Reuters- Top News CBS NEWS ESPN NEWS FOX NEWS WORD OF THE DAY FOX SPORTS NYSE
The judge gave no explanation
for his ruling. But his comments showed he was affronted by county
Sheriff Lee Baca’s decision to set aside his instructions and release
Hilton after three days in jail to finish her time in the luxury of her
Hollywood Hills home.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Our first regularly scheduled broadcast on Blog Talk Radio will be tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM- EST.
We plan on being with you every morning at that time… Unless the alarm doesn’t go off or the dogs are being particularly pesky. We’ll also do shows on Thursday evenings at 10:00 PM and Sunday mornings at 11:00 AM.
See you there!!
I found this while surfing. I’d comment, but the OP says it all in 3 words. Nice blog, cute and funny!
Wendy Wayrad: Quotable Quotes (Dissing My Dream Profession Now, Are We?)
“You find out that everybody who works in tabloid media are people who are filled with self-hatred and shame and the way that they manage those feelings is they destroy the lives of other people and reveal your secrets.”- Alec Baldwin, on calling his 11 year old a “rude thoughtless pig”
*self-loathing snicker*
An interesting piece about America’s ‘decent into fascism’. Of course, the author takes huge leaps and places incredible weight on a litany of unrelated events. However, Democracy in America is the delicate balance between fascism and communism. Examinations into the perils of each are worth noting, no matter how fantastic.
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.
They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.
Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.
It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.
Ted Nugent was on Glenn Beck last week in a great interview. Here, he has written as a quest for CNN on the subject of gun control.
Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster – CNN.com
By Ted Nugent
Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Rock guitarist Ted Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums. He’s also a gun rights activist and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. His program, “Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild,” can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.
Read an opposing take on gun control from journalist Tom Plate: Let’s lay down our right to bear arms
WACO, Texas (CNN) — Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby’s Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.
Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I’ve about had enough of it.
Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.
A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.
At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.
More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.
My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby’s Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden “feel good” politics.
She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.
No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a “cult of agriculture fertilizer” following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh’s heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted “steak knife control” as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.
Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.
Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.
Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun ban. Feel better yet? Didn’t think so.
Who doesn’t get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?
I’ll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that’s who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to “feel good” is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.
Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children’s school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.
In a related story, World Net Daily offers this insight…
As the nation debates whether more guns or fewer can prevent tragedies like the Virginia Tech Massacre, a notable anniversary passed last month in a Georgia town that witnessed a dramatic plunge in crime and violence after mandating residents to own firearms.
In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of “Wild West” showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender.
The crime rate initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law.
Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.
(Story continues below)
To learn more about gun bans and their relation to violent crime rates, check out these links…
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/guncontrol_20010302.html
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15304
All I can say is this is finally over!! Read it and get on with life.
You-know-who finally gets boot on ‘Idol’ – CNN.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Sanjaya Malakar, the under-talented but unflappable singer who horrified and captivated millions in his improbable “American Idol” run, was finally voted off the show Wednesday night.
When the result was announced, Malakar wiped away tears and got a big hug from LaKisha Jones, the next lowest vote-getter.
“I’m fine,” he told Ryan Seacrest. “It was an amazing experience.” (Watch Sanjaya get the boot 
)
“I can promise you: We won’t soon forget you,” Seacrest replied. Malakar then performed one last song, “Something To Talk About.” Putting his own twist on the song, the 17-year-old known for his pretty looks and ever-changing hairstyles ad-libbed: “Let’s give them something to talk about … other than hair.”
On Tuesday night’s show, Simon Cowell had slammed his performance as “utterly horrendous.” And for once, the notoriously mean judge was vindicated.
“I’m beginning to sense something here,” a grinning Cowell said when Malakar wound up in the bottom three. (Watch Cowell extract himself from hot water over an eye-rolling reaction )
Ex-classmates say gunman was bullied – Massacre at Virginia Tech – MSNBC.com
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Long before he killed 32 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Cho Seung-Hui was bullied by fellow high school students who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said.
Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life Monday. He sent a large multi-media package outlining his grievances against religion and the wealthy to NBC News, but police said Thursday that the material added little to their investigation.
The text, photographs and video in the package bristle with hatred toward unspecified people whom Cho, a South Korean immigrant, accused of having wronged him, adding to a portrait of a solitary man who rarely, if ever, managed normal social interactions.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who graduated with Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003, recalled that Cho almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in an English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho’s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. Finally, after the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded “like he had something in his mouth,” Davids said.
“As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China,’” Davids said.
