Welcome to ...

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.


Thursday, August 21, 2008

Comments, comments, comments

Spot on!
I wonder if the self-righteous know when they are skewered.
I learn more about America from your blog than from your news media.
Yes!
Positive, honest and doesn't play favorites.
Funny and subtle as a sledge hammer.
Local, regional, state, national and international news all in one place.
Makes my day.

****
To be fair here are some comments from some of those 'skewered' herein:

You should be ashamed of calling our president a shrub.
That's McCain.
America love it or leave it!

The rest of those comments are too vulgar and bile-filled for me to post - Yes, I DO have standards despite some of the aforementioned 'skewered's' rants and railings to the contrary.

In response to the comments posted above:

Ashamed .... Nope, I call it as it is -
it's McPain -
I have bled for America how many of you have?

Thanks for the positive comments they are always a pleasure to receive and to read. As for the rest ... keep'em coming, you make it so easy.

Student killed in shooting at Tennessee school

A student fatally shot a 15-year-old classmate Thursday at a high school, police said, as other teenagers watched in horror as the victim clutched his chest and fell to the floor.

Police identified the victim as Ryan McDonald, a sophomore who lived with his grandmother and had alopecia, a condition that left him bald since he was 3 and the target of endless teasing as a child.
"He tried to have a tough exterior, like a shield, to fit in," his uncle Roger McDonald said.
"He was a good kid ... who was dealt some bad cards in life."

The shooting happened shortly after 8 a.m. at the Central High School cafeteria, Deputy Chief Bill Roehl said, and the suspected shooter was taken into custody six minutes later on a nearby street.
The suspect and victim knew each other, Knox County School System Superintendent Jim McIntyre said.

Jamar Siler, 15, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and was being held in a juvenile detention facility, police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.
Siler had an initial appearance in Juvenile Court late Thursday and was being held without bond. His lawyer, public defender Mark Stephens, refused to discuss the case.

"This wasn't a shooting that was a random act," Roehl said. "It was an individual directing his aggression toward another individual, not the school or the students inside the school."
At a news conference late Thursday, McIntyre said the school will reopen Friday, though more for counseling than for classes.
"I want to assure parents and others in this community that despite this tragic ... and isolated incident that our schools are safe," the superintendent of the 52,000-student system said.
Those not attending would get an excused absence.

The cafeteria was a popular place to gather before classes started at 8:30 a.m., students said. Chad Griffin, 15, and Josh Matthews, 14, said that they were sitting about 10 feet away from the victim and talking when they heard a sharp noise.
Griffin at first thought someone had dropped a book and then looked around.
"He got shot and started walking and he was holding his chest. There was blood everywhere. And then he fell and his arm hit me," Griffin said.
Matthews said he thought it was a fake at first but then realized the shooting was real.
"I took off running and ran outside and called my mom," Matthews said.

Students in the cafeteria began crying and scrambling to leave, while others tried to get in the room, thinking they had missed a fight, witnesses said.
Students began to gather around the victim, said freshman Jared Wohlford, 14.
"Everybody started running out real fast saying, 'He got shot,'" he said.

The school, which has about 1,400 students, was placed on lockdown after the shooting.
Classes were dismissed and students were bused to a nearby church so they could be picked up by their parents.

*****

Dammit, it is about time we put a stop to such as this ...
Way Past Time
!
Start in your neighborhood!
When we all do we will end this reign of terror our kids have been living under for for too damned long now.

Grand jury issues 3 indictments in polygamist case

A grand jury issued three new felony indictments Thursday against members of a polygamist sect raided in April.

Schleicher County Clerk Peggy Williams confirmed the grand jury issued indictments against three individuals.
She would not say who was indicted or what the indictments allege, other than that they are felonies.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, which is handling the prosecution of the case, also declined to comment on what the indictments allege or who the accused are.

The indictments, which followed a day of women in prairie dresses again filing in and out of the grand jury meeting room, were the second set issued since the grand jury began meeting in June on the case.

Six indictments were issued last month.

*****

Fun and sun in Texas as the soap opera continues ...

Mayor shuts down home produce stand operated by kids

From the "You've got to be joking department":

roadsideproduce.jpg

Clayton, California Mayor Gregg Manning is punishing two little kids for taking the initiative to sell their own garden produce from a card table in front of their house.

Manning ordered police to raid their operation because the neighborhood isn't zoned for commerce, and because it constituted an imaginary traffic hazard.

Clayton Mayor Gregg Manning ... wonders what Katie and Sabrina might do with that produce stand if the zoning laws weren't enforced.

