Wednesday - December 17, 2008

Some Good News For Fox News

Glenn Beck moving to Fox News January 19th


Ok, this may not exactly be news to some folks. It’s been out there for a couple of months now. But the date wasn’t set. I noticed Fox has an ad running now saying Glenn will bring his show over starting on the 19th. So that’s one less reason to watch CNN. And, come on, you always knew Glenn didn’t belong on CNN anyway. He was the sole Right voice on the whole network.



Alan Colmes leaving Fox’s Hannity & Colmes show. Again, this is not exactly news, nor has his departure date of “the end of the year” changed. But I can’t stand his character on that show. What a smarmy little twit. And I say character because of the persistent internet rumor that this isn’t how the man is at all; that he was hired to play this role and does so amazingly well. No word yet on his replacement, but I can only hope it will be Kristen Powers. Ms. Powers, former Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative for Public Affairs during the Clinton administration, is well spoken, very smart, and oh so easy to look at. She’s my favorite liberal, but I don’t think she’s a progressive leftist.


Now if Fox could just figure out how to steal Robin Meade away from that other network ... 

Situation Still Dire In Zimbabwe

Cholera lays bare Zimbabwe’s collapse

No one shakes hands anymore in Zimbabwe, such is the fear of contracting cholera.

The country that was once the jewel in Africa’s crown, able to feed itself, heal its sick and educate its people to the highest standards on the continent, is now in a pitiful state.

Harare’s main hospitals are closed, doctors and nurses are striking over their meagre “Zim dollar” pay and the country’s water and sanitation services are tearing at the seams.

Manhole covers in the streets haemorrhage water because underground pipes have burst.

For many Zimbabweans, shallow wells with filthy water are the only means of quenching their thirst, despite the high risk of becoming ill. The cholera crisis which has already claimed nearly 1,000 lives, is the most potent symbol yet of Zimbabwe’s collapse.

A deadly cocktail of failed services has turned a treatable disease into a major public health threat.

Nine out of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces have reported cases of cholera.

Eighteen thousand people have been infected so far, according to official figures, but that could just be the tip of the iceberg, with the World Health Organization warning that infections could treble.

...

Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe continues to claim that cholera is being used as a weapon of war - a pretext for Zimbabwe’s former colonial masters to launch a military invasion on his country.

At a public engagement just last week, Mr Mugabe declared that “cholera is no more… there is no cholera”, as news of more infections emerged.

And the downward spiral continues. Death toll is over 1000 at this point, with more than 20,000 infected. I have very little knowledge of infectious diseases, but I would have thought that those rates would be becoming exponential at this point. Perhaps the international relief efforts (clean water and medicine) are having an effect. Perhaps the isolation of outlying villages is keeping the disease’s rate of spreading down. Perhaps Mugabe is lying out his ass even more than usual; since a good part of the world press is banned, there could be tens of thousands of dead rotting in the streets and we’d never know it. Or perhaps those dead merely starved to death or died of AIDS, so they don’t count as part of this calamity.



PS - I put the image map in for JD’s benefit. I couldn’t resist when I saw the “great grey-green greasy” Limpopo River on the map. Image mapping is fun but can be hard to do by hand for the odd shapes. Lots of graphics tools can make the coordinates for you. Try yours when you’re ready, or Google up some free ones.

Dick Morris - 2009: A Prediction

From Dick Morris’ Play-by-Play (subscription only)

The politics of 2009 will be dominated by a continuation and deepening of the global Depression. Under the guise of stimulating the economy, look for Obama to pursue a radical, socialist agenda that will bring America into conformity with the government domination of health care and the economy that prevails in the European Union. When the dust clears, the economy will still be in the tank. The new president’s stimulation packages will do little or nothing to abate the depression, but they will transform American life and politics. For his part, Obama will take advantage of his built-in majorities in Congress to pass his agenda, but will suffer rapidly dropping ratings. By the end of the year, he will be as radioactive as Bush is today.

Well, at least Obama comes by this honestly. How many times were you reminded of his affinity for radical left wing groups during his college years? Don’t tell me you haven’t read “Faith from my Father” wherein Barack Obama detailed his affinity for Marxist professors and student groups.

