Monday - May 22, 2006

Jersey Jerk

Argh! After reading this, I had a strong urge to go take a bath. I feel slimey and dirty just reading this cretin’s words. I was also strongly reminded of Bill Clinton while reading. Clinton wasn’t homosexual (as far as I know) but he was just as sleazy. I read this and other news about US Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) taking $100k in bribes and wonder what the connecting thread is between these three politicians.

Oh yeah, they’re all Democrats. You know, that party who claims to be fighting corruption in the wake of the Abramoff scandal - which allowed them to tar the Republicans as “corrupt”. The party of Teddy “Lifeguard” Kennedy. You know the bunch. This Jersey jerk is just more of the same. The fact that he is homosexual is of minor consequence and really doesn’t count for a hill of beans. The fact that he is a sleaze does. Case closed.

McGreevey’s Memoir Details Gay Trysts
_{May 22, 2006, 9:51 AM EDT}

NEWARK, N.J. (AP)—Former Gov. James E. McGreevey once resorted to anonymous homosexual trysts at highway rest stops, according to recently released excerpts from his memoir being released later this year.

McGreevey—who proclaimed himself “a gay American” in 2004 while announcing his impending resignation as governor - describes his long struggle with his homosexuality in the book “The Confession.”

According to the excerpts published Sunday in The Star-Ledger of Newark, McGreevey engaged in the secret encounters because he feared having a relationship with a man would ruin his chances of success as a politician.

”So, instead, I settled for the detached anonymity of bookstores and rest stops—a compromise, but one that was wholly unfulfilling and morally unsatisfactory,” McGreevey wrote. The excerpts do not mention whether the activities extended into his time as governor.

ReganBooks, a division of HarperCollins, is paying the 48-year-old McGreevey up to $500,000 for the 384-page memoir. He made an appearance Saturday at BookExpo America in Washington, D.C., where he told the newspaper his book is “painfully honest.”

“A lot will resonate with readers,” he said. The excerpts do not detail his two marriages, or even the scandal, which became public knowledge during an August 2004 televised news conference in which McGreevey acknowledged a gay affair and said he would resign in coming months.

The excerpts also do not mention the former aide whom sources close to McGreevey have identified as the man he had an extramarital affair with. According to the excerpts, McGreevey said he also became “as avid a womanizer as anybody else on the New Jersey political scene.”

”I knew I would have to lie for the rest of my life - and I knew I was capable of it,” McGreevey wrote. ”The knowledge gave me a feeling of terrible power.” He said he became an avid student of human behavior during his rise from the state Parole Board to Woodbridge mayor to governor, and that allowed him to keep up the charade.

”I studied the moves, figured out what worked and what didn’t, practiced and perfected my perfect inauthenticity,” he wrote.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/22/2006 at 10:52 AM   
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Talibanditos Taken Down

US troops bomb the bejeepers out of more Talibanditos in southern Afghanistan. The Taliboys spread out and go running in several directions and guess where they try to hide? You got it - in the villager’s houses, knowing they are making targets out of innocent civilians. Gutless b**tards need to be wiped out and they will be even if we have to do it eighty at a time. Of particular note in the story below is the press whining about the fact that they were not allowed into the war zone. So what do they do? Make up s**t based on conjecture and hearsay and bitch about being denied access to take pictures of evil, bloody American troops killing innocent people. Bugger ‘em all, I say.

Up to 80 Taliban Dead in U.S.-Led Strike
_{May 22, 2006, 10:11 AM EDT}

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP)—A U.S.-led nighttime airstrike against Taliban rebels in southern Afghanistan killed up to 80 suspected militants, the coalition said Monday. The local governor said 16 civilians were killed and 16 wounded.

At a hospital, wounded residents of Azizi village described how aircraft bombed mud-brick homes where Taliban rebels were hiding, having fled there from a religious school after the airstrikes started. Among the wounded was an 8-month-old infant.

In a statement, the coalition said it had confirmed 20 Taliban killed in the attack on the village in Kandahar province late Sunday and early Monday, while there were “an unconfirmed 60 additional Taliban casualties.” U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry told The Associated Press that the military was “looking into” civilian casualties.

