Harry Reid Says “Coal Makes Us Sick”

Wrong Harry, it is you and your ilk, that makes us sick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqR0Ui0g3wI

When a 747 gets struck by lightning, it might be more shocking for the onlookers than the passengers

Popsci.com

Alabama executions “highly problematic”: U.N. envoy

Bits:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The criminal justice system in the U.S. state of Alabama needs to be improved to ensure that no innocent people are executed but officials there seem indifferent to the problem, a U.N. envoy said on Monday.

A U.S. official, however, rejected the envoy’s views.

Reuters via Breitbart

Uhhhh, UN, so are the “executions” say in Mugabeland, Sudan, Saudia Arabia, Persia and the rest of the list, YOU WILL NOT ACT ON!

The right to blog: freedom’s next frontier

A summit on global citizen media highlights the experience of activist bloggers under authoritarian regimes and raises questions about how best to champion their work, says Evgeny Morozov.

Bits:

Evgeny Morozov is a technology and new-media expert and independent consultant. His website is here. One of his current initiatives is Polymeme.com

Evgeny Morozov is reporting on the Citizen Media Summit, organised by Global Voices Online, held in Budapest on 27-28 June 2008

Moreover, these idealistic people did not talk much about gadgets, fashion, or campaign-financing; nor rush to praise or scorn Barack Obama or John McCain; nor fret over the latest celebrity-hunt or political trick in the style of Gawker or the Huffington Post. Instead, they got into heated discussions (often in heavily accented English) over a different set of topics: internet filtering, human-rights violations, and the future of freedom of expression.

The Budapest gathering represents one of the major benefits of today’s internet revolution: the radical democratisation of the global flow of ideas. The technology, the ideas and the processes that have made possible blogs, social networks, and collaborative projects like Wikipedia also give many unconventional thinkers previously consigned to the margins of public life a platform that enables them to be heard by a dedicated (if often tiny) audience. The academic, blogger and pundit Daniel W Drezner has called this new generation – free from the usual constraints of the academia, self-employed, and armed with Google search – “Public Intellectuals 2.0”.

But is it “Public Intellectuals 2.0” or “Dissidents 2.0”? The Budapest experience suggests that the movement slowly emerging on the margins of the blogosphere shares much in common with an older generation of those who sought to “speak truth to power”. The city’s mayor Gábor Demszky – a communist-era dissident – was one of the first people to welcome some Global Voices bloggers. The early stencils used to copy anti-government materials in east-central Europe, now housed in the Open Society archives in Budapest, add to the sense that there are similarities between blogging and samizdat. It may be just a matter of time before an Apple or a Lenovo laptop belonging to a Belarusian or an Uzbek dissident-blogger finds a well-deserved placed next to these stencils.

 

The rest at, openDemocracy.net

Biologist Jumps in Gulf of Mexico to Rescue Sedated Bear

APALACHICOLA, Fla. — A Florida Fish and Wildlife biologist pulled off a daring rescue Saturday in the Panhandle: He rescued a bear.

A 375-pound male black bear was seen roaming a residential neighborhood near Alligator Point, officials said. The bear was hit with a tranquilizer dart, but he managed to bolt into the Gulf of Mexico before he was sedated.

As the tranquilizer drugs took effect, FWC biologist Adam Warwick jumped in to keep the bear from drowning.

He managed to get the bear to shore, and then a backhoe operator helped load the animal to a truck. The bear was relocated to Osceola National Forest near Lake City.

The bear was probably, just a tad pissed.

Ratko, World’s Smartest Cab Driver: EU= Big Yugoslavia

I’m not a regular reader of Michael Totten, but Instapundit linked to an absolutely riveting post of his that kept my attention for far too long this morning. I’m the world’s foremost authority when it comes to ADD post-reading, so that’s saying something (If a post reaches to the bottom of my 23″ monitor, I almost always skip it).

