Lunatic David Thompson complains to Charlotte, NC city council during a community access forum, which is conveniently captured on tape and broadcast live on the local community access channel. Enjoy his rant against ice in the arena, rogue helicopter pilots, and "terrorist pussies".
Much ink has been spilled about MySpace, and how it is replete with sexual predators. While that is a problem, the oft-cited statistic that one-in-five teens are subjected to "sexual solicitation" on MySpace is a lot of hype.
On the other hand, this is pretty weird:
A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. She was on her way home Friday.
Katherine R. Lester is a straight-A student and student council member, her father said. "She’s a good girl. Never had a problem with her," Terry Lester said.
MySpace.com is a social networking Web site with more 72 million members that lets users post photos, blogs and journals. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.
Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff’s officials said. She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.
That’s pretty ookey.
And she insists that it’s love.
"I’m definitely going to marry him," the Gilford teen told Good Morning America co-anchor Kate Snow, adding: "I don’t plan on going over there. I plan on him coming here."
The 25 year old man insists it’s love, too:
"When I realized she wasn’t coming, I felt my whole world collapse," he said. "My tears didn’t stop and I couldn’t sleep for three days."
Boo-hoo.
Now comes the freaky part:
Like the rest of the world, Lester’s father assumed she had been duped by some sex-starved freak. He was ready to lock her in the basement for a few years. Now he can see it’s the real thing.
The real thing???? She’s sixteen, you moron!!
Blame MySpace? No way. Blame bad parenting.
From feministing.com:
This is seriously from an email I received:
Why do you have to be for abortion to be fore [sic] womens’ rights? How can it be a part of your body if it is a male?
Hear that gals? If you’re pregnant with a boy, it’s not really yours. Or something.
Of the seven al Qaeda terrorists arrested in an alleged plot against the Sears Tower, five were U.S. citizens. While they are purportedly Muslim (except for the one Roman Catholic), it appears that none of them were of Arabic descent.
Quick, let’s invade America!
RELATED: Larry Johnson reminds us that the government has claimed to capture domestic Al Qaeda members, only to have it revealed (months later, in the back pages of the newspapers) that they were entirely innocent. Others say not to believe the hype.
UPDATE: Steve Soto:
I’m sorry, but while Alberto tells us how important it is for the FBI to have broken up a ring of “homegrown terrorists” this morning, why do I have the impression that what the Bureau did was bag a bunch of stupid gang-bangers, meth-runners, and Bin Laden wannabes rather than stumble upon a domestic Al Qaeda cell? If this really was Al Qaeda, does the alleged ringleader ask someone he barely knows for money to go buy “boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, and vehicles,” as well as $50,000 in cash, to help him build an “Islamic Army to wage jihad?” Yeah, in Hollywood and in the rightwing blogosphere perhaps.
It’s stories like this that make me wonder what this country was coming to.
Lydia Smith, age 10, was spending a summer day shopping with her mother at Battlefield Mall in Springfield, Missouri. They were enjoying lunch in the food court when Lydia was approached by a mall security officer, who told her that she needed to remove her bandanna.
Why? Because Lydia’s bandanna violated the mall’s code of conduct:
Lydia had violated No. 10 on the list of 17 offenses: "failing to be fully clothed or wearing apparel which is likely to provide a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict."
What was on Lydia’s bandanna that was likely to enrage other mall-goers into a frenzy of conflict?
Peace signs, smiley faces and flowers…
[Insert sound of my jaw hitting the floor]
"The bottom line is we want to have an environment (conducive) to shopping. Offensive apparel does not fit in with that environment," [a mall spokewoman] said…
The article, in full here, notes that the spokeswoman couldn’t explain what was "offensive" about peace signs, smiley faces, and flowers….
This photo may not be suitable for people under the age of 21.
This is very simple. Try to wrap your pea-brains around it.
When a school prevents a student from talking about God, that is a violation of the student’s First Amendment rights. However, when the school provides the microphone for the student to speak about God, that too is a violation of the First Amendment.
In other words, public schools cannot silence nor promote the expression of religion.
Got it?
Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says:
The Number of People Who Say They Have No One to Confide In Has Risen
Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.
A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.
The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties — once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits — are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone.
"That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car," said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants."
If close social relationships support people in the same way that beams hold up buildings, more and more Americans appear to be dependent on a single beam.
Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.
"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times," she said. "We’re not saying people are completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com [a popular networking Web site] and e-mail 25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important."
The new research is based on a high-quality random survey of nearly 1,500 Americans. Telephone surveys miss people who are not home, but the General Social Survey, funded by the National Science Foundation, has a high response rate and conducts detailed face-to-face interviews, in which respondents are pressed to confirm they mean what they say.
Whereas nearly three-quarters of people in 1985 reported they had a friend in whom they could confide, only half in 2004 said they could count on such support. The number of people who said they counted a neighbor as a confidant dropped by more than half, from about 19 percent to about 8 percent.
The results, being published today in the American Sociological Review, took researchers by surprise because they had not expected to see such a steep decline in close social ties.
