Month: December 2007

Foot-in-mouth-diease strikes again…

First, Jim Moran:

“Ethically cleansed Baghdad”?…

Christ, when will this guy learn to shut up?

Here’s some ethic cleansing from Saddam Hussein:

Iraq’s Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves

Babies found in Iraqi mass grave

Iraq: Iraqis Open Saddam Hussein’s Mass Graves, Demand Justice

Uncovering Iraq’s Horrors in Desert Graves

Mass grave unearthed in Iraq

113 Kurds Are Found In Mass Grave

Graves of Mass Evidence

Mass Graves of Iraq: Uncovering Atrocities

At least he didn’t blame the “‘extraordinarily powerful’ pro-Israel lobby” like he did last time.

Second, Ron Paul:

From the AP: Paul keeps white supremacist donation:

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist, and the Texas congressman doesn’t plan to return it, an aide said Wednesday.

Don Black, of West Palm Beach, recently made the donation, according to campaign filings. He runs a Web site called Stormfront with the motto, “White Pride World Wide.” The site welcomes postings to the “Stormfront White Nationalist Community.”

“Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he’s wasted his money,” Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. “Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom.”

And Paul isn’t going to stop pandering to 9/11 conspiracy theorists as well, I guess?

“And that’s $500 less that this guy has to do whatever it is that he does,” Benton added.

Black said he supports Paul’s stance on ending the war in Iraq, securing U.S. borders and his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“We know that he’s not a white nationalist. He says he isn’t and we believe him, but on the issues, there’s only one choice,” Black said Wednesday.

There’s no need for a sarcastic comment after reading that, is there?

“We like his stand on tight borders and opposition to a police state,” Black told The Palm Beach Post earlier.

On his Web site, Black says he has been involved in “the White patriot movement for 30 years.”

UPDATE: Ron Paul’s Photo-Op with Stormfront

Some POS shot an eagle in Caroline County.

From The Free Lance-Star: Bald eagles injured in Caroline, Stafford:

Two bald eagles landed in a heap of trouble over the weekend.

One was injured Friday in a fight with another eagle in Stafford County.

But of more concern to wildlife authorities, a second bird was found shot in Caroline County on Saturday.

Both birds were captured by state conservation police officers (formerly game wardens) and taken to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro where they are recovering.

[Insert joke about Rob Wittman here.]

Tom Lernihan and a buddy were hunting quail with their dogs in Tignor on the eastern end of Caroline when one of the dogs discovered the downed eagle.

“We got so close to the bird, we knew that something was not right,” Lernihan said yesterday. “It had its wings spread, like it had just killed something. We knew it was hurt” when it didn’t fly away.

They went to a house on the property and called the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Meanwhile, the bird hopped into a small pond and fluttered over to a partially submerged stump.

Lernihan said the downed bird’s mate circled above as the drama unfolded.

The eagle, up close, he said, “was amazing to see. It was beautiful. Stunning. I hope it makes it.”

Struck with pellets

Conservation Police Officer Joe Dedrick managed to capture the bird–a large female–with a fish net when it came back to shore. He took it to a local wildlife rehabilitator, who drove the eagle about 100 miles west to the wildlife center.

Dedrick said he is investigating the shooting.

“The bird was shot with a shotgun,” Ed Clark, president of the wildlife center, said yesterday. Whoever shot it was using No. 6 shot, typically used for game such as squirrels and rabbits.

“Apparently it was shot from some distance based on the wide spread of shot in the bird,” Clark said.

X-rays showed about a dozen lead pellets lodged in its body. One cracked a bone that is expected to heal, he said.

Another lodged in the bird’s eye, damaging its retina. An eagle with an injured eye cannot be released.

“The bird is going to recover, and never be free, which is a tragedy,” Clark said. The wildlife center will try to find a permanent home for it at a site licensed to keep eagles.

This is the second gun-shot bald eagle cared for by the center this year. The first was found in June, wounded in Page County, near Luray.

Though bald eagles came off the endangered species list in June, it is illegal to shoot them under other state and federal statutes.

“There’s really not a rational explanation,” for the Caroline shooting, Clark said.