Obama, bless his heart, is a man who only sees a government solution to almost any problem. He is not programmed to look to the private sector for solutions to any problem past labeling a can of beans. As such, Obama is the ideal president for our times. Generations of our children have been educated (by the government) to also believe that the government is the solution to all significant problems. Now think about it: If you went to a Catholic school you were surely taught that Catholicism was the way to go. A Jewish school? Judaism is the proper path. Government school? Connect the dots. It will take at least a generation - a generation without government schools - to once again bring about an appreciation for freedom and free markets.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  It’s one of the (many) reasons we homeschool.

WTH News

Life-size Al Capone statue stolen

A life-size statue of Al Capone has been stolen from a garden in Kent.  Owner Pauline McCook, who discovered the glass fibre figure was missing from her Isle of Sheppey home on Wednesday, said it was like “part of the family”.

The grandmother, who likes to decorate the statue for Christmas, only discovered the theft when she went outside with tinsel to drape over it.  Her family is offering a reward for the return of the statue, which was taken between 1 and 10 December.

Kent Police said it was “an extremely unusual item to steal”.  Officers said the statue had been attached to a wrought-iron chair in the garden in Minster, near Sheerness. The “extremely heavy” statue would have been moved by more than one person and transported in a vehicle, the force added.

The amount of reward on offer has not been specified.

Now I’m wondering ... do these folks have a whole garden full of painted statues of famous people? Or do they just have an Al Capone fixation? Either way, pretty strange. I haven’t the slightest idea who would steal such a thing - other than frat boys - or where this post is going, so here’s a picture of Fernanda Motta in a swimsuit. All better now? No. Ok, fine, then try this one.

h/t to reader Lee, fellow explorer in the bizarro world of high end audio equipment.

I have abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system

Yes, this is an actual quote by President Bush.

He’s talking about the probable bailout of U.S. automakers, using money authorized earlier this year and given to Hank Paulson to hand out to whomever he wants.  Paulson said that all he is thinking about right now is the automakers.

I believe him.  I know no one there is thinking about the Constitution.  No one there is thinking of Adam Smith.  No one there is thinking of Milton Friedman.  No one there is thinking of the future generations of Americans who will be burdened by this.

Re-read that headline.  Try to wrap your brain around that.  I’m still trying to figure it out.  So is Jimmie from The Sundries Shack:

I seriously have no idea how that works. You do not burn a village to save it. You do not kill a patient to cure them. And you do not throw free-market principles into the dumpster to save the free-market.

How does this work?  Do we try a little socialism until we can get back to being capitalists?  A little bit of Marxism makes the medicine go down?

Another question is:  How do you plan on fixing a problem using the same thinking that created it? 

If you have not read “Atlas Shrugged,” there is no better time to do so than now.  Or, you can watch the nightly news for the television version. 

Sooner or later, companies are just going to close and heads of industry are going to start disappearing.  People will wonder where they went, shrug and say, “Who is John Galt?”

BBC editorial guidelines say that words such as “terrorist” should be avoided. It’s a value judgment

Ya know this does get a bit out of hand and I find it very frustrating.  My uneducated guess having done no scientific survey on the subject, is that the public here are frustrated as well.  But the BBC is, (well think of the old Lilly Tomlin routine re. the phone company.) OMNIPOTENT!

“The BBC has been banned from using the word “terrorist” when reporting about the London and Glasgow car bombers,” according to a report in the Telegraph this morning.

“BBC editorial guidelines say that words such as “terrorist” should be avoided because they carry,

EMOTIONAL or VALUE JUDGMENTS” and “Can be a barrier rather then an aid to understanding.”

During the Bombay (Mumbai) massacre, terrorists were referred to as “militants” although the BBC denied that it has anything to do with political correctness.

You see people. Clinton was right after all.  IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY, “IS.”

So okay. See the video and read the article and let me know what your “value judgment” is and how you view those whose intent is to to slaughter and maim in the name of a mere snackbar or a war in a foreign land.  That’s my “understanding” and I get the message alright.

Here’s an article from Express India that’s related to above.

RELATED ARTICLE

Bilal Abdulla was the passenger in a burning Jeep driven into Glasgow airport on June 30 last year in an attempted suicide attack.

The driver of the Jeep, Kafeel Ahmed, a PhD student from India, died a month later from the burns he suffered in the attack.

The pair had earlier tried to blow up two Mercedes cars packed with gas canisters and petrol cans that they had left outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London’s West End.

