Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.
The accident occurred Saturday at a ranch in south Texas where the vice president and several companions were hunting quail. It was not reported publicly by the vice president's office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after it was reported locally by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on its Web site Sunday.
Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, said Sunday that Cheney was using a 28-guage shotgun and that Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest. Mucky's revenge?
#1
AP:
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
#7
Report is he is / will be okay. Classic turn and fire situation with birdshot - goof downrange...
Lol... this thread has potential, real classics potential, if you consider all of the angles, lol. I still think Leahy should be thinking hard about this... I have a pic, somewhere...
#9
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Too bad Harry isn't younger - he could dine out on this story for years. ;-p
(I was going to say for the rest of his life, but considering the fact he's 78, he obviously will do that.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/12/2006 16:34 Comments ||
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#11
AP & UPI are in, Rooters still doesn't have it, yet, heh.
AP Update:
[only what's new] Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.
Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and found a second covey.
Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong told the Associated Press in an interview.
"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."
The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
She said Whittington was bleeding but not very seriously injured, and Cheney was very apologetic.
"It broke the skin," she said. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."
She said emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington, holding his face and cleaning up the blood.
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year. She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.
"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.
#18
remember all the pics of doofus Kerry out shooting, finger in the triggerguard all the time?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2006 19:06 Comments ||
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#19
Ain't no big thing. NOT.
One of my buddies is blind in one eye from such an "accident." His Dad was the cause. Maintaining spacing and knowing your safe field of fire is your responsibility. Learn to hunt safely. Hunt Safely. Being the VP is no freeking excuse.
#22
Seems there were 3 guys -- the one shot walked in a different direction from the VP and the 3rd man -- the shot man returned to their area and never let them know he was coming or was near.
Knowing the kind of "thicket" that is down in that part of Texas, unless he announced himself, they never knew he was around. And, he may not have known he was as close to them as he was.
And, if the shooters were wearing ear plugs, well ......
#24
Jimmy Carter's RABBIT-GATE returneth: MSM > SSSHHHHHHHHH, at least with Jimbo no enviro-correct, anti-Global Warming? rabbit/hare was ever shot, unlike Meat-eating, Gun-loving, God-loving, Male Brute Imperialist Warmongering Scheming Robber Baron Repubs whom shoot their friends!? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA............
US immigration officials have arrested a Haitian woman after baggage screeners found a human head in her luggage at a Florida airport. Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting "hazardous material".
She arrived at Florida's Fort Lauderdale airport on Thursday on a flight from Cap Haitien in north Haiti. Ms Severe said that the head was to ward off evil sprits, officials said. "Severe stated that she had obtained the package, which contained a human head, from a male in Haiti for use as part of her voodoo beliefs," the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.
A spokesman for Miami's immigration and customs agency told the AFP news agency that the head was not simply a skull. "It had teeth, hair and skin, and quite a lot of dirt," she said.
Ms Severe, a US resident, appeared in court on Friday in Fort Lauderdale. She could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The practice of voodoo, an Afro-Caribbean religion whose roots go back thousands of years, is still widespread in Haiti. The Haitian government officially recognised voodoo as a religion in 2003.
The Haitian government officially recognised voodoo as a religion in 2003.
Hoo, brother - does that explain a lot!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/12/2006 0:52 Comments ||
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#2
Sounds like she got it fresh from the source, too. You think she would have at least washed it off.
It does have interesting applications for defense lawyers, however. "My client wasn't trying to dispose of a body, sir....she was practicing her religion!"
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A member of Haiti's electoral council said results of the presidential elections were being manipulated, echoing complaints by throngs of supporters of Rene Preval, who poured into the streets on Sunday with angry allegations of fraud. With 75 percent of votes counted, Preval was falling short of winning Tuesday's elections outright by less than a percentage point.
"According to me, there's a certain level of manipulation," Pierre Richard Duchemin, an electoral council member, told The Associated Press, adding that "there is an effort to stop people from asking questions" about the counting process. Duchemin said Sunday he needed access to tallies of vote counts in hopes of learning who was behind the alleged manipulation. He called for an investigation.
Preval's supporters converged on the electoral council headquarters. Blowing horns and pounding drums, they denounced Jacques Bernard, director-general of the nine-member council. "Jacques Bernard is a thief. He doesn't know how to count!" they chanted. U.N. peacekeepers blocked Preval supporters from reaching the Montana Hotel, where election officials have been giving updates on the results.
Bernard denied accusations the council voided many votes for Preval, a former president.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2006 22:36 ||
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Rio is abuzz with rumours that its Carnival bash could be host to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Venezuela's Government oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, is paying a Carnival parade group that will sing about Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar a personal hero of Chavez.
But with Carnival just weeks away, Chavez has not confirmed he will come. And Rio is asking: Will he or won't he?
Wilson Vieira Alves, president of the samba group Vila Isabel, confirmed that the group had invited Chavez to the parade at Rio's 70,000-capacity Sambadrome stadium but said there were problems. "The logistics of bringing a head of state from another country are very complicated," he has said.
Alves confirmed that PDVSA was sponsoring the parade but declined to say how much money the oil company was pumping in. Local media have reported a $1 million payment. Alves said Vila Isabel also sent invitations to other South American presidents, but declined to name them.
Vila Isabel's parade will feature the theme "I'm Mad About You America." The group's samba, written especially for Carnival, calls for South American unity and pays tribute to Bolivar. Local press reports said Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona could parade with Vila Isabel as a featured personality atop one of the floats.
