Tuesday - January 06, 2009

Natural Born Redneck

Four-year-old boy shoots babysitter

An angry 4-year-old boy in Ohio grabbed a gun from a closet and shot his babysitter, police said.

Eighteen-year-old Nathan Beavers was admitted to the hospital on Sunday with minor wounds to his arm and side after the shotgun attack. Police said another teenager was also injured.

Witnesses told police the child was angry because Mr Beavers accidentally stepped on his foot. Mr Beavers was watching the child at a mobile home in Jackson with several other teenagers and several other children. The Jackson County Sheriff, John Shashteen, said authorities were investigating. The child has not been charged.

Mr Beavers was being treated at Ohio State University Medical Centre in Columbus for gunshot wounds to his arm and side according to The Columbus Dispatch.

“He [the boy] didn’t say much,” Chief Deputy Jim Ephlin said of the suspect, the paper reported. “He said he was mad at Nathan. He said, ‘I’m going to go get a gun.’ The others thought he was kidding and was going to get a toy gun.”

The boy is in the custody of his parents “until we see what the prosecutor wants to do,” Mr Ephlin said. The parents of the injured youth told deputies they did not want any legal action taken against the boy, he added, the paper said.

Mr. Bunnsy has a small adventure

So I got my fingerprinting done late this morning for my NJ firearms ID card. I had to go to the local mental institution psychiatric hospital to get it done. I didn’t even know we had one! So I went up to Glen Gardner (which is a town, not some brand of scotch, even though I once knew someone with that name) and took a drive up the mountain to the place. Through the deep dark woods. The woods that grow the 400 pound bears that they run over down in the town. And I kept going up, and up, and up. And the road got worse as the woods got heavier. Finally I found the sign for the hospital at the proverbial fork in the road, and bore to the right. I was expecting a bear on my left, but they’re all probably hibernating now. I managed to miss the sign where the road split into 4 even smaller roads, but at least I found the place. So I had a nice drive around all the old whitewashed stone buildings, going down all the dead end streets and blind alleys. Finally I decided I’d ask someone, so I found the Administration building and parked. A delivery guy I met in the parking lot pointed out that I was only off by one building, so I at last found the place.

I left myself plenty of time to get there, and needed most of it. You sign up for this task online, and the web page is quite authoritative. Appointments are little 5 minute windows. You pay in advance online. No refunds. No missing appointments. Definitely gives you the “Zhu vill not be late, or zhu vill be shot!” intimidating kind of feeling. So I parked, walked around the building until I found the little entrance nook on the side ("Zhu vill not use zer front door or zhu vill be shot!") and went it. And met two very pleasant and charming young women who did the task in a couple of minutes. They have an optical scanner attached to a PC. No ink. No mess. A full set of prints, both hands, glommed onto a file and emailed back to the police station with a single mouse click. Here’s your receipt, here’s your paperwork to drop off, thank you have a nice day. I mentioned that the website was a bit intimidating. “Oh that’s just to make sure people keep their appointments. If we didn’t do that folks would just show up whenever they wanted to.” She has a point. Keeping appointments and reservations seem to be one of those arcane acts of society that we’ve lost along the way.

Still no bears visible, just the usual deer, so I got back in my car, drove over to the police station and dropped off my paperwork, then drove home. Nothing else to do now except wait. My reference letters have already gone out, been filled out and mailed back. Let’s see how long it takes the state to process this process.

Now here’s a funny thing. This hospital is pretty old. It has that look of age that some fieldstone buildings get after a century or two. And I noticed that at least one of the buildings was in pretty awful condition, just about ready to fall down. So I come home and do a little ‘net research, and find out that this place was funded in 1902 by NJ State Governor Murphy, a Progressive Republican! (and Civil War veteran), along with fellow vet and eye doctor Charles Kipp and it opened as the NJ Sanitarium for Tuberculosis Diseases at Mt. Kipp in 1907. (scroll down to the G section). The funny part is that the place seems to be a geriatrics center, or at least a psychogeriatric hospital , and a center for drug alcoholism treatment ... and yet, at the same time, others seem to think this is another one of NJ’s famous abandoned hospitals and institutions. We have loads of them. Once upon a time, people flocked to New Jersey to recover from illnesses. Must have been that pure country air and water. I think the “here’s another spooky old mental hospital” guy was just sneaking around in the one falling apart little building. The rest of the place is immaculate.

The war in Gaza is terrible. But the alternative was worse - for all of us

This is a fairly long read. However, this lady has nailed almost every point and she has done so brilliantly.

Yes, the war in Gaza is terrible. But the alternative was worse - for all of us
Last updated at 10:10 AM on 05th January 2009
War is always terrible and to be avoided if humanly possible. War in Gaza, where Hamas terrorists are embedded within densely crowded areas, is particularly awful.

By Melanie Phillips
Daily Mail

No one wants to see civilians being killed. Every decent person will be dismayed that it has come to this.
What is profoundly troubling, however, is that as the Israeli ground offensive escalates hostilities still further, so many in Britain don’t understand that, appalling as this war is, the alternative is even worse.

This is a war that Israel spent more than seven years trying to avoid, while no fewer than 6,000 rockets and other missiles rained down from Gaza upon its southern towns. No other country in the world would have sat on its hands while its traumatised children were raised in bomb shelters.

The often-made comparison with IRA terrorism spectacularly misses the point. Hamas actually run Gaza. The equivalent would have been the Irish government firing 6,000 rockets at England.

Does anyone seriously doubt that, in such a hypothetical situation, Britain would have been at war with Ireland long before that total had been reached?

Besieged

Far from acting out of political opportunism, as some so offensively suggest, Israel has taken massive risks on every front with this operation. A ground war almost certainly means many of its soldiers will die. If just one of its shells were to go astray and hit a school or hospital, a hostile western world would unleash the furies against it.

