2006 archive

I listened to this story on my way home Thursday:

In the summer of 1977, two young women — college roommates from Yale — started out on a cross-country bike trip. They planned to ride from Oregon to Virginia.

Just seven days after they set off, they were savagely attacked: While they camped in Oregon, a man ran over their tent with his truck, then set upon them with an ax.

(snip)

In 1992 — 15 years after the attack — Jentz went back to Central Oregon. No one had ever been charged with the crime. She wanted to find out why — and to repair her fractured sense of self.

Jentz was in for yet another shock when she returned to the community where the attack took place: When she started talking to local residents, they said the same thing: “We know who did this.”

And now I see this story on the AP wire:

Two women (a mother and her daughter–ed.) killed on a hiking trail near Mount Pilchuck died of gunshot wounds, and investigators have ruled out murder-suicide, the Snohomish County sheriff’s office said Friday.

Deputy Rich Niebusch has said the women possibly died in a random attack and urged anyone hiking on nearby trails to be extra cautious.

Everett, Washington, where the latter attack took place, is in central Washington, not that far north of central Oregon.

It leads me to think of this case, which happened while I was living in this part of the world, not far from the scene, so it got a lot of publicity here.

Now, I don’t think that there is any similarity among these cases, except that some fruitcake decided to kill some unsuspecting persons for no reason that any rational person will ever understand.

The only lesson I see is that unpredictable evil is always near us.

Phillybits.

’nuff said.

Every year, folks gather at the Chatham Jaycees Sweet Corn Festival to enjoy good food, music, arts and crafts, and games for the kids. And toss some cow dung around.

That’s right. Come Saturday the skies will be filled with something they’re just not usually filled with as the Corn Festival once again hosts the Illinois Championship Cow Chip Throw.

If this sounds like an odd sport, chances are you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on down country roads all over the place. For more than 30 years, for example, the folks in Wisconsin’s Sauk County have been holding the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw. The winners, of course, are eligible to compete in even older World Cow Chip Throw in Beaver, Okla.

A bit too much:

Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, “Thank you, Jesus!” in court last month when he was acquitted by a jury of abusing his son.

But his joy was short-lived when Circuit Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the “outburst” and threw him in jail.

Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him.

(snip)

Court minutes said Border later dropped the charge because he realized Stowers’ trial lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Carmel Kwock, did not have time to tell Stowers the judge had ordered both sides not to show emotion when the verdict was announced.

At least the judge realized he’d made a mistake.

Next time, try match dot com:

A woman who called 911 to get “the cutest cop I’ve seen” sent back to her home got a date all right — a court date.

The same sheriff’s deputy arrested her on charges of misuse of the emergency dispatch system.

William Arkin:

Going forward, we could ignore loopholes pertaining to the definition of “humane” treatment. I imagine that is in the minds of the custodians of national security who believe that they must bend the rules to fight evil. They are convinced that their secret programs must continue to protect ourselves. They have convinced themselves that only they understand the enemy well enough to formulate a response. Further in the current loud, partisan debate, the national security custodians have convinced themselves that American society is too splintered, too inattentive, too squeamish and even too decadent to defend itself.

The true 9/11 nightmare is that we have given over our future to those who cannot see that compassion does not indicate weakness. We must not compromise or equivocate in the treatment of our enemies because we are moral beings and because we love the law and will not let the terrorists force us to throw it out. What is more, every “protection” we offer an unlawful combatant today will be one fewer enemy we face tomorrow. To voice that that notion is naïve is to fail to find a way of war that is compatible with American society.

From my sidebar, over there, to the right——>

the epitaph of the current Federal Administration:

Stewart L. Udall – “We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.”

Gene Weingarten

This is too wierd:

A police dog that was left in a pickup with the engine running apparently knocked the vehicle into gear and ran down a woman who was walking to her mailbox.

The state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that Californians’ privacy rights are violated when their telephone conversations are secretly recorded by out-of-state callers.

The justices sided with plaintiffs who sued Salomon Smith Barney Inc., now Smith Barney Inc., for secretly recording phone conversations between Atlanta-based brokers and California customers.

No brainer.

The company I used to work for–this was eight years ago–had several call centers to serve the nation. They were well aware that taping calls for “quality control” or “training” purposes was subject to the laws of the state from which the call originated.

(Aside: training was the primary reason they taped calls–they would record them and then play them back to the agent in private coaching sessions to help the agent do a better job of bambooz up-selling.)

That’s why, when any of us calls an 800-number, we hear the warning that “this call may be recorded blah blah blah . . .”

Guess Smith-Barney couldn’t figure it out.

“Very Interesting.”

Valerie Plame Wilson, her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson and their counsel, Christopher Wolf of Proskauer Rose LLP, will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. EDT on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC 20045 to explain the filing of a civil lawsuit today against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, according to a statement by the lawyers.

