Teenage Girl Shot

UPDATE: Cashier arrested in shooting of girl
__________________

This is really sad.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A teenage girl was shot once in the leg Wednesday night by the owner of a north side grocery store following a confrontation inside the business, said Milwaukee police Lt. Thomas Welch.

The shooting took place about 7:30 p.m. outside Friendly Foods, near N. 22nd and W. Center streets, Welch said.

...The store's owner, a 39-year-old man, was taken into custody after the shooting.

The girl was in good condition at a hospital, Welch said.

Police had yet confirmed her date of birth, but Welch said she was either 13 or 14 years old.

Unless the girl had a gun and was about to shoot the store owner, what possible reason could the store owner have had for shooting the girl?

What kind of confrontation would prompt a 39-year-old man to fire a gun at a 13- or 14-year-old girl?

This is insane.

Does anyone care?

Are we so desensitized to this stuff?

Tickets on Sale for Rockettes Holiday Show

It's the first day of May.

Time to be thinking about Christmas!

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The world-famous Rockettes will, literally, kick off the holiday season with their Radio City Christmas Spectacular Nov. 13 through 16 at the U.S. Cellular Arena.

Along with the high-stepping Rockettes and the signature number "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," this year's show will feature an immense LED screen that's expected to transport the audience to Times Square, and then on to Santa's Workshop with special effects such as Santa flying out into the audience as snow falls on the crowd.

...Ticket prices are $25, $40 and $65.

Group tickets (10 or more) go on sale today.

I want summer. I'd settle for spring.

I don't want to even think about Santa.

Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day

The gates of Auschwitz, with the inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work sets you free)

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Although never far from their collective and - in decreasing numbers individual - memories, the genocide of Europe's more than six million Jews was set to be revisited by Israel's 5.5 million sons and daughters of Abraham Wednesday, as the nation whose state was reborn out of the very ashes of Auschwitz prepared to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For 24 hours, until sunset Thursday, Israelis will saturate themselves with images, films, interviews, news reports, special gatherings and school assemblies, and a two-minute-long nationwide siren designed to pause them in memory how one out of every three of the world's Jews was murdered at Nazi hands.

About 250,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive in Israel today, according to The Jerusalem Post.

A torch-lighting ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem will start the special day for this people which, more then any other in history, has been hated and targeted for destruction just because of who they are as a nation.

While the numbers crushed in Hitler's death machine were unprecedented, they were "only" the largest batch of victims who have fallen prey to Jew-hatred down the centuries.

Today's Israeli Jews know that the same hatred endures, seething in the hearts of tens of millions of Arabs and Muslims around and among them.

As Hitler sought to exterminate the Jews of Europe, and ultimately of the whole world, so Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders and citizens in the Arab world dream and plan to exterminate the Jews in Israel.

Israel observes Yom HaShoah.

Israel began marking its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day with President Shimon Peres vowing the Jewish state would never allow the Jewish genocide to be repeated.

"We will never forget, we will never hide and we will never stop asking ourselves every morning what we must do to prevent what happened to ever repeat itself," Peres said at the main ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial at sundown Wednesday.

Six torches were lit during the ceremony to honour the memory of the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that anti-Semitism and that Holocaust denial was on the rise across the world, referring mainly to Iran.

"Still, 63 years later, who would believe, the ugly face of the hatred of Jews and Israelis appears on different stages across the planet," the premier said at the ceremony.

"You wish to deny the right of existence of the Jewish state, and you are wrong to believe that the Jewish state was created only due to the Holocaust.

"The Holocaust only underscored the necessity of its creation and the horrible price that the Jewish people had to pay for the lack of existence of a state that can shelter them," Olmert said.

In Poland at Auschwitz, there will be the annual March of the Living.

Young Jews will pledge to fight all genocide during a Yom Hashoah gathering at Auschwitz.

Some 10,000 participants in the annual March of the Living will sign the pledge Thursday -- Holocaust Remembrance Day -- at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

The March of the Living Pledge commits each individual, the majority of whom are aged 16 to 22, "to fight every form of discrimination manifested against any religion, nationality or ethnic group."

It goes on to say, "After the Shoah the promise of 'Never Again' was proclaimed. We pledge to create a world where Never Again will become a reality for the Jewish People and, indeed, for all people. This is our solemn pledge to the Jewish People, to those who came before us, to those of our generation, and to those who will follow in future generations."

The ceremony will be led by Brig. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, in recognition of Israel's 60th anniversary.

Following Thursday's event, a global effort will attempt to enlist the support of the 150,000 March of the Living alumni to publicly state their condemnation of genocide past and present.

Cindy McCain and Jay Leno

In this photo provided by NBC, wife of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, Cindy McCain, left, speaks with Jay Leno during the taping of 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' in Burbank, Calif., Wednesday, April 30, 2008. (AP Photo/NBC,Paul Drinkwater)

I don't know much about John McCain's wife Cindy.

I know a lot about Hillary Clinton's spouse. (Actually, I know more about Bill than I want to know.)

I also feel I'm getting to know quite a bit about Barack Obama's wife Michelle. She's very active out there on the campaign trail. As the Dem primary process lingers on, I'm learning more about the sort of person she is.

To date, Cindy McCain has been in the shadows compared to Bill and Michelle.

That's why it was nice that Cindy was a guest on Wednesday's Tonight Show.

She made a stunning entrance, wearing a bright yellow jacket and slacks. When I say bright, I mean BRIGHT.

Jay Leno was a gracious host. He was very courteous.

They didn't talk politics. Only when Cindy told of the family gathering to discuss McCain's potential run for the presidency did she even mention any issues at all. She said she was impressed that her kids were asking questions about things that matter to them, like global warming and the war. They wanted to know what their dad would do as president.

(Don't they ever watch him on Meet the Press?)

Leno didn't bring up the Democrats at all. Not once. Cindy didn't either. She only said he'll be a great president.

What I learned about McCain's wife, Cindy:

--They have seven children, four together.

--She drives race cars.

--McCain is a bad driver.

--She's a pilot.

--When she first met McCain, he was following her around an hors d'oeuvre table at a party. She was avoiding him because she thought he was weird.

--McCain looks cute in dress whites.

--They both lied about their ages. She said she was four years older and he said he was four years younger. They didn't find out the truth about their ages until they applied for a marriage license. She said their marriage was based on a "tissue of lies."

--She said McCain is not too old to be president. She said that this summer he is going to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim with two of their sons. She brought along McCain's walking stick and invited Leno to join them.

--She was addicted to painkillers after spinal surgery. She hid her addiction from McCain. When he confronted her about it, then she stopped using.

--She had high blood pressure. She thought she could manage it through diet and exercise. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough. She had a stroke four years ago. Rehab wasn't easy, but she has recovered.

--When discussing how McCain's campaign hit rock bottom last summer, Leno complimented his determination to keep going. Leno said, "He's a tough old bastard."

Cindy agreed.

Checkers Stores Hamburger Buns in Men's Room

I haven't recovered from the disturbing revelation that 37 percent of Milwaukee's restaurants were cited for serious health violations last year.

On the bright side, Milwaukee doesn't have a monopoly on restaurant violations.

A popular Florida fast food restaurant's storage policy for hamburger buns and cups is about as gross as it gets.

SANFORD, Fla. -- Eyewitness News discovered a popular Sanford fast food restaurant that's accused of storing food on the floor inside the men's restroom. The food that was left on the floor in the restroom was just one of several critical violations health inspectors found at a Checkers location in Sanford.

Employees at the Checkers store on South French Avenue at West 15th Street apparently decided it was okay to store buns for their hamburgers inside a not-so-clean men's room.

Tuesday, it appeared they had changed the policy, but not before racking up a dozen health code violations.

