Twenty-four Hundred

2400 posts buried in the ground.
All this and I have a Life, too!

What can I say?
I have always been an overachiever!

The Amazing Story of a Man Who Survived Being Buried 40 Days

“According to a fascinating report printed in the London Telegraph in 1880, a man was buried ‘in a condition of apparent death’ for 40 days and survived. No tricks or tomfoolery were involved, so how did he do it? It’s often the case that when someone professes to be able do something remarkable, that great gift of human nature kicks in – skepticism.

So when Maharajah Ranjeet Sing heard from an Indian fakir who claimed he could come back to life after being buried for several months in an apparent state of death, the Maharajah could only reply with one statement – proof or it didn’t happen.

At once, the fakir, named Haridas, was summonsed before the Maharajah – who regarded the idea as possibly fraudulent – to act out exactly how he could accomplish this amazing feat. In full view of the Maharajah and nobles of the court, within a short time, the fakir appeared comatose.

One of the witnesses at the time, an Honorable Captain Osborn, made his own account of the event:

“When every spark of life had seemingly vanished, he was … wrapped up in the linen on which he had been sitting, and on which the seal of Ranjeet Sing was placed. The body was then deposited in a chest, on which Ranjeet Sing, with his own hand, fixed a heavy padlock. The chest was carried outside the town and buried in a garden belonging to the Minister; barley was sown over the spot, a wall created around it, and sentinels posted.”

So was the mistrust of the Maharajah.”

Humorous Quotations

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
~ Gandhi

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
~ e.e. cummings.

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined.
~ Samuel Goldwyn.

At school we had a name for guys who were 'trying to get in touch with themselves'.
~ PJ O'Rourke.

The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.
~ Aristotle.

Bet you didn't know some of those quoted had a 'funny-bone' did you!? Just goes to show one can find humor everywhere ... and without looking all that hard to find it ... if one wants.

Stevens concedes in re-election race

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens conceded defeat Wednesday in a re-election bid shadowed by his federal felony conviction, a bitter end to a four-decade career in which he held a commanding place in state politics and on some of the most influential congressional committees in Washington.

In an eight-sentence statement, the longest serving repugican in Senate history said not enough ballots remain uncounted for him to catch Democrat Mark Begich, who holds a 3,724-vote lead out of about 315,000 ballots cast.

Stevens never directly mentioned his Washington trial on charges that he failed to properly disclose a sauna and other gifts from an oil services company, but thanked "the thousands of Alaskans who stood by us."
"I am proud of the campaign we ran and regret that the outcome was not what we had hoped for," Stevens said. "I am deeply grateful to Alaskans for allowing me to serve them for 40 years in the U.S. Senate. It has been the greatest honor of my life."

The votes that gave Begich a winning margin were tallied on Tuesday, Stevens' 85th birthday.

A smiling Begich described his election as a fundamental shift in the Alaska political landscape long dominated by repugicans.
But he also made clear he was not a conventional Washington Democrat, citing his support for gun rights and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the state's northern reaches.
"Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a different Democrat - I'm from Alaska," he said.
Along with firearm rights and drilling, "Alaskans are very libertarian in issues where the government shouldn't interfere in their personal lives."
He said he was "definitely different than a New York Democrat."

Stevens' loss also moved Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority and gives President-elect Barack Obama a stronger hand when he assumes office on Jan. 20.
Democrats now hold 58 Senate seats, with two independents who align with Democrats.
Senate races in Minnesota and Georgia remain unresolved.

Stevens' pursuit of a seventh term was damaged by his conviction in federal court - just days before the election - for lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services company.

He was trying to become the first convicted felon to win election to the Senate

San Diego Marine again denied Medal of Honor

This is a CROCK!

The Department of Defense has reaffirmed its decision not to award the Medal of Honor to a Marine from San Diego who witnesses say threw himself on a grenade to save his colleagues during fierce fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.

Representative Duncan Hunter and other politicians had appealed a decision to instead award Sgt. Rafael Peralta the Navy Cross, the second-highest medal the Navy can bestow for valor.