(snip)

The suit accuses the defendants of violating the Wilsons’ constitutional and other legal rights as a result of “a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House” to “discredit, punish and seek revenge against” Joseph Wilson for publicly disputing statements made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address justifying the war in Iraq.

This should be fun to watch.

This case originates near Pine View Farm, though I do not know the family:

In all, the judge heard 11 hours of testimony before the hearing concluded late Tuesday. At issue is if the teen can make his own medical decisions and whether he can keep living with his parents and four siblings on Chincoteague, an island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The judge is expected to issue a written decision by July 18.

The teen, who goes by Abraham, has Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

Three months of chemotherapy last year made him extremely weak. So when he learned in February that his cancer was active again, he turned — against doctors’ advice — to a sugar-free organic diet, herbs and visits to a clinic in Mexico.

I nearly wrote, “I make no judgements.”

But I do. And I know this sounds harsh, especially in our culture, which likes to pretend that everyone is immortal and death is not part of life.

The track record of Mexican alternative cancer clinics is pretty much identical to the track record of the current Federal Administration: Fraudulent, abysmal, and incompetent.

But if the kid wants to die, rather then get competent medical attention, well, I just don’t know. Who has the right to put a value on his life?

Whose choice is it to make on his behalf: death or discomfort?

What would you, dear reader, recommend? Should the Commonwealth protect him from himself?

I’m just glad I ain’t the judge.

(aside) Maybe Senator Frist can diagnose him over a television broadcast and get Congress to pass a law. He tried it once; will he try it again?

Eugene Robinson said it well (from an online chat):

Laurel, Md.: One reason to applaud a $296 billion deficit is that Bush is actually ahead of schedule to fulfill a campaign promise to halve the budget deficit’s portion of GDP by the end of his term. About $260 billion in FY ’09 is the final goal.

Eugene Robinson: But he created the deficit! If I took a hundred dollars out of your bank account and then called a press conference to announce that I had put twenty-five dollars back and was ahead of schedule on my plan to repay you, would you applaud?

Bush.

Lies and spin. Spin and lies.

’nuff said:

The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton Co. to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply into the firm’s dominance of government contracting in Iraq.

In Georgia:

Former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, whose campaign for Georgia lieutenant governor has been clouded by questions over his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is promoting himself as the candidate with “stronger values.”

His opponent, state Sen. Casey Cagle, has responded by calling Reed’s campaign ads the “height of hypocrisy” and questioning publicly whether Reed could be charged with wrongdoing during the run-up to the November general election.

Hey, Ralph! One comment:

Mark 11:15.

Americans’ attitudes on lying:

OVERALL: About four in 10 think lying is justified sometime, while just over half, 52 percent, said it is never justified. Asked whether lying is OK in a number of circumstances, about two-thirds, 65 percent, said it is at least sometimes OK to lie when trying to protect someone’s feelings. About four in 10 said it’s OK at times to exaggerate a story to make it more interesting, and lying to a child about a parent’s past misbehavior. About a third say it’s OK at times to lie about one’s age and lying about being sick to take a day off of work. Very few thought it was OK to lie on a resume, lie about cheating on a spouse or cheat on your taxes.

I couldn’t find anything in the story about lying to start a war.

There’s an experiment going on.

The Suburban Guerrilla, whose RSS feed I pull into my sidebar (over there, to the right—->) is on Huffington Post today discussing bloggers, how they are mean and they suck.

Last month’s tenfold increase in broadcast indecency fines has sent radio and television stations and media giants scurrying to protect themselves, as the cost of uttering a dirty word over the air has turned a minor annoyance into a major business expense.

The new law is a boon for companies that make time-delay machines for broadcasters, which are designed to catch offensive language before it hits the airwaves, and a potentially powerful reason for performers, directors and producers to take their talent to cable and satellite outlets, where federal decency standards do not apply.

Sooooooooooooooooooo . . . (looking for indecency on the airwaves)

what’s the fine for reading press releases from the current Federal Administration?

Good thing they ain’t fining stupid or almost nothing would be left to watch.

I listened to this show yesterday. It is an amazing tale of injustice, courage, justice, and redemption. It is worth an hour of anyone’s time:

After four lawyers fail to get an innocent man, Collin Warner (pictured, left), out of prison, his friend, Carl King (pictured, right), takes on the case himself. He becomes a do-it-yourself investigator. He learns to read court records, he tracks down hard-to-find witnesses, he gets the real murderer to come forward with his story. In the end, he’s able to accomplish all sorts of things the police and the professionals can’t. King now runs an organization, called Success to Freedom, devoted to helping wrongfully convicted inmates.

You can find the audio here.