Saturday - January 21, 2006

Saturday Silliness

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/21/2006 at 07:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

A Fish Story

Several of you have expressed doubt as to the veracity of The Skipper’s story accompanying the “Surfer Dudes” picture in yesterday’s Photo Du Jour feature in which I recalled a fun fishing trip off of Destin, Florida. Destin is just to the East of Ft. Walton Beach and Eglin Air Force Base, by the way.

After reading the comments, I was deeply offended that anyone would think for even one moment that I would exaggerate my fishing prowess. Then again, my dear sainted mother, who taught me to fish and to love the sport, had a plaque in her living room that asked a simple question: “Are all fishermen liars or do only liars fish?”. Mom always wanted proof. Therefore, to satisfy those who have adopted a similar philosophy I present the following evidence ....

Day One: This was the day referenced in the Photo Du Jour story below. Holding center stage on the top row in the middle is a 42” long 46 lb. grouper. Just to his left is the bad-ass barracuda that provided the day’s main entertainment. And yes, the two on the bottom row, second and third from the right are baby sharks. The Vietnamese who hang out around the docks just love those things.

Day Two: The catch was better and there was no interference from the denizens of the deep. I was the lucky one this day and my big catch is top row, center stage at 48” long and 58 lbs. I took great pleasure in eating that fish because he cost me dearly. If you’ve never hauled up a fish that big from 300 feet down, let me explain it: it takes hours to drag his ass out of the deep. By the time I got him aboard, I was aching in every joint and I could swear I pulled every muscle in my back. He did taste well in a nice lemon-pepper sauce though.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/21/2006 at 06:24 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - January 20, 2006

Notice

MEMO From The Skipper:

For those of you who have e-mailed me or questioned me about what happened about an hour ago, here is the explanation. For the second straight day in a row, our server at Hosting Matters has been hammered between 3:00 and 4:00pm ET.

Sockets have been overloaded and all services from the server clogged up. It seems to be a classic DDOS attack from all indications. Hosting Matters is on top of it and although it takes a few minutes they quickly close the door to the jerk at the other end. Evidently someone out there is pissed off at yours truly. That someone is located in Germany. That someone is also a SCHEISKOPF. That someone’s ISP has been notified. Any questions?

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 04:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Photo Du Jour

“Surfer Dudes”
-by-
The Skipper
Canon PowerShot Pro I

Memo From The Skipper: This was taken a few summers back on a fishing trip off of Destin, Florida. We came back in with eight or nine 40-50 pound grouper (excellent eating) and a nasty barracuda. The most fun was when we pulled that mad as hell barracuda on board. You should have seen the gang scrambling forward to get away from all those teeth thrashing around on the stern deck.

Late in the afternoon, we were bothered by a shark who felt he deserved a portion of our catch as we were hauling them in. Needless to say, we thought about throwing the barracuda back in on top of the shark and letting them go at it. However, about that time our three buddies pictured above showed up and Ol’ Sharky was encouraged to leave the area by our aquatic pals.

They stayed with us until we headed back in later in the day and then had the time of their lives surfing the bow wave all the way back to shore. It was an amazing sight to behold as they flipped out of the water and back in, all the time surfing just in front of the foam kicked up by the boat. Any animal that can have that much fun has to be intelligent. I could swear I heard them laughing each time they came up for air.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 03:57 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography •  
• Comments (14) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

A Moment Of Silence, Please

I would like to ask everyone to observe a moment of silence as an American icon disappears. From now on, the Winchester rifle will only be made overseas in Belgium, Japan and Portugal. I think I’m gonna cry ...

Conn. Plant Closing To Silence Winchester Rifle
Thu Jan 19, 2006 7:40 PM ET6
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (Reuters)

The Connecticut factory that produced the Winchester rifle, celebrated in cowboy movies as the gun frontiersmen used to settle the American West, is shutting down after 140 years in New Haven. Belgian-based Herstal Group told its 186 workers this week it plans to shutter the U.S. Repeating Arms plant, formerly known as Winchester Rifle Company, on March 31 due to slow sales.

