Heck, I’m “fearful” when I run a red light, but at least I ‘fess up that I’m the one in the wrong, not the cops
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Cook Rosa Maria Salazar’s eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.
“We’re terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us,” she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly.
The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.
The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed “Operation Return to Sender,” targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called “criminal aliens” into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.
They really can’t complain about people being deported for reasons beyond their illegal immigrant status.
“We used to feel secure here,” Nicaraguan electrician Manuel Salomon told Reuters as he sipped coffee in a Mexican bakery in the city. “But it looks like that honeymoon is over.”
With 10-12 million illegals here, there is simply no way to deport them all. It is not possible without Nazi-like rail cars scooping them up and dumping them at the Rio Grande, and that’s not a road we should ever even consider going down (unless, say, we suddenly get a huge influx of illegals from, say, France). But we need to secure the border immediately and deport absolutely any of those here that commit a crime while here or have outstanding warrants from wherever they’re from, and let the balance work towards citizenship.
Gnome, gnome on derange.
It’s being called the “Gnomesville Massacre” and emergency workers in Western Australia are offering a reward for the capture of vandals who smashed their way through a local tourist attraction.
An unknown number of attackers lopped off the heads or smashed several dozen of the pot-bellied statues this week at Gnomesville, a collection of more than a 1,000 colorful characters deep in a forest south of Perth.
“We are incensed by the damage done to the gnomes and willing to pay a reward to catch the culprits,” State Emergency Service Volunteer Association President Phillip Petersen told Reuters.
Six orange-colored gnomes depicting emergency workers were among those destroyed, Petersen said, adding the reward was A$500 ($390).
The population of Gnomesville has grown from a handful of statues placed covertly in the forest a few years ago, making it a popular stop off for tour buses visiting nearby vineyards.
Look at those cheerful pudgy faces…::sob::…the BASTARDS.
I hope Tim hasn’t seen this yet, bless his tender heart. It’ll ruin his day. Global warming and polar bear gonads shrinking pale in comparison.
…Robert Salter Jr. originally told investigators that he was driving by OBO Auto Sales, 3222 Fordham Parkway in Pensacola, the night of Jan. 6, when he saw lights inside. When he went into the office to check, a burglar shot him in the leg, he claimed.
It turns out that Salter’s injury occurred after he and Paul Dean burglarized the business, and Dean attempted to open the safe in a wooded area by shooting it with a .45-caliber pistol, law enforcement officers said. The shot ricocheted off the safe and struck Salter in the thigh.
Lucky thing he wasn’t a six-shooter. He’d be dead.
The safe escaped with minor injuries.
And will be interviewed on Friday’s ‘Oprah’.
…Whenever a politician puts out to the media that he has thrown away the speechwriters’ draft and written the remarks himself (as Webb did), it is often a sign of approaching mediocrity. This was worse. Senator Webb made liberal use of clichés: the middle class is “the backbone” of the country, which is losing its “place at the table.” I am not even sure there is a literary term for a mixed metaphor that crosses two clichés. And Senator Webb’s logic was as incoherent as his language (the two are often related). No “precipitous withdrawal”—but retreat “in short order.” Fight the war on terror vigorously—except where the terrorists have chosen to fight it. It is, perhaps, a good thing that James Webb earned a job as senator. As a speechwriter he would starve.
Perhaps the most compelling argument of the day was not made by President Bush or Senator Webb—and it was made in five words. Earlier in the day, General David Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. When asked if he could get his job done in Iraq without additional troops, he replied: “No, sir.” When asked if a congressional resolution of disapproval of the “surge” could encourage the enemy, he said, “That’s correct, sir.” …
…a primer. It explains everything you never knew you needed to know about the various sects of Islam. You know … in case you get a Congressional Committee Chair, need a cab at the airport or want to order mats for your unit from a Pakistani in Milwaukee.
Stranger things have happened.
A Michigan woman who lost a small-claims case because she refused to remove her veil while testifying has been granted a new hearing, court officials said.
Ginnnah Muhammad, 42, will appear before the same judge who told her last October that she had to remove her niqab — a veil with only a small opening at the eyes — so he could gauge whether she was telling the truth.
