Monday, March 31, 2008

Remember when the main stream press 'laid off' Chelsea Clinton ....

.... 'cause she was young, homely, not bright, and a Democrat saddled with the sick First Couple as parents. But they ignored the Bush Gals when they went to public high schools and public universities and then served all over the world in volunteer organizations..... but then they piled on when they had two beers --- kinda like the kids we all know!

Chelsea Clinton Criticizes Bush in N.C.
By ERIN GARTNER (31 Narch)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Chelsea Clinton returned Monday to North Carolina, telling college students that the world will "breathe a sigh of relief" once President Bush leaves office. Clinton spoke Monday during a town hall meeting with students at North Carolina State University. She later moved on to Peace College in Raleigh to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Clinton told about 250 people at N.C. State that her mother, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, would work to repair the nation's reputation abroad.
"I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief when this president is gone," Clinton said, criticizing Bush for pulling out of various accordings, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.


Like him or not, I cannot remember when a sitting President showed more respect and dignity toward a past president than George Bush has shown to the Phirst Philanderer and his Enabler.

And from her comments (above) now it is payback time -- classless Clinton style --- guess the tipsy little daughter didn't fall far from the tree!

Here is a picture you didn't see on the front page of the Times!

My God!! That Hellary has been everywhere....

Kinda brings a tear or two to your eyes - jess thinkin' about all the wonderful things this good woman has done for this country....... and never seekin' any credit for it, either!!!

As Martha Stewart might say.....

... the common sense and judicial wisdom and restraint shown by our American Court System is "a good thing"! This from NKY.com:

Deters rips $1M bond in theft case

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters was so stunned by the $1 million bond set Thursday for a man accused of a $21 theft from 1990 that he wouldn’t object to the man being freed.

“It’s a bit silly. The judge must have been having a bad day,” Deters said today of Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Richard Bernat.

Gary Weaver, 41, of Owingsville, Ky., came before Bernat on Thursday charged with disorderly conduct.


Weaver was arrested Wednesday at the Drake Motel in Sycamore Township and charged with cutting himself with a razor following the recent death of his brother and mother.

Weaver pleaded guilty to that charge Thursday and Bernat sentenced him to the one night he’d just spent at the Hamilton County Justice Center.

But another charge against Weaver also was on the books, a theft charge from 18 years ago.

In that case, Weaver was accused of theft of $21.64 from a Loveland store, paying for those goods with rolls of dimes that employees later discovered were rolls of pennies with dimes on each end.

Bernat, who didn’t return calls, ordered the original bond imposed on the case – $1 million – and refused to lower it.

That resulted in Weaver being housed in the Justice Center – which Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. has said is often overcrowded and has unsuccessfully campaigned for a tax increase to pay for a new jail – at least until the case is presented to a grand jury in 10 days.

That upset Hamilton County Public Defender Lou Strigari. “I think it’s an outrageous bond,” he said today. “How can you argue that the jail is full and then set a bond like this?”

Strigari is so upset he plans to file a motion Monday with the 1st District Court of Appeals, seeking to have the bond lowered – and Strigari has an ally in that in the prosecutor.

“We would not object to a lower bond,” Deters said.

Deters is fine with releasing Weaver without requiring any money being posted. “We need jail space for real criminals,” he said.

Bond is intended to ensure that someone who has been arrested will make his court appearances. The theory is that if someone posts money to be released from jail while his court case is pending, that is incentive to ensure the person arrested will come back to court. If that person doesn’t appear, the government keeps the money.

If Strigari is successful and Weaver is released, that will save taxpayers the $65 per day it costs to house each inmate at the Justice Center.

Earlier in the week, Bernat shocked defense attorneys when he refused to set a bond on three men accused of trying to sell between $10 million-$15 million in cocaine to undercover police.

That means no matter how much money the men posted, Bernat won’t release them.

Go on now -- go back and read that second to last para one more time. Is this a great country or what? Is this "Les Miserables" revisited in America?

Murtha & Time Mag - 0 vs Marine Warriors - 8 !!

,,,,, its a shutout!!! But still frauds and jerks like Murtha get camera time... and stay on the Federal pad! From Newsmax:

Jack Murtha & Time: So Far, So Wrong



Last week's development in the Haditha case -- the dropping of all the charges leveled against Lance Cpl. Stephan Tatum for actions related to Haditha, Iraq -- drives another nail into the shameful accusations made by Time magazine and Rep. John Murtha.

Time magazine, with an assist from the Pennsylvania Democrat, sparked a legal and media inquisition against eight courageous United States Marines. Both Time and Murtha claimed these Marines committed cold-blooded murder in Haditha during a 2005 engagement.

They also alleged the Marines participated in covering up their alleged atrocities.

But after years of litigation and estimated $40 million in taxpayer funds expended, none of the Marines have been found guilty of committing murder or war crimes.

On Nov. 19, 2005, during an insurgent ambush of the Marines of Kilo Company 3rd battalion 1st Marines, 15 Iraqi civilians and nine suspected insurgent ambushers were killed. One Marine was killed in an IED explosion and two others seriously wounded.

Thanks to the battalion intelligence officer, Lt. Jeff Dinsmore, who monitored the daylong engagement, the entire Marine chain of command were given the full story of the engagement that very night and it was agreed that no further action in connection with the civilian casualties was needed.

Months later, a Time story based on the testimony of two known insurgent propagandists and the stories of some Iraqi civilians falsely reported that the Kilo company Marines had wantonly murdered the dead Iraqis as an act of revenge after an IED explosion took the life of a fellow Marine.

On the basis of Time's unsubstantiated allegations alone, Murtha publicly charged the Marines had gone on a rampage to avenge the killing of their comrade in the IED explosion and had committed cold-blooded murder. Time has been forced to issue four different retractions of details in their report.

Before any investigation had gotten underway Murtha went on a rampage of his own, attacking the Marines in venue after venue. In his original charges against the Marines, Murtha said there was no gunfire during the incident when there was in fact a daylong battle involving heavy insurgent gunfire directed at the Marines starting at the time of the IED explosion.

Typical of Murtha’s rantings were his comments on a May 28, 2006, ABC News broadcast. In response to George Stephanopolis’ comment that he claimed to have been briefed several times since Nov. 19 and said that that the evidence showed that the Marines had committed cold-blooded murder, Murtha said:

“Well there’s no question in my mind, what happened was an IED exploded. It killed one Marine. And then a taxi drives up. When the taxi comes up there’s four of five people in it. And they shoot … shoot those four or five people unarmed.

“And then they go on a rampage throughout the houses and kill people. One woman, as I understand it, in talking to officials in the Marine Corps, was kneeling over a child pleading for mercy and they shot her in cold blood. That’s the thing that’s so disturbing. And even more disturbing is the fact that we know that the Iraqis knew about it because they made payments to the Iraqis for accidental deaths or salacious deaths whatever you want to call it. And in addition to that, they had … there has to have been a cover-up of this thing.”

In other comments, Murtha alleged that the Marines had never encountered enemy gunfire. The claim was a total concoction. In fact, the Marines engaged in a daylong battle involving heavy insurgent gunfire immediately following the IED explosion.

Murtha claimed to have been given all these details from then-Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Hagee. Hagee denied it.

Since Murtha’s reckless claims, none of the Marines ended up facing murder charges. Five of the eight have had all charges dropped against them and only three still face courts martial and none for murder.

The evidence produced in the cases showed that Time and Murtha were dead wrong in their charges.

There was no rampage, no cold-blooded murders of innocent Iraqis. Yet eight United States Marines were subjected to an ordeal that has wrecked their careers and cost them tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs. We can "thank" Time and Murtha for this outrage.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Whatever happened to "Once a Marine -- Always a Marine"??

When Factoids Collide....

Here are a couple of 'Factoids' in the headlines that don't juxtaposition all that well, Pilgrims..... first from CBS:

One Byrd Gets Lion's Share Of Earmarks

(CBS) At age 90, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia has been in the Senate longer than anybody else. And he's spent much of that time as head of the most powerful spending committee, with extraordinary control over earmarks - grants of your tax dollars without the normal public review, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports for Follow the Money. Byrd was the first senator to rack up a total of $1 billion in earmarks for his home state. That was in 1999.

Today he's past the $3 billion mark. In his famously colorful Senate speeches, Byrd has repeatedly defended his earmarks. "Hear me!! Some members have asserted that all, all, all earmarked funding is wasteful spending or an abuse of power," Byrd said. "Hogwash!"

And though tradition frowns on sitting members of Congress funding projects in their own name, they don't seem to have a problem with it in Byrd Country. West Virginia is full of ventures paid for with your tax dollars but named after him. You can take the Robert C. Byrd Highway to the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam, explore space through the Robert C. Byrd Telescope, and work at the Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex.

In all, we found more than 40 projects bearing the Byrd name. Many of them sound perfectly reasonable, but the problem is other needy communities never get a crack at the money. "He's unabashedly unapologetic about his earmarking," said watchdog Leslie Paige, who calls the earmarks "Byrd droppings."

"It's always been 'to the victor goes the spoils' with these earmarks," said Paige, who works for Citizens Against Government Waste. "Which means if you've got a member who sits on a powerful committee, you're gonna get the lion's share of that money."

But it's made Byrd a hero back home. "Yeah man, you're lookin' at Big Daddy. Big Daddy!"

Now then - here's the dirty little secret about the folks that live along Robert C Byrd Highway and all those other monuments to this ex-KKK'r.

One in 6 West Virginians is on food stamps
Officials say higher cost of food, fuel diminish value of assistance
by
Justin D. Anderson
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years.

Amid rising food and fuel costs, the assistance is becoming worth less and less.
And supplemental food programs for poor families are struggling to keep up with the added demand as donations are on the decline.
Last month, 274,487 state residents received food stamps. That's up from 246,890 just five years ago, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
A total of 122,877 of the state's estimated 743,064 households currently receive food stamps. That's up from 105,365 households in 2003.

So we got a pork swillin', 900 year old, ex-Klansman, earning his re-election even past humorous senility, by bringing in $3 BILLION worth of pork projects to this state of less than two million hungry souls.

What's wrong with this picture ---?

Why do we let it happen----------?

When will folks rise and put and end to it--?

Shucks, probably never........!!! Any of y'all mad yet???

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Amazing how fast our concerns can change, ain't it!!


Do you reckon that when Ross Perot was jabberin' about..

.... that 'crazy aunt' locked in the attic ---- that he was was thinking about Howard (The Scream) Dean and meant to call him that 'crazy uncle' that needed to be locked in the basement?

Here is a Dean quote from 2004 that may come back and bite him in the butt.... I hope!


"The real issue is this," Dean said in March 2004, when endorsing formal rival Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?" (and 3 band-aids?)

This week, he said about John McCain: "While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.”

McCain, by the way, has been awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Do ya' reckon that if Hellary thinks Obama is lucky to be black -- and Obama thinks Hellery is lucky to be a woman -- that Howard (the scream) Dean thinks McCain was lucky to have been shot down and held prisoner and tortured for five years in the 'Nam?

Ooooops!!! It's a matter of Honor.........

It seems that the student body at the University of Texas @ San Antonio (UTSA) decided they needed a new Honor Code for Students. One that addressed the growing problem of plagiarism and cheating by students.

