An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for 25 July 2007
Useless Numnuts Being….Well Useless
Senator: End U.N. Rights Group Funding
A congressional delegate to the United Nations is pushing for the United States to cut off funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the watchdog group’s focus on Israel and failure to investigate other countries made it a “disaster.”
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said Wednesday the council “has essentially one issue on its agenda — Israel. You’ve got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence.”
I wonder how far this idea will go? Probably not much with the UN suck ups also known as Dhimmis.
Coleman, who along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., represents Congress in the U.S. delegation to the U.N., is a longtime critic of the U.N. Boxer also supported the funding cut off when the Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill.
I haven’t heard Boxer speaking out too much against the UN.
The council, based in Geneva, was created in March 2006 to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission. Last month, the new body angered the United States by continuing its scrutiny of Israel while halting investigations into Cuba and Belarus.
Big shocker! The UN blames anything and everything on Israel, but neve blames the REAL culprits.
Coleman conceded his bill was more about symbolism than pulling the plug on the council’s operations. The U.S. share of the council budget is only around $3 million, and the bill would allow the president to ignore the funding cut if he deemed it wasn’t in the national interest.
That’s $3 million we could actually use to help in areas of our own country. Here’s an even better thought…..DON’T GIVE THEM A FLIPPIN’ DIME FOR ANY REASON! Can you imagine just how much money that would save the U.S. taxpayers?
The State Department declined to comment on Coleman’s push to cut off U.S. financial support for the council.
But Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg called the council’s first year “a grave disappointment. Member states abandoned their responsibility to defend suffering people in countries such as Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe, and Cuba and instead devoted their energies to attacking Israel.”
Yet nothing will change. The Useless Numnuts will continue doing what they, even more ineffectually.
Small Snack (7/25)
Researchers: Obesity Can Be Contagious in Social Circles
If your friends and family get fat, chances are you will too, researchers report in a startling new study that suggests obesity is “socially contagious” and can spread easily from person to person.
And yer point?
Knoxville Zoo looking for wayward barn owl
The Knoxville Zoo is looking for Alfalfa, a wayward barn owl that took off during a bird show.
Alfalfa may have lightweight leather and nylon straps, called jesses, attached to his legs. These straps are used during training sessions.
So, if you happen to see an owl that doesn’t look like it’s yours, give ‘em a call.
Hay is for houses: Town of Holland woman builds eco-friendly home
“The nickname for this is ‘the straw hut’ or ‘Mona’s hut,’†Pedretti said, taking a break from construction this week while her nephew helped a contractor and friend install a solar power system. “People think of the Three Little Pigs. You huff and puff, you blow it in. But you can see these walls, and there ain’t no huffin’ and puffin’ on these.â€
I actually know someone who has been building one of these houses for the last…..5 years.
Republican presidential candidates criticize views of Democratic rivals
Mitt Romney and John McCain sought to enhance their stature in a field of Republican presidential contenders that Newt Gingrich derisively called “pygmies,” criticizing their Democratic rivals as too liberal and ill-prepared for the nation’s top job.
I have this mental image of teeny tiny candidates, behind teeny tiny podiums. (Yes, I’m a tad punchy.)
Safe Arrival
We have arrived in Waupun. Yee-haw! Even though I don’t drink, I’m seriously considering looking for the bottom of a bottle of…..something. Naw….too much work! I’m going to pretend I’m a lump for a while.
Next Stop….
….Waupun. We get to spend maybe 48 hours there at the most, and then it’s back in the car….with short person AND 2 cats. I need Valium!
Morning Coffee 7/25/07
MS-13 gang seeks to unite nationwide
The viciousness of the gang killings is displayed in a U.S. Army intelligence presentation which included graphic photos. One photograph shows the Roman numerals for 18 carved into, and then slashed over, the severed head of a Salvadoran woman suspected of Mara 18 ties. A second photo shows a dismembered baby lying in brush.
Yep! Just the kind of “hard working” types of immigrants we’re looking for, right?
Contamination concerns loom over Ford plant
Ford Motor Co. has dozens of potentially contaminated sites at its assembly plant in St. Paul that need to be investigated and cleaned up, according to a report submitted to state officials this month.
Just one more reason not to like FMC. I have others!
As state officials announced the season’s second death from the virus, and local mosquito control officials announced that truck-mounted spraying would begin in open spaces such as parks and golf courses around Citrus Heights and Rio Linda, opponents launched a campaign calling for an end to the practice.
Is this going to end up being another DDT type ban? Alternatives didn’t work out too well, did they.
A federal criminal complaint, also filed Thursday, charges Lock and Jerhonda McCray with wire fraud in connection with a 2005 mortgage-related scam. The charges allege the scam used falsified loan applications and bogus appraisals from McCray, doing business as USA Appraisals, to inflate the value of mortgages that straw buyers could get for Lock on distressed central-city properties.
How do people think up this stuff? I guess I just don’t have a criminal type mind.
Terror crackdown: suspects to be held for 56 days
Mr Brown also issued a challenge to the Conservatives to work with him to ensure police have adequate powers. Putting the Tory leader on the spot, he said: “I would urge David Cameron to put party politics aside and look at the national interest. We are in a new world.”
Good luck with that one. Getting a politician to put aside party politics? Even for national security? Pfft!
Report: Taliban Kill One South Korean Hostage
A purported Taliban spokesman said Wednesday that one of the 23 South Korean hostages being held in Afghanistan had been killed, according to the Reuters news agency.
(…)
The South Korean hostages, including 18 women, were kidnapped last Thursday while riding a bus through Ghazni province on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Afghanistan’s main thoroughfare.
After my initial revulsion for these pigs, my question is, what were 18 South Korean women doing on a bus in Afghanistan?
Bredesen defends hefty salary hikes for commissioners
Bredesen last week announced the raises that include creating a new top-scale pay grade of $180,000 for key commissioners. That means Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz will earn $32,412 more per year, while Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber will see a $69,336, or 63 percent, hike.
(…)
“It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” Bredesen said about the executive branch raises. “But it’s a lot easier to go out and say: ‘Why does somebody get 3 percent and somebody else get 40 percent?’ “
Reasonable? I don’t bloody well think so! His pathetic explanation isn’t working either!
Churchill fired; next shot in court
The first, very long chapter of the Ward Churchill saga ended Tuesday afternoon as just about everybody – including Churchill – had predicted: He was fired from his job as ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado.
Why can’t this slimeball just fade from public view!?
Former Waupun police captain gets jail time
Belsma entered a no contest plea in June to charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and disorderly conduct. A charge of second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16 years of age was dismissed on a prosecutor’s motion.
The defendant will also serve a 30-day sentence for the disorderly conduct charge to run concurrently to the six-month sentence for fourth-degree sexual assault.
Six months? That’s it?
Cigar industry say proposed tax would torch business
Local cigar shops are saying a U.S. Senate proposal that would skyrocket the cost of retail cigars would put them out of business. And one member of Tennessee’s Senate delegation is lining up behind them.
The new tax proposal would increase the federal tax on cigars from the current 5 cents each to 53 percent of the manufacturer’s price to a distributor, with a cap of $10 tax per cigar.
I call BULLSH*T! And it’s not “for the chiiiiiiiildren”! If the D.C. fatcats were so concerned about the health and well being of ‘the chiiiiiiiiiiiildren’ they’d get the hell out of their lives!
