Stumbled Upon

Carolina Naturally got a Thumbs Up review at StumbleUpon.Com for humor.

Thanks.

It's nice to know humor is still appreciated.

Who says news and information can not be presented humorously!

And I Quote

Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

~ From Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life"

Unicorn born in Italy

This wonderful unicorn was born at the Center for Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy. Nicknamed "Unicorn," the magical unicorn is just a year old. His twin, a Roe Deer, has two horns.

They stop Traffic

It's that time of year again.

You know the time when the parking lot at the lake is packed and nothing is moving.

Only the 'parking lot' is actually the interstate highway crossing the lake.

Why is it a parking lot you ask?

On any given 'normal day' it can be a parking lot especially during 'rush hour' which around here consists of the time between the hours of 5am to 1am ... we're lucky to have a slow period 1am and 5am on a good day.

But what makes it the proverbial parking lot this time of year are boobs.

Yes you heard me, tits, knockers, boom booms or whatever of the over 2000 terms, (in English alone) for them you choose to use.

The ladies flashing the highway cause the traffic to stop over a narrow strip of land between three lakes ... most people assume it is a bridge over one lake but they are in error there ... on both sides of the strip.

What is funny is that the ladies who are nude on the lake attract less attention from the drivers than do the flashers.
The numbers seem to be about even between the nude and the boobie flashers.

So when traveling across that strip of land listen for the honking horns of a truck and count how many sets make an appearance.

And, no the ones already out do not count.

Daily Five (News Items off the Wire)

Japan: Video game launch canceled after stabbing

TOKYO - The suspect in a deadly stabbing rampage had an arsenal of knives with him during the attack, police said Wednesday, as an electronics maker canceled a launch event promoting a game that features a character armed with a huge dagger.

Tomohiro Kato, a 25-year-old factory worker who was spattered with blood when police arrested him after Sunday's assault, was carrying two knives and had two more stashed in his knapsack in a nearby truck, a police official said. Kato apparently dropped another knife during the attack, said the official, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing protocol,

The official said it appears Kato only used one knife to stab more than a dozen people in Tokyo's trendy Akihabara electronics district, the center of Japan's comic book and anime culture.

Police conducted a search of Kato's apartment Tuesday and confiscated empty packages that had contained knives and a club. They also found catalogues and receipts for the weapons.

No charges have been filed against Kato. Under Japanese law, prosecutors have 20 days after receiving suspects to either file charges or release them.

The assault began when a driver crashed a rental truck into a group of pedestrians, killing three of them. He then jumped out of the truck and slashed his way through the crowd, fatally stabbing four people. Another 10 were injured.

The attack horrified Japan, where news reports and talk shows have focused on what may have prompted the assault, Kato's troubled personality and a string of messages he sent to an Internet bulletin board warning he was planning to kill.

Amid rising concerns about street violence, gamemaker Konami canceled three launch events scheduled in Tokyo - including one in Akihabara - on Thursday for "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots," an action game in which a grizzled commando shoots and stabs his way through enemy lines.

Konami canceled the events with the "safety of participants in mind," though similar events in the U.S. were to proceed as planned, a spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing company rules. The game is stamped with a "mature" rating due to graphic blood and violence.

Woman convicted in partner's plot on London subway

LONDON - The partner of a would-be suicide bomber who attempted to attack London's subway system was convicted Wednesday for not warning police about the plot.

A jury in London found 32-year-old Yeshi Girma guilty of failing to provide information before her partner Hussain Osman and others attempted to set off explosions on the transit system on July 21, 2005. The bombs didn't explode fully and no one was injured.

The attempted attacks came two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 subway and bus passengers in London.

Mulu Girma, 24, and Esayas Girma, 22, Yeshi's sister and brother, were also both found guilty of failing to disclose information and helping Osman.

Mulu Girma's boyfriend Mohamed Kabashi, 25, pleaded guilty to both charges before the trial.

A date for sentencing was not set immediately. The maximum sentence for failing to inform police is five years.