“Anybody who cannot tell a bald eagle from another bird has no business being in the woods with a gun. Somebody just took a shot at this bird for the heck of it.”

[…]

The Bald and Golden Eagle Recovery Act of 1940 provides for a maximum $5,000 fine, a year in prison, or both, for killing an eagle. The fine covers a $2,500 payment for information leading to a conviction.

The law allows limited taking of eagles for scientific, exhibition or religious purposes, or for the protection of wildlife.

Anyone with information on the eagle shot in Caroline County may contact the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Report a Wildlife Violation section at: 800/237-5712, or by e-mail, wildcrime@dgif.virginia.gov

Someone give me a knife…

So I can commit hara-kiri.

From The Free Lance-Star: Less is more for Caroline station:

The cost estimate on a new volunteer fire station in Caroline County has more than doubled over the past five years, prompting supervisors to request a scaled-down option.

The project is now expected to cost $3.25 million, up from the $1.5 million estimate in 2003, Assistant County Administrator Alan Partin said.

According to a report from Public Works Director Allen Ramsay, the original estimate for a new 10,685-square-foot Sparta station did not include purchasing property, site development and community space within the building.

Estimates in the report put a $700,000 price tag on 2 acres and almost $2 million for the station itself. Designs will cost $200,000 and a construction contingency of $265,300 is included in the proposed budget.

$350,000 an acre?! Where the heck is this? The middle of Washington, D.C.?

Does anyone know where the heck this station is supposed to be located?

If you do, email me at CorranH96@gmail.com Thanks.

Ramsay presented the report to supervisors last Tuesday. He did not return calls later seeking comment.

Supervisors were taken aback by the higher estimate.

“How do we plan to fund buildings such as this?” Ladysmith Supervisor Wayne Acors asked fellow board members.

You might be able to afford it if you stopped paying $1,100,000 for a visitor’s center, $3,200,000 for a community recreation center, and $3,700,000 for office space for twenty full-time personnel (but the sheriff’s office and fire/rescue get nothing).

How much did that half-page ad for a private business cost that the county paid for?

Whoops, almost forgot about the over $40,000,000 to pump water from the Rappahannock River to Ladysmith. “Smart growth”, eh?

“Yee-haw! There’s gold in them there pipes!”

Acors suggested the county consider a bond referendum to pay for similar projects in the future, noting it wouldn’t be “the first or last” of its kind.

Port Royal Supervisor Calvin Taylor, who will not return to the board next year, suggested that Ramsay “address site work differently to save money.”

“When you start throwing out numbers, once that number goes out, it goes up or doesn’t change,” Taylor said.

The existing station on Sparta Road serves the southeastern part of the county. The report said the 2003 estimate for the new building was based on the cost of a station in Spotsylvania County.

Spotsylvania recently finished a 26,000-square-foot station with six bays. The county spent $4 million on the building and an additional $2.6 million for equipment, furniture and site work.

Plans for the Sparta building include three bays, a community room, a fitness room, two offices, a kitchen and bunk rooms.

“The Sparta fire station needs to be replaced,” Ramsay wrote in the report. “The space provided in the station for professional and volunteer staff is required to meet the needs of the community it will serve.”

Why should that concern the Board of Supervisors? “No return on fire/rescue”, eh?

Ramsay’s report says the Sparta station will serve as a prototype for future stations in Caroline.

There is no future in Caroline County…

Supervisors agreed to spend about $200,000 on architectural designs for the station. They asked that one design have basic features and another include extras, such as community space.

And we needed a study to tell us this?

From WTOP: Study: Inmates Likely to Return After Release:

A state study shows a large number of inmates released from prison end up back behind bars.

No d’uh.

I could have told you that for free…

The study presented to the Virginia State Crime Commission says of the inmates entering the system, 42 percent have been in prison before and nearly half violated probation.

Barry Green, interim deputy secretary of public safety, says the Virginia Department of Corrections’ budget topped $1 billion for the first time this year. One way of controlling the costs would be to keep fewer released offenders from returning.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

Virginia’s rate at which released prisoners return to prison within three years is 29 percent. Green says while the number appears high, it is the eighth lowest among the 30 states that rank the statistic by that definition.