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Today: 83 articles and 389 comments as of 13:17.
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Extra 8,000 AU troops to be sent to Somalia
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
2 00:00 Dave D. [10] 
4 00:00 3dc [8] 
8 00:00 Frank G [7] 
8 00:00 Redneck Jim [3] 
18 00:00 JosephMendiola [10] 
10 00:00 Zenster [7] 
16 00:00 Frank G [4] 
5 00:00 bigjim-ky [4] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
4 00:00 Glomonter Untervehr7150 [10]
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6 00:00 JosephMendiola [8]
25 00:00 Glenmore [9]
2 00:00 New Orc Times [4]
4 00:00 Sgt. D.T. [11]
1 00:00 Old Patriot [7]
37 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [5]
19 00:00 Old Patriot [5]
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4 00:00 Steve [3]
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Page 2: WoT Background
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7 00:00 Zenster [11]
5 00:00 JosephMendiola [9]
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3 00:00 Chuck Simmins [4]
3 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [3]
1 00:00 John Frum [3]
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Page 3: Non-WoT
6 00:00 Laurence of the Rats [11]
5 00:00 gromky [5]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [11]
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11 00:00 Grumenk Philalzabod0723 [3]
3 00:00 trailing wife [6]
6 00:00 John Frum [3]
17 00:00 Zenster [10]
5 00:00 Sock Puppet of Doom [8]
18 00:00 RD [6]
7 00:00 ryuge [8]
2 00:00 mojo [5]
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15 00:00 Galileo [3]
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1 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
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4 00:00 Grumenk Philalzabod0723 [7]
5 00:00 ed [9]
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Page 4: Opinion
2 00:00 bigjim-ky [3]
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2 00:00 Squinty Gritch2246 [9]
9 00:00 Pancho Sheting8326 [5]
7 00:00 DMFD [3]
4 00:00 Seafarious [4]
2 00:00 gromgoru [3]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
The dead get revenge on graveyard vandals.
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A man found trapped unconscious beneath a 1,000-pound tombstone in a cemetery faces charges and might have to pay for damages, police said.

Michael David Schreiber's legs were broken by the stone, and the family name on the gravestone left the letter ``V'' imprinted on his thigh, Merrillville Officer Ray Smith said. He said it took five officers to remove the headstone from Schreiber's body Sunday morning at Calumet Park Cemetery.

Schreiber, 22, of Merrillville faces charges of criminal trespassing, criminal mischief and public intoxication, police said. He also might be ordered to pay for damage to 14 headstones, Police Chief Nicholas Bravos said. Estimated damage totaled about $8,400, Bravos said.

Schreiber told police he and a companion had been drinking before going to the cemetery.
No, reeeeeaaally?
He estimated he had been trapped under the headstone for more than three hours before police arrived, Bravos said. His condition was not immediately available Tuesday morning, a nursing supervisor at Methodist Hospitals said.
Posted by: Delphi2005 || 05/08/2007 15:58 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He estimated he had been trapped under the headstone for more than three hours before police arrived...

If it was me that got the call, he'd still be laying there.
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/08/2007 17:15 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL. Was that a "Today's Idiot" submission, Delphi?
Posted by: GK || 05/08/2007 18:49 Comments || Top||

#3  He estimated he had been trapped under the headstone for more than three hours before police arrived

Perhaps Schreiber will have a heart2heart talk with his drunken friend.
Posted by: ed || 05/08/2007 19:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Not for vandalism purposes - but when they are young.... there are worse places for a few teens to drink then an interesting graveyard.....
Posted by: 3dc || 05/08/2007 21:30 Comments || Top||


Sectarian Violence Comes to Las Vegas!
Hot dog vendor killed by bomb.
Posted by: Bobby || 05/08/2007 06:20 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Las Vegas is LOST!!!
It is obviously in the grips of a CIVIL WAR!!
We need a definite plan for withdrawal!!!
Las Vegas cannot be won with a military solution.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 05/08/2007 8:09 Comments || Top||

#2  The Nevada National Guard should immediately redeploy to Okinawa.
Posted by: Seafarious || 05/08/2007 8:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Bigjim -

The best part is that if it's Vegas...we can blame it on Harry Reid.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 05/08/2007 9:36 Comments || Top||

#4  If Vegas is lost California will soon be lost too.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 05/08/2007 10:40 Comments || Top||

#5  A hot dog vendor, eh?