That would end production of the Model 70 bolt-action rifle and the Model 94 lever-action rifle, known as “The Gun that Won the West” because of its use by frontiersmen in the late 19th century. Newer models carrying the Winchester name still will be produced in Belgium, Japan and Portugal, the company said.

“If this plant does close, it will be the end of an era,” said facility director Paul DeMennato, speaking from the New Haven factory, which employed more than 15,000 people during the 1940s and produced millions of guns over the decades. The Winchester rifle became a symbol of the American West as wielded by movie star John Wayne and was later used on a popular U.S. TV series called, “The Rifleman.”

Earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt helped popularize the gun by using it on a much-publicized African safari. The company met with a prospective buyer late Wednesday, DeMennato said on Thursday, adding it was too early to tell if a sale was a serious possibility. “Something like this isn’t like buying a house,” he said. In the past year the plant dropped production by 50 percent, DeMennato said, noting that a strong international market producing less expensive rifles prompted the company to make the decision to shutter the plant.

The former owner of the factory, Missouri-based Olin Corp., still owns the rights to the Winchester brand name and licenses it to Herstal. That license expires in 2007. Workers expressed a mix of frustration and anger after hearing the news on Tuesday. “We’ve given up a lot, everything to keep this place going,” said Mary O’Toole, an assembly worker with 18 years at the company. “You have generation upon generation working here and to see it go under now just doesn’t seem right.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 03:14 PM   
Filed Under: •   
• Comments (20) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Scientists Prove Men Are Hateful

Here’s a thought: either Bill Clinton was lying through his teeth or he is really a woman. I think Monica disproved that last theory so that means Bubba was bloviating. Now there’s a news flash, eh?

Seriously, this doesn’t surprise me. Men are hard-wired to kill, maim and destroy bad people. Women are not. If you could watch Osama Bin Laden being beheaded would you feel pain or joy? Personally, I’d be ecstatic! Tha’s just ‘cause I’m such a manly man. Grrrr ...

Men’s Brains Feel Good When A Disliked Person Feels Pain
(US NEWS)

Bill Clinton said he felt others’ pain. But a new brain-scanning study suggests that when guys see a cheater get a mild electric shock, they don’t feel his pain much at all. In fact, they rather enjoy it. In contrast, women’s brains do empathize with the cheater’s pain and don’t get a kick out it. It’s not clear whether this difference in schadenfreude — enjoyment of another’s misfortune — results from basic biology or from sex roles learned during life, researchers say. But it could help explain why men have historically taken charge of punishing criminals and others who violate societal rules, said researcher Dr. Klaas Stephan.

Stephan, a senior research fellow at the University College London, is coauthor of a study led by Tania Singer at the college and published online this week by the journal Nature. Singer, in an E-mail message, said the difference in results was a surprise and must be confirmed by larger studies. The researchers said women might have reacted the way men did if the cheater suffered psychological or financial pain instead.

The scientists scanned the brains of 16 men and 16 women after the volunteers played a game with people they thought were other volunteers but who in fact were actors. The actors either played the game fairly or obviously cheated. During the brain scans, each volunteer watched as the hands of a “fair” player and a cheater received a mild electrical shock. When it came to the fair player, both men’s and women’s brains showed activation in pain-related areas, indicating that they empathized with that player’s pain. But for the cheater, while the women’s brains still showed a response, men’s brains showed virtually no specific reaction. Also, in another brain area associated with feelings of reward, men’s brains showed a greater average response to the cheater’s shock than to the fair player’s shock, while women’s brains did not.