The airstrikes brought the death toll of militants, Afghan forces, coalition soldiers and civilians to as many as 285 since Wednesday, according to coalition and Afghan figures. The storm of violence that erupted last week in the south was among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001. At Mirwaise Hospital in Kandahar city, a man with blood on his clothes and turban said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, in the village since the recent fierce fighting.

“Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and into people’s homes. Then those homes were bombed,” said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. “I saw 35 to 40 dead Taliban and around 50 dead or wounded civilians.” Another villager, Zurmina Bibi, cradled her wounded 8-month-old. She said about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children. “There were dead people everywhere,” she said, crying.

A doctor, Mohammed Khan, said he had treated 10 people from the village. Moments later, a pickup vehicle pulled up at the hospital with five wounded men lying in the back. “These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes,” Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid told reporters. “I urge people not to give shelter to the Taliban.” U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins said, “It’s common that the enemy fights in close to civilians as a means to protect its own forces. We targeted a Taliban compound and we’re certain we hit the right target,” he told The Associated Press.

It was not possible for reporters to reach Azizi village because police and foreign troops had blocked off the area, about 30 miles southwest of Kandahar. The village, also known as Hajiyan, has about 30-35 large mud-brick compounds, each housing an extended family with up to 50 members. The village has a mosque and one madrassa, where boys study. It has no electricity and relies on wells for water. The Taliban resurgence, despite the presence of more than 30,000 foreign troops, including 23,000 from the United States in Afghanistan, has halted postwar reconstruction work in many areas and raised fears for this country’s future.

In other violence, Mohammed Ali Jalali, the former governor of eastern Paktika province, was found dead after being kidnapped Sunday, local police chief Abdul Rehman Surjung said. Jalali was a respected tribal elder and a supporter of President Hamid Karzai. Meanwhile, a war of words between Islamabad and Kabul over the burst of violence escalated, with Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam saying her country shouldn’t be blamed for the bloodshed.

“The Afghan government’s failure to deal with the situation cannot be placed at Pakistan’s door,” she said at a weekly news conference. On Sunday, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told reporters in Kabul that Taliban leaders are in Pakistan and that “the movement and the communication during these terrorist attacks” comes from the Pakistan side of the border.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/22/2006 at 10:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • Terrorists •  
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Kibbles And Bits

_{“EU-Bonz" -by- Cox & Forkum}

- Islamic Republic News: “EU’s draft resolution on Iran aimed at spreading disinformation”

- Bloomberg: “China, Germany Agree Iran Shouldn’t Have Nuclear Bomb”

- CNN: “ Israel: Iran ‘months’ from making nukes”

- MehrNews: “Iran says no rush to comment on EU offer”

“Ever since I assumed my present office my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicions and those animosities which have so long poisoned the air. The path which leads to appeasement is long and bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity. My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time… Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

-- Neville Chamberlain - “Peace In Our Time”, October 3, 1938

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/22/2006 at 10:10 AM   
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   Sunday - May 21, 2006

Weblog Maintenance This Afternoon

This blog will be offline this afternoon at 4:00pm EDT (9:00pm GMT) in order for me to install an upgrade. pMachine has released a new update to the Expression Engine blog software and I will be upgrading from our current version (1.4.1) to the new version (1.4.2). We’ll only be away for a few minutes.

There are a lot of improvements in the new version as well as bug fixes. Most importantly a new Wiki module has been added. For those technically inclined, you can view the changelog for this version here. For my money, you just can’t beat Expression Engine for blogging software. It’s commercial grade blog software (prices start at $99 for personal license) but darn well worth it.

UPDATE: The maintenance upgrade went easily and the blog software, including the forums updates and the new Wiki module are now all installed. I have configured the Wiki module and it is open for business. If you don’t know what a Wiki is just go to the BMEWS Wiki Home page and there is a brief informational page there to explain it. In a nutshell, a Wiki is where anyone can create an entry about any particular topic. Other users can edit it and add information to it. You can upload pictures or create links to other informational sites. Basically, you can create your own articles about whatever floats your boat. It’s a place to pool and share information. The Wiki is open to members only. Just click on the Wiki button below and give it a whirl. Don’t worry about breaking anything. Just have a good time.