And in Lebanon, Hezbollah may launch its ferocious arsenal of rockets pointing at northern Israel, forcing it to fight on two fronts. But the brutal fact is that tiny, besieged Israel is damned if it does and dead if it doesn’t.

While Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blame Hamas for provoking this war, it is Israel which is drawing western protests.

These are not confined to the thuggish demonstrations organised by an alliance of Islamists and the far-Left we have seen on the streets of London at the weekend. Many others also share the view that Israel is in the wrong. So why is a country under attack from genocidal fanatics pilloried for defending its citizens against slaughter?

The main complaint is that Israel’s response is ‘disproportionate’, since some 500 Palestinians have been killed compared with ‘only’ four Israelis since the war started nine days ago.

This is absurd. In World War II, 20 times more civilians were killed in Germany than in Britain. Did that make the war against the Nazis ‘disproportionate’? Of course not.

Yes, the war in Gaza is terrible. But the alternative was worse - for all of us
Last updated at 10:10 AM on 05th January 2009
Comments (100) Add to My Stories War is always terrible and to be avoided if humanly possible. War in Gaza, where Hamas terrorists are embedded within densely crowded areas, is particularly awful.

No one wants to see civilians being killed. Every decent person will be
dismayed that it has come to this.

What is profoundly troubling, however, is that as the Israeli ground offensive escalates hostilities still further, so many in Britain don’t understand that, appalling as this war is, the alternative is even worse.

This is a war that Israel spent more than seven years trying to avoid, while no fewer than 6,000 rockets and other missiles rained down from Gaza upon its southern towns. No other country in the world would have sat on its hands while its traumatised children were raised in bomb shelters.

The often-made comparison with IRA terrorism spectacularly misses the point. Hamas actually run Gaza. The equivalent would have been the Irish government firing 6,000 rockets at England.

Does anyone seriously doubt that, in such a hypothetical situation, Britain would have been at war with Ireland long before that total had been reached?
Besieged

Far from acting out of political opportunism, as some so offensively suggest, Israel has taken massive risks on every front with this operation. A ground war almost certainly means many of its soldiers will die. If just one of its shells were to go astray and hit a school or hospital, a hostile western world would unleash the furies against it.

And in Lebanon, Hezbollah may launch its ferocious arsenal of rockets pointing at northern Israel, forcing it to fight on two fronts. But the brutal fact is that tiny, besieged Israel is damned if it does and dead if it doesn’t.

While Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blame Hamas for provoking this war, it is Israel which is drawing western protests.
These are not confined to the thuggish demonstrations organised by an alliance of Islamists and the far-Left we have seen on the streets of London at the weekend. Many others also share the view that Israel is in the wrong. So why is a country under attack from genocidal fanatics pilloried for defending its citizens against slaughter?

This is absurd. In World War II, 20 times more civilians were killed in Germany than in Britain. Did that make the war against the Nazis ‘disproportionate’? Of course not.

Then there’s the belief that the Hamas rockets are some kind of homemade, harmless Dad’s Army effort which could and should be ignored.

But the only reason more Israelis haven’t been killed by them is that in the south, the population has been all but living in bomb shelters. And there is nothing ‘homemade’ about the Russian-designed Katyushas and Iranian Grad rockets now putting around one-tenth of Israel’s population within their range.

Contrary to Arab propaganda, the Israelis are taking enormous pains to avoid civilian casualties in their attempt to curb these rocket attacks. The UN has confirmed that the vast majority (75 per cent) of the dead in Gaza have been Hamas terrorists. Given the huge number of bombing sorties that have been conducted, this proves that the Israelis are specifically targeting the Hamas infrastructure.

What must be understood is that Hamas have deliberately situated their weapons under apartment blocks, in mosques and in hospitals.

The Israelis build bomb shelters for their civilians;

Hamas stores bombs underneath its civilians in order to create as many civilian casualties as possible to manipulate world opinion.

Fanaticism

What people find so hard to grasp is that Hamas actually wants to maximise the number of Palestinians who are killed because, as they boast: ‘We desire death as you desire life.’

Despite this fanaticism, many fear that Israel’s attack will merely create yet more suicide bombers. There is a grain of sense in this — but only a grain.

This is because every single act of self-defence against Islamist aggression is used as a recruiting sergeant for the Islamic holy war. So if this is allowed to dictate world responses, it follows that no one can ever defend themselves against Islamist rockets and bomb attacks — not just in Israel but in Afghanistan or against Al Qaeda anywhere.

Islamists such as Hamas are galvanised into battle by the perceived weakness of their victims, and are deterred only by implacable strength. That’s why the ferocity of suicide bomb attacks actually rises after peace initiatives. Gaza’s rocket barrage against Israel went up by 500 per cent after Israel ended its occupation.

And the 2000 Intifada which killed thousands of Israelis was the Palestinians’ response to being offered more than 90 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza for a state of their own.

What is so distressing is the desperate unfairness of so much Western reaction. Thus Israel is accused of causing a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, even though it is allowing hundreds of trucks of supplies through the crossing points — so that at one stage aid agencies in Gaza said their storehouses were full.

Few are aware that wounded Gazans — 65 per cent of whom voted for Hamas — are continuing to be treated in Israeli hospitals.

Nor are they aware that in a Gaza hospital, by contrast, Hamas shot dead five suspected Palestinian ‘collaborators’ — and murdered a further 30 elsewhere.

The reason for this grotesquely unfair reaction is that so many in Britain now believe as fact the Arab lies about the Middle East impasse. Many think, for example, that the Palestinians are the rightful inheritors not just of Gaza and the West Bank but Israel itself.

Suicidal

But this is totally false. The Jews are the only people for whom ‘Palestine’ was ever their nation state, hundreds of years before Mohammed was even born.

It was in recognition of that inalienable right that in the 1920s the British undertook the legally binding international obligation — never rescinded — to settle Jews in every part of Mandatory Palestine. 

