…this sweet, brave lady personified both. In the name of love.
For marrying the only man she ever loved, Mildred Loving paid a price: She was arrested, convicted and banished from her home state.
…[But] in Caroline County word spread to the commonwealth’s attorney, the equivalent of a district attorney, that the two had married. He obtained a warrant for their arrests. One July night, the Lovings woke up about 2 a.m. to the see the sheriff and deputies surrounding their bed, shining flashlights and demanding to know who Mildred Loving was.
Loving explained: “I’m his wife.” Richard Loving rushed to show the men their marriage certificate. The sheriff was not moved.
“That’s no good here,” he said.
“They told us to get up, get dressed. I couldn’t believe they were taking us to jail,” Loving said.
The Lovings were indicted by a county grand jury and pleaded guilty to violating the 1924 Racial Integrity Act, another version of the state’s anti-miscegenation law. Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced the couple to a year in jail but suspended the sentence for 25 years on the condition that they leave the state and not return together during that time.
To avoid jail time, the Lovings moved to Washington, D.C., but the years in exile were difficult. Loving missed her family, her friends, the rural life. In 1963, she wrote to Robert F. Kennedy, then the U.S. attorney general, and asked for his help.
Mrs. Loving died this past Friday.
We are ever so grateful to her.
New London mayor bans booze on public transport
The common man is skeptical…
…”Perhaps the mayor will come out with his underpants on over his trousers like Superman one Saturday to show us how it should be done,” he added.
Be careful what you wish for, Earthling.
…is spinning like a top.
Andy Marlette strikes again.
So Obama won NC convincingly and Hill barely won Indiana, with the result being that Obama has slightly increased his lead in the delegate count. Mind you, I guess it shows that there are still deep racial divisions in this country for Michelle O. to bemoan about when Hillary wins the white vote 59 to 36 (I’m guessing the balance of folks rightly refused to answer the question) but it shows unity and pride, not racially-based voting, when Obama wins the black vote 91 to 6.
Whatever.
I’m so tired of this endless campaign. It’s been going on literally for years, and at this point we have 3 very unsatisfactory candidates.
And still 6 freakin’ months until the election.
Where’s my drink…
…today it’s more than 22,000 dead
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) — A Myanmar government radio station said Tuesday that more than 22,000 people are dead and the U.N. estimates up to a million could be homeless after the catastrophic cyclone that battered the country.
A news broadcast on the state-run station said Tuesday that 22,464 people had been confirmed dead from Cyclone Nargis. The broadcast added that thousands more were missing.
How awful. And how awful that the military dictatorship there evidently was rather slow in getting storm warnings out to people.
Via Tim, how can you not love the manly tale of a fellow whose name does not mean “hold the door, pig boy”
Sveinbjörn Halldórsson, a 44-year-old real-estate agent from Reykjavík, drives a Chevy S10 pickup with a souped-up engine, 44-inch tires with spikes, and four kinds of radios and phones on the dashboard. Filling up the truck’s 240-liter tank (about 63 gallons) for the weekend costs him nearly $500, with gas costing $7.84 a gallon. He rolls with one of many so-called gangs on Iceland’s highly competitive 4×4 off-road vehicle scene.
…Samúel “Wolf” Thór Gudjónsson, a lanky 21-year-old electrician with long blond rocker’s hair, joined with dozens of other jeep fans earlier this month to protest climbing fuel prices, blocking oil companies’ depots. Others drove their jeeps through the city’s streets at 5 miles an hour to demand cuts in fuel taxes.
Demonstrations are rare in stoical Iceland, a country of only 300,000 people. But the threat to jeep habits is just too much. Alfred “Spotti” Bergisson, a 26-year-old plumber who drives a beefed-up Toyota Land Cruiser, is willing to fight for his right to party. “I just want to go where I want to go,” he says. “I get energy in the mountains. I think there.”
Reykjavík’s 6,000-strong 4×4 Club has clout. It previously talked the government into letting its once-outlaw trucks pass inspections, despite supersized wheels with studs that rip up roads. Many of the trucks wouldn’t be street-legal elsewhere in Europe.
That’s 2% of the population; the equivalent of a group in the US with 6 million members. That’s some clout, folks.
And who says local craftsmanship is dead?
Many 4×4 enthusiasts wield their own blowtorches, rebuilding big American and Japanese 4-wheel-drive off-roaders to suit their taste. Local innovations include exhaust-fed balloons that can lift cars out of snowdrifts, and the “bumper dumper” — a flip-down toilet seat on trucks’ rear end for use in the wild.
A toast to you, my lads!
The McGreevey divorce trial!
TRENTON — She claims she was duped into marriage by a closeted gay man who needed the cover of a wife to advance his political career. He says he gave her a child and the coattails she rode to the governor’s mansion, thus fulfilling the marriage contract.
