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Congratulations, Eric and Susanne!!!!
By Madre (July 20, 2008)
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Tomorrow our beloved Weasel and Hamana are getting married. In 20 hours, they will be saying their vows to each other.
I wanted to be the first to offer my congratulations and best wishes! May your love endure beyond the last sunset.
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29 Comments Last:
Last comment was by Bubble Girl
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Sex abuser jailed by Texas judge for 4,060 years
By Clamps (July 3, 2008)
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Found this interesting story and it amuses me greatly!
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WEATHERFORD, Texas - A man was sentenced to more than 4,000 years in prison Wednesday for sexually assaulting three teenage girls.
A day after finding James Kevin Pope guilty, jurors sentenced him to 40 life prison terms — one for each sex assault conviction — and 20 years for each of the three sexual performance of a child convictions.
At the request of prosecutors, state District Judge Graham Quisenberry ordered Pope to serve the sentences consecutively, adding up to 4,060 years. He will be eligible for parole in the year 3209, according to the Parker County District Attorney's Office.
"We believe it was a just result," prosecutor Robert DuBoise said, adding that he was "overwhelmed" with the judge's decision to stack the sentences.
Pope, 43, abused the girls for nearly two years. It came to authorities' attention earlier this year after Pope made several inappropriate comments to a friend, who notified Child Protective Services.
During the trial, the teens testified about the abuse, and their sexually explicit photographs were shown as evidence.
But Rick Alley, Pope's defense lawyer, told jurors in closing arguments that the victims were incapable of understanding what happened, the Weatherford Democrat reported in its Wednesday online edition.
"If it was as traumatic as they indicate, they would be able to give you (specific dates and times of the incidents). Simply because it's shocking doesn't make it true," Alley said.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, a U.S. Secret Service agent testified that while examining Pope's home computer, he found more than 200 images of child porn.
Later Wednesday, some jurors said the case was difficult because of the subject matter.
"We were careful not to make any mistakes in viewing and evaluating the evidence," said juror Dale Lewis.
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10 Comments Last:
Last comment was by scarrednstoned
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High court affirms gun rights in historic decision
By amphiskios (June 26, 2008)
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WASHINGTON - Silent on central questions of gun control for two centuries, the Supreme Court found its voice Thursday in a decision affirming the right to have guns for self-defense in the home and addressing a constitutional riddle almost as old as the republic over what it means to say the people may keep and bear arms.
The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and imperiled similar prohibitions in other cities, Chicago and San Francisco among them. Federal gun restrictions, however, were expected to remain largely intact.
The court's historic awakening on the meaning of the Second Amendment brought a curiously mixed response, muted in some unexpected places.
The reaction broke less along party lines than along the divide between cities wracked with gun violence and rural areas where gun ownership is embedded in daily life. Democrats have all but abandoned their long push for stricter gun laws at the national level after deciding it's a losing issue for them. Republicans welcomed what they called a powerful precedent.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, straddling both sides of the issue, said merely that the court did not find an unfettered right to bear arms and that the ruling "will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country." But another Chicagoan, Democratic Mayor Richard Daley, called the ruling "very frightening" and predicted more violence and higher taxes to pay for extra police if his city's gun restrictions are lost.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain welcomed the ruling as "a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom."
The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia, a once-vital, now-archaic grouping of citizens. That's been the heart of the gun control debate for decades.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said an individual right to bear arms exists and is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.
President Bush said: "I applaud the Supreme Court's historic decision today confirming what has always been clear in the Constitution: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms."
The full implications of the decision, however, are not sorted out. Still to be seen, for example, is the extent to which the right to have a gun for protection in the home may extend outside the home.
Scalia said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." The court also struck down D.C. requirements that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns. The district allows shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.
Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."
But he said nothing in the ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."
In a concluding paragraph to the 64-page opinion, Scalia said the justices in the majority "are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and believe the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns."
D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty responded with a plan to require residents to register their handguns. "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," Fenty said.