Might one speculate that he was parking his dog in someone else's bun?...
Posted by: mojo || 05/08/2007 10:48 Comments || Top||

#6  No blood for hot dogs!
Posted by: Excalibur || 05/08/2007 11:58 Comments || Top||

#7  What I wanna know is why Harry Reid is posting under the pseudonym of bigjim-ky?

And why is John Murtha posting as Seafarious, for that matter?
Posted by: Bobby || 05/08/2007 12:44 Comments || Top||

#8  "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

"Unless you don't pay off your debts. Then we will track you to the ends of the earth and kill you."
Posted by: Steve || 05/08/2007 13:32 Comments || Top||

#9  No blood for hot dogs!


Quite obviously, you are unfamiliar with blutwurst.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/08/2007 23:53 Comments || Top||

#10  No blood for hot dogs!


Quite obviously, you are unfamiliar with blutwurst.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/08/2007 23:53 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Lethal injection creator: Maybe it's time to change formula
When Gary Gilmore was choosing between the firing squad and the electric chair in 1977, Dr. Jay Chapman remembers discussing the inhumanity of each option with his colleagues at the Oklahoma state medical examiner's office.

"We said this is really ridiculous. We kill animals more humanely than we kill people," said Chapman.

But Chapman, then the chief medical examiner in Oklahoma, supported the death penalty. So when state legislators asked him to come up with a more humane alternative, he went to work.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: gorb || 05/08/2007 05:08 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Heroin. Massive dose. Provide an alternative, legal market for the Afghan opium crop (& cut out all the AQ profiteering intermediaries.) If we make the death sentence formula appealing enough, maybe we can get the sentenced to skip the drawn-out process.
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/08/2007 7:57 Comments || Top||

#2  How about a shark tank? Works every time.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 05/08/2007 8:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Use Oregon's 'assisted suicide' method. It's got to be humane, right? Otherwise, they wouldn't allow it.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/08/2007 8:54 Comments || Top||

#4  There is a problem with toxic gases, as was seen in Arizona a while back. The assumption was that the condemned would hold their breath as long as they could, then inhale a big dose of the gas, and quickly pass out.

Unfortunately, the guy continued to breathe normally, which meant that before the gas could kill him, he violently and painfully choked to death, turning color, screaming and vomiting.

It is much better to use the electric chair, as electricity travels through the body faster than any pain signal, and fries the brain so it *can't* feel pain.

The only time there was any problem with that was the execution of Albert Fish, an incredible deviant who inserted needles under his skin and left them there, for many years. It is speculated that the metal actually short circuited the chair, so it took two jolts to fry him.

There is a good Wiki on Fish, but it misses lots of the gamier details of his life & crimes featured in Playboy Press's Bloodletters & Badmen.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/08/2007 10:16 Comments || Top||

#5  News accounts of the execution also quoted Clark as asking, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"

a snub-nose. faster, cheaper
Posted by: Frank G || 05/08/2007 10:32 Comments || Top||

#6  "The simplest thing I know of is the guillotine. And I'm not at all opposed to bringing it back. The person's head is cut off and that's the end of it."

A shock prod to the head should do the trick. For muslim condemned the throat slitting and slow bleeding approach cannot possibly be considered cruel and unusual given it is halal and traditional and such like.
Posted by: Excalibur || 05/08/2007 12:06 Comments || Top||

#7  Actually it is not clear that the guillotine is painless to the victims. They do die, but it is possible that the head can continue to feel something for an unknown time after being separated from the body.
Posted by: Rambler || 05/08/2007 14:03 Comments || Top||

#8  it is possible that the head can continue to feel something for an unknown time after being separated from the body

Is that period of time longer or shorter than the period of time the victim suffered?
Posted by: Steve White || 05/08/2007 14:34 Comments || Top||

#9  "it is possible that the head can continue to feel something for an unknown time after being separated from the body

Is that period of time longer or shorter than the period of time the victim suffered?"

who cares if the perp feels anything?

cruel and unusual would be playing an endless loop of "Its a Small World" in his cell the entire time he was incarcerated. Bet that would cut down on appeals also.
Posted by: USN. Ret. || 05/08/2007 14:47 Comments || Top||

#10  It's my understanding that the "suffocating" feeling comes from excess CO2, not lack of O2. This means N2 would avoid that, and people who think criminals who inflict all kinds of anguish won't actually feel much, which would mean that people who are clueless worry about these kinds of things would have nothing to whine about.