Yeshi Girma, who wept as the verdict was announced, had claimed that she was not married to Osman, with whom she had three children, that she didn't live with him, and knew little of what he was doing. Prosecutors say she is his wife.

They said she helped Osman flee the country after the attempt, and that her fingerprints had been found on tapes of extremist Islamic sermons. She allegedly also allowed Osman to take their young son to a training camp in northwestern England where he met others involved in the plot.

"Yeshi Girma had prior knowledge of the events of 21/7. She had some information about what the bombers intended to do on 21/7, but failed to bring this to the attention of the police," prosecutor Max Hill told jurors.

"Armed with that prior knowledge of what was going to happen, Yeshi Girma could have attempted to prevent the attacks, which, but for shortcomings in the production of the explosive devices, would have killed and injured many people," he said.

Osman was sentenced to life in prison in the case along with Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar and Ramzi Mohammed. Another plotter, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, was sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Five other men were also convicted and sentenced to prison for assisting the plotters.

A month after quake, Chinese wait for housing

China - The sun is low in the mountains as Wang Wenying fries up potatoes, beans and chunks of braised duck over an outdoor wood fire.

Behind her is the camouflage-patterned tent that she and five other family members have occupied since shortly after their once-bustling village was toppled May 12 by the worst earthquake to hit China in three decades.

"The living conditions are poor. It's hot in the tents, the lines are long for water. ... I don't know when things will improve. The sooner the better," said the 38-year-old Wang, a rotund pharmacist with a ready laugh despite the hardships.

One month after the magnitude-7.9 quake centered in Sichuan province killed more than 69,000 people and left 5 million homeless, tents - and for some, the lack of them - are defining life in the disaster zone.

The lucky ones have already moved into prefabricated homes being erected by the government. But most remain in hundreds of tent communities that have sprung up on fields, mountains and city sidewalks as refugees try to regain a semblance of normal life. Many are small and haphazardly planned. Others resemble miniature villages, with row after row of bright blue, government-issued emergency tents converted into homes, schools and shops.

Still, there are not enough of them. As of Tuesday, more than 1 million tents had been delivered to the earthquake zone, short of the 3 million the government says is needed. Relief workers had put up 68,000 temporary houses and were at work on another 23,400.

Some survivors complained that only those with connections to local officials got tents. Others said they simply did not know how to get them.

Wang Xiuyu, an unemployed widow with two young sons, lives under the eaves of the Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang city, where tens of thousands were taken right after the quake. Now, only a few thousand are left.

"We don't know where to go. We have no tent," said Wang as she sat on a thin mattress on the concrete floor. "We are still waiting for accommodations from the government. We have no idea how to get one and when we are going to leave the stadium."

The disaster was a milestone for China in many ways. Unprecedented 24-hour TV news coverage united the nation as journalists were allowed to report with rare freedom. Hundreds of thousands of troops, police and emergency personnel were mobilized in a frantic scramble to save lives. Volunteers from across the country swarmed into the region, and donations poured in, unusual gestures of charity in a country where most are still busy trying to climb into the middle class.

But as with any disaster of this size - from the tsunami that struck parts of Asia in 2004 to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - restoring people's lives will take time. And it is already trying the patience of many.

With or without a tent, Sichuan's oppressive, muggy heat is the hardest part of living outdoors, said Wang Wenying, the woman cooking her dinner outdoors. She wore her hair pulled back in a bun, a white T-shirt, denim shorts and pink rubber flip-flops.

Wang's house in the village of Zundao, a solid two-story concrete building, remains standing but the walls are cracked. "I don't dare stay inside," she said. "Even as I'm standing here, I feel the ground shaking and my heart is beating fast."

Instead, she lives with her parents, her mother-in-law, her daughter and nephew in a tent with three beds, a sofa, a TV and computer, all taken from her home.

"Our lives have been set back by 20 years," Wang said as she stirred her dinner.

On Taohua mountain, six members of an extended family live in a tent crafted from wooden poles and sheets of canvas. They and about 3,000 other residents of Qinglian town were forced up the slopes to wait for waters of a "quake lake" - the biggest of 30 formed after earthquake rubble blocked rivers - to recede.

