Tuesday - May 16, 2006

The Idjits Speak

Argue with the President all you want in the posts below this one but remember that any action is going to have to have the cooperation of Congress and guess what’s going to happen there? Take a look at the comments below from leading assholes Democrats and Liberals. Get the picture? You and I may have problems with aspects of President Bush’s plan but it will surely fail if these Donk goobers continue to howl at the moon and get in the way of any plan of any kind that comes from Bush or the GOP. Touch choice, ain’t it? We can nitpick the plan and watch the Donks get what they want (control of Congress in November) or we can go along with the damn plan and hope for the best. Did somebody mention something about a “rock and a hard place”?

The New York Times: “Some of the border state governors, Democrats in Congress, and others immediately raised questions about the practicality of the plan.” (Jim Rutenberg, “President Calls For Compromise On Immigration,” The New York Times, 5/16/06)

DNC Chair Howard Dean: “Unfortunately, at a time when we needed real leadership, we once again heard a political PR campaign filled with an unrealistic short-term fix, rather than a detailed long term solution.” (Stephen Dinan, “Bush Calls For Guard On Border,” The Washington Times, 5/16/06)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV): “It is not enough for President Bush to tell us he wants to increase security at our borders. After all, he’s had five years to do it. If he wants to be credible on border security, he must acknowledge his mistakes and commit to fixing them.” (Mark Silva, “President Calls For Balance On Border,” Chicago Tribune, 5/16/06)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “We must protect our borders, but militarizing our borders is a desperate response by the president to his and Republican Congress’ policy failures.” (Mark Silva, “President Calls For Balance On Border,” Chicago Tribune, 5/16/06)

Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM): “[I]’m very skeptical as a border governor that deals with this issue every day of the National Guard deployed at the border.” (CNN’s “Larry King Live,” 5/15/06)

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): “Democrats are willing to support any reasonable plan that will secure our borders, including deploying National Guard troops ... But Americans don’t want a plan that’s been cobbled together to win political favor.” (David Espo, “Bush Proposes Sending Troops To Border,” The Associated Press, 5/16/06)

Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D-OR): “Within the conservative wing of the Republican Party ... [the President’s plan] may be good politics. But it is lousy policy.” (Mark Silva, “President Calls For Balance On Border,” Chicago Tribune, 5/16/06)

“[DNC Chair Howard] Dean Said His Party Will Make Immigration An Issue As Part Of Its Strategy To ‘Nationalize’ The Fall Elections And Is Opening A Television Advertising Campaign ...” (Ralph Z. Hallow, “Dean Calls The Border Top Priority,” The Washington Times, 4/20/06)

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): “I think politics got in front of policy on this issue.” (Carl Hulse and Rachel L. Swarns, “Blame And Uncertainty As Immigration Deal Fails,” The New York Times, 4/8/06)

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/16/2006 at 03:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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One Very Busy Fascist Dictator

Chavez Points To Socialism As The Only Way to Stop Barbarism
_{May 14, 2006}

HAVANA (CUBAN NEWS AGENCY-ACN)

Socialism is the only way to thwart barbarism and bring the humankind to a turning point in its fateful history, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in London, Sunday, May 14. Chavez spoke during an encounter with British personalities and groups who support the Venezuelan government. The meeting was held in the Camden Center in North London, reported Prensa Latina news agency.

“Let’s take on socialism; let’s debate it and build it. I believe that its mistakes were in the economic analysis, there should be social praxis, and 21st century socialism should be based on solid human values,” he stressed. “We are facing the threat of global challenges stemming from the genocidal, immoral, sick, and corrupt elite currently governing the United States, which appear to have no limits,” he added.

The Venezuelan president warned about Washington’s threats against Iran and he said that if that aggression materializes, oil prices could reach 100 dollars a barrel. “The outcome of such aggression is unknown, but the Empire is going to find itself inPa worse position than the one they have currently in Iraq, where they do not know what to do with the civil war that has erupted there and can’t find a way out,” he noted.

Chavez called US President George W. Bush a murderer, guilty of genocide, who supposedly fights terrorism, while his country is a sanctuary of terrorists.

Venezuela Weighs Selling U.S. Jets to Iran
_{May 16 12:53 PM US/Eastern}

CARACAS, Venezuela (BREITBART-AP)

Venezuela is considering selling its fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to another country, perhaps Iran, in response to a U.S. ban on arms sales to President Hugo Chavez’s government, a military official said Tuesday.

