Typically, I eschew such things, and if I had received this in an email (as is a daily annoyance, from various people, sending every tired Internet joke or "Funny of the Day" or "Send This To 10 People And Your Life Will Change" missive), it probably would have been deleted, with nary a glance.
DEEPWATER, Mo. -- Officials are trying to decide whether to file charges against a Missouri man who fatally shot his wife while trying to install a satellite TV system in the bedroom of their home.
Patsy Long, 34, of Deepwater, died after being shot in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun on Saturday. Her husband, Ronald Long, fired the shot from the inside of their home after several unsuccessful efforts to punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means.
Utterly amazing.
It's horrible enough that we have people with guns that walk onto college campuses, or in to fast food restaurants, now we have to deal with Bob Vila-wannabe-DIYers that are going to be adding guns to their toolboxes?
I'm sure the NRA has prepared a press kit on this on this, to beat back any criticism, arguing that any American citizen has the right to use a gun to make home improvements.
Hell, they probably have booklets, offering advice as to which type and gauge of gun to use for a variety of home improvement projects.
I suppose we'll have to wait to see how this plays out, as to which award Ronald Long ends up with.
If he sues the Satellite TV company, for not warning him about using a gun to install their product, we'll have to nominate him for a Stella Award.
Yesterday, President Bush visited Novadebt, a credit counseling service in New Jersey, to promote his Hope Now Alliance, which is intended to help homeowners facing foreclosure. But while there, Bush gave out the wrong toll-free number (despite a large sign with the correct number hanging behind him). This isn’t the first time Bush has given out the wrong Hope Now number. In December 2007, Bush told the American public that the number was 1-800-995-HOPE, instead of 1-888-995-HOPE, leading people to call a Christian education academy near Dallas.
I don't know, maybe that Christian academy slipped him a few bucks, for the plug.
Peggy Noonan, the nation's most prominent Ronald Reagan groupie, takes apart Hillary Clinton today, calling her a liar, chastising her campaign for being heavy-handed thugs and, otherwise, regales at the sliding poll numbers of the intrepid, courageous candidate. Getting Mrs. Clinton
"That's what the Bosnia story was about. Her fictions about dodging bullets on the tarmac -- and we have to hope they were lies, because if they weren't, if she thought what she was saying was true, we are in worse trouble than we thought -- either confirmed what you already knew (she lies as a matter of strategy, or, as William Safire said in 1996, by nature) or revealed in an unforgettable way (videotape! Smiling girl in pigtails offering flowers!) what you feared (that she lies more than is humanly usual, even politically usual).
But either you get it now or you never will. That's the importance of the Bosnia tape."
That people are now "getting Hillary", not for her policies or record, but because they all know now that she lies.
Quite the hit, coming from little, pining Peggy.
And, possibly, could it be out of a fit of jealousy? Was she blind with rage, lashing out, not at her true target, but the closest person, projecting on to Hillary what she wants to scratch out of the eyes of the other one?
The Garlic, holding our nose, for the benefit off all, jumps into the subconscious mind of Peggy Noonan;
Oh Ronnie, how I long for you ... How I wish your big, broad shoulders were nearby, so I could lay my head on them, feel your heartbeat, hear your soothing voice.
Instead, I have to deal with all this screeching white noise they call a campaign ... I have to watch HER, trot out and slobber all over McCain, like the slutty tart, who bamboozled you away from Jane... Oh yeah, she wasn't looking out for you, not the way I do, anyway ... "
Actually, the best part of Noonan's screed was a passage, written by another (she didn't provide a link), who she credits as a "poster called GI Joe who wrote in to a news blog" (The Garlic, after an exhaustive search, could only find one item with it, from a comment on a Ben Smith post);
"What struck me as the best commentary on the Bosnia story came from a poster called GI Joe who wrote in to a news blog:
"Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."
Funny Stuff!
She doesn't, at least yet, want to diss ol' Stumblin-and-Bumblin' John, just in case, and yes, she must know, it's an extremely long-odds stretch, that he actually morphs, or shows, some kind of Reaganesque duende.
"Whatever the next chapter of Rove's life has in store, some of the action will probably take place in Rosemary Beach, Florida, where he bought land in 2002.
According to political journalist Jim Moore, many factors probably influenced the timing of Rove's resignation--including the desire to cash in on lucrative speaker's fees and the prospect of reinventing himself as a political pundit on the national stage.