Woolwich Crown Court court heard the men also had two other cars in reserve and were probably planning a campaign of terrorist “spectaculars.”

Abdulla, 29, who was born in Aylesbury, Bucks, but brought up in Iraq, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.

A third man, Mohammed Asha, a high-flying junior doctor from Jordan, accused of offering finance and advice for the plot was cleared of all involvement.

The bombers met in Cambridge in 2004 when Abdulla was studying for his medical practice exams and Ahmed was doing a PhD in aeronautical engineering.

The court heard the men began planning their attacks in February 2007 and communicated regularly over the internet while Abdulla was working at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley and Ahmed was living in India.

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, accused Abdulla of turning his “attention away from the treating of illness to the planning of murder.”

The car bombs outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub were packed with nails but one failed to explode because of ........ in detonator and the other because there was.......

(How smart of the newspaper to print what the mistakes were so others might learn from those mistakes.  Does the general public really NEED to know? Or would the only ones interested be potential terrorists.  I can not very well be critical of the newspaper and then post the goof-ups myself. Which is why I have left out the reasons why.  It’s the rule that when posting something, where there is a link or credit to be given, a link should be provided. And so I have done so.  Reluctantly. )

The club was packed with over 500 customers and Mr Laidlaw said it was “no more than good fortune that nobody died.”

Although the men had two others cars and further supplies of gas, petrol and electrical circuitry for the detonators, they dropped any plans to attack further targets.

The next day on Saturday June 30, the busiest day of the year at Glasgow airport, Ahmed drove a Jeep packed with gas canisters into the doors of the terminal building.

“Again fortune intervened to save those inside the terminal,” Mr Laidlaw said. “The Jeep became trapped in the terminal doors and despite the best efforts of the bombers and although there was a fierce fire, the jeep did not explode.”

As they crashed the vehicle against the doors, both Ahmed and his passenger, Abdulla, lit and threw petrol bombs in an attempt to set their vehicle alight shouted “Allahu Akbar” [God is great.]

TELEGRAPH

good morning all comrades. todays order of business: Private schools told: open to poor or Close!

Today’s lesson for new comradeskys, commissars will take notes on those not paying attention.

“FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS.”

Comrade Marx will give test.  Those failing will be re- schooled. Those unwilling will be shot. 

Have a nice day.

Private schools have been told to provide more free places to children from poor homes - even if they claim to be full - or effectively face closure.


By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Last Updated: 12:22AM GMT 17 Dec 2008

The new rules are designed to stop fee-paying schools being run exclusively for the wealthy.

Guidance published today by the Charity Commission also suggests schools could raise fees for existing parents as part of a “deliberate pricing strategy” to fund more places for deprived children.

The rules, which come into force next year, will be a blow to many independent schools as they battle the threat of falling pupil numbers prompted by the economic downturn.

Last night, experts said it may be the “final nail in the coffin” for some smaller schools.

Under Labour’s 2006 Charities Act, fee-paying schools are no longer automatically entitled to charitable status.

They must prove they provide “public benefit” to hang on to tax breaks worth an estimated £100m to the sector every year.

Schools have already warned they may have to increase class sizes or ask existing parents for more cash to satisfy the requirements.

Official guidance outlines how independent schools - along with charities for the poor, charitable hospitals and religious groups - can pass the new test.

It said they must do far more than offer “minimal or tokenistic” help for working class children.

In Scotland, four leading private schools have already been ordered to increase the amount spent on poor pupils or risk being stripped of charitable status.

The Charity Commission said it would intervene at schools struggling to meet the requirement in England and Wales to find “ways to fund free or subsidised access”.

It has the ultimate power to remove schools from the charities register - effectively closing them down and transferring assets to other charities - although officials insist this would be highly unlikely.

Sue Fieldman, of the Good Schools Guide, said: “This is not the Christmas present private schools wanted. It could not have come at a worse time. Many are already stretched financially as parents struggle to pay fees and it could be the final nail in the coffin, particularly for some small prep schools. I imagine the commission will be quite lenient to begin with but increase the pressure on schools when the economy picks up.”