Gen. Alberto Muller, a senior adviser to Chavez, told The Associated Press he had recommended to the defense minister that Venezuela consider selling the 21 jets to another country.

Muller said he thought it was worthwhile to consider “the feasibility of a negotiation with Iran for the sale of those planes.” Even before the U.S. announced the ban on arms sales Monday, Washington had stopped selling Venezuela sensitive upgrades for the F- 16s.

Chavez has previously warned he could share the U.S. jets with Cuba if Washington does not supply parts for the planes. He also has said he may look into buying fighter jets from Russia or China instead.

Venezuela’s Chavez to visit Libya
_{Monday, May 15, 2006 Posted: 1536 GMT}

TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN-Reuters)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose socialist course has won him few friends in Washington, will visit Tripoli on Tuesday for talks with the Libyan leader who once bore the brunt of U.S. disapproval.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has in recent years toned down his fiery anti-American rhetoric and opened Libya’s industry to Western investment. The U.S. announced Monday that it plans to restore normal diplomatic relations with Libya. Libya, like Venezuela, is a major oil producer.

Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, has led a campaign to tighten state control over the energy sector. Libyan officials said Chavez would arrive in Tripoli after a visit to Algeria, a close ally and fellow OPEC member. Chavez will meet with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Tuesday morning before heading to Libya, they said.

Analysts said the Libyan talks were likely to focus on energy industry knowledge sharing but that, with oil producers pumping as much as they can and oil prices near records, collaboration on output quotas was unlikely to top the agenda.

My Lover, The Great Dictator
The ex-mistress of Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, has a word of caution about her former lover—beware!
_{Sunday, May 14, 2006 3:48 p.m. EDT}

LONDON (TIMES-UK)

Speaking fondly of the would-be Fidel Castro clone and darling of the Hollywood liberal community as a tender lover, Herma Marksman, Chavez’s mistress for 10 years, also told the Times of London that Chavez is dangerous and not to be trusted.

“I keep the best memories of him close to me,” Marksman told the Times. “He’s the kind of man that showers you with flowers and chocolates, serenades you with romantic songs and never forgets your birthday. People say he is a violent man, but he never raised a hand or his voice to me.”

Marksman has a different opinion of Chavez as Venezuela’s president, however. “Now you can’t trust him,” she said during what the Times called her first interview with any foreign media. “He is imposing a fascist dictatorship. A totalitarian regime is coming because he doesn’t believe in democratic institutions. Hugo controls all the powers.”

Described by the Times as anything but “an angry ex-bimbo” determined to denigrate a man who dumped her, the 50ish professor of history has written two books about Chavez’s politics. During the interview with the Times, she called Chavez “sweet” and “kind” as a lover. But as a president, she added, “he’s the caudillo (strongman) you have to say yes to. At the rate he’s going, his end can only be violent.”

For almost a decade in the 1980s and 1990s, Marksman recalls encouraging her lover, then an army officer who used her home to plot a coup against Venezuela’s civilian government. The couple shared a dream, she said, of “a prosperous Venezuela where justice would reign.” That dream, for her at least, is shattered. “Now you can’t trust him,” she told the newspaper.

Emerging as a champion of the Venezuelan underclass, he was surrounded by adoring women. The Times reported that he split with both his wife and his mistress; later a second marriage also ended in separation. He once disclosed his far leftist political beliefs when he told Castro “Capitalism leads us straight to hell, Fidel, I think you were always right: it’s socialism or death”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/16/2006 at 02:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Politics • Stoopid-People •  
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Redeployment

_{Scott Stantis—The Birmingham (AL) News}

- San Jose Mercury News: “Border mission will add to an expanding Guard role”

- Reuters: “Border troops would be temporary, US tells Mexico”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/16/2006 at 03:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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Bush Addresses Immigration: The Official Thread

OK, you heard what Dubya said. What do you think? If you didn’t watch the speech, you can read the full text here but in the meantime here are the main talking points in the President’s own words ....

• “First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security.”


• “Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life.”


• “Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally. Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud.”


• “Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship.”


• “Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one Nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.”


• “Sixth, WARNING! Because of the President’s speech on Monday, May 15th the start times for 24 in certain time zones will be affected.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/16/2006 at 02:50 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
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   Monday - May 15, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/15/2006 at 05:59 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Military •  
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NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

DAMN! Cave in to the b**tards again, eh? When are you people going to grow a spine and tell these asshats to go pound sand?

