Via Greg Henderson, Duane with Hot 'Lanta.
Wail on, Skydog!
After George Weller's senseless automotive meanderings in an outdoor market, this one is a bit more understandable:
An investigator in the Metro East community of Shiloh says an 84-year-old woman who crashed her car through an elementary school's cafeteria -- killing a student -- was headed for a driving class at a nearby senior citizen's center.
I imagine it was a AARP driver safety course. Their website offers a list of warning signs of when to stop driving, with "A scythe-holding individual in black robes asks you to take him for a spin in your chariot" soon to be added.
What would be more dangerous: confronting drug dealers in your yard, or confronting undercover police officers doing a reverse drug-sting in your yard?
Since 81-year-old Isaac Singletary had a habit of doing the former but it was the latter that killed him, I'd peg out-of-mufti officers in a Stand Your Ground state as being the more detrimental to your continuing ability to breathe:
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says the victim of a police shooting over the weekend on the Southside is 81-year-old Isaac Singletary.Police say the shooting happened after they ordered Singletary to drop his weapon.
Police say they had no choice but to shoot Singletary.
"If you've got an individual that's got a firearm, then you have to do what you have to do based on your training to protect your life or protect the lives of others," said the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Director of Homeland Security and Investigations, Micheal Edwards.
Edwards says the undercover narcotics unit was using the area near Singletary's yard to bust drug operations in the neighborhood.
He says words were exchanged between the undercover officers and Singletary.
What exactly was said is under investigation.
He'd have been better off leaving the real dealers cookies and lemonade.
Just as the best chefs are men, throughout history the finest poisoners have been women. Somewhere along the line we sold our birthright:
A woman in Wisconsin is accused of serving a poisoned milkshake.Police in Neenah arrested 24-year-old Amanda Verboomen and charged her with serving the drink laced with rat poison.
According to police, Verboomen served three people milkshakes at a residence near Green Bay.
They became suspicious when they noticed the drinks had a funny taste and green pellets floating on the bottom.
Locusta wept, that's sorry.
It's back to waiting in line for some disappointed Chinese bachelors as a recent entrepreneurial effort meant to help alleviate the bride shortage gets shut down by police:
A ring of gangsters who traded in the bodies of women they murdered, selling them as brides to keep dead bachelors happy in the afterlife, has been arrested in China.The arrests have exposed a trade that places a higher value on women when they are dead than when they are alive.
Yang Dongyan, 35, was arrested on January 4 in Sha’anxi province as he played cards with his children. In his prison cell, Yang showed little remorse for committing two murders. He told a newspaper, “I just wanted to make money. It’s a quick way to make money. I was arrested too soon otherwise I had planned to do this business a few more times.”
Two accomplices, Liu Shengbao and Hui Haibao, were also arrested, as was Li Longsheng, a self-styled undertaker who traded the bodies to bereaved families.
Zhang Yanjun, chief of police in Yanchuan county, said: “It’s lucky that the case was cleared up in time or we don’t know how many women would have been killed by them. These people thought they had found a short cut to wealth.” Instead, they face the death penalty.
The men preyed on the superstitions of ill-educated farmers eager to ensure that a dead son was happy in the afterlife. It is not uncommon in rural parts of China for a family to seek out the body of a woman who has died to be buried alongside their son after the performance of a marriage ceremony for the deceased pair.
On the distaff side, mentally retarded women and prostitutes find themselves the hardest hit by the operation's shut-down, just as they were before its closing.
Administrators at St. Rose of Lima Elementary in Warwick, R.I. are patting themselves on the back (forcefully) after banning talking at lunch to prevent students from choking. Meanwhile they continue to avoid the elephant in the lunchroom: food. Kids are chewing it and attempting to swallow it...and it could kill:
Class, from now on there will be no talking at lunch.A Roman Catholic elementary school adopted new lunchroom rules this week requiring students to remain silent while eating. The move comes after three recent choking incidents in the cafeteria.
Slapping a band-aid on a problem is no solution: you need to deal with the real issue.
Leisureville resident James Keppel kept up with his avocation until the very end.
As this altercation with a mountain lion attests, don't count on your cheap-ass little pen to provide you protection when you need it. You've been walking around with a false sense of confidence, my friend:
Nell Hamm said she grabbed a four-inch-wide log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head."Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,'" she said. "So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."
When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log.
I bet mountain lion eye is child's play for a Sharpie.
In the book The Beast In The Garden, you'll find frequent instances of cougars' lack of a live and let live policy. They're pretty kitties but awfully hidebound about eating something hidebound.
It seems my timely words of wisdom to everyone on how to conduct themselves on MLK Day went unheeded in some quarters:
The president of the Tarleton State University chapter of the NAACP said Wednesday that he and other students are upset about a Martin Luther King Day party where students ate fried chicken, drank malt liquor and dressed in faux gang apparel.
Watch the skies for these students' mass migration to rehab. It's the new atonement for social sins.
I only wish the ignorant louts could be shamed into stopping their insensitive drinking and their wearing of sexually harassing "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons on St. Patrick's Day. Patrick is not the patron saint of the inebriated college student and his symbol is not a puddle of green beer puke.
Lots of people have been e-mailing me about the new Nifong ethics charge. You'll find everything you need to know about the Duke case and this new development over at Durham-In-Wonderland.
Did the real killer cleverly stage the scene?
The body of a woman who cares for animals at the small circus was found near the glass [snake] enclosure with signs of suffocation and remnants of snakeskin on her neck, the regional branch of the Interior Ministry said.
Look deeper, Russian authorities.
I can't recall the shirt, so going from the length of his hair, I'm guessing this is Muscle Shoals era Duane. Anybody else able to peg it?
Wail on, Skydog!
Sometimes you just forget you have stuff:
The partially mummified body of a baby, wrapped in 1950s newspapers, was found Monday by a woman going through her deceased parents' belongings in a southeast Florida storage facility, according to police."It was a baby boy, partially mummified," said Delray Beach police spokesman Jeff Messer. "The woman was pretty upset when she found it. You could make out the features pretty clearly." The child had hair, he said.
The body was in a small suitcase, which was placed inside a larger suitcase, said Messer, who viewed the remains.
"It was spooky," Messer said.
The baby was wrapped in a newspaper called The Daily Times, dated January 9, 1957, police said. Authorities are not sure where it was published, but were checking the New York and New Jersey area because the couple lived there before retiring in Florida.
Every family has a skeleton in the closet: I'll go for broke and say this is theirs.
Great new articles and photos by INDC Bill in Iraq are up. Be sure to check them out. Chip in for a roll of film if you're enjoying seeing photos untouched by the hands of Reuters stringers.
