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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Woman who cut national forest trees fined $100,000

A judge has spared a Nevada woman prison time but ordered her to pay a $100,000 fine for hiring a company to chop down three large trees on national forest land to improve her home's view of Lake Tahoe.

Judge Brian Sandoval accepted a plea deal Wednesday that also called for 57-year-old Patricia Vincent to do 80 hours of community service.

Sandoval could have sentenced Vincent to up to six months in prison. He says he decided against it because he felt she had been embarrassed and humiliated by the publicity of the case and seems to have learned her lesson.

Vincent has already paid the restitution and completed her community service.

She had the 80- to 100-year-old Ponderosa pines removed in April 2007.

*****

She should have been given the maximum prison time and fined and community service!

The height of the gall to cut trees on the public's land to improve your private view of a lake is unforgivable.

Homeowners near NC wildfire told to evacuate

Hey! This is a California thing ain't it?

Authorities in eastern North Carolina are telling 39 homeowners to evacuate after a wildfire jumped containment lines.

The blaze in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge has burned up to 10,000 acres, or nearly 16 square miles. Fire officials say it's likely to continue growing because of hot and dry conditions.

Firefighters have started to establish new containment lines to the north and east of the blaze, hoping that access roads will help corner it. The fire jumped previous lines Tuesday night and has been threatening the area south of Lake Phelps.

Emergency workers said Wednesday they evacuated a community around the lake, telling 39 homeowners to leave.


Officials said lightning started the blaze Sunday.

The World rejoices in Obama's victory.

Excitement about Barack Obama emerged as a global phenomenon Wednesday as commentators and citizens around the world welcomed the news that he had sealed the Democratic presidential nomination.

The excitement was less about Obama's foreign policies - which remain vague on many fronts - than a sense that the candidacy of a black American with relatives in Africa and childhood friends in Asia marks a historic moment.

Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said Obama's win "has sent out a lot of positive signals around the world."

"He has a very appealing persona - elegant, fluent, strings lots of sentences together into paragraphs," Cox said. "But in terms of (his) actual policies towards the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, China, Europe - actually, we don't know."

In Kenya, home to Obama's family on his father's side, the Kenya Times newspaper devoted its front page to Obama's victory, under the headline "Obama makes history."

"I've just watched him on television, and as a family we are very happy. Really, it is something that is a trendsetter," the politician's uncle, Said Obama, told The Associated Press from the port city of Kisumu in western Kenya.

Indonesians were rooting for the man they consider to be a hometown hero. Obama lived in the predominantly Muslim nation from age 6 to 10 with his mother and Indonesian stepfather and was fondly remembered by former teachers and classmates.

"He was an average student, but very active," said Widianto Hendro Cahyono, 48, who was in the same third-grade class as Obama at SDN Menteng elementary school in Jakarta. "He would play ball during recess until he was dripping with sweat.

"I never imagined he would become a great man."

In Mexico City, hairdresser Susan Mendoza's eyes lit up when she learned Obama had clinched the nomination.

"Bush was for the elite. Obama is of the people," she said.

The German government's coordinator on U.S. relations, Karsten Voigt, said many Germans "find (Obama's) mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy very attractive."

In an editorial, the Times newspaper of London said Obama's campaign "has rekindled America's faith in its prodigious powers of reinvention - and the world's admiration for America."

Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq and has called for an early troop withdrawal. He also has shown willingness to engage in dialogue with Iran, North Korea and Cuba - nations long isolated by the policies of Bush.

"He seems to be a peace lover," said Ngo Van Hung, a Vietnamese real-estate salesman. "He would have a better understanding of how to treat people of different nationalities and different countries."

A Chinese scholar said that while he did not expect major changes in U.S. foreign policy, an Obama White House would have a very different tone to a Bush one.

"He will bring new energy into America's domestic politics and foreign policies," said Zhu Feng, deputy director at the Center of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University in Beijing. "It's a good choice for the Democrats."

*****

And to think the myopic nincompoops still think they have a shot with Mc Pain.

Yes We Can



The politics of No and Hatred are over! The real America is speaking out in terms that are very clear and they are not those of the haters and the naysayers.