The heat means their clothes are constantly soaked in sweat. At night, the mosquitoes swarm. The public toilets are overflowing, so they use the nearby forest and bury their human waste to prevent disease.

"I'm scared all the time. First there was the earthquake, then there are aftershocks and now maybe a flood," said Suo Jingyong, a 34-year-old clothing vendor, who shares the tent with her parents, her husband, his father and the couple's year-old daughter. The preserved meat they salvaged from their home is beginning to go bad, and fresh vegetables are hard to come by.

"There's nothing we can do," said Suo who makes sure visitors have cushions to sit on and apologizes for the spartan conditions.

A colorful maze of tents has been set up on the peak, a temporary village filled with makeshift homes, a clinic and a tiny convenience store offering shampoo and soft drinks. A water truck comes up to three times a day, and the area is disinfected at least twice daily.

But residents have been told they will be moved later in the month to another part of the mountain so that officials can better manage the area.

For some in the camp, it will be fifth or sixth time setting up a home since May 12.

"We're not scared of the earthquake, we're not scared of floods but we fear being moved frantically," Yu Taichun, a doctor in Qinglian, said in a text message. "It makes our lives harder. ... We appeal to the officials and the experts to think about the ordinary people."

The town of Hanwang, where almost all the buildings collapsed or were partially destroyed, is almost deserted. A few residents have salvaged furniture from their ruined homes and are selling it to scrap buyers.

A group of tents sit in front of a factory at one end of town. It is hot, and garbage is strewn on the ground. Residents sit slumped under any shade they can find outside the tents. One woman slicing sausage for lunch starts crying when asked how she's doing.

While many in the disaster area expressed gratitude for the central government's swift response, anger has been brewing over what some say is lower-level corruption and hoarding of donations.

State media reported one instance in which a tent was pitched in a well-to-do neighborhood of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, where there was little damage from the quake.

In Mianzhu county, taxi driver Yang Pengwei said he and his pregnant wife were denied a tent at an emergency station and a government office before finally getting one more than three weeks after the quake. Until then, they lived in a homemade shelter that trapped heat when it was sunny and leaked when it rained.

"The biggest problem is the long queues for food and the shortage of tents," said the round-faced Yang, 23, who cheerfully recounted his problems. "We've now entered the time of reconstruction. What needs to be fixed will be fixed, what needs to be torn down will be torn down."

Nepal's deposed king leaves palace for last time

KATMANDU - Nepal's deposed king has left the royal palace for the last time but has no plans to leave the Himalayan country.

Former King Gyanendra says he wants to stay to "help establish peace" as the country moves from a monarchy to a republic.

Hundreds of people came to see Gyanendra leave Katmandu's royal palace Wednesday night. His departure marks the end of the final chapter of the world's last Hindu monarchy.

Nepal was declared a republic last month after elections that saw the country's former communist rebels win the most seats in a special assembly charged with rewriting the constitution.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. The earlier story is below.

KATMANDU - Nepal's deposed king made final arrangements to vacate Katmandu's main palace Wednesday and begin life as a civilian in the newly declared republic, saying he had no plans to leave the country.

Ousted King Gyanendra said he handed in his royal scepter and crown of peacock feathers, yak hair and jewels to the Nepali government Wednesday as he prepared to move to one of his former summer palaces on a forested hill on the outskirts of Katmandu.

There, he will be protected by police but will otherwise live as any other Nepali - albeit an incredibly wealthy one who some believe should still reign.

"I have no intention or thoughts to leave the country," Gyanendra said in his first public statement in months. "I will stay in the country to help establish peace."

The vast majority of Nepalis have made it clear they are pleased to see the monarchy no more, and while Gyanendra's throne was formally abolished last month, Wednesday's move carries great symbolism in a nation that was ruled by Shah dynasty monarchs for 239 years.