As I figured, Shawn Hornbeck was forced to play a role in the kidnapping of Ben. It was the only thing that made sense, really. Fat-assed Devlin had some toes amputated due to diabetes and couldn't capture kids the way he used to. The tale grows ever Hearstian:
Authorities close to the case tell News 4, that Shawn Hornbeck was forced to help kidnap Ben Ownby.Those authorities say that Shawn Hornbeck, a kidnapping victim himself, was forced to participate in the abduction of 13-year-old Ben Ownby and that a gun and duct tape were involved.
Police say that Michael Devlin grabbed Ben Ownby after the boy got off his school bus on a rural road, but News 4 has learned that Devlin had help.
Law enforcement sources tell News 4 that Hornbeck was forced to help grab Ownby, and even push the boy to the floorboard of the white Nissan truck. We’ve also learned that Ben was held with a gun and duct tape.
Pediatric psychiatrist Dr. Robin Park says that Devlin would have had to desensitize and brainwash Shawn for months to get him to do something so clearly wrong.
Police speculate that in Devlin’s eyes, Shawn, at age 15, was getting too old.
In happier news, the eagle-eyed and truck-loving young Mitchell Hults is getting a brand new Dodge truck for providing the description of the get-away truck that solve the case. A well-deserved reward for an awesome kid.
***
Nellie Bly Strikes Again
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No wonder the sheriff there has only a hazy recollection of $17,000 in found-money turned in six months ago:
Two Sedgwick County employees who turned in $17,000 they found in an old paint can are going to court to get the money returned to them.Lance Miller, an employee at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, found the money in July 2006, when he turned over a 5-gallon paint can at the center. Inside were several denominations of bills that added up to $17,280.
Miller and his supervisor, Kolin Anglin, took the cash to another supervisor, who turned it over to Sheriff Gary Steed. Miller said investigators found the man who dropped off the can had died about 15 years ago and they did not locate any relatives.
Steed said Friday that he could not remember much about the investigation and the cash is probably in safekeeping somewhere.
I'm going to have to assume they asked for it back themselves before hiring a lawyer, and I myself have a hazy recollection that a certain amount of time does have to pass before you can reclaim money you've turned in.
My husband, Dr. Schweitzer, once found a ten-dollar bill on the grocery store floor and turned it in to a cashier. She gave him the oddest look and I just shook my head. He doesn't follow the age-old rule about how if it's on the ground and not inside a wallet you can keep it. Actually, that's my rule; but I'm sure my ancestors before me followed it too.
The sun shone brightly in Ft. Myers as the AirTran flight boarded. Passengers wistfully settled into their seats, smiles playing across their faces as they mentally savored the last moments of dream vacations spent in sand and surf before winging back to the cold and damp of the Northeast. Without warning, shrieks pierced the air, snapping them back to reality as they sought the source of the cries. It was little Elly. She was having a tantrum. Soon the shrieks became a gale, howling through the fuselage. They knew it was going to be a long flight to Boston, but unless someone stepped forward...it would be a long flight to Hell:
“I was trying to console her and the stewardess came over and said, ‘Did you buy that seat for her?’ remembers Ms. Kulesza, 31, who is four months pregnant. “I said yes, and she told me my daughter needs to sit in it. I told her I was trying.”Moments later, an AirTran Airways employee armed with a walkie-talkie addressed Mr. Kulesza.
“Sir, you need to get her under control,” she said.
“We’re trying,” Mr. Kulesza noted.
The passengers, meanwhile, were quite understanding and one of them offered the toddler a lollipop, which she rejected. Then the walkie-talkie woman returned to the Kuleszas’ aisle and displayed the raw tact and diplomacy of Donald Trump.
“Sir, you need to get off the plane,” she announced.
“What?” a stunned Mr. Kulesza asked. “Are you serious?”
“Sir, you need to get off the plane now.”
Next week: "Surgery in the Sky": the AirTran crew is forced to perform emergency amputations on little Elly after she becomes locked in a compulsion to kick the seat in front of her.
I saw last evening that the lawyers of kidnapper Michael Devlin would be filing a motion to protect him from predatory reporters, saying they believed a reporter from the New York Post had twice visited with their client. Since none of his large family has visited him despite living nearby, he must have been desperate for a chat -- as he'd surely know the Post has a rather blunt format, as witnessed by Susanna Cahalan's write-up of their chat, neutrally entitled: I AM STILL TOO SCARED TO TELL MY MOM AND DAD, 'KIDNAP' CREEP ADMITS. Heh.
He can probably stop worrying about telling them; I'm sure they're aware by now.
My bet is none of this ever goes to trial. With a foundation of the kidnapping charges, they'll minus out any potential sex charges (except the kiddie porn if the Feds can make it stick and it doesn't involve known kiddies), then throw everything else at him they can, to include spitting on the sidewalk and jaywalking, and follow it up it all up with a plea bargain. I have a suspicion about the "shocking facts" Devlin's lawyers have mentioned, and I'm sure both sides of the table will want this one plead out for a long sentence but not an effective life one. I've not watched "Law and Order" all these years for nothing.
***
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First zombie chickens, now a reanimated Tallahassee duck:
The duck would not die.Wildlife officials said the feathered Lazarus had been shot by a hunter and put into his refrigerator for two days. That's when the hunter's wife opened the door and the duck lifted his head, giving her a scare.
The man's wife "was going to check on the refrigerator because it hadn't been working right and when she opened the door, it looked up at her," said Laina Whipple, a receptionist at Killearn Animal Hospital.
"She freaked out and told the daughter to take it to the hospital right then and there."
Is the duck out of the woods? Yes. But it also has a 75% chance of survival.
This little girl must surely have a message of some sort that needs to be imparted to America. A message far too important for only the ears of law enforcement and a personal therapist:
A sheriff's department employee is charged with paying a woman for sex with her 8-year-old daughter, and a special judge was called from out of town for a bond hearing Wednesday because the accused is engaged to a Memphis judge.
I tell you, I can just never get enough of those writhing-in-horror reaction shots from a kid as adults participating in group-therapytainment chat about the most personal, hideous events of the kid's life in front of him on nation-wide television. I admit it's a bit of a double standard on my part, as I personally thanked God for the magic age of 18 when I become an actual person and was granted the ability to tell people to fuck off at will -- but hey, everybody's got to do their time as an object.
After watching the Oprah interview today, I got an account on her message board just so I could tell her how wonderful it was of her to serve up on national TV the deliciously damaged 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck. Surprisingly I found myself wading through pages of silly "Boycott Oprah" messages. I guess some people's palates aren't sensitive enough to appreciate the exquisite taste of a child's pain.
They're big, they're bad, and they're bloated:
Three pregnant teens living in a group home whacked the director in the head with a frying pan, tied her up and then fled in a stolen minivan, police said.The director, who was tied up with power cords Tuesday, eventually broke free and called police, police Sgt. Shauna Greening said. She also freed another pregnant teen tied up in the attack, she said.
Authorities believed the teens -- two 15-year-olds and one 16-year-old -- left the state and a search was under way. Police said the teens also stole the director's purse, checkbook, credit cards, cell phone and video camera.