That included not just modern Israel but the West Bank and Gaza, too. Despite this, Israel is willing for the Palestinians to have their own state — as was first offered to them in 1937 — but not if its only purpose is to be a launching pad for the final destruction of its Israeli neighbour.

No other country on the planet has ever been expected to make suicidal concessions to its enemies even while they continue to try to destroy it. Yet that is what the world expects of Israel.

Now the British Government, among others, has called for an immediate ceasefire. But this would effectively mean victory for Hamas. Gordon Brown wouldn’t dream of calling for a ceasefire with Al Qaeda. So why the double standard where Israel is concerned?

Most important of all, this war is not actually about Israel and the Palestinians. Hamas is controlled by Iran. Unless Hamas is stopped, Iran’s growing influence in the region will be entrenched and put Britain and the West in even greater danger from Islamist aggression and blackmail.

Israel may or may not eventually manage to stop the Hamas rockets. But the Middle East conflict will not end until and unless the West comes to realise that Israel is in the frontline of the West’s own fight for survival, and starts properly defending the country struggling to defend civilisation instead of siding with those waging holy war against it.

THE MAIL

War veterans out … Travellers in as PC Pinheads kick the Navy Vets out in favor of illegals.

This isn’t a follow up to the article from a day or two ago. This is yet another in a long list of outrages committed against native Brits or veterans groups and sometimes against white, middle aged middle class taxpayers.  Yeah I know ...  looks like the usual right wing extremest viewpoint, where’s my pointy hood.

The fact is, it is not extreme at all and many Brits (and not just white middle class either) are feeling the pc pinch more and more.  But I’m getting off the subject.

This article is so typical of what’s happening here I can’t but feel some fear for my own country, where more and more I read or get emails from ppl telling me about some screwball plan the lefties have in place.  Or want to put in place.

My sincere worry for this country also consumes me and the line here about England’s “GREEN BELT” is worrisome in the extreme.  The Green Belt is exactly that and it has been treasured by generations who tried to keep it that way. But these folks don’t care about that and make no mistake, they do know about the green belt and they do know it IS NOT LEGAL to park yourself there and live there. They just don’t care because what the heck, they have lawyers and they have apologists who make it easy for them to ignore laws.

This is an island as I always remind people. You can only pave over and plow up so much before you have no more.  And that isn’t chicken little thinking at all.  It simply takes enough people to ignore the problem and soon the problem and the belt will be no more. And that would be damn sad!

You can read for yourself ... 

FOR THE SPORTS FANS AT BMEWS.

LATEST SCORE FROM THE ROMAN COLISEUM:  LIONS, 6.  CHRISTIANS, nothing.

Let us all rise and sing, “There Will Always Be An England.” (at this rate? Ya think so?)

War veterans’ clubhouse is handed to travellers
By TOM KELLY
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 05th January 2009

Royal Navy veterans are being kicked out of their clubhouse so the land around it can be used as a travellers’ camp.

The former servicemen say the decision signals the death knell for their association which was formed 76 years ago.

The local council says that Whitehall diktats oblige it to find a home for the travellers who are illegally occupying green-belt land.

Eight traveller families have been granted homes under the £100million government plan to house 25,000 gipsies and travellers on hundreds of new and upgraded sites around the country.

Eight itinerant families will now be able to move on to the site at Northfleet, near Gravesend in Kent.
The clubhouse on the land had been leased by the local branch of the Royal Naval Association for three decades.

John Down, the club’s chairman and a Korean War veteran, said: ‘I’m so angry we are being treated like this. We have 160 members who all did their bit.
‘We risked life and limb for this great country that we wholeheartedly believed in. Now we are being treated like dirt, turfed out so that traveller families can move in.

‘We’ve paid our taxes all our lives and are still doing so. What have these people done? This country has lost the plot. It will be our death knell if we have to move.’

John Richards, another club member, said: ‘Someone needs the courage to say enough is enough.
‘This land was given to the people of Northfleet for sport and recreation. Part of our club houses the changing rooms for the football fields next door. There is a community here and the club is the glue that holds it all together.’

A govt. official has announced the first 43 locations where £21.6 million will be spent building new sites and says the programme will reduce the disturbance caused by illegal traveller camps

The clubhouse is used by Royal Navy veterans and their guests and for fundraising functions.

Tory-run Gravesham Council granted planning permission for the travellers to move to the grounds on condition that its officers find an alternative home for the association.
Mike Snelling, council leader, said: ‘We will not abandon the Naval Association.’

He added that talks with the association about a new home were still going on.
The travellers had been threatened with eviction for illegally building homes on their land at nearby Sole Street.
They refused to move but - following a £30,000 public inquiry - an agreement had been reached for them to move to the clubhouse site by October.

Leslie Christie, a Labour councillor, said none of the 300 locals who responded to the consultation process supported the proposal.
Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, recently announced 43 locations where £21.6million will be spent building traveller sites or expanding existing ones.
She said the programme will reduce the disturbance to neighbours.

But the move is being opposed by campaigners.

SPONGERS

Diaries of swashbuckling hero who rescued Robinson Crusoe unearthed.

SAY HEY PEOPLE ... IF ANYONE HAS AN EXTRA SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS NOT WANTED OR NEEDED OR YOU’D JUST LIKE TO TOSS SOME CASH OFF A MOUNTAIN, INSTEAD OF THROWING IT AWAY .... SEND IT TO ME SO I CAN BUY THIS ITEM.  WAIT, IT’S GONNA BE AUCTIONED. 6G MIGHT NOT BE THE SELL PRICE.  OK. BELAY THE LAST REQUEST.

ANYONE OUT THERE WITH AN EXTRA , SAY 20 THOUSAND YOU WANNA GIVE AWAY? 

Man oh man I just love this sort of thing. I tend to get carried way, away and over the top.  Can’t help it.

