
of some 30 nations make up the international force of around 3,500.
The force is backed by the NATO-led KFOR military mission numbering about 20,000 troops.
"What is official is that seven international police officers with serious injuries were received at the Serbian hospital in northern
Mitrovica," Ivanovic said.
"Six are American citizens, one is Austrian. Out of the seven, five are women, two are males. One American woman died soon after
she was admitted to the hospital," he added, giving the names of six victims.
Hamas sets them up, and Israel knocks them down.
Lots of turn-over in the Hamas corporate office these days.
The Islamic militant group Hamas vowed revenge for Israel's assassination of top leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on Saturday and said it would not be deterred in its struggle to destroy the Jewish state.
Rantissi was killed by a missile strike on his car in the Gaza Strip, the powerbase of the Palestinian Islamic militant group where he had been the top official.
Pistol, a dog saved in Iraq by a Marine Sgt. David Donnelly, is shown in Westfield, N.Y., Friday, April 16, 2004, where he is up for adoption. The dog was saved by Donnelly in a combat zone and then reunited with his rescuer after a long journey to America but now finds himself homeless again, after the Marine was redeployed overseas. Due to the efforts of Donnelly and Marcy Christmas of Camarillo, Calif., about 200 people have inquired about the Canaan-mix since his arrival this week at Northern Chautauqua Canine Rescue in western New York.
This reminded me of the puppy named Maco that Vietnam POW Captain Ed Davis brought back during Operation Homecoming.
I didn't know the details of this picture, but Wayne also told me this story. No one on the ground or in the aircraft had noticed the dog, but Wayne did so he asked about it. The man had zipped the dog into his diddy bag and somehow kept it quiet. It was just a stray that some of the Americans had befriended and made kind of a camp mascot.
The man told Wayne that on the morning of this departure, the men were awakened early and given very short notice to load onto the bus, their first "official" notice of release. He saw the prison cook trying to catch the dog, so there wasn't much doubt about its fate! He broke ranks and got into an argument with the cook about the dog. The guards rushed in and because the American refused to board the bus and leave the dog, they gave in - they knew about the publicity that was focused on this release. The American took the dog with him and got on the bus.
When I was in Saudi we used to joke around and say "Forget the Kuwaitis. Let's free the Saudi women!"
Dalek has the story on what happens when a Saudi woman gets a little too uppity.
While reading the news I came across a Fort Myers boy who's in the Marines and mixing it up over in Iraq. I thought I'd see what else I could find out about him. He's come a long ways from when he was representing the Fort Myers Track Club at the Edison Pageant of Light.
Khristopher Williams has been kickin' butt and takin' names.
Here he is in Kuwait in Feb. '03.
CAMP COYOTE, Kuwait - Cpl. Jeffery Pioszak, 22, from East Lansing, Mich., and Pfc. Khristopher Williams, 19, from Fort Myers, Fla., guard the entrance to the ammuntion resupply point in support of Operation Enduring Freedom Feb 4.
Click here for the cool high resolution photo.
Now he's in Fallujah as a sniper.
Lying on his stomach on a rooftop and wearing goggles and earplugs, a Marine sniper keeps an eye to his rifle sight. His main task in recent days has been trying to hit the black-garbed gunmen who occasionally dash across the long street in front of him. To dodge his shots, one of the gunmen recently launched into a rolling dive across the street, a move that had the sniper and his buddies laughing.
"I think I got him later. The same guy came back and tried to do a low crawl," said Lance Cpl. Khristopher Williams, 20, from Fort Myers, Fla.
This reinforces my theory that Lee County boys make the most awesome warriors.
The Psyops guys are there too, rockin' the Casbah with rock and roll and teaching their fellow Marines how to taunt in Arabic.
Go, all you jarheads. Complete your mission and come home safe.
To select John Kerry's running mate, I checked three boxes: Southerner, Name Recognition, and Foreign Policy Experience. I got...Wesley Clark. Eeew.
There should be a box for "Not a Lunatic".
For fellow Laura Bush fans
NPR has a wonderful interview with Laura on her project of restoring native plants, flowers, and grasses at the Crawford ranch. She's a lovely, articulate speaker, and her love and commitment to the natural ecology of Texas reminds me very much of Lady Bird Johnson.