UPDATE II: Oops! I ran into a new bug in the new version (what else is new?). The blockquotes were hosed up by a foul piece of code in the new PHP code and in the process of correcting the style sheets to accomodate the new “bug” I inadvertently deleted comments from the most recent posts. So sue me.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 11:08 PM   
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A Great Day For Men Everywhere

YAY! YAY! YAY! Break out the brew, guys! We need to celebrate. The gentler sex is about to become ... “gentler”. No more period = no more PMS. No longer will we have to endure that malevolent transformation that takes place once monthly when our beloved princesses suddenly metamorphose into screaming, bloodthirsty, nagging, irritating, mindless, bloated, cramped, unholy demons from hell. We are saved from our tormentors. These scientists deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe even a case of beer. Cheers!

New Birth Control Products Block Periods
_{May 21, 2006, 12:24 PM EDT}

(NEWSDAY - AP)—Women have long been manipulating hormonal contraceptives to skip or block menstrual periods. Now new products and several on the horizon will make things even easier. Here are a few:

* Seasonale, launched in November 2003 by Barr Pharmaceuticals of Woodcliff Lake, N.J. A standard birth-control pill taken for 84 days, followed by a week off for withdrawal bleeding, its sales and new prescriptions have been rising quickly.

* Seasonique, a successor to Seasonale expected to reduce breakthrough bleeding and hormonal fluctuations even more, likely will get federal approval at week’s end.

* Lybrel, the first daily birth-control pill designed to be taken indefinitely, is expected by late June to get U.S. approval. Made by Wyeth of Madison, N.J., it also is awaiting approval in Canada and Europe.

* Implanon, a one-rod, three-year contraceptive implanted in the upper arm that stops menstruation in many women, also could get U.S. approval in June. Made by Organon USA of Roseland, N.J.

* Berlex Inc. of Wayne, N.J., is developing its own birth-control pill for menstrual suppression. It makes Mirena, a progestin intrauterine device, and in March got approval for Yaz, a pill with only four days off hormones, reducing hormone fluctuations and PMS.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 02:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Science-Technology •  
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On This Day In History

Today is a great day in the history of aviation. Charles Lindbergh proved that transatlantic flight was not only possible but could be easily accomplished. Five years later, Amelia Earhart proved that women could do it too. Seven years after her flight, Pan-Am started flying regularly scheduled flights between the US and Europe.

Twelve years is all it took to go from dream to commercial application. This was the same kind of spirit and grit that later put a man on the moon. I sometimes wonder what happened to that kind of drive and intestinal fortitude. We seem to be lacking in it nowadays as we sit on our backsides, watch crap on TV and get fatter and fatter.

Speaking of “lacking”, check out the accomodations on the Dixie Clipper and compare that to the cattle cars we fly in today with cramped seats, stale food and miniature unisex bathrooms. Is that really progress ... ?

1927 - Lindbergh Lands In Paris

American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before.

At 7:52 a.m. EST on May 20, The Spirit of St. Louis lifted off from Roosevelt Field, so loaded with fuel that it barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. Lindbergh traveled northeast up the coast. After only four hours, he felt tired and flew within 10 feet of the water to keep his mind clear.

As night fell, the aircraft left the coast of Newfoundland and set off across the Atlantic. At about 2 a.m. on May 21, Lindbergh passed the halfway mark, and an hour later dawn came. Soon after, The Spirit of St. Louis entered a fog, and Lindbergh struggled to stay awake, holding his eyelids open with his fingers and hallucinating that ghosts were passing through the cockpit.

At the Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, tens of thousands of Saturday night revelers had gathered to await Lindbergh’s arrival. At 10:24 a.m. local time, his gray and white monoplane slipped out of the darkness and made a perfect landing in the air field.

The crowd surged on The Spirit of St. Louis, and Lindbergh, weary from his 33 1/2-hour, 3,600-mile journey, was cheered and lifted above their heads. He hadn’t slept for 55 hours. Two French aviators saved Lindbergh from the boisterous crowd, whisking him away in an automobile. He was an immediate international celebrity.

1932 - Amelia Earhart Completes
Transatlantic Flight

Five years to the day that American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to accomplish a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, female aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first pilot to repeat the feat, landing her plane in Ireland after flying across the North Atlantic. Earhart traveled over 2,000 miles from Newfoundland in just under 15 hours.

Unlike Charles Lindbergh, Earhart was well known to the public before her solo transatlantic flight. In 1928, as a member of a three-person crew, she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft.