Now why can’t anyone go after modern day pirates the old fashioned way?  What did they know in the 17 and 1800s that we forgot?

Oh well, this isn’t exactly about that particular subject anyway.

This is some kind of find.

A 300-year-old journal of a British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe and defeated pirates of the Caribbean has been discovered.

By Nick Britten
Last Updated: 3:37PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

Rogers, who left Britain in 1708, had been tasked with ‘victimising’ pirates targeting his fellow British merchants Photo: BNPS

The extremely rare account chronicles a three-year round-the world voyage of the swashbuckling privateer Capt Woodes Rogers, who made a fortune pillaging from pirate ships and Spanish galleons.

During that journey, Rogers, who was a friend of the author Daniel Defoe, even stopped off at a remote Pacific island and found castaway Alexander Selkirk, who inspired the character and book Robinson Crusoe. He said he found him “wild-looking” and wearing “goatskins”, adding: “He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible and books.”

Rogers, who left Britain in 1708, had been tasked with “victimising” pirates targeting his fellow British merchants.

Commanding two 36-gun ships, the Duke and the Duchess, and 333 men, he sailed the South Seas, the East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope, going about his task with great gusto.

His finest catch was the prized vessel The Great Manila, a Spanish trading ship that sailed across the Pacific with a valuable cargo, including precious stones and exotic silks worth $2 million.

In 1717, he was appointed the governor of the Behamas by King George I and played a major role in ridding the islands of 2,000 pirates, including Edward Teach, also called Blackbeard. He was pursued by Rogers’ forces and killed.

The slogan of his epic voyage, “Piracy expelled, commerce restored”, remained the islands’ own motto until independence was declared in 1973.

It is thought only a hundred copies of his book, A Cruising Voyage Around the World, were printed seven years after Rogers completed his odyssey. One was recently found in a loft in Bristol, where Rogers’ was based, and is expected to fetch £3,000 when it is auctioned on January 21st.

TELEGRAPH

You can’t begin to know how much I’d love to own this bit of history. One among many really. Darn.
I think that passion began when I was just a kid, and something called “The Freedom Train” was making it’s way across the USA.  It was a rolling museum and contained the ORIGINAL US Constitution, letters by Washington,Jefferson etc. AND, get this, a document by early explorers describing what they were seeing in this new world that later became America.  Awesome stuff let me tell ya.  Made an impression on me that never went away.

Try that today and it would be picketed by protesters who could find some excuse to protest some issue, the pc crowd would be out to point out the negative aspects of America’s founding, blah blah and blah.  Now I’m PO’d just thinking about that.
While I’m sure they were present, they must have been, we didn’t see any armed guards or high security.

I think I grew up in a somewhat better time.  For all it’s flaws it was a better time.

   Monday - January 05, 2009

Mutiny?  In the 20th century English Navy?  Not possible.  Oh yeah?  Some interesting history.

I forgot I had this among all the things here. Better late then never I guess because this is some interesting history both naval and economic.

You might like reading this. Well try anyway. Ya never know.

Six vital lessons of the 1931 depression
As we enter a second year of slump, history has some key pointers to the best way forward
William Rees-Mogg

Those of us who were alive at the time, or who have seen the film, have vivid memories of the sinking of HMS Hood in 1941, and of the pursuit and subsequent sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. Ten years earlier the Hood had been involved in another episode of naval history, which had a significant influence on British economic history.

On September 19, 1931, Captain J.F.C. Patterson, the acting Senior Officer, Atlantic Fleet, sent a signal to the Admiralty: “For two days, the ships at Invergordon of the Atlantic Fleet were in a state of open mutiny... large numbers of men were massed on the forecastles of Hood, Rodney and Dorsetshire. Men on the forecastle of Hood had refused to allow any work to be done to commence on unmooring, and it became evident that neither Hood nor Rodney could go to sea.”

Patterson had some sympathy with the underlying grievance. He informed the Admiralty: “The use of force was in my opinion quite out of the question,” and that “with regard to the causes of the outbreak, there is no doubt that first and foremost was the disproportionate reduction (in pay) of the lower ratings who entered before 1925”.

On the same day that Patterson sent his report of the Invergordon mutiny, a small conference was held at 10 Downing Street; the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, reported that he had had a discussion with Stanley Baldwin, the leader of the Conservative Party, and Sir Herbert Samuel, the leader of the Coalition Liberals.

* October 3, 1931: The ‘Daily Worker’ articles - incitement to mutiny over navy pay cuts

The result had been an agreement that it was essential to get legislation that would release the Bank of England from the obligation to pay out gold. E.R. Peacock, a director of the Bank of England, commented: “A sudden blizzard has struck the world. People have got anxious about their bank, that is to say, Great Britain, and they are gravely anxious about themselves.” The Downing Street meeting agreed to take Britain out of the gold standard.

The sailors at Invergordon were loyal and patriotic - many were to die for their country in the Second World War. But they were not prepared to have their pay docked - unfairly as they thought - to defend the convertibility into gold. In this, they were good Keynesians. In September 1931 the gold pound lost the confidence of British sailors, Cambridge economists and French bankers. That combination was irresistible.

September 19, 1931, was approximately the second anniversary of the start of the Great Depression in 1929. The mutiny and the decision to leave the gold standard proved to be the recovery point for Great Britain. From that point on, recovery became possible.

Two lessons were taught by Invergordon and the withdrawal from the gold commitment: governments should not try to balance the budget by cutting the pay of essential public servants; and they should not defend at all costs an overvalued fixed exchange rate. Britain does not now have a fixed exchange rate, although some people still want to join the euro. If we were in the euro, we would probably be arguing about when to leave.