Definition: The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation. (from Wikepedia)

They formulated a new Honor Code, published it on the Internet for feed back, and Kaboom!. It turns out the 'new' Code they had drafted had been lifted "word for word" from the Honors code at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Brigham Young had borrowed theirs from the Center for Academic Integrity and cited the Center as a source.

UTSA students didn't give credit to either BYU or the Center....

Now Pilgrims, if you thought that I was about to report that the UTSA kids were going back to the drawing board.... forget it! They will include the proper citation when they forward the purloined Code to the faculty senate. "We don't want to have an honor code that is stolen," the student in charge said.
With a straight face - I am told...

I came across this "Advice to the Vote Worn"...

on the RedState Site, and just in case you missed it -- thought I would share it with you this morning......

Dear Red State: Do I go with the sisterhood, the bro or my dad?

Dear Red State is an advice column for the politically perplexed. We are inclusive, compassionate conservatives, so feel free to differ. After all, the questioner is getting what he/she paid for.

Dear Red State:
I am having a meltdown deciding what to do this election season, especially if Florida ever does the primary again.
As I sit here, pregnant and conflicted about my relationship with the SO and seeing breeding white trash in the mirror of our 700K house that we can barely afford, sometimes I feel that all men are beasts and that I should cast my lot with Hillary and the Sisterhood. But other times I fantasize about Bill being the father. And he reminds me of the 1990's when I was innocent and prosperous.

Then I think about Obama and the Audacity of Hope. Surely he will pay our mortgage bill on this damnable shack and our living expenses, too? I sure hope so! But then I work as a flight attendant and wonder if his pastor thinks I should be one of the victims when a wrathful God next wreaks his vengeance on g-d America. And there's this notion of a forgiving God they keep talking about in church.

So then I think about McCain, who reminds me of my Dad. And he's a war hero and all that jazz. But he's going to cut pork and I'm eating for two. Besides, we're thinking of expanding the pool.

What's a girl to do?
Pondering & Pregnant in Pensacola

Dear Pondering & Pregnant:
At first I turned to one of my liberal friends who has intimate knowledge of the Clinton and Obama camps to see which one fulfills your needs best. I was told not to bother because you sound like you're just an ignorant redneck chick who belongs in the g-d theocon, bible-thumping Republican party.

So I was going to relay this message and advice you to vote GOP, but then I remembered who the nominee was and realized further analysis is required.
I can understand the appeal of the androgynous cash machine that the Clintons offer, with discipline from Hillary and love & healing from Bill. But as every Walmart shopper knows, when they're offering 50% off (two for the price of one), something is wrong with the merchandise. And I hear that Bill's Romance Corner has 62 year old inventory, so that's a problem, too.

It may not be prudent to expect much real estate help from Obama. True, he knows how to get relief from the burdens of ownership via ingenious financing arrangements, but I understand that Mr. Rezko is overextended at the moment due to his, er, legal problems. And despite the 20 year tenure of Obama's derriere on the front pew of Rev Wright's church, close enough to hear the messages regarding g-d America's need for chastisement, he does appear to be a sane person. I'm sure that he'll do his best to keep you from getting what you g-d deserve. OTOH, his strategy is a bit off-kilter, with the audacity to hope that considering war in Pakistan and sucking up to Iran constitutes a policy.

At this point, I suggest that you relieve stress by wondering down the path of nostalgia TV and remember happier times before you cast your vote. Start with "Father Knows Best". It will be easier to vote for McCain if you do!

BTW- if you enjoyed this - be sure to click on the RedState link in the list of links over on the bottom right of this page..... Pecoz

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Lord Luv a duck --- Is she an Olympian beauty or what??

I remember when all the Lady Athletes looked like Babe Zaharias or Babe Ruth...! Not this young Texas Lass.... From AOL Sports Blog:

Attractive Olympian: High Jumper Amy Acuff
Mar 28th 2008


Olympics, Track and Field, USA, Attractive Olympians

Olympic athletes often don't get paid to do anything other than look good. In that vein, Attractive Olympians handicaps which athletes may rake in endorsement deals after the Olympics.

Last month, Amy Acuff cleared 6'3½" at the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships in Boston to claim another gold medal as she works toward what will be her fourth Olympics this summer in Beijing. The former UCLA standout has been among the best high jumpers in the nation for the last 15 years, and though she has never medaled in a World Championship or Olympic games, her longevity (and her looks) have raised the awareness of her sport.

But who cares about trivial things like a decade and a half of accomplishments in competitive sports? . Sure, gracing the pages of men's magazines both low-brow and high-brow -- to say nothing of that cover shot to above right -- might suggest she's attractive. Below, enjoy more pictures, ground-breaking analysis, and a democratic judgment on Amy Acuff's beauty.

Breaking Down the Basics

Height - 6'2"

Age - 32

Eyes - Blue

Hair - Blonde


Vibe - Girl next-door

Arms - Willowy

Abdominal muscles Can crack a walnut when she coughs

Legs - All day and into next week

Ouch! Needles? It doesn't hurt, silly

On the cover of Playboy? On the cover of Playboy!

Married? Yes, to pole vaulter Tye Harvey. Jerk.

Former profession Model

Current
profession - Acupuncturist

Acupuncturist? Be gentle Babe!!

Just when you thought you'd seen the end....

.... of Al (The Sky is Falling!!) Gorebot..... up pops his boring head again.... Here is Robert Novaks take on things in the Dem's un-party!!!

By ROBERT D. <span class=

March 29, 2008 -- AL GORE, despite the lowest political pro file, is talked about among prominent Democrats as their leading candidate for 2012 if they fail this year.

The Democratic consensus is that there will be no second chance for Sen. Hillary Clinton. She is blamed for wounding Sen. Barack Obama so severely that he might fail in November.

Gore has kept out of the 2008 Democratic presidential contest, in contrast to his embarrassing 2004 endorsement of front-runner Howard Dean just before Dean flamed out. Since then, Gore's prestige in Democratic ranks has soared while winning the Nobel Peace Prize and Hollywood's Academy Award. He will be 64 in 2012.

Although Ole' Pecoz's knees don't tremble at the thought of this robot like character being President like they do at the thought of Hellery ---- they do kind of a conservative knee jerk nevertheless. Hiring a guy to be President who has made million$ by scamming the world on this global warming - carbon footprint Ponzi scheme of his -- seems ridiculous.

Surely in this great country of ours -- we can find two good men/women to compete for this position as head of state! I don't even wanna think of four years of him being the Stump on the stump....
Shazamm!!!

Speaking of this great country - how many of you caught Barry Obama's shtick the other day. Although he won't wear a flag on his lapel, or put his hand over his heart during the National Anthem, he did manage to actually call this a great country --- but then caught hisself and added the words "..... despite it's many flaws"!!

Ole' Ronnie must be
spinnin' in that grave - watching this empty suit leading the race for nomination ------!

A couple of this weeks best pictures ....

.... from the London Telegraph;


When boy lion meets girl tiger the results are enormous, fluffy, and undeniably beautiful. With a lion for a father and a tiger for a mother, Hercules a three-year-old Liger already weighs in at over 900 pounds, and is still growing





With the world coming to Beijing for the Olympics -- apparently some of their sign makers are getting ahead of the translators. This is creating a whole new language called "Chinglish" or badly translated Chinese to English...

Who said there is no humor in politics......

....here are two little vignettes from yesterday's MSNBC news....

Chelsea: Mom, better prez than dad

by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC/NJ's Matthew Berger

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Chelsea Clinton was asked whether her mother would be a better president than her father, and she said yes.


Speaking at Lehigh Valley Hospital Friday, she laughed when a man in the front row asked her to choose between her parents.

“His question is, ‘Do I think my mother will be a better president than my father,’” she said. “Well, again, I don’t take anything for granted, but hopefully with Pennsylvania’s help, she will be our next president, and yes, I do think she’ll be a better president.”

Clinton spoke for more than an hour at the hospital, taking mostly questions about healthcare issues.


THERE'S A SLIP...

by Domenico Montanaro

Think this will make Jon Stewart?

Clinton supporter Joe Sestak was on with NBC's Andrea Mitchell during the 1 pm MSNBC hour, and slipped in one response. Mitchell asked him if he was concerned that if this fight goes to convention that it could tear apart the party.

Sestak replied that he's not, that he's confident that if Obama were to lose the nomination, he'd turn around and say, "Support her." And if Clinton were to lose the nomination, she would turn around and say, "Support me."

Whoops.

Shaking his head, Sestak quickly corrected: "Support him."

We know what he meant, but still funny.

I reckon Sigmund Freud and both I know what he meant --- and I'll bet Obama and Howard (The Scream) Dean didn't find it funny!!!!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Now tell me again, who's makin' the money on my gas bill:

..... here are some numbers that'll light your fuse Pardners!

Seeking Alpha: Exxon’s 2007 Tax Bill: $30 Billion.

Corporate profits receive a lot of media attention, but what receives considerably less attention are the corporate taxes paid on corporate profits. Do a Google search for “Exxon profits” and you’ll get about 8,000 hits. Now try “Exxon taxes” and you’ll get a little more than 300 hits. That’s a ratio of about 33 to 1.

I’m pretty sure that Exxon’s tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that’s $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year.

By the way, Exxon pays taxes at a rate of 41% on its taxable income…

In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people!

CNNMoney: Who Gets Rich Off $3 Gas - Who Doesn’t.

Oil traders: While often blamed for pushing up prices, traders don’t necessarily benefit from the high price of crude or gasoline; they profit from how much the price changes. Traders can get rich - as long as they bet correctly on whether prices will rise or fall…

Gas stations: A surprisingly small amount goes to the guy who runs the station.

Most service stations are independently owned and operated and take in between 7 and 10 cents for every gallon they sell…

Taxes: The government takes about 40 cents right off the top, with about 18 cents going to the feds. State taxes vary widely, but the national average is about 22 cents a gallon.

Transportation: Getting the gas from refineries to service stations via trucks or pipelines - and the cost of storing it in large tanks - eats up another 23 to 26 cents per gallon.

Refining: About 24 cents a gallon goes to refining companies like Valero, Sunoco or Frontier that specialize in turning crude oil into gas…

Profits for refiners have been squeezed lately because the price they pay for oil has risen so much faster than the price they can sell the gas for. This helps explain why Big Oil companies -like Exxon, which actually buys more crude oil than it produces - haven’t seen their profits rise as much as the price of oil.

Crude oil: This is the most expensive part of a gallon of gas. Of every gallon of gas $2.07 from every gallon of gas goes to producers of crude…

EIA estimates it costs U.S. oil companies an average of about $24 a barrel to find, develop and produce oil worldwide, but that doesn’t include costs like transportation, administration, or income taxes - which can be substantial. While Exxon made $40 billion in 2007, a 60% increase from 2004, it paid $100 billion in taxes and royalties.

I extracted this from the Red Planet site -- you might want to check 'er out!
http://www.redplanetcartoons.com/index.php/2008/03/19/dissecting-gas-prices/

Red Alert - Red Alert - ---

.... even if you don't normally read alerts - read this one - --- please!

A “music tax” to bail out the dying record industry? Hell, no!

By Michelle Malkin • March 28, 2008 10:16 AM

How would you like to be forced to pay a “music tax” bundled into your monthly fee for internet service?