When Muhammad refused, Judge Paul Paruk ordered her to pay a rental car company for damage to a vehicle she rented. Muhammad appealed his ruling.
Federal agents taking a break from an unrelated assignment yesterday arrested 24 illegal aliens at a Fells Point 7-Eleven after the men attempted to solicit “underground” employment from the agents.
…Of those arrested, 10 were Honduran, eight were Mexican, five were Salvadoran and one was Peruvian, ICE officials said. Six of the men have criminal records in the United States, eight of the men have failed to comply with final removal orders from an immigration judge and one man had been caught at the border on four occasions, ICE officials said.
…The nonprofit immigrant-advocacy group CASA of Maryland called the arrests an “illegal raid” that was beyond ICE’s authority.
“Asking a bunch of people about their immigration status is well beyond the confines of a specific warrant,” CASA spokeswoman Kim Propeack said.
The return of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political bloc to the Iraqi government is a “positive sign” but could be a tactic to help its militia survive a US-Iraqi crackdown, the US ambassador to Baghdad said.
That kind of bull-Shiite is exACTLY why I have a huge, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
And why I didn’t watch the chief architect last night on the telly.
So as not to beat an innocent and perfectly good TV monitor with a shoe.
…in our story. Heidi’s done a lot more digging and every rock seems to turn over with a new rock underneath. So what happens next?
HAHAH!! WE’VE BEEN HACKED.
AND WE’RE BEING SLAMMED BY PROXIES OUT OF CHICAGO AND MILWAUKEE.
YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?
WE’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK.
Our website was hacked and this article was removed. Everything was gone – trackbacks, comments, etc. See our post management page? GONE. All of it.
Sounds like a nerve was touched somewhere. And oh, how clumsy! Maybe in Pakistan it goes away for good, but here?
Just darn pisses people off, doncha know.
…that would make Tony Soprano proud. Only it’s not Newark ~ it’s New Orleans, Nagin and another taxpayer mugging.
Now, budda bing ~ follow the bouncing garbage truck carefully, cher.
New Orleans officials traded a zoning waiver needed by Waste Management to operate the Chef Menteur Landfill for the promise of a portion of the landfill’s revenue, according to a federal audit that deems the deal inappropriate and concludes the city should pay the money back.
Because the federal government was paying 100 percent of the cost of debris removal, the report says, the city was in essence helping itself to an unauthorized federal grant. To cover the cost of paying the city, the landfill’s operators inflated their prices, which was in turn paid by the federal government.
As it turns out, the city hasn’t received any of the approximately $860,000 it is owed under its agreement with Waste Management, which opened the controversial and short-lived Chef Menteur Landfill in eastern New Orleans. But if it’s ever collected, the money should be treated “as a credit to be deducted from the city’s claim for other disaster costs,” said the report, conducted by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Under the city’s agreement with Waste Management, signed by Mayor Ray Nagin in February 2006, the trash hauler promised to “donate” 22 percent of its revenues from the new construction landfill to the city. In a separate document, signed the same day, Nagin used his emergency powers to grant the company a six-month waiver from the city’s zoning law, allowing the landfill to open.
…“Common sense tells us that the beneficiary of a voluntary donation would not normally require the donor to (1) sign a notarized agreement; (2) submit calculation of donated amounts to the beneficiary for validation; or (3) continue donations so long as the donor operated a business that required the beneficiary’s authorization,” the report says. “These requirements provide convincing evidence that the landfill operator’s ‘donation’ of 22 percent of gross revenues was contingent on the city’s approval to operate the landfill.”
Damn. This whole time I thought Hizzoner was emulating someone else.
He needs to cut back on his cable.
The Scientoiletgists aren’t just a bunch of ego-intense nutjobs.
Really they’re not:
TOM Cruise is the new “Christ” of Scientoiletgy, according to leaders of the cult-like religion.
The Mission: Impossible star has been told he has been “chosen” to spread the word of his faith throughout the world.
And leader David Miscavige believes that in future, Cruise, 44, will be worshipped like Jesus for his work to raise awareness of the religion.