(Via reader James.)
"Osama" still can't seem to scare up a camcorder.
A tape recording has been released wherein the supposed Osama offers a truce to Europe if they pull out of Muslim nations.
France is probably getting ready to surrender itself.
Sam of Hammorabi summarizes Wahabism and looks into his crystal ball:
The world is changing yet the Arabs are not! They try their best to prevent any changes in their neighbour country called Iraq but changes are coming to their own courtyard whether they accept or not!
I can see why Al-Jazeera doesn't want to air this tape. RIP Fabrizio Quattrocchi.
Italian hostage defied killersThe Italian hostage killed by kidnappers in Iraq was a defiant hero in his final moments, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini says.
The dead man was identified as Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36, a security guard.
As the gunman's pistol was pointing at him the hostage "tried to take off his hood and shouted: 'now I'll show you how an Italian dies,'" he said.
What a brave man.
My take on Sadr? I'd say he's played the part of a damned scoundrel, and is a coward, and if he were any part of a man I would slap his jaws and force him to resent it.
Wait, that was NB Forrest to Braxton Bragg.
Nevermind.
Omar of Iraq the Model's description of Moqtada al-Sadr's situation:
"(W)hen someone sh**s in his pants, every move he makes will make his mess worse".
Audrey Seiler faked her kidnapping to get her boyfriend's attention
Audrey, you should have just quit eating and left it at that.
The police are charging her for her crime.
The BostonIrish blog is now officially on a war-footing. Once we get done in Iraqistan and Afghanistan, Boston will opt for us to be heading on up to Kanukistan to MOAB the French-Canadian sportsfan, I should think.
Ace, a good sport, humored my request and made a top ten list for Andy Rooney. His Top Ten Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile include:
10. Says that he invented spicy Chinese chicken-and-broccoli dish; has filed an infringement lawsuit against famed military leader/cooking enthusiast General Tso.
8. Claims that he leaves on his car's left-turn indicator for weeks at a time "as an act of political dissent".
and my fave:
2. Last year's personalized Christmas cards featured a creepy picture of a bound-and-gagged woman with the strange inscription, "It puts the lotion in the basket-- Seasons Greetings from Andy".
The photo CAIR is so bent out of shape about.
I don't know any Marines that have a sense of humor, so my vote is for photoshopping.
Ah, here's the real photo.
(It's been updated now to add some preachifying.)
Too funny.
Now the Marine Corps has to investigate this nonsense.
Moqtada is dropping all conditions. D'oh!
Shiite Muslim radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr has agreed to drop all his conditions in negotiations with the US-led coalition and to follow the guidance of the highest Shiite religious authority, a close aide said.
Duane at Fillmore East.
Wail on, Skydog!
Iraq rebel cleric proposes deal with U.S
An Iraqi envoy appointed by Moqtada al-Sadr says the Shi'ite cleric has asked him to convey a set of peace proposals to U.S. officials.
Sadr's supporters have been rising up against the U.S.-led occupying forces in south and central Iraq.
"Sayyed Moqtada made positive proposals to end the crisis. I cannot disclose the details. He realises that an armed confrontation is not in anybody's interest," Abdelkarim al-Anzi told Reuters on Wednesday.
I guess a butt-load of Marines will give a bad guy second thoughts.
Unless you're an heiress...
Kerry doesn't build emotional bonds
Democrat John Kerry "doesn't warm anybody up," and organized labor must help him create an emotional bond if fence-sitting union members are to vote for him in November, according to focus groups of undecided union voters.
But these union members find President Bush likable and strong, "with a nice family and good moral values," said a memo of results prepared for the AFL-CIO and obtained by The Associated Press. The focus groups were conducted last month in St. Louis and Philadelphia by Lake Snell Perry & Associates, a Democratic firm.
The findings offer fresh evidence that Kerry's reputation for aloofness is a hurdle the presumptive Democratic nominee must overcome -- even among his party's core constituencies. And despite the acidity labor leaders direct toward Bush and his policies, he still appeals to a segment of union members, namely the Reagan Democrats.
Though very early in the race, the focus groups highlight the work facing organized labor as it tries to energize and mobilize voters on behalf of Kerry.