A questionnaire revealed that the men expressed a stronger desire than the women did for revenge against the cheater. The more a man said he wanted revenge, the higher his jump in the brain’s reward area when the cheater got a shock. No such correlation showed up in women. Philip Jackson, who studies brain systems responsible for empathy at the University of Laval in Quebec City in Canada, said he found the sex differences intriguing and worth following up on. The overall results elegantly tie together “a lot of things we either knew or suspected strongly” about how social interaction can affect the brain’s activity, he said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 02:13 PM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Bad ELF

When it comes to Barking Moonbats, the ecoterrorists at E.L.F. lead the pack. These violent envirowhackos have blown up businesses, set fire to whole parking lots full of cars and just generally made a damned nuisance of themselves for ages. As usual, CNN calls them “suspected” ecoterrorists even though the group freely claims responsibility for their heinous acts. Check out the pic of the idjit below. See any “remorse” on his face? I don’t. I say we give ‘em a fair trial and then take ‘em out and hang ‘em. Purely as an example for the others ...

U.S. Indicts 11 Suspected Of Ecoterrorism
WASHINGTON (AP)

Eleven people were indicted in a series of arsons, claimed by the radical groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, in five Western states, the Justice Department said Friday. The 65-count indictment said the suspects are responsible for 17 incidents in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, including sabotaging a high-tension power line, in a conspiracy that dates back to 1996.

The indictment was returned Thursday by a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, and unsealed Friday. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced the indictment Friday at a news conference in Washington. Eight defendants have been arrested. Three people remain at large, and are believed to be outside the United States, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

In Eugene, two defendants, Jonathan Christopher Mark Paul, 39, and Suzanne Nicole “India” Savoie, 28, were both ordered held without bail, pending further hearings. A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Eugene accused Paul, a firefighter, of setting firebombs that burned down a horse slaughterhouse in 1997. The ALF claimed responsibility for that fire, which caused an estimated $1 million in damage.

Savoie, who works in a group home for the developmentally disabled, is accused of serving as a lookout for a fire in 2001 that destroyed offices of a lumber mill. The ELF claimed responsibility for that fire. The other defendants are Joseph Dibee, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, Sarah Kendall Harvey, Daniel McGowan, Stanislas Meyerhoff, Josephine Overaker, Rebecca Rubin, Darren Todd Thurston and Kevin Tubbs.

Dibee, Overaker and Rubin have not been arrested. The other six were arrested in December. Using improvised incendiary devices made from milk jugs, petroleum products and homemade timers, they carried out attacks between 1996 and 2001, the indictment alleged. Targets included U.S. Forest Service ranger stations, U.S. Bureau of Land Management wild horse facilities, lumber companies, meat processing companies, a ski area and the power line, the indictment said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 01:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Stoopid-People •  
• Comments (12) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Fugitive

One small correction to Capt. Delarosa’s statement below: the military doesn’t hunt down any deserters at all. Last time I checked, the service waits 90 days, hoping you’ll change your mind and report back for a slap on the wrist. After 90 days it’s turned over to the FBI. My question is what have the Fibbies been doing for 36 years? Either way, this old fart got turned in by a relative. So turn him over to the Marines. Perhaps a two-year stay at Parris Island, the vacation spot of the South, with real Marines would be enough ...

Marine Deserter Caught After 36 Years On Run
HOUSTON (Reuters)

A U.S. citizen who deserted the Marine Corps 36 years ago rather than ship out to fight in Vietnam was arrested late last week and could face jail time. Ernest Johnson Jr, 55, had been living as Ernest McQueen since he fled Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in 1969. He was arrested outside Fort Worth, Texas, where he lived with his girlfriend, according to Monday’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Johnson joined the Marines in 1968, but said that news of the massacre of civilians by U.S. soldiers in My Lai, growing protests against the war across the United States and stories from Marines returning from the battlefield prompted him to leave. “I just decided I didn’t want to be part of killing anybody. That’s as plain as I can say it,” Johnson told the newspaper.

He could face up to three years in a military jail and a dishonorable discharge, according to Marine Capt. Jay Delarosa. “But it’s really too early to say exactly what’s going to happen to him,” Delarosa said. Delarosa said the military does not actively hunt down Vietnam-era deserters, but said Johnson was arrested after a relative tipped off authorities.

