And We Should Be Pouring Dollars Into Africa

…WHY?

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was greeted with hugs at an African summit on Monday, a sign that African leaders won’t shun him despite Western demands they take a tough stance over his re-election in a tainted vote.

Talk about your moral authority…they’d rather keep the hand chopping, baby burning, machete massacre going than be seen as caving to whitey. What sorry, spineless, excremental individuals, and I weep for the everyday African ~ black, white, green or purple ~ who lives his life perpetually in fear of madmen and their animals.
If that murderous, inhuman, raving lunatic gets hugs from African ‘leaders’ (and I use the term loosely), then Africa pretty much deserves what it gets.
If they cannot turn away from his heinous hide, I cannot abide the thought of a DROP of American blood spilled for Africa.

McCain’s Years in the Hanoi Hilton

…“No Big Deal”?
Why’s the Left so worried about Gitmo inhabitants then? Especially after every San Francisco reporter clawed their way to the front of the “Give Waterboarding a TRY This Summer!“ amusement park line.
I don’t see anyone volunteering for:

“Spend a Day as John McCain circa 1968!
It’s Really NO BIG DEAL!!“

What Happens When Ken Goes Out For A Stroll

Proof that his exercise is bad for our health

MANCHESTER — – Drivers along I-291 had quite a sight Saturday, as a man wearing nothing but a thong, fake breasts and a wig sauntered along the side of the highway.
Police said they received several calls about the man, which prompted an hour-long search. Police said they found the man, fully clothed and collecting cans behind a business on Batson Drive in Manchester. Police said they found a wig and fake breasts in the man’s car.

The Horror…

Now That’s One Heck Of A “Demonstration”

But it sounds like they only hit the “hostages”

PARIS — A military shooting demonstration in southeast France on Sunday left 16 people wounded, including children, when real bullets were used instead of blank ones, officials said.
Four of the wounded were in serious condition, including a 3-year-old child, Bernard Lemaire, chief of the regional administration in Aude, said on France-3 television. Fifteen of the injured were civilians.
A Defense Ministry official said the incident occurred during a demonstration of hostage-freeing techniques at the Laperrine military barracks. The official said investigators will look into why real bullets were used.

I Thought The Point Was The Oil?

At least that’s what I learned from all the “no blood for oil” bumper stickers. It seems to me we’ve given some blood, so let’s get that oil flowing

A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.

You would think that as the bastion of evil capitalism in the world we might have some useful experience on drawing up contracts…and honoring them.

Though enriched by high prices, the companies are starved for new oil fields. The United States government, too, has eagerly encouraged investment anywhere in the world that could provide new oil to alleviate the exceptionally tight global supply, which is a cause of high prices.

“Anywhere” being defined as “anywhere outside the US where we can get screwed by other countries.”

But any perception of American meddling in Iraq’s oil policies threatens to inflame opinion against the United States, particularly in Arab nations that are skeptical of American intentions in Iraq, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world.

Oh no! The Arab Street will suddenly lose their love and great affection for us! Forsooth!

“We pretend it is not a centerpiece of our motivation, yet we keep confirming that it is,” Frederick D. Barton, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “And we undermine our own veracity by citing issues like sovereignty, when we have our hands right in the middle of it.”

Yes, it’s such a “centerpiece” that it’s taken us over 5 years to get around to it.

The advisers say they were not involved in advancing the oil companies’ interests, but rather treated the Oil Ministry as a client, the State Department official said. “I do not see this as a conflict of interest,” he said. A potential area of criticism, however, is that only Western companies got the bigger oil contracts. In particular, Russian companies that have experience in Iraq and had sought development contracts are still waiting.

The Russians have far too much experience and involvement with Saddam. Bummer for them.

DAMMIT!! That’s the GOP Line!!

And, this morning, MSNBC makes it sound like a bad thing!

Where would we be without that impartial press?

Upon First Viewing This Photo

…my instinctive reaction is…

But then I start thinking…

“What a GREAT caption contest!”