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Ratko, by far the world’s most intelligent and prescient cab driver:

This brilliant man summed up the problem with the European Union in a single fractured sentence… and he claims not to speak English:

“So far, everyone Sean and I spoke to in the former Yugoslavia thought Kosovo’s newfound independence was a good thing – including the Serbs we had coffee with in Belgrade on two separate occasions. The Serbs we met, though – Filip David and Predrag Delibasic – are cosmopolitan writers and intellectuals who don’t adhere to the Serbian Nationalist line.

“Montenegro and the European Union?” Sean said.

“No!” Ratko said. “European Union…big Yugoslavia.”

No pundit anywhere has ever said it better. The EU is an attempt so fuse different cultures, different languages, and profoundly different peoples into a whole, just like the royals and later commie bastards did with Yugoslavia… and, I might add, Czechoslovakia.

Today, those former unholy amalgams have split up into the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo et al. Will the EU learn a lesson from this? Nope. And, I’ll bet real, actual money on it.

Read the whole enchelada to get a feel for this region, as Michael and crew take a sometimes harrowing trip through there. It’s one of the finest blog posts I’ve ever read.

PETA Writes Back.

Remember this?

I got a reply today:

Dear [nilk],

Thanks for contacting PETA regarding our “Milk Gone Wild” advertisement. Please allow me to explain our thoughts behind this ad.

PETA’s goal is to stop animal suffering, and we use all available opportunities to reach millions of people with powerful messages. Unfortunately, getting the animal rights message to the public is not always easy and straightforward. Unlike our opposition, which is mostly composed of wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely on free “advertising” through media coverage. We often do outrageous things to get the word out because the media usually do not consider the facts alone “interesting” enough to cover. The goal of our risqué “Milk Gone Wild” commercial is to bring visitors to our Milk Gone Wild Web site (http://www.MilkGoneWild.com), where they can learn about the misery that goes into each glass of milk.

Cows raised for their milk spend most of their lives in large sheds or on feces-caked mud lots. Because cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do—for their babies—they are routinely impregnated by artificial insemination. Many male calves are taken away and chained inside cramped dark crates to be killed for veal so that the milk that nature meant for them can end up on our supermarket shelves instead. When mother cows’ exhausted bodies can no longer provide enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers and other low-grade meat products because their bodies are too “spent” to be used for anything else.

More and more doctors and nutritionists are also recommending that we banish milk and dairy products from our diets altogether because they’re loaded with fat and cholesterol and have been linked to diabetes, heart disease, allergies, several types of cancer, asthma, and even osteoporosis, the very disease that they’re supposed to prevent. Even the world’s most renowned expert on child care, the late Dr. Benjamin Spock, recommended that parents raise children on a diet free of cow’s milk and pointed out that it’s easier and safer to get calcium solely from vegetables, beans, peas, and other plant-based sources. Two excellent summaries of the health consequences of dairy consumption can be found on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Web site: http://www.pcrm.org/health/Info_on_Veg_Diets/milk.html and http://www.pcrm.org/health/Info_on_Veg_Diets/dairy.html.

MilkGoneWild.com has become PETA’s most visited Web page ever—getting the amount of traffic that most companies or organizations pay millions of dollars for. It’s getting the truth about the dairy industry covered in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States and reaching millions of people who are visiting our Web sites to learn more. Many people have also written to us to request information about living dairy-free. We hope that you will take a moment to visit http://www.DumpDairy.com for information on how you can help cows who suffer in the dairy industry and http://www.GoVeg.com for tips on how you can help other animals who wind up on the ends of our forks.

Finally, it is not true that the human body is “designed” to eat animals. If it were, then why is a vegetarian diet healthier than meat-based ones? It’s no wonder that our consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked with many major diseases and other health problems, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Cholesterol (found only in animal products) and animal fat clog arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes. A vegetarian diet, on the other hand, has been shown to improve blood flow to the heart and cause a regression of coronary atherosclerosis. Colon cancer rates are highest in regions where meat consumption is high and lowest in regions where meat consumption is low. Similar patterns are evident with regard to breast, cervical, uterine, ovarian, prostate, and lung cancers. For more information about the benefits of a vegetarian diet, please visit http://www.GoVeg.com/theissues.asp.

