27 July, 2007

Cops: Man, 93, Shoots Violent Robber

Jul 27 02:46 PM US/Eastern

EL DORADO, Ark. (AP) - An elderly man beaten unconscious by an assailant wielding a soda can awoke and shot the man during an attempted robbery, police said.

Willie Lee Hill, 93, told police he saw the robber while in his bedroom Wednesday night. Hill confronted the man and was struck at least 50 times, police said. He was knocked unconscious.

Covered in blood, Hill regained consciousness a short time later and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on his attacker. The suspect, Douglas B. Williams Jr., saw the gun and charged the man, who fired a bullet that struck Williams in the throat, police said.

"I got what I deserved," Williams, 24, told police when they arrived, officers said. Investigators reported finding, among other items, a Craftsman drill bit set, three pocket knives and two hearing aids inside his pockets.
No you did not- you deserved death Douglas B. Williams.

WP

25 July, 2007

FBI Proposes Building Network of U.S. Informants

July 25, 2007 1:01 PM

Justin Rood Reports

The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.
In former communist East Germany, the STASI called them what? Oh, that is right, the FBI, I mean the STASI, called the Quislings and Snitches the Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs, Unofficial Collaborators).

WP

Disney stubs out smoking from its films

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles

Published: July 25 2007 18:17 | Last updated: July 25 2007 18:17

Walt Disney on Wednesday became the first Hollywood studio to phase out cigarette smoking in its films, saying smoking scenes in future Disney-branded movies would be "non-existent".

The Disney move is the latest blow Hollywood has dealt the tobacco industry and comes weeks after the Motion Picture Association of America, responsible for the film ratings system, said it would consider smoking alongside other factors, such as violence or sexual content, when rating a film.

In a letter to Edward Markey, chairman of the House sub-committee on telecommunications and the internet, Bob Iger, Disney's chief executive, said the company would also "discourage" depictions of smoking in films made by its other studio labels, which make films for older audiences, such as Miramax and Touchstone.

Disney plans to add public service announcements to DVDs of any future films containing smoking scenes and said it would work with owners of cinema chains to show anti-smoking announcements before the start of films.
Nevertheless, it seems, for at least the past ten years, every Disney production CERTAINLY had a POLE-SMOKER in it and I am sure the future productions will too.

WP

24 July, 2007

US Fish & Wildlife - Why a SCIF Room

This is interesting:
General Information

Document Type: Presolicitation Notice
Solicitation Number: 973107Q036
Posted Date: Jul 24, 2007
Original Response Date: Aug 15, 2007
Current Response Date: Aug 15, 2007
Original Archive Date: Jul 23, 2008
Current Archive Date: Jul 23, 2008
Classification Code: Z -- Maintenance, repair, and alteration of real property
Set Aside: Total Small Business

Contracting Office Address

National Conservation Training Center-Division of Facility Operations U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 698 Conservation Way Shepherdstown WV 25443

Description

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Conservation Training Center (NCTC), Shepherdstown, WV intends to convert a room at the facility into a SCIF meeting space. Potential Vendors are required to provide a design and cost estimate based on information provided with the solicitation and the scheduled walk through meeting on August 8, 2007 at 10:00am. The room upon completion will meet all of the required National Security Agency SCIF standards.
For those that do not know what a SCIF room is, the acronym stands for:

Secure Compartmented Information Facility

Further, why only two weeks notice for the pre-solicitation and bid?

WP

21 July, 2007

Bush says Sutton fair

INVASION USA
Bush won't promise to pardon border agents
Says 'dear friend' who prosecuted Ramos, Compean 'even-handed,' 'fair guy'
Posted: July 20, 2007
3:33 p.m. Eastern

Questioned by an audience member at a forum, President Bush said he could not promise to pardon former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

"I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this," Bush said at the Nashville event yesterday, which focused on his budget.

Bush referred to the U.S. attorney responsible for the case, Johnny Sutton, as "a dear friend of mine" and called him a "fair guy" and "even-handed," according to a White House transcript.

The president elicited laughter when he told the questioner, "You've got a nice smile, but you can't entice me into making a public statement."

"I know this is an emotional issue, but people need to look at the facts," Bush said. "These men were convicted by a jury of their peers after listening to the facts as my friend, Johnny Sutton, presented them. But anyway, no, I won't make you that promise."
Either you are a liar or a fool President Bush- I think you both.

A liar for saying Ramso & Compean received a fair trial- as they should have NEVER been charged to begin with, and a fool if you do not think Johnny Sutton is not another suck ass politician, just like yourself, willing to say anything to climb the power ladder.

So, tell us again about how you support the Border Patrol George. Oh, that is right, the Mexican Border Patrol is the one you support, the one that is paid to invade these united States.