That’s what the entertainment industry is up to–and Congress needs to hear from you. The plan is objectionable on both economic and social conservative grounds. Desperate record companies can’t compete in the 21st century, so they’re looking to government coercion for a rescue. The lead industry giant spearheading the tax proposal is Warner Music Group–notorious for peddling violent, racist, cop-hating, drug-glorifying gangsta rap and currently in the process of acquiring Death Row Records’ assets– which include the work of Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

Portfolio has the scoop on the tax plan:

Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Warner Music Group has tapped industry veteran Jim Griffin to spearhead a controversial plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music.

The plan—the boldest move yet to keep the wounded entertainment industry giants afloat—is simple: Consumers will pay a monthly fee, bundled into an internet-service bill in exchange for unfettered access to a database of all known music.

Bronfman’s decision to hire Griffin, a respected industry critic, demonstrates the desperation of the recording industry. It has shrunk to a $10 billion business from $15 billion in almost a decade. Compact disc sales are plummeting as online music downloads skyrocket…

…Warner’s plan would have consumers pay an additional fee—maybe $5 a month—bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions.

Griffin says those fees could create a pool as large as $20 billion annually to pay artists and copyright holders. Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don’t want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don’t mind advertising wouldn’t pay a dime.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch rightly calls the scheme a “protection racket.” But it’s worse than that.

Forcing Internet users to subsidize music they don’t want and/or object to smacks of the worst kind of cultural Big Nannyism.

Where do your congressional representatives stand on this music tax proposal?

Ask them: 202-224-3121.

I don't know about you Pilgrim, but this ole' boy ain't never listened to, nor downloaded any of this crap or any other music.... and I damned sure don't want to be payin' for it with my monthly Internet Fee!!!

Now this Hellary story is the story that just keeps on giving!!!

Ain't she simply mahvalous!!!!!!!!

One more reason the Main Stream Media (MSM) hates bloggers...

..... as once more -- they get caught with their pants down and shortage of facts showing! The Los Angeles Times - the Gray Lady of the Left Coast just got caught in the zipper...

L.A. Times' blunder caught by Web editor

March 28, 2008

By Jennifer Harper - The new media continues to police the old media.

An astute Web site editor tracked down facts that knocked down a lavishly displayed Los Angeles Times investigative story about a 1994 attack on the late rap artist Tupac Shakur, forcing the newspaper to admit its blockbuster account — written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter — was based on fabricated documents.

"I don't expect every reporter to be able to judge an FBI document. But if the content of that document was demonstrably false, then it should have set off warning lights — 30 warning lights," said William Bastone, editor of the Smokinggun.com, a New York-based Web site which showcases authentic legal and government documents.

Robert Steele, a media-ethics analyst at the Poynter Institute, said the quickness and reach of the news requires more rigorous quality control than ever before.

"It's reasonable to ask if the multimedia production which accompanied that story online served the best interest of getting to the truth and fairness of the story. That too should be examined when the Times looks back on what went wrong," said Mr. Steele.

"Just because an enterprise reporter has hunches and leads doesn't mean it's going to pay off," he said.

The Times, on March 17, reported online that singer Sean "Diddy" Combs was privy to the 1994 attack on Tupac Shakur, accompanying the 2,800-word story with splashy video, a timeline, a photo gallery, song lyrics and special images for readers to download: FBI documents to support the claims.

Using federal court documents and other sources, Mr. Bastone deconstructed the Times story and traced the papers to an inmate in a Pennsylvania penitentiary with a lengthy criminal record.

"The L.A. Times was duped," Mr. Bastone said. "Hopefully they now will explain themselves."

Mr. Bastone examined the supposed documents, suspicious of their spelling deficiencies and type face — similar to a vetting process used by conservative bloggers who revealed that CBS News anchor Dan Rather had used falsified documents in a 2004 story claiming President Bush had compromised his Vietnam-era military service.

Mr. Combs' attorney said the Times ignored two letters of protest about the story and is threatening a legal response, according to Editor & Publisher. The paper posted hundreds of reader comments online, some calling for staff resignations.

The Times itself was steeped in mea culpa yesterday and has launched an internal investigation.

"I failed to do my job. I'm sorry," said the reporter, Chuck Phillips.

A "thorough and rapid investigation" is underway said Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan,
who had no comment about the feelings of readers in the aftermath.

I reckon they really pine for the good ole' days -- when their word was accepted as gospel cause there warn't anybody to tell 'em that like the king, they was plumb nekkid!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Ann Coulter wonders this week - Ms Bubba being swiftboated?????

HILLARY: SWIFTBOATED!
March 26, 2008

Hillary is being "swiftboated"! She claimed that she came under sniper fire when she visited in Bosnia in 1996, but was contradicted by videotape showing her sauntering off the plane and stopping on the tarmac to listen to a little girl read her a poem.

Similarly, John Kerry's claim to heroism in Vietnam was contradicted by 264 Swift Boat Veterans who served with him. His claim to having been on a secret mission to Cambodia for President Nixon on Christmas 1968 was contradicted not only by all of his commanders -- who said he would have been court-martialed if he had gone anywhere near Cambodia -- but also the simple fact that Nixon wasn't president on Christmas 1968.

In Hillary's defense, she probably deserves a Purple Heart about as much as Kerry did for his service in Vietnam. Also, unlike Kerry, Hillary acknowledged her error, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke." (What if she's sleep-deprived when she gets that call on the red phone at 3 a.m., imagines a Russian nuclear attack and responds with mutual assured destruction? Oops. "It proves I'm human.")

The reason no one claims Hillary is being "swiftboated" is that the definition of "swiftboating" is: "producing irrefutable evidence that a Democrat is lying." And for purposes of her race against matinee idol B. Hussein Obama, Hillary has become the media's honorary Republican. In liberal-speak, only a Democrat can be swiftboated.

Democrats are "swiftboated"; Republicans are "guilty." So as an honorary Republican, Hillary isn't being swiftboated; she's just lying. Indeed, instead of attacking the people who produced a video of Hillary's uneventful landing in Bosnia, the mainstream media are the people who discovered that video.

I've always wondered how a Democrat would fare being treated like a Republican by the media. Now we know. It's such fun watching liberals turn on the Clintons! The bitter infighting among Democrats is especially enjoyable after having to listen to Democrats hyperventilate for months about how delighted they were to have so many wonderful choices for president.

Now liberals just want to be rid of the Clintons -- which is as close to actual mainstream thinking as they've been in years. So the media suddenly notice when Hillary "misspeaks," while rushing to make absurd excuses for much greater outrages by her opponent. Liberals are even using the Slick Willy defense when Obama is caught fraternizing with a racist loon.

When Bill Clinton was exposed as a philandering, adulterous, pathological liar, his defenders said that everybody is a philandering, adulterous, pathological liar. And now, when B. Hussein Obama is caught in a 20-year relationship with a raving racist, his defenders scream that everybody is a racist wack-job.

In the Obama speech on race that Chris Matthews deemed "worthy of Abraham Lincoln," B. Hussein Obama defended Wright's anti-American statements, saying: "For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table." So in the speech the media are telling us is on a par with the Gettysburg Address, B. Hussein Obama casually informed us that even blacks who seem to like white people actually hate our guts.

First of all: Watch out the next time you get your hair cut by a black barber over the age of 50. Second, Rev. Wright's world wasn't segregated. And third, what about Wright's wanton anti-Semitism? All the liberals (including essence-besplattered Chris Matthews) have accepted Obama's defense of Wright and want us to understand Wright's "legitimate" rage over his painful youth in segregated America.

But the anti-Semitic tone of Wright's sermons is as clear as his rage against the United States. Rev. Wright calls Israel a "dirty word" and a "racist country." He denounces Zionism and calls for divestment from Israel. In addition to videos of Rev. Wright's sermons, Obama's church also offers for sale sermons by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom Rev. Wright joined on a visit to Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 1984. Just last year, Obama's church awarded Farrakhan the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award, saying Farrakhan "truly epitomized greatness."

What, pray tell, is the legitimate source of Wright's anti-Semitism? I believe Brother Obama passed over that issue entirely in his "conversation," even as he made the obligatory bow to Israel's status as one of our "stalwart allies." Why does crazy "uncle" Wright dislike Jews? Will liberals contend that these remarks were "taken out of context"? Maybe Wright's church was trying to say that Farrakhan isn't great when it said he "epitomized greatness." Who knows? We weren't there.

Can liberals please educate us on the "legitimate" impulses behind Rev. Wright's Jew-baiting?

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER


Lucky, lucky, lucky.............?

Speakin' of Elton John's benefit concert for Ms Bubba,

..... and I did just two days ago, here is a quote from Britain's Gay Knight just a year ago or so when commenting on American Idol results:

"The three people I was really impressed with — and they just happened to be black, young female singers — all seem to be landing in the bottom three," the British pop singer complained back in 2004. "They have great voices. The fact that they're constantly in the bottom three — and I don't want to set myself up here — but I find it incredibly racist."


Now here his 'Sirness' is, struggling to make sure that America doesn't elect it's first black President --- how incredibly racist is that?

BTW, word is out that perhaps the Federal Election Commission is taking a close look to see if this Brit's role in rakin' in the dough for Shrillary is breaking Federal laws with regard to foreign involvement in American political races --- stay tuned!

Did you ever get a flyer in your mailbox that made you so mad......

... it ruined your day, your sleep. and stirred you to action? Well, I did Pilgrims, and I'm still hottern' hell! I got a flyer from one of these 'payday' loan shark outfits that seems to be sprouting on every corner. It was computer generated and used my full first and last name every couple of paragraphs just to accent it's sincerity.
I had no interest in a loan or their company but knowing that the Feds now require full disclosure of true annual percentage rate (APR) in advertising - I looked for the rate in the brochure. Sure enough, there it was, last paragraph on the bottom back, in print so small even my trifocals steamed up:

"The APR for a $360 Advance (which includes a $60 fee paid to C*** America Financial Services,Inc., that is included in the loan amount) for 14 days is 533.33% with one payment of $361.37 due at maturity." Then they got the chutzpah to add: "Borrowing costs increase significantly when the full amount due is not paid on the maturity date." 533.33%!!!
Knowing these interest rates are being foisted on those folks that can least afford them, the payday-to-payday poor and young folks, I started Googling around. The more I uncovered, the more incensed Ole' Pecoz became! Here's one source -
The loan process:

Retail lending
Borrowers visit a payday lending store and secure a small cash loan, usually in the range of $100 to $500 with payment in full due at the borrower's next paycheck (usually a two week term). Finance charges on payday loans are typically in the range of $15 to $30 per $100 borrowed for the two-week period, which translates to rates ranging from 390 percent to 780 percent when expressed as an annual percentage rate (
APR) The borrower writes a check to the lender in the full amount of the loan plus fees. On the maturity date, the borrower is expected to return to the store to repay the loan in person. If the borrower doesn't repay the loan in person, the lender may process the check traditionally or through electronic withdrawal from the borrower's checking account.
If the account is short on funds to cover the check, the borrower may now face a bounced check fee from their
bank in addition to the costs of the loan, and the loan may incur additional fees and/or an increased interest rate as a result of the failure to pay. For customers who cannot pay back the loan when due, members of the national trade association are required to offer an extended payment plan at no additional cost. In states like Washington, extended payment plans are required by state law.
Payday lenders require the borrower to bring one or more recent pay stubs to prove that they have a steady source of income. They are also required to provide recent bank statements. Individual companies and
franchises have their own underwriting criteria.
Internet lending
Online payday loans are marketed through e-mail, online search, paid ads, and referrals. Typically, a consumer fills out an online application form or faxes a completed application that requests personal information, bank account numbers,
Social Security number and employer information. Borrowers fax copies of a check, a recent bank statement, and signed paperwork. The loan is direct deposited into the consumer's checking account and loan payment or the finance charge is electronically withdrawn on the borrower's next payday.