"The bread was stacked sky high to the ceiling, plus it was only about 12 inches from the men's commode," said former customer Willie Jones.

Checker's goes through a lot of hamburger buns at its drive-thru restaurants. It's hard to even think about what might happen to those buns in a tiny, smelly and dirty bathroom. One customer told Eyewitness News he didn't like the manager's reaction to his complaint about the bread box-bathroom stall combination.

"'You got the bread in the men's restroom.' She got angry with me. She got T'd off and she locked the door," Jones said.

Health officials didn't settle for that solution, forcing the store to throw away all of it. Unfortunately, they don't know how long the Sanford Checkers kept both bread and cups in a bathroom that was quickly cleaned as Eyewitness News arrived Tuesday. An employee denied the bathroom-food storage system.

"Were you guys storing bread in there?" WFTV reporter Steve Barrett asked.

"No sir," the employee replied.

That employee and the bread delivery man seemed perplexed about where the bread should go Tuesday as an Eyewitness News crew looked on. They finally took it inside the kitchen.

"Do you ever see them put the bread you bring in the bathroom?" Barrett asked the delivery man.

"No comment," he said.

Watch the video.

The bread delivery guy takes the buns right to the bathroom!



What's so odd about this is that obviously the men's room was routinely being used as a place to store food.

I assume that on a daily basis male customers use the restaurant's men's room.

Why didn't anyone complain sooner?

Are most men not troubled by hamburger buns being kept in the bathroom?

A man who is not grossed out by that is probably a man who uses the bathroom and doesn't wash his hands afterwards.

I'm sickened at the restaurant's food storage policy and I'm disgusted by all the slobs who saw the food in the bathroom and didn't care.

Men, clean up your act!

Madison Law School Sex Toy Seminar

This is a classic failure to communicate.

A seminar at UW-Madison Law School was canceled, then "un-canceled."

The confusion was over the fear that sex toys would be for sale. University officials don't have a problem with sex toys per se. They were concerned about their sale. It's against student rules to use university facilities to sell commercial products.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A sex toys seminar planned at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School was canceled by school officials last week over fears products would be offered for sale.

Law School Dean Kenneth Davis now says there was a misunderstanding and the Sex Toys 101 event can be held as long as no commercial products are promoted or sold.

The Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice sent law school administrators a complaint this week, arguing the event was canceled without "justification or consultation."

The administration's actions also "disregarded the Law School's duty to foster that freedom" of expression, the students' complaint claims.

School administrators were concerned the event would violate student rules barring the use of university facilities to sell commercial products, Davis said.

The forum was to feature a presentation by A Woman's Touch Sexuality Resource Center, which organizers said fits with their mission to promote women's sexual and reproductive health through education.

A notice of the event said "the lecture will provide tips and tricks as well as information about health, hygiene, satisfaction, and yes, the law, of sex toys."

Student organizers had not planned to allow the sale of products. But Davis said they didn't tell administrators that, which led to the cancellation just hours before the event was to take place on April 23.

Once administrators learned students did not intend to sell products, they "un-canceled" the event the same day, Davis said.

Maria June Selsor, chairwoman of the organizing group, said the event won't happen this academic year since classes are ending this week, but it may be rescheduled for next semester.

What's weird is that administrators assumed sex toys would be for sale even though student organizers weren't going to be selling.

Where did the administrators get the idea that the seminar would be like a sex toy Tupperware party?

It's a shame that an enlightening seminar on the law of sex toys was canceled over this misunderstanding.

Al Franken, Al Capone

It's the taxes, stupid!

There are so many cases of rich people stumbling when it comes to paying taxes.

It was tax evasion that finally brought the infamous Al Capone down.

More recently, the Wesley Snipes case comes to mind.

Now, we have Al Franken.

U.S. Senate candidate, comedian, author, former radio talk show host on the abysmal Air America, and former cokehead Franken has tax problems.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Senate candidate Al Franken, dogged by accusations that he failed to file tax returns in California, said Tuesday he will pay about $70,000 in back income taxes in 17 states dating to 2003.

Most of the income at issue was from speeches and other paid appearances by the comedian-turned candidate, who said he got bad advice from his accountant but takes responsibility for the errors.

The Minnesota Democrat told The Associated Press that he and his wife, Franni, "paid taxes on every cent of income we ever had." He said that during the years in question, he followed the accountant's advice and paid his entire income tax bill to the city and state where he lived at the time. He lived in New York City from 2003-05 and Minnesota in 2006.

"What happened is our accountant made a mistake, and all of these are repercussions of that same mistake," said Franken. "His mistake was not understanding the law, the obligation to pay these state taxes."

Franken said his finances became more complicated when he branched out from "Saturday Night Live" and started writing books and making speeches around the country.

His communications director, Andy Barr, said none of the 17 states attempted to contact Franken or his accountant seeking the unpaid personal income taxes.

Franken said once the payments to the states are settled, he would seek retroactive credit from his states of residence since much of the income taxes he paid to them was supposed to go instead to the 17 other states.

Franken has been preparing for a tough fight against incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., but his campaign has been sidetracked in recent weeks by bookkeeping errors related to his private corporation, Alan Franken Inc.

The campaign said last month it would pay a $25,000 fine to the state of New York for failure to carry workers' compensation insurance there.

Franken wants to paint himself as a victim. It's the accountant's fault. (It always is.)

So an accountant gave him bad advice. That does happen, but it seems that Franken is a magnet for bad financial advice.

Franken vows to pay the $70,000 in back taxes. Problem solved, right?

I don't know.

Legitimate questions arise when an individual is caught again and again making errors related to finances. No doubt, his backers will defend him and they'll give him a pass. I'm not so sure about swing voters.

Some good advice for the good people of Minnesota: Don't elect Al Franken to represent you in the Senate.

Priya Venkatesan

Priya Venkatesan


Teaching is tough, especially for the thin-skinned and/or mentally unstable.

Case in point, from The Dartmouth:

Priya Venkatesan ‘90, a former Writing 5 lecturer and research associate at Dartmouth Medical School, is threatening to name seven of her former students in a potential civil rights lawsuit against the College, DMS and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Venkatesan announced Friday. Venkatesan also plans to write an autobiographical book that will include details of her experience at Dartmouth and name the seven students in question, all of whom were members of her Winter term Writing 5 class in 2008, she said.

Venkatesan is considering suing the College for harassment and discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

The suit would likely name faculty members as well, including Tom Cormen, chair of the writing program at the College, and DMS professor Christopher Lowrey. Cormen declined to comment, and Lowrey did not return requests for comment by press time.

Venkatesan, who said she left Dartmouth voluntarily on March 17, contends that she was subjected to “inappropriate and unprofessional” behavior while at the College. Venkatesan contacted a New Hampshire lawyer on Friday to determine whether she had grounds for a potential lawsuit. She will speak with the lawyer again on Monday, she said. Venkatesan refused to disclose the name of the attorney.

“I think that I have a good case because there were just so many instances – it was almost an incessant barrage – of hostility, nastiness and anti-intellectualism that I may just in fact have a case, but I’m not a lawyer,” Venkatesan said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

...Students were first informed of a possible lawsuit in an e-mail from Venkatesan sent on April 25, according to one student from Venkatesan’s class. The student is not one of those Venkatesan named as a potential defendant in the suit.

Behavior in the class did not rise to the level of harassment or discrimination, the student said, although many students stopped paying attention in class and complained about Venkatesan to Cormen. Students believed that Venkatesan did not accept opinions contrary to her own and would lower the grades of students who disagreed with her, the student said. The median grade in the class was a B, according to the Registrar’s website. All other sections of Writing 5 had a median grade of B+ or higher that term.