"Ultimately, though, what probably appeals to Karl the most is being a sort of freelance Dr. Evil," Moore –- a Rove critic -- explained in an email to RAW STORY. "He can do his work now for hire under the guise of any organization that wants to hire him or he can do it for fun and generally avoid the restraint of party or candidate. Have darkness. Will travel."
Rosemary Beach, Florida bills itself as a vacation community, but Rove's home is no beach bungalow. His Dill Lane pad is a 2,578-square-foot cedar and white stucco structure with a stoop, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and an outdoor shower. Opposite the main house, separated by a small walled courtyard, is a two-story carriage house with a two-car garage on the ground floor.
But, we're not sure the locals are all to happy with the move.
One waitress who works at Bud & Alley’s restaurant downtown, said she's seen Rove and his guests sequestered in the large downstairs area of the popular eatery. Saying she was happy not to have been his server, she quipped, “I would have told him what I thought of him and gotten fired.”
Is Rove setting himself up in The Sunshine State for legal reasons?
Isn't there something about Florida, and Florida law - one of the things that has kept a roof over O.J. Simpson's head - that, in losing lawsuits, you can't have your residence taken, or pensions carried away?
Perhaps someone more versed in this law can weigh in on it, in the comments (and, perhaps, we may post a follow-up, as this story develops).
Oh, I'm sorry, I misspoke ... I've been sleep-deprived and, I do write millions of words, so, there is the chance I that I am human, and will misspeak at times.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Hillary Clinton was on the same plane with D.B. Cooper, than, she would have left the plane, he wouldn't be her co-passenger, that's for sure.
Of course, D.B. Cooper couldn't have jumped from Hillary Clinton's plane, it was a different time, different place (though, we're sure, he would have ducked his head and ran for the cars).
Some kids pulled a parachute out of the ground near Vancouver in Clark County, and now the FBI is working to determine if it may have been one of the chutes used by infamous skyjacker DB Cooper.
The chute was unearthed as their father was plowing for a new road and now the FBI in Seattle is analyzing it to see if it matches a reserve chute left behind by DB Cooper when he hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 on November 24, 1971 during a flight between Portland and Seattle.
"Thursday’s ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta said Mr. Siegelman’s larger appeal had raised “substantial questions,” and so the former governor should be released from the federal prison where he has already served nine months of a seven-year sentence.
Well, that, pretty much, makes mincemeat out of the joke-of-a-trial-judge, Judge Mark E. Fuller.
Fuller, among other things during the trial, refused to grant Governor Siegalman bond, so he could be out of prison for his appeal (not to mention whisking him immediately to jail right from the courtroom, not giving the Governor the typical month, or so, to report to prison)
It's far from over, however, it loosens up a few bricks in that wet dream, one-party rule that railroaded Siegalman, with brick dust leaving a trail that goes all the way back to the Bush Grindhouse.
Here's some links to check out - and stay tuned to this, it could end up being a blockbuster that shreds any possible legacy of the thugs of the Bush Regime
Fortunately a federal judge in Atlanta had sense enough to strike down the suit. "The fact that the real Wal-Mart name and marks are strong and recognizable makes it unlikely that a parody -- particularly one that calls to mind the genocide of millions of people, another that evokes the name of a notorious terrorist organization ... will be confused with Wal-Mart's real products," wrote U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr.
As the AP points out, the judge also noted that very few people were even interested in Smith's charming work: He has only sold 62 T-shirts, 15 of them to Wal-Mart's law firms.
Who knew they didn't have a sense-of-humor?
So, as the wallowed in their sorrows, trudging back from the court, who drops another, well-earned, bucket of you-know-what on them? Keith Olbermann.
Wal-Mart - emphatically - earned the title of 'Worst Person in the World' last evening
March 26: Worst: A Wal-Mart employee got into a truck accident – then sued and won. But now, wheelchair-bound and brain damaged, she’s being sued by her employer. It turns out there’s fine print in the company health plan.
Oh yeah, Olbermann later added this this poor woman got the news last week (if she could understand it) that her son was killed, while serving in Iraq.
Olbermann let them off easy.
Asking that "may your stores melt in the hot sun" wasn't enough
Something like this should have gotten them Worst Persons of the Year
The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a "by-product of the success of the surge."