Examples
For example, a borrower seeking a payday loan may write a post-dated personal check for $460 to borrow $400 for up to 14 days. The payday lender agrees to hold the check until the borrower's next payday. At that time, the borrower has the option to redeem the check by paying $460 in cash, or renew the loan (a.k.a. "flip the loan") by paying off the $460 and then immediately taking an additional loan of $400, in effect extending the loan for another two weeks. In many states, "flipping" or "rolling over" the loan is not allowed. In states where there is an extended payment plan, the borrower could choose to opt into a payment plan. If the borrower does not refinance the loan, the lender may deposit the check. In this example, the cost of the initial loan is a $60 finance charge, or 390% percent
APR.
When the
Consumer Federation of America conducted a survey of 100 Internet payday loan sites, it found loans from $200 to $2,500 were available, with $500 the most frequently offered. Finance charges ranged from $10 per $100 up to $30 per $100 borrowed. The most frequent rate was $25 per $100, or 650% annual interest rate (APR) if the loan is repaid in two weeks.

Pardners, back in my military days, they used to throw those "$5 for $3" barracks hustlers of payday loans in the stockade or drum 'em out of the corps! Now these thieves operate in the open on your street corners. Our elected legislators, in our States and in Congress, have written the enabling legislation for these sharks. If you were to loan your neighbor some money and charged him more than 6% in Texas --- you'd be breaking the usury laws...!! If a company charges you more than 24% or 4 points over the prime rate -- they'd be breaking the law!

You gettin' mad yet? Gettin' mad enough to do a little Googling and e-mail writing? I hope so!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

This great column by Tony Blankley today..........

..... brought back memories of my own mother singing this song from WWII. I had no idea at the time of it's true meaning ... enjoy the column folks, and think of the intrusions being made in this country as of late....

More Than Bluebirds in the Sky

By Tony Blankley

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

From a popular English World War II song:

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow, when the world is free.
The shepherd will tend his sheep,

The valley will bloom again,
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again.

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

A long half-century ago, my mother and father -- along with millions of other English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Americans, Yugoslavs, Russians, Greeks, Canadians, Africans, Australians and other heirs to the Christian West, along with surviving Jews, Indian Hindus and even hard-edged French atheists, risked and often sacrificed their lives to defend their (our) way of life from the Nazi menace.
It was the great ferocious struggle of their lives. And we -- their heirs -- have frivolously prospered in the peaceful and secure aftermath of their exertion. Where once our parents marched through the mud, jungle, sand or urban bombscapes of world combat -- asking nothing, offering all -- and prevailing, gaining glorious victory, we, their diminished progeny, whine that the world has not given us enough of a living.
But into every generation, a storm must come. And as we boomers slide toward our incontinence and as our children approach their young-adult vigor, the new barbarism reveals its menace to our civilization. Every week has its own largely ignored example of the coming struggle.
Two weeks ago, the story came from a town with a college that has been a leading force in the advancement of Christian civilization for 900 years: Oxford, England.

Once again, something more than bluebirds threatens English skies. It seems that authorities at the Oxford Central Mosque have requested permission to use loadspeakers to blast the call to prayer five times a day from atop their minaret across the town that has heard for the past 900 summers, falls, winters and springs only the bells of the local churches.
Unsurprisingly, the Church of England's bishop for Oxford, the Right Rev. John Pritchard, has announced his support, calling on his congregation to "enjoy community diversity." He would be a likely successor to the current archbishop of Canterbury, who called for Shariah law for England recently.
Perhaps surprisingly, two Englishmen stepped forward to oppose the proposal: professor Allan Chapman, an Oxford University historian, and Charlie Cleverly, the rector of St. Aldates Church in the heart of Oxford. "I don't have any problem with Islam, but don't force it on the people. I'm a liberal; I want to be inclusive, but I don't want to be walked over," stated the professor.
The Anglican rector of St. Aldates was a bit more blunt: "It is common knowledge, though few will say it, that radical Islam has a program to take Europe, take England and take Oxford. In this strategy, some say the prayer call is like a bridgehead, spreading to other mosques in the city."
As if to support this politically incorrect assertion, Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain rejected the complaint dismissively, asserting that the "call to prayer will be part of Britain and Europe in the future."
A week later, England's ruling class again displayed its unfitness to rule. In Manchester, England, the Greater Manchester Police rejected the application to join it offered by Craig Briggs, who had just completed four and a half years with the 3rd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. He seemingly was qualified but for one shortcoming. He has a tattoo on his lower arm that spells out the shocking name: "ENGLAND." He was formally informed that "Home Office policy precludes applications with tattoos which may cause offence and/or invite provocation from the public or colleagues." Informally he was told, "Unfortunately, some people feel intimidated by the word England." And I thought only Nazi swine (and in olden days, the French) were intimidated by the thought of England.
England, in her tolerance, has admitted into her midst -- and given succor -- those who loathe her.
But more loathsome yet are the natural born Englishmen -- most in high places -- who have forgotten the simple truth of another World War II song:


"There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free,
If England means as much to you
As England means to me."

Tony Blankley served as press secretary to then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. He is the author of The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? .

Well, gee willikers, guess this puts an end to McCain's campaign...

..... how could he possibly continue without the endearing support of our good friend from Venzuela....? From Reuters;

Chavez says U.S. relations could worsen with McCain
Tue Mar 25, 2008
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year's presidential election.
Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed "warlike."
"Sometimes one says, 'worse than Bush is impossible,' but we don't know," Chavez told foreign correspondents. "McCain also seems to be a man of war."
Chavez -- who has called Bush "the devil", "a donkey" and 'Mr Danger" -- accuses the United States of having imperial designs in Latin America and says the White House has plotted his overthrow.
McCain calls Chavez a dictator who wants to emulate retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Although Venezuela remains a key supplier of oil to the United States, relations have steadily deteriorated since Bush took office in 2001.
Chavez is an outspoken critic of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has accused Washington of stirring unrest in Tibet to destabilize China.
He said on Tuesday that he had better communication with the administration of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Here is a picture of a poster in Venzuela taken just five days ago - on March 20th in the midst of anti-Chavez rallies.... Do you reckon this is why he is whoopin' up on the U.S. of A --- kind of distracting motion while his country suffers>

The "Terminator" to "Dirty Harry"..... YOU'RE FIRED!!

The Governator fires Clint Eastwood and brother-in-law Bobby Shriver... From the Los Angeles Times today;

Eastwood's termination: 'Somebody got a bee under their bonnet'

The actor says he was surprised at his removal from the state parks board in the wake of his opposition to a toll road. But he says he holds no hard feelings toward Schwarzenegger.
By Michael RothfeldLos Angeles Times Staff WriterMarch 26, 2008SACRAMENTO —

After Clint Eastwood learned last week that his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger no longer wanted him on the state parks commission, he spoke with Bobby Shriver, the governor's brother-in-law, who had also been dropped. Somewhat incredulous, they joked about it, each saying the other should be more offended."I talked to him the day we were not reappointed, or as Donald Trump would say, 'You're fired,' " Eastwood said in an interview, his gravelly impression of Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent producing a kind of Dirty Harry-meets-the Terminator effect."So we laughed about it," Eastwood said, "and I said, 'Me? But you're his brother-in-law!' and he said, 'But you're his friend and longtime mentor!'

"The governor has said that he decided not to reappoint the men, who were first named to the Park and Recreation Commission in 2001 by then-Gov. Gray Davis and reappointed by Schwarzenegger in 2004. He said their terms had expired and he wanted to give others a chance to serve .But Eastwood and Shriver have attributed the governor's move to their opposition to a plan to build the Foothill South toll road through San Onofre State Beach, a park in Orange County that is popular for its surfing and scenery.

The project was defeated by the California Coastal Commission in February."I think it was just somebody got a bee under their bonnet at the right moment, so there we are," Eastwood said. Of the governor, he added: "I guess he felt we were going to be guys who were going to be obstructionists for anything through state parks."

As Eastwood said, "Hey, it ain't like it's my day job!!" BTW - that pic is two years old and taken when Eastwood was admitted to the California Hall of Fame....

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Gun Owner's Warning .......

Blessed are the peace-makers! More Blessed are those than are armed to keep the peace!

Hot Damn! I'd better hurry......

..... and so had you, Pilgrims. Tickets are goin' fast.

Elton John gig for Clinton campaign

Elton John will help raise funds for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with a solo concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall next month, the Clinton campaign has said.
The event,
Elton and Hillary: One Night Only, will be his first public solo concert in New York City without his band since his solo concert at Madison Square Garden in October 2000.

Tickets for the performance on April 9 go on sale on Wednesday and will start from 125 dollars (£62) for mezzanine seats and 250 dollars (£124) for seats near the orchestra.
"I'm not a politician, but I believe in the work that Hillary Clinton does," the British singer said.
Last October, the former first lady held a star-studded fundraiser to celebrate her 60th birthday.

Comedian Billy Crystal and rockers Elvis Costello and the Wallflowers headlined the event at New York's historic Beacon Theatre, which raked in more than 1.5 million dollars (£0.75m) for the New York senator's presidential bid.

I hate to tell you this Pardners, but the $125 and $250 seats are gone to insiders! All that's available now are $1000 and $2,500 seats ---- and for you high rollers, they'll comp you a seat if you'll bundle $10,000 for Hellary's campaign.....!

For a candidate who's already lost the fight, maybe it would've been more appropriate to bring in some real fat lady to sing "The Party's Over" instead of fat Sir Wannabe.. Course, Ms Bubba's been on the publics dole so long she is probably scared to death she might have to pay for her own meals, hotel, and travel expenses if she doesn't keep bilking the great unwashed......
I almost feel sorry for those idiots that grab their pens ... but not quite!

Hallelujah!!!

He is our hope for change --- or change for hope --- or changing hope ---- Oh Never mind!!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Watch for 'pushers' in your neighborhood schools.....

Students turn a profit from candy sales
March 20, 2008 -

VICTORVILLE — With candy sales banned on school campuses, sugar pushers are the latest trend at local schools. Backpacks are filled with Snickers and Twinkees for all sweet tooths willing to pay the price.

“It’s created a little underground economy, with businessmen selling everything from a pack of skittles to an energy drink,” said Jim Nason, principal at Hook Junior High School in Victorville.

This has become a lucrative business, Nason said, and those kids are walking around campus with upwards of $40 in their pockets and disrupting class to make a sale.

Schools have been individually banning junk-food sales for years, and enforcement was increased in 2005 when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger passed legislation to combat childhood obesity, according to the office of the governor.

Since then, schools have slowly adjusted by offering more healthy alternatives, such as baked chips and granola bars.

But Nason said that he sees just as much candy and soda as ever, because students still bring it from home — for lunch, and to turn a profit.