“We didn’t like her because she was not a good teacher, and she wasn’t very open to others’ ideas,” the student said. “It had nothing to do with her race or anything like that.”

As an example of Venkatesan’s rejection of views different from her own, the student highlighted Venkatesan’s cancelation of class for a week after the class applauded a student who contradicted Venkatesan’s opinions about post-modernism.

Venkatesan said the incident occurred when she was lecturing about “The Death of Nature,” a book by Carolyne Merchant, and the witch trials of the Renaissance. The student went on a “diatribe” about the inappropriate nature of challenging patriarchal authority, Venkatesan said. Vakatesan respected the student’s right to express this opinion, she said, but the manner in which he vocalized his views and the applause afterward were disrespectful and offensive.

“I was horrified,” Venkatesan said. “My responsibility is not to stifle them, but when they clapped at his comment, I thought that crossed the line … I was facing intolerance of ideas and intolerance of freedom of expression.”

Venkatesan contacted Cormen about the event, she said, but claims she received no support from him. She canceled class because the incident caused her “intellectual and emotional distress,” she said. This event, which occurred on Feb. 1, would likely be included in a list of grievances relating to a potential lawsuit, she said.

...“I understand that there are such things as bad working environments — a shithole is just a shithole, and that’s not illegal, and I know that,” she said. “But sometimes you have to take time out and address the issue of justice in society and to really implement the values that are so lacking at Dartmouth.”

From IvyGate, here's the e-mail Venkatesan sent to her students:

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:56:35
From: Priya Venkatesan
Subject: WRIT.005.17.18-WI08: Possible lawsuit

Dear former class members of Science, Technology and Society:

I tried to send an email through my server but got undelivered messages. I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom shall go unmentioned in this email) of violating Title VII of anti-federal discrimination laws.

The feeling that I am getting from the outside world is that Dartmouth is considered a bigoted place, so this may not be news and I may be successful in this lawsuit. I am also writing a book detailing my eperiences as your instructor, which will "name names" so to speak. I have all of your evaluation and these will be reproduced in the book.

Have a nice day.

How did this woman manage to get a teaching position at Dartmouth?

Dartmouth General Counsel Bob Donin does not believe Venkatesan’s lawsuit has legal merit, he said in a statement e-mailed to The Dartmouth.

“It has come to our attention that a former faculty member has e-mailed some undergraduates and faculty members mentioning the possibility of legal action,” Donin said in the statement. “We have determined that there is no basis for such action, and we have advised the students and faculty members of this.”

Venkatesan took a position at a large research university on April 14. She said she was uncomfortable naming the institution.

Venkatesan seems to have some serious issues.

Getting so bent out of shape because students applauded in response to another student's comment is really weird. The woman cancelled class for a week because the incident caused her such "intellectual and emotional distress."

Using Venkatesan's criteria, teachers and students all over the country could be suing each other.

Who doesn't experience "intellectual and emotional distress" sometime in the classroom?

Venkatesan needs to get a grip, and maybe consider pursuing a different career path.

Obama Disowns "Old Uncle" Wright

Breaking up is hard to do.

Barack Obama said he wouldn't do it. He said he couldn't do it. But yesterday, he tried.

He threw dear "old Uncle" Rev. Jeremiah Wright out of the house and slammed the door in his face.

Barack Obama claimed that he couldn't take it anymore.

In order to keep his candidacy alive, he had to break off his relationship with Wright. He knew he had no choice. Obama's quest for personal power trumped loyalty for his pastor of 20 years.

Of course, the lib media are in full spin over this, contorting to rationalize and excuse Obama's amazingly transparent politically expedient move.

Poor Obama. He was in such an awkward position. It's so hard to run for president. Vetting is hard!

Wright was so selfish. Remember, he betrayed Obama, not the other way around.

In the The New York Times' account of this very public personal break-up, one is encouraged to feel Obama's pain.

“We’ve got nine elections to go through June 9,” [Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate from California], said in an interview. “I’ve never been involved in a successful presidential race where the candidate had no trouble in the primary. It’s challenging to him. He is a young man, and this is the first time he’s run for president. I see this as a learning experience.”

Asked how he thought Mr. Obama was doing, Mr. Mulholland paused before responding. “Getting better,” he finally said.

Awww. Obama is a young guy. This is his first time running for president. He needs to learn. Cut him some slack. After all, Day One is still months away.

The appearances by Mr. Wright, which began Friday and concluded Monday, were anticipated by the Obama campaign, but aides said they were taken aback by the tenor of the remarks. His first interview, with Bill Moyers on PBS, offered few hints of what he intended when he arrived at the National Press Club on Monday.

Why was Obama's campaign taken aback by the tenor of Wright's remarks?

What he said was the same old, same old.

“At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.”

Wright was so mean to Obama. Poor baby.

Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.” Joining Mr. Wright’s church helped Mr. Obama, with his disparate racial and geographic background, embrace not only the African-American community but also Africa, his friends and family say.

Mr. Obama had barely known his Kenyan father; Mr. Wright made pilgrimages to Africa and incorporated its rituals into worship. Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school. Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.

My eyes are welling up with tears....

Obama was abandoned by his biological father. Now, Wright has hurt him, too.

As Mr. Wright’s more incendiary statements began circulating widely, Mr. Obama routinely condemned them but did not disassociate himself from Mr. Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama tried to explain his pastor through the bitter history of American race relations.

Five weeks later, the men seem finished with each other.

“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people.”

Oh, how sad!

All the father figures in Obama's life let him down.

Maybe if people vote for him to be the next president then he'll feel valued and loved.

Where's Oprah?

Michael Crawley Sentenced

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A former Cudahy youth football coach accused of assaulting and threatening to kill a 12-year-old boy during practice was sentenced today to 24 days in jail.

Michael Crawley, 40, also was placed on eight months probation and ordered to pay restitution after pleading guilty to charges of battery and disorderly conduct.

Crawley's attorney didn't think the sentence was fair.

"Frankly, I though the sentence was excessive," said John Birdsall, Crawley's attorney, said after today's sentencing.

Birdsall said Crawley did not bodyslam the boy, but did push him out of the way, which injured the youth. He said there were several discrepancies in how the story was reported.

"I think this whole thing has been completely overblown," he said.

At the time of the incident, Lynn Brellenthin, mother of victim Ryan Mullarney, said she was afraid of Crawley.

According to the police report:

Ms. [redacted] was displeased that Crawley was not in custody and she expressed fear of him. She said that up until this incident she and Crawley were friends. She requested information regarding a restraining order....

Brellenthin claimed to be so afraid that she said she'd prefer that Crawley be jailed.

I didn't believe that she really feared Crawley. If she did, why would she have agreed to do all those interviews and trot her son out before the cameras? Wasn't she afraid that might set Crawley off and he'd respond violently?

Actually, I think Brellenthin and Mullarney enjoyed the media attention and the drama.

In any event, Crawley will be spending time in jail for completely flipping out. Given that he assaulted a child, I think that's appropriate.

Coaching middle school kids is not like coaching in the pros or even on the college level. The Bobby Knight method of coaching doesn't fly in a youth league.


At least there aren't chairs on a football field.

Obama's Wright Press Conference

Barack Obama is mad that his hate-filled spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright is still an issue.

He's offended that his previous denouncements of Wright didn't take. He's horrified that they might have been seen as political posturing.

"I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency."

How about vetting his pastor to be his pastor?

Obama knows that Wright is a real problem for him. Obama not only disowns SOME of Wright's statements now. He has officially disowned Wright.

Talk about floundering!

"After seeing Rev. Wright's performance, I felt there was a complete disregard for what the American people are going through."

"There was a sense that that did not matter to Rev. Wright."

I guess Obama is a little slow.

Obama said he wanted to use this press conference to make absolutely clear that his relationship with Wright has changed.