Each time you give in to their whining and begging without getting anything in return (like a promise to stop killing innocent people), the situation only gets worse. There are some government leaders out there that are in desperate need of a No. 9 Cluebat™ upside their pointy little heads.

Carefully examine the picture at right. Do you know what that is?

Palestinian demonstrators burning the US flag as they hold up the Iraqi national flag, during an all women’s protest in support of Iraq in Gaza City. Scores of Palestinian women protested against what they called US ‘war crimes’ in Iraq as the hardline Islamic Jihad movement hailed the ‘new intifada’ against the US-led occupation (Agence France Presse - April, 2004).

AND YOU WANT TO GIVE THESE FREAKS MONEY? DAMN YOU!

I can understand the spineless, nutless Fwench and Russians surrendering to these godless savages but if Dubya and Condi give them one thin dime I am going to be sorely pissed. The Paleosimians need a demonstration of “tough love” not more money. Let them rot in their cesspool for a few years. Maybe then they’ll come to their senses. Paying them off is only an invitation for more bloodshed. After all, why should they quit sending out suicide bombers when the ignorant, spineless western nations will continue to give them money anyway? ARGH!

U.S., Allies Agree to Palestinian Aid
_{UNITED NATIONS, May. 10, 2006}

The United States bowed to pressure from its allies Tuesday and agreed to support a new program to temporarily funnel additional aid directly to the Palestinian people. A surprise statement by Mideast peacemakers, issued after a day of closed-door diplomatic meetings, did not say precisely how much or what kind of aid they would provide. But the agreement seemed to underscore a concern that months of withholding most aid from the Palestinians, part of an effort to pressure the new Hamas-led government toward a more accommodating stance with Israel, was harming the Palestinian people.

The new fund represents a slight softening of the hard U.S. line against financial engagement with Hamas, the militant Islamic group that has conducted numerous terrorist attacks. The United States, the European Union and Israel list Hamas as a terrorist organization. The United States and European Union have cut off direct aid to the Palestinian government while pledging to help meet the crushing humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people through charities and other means.

Israel has also refused to transfer $55 million in monthly tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority. Overseas donations, mostly from Europe, have long sustained the cash-strapped and bloated Palestinian government. The new fund is supposed to administer only money for basic human needs. But both European and U.S. diplomats said that at some point it might be used to pay salaries for urgently needed doctors or teachers or for other services that the Hamas government otherwise would be expected to provide.

Hamas won election in part because of a record of providing services that the previous secular Fatah leadership did not. The aid cutoff has left the Palestinian government virtually broke and increasingly unable to provide basic services. Some 165,000 government workers, whose incomes had supported one-third of Palestinian families, have not been paid for the past two months, and the World Bank warned this week of an impending crisis.

Frustrations rose to the surface over the weekend, when hundreds of Palestinians staged strikes and demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza to demand payment, the first public signs of discontent with Hamas’ handling of the situation. European governments in particular have been alarmed at the worsening plight for unemployed Palestinians and concerned that charities and U.N. agencies could not meet the demand for services or handle the amount of money that might be needed, diplomats said.

They pressed the United States to agree to the new humanitarian fund, even though that kind of assistance may be an indirect benefit to Hamas. The United States agreed on condition the fund be temporary and limited to programs that meet basic needs, a senior State Department official said. ”It would be against our values to let people starve,” said Marc Otte, the EU’s special envoy for the Mideast.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the European Union would take the lead in setting up the new fund. The United States is not expected to contribute. The United Nations and Russia, the other partners in the Quartet peacemaking group along with the U.S., also endorsed the program. The international group issued a warning to Hamas three months ago that it risked a loss of international aid if it did not change its policies. “The thrust of this is the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people,” Rice said.