Although her only function during the crossing was to keep the plane’s log, the event won her national fame, and Americans were enamored with the daring and modest young pilot. For her solo transatlantic crossing in 1932, she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the U.S. Congress.

1939 - Regular Trans-Atlantic Air Service Begins

Pan-American Airways made the first regularly scheduled mail flight to Europe. A month later, after its return, Pan Am’s Dixie Clipper inaugurated the first regular transatlantic passenger service on June 28th.

Before long, the B-314 Flying Clippers were to be found at destinations all over the world. The Dixie Clipper had plush seating for 74 (sleeping berths for 36), a separate dining room where passengers were served full-course meals, separate men’s and women’s bathrooms, a deluxe compartment for VIPs, dressing rooms, and a dedicated lounge.

_{Credit: The History Channel, Wikipedia, Amelia Earhart Website, Flying Clippers Website.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 11:37 AM   
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Blog Sites For Fun!

Wanna have some fun with the Envirowhackos? Then go visit The EcoEnquirer. The site is run by a retired NASA scientist and weather researcher and the guy is having way too much fun with glowball warming. Fake “news articles” like the one below will make you laugh ... at least until Al Gore finds his site and destroys it to keep the truth from being told. Mheh-heh ...

Polar Bears “Dropping Like Flies”
From Heat Exhaustion

(Cold Bay, Alaska) Warming temperatures in polar regions are causing an increasing number of polar bears to collapse from heat exhaustion, local hunters report. 

Jeremiah Johnson, a local hunter who tracks and kills polar bears “because they are there” has seen three of the behemoths collapse before him in just the last month. “It just isn’t sporting to shoot one of these creatures when they are suffering like this”, Johnson said as he recounted his attempts to revive a bear he was ready to shoot.

Local TV meteorologist Sky McCloud explained, “Average annual temperatures in the area have risen from 20 degrees below zero to 15 below zero in the last 30 years, and these giant creatures simply can not withstand the excess heat.”

Bear researchers concur with McCloud. Dr. Phillip Slander, of the University of Alaska’s Wildlife Health and Comfort Department, said “People don’t realize how much heat stress these temperatures put on polar bears. The bears are increasingly being seen taking dips in the ocean in their attempts to cool off.”

Can’t figure out what to get your peeps for they’s birthday? Need a present for your local gang lord? Then look no further than Gray Matter Meganova for the latest and greatest gadgets for the wiseguy on your shopping list. It’s da shizzel and is sure to impress yo ho’s.

Spring Collection Of Gangsta Gadgets

Universal Firearm Remote: This 9mm semi-automatic-styled clicker slides beneath elastic waistbands for quickdraw access and features a detachable lithium-ion magazine, posi-lock channel changer and safety mode to prevent dropped pistols from accidentally going off (or switching to Fear Factor).

Point your piece at Joe Rogan and show that punk-bitch who’s boss.

Also featured: Laptop Lowrider (Roll into that Unreal Tournament LAN party with this screaming 3.2 bazillionhertz Pentium all-wheel-drive, with outsized rims and radials, neon accents and tinted Windows XP Professional Edition OS.

Boots up with “Mexican Hat Dance” and shuts down with “Vamos Alla Playa.” Frag some fool, then fire up the hydraulics and flaunt your shitz with some outrageous hops).

Stock up your crib today with all the latest fly toys for the gangsta guy. Word up!

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 10:48 AM   
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J’Accuse!

Sssssshhhhhh. Can you hear it? The sound of crickets chirping, that’s what. That’s all you’ll hear. You won’t hear a peep out of the UN Human Rights Commission or the usual Liberal suspects who are so engrossed with bashing America over Guantanamo.

Thanks to the silence of the bleeding hearts and the miserable system of Islamic justice around the world, Tahir Mirza Hussain is going to be executed in Pakistan next week ... a British citizen and an innocent man. Acquitted in secular court in Pakistan but re-tried and comdemned to death in Sharia court, time is running out. Where are the candlelight vigils? The protestors? Does anybody give a damn?

This is why I am utterly disgusted with Islam and their partners in crime, the Liberal hypocrites around the world. There is no justice in Islam and no honesty in the liberal establishment or the socialist America-bashers at the UN. In the words of Emile Zola ... J’accuse ...!