The motive wasn't clear. Parents of the girls, who are from California, Texas and Illinois, were notified, police said.
I imagine they took the video camera in case they needed to film the miracle of birth. The authorities should be able to catch up to the van soon enough -- all those bathroom stops will cut into the girls' fleeing time for sure.
Boys will be boys:
Two boys walked out of an unlocked juvenile detention home and took an early morning joy ride on a train - until authorities tracked them down.The boys managed to start up the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway locomotive early Tuesday morning after breaking through a side door into the building that houses the engine, said Sgt. Edward Kurtz of Nelsonville police. No cars were attached to the engine, which usually hauls tourists.
The tracks go by the windows of the city police station, and Hocking College police also noticed the engine rolling down the tracks.
"That's very unusual. The train runs only on weekends," Kurtz said.
He said the boys rode about 12 miles to Logan, blowing the train whistle and waking residents. They also stopped by a grocery store off U.S. 23, where Athens County sheriff's deputies took them into custody.
Matthew Burks, 16, of Proctorville, and Zachary Walden, 13, of Portsmouth, were charged with juvenile counts of burglary, theft and escape, police said.
Burks, who had some knowledge of trains, was driving the engine, Kurtz said.
"He got it started and away they went," he said.
I hope this doesn't get these kids in any worse trouble than what they already were; they've got flair. They've got so much flair, in fact, that the only way they could have added any more of it to the situation would be if Johnny Weir had been riding on the roof.
Still in Iraq, INDC Bill has some great pictures up of his time in Fallujah, including one deeply disturbing image purporting to show a Marine smiling. I think it's Photoshopped.
The captions clearly reveal the photographer's stress. If you haven't already contributed to his fund, go over and spring for some Rolaids.
His interview with an Iraqi police officer is also not to be missed.
Duane putting his long perfect fingers to good use.
Wail on, Skydog!
Why send a Mexican drugrunner to prison when you can send the border patrol:
Two Texas Border Patrol agents who shot a Mexican drug runner in the backside on the U.S. side of the border are hoping a last-ditch pardon from President Bush will save them from serving more than a decade in prison.Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are scheduled to turn themselves in to authorities Wednesday to begin serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, for the February 2005 non-fatal shooting.
Several groups, including Friends of the Border Patrol, The Minutemen and Grassfire.org, have been trying through petitions to keep the agents out of prison — through either a motion to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to allow them to remain free on bond during an appeal or through a presidential pardon from Bush. About a dozen rallies took place across the country in support of the agents last week.
You can bet the druglords in Mexico are having a good chuckle over this one.
I'm still busy enjoying the coverage of the missing boys coming home and won't bore anybody with my happiness. Every couple of years all my dismal expectations of an event will be overturned by such stunning good news that I just have to soak it in. The survival and unprecedented recovery of Randal McCloy at the Sago mine was one such instance; another was the rescue of the Quecreek miners. People I'd assumed were dead rose up like Lazarus at me, and I love a good resurrection.
I'll wish you the same as my mother-in-law wished us: I hope you guys are having a good time and paying proper homage to Martin.
But you can foot the bill while they live the good life. It's nice to be a part of something, isn't it? But people are getting nervous in candyland colleges across the nation: Nick Saban's contract with Alabama might have been the $32 million straw that broke the camel's back of not-for-profit collegiate sports:
Nick Saban's $4 million-a-year contract to become Alabama's football coach is good news for other top coaches negotiating new contracts. But some college athletics administrators fear that Saban's windfall will trigger others, and that continuing increases in coaches' salaries may result in congressional scrutiny.Saban will become the highest-paid coach in college football by a wide margin, according to a USA TODAY study of head coaches' contracts.
This year's leader was Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, at $3.45 million, not including benefits or the value of other perks. Iowa's Kirk Ferentz will clear the $3 million threshold in 2007. Both coaches in Monday night's Bowl Championship Series title game have contract provisions that could soon result in renegotiations. Florida's Urban Meyer already is making more than $1.5 million and Ohio State's Jim Tressel more than $2 million.
"I'm concerned … about the finances and how it will affect the rest of us in the years to come," said LSU athletics director Skip Bertman. "Congress is already talking about 'What can we do?' And presidents are saying 'What can we do?' This will not just fuel the fire. This will set off all the alarms."
USA TODAY obtained a contract or other official documentation for 107 of 119 Division I-A coaches, and Stoops was alone above $3 million in guaranteed pay this year. (Notre Dame's Charlie Weis, likely a high earner, was among those for whom USA TODAY could not obtain figures.)
The House Ways and Means Committee has asked the NCAA to explain — among other things — why coaches are paid so much and whether athletic departments with up to $105 million in revenue deserve tax-exempt status.
At least some schools are watching developments warily.
In a carefully worded statement, Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White said he finds himself "continually concerned about protecting the non-profit status enjoyed by intercollegiate athletics and/or the academy in general."
Here in Florida the football coaches have their heads stuffed in the tax-free feedbag as well. On top of his regular salary, UF's Urbin Meyer's 20-page contract rains down lots of sugar cubes:
Colleges have invented all kinds of imaginative ways to stuff extra money into coaches' pockets. Bobby, for example, is promised $300,000 for speechifying. Urban gets $300,000 to host a TV show that no one would mistake for American Idol.Meyer gets a $60,000 expense account. He gets two free cars and the university throws in his car insurance. He gets $500,000 in a sports apparel deal. (Poor Coach Bowden only gets $275,000 a year from Nike.) Meyer gets $100,000 a year for his investment portfolio (which increases to $150,000 after 2008). And another $100,000 toward his children's education. He gets 12 ''highest stadium priority'' tickets to every home game -- a commodity valuable enough to make a scalper rich.
When Meyer signed the contract in 2005, he received a $500,000 signing bonus. On top of all that lovely money, Meyer gets another $250,000 this year just for not running out on his contract. Next year the ''longevity'' bonus goes up to $500,000. By 2011, if Meyer is still hanging around Gatorland, the annual please-don't-go bonus goes up to $600,000.
Some folks, particularly those making less than the average $950,000 a year now made by a Division 1 college football coach, complain that these salaries make a mockery of college's tax-exempt academic mission.
Make sure you check out the database of college coaches' salaries and their sweet, sweet incentives. That it all falls under tax-exempt academic mission status might get you rooting for a congressional inquiry.
Shawn Hornbeck's MindViz profile. The mind's a strange landscape that can be filled for good or ill. I've requested they take the profile down; surely they will as soon as they're aware of whose it is.
Welcome home to Shawn and Ben.
UPDATE:
You don't say:
Both boys appeared well, but psychologists speculated that Shawn – who disappeared while riding his bicycle to a friend's house in 2002, when he was 11 – may have developed Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which hostages fall under the spell of their captors.
As a hostage from TWA Flight 847 said of the hijackers who beat fellow-passenger Robert Stethem to death, “They weren’t bad people. They let me eat, they let me sleep, they gave me my life."