Johnson worked as a carpenter in several states for 35 years as he moved from state to state. He was married twice and divorced twice, and has two adult children, but never told his family about leaving the military. “I’m glad to get this behind me,” Johnson told the newspaper. “What are they going to do with a 55-year-old man that’s baldheaded, broke down, mentally unstable? What more can you do to me?”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 01:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Military •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Prison Fingers

I feel so much better when criminals “feel extremely remorseful”. I just know they’ve been rehabilitated when I hear that. We don’t need to punish them now. We can just let them go free knowing they have learned their lesson and will never be naughty again, right? ... Right? ...

Alright! Who dialed my “Satire” setting on this keyboard all the way up to the “Blatant Bullshit” setting? I gotta keep an eye on Oink who I just know is behind this. Regardless, I have a prediction to make about this criminal couple who got fingered by the long arm of the law: I predict that before they’ve been in prison a week one or both of them will discover ... something interesting ... in their prison food. The only question is ... what that “something interesting” might turn out to be ...

Couple Gets long Sentence In Finger Scam
SAN JOSE, California (Reuters)

A couple who planted a human finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s fast food restaurant was sentenced in California on Wednesday to nine years in prison. “Greed and avarice overtook this couple and they lost their moral compass,” Judge Edward Davila said of Anna Ayala and her husband Jaime Plascencia in handing down the nine-year sentence.

The scam caused a sharp fall in sales at the third-largest U.S. burger chain, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue and a lingering impact to this day, officials say. Plascencia was given another three years and four months for not paying support for the five children he has with another woman in an unrelated case, giving him a total sentence of 12 years, four months behind bars.

Davila also ordered the couple to pay almost $22 million in restitution but Wendy’s officials indicated to the court they would only seek to collect approximately $170,000, representing the wages lost by employees at the San Jose restaurant where working hours were cut back after a downturn in business. “The crimes committed by the defendants have done immeasurable damage to Wendy’s image, not only in northern California, but across the country,” Denny Lynch, a Wendy’s senior vice president, told the court.

“We cannot put into words how it feels to have the company you’ve devoted your career to be subjected to grotesque humor on the late night TV talk shows in front of a national viewing audience.” Investigators determined Plascencia obtained the piece of finger from a co-worker who had lost the top of a digit in an industrial accident at a Las Vegas paving company. The man had turned over the finger fragment to settle a $50 debt.

Wendy’s International, based in Dublin, Ohio, paid a $100,000 reward for information to help establish the source of the severed finger. “I am truly sorry. I owe Wendy’s and its employees an apology,” a sobbing Ayala told the court. “Wendy’s had always been my family’s favorite fast food restaurant.” She called her actions “a moment of poor judgment,” and told her family: “For all the shame I brought upon them I am sorry, I am so sorry.”

Ayala, 40, who had been a Las Vegas resident, had said that she discovered the finger after buying the bowl of chili last March. She complained about the experience on national television and hired a lawyer, attracting wide attention to the bizarre incident. Ayala’s attorney Rick Ehler accused prosecutor David Boyd of using the media attention to get a tough sentence. “It seems as though the prosecution tried to exert some judicial pressure through the media,” Ehler said.

“I am extremely remorseful,” said Plascencia, 43, who, like his wife, wore prison clothes to the hearing at which television cameras were permitted. Plascencia’s attorney Charles Kramer said the probation department’s recommendation of 11 years for his client was excessive. “I was quite surprised at the harshness of the probation department’s recommendation,” Kramer said. “Judge Davila going over and above that shocks me even more.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 12:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Satire •  
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The End Times?

BREST, France (AP) - President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday that France could respond with nuclear weapons to a state-sponsored terrorist attack, broadening the terms of his country’s deterrence in the face of emerging threats. The warning came as France worked with other Western nations to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear power. But officials and experts said Chirac’s comments were not aimed specifically at Tehran.