For instance, schmaybe Hillary’s reminding Barack…

…what her strengths are.

TGIF

Geesh, it’s been a long week.
I’m very tired and looking forward to grilling some scallops and filets tonight and having a bottle or three of shiraz with my Bride.
Hope y’all have a nice weekend planned!

San Francisco Takes The High Road

As, of course, you expect

SAN FRANCISCO: Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital, and a state, too. But President George W. Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.
From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Actually, while some folks are understandably upset about this, I think this might not be a bad thing. I mean, it may in fact take the guy who got rid of Saddam to clean up San Francisco’s shit.

I Know Heller’s the Big News This Morning

…but DAMN !!

… North Korea handed over its long-awaited nuclear program declaration to officials from China earlier Thursday, which led the six-nation talks that hammered out the conditions of the agreement.
The declaration is expected to contain details on North Korea’s plutonium stockpile. North Korea will also continue preparations to publicly dismantle a controversial nuclear reactor — key steps meant to ease international fears about nuclear activities in the Communist nation.
Bush said he will call for the lifting of sanctions against North Korea under the Trading with Enemy Act and notify Congress that he intends to take it off the terror list, a move that will take 45 days.
“The next 45 days will be an important period for North Korea, to show its … cooperation,” he said. But, North Korea will have to end its nuclear activities in a “verifiable” way, he added.

Remembering the good old days fondly…

[2007] President George W. Bush’s administration is “the worst in history” when it comes to international relations, former President Jimmy Carter said Friday, taking aim at the White House’s policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.

[2006] Solving the Korean Stalemate, One Step at a Time by Jimmy Carter
What must be avoided is to leave a beleaguered nuclear nation convinced that it is permanently excluded from the international community, its existence threatened, its people suffering horrible deprivation and its hard-liners in total control of military and political policy.

[2006] Jimmy Carter: Bush Trashed N. Korea Peace Effort

Proving, yet again, that one man’s trash…is another man’s treasure.

Waiting On Heller

Will the Supremes allow more gun restrictions?
Update: affirmed! DC gun ban overturned.
Updated Update: Here’s the decision
Updated updated update: The sweetest sentence you’ll read all year: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
thanks to SCOTUSblog for the updates
ths Adds: Some of the most astonishing words major dad and I have ever heard just came out of a CNN anchor’s mouth while interviewing a female Slate legal type. She had just finished saying (oh, surprise) how obviously this had been more political (!) than correctly interpretive, when Tony Harris responded (and I paraphrase, but get the key-word JUST right):

“But isn’t it [Heller], on it’s face, vaguely un-American? It sounds un-American.”

Turns out he’d also bet it would be a unanimous decision in favor of the individual right. Refreshing in light of the Slate types we’ll be hearing from ~ unchallenged ~ for the next freakin’ five years.

“Damned Dirty Ape” Is Now

Punishable as “hate speech”

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.
Parliament’s environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.
“This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity,” said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project, “Plus, I’ve got my eye on this fine orang-utan for awhile now; she is fumando, amigo.”
“This is a wonderful day ooh-ooh-ooh,” said Simian Prehensile, as he sat in Madrid’s famed Plaza de la Banana enjoying a government-subsidized grooming, “It’s time for us to come out of the trees and take our rightful place as complete dependents in society.”

California was expected to quickly recognize “evolutionary comrade” unions.

Here’s A Nice Range On Earnings

I mean, it’s the AP so it must be accurate

Emcor now expects profit between $2.22 and $2.42 per share on revenue of $6.8 billion to $7 billion. In April, the company had told Wall Street to expect earnings of $2.08 to $2.28 per share and revenue between $6.3 billion and $6.5 million.

I Do Feel Sorry For These People, I Really Do

But how damned stupid are they?

(CNN) — Pirates took four European tourists hostage after their yacht ran out of fuel off the coast of northern Somalia in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aden, according to a Somaliland official.
The pirates then took their hostages — a man, woman, their child and their yacht’s pilot — into hills around the fishing town of Las Qoray, said Ahmed Yusuf Yasin, vice president of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland.