“I think it’s original purpose was pretty good, but it doesn’t seem to be making that big of a difference,” said teacher Rolayne Allen of the junk-food ban.

Teachers are instructed to confiscate candy when kids have it in class, Nason said, and the punishment for making sales can be detention. But confiscating candy all the time can be challenging, Allen said, especially around the holidays when students bring more of it to school.


Daryl Bell, principal at Apple Valley Middle School, said that he also sees an increase in candy around the holidays, but that for the most part, students steer clear of sodas and buy juice and water from the vending machines.

A few candy sellers are caught each year there, Bell said, but he does not see it as a problem on campus. Since Hook moved away from junk food years ago, Nason said he has not seen a change in student health.

“I think they get a good nutritional lunch here, but looking at our kids and looking at physical education scores, I don’t see how it’s been a highly effective program,” Nason said.

One way around the problem is the school’s lunch accounts, Nason said. Parents can monitor what their kids are eating by putting money on their lunch cards to buy school meals instead of handing them cash.

But as long as kids can get candy, from the store and at home, they will continue to bring it to school, Nason said.

Just when you thought all you had to worry about were 'pot', spray paint, uppers and downers.. along comes the big hook --- sugar! Seems like the same thing happened during prohibition. Take something the masses want away from them and the Mob steps in to supply it!

Now here's a young man that has it together....

.... hang on Junior --- Help is on the way.................................I hope!

But then..... who knows...................?

Beware the Ide's of March.....

... I wonder if Ms Hellary remembers that it was a fellow Senator that stabbed Caesar!! Let's do a little summary of last week fun and games ---

1. Bubba Clinton hints that Obama ain't as patriotic as Hellary and McCaine.

2. Gen McPeak (Ret) accuses Bubba of McCarthy'ism!

3. Richardson endorses Obama, turns back on Clintons

4. James Carville calls Richardson a 'Judas' (does this equate Hellary to Jesus?)

5. Hardball host Matthews calls Clintons - "a sitcom that needs to be cancelled".

6. NY Times says McCaine is a closet Democrat who twice wanted to bolt the Republicans.

7. Detroit Democrat, 'rising star' Mayor charged with perjury and other 'bads'.

8. Ms Clinton's aide Blumental pleads guilty to drunk driving...

9. Richardson claims Clinton aides are 'in the gutter'.

10. Obama's Iowa Co-chairman starts talking about 'stained blue dresses'.

And it is still March ------ what's next?
Hillary's Balkan Adventures, Part II







Greeting ceremony, Tuzla military airport, Bosnia, March 25, 1996.




"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."--Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

Do you reckon that when she bent over to hug this pretty lil' gal at the airport she was really ducking sniper fire - and trying to look cool? Sinbad and her other escorts missed it all -- guess she has extraordianry hearing to make up for her marital blindness...........

Sunday, March 23, 2008

I wondered what happened to my Easter Eggs...

...until I saw that rabbit ear in this hound's mouth .......

Did he get them before those eggs were hid or what???? Shazamm!!

Here is a warm fuzzy dog story .....

.... for Easter Sunday.

F-18 pilot returns home to canine friend from Iraqi war zone

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 22, 2008

They spent months in an Iraqi war zone cementing a special bond.

SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
Marine Major Brian Dennis greets Nubs early Saturday morning at Camp Pendleton.
But after more than a month of being apart, Marine Maj. Brian Dennis began to worry if Nubs the dog would still remember him, especially in a new place like San Diego.

Their reunion early Saturday at Camp Pendleton clearly showed otherwise.

The 2-year-old old dog, named for his two nubby ears, drenched Dennis' face with doggie kisses and said hello with excited whimpers.

“You remember that, huh?” Dennis said as he rubbed the dog's head.

Dennis, an F-18 pilot stationed at Miramar Marine Corp Air Station, was among several Marines to return home from a seven-month tour in Iraq early Saturday.

Among those who also returned was a group that fell in love with seven puppies and also had them brought back to San Diego. They plan to reunite with their new dogs at 3 p.m. at the Rancho Coastal Humane Society.

Nubs, a German shepherd/border collie mix, came to San Diego a month earlier after friends, family and complete strangers raised $3,500 for the dog's trip out of Iraq.

“It's almost like 'Lassie Come Home' in Iraq,” said Dennis' mother, Marsha Cargo, who anxiously waited for the unit's arrival in the wee hours of the morning.

Dennis met Nubs in the Al Anbar Province where the dog ran wild at an Iraqi Border Fort. When Nubs was a puppy, an Iraqi sliced off most of his ears in an attempt to make the dog tough and more alert.

Another time, Nubs was stabbed with a screwdriver, and Dennis nursed him back to health.

When Dennis' unit, the Border Transition Team, moved camp 70 miles away, Nubs somehow tracked them to their new location two days later.

It was against the rules to keep the dog in camp, and friends jumped in to bring Nubs to San Diego.

“Once he found us there, it seemed like this was supposed to have happened,” Dennis said Saturday. “After he walked all that distance, it seemed like he was supposed to end up in San Diego.”

For the past month, Eric Sjoberg, one of Dennis' Marine buddies, has been caring for Nubs along with Dennis' other dog, Bogey.

Nubs has also been learning new tricks and how to behave in a different environment with some help from a dog trainer.

“After running two years out in the desert, he's got a personality on him,” Sjoberg said.

Dennis said his first outing with Nubs will be a jog on the beach.

“It will consummate the whole journey, going from the sand of Iraq to the sand of San Diego.”

It sure is nice when we hear a story with a fine ending regarding one of our US warrior heros, ain't it!!!

Well, Pilgrims, I almost didn't have a Bumper Sticker of the Week to share....

... 'cause I couldn't find a good 'nuff one. The I received this today from an ole' Air Force Bud!!



Thanks Don!!!

I ain't gonna add a single word.....

to this picture! It speak volumes all by it's own self.......

I don't reckon that ole' Greek fella, Diogenes....

..... ought to waste any of his time wandering around Hull, England, looking for an honest man!! Not if this story from Reuters is an any example.


ATM gives shoppers double-money windfall
Mar 20, 2008



LONDON (Reuters) - A British cash machine became a big hit this week after it started paying out twice as much money as it should.
The ATM, outside a supermarket in they city of Hull in northern England, began spewing out double the money Tuesday afternoon and continued doing so for several hours, drawing a crowd of hundreds eager to cash in on the mistake.


Those requesting the maximum daily withdrawal of 300 pounds ($600) were being given 600 pounds and a receipt for 300.

"People were calling their mates up and telling them to get down there," the Hull Daily Mail quoted a passer-by as saying.

After several hours the machine finally ran out of money.

Payzone, a company that administers ATMs, would not comment in detail on the incident but said it appeared one of its machines had malfunctioned.

Police said those who had benefited could face charges but only if the operator complained.
(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)



No wonder ole' Diogenes gave up the search and settled in with his 'stoic' dogs! I woulda' reckoned that at least one citizen in Hull would have had the honesty to call the bank and tell them about the malfunction ---- ahh well....


Saturday, March 22, 2008

This is a little longer than most of my postings.....

.... but I reckon that it's worth the read! I hope y'all do to!! It was written on Valentines Day -- but it ain't a love letter!



OBAMA MANIA
Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun

It's an amazing time to be alive in America . We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate; and, a candidate who is the first frontrunning freedom fighter over 70. The next president of America will be a first.

We won't truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics. The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's not.

He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record.

Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost. Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls.

Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America . But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty."

Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago.

Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich." How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" - hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois , he refused to vote against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood , and San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers.

Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs. But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they're talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton. It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama.

In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.

The man kinda tells it like it is -- doesn't he!!!

This seems to be a prime example......

.... of that old adage "Be careful what you wish for......."

A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.


Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we've seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;

2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3 a gallon;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);

5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and thanks to the new leadership, we got it!!!

Friday, March 21, 2008

This new stimulus plan .......

..... sure ought to help ... sombody's economy..... but is it ours?

The sky is falling...the sky is falling....

..... now we got to figure out how to make money by scaring the bejaysus out of everybody! From today's Herald Tribune:

At island retreat, Branson and friends seek to save a world 'on fire'

By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thursday, March 20, 2008


NECKER ISLAND,British Virgin Islands: Richard Branson was lounging under the starry midnight sky on this palm-dappled speck of an island recently when he popped a sobering question.
"So, do we really think the world is on fire?" Branson, the British magnate and adventurer, asked several guests, as a manservant scurried off to fetch him another glass of pinot grigio.
What he wanted to know was whether his high-powered visitors, among them Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, thought global warming threatened the planet.
Branson does - and so did most of his guests. So on this recent weekend on his private hideaway in the crystalline waters between the islands of Tortola and Anegada, they tried to figure out what to do about it and perhaps get richer in the process.
Some of them, like Page, carbon-consciously jet-pooled in from Silicon Valley, where the financiers who bankrolled the Web boom of the 1990s have started chasing the new "New New Thing": green power. In an era of $100-plus oil, venture capitalists like Vinod Khosla, another invitee, are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into young companies that cook up biofuels and harness the power of the sun
.


I guess the only thing better'n havin' a zillion dollars is being able to use some of them to swindle a few zillion more out of the great unwashed. 'Psst, hey buddy, wanna buy a few carbon credits?'

Well folks, Ole' Pecoz is plumb disappointed....

....in young Mr Obama! Not that I'd every vote for him mind you, he's much too liberal for this ole boy, but I still had high hopes for him as a new kind of politician! But alas.....

Turns out a couple of 'contract' employees at Department of State peeked into his passport folder when they had no business there. Keep in mind a 'contract' employee is an employee of a sub-contractor --- not the Dept of State. As soon as it was detected, they were fired and Obama was notified -- immediately -- not two years later.

So does Mr Obama voice his concern for the breach of security and his appreciation for the rapid response by the Dept of State? Does he wait to find out what the investigation turns up? Does he wonder out loud if perhaps these independent contractors might be fans of his current opponent - Ms Bubba Clinton --- she of the infamous White House FBI files scandal and cover up?
If you answered NO to all of these questions.... you aced the test Pardner! Instead, his spokesman immediately screamed;


Bill Burton, spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called the incidents "an outrageous breach of security and privacy." He said this is "a serious matter that merits a complete investigation," adding that the campaign will "demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."

What a shame --- apparently, he is a knee jerk - political hack jerk like all the rest! Hopefully he will be only a forgettable memory in our rear view mirror this time next year!!!!

I happened across a great site......

..... last evening with a series of great modern fighter jet pics. All of you other aficionados might want to check it out.....


This is a U.S. Navy F/A 18 Hornet. Not breaking the sound barrier -- just flying over water and creating that moisture spiral.








Here goes Santa, making his rounds in the back seat of a U.S. Air Force F-15....



For the rest of the slide show - check out:
http://wcbstv.com/slideshows/jet.fighter.fighterjet.20.228729.html?rid=5

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Where is Forrest Gump when we need him...


