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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Dec. 20, 2006 at 1:05 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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56 Comments
Quote of the Day:
“I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it.”–Friedrich Nietzsche
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Joke of the Day:
A Jewish man is riding on the NYC subway reading an Arab newspaper. A friend noticed this and asked the newspaper reader, “Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?
Moshe replied: “I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better.”
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!
Ian Santiago: Unfortunately, and abortion the never happened.
The WPD chopper will be grounded for three months due to required drive train scheduled maintenance that has been known would occcur since its purchase three years ago. And a replacement drive train can’t be rented for three months because it wassn’t budgeted. And the budget is the ultimate responsibility of Kolb. Why, he’s doing a fine job — as the poster child for “dead weight diversity”. I thought diversity had to do with making sure qualified people had the same opportunities regardless of race, but I guess it means that mean-spirited morons get the jobs pleasant smart people should have gotten.
rm – saw that this morning – ‘ya gotta be kidding!’ Makes one wonder …
You all didn’t expect an affirmative action incompetent to be competent, did ya? lmrfao
V.L.R.B!!
Pasted from the helicopter article today:
“And soon, because of a Homeland Security grant, the Wichita helicopter will have improved night-vision equipment — so piercing that even in the darkness police will be able to see a drink in someone’s hand from several hundred feet away.”
What the hell does that capability (and expense) have to do with ‘Homeland Security’??!!Drunken terrorists??
Hey WE Editorial Board. I just recieved the stangest phone call recording of some guy in San Diego accusing Paul Morrison of perjury.
I guess he served a couple of years in prison (didn’t state his crime), but he said the evidence against him was perjury and he holds Paul Morrison responsibile and that he is taking his message all across Kansas. He also mention the fact that this wasn’t a political message or a Democrat/Republican sponsered message.
It did refernce a website.http://fairtrialsinamerica.org/
Kind of strange, but that guy is making a huge effort. His message said that if he is wrong about Paul Morrison that Paul has every right to sue him in civil court over the matter.
And before you Dems jump on me about this, it has nothing to do with me or I’m not trying to plug anybody. Paul Morrison was clearly the better candidate in the AG race and I voted for him, just like the majority of people in Kansas did.
I just found this message on my phone strange. Just wondering if the WE board heard of this or if any of you posters recieved this phone call?
The PrezNit is on the tee vee
Sanford, I think you make a good point about a poor choice of words; if I had been the writer, I think I would have said “a handgun” instead of a “drink”. I suspect the writer was trying to use an example of the precision of the night vision system, with a drink to illustrate as something most readers would understand.
Bush says he still has not made up his mind on deploying more troops.
That website is hard to follow, I can’t even figure out what this guy is accusing him of.
Perhaps, and likely so, the night vision capability is infrared and, therefore, thermally based.A handgun, at ambient temperature, would not be ‘visible’. Likewise, a bomb under a terrorist’s jacket would not be visible. Ergo, why is ‘Homeland security’ spending money on drunks in Old Town?Can you say …. Police State?
Sanford,
Your limited vision on the uses of a helicopter in police work and national security shows truly how unimaginative and uniformed you really are.
Why not do some invesitagion of what the duties of a police helicopter does before making asinine statements.
“Fourteen years ago the Leawood Police Department and Johnson County Prosecutors Office”
Was Morrison there 14 years ago?
JM, what a condescending ass you are.Attack the messenger, and ignore the message.I think we all understand the uses and role of a police helicopter, asshole.I question the wisdom of spending ‘Homeland Security’ money on a thermally based system that cannot detect a bomb at ambient tempereature.
Yeah! The guy’s website is terrible. On Morrison, I believe he’s been Johnson County’s DA for 15 years.
Sanford,”I question the wisdom of spending ‘Homeland Security’ money on a thermally based system that cannot detect a bomb at ambient tempereature.” Posted by: Sanford | December 20, 2006 at 09:32 AM
A global positioning device can’t detect a bomb either and it can be funded under national security provisos.
I’ll stick to my initial statement on why you tend to make asinine statements without further investigating the facts.
The issues raised in the website should be investigated fully. IF there is something there then it should be followed up.
On the other hand, I’m not sure I want another onslaught of robo-calls.
Joke of the Day-
WALT CHAPPELL
What a fool!!
I would be interested in knowing just what sort of evidence he has on “irregularities”. The vote totals seem to be outside the range I owuld consider “counting error” so unless there is really something there this should have been closed.
JM, perhaps this topic is a bit too complicated for you.
“so piercing that even in the darkness police will be able to see a drink in someone’s hand from several hundred feet away.”
The referenced article says nothing about using a GPS system, nor does it detail what is/is not elegible for Homeland grants.
Is there a Kiddy blog you can go to, and leave us at the adult table?