"They may start out with a little card-table and selling a couple of things, but then who is to say what else they have. Is all the produce made there, do they make it themselves? Are they going to have eggs and chickens for sale next," said Manning.

Eggs and chickens? Oh, The horror!

Texas man convicted for role in child sex club

A 41-year-old auto body shop worker was convicted Thursday of grooming children as young as 5 to perform in sex shows at a small-town swingers club.

Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly showed no emotion after the verdict.

Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding him guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity, a conviction that could send him to prison for life.

Prosecutors alleged Kelly was a member of the so-called Mineola Swinger's Club, though Kelly has testified he is innocent.
They contended Kelly helped set up a "kindergarten" where young children learned to dance provocatively.
To help perform at the club, prosecutors say the children were given Vicodin-like drugs the adults passed off as "silly pills."

ADDENDUM:

Kelly received a life sentence in prison in a swift sentence hearing this afternoon immediately following the return of the guilty verdict.

Ah, the joys of living in Florida

As if a fourth straight day of rain from Tropical Storm Fay wasn't enough, weary residents are now dealing with quintessentially Floridian fallout: alligators, snakes and other critters driven from their swampy lairs into flooded streets, backyards and doorsteps.

National Guardsman Steve Johnson was wading through hip-deep water Wednesday night when his flashlight revealed an alligator drifting through a neighborhood of flooded mobile homes."I said, 'The heck is that?' and there was an alligator floating by," Johnson said. "I took my flashlight and was like, 'You've got to be kidding me, a big old alligator swimming around here.'"

The erratic and stubborn storm has dumped more than 2 feet of rain along parts of Florida's low-lying central Atlantic coast this week.
The system continued its slow, wet march Thursday by curving back from the ocean to hit the state for a third time.

Alligators live in all 67 Florida counties, and state officials say they receive more than 18,000 alligator-related complaints each year.
But the floodwaters heighten the risk of an encounter with people because the creatures search for a safe place to wait out the storm.
"They are trying to find dry land, someplace to hide," said officer Lenny Salberg of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The threat of alligators, snakes and other creatures is one more problem confronting weary residents as they clean up their waterlogged homes.
At least two alligators were captured in residential neighborhoods, and several others were spotted near homes.
In Carla Viotto's backyard in Indialantic, outside of Melbourne, snakes were swimming around in 4 inches of water."It looked just like a junk yard," she said.

Flooding was especially acute along the Atlantic coast from Port St. Lucie to Cape Canaveral, with water reaching depths of 5 feet in some neighborhoods.
Gov. Charlie Crist visited the area Thursday and had asked the Bush administration to declare a federal disaster to help with the storm's costs.
"This is the worst I've absolutely ever seen it," said Mike White, 57, who was rescued by the National Guard as water crept up to the door of his mobile home.

Fay, which was responsible for at least 20 deaths in the Caribbean, is just the fourth storm in recorded history to hit the Florida peninsula with tropical storm intensity three separate times.
The most recent was Hurricane Donna in 1960, according to Daniel Brown, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center.

Flooding was also possible in Georgia, where the southern half of the state's Atlantic coastline was under a tropical storm warning.
Some parts of Georgia could get up to 6 inches of rain.
In the town of St. Marys, Mary Neff watched the rain from the Spencer House Inn, which she owns with her husband.
"We're pulling in our plants and porch furniture, making sure we have our supplies and gas for the generator," said Neff, who had three couples cancel weekend reservations.
"I still think we all need to stay on our toes."

Fay hovered for hours just off the Florida coast Thursday.
At 2 p.m. EDT, the center was near Flagler Beach.
Maximum sustained winds were 60 mph, and the storm was expected to weaken as it swirled across the state and into the Panhandle by Saturday.
With the rain moving to the north, the sun began to dry out some Florida neighborhoods hit by floods earlier in the week.

The mood was considerably brighter for many residents who were finally able to get out of their homes.
"I'm ready to get back to work. This is insane. It'll drive you nuts being stuck like this," said Barry Johnson, 44, of Port St. Lucie.

*****

While I have sympathy for the residents of Florida I hope they keep the rain, we have had enough around here for the time being.

Question of the Day

What's up with teenagers?

Found this question on a parenting forum. I thought it was comical and remembered that I didn't understand them either so I can relate to all the posters about being totally clueless about teenagers.

Bureaucracies live forever.

Just to show that Bureaucracies live forever.

Railroad tracks.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramway's, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did they’ use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramway's used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions.The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.