In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."
Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.
Gun rights advocates praised the decision. "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.
The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome.
Some Democrats also welcomed the ruling.
"This opinion should usher in a new era in which the constitutionality of government regulations of firearms are reviewed against the backdrop of this important right," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.
Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the district after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his Capitol Hill home a short distance from the Supreme Court.
"I'm thrilled I am now able to defend myself and my household in my home," Heller said shortly after the opinion was announced.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down the district's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.
The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.
The last Supreme Court ruling on the matter came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.
The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.
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Brings back an interesting point I once heard made. Why do some people defend one of the first two amendments while opposing the other?
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24 Comments Last:
Last comment was by BrockSamson
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George Carlin, irreverent comedian, dies at 71
By stonic (June 23, 2008)
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LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) — George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.
When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"
"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...9kl0gD91FKC5O0
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10 Comments Last:
Last comment was by David-
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Honda's new ZERO emission car
By Clamps (June 16, 2008)
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TAKANEZAWA, Japan - Honda's new zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell car rolled off a Japanese production line Monday and is headed to Southern California, where Hollywood is already abuzz over the latest splash in green motoring.
The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.
Japan's third biggest automaker expects to lease out a "few dozen" units this year and about 200 units within three years. In California, a three-year lease will run $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage.
Among the first customers are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon.
"It's so smooth," said Harris, who played villainness Marie Warner on the hit TV show "24" and was flown over by Honda for the ceremony. "It's like a future machine, but it's not."
The FCX Clarity is an improvement of its previous-generation fuel cell vehicle, the FCX, introduced in 2002.
A breakthrough in the design of the fuel cell stack, which is the unit that powers the car's motor, allowed engineers to lighten the body, expand the interior and increase efficiency, Honda said.
The fuel cell draws on energy synthesized through a chemical reaction between hydrogen gas and oxygen in the air, and a lithium-ion battery pack provides supplemental power. The FCX Clarity has a range of about 270-miles per tank with hydrogen consumption equivalent to 74 miles per gallon, according to the carmaker.
The 3,600-pound vehicle can reach speeds up to 100 miles per hour.
John Mendel, executive vice president of America Honda Motor Co., said at a morning ceremony it was "an especially significant day for American Honda as we plant firm footsteps toward the mainstreaming of fuel cell cars."
The biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel cell vehicles are cost and the dearth of hydrogen fuel stations. For the Clarity's release in California, Honda said it received 50,000 applications through its website but could only consider those living near stations in Torrance, Santa Monica and Irvine.
Initially, however, the Clarity will go only to a chosen few starting July and then launch in Japan this fall.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a statewide network of hydrogen stations, but progress has been slow.
The state has also recently relaxed a mandate for the number of zero-emission cars it aims to have on roads. By 2014, automakers must now sell 7,500 electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, a reduction of 70 percent.
Spallino, who currently drives Honda's older FCX and was also flown in for the ceremony, said he will use the Clarity to drive to and from work and for destinations within the Los Angeles area.
The small number of hydrogen fuel stations is the "single limiting factor" for fuel cell vehicles, he said.
"It's more comfortable, and it handles well," said Spallino of Redondo Beach.
"It's got everything. You're not sacrificing anything except range."
The world's major automakers have been making heavy investments in fuel cells and other alternative fuel vehicles amid climbing oil prices and concerns about climate change.
Although Honda Motor Co. was the first Japanese automaker to launch a gas-electric hybrid vehicle in the U.S. in 1999, it has been outpaced by the dominance of Toyota's popular Prius.
Toyota announced in May that it has sold more than 1 million Prius hybrids, while both the Honda Insight and the hybrid Accord have been discontinued due to poor sales.
Honda also plans to launch a gas-electric hybrid-only model, as well as hybrid versions of the Civic, the sporty CR-Z and Fit subcompact.
Toyota has announced that it would launch a plug-in hybrid with next-generation lithium-ion batteries by 2010 and a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle later in Japan later this year.