You can find his other profiles, of which there were many, here. They may have been put up by Devlin to use as bait.
***
Previous postings:
Missing No Longer
Just as unstable and bloodthirsty at the breakfast table as he is on the battlefield, a petulant Pullo 'prefers not to.' Unfortunately for anyone within striking distance, he's subsequently goaded into overkill by aspersions cast at his beloved 13th Legion.
From the HBO series "Rome."
Fourth in a series.
This story today out of Missouri sounds so much like that of Steven Stayner, the California boy who'd been missing for seven years when late one night he brought in a newly-abducted little boy named Timmy White to a police station. From other reports, however, we learn it was the local police's eye for a suspicious truck that led authorities to a house where two missing boys were found. But the end result is the same: two abducted boys, one of whom had been gone for many years, are now home safe with their parents:
A 13-year-old boy who has been missing since Monday was seen Friday walking into a police station with law enforcement officials.Ben Ownby and another adolescent boy were seen going into the police station. Local television stations said the second boy was Shawn Hornbeck, who went missing from his home in Richwoods, about 65 miles southwest of St. Louis, four years ago at age 11.
Authorities have said Ben disappeared Monday afternoon after stepping off his school bus. The straight-A student and Boy Scout was last seen running the few hundred feet down a gravel road to his home. Police and FBI agents are seeking a beat-up white pickup thought to be involved in the kidnapping.
A Kirkwood man named Michael Devlin has been arrested for their kidnapping. Shawn Hornbeck's family has been very active in trying to find him, hoping against hope these past years. They must be out of their minds with joy right now.
You can't get on the Hornbeck website right now; it's swamped. Thanks to the Kirkwood, Missouri police for being on the ball, and congrats to both families for getting their sons back. May the man who took them do more prison time than the one who took Steven and Timmy.
UPDATE:
The St. Louis paper has much more.
UPDATE II:
From the guestbook of the website Shawn Hornbeck's family put up:
shawn devlin - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - 1:59 AM
kirkwood
how long are you planing to look for your son?
He was trying. He left another message later in the day as well. Steven Stayner was asked why he never asked for help. He said he just couldn't. His captor told him his parents didn't want him back and he believed him. It was only his pity for the new kidnapped boy that gave him the impetus to break free. What kind of head trip was laid on the Hornbeck boy I can't imagine.
(Via the TrueCrimeblog.)
INDC Bill seems to be adapting well as an imbed in Iraq. Hopefully soon he'll stop evacuating his bowels at the sound of a loud noise.
If you haven't already donated to his fund, chip in a few bucks for some Depends.
Looks like they're twisting the law up in knots trying to make being creepy a punishable offense:
A high school teacher was charged under Texas' "peeping Tom" law with videotaping girls' wrestling matches for his sexual enjoyment.Police said David Ware, 28, often zoomed in for close-up shots of the girls' crotches.
Authorities say the first-year speech and drama teacher plans to turn himself in this week to Grand Prairie, Texas, police to face charges of improper visual recording, which carries up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Ware shot about two hours of videotape at an all-day tournament Saturday but drew suspicion from a coach, Grand Prairie Sgt. John Brimmer said. A police officer reviewed Ware's tape.
"This was more than accidental footage of the genital areas," Brimmer said. "It appeared to be a purposeful act of zooming in."
Ware was charged under a 2001 law meant to protect people from ultra-small cameras that can be used to peek into dressing rooms or up women's skirts. Under the law, filming a person without consent for sexual arousal is a felony.
You have some expectation of privacy in dressing rooms, restrooms, and under you skirt. I don't see how zooming at what's been shown at a public exhibition is an offense. If they want to eliminate the potential for creepy, they'd have to ban photography at gymnastics meets altogether.
Some ruckus news coming out of Athens:
An explosion ripped through the U.S. embassy compound in central Athens on Friday, police said.It was not clear what caused the blast and there was no immediate word on whether there were any casualties.
"We are investigating the cause of the explosion. We are not ruling anything out," a senior police official told Reuters.
Dozens of police cars surrounded the embassy and police cordoned off all roads in the area, including a major boulevard in front of the mission.
"Police have cut off all traffic. I am standing right here but there does not seem to be any damage. Greece's anti-terror squad are now investigating inside the embassy," a U.S. embassy employee at the scene told Reuters.
That doesn't sound too bad, now does it? A bit lame if it was terrorism. It's been some decades since we've made any emotional investment in our embassies. Attacking them doesn't hurt our feelings and just makes the terrorist look too poor to afford to travel to our soil -- unless he could get here by donkey cart or something.
UPDATE:
Oh, no! Dear God in heaven, they're blowning up our toilets.
UPDATE II:
Today the commodes in a third-floor restroom give mute testimony to the deadly accuracy of the terrorists. Their incredible shit-seeking missiles have stunned the world.
Via Ace, an update on Jimmy Carter's stink tank:
Fourteen members of an advisory board at the Carter Center resigned today, concluding they could "no longer in good conscience continue to serve" following publication of former President Jimmy Carter's controversial book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.""It seems that you have turned to a world of advocacy, including even malicious advocacy," the board members wrote in a letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position."
The resignees all appear to be Jews whose powerful lobby was unsuccessful in stifling Carter's saucy and piquant views on Israel.
More at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Oh dear, this is a cousin. He is creative, if nothing else, and who doesn't like a good homemade flamethrower?
An attempt to keep bees at bay has one Cape Coral man out at least $500.Franklyn Pigott Jr., 38, was attempting to take out a bees nest on the outside wall of his home on N.W. 18th Avenue on Wednesday and ended up catching his house on fire.
According to a police incident report filed by officer A.W. Arroyo, Pigott was using a product called Real Kill Indoor Fogger, which he mixed with WD-40, and it turned into a "flame-thrower," which melted the vinyl siding of the house.
I don't know why anyone would want to send the toxic substance Tellurium to the Palm Beach courthouse, and yet they did. Scrub downs and paper suits made for a memorable day for the five people who'd handled the powder-filled envelopes in the mail room.
Tellurium, like asparagus, announces its toxicity in the body in the form of foul breath. Those who breath it get "Tellurium breath," a garlicky smell impervious to Tic-Tacs.
UPDATE:
Today must have been the deadline to send white powdery envelopes to area courthouses. The Broward courthouse received a special delivery today as well.
(Via Owen in e-mail.)
A better review of M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" I cannot find. But Jackie and Dunlap are much more than film connoisseurs, as you'll see in their video:
The video of the President's surge speech, with highlights and a round-up of opinions, is here. What did you think?
That headline gave me pause.
Weary from what exactly? Weary from living life exactly as we've always lived it?
We're not wearing from rationing, or growing and canning our own food. We're not wearing from travel restrictions or clothing shortages. We're not weary from working in defense plants, buying war bonds, or collecting scrap metal.