Thank you again for giving us the chance to explain the thoughts behind our ad and our tactics.

Sincerely,

Jeff Haines

Correspondence Assistant

PETA Foundation

http://www.PETA.org/

Of course, there was no reply to my comment about the objectification of women in advertising, and as for Dr Benjamin Spock….. less said the better for now.

There are different sorts of cholesterol as far as I’m aware, and I’m pretty sure that PETA has some rather large organisations backing it.

It didn’t take you that long to catch Dillinger

Something Very Seriously Wrong Here. Wonder if it will happen, with WordPress?

Bloggasm

Bits:

When Carissa Snedeker went to log into her Blogspot account Wednesday evening at about 7:30, she had no idea what would be waiting for her. She had created her blog, Blue Lyon, three years ago and up until this point had very few problems posting new content. But this time a message from Google came up when she visited her dashboard.

“This blog has been locked due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations,” the message stated. “You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked.”

But a short time later Snedeker received an email from another blogger claiming that a number of anti-Obama blogs had been “hacked” that same night. After some digging it became apparent that several Blogspot accounts had been shut down because of similar spam issues, and nearly all of them had three things in common: Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, all were anti-Barack Obama, and several were listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama website.

“I also felt a little bit humiliated that someone would think to characterize my Blog as ’spam,’” she said. “I had no idea why it would be ’spam’ I assumed it was just some sort of mistake. I did think it was an isolated incident. I requested the Blogger review. I then went to the Hillary Clinton Forum, a place I frequently participate in on line discussions, and I saw Nobama’s post ‘Blogger just shut down my NObama Blog!!‘ Then when other Blogger blogs were affected, I knew it was more than coincidence.”

RELATED:

Sister Toldjah

Just another example of how far some far left Obama supporters are willing to go to shut down criticism about the Obamessiah? Bloggasm and Stop The ACLU take a look.

I haven’t had much of a chance to dive too deeply into the controversy, but it wouldn’t be surprising to find out this indeed was happening, considering how so many far left Obama supporters react at the slightest hint of criticism of Barry Oh.

via Instapundit

Welcome to “freedom of speech” Barack Hussein Obama, style. Don’t worry people, it’ll get worse

Word Press!? Are you going to allow “freedom of speech” intimidation and stifling?

 

I Dare You

Watch CNN over then next few days or weeks.

They’re turning.

They still grovel at the end of sets.

They just started that ‘Going Green’ sketch.

But bear with me.

Watch.

Time For Some Australiana

A song written to idolise Australia, “We Are Australian”.

The Ten Commandments For On The Road

‘Twas nearly two minutes ago, when Ash decended from the upper level of the house, and entered the lounge, proclaiming to have received word from God. Our Lord, the protector, had spoken, and delivered thus Ten Commandments for use whilst driving. His message was thus:

1. Thou whost drive may have the option of having the following bumper sticker on thy vehicle. Being rear-ended whilst driving a vehicle with said bumber sticker autmoatically puts the other guy at fault. Although no promises, for not even the Almighty can make insurance companies behave.
2. Thou shalt indicate within 25 metres of the turn intended. If thou intendeth to turn, thou should intend to tell other drivers. Otherwise, the more easily annoyed may intentionally take the turn fast enough to make thou very nervous.
3. Thou shalt not use thy high beams on the freeway. Enough said.
4. Thou shalt not consume the blood of Christ and drive. The Almighty has much better plans for all than to be killed by someone too plastered to be able to drive.
5. Thou shalt not park thy car in the KFC drive-thru. The Messenger goes crazy when she cannot have her Potato&Gravy fix, and parking your car is a very effective way to get the Messenger to take the crowbar out of her boot and engage in some reckless abandon.
6. If thou drivest a four-wheel drive vehicle or a van, thou shalt ensure that thou is not parking on the other side of a small vehicle that already has a van or four-wheel drive next to it. The crowbar may be used to ensure that the Messenger can see through the back of your vehicle.
7. Thou shalt not speed up and slow down for no apparent reason. It is unsafe for those following, even at a safe distance.
8. Thou shalt park their vehicles correctly in car parks. If thou cannot park correctly, find another car park wherest thou can.
9. Thou shalt not drop to 30km/h in School Zones. Slowing to 40km/h is enough, particularly outside high schools where thou may assume that 12-18 year olds know about crossing the road.
10. Thou shalt eridacate the vermin which is “permanent speed cameras”. All travellers know the location thereof, thus they are merely for revenue purposes. If thy Police Service wants to stop speeding, get some officers out there with mobile cameras and move them around to where people know not their location.