U.S. carmaker General Motors Corp. plans to introduce a Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle in 2010. It also introduced a test-fleet of hydrogen fuel cell Equinox SUVs.
Honda has no plans for a plug-in electric vehicle. President Takeo Fukui said he does not believe current battery technology is good enough to develop a feasible car.
The company has not revealed how much each car costs to make, and it is unclear when, or if, the car will be available for mass-market sales. Takeo has set a target for 2018, but meeting that goal will depend on whether Honda can significantly lower development and assembly costs as well as market reaction to fuel cells.
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I want one!!!
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21 Comments Last:
Last comment was by stonic
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Oil Companies Get 'OK' to Annoy or Harm Polar Bears
By foxyphoenix (June 15, 2008)
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WASHINGTON — Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.
The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.
Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.
About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in and around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co. and five other companies for $2.6 billion. Over objections from environmentalists and members of Congress, the sale occurred before the bear was classified as threatened in May.
Polar bears are naturally curious creatures and sensitive to changes in their environment. Vibrations, noises, unusual scents and the presence of industrial equipment can disrupt their quest for prey and their efforts to raise their young in snow dens.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said oil and gas exploration will have a negligible effect on the bears' population.
"The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species," H. Dale Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, told The Associated Press on Friday. "It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else."
The agency made no secret that oil and gas operations would continue in polar bear territory when it announced May 14 that melting sea ice threatened the creature's survival. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne assured the public that the bear population would not be harmed.
"Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has more stringent protections for polar bears than the Endangered Species Act does," Kempthorne said.
Environmentalists already suing the agency over its determination that the bear's threatened status cannot be used to regulate global warming gases said Kempthorne's earlier assurances were misleading.
"Now, three weeks later, Interior issues a rule under the act that we view as a blank check to harass the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. He added that his group believes the new regulations are illegal.
Exploring in the Chukchi Sea's 29.7 million acres will require as many as five drill ships, one or two icebreakers, a barge, a tug and two helicopter flights per day, according to the government. Oil companies will also be making hundred of miles of ice roads and trails along the coastline.
"We are poorly equipped to address those risks and challenges," said Steven Amstrup, one of the foremost experts on polar bears and a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center. "To assess what the impacts are going to be, we should know more about the bears."
Last year, the Marine Mammal Oversight Commission, an independent government oversight agency, told the Fish and Wildlife Service it lacked the information to conclude that exploration will not affect the bear population.
The seven companies will be required to map out the locations of polar bear dens, train their employees about the bears' habits and take other measures to minimize clashes with them. In exchange, the companies are legally protected if their operations unintentionally harm the bears. Any bear deaths would still warrant an investigation and could result in penalty under the law.
"These rules are essentially an insurance policy," said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry group that in 2005 requested the new regulation. "They say if you conduct your operations in accordance to the requirement in this rule, you will not be held liable for the take of the bears."
Administration and industry officials said oil companies enjoyed similar status in the Chukchi Sea from 1991 to 1996 and in the Beaufort Sea since 1993 and there was no effect on polar bear populations.
There is no evidence of a polar bear being killed by oil and gas activities in Alaska since 1993, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1960, when the hunt for oil and gas began in Alaska, only two fatalities of polar bears have been linked to oil and gas activities in the state, the service said.
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35 Comments Last:
Last comment was by Emperor Chaos
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Lorenzo Odone dies at 30
By ALD girl (June 5, 2008)
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Associated Press / May 31, 2008
WASHINGTON - The man whose parents' battle to save him from a nerve disease was told in the movie "Lorenzo's Oil" died yesterday at his home in Virginia.
Lorenzo Odone, who doctors had predicted would not live past childhood, died one day after his 30th birthday, said his father, Augusto. Lorenzo Odone became
infected with aspiration pneumonia recently after getting food stuck in his lungs, his father said.
Mr. Odone was found at age 6 to have adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD. His doctors told his parents the disease - caused by a genetic mutation that causes the
neurological system to break down - would lead to death in two years.