We're certainly not weary from most of our men 18-45 being in uniform.
This war hasn't required a thing from the general populace. We haven't done anything to be weary from.
No, we're not "war-weary Americans." So what would make a more truthful headline? How about this:
"Bored With War, Americans Weigh New Bush Plan."
Michelle Malkin has her first photos and notes up on her trip to Baghdad.
Interest in leaks cause only pique, but this will peak their interest:
The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside.In a U.S. government report, the department said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
The U.S. report does not suggest who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It also doesn't describe how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.
Coins with transmitters, how charming. Will cockroaches with cameras be far behind? Rest assured the CIA is using all available resources to investigate The Case of the Crappy Quarters.
(Via Consonant Dude in e-mail.)
This is a puzzler. The FBI drops numerous leak probes because of lack of cooperation? Are we supposed to believe that's how investigations are conducted?
A lack of cooperation from one or more intelligence agencies led the FBI to abandon several recent criminal investigations into leaks of classified information to the press, records obtained by The New York Sun indicate.In January 2005, a top FBI official asked the Justice Department to close three pending leak inquiries because the "victim agency" repeatedly refused to assist the probes. The FBI's contact at the agency "has been uncooperative with the investigating field office and on numerous occasions failed to return phone calls or provide the case agent with requested documents pertinent to the investigation," the memo said, adding that the agency "cancelled personnel interviews, security briefings and meetings at the last minute and failed to reschedule for another time."
"None of the cases can proceed without the cooperation of the substantive unit at the victim agency, therefore the FBI considers all logical leads covered," the FBI official wrote. Within days or weeks, the cases were closed.
The memo, which was among more than 300 pages of leak investigation files released to the Sun this week under the Freedom of Information Act, was heavily redacted by the FBI, which removed the name of the writer, the identity of the intelligence agency involved, and nearly all details about the alleged leaks.
Maybe if they got in there and start firing people who are hindering prosecution (the FBI liaisons who conducted these aborted 'investigations' included) the leaks would end. This is corruption, and the victim isn't any agency, it's us.
(Via Lucianne.)
INDC Bill's second article from Iraq is up at the Washington Examiner. That, combined with a compelling (and sad) interview with a local man named Yusef, make for the most informative reading you'll find today on the situation in that region. I hate to mention it, but I heard a slightly altered version of Yusef's statement "I think the Americans are more for Iraq than the Iraqis themselves" many long years ago from my veteran father. Building a nation requires some measure of nationalism.
You catch more criminals with beer than with honey:
A pair of citizen crimefighters used free beer and a car ride to help capture a robbery suspect, according to a police report.A neighbor near Glencoe Road in New Smyrna Beach reported startling two men apparently breaking into a van parked on Glencoe Road on Monday night.
The first deputy to arrive spotted the men running into some woods and attempted to stop them.
Click here to find out more!During the search, two men flagged down a deputy to report that they had seen the suspects running into the woods and planned to continue looking for them.
Police said the men stopped their car and offered Shelly a beer and a ride to the highway.
Shelly accepted the offer and got in the car. But instead of a ride out of the area, the driver deposited Shelly onto Taylor Road and into the arms of a deputy, the report said.
"You've got to be kidding," witnesses said the suspect muttered as the two men opened the door to let Shelly out of the car in front of the deputy.
Sounds like our crimefighters had a lot of fun. This story's likely to go through some drunken alterations over the years, ending up with their luring the Barker Gang into the waiting arms of the law with a $100 bill on a string and a tough-talking blonde with a permanent wave.
UPDATE:
An Orlando man, also wishing to wet his whistle, gets a dog bite for his trouble:
A man who said he is an addict and would do anything to get some beer was taken into custody today on suspicion he used a hammer to smash through a wall leading to a store's refrigerator.Orlando police said the unidentified man tunneled through a concrete block wall after 3:30 a.m. at Young's Food Market located on Parramore near Carter Street and crawled through.
He then smashed another bathroom wall inside the store in an attempt to get into the store's cooler.
The owner of the store, who lives above the business, heard the noise and called 9-1-1. Officers were waiting for the man when he came outside, Local 6 News reported.
The culprit ran but was brought down by a police dog.
The dog's taking a bite out of crime added a trip to the hospital as well as a trip to jail for the man with the unquenched thirst.
A Layla-shirted Duane hitting a very good note, with Jaimoe as his witness.
Wail on, Skydog!
Why does Ace get all the great tips? Some of the people in these videos truly need to be under a doctor's care.
He's been a roll these past few days, so start at the top and just scroll down.
This photo is being rated as swoonworthy. Someone loan me their Kool-Aid goggles so I can see what all the fuss is about.
An update on last week's Mexican attack on Guardsmen at the border:
It sounds like Iraq or some other foreign land, but it happened on U.S. soil last week. Outside Sasabe, Ariz., a band of armed assailants stormed a National Guard border post and forced the Guardsmen to retreat without a shot. It was a personal affront to the Guardsmen, who should never have been in the unnatural position of being incapable of defending themselves in the first place. But they were, thanks to the Bush administration's look-tough, act-weak immigration policy.
The observation post fell because most Guardsmen at the border are not even allowed to carry loaded weapons, much less defend themselves. The attackers, in this case probably drug or alien smugglers, quickly returned to Mexico after the assault. It's past time to rethink this policy of placing Guardsmen at the border but defanging them with overly restrictive rules of engagement, which now results in a humiliation for the Guard, and for the rest of us.
Soldiers with no magazines in their weapons? I feel so secure.
There's also an update at Hot Air with a link to a supposed scoop. Make of it what you will. At minimum I got a clue to the rationale behind putting troops with empty rifles on the border.
(Via FR)
This is what I would term a vivid account; screaming for his dead wife while he was being attacked is an especially poignant detail:
A Cape Coral man was hospitalized Monday morning after he was attacked by a swarm of angry bees, and his daughter doesn't know whether he's going to live.Jeffrey Brauner, 47, was working in the backyard of the home he shares with daughter Amber Koester, 30, at 2213 SW 1st Ave. The house is behind Cape Coral High School.
Koester said she awoke to hear her father screaming for her late mother. She said she could hear the humming as she approached the front door. When she opened it, she found her father covered with bees.
Horrified, she slammed the door and dialed 911. Koester is allergic to bees.
Firefighters arrived immediately and sprayed water on Brauner to try to remove the bees, Koester said. It didn't work. They had to strip Brauner's clothes and, with gloved hands, to get the bees off of him.
"I've never seen bees so aggressive in my life," Koester said.
The bees may have been Africanized, a highly aggressive strain of bees sometimes known as "killer bees."
Keith Councell, the bee keeper called in to remove the hive, said he is sending DNA samples to two different labs to find out.
Councell estimated the hive — some 3-feet by 2-feet in dimension — was home to 40,000 to 50,000 bees.
"Just the comb alone filled two five gallon buckets," Councell said.