Guidance, which has been toughened up compared to draft rules published in March, suggests schools can help pass the public benefit test by:

* Giving pupils from state schools free access to swimming pools, drama studies and concert halls

* Allowing them to sit in on certain classes not offered in the state sector

* Giving poor pupils coaching to boost their chances of getting into top universities

* Sponsoring one of the Government’s semi-independent academies

But the document makes it clear that providing more bursaries is the most likely way to satisfy the requirements.

It suggested schools should consider “increasing general fee levels in order to offer subsidies to those unable to pay the full cost”. Last year, the average private school charged £11,253.

(in dollars at that time it would have come to more then $22,000.)

The commission said the option was “certainly available” to owners, although it would not be feasible for every school.

Guidance said others may offer more places even if they are officially full. This will raise concerns among parents that small class sizes - seen as one of the main attractions of the fee-paying sector - may have to rise in some schools.

“It might be possible to offer additional places at a school in addition to the places for existing pupils,” said the document. “Even if there are legal and practical limitations on how many boarding pupils can be housed, additional day pupils might be easier to cater for and cost less.”

Schools were encouraged to drop academic scholarships - which can often go to bright children from wealthy homes - and divert cash to means-tested bursaries.

If schools cannot afford subsidies, the commission said they should consider embarking on fundraising drives or find “wealthy philanthropists”. Commissioners may step in to help schools raise money.

Commissioners are already investigating five schools as part of pilot tests. Other schools will be expected to file public benefit reports in their annual accounts from 2009, and officials may carry out random inspections.

The guidance makes clear schools will be judged on a case by case basis, although large schools with the highest fees will be expected to do the most.

It also rejects claims from many headmasters that they should pass the test simply by educating pupils who would otherwise be schooled at taxpayers’ expense.

“If the opportunity to benefit… is not genuine, or is meaningless or trivial, then it would count for very little in a public benefit assessment,” said the guidance.

More than 500,000 children attend 2,000 private schools in the UK. The majority were set up as charities, receiving benefits - principally in rate relief - of about £225 per child every year.

Last year, the number of pupils at independent school increased, but there are fears the economic downturn may push some families away. At least seven have closed this year citing the credit crunch.

Guidance effectively rules out the possibility that schools can relinquish charitable status or be sold to profit-making organisations to get around the rules.

Under charity law, any proceeds of a sale must be used for charitable purposes, it said.

Dame Suzi Leather, Charity Commission chairman, said: “Not only is it now a legal requirement for all charities to demonstrate how they benefit the public, but also our own research shows that the public expects charities to be clear about what they do and to be accountable and transparent at all times.”

The Independent Schools Council was outraged by draft guidance published earlier this year, insisting it was “heavily biased in favour of wealthier charities”.

David Lyscom, ISC chief executive, said it was studying the latest report before advising schools in the New Year.

SCHOOL DAZE

HELP, is needed here from someone who understands the school system here better then this foreigner posting the article.  Lyndon? Chris? Brits anywhere?

Why does a school charging £11,000 a head qualify to collect any monies from charities. Unless the money is specific to a person on say a scholarship or grant of some sort.  I know private schools here are what Americans call public, and public schools here are private.  ???

Man oh man.  I can see why you guys drive on the WRONG side. 
Get ready for “roundabouts” in the USA. Right. Nashville already has one or two. Anywhere else? 

Oh Noes!

Squirrels Lose Their Nuts, Expect Long Cold Lonely Winter

It’s a sign of the apocralypse!

Some scientists fear a mysterious shortage of acorns this fall in the eastern U.S. will affect squirrels.

Oak trees have shed their leaves, but the usual carpet of acorns is not crunching underfoot.

In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.

“I can’t think of any other year like this,” said Alonso Abugattas, director of the Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington, Virginia.

Louise Garris, who lives in the Oakcrest neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, first noticed the mysterious phenomenon early this fall when doing yardwork beneath a canopy of large oak trees.

“I have lived in the area my entire life and have never not seen any acorns!” she said. Garris checked with some local plant nurseries and they confirmed her observation.

The mystery has found its way to the Internet, where a “No acorns this year” discussion on Topix.com yielded more than 180 comments from people reporting acorn disappearances as far away as

“WHAT IS GOING ON?” posted a resident of Maplewood, New Jersey. “Now we are finding dead squirrels! SHOULD WE ALL BE CONCERNED?”

