blah blah.

Those guys, in the 7th sounded ok.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 07:12 PM | Comments (21)
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Let's just pretend I wrote the usual lines about hypocrisy and broken promises when it comes to Congressional Democrats' new plan to take Fridays off. (Lord knows, everyone else did.)

I'm more interested in this take on it:

The Democrats, by contrast, say that after 10 months of putting in longer days and weeks, they have made significant gains. They cited legislation, including an increase in the minimum wage and new ethics and lobbying rules, as well as in the nitty-gritty work of House committees, which they say has provided much-needed oversight of the Bush administration and will also set the stage for an ambitious agenda next year.

And they blame Mr. Bush and Republicans for CongressÂ’s low approval ratings, which they say will only help the Democrats expand their majority in 2008.

Would those "significant gains" include the smoldering remains of the widely-backed-on-the-Left Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act? And would those be the loophole-ridden "new ethics and lobbying rules" which have led to more lobbyist-paid travel?

Does that "nitty-gritty" work in committee include the farce of a hearing on the Jena Six? Or perhaps the hearing in which rappers cussed about Congressional plans for mandatory labeling of offensive music?

Other failed promises (not that I'm complaining that they failed, I just like to rub it in) include "restoring" habeas corpus for combatant-detainees and the mother of all Democratic issues: ending the Iraq War.

On the issue of approval ratings, Democrats are forgetting such notably popular proposals as David Obey's War Tax and the recent antics of Pete Stark.

I must admit, I was upset when the Democrats took Congress. I haven't minded a bit that they've been an embarrassment from the very beginning. I guess they're right; they've earned a break.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:19 PM | Comments (52)
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Anthony Anderson, the guy who yelled "this is YouTube material" as he urinated on a woman dying in the street, has been sentenced to three years imprisonment. The charge was "outraging public decency." (British criminal charges always sound Orwellian to me, although this is slightly better than a "section five racial public order offence.")

It's been a busy week, so I only glanced at the headline when it was mentioned a few days ago. I hadn't realized that he also dumped water on her, went to his home to retrieve shaving cream and then put that on her too.

The victim's family took the opportunity to condemn the bystanders:

hose who stood by and did nothing to stop Anderson are also guilty in our eyes. It beggars belief that these people chose not only to condone his cruelty, but also to walk away from a neighbour who was clearly in distress and needed help.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:31 PM | Comments (21)
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The truth is out there.

UPDATE: This is what baseballs did at Coors Field before the HUMIDOR!

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 12:07 PM | Comments (19)
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My stars.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (38)
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I couldn't even count the number of laterals in this last-second play by the trailing Trinity Tigers against the Millsap Majors.

Not exactly big-school franchises, but wow, what a play.

A Defensive Gem: Record-setting 73-68 (non-overtime) win for Weber State over Portland.

The teams combined for nearly 1200 yards of total yardage.

Posted by: Ace at 10:24 AM | Comments (18)
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Wonderful. But why are they announcing it to the world?

Scotland on Sunday can also reveal that concern at the terror threat is now so great that up to 1,000 Scottish Asians will be placed under surveillance in coming months because they associate with known radicals.

-------------------------------------------------

A senior source told Scotland on Sunday their investigation had uncovered around 200 "hardcore" individuals in Scotland. Of these, some 20 are of "significant interest", meaning they have been in contact - either through websites or face-to-face meetings - with known radicals abroad.

The 20 are under round-the-clock surveillance and their e-mails and mobile and landline calls are being monitored by GCHQ. Provided they do not pose an immediate risk, security officers are unlikely to make arrests until more evidence is gathered and associations with others are fully examined.

These kinds of articles are good drinking games. Everytime you see the words 'human rights,' 'racial profiling,' and 'backlash,' do a shot.

Security sources deny targeting the Asian community and say the move is essential to prevent terrorist outrages and curb the growth of extremism. But community leaders and civil rights experts last night warned it could cause a backlash and reduce cooperation.

Meh. We've heard this threat for several years and it has lost its punch. Workaday Muslim moderates seem to vastly prefer ratting out the jihadists to becoming jihadists themselves. That's the kind of backlash we like.

Of course the British security forces are brilliant and have their own reasons for announcing how they're expanding their focus. Betcha that among the marginal characters who support the hardliners there must be a lot of fretting and sweating going on right about now.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:15 AM | Comments (28)
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12:55 PM Eastern deadline to get your picks in. For those of us sucking sewer water, it's the last chance to pick up the pace before Dave in Texas (a known Dallas Cowboy fan, not that there's anything wrong with that) posts the bottom feeder standings.

Posted by: DrewM. at 07:46 AM | Comments (56)
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...that was claimed to turn rocks into diesel fuel.

When Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, claimed that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff, ministers in Robert MugabeÂ’s Government believed that they might have found the solution to ZimbabweÂ’s perennial fuel shortage.

After witnessing her apparently miraculous gift they gave her five billion Zimbabwean dollars in cash (worth £1.7 million at the start of the year but now worth one seven-hundredth of that) in return for the fuel. Ms Tagarira was also given a farm, said to have been seized from its white owner during Mr Mugabe’s lawless land grab, as well as food and services that included a round-the-clock armed guard on the rock in the district of Chinhoyi 60 miles (100km) from Harare, the capital.

More than a year later officials realized they had been duped...

Turn cow shit into gold? Yep, I can do that.
Turn malarial swamps into golden fields of wheat? Gotcha covered dude!

H/T Duane

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:02 PM | Comments (47)
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Tom Lantos (D-CA) is no supporter of Gitmo or right winger by any means, but he's a holocaust survivor who laid a big smackdown on some Dutch moonbats who wanted to bitch about Gitmo.

...The Dutch sent these politicians here to bitch about Gitmo. No reporter attended a meeting between the Dutch and the congressman, but AP wrote a story based on Green Party legislator Mariko Peters.

The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a LÂ’Intifada like France suffered in 2005.

Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”

To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”

He also said: “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.”...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:47 PM | Comments (22)
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