It's morning somewhere

..."We all saw the long lines of desperate people leaving that city in vehicles, those who had vehicles," Chavez said, adding that the area hit by Katrina includes "some of the poorest in the United States, most of them black."

"How is it possible that this occurs in the United States and the 'King of Vacations' says 'flee to high ground'?" Chavez said. "It isn't known how many dead there are."...

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts took shots at Congress while a Reagan administration lawyer, saying in documents released Wednesday that a congressman killed in connection with cult leader Jim Jones' massacre could be viewed as a "publicity hound" and that what Congress does best is "nothing."...

...Two of the released documents show Roberts, then an assistant to White House counsel Fred Fielding, taking the then-Democratic Congress to task...

...Several groups announced their opposition to Roberts on Wednesday, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Partnership for Women & Families, and the National Womens Law Center. Groups announcing their support of Roberts included the National Black Republican Association...

Analysts said that even if Katrina did less harm than feared, its effects were bound to tighten the availability of already scarce refined products, thereby driving prices up further.

Herd produced the design with natural materials. The alfalfa serves as the background of the coin; black lava rock and red cypress mulch create the lettering; a buffalo is being carved into the soil, with white marble stone highlighting its horns; and corn colors the sunflowers.

..."All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.

The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

"We're talking about in essence having - in the continental United States - having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said...

The sickest among them didn't flee the 160-mph wrath of Hurricane Katrina on Sunday as much as they hobbled to safety on crutches, canes and on stretchers. Others lined up for blocks, clutching meager belongings and crying children as National Guardsman searched them for guns, knives and drugs.

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In Brentwood, N.H., on July 30, police responded to an emergency call to find an intoxicated man with a padlock around his scrotum. He was taken to Exeter Hospital, and a locksmith freed him.

And the day before that, in Worcester, England, Geoffrey Hughes, 51, was given a two-year "anti-social behavior order" in Magistrates Court for a series of incidents, one of which was appearing in public wearing only a hat and, on his scrotum, a padlock. [Portsmouth Herald, 8-5-05] [Worcester Standard, 8-6-05]

"So long as I am president, we will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terrorism," he told a supportive audience of National Guard members and their families in a sports arena in this Boise suburb. Pulling out now, he said, would "embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America."...

...Scott Reed, a Republican strategist in Washington, said Bush had to do something to shift attention away from protests, GOP qualms and continuing U.S. deaths in Iraq. "The only way you change the subject is to get on the offense," he said. "It also may be time to get on the serious offense in Iraq in a military way."

....Bush thanked military families for their sacrifices and noted that Idaho has the highest state percentage of National Guard troops serving in Iraq. As a counterpoint to Sheehan, Bush highlighted the sacrifice of another mother. Tammy Pruett, who was in the audience, has four sons serving in Iraq. Her husband and another son returned from there last year. Bush quoted her saying that if one of her sons died in Iraq, "they would leave this world doing what they believe, what they think is right." There was a standing ovation when Bush added, "America lives in freedom because of families like the Pruetts."..

A federal commission voted on Thursday to close the crown jewel of Army hospitals as it began its second day of decision-making on sweeping plans to restructure military bases across the country...

Most of Walter Reed's work would be relocated to a more modern, expanded hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, that will be renamed Walter Reed in a nod to the old facility's heritage
...One-time costs, including construction and renovations, would total $989 million. The Pentagon would save $301 million over 20 years, the commission said. The current hospital has about 185 beds, but the expanded facility would have 340...

...Aircraft would be taken away from 25 Air National Guard units. Instead of flying missions, those units would get other missions such as expeditionary combat support roles. They also would retain their state missions of aiding governors during civil disturbances and natural disasters.....

Joshua Magee, in the throes of a schizophrenic delusion, believed he was about to do God's work when he drove a car carrying homemade explosives and a rifle to Malcolm High School last year, a psychologist testified Monday...
..."It is my opinion he believed he was following God's plan," said Scalora, a psychology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "It's pretty hard to turn down a voice from God."..
...Some of the disease's symptoms — a belief he was following God's orders, a blank facial expression, changes in his physical appearance, among other symptoms — were evident the day of the incident, Scalora testified...

..."According to Abbas, Bush said: 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'"...

and told him that he had not sent out any medical missionaries from the university or City of Faith. God instructed him to raise $8 million by March of the same year or God would take him home (presumably God would kill Oral Roberts or translate him to heaven like Enoch).
The money raised was to provide full scholastic scholarships for medical missionaries who would be sent to other countries.
He claimed that $3.5 million had already been raised, but he needed $4.5 million more by March 1, in order to get the full $8 million and prevent God from taking him home...

...Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau faces criminal mischief charges for allegedly blacking out Bush bumper stickers on cars at Denver International Airport and then spray-painting an expletive over them...
...Fecteau's lawyer, Patrick Mulligan, said he was "a highly decorated colonel in the Air Force with 500 combat hours in the Gulf War, Kosovo and Bosnia. Any allegations have to be viewed in that context."..

...Give him demerits for trying so diligently to preserve the anti-abortion parts of the bill, his focus in the special session. Is this the most important undone business of the past session? If not forgotten altogether, a wishful thought, could these efforts not wait until the next regular session?
The three additional laws Blunt wants would require abortion doctors to have clinical privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of an operation site, would allow civil lawsuits against anyone assisting a minor getting an abortion in another state and would limit who can qualify as a "next friend" to minors seeking judicial consent to get an abortion...

...If Blunt and others really want to reduce the number of abortions in Missouri, they will expand resources for family planning services, our best method for helping young women avoid unwanted pregnancies. Instead, they continually push legislation aimed at making women carry through with unwanted pregnancies...

...An unknown driver crashed into and knocked over the seven blue mail collection boxes on Fifth Street outside the downtown Columbia post office this morning..."It ripped them out of the bases," Cook said of the mail boxes. "Those things are heavy. I can’t lift one. It takes two men just to move them."..

...The boy's family and school officials have said he was arrested and handcuffed at the school several days after being in a confrontation with Officer Charles Ward's son outside a Joplin movie theater.

According to their account, Ward went to the school to question the boy and then called Ron Buchanan, the school's Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer. Buchanan continued to question the boy before handcuffing and arresting him.
him...

In politics, unlike sex, there is no morning-after pill.

...Even then, our corporately usurped Eros had transmuted into an indifference to little else but our ceaseless attempts to sate our hollow appetites and our perpetual need for distractions from the tedium and the emptiness engendered by our existence within an economically exploitive, class-stratified system, where one's personal worth is measured in mammon and identity defined by consumption." *3

The above description of the American mindset goes a long way to explain why George Bush is the perfect avatar for the new American century. Bush's own background has been carefully sheltered from the light of day, because it reveals an extremely disturbing picture = a personal and presidential pathology that according to Carol Wolman, a board certified psychiarist in practice for 30 years, is "taking the world on a suicidal path." *4

...Something new is coming, though. Plenty of old ordnance is lying around Iraq just waiting to be turned into crude roadside killers and murderous weapons hidden in the backs of parked trucks and carts, but those weapons of opportunity are now being supplemented by bombs made from shape charges, which are essentially an explosive chemical—powder, plastique, perhaps even liquid—with a metallic component—shrapnel, if you will—all inside a container that focuses the explosion. A well-designed shape charge like the commercially available one at left can cause the shrapnel to fly at speeds of as much as 10 kilometers per second, thereby turning it into a hail of slugs capable of fully penetrating practically any armored vehicle's plating. Once compromised, the armor then becomes the tomb of personnel inside the armored vehicle as the slugs, having been slowed down in the initial penetration, rattle around hundreds of times inside, shredding flesh, while the killing heat, gasses, and other metal from the device take advantage of the initial breaches to pour in more death and destruction...

...In Las Vegas, Matthew Sepi was on his way to get a beer, but he tucked an assault rifle inside his black trenchcoat just in case. In Lawrence, Mass., Daniel Cotnoir brought out his 12-gauge shotgun. Both pulled the trigger. Now Sepi faces murder and attempted murder charges while Cotnoir is charged with attempted murder...

People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing one another. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd...
...Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.

"I took my chair here, and I threw it over my shoulder, and I went, ‘Bam,’ " the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station. "They were getting in front of me, and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - There are enough international and Afghan security forces in place to safeguard landmark legislative elections next month despite violence that is likely to continue, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Thursday.

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp., moving beyond the U.S. mail, said it will begin this month to notify car and truck owners of recall notices through its OnStar in-vehicle communications service.

As an option, OnStar service costs $695 - roughly $500 for the hardware and $200 for the first year's subscription fee, said OnStar spokesman Terry Sullivan. After the first year, the subscription price is $16.95 a month, Sullivan said. He noted the retention rate for service is more than 60 percent.

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - One of President Bush's neighbors will allow use of his land by dozens of war protesters who have camped in roadside ditches the past 11 days, giving them more room and halving their distance from Bush's ranch...