Anselmo Goes, a social columnist for the Rio daily O Globo, has published an item saying Chavez had confirmed he would attend. Goes cited the Brazilian Foreign Ministry as his source. But ministry officials said they had no knowledge of a possible visit by Chavez. They said if he came to Brazil, he would attend Carnival as a private citizen not as part of an official state visit.
Haiti's presidential election could be headed for a run-off after the former president's early lead was slashed after three days of vote counting. Rene Preval had 50.3% of the vote so far with over half the votes counted, barely above the 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid a run-off on 19 March.
On Thursday, early results appeared to indicate that Preval was on course for an outright victory after he won 61.5% of the first 15% of a predicted 1.75 million votes. Another former president, Leslie Manigat, was in second place with 11.4% and industrialist Charles Baker held third with 8.3%, according to the results published by the Provisional Electoral Council.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2006 00:00 ||
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A United Arab Emirates court has jailed 12 men who were arrested after being discovered preparing for a gay wedding, but acquitted another 14 defendants, an official said on Sunday.
"Eleven men have confessed to practising homsexuality.
They were sentenced to five years in prison (for homosexuality) and one year for obscenity," said the official.
"Another man was sentenced to one year in prison for obscenity, but was acquitted of homosexuality charges... while 14 others have been released after being found not guilty," he said.
The 26 defendants, including UAE citizens, an Indian and three nationals of neighbouring Arab countries, were arrested in November when police raided a hotel in a desert resort town.
Emirates Today had reported that the Abu Dhabi court had sentenced all 26 men to five years in jail. It said the men were busted in a hotel "dressed in women's clothes and makeup in preparation for a gay wedding".
The official said the verdict was not final and could go on appeal.
The United States state department had condemned the arrests and called on its close Gulf ally to stop reported plans for a forced hormone treatment on the suspects, which an interior ministry official then denied.
Homosexuality is a serious offence in the Muslim UAE and neighbouring conservative Gulf countries, where offenders could face flogging along with imprisonment, while foreigners could also face expulsion.
Last April, a court in neighbouring Saudi Arabia sentenced two Saudis, one Yemeni and a Jordanian to two years in jail and 2,000 lashes after a police raid on an alleged gay party.
Across the Gulf in non-Arab Iran, repeated sodomy carries the death penalty. Coming on the heels of other "gay weddings" in the ME, I suspect that some very brave homosexuals are challenging the mores of the entire region. If they are indeed turning it into a civil rights campaign, more power to them.
Thailand's embattled prime minister has said he is prepared to hold a referendum to amend the country's constitution as mass protests against his rule continued for the second successive weekend in Bangkok. Some 6000 protesters in the capital on Saturday demanded Thaksin Shinawatra's resignation. Their protesters' numbers were expected to increase once night fell. Chanting "Thaksin get out", they held banners that read: "Thaksin=Toxin: Master of Evil" and many wore large stickers printed with a caricature of the prime minister with a Hitler-type moustache and the slogan "Wanted - Dead or Alive".
Hey! They can't do that! It's our week to be Hitler! He can wait his turn, damn him!
Thaksin has repeatedly refused to quit despite last weekend's peaceful 18-hour rally which drew at least 50,000 people - the biggest demonstration since he took office almost five years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Curiously, IMHO, American friends of mine up in Chaing Mai - a long way from Bangkok - are being told by the US Consulate to stay well clear of the protests, which have started there, as well. Thai protests turning ugly and violent? Um, no I don't think so - not by Thais, anyway. If any violence occurs, it will be instigated and driven by someone else... I won't buy that the Thais haven't changed that much in the last 2 years. Toxin should thank his lucky stars, too - anywhere else and he'd probably already be hanging from a lamppost by now.
#2
The embassies always send a warden message to stay away from protests, even the peacefull ones. Guess they are just hedging. I cant imagine the Thais getting violent in Chaing Mai, your right that the locals ther are just not like that. If it get too far out of control in Bangkok the king will apeal to the people for calm and the protests will end.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
02/12/2006 8:58 Comments ||
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The Treasury said it sold 30-year bonds at a high yield of 4.53 per cent, the lowest ever for a 30-year bond auction. The previous low was 5.52 per cent in the last 30-year bond auction in August 2001.
"We thought the auction went superbly because there clearly was strong demand," Treasury Undersecretary Randal Quarles told Bloomberg TV after the auction. "All in all, it couldn't have gone better," he added.
Long-term Treasury prices rose after the auction, but shorter-dated Treasuries were steady to lower after a Federal Reserve official hinted at the need for more interest rate rises.
Markets are very careful at judging inflation. This news says that the markets aren't worried about inflation right now. Read it again: lowest 30-year bond yield ever, from 1977 when the bonds were first sold to now.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
There is another factor at work here. Many lenders have long term commitments like pension funds and life insurance companies and there is a large mismatch between demand for long term instruments and supply as the US and other countries have almost stopped selling long term bonds. The low interest rate reflects the high demand rather than long term inflation expectations (IMHO).
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.
US immigration officials have arrested a Haitian woman after baggage screeners found a human head in her luggage at a Florida airport. Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting "hazardous material". 
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A member of Haiti's electoral council said results of the presidential elections were being manipulated, echoing complaints by throngs of supporters of Rene Preval, who poured into the streets on Sunday with angry allegations of fraud. With 75 percent of votes counted, Preval was falling short of winning Tuesday's elections outright by less than a percentage point.
Haiti's presidential election could be headed for a run-off after the former president's early lead was slashed after three days of vote counting. Rene Preval had 50.3% of the vote so far with over half the votes counted, barely above the 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid a run-off on 19 March.