Peralta's nomination was tainted by reports he was hit in the head by friendly fire shortly before an insurgent lobbed the grenade, but witnesses described how the mortally wounded Marine deliberately grabbed the grenade and pulled it to his chest to protect fellow troops from the blast.

In a letter dated Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said five independent experts - three medical doctors, a general and a Medal of Honor recipient - reviewed the forensic evidence and unanimously found it did not meet standards because they could not be sure Peralta acted deliberately.

California's senators and five San Diego-area representatives wrote to President George W. Bush, asking him to reconsider the decision and recognize Peralta's sacrifice to his comrades and his country.
"Intentionally absorbing a grenade blast to protect one's comrades in arms has been traditionally recognized by awarding the Medal of Honor," they wrote.

"It doesn't seem fair or valid to me," the Marine's mother, Rose Peralta, 51, who lives near San Diego, said.
"All the boys who were there say he was alive when he grabbed (the grenade)."

Peralta said she was surprised to get a response from Gates, when the politicians had directed their latest appeal to the president.

George Sagba, an attorney for Peralta's family, said he thinks the officials don't want to admit they made a mistake.
Sagba noted the experts did not rule out the possibility that Peralta, who had been shot in the head and upper body during a house-to-house search, could have intentionally reached for the grenade.
Sagba said he is pursuing home video shot by Peralta's colleagues on the day he died.
"This video can show exactly who was there, the blast fragments, all that stuff," he said.

The family intends to appeal after President-elect Barack Obama takes office.
"People always ask me, 'How is the appeal going? Don't stop fighting. How can I help?'" Rosa Peralta said in Spanish.
"Even without the medal, my son is a hero, just like all everyone who fights for this country and liberty."

Peralta was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay.

NC undercover officers use Taser on pallbearer

Five sheriff's deputies will be disciplined after they used a Taser while serving an arrest warrant on a man at his father's funeral, a North Carolina sheriff said Wednesday.

Gladwyn Taft Russ III was serving as a pallbearer at the Saturday service and was loading his father's casket into a hearse when the undercover deputies approached him.
Relatives said two deputies dressed in coats and ties grabbed Russ and kneed him in his back before using a Taser on him.
One deputy's gun fell out of its holster.

"Everybody was so scared. We thought it was a drug deal gone bad," said Ronnie Simmons, another pallbearer and Russ' brother-in-law.
"We almost dropped the casket."

New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causeysaid that five of the officers involved would be disciplined, although he wouldn't say what punishment they would face.
"I apologize to anyone that was there," Causey said. "Family, friends, relatives. ... That was a bad decision."

Russ, 42, had failed to surrender after being charged with threatening his ex-wife, who lives in another state.
After his father died on Nov. 11, Russ agreed to surrender to authorities after the funeral.
When deputies approached Russ, he "went wild" and spat on the officers, Chief Deputy Ed McMahon said.
Russ was charged with assault on a government official, resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and felony malicious conduct by a prisoner.

Russ will likely not see any time for the charges because the deputies accosted him BEFORE the funeral was over - a funeral is not over until the first shovel of dirt is thrown into the grave over the body any crappy lawyer will know this and have the charges vacated ... any good lawyer will have the charges vacated and have Russ awarded damages.

What an idiot!

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Bush has two regrets ...

... Here are another 37

Wish I'd been a little more awesome.

In an interview on Veterans Day, President Bush was asked to reflect on his regrets over his two terms in office. Bush said he regrets, "saying some things I shouldn't have said, like "dead or alive" and "bring em on." Bush also said he wishes he hadn't spoken in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq in 2003.

Okay, that's two!

Looks like he needs help with the others, so here is a brief list of some (thirty-seven) of the things Bush should probably be regretting right about now.