I’m not surprised by these results, although it is troubling to see the "steep decline".
Let’s see — what’s up with the usual gaggle of wingnuts today? Nathan Tabor is writing non-sensical (and therefore mock-proof) columns, apparently giving the old college try at this thing called "humor".
Since we want no part of that, we turn our attention to Marie Jon Apostrophe, since she’s undoubtedly going to send her latest column to me by email anyway.
Marie’s target is — hold on to your hats — Democrats, in a piece entitled "Democrats are ‘speaking babel about Iraq’". You see, she’s making a biblical reference.
Genesis 11:1: "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech." Yes, God created people who spoke one language.
Damn stright. And that language, Marie will tell you, was English.
However, it was because of their disobedience that God confounded a people’s speech. [citation omitted].
The disobedient people wanted to communicate their thoughts to others and have them think as they did. God, in His wisdom, in order to hinder the spread of evil, confused them with different languages. There lie the geneses of the Babel.
"Genesis"? "Genius"? Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently, God confounded Marie Jon with a unique language all of her own.
This week the Democrats are debating in Congress plans to pull out of a fledgling country that still needs our armed forcers to protect them.
A "fledging country" that is, literally, the cradle of civilization.
If Iraq is not protected, innocent people will be murdered by the hand of wicked terrorists.
This, of course, is the natural response to 9/11 — protect people in a faraway country from the terrorists’ "hand" — terrorists that didn’t exist there before we invaded that country.
The Iraqi people continue to bulk up their own armed forces. The people and their newly formed government are taking on the responsibilities for their own country. To date, Iraq has more than 50,000 Interior Ministry forces.
And since the Iraqi people are doing so well taking on their own responsibilities, then the talk of U.S. withdrawel from Iraq is stupid. Um. Or something.
With all said and done, have you ever wondered what Democrats are truly saying concerning Iraq? How do they reach these bad conclusions? Their plans do not take in mind the safety of the vulnerable people who live in Iraq.
Or maybe Democrats take in mind that our presence there only makes the problem worse.
In some respects, it is unfortunate that we allow people to vote in this country who have discombobulated thought patterns.
Yeah. Democracy sucks.
Why does Marie Jon Apostrophe hate America?
It is really frightening when they are members of our legislature. Are you not amazed at their unwillingness to embrace the facts and statistics that are afforded them by the president? [Bush citation omitted]
Right on, Marie. Why can’t people just accept everything Bush says at face value? What’s wrong with them?
The Iraqi government has made it very clear that they do not want to be left alone until they are able to protect themselves from the outside insurgents who have been attacking them since the fall of the dictator Saddam Hussein.
From a 2004 poll: "But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as ‘liberators’ or ‘occupiers,’ 71% of all respondents say ‘occupiers.’"
It is unfortunate that we allow people to write nationally-syndicated columns in this country who have discombobulated thought patterns.
The al-Qaeda wants desperately to squelch the freedoms that Iraqis possess.
The freedom to go from place to place dodging car bombs, the freedom to have little electricity and water of questionable cleanliness….
The terrorists want Iraq to fail and come under the sway of radical extremism.
A radical extremism that didn’t exist before we went in there — you keep forgetting that, Marie.
President Bush communicates clearly with the opposition party…
Ah, Bush. The great communicator.
…yet they willfully twist and turn every which way, so that facts and truth appear to elude them. How can one seriously have a meaningful debate with double minded Democrats?
Marie, if it’s a debate you want, then say so. But you want is for Democrats to "embrace the facts and statistics that are afforded them by the president", which is not — by any stretch — a "debate".
Americans are beginning to understand the truth about the left.
Which is why almost 70% of them agree with "the left" about the folly of the Iraq War.
The Democrats simply are disingenuous about the Iraqi people. The left have learned the ways of Babel, and they know how to speak it.
Yeah, but apparently our "Babel" has noun-verb agreement.
Their worldly followers (constituents) wanders after them only because "they wish to be deceived."
Yup. At least we got that noun-verb thing going for us.
No wonder columnist, author and speaker Ann Coulter calls liberals Godless and treasonous in her books. Politics are their religion, and they generally speak Babel.
We bought a tape from Berlitz.
A cut and run out of Iraq policy is what the Democrats offer as their answer to a very complicated and serious task that still lies ahead concerning the war on terror.
How often must a Republican president explain to the Democrats that we have to complete the job? Our exit strategy is when the mission is completed. The job is completed when Iraq is able to stand on her own two feet and protect herself. That day is coming.
Baby doll, that’s not a strategy. That’s a goal. A "strategy" entails how to reach that goal.
That’s like saying "My strategy to end world hunger is to make sure everyone has enough food to eat." Okay, fine. But HOW do you actually acheive that? THAT’S a stategy, Marie.
There’s no plan to win this "war". The only "plan" is simply trusting the very same administration that ran blindly into Iraq in the first place, not even thinking about the sectarian violence. Meanwhile, al Qaeda cells (if one is to believe today’s news) are springing up here . . . in Miami.