A source close to the actor, who has risen to one of the church’s top levels, said: “Tom has been told he is Scientoiletgy’s Christ-like figure.
“Like Christ, he’s been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise he was right.”
Cruise joined the Church of Scientoiletgy in the ’80s. Leader L Ron Hoover claimed humans bear traces of an ancient alien civilisation.
I simply don’t know where to begin.
Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot
Update: I see Emily was way ahead of me on this.
Snake charmers hold council for survival
They danced in a trance, writhing serpents draped around their necks, oblivious to the fear — and venom — their cobras, vipers and boas impart.
Swaying to the sounds of flutes and hisses, more than 150 snake charmers gathered in the southern Pakistani city of Hyderabad for a grand council to appeal to the government to help them preserve their livelihood, which many see as a divine gift.
Whew ~ in Pakistan! So traffic won’t be any worse than usual. Hallelujah and pass the rattlesnake.
Fun | tree hugging sister | 8:52 am | Comments Off on For a Second Here I Thought They Were Talking About
Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil.
…The plot was discovered six months ago, roughly the same time that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by coalition forces. Sources tell ABC News that the suspects involved in the effort to launch the U.S. attack were closely associated with Zarqawi.
The plan also came only months after Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2, had requested that Zarqawi attempt an attack inside the United States.
“This appears to be the first hard evidence al Qaeda in Iraq was trying to attack us here at home,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, former chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council.
Gosh, I just feel so wonderful about the ‘amnesty for illegal immigrants’ policy. ‘Bring the boys over on a student visa and fade into the background’ is hardly original. What’s sad is that it’s STILL plausible.
From: SGT Jason Hess
Sent: Tue Jan 16 3:25
Do you ship to APO address? I’m in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Iraq and we are trying to order some mats but we are looking for who ships to APO first.
*****************************************************
From: contact@discount-mats.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: Feedback: from discount-mats.com
SGT Hess,
We do not ship to APO addresses, and even if we did, we would NEVER ship to Iraq. If you were sensible, you and your troops would pull out of Iraq.
Bargain Suppliers
Discount-Mats.com
Now, normally I’m not big on passing along this stuff, but they’ve got Snopes involved. That’s the first step. Then they’ve tracked down the owner of the website and ~ lo and behold ~ there’s a bunch of them all run by Milwaukee [ths]Arab Pakistani types. According to the latest wrinkle in the case, the website owners HAVE responded to a local radio station (major mistake THERE ~ I’d be talking to Snopes FIRST), insisting that the employee accountable was being…um…held to account.
…A Vice President with Bargain Suppliers, the website’s parent company, confirms the email was sent. He says the employee who sent it is being held accountable and will be dealt with.
In addition, the spokesperson says the address and phone number that are now being circulated around the world are someone’s home in West Allis. He says they’ve been bombarded with phone calls and as you can imagine they’re getting plenty of complaints.
Oh, no doubt! (That ‘will be dealt with‘ is rather ominous, n’est pas? Was he a cab driver at an airport or something?) The poor sergeant is getting his rugs regardless and I feel safe in saying the carpets won’t be flying out of Mr. Faisal Khetani’s warehouses any time soon. If CAIR wants to keep Muslims off ’24’ and the front pages, it might help if they sent a memo about “Public Relations: Answering Emails in a Small Business Environment” to their members.
Via The Big Dog. UPDATE: Oh, well, dang. According to the latest Snopes update, people are going batsh*t crazy on the guys. No need for death threats, for God’s sake. (Like a$$holes who come out of the woodwork using ‘Timothy McVeigh’ as their commenting name and then espouse Daily Kos talking points. Hello? You don’t get the ‘ick factor’ in that, Rocket Man?)
“That was rude and I’m not buying your rugs” would suffice.
Europeans Rushing To Bulgaria To Buy “Breast-Boosting Beer”
European men are rushing to Bulgaria to buy Boza beer, which is said to boost women’s breasts, after Bulgaria’s accession to the EU abolished prohibitive customs duties on the drink.
The Bulgarian Boza beer, which is made from fermented wheat flour and yeast, has become popular among bar owners, shopkeepers and shoppers across Europe. The beverage is popular among men as gifts for their wives and girlfriends to benefit from its reported ability to make women’s breast grow bigger.