"I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed."

"What Rev. Wright said yesterday directly contradicts EVERYTHING... that I've been saying."

"There wasn't anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was was a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth."

"I can't construct something positive out of that."

Obama said Wright's comments have insulted him and what he's been trying to do in his campaign.

When asked why he stayed at a church based in liberation theology, Obama side-stepped the question.

"In terms of liberation theology, I'm not a theologian."

Obama repeatedly said none of this is about political posturing.

BS.

It's all about political posturing.

Supposedly, his speech in Philadelphia (the one some loons considered to be Lincoln-esque and as great or better than Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech) was intended to provide context for Wright's remarks but not excuse them.

Obama said he used that speech to try to get Americans to understand Wright and black churches.

He said that Americans were troubled by the way Wright shouted in his sermons.

Yeah, right.

I think Americans were troubled by WHAT Wright said, not his fiery preaching style. If he had been shouting about love and Jesus and how great America is I don't think anyone would have been disturbed.

More quotes:

"Yesterday, I think he caricatured himself. That made me angry but it also made me sad."

"I do not see that relationship being the same after this."

"He was never my spiritual mentor. He was my pastor."

Obama said the press was inaccurate about calling Wright his spiritual mentor. (I believe Obama was inaccurate about that in the books Obama wrote.)

So, it's done.

Obama has had an epiphany. Wright really is a divisive, bad guy.

Wright is out.

On March 18, 2008, Obama said:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Today, he said: Never mind.

How embarrassing!

Apparently, Obama is one of the dumbest men on the planet.

He didn't realize the truth about Wright. Again, BS.

And apparently, Obama thinks Americans are the dumbest people on the planet. It's as if he thinks we're incapable of understanding what he's doing, the politically expedient.

I think Obama planned to use Wright's high profile appearances as an opportunity to disown him.

This was no accident.
________________

Transcript of Obama's Press Conference

Smiley Face Gang

Is this face your run-of-the-mill defacement of property or is it a murderer's calling card?

From FOX News:

At least 40 young men who drowned may have died by far more sinister means — serial killings at the hands of a national gang that revels in murdering young men and leaving smiley-face markings at the scene, a team of retired New York City police detectives and criminal justice investigators said Monday.

They believe the victims, including University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins and Fordham University student Patrick McNeill, didn't accidentally drown but were actually killed by members of the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," KSTP News in St. Paul reported.

A smiley-face symbol was found painted at some of the drowning locations — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, they told the station.

"They're telling you here that they're into evil, they're very happy as most serial killers are," retired NYPD Det. Kevin Gannon said to KSTP. "They're content with their work and what they're doing and the fact that they're thwarting the police."

Click here to read more on this story from the KSTP.com.

...The team investigated 89 separate cases dating back a decade and said it had connected 40 of them through a variety of evidence — including matching sets of gang graffiti.

It was Jenkins' death, however, that tipped off police. His body was found encased in ice in the Mississippi, his hands folded across his chest in an odd pose that was inconsistent with a chance drowning.

Gannon and another NYPD detective, Anthony Duarte — along with the other investigators — believe a gang of killers has been trolling interstates from New York to Wisconsin, staging the drownings.

The FBI and local authorities don't agree with the theory that all the drownings are linked and the work of a gang.

If I were a family member of one of the drowning victims, I think I would be haunted by the possibility that the death was not accidental.

I would want answers.

Have the detectives really found answers? I have my doubts, at least when it comes to the smiley faces.

It's weird that the smiley faces were found over such a wide geographical area.

That's odd, but it can easily be explained.

It wouldn't be difficult for some creeps communicating online to orchestrate the smiley face markings. The gang graffiti might suggest a group just wanting to create the impression of a connection in the crimes.

It reminds me of all those "mysterious" patterns cut into corn fields by all those "aliens." It could be a similar game, albeit far more disturbing especially for the families of the victims.

When were the smiley faces found? Was it years later?

Also, were the markings left where the bodies were discovered? Given the current of a river, the murderer/murderers wouldn't have a clue where the bodies would finally be located. The spot would have to be marked well after the murder took place.

It sounds to me like the smiley faces are the sick work of some group of weirdos obsessed with the drownings and looking to stage a panic.

What fun!

Ashley Dupre: Spitzer's Whore Takes the Legal Road

UPDATE, November 19, 2008: Ashley Dupre Exclusive: 'My Side of the Story'

VIDEO.
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UPDATE, July 5, 2008: Spitzer call girl drops 'Girls Gone Wild' lawsuit
______________

One of Eliot Spitzer's whores, the now infamous whore, Ashley Alexandra Dupre, is trying to make big bucks in the courthouse.

Dupre gained notoriety in March when it came out that she was the high-priced call girl named "Kristen" named in court documents who was hired by Spitzer for at least one tryst at a posh Washington hotel. Spitzer, known as "Client 9" in the documents, resigned as New York governor a few days after the scandal broke.

["Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe] Francis made a public $1 million offer for Dupre to appear in a "Girls Gone Wild" video and go on a promotional tour, then rescinded the offer after he realized he already had footage of Dupre from 2003. Dupre's lawyer warned she was only 17 when the video was shot, not 18 as Francis claimed.

Francis said in March that Dupre spent a week on a "Girls Gone Wild" bus and made seven full-length tapes after signing release papers. He also said he bought her a bus ticket home to North Carolina.

Francis said he was surprised by the lawsuit.

"It is incomprehensible that Ms. Dupre could claim she did not give her consent to be filmed by Girls Gone Wild, when in fact we have videotape of her giving consent, while showing her identification," Francis said in a statement.

He said the photos were taken "in front of a room full of people, including two newspapers and multiple crews we had in the room." Francis also said he would be happy to discuss the $1 million offer with her again.

The lawsuit claims Dupre is the victim of unfair trade practices, false advertising and unauthorized use of her likeness.

I think the immoral Spitzer was an idiot for paying Dupre so much.

Hopefully, a jury won't make a $10 million mistake. I think it's highly unlikely.

The lawsuit does give the whore Dupre attention and puts her back in the spotlight. That might be worth it to her, the media whore.

Once a whore always a whore?

Journal Sentinel Warns Against Voter Photo ID

Of course, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board has weighed in on yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter photo ID law.

The Board declares: "Voting should be easy."

I agree. Voting should be easy. However, the Board fails to acknowledge that voter fraud should not be easy.

Following a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday upholding Indiana's strict voter ID law, the state Legislature and the governor should resist efforts to enact such a law here.

Such a law would be antithetical to Wisconsin's long tradition of high voter turnout, spurred by having as few obstacles as possible to citizens exercising their right to the ballot.

Translation: We believe Doyle and the Dems should continue to maintain Wisconsin as fertile ground for voter fraud.

The court majority downplayed both the obstacles that a photo ID requirement will impose and the obvious partisan motivation for wanting such a requirement.

A PHOTO ID WILL NOT IMPOSE OBSTACLES.

It's a false argument.

"The obvious partisan motivation for wanting such a requirement" line is a joke.

What about Doyle and the Dems' partisan motivation for blocking such a requirement?

The dissenting justices got it right. Without a valid state photo ID or passport, it is no small feat to get one - if, for instance, you don't have a birth certificate or other official documentation handy to prove identity, don't know how to go about getting them and have uneven access to the money and transportation to make all this happen.

When the government offers to provide free photo IDs to voters, it's a very small feat to get one. These voters manage to get to the polls. They should be able to get an ID.

...The court said the Indiana law is non-discriminatory. However, to get there the justices had to ignore who are most likely not to have photo IDs. That would be the elderly, the poor and minority groups, folks who tend to vote Democratic.