It looks like the Duke boys are looking to cash in. In a world of frivolous lawsuits, I can’t blame them. Hell, everybody else cashed in, from Networks to race hustlers. Why shouldn’t the actual victims get paid?
(CBS/AP) Despite an apology from the prosecutor who pursued rape charges against their clients, the lawyers for three exonerated former Duke lacrosse players were weighing a lawsuit against him, and legal experts said their case could have merit.
Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong’s issued a carefully worded apology to the players on Thursday, but it may not have been enough to prevent the former players from suing him.
So far, attorneys for David Evans, Reade Seligmann, and Collin Finnerty have not said whether they plan a civil action against Nifong. But they have not ruled it out.
Prosecutors generally have immunity for what they do inside the courtroom, but experts said that protection probably doesn’t cover some of Nifong’s more questionable actions in his handling of the case — such as calling the lacrosse players “a bunch of hooligans” in one of several interviews deemed unethical by the state bar.
“I think their chances of success suing Mr. Nifong are reasonably good, despite what we call prosecutorial immunity,” said John Banzhaf, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.
On Wednesday, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper threw out the case against the three young men, pronounced them innocent and delivered a withering attack on Nifong, portraying him as a “rogue” prosecutor guilty of “overreaching.” Cooper said Nifong rushed the case, failed to verify the accuser’s allegations and pressed on despite the warning signs.
Chief: At least 20 dead in campus shootings – CNN.com
(CNN) — The Virginia Tech police chief said at least 20 people were killed in twin shootings on the Blacksburg campus Monday morning.
“Some victims were shot in a classroom,” Chief Wendell Flinchum said, adding that the gunman was dead.
“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said university President Charles Steger. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.” (Map of Blacksburg)
The attacks mark the worst school shooting incident since 1999 when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
A hospital spokeswoman told The Associated Press that 17 Virginia Tech students were being treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries.
Sharon Honaker at the Carilion New River Valley Medical Center told CNN that four patients had been transported there, one in critical condition.
One person was killed and others were wounded at multiple locations inside a dormitory about 7:15 a.m., Flinchum said. Two hours later, another shooting at Norris Hall, the engineering science and mechanics building, resulted in multiple casualties, the university reported. (Watch police, ambulances hustle to the scene )
The first reported shooting occurred at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a co-ed dormitory that houses 895 students. The dormitory, one of the largest residence halls on the 2,600-acre campus, is located near the drill field and stadium.
Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, said one of her reporters at the dormitory reported “mass chaos.”
The reporter said there were “lots of students running around, going crazy, and the police officers were trying to settle everyone down and keep everything under control,” according to Steele.
Kristyn Heiser said she was in class about 9:30 a.m. when she and her classmates saw about six gun-wielding police officers run by a window.
“We were like, ‘What’s going on?’ Because this definitely is a quaint town where stuff doesn’t really happen. It’s pretty boring here,” said Heiser during a phone interview as she sat on her classroom floor.
Student Matt Waldron said he did not hear the gunshots because he was listening to music, but he heard police sirens and saw officers hiding behind trees with their guns drawn.
“They told us to get out of there so we ran across the drill field as quick as we could,” he said.
Waldron described the scene on campus as “mayhem.”
In Memory of Don Ho. Rest in Peace Bruddha.
‘Tiny Bubbles’ singer Don Ho dies at 76 – Yahoo! News
HONOLULU – Legendary crooner
Don Ho, who entertained tourists for decades wearing raspberry-tinted sunglasses and singing the catchy signature tune
“Tiny Bubbles,” has died. He was 76.
He died Saturday morning of heart failure, publicist Donna Jung said.
Ho had suffered with heart problems for the past several years, and had a pacemaker installed last fall. In 2005, he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand.
Promoter Tom Moffatt said he attended Ho’s final show Thursday and Ho received a standing ovation. Afterward, Ho reminisced about his many years in Waikiki and talked about how Judy Garland sang with him one night.
“Don was in great spirits,” he said. “He was fine.”
Ho entertained Hollywood’s biggest stars and thousands of tourists for four decades. For many, no trip to Hawaii was complete without seeing his Waikiki show — a mix of songs, jokes, double entendres, Hawaii history and audience participation.
Shows usually started and ended with the same song, “Tiny Bubbles.” Ho mostly hummed the song’s swaying melody as the audience enthusiastically took over the familiar lyrics: “Tiny bubbles/in the wine/make me happy/make me feel fine.”
“I hate that song,” he often joked to the crowd. He said he performed it twice because “people my age can’t remember if we did it or not.”
BBC WORLD MEN’S HEALTH
House of Chin 