Month: July 2007

"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers."

From 630 WMAL in Washington, D.C.: How Much Is Enough?:

Thomas Fadoul wants Virginia to form a money pool modeled after the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which would be used to pay the families of the 32 people killed by gunman Seung Hui Cho on the Virginia Tech campus last April.

Fadoul told 630 WMAL’s Chris Core that the seven-million dollar Hokie Spirit Fund already collected by the school is woefully inadequate to meet the expenses of the victims’ families, and he is hoping to see compensation that is more in line with the amounts received by the families of those who died at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The amounts by those families averaged around two million dollars. Fadoul is meeting with his clients this week to decide whether to move forward with a formal proposal to create a compensation fund.

Fadoul say such a fund could come from taxpayer contributions, and that fundraising efforts could include personal appeals from the victims’ families. Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the distribution of the September 11th funds, is now the administrator of the existing Hokie Spirit Fund.

He is recommending compensation ranging from $8,000 for those who were in Norris Hall on the day of the shooting to $150,000 for the families of those killed in the tragedy.

You people have some nerve, when are you going to start selling your homes and cars for these people? How convenient is it that the lawyer himself, Thomas Fadoul, would receive money not just from legal fees from the relatives but also due to the fact that his cousin was murdered during the massacre? How convenient is it that those who lost someone will receive over eighteen (18) times more than those that were in the building. How are those that were injured supposed to pay for their hospital bills and counseling?

In no way an attempt to minimize the lost to the families, but how many of the students were supporting a family like the police, firefighters, and other victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks?

And here’s the link for those wishing to donate. The fund will be closed for donations on August 1st.

Doing the kidnapping and selling into prostitution that Americans won’t do…

From NBC 4 in Washington, D.C.:

Police said the people who allegedly kidnapped two teenage girls earlier this week planned to take the girls to Florida and sell them into prostitution.

[…]

Investigators said the girls had apparently been involuntarily taken or lured from the home.

The FBI and the U.S. Marshal’s Service assisted in the investigation, and investigators located both girls at a home in Mableton, Ga., just after 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, police said.

Javier Ronal, 21, of Dumfries, Va., Erick Estrada, 23, of no fixed address, and a 17-year-old Dumfries girl were arrested in connection with the case. Police said each is charged with two counts of abduction with the intent to defile. Police said at least one of the suspects is linked to the MS-13 gang.

Authorities said the three charged are being held in Cobb County, Ga., pending extradition.

No word yet if they are illegal entrants but I’m betting they are. For those who didn’t know, illegal “immigrants” with gang affiliation would have become legal if the (hopefully) now dead immigration bill had passed (scroll down to point 7).

Slavery is Freedom?

From The Guardian:

“Big Brother” plans to automatically hand the police details of the daily journeys of millions of motorists tracked by road pricing cameras across the country were inadvertently disclosed by the Home Office last night.

Leaked Whitehall background papers reveal that Home Office and transport ministers have clashed over plans for legislation this autumn enabling the police to get automatic “real-time” access to the bulk data from the traffic cameras now going into operation. The Home Office says the police need the data from the cameras, which can read and store every passing numberplate, “for all crime fighting purposes”.

But transport ministers warn of concerns about privacy and “the potential for adverse publicity relating to plans for local road pricing” also due to be unveiled this autumn. There are already nearly 2,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in place and they are due to double as road pricing schemes are expanded across the country.

[…]

The leaked Home Office note emerged yesterday as it was announced that the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, had waived Data Protection Act safeguards to allow the bulk transfer of data from London’s congestion charge and traffic cameras to the Metropolitan police for the specific purpose of tracking potential terrorists in and around the capital. Transport for London was very reluctant to hand over the data without the home secretary issuing a special certificate exempting it from legal action from motorists worried about breach of their privacy.

[…]

“Civil rights groups and privacy campaigners may condemn this as further evidence of an encroaching ‘big brother’ approach to policing and security, particularly in light of the recent e-petition on roads pricing,” says a Home Office note on its ‘handling strategy’ for the issue in reference to the runaway success of a petition on the Downing Street website against road charging. “Conversely, there may be surprise that the data collected by the congestion charge cameras is not already used for national security purposes and may lead to criticism that the matter is yet to be resolved.”

[…]

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the “unintended act of open government” had revealed the disingenuous attitude of ministers towards public fears about a creeping surveillance state: “No wonder Douglas Alexander was keen to tone down these proposals, since he must know that public resistance to a road charging scheme will go through the roof if it is based on technology which poses a threat to personal privacy. Bit by bit, vast computer databases are being made inter-operable and yet the government seems to running scared of a full and public debate.”

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “It is one thing to ask the public for special measures to fight the grave threat of terrorism, but when that becomes a Trojan horse for mass snooping for more petty matters it only leads to a loss of trust in government.”

