.................in spite of the rabid loons.

I ran with a herd of Elk through this park at dusk one evening while visiting on vacation. We were living here one year later.......

Thanks, Mac. Nice work. It’s nearly impossible to capture this place in photo.

I could not quite make out what the children by the side of the road were doing, as our car shot past them on the way to the Malawian capital, Lilongwe.

At first it looked like they were waving toasting forks at us.

“What are they doing?” I asked our driver, hoping partly that he might slow the car to a less hair-raising speed so he could reply.

“Maize,” he seemed to shout above the racket of the jolting car.

“Ah,” I said, “maize like corn on the cob?”

He brought the car to a halt and a child ran up and waggled something under my nose which definitely did not look like any corn on the cob I had ever seen.

“They’re mice,” said my driver, “roast mice”.

And there indeed on each prong of the fork was a little roast mouse with singed tail and whiskers.

[pic is of a hedgehog… sue me… ;-]

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service, Aug. 27, 2005) - Two Soldiers assigned here to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command and one Army Ranger assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment died Aug. 25 in Husaybah, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near their position there.

Master Sgt. Ivica Jerak, 42, and Sgt. 1st Class Trevor John Diesing, 30, both assigned to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command and Cpl. Timothy M. Shea, 22, an infantryman assigned to 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga. were killed.

Jerak, a native of former Republic of Yugoslavia, first entered the U. S. Army as a combat medic Jan. 19, 1988 and, after completion of initial entry training, was assigned to the 690th Medical Company, Fort Benning, Ga. Since that time, Master Sgt. Jerak served in 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (airborne).  His last assignment was as an assistant team sergeant assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Head bowed, and honored that such as they would share such a quest. 

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has described the Iraqi draft constitution as “dangerous”.

Mr Moussa was reacting to the document’s failure to describe Iraq as an Arab state.

The draft constitution says the Arabs in Iraq are part of the Arab nation, but Iraq as a whole is not.

This is seen as a major victory for the Kurds and other ethnic minorities who are not Arabs, and a disaster for the Arabs and their brethren in Iraq.

I read where David Duke is also quite upset as he was hoping to attempt the same move as the “Arab League” and have the US declared a “Lilywhite Nation”. “La Raza” has deferred comment until the NAACP offers their position paper…

On Freakin’ Fire!!

*clicky*clicky*

A#1 Cowboy

A Mexican city at the heart of a raging drug war is trying to woo back jittery Texan day trippers by offering free bus tours with an armed police escort.
”The aim is to shake off the bad image that we have and give a boost to the craft markets and restaurants in the center, where business is almost nil,” Nuevo Laredo’s tourism director Ramon Garza told Reuters on Wednesday.

The tourist board in the city, which is across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, is sending charter buses to pick up tourists from San Antonio for day tours escorted by guides and police motorcycle outriders

Washington has issued repeated travel warnings urging U.S. visitors to stay away from crime-wracked Mexican border cities this year, singling out Nuevo Laredo, where more than 40 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped in the past year, for special mention.

The United States shut its consulate in the city for a week early this month after drug gangs fired bazookas and raked each other with machine gun fire in a street battle.

.

Ali Base, Iraq—Although Baher, 8, looks like a happy, healthy boy on the outside, the joint Iraqi and U.S. Air Force C-130 aircrew, who gave him the ride of his life Aug. 22, knows he isn’t healthy - at least for now.

Baher and his mother, Afaf, are headed to New Orleans, La., to repair a hole in his heart via a new program called Operation Mend a Heart.

“I was very happy to (be a part of the aircrew to) help him,” said Iraqi Air Force Navigator Atiya, Squadron 23 (Transport), whose name is protected.

Atiya was one the C-130 crewmembers who flew Baher from Baghdad International Airport to Basrah Air Station on the first leg of his journey.

*snip*
“This was the first (Advisory Support Team) mission that flew humanitarian airlift for their country,” said Maj. Bob May, Squadron 23 AST pilot instructor who is assigned to the 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron here.

“It was a great feeling being able to do this together with so many Iraqi crewmembers on board,” he added.

May was the copilot and an Iraqi officer piloted the aircraft.

Yea, I know nobody knows this stuff. Is why I’m here to tell ya.