John Kerry is:
a. Cold
b. Haughty
c. Aloof
d. Unelectable
e. All of the above
(The link in the Sun-Sentinel to this story disappeared. Hopefully it will come back.)
Don't you hate it when you're a county commisioner and you pass out in your car in a city park and your friend sneaks up and yanks your pants down and leaves, and then a cop comes by and wakes you up and then your worst political enemy finds out and gets on the horn to all the media?
I wonder if the mobile UN will be accountable for its funds? The real UN certainly isn't. How appropriate that it would roll through the country blowing smoke.
TAMPA - (AP) -- An investment banker is trying to raise $1.5 million to create a 53-foot mobile classroom to travel across the country and teach schoolchildren about the United Nations.
Malcolm Taaffe, 46, said he wants the United Nations Mobile Education Centre to be a tourist attraction that will also serve as an educational tool.
Taaffe, senior vice president of Morgan Stanley in Tampa, hopes to have the mobile classroom on the road by September. The U.N. Department of Public Information signed off on the project in January.
''A lot of people will never get the chance to see the United Nations and to learn about its mission,'' Taaffe said. ``I want to change that.''
Taaffe's idea for the truck came after a 1999 visit to U.N. headquarters in New York. Plans for the truck are still on the drawing board.
Inside, a theater that seats 30 will highlight the U.N.'s accomplishments and explain its charge. On the screen, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will talk about peacekeeping in today's world.
Students will be given passports to move between kiosks detailing the different arms of the U.N, including the Security Council.
Recently, Taaffe applied for a patent on a machine that will blow a puff of smoke in the shape of a peace sign from atop the vehicle every five minutes.
The nonprofit U.N.-mobile will first visit cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Tampa. Admission will be free.
Taaffe said the U.N. has inspired him since he first visited it as a schoolboy.
''It just did something to me,'' he said. ``I was in awe.''
Looks like somebody let his perverse, senile, Depends-ridden, coot of a grandpa borrow the laptop again. Smack him with a slipper, Ace.
To some, soldiers can never be heroes, they can only be victims.
Those who have no honor themselves are incapable of seeing it in others.
I get suspicious of a newspaper article, but Belmont Club goes Barnaby Jones on the thing.
Looks like those Purple Hearts are coming back to haunt John Kerry.
It's better to deserve an honor and not get it, then to get an honor you don't deserve. Seeking out honors you don't deserve is even worse.
(Via Lucianne.)
I want to give y'all this site while I'm thinking about it. It's a site that tracks hate crime hoaxes. Not all of its links are still good, but most are. It's an admirable effort.
Many of these hoaxsters are tripped up in the end by insurance investigators.
Sometimes you just have to laugh.
This journalist is 'captured' by the bad guys, treated wonderfully well, told to tell the truth, then released. Right.
Lots of pregnant women in this story. It's a nice touch. The author overdid it, though. It was these descriptions that set my alarms off. There's not a hale and hearty woman in the bunch.
First:
The highway out of Fallujah was filled with fleeing families. The elderly, children and pregnant women clung to ancient cars and battered lorries, piled high with belongings. Refugees wandered along, dazed and caked in dust.
Then:
At 6pm, my driver and I pulled off the main road in our battered Toyota and spotted a heavily pregnant woman, her husband and mother struggling with baggage. The 19-year-old woman had been walking since 8am. Dehydrated and exhausted, she weaved slowly behind her husband and, when we offered a lift, almost fell into the car.
I think there are plenty of Jack Kelley's out there.
A good article from Naval Institute Proceedings:
Why Are Victims Our Only War Heroes?We are at war. Our enemy, the terrorist, knows he cannot win militarily, certainly not in terms of manpower or weaponry, so he somehow must get us to back down- wear us down and diminish our resolve. He hopes to do that through images and perceptions. The ultimate battle of the global war on terrorism will be fought in the hearts and minds of Americans.
We must make a concerted, deliberate effort to counterbalance the terrorists' tactic. Thus far, we have overlooked perhaps the most important image in our arsenal, that of the hero in war, and of his or her determination. It is an image we have failed to present adequately in our prosecution of this war. In earlier times, the American public could recite names such as Boatswain's Mate Reuben James, Lieutenant William Cushing, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, Sergeant Alvin York, Mess Attendant Dorie Miller, and Sergeant Audie Murphy as easily as they could their own home addresses. The individual heroes of the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, generally are unknown. Deluged by lengthy, detailed stories of the extreme efforts taken by terrorists, we have heard little of the extreme efforts taken by members of the U.S. armed forces.