"This marks the beginning of a new Nepal and the end of a dynasty that has done nothing but harm this country," said Devendra Maharjan, a farmer who came to Katmandu to see the king leave the palace. "If it had not been for the kings, Nepal would probably not have remained a poor nation."

Nepal was declared a republic last month after elections that saw the country's former communist rebels win the most seats in a special assembly charged with rewriting the constitution.

"I have accepted the decision," Gyanendra told reporters.

Speaking in a grand palace hall decorated with portraits of the Shah dynasty kings, stuffed tigers and ornate chandeliers, he said: "I have done all I can to cooperate with (the government's) directives."

The Narayanhiti palace has been Gyanendra's home since becoming king in 2001, after a palace massacre in which a gunman, allegedly the crown prince, assassinated King Birendra and much of the royal family before killing himself.

Government officials plan to turn the pink concrete 1970s palace into a museum.

After his brother's death, Gyanendra assumed the throne. But the killings helped pierce the mystique surrounding a line of kings who had once been revered as reincarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu.

No proof has ever surfaced that Gyanendra was involved in the massacre, but rumors have swirled for years that he was behind the slaughter.

On Wednesday, he dismissed the accusations as a baseless "campaign to defame the royal institution."

In 2005, Gyanendra seized power from a civilian government, a move that made him deeply unpopular. He said he needed total authority to crush the communist insurgency. But the rebellion intensified, and a year later massive protests forced Gyanendra to restore democracy, after which the rebels began peace talks.

The king does not leave public life a pauper, even if his palaces have been nationalized and his $3.1 million annual allowance cut.

Before assuming the throne, he was known as a tough businessman with interests in tourism, tea and tobacco. He also inherited much of his family's wealth after the palace massacre.

The government is letting Gyanendra live in the summer palace - which was among the royal residences that were nationalized - because the former king's son is living in the family's private Katmandu residence.

Canada prime minister to apologize to aboriginals

OTTAWA - Michael Cachagee was 4 years old when he was taken from his parents and forced to attend a state-funded school aimed at stripping him of his aboriginal culture.

"The intent was to destroy the Indian," Cachagee said of the decades-long government policy.

On Wednesday, Cachagee and more than 80,000 surviving students will receive a public apology delivered in Parliament by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

At least 200 former students have been invited to Ottawa to witness what native leaders call a pivotal moment for Canada's more than 1 million aboriginals, who today remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools, where many suffered physical and sexual abuse, as part of a program to integrate them into Canadian society.

"Aboriginal Canadians have been waiting for a very long time to hear an apology from the Parliament of Canada," Harper told lawmakers a day before the apology.

Canada's Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said it would be a respectful and sincere recognition of widespread cultural devastation, as well as the physical trauma and sexual abuse, that continues to plague generations to this day.

The aboriginals say they are hoping it will be heartfelt.

"If it's just a hollow and shallow apology he might as well get one of the pages to do it," said Cachagee, who will have a seat on the floor of the House of Commons to hear it.

Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, agreed that if the apology is sincere and complete it would go a long way toward repairing the relationship between aboriginals and the rest of Canada.

"The fact that we are going to be there on the floor to witness this first hand, it's quite a moment," Fontaine told The Associated Press. "This is not just about survivors, this is about Canada coming to terms with its past and maturing as a nation."

The apology comes just months after Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a similar gesture to the so-called Stolen Generations - thousands of the continent's Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under assimilation policies that lasted from 1910 to 1970.

But Canada has gone a step farther, offering those who were taken from their families compensation for the years they attended the residential schools. The offer was part of a lawsuit settlement.

Cachagee spent 12 1/2 years at three different schools in Canada beginning in 1944.

"I was beaten. I was put in tubs of hot water. I suffered great pains of hunger. I was force fed rotten food. They called me all kinds of names," he said.

The federal government admitted 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant. Many students recall being beaten for speaking their native languages and losing touch with their parents and customs.

That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by Indian leaders as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction on reservations.

Fontaine was one of the first to go public with his past experiences of physical and sexual abuse.

"All kinds of abuse was inflicted on innocent children," Fontaine said. "There are thousands of these stories, all of them true. I think it's important to acknowledge that."