Is it a widespread phenomenon that the elderly, poor, and minorities don't possess any photo ID or identifying documents?

Has that ever been analyzed?

The court dispensed with the partisan underpinnings of voter ID laws much too easily. Arguments for the law "should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.

In other words, even though widespread voter fraud doesn't exist in Indiana, Wisconsin or in the rest of the nation, we still should ignore that hurdles have just been placed, mostly by GOP legislators, before traditionally disadvantaged groups that - wink, wink - just happen to vote for the other party.

What's with all the winking by the Board? Has this Supreme Court decision caused it to develop a tic?

When photo IDs are made available to all at no cost, there are no hurdles.

Those evil GOP legislators want to make sure that our elections are clean, but those compassionate Dem legislators - wink, wink - are against it. Pretty screwy.

The Editorial Board should be ashamed for claiming that the elderly, poor, and minorities are incapable of doing something as simple as getting a free photo ID and suggesting that large numbers of these people don't already have any photo ID.

They're categorizing them as victims and helpless.

If the Dems really care about them, wouldn't a program to give them photo IDs be a boost for these disadvantaged Americans?

Why not allow them to have what us well-to-do Americans have, a photo ID?

DNC Attack Ad: 100 Years

It's a lie.

No Black Market Organs for You

If you are on a waiting list for an organ transplant, don't bother going to the Philippines to get what you need.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Foreigners will be permanently banned from receiving kidneys for transplant in the Philippines to prevent the country from becoming a major Asian center in a thriving black market, health officials announced Tuesday.
Extensive kidney trading involving impoverished Filipinos and prisoners—who sell their organs for paltry sums to syndicates catering mostly to foreign clients—has been reported by the local media in recent years. A temporary ban on kidney transplants involving foreigners was recently imposed.

China and Pakistan, among the world's biggest sources of kidneys, have taken steps to outlaw the sale of human organs, and desperate foreigners may be prompted to increasingly turn to the Philippines for kidneys, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.

"The poor always end up as the ones being abused," he said, adding kidney transplants for foreigners have risen in recent years. "The sale of one's body parts is condemnable and ethically improper. We have to stop it."

The sale of organs is illegal in the Philippines. The ban—intended to protect poor Filipinos from exploitation—will prohibit foreigners from getting donated kidneys unless they can prove a donor is related to them by blood, Duque said.

He said the ban was endorsed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and will take effect in about three weeks. Kidney donations among Filipinos will continue but will be strictly monitored by a new regulatory body, he said.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said at least 500 kidney transplants involving foreign patients were conducted last year in the Philippines.

...Local TV networks have shown footage of Manila slums where virtually all men bore kidney surgery scars after selling their kidneys for about $4,760 each.

This is a dirty, but not so secret, practice in Asia.

After years of denial, the Chinese government finally admitted that it engaged in human organ harvesting. In China, prisoners, including political prisoners, were executed for their organs.

China has acknowledged that foreigners who can pay more than native Chinese have been given preference for organ transplants and that "donors" for the operation have often been executed prisoners.

WND reported in 2004 charges by the banned Falun Gong group – backed up by Chinese doctors and human rights experts – that the communist government was torturing prisoners, executing them and trafficking in their body parts.

This week, at a summit for transplant doctors held in Guangzhou, the once-denied practice was confirmed by government officials.

"Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners," said Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu, according to English-language China Daily newspaper. "The current organ donation shortfall can't meet demand."

A ministry spokesman also said that "wealthier people, including foreign patients" were able to move to the top of waiting lists ahead of others waiting for organs.

Whether people are selling their organs or the government is taking prisoners and executing them to harvest their organs for transplant, it's a sick, sick practice.

Talk about torture! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!

Question: Has the U.S. executed prisoners and sold their organs on the black market?

Question: Do the poor in America resort to selling their kidneys?

Nathan Bowman and Richard D. George

This AP headline is ridiculous: "Pa. man charged with pushing friend into coal mine."

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A man who called 911 after his friend survived a 500-foot fall at a strip mine was charged Monday with pushing him over the edge.

While Nathan Bowman recovered from broken bones and other injuries in a hospital, Richard D. George was sent to Schuylkill County Prison in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Authorities said in court documents that George, after telling a story that didn't add up, admitted under questioning that he pushed Bowman into the canyon-shaped mine about 1 a.m. Friday after they got into an argument.

George was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and other offenses. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

Police said the 23-year-olds were trespassing on coal company property when George pushed Bowman off a sheer cliff.

Bowman, of Tamaqua, broke his collarbone and tailbone and suffered injuries to his wrist and ankle when he went over the side of the Springdale Pit, an inactive coal mine about 700 feet deep, 3,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide.

...George called 911 and initially claimed that another man had come running out of the mine and "hollered, as he ran by, that someone fell into the pit," according to an affidavit of probable cause. George later admitted pushing Bowman, authorities said.

State police used a helicopter, floodlights and thermal imaging to try to pinpoint Bowman's location in the pit, about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia, but could not find him in the darkness and called off the search at daybreak, authorities have said.

A short time later, an employee with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co., which owns the Springdale Pit, and Coaldale police went back to the spot where Bowman was believed to have fallen and heard him yelling for help.

...Bowman declined to say why he and George were at the mine so early in the morning. Police have said Bowman faces a trespassing charge.

It's a miracle that Bowman survived that fall.

Another thing about this story that amazes me is that the men are being called friends.

Friends?

Friends don't push friends off a sheer cliff into a coal mine.

Jimmy Carter and Charlie Rose

Jimmy Carter was talking about his recent Terrorist-palooza Tour with Charlie Rose on his show last night.

Again, Carter said that he in no way was acting in the role of a mediator or negotiator.

Then, of course, he went on to detail his talks with Hamas.

Rose said that it sounded like Carter was talking about negotiations.

Carter babbled that they were not negotiations.

Rose then called them "conversations."

Carter went on to talk about the "commitments" that Hamas made.

Rose questioned the "commitments."

Carter quickly added that Hamas made "commitments to me." What is that? Peace for Jimmy? Promises to Jimmy?

This is insane. Rose eased off and accepted Carter's assessment that he wasn't involved in any negotiations.

Carter claimed to be neutral, but he clearly is anti-Israel.

Rose asked Carter if Israel is engaging in acts of terrorism.

He didn't hesitate to say yes.

Carter gave his idea of what would be a perfect inaugural speech for the next president.

He said America's standing in the world could be changed in ten minutes, if the new president promises not to torture, and not to invade countries, and to be a leader in peace and human rights. A simple speech will change everything. Good grief.

When Rose and Carter get together it's torture.

Rose wondered, "What should we fear the most?"

Carter replied, "Continuing the current policies."

According to Carter, Americans shouldn't fear radical Islam and terrorists or suitcase nukes or anything as much as they should fear the policies of the Bush administration.

Carter is a hack. He's a disgrace.

Victory for Voter Photo ID

This is good news.

The Supreme Court ruled today that states may require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, upholding a Republican-backed measure that proponents say combats voter fraud and opponents believe discourages voter participation.

The court ruled 6-3 that the requirements enacted by Indiana's legislature were not enough of a burden to invoke constitutional protections. Because the state's law is generally regarded as the nation's strictest, the ruling bodes well for other states that have required photo ID.

"The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

Three conservative justices -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. -- agreed with the outcome but would have made it even more difficult for voters in states with photo-identification laws to challenge them.

Three liberal justices -- David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- dissented.

...When the law was upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, the dissenting Democratic-appointed judge called it a "not-too-thinly veiled attempt" to discourage voters who skew Democratic.

Stevens noted that it was "fair" to infer that "partisan considerations may have played a significant role" in Indiana's decision to pass the law.

"But if a nondiscriminatory law is supported by valid neutral justifications, those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators," he wrote.

