An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for 1 August 2007
Couldn’t Resist
Yeah yeah….innocent until proven guilty, but it’s still funny.
Swiped from Get Stewed.
Tragedy
I-35W bridge collapse: At least 7 dead
The Interstate 35W bridge that spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during Wednesday evening’s rush hour, sending dozens of cars plummeting into the water and crashing along the banks and roadways below.
“This is a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty said.
Fire Chief Jim Clack said the number of deaths from the bridge collapse has climbed to seven.
Several dozen were injured, including six critically, said Dr. Joseph Clinton, emergency room chief at Hennepin County Medical Center.
According to the State Patrol, 30 to 35 people were injured and 20 people were missing. Between 50 and 60 vehicles were on the bridge when it went down, the Patrol said. Authorities said Wednesday night the cause of the collapse was unknown.
Ick, Brat, Brat Jr., Short Person, Mr. Ol’ Broad and I extent our heart felt prayers to the families and friends of those affected, and to the city of Minneapolis and vicinity.
Grrrrrrr
I go and say something nice about truck drivers, then have one try to run me over. I’m on a section of I-10 that has three whole lanes for traffic going in each direction, and I have a big ol’ semi climbing up my butt. There are no cars anywhere near us, but he has to be right there on my tush? I speed up a bit, HE speeds up a bit. I slow down, HE slows down. He could have gone around me at any time, but nooooooooo…..he wants a serious relationship. Imagine many four lettered words. I finally exited to the Texas ‘Welcome Center’, so we had to part company.
There’s so much water in this area of Texas, you’d think G-d would give ‘em a break. It’s raining right now. Good thing I won’t melt. What I am…well, I’ll float! 
The Lies of the Useless Numnuts
In George Orwell’s novel “1984,” the protagonists in the totalitarian society employed “newspeak,” the inversion of words to create false meaning. “War is peace,” “good is bad,” “moral is immoral” are merely a few of the possible inversions.
We seem to be hearing more and more of this in the media, from all sides, in every country. Hmmm….
While Orwell passed this mortal coil years ago, his notion of false meaning is alive and well and residing in the United Nations.
In fact, there is scarcely a sentence uttered at this institution that isn’t Orwellian. Human rights, for example, the hallmark of U.N. efforts, does nothing to promote these rights. The commission organized to promote this goal is composed of the most serious violators of freedom.
Which pretty much proves that the U.N. is pretty useless when it comes to humanity.
The 57 Muslim nations invariably condemn Israel as an autocratic nation occupying and dominating Arab territory in the West Bank. Yet this condemnation overlooks the fact that Arabs comprise 20 percent of Israel’s population, are accorded the citizenship and rights of every Israeli and even have representation in the Knesset. By contrast, Jews are oppressed in every Arab Muslim state, are denied their right to worship and, in most cases, have been forced to emigrate.
Can we say hypocrisy?
U.N. pronouncements have indicated “Zionism is racism,” while the racism or the denunciation of infidels — nonbelievers — is embraced whenever Wahhabism prevails.
So, you could pretty much say that the Useless Numnuts have become a tool of Wahhabism.
At this late date, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the July 7, 2005, attacks in London and the 2004 Madrid bombings and a host of terrorist attacks all over the world, the U.N. cannot come up with a definition of terrorism, relying, instead, on the empty cliche that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Tell that to innocent women and children maimed by suicide bombers.
Where in the ‘freedom fighter’s’ handbook does it say the planned slaughter of innocents is acceptable? Oh yeah, I remember now, it’s the MUSLIM TERRORIST handbook.
Terror at the U.N. is a relative term: If it leads to Jewish blood being shed or Western lives being lost, it is acceptable or, at the very least, unworthy of condemnation.
If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad violates the nonproliferation treaty endorsed by the U.N., he is welcome to speak in its chambers as a conquering hero. The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, brandishing a weapon as he spoke to the General Assembly, was heralded as well.
Since these people violate everything this nation stands for, can we please send them an eviction notice?
Although the U.N. charter states specifically that nations can engage in “anticipatory self defense” when threatened, Israel is invariably rebuked for defending itself against attack with the absurd claim its retaliation is “disproportionate.” If this standard were applied universally (of course, it isn’t) would that mean the U.S. should have responded to the 2,800 deaths at Pearl Harbor with an attack on Japan that killed 2,800?
I guess they don’t believe the Israeli’s defending themselves from the non-stop attacks is really self defense, but the kidnapping of Israeli citizens is just fine with them, not to mention the rockets raining on schools. Guess that just doesn’t count, eh?