The disease leads to the accumulation of substances called very long chain fatty acids in cells, which damages the material that coats nerve fibers in the
brain.
Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte starred as Michaela and Augusto Odone in 1992's "Lorenzo's Oil," which recounted their efforts to formulate the oil they said
helped their son fight the disease, despite lacking scientific backgrounds. Sarandon earned an Academy Award nomination.
A study published in 2005, based on research with 84 boys, showed that a treatment made from olive and rapeseed oils - patented by Augusto Odone - can prevent
onset of the disease's symptoms for most boys who receive an ALD diagnosis.
Odone plans to take his son's ashes to New York to mix them with those of his wife, who died in 2000. Then, Odone said, he will move back to his native
Italy.
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5 Comments Last:
Last comment was by Emperor Chaos
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Obamarama
By Bleed Black (June 3, 2008)
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Waited for forever to use that title.
Obama seals Democratic nomination
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ST. PAUL, Minn. - Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation's first black president. Hillary Rodham Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket without conceding her own defeat.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/primary_rdp
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29 Comments Last:
Last comment was by GoddessDivine
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GM Finally Admits SUVs Are a Dead-End
By CrunchBite (June 3, 2008)
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General Motors finally gets it.
The company's announcement that it is embracing compact cars, shutting down four truck plants and possibly even dumping Hummer shows GM -- and, by extension, Detroit -- realizes fuel prices aren't coming down and SUVs are a dead-end. It's a fundamental change of direction for the world's largest automaker, which has for more than 10 years counted on pickups and SUVs to provide the bulk of its sales -- and profits -- while all but ceding the passenger car market to Japan and Europe.
But with gas poised to top $4 a gallon any day now, auto sales tumbling and the economy tanking, company CEO Rick Wagoner -- like his peers at Ford and Chrysler -- is scrambling to keep up with seismic changes that are coming far faster than anyone expected.
"These moves are all in response to the rapid rise in oil prices and the resulting changes in the U.S., changes that we believe are more structural than cyclical," Wagoner said before making his announcement at GM's shareholder meeting in Delaware. "While some of the actions ... are very difficult, they are necessary to adjust to changing market and economic conditions."
Translation -- we grew fat and lazy cranking out SUVs that ran on cheap gas, but it ain't working anymore.
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Read more: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/gm-finally-real.html
Also on the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7433656.stm
All I can say is well duh-shit GM.
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8 Comments Last:
Last comment was by CrunchBite
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 Graffiti
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:: its hot down here
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:: booptee, booptee, booptee!
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:: enough already
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:: shut up already, cartman
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:: right. no-one give a damn about your balls, what a poor excuse for a male you ar
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:: why do you need to be so nasty on here, grow up already
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:: amersand, why dont you clean my balls?
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:: all hail ampersand &&&
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:: i'm back for the cleaning of my balls.
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:: helllllloooooooooooooo!
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:: hope your 4th of july went off with a bang!!!
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:: tgif put your hands in the air like you just dont care
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:: so ready for a 3 day weekend
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:: belly flop
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:: cannon ball !!!!
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:: plop, plop!
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:: yes its summer, my time of year
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:: first day of summer, weather is shite here
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:: its almost summer
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:: i pinch !!!
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:: love pinching those chubby cheeks
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:: but of course i do
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:: your mom. lol.
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:: baby face whohas that cute baby face?
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:: your face!
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:: dill pickles
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:: pickles
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:: i'd like a patty melt with grilled onions double pickles
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:: your balls wouldnt be dirty if you would stop playing pocket pool
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:: oh no!
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:: tickity, tickity, tickity--**boom**!
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:: hey can someone get me a hamburger while i get my balls cleaned again?
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:: as the ocean grips the shore
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:: as the flower desires the bee
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:: as the moon desires the sun.
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:: i desire so many things
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:: repeat as necessary or desired! ;)
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:: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.
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:: right! right-o!
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:: doublethink!
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Google |
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