(Ash is gonna pay dearly for this in the Confessional…)

More progress. Guess who?

Food: 38, 000 tons of wheat delivered to North Korea Monday. Delivered by UN World Food Program… on US ships… wonder who paid?

Korean Nuclear facility: blown up… by North Koreans.

The promised U.S. aid will help the World Food Program rapidly expand its assistance from the 1.2 million currently being fed to more than 5 million hungry North Koreans, the agency said.

N. Korea destroys nuclear reactor tower.

South Africa’s leaders remain shamefully silent and impotent regarding their northern neighbor’s recent ruthless power grab.

Mugabe: The Anti-Mandela/ Pajamas Media

Hey, I have a hell of an idea. Why don’t we let the U.N. handl…ahhh, never mind.

Commanding a Role for Women in the Military

Bits:

WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody has delighted in leaping through the doors of military planes and plunging into the night with a parachute on her back.

A master parachutist and a former battalion commander, General Dunwoody handled logistics for the 82nd Airborne Division in Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war. As a three-star general, she has flown to Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure the steady flow of ammunition, tanks and fuel to the troops.

But one of the biggest joys of her 33-year military career has been jumping out of airplanes and into roles previously unimaginable to generations of women in the Army. Last week, President Bush asked General Dunwoody to take over a new Army command as a four-star general. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first woman in the armed services to achieve that rank.

New York Times

President Bush? Nahhhhh. Everybody knows Bush is a sexist pig, just ask Condi Rice. OH and Bush is a “racist” too. Just ask Condi Rice. Well OK…Colin Powell, as well among others.

God Damn Bush. God Damn America. Right Jeremiah?

Hey Tex. Wesley Clark, wouldn’t earn the right, to wash this guys underwear….Neither could Barack Hussein Obama.

Blind Special Forces soldier: determined to serve

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) – When Capt. Ivan Castro joined the Army, he set goals: to jump out of planes, kick in doors and lead soldiers into combat. He achieved them all. Then the mortar round landed five feet away, blasting away his sight. “Once you’re blind, you have to set new goals,” Castro said.

He set them higher.

Not content with just staying in the Army, he is the only blind officer serving in the Special Forces—the small, elite units famed for dropping behind enemy lines on combat missions.

“I am going to push the limits,” said the 40-year-old executive officer at the 7th Special Forces Group’s headquarters company in Fort Bragg. “I don’t want to go to Fort Bragg and show up and sit in an office. I want to work every day and have a mission.”

Breitbart

Frankly Tex, I’m tickled you commented, please do more commenting. 🙂

Hidden Meaning

There may be a hidden message to this. Then again, there may not.

It’s up to you 😉

Get Your Hand Off It Kev!

Serial moonbat lawyer and Minister for Health Nicola Roxon has proposed that all smokers need to have a permit.

Fucking hell, where do I start on this?!

Smokers. Are. Not. Idiots!

Campaigns that have been going on for years have made absolutely everyone completely aware that smoking comes with risks. Only people living under rocks haven’t been made aware of this. Over time, some people have chosen to quit, and others haven’t. I reiterate: some people have chosen to quit. Smoking is a choice, and even those addicted to it can choose to seek help quitting if they want to. The Government should butt the fuck out of people’s lives.