Sanford,
If you question the purchasing of a proven technology such as a thermal imaging system, perhaps you are the one that needs to go to a ‘kiddie’ sight.
Just because a device doesn’t do extra things YOU WANT IT TO DO, doesn’t make it a poor choice in purchasing through available funds.
Your remarks are still asine because of they have the logic of a diseased Yak drinking slough water from a grist mill.
You guys would be simply amazed at the stupid shit we can buy with homeland security monies.
And just like everything else on stupid funding, if you don’t use it you lose it. SO they make sure they spend every penny so next year you won’t get hurt with less money.
When we plan our budget for ambulance stuff, we can’t simply decide to save some money back for something bigger we might need later on, no. It doesn’t roll over. Then if we don’t use the money they decide we can do with less budget money for the following year. I wanna know who comes up with these dumb laws. Just p’s me off sometimes.
I’ll have to read your response later JM, I’m off to bed.
Kia, email me.
Why aren’t y’all talking about some REAL issues. I mean sheesh, Miss USA got to keep her crown. Isn’t THAT more important????
Sol,She’s very good lookin’, and the #2 gal ain’t quite so hot – so – I’m glad she’s staying. =)
Has to be a real kick in the ass for the #2 girl, will probably drive her to drink.
I just can’t believe the attention the story is getting. Trump is freakin briliant. I didn’t even know the cometition had run, now I know the first and second place winners. Briliant.
I had to laugh at how she tried so hard to muster up some real tears yesterday. Those fake tears are about as fake as her other assets.
Woman to Man: I’m sorry but these are breast implants.
Man to Woman: I don’t care!
JM??? No response?
Response to what? You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already, well maybe that it p____you off.
well you asked what I did, I told you, then said ‘your turn’. So if you knew I did those things already, why did you ask? and why haven’t you said what you do?
Pee,
Katie Couric is in 3rd place (in a field of 3) with lower ratings than her “interim” predecessor, Bob Schieffer.
How does that equal “her ratings are high”?
wut?
“well you asked what I did, I told you, then said ‘your turn’. So if you knew I did those things already, why did you ask? and why haven’t you said what you do?” Posted by: political_mom | December 20, 2006 at 04:12 PM
I asked that in this Open thread today or when?
i guess i’m on the wrong thread. I apologize.
no answer *shock*
I don’t take your word for anything testicle.
I suppose I am dreaming, but it sure would be nice to see more drivers follow UPS examples..and work to not turn left. It saves time, reduces accidents, reduces congestion, and is just a better way to drive. Turn right a couple times and go around a block instead of trying to turn left across multiple lanes.
*sigh*. Won’t ever happen, too many idiots that MUST TURN HERE.
Oh well…it is a nice thought…
An interesting perspective on the media and Iraq; from the Salt Lake City, Utah paper, which, IIRC, is not gnerally considered a member of the “liberal media”.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/when_the_medias_right.html
raptor
Thinking outside conventional parameters.
Idea outside of convention.
Fuel consumption/time of delay to turn left balance against time delay/fuel consumption 3 right turns, additional stops, delay/fuel consumption to cross thourougfare.
Study indicated.
Study initiates.
End of line.
raptor, I do the right turns thing quite often. I hate turning left unless there’s a left turn lane and light.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The FBI has released the last 10 documents from its secret files on slain Beatle John Lennon that had been withheld for 25 years on the ground they could prompt “military retaliation” against the United States, campaigners for their release said on Wednesday.
The files turn out to contain only well known information about Lennon’s ties to left-wing leaders and antiwar groups in London in 1970 and 1971, said Jon Wiener, a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Today we can see that the national security claims the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning. The Lennon FBI file is a classic case of excessive government secrecy,” Wiener said in a statement.
The released documents include one that states Lennon “encouraged the belief that he holds revolutionary views … by the content of some of his songs.”
Another talks of the Beatle turned anti-war campaigner promising to finance a left-wing bookshop in London. A third describes a 1971 interview with Lennon in The Red Mole, a London underground newspaper, in which the singer “emphasized his proletarian background and his sympathy with the oppressed and underprivileged people of Britain and the world.”
Wiener first requested the files in 1981. After legal action under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act that went all the way to the Supreme Court, he got most of the 300 pages in the Lennon files released in 1997.
But 10 documents remained classified on the grounds of national security. The FBI told the U.S. courts in 1983 that release of those documents could “lead to foreign diplomatic, economic and military retaliation against the United States.”
Wiener, whose campaign was detailed in a book and formed the basis of the 2006 documentary “The U.S. vs John Lennon,” has posted the documents on the Web site http://www.LennonFBIfiles.com.
“I doubt that Tony Blair’s government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents,” Wiener said.