We help our enemies by default, by allowing lesser images to be presented as substitutes. Everyone knows the name Jessica Lynch. She wore her country's uniform, went willingly to her duty in Iraq, and suffered grievous injuries, but does she qualify to be known first among those who served in this war? We have brushed aside battlefield resolution and actions which should be foremost and allowed the image of victimization and suffering to take its place.
There were victim-heroes pre-Korea, but there were also tons on non-victim heroes. Post-WWII, I can't name any of that type.
They left off my favorite hero from WWI - Eddie Rickenbacker. If you ever get a chance to read a biography about him, do it. He was awesome his whole life. Although I understand that when he was lost at sea in the Pacific in WWII, his boatmates wanted to eat him. Maybe a little Eddie went a long way.
Nonetheless, if I had a time machine, I'd beam back to WWI to visit Eddie.
Interesting rumors that those Japanese hostages are pulling a stunt
From Zeyad:
There have been rumours on the Internet that the three Japanese hostages faked the video that was displayed two days ago with the help of Iraqis in an attempt to pressure the Japanese government in withdrawing their troops. All three of them are anti-war activists. Noriaki Imai was in Iraq researching the effect of Depleted Uranium on Iraqis. Nahoka Takato works with an NGO helping Iraqi children orphaned from the war, and Soichiru Koriyama is a freelance journalist who has been in the Palestinian occupied territories recently. I find it hard to believe they would go this far. The fear and horror in their eyes was very evident in the video, if it is a hoax then they certainly have a promising future in Hollywood.
More over at this FR thread.
Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and his entourage got their luggage searched at Miami International. The Prince had multiple hissy fits and made himself a royal pain in the ass. The entourage had hissy fits. His girlfriend chose to hold her pee rather than get her purse re-searched. Iberia Airlines is threatening to pull out of MIA. All in all, they objected strenuously to their being thrust into the real world. Tough noogies.
The funniest part:
"We're your allies!", one member of the entourage shouted.
They showed up without the required-by-law State Department or Secret Service escort, so their stuff got searched.
No tickee, no laundry.
(Herald login=floridacracker61@yahoo.com. Pswd=cracker.)
Nobody likes a smart-ass Guess the Dictator and/or Sit-Com Character game
I win again! You are player number 1440 to have chosen June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver. I knew you were June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver from the start, but I strung you along for a while to make it seem more sporting. I hope that one day you will overcome the powerful sense of humiliation that you now feel. Until then, good luck.
Jesse Lee Peterson sent in a letter to the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct calling for a probe of the activities of the Congressional Black Caucus in regards to Aristide.
I'd like that to, but I doubt it will happen. Good that Jesse's giving it the old college try, though.
Among the points in his letter:
"Within the past seven weeks, Rep. Waters has made several trips to Haiti. She even accompanied Mr. Aristide to Jamaica on Monday (3/15/04) – against the advice of the White House. We’d like to know by what authority does a United States congresswoman chaperone a deposed foreign dictator?"
By nobody's authority but her own. She's a Grand Ayatollah and gets to make her own rules.
I looked at the Peeps research page and I looked at the Readability Info page. I'm so jaded, surgery to separate quintuplet Peeps doesn't make me crack a smile. Or maybe their gag was just lame.
The Readability Info page will analyze your writing (or blog) on a number of different reading scales. An 8 or 9 or the FOG index is supposed to be ideal. You can compare your writing to others', and it's interesting to see where you fit in.
Intelligence, strength, integrity, and class.
There's a terrific gathering of reactions to her testimony over at CS Monitor.
This is a woman for whom I have nothing but admiration. If she ever runs for President, she has my vote.
To the wives of 9-11 victims for which this might apply:
Nobody likes a professional widow. You get a year and after that you're just milking it. You are not in control of public opinion and you are not in control of the government. The crowd isn't going to part like the Red Sea when you walk through. Some of you are doing a bad Yoko Ono impersonation out there. Try your schtick in Oklahoma City and see how well it goes over.