Koester said she didn't know her dad's prognosis. Around 2:30 p.m., she was still waiting more details on his condition. She did know he was on a ventilator.
Brauner was already terminally ill with cirrhosis, the same condition that claimed his wife two years ago. Koester said he was expected to live for a few more years.
"I think I'm just in shock right now," Koester said.
Between the killer bee swarms and the killer alligators, gardening in South Florida is becoming a risky proposition.
At some point this is going to have to be called a civil war. Only one man could unite these people: James Earl Carter, your destiny is calling:
Fatah gunmen on Monday released a top Hamas official after holding him hostage for two days and displaying him in an al-Qaida like video, but factional tensions remained high as pro-Fatah militants torched stores owned by Hamas sympathizers.The firebombings marked the first time that militants have targeted civilians in the West Bank, widening the political violence in the Palestinian areas.
Until this week, most of the violence centered on the Gaza Strip, where more than 30 people have been killed in clashes between forces loyal to the rival groups. Now Fatah militants in the West Bank have begun retaliating for Hamas attacks in Gaza.
They're everywhere, it seems. Go Gators tonight!
UPDATE:
Mary Katherine Ham hates freedom. The nation she would have us live in is full of gray-clad junior automatons, instead of children frolicking happily in the soft, clean blue and orange clothing of the Gator Nation. Her pre-game video is pure propaganda as well.
UPDATE:
Why, who's that leading? It looks like the Gators, 14-7.
UPDATE II:
21-7. :)
24-14.
27-14.
34-14
The Gators DEVOUR Ohio for the first half!
41-14
The Gators are annihilating these guys.
The ones that nobody gave a chance to win are now National Champions!
***
Previous posting:
Ohioans Briefly In Demand
When Will The Hating End?
I say, old chaps at the Telegraph, you're going to get your Tommies killed.
Click the link, I've no intent of excerpting this.
(Via Consonant Dude in e-mail.)
This mushy-minded analysis from ABC News is all Chicken Little and no umbrella:
But critics say that technology can never replace having real people who speak the language, and that the government needs to make a massive investment in training Arabic speakers, as it did during the Cold War with training Russian speakers."We can't just wait for demand to create supply," [editor of Newsweek International and ABC News analyst Fareed] Zakaria said. "We have to actually create the supply of the programs, teachers. If that means hiring people from around the world, if that means trying to find people in the Arab-American community, all that is fine. But we can't wait for this to happen at a leisurely pace. The need is now."
Mr. Zakaria need only look at the Defense Language Institute website to learn what our language priorities are. Looking at the restructuring done at the DLI, it's clear the government has made the investment in a big way. The two Russian schools that cranked out Russian interpreters for decades are gone; they've been blended into the European language school. From the one Middle Eastern language school that was operating when I was there, there now exist three. That's heavy production.
Does New Orleans need another high colonic?
In the last week more Americans have died in New Orleans than in Iraq. Since Dec. 29, there have been eight military deaths. In the Big Easy, there have been 14 murders.Among the latest victims: Helen Hill, a 36-year-old mother shot in her home in front of her husband and 2-year-old.
"She was just such a wonderful person," says friend Sheri Branch, "the brightest spot of New Orleans to me."
The killers are growing more brazen, striking in broad daylight and using assault rifles, even with police just 30 yards away. And witnesses refuse to talk.
"We have a culture, a certain population in this city with an intent on committing violent crime," says Assistant Superintendent of Police Steven Nicholas. "They feel no repercussion, they have no fear of police."
New Orleans' murder rate is 30 percent higher than any other city in the country.
Bring the boys home from NOLA. Our troops have suffered enough and those people are never going to get their act together.
As that great philosopher Whitney Houston once said, "I believe slide-playing children are our future." Here's a video of one carrying the torch.
(Via reader Greg H., who's just a little bit proud of his progeny.)
Money for schools and plenty of teacher-time for each student are good things. So why is that the District of Columbia, which the highest expenditure of money per student in the nation and one of the lowest teacher-student ratios going, still has such awful schools?
The statistics tell a sorry tale about the public schools in America's capital. A majority of fourth- and eighth-graders are failing to read or do math at basic levels. Roughly four in five schools are not meeting achievement goals under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Just 43 percent of students graduate from high school in five years.The new mayor, Adrian Fenty, got an earful about the situation during last year's campaign. "I heard repeatedly, 'Fix the schools.' It was a tidal wave," Fenty said.
Three Middle Eastern men did a bit of illegal being where they shouldn't today, to include: this country and the Port of Miami:
Three men were arrested Sunday after trying to gain access to the Port of Miami, according to a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.The driver drew suspicion at the port's delivery entrance after making inconsistent statements, said Judy Orihuela. The vehicle was subsequently searched and two additional men were found in the truck's cab, Orihuela said.
The three men, all of Middle Eastern descent, were in the country illegally and none appear to be on any terrorist watch lists, she said.
The men are being detained on state charges.
No explosives were found on the truck.
FOX has video up, though the local affiliate it's getting it from doesn't. Go figure.
UPDATE:
FOX has an updated story here. The driver asked for a day pass to deliver something, but the truck was empty save for two suspicious 55-gallon containers and his undeclared friends. His manifest said he was carrying auto parts.
UPDATE II:
"Comedy of errors"?
The men should not have been in the truck, so all three men were detained for questioning. They were never arrested, and after a day long scare at the port, which involved a bomb squad and hazardous materials examination of the truck, officials decided it was all a misunderstanding based on language and cultural differences, along with flawed paperwork.All three men are legal residents of the United States.
The Miami Herald reported that ‘suspicious’ 55 gallon drums were found in the back of the truck, and that while the driver's paperwork claimed he was carrying auto parts, no such cargo was found on the truck, according to authorities. The drums and the discrepancy raised suspicions, and prompted the search.
Men in the truck who shouldn't be there, completely incorrect manifest. If I ever get in a jam at a fat juicy target like the Port of Miami, I hope they call in these officers. They seem pretty cool.
UPDATE III:
Via Leth in comments: What was inside the containers? Why, auto parts, of course. That's not surprising considering they shape-shifted from 55-gallon drums to a 40-foot container.
I was wrong in thinking the FBI officers too mellow. In the end it appears the media didn't report the situation with much accuracy.
Florida Guard in Iraq thirsty for Buckeye tears:
Florida is set to play Ohio State tomorrow in Arizona for the college championship title, and Officer Kodey Henderson can't wait.The St. Augustine native has designated her Florida Army National Guard unit's recreation room in Iraq as the "Gator Room." She and other Florida fans from the Cecil Field-based C Company of the First Battalion of the 111th Aviation Regiment will be watching the game early Tuesday morning at Camp Echo, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
Henderson is many time zones away from the game, but she says her only problem is not having any Ohio units at Camp Echo to taunt.
Go Gators.