- More on this idiocy at SEE-BS NEWS ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/15/2006 at 01:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Paleswine •  
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Privacy - Part I

Privacy? What privacy? Who are you trying to kid? In today’s modern technological society, you have to be suffering from extreme delusions of isolation to actually believe that you have any privacy whatsoever ... and don’t blame the government. This started right in your own house and your neighborhood. Remember that card you filled out at your local Kroger/Winn-Dixie/Albertsons grocery store several years ago where they promised to give you 5-10% discounts on all future purchases in exchange for a little information about you? You present the card at checkout and get a break on prices. What you may not have realized is your purchases were recorded in a massive database back at corporate headquarters. Suddenly, you start getting spam in your snail-mail box asking you to try this or that product. Which is amazingly similar to something you bought at the grocery store last week. If it was tinfoil, you don’t need to make a hat out of it. Your grocery store has been doing data mining on your buying habits ... and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Credit card purchases, medical records, court records ... you name it. It’s all recorded electronically in databases somewhere. Data mining is nothing more than doing a little research into those records looking for trends and patterns. Those trends and patterns allow the researcher to literally get inside your head, boopsie. They practically know what you’re thinking and they tailor their marketing to your “preferences”. This has been going on for decades - at least as long as I can remember and I am an IT professional, having spent the last two decades doing database administration.

It’s called OLAP or On Line Analytical Processing. When you get right down to it, there are two fundamental types of database: OLAP and OLTP (On Line Transaction Processing). OLTP records transactions, i.e., purchases, history, records. This is the day to day database that allows companies to stay in business handling our interactions with vendors, government and each other. Everything that happens is recorded. This is nothing more than what has been going on since caveman days when the village holy man carved births, marriages and cave transfers in stone. Eventually, that created a large pile of stones so paper was invented. Eventually paper created too many file cabinets full of this information so it was all digitized and stored in computers electronically.

Then along came some genius who said, “hey, we have all this transactional data in our database - why don’t we examine the buying patterns to see if we can figure out how to sell more widgets.” That happened sometime during the Eisenhower administration. Over the decades since, databases have become larger and more efficent. OLAP engines and tools have also become more sophisticated. Believe me, the US government and the NSA are late players in the OLAP game. Wal-Mart was there long ago. Today, you or anyone, for that matter, can go on-line, pay $80 at LexisNexis and get all the information you want about anybody: residential history, friends, phone number, court records - you name it. And that’s just a start.

The internet has made it even more difficult to continue believing in privacy. Been surfing porn lately? Gotcha! Your browser is telling on you. In fact, when you surfed to this web site a record was created in the logs that shows: your IP address, your browser software and version, your operating system, your country of origin, your ISP, your screen size and display attributes and even the page you were at before you came here. That last is called a “referrer”. Does this mean the Ol’ Skipper is spying on you? Hell no! It’s a conspiracy between the Apache web server software at my end and your browser. The Apache web server just records whatever it is told about visitors ... and your browser is the biggest blabbermouth in existence.

For the most part, I ignore all of that and rarely look at the logs. There’s just too much data there to justify me wasting my time and besides, I really don’t care unless, for instance, I’m designing the web site and need to know what most visitors display size is so I can decide on a display size for this blog’s web pages. Or someone is harassing me and I need to find out who they really are. You need to be aware though that there are others out there who are perfectly willing to exploit this information for their own advantage - like “phishing schemes” and spam. Once again, they’re getting inside your head and no tinfoil hat in existence will protect you.

So why are you getting your nickers all in a wad because the NSA is looking at telephone records? Mind you, they’re not listening in to your calls. They can’t unless they get a warrant. However, your call records are in your telco’s database and are already being used for data mining by commercial companies - including your local telephone company and long distance provider. In other words, my fine feathered friends, you gave up all pretense of privacy long before the NSA started researching call records to find links to terrorists in order to protect your sorry butt. You have not surrendered your privacy to the government. The whole world knows all about you and has for decades. Now drink your Kool-Aid and try to stay calm. Part II of this series will be forthcoming later ....

Your Data, Naked on the Net
What’s jeopardizing your online privacy? Chalk it up to tech progress, site registrations, and the U.S. government.

- BUSINESS WEEK - February 6, 2006

The U.S. Justice Dept.’s demand for data on how Web surfers use Google and other search engines raises a disturbing question: Just how much do the Web sites you visit know about you? In general, they know a great deal about the aggregate behavior of visitors, and nothing about individuals unless they have chosen to identify themselves. But there are exceptions.

Operators of even the most modest Web sites can learn a lot about visitors, short of pinpointing their actual identities. I manage a site for a small nonprofit. The hosting service, Homestead Technologies, throws in analytical tools from Media Highway International’s RealTracker. I can tell the order in which visitors viewed pages, what Web sites they came from, and what search terms they used, among many other things. This information is invaluable for designing effective Web sites.

We don’t ask visitors to register, and the only identifying information recorded in the data is a 12-digit Internet address. This normally only links the visitor to a large organization, such as their Internet service provider, employer, or school, and provides no clue to individual identity.