Lennon, whose iconic song “Imagine” has become a rallying call for anti-war activists around the world, was murdered in New York in December 1980 by a deranged fan.
What are you doing hanging out in the left lane raptor?
Interesting idea you have there. More people should just have their damned heads in the game when they are driving.
Traffic circles wouldn’t hurt either. Colorado has lots of them. So far as I know Wichita has one.
Another issue The Eagle won’t cover, despite its ties to the “communist party” according to the reich-wing on these blogs.
“U.S. companies are about to wrap up their fourth consecutive year of spectacular profit growth, filling corporate coffers with cash and keeping the bull market alive on Wall Street.
“Total earnings of the blue-chip Standard & Poor’s 500 companies have risen at double-digit percentage rates for 18 consecutive quarters, an unprecedented streak.
But to many rank-and-file workers, the booming bottom line may only serve as a reminder of what has been missing from their own paychecks.
Wages of average workers have just begun to improve in recent months after badly lagging behind inflation for most of this decade. Amid the surge in corporate profit, many workers have faced terminated pension plans, reduced health-care benefits and rising outsourcing of jobs overseas.
“The swelling earnings of business — and of many top executives — have become part of the debate about widening U.S. income disparities. When they take control of Congress next month, Democratic Party leaders will focus intently on those disparities, they say, and on trade agreements that some contend enrich multinational businesses while destroying American jobs.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003484268_wagesprofits19.html
Don’t bother to go to South America or Asia to see quaint and colorful peasants carrying their wares by burro.
That’s the United States, 2025 . . .
Well raptor, the UPS no-left-turn crap is mostly a myth. My UPS driver makes a left turn right after he leaves my place of business.
They plan their route based on the most efficient way to deliver all their packages. They try to map it out making as many right turns as possible but they won’t make three right turns to avoid turning left. The no-left-turn crap enters in only when it is faster to deliver that way. They don’t make three right turns to avoid a left turn. It’s stupid.
If you are following a truck in the left lane, signal, merge right, and get on with your life.
Hank
PS For you linkaholics:
http://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/advisor/fuel_conserve/
Hey raptor look at that.
You were whining that I bust your chops all the time. But it aint me jumped down your throat here!
Re: http://fairtrialsinamerica.org/
This “Bumble bee” guy was making “push poll” calls over a year ago attacking Paul Morrison. I first heard about these phone calls in Nov 2005.
At that time I researched the matter and found no credible evidence for his attacks on Paul Morrison. At least the “Bumble Bee” didn’t become an issue in the AG race.
At that time, a KC Star article gave some insight about the “Bumble Bee”:
Judge sentences California man to 60 days in jail for blackmail
Kansas City StarNovember 2, 2005Author: DIANE CARROLL
Last year, Conrad J. Braun wore a bumblebee costume to court to demonstrate what he said was a sting operation against him by prosecutors.
On Monday, Braun, 56, appeared in Johnson County District Court wearing a yellow and black striped tie. But the campaign had little effect on Judge Steve Tatum, who sentenced Braun to 60 days in jail and two years of probation for blackmail.
The charge stemmed from a 2003 letter Braun sent to the husband of his former wife, threatening to expose the husband as a “child abuser” unless he agreed to stay away from members of the Braun family. Tatum said the child-abuse accusation had no merit.
Sara Welch, assistant district attorney, asked for 29 months in prison. Braun has been harassing his former wife since they split 15 years ago, she said, and has been convicted on at least four charges because of it. She said he had violated every previous probation.
Defense attorney Bob Thomas said Braun had refrained from contacting his former wife or her husband in recent months, as Tatum directed. Tatum said Braun’s willingness to avoid that contact helped persuade him to offer probation.
Braun, who lives in San Diego, said his main motive has always been to maintain contact with his children, who are now grown.
Welch said that Braun continued his bumblebee campaign last week by leaving automated voice messages on some Johnson County telephones. Some residents complained, she said.
Braun said he did not mean to offend anyone. He said he came up with the bumblebee idea to interject some humor into what was a very difficult situation for him.
Thank you, Meadowlark for the research. I regret that people here are so disrespectful. I have come to appreciate your thorough research. Please keep up the good, no – exemplary, research. If you could just help outlander in his search, I would be very grateful.
Merry Christmas!
p.s. Meadowlark, today in the mail, I received a holiday card from Paul Morrison – which pictued his wife and kids on Nov. 7th. It was a great card, I hope you got one…
“pictued” = pictured – hate it when I do that..
If Bumble Bee’s children are now grown, he has no business harrassing his former wife and her husband about it. Unless they prefer he not contact them, his children, as adults, make the decision.
Sounds like a crackpot.
Ian,”"I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it.”–Friedrich Nietzsche”
Interesting quote from a man who died of syphilis that he presumably caught from his sister!