Pakistan Set to Hang Acquitted British Man
_{May 20, 2006, 2:25 PM EDT}

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP)—After spending half his life in a Pakistani jail, Tahir Mirza Hussain is scheduled to hang on his 36th birthday for killing a taxi driver—even though a court acquitted him 10 years ago. Hussain, a British-Pakistani, claims he is innocent. He was cleared by a secular court but retried and found guilty in an Islamic one. He now faces execution June 1 unless President Gen. Pervez Musharraf intervenes.

His muddled case, spanning two decades, is emblematic of Pakistan’s corrupt and bifurcated legal system, described by a leading rights activist as “flawed” and in desperate need of reform. Amnesty International has called for a retrial, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett have urged Musharraf to reconsider Hussain’s sentence. He has already served 18 years in a cramped, dark cell, mostly at the notorious Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi near the capital.

“What does he have to do to get justice?” said his elder brother Amjad Hussain, who is visiting from Leeds, northern England, to lobby for Hussain’s life. “How could you retry a man who was acquitted?” Mirza Hussain’s family migrated to England from Pakistan when he was a boy. In December 1988, after training in Britain’s reserve army, the 18-year-old came back to visit relatives living near Chakwal, about 56 miles south of Islamabad. On his way, he claims, his taxi driver stopped the car, produced a gun and physically and sexually assaulted him. In the struggle that followed the gun went off and the driver, Jamshad Khan, was fatally injured.

Hussain voluntarily reported the incident to police and was arrested. In September 1989, a sessions court sentenced him to death. The high court revoked the death penalty in November 1992 due to serious discrepancies in the prosecution’s case and ordered a retrial. In April 1994 his sentence was reduced to life in prison; in May 1996 the high court acquitted Hussain of all charges.

But a week later, while he was waiting for release, his case was referred to the Islamic, or Sharia, court on the basis that the crime he was charged of—“haraabah,” or armed robbery—came under its jurisdiction. In August 1998, in a split 2-1 verdict, the Islamic court’s judges sentenced him to death again, although the legal provision he was tried under required a confession or witness to the crime. The prosecution had neither.

The dissenting judge, Abdul Waheed Siddiqui, gave a scathing assessment of the prosecution in a 59-page judgment. He described Hussain as “an innocent, raw youth not knowing the mischief and filth in which the police of this country is engrossed.” He said police introduced false witnesses and “fabricated evidence in a shameless manner” against Hussein, who had no criminal record.

Amnesty and other rights groups have condemned the trial as unfair, but Pakistan’s government maintains Hussain has been treated with due process. In 2005, Musharraf, an advocate of moderate Islam, rejected his mercy petition. Pakistan’s police and judiciary are rarely noted for their integrity, and legal experts say having both secular and Sharia law at work only allows for more abuse.

“It’s a basic and fundamental flaw with our criminal justice system,” said Hina Jilani, vice-chair of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “There should be just one set of laws.” The dueling jurisdictions have come into play in other high-profile cases, including the prosecution of the attackers of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani women who was gang-raped on the orders of a village council in 2002 over her younger brother’s alleged affair with a woman from a higher caste family. The Supreme Court is still deliberating whether the case falls under the jurisdiction of a secular or Islamic court.

Former military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq introduced Shariah law to Pakistan in 1979, two decades after the Islamic nation was born. His controversial Hudood Ordinance, which covers offenses such as adultery, rape and theft, requires four male witnesses to prosecute a rape. Hussain’s case also falls under the Hudood Ordinance. His only hope now is presidential intervention or reconciliation with the dead taxi driver’s ethnic Pashtun family through a settlement.

Amjad Hussain said his late father offered financial compensation back in 1990 but it was rejected. The deceased’s family have since refused the mediation efforts of a prominent Islamic cleric. Amjad Hussain claims the family, which could not be reached for comment, has threatened to kill his brother if he is released. “To them, it’s a blood feud,” he said.

Amjad Hussain shook his head as he recounted how his brother has grayed in prison, suffered psychological problems and become resigned to his fate—finding solace in Islam, in whose name he’s been jailed. “Sometimes he just feels like getting this over and done with. He once told me don’t bother to try and help, because whatever God ordains is going to happen,” Amjad Hussain said. “That scares me.”