When a mob is dogpiling someone, there's only so much room for anyone to get a lick in. Thus after the Australian Cronulla riots last year, the 20 men of Middle Eastern appearance shown here beating a lone male for being white were only able to give him extensive bruising and a broken arm. Their sheer numbers precluded the use of most of the good punches, and when he was down, even a standard kick to skull or kidneys; whereas if it had been only, say, three attackers, they wouldn't have been in each other's way and would have had enough room to beat him to death. Conclusion: fewer attackers equal more damage; blows to head with heavy hand-held items optional.
Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie, and Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman are offended:
This one was doomed from the beginning, a marriage conceived in a nuthouse and consummated in an alley, and the best thing you can say about the inevitable divorce is that at least there were no children involved.
The quickest way to find good writing in a newspaper is to read the sports page first. How sad to hear that the New York Yankees and pitcher "Big Unit" Randy Johnson are on the outs.
Destructive partisanship is the sad status quo in Florida:
As the University of Florida competes Monday for the national college football championship, state residents will set aside their differences to cheer as the young men of Florida take the field.Or not.
"I'm rooting against them," said Scott Osteen, a Florida State University graduate from Jupiter who heads the Palm Beach County Seminole Club.
"I root for them to lose," said Bill Rose, a University of Miami fan from Palm Beach Gardens. "My second-favorite team is whoever they're playing."
Next week's Bowl Championship Series contest between Florida and Ohio State reveals the deep animosity for the Gainesville school among fans of the state's two other college football powerhouses. Slights from 30 or 40 years ago are recalled with fresh outrage. Insults from Florida's former coach Steve Spurrier are hashed and rehashed. And beyond specific grudges, there's resentment of a university that absorbs the lion's share of funding, carries the most prestige, possesses the grandest campus and provides the largest number of recruits to the state's ruling class.
"They like to strut and preen and tell everybody how beautiful they are," said Charlie Barnes, executive director of the Seminole Boosters, which raises money for FSU athletics.
My burden in life is to always see the the clear middle road. Even if I hadn't gone to both FSU and UF and married someone from UM, I would still seek only the greater good of my state. Especially against the sons and grandsons of the Ohio drivers who plague our fair roads with their bad driving.
Turns out we were right to think the photo purported to show John Kerry being spurned by the troops in Iraq was dubious:
Snubbed? Alone? Hardly. Sen. Kerry isn’t eating alone. In fact that photo is at an off the record breakfast meeting Senator Kerry conducted early Sunday morning with the very real Marc Santora of the New York Times Baghdad bureau and his younger colleague from the newspaper. The man shown in the green shirt across from Sen. Kerry is Marc Santora.
As reader Consonant Dude said in comments, "I suspect that this snapshot (in time) of Kerry nearly alone at a table does not show the reality of the visit.".
That was indeed the case.
Kerry still remains, however, a prick.
(Via Hot Air, in a retraction.)
Your documents, please:
A senior official in the Somali government's new Ministry of the Interior told ABC News government forces had recovered "dozens of foreign passports," including several American passports, on the bodies of al Qaeda fighters killed in combat between forces affiliated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian forces in Somalia.According to the same source, most of the foreign passports were Sudanese, Pakistani and Yemeni, but several American, British and Australian passports were also recovered.
The senior Somali government official told ABC News that the American passports found on the dead bodies near Baidoa, in Somalia, would be turned over to the American government.
They can keep the bodies.
Considering the support the jihadists have in Minneapolis, forgery isn't the only option for the passports' provenance.
(Via Hot Air.)
Look where Wesley Autrey, whose astonishing heroism in New York Tuesday saved the life of a man unconscious and seizing in the path of an oncoming train, is from:
Born in Florida, he attributed his urge to help others to his "Southern upbringing."
The feting continues, including a $10,000 check from Donald Trump, and a presentation of the Bronze Medallion, the city's highest civic honor, by the mayor at city hall.
***
Previous posting here:
The Real Deal
This is disconcerting:
A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.
The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.
Military authorities don't know if it was a diversion or a probe. That the Guard fell back is not heartening.
Videos at the link.
(Via Drudge)
[Guest post by Chris Judd.]
Apparently, the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is a woman.
Her ascent to prominence in a male-dominated field mandates, per AP style manual, that reporters work the term "glass ceiling" into their dispatches. But today's scribes have also added a hot new spin-off term: the marble ceiling. Because fancy government buildings like Congress have lots of marble. Get it?
The Pelosi story has produced a geyser of ceiling references, leaving shattered glass and marble strewn about like a young Rosie O'Donnell told the drugstore soda fountain was out of chocolate malteds.
Even before Pelosi took the oath, "marble ceiling" had made the list of terms established in 2006.
Breaking the marble ceiling is nice. But it's not good enough. The fight is not over -- not by a long-shot. It is also time for women to break:
*the retractable ceiling faced by observatory directors
*the blood-spattered ceiling hindering slaughterhouse forepersons
*the vertex ceiling holding back chief pyramid excavators
*the lead ceiling over top gamma ray inspectors
*the soundproofed ceiling stopping head studio engineers
*the Sistine Chapel ceiling discriminating against fresco restoration coordinators
Any others?
Less than one hundred years ago, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. For a nation with such a proud seafaring tradition, the news today is sad:
Almost half of the British Royal Navy's warships are to be mothballed as the Ministry of Defence tries to slash costs, the Daily Telegraph reported.Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has admitted that 13 warships are in a state of "reduced readiness" and six further destroyers and frigates are being proposed for cuts, the paper said.
The move comes as ministers reportedly try to cut the defence budget by 250 million pounds (371 million euros, 486 million dollars) and amid major armed forces commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"What this means is that we are now no better than a coastal defence force or a fleet of dug-out canoes.
"The Dutch now have a better navy than us," said an unnamed senior officer.
The Royal Navy has a fascinating history site here where you can browse through centuries of their power.
INDC Bill, embedded in Iraq, has an awesome article in the Washington Examiner. This is the sort of story that's been rarely presented in media coverage of the war so far.
In a delightful article, Cheryl Truman of the Lexington Herald-Leader shines a light on whether Kentuckians are rednecks or hillbillies:
The Tara Conner scandal raises a huge issue.Not whether Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell can live in peace.
Not whether any American had previously given a thought to whether Trump's Miss USA pageant was a proving ground for, ahem, role models.
No, it's whether Kentuckians are in fact rednecks or hillbillies.
In the firestorm of media froth that surrounded an engineered "scandal" during a slow news season, Conner, a Russell Springs native, found herself unflatteringly tagged as both throughout Internet blogdom as well as the gossip columns.
New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser sourly opined about Conner's time spent a-twisting prettily in the wind and wondering about the prospect of "being shipped back to the miserable Kentucky hollow from whence she came."
Apparently all of Kentucky can be considered a miserable hollow -- literally, "a small valley between mountains" -- if your primary experience of the state is flying over it. To the airborne sophisticate, Kentucky is chock-full of earnest teetotaling Jethros and wizened vittle-slinging hags tending to the critters up the holler.
