DETROIT - In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.
The 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report.
#2
This can't be right; where's New Orleans in the ranking? I know we can beat Detroit and St. Louis, at least in killings. Maybe they more than make up for it in rapes and stuff.
#4
WOT + "OIL STORM" > BIG PICTURE > e.g. NORTH AMER UNION/HIGHWAY > From Hudson Bay to Detroit to Naw Orleeens, for anti-US Globalists DETROIT'S UTILITY is to divide the USA vv MISSISSIPI REGIONS + empower the UNITED SOCIALIST REPUBLICS OF AMERIKA. *ANTI-US OWG-SWO > DA MOTOR CITY, etal. cities CAN'T LOSE ITS BIG THREE/FIVE HISTORICITY + ECONOMIC SECTORS FAST ENUFF. WOT > SAVING DETROIT, etc. = KILLING [FREE] AMERICA.
Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died Monday. He was 91.
Wilson died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers." "He is part of the culture. He was still funny to the very end. That's his legacy," his daughter said.
Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted squeezer. The first commercial aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985 the tag line and Wilson, a former Canadian airman and vaudeville veteran, were pop culture touchstones.
"Everybody says, 'Where did they find you?' I say I was never lost. I've been an actor for 55 years," Wilson told the San Francisco Examiner in 1985.
Though Wilson said he initially resisted commercial work, he learned to appreciate its nuance. "It's the hardest thing to do in the entire acting realm. You've got 24 seconds to introduce yourself, introduce the product, say something nice about it and get off gracefully."
Dennis Legault, Procter & Gamble's Charmin brand manager, said in a statement that Wilson deserves much of the credit for Charmin's success in the marketplace.
#1
RIP, Mr. Whipple. "Deserved much of the credit for Charmin's success" - its very true. Charmin was just another also-ran/wannabe product until "Mr. Whipple" came along.
BLOOM COUNTY COMIC [1980's] > Reagan years - symbolic in BLOOM of bringing back of law-and order in post-Vietnam/Carter USA > "HEY YOU, YOU SQUEEZED THAT CHARMIN, DIDN'T YOU".
#2
TOP SECRET Joe. EYES ONLY. Charmin could have saved the Clinton presidency too. If only Bubba squeezed the Charmin instead of the interns or had some around to clean up the blue dress.
Posted by: ed ||
11/19/2007 18:09 Comments ||
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any other nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have not died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- Abraham Lincoln, 19 November 1863.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/19/2007 09:27 ||
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#1
Thanks, Mike! Best speech ever given. Do kids even read it today, let alone memorize it as they used to do?
#2
Contrary to my daughter's belief, I did not live through the Civil War era. However, from what I read and understand, Lincoln was beset with very truculent opposition from within his party and outside his party. Somethings never change. Lincoln's speech was a great speech--unlike many of the Congressional windbags we have today that speak a lot and say nothing. I understand that Lincoln thought he "bombed" in writing and delivering the speech.
#3
Re #2: Lincoln got some mixed reactions to his speech because it was unusually short. His address, that lasted about 2 minutes, was following another speaker who'd spoken for 2 hours.
I guess in those days before TV, radio, and other packaged entertainment, any speech, concert, or other live performance was expected to be much, much longer than this to keep the listeners--who'd spent many hours or even days to come by foot, train, and horseback from far and wide--entertained and satisfied.
Posted by: Dar ||
11/19/2007 10:28 Comments ||
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#4
Several years ago, we took our youngest son (14 at the time) to DC. Of course we went to the Lincoln Memorial.
He stood there and read both Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and the Gettysburg Address (inscribed on the north and south walls of the Memorial). We asked if he had read these before. He replied that he had 'heard' of the Gettysburg Address in school, but had never read either of these speeches before.
As we stood there quietly waiting for him to finish reading, he turned to us and said "We never learned this. We should have learned this. This guy had a real way with words. What he's saying makes sense."
Then he said quietly "I guess I'm a little pissed we never learned this. This is kind of important."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
11/19/2007 13:01 Comments ||
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#5
Your son is right. Schools today are missing the boat on many things.
#6
People forget - some, not all - that in 1863 the country was caught up in what might be described as Lincoln Derangement Syndrome. You can look it up.