Excellent point.

This ruling can only help Wisconsin's effort to pass a voter photo ID law.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"Everything we have been calling for is constitutional," said Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), who has long pushed for a voter ID law in Wisconsin.

...Since taking office in 2003, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed bills three times that would have required voters to show photo ID at the polls, saying it would disenfranchise poor and elderly voters. Republicans frustrated by the vetoes moved to amend the state constitution, which does not require the governor's approval.

But that move was stalled last year, when Democrats took over the state Senate. To amend the constitution, a resolution must be approved by lawmakers in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by voters in a statewide referendum.

Lawmakers gave initial approval to the resolution in 2006, when Republicans controlled both houses.

But Senate Democrats refused to take up the measure again in the latest legislative session. The Senate is not expected to address the matter before the November elections, meaning that the entire process would have to start over again in January.

"It's time for the Senate to allow the people of Wisconsin to have a voice on this," Stone said. "The real question is why the Senate doesn't want to allow for clean, fair and accurate elections in Wisconsin."

Parisi said voter fraud it isn't as common as photo ID supporters claim it is, and that part of maintaining election integrity involves making it possible for as many people who are eligible to cast ballots.

The Dems should give up on blocking a measure that will help assure the integrity of elections in Wisconsin.

In national elections, Wisconsin will become a fraud magnent if the Dems don't back off.

Since it's unlikely that Doyle and his minions will change their minds because they strongly prefer to look out for their political self-interest than worry about disenfranchising Wisconsin voters via fraud, I think it would be wise to follow Stone's suggestion: Let the people of Wisconsin decide.

Copycat TV Theft?

Less than a week ago, the theft of a 52-inch flat-screen TV from the Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Milwaukee made news.

Another TV in a senior home was stolen under similar circumstances.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Two men posing as carpet cleaners walked away with a 60-inch plasma TV from a senior apartment complex late last night, according to Milwaukee police.

The television was reported stolen from the Jefferson Court senior home in the 400 block of E. Juneau Ave., police said this morning.

Police are looking for two men in connection with the theft, which occurred about 10:30 p.m., according to reports.

Meanwhile, Veterans Administration Police Chief Timothy Jantz said this morning no arrests have been made in the case of the 52-inch Samsung LCD stolen from the dining room Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center on April 4.

In that case, a man posing as a maintenance man walked away with the TV on a dolly.

What scum!

Leilani and Dale Neumann Charged

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The parents of an 11-year-old girl who died of complications from untreated diabetes last month have both been charged with second-degree reckless homicide, according to Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad.

Madeline Kara Neumann died March 23. The girl's parents, Leilani and Dale Neumann, of Weston, have said they didn't know she had diabetes, didn't take her to a doctor and prayed for healing.

..."Second-degree reckless homicide has two elements," Falstad said. "The first element is that the defendant caused the death of another. The second element is that the defendant caused the death by criminally reckless conduct.

"In this case, that conduct was the failure to seek medical intervention. The failure to seek medical intervention created unreasonable and substantial risk of death or great bodily harm to Kara and the Neumanns were aware of the risk."

..."There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the availability of a 'religious defense' in this case," Falstad said in the statement. "In our nation we have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. We also give parents leeway in matters of child rearing. However, neither is absolute. In this case, it was necessary to weigh 'freedom of religion' and 'parenting rights' against the state's interests in protecting children."

It took a long time for the Neumanns to be charged in their daughter's death.

I agree with the charges.
________________

More, from the Associated Press.

Michael Bukosky Mourning the Loss of THREE Lives

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

As students mourned Sunday at the scene of a traffic accident that killed a pregnant school administrator and her daughter, the driver of the other vehicle was identified as a former physician who has been convicted three times of driving under the influence - with the third conviction and license revocation coming two days before the fatal crash.

The Waukesha County Sheriff's Department said Mark M. Benson, 55, of the Town of Summit, was being held at the county jail and is expected to make an initial appearance today in Waukesha County Circuit Court.

The likely charges are homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and causing injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle, although those could change, sheriff's Lt. Paul Renkas said.

This former physician was convicted THREE times of driving under the influence, the most recent being just two days before he got behind the wheel of his Cadillac Escalade and killed.

Benson's license was revoked!

This man is a murderer.

...[Jennifer] Bukosky, 39, of the Town of Oconomowoc, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her 10-year-old daughter, Courtney Bella, died Saturday from her injuries. Bukosky's son, Zachary Bella, 12, was released from a hospital Friday after being treated for his injuries. Another girl in Bukosky's car, whose identity has not been released, remained hospitalized Sunday.

...Jennifer Bukosky's husband, Michael Bukosky, said on Sunday that the tragedy took not two but three lives from his new family: his wife, Courtney and Sophia, who was due to be born June 3 but died as a result of her mother's injuries.

"I met her for the first time today. She has her mother's lips and my nose and a head of blond hair," Bukosky said while struggling not to weep.

To recognize Sophie's life at the visitation, the tiny baby will have her own casket. Mother and daughter will then be buried together, Bukosky said.

My heart breaks for Michael Bukosky.

He lost his wife, his daughter Courtney, and his daughter Sophia.

I couldn't read of Michael meeting his baby daughter for the first time without tearing up.

Obviously, unborn doesn't mean unloved.

His loss is so great.

His life and so many others have been ripped apart because Benson was driving when he shouldn't have been.

I pray for for all those affected by Benson's crime.

Milwaukee Restaurants' Violations

This is sickening.

37% of city restaurants cited for serious health violations

More than a third of Milwaukee's restaurants had at least one critical health code violation last year, city records show.

In most cases the violations occur behind the scenes and the inspection reports are written up without fanfare, meaning that diners have little way of knowing about the cockroaches, mold and other unsanitary conditions that may have been cited by city health inspectors that same day.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says these "critical" violations are serious enough to put patrons at risk of getting sick, at a time when food-borne bacteria account for thousands of illnesses and deaths in the United States each year.

Milwaukee also falls short of federal guidelines that recommend three inspections a year for full-service restaurants. City health officials typically inspect restaurants once a year.

In most cases, city restaurants are receiving a clean bill of health. But at least one out of three times, the findings can be enough to ruin anyone's appetite.

Thirty-seven percent is huge.

These aren't minor violations. These are ones that could make people sick.

Why isn't Milwaukee following federal guidelines recommending three inspections a year?

Once a year isn't enough. If inspections were done three times a year, how many more restaurants might be cited with violations?

If Milwaukee wants to be recognized as place with great restaurants, there should an effort to safeguard patrons by conducting inspections that comply with federal guidelines.

This is not good.

Milwaukee -- 37% of the restaurants had at least one critical health code violation last year.

Bon Appétit!
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Search the database of inspection reports.

Jimmy Carter and Pariah Diplomacy

Jimmy Carter has written yet another op-ed piece.

I think Carter's ramblings are appealing to lib publications not because of his status as a former president, but because he is ruthless when it comes to criticizing the Bush administration.

In the New York Times, "Pariah Diplomacy":

A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies.

...On the way home from monitoring the Nepalese election, I, my wife and my son went to Israel. My goal was to learn as much as possible to assist in the faltering peace initiative endorsed by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Although I knew that official United States policy was to boycott the government of Syria and leaders of Hamas, I did not receive any negative or cautionary messages about the trip, except that it might be dangerous to visit Gaza.

Translation: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a liar.

Carter explains:

We met with Hamas leaders from Gaza, the West Bank and Syria, and after two days of intense discussions with one another they gave these official responses to our suggestions, intended to enhance prospects for peace:

•

Hamas will accept any agreement negotiated by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel provided it is approved either in a Palestinian referendum or by an elected government. Hamas’s leader, Khaled Meshal, has reconfirmed this, although some subordinates have denied it to the press.