..... Wasn't Gump the one that coined the phrase "Stupid is as stupid does!" From Fox news:


Michigan Congressman Wants 50-Cent Tax Hike on Every Gallon of Gas
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption.
Polls show that a majority of Americans support policies that would reduce greenhouse gases. But when it comes to paying for it, it's a different story.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wants to help cut consumption with a gas tax but some don't agree with the idea, according to a new poll by the National Center for Public Policy Research.
The poll, scheduled to be released on Thursday, shows 48 percent don't support paying even a penny more, 28 percent would pay up to 50 cents more, 10 percent would pay more than 50 cents and 8 percent would pay more than a dollar.
.
"I think that wouldn't make any sense," said Frankie Hoe, a motorist. "Ugh ... who's making the money from all this and where is that money going? Is it going to go green? I don't see any green things anywhere."
The automobile is the nation's biggest polluter; Americans use more gas than the next 20 countries combined.
Some environmentalists and economists say pain at the pump may be bad for Americans, but good medicine for a sick planet.
But others say it wouldn't change much. Even if Americans abandoned their cars, global emissions would fall by less than one percent.
"A tax on gas is a way to reduce dependence on import oil, reduce traffic congrestion and reduce carbon emissions," said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute.
The Earth Policy Institute proposes raising the gas tax 30 cents per gallon each year over a decade and offset with a reduction of income taxes, Brown said.
David Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said the proposal wouldn't help long term.
"I think when you are talking about raising gas prices, there may be short-term reduction, put off vacations, but bottom line is over long term, that isn't going to have much of an effect," Ridenour said.
While Dingell's idea will likely lie dormant until after the 2008 election, the idea of carbon taxes is not. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all support some type of system that either directly or indirectly will raise prices to penalize polluters.
FOX News' William La Jeunesse contributed to this report.

Now then, I ain't sure just how stupid Dingell and all the other Dingelberrys inside the beltway think we are out here in 'flyover' country ---- but this whole thing ain't nothin' but another source for tax revenue for them to spend. If fifty cents would change our driving habits .... why the hell didn't the TWO DOLLAR + increases in the price of a gallon of gas the last couple of years jerk our chains and change our driving habits??

This ain't got a thing to do with the planet, cutting our oil consumption, changing our habits, or any other high sounding phrase! It is simply another sneaky MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR TAX HIKE!

Did you spy any words in Dingellberry's comments that defines exactly how these billion$ will be spent -- on Nuclear Power? - on Wind Power? on Solar Power? on Hydrogen Power ...NO - not a word!!

Now this sign got me to wonderin'....


Do you reckon that you have to flash a pack of "Luckies" or "Marlboros" to get into study hall at this school?
Kinda makes you proud of the Administrators of our educational system doesn't it!!!

An old friend from Michigan, shared this parable.....

.... in her attempt to 'splain our current tax dilemma and arguments in this country. She put it in language even Ole' Pecoz could understand.....

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve."Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20".

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings."I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!""Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

And there Pilgrims, lies the heart of our problem in this country today! The class envy that is shaken and stirred among the citizenry by the politicians more concerned with their personal election polls than the long term good of this country of ours.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

"Turn out the lights, the party's over!"....

..... so sang Al 'Fast Lipped' Sharpton when he announced publicly that although he is for Obama, he ain't gonna tell nobody that he's for Obama, 'cause that way he can help Obama more...! Huh?
From the Daily News:


During rally, Al Sharpton says he's keeping support for Obama quiet
By ADAM SERWER and MICHAEL SAUL DAILY NEWS WRITERS
March 19th 2008

The Rev. Al Sharpton is backing Barack Obama, but he's made the strategic decision to keep his support quiet.
That's the message Sharpton delivered to his flock last Saturday as he boasted of talking to Obama "two or three times a week" - and insisted the Democratic front-runner knows the rev is in his camp.
"I said, 'I'm gonna do whatever I gotta do to help you.
Hillary Clinton has never done nothing for us,'" said Sharpton, recounting a conversation with Obama for his followers at his group's weekly rally.
"'I won't either endorse you or not endorse you,'" Sharpton said he told the
Illinois senator as the two made their way to a Nov. 29 dinner at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem. "'But I will tell you I can be freer not endorsing you to help you and everybody else.'"
According to Sharpton, Obama protested and asked for his public support. "'No, no, no. I want you to endorse,'" Sharpton recalled Obama saying.
Sharpton told Obama that it would be better strategically for him to remain publicly neutral.

'Course later at this same rally, "He specifically cited racially tinged statements from former President Bill Clinton, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro as troubling."

How can this man of the cloth, this gentleman, this generous religious soul, turn his back so quickly on the man he called the "First Black President". Ouch -- so much for short lived loyalty! Ohh the pain.....

We've all heard of it rainin' cats and dogs.......

... but last evening it rained mud and ash in San Antonio...! Apparently ashes from a fire down in Mexico combined with sand and dirt whipped up by a windstorm and it all met a line of thunderboomers over the Alamo!!

International tourists wondered if it rained mud here all the time. Ole' Pecoz ain't seen the likes of this since we used to have red sandstorms blow up out of North Africa and rain red mud on us on the Island of Crete!! Wheee doggies - what a mess!
Only happy folks were those that parked their vehicles in the garage and the folks that own the carwashes..... big couple of days for them!!

That little blonde cutie is our local Weatherette Gal on our NBC affliate station, WOAI-TV.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The correct spelling for 'CHUTZPAH' might just be.....

......BARRY BONDS or perhaps DONALD FEHR!

Union to examine why Bonds has no offers

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer

The lack of offers to Barry Bonds will be examined by the baseball players' association as part of its annual review of the free-agent market. Less than two weeks before opening day, the 43-year-old home run king remains unsigned.

"He's in playing shape right now. He just hasn't hit off live pitching," Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, said Tuesday. "I've had conversations with Barry. It would probably take him about two weeks to get ready."

Bonds was indicted in November on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice, charges stemming from 2003 grand jury testimony in which he denied knowingly using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The seven-time NL MVP pleaded not guilty.

Tampa Bay acknowledged last month that it had internal discussions about the prospect of pursuing Bonds. St. Louis manager Tony La Russa had interest in Bonds but Cardinals management decided against opening talks.

Borris said Bonds was working out in the Los Angeles area. He wouldn't comment on the status of any negotiations.

"He wants to play," Borris said.

After speaking with the Los Angeles Angels during his annual tour of spring-training camps, union head Donald Fehr said his staff will examine possible collusion against Bonds and others.

"I haven't talked to him about it or his agents and I don't want to comment personally about it since I haven't had the opportunity to do that," he said.

Bonds hit .276 last year with 28 homers, 66 RBIs and a major league-leading 132 walks. He made $19.3 million, and the Giants decided to let him go after 15 seasons in San Francisco.

While he has slowed in the outfield during recent seasons, Bonds could make a potent designated hitter for an American League team. He has 762 homers — seven more than Hank Aaron's previous mark — and would be a box-office draw for a team with slow ticket sales.

On another topic, Fehr wouldn't say whether he thinks baseball commissioner Bud Selig will try to punish players implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell. In his Dec. 13 report, Mitchell asked that Selig not impose discipline "except in those cases where he determines that the conduct is so serious that discipline is necessary to maintain the integrity of the game."

Yessirreee Bob! If I was a baseball owner, I'd be rushin' to offer a $20 million dollar contract to an over the hill, unpopular baseball player that's hittin' .276, can't field a ball, is under five federal indictments and possible league suspension or worse! You betcha Mr Fehr, It must be that 'collusion' stuff that's keepin' owners at bay! Let's sue somebody - anybody!!

Everybody's got a price.........

..... it's just that some folks can be bought for less than others.....


Well Pilgrims, I was surely disappointed.....

..... in ole' Barry Obama's speech today! I was hopin' for a real "come to Jesus" stem winder which would let us get to know him. Instead we got the same old political rhetoric, half truths, part truths, and no meat! At least he was not insultin' our intelligence until he got to this passage --

"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism."

Apparently, for a college man, Baracky just didn't pay attention to what happened in 1980 and 1984 in this country! The Reagan Coalition (Revolution) was about getting government OUT OF OUR LIVES and OUT OF OUR PAYCHECK DEDUCTIONS!

Carter's liberal government created the first landslide wherein in President Reagan won 44 States!

Reagan's majority over candidate Mondale who promised to raise taxes and expand government sky rocketed to 49 States to Mondale's 1. That being his home state of Minnesota which he carried by a slim margin of 38,000 votes!

Now B.O-bama thinks we are stupid enough to believe that the Reagan Revolution was merely the result of folks being upset over welfare and affirmative action!! You don't win 49 states without a whole lot of folks of every color and ethnic background pullin' your lever!! HORSE APPLES!
Nah that ain't strong enough --- when a politician uses race baitin', class warfare, and lies in an a sorry but obvious attempt to accuse others of the those same failings ---- that's absolute BULLSHIT!! (...and that's insultin' innocent cows!)

Pun of the Week.......

Puns are fun............! Good ones are more fun!!

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him... (whoa pardner, this is so bad, it's good) ...a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Monday, March 17, 2008

The London Telegraph recently conducted a survey....

.....to name the 100 most beautiful automobiles of all time. This '60's Corvette came in twelfth. All you automobile (the word cars just doesn't work here) aficionados might want to visit the site to see the other 99! Some pretty machinery!!!

To see them all - go to: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2008/03/15/mfcars5.xml

This date, celebrating St Patrick.....

..... might not be the best day to find fault with the Pope, but Lord knows, he asks for it! Sounding more like a Long Island complaining housewife than a Pope, he laments;

"Enough with the slaughter"

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in Iraq on Sunday, days after the body of the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop was found near the northern city of Mosul.
The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had
provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life.


"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass in

St. Peter's Square.

On Thursday, the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found near Mosul. He had been abducted on Feb. 29.
Benedict has called Rahho's death an "inhuman act of violence" that offended human dignity.


On Sunday, Benedict praised Rahho for his loyalty to Christ and his refusal to abandon his flock despite many threats and difficulties.
He recalled Rahho's death as the
Catholic Church opens Holy Week, the most solemn week in the liturgical calendar in which the faithful recall the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

Benedict said Rahho's dedication to the Catholic Church and his death compelled him to "raise a strong and sorrowful cry" to denounce the violence in Iraq spawned by the war that began five years ago this week.

"At the same time, I make an appeal to the

Iraqi people, who for the past five years have borne the consequences of a war that provoked the breakup of their civil and social life," Benedict said.

Ole' Pecoz doesn't know if Popes make statements like these out of arrogance or ignorance. Either they don't care what happens to the 'little' people or, living in their golden goblet cocoons, just aren't aware of the real world and it's condition. Any guesses on how many thousands of folks would die, if the Allies pulled out and left the Iraqi's to fend for themselves? Any guesses on the Islamic fascist inspired tribal warfare that would breakout throughout the Middle East?

How simple it is to sit in the Vatican surrounded by vassals and ring kissers - and mouth these unfortunate dictum's... This of course, would be the same Vatican that ignored the plight of the Jews under the Nazi's as well..... the millions murdered by Pol Pot..... the millions currently dying in Africa.... and on it goes....
Oh my!!!

Wishin you all a Happy St Paddies' Day!

In honor of this day - I thought I would share a couple of me favorite Limericks. The favorite poetry form of Sons of the Auld Sod......