Most women become widows. You are no more important than any other widow out there, so get over yourselves.
Explain to me why they allowed there to be a peanut gallery at these proceedings.
Michelle Malkin does a riff on Tawana Brawley, who is now "Maryam Mohammad", and Kerri Dunn.
This vicious strain of Tawana Brawleyism is alive and well on college campuses. In these educational temples of the perpetually aggrieved, rationality and truth have been recklessly sacrificed at the altar of diversity.
Thank you to the Iraqis who helped our boys after Sunday's ambush.
(Via Iraq the Model.)
Ays of Iraq at a Glance discussing Muqtada's group:
I'm afraid the world will say that Iraqis don't deserve the liberation because of those people.
It's already being said, Ays.
The best part of the week: Duane Allman time. Here's Duane fishing.
Wail on, Skydog!
I hear things aren't going too well over at Err America.
Al, would you quit crushing the little guy under your heel for just five minutes?
At this rate, I wonder just how long Despair America is destined to stay on the radio.
(All derisive nicknames courtesy of contributor James.)
Firas of Iraq and Iraqis doesn't seem to think the sky is falling. Of course, he's just a stockbroker, not a military genius like so many other bloggers.
O'Reilly was doing a pretty good Chicken Little impersonation last night. He's already decided that the Iraqis aren't worth it. That's a shame, as he has a lot of influence on people. I had images of Margaret Thatcher leaping up on his desk like a big leopard seal and chomping him down head first.
Teddy K can't keep his pants on or his mouth shut. These are not attractive features in a man.
It makes me smile when he says "We need a new President", because I know and he knows that it can never be him.
You're a screw-up, Ted.
Boston Irish weighs in. (Scroll down.)
The professor's past is a puzzle
Kerri Dunn taught criminal justice but she was a shoplifter. While earning a PhD in psychology, she was ordered into counseling for stealing
Dunn, 39, was a hero to many students at Claremont McKenna College, lifting her voice for the oppressed. Then she became the professor who may have betrayed them.
She railed against hate crimes. Now she is suspected of staging one.
Dunn — a Catholic converting to Judaism — prided herself on being passionate and outspoken. But court records and interviews with colleagues, students, friends and police reveal a woman of contradiction and secrets.
Some movies crack me up no matter how many times I see them.
It's got to suck for the Salvadoran soldiers under Spanish command. Spain is running and the dogs are chasing.
If I were the Salvadorans, I'd ask to be put with a different country.
Woo hoo! I get to be the Nancy Sinatra link over at Paul Anka's place. Mr. Anka knows
to watch his filthy mouth around me, because I'm a lady. Plus, he's scared of my daddy.
In the marketplace of ideas, nobody wants to buy the gumwrappers at the bottom of your purse
A few years ago Rose Weitz's new book about the sociological significance of women's hairstyles might have been hailed as an important contribution to feminist theory.
Instead, the book by one of America's leading professors of women's studies has fallen victim to a rising tide of popular disdain for what one critic described as self-important feminist "psychobabble".
In a rare breakdown of the political correctness that routinely protects women's issues from critical scrutiny, Weitz has received brutal reviews for her book Rapunzel's Daughters — What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives.
Give it up, ladies. This crap is old and tired. Your ideas have been rejected by most women and the guys are catching on to it.
The attacks on Weitz and Wolf have coincided with the emergence of an aggressive breed of conservative feminists who are determined to counter what one of them called "Ms information" — the notion that everything should be blamed on men. "Feminism in this country has become a parody of itself," said Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Yes, it has. Now go have a birthday party for your vagina, or whatever it is you do.
You'll never get me in any Atlantic Tunnel. No, sir.
I won't go hurtling across the ocean floor for no damn body.
Somebody put a lot of effort in that site, so go enjoy it.
Write this 100 times:
Aznar was not running for office.
Meanwhile, terrorists of the world, ignite!
God bless the Spanish policeman, Javier Torrontera, who died fighting these evil men.
I'm glad some people in Canada are worried about terrorism.
Wakey, wakey. You're on their list.
Well, lookie here. This is the first news that made me smile all day.
I'm heartened to see that John Kerry's people have the decency to tell a hate-filled supporter to take a hike.