…McGreevey, 50, who now lives with a male partner and is studying to be an Episcopal priest, says in his book the marriage was “a contrivance on both our parts.”
It was “your parts” which caused all this mess to begin with, buddy.
“Inherit The Wind” this ain’t….
Born in New York
The 1990s were a decade of brilliance for Boris, capped in 1999 with the editorship ofThe Specator.He was still only 35 but this prize was far from the limits of his ambition. As a youngster, he once confided to a friend that he would like to be President of the United States. (His birth in New York made this possible, albeit ludicrous).
So long Red Ken!
…to Heaven’s Gate, unfortunately.
Civil War Buff Killed By 19th Century Cannonball
Collector Sam White Was Restoring Cannonball When It Exploded
…But in February, White’s hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.
More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White’s home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
…White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.
Note to self: when told to “put that thing back“…do it.
If ever someone stood for Semper Fidelis…
Miracle Marine Dies
…The former turret gunner was dubbed the “Miracle Man” for his determination in facing his wounds, which cost the former saxophone player his fingers and rippled his face with scars. He endured more than 40 surgeries, spent 17 months in a hospital and had to learn to walk again.
“Sometimes I do think I can’t do it,” he told The Associated Press last year. “Then I think: Why not? I can do whatever I want. … Nobody has ever been 97 percent dead and survived, and lived to walk.”
Bless your brave, brave heart, Leatherneck. And our deepest thanks to your family.
What a man they raised.
I can’t imagine what this poor girl’s parents must think about this
MADISON, Wis. — A college student apparently called 911 from her cell phone shortly before she was killed but a dispatcher hung up, failed to call back and never sent police to investigate, authorities said Thursday.
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said it was too early to know whether a better response could have prevented the April 2 slaying of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann or helped police capture her killer.
Authorities refused to release the content of the phone call, but Wray said it should have been enough for the Dane County 911 Center to take it seriously.
He really didn’t mean to escape…it just sort of happened
An inmate who was discovered outside the walls of an open prison claimed he had escaped from the jail by accident.
William Whitson, 34, said he had no intention of absconding from Castle Huntly, near Dundee, and was simply running away from another inmate.
He was shown mercy by a sheriff after the court heard he was still wandering around near the prison two hours later.
Whitson had an extra three months added to his sentence, compared to the usual eight months for absconders.
One has to wonder how “minimum security” a facility this is where he could run away from another inmate and not be noticed by a guard.
I love this classic bit of understatement by his solicitor
“He accepts, with the benefit of hindsight, that it might have been better to report the matter to the prison authorities.”
Hehehe.
Via Insta, a very interesting article from someone who really hopes we don’t find evidence of life on Mars.
What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos.
But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.
Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form–some bacteria, some algae–it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly–but a bad omen for the future of the human race.
Neat stuff, and I guess I can agree with his general theory about the “Great Filter.” I find it an intriguing idea, but I’m not so sure that I’d be so tied as he is in thinking there’s a specific Great Filter event. Rather, I think that given how rare life may be it seems to me more likely that there are in fact many potential Great Filter moments that could prevent life in any one given place from evolving to the point where interstellar travel/colonization becomes feasible and survival “assured.”
…this is not surprising
Some computer keyboards harbour more harmful bacteria than a toilet seat, research has suggested.
Consumer group Which? said tests at its London offices found equipment carrying bugs that could cause food poisoning.
Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office’s toilet seats.
Oh, the damage to the atmosphere that will be caused today by people scurrying about to spray Lysol on their keyboards!
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia:
They also found that on average women have three to four times the amount of germs in, on and around their work area.
That’s because men lift the keyboard when they use it…
What could possibly go wrong?
There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian’s declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet.
…The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency.
Unbelievable.
It’s really amazing the crap they come up with in Trentoon. Once again, instead of actually cutting spending, which is what you and I, slovenly normal taxpayer citizen types that we are, do when the budget gets a little tight, our Beloved Betters in Trentoon are floating the idea of a new tax.
WINDSOR, N.J. (CBS) ? The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even beer. Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a proverbial “sin” tax on fast food.
…The thought of taxing a Big Mac or a Wendy’s burger came up at a New Jersey Hospital Association meeting where Gov. Jon S. Corzine was asked if it could be an option to help fund struggling hospitals. At the meeting, he reportedly called it a “constructive suggestion.”
Here’s a “constructive suggestion” Speed Racer: cut spending by 10% across the board. Every Department. No exceptions. An immediate freeze on all hiring.
No
New
Taxes.
Everyone in Trentoon needs to go. There may be a few babies that get tossed with the bathwater, but when the water is so fetid, youse gots to do what youse gots to do.
Life | tree hugging sister | 
May 7, 2008 10:59 am | 
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