June, 2006 archive

(Boy, I love reading the AP wire!) If they didn’t deserve to be arrested for pot, they deserved to be arrested for stupid:

A pair of pot smokers picked the wrong day to use the drive-thru window at a KFC restaurant in Buffalo. Two men in their 20s pulled up to the restaurant’s window and asked for the Wednesday special.

Meanwhile, a couple of narcotics detectives were inside ordering their food. That’s when a cloud of marijuana smoke wafted into the restaurant. The detectives then spotted the two men smoking what one of the cops called “the biggest marijuana cigar your ever saw.”

Our energy woes would be cured:

It’s long been the milk that pays, but now the Audets have figured out how to make the manure pay as well. They’re using it — actually, the methane that comes from it — to generate electricity.

With the help of their power company, Central Vermont Public Service Corp., the Audets have devised a way to extract the methane from the manure and pipe it to a generator.

From today’s local rag:

Drivers who talk on cell phones may be just as dangerous as those who drink.

That’s the sobering conclusion of a study published yesterday by University of Utah researchers who monitored 40 men and women on a driving simulator.

The story is pretty–er–sobering.

Those who would lightly dismiss the tactics used to “interrogate” persons held in U. S. hands would do well to listen to this.

I would especially recommend today’s interview:

Former Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis talks with Steve Inskeep about the tactics he used on Iraqi detainees, such as isolating them for weeks at a time. Lagouranis says that, overall, very little intelligence was gained through stressful interrogation tactics.

Especially chilling is Mr. Laguouranis’s description of how he gradually lost touch with his own standards of conduct.

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

In a 5-3 decision, the court said the trials were not authorized under U.S. law or the Geneva Conventions. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion in the case, called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. recused himself from the case.

[Basso Profundo Mode On]Criswell predicts[Basso Profundo Mode Off]–well, actually, I predict–the current Federal Administration will attempt to find some twisted interpretation of the commander-in-chief’s powers to justify ignoring this ruling, because, after all, as they so frequently remind us, we are at war.

“What did you do on your vacation?”

“I got my truck fixed, I got my lawn mower fixed, I got my hot water heater fixed. I should have stayed at work.”

Update: “Oh, yeah, let’s not forget the emergency root canal.”

Percoset rocks.

They need a guard cat:

“I came around the corner and into the kitchen and instead of seeing two cats on the counter, I saw a big, brown bear, a third of the way coming in through the kitchen window,” Yates said. “My instincts kicked in and I raised my hands and yelled, ‘Get out! Get out!’ And lucky for me, it did.”

Oh, my.

Serving on the jury in an indecent-exposure trial unfolding in this conservative Oklahoma town has been a giggle-inducing experience.

Former Judge Donald D. Thompson, a veteran of 23 years on the bench, is on trial on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others.

Update, 6/30/2006

Something fishy this way comes:

Marshall and Lyon county grand juries on Tuesday indicted Dwayne E. Nesmith, 43, of Island, and Brian K. Thomas, 31, of Dawson Springs on nine counts of theft by deception of over $300 in Marshall County, one count of complicity to commit theft by deception of over $300 and one count of attempted theft by deception of over $300 in Lyon County.

An investigation of the pair started April 30, when the men allegedly stashed five live bass in a fish basket in the water, then picked them up to weigh in at the Relay for Life Buddy Bass Tournament at the Lake Barkley State Resort Park, state police said.

A conversation over at Opie’s place led me to look this up:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“”Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Ahh, the lamp is lowered, the light is dim’d, the welcome gone.

And the hope of the world—

oh, never mind.

Two and a half more inches in my rain gauge overnight, making a total of seven inches since Friday. Rivers cresting today. (Update, 6/30/2006: Here’s the actual crest times and heights.)

Brandywine Creek crested at about 2 p. m.. I took some pictures from Brandywine Park in Wilmington between 2:30 and 3:00 p. m.

Looking upstream towards the Washington Street bridge. The trees to the left center marks the normal bank.

Looking downstream towards the Market Street (US 13 business) bridge.

Well over the banks.

There! by the tree! See them? Picnic tables. And to the right, the “No Swimming” sign.

Oh, yeah, that’s the grill that goes with the picnic tables.

This little dam ain’t doin’ a damn thing any more.

No jogging on that trail today:

Looking upstream from the “Swinging Bridge” (it doesn’t swing anymore, but, at one time, it was a rope suspension bridge which struck fear into the hearts of children throughout Wilmington).

Looking downstream from the “Swinging Bridge” to the Washington Street Bridge:

With good reason, today. In minutes you’d end up in the Christina.

Limbaugh’s on again.

Bob Cesca asks the question:

Rush is one of the most visible representatives of the right-wing’s moral values platform — the same values that include abstinence and strong words about the immorality of premarital sex. (Wait for it.) Intercourse and marriage are supposed to be all about procreation, right? I mean, that’s one of the reasons why Republicans like Rush and Sen. Santorum support an amendment banning same-sex marriage.

So if Rush isn’t married, why would he need Viagra?

Nah. It couldn’t be. It’s just not possible that . . .

. . . he’s bloviating hypocrite who thinks he’s above the rules he proscribes for others?

Surely not.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master–that’s all.”

Humpty Dumpty lives.

Four inches in the last 36 hours, leading to this and this and this, among other things.

Spotted yesterday heading down the Delaware, one tug in front and one amidships on each side. As best as I can figure, it’s the Ammunition Ship Butte.

It’s looks as if it’s going to the last home port.

From the Quotemaster.

Mario Cuomo:

We must get the American public to look past the glitter,
beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of
things. And we’ll do it not so much with speeches that will
bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people
to their senses.

Well, the American public won’t find this at Faux News, that’s for sure.

More on the Enronization of the current Federal Administration:

Former Bush administration procurement official David Safavian has written an email to family and friends saying he plans an appeal (likely to last through July, 2007) and describing himself as “angry, scared, disappointed and hurt,” according to today’s edition of Roll Call.

Scared and disappointed.

Yeah.

He got caught.

Another Bushie learns he’s not above the law.

His signing statement didn’t take.

And he is just a small fry.

Again.

The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Friday after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.