A List Of Stuff George Bush Should Regret

1. His existence
2. His decision to go into politics
3. Not learning how to better run oil companies so he wouldn't have to go into politics
4. His decision to run for president
5. His decision to run for a second term as president
6. Every word spoken into a microphone since January 20th, 2001
7. That time in 2001 when he shouted at Dick Cheney, "You know what, screw it. You run the country if you're so smart!"
8. Ignoring the way Alberto Gonzales was always saying, "Geneva Convention, Schmeneva Schmonvention!"
9. Those times when he let Donald Rumsfeld make decisions
10. Revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative. Not cool!
11. That time when he said "Osama, Saddam. What's the damn difference?"
12. Letting the country fall into economic ruin
13. Not getting Scooter Libby to take the fall for some more stuff
14. That "wait for this to blow over" position on Katrina
15. Not learning how to keep from smirking while addressing the nation about certain issues, such as Katrina
16. Not figuring out how to control the weather to keep Katrina from happening
17. Not giving more people hilarious nicknames, like "Turd Blossom"
18. That "Iraq" kerfuffle
19. Not giving more speeches in front of banners that read, "Danger: Under Construction" or "Not Finished" or "This Mission is going to take at least six or seven years, if we're lucky!"
20. Saying, "all right Harriet, you've talked me into it."
21. Never really savoring the good moments.
22. Giving up alcohol
23. Giving up coke
24. Going back on coke
25. Giving it up again
26. Betting Cheney $1,000 they'd lose in 2004
27. Not getting to know Terri Schiavo better
28. Not constantly losing wars
29. Beating Dad's "years in office" record.
30. Thinking, what the heck, it's just a pretzel
31. Not flipping the bird more often at Cindy Sheehan from behind the tinted windows of his passing limo
32. Not taking it as a bad sign that Karl Rove has a forked tongue
33. Responding to a report titled "Osama Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside The United States" by repeating the title in a mocking, high-pitched voice that made Cheney laugh real hard
34. Not saying, "Brownie, we should sit down for a performance review in the next week or so"
35. Not calling it, "No Super-Gifted Child Left Behind"
36. Those twenty or twenty-five times when he should have offered his resignation but decided to "wait it out"
37. Not doing more to avoid the inevitable indictments sure to come next February once they start finding out about "the real bad stuff"

Pygmy Tarsiers Re-discovered in Indonesia

Pygmy tarsiers, long believed extinct, have been found in Indonesia, according to a story in The Globe and Mail.

In August, researchers from Texas A&M, led by Sharon Gursky-Doyen, trapped two males and a female in mountain-top mist nets on Mt. Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

With distinctive eyes, the pygmy tarsiers are primates; they are"about the size of a small mouse;" they have claws instead of nails, which is a distinguishing feature.

Woman convinced to hold down toilet handle as conman robs her

A 91-year-old Jersey City woman was conned by a burglar pretending to be a utility company employee.
He told her that there was a water emergency and that if she didn't hold down the flusher on her toilet, the house would explode.
Meanwhile, he stole almost $4000 in cash from her apartment.

From The Jersey Journal:

The man first opened and shut a faucet in the kitchen and then went into the victim's bathroom where he flushed the toilet, reports said.

The man then instructed the victim to "hold down the flush handle or else the house will explode," reports said...

But after about two minutes, the victim told police "I didn't care if the house exploded" and walked into her living-room, at which time she discovered her house had been ransacked, reports said.

"Jersey City senior holds toilet handle while water company impostor ransacks house"

Mummies and the fight for Uighur sovereignty

A wonderfully intriguing piece by Ed Wong in today's NYTimes on the role Archeology -- specifically, a set of mummified human remains -- plays in the conflict over independence for one of China's ethnic minorities.

Excerpt:

“Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” says one prominent sign. But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story. One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down, her lips pursed in death, her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese.

The Loulan Beauty is one of more than 200 remarkably well-preserved mummies discovered in the western deserts here over the last few decades. The ancient bodies have become protagonists in a very contemporary political dispute over who should control the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

The Chinese authorities here face an intermittent separatist movement of nationalist Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who number nine million in Xinjiang. At the heart of the matter lie these questions: Who first settled this inhospitable part of western China? And for how long has the oil-rich region been part of the Chinese empire?