The year 2009 can be paired with 1931. Both are the second year after the start of a big recession: 1931 was, beyond question, a year of depression. In the US the Federal Reserve Board kept statistics of the profits of 500 companies. In 1929 the index had been 998; in 1930 it had fallen to 760; in 1931 it was 370, and went as low as 267 in the final quarter.

Between 1929 and 1931 US employment fell by a third. If we based a forecast for 2009 on 1931 we would produce ghastly figures. The American recovery really began only in March 1933, after the inauguration of President Roosevelt. Britain had a lighter and shorter recession.

However, we can follow, and perhaps guard against, the acceleration of “the vicious spiral” of depression in 1931 itself. The turning of the screw actually began in June 1930, with the disastrous Hawley-Smoot tariff. Intended to protect US industry from excessive imports, it aroused international resentment and retaliation against US exports. If British experience offers the first two lessons, this would be the third: do not raise tariffs in a recession.

In May 1931, the Credit Anstalt, the leading bank in Austria, became insolvent and had to close. As the American economist, Irving Fisher, observed: “It was a great bank, and its collapse embarrassed both Germany and England.” Lesson four: do not allow systemic banks to fail. This was not applied to Lehmann Brothers, which may be regarded as the Credit Anstalt of the Wall Street panic of 2008. In June 1931 after runs on other Austrian banks, its Government belatedly guaranteed the liabilities of the Credit Anstalt.

In July 1931, the Bank of England rescued the German Reichsbank, which had been embarrassed by the failure of the Credit Anstalt. The French withdrew gold from Germany and the Bank of England for having taken the risk of supporting Germany. Lesson five: do not depend on central bankers in a panic.

On September 21 Britain left the gold standard, followed by 23 other nations. The US and France maintained gold convertibility.

In October 1931 President Hoover proposed the creation of the Home Mortgage Corporation, the ancestor of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage banks that did not become insolvent until 77 years later.

In December Hoover announced his relief programme. Fisher commented: “To meet the rapidly developing emergency, each step was too small and by the time it was enacted into law, it was too late.”

Lesson six: in a depression, too much and too early is safer than too little and too late.

TIMES

The British Army in retreat.  Was this the first Dunkirk?

I was supposed to be gone over an hour ago, just shows ya the kind of trouble you get into once you learn to read.  Spelling another matter.
Anyway, I was about to quit and ran across this in the Times of London.

I was familiar with the story but didn’t remember a whole lot and then saw this.  Makes for interesting reading.

The British Army was in retreat from Napoleon’s forces 200 years ago, during a bitter winter in northern Spain. In November 1808 an expeditionary force of 20,000 men under General John Moore marched into Spain to help to drive out the French invaders. But the British were badly equipped and rapidly became outnumbered as Napoleon poured in reinforcements to deliver a crushing defeat.

By late December 1808 Moore realised his dire situation and began a gruelling retreat over 250 miles through the northwestern mountains of Spain to the port of Corunna, near the Bay of Biscay, to escape by sea. Snow, hail and rain storms turned the roads to quagmires, many of the troops died in the perishing cold and stragglers left behind were shown no mercy by the pursuing French. Hungry and demoralised, the Army was on the verge of collapse. However, the French had to battle through the appalling conditions as well, and Napoleon himself led a desperate advance through a mountain pass in a blizzard to pursue the British.

Moore just managed to stay one step ahead and by January 11, 1809, the exhausted remains of his Army arrived in Corunna where they waited for the British fleet.

However, the French soon caught up and even though the British were starved, diseased and frostbitten, they fought a valiant rearguard action. Moore was killed, but the remains of the Army beat off the enemy and boarded the ships home. Several thousand men had been lost, but the Army had been saved from annihilation and would return to Spain to fight again.

BATTLING BRITS

Being League Secretary Sucks

I haven’t posted too much in the way of bowling blogging lately. Been too busy with other stuff.

Well, it’s a mix of good news and bad news. Which is typical.

The good news is that my Monday night team did really well in the position round we had last week. We took all 7 points but it wasn’t easy. We won the first game by over 100 and then we won the second game by about 50. But then the other team woke up and started bowling well, while our team got tired and began rolling poorly. It was neck and neck the whole game, and then we seemed to drop the ball [hur hur, bowling pun] in the 10th frame of the 3rd game. So when it came time for me, the anchor, to roll, we were down by 26. I had a spare in the 9th. Ron, the anchor on the other team, is pretty good. I expected him to go XXX or at least XX-something. Instead he rolled X 7 0, and that was on an open in the 9th. That gave us a small window. My first ball was a strike, which gave us 20 because of my earlier mark. So we’re still down 6. My second ball was a 9, and that was enough. I missed the spare, but it didn’t matter. We won that one by 3, and thus took all 7 points. That moved us up several positions in the standings, so now we’re in 9th place out of 18 teams as we go into the 2nd rotation. This is a very competitive league, but we still have fun. I don’t know if there will be a “Miss Congeniality” prize, but my team will win that if there is. We have such a good time, so nobody gets grumpy when we beat them. Conversely, we don’t get down (too much) when we lose. This is not always the case with some teams!

The bad news concerns my Saturday Night league. While my team is solidly in 1st place there, the league itself is struggling to survive. We lost a lot of teams this year, and have been barely surviving with 5 and a half teams. How can you have half a team? Well, the half team started out as a whole team, but nobody showed up. We didn’t find out until later that all the members had quit the league, at least for this season. Nice of them to tell me this when I went to all the effort of finding out their phone numbers and calling them up. (all our league’s records were lost at the end of last season, so everything had to be rebuilt from the beginning. As Secretary, all of this was my job and my job alone. Great!) Then the alley found us 2 guys who said they’d take over that team. They came for a couple weeks then stopped showing up. Did they call and say, Hey, sorry, we can’t make it anymore? Heck no. They just evaporated. So I had to figure out how to figure in forfeits, which required bending some rules. After 4 weeks of no show, I had to just about force our league president to admit that these guys were gone, which made that team the BYE team. Ok, fine. More work for me, but at least it’s settled. The bowling alley doesn’t like to lose money by having BYE teams - they are an empty slot which brings in no cash - so they told me they found some guy who wanted to join a league, and he had a whole team of friends to bowl with him. Hey, great, come on down!