“Nuclear deterrence ... is not aimed at dissuading fanatic terrorists,” Chirac said in a speech delivered at the L’Ile-Longue nuclear submarine base in the western region of Brittany. “Leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would envisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and fitting response from us,” he said. “This response could be conventional. It could also be of another nature.”

France’s nuclear arsenal is considered a purely deterrent force to protect the nation’s vital interests and is not intended for regular combat. But Chirac, who has the power to decide on deploying nuclear weapons, said there should be no doubt “about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms” if the country’s vital interests are threatened. “In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilizations,” he said, adding “odious attacks” could escalate to “other yet more serious forms involving states.”

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - Sen. Hillary Clinton called for United Nations sanctions against Iran and faulted the Bush administration for “downplaying” the threat Tehran’s nuclear program poses. In an address Wednesday evening at Princeton University, Clinton, D-N.Y., said it was a mistake for the U.S. to have Britain, France and Germany head up nuclear talks with Iran over the past 2 1/2 years. Last week, Iran resumed nuclear research in a move Tehran claims is for energy, not weapons.

“I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and chose to outsource the negotiations,” Clinton said. Earlier this week, a meeting in London produced no agreement among the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China on whether to refer the dispute over Iranian nuclear enrichment to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Embroiled in a nuclear standoff with the West, Iran said on Friday it was moving its foreign assets to shield them from possible U.N. sanctions and flexed its oil muscles with a proposal to cut OPEC output. “Yes, Iran has started withdrawing money from European banks and transferring it to other banks abroad,” said a senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named.

Central Bank Governor Ebrahim Sheibani was quoted earlier as saying Tehran had started shifting funds, but he sidestepped a question on whether the assets would go to accounts in Asia. It is far from clear how placing assets in Asia or anywhere abroad would protect them from being frozen as few governments or major banks would be willing to flout U.N. sanctions openly.

The United States and the European Union want the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the Security Council at an emergency meeting on February 2. The council has the power to impose trade or diplomatic sanctions, though no swift action to punish Iran is likely. Russia and China, which both have major commercial interests at stake in the Islamic Republic, have urged caution.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna said hauling his country to the council would be difficult because of the views of Russia, China and some European and developing countries. “Sending Iran to the Security Council lacks a legal basis,” Aliasghar Soltaniyeh told the semi-official Fars news agency.

LONDON, England (AP) - A whale swam up the River Thames past Parliament and Big Ben in central London on Friday, then beached itself. The whale was a Northern bottlenose, said Richard Sabian, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who went to the scene. “I can confirm reports that it is a whale,” he said, as television networks provided live coverage.

Sabian said such whales rarely swim in the nearby English Channel and this was the first sighting of one in the River Thames since the museum began recording them in 1913. The British Divers Marine Life Rescue group said it would help the whale if it became stranded. At one point the whale appeared to get stuck in shallow water in the River Thames, and officials wearing yellow jackets could be seen running up and down the shoreline at low tide trying to push it back into deeper water.

Witnesses, including people riding in boats and walking along the banks of the river, first spotted the whale near Parliament and said it appeared to be 20 feet long. “I saw it blow. It was a spout of water which sparkled in the air,” said Tom Howard-Vyne, a spokesman for London Eye, the large Ferris wheel on the banks of the river. “It was an amazing sight.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 09:11 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • Hildabeast • Odd-Strange • RoPMA •  
• Comments (14) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Liberal Jerks

You all know the Washington Post is the sister of the NY Times and both cater to the Liberal Left and Democrats. Guess what happens when the WAPO prints a column that seems to be critical of Democrats? Yep, the screaming attack horde descends on the paper with hate speech, profanity and personal attacks. It got so bad the WAPO had to shut down comments on their blog site. It is only further proof that the Angry Left is not interested in dialog, only in getting their way. Even if it means making complete asses out of themselves ...

Paper Shutters Blog After Ombudsman Post
Jan 19 7:28 PM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON (BREITBART)

The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper’s ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans. At the center of a congressional bribery investigation, Abramoff gave money to Republicans while he had his clients donate to both parties, though mostly to Republicans.