And then, one fateful day (Oct. 8), a runaway asteroid, believed by scientists to be nearly twice the diameter ofthe late Orson Welles, slammed into the Earth and killed the dinosaurs, who by sheer bad luck all happened to be standing right where it landed. The massive impact turned the dinosaurs, via a process called photosynthesis, into oil; this oil was then gradually covered with a layer of sand, which in turn was gradually covered by a layer of people who hate each other, and thus the Middle East was formed.

By Dave Barry

The owner of a Hayward pizza parlor will serve four months of home detention and pay a five-thousand-dollar fine, after pleading guilty to illegally transferring money to a bounty hunter out to kill Osama bin Laden.

Forty-one-year-old Noor Alocozy also was sentenced to three years of probation today in federal court.

FreeRepublic

At last month’s sentencing, Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics.

“We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel,” he said at the time. ”The message to the world from today’s sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart.”

With credit for time served and three years for good behavior, Ressam could be out of prison in 14 years. He likely would then be deported or sent to France, where he has been convicted in absentia of terror-related crimes.

Yes, it’s a Seattle judge that issued this strong warning to terrorists.

The nearly weeklong search for a Grammy-nominated producer ended Friday after a resident spotted the man sitting naked in a backyard creek, washing his jeans.


The Topanga Canyon resident found a distraught Christian Julian Irwin saying he feared he was being pursued by Nigerians who had contacted him in an Internet scam, sheriff’s Capt. Ray Peavy said.

On second thought, the Secretary of State’s Office is removing the word “photo” from television ads that tell voters they should bring photo identification to the polls for the Sept. 20 primary.

Groups across the political spectrum, from the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Washington State Labor Council to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, registered objections this week.

The ACLU’s executive director in Washington, Kathleen Taylor, said the message to bring photo identification left the false impression that voters would not be able to vote if they didn’t have photo identification.




The Evergreen Freedom Foundation said the advertisement left another false impression: that state lawmakers had finally enacted the photo identification requirement, which EFF and many Republicans sought unsuccessfully.

Gawdammit....see how they lump in The Evergreen Freedom Foundation as groups across the political spectrum with the ACLU as though they’re on the same fricken page???? GAH!!!!!!!!

Wanted to rant a bit on this voting/photo ID topic just yesterday when we got our “official voter registration cards” in the mail with the information that my county is now mandatory vote by mail, but I wasn’t coherent enough to type.

“Just as Michael Graham has the right to hold bigoted views, so, too, does our society have the right to live free of hatred and incitement,”
said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The militant group Hamas on Saturday released a rare videotape of a man it said is the shadowy bombmaker who has eluded Israeli forces for more than a decade.

The man, who was identified as fugitive bombmaker Mohammed Deif, described Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

See? We told us so!

CARBONDALE, Ill. - For two years, Carbondale residents have been riveted by the writing of a little girl imploring her father in Iraq:

“Don’t die, OK?”

Only now are they learning there was never any danger of that.

The Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University’s student-run newspaper, today will admit to its readers that the saga - of a little girl’s published letters to her father serving in Iraq - was apparently an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a woman who claimed to be the girl’s aunt.

In fact, the newspaper will report today, the man identified as the girl’s father was never in Iraq, and it was the woman who apparently wrote the letters and regular columns that were published under the little girl’s name - and even impersonated the girl in telephone interviews.

We’re stupid????

Stoo

Preparation DT Sometimes hemorrhoids must be removed surgically. A hemorrhoid is cause by a blood clot in tiny blood vessels around the anus. So, how does a doctor cut the clot out if he/she is alone with the patient in his office. How does he/she keep the butt cheeks apart in order to get at the anus for the inpatient operation. It is easy with duct tape. The patient lies belly down on the examination table, butt naked. The doctor then gets two strips of duct tape. He applies an end of each strip to each of the butt cheeks. Then he pulls each cheek away from the anus and applies the other end of each strip to the table. Thus, the butt cheeks are spread apart leaving the anus fully exposed and the patient incapacitated from being able to “pucker” when antiseptic, injections, and the scalpel are applied. When the procedure is completed, the tape is removed with quick vigorous pulls. And how do I know? Experience.

--- Stephen M. R.

Rolling right along now.........

SparkS