Nope, nothing Orwellian about that…

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

"You want my money, my money."

From The Politico: North to Alaska:

Rep. Don Young attacked his fellow Republicans on the House floor Wednesday, as he defended education funds allocated to his home-state of Alaska.

“You want my money, my money,” Young stridently declared before warning conservatives that, “Those who bite me will be bitten back.”

Young took extreme exception to an amendment by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) to strike money in a spending bill for native Alaskan and Hawaiian educational programs.

Conservatives have stoked the ire of their fellow Republicans for years by challenging federal spending, both broadly and on specific projects. But it’s rare that their GOP colleagues express that displeasure openly on the floor.

[…]

And lest we forget, Young, who used to chair the House Transportation Committee, is responsible for the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” a proposed span connecting Ketchikan, Alaska, with the tiny island of Gravina that would have cost $315 million ? and eventually came to symbolize profligate spending under Republican rule.

Garrett refrained from asking for an official reprimand, but he and other conservative Republicans took after Young’s declaration that the funds in question represented his money. The assembled conservatives then launched into a general attack on earmarked spending.

“We legally steal,” argued Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), defending her colleague from New Jersey.

Your freakin’ money? You have some freakin’ nerve. You asses are projected to spend $2,902,000,000,000 this year and you dare to call it your money? And Republicans wonder why no one voted for them in November, it is because of crap like this. It is nice to see at least two representatives in the whole house have some sense.

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

We need to know how it is America’s fault…

From BBC News: Megaflood ‘made Island Britain’:

Britain became separated from mainland Europe after a catastrophic flood some time before 200,000 years ago, a sonar study of the English Channel confirms.

The images reveal deep scars on the Channel bed that must have been cut by a sudden, massive discharge of water.

Scientists tell the journal Nature that the torrent probably came from a giant lake in what is now the North Sea.

Some event – perhaps an earthquake – caused the lake’s rim to breach at the Dover Strait, they believe.

Dr Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College London, and colleagues say the discharge would have been one of the most significant megafloods in recent Earth history, and provides an explanation for Britain’s island status.

“This event, or series of events, that caused [the breach] changed the course of Britain’s history,” Dr Gupta told BBC News.

“If this hadn’t happened, Britain would always have been a peninsula of Europe. There would have been no need for a Channel Tunnel and you could always have walked across from France into Britain, as early humans did prior to this event.”

I blame global cooling, or maybe global warming.

Replacing one idiot with another?

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Sen. John W. Warner’s campaign apparatus raised only $71,000 in the second quarter of this year, hardly looking like that of a candidate girding for re-election.

The 80-year-old Virginia Republican remained coy, however, about his re-election plans and insisted he doesn’t seek political donations until his campaign starts in earnest.

He repeated that he plans to announce a decision in September about seeking re-election in 2008 to a sixth term.

Warner raised $71,005 in the second three months of this year, according to a report his campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission, which was made public on the agency’s Web site yesterday. That brought his cash on hand to $734,495.

[…]

Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th, who is interested in running for the Senate if Warner steps down, reported he raised $402,000 during the second quarter and has a campaign war chest of $1.05 million.

Davis and Warner are more moderate than many in their party, and they are personally close. They also have a campaign treasurer in common. The same person, Mary Jane Sargent, put her name on the quarterly campaign reports for both politicians’ campaigns.

Please, please, someone give us another choice than one between these two idiots: Senator John “I voted for it before I voted against it” Warner and Representative Tom “It’s my job to regulate baseball” Davis.

Hell, Webb has more conviction than you Warner, at least he didn’t wait until cloture had already failed to vote “nay” on the immigration bill.

Doing the illegal entering Americans won’t do…

Apparently, from ABC News: FBI: Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande:

The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing “Iraqis and other Middle Eastern” individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year.

Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI’s report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis.

The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization “used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative.” Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report.

“Border security!? We ain’t got no border security. We don’t need no border security! I don’t have to show you any stinking border security!!”

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

“Dammit, we’ve been caught!”

From the NRA-ILA: Labor Department Announces It Will Revise Overreaching OSHA Explosives Rule:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it will significantly revise a recent proposal for new “explosives safety” regulations that caused serious concern among gun owners. OSHA had originally set out to update workplace safety regulations, but the proposed rules included restrictions that very few gun shops, sporting goods stores, shippers, or ammunition dealers could comply with.

Gun owners had filed a blizzard of negative comments urged by the NRA, and just a week ago, OSHA had already issued one extension for its public comment period at the request of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. After continued publicity through NRA alerts and the outdoor media, and after dozens of Members of Congress expressed concern about its impact, OSHA has wisely decided to go back to the drawing board.