The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To

Arraignment set for Cheney, Gonzales in Texas

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ...

... and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.
Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday.
The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity.
It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assaults in the facilities.
The grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because of his influence over the county's federal immigrant detention center and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.
The indictment accuses Gonzales of stopping an investigation into abuses at the federal detention center.

An attorney for the private prison operator The GEO Group filed motions accusing Guerra of "prosecutorial vindictiveness."
One motion said Guerra had hijacked "the grand jury process and disregarded the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure designed to protect defendants' due process rights."

Some attorneys argued that Banales may not have the authority to schedule an arraignment because the indictments were invalid.
One lawyer said Guerra never should have been allowed to present the cases to the grand jury because at least four of the indictments deal with people who had some role in the investigation of his office last year.
"He is the witness, the victim and the prosecutor," said the attorney for Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a former U.S. attorney who was appointed special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.

District Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mosbacker and Gustavo Garza, a longtime political opponent of Guerra, were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.
The grand jury tied all of their charges to an earlier investigation of Guerra's office.

Banales dismissed an indictment against Guerra last month charging him with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business.
An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.

After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster.

He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

Guerra has been in office nearly 20 years, but was defeated in the March Democratic primary.

Yep, it's the one ...

Just a little something to get you going!
Shakira - Objection

Scientists find new penguin, extinct for 500 years

Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin have uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.

The research suggests that the first humans in New Zealand hunted the newly found Waitaha penguin to extinction by 1500, about 250 years after their arrival on the islands.

But the loss of the Waitaha allowed another kind of penguin to thrive - the yellow-eyed species that now also faces extinction, Philip Seddon of Otago University, a co-author of the study, said Wednesday.

The team was testing DNA from the bones of prehistoric modern yellow-eyed penguins for genetic changes associated with human settlement when it found some bones that were older - and had different DNA.

Tests on the older bones "lead us to describe a new penguin species that became extinct only a few hundred years ago," the team reported in a paper in the biological research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Polynesian settlers came to New Zealand around 1250 and are known to have hunted species such as the large, flightless moa bird to extinction.

Seddon said dating techniques used on bones pulled from old Maori trash pits revealed a gap in time between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin.

The gap indicates the extinction of the older bird created the opportunity for the newer to colonize New Zealand's main islands around 500 years ago, said Sanne Boessenkool, an Otago University doctoral student who led the team of researchers, including some from Australia's Adelaide University and New Zealand's Canterbury Museum.

Competition between the two penguin species may have previously prevented the yellow-eyed penguin from expanding north, the researchers noted.

David Penny of New Zealand's Massey University, who was not involved in the research, said the Waitaha was an example of another native species that was unable to adapt to a human presence.

"In addition, it is vitally important to know how species, such as the yellow-eyed penguin, are able to respond to new opportunities," he said.
"It is becoming apparent that some species can respond to things like climate change, and others cannot. The more we know, the more we can help."

The yellow-eyed penguin is considered one of the world's rarest.

An estimated population of 7,000 in New Zealand is the focus of an extensive conservation effort.

Boars thrive in Germany; Hunters in hog heaven

Zeitrechnung zu abdrücken rauf die braten.

or

Time to fire up the grill.

German boar hunters are reporting one of their best seasons since World War II as moderate weather and plentiful food have led to a wild pig population boom.

The German Hunters' Association said Wednesday between April 2007 and March 2008 hunters killed 477,500 wild boar - 66 percent more than the previous year.

It was the third highest catch since 1945.

The association says mild winters mean that boar herds are growing, and expanding commercial crops have provided them with more food. Corn acreage has tripled over the last 30 years.

Boars are also being seen increasingly in urban areas, where they tear up gardens and flower beds. Berlin estimates 10,000 boars live in the capital - up from 7,000 in 2005.