However, this is not a story about the perceptions of snotty columnists.
This is a story about redneck versus hillbilly, and which one we are.
As a Floridian who once got called a hillbilly, I can tell you that Ms. Truman has a Sisyphean task here in educating those that would confuse the two. For instance, if you can't figure out that hillbillies and 100 ft above sea level don't go together, you're beyond remedy of education.
Girls, are you tired of the school photographer taking those same old senior class pictures with their same boring pose?
In England you will love your neighbor, or else:
A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English.Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers.
(Via CJ in e-mail.)
Multiple choice: Your chances of choosing the correct answer to the question below are a) 50% b) half:
At Whitney Houston's big public auction she'll auctioning off a) her crackpipe b) her old underwear?
Answer below.
Of course it's her old underwear, that pipe's gonna be an heirloom; and in any case, she's not done licking it.
What would we do without experts?
In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt's life was spared when an anarchist's bullet was slowed by his glasses' case. In 2007 Debbie Bingham's life was spared when a New Year's Eve reveler's bullet was slowed by her bra strap (something that would not happen for those who go without).
One of the benefits of modern life is that we no longer have to rely on bulky armor like they did in the Middle Ages.
Before reader Carl in Atlanta became a lawyer, he had a "groovy" Bluebird bus he and his smelly hippie pals drove out West. In a haze of pot smoke, no doubt. It's mine now.
Got any scans of your vintage rides? If it's of your Pinto, it better have exploded.
In the streets of Pamplona there's the running of the bulls, in the airport in Madrid there's the running of the passengers. I haven't seen this much sprinting in an airport since O.J. used to do Hertz commercials.
After kicking them off the team and out of school, after 88 of their professors made a public statement against them, after assuming with no proof that they were guilty, the administration at Duke University is inviting the accused lacrosse players to come back:
Duke University said Wednesday that two of the lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper have been invited to return to school and are eligible to rejoin the team.Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann had been barred from attending class during the fall semester while their case made its way through court. A third player, Dave Evans, graduated in May, the day before he was charged.
Lawyers for Seligmann and Finnerty said their clients were still making up their minds about whether to return.
What do you think their answer will be?
UPDATE:
"Nifong is riding a tiger and can't just get off."
***
Previous postings:
Nifong To Go Before The Bar
Flipping Out
Rape Charges Dropped In Duke Lacrosse Case
Phony Rape Victims Need Our Support Too
Prosecutorial Misconduct In Duke Lacrosse Case
Duke Case
Accused Duke Lacrosse Player Guilty
The Duke Case
What's On The Menu
Twists And Turns
Captain Jamil Hussein of the Iraqi police steps forward.
(Via comments here.)
UPDATE:
The joke gets funnier as the real Jamil Hussein steps forward. A great conspiracy theory comes to naught, and I'm sorry I ever wasted a single link on it.
Wesley Autrey: Vietnam vet, loving father, real-life action hero:
A 51-year-old man is being called a hero after covering a teenager who fell onto subway tracks in New York as a train passed over them.
Witnesses and officials said Wesly Autrey jumped onto the tracks after Cameron Hollowpeter, 18, suffered a seizure and collapsed Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan. He fell off the platform onto the the subway tracks a few metres below.
Autrey, who was waiting on the train platform with his two daughters, jumped onto the southbound subway tracks where Hollowpeter had fallen.
When he couldn't get him off the tracks as a train approached, he covered the teenager in a space between the rails while two of the train cars passed over them.
"I just chose to dive on top of him and pin him down and pin myself down," said Autrey, a Vietnam war veteran.
When those girls watch action movies, they'll be going "Feh."
(Via Fark.)
UPDATE:
Wesley Autrey: "I am not a hero." Shut up, yes you are.
In this video, Autrey gives credit for his actions to his military training and instincts. (The first update link also contains a video that has a neat computer simulation of the incident.)
He's currently being feted and rewarded, all well-deserved by the subway superhero.
Investor's Business Daily looks into who's funding the Carter Center.
Jimmy Carter says he's just being fair-minded by continuously condemning Israel. Meanwhile, his Carter Center draws ever more money from anti-Israel sources. Follow the money.
What anti-Israel donors are kicking in isn't peanuts. I don't think the millions pouring into the center from those who long for Israel's destruction represent influence on Mr. Carter, however. It's just appreciation for what he's doing: putting a presidential cloak of respectability on what would otherwise be seen as typical Arab Israel bashing. I've no doubt that the views he's giving are his own.
(Via Lucianne.)
Duane in his Layla shirt tuning up before a show.
Wail on, Skydog!
Is there a worldwide lutefisk shortage? No, the Islamicist takeover of Somalia has apparently ended:
For the first time in more than a decade, an internationally recognized government is operating in Mogadishu after driving out the Islamic courts movement that wanted to rule Somalia by the Quran. Although trouble is always lurking in this violent, gun-infested country, the reign of the widely feared Islamic courts appears to be over.
Minnesotans' hearts are broken. As Salah Warsame, 47, of Minneapolis said of the Somali Taliban, "They made the whole country a respectable place."
They're a bit jollier in Somalia than in the Gopher State. With no Islamic courts, no sharia laws, and no more being publicly flogged for listening to music, people are even doing a little celebrating:
For hundreds of young men, the promise of a brighter future and the Somali government's victory over a fundamentalist Islamic movement were symbolized by a flickering blue screen in a dusty Mogadishu movie theater."This is freedom and entertainment," Ahmed Abdi Ali said Tuesday as an Indian movie about a torrid love triangle played — the kind of film that was banned by the Muslim militants. "The Islamic courts are gone."
I don't think Salah Warsame would approve.
UPDATE:
Surrender Dorothy?
The story of the roost-ruling McKinney North High Fab Five cheerleaders, recounted earlier here, goes national with a full write-up of the Texas Terrors in Newsweek.
The case remains a curiosity in that it involved no mother killing her daughter's rival on the pep squad.
You know what's really wrong President Bush? According to columnist Ken Herman it's that he doesn't cry enough in public. He needs to take a cue from all our other crying presidents and turn on the waterworks. Remember how comforted America was when FDR would punctuate his 'fireside chat' radio broadcasts with wracking sobs? When Harry Truman wasn't punching out reporters who insulted his daughter's piano playing, he was curled up in a fetal position on the lawn of the Japanese embassy, surrounded by the thousands of origami paper cranes he'd made, a tear perpetually suspended from the end of his bespectacled nose. Lincoln's crying jags in public were surpassed only by his legendary wails in the White House corridors, which he walked wringing his hands and gibbering. Or maybe that was Mary Todd Lincoln.
In any case, I'm encouraged that in these times of continual decline in circulation figures, a newspaper man is still able to put quiche on the table writing about a president's unnatural disinclination to squirt a few in the public view.
(Herald login/pswd=crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice)