Given all the press about pirate activities around the playland paradise that is “Somaliland,” what kind of moronic idiots would charter a yacht and take their kid on a little cruise…and then run out of gas?

George Carlin

Geesh, he was only 71

LOS ANGELES (AP) – George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his “Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV” routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

He was a great, funny guy

“Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?” he once mused. “Are they afraid someone will clean them?”

RIP

Um…

…duh.

…The stiff cost of replacing a battery at your dealer helps explain why an underground aftermarket in Prius batteries is emerging.

So add the current $3-$4K premium (+ base sticker) for buying the sucker, along with the battery charge (no pun intended)(really) at about 100K miles and guess what?!?! It ain’t such a bargain after all.
What a surprise.
I’m feeling like a Bene Gesserit or something, because I’ve been asking since the Prius was introduced:

“WHAT happens when all those batteries sh*t the bed?”

Reynold’s Wrap

I mean, sure, it’s an interesting story

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, has been called a missile-defense tool and a mind-control device. The truth is a bit less ominous.
If the paranoid blogosphere is to be believed, every morning a group of plasma-physics grad students wakes up at a research facility in Gakona, Alaska, 200 miles north of Anchorage, and prepares for another day of playing God. It’s cold, dark as a mineshaft in winter, and the day’s work does little to cheer the mood. Depending on the unpredictable agendas of military scientists, this group of technicians must shoot radio waves into the upper reaches of our atmosphere to create missile shields, eviscerate enemy satellites, set off the occasional earthquake, or control the minds of millions of people…

But really the best part of the article are the comments

If this project is so wonderful and has no sinister military applications, why is it funded by the USAF and Navy? And why would DARPA be involved if the research was of a peaceful nature.

and

All he needs to do is keep an open mind and accept that HAARP could be used (or developed further) as a deadly weapon, if placed in the wrong hands. Russia have a similar device, do you think that is used for public protection? Or do you think only foreign governments would use such a device as a weapon?

Anyhow, with those type of fun comments and oh so intriguing theories you would hope that Insta’s take would contain a touch more pith.
Alas.

“This is an Astounding Development – It is a Seminal Event.”

Cold fusion at last?
Nope.
Crop circle.

The most complex, “mind-boggling” crop circle ever to be seen in Britain has been discovered in a barley field in Wiltshire.

If Only He Had Put This Much Effort In To His Studies…

…he might not be facing 38 years in jail

It could be a long time before Omar Khan goes to college: as long as 38 years, according to Orange County prosecutors, who have arrested and charged the 18-year-old student with breaking into his prestigious high school and hacking into computers to change his test grades from Fs to As.

Let’s run over the relevant facts: He’s 18. He gets caught cheating on an exam or two, so he gets Fs. He breaks into the school several times. He steals passwords. He hacks into the computers. He changes grades and records. He installs spyware on the computer system so he can continually access it and know who else has been looking.
But, of course

Mr Khan’s defence lawyer, Carol Lavacol, described her client as “a really nice kid” and said: “There’s a lot more going on than meets the eye.”

“This is not the Omar Khan I’ve known” – Barack Obama
Update: in a TOWACA exclusive we have obtained a photo of the Principal when he learned what this student had done…

Read more »

Oh Damn

I was so looking forward to ordering some “Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman” for lunch today

BEIJING, China (CNN) — What’s in a name?
When it’s a local dish like “Husband and wife’s lung slice” or “Chicken without sexual life,” lots of furrowed eyebrows on famished foreigners.
So, with the Olympics a few short weeks away, China is giving its cuisine a linguistic makeover.
It is proposing that restaurants change the names of exotic, but bizarrely named, delicacies to make them more delectable for the estimated 50,000 visitors arriving in August for the Summer Games.
The appetizer “Husband and wife’s lung slice” is taking on the more appetizing “Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce.”
“Chicken without sexual life” has been transformed into “Chris Matthews.”

Yet another cultural loss for our world.