Fontaine said the prime minister's apology should mention all of the injustices done to Canadian aboriginals, who didn't have the right to vote until 1960.

Fontaine said he's been told the apology will incorporate much of what they requested and said framed copies of the apology will be handed out.

In 1998, Canada's former Indian affairs minister Jane Stewart expressed "profound regret" for the establishment of residential schools, but aboriginals didn't consider it sufficient in detail or substance.

Aboriginals set a sacred fire and conducted a ceremony at sunrise near Parliament to mark Harper's apology. More than 100 people gathered for a ceremony at the site of a former residential school in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, on Canada's east coast.

Television screens are being set up at locations across Canada so the event can be watched live. The House of Commons plans to put aside all other business for the apology.

In addition to the apology, a truth and reconciliation commission will examine government policy and take testimony from survivors.

The commission was created as part of a $4.9 billion class action settlement in 2006 - the largest in Canadian history - between the government and churches and the surviving students. About $59 million will fund the commission.

Also under the settlement, students who attended residential schools are eligible to receive $9,800 for their first they attended one of the schools and $2,900 for every year after. Victims of physical and sexual abuse are eligible for additional funds.

Aboriginal Judge Harry LaForme will oversee the commission and will eventually travel across the country to hear stories from former students, teachers and others. The goal is to give survivors a forum to tell their stories and educate Canadians about a grim period in the country's history.

*****

(all items above from the AP)

Incest victim awakens and the little things mean a lot.

The 19-year-old woman whose hospitalization exposed a shocking Austrian incest case is recovering well, and wants to see the ocean and a pop concert, her doctors and a family lawyer said Wednesday.

She and other children who were held captive for years are also slowly adapting to modern life, they said.

Kerstin Fritzl, who doctors placed in an artificial coma after she was admitted to a hospital in April for multiple organ failure, is now well enough to speak, stand and walk with assistance, her doctors said.

Doctors said "little novelties" such as seeing a cloud go by are now big events for the former captives.

Kerstin has said she wants to see the ocean and go to a concert by Robbie Williams, the British singer, said Dr. Berhold Kepplinger, director of the clinic where the family are now living.

He described how excited Kerstin was to hear Robbie Williams songs in her hospital room, and that she was moving around to the music so much that doctors even had to quiet her down.

It was then, Kepplinger said, that doctors became confident Kerstin can eventually become fully healthy and develop normally. Her immune system has improved and she is continuing to have physiotherapy, including strengthening exercises, he said.

The two parts of her family -- those who were locked in a basement, like Kerstin, and those who lived above ground, apparently unaware of the abuse of their mother and siblings -- are getting to know each other again, the doctors and the family's lawyer said.

"We are so glad that things have turned out so positively so far," said lawyer Christoph Herbst, who appeared at a news conference at a hotel near Amstetten, west of Vienna, where Kerstin and her family are now recovering.

Kerstin is the oldest daughter of an incestuous relationship between her mother, Elisabeth, 43, and Elisabeth's father, Josef Fritzl, 73, according to police. He is awaiting trial.

Police say he confessed to holding Elisabeth captive since 1984 and raping her repeatedly, fathering seven children with her. Six of the children survived.

Kerstin fell unconscious in April and Elisabeth persuaded her father that she needed urgent medical attention. Kerstin was admitted to a hospital in Amstetten, where staff grew suspicious and called police, who opened an investigation and uncovered the abuse.

Kerstin was suffering from kidney, lung, and liver failure when she arrived at the hospital, said Dr. Albert Reiter, director of the hospital. Doctors were able to turn her health around but they kept her in a coma with artificial respiration for weeks, he said.

Doctors started reducing Kerstin's medication May 12, allowing her to emerge from the coma, he said. Three days later, she opened her eyes and smiled at her carers, he said, and doctors were soon able to take the breathing tube from her throat.

Her mother was at Kerstin's bedside regularly, and doctors credited that with helping Kerstin's health improve.