If memory serves, Mr. Lincoln wrotes these words essentially off the top of his head. On the back of an envelope. While on a train ride to Pennsylvania.
Genius.
Thankfully Mr. Lincoln was proved wrong when he wrote that the world would little note nor long remember what he said that day.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
11/19/2007 15:39 Comments ||
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#7
Lincoln address was billed as "Remarks on the Dedication" that day. The actual 'Gettysburg Address' was delivered by the Rev. Edward Everitt, former Senator and Governor of Massachusetts, and indeed took over two hours.
Everitt was the main speaker, Lincoln was invited almost as an afterthought and was asked to make just a brief comment, which he did.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/19/2007 17:01 Comments ||
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#8
What he's saying makes sense.
And the NEA can't have kids learning THAT. Not when there's so much to learn about recycling and drowning polar bears and how Becky has two mommies--and how that's cool--and how Timmy has a mommy and a daddy and that is so, like, bizarre...
#10
Contrary to my daughter's belief, I did not live through the Civil War era.
For a long time my youngest son insisted that I'd been born "when dinosaurs ruled the Earth." Kinda sad when the moment comes when a kid realizes that's not so; sorta like when they discover that there's really no Santa Claus. I lost stature then.
But kids grow up and so has he; he's getting married next year, and I'm informed that grandchildren will be forthcoming in short order-- whereupon I can regain my status as a "living fossil."
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/19/2007 17:41 Comments ||
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#11
I happen to think the Second Inaugural is Lincoln's greatest speech, but either way, it's a close call.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
That rocks!
Posted by: Mike ||
11/19/2007 18:45 Comments ||
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#12
Southerners began Fisking the speech, a century before Fisk. I'll let them do it. Ironically, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation ended enslavement not slavery, which existed around Gettysburg, Penn during the war. Slavery died when the South lost and even residual forms became repugnant in the North.
#13
The 'back of the envelope' legend was just that— a legend, Mark. Lincoln was always extremely careful with his formal speeches.
Richard, perhaps you should show your son Peter Norvig's updated version of the speech. I'm pretty sure he's been exposed to PowerPoint enough.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/19/2007 22:01 Comments ||
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#14
Eric, that is hysterical!
The son has been in the military for a while now, so a PowerPoint is something he's quite familiar with. I will email him the link.
Thanks again!
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
11/19/2007 22:18 Comments ||
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#15
Richard, do read the accompanying essay, too. And if you work in a profession where PowerPoint is used, you might want to take Edward Tufte's course on how to fight against it.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/19/2007 23:06 Comments ||
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Perhaps it was one of those eureka moments, when the scientists realized they had discovered a new dinosaur with mouth parts designed to vacuum up food. The 110 million-year-old plant eater, discovered in the Sahara Desert, was to be unveiled Thursday by the National Geographic Society.
Discoverer Paul Sereno named the elephant-sized animal Nigersaurus taqueti, an acknowledgment of the African country Niger and a French paleontologist, Philippe Taquet. So much for carbon dating. It's only 45 years old, the American public has been familiar with it for years, and they refer to it as Rosie O'Donnell.
Sereno, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and paleontologist at the University of Chicago, said the first evidence of Nigersaurus was found in the 1990s and now researchers have been able to reconstruct its skull and skeleton.
While Nigersaurus' mouth is shaped like the wide intake slot of a vacuum, it has something lacking in most cleaners -- hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth to grind up its food. Electrolux vacuums had them decades ago. They're called "carpet gleaners". :-|
The 30-foot-long Nigersaurus had a feather-light skull held close to the ground to graze like an ancient cow. Sereno described it as a younger cousin of the North American dinosaur Diplodicus. Yeah, about what's been observed of Rosie so far.
Its broad muzzle contained more than 50 columns of teeth lined up tightly along the front edge of its jaw. Behind each tooth more were lined up as replacements when one broke off.
Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.
Nigersaurus also had a backbone consisting of more air than bone. Much like the skull, I suppose.
"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use -- but we know they did it, and they did it well," Jeffrey Wilson, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and an expedition team member, said in a statement. Yeah, how Rosie's vertebrae don't collapse has been quite a mystery and the subject of many a conversation in the US, too.