...For more than a week, the rural area has been a traffic nightmare as the camp attracted hundreds more protesters as well as Bush supporters holding counter-rallies...

My friend always writes with such wit,

...But if you don't find them funny or you're offended, we'd love you to complain. In fact, attempts to get us banned would be welcomed...

Satan Subpoened:
Satan, Lord of Darkness and Master of All Evil, has been subpoened to appear in court and testify on behalf of his alleged victims.

Many believe that he could clear up the confusion as to who was actually at fault. But sources close to the courts say it's unlikely the Evil Master will even appear at the hearings.

"My master Lucifer has refused to appear in court on religious grounds," said a spokesperson from Hell in Parktown, a small sub-suburb located within a wealthy suburb in Johannesburg, where Satan has made his home. "It is well known that if our Lord of Darkness were to place his hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he would burst into flames and die."

Satan owes billions of Rands, Pounds, French Francs, and especially American Dollars in fines for his numerous failures to appear in courts aroung the world.

"We can't be sure the person we arrest will be Satan Himself," said the spokesperson. "It might turn out to be some black guy they found wandering around without shoes on. It happens sometimes... OK, it happens a lot."

...On security, the administration originally expected the U.S.-led coalition to be welcomed with rice and rosewater, traditional Arab greetings, with only a limited reaction from loyalists of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The surprising scope of the insurgency and influx of foreign fighters has forced Washington to repeatedly lower expectations -- about the time-frame for quelling the insurgency and creating an effective and cohesive Iraqi force capable of stepping in, U.S. officials said...
...Last week was the fourth-worst week of the whole war for U.S. military deaths in combat, and August already is the worst month for deaths of members of the National Guard and Reserve...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - An 83-year-old woman is recovering after being stung 400 times by bees, authorities said...

...That has left his supporters perplexed over why Bush hasn't gotten more credit for the improving economy...
..."The economy is good, but it hasn't improved for everybody," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com, an economics research firm. "The gains have predominantly gone to higher-income and higher net-worth households. Lower net-worth households are still struggling."...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Roadside bombs and ambushes killed at least nine people and wounded 11 others Saturday, as Iraqi leaders reported tentative agreements on issues such as distribution of oil wealth and Islam as the state religion with only two days to go to finalize the new constitution...

9. Threw a rock at a couple riding a tandem bike
10. Outran a tandem bike

...The Democrats' speculative front-runner for '08, Hillary Clinton, has offered similarly hawkish rhetoric. "If we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that," Clinton told CBS in February. Instead, she recently proposed enlarging the Army by 80,000 troops "to respond to threats wherever danger lies." Clinton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, appears more comfortable accommodating the President's Iraq policy than opposing it, and her early and sustained support for the war (and frequent photo-ops with the troops) supposedly reinforces her national security credentials...

And a woman in Mecklenburg County, N.C., attempted to chase snakes out of a couch on her front porch by dousing the nest with lighter fluid, but then an accidentally dropped match set a fire large enough that she had to jump out a window to safety (June). [WSOC-TV (Charlotte), 6- 15-05]

In the initial quest for votes, those running for elective office, including the presidency, will talk and meet with virtually anyone. There is no coffee hour too small to attend nor person too humble to approach. Once the vote-seeker wins office, it's a different story. The walls go up. The doors lock. The distance grows.

The point is this: America is a democracy and the president holds that office at our pleasure, not his own. He by god should be required to come out from behind that damned wall and talk to this mother, whose son has been killed at his command, in a war he started.

I think it is shame that prevents the President from going out in the street and answering this woman, I think if he were to come face to face with her the facade would crumble - being stipped of all the illusions you hold about yourself can be painful.
So, I say Mr. President you are no gentleman, you are no christian, you are no leader until you can face the grief of a mother crying - and perhaps dying a little -for her son.

...Chief Chuck Harmon said the two officers who handcuffed the 5-year-old girl were reprimanded for minor errors in handling the situation, which gained worldwide attention when a videotape of the confrontation was released to broadcasters.
But Harmon said the officers were not punished for shackling the child, who had torn up a classroom and hit an assistant principal before the officers arrived...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The superintendent at the state's most notorious youth prison is being removed from his post for using unreasonable force against a ward and failing to report the incident, corrections officials said Thursday...
...The inspector general found that Kruse grabbed a handcuffed ward's hair and jaw as he was being escorted to another living unit after a fight involving 44 youths at the prison...

FUN SCROTAL SCIENCE PROJECT:
On a hot day, disrobe and slip your body (groin and all) into a cold shower. Notice how your testicles tell your scrotum to contract and thus, bring them closer to the warmth of your body's bulk. Examine the prune like puckering your scrotum produces to accomplish this amazing feat of strength and engineering. Write about your experience in your journal.