Sunday, Kerstin finally met with other family members and was able to say hello to them, he said. Kerstin and the rest of the family were also able to move into an apartment at a regional clinic nearby.

"It was a special moment where, walking, we were able to support her and cross the threshold into a new house and into a new life," Reiter said.

Kerstin and two of her brothers, ages 18 and 5, had spent their entire lives trapped in the cellar with their mother, never seeing daylight. A television was their only contact with the outside world.

The other three children Josef Fritzl fathered with Elisabeth were taken as infants to live above ground with Fritzl and his wife, who says she had no idea her daughter was being held captive.

In recent weeks, the wife and the three children have had several meetings with Kerstin and the others formerly held in the basement. The doctors said all are receiving therapy and are getting to know each other.

"It is clear that (the two sides) have a different temper of life," Kepplinger said. "These different ways of living, the two parts of the family, still have to come to some agreement."

Still, the entire family is "very happy" to be reunited, Herbst said. "This is an incredible drawing-near to each other. There is incredible joy among them," he said. "It is wonderful to see the way they are living together."

He appealed to the public and the media to give the family privacy.

There continues to be "big ambivalence" about the "grandfather issue," as Kepplinger called it, and therapists are helping the family members cope with the complicated relationship they have with each other and with Fritzl, who is now behind bars.

This is going to be an ongoing story for years to come ...

Paranoia harming our way of life

By Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Columnist for the Miami Herald

Monday June 9, 2008

*****

You've seen this gag in a hundred old cartoons:

Cat turns to flee angry dog, steps on a rake instead, knocks himself silly. It's not sophisticated humor, but it is a visceral illustration of an abiding truth: Panic can make you hurt yourself.

Some of us, I think, need reminding. Consider the case of Rachael Ray and the scarf that made people scream.

Ray, of couse, is the preternaturally perky host of cooking shows on the Food Network -- and a spokeswoman for Dunkin' Donuts.

In that capacity, she wore the aforementioned scarf around her neck in an online ad -- and people started screaming. It seems that in the eyes of conservative columnist Michelle Malkin and a handful of blogosphere blowhards, the scarf resembled a kaffiyeh, the Arab headdress most infamously worn by the late PLO leader Yasser

Arafat.

Me, I thought the paisley scarf resembled a paisley scarf, but then, I haven't been taking my paranoid lunatic pills lately, so what do I know? Those with more discerning vision cried foul, and late last month, the doughnut maker crumbled, pulling the ad lest anyone assume the company was selling mass terror along with its iced coffees and crullers.

As it happens, at roughly the same time the Guardian newspaper in London was reporting the case of one Rizwaan Sabir, a 22-year-old student working on his master's at Nottingham University. Sabir was arrested, held for six days and subjected to what he describes as psychological torture after he downloaded a copy of an al Qaeda training manual.

Also arrested: a university administrator, Hicham Yezza, on whose computer the manual was stored. It seems Sabir had asked Yezza to print the 1,500 page document because he could not afford to.

But neither man will be prosecuted for terrorism. According to university officials, the materials Sabir downloaded were directly related to research for his degree. And get this: You know where Sabir says he got the offending manual? From a U.S. government website. In other words, it was publicly available and hardly top secret.

Taken together, these two episodes neatly illustrate what much of our world has become in the almost seven years since September of 2001. On the one hand, silly, able to see terrorism hiding behind every bush and hen house. On the other hand, petrified, convinced that overreaction is the only reaction. So we look suspiciously at everyone whose name is not Smith, Johnson or Jones, inspect scarves for terroristic subtext, but glance the other way as torture is committed, intolerance is embraced, habeas corpus is ignored and freedoms of speech, dissent and privacy are abridged.

It's like we have awakened into the 1950s. The paranoia is there, the gratuitous ruination of people's lives is there, the abiding and unrelenting fear is there. The only thing missing is Joe McCarthy asking, ``Are you now or have you ever been . . . ?''

Apparently, Colin Powell was wrong. ''We're Americans,'' he said after the Sept. 11 attacks, ``we don't walk around terrified.''

