Wednesday - January 04, 2006

Idiotic Lawsuits

Here in the US all we have to worry about are fingers in chili and hot coffee burning people laps. The idjits in Britain are more creative ...

Dubious Insurance Claims Rising
LONDON (BBC)

A man who tried to sue a local authority after he soiled his trousers has made it on to a list of the most spurious compensation claims. He blamed the accident on the closure of a bus station toilet and demanded the price of a new pair of trousers. The case was among thousands of public liability claims - costing councils and insurance firms £250m a year - recorded by public insurer Zurich Municipal.

The firm said exaggerated and spurious claims were on the increase. Other spurious claims to make the list included a bin man who took legal action against his council claiming he was “startled” by a dead badger which fell out of a bag. Also included were a shoplifter who tried to sue after she fell down stairs while running from the scene of a crime, and a motorist who filed a claim after failing to see a roundabout in broad daylight - despite there being a tree in the middle.

One man tried to take legal action against several local authorities and the Archbishop of Canterbury “on behalf of all the homeless people in Britain”. Zurich Municipal claims director Iwan Borszcz said spurious claims were harming the interests of genuine claimants.

He said: “We work on behalf of customers to ensure genuine claimants receive the service they deserve, but considerable time is often wasted dealing with what turn out to be spurious, and even imaginative claims.”

He added: “We are constantly amazed at some of the excuses people use to try to claim against public bodies. It just goes to show that working in insurance is more interesting than people may think.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/04/2006 at 07:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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Disappointment

In their rush to get the story out, the media and mine officials probably ripped the guts out of several families last night. All of the news networks and print media have been standing vigil over the mine for days waiting for word. Then whispers started that twelve had survived and before you knew it the story was all over the news and families rejoiced. Three hours later, the truth came out ... all dead except for one. My heart goes out to the families of the miners. It could have been handled better ...

11 of 12 Miners Reported Alive Are Dead
Jan 04 4:08 AM US/Eastern
TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. (AP)

Jubilant family members celebrated news early Wednesday that 12 miners were pulled alive from the scene of an underground explosion, only to learn nearly three hours later that they had been misled and just one miner actually survived. The chief executive of the mine blamed the stunning error on a misunderstood conversation overheard between rescuers and the command center overseeing rescue efforts.

Families learned of the deaths from mine officials more than three hours after Gov. Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. The sole survivor of the disaster was hospitalized, a doctor said. International Coal Group Chief Executive Officer Ben Hatfield told the families that only one miner, Randal McCloy, survived the explosion.

Hatfield told the families gathered at the Sago Baptist Church that “there had been a lack of communication, that what we were told was wrong and that only one survived,” said John Groves, whose brother Jerry Groves was one of the trapped miners. At that point, chaos broke out in the church and a fight started. Hatfield said the erroneous information spread rapidly when people overheard phone calls between rescuers and the rescue command center. In reality, rescuers had confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs, he said.

“The initial report from the rescue team to the command center indicated multiple survivors,” Hatfield said during a news conference. “That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center. It quickly got out of control.” Hatfield said the company waited to correct the information until it knew more about the rescue.

- More on the tragedy here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/04/2006 at 06:27 AM   
Filed Under: • News-Briefs •  
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Smoking Bandito

_{Nate Beeler, The Washington DC Examiner}

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/04/2006 at 06:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Tuesday - January 03, 2006

Most Outrageous Item Of The Day

Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable! The union that represents the nation’s teachers has been exposed for the leftist crooks they are. The NEA union officials pay themselves roughly ten times what the people they represent earn and to top it off they spend $65 million funding leftist organizations of all kinds. Two questions: (1) how does this money they give to these groups help teachers? and (2) what business does a teacher’s union have spending union dues on these blatantly political movements? Is it any wonder your average twelfth grader can’t read, spell or do real math but has a head full of liberal propaganda?