One buyer from Romania said he travelled to Danube so he could buy the famous beer in the Bulgarian town of Rousse, according to Ananova news reports.
Ananova reported he said, “I’ve bought a case for my wife to try out. I really hope I see an improvement.”
A Swill salute to That 1 Guy for pointing out yet another cogent reason to support free trade.
…to the world’s complete shock and awe, Moqtada has directed his minions in a ad-hoc production of his “Scuttle Off to Mosquello” routine.
…In a desperate bid to fend off a feared all-out American offensive, the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott. They were back at their jobs Sunday.
Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to show weapons in public or at least when U.S. or Iraqi forces might see them. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.
“We announce our return to parliament, we will attend today’s session, and the ministers will resume their work to serve the people,” Bahaa al-Araji, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said during a news conference attended by Sunni parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. Al-Sadr also has six loyalist ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.
An old favorite by Iraq war standards, the crowd-pleasing, face-saving strategic retreat dance has worked time and time again and NO one ever seems to catch on. But this is a new round of chest thumping and loin girding by the administration, in cahoots with the always trustworthy Iraqi Prime Minister Now al Take-aliki. Are we gonna fall for it again? NeGOTIATE? Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us thrice…maybe it’s time to leave, ’cause we’re too STOOPID to stay.
So. Will the fat cleric get to keep his hottie Mahdis? Or will the Americans stick to their guns (literally) and schmear him like tub of mosquepone cheese?
Whuddaya gonna do, George?
World weather impacts
Protest over lack of European snow
18 Jan 2007
Romanian snowboarders have staged a protest at the lack of snow in front of the country’s weather institute.
Blocking traffic, the snowboarders sat in the road and only moved on when weather officials said that their complaint at the lack of snow “would be passed on to a higher authority“…
…Really annoying is the woman who, as soon as she takes her place on the dining couch, praises Vergil, excuses Dido’s suicide, compares and ranks in critical order the various poets, and weighs Vergil and Homer on a pair of scales. Grammar teachers surrender, professors of rhetoric are defeated, the entire group of guests is silent; neither a lawyer nor an auctioneer nor even another woman will get a word in. So loud and shrill are her words that you might think pots were being banged together and bells were being rung…
Like a philosopher she defines ethics. If she wants to appear so learned and eloquent, she should shorten her tunic to midcalf! . . . Don’t marry a woman who speaks like an orator – or knows every history book. There should be some things in books which she doesn’t understand. I hate a woman who reads and rereads Palaemon’s treatise on grammar, who always obeys all the laws and rules of correct speech, who quotes verses I’ve never even heard of, moldy old stuff that a man shouldn’t worry about anyway. Let her correct the grammer of her stupid girfriend!
A husband should be allowed an occasional “I ain’t.”
An early version of “Care for some cheese… …with that whine?”
…Maliki, however, has said this month he will crack down on Shi’ite militias and said 400 Mehdi Army members had been arrested in mainly Shi’ite southern Iraq over recent days.
Oh yeah? 400? Show me their ugly mugs behind bars with weeping women at the prison gates and I might start to swallow that pill. MIGHT. And why can you scoop up legions of foot soldiers without protest but when the U.S. is involved in an ACTUAL arrest…
U.S. and Iraqi troops seized a prominent spokesman for Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday, confronting a movement that has a key role in the ruling coalition but is accused by Washington of running death squads.
The midnight raid near Baghdad’s Sadr City district, which Sadr’s aides angrily called an “American provocation”, came as Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew in to the southern city of Basra to meet the commander in Iraq, General George Casey.
…all hell breaks loose?
Because those ‘detained’ Mahdi troops cooling their heels in the slammer are just getting a break from the action.
…”We have picked up probably five or six death squad leaders here in the last three to four weeks at very very high level,” [Gen.] Casey told reporters at a joint news conference with Gates.
Well, if it’s that easy, why weren’t we doing it to begin with? – Right Wing News ’04
Smoke and mirrors, my friends.
Nanny State | Mr. Bingley | 
January 26, 2007 6:12 am | 
Comments (7) 
…with that whine?”
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