So the first week the new guy shows up. And nobody else. Uh oh. Here we go again. The second week he shows up. By himself. And then spends an hour on the phone, forfeiting the first game, trying to get his buddies to show up. At last one of them does. His girlfriend. So now we have 2 on that team, but at least one M one W as we are a mixed league after all. So they forfeit one game and bowl 2. This is a difficult thing to enter into the bowling score software, so things got screwed up in the database and I didn’t notice. This last week they both came, hurray!!, and both bowled the full series. Hurray twice! And they paid their money and their sanction fees. Hurray to the third! But the software was really messed up. I spent more than 3 hours today going into the database, going back several weeks, changing scores, rosters, averages, total pins bowled, etc., until I finally got it figured and straightened out. So now everything is perfect, and my hope is that none of the whiners on this league will notice. Which means I’d better get the old standings sheet taken down tonight and put the new one up. But the thing is finally correct, so I’m happy.

Being League Secretary is a lot of work under ordinary circumstances. But when your league is “dynamic” it’s a huge pain in the posterior. And nobody will ever know just how much work it is unless they do it themselves.

Post of a more personal nature with thanks to PIXIE.

Last week I posted a story about the treatment of a man aged 101, by the hospital he was in.

BMEWS readers all posted comments of outrage or disgust or bewilderment that anything like that was even possible.

Well, our BMEWS Pixie had one heck of a comment to make and she wasn’t pulling any punches.
Her background as a nurse had her all the more angered as it wasn’t the kind of treatment she and her class would ever have put up with.
But what she had to say reminded me of a personal experience I witnessed in a hospital in Riverside, Ca. some years ago.
Here is part of what Pixie had to say.

I am appalled by this story.........I have been a nurse (now retired) for over 40 years.  Never have I witnessed this type of treatment of a patient.  I have worked OR, as a med-surg staff nurse, a supervisor and for the last 20 years of my career in an Emergency Department.

I have never witnessed this type of negligence.

Posted by Pixie under comments

Pixie,
Good for you and I wish there were more with that attitude. 

The story got to me and reminded me a tiny bit (not quite the same but bad enough) of an experience I personally witnessed at a hosp. in Riverside,Ca. some years ago.

I was recovering from back surgery and in pretty awful shape.  Don’t have to tell you about back surgery I know. Every move agony in the hosp. bed.  So .....

I had a two bed room and they wheeled in an elderly man from surgery for prostate cancer and some other thing I can’t recall.  He was in deplorable condition and drugged out of his skull as you will know.  And lots of moaning poor man.

He came to a few times and asked for water (?) but couldn’t reach the or wasn’t aware of the call button, so I used mine.  It was awhile before a nurse came, they are short handed I know, and she took care of his request, but it almost seemed grudgingly. Now I confess that may not be the case, it was just her look.

I had to get out of bed and oh boy was that an effort, (having to hold onto the wall and anything else handy for support) to use the loo as the Brits call it.
As I passed his bed to get there I noticed a US Navy tattoo on his arm, similar to the one my favorite uncle (more like father) had.  It was the USS Chicago, and of course WW2, so this old guy was a Navy vet and from a well known ship as well.  Wow.  When he came to again (he was in and out) I was calling him “sir.”

I’m too damn long winded so here’s what happened.

This guy was wired up with needles and tubes the like of which I never want to see again. He had them in his nose and in his (ah, you know) and and in his hands and heaven only knows where else. He was tossing and turning and I could see the tubes coming out and the straps that had him secured were beginning to come apart.  He was in some pain but he wasn’t totally conscious, and the moaning was pretty much non-stop for long periods. Like ALL night for the first couple of nights. Finally, at some point I was worried that he’d get hurt or something bad would happen with those loose tubes and things, and I also thought the straps would give and he’d fall out of bed.

This was happening around 2am, the ward was quiet and so I used the call button. Nothing.
Waited and it probably seemed longer then it was but truthfully it was a long wait.  Still no response.  What to do? Surprisingly, I didn’t see any side rails on the bed.  Or maybe they didn’t use them as he was strapped down.

With much pain myself as I hadn’t been out of surgery that long myself, I got out of bed and managed to make my way to the door, and peeked out onto the hallway.  I saw nobody at first. Not a soul.  So I’m hanging on to the door frame when I spotted a nurse coming down the hall and I called to her.  She was quite young and when I told her the situation, she informed me that this wasn’t her floor but she’d see what she could do.  I told her I was worried that he’d somehow get the straps holding him down undone and he might fall out of bed.  This was her word for word reply to that.  I have never forgotten it. 

“WE ALL HAVE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN ACTIONS.”

This old sailor hadn’t been out of surgery for 24 hours yet. This was the first night of the day he came out of surgery.  OK so, she more or less retied the straps while he’s tossing to and fro and not being at all still, so it wasn’t easy for her I realize. But she could have called for help and didn’t.
Think I’m through?  Nope. Because later that morning once again the straps and the wires and the tubes seemed to be falling out and the straps for certain were now undone, but he was slowly coming to but still in pain.

Hitting the call button yet again brought two nurses (this would be around 8 or 9 in the morning by now) and they started to put things back together.  And this really got to me for sheer ...????
I can’t find the word?  Stupidity is one but that doesn’t work for me as I need something stronger.
Here’s what happened next.