In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff “had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties,” prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog. There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper’s staff could not “keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff,” and so the Post shut down comments on the blog, or Web log, said Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com.

“We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it,” Brady wrote on the newspaper’s Web site. “There are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech.”

Washington Post blog: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/washpostblog/

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 08:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Media-Bias •  
• Comments (16) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

Amicus Curiae

_{Gary Varvel—The Indianapolis Star-News}

NEW YORK (CNN)—Two lawsuits were filed Tuesday against the National Security Agency over its no-warrant wiretapping program, claiming the domestic eavesdropping is unconstitutional and that President Bush exceeded his authority by authorizing it.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of several journalists, authors, scholars and organizations. Separately, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in the Southern District of New York on behalf of “clients who fit the criteria described by the attorney general for targeting” under the program.

The ACLU’s 60-page complaint names the NSA and its director, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, as defendants, and the New York suit names the NSA, Alexander and “the heads of the other major security agencies.”

WASHINGTON (AP)—The United States has no plans to raise the security threat level because of a new tape of Osama bin Laden saying al-Qaida is planning attacks, counterterrorism officials said Thursday.

The White House firmly rejected bin Laden’s suggestion of a negotiated truce. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Vice President Dick Cheney said in a television interview. “I think you have to destroy them.”

Counterterror officials said they have seen no specific or credible intelligence to indicate an upcoming al-Qaida attack on the United States. Nor have they noticed an uptick in terrorist communications “chatter” - although that can dramatically increase or decrease immediately before an attack.

The audiotape, released by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera, brought new attention to the al-Qaida leader after a yearlong lull in his public statements.

Note: If you’re interested in joining an intervention against the ACLU’s lawsuit, contact Debbie Schlussel.

Since the lawsuit was filed in U.S. Federal Court in the Eastern District of Michigan, where I practice, I’ve already been contacted by concerned U.S. citizens who wish to intervene in the case as interested parties (whose interests and welfare are affected by this case) in support of the government’s activities. And we may do so. You may feel free to contact me regarding this if you are interested in adding your name.

-- Debbie Schlussel

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/20/2006 at 07:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Terrorists •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Thursday - January 19, 2006

Call Me Ishmael-San

What would I do without Greenpeace? I mean those idjits provide quality entertainment. Who else would dare truck a dead twenty-ton whale several hundred miles across Germany and dump it on the street in front of the Japanese Embassy? OK, I suppose the loons at PETA would probably do it too. I just wish the headline for this story had read “Blubber Bandits Besiege Berlin”. That would have been way cool. Mheh ...

Protesters Put Dead Whale at Japan Embassy
January 19, 2006, 7:56 AM EST
BERLIN (AP)

A huge whale delivered to the Japanese embassy in Berlin as part of a Greenpeace anti-whaling protest was removed Thursday less than 24 hours after activists trucked it into the German capital’s city centre from the Baltic Sea. The 17 metre, 20-ton fin whale - found earlier this week beached on the Baltic coast - was being taken to a museum in the northern city of Stralsund.

Hundreds of people, including school groups, turned up to view the whale which was used by Greenpeace to underline its opposition to Japan’s continued whaling. Despite a ban on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986, Japan has insisted on hunting whales allegedly for scientific purposes.

“This has been a huge success,” said Greenpeace whale expert Stefanie Werner, adding: “We never thought that so many people would support us.” Harald Benke, the head of the German Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund who was tricked by Greenpeace into allowing the whale be transported to Berlin, said he was no longer angry with the group.

“I was unhappy in the beginning and disappointed over the unannounced action by Greenpeace,” Benke said. Greenpeace had offered to transport the whale to the museum free of charge but had initially claimed it wanted to bring the whale first to Berlin in order for it to be examined and measured.