Teachers’ Pets
The NEA gave $65 million in its members’ dues to left-liberal groups last year.
(WSJ OPINION JOURNAL)

If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you’d probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union.

Under new federal rules pushed through by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, large unions must now disclose in much more detail how they spend members’ dues money. Big Labor fought hard (if unsuccessfully) against the new accountability standards, and even a cursory glance at the NEA’s recent filings--the first under the new rules--helps explain why. They expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students.

We already knew that the NEA’s top brass lives large. Reg Weaver, the union’s president, makes $439,000 a year. The NEA has a $58 million payroll for just over 600 employees, more than half of whom draw six-figure salaries. Last year the average teacher made only $48,000, so it seems you’re better off working as a union rep than in the classroom.

Many of the organization’s disbursements--$30,000 to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, $122,000 to the Center for Teaching Quality--at least target groups that ostensibly have a direct educational mission. But many others are a stretch, to say the least. The NEA gave $15,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbies for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.” The National Women’s Law Center, whose Web site currently features a “pocket guide” to opposing Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito, received $5,000. And something called the Fund to Protect Social Security got $400,000, presumably to defeat personal investment accounts.

- The story get worse and worse, read more here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 11:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Education •  
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High Tech Pushers

It had to happen sooner or later. Today’s high tech cell phones have picture and video capabilities and allow anyone to send instant messages with pictures instantly. What better way to push your merchandise than to phone someone and let them view the merchandise while you negotiate a sale over the same phone? The only problem you might encounter is if your “merchandise” is ... marijuana. Even worse is if you’re a teenage pusher and your mom picks up your phone and wants to know what that funny looking plant is. Leave a message at the sound of the tone ....

Dial MMS for Marijuana
(THE REGISTER - UK)

A teenage drug-dealing network that promoted its wares using MMS messages has been busted after a mother found incriminating messages on her child’s mobile. Massachusetts police arrested six local teenagers last week following a tip-off for a parent of one of the gang’s intended marijuana customers, according to local reports.

Police reckon the hi-tech dope dealers called prospective customers to arrange sales prior to sending picture messages of the merchandise. “They had a lot of proprietary enthusiasm,” Sgt. Daniel Devine told The New Britain Herald. “They would email a picture of the drugs and a message to kids in town on their cell phone, and then the kids in Farmington would send the photo and message to all their friends to notify them of the upcoming sale.”

The scheme was exposed after a parent spotted a picture advertising a sale on her child’s phone. She notified the police who busted the teens during a morning sale in a raid that netted “less than a pound of marijuana”, several hundred dollars, drug paraphernalia and mobile phones seized from a car. Three 15 year-olds were charged with possession of marijuana. Another 15 year-old was also charged with possession with intent to sell. None can named for legal reasons.

Errin Parsons, 18, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, was charged with possession of marijuana while Zachary Brady, 16, of Shrewsbury, Mass., was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and conspiracy. Both of the older teenagers have been released on police bail and are due to appear in Hartford Superior Court in early January.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 06:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Stoopid-People •  
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Danish Dilemna

Clash of civilizations: twenty-first century Europeans versus tenth century Muslims. There is too big a gap there and something’s gotta give sooner or later. Now the Muslims are declariing jihad over a few stupid cartoons? Get real, folks! This is childish at best. Dangerous at the other extreme. Do the Danes censor the press and deny freedom of speech to its citizens or do they tell the Arabs to go pound sand? Regardless, the cartoonists have started receiving death threats and the newspapers have had to hire bodyguards for staff. We report, you decide ...

Growing Islamic Anger Over Mohammed Cartoons
(CNSNews.com)

For the government of one small European nation, the new year begins with a deepening crisis: growing anger in the Islamic world over a newspaper’s decision to publish cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed. The Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten last fall published 12 caricatures of Mohammed, causing an uproar that continues to build more than three months later. Muslims consider any images of the prophet who founded Islam in the seventh century to be blasphemous.