SOME SAY GOLF IS A GAME MADE FOR FOOLS
REQUIRING USE OF A WEIRD SET OF TOOLS
- SPOONS, NIBLICKS AND WEDGES
- AND AS SOME GOLFER ALLEGES
OVER NINE-HUNDRED PAGES OF RULES

THE GREEK GODDESS OF LOVE, APHRODITE
KNEW SHE LOOKED REALLY COOL IN HER NIGHTIE
- SO SHE WORE IT ALL DAY
- AT HER WORK AND AT PLAY
AND THE WOMEN CRIED “GOOD GODDESS ALMIGHTY!”

MAGGIE MCKNIGHT WAS A CLOSE FISTED LASS
WHO HATED TO PAY SIX EURO’S FOR GAS
- IN A FIT OF GREAT THRIFT
- BOUGHT A BIKE WITH A SHIFT
BUT WAS THEN CITED FOR PEDDLING HER ASS



A SCOTS GOLFER NAMED AMOS MACDILT
TOOK PRIDE IN WEARING HIS TARTAN KILT
- ON COLD WINDY COURSES
- THE NATURAL FORCES
WOULD CAUSE PORTIONS OF AMOS TO WILT



A CHAUVINIST BOSS NAMED BOB PETTIT
JUST DIDN’T SEEM ABLE TO GET IT
- IT ALL CAME TO PASS
- ‘CAUSE HE THOUGHT HARASS
WAS TWO WORDS AND THAT’S HOW HE SAID IT!



© 2008


Please free to add your favorite in the comments section below.....

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Wheee Doggies .... they just keep pilin' on !!!!

The soon to be ex-gov'nor of New York just keeps catchin' it and catchin' it! From the late night TV comics to the Sunday NY Post:

YOU DOG! IT'S A LAST CHANCE TO CHASE TAIL

By GEORGETT ROBERTS

Life can be lonely in the doghouse.

Gov. Spitzer, who leaves office tomorrow, as a result of a scandal involving a high-priced hooker, has only his dog, James, to keep him company as he tries to patch things up with his wife, Silda.
After a few hours of walking the Wheaton terrier alone - Ă  la Bill Clinton with his chocolate Lab, Buddy, in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal - Spitzer hopped into an SUV with Silda, two of their three daughters, and James.
But while the temperature was a mild 45 degrees yesterday, things were chilly in front of the Spitzer's Upper East Side home. Silda barely looked at her hubby as he climbed behind the wheel and the family sped off to its manse in upstate Gallatin.


Ya' gotta figure this man must of made at least one friend on his way to the top, but if he did --- that guy is sure being quiet - 'cause I ain't heard from him!

Do you reckon Ms Bubba Clinton .....

..... sees Barry Obama as --- the Good --- the Bad ---- or the Ugly?

.... on the other hand, Ole' Pecoz is too much of a gentleman to reverse this question....!

Keep your eye on the sky folks,.......

..... there's some serious changes goin' on up there and I ain't talkin' about the weather. Y'all recall how for years, the word 'France' was a synonym for such words as losers, second rate, no account and all.... some changes might be coming over the horizon.

We all saw the headlines this last week that shouted that the European Airbus consortium (EADS) has won the megamillion dollar contract to supply their air planes as refuelers to the USAF. That was a wake up bugle and shows what happens when our one remaining airplane manufacturer, Boeing, has no native competition and depends on their ties to politicians to remain in the game. Hopefully -- some long term good will come out of this development.

We in the US of A have always felt like we owned the commercial skies as well, the biggest fleets, the most flights, and all those bragging rights. We might have to rethink that, as well!

Air France merged with KLM a couple of years ago, making them one of the worlds largest carriers. Didn't read much about that, did we? This week it has been announced that Air France-KLM is buying out Alitalia! With the blessing of the Italian government. Hmmm

Now it appears that Air France-KLM + Alitalia is a playing partner in a merger between Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines here at home. What their role will be in the newly formed company isn't yet exactly clear -- but I don't reckon they are investing to be common stock holders only.

Remember in the not too distant past when carriers like TWA, and PANAM circled the world? Will we soon be seeing 'AFKADA' (AirFrance-KLM-Alitalia-Delta-NWAirlines) or some such, flying the globe with the Tri-Colors of the flag of the French Republic on her tails?

Just ponderin' out loud --- meanwhile I'll keep my eyes peeled........

Saturday, March 15, 2008

I hear tell that whilst Barry Obama & Her Shrillaryness.....

..... are runnin' around Pennsylvania, Smilin' John McCain is off on a round the world look-see!
I'll bet all those Generals and NCO's in Iraq and Afghanistan are pleased as punch that those other two are too busy to come by for a sleep over and a photo op!!! That way they can keep their eye on the mission instead of these wannabees!

I usually just link y'all to long articles - but this one...

..... is so well written by Mark Steyn for the National Review Online, that I thought I'd share the whole column ----- Obama's minister, Jeremiah Wright ain't just a loud mouth preacher -- he's an anti-American loud mouthed race baiter it seems.....

Uncle Jeremiah
Barack Obama and his cookie-cutter race huckster.

By Mark Steyn

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright thinks that, given their treatment by white America, black Americans have no reason to sing “God Bless America.” “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America,” he told his congregation. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.”

I’m not a believer in guilt by association, or the campaign vaudeville of rival politicians insisting this or that candidate disassociate himself from remarks by some fellow he had a 30-second grip’n’greet with a decade ago. But Jeremiah Wright is not exactly peripheral to Barack Obama’s life. He married the Obamas and baptized their children. Those of us who made the mistake of buying the senator’s last book, The Audacity of Hope, and assumed the title was an ingeniously parodic distillation of the great sonorous banality of an entire genre of blandly uplifting political writing discovered circa page 127 that in fact the phrase comes from one of the Reverend Wright’s sermons. Jeremiah Wright has been Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years — in other words, pretty much the senator’s entire adult life. Did Obama consider God Damn America as a title for his book but it didn’t focus-group so well?

Ah, well, no, the senator told ABC News. The Reverend Wright is like “an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with.” So did he agree with goofy old Uncle Jeremiah on September 16th 2001? That Sunday morning, Uncle told his congregation that the United States brought the death and destruction of 9/11 on itself. “We nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” said the Reverend Wright. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards.”

Is that one of those “things I don’t always agree with”? Well, Senator Obama isn’t saying, responding merely that he wasn’t in church that morning. Okay, fair enough, but what would he have done had he happened to have shown up on September 16th? Cried “Shame on you!” and stormed out? Or, if that’s a little dramatic, whispered to Michelle that he didn’t want their daughters hearing this kind of drivel while rescue workers were still sifting through the rubble and risen from his pew in a dignified manner and led his family to the exit? Or would he have just sat there with an inscrutable look on his face as those around him nodded?

All Senator Obama will say is that “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial.” And in that he may be correct. There are many preachers who would be happy to tell their congregations “God damn America.” But Barack Obama is not supposed to be the candidate of the America-damners: He’s not the Reverend Al Sharpton or the Reverend Jesse Jackson or the rest of the racial-grievance mongers. Obama is meant to be the man who transcends the divisions of race, the candidate who doesn’t damn America but “heals” it — if you believe, as many Democrats do, that America needs healing.

Yet since his early twenties he’s sat week after week listening to the ravings of just another cookie-cutter race huckster.

What is Barack Obama for? It’s not his “policies,” such as they are. Rather, Senator Obama embodies an idea: He’s a symbol of redemption and renewal, and a lot of other airy-fairy abstractions that don’t boil down to much except making upscale white liberals feel good about themselves and get even more of a frisson out of white liberal guilt than they usually do. I assume that’s what Geraldine Ferraro was getting at when she said Obama wouldn’t be where he was today (i.e., leading the race for the Democratic nomination) if he was white. For her infelicity, the first woman on a presidential ticket got bounced from the Clinton campaign and denounced by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann for her “insidious racism” indistinguishable from “the vocabulary of David Duke.”

Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Enjoyable as it is to watch previously expert wielders of identity-politics hand-grenades blow their own fingers off, if Geraldine Ferraro’s an “insidious racist,” who isn’t?



The song the Reverend Wright won’t sing is by Irving Berlin, a contemporary of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin and Lorenz Hart, all the sophisticated rhymesters. But only Berlin could have written without embarrassment “God Bless America.” He said it directly, unaffectedly, unashamedly — in seven words:

God Bless America
Land that I love.

Berlin was a Jew and he suffered slights: He grew up in the poverty of New York’s Lower East Side. When he made his name and fortune, his marriage to a Park Avenue heiress resulted in her expulsion from the Social Register. In the Thirties, her sister moved in with a Nazi diplomat and proudly flaunted her diamond swastika to Irving. But Berlin spent his infancy in Temun, Siberia (until the Cossacks rode in and razed his village) and he understood the great gift he’d been given:

God Bless America
Land that I love.

The Reverend Wright can’t say those words. His shtick is:

God damn America
Land that I loathe.

I understand the Ellis Island experience of Russian Jews was denied to blacks. But not to Obama. His experience surely isn’t so different to Berlin’s — except that Barack got to go to Harvard. Obama’s father was a Kenyan, he spent his childhood in Indonesia, and he ought to thank his lucky stars that he’s running for office in Washington rather than Nairobi or Jakarta. Instead, his whiney wife Michelle says that her husband’s election as president would be the first reason to have “pride” in America, and complains that this country is “downright mean” and that she’s having difficulty finding money for their daughters’ piano lessons and summer camp. Between them, Mr. and Mrs. Obama earn $480,000 a year (not including book royalties from The Audacity of Hype), but they’re whining about how tough they have it to couples who earn 48 grand — or less. Yes, we can. But not on a lousy half-million bucks a year.

God has blessed America, and blessed the Obamas in America, and even blessed the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose bashing of his own country would be far less lucrative anywhere else on the planet. The “racist” here is not Geraldine Ferraro but the Reverend Wright, whose appeals to racial bitterness are supposed to be everything President Obama will transcend. Right now, it sounds more like the same-old same-old.

God Bless America
Land that I love.
Take it away, Michelle.

Maybe if Obama gets in the White House, this good man can be our National Pastor.....?????????

ABC spreads word that yet another debate....

between the last two contestants of the Democratic Party's tooo long version of "Survivor" is going to take place. Oh, would that it were so!! Imagine how great it would be if they actually debated instead of mouthing sixty second sound bites and platitudes..

Obama vs. Clinton: They Meet Again

March 13, 2008 5:40 PM

ABC News' Ed O'Keefe Reports: The dueling Democrats contending for the party's crown will debate again.

Taking the stage for the 21st and possibly 22nd time, Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., could debate at least twice more before the critical Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, April 22.

Both candidates have accepted an ABC News debate in Philadelphia and Obama has accepted a similar invitation from CBS News to debate at a location to be determined in North Carolina.

Where is that little ole lady from the Burger commercials shouting, "Where's the Beef" when we need her? This will be one more hour (at least) for these two pork trough feeding ne'er do wells, to once again promise us a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, a mortgage free house attached to the garage, a family doctor who makes house calls paid by the evil rich tax payers, and..... 'Peace in our Time!...

How about Charlie (the DNC cheerleader) Gibson naming a topic and then turning of his mike for fifteen minutes. then naming another topic etc etc.. Nah - never happen!

Well Well - here it is Saturday and time once again...

....for the "Bumper Sticker of the Week". Pickin's were a little slim this week, Hellery and Spitzer notwithstanding ---- but Ole Pecoz thought there was a double meaning probably not even intended by the creator of this one ---- so here 'tis!!