Just how profitable is that?

WP

20 July, 2007

July 20th, 1969

"One small step for Man..."



WP

19 July, 2007

"We legally steal,"

Garrett refrained from asking for an official reprimand, but he and other conservative Republicans took after Young's declaration that the funds in question represented his money. The assembled conservatives then launched into a general attack on earmarked spending.

"We legally steal," argued Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), defending her colleague from New Jersey.
Rare candor indeed from a politician...

WP

18 July, 2007

Mary Jo Kopechne

She would have been sixty-seven in one week; instead, a small, cowardly punk let her drown in his Mommy's car when she was twenty-nine and then left her body there to be found by two fishermen. In fact, he did not even report one thing to the police until after her body was discovered and the police came to him. Just remember this as the fat, bloated, drunkard bastard writes or pushes another bill to become law- just like he is now, and know that the so many filthy people in Massachusetts have been willing to re-elect him, repeatedly since his crime. Further, at one point many across these united States wanted him to be president and many of them are now in one or the other house of the national legislature.

Makes you want to look up those running for the nomination of the Democrat Party today supported in 1980...

WP

13 July, 2007

James D. Nicholson: RIP

One of the finest American men- ever.

WP

07 July, 2007

Robert Anson Heinlein

Happy Birthday!

Some quotes from he and his works:
"I am quite used to being considered too spectacular. My own brother, a colonel of engineers, thought my pre-war stories about the atomic bomb and atomic weapons to be sheer moonshine; he has since flown over to Hiroshima and changed his mind."
-- RAH From Grumbles from the Grave

"My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels."
-- Daniel Boone Davis in The Door Into Summer

"Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect."
-- From the notebooks of Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit."
-- The Judge in Life-Line

"That's impossible!"
"Yep, so is a baby, son."
-- Lazarus Long and unidentified Howard Families member in Methuselah's Children

"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excssive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into the machinery that does not work too well at best."
-- From the notebooks of Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

"I'm buying and you're selling. If you don't sell what I want to buy I'll go where they do sell it."
-- Daniel Boone Davis in the door into summer

"Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them."
-- Mr. (Colonel) DuBois in Starship Troopers

"He's an honest politician, he stays bought."
-- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger In a Strange Land

"People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt."
-- From the notebooks of Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay--and claims a halo for his dishonesty."
-- John Joseph Bonforte in Double Star

"Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia -- the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death... before they breed more hemophiliacs."
-- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

"But we made our own fun, mostly. I recall a time, many years later, when American children seemed unable to amuse themselves without a fortune in electrical and electronic equipment. We had no fancy equipment and did not miss it."
-- Maureen Johnson in To Sail Beyond the Sunset

"You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic."
-- Zeb in Revolt in 2001

"But the thing that stonkered me was the idea on Canada united with us. Most Americans do not know why Canadians dislike us (I do not), but they do. The idea that Canadians would ever vote to unite with us boggles the mind."
-- Alexander Hergensheimer/Alex Graham in Job: A Comedy of Justice

"Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing."
-- Dr. Jubal Harshaw in To Sail Beyond the Sunset

"The third 'right'? - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore.

Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."
-- Mr. (Colonel) Dubois in Starship Troopers

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame.. as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and _nowhere_ else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world.. aware that his efforts will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."
-- Professor Bernardo De La Paz in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- From the notebooks of Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
WP

04 July, 2007

Independence Day

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ? That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.? Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
  • He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  • He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  • He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  • He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  • He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  • He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  • He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
  • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  • He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
  • He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
  • He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  • For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  • For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  • For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
  • For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  • For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  • He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
  • He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  • He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
  • He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  • He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration were:

Connecticut:
Samuel Huntington
Roger Sherman
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

Delaware:
Thomas McKean
George Read
Caesar Rodney

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman-Hall
Geroge Walton

Massachusetts:
John Adams
Samuel Adams
Elbridge Gerry
John Hancock
Robert Treat Paine

Maryland:
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
Matthew Thornton
William Whipple

New Jersey:
Abraham Clark
John Hart
Francis Hopkinson
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon

New York:
Francis Lewis
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Lewis Morris

North Carolina:
Joseph Hewes
William Hooper
John Penn

Pennsylvania:
George Clymer
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Morris
John Morton
George Ross
Benjamin Rush
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson

Rhode Island:
William Ellery
Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina:
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Edward Rutledge

Virginia:
Carter Braxton
Benjamin Harrison
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
George Wythe

Have a glorious Independence Day and remember these words everyday:

"And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

--WP

02 July, 2007

Boys, since your looking for me.

I will make it easy for you and tell you about a brand new invention called E-mail, oh, and I suggest you use it.

WP