Fair Trials Abroad, the European Legal Rights Organisation, sums up the current European efforts to rescue Tahir Mirza Hussain from death row in Pakistan. We only received instructions from Tahir’s family a fortnight ago. We immediately wrote to President Musharraf expressing our concern. Our own efforts have been centered on acting on Tahir’s behalf in his capacity as a European Citizen and we have been working with Sajjad Karim MEP who has strong Pakistan connections.

A letter has been sent by Josep Borrell, the President of the European Parliament, to the President of Pakistan on Tahir’s behalf, expressing the extreme concern of the European Parliament as to his plight.

Saj Karim is traveling to Pakistan on Monday to meet the President of Pakistan and has a confirmed appointment to meet him on Wednesday. Contrary to a number of press reports in UK papers it is understood that the President has an open mind on the issue. Further it is understood that negotiations with the family of the victim have been reopened

Contact: Stephen Jakobi
Phone: +44(0)2083322800 mobile 07885246508

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 02:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Outrageous • RoPMA •  
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More Chocolate

I am deeply saddened to see Nagin win re-election. Over the years I have lived and worked in New Orleans on several occasions. I love that city and I hate to see it continue in the same old miserable ways.

During Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, Ray Nagin proved to be an utter incompetent and a complete idiot, not that his job performance was much better before. It wasn’t. It looks to me like New Orleans will continue with the same dirty politics, corrupt police, high crime rate and just downright lousy government ... thanks to “Mr. Chocolate City”.

The Big Easy deserves better than this jerk running things. Katrina was a chance to clean things up and start over right. All I see now is “same ol’, same ol’”. At least the food’s still the best in the world ....

Nagin Wins Re-Election as Big Easy Mayor
_{May 21, 12:57 AM EDT}

NEW ORLEANS (AP)—Mayor Ray Nagin, whose shoot-from-the-hip style was both praised and scorned after Hurricane Katrina, narrowly won re-election over Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Saturday in the race to oversee one of the biggest rebuilding projects in U.S. history.

“We are ready to take off. We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans, and we’re going to get them all back,” Nagin said in a joyful victory speech that took on the tone of Sunday sermon. “It’s time for us to stop the bickering,” he said. “It’s time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian. It’s time for us to be one New Orleans.”

Nagin won with 52.3 percent, or 59,460 votes, to Landrieu’s 47.7 percent, or 54,131 votes. While the vote was split largely along racial lines, Nagin was able to get enough of a crossover in predominantly white districts to make the difference. He also won a slim majority of absentee and fax votes cast by evacuees scattered across the country.

Nagin, a former cable television executive first elected to public office in 2002, had argued the city could ill-afford to change course just as rebuilding gathered steam. His second term begins a day before the June 1 start of the next hurricane season in a city where streets are still strewn with rusting, mud-covered cars and entire neighborhoods consist of homes that are empty shells.

With little disagreement on the major issues - the right of residents to rebuild in all areas and the urgent need for federal aid for recovery and top-notch levees - the race turned on leadership styles.

Nagin, a janitor’s son from a black, working-class neighborhood, is known for his improvisational, some say impulsive, rhetoric. After Katrina plunged his city into chaos, Nagin was both scorned and praised for a tearful plea for the federal government to “get off their (behinds) and do something” and his now-famous remark that God intended New Orleans to be a “chocolate” city.

- More election coverage in New Orleans from the Atlanta Journal ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 02:17 AM   
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Sunday Funnies

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/21/2006 at 02:03 AM   
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   Saturday - May 20, 2006

Al Gore Was Right!

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/20/2006 at 11:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Satire •  
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Senate Insanity

I am not pleased with the US Senate, especially the Democrats and Liberals who seek to encourage illegal immigrants to come here by allowing them to buy into the retirement system while they break the freaking law. Illegal immigrants are a drain on the system anyway, getting free medical care and educational benefits.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why we should allow them to profit from their criminal activity by helping them to retire later on money illegally earned. The usual suspects are to blame for this farce ... Senators Leahy and Stabenow - two Liberals who don’t give a damn what law-abiding citizens want as long as they can pander to illegals who can be encouraged to vote for them. It’s time to flush the Senate. Send out for the Tidy Bowl man ... !

Illegals granted Social Security
_{May 19, 2006}

The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment—even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents. “There was a felony they were committing, and now they can’t be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me,” said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill. “It just boggles the mind how people could be against this amendment.”