But we do. And because we do, we injure ourselves as surely as a cartoon cat panicked by a cartoon dog. So that here we sit, banged up something fierce: the rule of law, broken, moral authority, blackened, freedoms, fractured, seriousness of purpose on life support.

All in pursuit of a chimera called security we have yet to capture and never will. So we might as well go back to being America. I mean, when the Zeitgeist is indistinguishable from a Warner Bros. cartoon, something is wrong.

To put it another way, let me repeat: Panic will make you hurt yourself. What's it tell you that we have yet to learn something Bugs Bunny figured out a long time ago?

*****

Well, some of us figured it out along about the same time ol'Bugs did.
Now if the rest would have the proverbial light bulb turn on over their heads all will be Hunky Dory

FEMA gives away $85 million of supplies for Katrina victims

• From the - I don't believe it ... wait a minute I do believe it - News Desk
  

FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found.

The material -- from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities -- sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's giveaway to federal and state agencies this year.

James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, told CNN that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them."

"Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA's needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA's inventory," McIntyre wrote in an e-mail.

He declined a request for an on-camera interview, telling CNN the giveaway was "not news."

Photos from one of the facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, show pallet after pallet of cots, cleansers, first-aid kits, coffee makers, camp stoves and other items stacked to the ceiling.

FEMA said some of the items were donations from companies after Katrina, but most were purchased in the field as "starter kits" for people living in trailers provided by the agency. And even though the stocks were offered to state agencies after FEMA decided to get rid of them, one of the states that passed was Louisiana.

Martha Kegel, the head of a New Orleans nonprofit agency that helps find homes for those still displaced by the storm, said she was shocked to learn about the existence of the goods and the government giveaway.

"These are exactly the items that we are desperately seeking donations of right now -- basic kitchen household supplies," said Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans. "These are the very things that we are seeking right now. FEMA, in fact, refers homeless clients to us to house them. How can we house them if we don't have basic supplies?"

Kegel's group works with FEMA and other local organizations to rehouse victims of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast. Community groups say thousands of people are still living in abandoned buildings in the city, though fewer than 100 people remain housed in tents.

Kegel said FEMA was told in regular meetings that Unity was desperate for household supplies and that the group has been forced to beg for donations. But she said FEMA never told Unity and other community groups that it had tens of millions of dollars worth of brand-new items meant for storm victims.

She said she learned of it from CNN, which found that those items never made it to people such as Debra Reed.

"An honest person like me didn't get nothing," said Reed, 54, who recently moved from a tent beneath a New Orleans bridge to a home with the help of Kegel's group. "I'm gonna turn, 'cause I'm gonna cry. I didn't get nothing. I fought to get my money, but they wouldn't give it to me. So I ended up going under the bridge."

FEMA confirmed it had kept the merchandise in storage for the past two years -- then gave it away to cities, schools, fire departments and nonprofit agencies such as food banks. In all, General Services Administration records show FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of material.

McIntyre said that most of the items given away were not "standard-issue type supplies" that FEMA would have distributed after other disasters. He said using the GSA, which manages federal property, to get rid of those stockpiles was "standard process."

Asked if FEMA believed Katrina victims no longer needed the items, McIntyre wrote: "If the state did not request the supplies, then FEMA would not know."

Pallets at the Fort Worth warehouse were piled high with boxes of buckets, boots, cleansers, mops and brooms. There were stacks of tents, lanterns and camp stoves for people still displaced, as well as clothing, bedding, plates and utensils.

Meanwhile, Kegel said, Unity's clients can take only "one fork, one spoon, one knife -- they can only take one plate. We don't have enough to go around."

But FEMA said the items were no longer needed in the stricken region. So it declared them "federal surplus" and gave them away.

Federal agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons, Postal Service and Border Patrol got first dibs on the material when FEMA started giving it away. Other agencies that received items include the National Guard, U.S. Marshals Service, the Air Force and Navy and the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, according to a list the GSA provided to CNN.

These items also were offered to all states -- yet Louisiana, where most of the people displaced by the storm live, passed on taking any of them.