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said it showed that the Iraqi government and security forces were now confident enough to take the initiative against Shiite extremists in the southern port of Basra.
Morrell, however, disputed suggestions that the fighting showed the risks of drawing down US "surge" forces.
"This has just begun this week," he said. "But I think at this early stage, it looks as though it is a by-product of the success of the surge," referring to the sharp hike in US troops in Iraq from earlier last year to quell violence.
"I think they would tell you just the opposite: that this is a sign that the Iraqi security forces are now capable of confronting, fundamentally, their problems," he said.
We believed, as we were told, by The Commander Guy himself, that the Bush Grindhouse Surge Policy was to end the violence and give the Iraqi Government the time and space to get their business done.
Now it comes out, that it was merely a confidence-building exercise.
We just had to be patient, so the Iraqi Security forces were "capable of confronting, fundamentally, their problems."
And, the biggest surprise of all, the the Surge was really designed to increase the violence, to turn the dial up! Brandon Frasier, over on VetVoice was knocked out by it;
"That's some impressive spin, if you ask me. Takes balls to get up there in front of the media--and the world for that matter--and tell everyone that the conflagration we're on the verge of witnessing is due to how awesome we are."
Yes, I know the thought of that, of being "in there", inside Hillary's head, is thoroughly, skin-crawling, creepy, and that may offer some (certainly not all) explanation.
But they could keep the element of, when ejected from Hillary Clinton, you still get dumped off in New Jersey (or perhaps, they can tailor it to Hillary, and you are rudely exited in Arkansas).
"This alone has to amount to some sort cosmic encounter like something out of a Wagner opera. Remember, this is the guy who spent millions of dollars puffing up wingnut fantasies about Hillary's having Vince Foster whacked and lots of other curdled and ugly nonsense. Scaife was the nerve center of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Those of us who spent years defending the Clintons from all that malarkey learned this point on day one."
"Regardless of his role, the project not only accused Clinton of financial and sexual indiscretions (some later verified, others not), but also gave root to hyperbolic conspiracist notions that the Clintons collaborated with the CIA to run a drug smuggling operation out of the town of Mena, Arkansas and that Clinton had arranged for the murder of White House aide Vince Foster as part of a cover-up of the Whitewater scandal."
I believe we can safely speculate that Barack Obama will not book himself on Sean Hannity's show this evening, to go tit-for-tat with Hillary, or phone into Rush Limbaugh, to make his case - again - about Reverend Wright.
And we really have to watch this, to see if there was a Quid Pro Quo for Hillary's sitdown with Scaife, if there was a deal made.
If we see something in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, or should start hearing whispers, random postings or comments on some of the Dittohead, Freak Show blogs, that Reverend Jeremiah Wright killed Vince Foster - and Obama knew about but didn't say anything - we'll know why Hillary did the interview.
"I'm afraid that's really hitting the nail right on the kneecap. Of course with the Tonya Harding option, none of the Democrats wins and -- as Tapper notes -- John McCain becomes Oksana Baiul. Does this also mean that Hillary turns up later in celebrity boxing matches?"
Hmmm ... Hillary Clinton versus Tonya Harding ... Hillary can utilize her dash-and-dodge skills she honed in Bosnia, I suppose, to avoid being hit
But, I would bet it will never happen.
To many people would line up to kneecap both of them.
He was born in Havana, Cuba. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and has been described as "the inventor of the mambo". He is considered a master of descarga (Latin jam sessions).
Cachao was, in his last years, the most important living figure in Cuban music, on or off the island. And according to Cuban-music historian Ned Sublette he was arguably the most important bassist in twentieth-century popular music, innovating not only Cuban music but also influencing the now familiar bass lines of American R&B, ``which have become such a part of the environment that we don't even think where they came from.
Initially, the mambo was too radical for most Cubans and the style did not win wide popularity until bandleader Pérez Parado popularised it in the late 1940s. Not that this bothered Cachao and Orestes: they went on to compose more than 3000 danzóns - a 1938 composition was called Buena Vista Social Club and would, more than 50 years later, provide the name for the multi-million selling veteran Cuban band.
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton emerging from Military Plane, surrounded by soldiers, their weapons drawn, bending low as rifle and gun fire fly overhead.
Hillary and Chelsea run, in a zigzag pattern, bullets ricocheting off the ground near her, just a few feet away.