The published cartoons showed “Mohammed” in various settings. One depicts him wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with its fuse lit, while another has him with eyes blacked out and carrying a large, curved knife, flanked by two women in top-to-toe burqas. In another, the prophet is shown telling a line of suicide bombers seeking entry to paradise: “Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing 57 Muslim states and territories, issued a memorandum on January 1 accusing the Danish government of “indifference” after Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen declined to intervene in the dispute. Rasmussen called it a matter of freedom of speech, echoing the reasoning of the newspaper at the center of the row. Jyllands-Posten had said it wanted to test the limits of free speech at a time it was under threat because of the influence of radical Islam.

The OIC dismissed the free speech argument, saying in its statement this week that the publication of the cartoons “was meant to disturb and infuriate Muslims, and could not be considered as an innocent behavior falling within the scope of freedom of expression in which everyone believes.” Claiming that the publication “has offended hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world,” the organization announced that the governments and cultural organizations in all OIC member states had been asked to boycott a forthcoming cultural project on the Middle East, partly funded by the Danish government.

Last week, foreign ministers of the Arab League mandated the 22-nation bloc’s secretary-general, Amr Moussa, to take up the issue directly with the Danish government. In a declaration, they voiced “surprise and indignation over the Danish government’s reaction, which was disappointing, despite the political, economic, and cultural bonds with the Muslim world.”

Not only did Rasmussen refuse to take up the matter with the newspaper, he also declined to meet with a delegation of ambassadors from 11 Muslim nations who wanted to discuss the “tone” of the debate over Islam in Denmark. “As prime minister I have no tool whatsoever to take actions against the media, and I don’t want that kind of tool,” he said at the time.

The growing pressure - the U.N. and European Union have also waded in, while a group of former Danish ambassadors said the premier was wrong to refuse to meet with the Muslim envoys - appears to have left the government cold. “Now it is important to stand our ground and say that we have a separation of powers in Denmark and something called freedom of expression,” the Copenhagen Post quoted the ruling party’s foreign affairs spokesman Troels Lund as saying in response to the Arab League complaints.

- Read more on this story here ...

- Click here to view all twelve of the cartoons ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 06:05 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • RoPMA •  
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Putin Blinks

It looks like Europeans will stay warm after all this winter. The Russians caved in to pressure and turned the gas back on last night. This story isn’t over yet though. What’s really interesting about this story is the quote below about “reconsidering the decision to phase out nuclear energy” in Germany. Now there’s a thought. Look for the European envirowhackos to freak out over that ...

Russia Steps Back From Brink With Ukraine
and Restores Gas Supplies to Europe
MOSCOW (UK GUARDIAN)

Russia’s image as a reliable international energy supplier became increasingly tarnished yesterday as a stand-off with Ukraine over gas prices disrupted supplies to Europe. The Russian energy group Gazprom accused Ukraine of stealing about $25m (£14.5m) worth of natural gas from transit supplies destined for other European countries, but most EU members blamed President Vladimir Putin for the crisis. Last night Gazprom appeared to bow to international pressure by increasing transit supplies flowing through Ukraine by the amount allegedly siphoned off.

Germany’s economy minister, Michael Glos, called on Moscow to compromise in its feud with Ukraine. “Russia has the presidency of the G8 and therefore has to act responsibly,” he said. The Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom switched off flows to Ukraine on Sunday after a bitter, politically charged dispute over gas prices. A drop in deliveries to other countries sent through the same pipeline network was noticed within 24 hours. In the UK the energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, admitted the dispute could affect European and global markets. Speaking to the BBC, he reminded Russia it had “never let down Europe during the cold war” and expressed hope it would be “mindful of its reputation as a secure energy supplier”.