I would have thought that the government, which receives $15 billion in taxes from the sale of cigarettes would be starting a pro-smoking campaign, because fuck knows how they’re going to get all the funding from their moronic schemes if they ban or lift taxes on popular items too high. I don’t think long-term is how this government is really thinking.

Some of the commenters at the excellent Andrew Bolt’s place have raised the analogy between needing to carry an identification card to buy cigarettes and Nazi Germany. I think it’s a false analogy, but then again, if anyone in Labor knew how to fire a gun…

Holy #$%@! Do you mean we can’t say *$@#! when talking about Obama’s record or %&#$! if we want to discuss attacks on McCain?

7 Words You Can’t Say in Campaign 2008/Pajamas Media via Instapundit

Wesley Clark Downplays McCain War Record’s Value

Bits:

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Clark downplayed the plane crash that led to McCain’s captivity during the Vietnam War, and said the squadron McCain commanded “wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

When Schieffer noted Obama has not had wartime experiences, Clark said: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

THIS IS Wesley Clark:

Bits:

Wesley Clark: The Guy Who Almost Started World War III

“At the beginning of the Kosovo conflict, CounterPunch delved into the military career of General Wesley Clark and discovered that his meteoric rise through the ranks derived from the successful manipulation of appearances: faking the results of combat exercises, greasing to superiors and other practices common to the general officer corps. We correctly predicted that the unspinnable realities of a real war would cause him to become unhinged. Given that Clark attempted to bomb the CNN bureau in Belgrade and ordered the British General Michael Jackson to engage Russian troops in combat at the end of the war, we feel events amply vindicated our forecast.

“With the end of hostilities it has become clear even to Clark that most people, apart from some fanatical members of the war party in the White House and State Department, consider the general, as one Pentagon official puts it, ‘a horse’s ass.’ Defense Secretary William Cohen is known to loathe him, and has seen to it that the Hammer of the Serbs will be relieved of the Nato command two months early.”

In Waging Modern War, General Clark wrote about his fury upon learning that Russian peacekeepers had entered the airport at Pristina, Kosovo, before British or American forces. In the article “The guy who almost started World War III,” (Aug. 3, 1999), The Guardian (U.K.) wrote, “No sooner are we told by Britain’s top generals that the Russians played a crucial role in ending the West’s war against Yugoslavia than we learn that if NATO’s supreme commander, the American General Wesley Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed Pristina airport, threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis with Moscow since the end of the Cold War.”

“I’m not going to start the third world war for you,” General Sir Mike Jackson, commander of the international KFOR peacekeeping force, is reported to have told Gen. Clark when he refused to accept an order to send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the airfield of Kosovo’s provincial capital. The Times of London reported on 23 May 2001 in an article titled, “Kosovo clash of allied generals,” that “General Sir Michael Jackson [was] told that he would have to resign if he refused to obey an order by the American commander of Nato’s forces during the Kosovo war to stop the Russians from seizing control of Pristina airport in June 1999.”

If General Clark had had his way, we might have gone to war with Russia, or at least resurrected vestiges of the Cold War and we certainly would have had hundreds if not thousands of casualties in an ill-conceived ground war

In his article titled, “A Long, Tough Job,” which appeared in the Washington Post on 14 September, Clark writes, “And the American public will have to grasp and appreciate a new approach to warfare. Our objective should be neither revenge nor retaliation, though we will achieve both. Rather, we must systematically target and destroy the complex, interlocking network of international terrorism. The aim should be to attack not buildings and facilities but the people who have masterminded, coordinated, supported and executed these and other terrorist attacks.

“Our methods should rely first on domestic and international law, and the support and active participation of our friends and allies around the globe. Evidence must be collected, networks uncovered and a faceless threat given shape and identity.”

“Rely on international law”? Clinton and his gangsters broke every international law on the books regarding Yugoslavia. “Evidence must be collected?” Evidence of what? The Serbs certainly did not have weapons of mass destruction; nor did they attack us first; nor were they ever a threat to us. His words ring hollow.