John Medica, director of the Louisiana Federal Property Assistance Agency in Baton Rouge, said he was unaware that Katrina victims still had a need for the household supplies.

"We didn't have anybody out there who told us they wanted it," Medica said.

Instead, 16 other states took the free items.

Kegel said she could not understand how Medica could not be aware of the need in the New Orleans area.

She said she had not heard of the agency and was not registered with them, but following CNN's interview, the agency contacted her about registering Unity of Greater New Orleans so it could qualify for available supplies in the future.

(From CNN)

*****

Yep, I can believe it. With this cabal anything is possible so long as it screws the people over.

Mom finds snake coiled around her baby

From the Newswire:

A woman who awoke to her baby's cries was shocked to peer into the crib and find a foot-long snake wrapped around her 7-month-old daughter's leg.

Cari Abatemarco said she was visiting family in the Long Island town of Brentwood last week when she made the startling discovery.

"Once I lifted her up and the snake fell off of her, she stopped crying. But then I was the one crying all night," Abatemarco told Newsday. She was in town from Troy, in upstate New York.

A relative removed the hissing snake from the crib with a back scratcher, and placed it in a bucket until animal control officers arrived. The child was unharmed.

The reptile, identified as a non-venomous California king snake, didn't belong to Abatemarco's family members. Officials say they don't know where the snake came from.

The animal is being cared for at a Long Island animal shelter.

*****

Talk about an eye opening discovery! Seven month olds' parents sleep little as it is, now this mom is getting none whatsoever ... who could blame her!

A Poem for thought

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

*****

You know what the poet was saying don't you? I do.

Thought for the Day

The difference between a manager and a leader is a broad as the distance between control and inspiration.

'No Regrets' says the shrub

The shrub said Wednesday that he had no regrets about the decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein in 2003 and reiterated his determination to force Iran to halt its nuclear program.

The shrub, making the final official visit to Europe of his malignancy, was speaking at a press conference in Germany after talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He said he had told Merkel that diplomacy remained his preferred choice for dealing with Iran. But he added that "all options are on the table" and said Tehran needed to "verifiably suspend" its uranium enrichment program. Iran maintains that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

"The message to the Iranian government is very clear: that there's a better way forward than isolation and that is for you to verifiably suspend your enrichment program and the choice is theirs to make," the shrub said.

On Tuesday the U.S. and the European Union on Tuesday issued a joint declaration urging tougher action against Iran over its nuclear program.

It said the U.S. and EU would implement previously passed Security Council resolutions on Iran and stood "ready to supplement those sanctions with additional measures."

Sanctions in place should be enforced, the shrub said, and allies should work together for additional sanctions if Iran "ignores the demands of the free world."

Merkel said that further sanctions would follow if Iran failed to meet its commitments. "We again said we want to give room for diplomatic solutions, we want to give diplomacy a chance, but we also have to stay on that particular issue."

Asked about Iraq, the shrub said "substantial" progress had been made in helping the country, adding that efforts in Iraq would "change the Middle East for the better."

"Removing Saddam Hussein made the world a safer place," the shrub said. But he admitted once again that he regretted the tough rhetoric he had used in the run-up to the conflict which had made it appear he was eager to go to war.

In an interview with UK's Times newspaper Wednesday, the shrub said using phrases such as "dead or alive" and "bring them on" had not created an impression of a man of peace.

He also said he had found it painful "to put youngsters in harm's way," adding that he had an obligation to make sure lives had not been lost in vain.

"One of the lessons of Iraq is that in order for a democracy to develop or for an economy to develop there has to be a measure of security, which is now happening," he said.

The shrub said he also believed that the U.S. would develop a bilateral strategic agreement relationship with Iraq, a pact now under negotiation.

He said reports that the United States wanted to develop permanent bases in Iraq were "erroneous."

"I think we'll get the agreement done," he said. "This will not involve permanent bases nor will it bind any future president to troop levels."

*****

Oh, and by the way "verifiably" is not an actual word - what a dumb ass.