You know those horrid hospital gowns patients have to wear, right. They always seem too short and they usually are.
During all his tossing and moving previously, his hospital gown rode up exposing himself a little.
I watched as he tried to lower the damn thing and cover himself which he finally managed to do.
One of the nurses, an older hag says to him ....  “Thank You Very Much.” And I promise you it was said with a great deal of scorn and sarcasm. As though he were some kind of flasher and he exposed himself on purpose.  Why couldn’t she have pulled his gown down a bit?
What the heck kind of attitude was that?  She’s a nurse for gosh sake.  She’s never seen a nude patient before?

I felt very sorry for this guy and who wouldn’t?

I felt even worse when he finally came around a little more and asked me to get his carry bag in the wall closet. Locker?  Whatever. He said he had a 38 cal. in there and didn’t see the point of things anymore. 
That was scary and heartbreaking. 
That could by ill chance also be any one of us. We just never know for sure what the future holds or just what state our body and minds will be in. 

Until then, we should be thankful and grateful for any nurses out there that might be like Pixie.
Our bad luck that there aren’t more, and that ones as described here are still working in the field.

-end-

It breaks my heart to see Israel’s stupidity.

Surprised me quite a bit to read this by of all ppl, a rabbi.
But then why not?  They have opinions too.
I just can’t understand how it’s possible for this man not to see things through.  He wants talk? Why hell. Why not?
Talk worked very well between Hitler and Chamberlain.  Europe had peace of sorts.
Might not be the best example I could have used but when I read about talking and diplomacy blah,blah, that’s what it reminds me of.

While it’s true that I haven’t known a lot of rabbis, the ones I have known were pretty sharp fellows.
Now this guy may be a very nice person when ya know him but right now I think he is beyond STUPID.  Read what this guy wants.  Oh he has the answer to peace alright.  More like, Israel. Rest in Peace.

Please folks, take time out to read this thing. He’s in some other world.  Or maybe I am.  That is possible.  I was known to be wrong once. Made the news. Maybe you missed it.

Look guys, I have a newspaper right here with a full front page photo that shows Hamas rockets being fired. The photo is NOT stock footage, it’s what is happening NOW.  Would you like to guess just where those rockets are being fired from?  Correct.  Smack dab in the middle of a civilian area. You can see it all very clearly.  You simply can’t fight this type of war, and it is that, where the enemy hides his/her face and uses city or village centers as launching places.
Oh .. but Israel it the bully.  BULL S%$!  Someone on BBC last night (radio) talking about how unreasonably “brutal” Israel was behaving.  What is this?
A schoolyard fight or a nation’s fight for survival?

It has a right to respond to attacks, but will not achieve its ultimate aim - peace - until it stops thinking in military terms
Michael Lerner

Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but stupid. No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighbouring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialists bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for America to mobilise a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond.

But the kind of response matters. Killing 500 Palestinians and wounding 2,000 others (at the time of writing) is disproportionate. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas’s indiscriminate bombing of population centres is a crime against humanity, so is Israel’s killing of civilians (at least 130 so far in Gaza, not to mention the thousands in the years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).

Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used it as cover to make assassination raids. Hamas argued that these raids were hardly a manifestation of a ceasefire, and so as symbolic protest it would allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition, Hamas insists that the borders be opened so that food can arrive unimpeded. And in return for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, it asks for the release of 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of the Saudi Arabian peace agreement, though it would never formally recognise Israel. It would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement, but it would never acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist”. This position is unnecessarily provocative, and is deeply self-destructive for Palestinians who believe it is the only symbolic weapon they have left.

How do we get out of this destructive spiral? The first step is for the world to demand an immediate ceasefire. That ceasefire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by America. Its terms must include the following:

— Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and co-operates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that breaks this ceasefire.

— Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants, or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians.

— Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water and consumer goods and materials including from land, air, and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons.

— Israel releases all Palestinians in detention and returns them to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas releases Gilad Schalit and anyone else being held by Palestinian forces.

— Both sides invite an international force to implement these agreements

— Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side in and outside mosques, educational institutions, and the media.

— This ceasefire would last for 20 years. Nato, the UN, and the US all agree to enforce this agreement and impose severe sanctions in the event of any violations.

These steps would make a huge difference, isolate the most radical members of each side from the mainstream, and make it possible to then begin negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a broader and deeper set of issues.

The basic condition for creating peace is to help each side feel “safe”. A first and critical step is to speak in a language that is empathic toward the suffering of each people in a climate of discourse in which both sides’ stories are heard and understood.

Yet Israel, as the militarily superior power, ought to take the first steps: implementing a massive Marshall Plan in Gaza and in the West Bank to end poverty and unemployment, rebuild infrastructure and encourage investment; dismantle the settlements or make settlers become citizens of a Palestinian state; accept 30,000 Palestinian refugees annually back into Israel for the next 30 years, apologise for its role in the 1948 expulsions and offer to co-ordinate a worldwide compensation effort for all that Palestinians lost during the Occupation; and recognise a Palestinian state within borders already defined by the Geneva Accord of 2003.

This is the only way Israel will ever achieve security. It is the only way to permanently defeat Hamas and all extremists who wish to see endless war against Israel.

The most significant contribution the new Obama administration could make to Middle East peace would be to embrace a strategy that homeland security is best achieved not by military or economic domination but by generosity and caring for others. If this new way of thinking could become a serious part of US policy, it would have an immense impact on undermining the fearful consciousness of Israelis who still see the world more through the frame of the Holocaust and previous persecutions than through the frame of their actual present power in the world.

It breaks my heart to see the terrible suffering in Gaza and in Israel. As a religious Jew I find it all the worse, because it confirms to me how easy it is to pervert the loving message of Judaism into a message of hatred and domination. I remain in mourning for the Jewish people, for Israel and for the world.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine. (rabbilerner@tikkun.org)

I hope you will email this guy. that’s the address above. Not that we’ll change his mind I’m sure.  RCOB

Politically Corect and Incorrect Fairytales

The following are thought to be not pc enough by many parents . So it’s even come to fairy tales has it?
Not surprised though and you aren’t either I’d bet.