DIFFERING POLICIES.  The situation is somewhat different on sites where you have registered. These can link your activity to whatever identifying information you have supplied, anything from a made-up user name and possibly fake e-mail address to your real name, address, and credit-card information if you have divulged them. Once you give out that data, your life can be an open book. You can block the collection of personal information by setting your browser to reject files called “cookies,” but this will cause many Web sites to work badly or not at all.

The extent to which Web sites use the data they collect is limited by their privacy policies, which the Federal Trade Commission can force sites to honor. If you live in the European Union, the EU Privacy Directive gives you much stronger legal protections than you get as a U.S. resident.

Privacy policies vary greatly. Google (GOOG) promises not to share any personally identifiable data with third parties without explicit consent. But BusinessWeek Online, like many commercial sites, reserves the right to share information (other than credit-card data) with “selected outside companies whose products or services we feel may be of interest to you” unless an individual explicitly opts out.

WASHINGTON EYE.  There are, unfortunately, two factors that could put your privacy at much greater risk than you would anticipate. One is advanced technology, the other a growing government appetite for information. Progress in mathematics and computer science is making it possible to assemble tiny, disparate bits of information into a comprehensive picture of an individual. For example, studies have shown that 87% of the U.S. population can be uniquely identified via only a date of birth, sex, and five-digit residential zip code. Someday you may be identifiable just from your tastes in books, movies, and sports, as revealed by your Web browsing.

Government inquisitiveness is a much more immediate risk to privacy. The request that Google is fighting seeks only search terms, but the Justice Dept. could have asked for the Internet addresses that went with them. Then it could ask Internet service providers and other network operators to identify the people those addresses were assigned to, pinpointing the source of the request. And it’s not just the government: The music industry has used similar techniques to identify the users of illegal download services.

There’s not a whole lot you can do to prevent this data from being collected. You can use an anonymous proxy service, such as Anonymizer, but it can interfere with your use of the Web and can’t guarantee to hide your identity in all circumstances. Or you can live with the fact that what you do on the Web cannot be regarded as truly private.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/15/2006 at 10:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security •  
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Data Mining

_{Dan Wasserman—The Boston Globe}

- Christian Science Monitor: “Mining data to nab terrorists: fair?”

Many Americans see giving up some of their civil liberties or privacy as necessary to help aid the war on terror. Opinion polls show Americans are split over an NSA program the president has acknowledged authorizing - one that permits the agency to eavesdrop, without getting warrants, on communications from abroad.

In a poll released Saturday, Newsweek found that a 53 percent of Americans say the NSA’s surveillance program “goes too far in invading people’s privacy.” Forty-one percent, the poll showed, see it as a vital tool for combatting terrorism.

Last week’s revelation “makes me feel terrible, like my privacy is being invaded,” says Brandi Dawson, a receptionist from Somerville, Mass. “The fact they have access to all these records, even in the fight on terror, that’s going too far.”

But some say giving up calling records - and some privacy - may be sad but worth it, even if computers misidentify them and they end up being investigated by the government.

“It doesn’t really bother me because I have nothing to hide,” says Dale Wyman, a computer network engineer eating lunch in the mall at the foot of the Prudential Tower in Boston’s Back Bay.

“I personally would rather have a false-positive come at me than be sitting here and having a building come down on me because of a terrorist.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/15/2006 at 04:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security •  
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   Sunday - May 14, 2006

Daniel Was Sixteen

Daniel Wultz was sixteen. He will never be seventeen thanks to a Paleosimian suicide bomber. He has been fighting for his life for nearly a month now after the bombing in Tel Aviv. This brings the total number of Americans killed or wounded by Paleosimian suicide bombers since 1992 to 200. They were killed by terrorists from the rat-infested pesthole called “Palestine”. That is where an avowed terrorist organization is now in control of the “government”. Black and white. There is no gray here. This is good vs. evil.

This will not stop until someone sends a clear and concise message to the Paleosimians that it is a really bad idea to kill Americans and people who do will be punished ... with sudden and overwhelming violence. I’m not talking about economic sanctions. Let me be perfectly clear - the only message that will get through to these barbaric savages is something similar to Operation Rolling Thunder. A fleet of B-52s loaded with 2,000 pound bombs carpet-bombing the Gaza Strip from one end to the other. And back again. Complete and total annihilation of every living creature.