The dinosaur's anatomy and lifestyle were to be detailed in the November 21 issue of journal PLoS ONE, the online journal from the Public Library of Science, and in the December of National Geographic magazine. You do not want to go into it's anatomy. Trust me.
The first bones of Nigersaurus were picked up in the 1950s by French paleontologists, but the species was not named at that time. Sereno and his team honored this early work by naming the species after Taquet. The research was partly funded by National Geographic.
#2
Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.
they also helped it vocalize: "first time ever, in history, that fire melted steel"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/19/2007 8:58 Comments ||
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#3
There still remains one clear distinction between Nigersaurus taqueti and Rosie O'Donnell. The dinosaur was probably much more attractive.
Department of YJCMTSU
It's been another typical day in the world of Heather Mills. Kicking off with her storming out of a radio interview with London's LBC station, media-shy Heather then turned up at Speaker's Corner, in a gas-guzzling black 4x4 Mercedes, to lecture the assembled crowds on ways of saving the planet.
As part of her extraordinary tirade at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, Heather exhorted people to try drinking rat's milk instead of cow milk to help reduce global warming.
The former model said eating meat and dairy was destroying the earth and insisted the milk of rats, cats and dogs would be more eco-friendly. "Willard! Willard! Where is that boy?"
"He's down in the barn milkin' the rats, Maw."
Posted by: Mike ||
11/19/2007 11:23 ||
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A methane blast ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine early Sunday, killing at least 63 miners in the ex-Soviet nation's worst mining accident in years, emergency officials said. More than 360 miners were rescued but 37 others remained trapped inside the mine one of Ukraine's largest and deepest with a raging fire hampering efforts to save them, officials said.
The explosion occurred around 3 a.m. more than 3,300 feet deep inside the Zasyadko mine in the regional capital Donetsk, the heart of the country's coal mining industry, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Authorities evacuated 367 miners. Twenty-eight were hospitalized, the ministry said.
Field test of the Active Denial System, with pictures.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/19/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Another non-lethal weapon. Good idea and it appears not to have cardial effects. The Taser doesn't cause immediate cardial arrest through its low amperage charge, but that can be a result if the subject is experiencing delireum. Taser has signed 11,000 police services, so the market is enormous. But is the ADS good for crowd control only?
#2
Just wait until some idiot gets trampled to death by a crowd running away from the active denial system. Then the moonbats will scream about police/military brutality. Of course, firing into the crowd with automatic weapons would be much more lethal, but logic is not the moonbats' strong suit.
#4
test it in Olympia and at Evergreen College. See if the less sapient are affected
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/19/2007 6:07 Comments ||
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#5
The aim was to spread the word that the device, nicknamed the Silent Guardian, is neither sinister nor dangerous. In an age when the US military has been dogged by allegations of torture at secret bases, such perceptions are crucial.
If only they'd taken some New York Times reporters to secret bases and tortured them...
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/19/2007 6:32 Comments ||
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#6
Wake up, peeps, that crowd they NEED to control is us.
#10
I've been targeted and shot at, i.e. "warned", by hidden snipers/shooters numerous times In USA and other places - never been specifically
"lasered" yet although one never knows wid whats coming after the "red/green dot".
#11
After re reading all the comments, I still wonder why such a weapon was developed. Can anyone give me a serious hint beyond guarding the Congressional bunker when the nuke war breaks out ? Crowd control, crowd control...what crowd ?
#15
Can anyone give me a serious hint beyond guarding the Congressional bunker when the nuke war breaks out ?
Here's a hint. A widely (within some military circles) viewed video from 7 or 8 years ago dramatized concepts for Objective Force Warrior, a partial predecessor to the US Army's Future Combat System. The video consists of a dramatized encounter at a key bridge in a 3rd world country, maybe one of the 'Stans.
The scenario centers on a squad controlling the bridge, with a 2nd squad in overwatch. A mob of local civilians comes down the road from a nearby village and confronts the bridge squad, shouting angry slogans and threatening the soldiers with pitchforks and rocks.
A key exchange between the corporal at the bridge and the sargeant in overwatch:
"Permission to use lethal?"
"Negative."
"Permission to use non-lethal?"
"Do it!"
The non-lethal means of crowd control, combined with nanoarmor that can stiffen on command, allows the soldiers to control the crowd that had (as it turns out) been stirred up by false information spread by agitators .... as cover for an armor and sniper attack. Who were met with distinctly lethal response.