Those who cover the U.N. understand full well that a body housing democracies and dictatorships cannot long prevail as long as the good and bad are treated in the same manner. When Zimbabwe and the Sudan are considered the equals of the United States and the United Kingdom, relativistic standards must be imposed. Even a debating society must realize at some point that some views are more valid than others.
When the U.N. allows someone like Hugo Chavez to speak, calling the leader of the host country (not to mention the major financial contributor) ‘el Diablo’, and actually cheer, there is a major problem.
Moreover, the more one uses the languages of dissimulation, the more it is believed and accepted. It is a Gresham’s Law of communication in which the bad, or in this case the lie, drives the good or the truth out of circulation. That is the U.N. methodology derived directly from newspeak.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.†– Joseph Goebbels
What to Do When You Have a Problem
Morning Coffee 8/1/07
Sunni Arab Bloc Quits Iraqi Government
Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Front, said at a news conference that the bloc’s six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.
Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s failure to respond to the Accordance Front. It gave him seven days to meet its demands, and the ultimatum expired Wednesday.
Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
You can either part of the solution, or part of the problem. Guess they decided it was better for them to be a chunk of the problem. That bit about ‘demands’ on the part of any government official kind of bugs me.
It didn’t take long for Bonds to know he wasn’t at the safe house known as AT&T Park. A sellout raucous crowd of 56,000 showered Bonds with boos during the pregame introductions. They booed him every at-bat. When Bonds was in left field, shouts of “Bar-ry —-!” rained down throughout the night. Bonds crossing home plate on Pedro Feliz’s two-run single in the sixth with the go-ahead run? Yup, more boos.
Why do sports, any sport, turn normal people into a bunch of classless clods? Perfect example of how so called fans have turned any sporting event into a free for all…..golf! Yelling at the little dimpled ball is classless. Yes, Bonds is always going to have an * by his name in the record books, unless he can actually double Hank Aaron’s record, but that is really no excuse for behaving like brain dead morons. I have less respect for those ‘fans’ than I have for Bonds.
Murdoch’s $5B bid for Dow Jones succeeds
News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch became the king of business news late Tuesday, as Dow Jones (DJ) accepted his $5 billion offer.
With Dow Jones, Murdoch will have control of a mighty arsenal of business news properties, including The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, Barron’s, MarketWatch.com and SmartMoney.
Closing of the deal will end 105 years of Bancroft-family ownership of the company, which was founded in 1882 to provide customers with news about stock and bond trades.
Sounds like too much stress to me.
Woman may have abused kids in $2M scam
A Florida woman accused of using aliases to adopt 11 New York children received as much as $2 million in child welfare payments even as she starved, bound and abused them, police said Tuesday.
Here’s a stupid question: Why on earth would the system allow this woman, living on welfare, adopt children to begin with? Don’t they investigate prospective parents, do follow ups, the whole nine yards? Seems to the the ‘system’ is just as guilty as this animal.
“She indicated that she loved these children, that she took care of them,” Mario Garcia said. “She nurtured them and fed them.”
Yeah, and I can tell ya I’m tall, skinny and rich, but wouldn’t you want proof? She can SAY anything at all, it doesn’t mean it’s true.
New bill calls for revoking citizenship from those guilty of breach of allegiance
The Knesset’s Internal Affairs Committee approved MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) proposal to instate a bill revoking citizenship from any citizen found guilty of breach of allegiance to Israel.
“The second Intifada and last summer’s war have uncovered many cases of citizens allying themselves with enemy forces. We have no choice but to use some drastic measures,” said Erdan. The bill will be submitted to its first reading in the next Knesset plenum.
Not a bad idea. I think we should consider something like this on this side of the hemisphere. There are a couple I could name right off the top of my head that have aligned themselves with our enemies. Wouldn’t that be a fly in the oinment for REID and MURTHA.
Analyst says Specter’s new immigration plan ‘same-old’ amnesty
A policy analyst with a prominent conservative think tank says a new immigration bill set to be introduced by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) is, in many ways, a rehashing of the amnesty legislation that failed in the Senate in June.
Senator Specter says his bill would not include the controversial Z-visa program that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens living in the U.S. However, the legislation would allow illegal aliens to sponsor their entire extended family for admission into the U.S. The chain-migration provision would replace the skills-based points system included in the previous immigration bill.
You can call a zebra a horse, but it’s still a zebra. Specter obviously didn’t the message during the last go round!
U.N. authorizes Darfur mission
The U.N. Security Council yesterday authorized a new peacekeeping mission for Darfur, a complex military effort with 26,000 African and U.N. forces under a single command that will be the largest ever attempted by the world body.
If all these troops are going to do is stand around and scratch their butts like they usually do, save the money. Sadly, it’s going to be the U.S. footing a good chunk of the bill, AGAIN, which is NOT all right.