•

When the time comes, Hamas will accept the possibility of forming a nonpartisan professional government of technocrats to govern until the next elections can be held.

•

Hamas will also disband its militia in Gaza if a nonpartisan professional security force can be formed.

•

Hamas will permit an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in 2006, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, to send a letter to his parents. If Israel agrees to a list of prisoners to be exchanged, and the first group is released, Corporal Shalit will be sent to Egypt, pending the final releases.

•

Hamas will accept a mutual cease-fire in Gaza, with the expectation (not requirement) that this would later include the West Bank.

•

Hamas will accept international control of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, provided the Egyptians and not the Israelis control closing the gates.

In addition, Syria’s president, Bashir al-Assad, has expressed eagerness to begin negotiations with Israel to end the impasse on the Golan Heights. He asks only that the United States be involved and that the peace talks be made public.

Does this sound like Carter is summing up his negotiations with Hamas?

"Intense discussions."

"OFFICIAL responses to our suggestions, intended to enhance prospects for peace."

Carter goes through them, point by point. It's to reconcile that with what he said last week.

From an interview with Reena Ninan on FOX News:

NINAN: One Israeli official actually said to me, 'We don't know whose behalf he's negotiating.' Why are you doing this? And would you have appreciated someone undermining your administration?

CARTER: First, I'm not undermining anything. And secondly, I'm not negotiating. I have no role to play as a mediator or a negotiator. I'm just here representing myself and the Carter Center, no one else, with no authority at all. I don't want any authority. And my decision was just to talk to people who must be involved in the final peace agreement, who are excluded at this point from any discussions leading to a peace agreement.

WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?

Carter just laid out Hamas' OFFICIAL responses to his suggestions.

But don't forget, he wasn't acting as a mediator or a negotiator.

No. Of course not.

Carter does have a lot in common with those "political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates."

Pariahs of a feather flock together.

Jeremiah Wright at the NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner

Rev. Jeremiah Wright has retired but he's still in the limelight.

Wright is in the middle of a media blitz.

On Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed Wright. Video and full transcript here.

Sunday, Wright was the keynote speaker at the Detroit branch of the NAACP 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner.

Wright's tour continues today.

Wright's appearance today at the National Press Club will begin the annual Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. The conference, named for the noted religious scholar, will bring black religious leaders from across the country to Howard University. And at the center of the discussions will be the powerful and provocative tenets of liberation theology.

"Powerful and provactive" is a sanitized way of putting it. Angry and divisive might be more appropriate. In short, lies.

At Wright's NAACP speech Sunday, Barack Obama's spiritual mentor didn't sound like he did with Bill Moyers. This was not the soft-spoken Wright we saw with Moyers. The Wright who showed up at the NAACP dinner was the one we've come to know.

Watch the speech.

Jake Tapper writes:

Most of Wright's speech addressed the theme of the dinner, “A Change is Gonna Come,” talking about the differences between different cultures and races, saying "a change is coming because we no longer see others as being deficient…Different doesn't mean deficient."

"The black religious tradition is different," he said in comments that seemed to address the controversy about his sermons. "We do it a different way."

Wright discussed how different groups have seen other groups as "deficient." After saying English-speakers saw Arabic-speakers as "being deficient," Wright mentioned Obama almost as an aside.

"Please run and tell my stuck-on-stupid friends that Arabic is a language -- is a language, it is not a religion," he said. "Barack HUSSEIN Obama," he said, emphasizing the Illinois senator's middle name dramatically, "Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. There are Arabic-speaking Christians, there Arabic-speaking Jews, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Arabic-speaking atheists. Arabic is a language, it is not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them this Arabic name like it's some disease."

The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style," he said. "They have a different way of learning." And so on.

Oh my God. Wright is a real piece of work.

Because of his close and decades-long relationship with Barack Obama, Wright certainly knew that everything he said and did during his address would be analyzed.

"White people clap differently than black people"?

Really?

Africans and African-Americans "have a different way of learning"?

Their brains are different? Does science back that up?


This is racist tripe.

If you wondered whether the portions of Wright's sermons picked up and played by the media unfairly depicted Wright, wonder no more.

I wonder if Obama claps like his mom or his dad.

Dowd: Desperately Seeking Obama

I think Maureen Dowd has a crush on Barack Obama.

I'm certain.

She's probably like Chris Matthews. I bet when she hears Obama she gets a thrill going up her leg, the way Matthews does; but she won't admit to it.

In her column, "Desperately Seeking Street Cred," Dowd scratches and claws at Hillary Clinton while she playfully teases Obama.

She writes:

It used to be that [Obama] was incandescent and [Hillary] was merely inveterate. Now she’s bristling with life force, and he looks like he wants to run away somewhere for three months by himself and smoke.

Hillary is not getting much sleep or exercise, and doesn’t, like the ascetic Obama, abstain from junk food and coffee and get up at dawn to work out on the road. She’s still a long shot and she’s 14 years older than her rival.

Yet she’s the one who is more energetic and focused and beaming, and he’s the one who seems uneven and gauzy, often fatigued and unable to disguise being fed up with the slog. Even his speeches don’t have the same pizazz.

This is a setup. Dowd speaks admiringly of Hillary before she goes in for the kill.

...Even some Obama fans find Hillary’s toughness and shameless shape-shifting compelling. Having lost the White House twice to brass-knuckled pols, the Dems may be drawn to a woman who thinks like Karl Rove.

James Clyburn, the influential black congressman from South Carolina, says that some blacks are buying into the 2012 Tonya Harding conspiracy theory: that the Clintons know they can’t beat Obama this time, so they are “hell-bound,” as Clyburn put it, to shred him so he’ll lose to McCain and Hillary will be able to try again in 2012 — when McCain is 76.

In interviews, Clyburn called the tactics of the Clintons and their henchmen “bizarre,” “disingenuous” and “scurrilous.”

...Hillary is burdened by her husband’s inflammatory remarks on race and her own willingness to burn the party to save the party.

The Nixonian Hillary has a ravenous hunger that Obama lacks. Literally — at a birthday party in Philly for her photographer, she was devouring the chips and dip with two hands — and viscerally.

I would like to know what Dowd thinks was so inflammatory about Bill's remarks on race. She's very vague.

She's certainly not vague about what she thinks of Hillary. Dowd casts her as a she-devil.

When a lib compares another lib to Karl Rove, that's about as low as one can go.

Calling Hillary "Nixonian" is also quite a shot.

But Dowd really gets vicious when she calls Hillary a pig with the chips and dip.

There are so many complaints about the superficial nature of this presidential race, yet Queen lib Dowd isn't exactly steering away from the superficial and focusing on substance in this column.

After slamming Hillary, Dowd dwells on the very matters that Obama wants to go away.

At Joe’s Junction gas station in Indianapolis, Obama did his best to shoo away the pesky elitist label. Accused by an Indianapolis reporter of looking like a GQ cover, he said he has only four pairs of shoes and buys “five of the same suit and then I patch them up and wear them repeatedly.” But his campaign refused to reveal the brand, presumably because it’s not J. C. Penney.

He dutifully enthused about carbs, assuring reporters that when he had dinner as a child with his Kansas grandparents, the food “would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana. A lot of pot roast, potatoes and Jell-O molds.”

But then he resumed wry whingeing about his 37 bowling score, explaining that he finished only seven frames, including two that “were bowled by a 10-year-old” and another by a 3-year-old.

“I don’t want to go out of my way to sort of prove my street cred as a down-to-earth guy,” he said, after going out of his way.

It's crazy that a presidential candidate is trying to win votes by saying he grew up on meals of "pot roast, potatoes and Jell-O molds."

What is that?