Squeeze-through robbery at McDonalds

An apparently slim and limber robber helped five of his buddies rob a McDonalds restaurant overnight in northwest Charlotte.

Police say one of the group's members managed to squeeze through the drive-up window about 2:10 a.m. at the McDonalds in the 2500 block of Beatties Ford Road, near Interstate 85.

Once inside, police say, the bandit ran to a door, unlocked it, and ushered in his accomplices.
They robbed the restaurant's manager at gunpoint before fleeing.

Video shows employees ignoring a dying man

Heads will roll over this! There is no excuse ... none whatsoever!

Footage from Goldsboro state mental hospital reveals staffers playing cards and watching TV as patient sat in a chair for 22 hours.

*****

Security camera footage shows state mental hospital employees falsified records to cover up negligence in the death of a patient who choked on his medication, hit his head and then was left sitting in a chair for nearly a day without food or water.

Steven Sabock, 50, died April 29 at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro. An investigation into his death spurred regulators to pull the state facility's federal funding in September, costing N.C. taxpayers millions.

The video, released Tuesday, shows employees playing cards, watching television, talking on their cell phones and goofing off as Sabock sat ailing and dazed a few feet away, his clothes soaked with his urine.

Though the footage was described in an August investigative report, the video was not made public until The News & Observer of Raleigh and other media outlets worked with Sabock's widow to force its release.

The visual record of Sabock's last day shows that at least 16 staff members responsible for his care failed to recognize that he was in distress until it was too late.

Copies of the state's internal review, released in the past week, say employees lied to investigators and falsified Sabock's medical records to show they had given him care that the video shows they did not.

An autopsy would later conclude that Sabock, who had bipolar disorder, died of a heart condition. But hospital records show the medical examiner was given false information about the patient's condition in his final hours. The death report also omits any mention of his choking or falling.

Requests for interviews with Cherry Hospital's director, Jack St. Clair, and nursing director, Bonnie Gray, who prepared the report to the medical examiner, were declined Tuesday.

Tom Lawrence, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said there would be no response Tuesday to questions submitted by phone and e-mail.

Dr. John Butts, the state's chief medical examiner, said Tuesday he doubted that having access to the video or investigative report would have changed his office's conclusion that Sabock died of natural causes related to heart problems. The autopsy report shows no evidence of head trauma, he said.

Nurse ‘freaked out'

Sabock's ordeal began shortly after 8 p.m. April 28 when he entered a room to take his medication. The tape shows him coughing on the pills and health care technician Lucretia Houston patting him on the back. He then falls, his head appearing to hit the floor.

As Sabock turns purple while laying on his back, Houston thrusts on his abdomen with her hands in an attempt to help him breathe. She then pulls him up off the floor, without checking to see if he was injured by the fall, which the report notes is a violation of the hospital's emergency procedures. A nurse, Susan Watson, stands by and does little to help.

Watson later told investigators she “freaked out” when Sabock choked and fell.

Sabock was guided back to the day room on his ward and deposited in a chair. Nearly two hours passed before he was taken to a nurses station to be checked by a physician assistant. She ordered the staff to take Sabock's vital signs every six hours.

Sabock was returned to the chair in the day room at 10:22 p.m., where Houston took his vital signs. While doing so, she can be seen on the video dancing and joking with employees playing cards at a nearby table.

The employees appear to largely ignore Sabock until they finish their card game an hour later, when a worker turns out the lights and leaves the patient alone in the dark.

22 hours, 34 minutes

All told, Sabock was in the chair for 22 hours and 34 minutes. His records indicate that during that time workers followed orders to check his vital signs and regularly give him fluids.

The video shows those records were falsified.

Though not all the entries are signed by an employee, investigators concluded health care technician William Mathis fabricated entries indicating he had taken Sabock's vital signs and given him juice. The report also says Mathis lied to investigators about care the patient got, as did nurse Latasha Lewis.

A list of Cherry Hospital employees provided by the state last month shows Lewis was no longer at the hospital, while Mathis and Houston were still on the payroll.