Five EU countries yesterday confirmed that the amount of gas arriving from Russia had fallen off dramatically. Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia all reported a sharp drop in supplies, with Hungary saying its gas deliveries had gone down by 40%. “This situation cannot be accepted. Russia is mixing its foreign policy with its policy for gas supplies,” Poland’s deputy prime minister, Ludwik Dorn, told broadcaster Radio Zet. While harsh judgment of Russia from former Soviet satellite states was predictable, there was fresh debate from “old Europe” as to how it should respond ahead of tomorrow’s emergency meeting of EU energy experts. The EU buys a quarter of its gas from Gazprom. Mr Glos, who belongs to a conservative coalition led by Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the country should now reconsider its decision to phase out nuclear energy.

- More on this story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 05:53 AM   
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Border Shooting

Readers Digest Condensed Version: Mexican tries to cross border illegally. Mexican is spotted by Border Patrol agent. Mexican starts throwing rocks at agent. Agent whips out pistol and demonstrates to Mexican the problems inherent in bringing rocks to a gunfight. Mexican goes home ... to die. Mexico is “outraged” over shooting. Most Americans are already outraged ... at Mexican border invasion. To be continued.

Mexico Demands US Probe Fatal Border Shooting
MEXICO CITY (Reuters)

Mexico demanded a U.S. investigation on Monday into the death of an undocumented Mexican shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent as he tried to cross into California last week. Raul Martinez, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego, confirmed that an agent had fired on a man on Friday as he tried to cross the border near San Diego, after the would-be immigrant had thrown rocks at him.

Mexico’s foreign ministry named the dead man as Guillermo Martinez, 18. A human rights group said Martinez was shot on U.S. territory and then crossed back into Mexico with chest injuries and died at a Tijuana hospital the following day. “The Mexican government is demanding an investigation of the facts,” presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar told a news conference.

The shooting came weeks after a U.S. lawmaker proposed a controversial plan to fortify part of the U.S.-Mexico border with a high-tech wall to stop illegal immigrants. The move was slammed by the Mexican government, which has long sought an agreement with Washington to formalize the status of millions of Mexicans living illegally in the United States and regulate the flow of immigrants heading north.

The shooting “shows once again that only a law that guarantees organized, legal and respectful entry (to the United States) can solve the problems posed by migration,” Aguilar said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 05:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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Dissatisfied Customer

_{Gary Varvel—Indianapolis Star-News}

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/03/2006 at 05:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Monday - January 02, 2006

Memories

January 1, 1968

DALLAS, Texas—Alabama lost to Texas A&M by a score of 20-16 in the Cotton Bowl. Yours truly, the Skipper, was in his first year at the University of Alabama and was a member of the Million Dollar Band. In fact, he sat first-chair baritone in his freshman year and thereafter as he was majoring in music. Two additional degrees came from Troy State University in later years, both in Computer Science.

That was a memorable game and I remember it well, not just because it was my first college bowl game to attend but also to perform in front of a national TV audience in the halftime show. It was Kenny Stabler’s last year as quarterback at Alabama, which pretty well dates my tired old butt.

The fact that Texas A&M was coached by Gene Stallings seems ironic in light of the fact that he later came to Alabama and took the Crimson Tide to a national championship in 1992. And then there are the memories of Bear Bryant. I watched the man coach through some tough years from a close vantage point as the band was always there, win or lose, home or away.

Today, Alabama returned to the Cotton Bowl playing Texas Tech and I’ve just finished watching the game. I’m a nervous wreck. The whole game came down to five seconds left with the score tied 10-10. I sat there biting my nails, heart pounding as one of the ugliest field goals ever kicked managed to clear the goal post by mere inches. Alabama won 13-10. The Tide is rising.

I also got to see my Million Dollar Band perform at halftime. It was a beautiful sight to see the new kids doing their thing and upholding the tradition. I couldn’t help but wonder though how many of the 350+ band members were as drunk and hungover as we were on that freezing cold winter day back in 1968. It didn’t matter. We still played beautiful music. And so did they today. Roll Tide!