Friday, March 14, 2008

My, My, My!! It would appear that even the candidate ....

.... who offers us all 'HOPE' and 'CHANGE' has his feet firmly planted in the soft clay of so many other career politicians. This one, although young, seems to be a fast learner! Skipping down the Senate corridor last night asking his brethren and sistren to put a stop to those ugly 'earmarks', a pork trough from which he has fed heavily to the tune of milion$ and million$ of dollar$.! From NationalReveiwOnline"


Thursday, March 13, 2008

BARACK OBAMA

One of Obama's Earmark Requests Was for the Hospital That Employs Michelle Obama

Dan Riehl notes, via Amanda Carpenter, that in the list of earmarks he requested, $1 million was requested for the construction of a new hospital pavilion at the University Of Chicago. The request was put in in 2006.

You know who works for the University of Chicago Hospital?

Michelle Obama. She's vice president of community affairs.

As Byron noted, "In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office."

Looks like that raise was worth it.

Don't forget to click on that link of his earmarks in the first sentence ---- very interesting! And here I was hopin' that we might actually have a new breed of politician on our hands. Seems like we just have a new height of hypocrisy! tsk tsk Kind of gives a whole new meaning to that favorite word of his......"Audacity!"

The former Mrs McCartney leaving Court today ...


..... with what appears to be a £25,000,000 smile on her face. That's in the neighborhood of $50,000,000 for you Pilgrims that hate to look up the current rate of exchange 'cause it's so depressing!
News will break next Monday!

To know Barack Obama - look to his mentor and spiritual advisor...

.... Obama has been listening with (pick a word) absorption, concentration, engrossment, enthrallment, immersion, attention for twenty years --- !! From the Baltimore Sun:

Obama's spiritual mentor

Powerhouse Chicago preacher draws attention, and plenty of controversy

By Michael Hill, Sun Reporter

January 16, 2008

CHICAGO

The packed house at Trinity United - some 3,000 in all - had been in the pews for almost two hours, energized by a 200-voice choir and a rousing dance performance Sunday, when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright stepped up to speak.

Wright is well-known in Chicago and in the black church world for taking over a small United Church of Christ congregation in 1972 and turning it into an 8,000-member powerhouse. More recently, his name has become familiar as the longtime spiritual mentor of Barack Obama, who joined the church in 1988 - a move Obama says was important to shaping his identity as an African-American.

The connection has thrown a spotlight on some of Wright's more controversial remarks in a church that advertises itself as "unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian" - at times espousing a black liberation theology that can sound as exclusionary as Obama's message is inclusionary. He has also equated Zionism with racism.

On Sunday morning - amid intensified crossfire between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama over the use of race in the Democratic presidential campaign - Wright was preaching from the Gospel of John, using his powerful style to link the story of the loaves and fishes to a contemporary political message.

Man should not put limits on what God can do, but that's what people always do, he told the crowd. Just as God made five loaves and two fishes feed thousands, God has provided liberators for blacks in the past - from Nat Turner to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and now Barack Obama. But, Wright said, there were always reasons not to follow them.

Some argue that blacks should vote for Clinton "because her husband was good to us," he continued.

"That's not true," he thundered. "He did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky."

Many in the crowd were on their feet, applauding - amazed, amused and moved by the fiery rhetoric of their preacher, who is about to retire.

It is just such rhetoric that has made Wright's remarks an occasional staple on conservative talk shows. They often make the rounds in anti-Obama e-mail.

[......] (for more go to: BaltimoreSun.com)

Whee Doggies.... Ole' Pecoz reckons it's gonna be a long and interesting Presidential campaign!! Here's a homework question for you Buckaroos: From whom did Obama get the title of his book....."Audacity of Hope" ?

It's a shame that former Governor Ann Richards...

.... of Texas has passed on to her reward. Were she still alive, she could relive her best line and say; "Poor Geraldine, she couldn't help it, she was born with loose tongue in her mouth!"


From today's NY Post... for more - got to: NYPOST.com

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Hugh Hewitt has an interesting take on the Spitzer blunder....

.... by comparing it to Bubba's. Here it is from Townhall.com

Whose Conduct Was More Reprehensible: Clinton’s or Spitzer’s?

By Hugh HewittThursday, March 13, 2008

First, limit the question to what is known beyond reasonable doubt: Elliot Spitzer’s serial assignations with call girls and Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky combined with his perjury about that affair.
Set aside Spitzer’s bullying prosecutions and his abuse of his office as governor. Try and forget the allegations against Bill Clinton from other women. Stick just to what is widely understood to be undeniable facts.
So, whose conduct is worse?
Callers to my radio show went 60-40 to proclaim Clinton the bigger heel. The reasons were two: He abused his position of power over an intern and he clung to power even after his guilt was exposed.
Those who blasted Spitzer pointed to his hypocrisy in having prosecuted others for the very conduct he is accused of engaging in, but others saluted his eventual decision to resign.
Many callers threw up their hands and declared a tie: Both guys were skunks.
There are fair arguments on all sides, but the discussion raises one key question: Given that Spitzer is being hounded from office as a result of his conduct, why is Bill Clinton still being celebrated on the campaign trail and honored far and wide? When did the absolution get conferred? When did the statute of limitations run on holding his repulsive conduct against him?
Of course Senator Clinton is not guilty of the sins of her husband except insofar as she participated in their cover-up, and that she was duped with many others is at least believable.
But this isn’t a question of criminal guilt but of a country’s willingness to welcome back to the White House a man who most definitely degraded the Oval office by his conduct.
Can you imagine Elliot Spitzer back in public life in eight years? If not, why has Bill staged such a comeback?
Could it be that many in the press and the electorate are simply amazed at Bill’s brazenness? His willingness to say or do anything? That America simply loves an unrepentant rogue?
If Spitzer had chutzpah like Bill’s, he would have walked out to the cameras, cited the Clinton precedent, and dared the new York legislature to impeach him while asserting it was time to get back to the people’s business.
Given the Clinton precedent, it might have worked.


Frankly, I think that Spitzer's background and ethical training prevented him from taking Bubba's route. Bubba after all, was not held back by such niceties as guilt, remorse or self-recrimination!
Hugh Hewitt is a law professor, broadcast journalist, and author of several books. For more of his and other's columns check out Townhall.com.


It's good to know that School Administrators are....

.....scrupulously supervising sale of 'underground' goods in our schools. I wasn't sure which story should be the over zealous example of the day -- this one or the poor Mom who goes on trial in Chicago tomorrow for child endangerment for taking her kids to give money to the Salvation Army kettle dude in December. This one wins --- but the Chicago Mom was close----!

School clears kids in contraband candy caper

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- School officials have decided to go light on an eighth-grader caught with contraband candy in New Haven, Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan, an eighth-grade honors student who was suspended for a day, barred from attending an honors dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president after he was caught with a bag of Skittles candy in school will get his student council post back, school officials said.

Superintendent Reginald Mayo said in a statement late Wednesday that he and principal Eleanor Turner met with student Michael's parents and that Turner decided to clear the boy's record and restore him to his student council post.

Michael was disciplined after he was caught buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate. The classmate's suspension also will be expunged, school officials said.

The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy, school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

"I am sorry this has happened," Turner said in a statement. "My hope is that we can get back to the normal school routine, especially since we are in the middle of taking the Connecticut mastery test."

Turner said she should have reinforced in writing the verbal warnings against candy transactions.

Michael had said that he didn't realize his candy purchase was against the rules, but he did notice that the student selling the Skittles on February 26 was being secretive.

Good Lord!! Don't these kids know that Skittle abuse leads to Baby Ruth bars, and then milk shakes and ice cream cones? By the time they reach adulthood they will be into apple pie and whipped cream!! These folks just barely saved this young Honor Student from a lifetime of sugar abuse... Bless them!

This 'Lil Ole Texas Gal is truly a Lone Star "STAR"!

.... and she was "only doing what she was she was trained to do" ... Here folks, the Houston Chronicle says it best and rightfully so:

Lake Jackson teen awarded Silver Star for gallantry in Afghanistan

By RENÉE C. LEE, Houston Chronicle

Proud grandmother says she 'just did what she was trained to do'

Dodging insurgent gunfire, a 19-year-old Lake Jackson soldier used her body to shield five injured comrades after a roadside bomb struck her convoy in Afghanistan last spring. That act of bravery has earned her the Silver Star.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown is only the second woman since World War II to receive the medal, one of the nation's highest military awards given for gallantry in combat.
''She just did what she was trained to do," her 74-year-old grandmother, Katy Brown, said from her Lake Jackson home on Sunday.

Monica Brown, a medic, was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia when a bomb struck one of the Humvees on April 25, military officials said.
After the explosion, she braved insurgent gunfire and mortars to reach five wounded soldiers. She shielded them as she administered aid and helped drag them to safety, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Monica Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday from a U.S. base in the province of Khowst.
Katy Brown said her granddaughter graduated from Brazos River Charter School in Morgan at 15. She joined the Army with her brother, Justin Brown, in November 2006 to get a college education, Katy Brown said.
She said she is not surprised by her granddaughter's heroics.
''She's just a strong, strong young woman, and she's very caring," Katy Brown said.
Monica Brown told her grandmother she didn't have time to be scared.
She just jumped into action and ''made medics out of those infantry men," Katy Brown said.
Monica Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot.
"So, we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."
Might leave in April
Monica Brown knew all five wounded soldiers. She said they eventually moved the wounded about 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.
She is expected to leave Afghanistan on April 15, but Katy Brown didn't know when her granddaughter would arrive home or where she would receive the medal.
Mary Moreno, founder of Military Moms in Lake Jackson, said Monica Brown deserves the medal because she is a giving person.
''When she came home last April, she was an inspiration to all of us," Moreno said. "She became one of us and said, 'What can I do?' " [.......]

I reckon I got boots that are older than this young Texas heroine! What an example for American youth -- especially in this day and age of the Hollywoodie tramp packs..... The Paris's, Lindsays, Brittanys, and the rest. Much less the Seans, the Georges, the infamous Monica and their lot of middle aged losers!
In the vernacular of my Grandkids --- YOU ROCK MONICA!!!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I hope none of you Pilgrims were surprised by Geraldine Ferraro's bigotry...

........ regarding Obama this last weekend. Racism is a blood sport in Metro New York tri-state area and Long Island. Ole Pecoz spent over twenty years in a totally and comfortably integrated US Air Force before settling in an integrated San Antonio Texas thirty years ago.

Then I had cause to spend six years on Long Island in the early '90's and found bigotry and racism to be alive and well. Neighborhoods were 'restricted', mortgages were 'red lined', and general prejudices ran plumb hot! I dined in Gotti's neighborhood where no black man dared appear, in Jewish neighborhoods and restaurants, and visited mostly in all white neighborhoods where Realtors were physically threatened if they dared to bring minority home buyers in to look around.

I was amazed to find the ultra-liberal North East to be the last major hold out against integration in this country! Now comes Ferraro --- her bigoted words this weekend were nothing new! As pointed out by Ben Smith in Politico.com today:

A Ferraro flashback

"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race," she said.

Really. The cite is an April 15, 1988 Washington Post story (byline: Howard Kurtz), available only on Nexis.

Here's the full context:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."

So why is anybody surprised that she would mouth the same words twenty years later! Ole Pecoz sure ain't!!!!