Of course, the French, the UN and Iran will scream and call us names. The Islamofascists will probably also threaten us with reprisals. That is when we quietly explain that the next American who dies from a terrorist attack will bring hellfire and armageddon down on the country responsible. Teddy Roosevelt called it “walk softly and carry a big stick.”

As for Daniel and his family, I extend my deepest sympathies and prayers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Sixteen-year-olds should be worrying about girlfriends and school grades ... not digging shrapnel out of their chest.

U.S. Teen Dies Following Tel Aviv Bombing
_{May 14, 2006, 10:28 AM EDT}

JERUSALEM (AP)—A Florida teenager wounded in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month died Sunday from his injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said. Daniel Wultz, 16, of Weston, Fla., will be flown home for burial Monday, said Yael Tzuberi, a spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv Medical Center where he was hospitalized.

Wultz and his father, Tuly, were having lunch at a Tel Aviv restaurant on April 17 when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated about 10 pounds of explosives in the entrance. Wultz’s death brought the number of those killed in the attack to 11, in addition to the suicide bomber. Dozens were wounded, including Wultz’s father, who survived.

Thirty-one of Wultz’s schoolmates flew to Israel earlier this month for a special prayer service. Tuly Wultz, who suffered a leg wound in the attack, said at the service that he and Daniel had managed to exchange a few words right after the blast, despite the severity of his son’s wounds.

“I held his hand and told him I loved him. He said he loved me,” the father said. Wultz came to Israel with his parents to visit relatives on Passover. He was critically wounded in the attack and doctors removed his spleen and a kidney and treated a serious leg injury.

The U.S. Embassy had condemned the attack and called on the Hamas-led Palestinian government to take responsibility. A smaller militant group, Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Hamas officials defended it. According to the U.S. Embassy, more than 200 American citizens have been killed or wounded in terrorist attacks in Israel since 1992.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/14/2006 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Paleswine • Terrorists •  
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Mother’s Day

You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular. ~~Robert Frost

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/14/2006 at 06:09 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Sunday Funnies

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/14/2006 at 05:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Saturday - May 13, 2006

Lost & Found

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/13/2006 at 05:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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The Long Goodbye

For Zacarias Moussaoui, the long wait in the silence of his new concrete residence has begun. Average life expectancy of men in America is 74 years. Moussaoui is 37. He will spend half his life in a 7 by 12 concrete box with no one to talk to except God.

He wanted fame and glory and tried to acheive it by joining a conspiracy to murder thousands of innocent people in a plot conceived by madmen and carried out by fanatics. There will be no more newspaper headlines for Moussaoui. There will be no fame and glory. There will probably not even be seventy-two virgins when he finally checks out around the year 2050. By then he will be a tired, gray-haired, decrepit old man with no friends or family to mourn his passing.

He will pass away in stone cold silence surrounded by the dull, drab gray concrete that is only the outer portrait of his four decades long mental and social isolation from the rest of humanity. He would be wise to use the time between now and then to ponder how he will answer when God asks, “Well, my son. What did you do with your life?”

Moussaoui Begins Serving Life Sentence
_{May 13, 2006, 12:01 PM EDT}

DENVER (AP)—Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Saturday began serving his life sentence at the nation’s most secure prison after U.S. marshals flew him overnight from Virginia to Colorado. Marshals brought Moussaoui, prisoner 51427-054, before dawn Saturday to the Supermax federal prison in southern Colorado, where he will spend 23 hours a day in his cell and have little to no contact with other notorious criminals.

“He has now begun serving his sentence of life without the possibility of release,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement. A special team of deputy marshals took Moussaoui from a detention center in Alexandria, Va., late Friday night, put him on a small jet operated by the agency and delivered him to the prison in Florence, Colo., about 90 miles southwest of Denver.

Moussaoui was the only prisoner aboard, said Ken Deal, chief deputy U.S. marshal in Denver. Deal said he did not know if the 37-year-old Frenchman made any statements during the transfer. “He is secure in the administrative max (prison) in Florence, Colorado,” Deal said. “All the inmates transferred there are handled with the highest level of security.”

Moussaoui arrived at 5:17 a.m. EDT, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Prison spokesman Todd Javernick refused to say whether Moussaoui made any comments. At Supermax, the soundproofed cells were designed so inmates cannot make eye contact with each other. Each 7-by-12-feet cell has a long, narrow window looking out at other prison walls or the small concrete recreation yard.