Working with the NRA, Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-MT) planned to offer a floor amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill this Wednesday when the House considers this legislation. His amendment would have prohibited federal funds from being used to enforce this OSHA regulation.

Such an amendment is no longer necessary since Kristine A. Iverson, the Labor Department’s Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, sent Rep. Rehberg a letter, dated July 16, stating that it “was never the intention of OSHA to block the sale, transportation, or storage of small arms ammunition, and OSHA is taking prompt action to revise” this proposed rule to clarify the purpose of the regulation.

[…]

The OSHA proposal would have defined “explosives” to include “black powder, … small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers, [and] smokeless propellant,” and treated these items the same as the most volatile high explosives.

Under the proposed rule, a workplace that contained even a handful of small arms cartridges, for any reason, would have been considered a “facility containing explosives” and therefore subject to many impractical restrictions. For example, no one could carry “firearms, ammunition, or similar articles in facilities containing explosives … except as required for work duties.” Obviously, this rule would make it impossible to operate any kind of gun store, firing range, or gunsmith shop.

What a load, the rule was exactly what you intended to do, why else would you define “explosives” as ammunition, powder, and primers; which would prohibit firearms from being in the same building, require evacuation during any electrical storm, and prohibit smoking within fifty (50) feet of any building containing ammunition, powder, and primers?

Terrorists? What terrorists?

From The Dallas Morning News: Women arrested after police standoff:

It started with a routine domestic disturbance, except that the pair involved has recently been under investigation by federal terrorism officials.

Before the day ended, Arlington police had negotiated a six-hour standoff, their robot had been shot at with a paintball gun, and they had called in a bomb squad over four potentially explosive devices.

Kimberly Al-Homsi called 911 about 12:40 a.m. Monday. She said her friend, Aisha Hamad, had threatened her with a knife. The two are noteworthy because a few months ago, they were seen at Dallas Love Field, both dressed in camouflage pants under traditional Muslim robes, conducting what appeared to be surveillance, officials said.

Police say that Monday morning, when an officer came to the door, Ms. Hamad threatened to shoot him. She told him the only way she would leave was in a body bag.

So began the standoff, during which she fired a paintball gun at a tactical robot and missed, police say, and at the end of which a negotiator persuaded her to come out peacefully. Once outside, Ms. Hamad, 50, fought with them while they tried to handcuff her, police say, so they used a Taser on her.

[…]

Meanwhile, police searched the home on Wembley Road and found four explosive devices, one of which was sitting on a bedroom table.

Citing an ongoing investigation, Arlington Assistant Fire Marshal Stephen Lea would not say what the devices were.

“We do not know whether they would function as [explosive] devices until we have time to study them and look at them and test the materials,” Mr. Lea said. “I can tell you this; there wasn’t anything in there that would have blown her house to pieces.”

[…]

The terrorism angle stems from Feb. 25, when the two women were spotted at Love Field acting in a way authorities found suspicious. Surveillance video showed one of them walking back and forth, apparently pacing off distances.

When confronted, the women told officials they were looking for the Frontiers of Flight museum.

Two days later, the pair was spotted at the airport again. This time Ms. Al-Homsi, 42, was sitting on the hood of a car looking through binoculars at airplanes. Dallas officers stopped the car nearby, but the women refused to let police search it, authorities say.

The women also came under scrutiny after they were reported driving near the runways at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on July 4.

Dallas police and federal terrorism officials have acknowledged investigating the pair, but police officials have said they had no direct evidence the women have ties to terrorism. The women have accused authorities of violating their rights and of religious and racial profiling.

In 2005, Ms. Al-Homsi was accused of waving a fake grenade at a motorist on Central Expressway during a spasm of road rage. Officials charged her with a bomb hoax, and she was placed on probation. She is said to have long-range assault rifle and explosives training, according to a Dallas police intelligence bulletin issued March 5.

Such evil racial profiling, they just had paintball guns (Virginia Jihad Network anyone?), explosives, and were casing a airport in camouflage gear. Nice to see the feds are on top of things, ever heard of something called a search warrant?

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs

“I’m shocked, shocked to find that there is dog fighting going on here!”

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Vick indicted in dogfighting case:

NFL quarterback Michael Vick and three others were indicted this afternoon by a federal grand jury in Richmond on charges of interstate conspiracy to sponsor a dogfighting venture, authorities said.

The others named in the indictment are Purnell A. Peace, Quanis L. Phillips and Tony Taylor.

The indictment comes as part of a federal investigation into alleged dogfighting activities at a property owned by Vick in Surry County.

The investigation began more than two months ago when a cousin of Vick’s was arrested on a drug charge in Hampton. The cousin gave as his address a house owned by Vick in rural Surry.

Well, obviously it is just because he’s black as Vick’s attorney has previously pointed out. Or maybe because you can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich”?