Bethlehem now place of death, says patriarch, calling for occupation end12/20/2006Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
JERUSALEM (Catholic Online) – Meant to be a city of peace, Bethlehem is now a place of conflict, frustration and death, said Jerusalem’s Catholic Latin-rite patriarch, pointing to the Israeli occupation, deprivation of freedom for Palestinians, fear and insecurity gripping dominating discussions of hope in the future.
AdvertisementIn a Christmas message released Dec. 20 to the faithful of Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus, Patriarch Michel Sabbah said that, while the international community seems to be powerless to “find the right road for peace and justice” for both Palestinians and Israelis, the promise of bringing both peoples together requires only the sincere determination of leaders on each side to pursue it.
“This year again, Christmas is coming to Bethlehem amid the same circumstances of death and frustration, with the Wall and the checkpoints on the ground and in the hearts,” the archbishop of Jerusalem said. “The occupation and deprivation of freedom on one side, and fear and insecurity on the other, continue as before.”
“Bethlehem is meant to be the city of peace,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is now just the contrary, a city of conflict and death.”
Bethlehem, a West Bank city about six miles (10 kilometers) south of Jerusalem, is the birthplace of Jesus and home of one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities in the Middle East.
He noted that the West Bank is not the only place of suffering for the Palestinians, calling the Gaza Strip “a big prison, a place of death and of internal Palestinian dissension” where “even children have been killed.”
“Everyone, including the international community, remains powerless to find the right road to peace and justice,” the patriarch said, noting that beyond Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories “fear of the future has engulfed the entire region: Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.”
“The future is at stake,” he stressed, noting that terrorism throughout the world “is feeding on all of the open wounds.”
Into this situation, the message of Christmas provides a prospective of “life, peace and justice,” Patriarch Sabbah said.
Acknowledging with gratitude the support seen in “numerous initiatives of solidarity” and “messages of brotherhood” received, the patriarch said that life in and around the city of Christ’s birth “has become very difficult to endure.”
“Our fundamental need is for peace, justice, freedom and an end to the occupation,” he said, adding that this is something “the world seems powerless” to deliver.
Quoting the Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, St. Paul and St. Luke’s gospel account of John the Baptist, the patriarch called on political leaders to take account of the result of oppression of Palestinians.
“They must listen to the voice of the oppressed in this Holy Land, to the voice of those who have died, of those who are still threatened by death and humiliation, those on whom they think they can impose death or humiliation in order to assure the security of the other party,” Patriarch Sabbah said.
Yet, he noted, conversion must take place before political change can follow, “a conversion from death to life, from viewing the other as an enemy and a murderer to viewing him as a brother and a giver of life.”
He said that the fruits of such a conversion would be “life and peace” based upon “bringing the two peoples together, not separating them,” an allusion to the Israeli building of the Security Wall in the West Bank.
“The two peoples are capable of living together in peace and tranquility,” the patriarch said, noting that murder, vengeance and extremism will “disappear little by little, as they progressively cease to feed on oppression, occupation, poverty and humiliation.”
Patriarch Sabbah drew the distinction between the messages that the wall sends and the inhabitants of Bethlehem would deliver about their situation and the Christmas promise to bringing joy to humanity.
“It announces salvation to everyone, especially to those who live in Bethlehem and its surrounding area, Palestinians and Israelis alike,” he said. “Let us go to Bethlehem,” he said, quoting the Gospel of Luke, “so that we too can hear the angels announce peace on earth, peace to all people of good will, peace to all who long for a sincere brotherhood that rejects all hatred and hostility, and find, in the coming together of the two peoples, both security and an end to the occupation which will bring freedom.”
Last month, Patriarch Sabbah called for the end to the Israeli-imposed occupation of Palestinians, noting that the continuation of the conflict endangers the “present and future of Christians” in the Holy Land.
In a Nov. 3 address, “Palestinian Christianity: The Challenges and the Vision for the Future,” before the Sabeel ecumenical sixth international conference at the Notre Dame Conference Center here, the patriarch said that as Palestinians and Christians “resistance to occupation is a duty and a right,” calling for non-violent resistance leading to full human rights and the right to self-determination.
“As Christians in the Holy Land, we live in a situation of conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a military occupation imposed by the Israelis on the Palestinians, and a Palestinian resistance to this occupation in various ways, violent and non-violent,” the archbishop of Jerusalem said.
“Within this conflict, we Christians are at the same time Palestinians and Christians,” he said, noting that “all human being are equal in dignity before God.”
“No one, for religious or political reasons, should be subjugated by the other,” Patriarch Sabbah said. “Everyone has the right to live in security and to choose their own type of independent government, Israelis and Palestinians alike.