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2006 at 03:07 PM   
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Checkmate

What we have here is a classic game of chess. The problem is that the Russians are masters of the game and Russian President Vladimir Putin is proving to be well versed in the strategies involved in a good match. Since the end of the Cold War, countries that used to be part of Russia’s realm of inflluence (the Warsaw Pact countries) have gradually moved out from under Russian influence and into Western Europe’s embrace.

Old Soviet satellites are now part of the European Union thus Russia lost most of its pawns in the opening game. Russia held onto the rebellious countries like Chechnya with brutal charges by knights and rooks in the middle game. Now Russia finds its queen in jeopardy as Ukraine went through its “Orange Revolution” recently and elected a pro-Western government. Putin simply responded with a brilliant counter-move. He decided that if his Ukrainian “queen” was going to defect to the West then the Ukraine would have to pay the same prices for gas that the West does.

Needless to say, Ukraine cannot afford the new prices and so Putin cut off their supply of gas. This puts his opponent’s king in jeopardy as Russia supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas ... through Ukraine. If it weren’t for the fact that this puts Europe in jeopardy of freezing this winter, I would have to congratulate Putin on an absolutely brilliant move. Check and mate!

The only viable solution is for Europe and the West to surrender the game but there is a way to do this with honor. Simply invite Russia to join the European Union and NATO. Bring the Russians into our camp. That’s all Putin and the Russians really want anyway. Why continue to keep them isolated on the continent? It is only going to involve more and more of these back-and-forth political chess matches and that’s what screwed up Europe so badly in the run-up to World War I. Which led to World War II. Which made a mess of everything.

I urge the member countries of NATO and the European Union to get together, admit they’ve been beaten by a wily, cunning opponent and invite him to join the team. After all, one must keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies even closer ... and “Pooty-Poot” is not really an enemy. He’s just a better chess player.

Putin Sends a Shiver Through Europe
(UK NEWS-TELEGRAPH)

Russia took Europe to the brink of a winter energy crisis yesterday when it carried out a Cold War-style threat and halted gas deliveries to Ukraine, the main conduit for exports to the West. With a quarter of its gas supplied by Russia, Europe is facing serious disruption and price rises for as long as the dispute rumbles on.

Moscow turned off the tap at 10am after Ukraine refused to sign a new contract with the Russian state monopoly Gazprom quadrupling prices. Critics of the Kremlin say the rise was punishment for the Orange Revolution in 2004 which brought in a westward-leaning government that promised to remove Ukraine from the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.

The American State Department said that “such an abrupt stop creates insecurity in the energy sector in the region and raises serious questions about the use of energy to exert political pressure”. The European Union has called an emergency meeting of energy ministers on Wednesday.

Britain is less vulnerable than mainland Europe because it does not receive direct supplies from the former Soviet bloc. But as other countries seek to shore up their reserves, less gas is likely to be pumped through the pipeline that links the Continent with Britain. That could mean higher prices and, if there is no quick resolution, possible breaks in supplies.

The European Commission says that most countries have between a week and two months’ emergency reserves. Ukraine has upset Moscow by pushing to join the EU and Nato. However, Russia insists that the price rise merely brings Ukraine in line with the price that most of Europe pays: about $240 per 1,000 cubic metres.

President Vladimir Putin adopted almost warlike terms when he spoke on television as the hours ticked by before the ultimatum expired. “If no clear response [from Kiev] follows, we will conclude that our proposal has been rejected,” he said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2006 at 12:46 PM   
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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Nobody has ever accused the NFL owners of being compassionate or caring. In fact, the owners operate one of only a few businesses in the country where employees can be drafted and forced to perform at their whim wherever they wish and aforementioned employees are encouraged to take performance enhancing drugs before being finally fired when they are no longer useful.