I won't describe the rest of the scenario, other than to say that the technologies in the system each exist at least in prototype form already. And that the end of the video affirms that the soldier is and always will remain at the center of operations. The system is there to support and protect him and to allow him to project force in defined and useful ways.
Which is the point re: non-lethal. We're seen, in Iraq for instance, the deliberate herding of innocent civilians (often kids) in front of insurgent forces and the commandeering of homes by snipers. There are lots of times when we want to control such a crowd with non-lethal measures. Tear gas is outlawed in the Geneva Conventions. ADS is an alternative approach that isn't, at least for now.
#16
Tear gas is outlawed in the Geneva Conventions. ADS is an alternative approach that isn't, at least for now.
Isn't tear gas and similar chemical riot control agent outlawed by a specific treaty the USa signed, among others? I'm pretty sure it was used until recently (Viet Nam war, IIRC), and I'm pretty sure it is also used on occasion as by french troops (not paramilitary police gendarmes, but plain military) in kosovo when demonstrations around serbian enclaves turn ugly.
Isn't that a case of having bound one's own hands, if that's the case?
#17
The Chemical Weapons Convention, of which the US is a signatory, forbids the offensive use of tear gas in combat. It went into force in 1997. France is also a signatory. The entire list of original signatories is online here.
Whether and under what conditions defensive use is allowed has been the subject of some controversy.
I spoke too loosely in saying 'Geneva Convention'.
The NWFP Wildlife Department has announced commencement of partridges hunting season 2007-08 in the province under Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Act 1975.
According to notification issued by the department, partridges shooting will be allowed at protected areas under specified rules. Y'gotta buy your duck stamps from a licensed imam at the mosque's PX.
Shooting of partridges including See-see Partridge, Black Partridge, Grey Partridge and Chakur Partridge will be permissible in the Province from Sunday November 18, 2007 till Sunday January 27, 2008. The entire province, save the protected areas, will remain open for the partridge hunting.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
What a great place to be seen carrying a rifle. (sarcasm alert) As for game birds, tried them all and don't like the taste of any. I do like backwood's Moonshine when I am out there.
But if you want really yummy, I'd recommend chukar. IMO, the tastiest of game birds. (True, you need to shoot a few chuks to make a meal, just makes for a longer day in the field for the dogs and me.)
Don't know if guinea fowl qualify as game birds, but they're pretty good too.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/19/2007 5:55 Comments ||
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#4
I have a mental picture of Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey, and Danny Bonaduce on a desparate journey through the wilds of Pakistan, dodging bullets. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
11/19/2007 11:35 Comments ||
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#5
chukars in Lewiston Idaho, lets see you lazy weirdos hunt those birds.
Grayson Perry, Who?
the Turner Prize-winning artist Tyurner who?
who is perhaps better known to the general public for his extravagant cross-dressing, Eeewww!
has admitted that he censors himself when it comes to matters relating to Islam.
Speaking at a meeting organised by the Art Fund, Perry said that it was simple fear which stopped him from addressing Islam in his work. 'I don't want my throat cut', he said. "Chicken!"
"Sissy!"
"Pantywaist!"
"Mincing fraidy-cat!"
"You do performance art like a girl!"
Posted by: Mike ||
11/19/2007 08:31 ||
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Perhaps he can regain his street cred by dipping crucifix in urine?
Posted by: ed ||
11/19/2007 9:35 Comments ||
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#2
Welcome to the world of artists. They are "brave" and "challenge held views" when doing stuff about the west and Christians. But all the talk and rhetoric falls on its face when confronted with something that just needs to be mocked.
Bunch of sissy mama boys/girls that only care about shocking a local audience that won't kill them.
#3
They are "brave" and "challenge held views" when doing stuff about the west and Christians. But all the talk and rhetoric falls on its face when confronted with something that just needs to be mocked.
In a just world, such hypocritical cowardice will carry a real price tag.
#4
Since nobody really understands or cares about performance art it really doesn't matter either way. If he insults christianity not only is it safer but funding is probably easier. If he insults Islam he will probably go on trial for a hate crime in most countries.
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.
The NWFP Wildlife Department has announced commencement of partridges hunting season 2007-08 in the province under Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Act 1975.