1772
German-born Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele was the first to discover chlorine, an essential ingredient in subsequent modern bleaches. Nearly 40 years later, English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy gave chlorine its name, derived from the Greek word for greenish-yellow.

Sodium hypochlorite, the active ingredient in household bleach, was discovered by the French chemist Berthollet, in Javel on the outskirts of Paris, in 1787. Its ability to effectively whiten textiles was quickly discovered and put to commercial use with great success. By the end of the nineteenth century, after Louis Pasteur had discovered sodium hypochlorite's potent effectiveness against disease-causing bacteria, it became widely used as a disinfectant. Studies by numerous independent research institutes have supported the high level of disinfection effectiveness of sodium hypochlorite. It is recognized as having an unsurpassed disinfection spectrum.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A bicycle bomb left by suspected guerrillas exploded next to a church, killing one woman and injuring at least a dozen people in northeast Colombia near the Venezuela border, police said...
...Colombia has been involved in an armed conflict for more than four decades. Some 3,500 people, mostly civilians, are killed each year in the fighting...

...At least 13 people were killed, while 23 survived. At least two people were believed missing...
...Palermo Prosecutor Piero Grasso said authorities had ruled out terrorism. The plane apparently hit the water intact, but the tail broke off from the main wreckage hours later, rescuers said...

...“It's hot in Iraq and our children are suffering there, and the Iraqi people are suffering,” said Sheehan, whose son was killed in action in Iraq. “If they can do this day after day, month after month, then I can stay here for a few weeks. This is nothing compared to what they're going through.”..
Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., vowed to stay in Crawford through August until she could get an audience with President George W. Bush, who is spending the month vacationing at his ranch nearby. Earlier in the day, she lead a group of about 50 anti-war demonstrators calling for an end to the war in Iraq...
...The White House responded to the protest, saying the president wants to bring the troops home...
...Sheehan's outspokenness has made her a target. On a memorial Web site for her son, a few posts chastise Sheehan for criticizing the war. A couple of messages even wish death on Sheehan, who was a Catholic youth minister prior to becoming a full-time activist...

Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook has died after he collapsed while out hill walking, police have said.

...The Automobile Club of Southern California fired the employees in one of its San Diego offices after at least one worker complained to management about feeling harassed by the comments, which were written by employees on the MySpace.com Web site on their own time at home...
...The club has no official policy concerning employee blogging. "We may develop one now," Thorp added...

Jailed US lifestyle guru Martha Stewart will spend another three weeks under house arrest until 31 August...
...No reasons were given for the extension...
...Time Magazine even named her among its top 100 most influential people in 2005...

DENVER (AP) - A soldier who returned from Iraq nine days earlier apparently shot and killed his wife and then himself at their home near Fort Collins, Army officials said Thursday...
...He was a cannon crew member in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Carson but had a home in Fort Collins, a city about 130 miles north of the post, she said...
...The 2nd Brigade Combat Team lost 68 soldiers during its tour in Iraq. Sherwood was at least the second Fort Carson-based soldier to commit suicide shortly after serving there...

...Nervous members of the wildly popular online social networking spot are blasting its purchase by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., expressing dark fears about the powerful billionaire’s alleged motives and the possibility of privacy breaches, monitoring, censorship - and access fees...
...But some of the hipsters in the online hangout fear their freewheeling ways, celebrated in naughty notes, brash blogs and provocative photos, won’t mesh with the values of Murdoch’s media outlets, such as Fox News, which they believe are right-wing mouthpieces for the Bush administration...

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Roberts is a multimillion-dollar man, with a fancy golf club membership and some hefty investments, according to a financial statement filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Roberts pledged Tuesday to respect established rulings if confirmed to the Supreme Court, saying judges must recognize that their role is "not to solve society's problems."...
..."John Roberts' lawyerly answers fall short of the candor the American people expect," Keenan said. "Even anti-choice Justices Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist respect precedent, but that hasn't stopped them from explicitly saying they want to overturn Roe v. Wade."...
...In response to a question about his memberships, Roberts said he does not recall ever being a member of the conservative Federalist Society, although he participated in events including a 1993 panel and gave a luncheon speech to the legal group in 2003...

TORONTO (AP) - A jetliner carrying 309 people skidded off a runway while landing in a thunderstorm Tuesday, sliding into a ravine and breaking into pieces, but remarkably everyone aboard survived by jumping to safety in the moments before the plane burst into flames.