Did You KNOW…That If You Join the MARINES

…you might get…well…SHOT AT or something?!?!? News. To. Me.
Thank GOD for the eagle eyed MSNBC reporter who went to see “Sex and the City”, sat through THIS outstanding Marine Corps commercial during the pre-“Sex” warm-ups and…felt a public service warning was needed.

…The lush music, deep-voiced announcer and stunning cinematography make it a natural fit for the big screen. In fact, it’s hard to appreciate the commercial if you don’t see it on a movie-sized screen, and it’s so eye-catching that you can enjoy it even if you are the target demographic for a movie about thirty- and fortysomethings living in New York City rather than twentysomethings considering a career in the military.
…The stereotypical military ad focuses on the adrenaline rush of serving your country — the allure of physical feats of greatness and the sheer power of using advanced fighting machinery — or tout benefits such as opportunities and education. Those approaches allow the military to accentuate the upsides of service while also acknowledging a sobering truth: this is a country that has been involved in a major, complex conflict for five years, and joining up these days is very literally an agreement to risk your life for your country.
…“America’s Marines,” is lovely, but its beauty risks being disingenuous. Certainly there are people who will join the Marines because they love this country, and the ad reminds us of how much there is to love about this country. But these days it takes more than patriotism to agree to serve — it also takes the guts to know that you will likely be facing a messy battlefield.…

Sh*t. Sneaky bastards. Here I was just going to sign up for the college money. (And that cool ass outfit they all wear.)
Nobody told me there was a war on.

Read more »

Tiger Is Done For The Year

The knee and the tibia are pretty bad

NEW YORK (AP) — Tiger Woods is done for the year, but not without one last major that capped off a painful 10 months.
Woods said Wednesday he will have season-ending knee surgery, revealing he has had a torn ligament in his left knee since last July.
And he suffered a double stress fracture of his left tibia while preparing to return to the PGA Tour last month, which forced him to miss the Memorial and was the source of his pain at Torrey Pines when he won the U.S. Open.

What a shame. I hope the surgery works and the long layoff allows everything to heal properly; I want him to win many more Majors.
I’m guessing that Phil and Sergio are buying Rocco dinner tonight…

It’s Pretty Sad When Sport’s Illustrated

…makes an error this obvious

Georgia’s David Thoms (7), is tagged out stealing second base by Stanford shortstop Jake Schlander in the fifth inning of an NCAA College World Series game in Omaha, Nebraska. (AP Photo)
First, the guy sliding is from the University of Miami, not Georgia.
And how often does a shortstop wear full catcher’s gear to tag someone out at second base (or any place)?
Remember, folks, AP and SI are the professionals.

Parking, Manhattan Style

I saw this yesterday morning down by the Battery Tunnel

Aside form the very patriotic tableaux of the Red, White and Blue vehicles you have 3 cars that are literally touching each other. The white SUV is completely hemmed in by the van from behind and the little sporty thing in front. This is another one of those life lessons that people all to often forget. You know: Floss Every Day. Don’t Go Drinking With Guys Who Have Been Drunk Longer Than You’ve Been Alive.
And Never Ever Really Piss Off A Guy Whose Car Is Twice The Size Of Yours.
When I saw this I said to myself “boy, those folks had better hope they leave before the SUV…”
They didn’t. As I was riding the bus home I saw the owner get into the SUV, put it in reverse and step on it. He crunched down the nose of the van and shoved the entire thing some three feet backwards (in the process knocking over 2 motorcycles that were parked right up against

Think Of This When You Pay $4 A Gallon

“I’m not being mean”

A Devon petrol station is charging drivers more than £1.99 a litre – or about £9 a gallon – for petrol and diesel as drivers clamour for fuel.
The Foxhayes station at Exwick near Exeter has put all grades of petrol and diesel up to £1.99 a litre.
The manager said the move was to conserve stocks and said he was not being mean.
It follows a four-day strike by Shell tanker drivers in an industrial dispute over pay.

£9 a gallon. That’s $17.70.
And he’s worried about being thought “mean”?
Heh.