Staying in Iraq only demonstrates a support for the goal of a peaceful Iraq (a goal on which everybody can agree), but staying in Iraq doesn’t move the ball toward that actual goal. It’s one thing to ask U.S. men and women to risk their lives for some achievable ideal; it’s another to continue to ask them to do it for an admirable principle.
The president of these United States has put forth our policies cornering Iraq.
Cornering?
This continual needless debate undermines our troops fighting in Iraq.
So, now you don’t want a debate? Make up your mind.
It also emboldens the terrorist listening to an ornery party within this country, meddling were they have no business doing so.
We have h’s in our language of Babel.
That said, I’m not sure what Marie is suggesting. Are the terrorists "meddling were [sic] they have no business doing so"? Or is the Democratic ("ornery") party meddling where it has no business doing so? If it’s the latter, I have a news flash for Marie — Congress regulates the armed forces (it’s in the Constitution), and Democrats make up some of Congress.
Many American citizens will place the recent murders of the two U. S. Marines that took place in Iraq at the feet of those who are politicizing the war. [citation, which doesn’t support Marie’s statement, omitted]
Marie, you don’t look blonde, so don’t act that way. Name one war in the entire history of mankind, that didn’t have "politics" associated with it.
Mario Vasquez, was upset that the family had to learn so many gruesome details of his nephew’s death through the media." The media jumped ahead and did not allow the family the dignity of being told through proper military channels.
Except that Vasquez was (rightfully) angry at the military for being slow to inform them, not the media.
Two of America’s finest men serving in Iraq were unmercifully butchered to death by al-Qaeda, as an uncalled for and unwanted debate was underway.
And as everyone knows, if the Democrats would just support Bush and the Iraq War, those two men wouldn’t have been butchered to death at all. Is that what you’re saying?
It is time that Rep. John Murtha and Senators John Kerry and Russ Feingold silence their egregious mouths of Babel. They are doing this country and our troops a great disservice.
But according to you, the "mouths of Babel" is what God ordained. Are you suggesting they defy God?
There is no debate about Iraq in the halls of Baghdad.
Of course not. The elected representatives are afraid to get into their cars in order to meet within the halls.
They have their freedom and they have the will to keep it.
Which is why we have to disrepect Iraq as a sovereign nation. Or something.
UPDATE: Republican Donald Trump has apparently learned to speak the Babel of the Democrats:
“I think the war was a mistake,” said the star of NBC’s The Apprentice. “I would get out of Iraq as soon as possible consistent with the practicalities of a bad situation. … It’s being held together by sugar candy. No matter what happens, I believe Iraq will fall again.”
Sen. Rick Santorum says we found them.
The Department of Defense responds to Santorum’s evidence: "You’re wrong, Rick, and everybody who has looked at your ‘evidence’ in the past thinks it’s horseshit." (rough paraphrase)
Actually, it appears that the "found" WMD was 500 shells of degraded mustard or sarin nerve agents. That’s right: they were degraded and ineffective. Had they been deployed by Saddam, they wouldn’t have worked.
Furthermore, it looks like the shells were not even manufactured by Saddam post-Gulf War, but were merely left over from sometime in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. As such, they hardly provide support for the war rationalization that Saddam was continuing a program of manufacturing WMD.
Tbogg snarks:
It’s official: Rick Santorum is in his last throes…
From The Corner:
[T]he Big Three networks just aired three and a half hours of morning and evening news coverage in just three weeks of the Haditha “Marine massacre” allegations. But they have next to no interest in digging through the Saddam archives, just as they had next to no interest in digging through Soviet archives or East German archives. Everyone should realize that the major media has a bad case of partisan tunnel vision, and not be intimidated out of building a historical record for future generations to understand.
Wait a second. Even the Bush Administration now concedes there were no WMD. Why should the media be digging through the Saddam archives to find evidence of a position held by virtually nobody in the military and intelligence community (who already looked through this stuff)? And why is it "partisan" for the media to devote its attention to, you know, current events?
You need to read this story to believe it.
Although, nobody’s sure what to believe.
It involves NH congressional candidate Gary Dodds, a Democrat, who disappeared for 27 hours in April. His car was found in a crash with a guardrail, and Dodds himself was found a mile away a day later. His "story" of what happened, where he was going, etc. doesn’t hold together, and the police are openly suspicious.
Here’s what the US Code says:
TITLE 4 > CHAPTER 1 > § 8
§ 8. Respect for flag
(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.
Here’s a picture of Bush today, in Vienna Austria Livonia, Michigan:
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, speculating on why the Iraq War is so unpopular:
The president understands people’s impatience — not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?
Sadly, Tony, FDR had polls taken during the course of WWII, and you would be totally wrong. At the time of the Battle of the Bulge, Americans clearly understood what the war was about, and early supported it — it remained in the 70% range through out the entire war, trending upward during the Battle of the Bulge.
The chart shows that American people will stick through a lot of adversity if they think the war being fought matters. The reason the Iraq War is unpopular is precisely because few grasp what its purpose is, and most object to the haphazard way in which it is being waged. Tony — stop blaming the American people for their impatience and start blaming your President for his incompetence.