Yesterday, two owners proved just how down and dirty they can get. Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf fired coach Mike Tice only minutes after the Vikings soundly defeated the Chicago Bears 34-10 in the final game of the season. In fact, Wilf fired Tice in the locker room immediately after the game. The Vikings players were too stunned and embaressed to comment. In a similar vein, the St. Louis Rams fired coach Mike Martz, who has been hospitalized with a bacterial infection of the heart for the last ten weeks. Out of the hospital and into the unemployment line.

Tough love, baby. Tough love.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2006 at 10:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Sports •  
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All The Queen’s Men

Guess what’s going on in Louisiana, even as I speak? If you guessed corruption in state government, that was too easy. It always happens there. No, what is happening now is even worse. Hurricane Katrina refugees are still scattered everywhere, New Orleans is in a shambles but the governor is spending half a million dollars to remodel her staff’s office. The Baton Rouge Advocate has the scoop on this miserable story ....

Some members of the governor’s staff will return from the three-day holiday on Tuesday to newly renovated offices at the State Capitol.

Shortly after the two hurricanes, Gov. Kathleen Blanco decided to renovate some of her staff’s offices. At the time of her decision, Blanco also was hinting at deep budget cuts to state programs and the possibility of laying off 20 percent of the state workforce.

The project cost $564,838.

The newly refurbished office space on the sixth floor of the State Capitol includes hookups and mounts for two flat screen televisions, Swedish granite countertops, walnut paneling and frosted laminated glass. The floor, which will not be accessible to the public, was redesigned to add three new offices, a conference room and file storage areas.

About 20 members of the governor’s staff – who focus on constituent services, children’s issues, women’s policies and other functions – will work on the newly restored floor.

Meanwhile, New Orleans residents are still scattered all across the country living in shelters and two-thirds of that city are still smashed and ruined. Governor Blanco obviously has priorities that take precedence over the homeless and hurricane ravaged citizens of her state.

Two bloggers are covering this sorry mess and they aren’t too happy. Greg at Rhymes With Right blog gives the whole story a downright proper fisking that deserves a read. Louisiana conservative Jeff Blanco (no relation, I trust) goes into even more detail on Governor Blanco’s repeated requests for money from Washington and where it went from there. Go check ‘em out!

P.S. Did I forget to mention that Governor Blanco is a DemocRAT?

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2006 at 09:45 AM   
Filed Under: • Outrageous •  
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Year In Review

We got yer year-end review here, all in a nutshell. This is an open thread to discuss “The Nasty Year That Was 2005”. How many of these events do you remember? Which ones mattered to you? Can 2006 possibly be any worse?

Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, Pope John Paul II, Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks and James Doohan died, the war in Iraq continued, Liberals and Conservatives fought over two vacant seats on the Supreme Court, terrorists bombed London, Terry Schiavo died, over 80,000 killed in Pakistani earthquake, Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, Michael Jackson and Robert Blake found innocent in widely televised trials, Martha Stewart was released from prison, Tony Blair won re-election in Britain, former FBI agent Mark Felt confessed to having been “Deep Throat”, London beat out Paris in contest to host 2012 Olympics, Saddam Hussein went on trial in Iraq for crimes against humanity, Muslim rioters in France burn houses, cars and plunge France into chaos for two weeks, bird flu caused widespread panic worldwide, Tookie Williams was executed, finger found in Wendy’s chili found to be part of fraud scheme, Google went public and share prices instantly shot up to over $400 per share, Israel withdrew from Gaza, Syria withdrew from Lebanon, Iran determined to develop nuclear capability, Lance Armstrong won another Tour De France, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series, the Koran was allegedly being flushed and abused at Gitmo, John Bolton appointed UN Ambassador over Democrats’ objections, French voters said no to EU constitution, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder lost re-election bid to Angela Merkel, Lynndie England went to jail and got burned and both Afghanistan and Iraq held free national elections for the first time to elect democratic governments.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/02/2006 at 05:05 AM   
Filed Under: • History •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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