Dowd is perpetuating the superficiality and silliness, and so is Obama.

When Obama says, “People know me,” Dowd concludes:

Not yet, but we will, one of these years.

She makes it sound like we don't know Obama.

I disagree. We are learning about him. He's not a smooth talking unknown anymore. That's his real problem.

Obama as a Liability

From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama is starring in a growing number of campaign commercials, but the latest batch is being underwritten by Republicans.

In a sign that the racial, class and values issues simmering in the presidential campaign could spread into the larger political arena, Republican groups are turning recent bumps in Mr. Obama’s road — notably his comment that small-town Americans “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness and a fiery speech by his former minister in which he condemned the United States — into attacks against Democrats down the ticket.

“The public, week by week, is becoming more familiar with his big-government, far-left vision for America,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for Freedom’s Watch, an advocacy organization that is portraying Mr. Obama as ultraliberal in an advertisement running in Louisiana before a special election for a House seat.

Republicans say the new focus on Mr. Obama reflects their view that he remains the more likely Democratic presidential nominee since he continues to lead Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in convention delegates. It also shows that Republicans, who have for months characterized Mrs. Clinton as the contender who would most energize Republican voters, now see vulnerabilities in Mr. Obama that could be liabilities for other Democrats on the ballot.

“There were times when Republicans reacted with just horror that he would lead the ticket,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst. “Now there is not the sense of him being invulnerable, the magic bullet. I think there has been a major change.”

The growing Republican emphasis on Mr. Obama could also help Mrs. Clinton plead her case that she is more electable, bolstering her argument to superdelegates that Republicans are poised to pounce on her relatively untested opponent.

...At the same time, some Democrats privately said the new Republican push could be a backdoor effort to buoy Mrs. Clinton, the candidate Republicans initially saw as the Democrat who would most rally Republicans and spur fund-raising. It has not been lost on Republican strategists that they can give pause to superdelegates leaning toward endorsing Mr. Obama.

...Democrats say Republicans are going to vilify either Democratic contender and distort his or her record in an effort to weaken the nominee and drag down fellow Democrats.

“We know they will use Karl Rove/Lee Atwater tactics no matter who the nominee is,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Republicans have lost their credibility on the issues they want to scare people on, like national security, so they will try a different strategy.”

Oooh, those evil, scheming Republicans.

Imagine. "Democrats say Republicans are going to vilify either Democratic contender and distort his or her record in an effort to weaken the nominee and drag down fellow Democrats."

What have the New York Times and the Washington Post and other media publications been doing to McCain? And what have NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC been doing to McCain?

They certainly have not been taking the high road.

When the Republican nomination was still up for grabs, the lib outlets vilified and distorted the records of the Republican candidates, particularly the more conservative Republicans.

After McCain clinched the nomination, the New York Times actively campaigned to drag him down.

In spite of giving McCain its endorsement, there's been a whole lotta vilifying going on by the Times.

It's especially sleazy that the attacks weren't about matters that surfaced since the newspaper gave McCain its support.

The stories were tired, old ones that the Times tried to resuscitate.

Some examples:

Vicki Iseman non-scandal

McCain's Panama Canal Zone birthplace

Elisabeth Bumiller's piece on McCain's testiness

McCain's flirtation with leaving the Republican Party and his conversations with Dems about being John Kerry's 2004 running mate

All are utterly lame.

All are planted to raise doubts about John McCain and his conservatism.

All regurgitate old news to make stories out of nothing.

I suspect the New York Times plans to run more goofy slop on McCain, desperately throwing anything against the wall in hopes that something will stick.

The Washington Post is also part of the "Attack McCain" apparatus.

McCain's temperament questioned

It's so hypocritical to charge the Republicans with dirty campaigning, when the Dems and their mouthpieces in the media engage in it as well.

"Karl Rove/Lee Atwater tactics"--

What a joke!

Obama continues to lie about McCain and his line about being in Iraq for 100 years. It's an intentional distortion. Obama is lying to the American people about his opponent.

The reality is Obama is very vulnerable.

In addition to matters involving Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers being problematic, there's his extreme liberalism and inexperience and his disdain for gun-toting, religion-clinging Americans. His fear of the American flag doesn't help him either. Oh, yes... and he can't bowl.

As we get to know him, we see his arrogance and smugness, and his disingenuous. His disastrous performance in the last debate had to give Dems pause about Obama as their savior. What earlier seemed like a fresh face ushering in a new era of politics, now is exposed as the same old, same old.

The stunts like the fainting episodes at his rallies make Obama seem insincere. The snippy side of him, taunting Hillary Clinton, isn't very attractive.

He's a radical Leftist.

He's not a victim of dirty politics.

Obama drags himself down. The Republican Party really doesn't have to manufacture anything to do it for him.

Milwaukee's Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge: Scrap This!

On Saturday, April 26, Milwaukee "is hosting a one-day special collection event where residents will have the opportunity to recycle old TVs in addition to computer electronics."



That's nice.

The City of Milwaukee and Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful present Milwaukee's Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge E-Scrap Collection to be held at the Italian Community Center's south parking lot on Saturday April 26, 2008 from 10am to 2pm.

This event is free and open to City of Milwaukee residents, who must present an ID or copy of a bill with a Milwaukee address. This event is for residents only -- no businesses please.

Wow. You need to present an ID to drop off old TVs and computer equipment.

In Milwaukee, you don't need to present an ID to vote!

That's weird, but this is nuts:



PLEASE LIMIT TO 4 UNITS PER VEHICLE.

What's the point of this event? Is it to recycle safely? That's how it's being promoted.

I don't get why they'd limit it to 4 units per vehicle.

Wouldn't it be more successful if they collected as much electronic scrap as possible?

Should a family take two cars to the event if they have more than 4 units to scrap? Are they encouraging people to make two trips to stay within the 4 unit limit?

That's not very environmentally-friendly.

Help keep these items out of landfills and protect Lake Michigan! They can contain lead, mercury, and other heavy metals that harm human health and the environment if released into the air or water.

If the event sponsors truly want to achieve that end, then why would they place a limit?

If you have more than 4 units you don't want, then you have more than 4 that need to be safely recycled.

If there is concern that they won't be able to handle all the units and they'll be overwhelmed, then this event appears to be more of a symbolic thing rather than a serious attempt to dispose of electronic units in a manner that won't harm the environment.

The message seems to be:

We want to have a collection, but we don't want to collect too much.

We want you to recycle and protect the planet, but don't overdo it.

Gard - Kagen Rematch

From the Appleton Post-Cresent:

Former Assembly Speaker John Gard is expected to announce Sunday that he intends to run to unseat U.S. Rep Steve Kagen, D-Appleton.

Gard, 44, who was narrowly defeated by Kagen in 2006, was backed by the Republican National Committee in his previous run for Congress.

Gard's campaign spokesman Mark Graul declined to say Thursday whether Gard was the party's pick this time around.

"The only 'pick' that John Gard is concerned about is that he's the pick of the people of northeastern Wisconsin," he said.

Graul said Gard, who lives in Suamico, has spent much of his time since August talking with voters about support for him running again.

Gard will make his announcement at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Bay Beach Park main pavilion in Green Bay, and at 3:30 p.m. in the Pierce Park picnic pavilion in Appleton.

Gard certainly isn't making TWO announcements on Sunday to say he intends NOT to run against Kagen.

Surely, the people of the 8th District will get it right this time.


"If our children are healthy, they'll develop into their full potential and become wonderful tax-paying citizens sometime."


"Then I go to [President Bush's] wife, 'Hi Barbara, how are ya?' I did that because I learned on the campaign that the meanest thing you can say to another gentlemen is, 'he's a fine fellow,' and you then refer to his spouse by a different name."

--STEVE KAGEN