The video shows other patients crowding into the day room the next morning and checking on Sabock. Employees try to rouse him occasionally, changing his T-shirt at one point. At mealtimes, his food was set aside or eaten by others.

Not until 8:59 p.m. April 29, about 25 hours after he choked and fell, did two employees lift Sabock and slide him into his bedroom, out of the camera's range.

Moments later, employees rush through the day room with a crash cart, indicating a Code Blue had been called. Sabock is seen being wheeled out on a stretcher by paramedics at 9:27 p.m.

Bitter cold shatters record

I was correct ... when I said earlier that we were heading for the record ...

Temperatures are climbing this morning after tumbling to a record low before dawn.

Right now it is a torrid 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside

The frigid readings this morning not only set a record for the date, but it marked the earliest ever that the temperature has fallen below 20 degrees Fahrenheit in these parts.

Forecasters say we will moderate slightly over the next two days, but another shot of cold air is headed for the region late Thursday into the weekend.

The unofficial low this morning was 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
That broke the mark of 20 degrees for the date, set in 1951.

The last time it was this cold around here was February 28, 2008 when it dropped to 17 degrees fahrenheit.

Warsaw Marks Ghetto

Polish officials have marked the border of the former Warsaw Ghetto with plaques and lines of metal set in concrete to preserve the memory of the tragic World War II-era Jewish quarter.

The markers were inaugurated today (Wednesday, November 19, 2008) in a ceremony attended by Holocaust survivors, Roman Catholic clergy, Poland's chief rabbi and the Warsaw mayor.

The Warsaw Ghetto was set up by Nazi Germany when it occupied Poland during the war.

About half a million Jews were imprisoned there.
It served as a holding place before most were sent to their deaths in concentration camps.

Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz says preserving the memory of the ghetto is important because "it's a picture of the history - unfortunately the dramatic history - of the city."

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The terrorists are nervous

The terrorist are nervous, knowing that Obama's election means they are on the last days of their life's journeys either alive or as 'free men' and as such they are spouting off as they are wont to do trying to bolster their own fragile egos.

In another one of their taped messages - Al-Qaida nut-case number two, Ayman al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in the terror group's first reaction to his election, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.
Al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

Al-Zawahri also called Obama - along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice - "house Negroes."
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house Negroes."

This tape has the tone of a nervous person while others in the past have had the tone of a cocky person taunting a lessor - which in those cases it was the shrub they were aiming the tapes at ... so it was a lessor.

Now, they are scared.

King Tut's Tomb

Heckle and Jeckle

Daily Horoscope

My daily horoscope says:

You have an especially sharp eye for cutting through bullshit!

Damn, they are good!

How to confuse and idiot

It's cold!

It is 26 degrees Fahrenheit with a 15 mile-per-hour wind outside right now and it is bloody cold as hell!
The sky could not be any clearer (allowing for today's pollution already up there) so the temperature is falling faster than confidence in the financial market.
We are going for the record tonight - one I wish we weren't it is forecast to be 20 degrees Fahrenheit by dawn - I think a new record is going to be set ... I just got that feeling in my bones, and my joints, and my muscles, and my ...

Driver loses control after sneeze

An untimely sneeze nearly cost Andrew Hanson his life. The 42-year-old Weymouth man told authorities that a sneeze caused him to lose control of his pickup on Soldiers Field Road and plunge into Boston's Charles River on Tuesday.

Hanson was able to wade to shore after escaping from the truck, which was partially submerged in 4 feet of water. He was not seriously injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

Lawrence Callahan of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation said Hanson told him that after he sneezed, "the next thing he knew he was in the river."

Man nabbed after hitting girlfriend with sandwich

It's a Florida thing, right?

A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving on Interstate 95 on Friday. Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off.

The victim nearly lost control of the car because she couldn't see the road and the man then allegedly ripped off the rear-view mirror and used it to shatter the windshield.

The man was freed on $7,500 bail.

Police haven't said what type of sandwich was involved.