I have personally experienced this before with Helium. I'll let you folks guess what I was up to! :-) The only thing you experience is tunnel vision for a few seconds then nothing.
Posted by: gorb || 05/08/2007 14:57 Comments || Top||

#11  it is possible that the head can continue to feel something for an unknown time after being separated from the body

ok.. how about a handful of sleeping pills before they are carried to the chopping block?

Posted by: John Frum || 05/08/2007 16:51 Comments || Top||

#12  #11: "how about a handful of sleeping pills before they are carried to the chopping block?"

Howzabout we just don't give a flying f*ck what these bastards feel?

Just like they did with their victims.

Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/08/2007 17:15 Comments || Top||

#13  What's wrong with carbon monoxide? People go to sleep and "wake up dead" from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning all the time.

Have the perp plant and tend a garden a few weeks beforehand as "carbon credits" for the engine fuel burned up. That'll keep the libs so happy they'll forget to protest the death penalty in the first place.
Posted by: Dar || 05/08/2007 18:31 Comments || Top||

#14  Well, my thought is to have the soon to be departed dig a hole. Then, while he's in said hole, fill it.

Or, sell raffle tickets. Ima thinks people would pay good money for a chance to pound a few rounds into a child rapist.
Posted by: Mike N || 05/08/2007 21:08 Comments || Top||

#15  "I don't mind being dead.
It's just being dead so long that bothers me."

---Lightnin' Hopkins, blues singer
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/08/2007 21:35 Comments || Top||

#16  didn't know you was a Lightnin' fan, AP - I have a mess of his songs on my ipod
Posted by: Frank G || 05/08/2007 21:43 Comments || Top||


Europe
Red Army Faction guerrilla to stay in jail
The German president, Horst Köhler, yesterday bowed to pressure from his fellow conservatives and refused clemency to a key member of the Red Army Faction movement involved in terrorising Germany three decades ago.

Mr Köhler, who last week secretly met Christian Klar, 54, who is serving six life sentences for nine murders carried out in the 1970s, gave no reason for his decision, but his office said it had been based on lengthy discussions with legal experts, prison authorities and personal meetings with the relatives of some of the RAF's victims as well as with Klar.

The German media had been waiting with bated breath for Mr Köhler's verdict, which is just the latest in a series of twists and turns in Germany's attempts to draw a line under the RAF chapter and the trail of destruction the gang left across the country in the autumn of 1977 in its efforts to crush capitalism. The 30th anniversary of the so-called "German Autumn" is being marked with the release of films, plays, books and biographies on the urban guerrillas.
You drew a line when you jugged them all. Now keep them there.
Between 1970 and 1991, the RAF - which was also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang after its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof - is believed to have carried out 34 murders, largely of industrial leaders and senior public figures.

The decision on Klar comes shortly after the release from a multiple life sentence of former RAF leader Brigitte Mohnhaupt. In a separate decision Mr Köhler refused to pardon another member, Birgit Hogefeld, who is 14 years into a life sentence for the 1985 bombing of a US military air base in which two people died.

Klar was sentenced to a minimum of 24 years in prison for his part in nine murders, including those of the chief West German federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, the industrial association leader Hanns-Martin Schleyer and Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank in 1977.

Mr Köhler's decision to meet Klar was based on a request from the former terrorist. But the mere fact that Klar's release was being contemplated brought angry reactions from many Christian Democrats who count Mr Köhler as one of them. They argued that, because Klar had shown no public remorse, he did not deserve to be shown any mercy. They even indirectly threatened not to elect Mr Köhler for a second term if he decided to release Klar.

The attacks on Mr Köhler became so fierce that the chancellor, Angela Merkel, weighed in and asked her colleagues not to interfere with his decision. "I ask that we all, regardless of how the president decides in the end, respect the decision of Horst Köhler," she said in a statement.
"And then we'll cut him off at the knees."
Klar's case was weakened after it was discovered he had sent a message this year to a leftwing conference which conservatives warned was proof that he had lost none of his revolutionary verve. He talked of "completing the defeat" of capitalism and "opening the door for a different future".
Posted by: Steve White || 05/08/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why on Earth was he even considering a pardon? Hel-LO, people...murderer! Life sentence! Tried to install a freaking Communist government, for Christ's sake! You know how many deaths that would have caused if it were successful? Why don't we just give a pardon to Charles Manson and the Blind Sheikh while we're at it?