Top 10 fairy tales we no longer read:

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

2. Hansel and Gretel

3. Cinderella

4. Little Red Riding Hood

5. The Gingerbread Man

6. Jack and the Beanstalk

7. Sleeping Beauty

8. Beauty and the Beast

9. Goldilocks and the Three Bears

10. The Emperor’s New Clothes

Traditional fairytales ‘not PC enough’
Parents have stopped reading traditional fairytales to their children because they are too scary and not politically correct, according to research.

By Graeme Paton,
Education Editor
Last Updated: 2:51PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

Top bedtime stories of 2008:

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (1969)

2. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves (1971)

3. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson (1999)

4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne (1926)

5. Aliens Love Underpants, Claire Freedman & Ben Cort (2007)

6. Thomas and Friends from The Railway Series, Rev.W.Awdry (1945)

7. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (1908)

8. What a Noisy Pinky Ponk!, Andrew Davenport (2008)

9. Charlie and Lola, Lauren Child (2001)

10. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Robert Southey (1837)

Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged.

A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf.

One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because “the dwarf reference is not PC”.

Rapunzel was considered “too dark” and Cinderella has been dumped amid fears she is treated like a slave and forced to do all the housework.

MORE STUPID STUFF

nice likeness of the MIL seen here with Snow White.
Yeah .. I guess she is frightening at that.

   Sunday - January 04, 2009

on a lighter note

I spent the afternoon painting a wall. Painting is another one of those tasks people would rather not do, so instead they hire me. Fine by me!

I actually noticed this earlier this summer, but thought it might be a fluke. I’ve had 4 or 5 painting projects since then, and it’s no fluke. When did paint become so darned thick? I remember paint. It’s that smelly stuff that comes in a can. You have to stir the daylights out of it, but very carefully because the can is filled right up to the brim. Then when you pour some out into the paint roller tray, it flows pretty much like pancake syrup. Well, maybe just a bit thicker than that, but not much. Then you apply the stuff, and when the smell goes away you know the paint is ready for the second coat.

Not anymore. Now paint has almost no smell at all. It doesn’t seem to need mixing. And the stuff is amazingly thick. Thicker than syrup. Thicker than sour cream. Pour out a cupful into the roller tray and it just sits there. It doesn’t even spread out in the tray. And this is fresh paint, from a decent brand, at room temperature. I’ve noticed the same thing with primer too. (But that was Kilz primer, what I affectionately call landlord paint. Kilz is liquid magic. You can put Kilz on over stains, chipped paint, roadkill, fire damage, lasagna stuck to the wall, etc., and it covers perfectly. And the old school, oil-base stuff was even better!) On the positive side, the stuff goes on like glue. It’s just about impossible to overload a roller so that anything drips. And you can roll quite fast without worrying about any spray shooting off the roller. On the negative side, it goes on like glue. I found that I had to apply a good bit more pressure to the roller to even get the paint to come off the roller. (I may not have been using the proper nap roller. Next time I’ll use a shorter nap) Working time seems at least as long as it used to be, but drying time is much less. I laid down a coat, and even though the label said 2 - 4 hours between coats, it was ready for another coat in 90 minutes. And honestly, a second coat probably wasn’t even necessary. I did it because that’s what I always do. Plus I get paid by the hour.

I left the paint can at the client site since there was extra. I didn’t even look, but I’m pretty sure the Valspar paint was an acrylic latex. Certainly low VOC stuff. (ie no smell) It was the standard paint sold at Lowe’s, which turns out to be Valspar’s premium product. I went to Lowe’s because it was close, the customer didn’t care about any special kind of paint, and the guy behind the counter quickly matched the color exactly. Good enough for me.

Now I just have to cajole my customer for some extra work so that the rest of the gallon doesn’t go to waste. I’m sure he’s got another wall around somewhere.

A prayer for the IDF

Via IsraellyCool who is almost live-blogging the situation, comes this prayer from Treppenwitz:

Translation:

He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Force, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.

May Hashem cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighting men from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.  May He lead our enemies under their sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is Hashem, your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.  Now let us respond: Amen. 



The ground campaign will probably get very nasty very soon. Say a prayer for those fighting this enemy who is our enemy as well.

Divide and Conquer

IDF cuts Gaza in half, surrounds cities

Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, cutting the coastal territory into two and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas militants gained momentum.

The military used overwhelming firepower from tanks, artillery and aircraft to protect the advancing soldiers, and Gaza officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in the onslaught. The military said troops killed several dozen militants, but Gaza officials could confirm only four dead — in part because rescue teams could not reach the battle zones. One Israeli soldier was killed in the offensive, which so far has been widely popular with the Israeli public.

The ground invasion and live images of the fighting in Gaza drew international condemnations and dominated news coverage on Arab satellite TV stations, many of which aired footage of wounded Palestinians at hospitals. Hamas threatened to turn Gaza into an Israeli “graveyard.”

Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive against the area’s Hamas rulers after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light as bursts of machine gun fire rang out.

The ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that has reached deeper and deeper into Israel, threatening major cities and one-eighth of Israel’s population.

Until the other side begs for the chance to surrender unconditionally, the fight is not over. While I respect Israel for trying to minimize collateral damage, even if they strip search every Gazan resident and go through every building and tunnel to remove arms caches it will only buy them more time. A matter of months only. The world has watched for decades as one plan for peace after another has failed. At this point only mass extermination or deportation is going to work. I guess the Izzies will just have to push the paleos across the border into one of the neighboring countries so that their “arab brothers” can deal with them. And it won’t be Egypt. Sorry palis. You’ve had ages to work things out and you’ve ALL made the deliberate decision to keep the fight going. Now pay the price.

PS - Isn’t it amazing what one little country can achieve, and in such a short time, when they don’t listen to the idiocy called “world opinion”?

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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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