Hillary and Chelsea, panting with fear, as well as out-of-breath, reach the safety of a military hanger and taking off their coats, we see both wearing bullet-proof vests.
Cut to Hillary today, standing in front of large screen, replaying her zigzagging run, wearing her trademark school-bus-yellow pant suit.
Hillary (speaking directly into camera)
I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do more before 9AM than most candidates do all day
Cut .. Print ... It's a wrap
It's also a crock!
It may be the grand movie, the blockbuster, playing in her mind (or, perhaps, the voices are whispering it to her), but it isn't what went down.
You would have thought, with all the PR geniuses in her campaign, that someone would have told her not to tell deer-hunting stories (since the campaign is in Pennsylvania, we'll go in-theme), when there's videotape that she's never splashed on deer piss and sat for days in a tree.
Instead of "Be All You Can Be", Hillary opted for "Spin All You Can Spin".
“I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Now, being caught like a deer-in-the-headlights (PA Theme, again), we got the classic, and totally unbelievable, "I misspoke" line, before Camp Clinton locked itself down.
"Rival Democrat Barack Obama's campaign quickly scoffed at the attempt to dismiss the fib, noting that the mistaken wording was included in the text of Clinton's speech"
So, what's a losing candidate, behind in almost every conceivable manner, caught in an embarrassing position that puts a spotlight on her credibility, to do?
"Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made.
"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
"This may sound cynical, but my guess is that media interest in Clinton’s debunked Bosnia story had become too great a distraction. The controversy (and damaging videos) undermined Clinton on two fronts — credibility and national security experience — both of which are of critical significance.
So, how better to change the subject that to revive the Jeremiah Wright story with brand new criticism?
I suppose she can use the sniper/gunfire theme again, but, perhaps, we'll get something like she rolled up her sleeves and lugged sacks of food off the plane.
Heck, if we go down the line of all her travel, she'll have to claim, after she "misspeaks" on all those, that she was in a coma.
We can only offer one prediction out of all this;
I suspect some lonely intern is tucked away in the Clinton Campaign, culling through videotape and matching it up against her speeches this very evening.
While another one hunts down more Reverend Wright video and quotes.
“I was getting on average three to five calls a day for interviews about the war” in the first years, said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow on national security at the Brookings Institution. “Now it’s less than one a day.”
But, with the game on, he couldn't just sit on the sidelines and weep ...
No siree Bob, it was time to pick up those pom poms, clear his throat, dry his eyes and start chanting 'Go Team Go!" again.
"I want to call them the Lombardis of this war. … And in addition to Fred and Ken who have been two of the most important people. Andy Krepinevich is another important think tanker. Retired Gen. Jack Keane from the outside. A small group of people inside the administration, smaller than it should have been, but people like Meghan O’Sullivan. […]
These people did two things that I think would have made Vince Lombardi proud. One, they stuck with it, and they persevered through difficult times. And two, they stayed focused on fundamentals."
Though, actually, O'Hanlon, if he wanted to make a more accurate analogy of the Iraq Invasion and Occupation to football, he might have been better to choose Ohio State's Woody Hayes and his strategy of "three-yards and a cloud of dust".
That seems like the much more accurate view of what we have going on over there.
Mickey Edwards, who served with Cheney in Congress, has had enough, becoming "increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional ..."
"Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system.
That is the difference between a strong president (one who leads) and a strong presidency (one in which ultimate power resides in the hands of a single person). Bush is officially America's "head of state," but he is not the head of government; he is the head of one branch of our government, and it's not the branch that decides on war and peace."
Somebody, please, copy this, laminate it, and then staple it to the foreheads of the everyone in the Executive Branch, and, might as well do the same to every single person in The Congress
"Meanwhile, the junior Connecticut senator is not only backing the Republican nominee for the presidency, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, but appears to be making a contest of trying to get into every photo and TV news video with him. Perhaps Sen. Lieberman is taking delight in needling the chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, his 2004 opponent for the presidency, whose leadership he once dismissed as a “ticket to nowhere.”
Rather than building the bridges The Day expected when it endorsed Sen. Lieberman, he appears busy burning bridges with the party of which he is allegedly still a member. Perhaps the senator is positioning himself for a top cabinet post in a McCain presidency. But if the Democrats prevail, and enlarge their control of the Senate, it is hard to imagine this Connecticut senator being welcomed back with open arms."
