Deer in the Yard

Nice to look at even better to eat.

WP

Bush says he can edit security reports

By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 5, 4:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON -

President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the
Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it's appropriate for the administration to know what reports go to Congress and to review them beforehand.

"There can be a discussion on whether to accept a change or a nuance," she said. "It could be any number of things."

The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power.

The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110 statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee. They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

"The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

So many of you can continue to deny it, but there is not one thin dime's worth of difference between the Repuglicraps and the Democraps- so I say elect Hillary, this way, the war will start sooner...

WP

Spokane sheriff acknowledges porn search was at wrong house

Thanks to a regular reader for pointing me to this:

The Associated Press

SPOKANE - For a 67-year-old homeowner and his wife, wrongly subjected to a shattering pornography search, saying, "Oops, wrong number" is not enough.

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie D. Knezovich apologized Tuesday for the blunder, which he said resulted when Detective Timothy D. Hines tried to nail whoever was responsible for obscene calls to at least 20 or women enrolled at Whitworth College.

Hines wrote down the wrong figures for a telephone number associated with the calls, so he obtained a search warrant for a house in Spokane, miles from the correct location in suburban Spokane Valley, Knezovich said.

Through a spokesman in the sheriff's office Hines declined an interview request from the newspaper.

The irate homeowner told by The Spokesman-Review, which did not identify him at his request, that deputies dumped out drawers, went through his wallet and checkbook, seized computers, CDs, floppy disks, VHS tapes and other material and refused to clean up the mess in the raid Sept. 27.

Half a dozen sheriff's vehicles converged on the house, and after taking photographs outside Hines told officers within hearing of the neighbors, "Now let's go inside and get some porn," the owner said.

As if this was not insulting and degrading enough, the following certainly is:

Knezovich said he plans to adopted a more structured system for checking facts in search warrants, adding that Hines probably would not be disciplined.

"I could see it if it was a blatant lack of diligence," the sheriff said, "but sometimes things like that happen. A number can get transposed."

And Sheriff Knezovich, just how many other cases that Detecive Hines was involved with have simple mistakes too? You come out and apologize for the mistake because you are the sheriff, but has he done so PUBLICLY and if so, then why decline an interview? Is it because he did this:

Perhaps worse, he said, Hines played recordings of the obscene calls and his wife had to listen to "this filthy stuff." According to court documents, the obscene caller made lewd suggestions while describing child pornography he said he was watching.

The West Point Road resident said Hines argued with his wife when she told him the voice on the recording wasn't that of the man to whom she had been married for 37 years.

When he put his arm around his wife as she cried, the man said, Hines challenged him: "What are you doing?"

The man said Hines told him he could keep the story out of the newspaper if the man would confess. Three days later, the homeowner said, his wife called him at a Promise Keepers meeting to tell him the newspaper had published a story about the search.

Yes, certainly, another simple mistake by a cop, who threatens innocent people with things that turn anyone's stomach, once again, and of course, we can't sanction him for that let alone a wrong number, now can we?

WP

Muslims! NO STROKING YOUR MONKEYS!

Khameini: Don't masturbate during Ramadan

Iran's supreme leader answers questions on masturbation and other topics on his website Yaakov Lappin Published: 10.04.06, 19:55

Deliberate masturbation during the month of Ramadan renders a fast invalid, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has ruled.

Khameini, who is Iran's most powerful political and religious figure, was asked on his website: "If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?"

"If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct even though he has done a h.ar?m (forbidden) act. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a h.ar?m intentional breaking fasting," the Iranian leader said, posting the reply on his website.

If he do not intend? What is this, a poor translation or a lingustic cousin to Ebonics? Either way, just remember to remind all of our Muslim friends, NO STROKING YOUR MONKEYS! during Ramadan! So says one of your direct lines to allah!

WP

MOLON LABE

A friend with the BP sent me the original link and all I can say is WOW!

More on the upcoming movie here and the production blog here.

WP

Found over at Shorty's

Officials: Inmate got 'Katie's Revenge' tattoo by force
POSTED: 6:02 p.m. EDT, September 29, 2006

EVANSVILLE, Indiana (AP) -- An inmate serving a life sentence for molesting and murdering a 10-year-old girl named Katie was apparently forcibly tattooed across the forehead by a fellow prisoner with the words "KATIE'S REVENGE," authorities say.

Anthony Ray Stockelman, 39, was removed from the general prison population for his own safety last weekend after authorities discovered the tattoo, officials said.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

WP

I am not a fan of Wireless

However, some clients want to use it and Mr. Sharkey provided me a good link for a random WEP Key generator- use it wisely and change it often...

WP

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (movies that is)!

Found via LewRockwell:

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

BY | Michael C. LaBarbera

SESSION 1: Biology and Geometry Collide!

Size has been one of the most popular themes in monster movies, especially those from my favorite era, the 1950s. The premise is invariably to take something out of its usual context--make people small or something else (gorillas, grasshoppers, amoebae, etc.) large--and then play with the consequences. However, Hollywood's approach to the concept has been, from a biologist's perspective, hopelessly naïve. Absolute size cannot be treated in isolation; size per se affects almost every aspect of an organism's biology. Indeed, the effects of size on biology are sufficiently pervasive and the study of these effects sufficiently rich in biological insight that the field has earned a name of its own: "scaling."

In the cube on the left, length = 1 and volume = 1 (L x L x L). The cube in the middle, where L=2, has a volume of 8. And in the cube on the right, L=3 and V=27.

The conceptual foundations of scaling relationships lie in geometry. Take any object--a sphere, a cube, a humanoid shape. Such an object will have a number of geometric properties of which length, area, and volume are of the most immediate relevance. All areas (surface area, cross-sectional area, etc.) will be proportional to some measure of length squared (i.e., length times length); volumes will be proportional to length cubed (length times length times length). Equivalently, lengths are proportional to the square root of an area or the cube root of a volume.

I do not think that this is his real goal, and most will appreciate his usage of great B-Movies for examples, but for some, the results will be as my title states- nevertheless, it is an enjoyable read about science.

Now, if we could just stop the Monsters of the "The Swamp", and I mean all of them...

WP

October 3rd, 1993

Remember- then remember this:

"On August 29 Task Force Ranger flew into Mogadishu. They were led by General William Garrison and consisted of 440 elite troops from Delta Force. Their mission was to capture Aidid. But, at the same time, in September 1993 the Clinton Administration began a secret plan to negotiate with Aidid. U.S. military commanders within Somalia were not apprised of this. U.S. Defense Secretary Les Aspin denied a request for armored reinforcements made by General Montgomery."

WP

Come And Take It!

From October 2, 2004:

Today is a great day in Texas History. It's the day the first shots in the successful Texas revolution were fired. In a surprise attack at dawn October 2nd, 1835 outside Gonzales under the "Come and Take It" flag a band of noble Texicans took the Mexican force which had been sent to seize their cannons.

"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression."

Unanimous Declaration of Independence
March 2, 1836
Washington-on-the-Brazo, Texas

I must point out those reasons sound very much like things happening today...

--WP