Seriously, wtf are they thinking?
Posted by: gromky || 05/08/2007 1:34 Comments || Top||

#2  The German president, Horst Köhler, yesterday watched the French election returns and bowed to pressure from his fellow conservatives and refused clemency to a key member of the Red Army Faction movement

There, fixed.
Posted by: Seafarious || 05/08/2007 1:59 Comments || Top||

#3  test
Posted by: RD || 05/08/2007 6:56 Comments || Top||

#4  damn, i been tring to comment but my comment haz German wiords and it won't go! ;-)
Posted by: RD || 05/08/2007 6:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Why is this even an issue?!?

This dork is a murdering maniac serving six life sentences!
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 05/08/2007 8:24 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Saudis close Canadian education booths staffed by women
TORONTO -- A Canadian embassy booth and another for a private Montreal college were shut down at a Saudi Arabia education fair last week because they were being run by women.

Organizers for the Canadian contingent say three women staffing the booths were forced to leave the fair by the country's religious police, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, even though they had received permission to be there.

George Chrysomilides, president of the Canadian Education Network, said there hasn't been an incident like this in the 10 years Canada has attended the event, and he plans to get to the bottom of it.

"From what I hear ... the religious police were very rude. They shouted at them in a way that was disrespectful and they shut down the booth, the Canadian embassy booth as well as the LaSalle College booth," Mr. Chrysomilides said in an interview yesterday.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Bernard Nguyen said he was waiting to hear details of the incident that took place last Wednesday.

But the Canadian embassy in Saudi Arabia put out a statement over the weekend, protesting against the actions of authorities in the region.

"Such unprofessional incidents are very damaging to Saudi Arabia's international reputation," the embassy said.

"Prior to the event, we specifically inquired whether women staff would be permitted at the exhibition and we were told by the organizers, the Al-Harithy Company, that they would."

Women in Saudi Arabia are expected to cover themselves in public and are not allowed to work in mixed environments in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Mr. Chrysomilides said Canadians attending the fair have always followed the rules. When he took his wife three years ago, she donned an abaya, a long, shapeless gown worn over the clothes.

In the past, both men and women from various universities and colleges have jointly staffed the booths in the Canadian pavilion.

This year, there were about 15 postsecondary institutions, including the University of Manitoba and Simon Fraser University, attending the fair in the city of Jeddah in the hopes of wooing Saudi students. Many Saudi women interested in a postsecondary education abroad attended with their families.

Mr. Chrysomilides said because women were running two booths alone this year, the Canadian organizers decided to keep them detached from the main pavilion to show respect for Saudi customs.

"We did everything that Saudi rules require. Why did they have to close it down?" Mr. Chrysomilides asked.

According to Arab News, several other participants at the exhibition, including the Ministry of Education of Malaysia, had women at their booths. Mr. Chrysomilides believes that religious authorities acted on their own, and Canada should not necessarily pull out of the annual fair. There are about 2,000 applications a year to universities and colleges from Saudi students, he said.

Posted by: Delphi2005 || 05/08/2007 12:58 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  After I posted this, I realized that this was taking place in Saudi Arabia.

I thought this was interesting; if true. I guess the rules changed after the booths were set up.
Or that the government did not specify how the women should be dressed until after they got in trouble.

"Prior to the event, we specifically inquired whether women staff would be permitted at the exhibition and we were told by the organizers, the Al-Harithy Company, that they would."

Mr. Chrysomilides said Canadians attending the fair have always followed the rules. When he took his wife three years ago, she donned an abaya, a long, shapeless gown worn over the clothes.
Posted by: Delphi2005 || 05/08/2007 16:28 Comments || Top||

#2  "From what I hear ... the religious police were very rude. They shouted at them in a way that was disrespectful and they shut down the booth"

Just exactly how clueless do you have to be to expect anything else in Arab-land?

"When he took his wife three years ago, she donned an abaya, a long, shapeless gown worn over the clothes."

Then she was a idiot, and so was he. I wouldn't even consider going to a country that treats women like property - no matter how much money my "beloved" thought he'd get from the visit. And I'd strongly discourage him from going too.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/08/2007 16:36 Comments || Top||

#3  We are good dhimmis! Why do they beat us when we follow their noble Orc customs specifying Canadian women are not free citizens but luscious cat-meat?
Posted by: Excalibur || 05/08/2007 16:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Some years ago, my wife got an offer to go to SA as a psychologist. That was before 9-11. I am glad that we never went, esp. after Anonymous4021's experience in the compounds.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/08/2007 17:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Why the hell would you invite those barbarians to your colleges anyway? Wouldn't your grad schools be much better served teaching canadian students? At least they may stay after graduation.
Posted by: Glomock Wittlesbach4480 || 05/08/2007 18:24 Comments || Top||

#6  30 pieces of silver. US colleges have no peer in this regard.
Posted by: ed || 05/08/2007 18:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Alaska Paul wrote: my wife got an offer to go to SA as a psychologist

If her degree is in abnormal psych, she could have had the whole country as patients.
Posted by: DMFD || 05/08/2007 21:09 Comments || Top||

#8  yeah but where do you get a control specimen?
Posted by: Frank G || 05/08/2007 22:28 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Massacre propels bill to OK guns in parks
By SHEILA WISSNER
Staff Writer
Tennesseans who have handgun permits could carry their weapons into state parks legally under a bill on the move in the legislature, and its chances of passing are greater in light of the Virginia Tech massacre, one of its sponsors said. The proposal to allow permit holders to go armed in state-run parks was introduced well before the slayings of 32 people on the university campus last month.

But Senate sponsor Tim Burchett thinks the killings may have "created a positive atmosphere" for changing the law this year. And House sponsor Frank Niceley said he may push next year to allow college students and teachers with permits to carry handguns on campuses. With a key vote slated this week, their bill is coming to the fore at a time of renewed national debate over gun control in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech killings. North Carolina's legislature is considering a proposal to ban guns from public parks.

For Glenn Scarborough, the Virginia Tech tragedy is just one more reason he should be allowed to carry a handgun in a state park. "I really feel if any of those students or professors had handguns on them, they could have stopped a lot of people from dying," said Scarborough, a former grounds manager at a condominium complex.
I disagree. It's one thing to have a handgun on you; it's another to have the training and the calm inside to react properly in those first few seconds of chaos and carnage. Without that you're just another armed bozo.
He is among many Tennesseans who are glad to see that the proposal is on the move on Capitol Hill. And many police officers probably agree, said Johnny Crumby, lobbyist for the state Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of rank-and-file police officers.

Others are less enthusiastic. "I'm not anti-gun,'' said Cindy Mayes, who spent Friday afternoon target practicing at the Gun City USA indoor range on Murfreesboro Pike. But guns in public parks? "No, no, no, no, no,'' she said.
OK, who's gonna stop the guy that takes a firearm to the park and starts shooting?
Not Cindy, and prob'ly not me either.
Also opposing the bill are the head of the agency that runs state parks, and the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police.

Niceley's original proposal would allow guns only in state-run parks, not city parks. He says it would make them safer. "People are realizing now that it's not these people with carry permits causing problems. It's these crazies that are causing problems,'' he said.
Bingo. "Gun free zones" don't mean a thing to lawbreakers.
His bill was amended in a House subcommittee to go even further, allowing permit holders to take their firearms to other public places such as city parks, playgrounds and civic centers. But that amendment could be stripped from the bill.

Niceley said he might introduce an amendment to restrict handgun purchases to U.S. citizens. Such measures, including legalizing guns on college campuses, may have prevented the slaughter of Virginia Tech students and staff at the hands of a mentally troubled man who was not a U.S. citizen, he said. Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, said he didn't think the Virginia Tech slayings would improve the bill's chances, but Burchett and state Sen. Mae Beavers, the Mt. Juliet Republican who is chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, disagreed with him. Beavers said the measure has a good chance of passing in the Senate.

Some say guns heighten the chance of violence. More than two dozen Tennesseans with carry permits who contacted The Tennessean over the past week don't share that view, saying they have stellar records for acting responsibly and have been properly trained in handling their weapons. All permit holders must take handgun training.

An analysis by the newspaper of the state's records on carry permit holders shows that less than half a percent of them have had their permits yanked for criminal behavior or other infractions.

Scarborough said he has seen young men brandishing weapons at state parks and was robbed at an ATM years ago. He said he would feel safer if he could bring his firearm along to parks for protection.

Mayes, a warehouse worker, said that she believes people have the right to own guns to protect themselves in their homes and cars, and that she might buy one herself. She has been the victim of a would-be purse snatcher in Nashville and a neighbor who broke into her basement. But she remains leery of guns in public places. "Just because people have a permit to carry a gun doesn't always mean they are going to use it responsibly,'' she said.

Rana Douglas, a Shelbyville mother of three teen sons, said, "I believe we have the right to bear arms and to protect ourselves, but I don't think you should be toting a gun around."
Notice how most the only people quoted are mothers with children.
In a related story the Tennesean has published a list of concealed carry permit holders in Tennessee. I wonder if I can sue them for invasion of privacy?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/08/2007 12:24 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  UPDATE: Due to public and Advertiser pressure The Tennesean hast removed the list. If this happens in your state you can have an impact. Some damage may already have been done, tho.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/08/2007 16:40 Comments || Top||

#2  "I believe we have the right to bear arms and to protect ourselves, but I don't think you should be toting a gun around."

So, you're going to stay home all the time, and keep your teens there too? Cuz you can't protect yourself away from home with your gun without "toting it around."

If I didn't care about being charged with vandalism, I'd love to go around to all the schools in the area and paste a sign over their "gun-free zone" signs that read: "Legal gun-free zone; target-rich environment for criminals and losers with illegal guns. All the victims you could possibly want, concentrated for your convenience, Mr. Nutcase."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/08/2007 16:44 Comments || Top||

#3  #1 DB - remember the Roanoke (VA) paper pulling the same stunt a month or so ago?

What the hell is wrong with these people?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/08/2007 16:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Barb__ nothing "wrong" with them; they have their agenda and "outing" gun owners is an effective if scummy tactic. I certainly don't advertise the fact... if weapons are needed, I prefer my armament to be a surprise.

The correct response is in kind. In some link I read today, perhaps, via Instapundit, the recommendation was to publish the home addresses of all the management and reporters of the newspaper that put out the list. That should create some howls of hypocritical outrage.
Posted by: Butch Glusonter1846 || 05/08/2007 17:30 Comments || Top||

#5  #4 Butch - when the Roanoke paper pulled their similar stunt, Tim Blair (in Australia) responded in kind by posting the "reporter's" home addy, etc. (Ain't the Internet a hoot?)

Hilarity ensued. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/08/2007 17:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Allowing concealed handgun permit holders to carry in public places is a good thing. The trick is to make sure that training academies that provide training adhere to the standards, as set in state law. Assume that in a mall, you have 2000 people shopping around. If 2% are legally carrying a handgun, that translates to 40 people, which will have a definite impact, literally and figuratively, on thugs.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/08/2007 17:57 Comments || Top||

#7  Statistics have shown that not only citizens less likely to shoot innocents than police, they fire less often and are far more likely to kill someone they do shoot at. So I'm not so sure that claiming those of us with permits aren't well trained to handle our weapons is very true.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 05/08/2007 18:47 Comments || Top||

#8  . if weapons are needed, I prefer my armament to be a surprise.

Hear, Hear, Second the motion, quietly until needed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 05/08/2007 19:51 Comments || Top||


Dems Offer Reparations to Guam For Japanese War Crimes
H/t to the one and only Michelle Malkin. Joe M., I'd very much appreciate a little local commentary on this.

Dems Offer Reparations to Guam For Japanese War Crimes

That's correct... Democrats are bringing legislation to the floor this week to pay Guam citizens for the crimes committed against them by members of the Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II!

H. R. 1595 -To implement the recommendations of the Guam War Claims Review Commission.

SEC. 2. RECOGNITION OF THE SUFFERING AND LOYALTY OF THE RESIDENTS OF GUAM.

(a) Recognition of the Suffering of the Residents of Guam- The United States recognizes that, as described by the Guam War Claims Review Commission, the residents of Guam, on account of their United States nationality, suffered unspeakable harm as a result of the occupation of Guam by Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II, by being subjected to death, rape, severe personal injury, personal injury, forced labor, forced march, or internment.

(b) Recognition of the Loyalty of the Residents of Guam- The United States forever will be grateful to the residents of Guam for their steadfast loyalty to the United States of America, as demonstrated by the countless acts of courage they performed despite the threat of death or great bodily harm they faced at the hands of the Imperial Japanese military forces that occupied Guam during World War II.

SEC. 3. PAYMENTS FOR GUAM WORLD WAR II CLAIMS.

(a) Payments for Death, Personal Injury, Forced Labor, Forced March, and Internment- Subject to section 5, after receipt of certification pursuant to section 4(b)(8) and in accordance with the provisions of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall make payments as follows:

(1) RESIDENTS INJURED- The Secretary shall pay compensable Guam victims who are not deceased before any payments are made to individuals described in paragraphs (2) and (3) as follows:

(A) If the victim has suffered an injury described in subsection (c)(2)(A), $15,000.

(B) If the victim is not described in subparagraph (A) but has suffered an injury described in subsection (c)(2)(B), $12,000.

(C) If the victim is not described in subparagraph (A) or (B) but has suffered an injury described in subsection (c)(2)(C), $10,000.

(2) SURVIVORS OF RESIDENTS WHO DIED IN WAR- In the case of a compensable Guam decedent, the Secretary shall pay $25,000 for distribution to eligible survivors of the decedent as specified in subsection (b). The Secretary shall make payments under this paragraph after payments are made under paragraph (1) and before payments are made under paragraph (3).

(3) SURVIVORS OF DECEASED INJURED RESIDENTS- In the case of a compensable Guam victim who is deceased, the Secretary shall pay $7,000 for distribution to eligible survivors of the victim as specified in subsection (b). The Secretary shall make payments under this paragraph after payments are made under paragraphs (1) and (2).

This could be the first time in recorded history that a government has seriously considered paying reparations for another country's war crimes...
Unreal!

Who's next? Korea? The Philippines? China?
RedState thinks it's Carthage.

RedState lists all of the Americans who gave their lives to free Guam from the Japanese.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 05/08/2007 07:37 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Joe? Have a claim through your grandparents?
Posted by: Jackal || 05/08/2007 8:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Like slavery, the price was paid in the blood of our fathers, brothers, and sons, to end it.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/08/2007 8:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Any word from Joe? He's over there isn't he?

I wonder if the Guam people even want this?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/08/2007 9:09 Comments || Top||

#4  why isn't anyone wondering why we are gonna have too pay for what japanese soldiers did. hell let the japs pay them
Posted by: sinse || 05/08/2007 9:39 Comments || Top||

#5  sinse: why isn't anyone wondering why we are gonna have too pay for what japanese soldiers did. hell let the japs pay them

I gotta figure that this is the Dems winding up for a slavery reparations bill. Mark my words - it's coming down the pike.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 05/08/2007 9:51 Comments || Top||

#6  I fear you are right ZF, and if it's after 2008 and there's a donk in the White House, look out.
Posted by: Spot || 05/08/2007 10:26 Comments || Top||

#7  I am in favor of aiding those Guamanian families that underminded the Japanese during their occupation but how about the Japs forking over some yen for this noble project.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 05/08/2007 10:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Huh?...
Posted by: mojo || 05/08/2007 10:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Truman signed an agreement with Japan in '51. Basically says Japan is not responsible for "individual American war claims". Guam is American territory so we pay for whta they did.
Neat huh?

more on this

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/15/news/guam.php
Posted by: Strom Thurmond || 05/08/2007 11:20 Comments || Top||

#10  They forgot to blame FDR for provoking the legitimate imperial Minute Men government of the peace-loving co-prosperity sphere into justifiable acts of self-defense (assuming Pearl Harbor was not an inside job or carried out by time-traveling Israelis).
Posted by: Excalibur || 05/08/2007 11:57 Comments || Top||

#11  Ex, actually it was Bush's fault.
Posted by: Rambler || 05/08/2007 13:59 Comments || Top||

#12  Bunker Hill was five miles from the house I grew up in. I still have the nightmares. At least that's my story...
Have them send me my paperwork.
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/08/2007 14:46 Comments || Top||

#13  My Great-great-great-grandfather's house was burned by Union soldiers in April of 1865. He was a planter who had been given a medical discharge from the $th Alabama Infantry due to his age, he was 46. Do I get reparations for a U.S. warcrime?
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/08/2007 16:08 Comments || Top||

#14  After Guam, the Philippines, which was an American possession at the time of the Japanese invasion and occupation. The crimes were very real. Something the Hiroshima apologists seem to ignore.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/08/2007 16:20 Comments || Top||

#15  After reading my comment it sounds a bit flippant. I didn't intend to demean the suffering of all who were under the Japanese boot heel. Reparations, though, have a way of snowballing. This needs to be nipped in the bud.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/08/2007 16:43 Comments || Top||

#16  We've already paid reparations to Filipinos and citizens of Micronesia.

The agreement to exempt Japan from financial penalties seemed like a good idea at the time, given the Korean War and the necessity of keeping Japan economicly healthy. Many people looked back at the harm that reparations did to post WW I Germany.

It's tough to look back 60 years and not have hindsight.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 05/08/2007 16:51 Comments || Top||

#17  Free money for EVERYONE!! (Put it on the taxpayers tab)
Posted by: Congress || 05/08/2007 21:11 Comments || Top||

#18  My paternal grandfather was a US Navy veteran and retiree, and post-retirement Naval Govt of Guam employee and farmer, whose USN experience and work skills caused him to be put into extensive forced labor wid other USN-USMC personnel-employees-retirees by the Japanese after the fall of Guam. He died in 1944 ["Year the Americans came/came back"] due to serious health complications induced by said extensive forced labor. Many other locals were also put to forced labor - while some Japanese soldiers were "fair", others were abusive and slapped people around if something went wrong. My own elderly mother claims that as a child = pre-teen during the war, she was slapped or punched around iff she + others failed to properly learn the Japanese language and related subjects, which all Chamorros-Guamanians were then ordered to learn ["re-education"]; or iff she was physically unable to report = march to Japanese-mandated work activities for any reason. She also claims one of her family's relations was publicly beheaded by the Japanese although she's not sure why. When it appeared in 1944 that Amer military forces were likely to attack Japanese-held Guam, many of the local men and boys whom had helped construct Japanese military defenses were marched off into the jungle and executed, i.e. beheaded or shot to death. E.g. YIGO MASSACRE > textbooks usually indicate up to 40 people were secretly executed after building Japanese defenses, but post-Battle/War US military records HINT/INFER a number in either 100-few 00? bodies were found by advancing US units. Some locals' ancestors whom "disappeared" during the war = US liberation of Guam have still never been found.

BONE OF DIPLO-LEGAL CONTENTION FOR THE PEOPLE OF GUAM vs JAPAN vs USA > Many Guam WW2 local survivors or thier heirs desire or want JAPAN to pay formal war reparations - however, POST-1945 US-SOVIET COLD WAR > Japan claims it was FOREVER precluded from paying war reparations due to post-WW2 agreements wid the USA, to include any litigations to collect same, or even from admitting any sort of war crimes-abuses by imperial Japanese forces. Basically, what it comes to is that for Guam WW2 survivors or their heirs to legally-formally collect any form of compensation for Japanese war atrocities or abuses on Guam, the only way to get it is for JAPAN TO SINGULARLY VOLUNTEER TO PAY, WHICH JAPAN = TOKYO HAS MADE CLEAR OVER THE MANY POST-WAR DECADES IT WILL NOT DO; OR TO COLLECT FROM WASHINGTON DC BY AND FOR AND IN PLACE OF JAPAN EVEN THOUGH IT WAS JAPANESE FORCES THAT COMMITTED THE ACTS, and since Japan likes to claim it is its post-war treaties wid the USA that precludes Japan from making any kind of $$$ reparations. FYI, JAPAN USES THE SAME RATIONALE-PREMISES, AMONGST OTHERS, AS TO THE "ASIAN COMFORT WOMEN" ISSUE, i.e. WHY JAPAN DOESN'T NEED TO APOLOGIZE NOR COMPENSATE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/08/2007 23:47 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Spiders, Spiders Everywhere
A nine-year-old boy heard some strange popping and scratching sounds in his ear. It started bugging him, so Jesse Courtney's mother took him to the doctor.

A nurse there thought his ear was jammed with wax, so she flushed it out. And floating out with the ear wash was a spider.

And that wasn't the end of it. Another small spider came crawling out moments later.

Jesse's mother, Diane Courtney, saw the spiders come out and and says she tried not to act too alarmed, because she didn't want to frighter her son.

She might not have needed to worry about that. Jesse is, after all, a nine-year-old boy; a prime age for messing around with spiders, snakes and all sorts of crawly creatures. In his opinion, "It's cool to have two spiders in your ear." Jesse still has them, both now dead, preserved in alcohol. He shows them to his friends, who call him "Spider Boy" and "Spider Man Junior". Jesse is enjoying the celebrity of it all, including the calls from media outlets around the world, and invitations to appear - with his spiders - on national television talk shows.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/08/2007 20:45 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The tragedy of peehole spiders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-W5rBZr0Bc
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/08/2007 20:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I worry about you, Moose...
Posted by: Dave D. || 05/08/2007 22:32 Comments || Top||



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