Not necessarily, naturalists say. Last year Garris reported a bumper crop of acorns, which scientists say may be one clue to this year’s scarcity. Virginia extension agent Adam Downing said acorn production runs in cycles, so a lean year is normal after a year with a big crop.

“It fits with the physiology of seed reproduction. The trees are exhausted, energy wise, from last year,” Downing said. [Ok, there’s a cheap sex joke in there somewhere. One oak lying there, having a cig, wanting to talk. The other oak is already snoring]

But even he is surprised at the complete absence of nuts in parts of Virginia.

“There are plenty of acorns in most of the state, but zero acorns in some pockets,” he said.

At the Long Branch Nature Center, calls and e-mails have been pouring in from people who want to donate acorns they’ve gathered in areas where they are plentiful.

It’s also hard to think of acorns without thinking about squirrels. What happens to them when their favorite food disappears? Some Eastern Seaboard residents have reported seeing skinny, aggressive squirrels devouring bird feed.

“Especially in the depths of winter, there’s not much else for the squirrels to eat. Some may switch their diet, many others probably won’t make it,” said Abugattas. “Squirrel and deer numbers will almost certainly go down.”

Just get Firefox already wouldja?

Eviiill Hackers And Terrorists Waiting To Take Over Your Computer! Run, Hide, Panic!!11!!

REDMOND, Wash. – Microsoft Corp. is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.

The “zero-day” vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims’ machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don’t have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer’s programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used Web browser.

Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated “critical,” for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.

Thousands of Web sites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw. The bad guys have loaded malicious code onto those sites that automatically infect visitors’ machines if they’re using Internet Explorer and haven’t employed a complicated series of workarounds that Microsoft has suggested.

Microsoft said it has seen attacks targeting the flaw only in Internet Explorer 7, the most widely used version, but has cautioned that all other current editions of the browser are vulnerable.

Microsoft rarely issues security fixes for its software outside of its regular monthly updates. The company last did it in October, and a year and half before that.

On the Net:

Microsoft’s security advisory:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/961051.mspx

Gosh, Microsoft has a product with a glaring security hole in it. Who’da ever thunk that would happen?

Ok, I guess I’ll have to get the fix and install it. As much as I hate IE, I keep a copy around because some sites just won’t work with Firefox. Especially online shopping sites that need to enable session cookies. And it’s that online shopping time of year.

   Tuesday - December 16, 2008

The cake heard ‘round the world

Born To Play The Victim Card?


Or just a kid with the world’s stupidest parents?



And it figures ... the story originates just a few miles down the road from here. Just 5 miles past Jayson Williams’ house as a matter of fact ... you remember him, right? Shotgun, dead limo driver, cover up, hung jury and all that?

Little Adolf Hitler denied birthday cake

From Mercury, The Voice of Tasmania The father of a toddler called Adolf Hitler Campbell says it is unfair that a store denied him a birthday cake with his child’s name on it.

New Jersey man Heath Campbell, 35, has decorated his home with swastikas and says he is related to a member of the SS. But he says it is the store that wouldn’t write ”Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” on a cake that should be showing more consideration for other people’s feelings.

“They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did,” he told the Associated Press.

But the ShopRite store that refused the cake request says it did the right thing.

“We believe the request ... to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate,” spokeswoman Karen Meleta told the Express-Times newspaper.

The store has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Mr Campbell’s daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns two in February.

Mr Campbell and his wife Deborah also have a daughter Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, named for SS head Heinrich Himmler, who turns one in April.

He said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because “no one else in the world would have that name”.

The story actually started here, but there are folks all over looking for odd stories to write on ...

In a living room decorated with war books, German combat knives and swastikas, a 2-year-old boy, blond and blue-eyed, played with a plastic dinner set. The boy, asked his name, put down a tiny plate and ran behind his father’s leg. He flashed a shy smile but wouldn’t answer. Heath Campbell, 35, the boy’s father, encouraged him.

“Say Adolf,” said Campbell, a Holocaust denier who has three children named for Nazism.

Again, the boy wouldn’t answer. It wasn’t the first time the name caused hesitation.  Adolf Hitler Campbell—it’s indeed the name on his birth certificate—turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with “Adolf Hitler” on it. The ShopRite in Greenwich Township has also refused to make a cake bearing the name of Campbell’s daughter, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, who turns 2 in February. Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, a girl named for Schutzstaffel head Heinrich Himmler, turns 1 in April.

“ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a 3-year-old,” said Deborah Campbell, 25, who is Heath’s wife of three years and the mother of the children. “That’s sad.”

A director for the Anti-Defamation League in Philadelphia applauded the supermarket’s decision. An Allentown psychologist said the names would cause problems for the children later in life.
...
Disabilities, the couple says, have left both out of work: Heath Campbell can’t landscape or pump gas because he has emphysema, and Deborah can’t waitress because she has a bad back. They live on Social Security payments.
...
‘They’re just names’

The Campbells have swastikas in each room of their home, the rented half of a one-story duplex just outside Milford, a borough in Hunterdon County. They say they aren’t racists but believe races shouldn’t mix.

[ No, not racist. They just believe in separate but equal ... which is only allowed these days if you’re black. ]

The Campbells said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn’t expect the names to cause problems.

[ I guess “Shaneeqa” and “Sholanza” weren’t on the short list, eh? And “Z/28” was probably already taken.]

Despite the cake refusal, the Campbells said they don’t expect the names to cause problems later, such as when the children start school.

[ Because the parents will be sending their kids to a private jewish day school, right? ]

Horry Clap. Brain dead toothless trailer trash white supremacist neo-nazis right here in my own county. They probably use their extra fingers to hold a second banjo pick.



UPDATE: And it just gets better! Mullet wearing daddy, complete with swastika neck tattoo, will be (was?) on Allan Colmes’ live radio show. Photos surfacing of the charming couple ... and their knife wielding toddlers.  ... and the story spreads wider to many blogs and news sites ... which is probably just what the parents wanted when they came up with these names. Thousands of people weighing in with one of two opinions, all over the internet.

I almost figured this would happen

Jesse Jackson Jr: Have Whistle, Will Blow



So now not only is JJ Jr completely innocent of any involvement in the Blagosumnabitch fiasco, now we’re hearing he’s been blowing the whistle to the feds for a decade plus. Uh huh.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who was cited in a criminal complaint against Rod Blagojevich — has been an informant for at least a decade with the U.S. Attorney’s office, and has informed on the embattled governor of Illinois, though not in the case currently under investigation, Jackson spokesman Kenneth Edmonds told CNN Tuesday.

In addition, two sources close to Jackson told CNN that, in 2002, Blagojevich — then running for governor of Illinois — solicited a $25,000 campaign donation from Jackson, which he did not get.

At the time, Jackson’s wife, Sandi, was a candidate for the job of director of the state’s Lottery Commission, a post she did not win, the sources said.

After Blagojevich took office, in early 2003, he told Jackson something to the effect of, “You see what $25,000 would have done?” the sources said.

In 2006, Jackson reported the incident, which he believed to have been an attempt at a shakedown, the sources said.

The report, the sources said, came three three years later because Jackson’s memory was jogged by another case — that of developer Tony Rezko, whose fraud and corruption trial included testimony about $25,000 donations to Blagojevich.

Oh really. So he reports the info 3 years late, but that’s Ok. Ok CNN, tell us the rest of the story. Who did he squeal on from 1998-2006? Otherwise your “at least a decade” is looking more like “almost 2 years”.



Now the big question: is JJ Jr’s political career finished, or is this the coat of whitewash that will bring him into the big time? We already figured that these past actions will get him cleared of any involvement in the current mess. Will he be the first of the New Chicago Machine players? Or the rat that finally sank the ship?

Maybe the Doctor can help

>

Hello India !

Hey, we get visitors from all over the world here. I just logged in and noticed we’ve got a reader from New Delhi. Welcome!

Ok, I’ll try to get something more exciting than this up later. Busy busy busy this time of the year!

ONE HELL OF AN AMERICAN THAT MAKES ME SO DAMN PROUD HE WAS OURS! RIP, Major Robert Furman.

This is in The Telegraph today.
How many American papers have told his story?  Has it been on TV back home?  I sure hope so.

Did this story at least make the papers in NJ?  NY? CT?  I have no idea why this is so late in coming as he passed away two months ago. But better late and learn about this guy then never know at all.  Damn it that was one hell of a generation!  What happened to us?

Major Robert Furman
Wartime intelligence officer charged with discovering the true extent of the German nuclear threat .