Savannah prepares for G-8 protesters
Residents fear that the looting and rioting that took place during the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle will be replicated in the southern historical town.
Many residents are pleased with the efforts of police and local officials to prepare for what may happen. But some protest organizers say the city's permit fee of $1.50 per head discriminates against the poor and makes it too expensive to organize large-scale rallies.
"If there's no organized activities, what's going to happen is you're going to have thousands of people milling through this antique city and things can get broken and things can be set afire," warned Bill Pleasant, a G-8 protest organizer.
That sounds like a threat to me. Bill Pleasant must have learned his trade as a union thug.
One of the four men killed in Fallujah was a Florida boy. Scott Helvenston was a Navy veteran and will be buried with full military honors at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.
I've been amusing myself comparing reactions to the hoaxes of Audrey Seiler and Kerri Dunn. Again and again in stories on Dunn I see quotes like this from Pomona College President David Oxtoby:
"The worst possible outcome would be for people to come away saying there is not a problem because we know there are problems, and we need to deal with them," he said.
So even though the crime was imaginary, it must be dealt with.
In an article on Desmond Tutu's visit to Dunn's campus, the reporter brought up the Dunn hoax and said:
What concerns many students is the climate that even allows hoaxes to happen.
So the imaginary crime is evidence of real crimes lurking.
If I pretended that my arm was broken and walked around with it in a sling, garnering sympathy and concern, when I was found out would anyone wonder about the climate that allowed my hoax to happen? No, I would be just another person with mental health issues.
If I said my arm was broken in a hate crime attack, though, they'd shut down universities for me, and after I'm found to be a fraud, they'd write lengthy editorials about how my action demonstrates real hate crimes bubbling just under the surface. NRO did an interesting and informative article on hate crime hoaxes on campus back in 1998, but it appears that there have been no lessons learned from the past.
Meanwhile, according to TV news reports, the police are planning on sending crazy, lying Audrey Seiler a bill for what her stunt cost them.
How do you like your new boyfriend, Spain? Don't say your friends didn't warn you about this guy.
What do you think you did wrong now?
As always, good stuff from Ali of Iraq the Model
This is not between Islamists and the west, not between Saddam loyalists and America this is between good and evil, light and darkness and I can’t sit and watch or explain anymore. You can say, “Nuke Mecca� or “nuke Fallujah� and you can chose the Spanish government’s attitude and submit to terror, or you can join us (Iraqis and coalition) in fighting dictatorship, terrorism and their-no less evil and damaging- propaganda machine. I call for serious measures upon such channels that provoke hatred and celebrate terror and show it as a heroic action. I say, “‘nuke’ Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia, the terrorists and all dictators in the world. It’s either us or them�. The evil TV channels should be prevented from entering Iraq and spew their poisons into the minds of simple people. They’re more dangerous than the terrorists themselves and no rigid concepts such as ‘freedom of speech’ should stop us here. This is not journalism, its terror propaganda.
What a shock, Audrey Seiler is full of crap.
She originally told the police she was abducted from her apartment. Too bad for her the surveillance camera in the lobby showed her leaving alone. Now she says she was abducted somewhere else. Whatever, Audrey. I hope the city bills you for all the money you've cost them to hunt for you.
Update: She'd said her abductor had tied her up with duct tape and rope and drugged her with cough syrup. The police went into a local store and found videotape of her buying... duct tape, rope and cough syrup. The whole thing's been called off. She made it all up.
Her family needs to get her to a shrink, pronto.
Looks like quite a few other people also think University of Wisconsin student Audrey Seiler's story of abduction stinks.
Update: Woman who called in the 911 yesterday on Seiler said she saw her in the marsh on Monday and Tuesday as well and spoke to her. She said Seiler told her she comes to the marsh "to relax".
Paul and Michael have convinced me. Time to commence Operation Jimmy Dean against Fallujah.
Mystery Surrounds Coed's Reported Abduction
There may be inconsistencies in the probe of a University of Wisconsin sophomore's abduction, Madison police announced Thursday, but they are still on the hunt for a suspect.
You bet there're inconsistencies. This one smells like a hoax.
Firas of Iraq and Iraqis gives his reaction on the Fallujah murders.