Concrete platforms topped with mattresses function as beds. Each cell also contains a concrete stool, shower and toilet. Inmates get one hour out of their cells each day to eat or play basketball or handball, though some earn longer recreation periods through good behavior. They can take academic courses via closed-circuit television in each cell. Religious services are conducted in a small chapel.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/13/2006 at 01:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Terrorists •  
• Comments (14) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Perils Of Socialized Medicine

The liberals and socialists (including Hillary Clinton and her HillaryCare incentive of 1994) are constantly pushing the idea of a national health plan to cover all Americans. You need only look at the mess in Canada and Britain which have national health care in the form of their National Health System (NHS) to see how bad that idea is. Everyone is guaranteed medical treatment ... except those the state disapproves of.

The problem is the service is lousy and there are long waiting periods for any type of major treatment. Why? Nobody wants to be a doctor or medical professional if they’re tied to a socialist program that strictly controls all health care. Plus with free care for everyone, people suddenly flood the hospitals and doctors with ailments that could be cured with an aspirin. Ask any of our British readers here and they will probably tell you all kinds of horror stories about the quality of health care under socialized medicine.

In the latest outrageous act by the NHS in Britain, we find that health care can also be used as a bludgeon to punish people who have views that the state and NHS disapprove of. Yep, you heard that right. They can deny you health care if you are not politically correct. Now do you understand what the ultimate goal of socialized medicine actually is? Plain and simple, it’s nothing more than a way to enslave the people and force obedience by denying health care if you misbehave.

People, wake up! This is what the nanny state eventually evolves into. They promise you all kinds of benefits and freebies but cleverly hide the fact that you will pay for it by giving up your rights and freedoms. Control equals slavery. Don’t say you weren’t warned. If this is what you want here in America then go ahead and vote for the Democrats. Vote for Hillary in 2008. Just be prepared to surrender to your new overlords shortly thereafter ....

One Way To Cut Waiting Lists:
Don’t Treat People With The Wrong Views
_{May 12, 2006}

LONDON (TIMES-UK)—It is bad enough that you can be refused medical treatment on the NHS for eating, drinking or smoking too much. Now it seems that you can be denied an operation for protesting too much in support of your religious or political beliefs.

Edward Atkinson, a 75-year-old anti-abortion activist, was jailed recently for 28 days for sending photographs of aborted foetuses to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. That draconian sentence was not deemed punishment enough: the hospital has banned Mr Atkinson from receiving the hip replacement operation he was expecting.

Mr Atkinson sounds like an unpleasant crank, and I am as much in favour of legalised abortion as he is against it. But his treatment (or the lack of it) is a scandal. This is about admitting a man to hospital, not electing him to Parliament. Even unhip old bigots need replacement hips.

Ruth May, the hospital’s chief executive, claims that the ban is justified because the “offensive” publications he mailed caused “great distress” to her and her staff and thus contravened the NHS policy of “zero tolerance”. Some may already feel that such policies make it seem as if a hospital’s priority is to protect its staff against the patients, rather than protecting patients from illness. This case goes farther, equating the posting of offensive photos with punching a nurse on the nose.

Why on earth should hospitals be distressed by pictures of the sort of operations that they carry out? An aborted late-term foetus can certainly make a grisly spectacle, and there is no point trying to sanitise abortion. But neither need anybody be intimidated by the handful of zealots who like to wave around such bloody abortion porn.

In any case, that debate about abortion should have nothing to do with decisions about who gets hip replacements. Have hospital authorities been granted the power to turn away anybody who upsets them? It may come as a shock to delicate souls in the upper echelons of the NHS, but some elderly people can be cantankerous, obnoxious and express unfashionable opinions in an uninhibited way. So what? Should the NHS introduce a policy of euthanasia for offensive old gits?

We should take the principle of universal health care seriously, and insist that medical staff make decisions about treatment on clinical grounds alone. After all, so far as science can deduce, a member of the British National Party or an Islamic fundamentalist is the same as you or I under the surgeon’s knife. Even loons who oppose animal experiments should be given the benefits of medical research that they would deny to others.

Many who normally shout about patients’ rights have fallen silent over the case of Mr Atkinson. But you need not be anti-abortion to protest against the notion that only obedient individuals with healthy lifestyles deserve NHS treatment. Perhaps those who would put their own feelings ahead of others’ needs should be advised that if you can’t stand the patients, get out of the hospital.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/13/2006 at 12:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Medical •  
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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:

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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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