Robert Furman, civil engineer who helped to oversee the construction of the Pentagon and then played a clandestine role in the Manhattan Project. Photo: US Department of Defence.

Major Robert Furman, who has died aged 93, oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and played a vital part in the American struggle for nuclear supremacy when, in 1943, he was ordered to discover how far the Germans had advanced in developing the atomic bomb.

He began by interviewing scientists on campuses across the United States and was appointed the personal handler of Niels Bohr, the Nobel prizewinner who had worked on the understanding of atomic structure and had recently escaped from occupied Denmark. Furman was particularly impressed by the ability of Bohr and his associates to play chess without using a board.

Furman’s next task was to organise collection of water samples from the Upper Rhine and Lake Constance to check for evidence of German nuclear activity. After a failed attempt to kidnap the senior German scientist Werner Heisenberg, Bohr’s former assistant, he sent Moe Berg, a former baseball player for the Boston Red Sox among others, to hear Heisenberg address a scientific conference in neutral Switzerland. Berg was given a pistol to shoot him if he indicated that the Germans were working on a nuclear bomb and a cyanide capsule for himself in case the assignment failed. But after hearing Heisenberg’s talk, and then dining with him, Berg reported that he could find no evidence to support such suspicions.

As the Allied armies advanced across Europe, Furman ran Operation Peppermint, in which he led a team which searched for all existing uranium stocks, needed for nuclear fission. This involved his coming under German sniper fire in Belgium. But he eventually found a stockpile of 31 tons near Toulouse, which was duly dispatched to the United States. He also rounded up Heisenberg and nine other scientists; they were held at Farm Hall, Godmanchester, near Cambridge, to ensure that they did not end up in the Soviet Union.

When Germany surrendered Furman escorted a large consignment of uranium aboard the cruiser Indianapolis from the secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Tinian island in the Pacific. Four days after the cargo was discharged the ship was torpedoed, with the loss of 800 sailors’ lives.

From Tinian, Furman watched the B-29 Enola Gay take off to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Later he visited Japan, but he continued to believe that the two atomic bombs had ensured that the Cold War “remained cold”.

The son of a bank teller descended from an immigrant who left Stoke-on-Trent in the early 18th century, Robert Ralph Furman was born on August 21 1915, at Trenton, New Jersey. He grew up a keen tennis player. On leaving Trenton High School he studied Civil Engineering at Princeton, where he joined the Reserve, then worked for the Pennsylvania railroad and the Turner construction company in New York.

After being called up in 1940 he was commissioned as an artillery officer with a horse-drawn unit and transferred to the Quartermaster Corps’ construction division. It was there that he attracted the attention of Colonel Leslie Groves, who was in charge of constructing the new War Department building in Washington, to be known as the Pentagon.

Groves appointed Furman the third-ranking supervisor of the project, but he soon took the major role, with responsibilities that ranged from the materials used to the 123,000-strong workforce. His duties involved staying overnight once a week to walk round the whole building, when he would stop workers on the night shift drinking on the job.

After 17 months the job was finished, and Furman was invited by Groves – who was by now a major-general and military director of the Manhattan Project – to become his chief of foreign intelligence.

When Furman left the Army in 1946 he settled at Bethesda, Maryland, and started a construction business building houses, schools, churches and offices, including the American embassy in Nicaragua.

He became a pillar of his local community, serving as an active president of the Rotary Club and becoming a member of the chamber of commerce and of his local Episcopalian church. He also sang baritone in a barbershop quartet.

For decades his role in the development of the atomic bomb was cloaked in secrecy, with his name eliminated from so many official documents that he was known to historians as “the mysterious major”.

His neighbours knew him to be a private man who was proud to have served in the war, but they were astonished when, in his last years, he appeared in a television programme about the Manhattan Project.

Recognising the growing interest in events that were receding from the public memory, he agreed to give a conducted tour of his old office in the Pentagon which, little changed in 60 years, now houses the Bureau of Verification and Implementation, which tracks arms control measures. Last December he took part in a seminar at the State Department on the atomic bomb.

Robert Furman died on October 14. He married, in 1952, Mary Eddy, who had worked for the Office of Strategic Services during the war. She survives him with their son and daughter and two daughters from her previous marriage.

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Hey .. is it just me or did the uniforms look better in his day then in the present time?  Seems that way.

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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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4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

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

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