The Ensign amendment was defeated on a 50-49 vote. “We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy,” said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. “The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community,” he said. “If this amendment were enacted, the nest egg that these immigrants have worked hard for would be taken from them and their families.”

Mr. Ensign was among 44 Republicans and five Democrats who voted to block such payouts. “It makes no sense to reward millions of illegal immigrants for criminal behavior while our Social Security system is already in crisis,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican. “Why in the world would we endorse this criminal activity with federal benefits? The Senate missed a big opportunity to improve this bill, and I doubt American seniors will be pleased with the result.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said it would be unfair to deny illegals the benefits. “We should not steal their funds or empty their Social Security accounts,” he said. “That is not fair. It does not reward their hard work or their financial contributions. It violates the trust that underlies the Social Security Trust Fund.”

Within hours, the vote had become an issue in this fall’s elections, raised by a Republican challenger to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat. “Instead of protecting the retirement security of Americans who are earning an honest living and abiding by the laws of our country, Debbie Stabenow sided with people who are here illegally and abuse our Social Security system,” Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a press release. “Allowing illegal immigrants to use their illegal work history as credit towards receiving Social Security benefits shows that Debbie Stabenow has forgotten who she is supposed to be working for in the U.S. Senate.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/20/2006 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Social-Security •  
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United Notions

Here I was, all prepared to enjoy a beautiful Spring day and the United Space Aliens of Turtle Bay have to go and make asses out of themselves ... and the Washington Post just doesn’t seem to get it.

First, the asshats imprisoned at Gitmo are not “terrorism suspects” - they are captured enemy combatants. Got that? They were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to kill people. There is nothing “suspect” about them.

Second, if we want to keep these dangerous enemy soldiers locked up until hell freezes over, that’s our business and the UN can go pound sand. If this UN committee wants to do its job then go to Darfur and harass the Sudanese government.

Four hundred captured terrorists in a swank, pampered prison is a long way from a human rights violation whereas two million displaced and/or murdered Africans would seem to be slightly in violation of somebody’s human rights.

Does the UN really give a damn about trying to help in the world or are they just out to harass the US? That was a rhetorical question - we all know the answer ....

Military Prison’s Closure Is Urged
U.N. Panel Faults Detention Policies
_{Saturday, May 20, 2006}

UNITED NATIONS, May 19—A U.N. anti-torture panel Friday called on the United States to close its prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to expressly ban controversial interrogation techniques, and to halt the transfer of detainees to countries with a history of abuse and torture. The U.N. panel, charged with monitoring compliance with the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which the United States has ratified, also asserted that the CIA imprisonment of suspects in secret detention facilities without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross constituted a clear violation of the treaty.

Bush administration officials countered that the U.N. Committee Against Torture had not given the United States a fair hearing, that it had overreached its authority by calling for Guantanamo’s closure, and that its report is riddled with errors and misstatements. “We acknowledge that there were serious incidents of abuse. We’ve all seen Abu Ghraib,” the State Department’s top lawyer, John B. Bellinger III, told reporters. But “clearly our record has improved over the last few years,” he said.

The 11-page report was issued one day after two Guantanamo Bay detainees tried to kill themselves by overdosing on antidepressants. The attempts brought to 41 the number of inmates who have tried to commit suicide since 2002, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of Guantanamo Bay detainee operations, said Friday. After the unsuccessful suicide attempts, Guantanamo Bay inmates rioted, attacking guards with electric fans and other improvised weapons after a prisoner lured them into a cell by faking an attempt to hang himself. Guards subdued them by firing sponge grenades and five rounds of rubber balls from a 12-gauge shotgun, Harris said.

The U.N. report was a rebuke for the Bush administration and some of the main counterterrorism approaches it adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was delivered as the United States faces increasing pressure from international critics, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. The administration has engaged in an internal debate over the fate of the controversial island facility.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that President Bush has made it clear “he doesn’t want the United States to be the world’s jailers, that we at some point in the future would very much like to see Guantanamo Bay closed down.” But, McCormack added, “at the moment, it’s housing some dangerous people.”

- More UN whining can be read at the WASHINGTON POST ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/20/2006 at 10:46 AM   
Filed Under: • United-Nations •  
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Even More Saturday Silliness

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/20/2006 at 02:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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