You can read “Wes” Clark’s letter to the National Albanian American Council of 1 November 2002, in which he says, “Let’s stay in touch.” For an American general who was supposed to be impartial in a civil war, it is no secret that Clark is the Albanian lobby’s fair-haired boy. And why not? He delivered Kosovo to them.

General Clark brags about the fact that not one solder was killed under his command. Even though the Serbs had every opportunity to kill American soldiers, I contend that the Serbs did not want Americans to die at their hands. This was illustrated when Sgt. Christopher Stone of Smiths Creek, Michigan, upon his release, left a note to his prison guards thanking them for treating him with “dignity and respect.” The Pentagon declined to release a copy of Stone’s note, but a copy was made available to The Associated Press (5 May 1999). The note ended with “Thank you, you are very kind” and “God help you.”

Col. David Hackworth, in his 1999 commentary Defending America, wrote of Clark: Known by those who’ve served with him as the Ultimate Perfumed Prince, he’s far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and soldiers die.

Col. Jatras writes that “General Clark is the kind of general we saw too often during the Vietnam War and hoped never to see again in a position of responsibility for the lives of our GIs and the security of our nation. That it happened once again we can thank that other Rhodes scholar from Arkansas.”In this writer’s judgement, what this guy is positioning himself for is the VP slot with Hillary running for President. It would be a marriage made in Hell…a Hell for all of us.

Knowing all the above, why would anyone want as president or VP a guy who was willing to start World War III for the sake of his own ego and self-importance?

AntiWar.com

Clark is an advisor to Hussein Obama. Gee, I think I’d much rather have McCain and it seems as though many concur. Wesley Clark is an asshole.

UPDATE:

In fairness To Wesley…

In a March conference call with reporters while he was still backing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clark said: “Everybody admires John McCain’s service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There’s no issue there. He’s a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot – and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam – that doesn’t prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn’t give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.”

AP

But he’s still an asshole, Tex.

16 Accidentally Wounded by French Military in Shooting Demo

PARIS — A military shooting demonstration in southeast France on Sunday left 16 people wounded, including children, when real bullets were used instead of blank ones, officials said.

Four of the wounded were in serious condition, including a 3-year-old child, Bernard Lemaire, chief of the regional administration in Aude, said on France-3 television. Fifteen of the injured were civilians.

A Defense Ministry official said the incident occurred during a demonstration of hostage-freeing techniques at the Laperrine military barracks. The official said investigators will look into why real bullets were used.

No information was immediately available about what kind of weapon was used.

The soldier who fired the shots has been detained, Lemaire said. He said the injuries were likely an accident but that it could have been a “criminal act.”

In a statement, President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his “horror” at Sunday’s incident at the base, which houses the 3rd marine infantry parachute regiment.

The injured were taken to nearby hospitals, with the most seriously wounded taken to Toulouse.

Sarkosy…Don’t worry, this happens everywhere 😉

Obama Joke floating around the Interwebby

St. Peter is at the Pearly Gates checking up on the people waiting to enter Heaven.

He asks the next one in line, ‘So, who are you, and what did you do on Earth?’

The fellow says, ‘I’m Barack Obama, and I was the first black to be elected President of the United States ‘

St. Peter says, ‘The U.S.? A black President? You gotta be kidding me! When did this happen?’

Obama says, ‘About twenty minutes ago.’

“My Name is Gladiator” – Maximus

I fucking love this movie! Just watched it again… for about the umteenth time.

Honor among men… as men. Shit like that is virtually lost in today’s world. There ought to be more movies like this. I never tire of watching it.

That is all.

Russian Education System Fails Students

Since the end of World War II, the Russian education system has engaged in a system of propaganda, a component of which is their version of the way supreme asshole Adolf Hitler died.

The myth that Adolf Hitler escaped to the South Pole and died there has been so ingrained in Russian education that the Russian Centre for Forensic Medicine has had to issue a statement saying that this is just a myth, and that Hitler died in Berlin on April 30, 1945.

Question that springs to mind is: “They needed a whole fucking investigation to figure that out?!”

E Come Musica

E Come Musica by Al Bano Carrisi

Lyrics: