This is beyond parody...
AUGUST 15--In a pathetic end to the Mike Nifong saga, the disgraced North Carolina prosecutor who handled the Duke rape investigation has turned in his law license, noting that he never framed or displayed the document because it had been damaged "by a puppy in her chewing stage." Additionally, in an August 7 letter to the North Carolina State Bar, Nifong noted that the law license also contained a misspelling of his middle name (which is Byron). A copy of Nifong's "the dog ate my law license" letter can be found below. Nifong was stripped of his license as a result of his unethical stewardship of the Duke probe, which resulted in felony charges being dropped against three students who had been charged with the sexual assault of a stripper who had performed at a March 2006 off-campus party attended by members of the school's lacrosse team.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
08/15/2007 16:53 Comments ||
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#2
Loooooser.
I'd ask how this clown ever passed the bar, but I'm met (thankfully, only a few) bar-passed "lawyers" who made me wonder how they found their way to the bathroom in the morning....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/15/2007 19:25 Comments ||
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#3
In the last sentence of Nifong's letter to the NC State Bar he complains of the fundamental unfairness of the disbarment procedures. UNFAIRNESS?!? Now that takes a lot of nerve to whine about unfairness after what he did to those lacrosse players. This guy is Pa-f*king-thetic!
#2
Six Italian men were shot dead in a western German city on Wednesday in an execution-style killing. Italy's interior minister said it appeared to be part of a feud between two Italian organised crime clans.
The six victims were found in two vehicles near the main train station in Duisburg. One of the men died while being taken by ambulance to a hospital, police spokesman Hermann-Josef Helmich said. All had gunshot wounds to the head. Helmich said the men, aged between 16 and 39, were Italians, but gave no other information on their identities.
In Rome, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said the killings apparently were part of a feud between two rival clans involved in the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate, which is based in Italy's southern Calabria region and believed to have international involvement in drug and arms trafficking, extortion and other crimes.
Amato said one of the victims in Duisburg apparently was involved in the original feud, known as the "San Luca feud" for the Calabrian town where it began in 1991. The shootings in Germany were "an unprecedented settling of scores because it took place in a foreign country for the first time," Italy's ANSA mews agency quoted the deputy head of the Regio Calabria police, Luigi De Sena, as saying. De Sena said: "The presence of Calabrians in Germany is very strong, but until now they always kept a low profile, trying not to attract attention."
Duisburg police said there had not previously been Mafia activity in the city, located at the western end of the Ruhr industrial region.
ESTONIAN police said they have asked a court to seize a car owned by a blind man who was caught driving drunk twice in a single week, saying it was a "dangerous repeat offence."
"We are seeking a court order to confiscate the car from the man, and for him to be placed under arrest,'' police spokeswoman Marge Kohtla said. "This is a dangerous repeat offence.''
The 20-year-old, who for legal reasons has been identified only by his first name, Kristjan, was stopped twice last week while drunk-driving with the help of his passengers near the southern Estonian city of Tartu. On the first occasion Kristjan, who owns the vehicle but has no driving licence, was guided at the wheel by a 16-year-old boy who also lacks a driving permit. Well, obviously, at least he wasn't blind, nor dumb, though he could have been deaf, thinking about it.
Six days later, Kristjan was again caught driving under the influence of alcohol, this time while being given instructions by three fellow passengers in another neighbourhood of Tartu. Police stopped the car because it was being driven in an erratic manner, Ms Kohtla said.
Kristjan, who is facing 30 days behind bars, reportedly told police that he likes driving and regularly gets behind the wheel. Estonian law does not forbid the blind from owning cars.
Most of you saw this video when we posted it earlier this week, and most of you wrote to say how wonderful it was. It contained many heartfelt sentiments about what being an American and an American fighting man means. The artist was unknown, until now. Ladies and Gentlemen I introduce you to SSG Lawrence E. Dean II.
A reader who may claim her kudos in the comments if she wants to, alerted us that SSG Dean was the artist and he worked with her husband. She sent along B5 contact info and then let me know we needed to coordinate with the Cherry Point PAO and Mr. Mike Barton was very helpful and facilitated a phone interview w/ SSG Dean. Here is the coolest thing, the piece is titled She Called, well She is his Grandma and the piece is his explanation to her of why he would go to war. WOW! It was great to talk with him and I wish him the best in what could be a second career. Semper Fi!
Here is my interview with the Staff Sergeant Download InterviewSSGDean.mp3 FOX is looking for him, ABC is looking for him and the scoop goes to.........Blackfive. Woo Hoo.
VANCOUVER, CANADA: A unique gene that can stop cancerous cells from multiplying into tumours has been discovered by a team of scientists at the B.C. Cancer Agency in Vancouver.
The team, led by Dr. Poul Sorensen, says the gene has the power to suppress the growth of human tumours in multiple cancers, including breast, lung and liver. The gene, HACE 1, helps cells fight off stress that, left unchecked, opens the door to formation of multiple tumours.
Dr. Sorensen's team found cancerous cells form tumours when HACE 1 is inactive, but when additional stress such as radiation is added, tumour growth is rampant. Kick-starting HACE 1 prevented those cells from forming tumours.
The study appears in the advance online publication of Nature Medicine. Made ya look! :-)
#1
This should showcase some of their other achievements nicely: Building of the Pyramids at Giza, Inventors of the Airplane, First people on the Moon, Designers of the Panama Canal, Inventors of the Question Mark.....
#2
Video is not O.K.; cartoons about allan are not O.K. but it is O.K. for packs of young muslim men to rape young women in Europe? Somelthing is very wrong with this picture.
#3
Backwards doesn't even begin to describe these puritanical morons. If they were to stroll down a street in Amsterdam's red light district it wouldn't take even a minute for them to die of a rage-induced brain aneurysm.
#2
Damn it Sea, it's 2am. here and now i have to try and get sum sleep!
/sheech we need a penalty box here at Rantburg! with electrodes
:-)
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/15/2007 5:24 Comments ||
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#3
If that's Hunky then I don't look too bad after all.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/15/2007 8:06 Comments ||
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#4
LOL, I love the caption on the last picture (15 of 15):
Here's a fashion tip, Poots: Don't wear your sweater over your shoulders unless you want to look like Sarkozy.
Posted by: BA ||
08/15/2007 8:22 Comments ||
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#5
Oh, I don't know .... ;-)
For a guy in his 50s Putin is in excellent shape. He's not heavily muscled, but then most top judekas aren't - they're lithe, fast and strong. And when you compare him to many Russian men, boozy and beefy these days - not to mention Clinton at the same age - he comes off pretty well.
I suspect these photos will play very well with Russians. The summer period in the countryside is traditional and many Russians will get a little sentimental seeing the Siberian terrain pictured there.
I don't trust Putin farther than I can spit, but it's a mistake to laugh him off IMO. He's determined, deadly and so far has - in classic judo fashion - been pretty successful in using European and American initiative against us. First was to fill depleted coffers with oil and gas money. Now he's begun the process of revamping the Russian military, which will employ scientists and engineers again. I'm wondering how far he'll be able to reconstruct Russian power.
A Turkish passenger ferry collided with a Ukrainian-flagged cargo ship off Turkey's biggest city Istanbul on Monday, injuring dozens of passengers, the city's health department said. "Forty people were taken for treatment to various hospitals," the department said in a statement.
Ahmet Paksoy, the general director of the municipality-owned company that operates the ferry, told the NTV news channel that none of the injuries were serious. An investigation was launched to determine the cause of the accident in the Sea of Marmara, the Anatolia news agency said.
The maritime undersecretariat in Ankara said in a statement that the passenger ferry had run into the cargo ship, the Semyon Rudhnev, which was anchored at the time. The ferry crashed head-on into the cargo ship about 20 minustes after it left the quay in Yenikapý, on the city's European side, en route to the island of Avþa, lying some 110 kilometres miles southwest of Istanbul.
The Marmara Sea links to the Black Sea via the Bosporus Strait cutting through Istanbul, a city of 12 million people, and connects to the Aegean Sea through the Dardanelles Strait. The two straits constitute the main naval route for Ukrainian and Russian vessels to reach the Atlantic via the Mediterranean and are listed among the most crowded waterways of the world. Turkey's efforts to better regulate and limit the traffic through the Bosporus and Dardenalles over the years have come to naught because of the opposition of the countries that border the Black Sea, whose main trade route is the waterway.
#2
AP story sez: Endeavour's belly was smacked a minute after liftoff on Aug. 8 by a piece of debris about the size of a dishwashing sponge and weighing less than an ounce. NASA does not know if it was insulating foam or ice from the external fuel tank, or both. Whatever the material, the debris broke off a bracket on the tank, fell onto a lower tank strut, then shot up into the shuttle.
Posted by: ed ||
08/15/2007 22:29 Comments ||
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Ed, did get some NASA reports and the foam is blamed. Dunno, to me it seems very unlikely. Even a 10oz piece of ice would not make the dent, as ice is several orders of magnitude more fragile than thermal tiles, and besides, the relative speeds of a fragment and the craft are almost the same. The gash is rather odd-shapped and conforms more with electric discharge machining than with causes that NASA came up with so far. I submit that they are looking in wrong direction.
#4
The tiles are very fragile since they are mostly air. A hit by anything going several hundred miles an hour will do damage. From Wikipedia: the underside black HRSI tiles The HRSI tile is basically a composite of high purity (99.8%) silica fibers (10%) and empty space (90%) that exhibits ceramic bonding. The high percentage of voids is the reason for the low density (9 lb/ft³) of the material making it light enough for spaceflight and strong enough to withstand the required G forces. The HRSI tiles have the black glossy appearance because of waterproofing coating made of tetrasilicide and borosilicate glass.
For comparision, water weighs 62 lb/ft³.
Posted by: ed ||
08/15/2007 23:18 Comments ||
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#5
A hit by anything going several hundred miles an hour will do damage
No doubt. But that is not the case with relative speeds with approximately the same vector. The difference between the speed of a departing fragment and the craft is rather small.
#6
Space Shuttle Columbia Foam Impact Investigators into the Columbia accident have estimated that the dislodged foam was about 19 by 11.5 by 5.5 inches (48 by 29 by 14 cm), weighed about 26.7 ounces, or 1.7 lb (0.75 kg) and impacted the Shuttle at nearly 530 mph (850 km/h). For the sake of a rough comparison, this block of foam would be about the same size and weight as a large loaf of bread.
Check out the foam impact test pictures. The wing leading edge RCC insulation is much tougher than the black thermal tiles.
Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC). The light gray material which withstands reentry temperatures up to 2750 °F (1510 °C) protects the wing leading edges and nose cap. Each of the Orbiters wings has 22 RCC panels. These panels are about 0.25 inch to 0.5 inch thick. T-seals between each panel allow thermal expansion and lateral movement between these panels and the Orbiter's wing.
RCC is a laminated composite material made from graphite rayon cloth and impregnated with a phenolic resin. After curing at high temperature in an autoclave, the laminate is pyrolized to convert the resin to carbon. This is then impregnated with furfural alcohol in a vacuum chamber, then cured and pyrolized again to convert the furfural alcohol to carbon. This process is repeated three times until the desired carbon-carbon properties are achieved.
To provide oxidation resistance for reuse capability, the outer layers of the RCC are converted to silicon carbide. The silicon-carbide coating protects the carbon-carbon from oxidation. The RCC is highly resistant to fatigue loading that is experienced during ascent and entry. It is stronger than the tile and is used around the socket of the forward attach point of the Orbiter to the External Tank to accommodate the shock loads of the explosive bolt detonation.
Posted by: ed ||
08/15/2007 23:59 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
ESTONIAN police said they have asked a court to seize a car owned by a blind man who was caught driving drunk twice in a single week, saying it was a "dangerous repeat offence."
VANCOUVER, CANADA: A unique gene that can stop cancerous cells from multiplying into tumours has been discovered by a team of scientists at the B.C. Cancer Agency in Vancouver.