Benke said he joined Greenpeace in condemning Japanese whaling. “Under the guise of science hundreds of whales are killed each year by the Japanese,” he said, adding: “At the same time, whaling is only really for commercial purposes: for example to provide delicacies to restaurants.”

Benke praised Greenpeace for dumping the dead whale at the Japanese embassy. “This fin whale in Berlin did more to combat whaling than a lot of words,” he concluded.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/19/2006 at 07:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Odd-Strange •  
• Comments (14) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

SCOTUS Gets One Right

Question: What the hell is “reproductive freedom”? Is that another Leftist “verbafuscation”‡? The Supreme Court got this decision right and I think it’s important to point out that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the opinion of a unanimous decision. Did you get all that? The Left’s so-called swing vote Justice wrote the opinion of a unanimous decision. This is just plain common sense, people! NARAL has no case here. Period.

Even if you are pro-abortion, do you really want somebody’s daughter running off and getting an abortion without talking to her parents first? Parents have rights too. And responsibilities. The Liberal Left would have you believe that young girls can make these decisions on their own and parents have no right to be involved? That is blatant bulls**t! Which is about what we have come to expect from the Angry Left ...

Supreme Court Upholds Parental Notification Law
January 18, 2006
WASHINGTON (CNSNews)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a lower court was wrong to strike down New Hampshire’s parental notification law. In a unanimous decision written by retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the justices let the abortion restriction stand. The case, Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, challenged a New Hampshire law requiring girls under 18 to get a parent’s consent before having an abortion.

Two key questions in the case are whether a child can objectively make life-and-death medical decisions under the stress of an unintended pregnancy; and whether she can provide sufficient details of her medical history to protect her health. But the court did not rule on the central issues, including whether the law placed an “undue burden” on women. Instead, the justices simply said the lower court went too far in blocking the law.

O’Connor’s ruling said the courts, in this particular case, “chose the most blunt remedy” and did not need to invalidate the New Hampshire law “wholesale.” An appeals court must now reconsider the law, wire reports said. This was the first abortion case to come before Chief Justice John Roberts; and the first abortion case the court has taken up in five years.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the New Hampshire case, said the justices “got it right.” “The unanimous decision by the high court underscores the fact that parents have a critical role to play in the health and well being of their children—especially when considering an abortion,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ. “While the ruling is very narrow in scope, the fact is that the New Hampshire parental notification law—and others like it—can survive a constitutional challenge.”

The pro-life group National Right to Life called the ruling a victory for parents and girls. “There is no abortion procedure that can be performed so quickly that there is not enough time to make a short phone call to a minor girl’s parents,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, state legislative director of NRL. “It is outrageous for pro-abortion activists to try to prevent parents from even knowing that an abortion is being performed on their minor daughter,” said Balch. “It is during times like these that girls need their parents most.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America decried the ruling as “a stark reminder of the courts’ role in either protecting or undermining the core principles of women’s reproductive freedom.” “The Ayotte case is an example of how lawmakers at the state and federal levels are continuing to exploit every opportunity to take away our reproductive freedom—even while Roe v. Wade stands,” said NARAL President Nancy Keenan.

NARAL is issuing its 15th annual report “summarizing women’s access to healthcare nationwide and exposing the persistent threat facing reproductive freedom across the 50 states.” “While it is certainly heartening that the Court did not use this case to overturn specific precedents that protect women’s health, this decision does mark a departure from prior cases,” said Keenan.

“In the past, abortion restrictions that did not include protection for women’s health would have been struck down in their entirety. After today’s decision, that is no longer the case,” she said. “We may not know the full impact of this decision on the lives of American women for years to come,” Keenan added. “We do know that this decision could be a green light to anti-choice legislators to enact laws that endanger women’s health with an assurance lawmakers did not previously have: That for women and their doctors these restrictions could remain largely enforceable.”

_{‡ - “verbafuscation”: a verbal obfuscation (from verb - words and obfuscation - to make obscure). If they can make up new words and phrases out of thin air, then dammit, I can too.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/19/2006 at 07:22 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (11) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

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.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner