Late FOD, Early FID, And Bonus FDOED

Yet another reason to abolish the Dept. of Education:

Mandatory Arabic Classes (link from Drudge)

Some students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language.  The school district wants students at select schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant.

That's Mansfield, Texas - near Ft. Worth.

The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.

As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would be mandatory at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and Kenneth Davis Elementary School.  The program would also be optional for students at T. A. Howard Middle School and Summit High School.

Mandatory?!? MANDATORY?!? I'd yank my kids out of that school faster than a democrat voting for a tax increase. Then I'd go hunting for the idiots on the school board.

Parents at Cross Timbers say they were caught off-guard by the program, and were surprised the district only told them about it in a meeting Monday night between parents and Mansfield ISD Superintendent Bob Morrison.

The DOE has identified Arabic as a ‘language of the future.’ But parent Joseph Balson was frustrated by the past.  “Why are we just now finding out about it?” asked Balson.  “It’s them (Mansfield ISD) applying for the grant, getting it approved and them now saying they’ll go back and change it only when they were caught trying to implement this plan without parents knowing about it.”

Get out the ropes, boys. There's a school board that needs lynching - and to hell with all that 'civil discourse' crap.

Trisha Savage thinks it will offer a well-rounded education.  “I think its a great opportunity that will open doors. We need to think globally and act locally.”

Hey Trisha - act locally on this...

Kheirieh Hannun was born in the Middle East but raised in the U.S.  She believes giving students the option to learn Arabic will give her son and others like him the option to learn more about their culture.  “It was surprising, but I think it’s okay, and it will help come down on the stereotype.”   Hannun says she is hopeful the class could broaden the minds of not only students, but also parents.

If it was optional then the only thing I'd be upset about was wasting tax dollars. But to make it mandatory, while hiding it from parents, just pegs the "Wrong" meter.

That's what happens when there's a muslim in the White House...

Only In Texas

I like football.

I like football a lot.

I played through high school.

I'm a big college football fan. (I was a lot bigger fan pre-BCS.)

I'm a big pro football fan. (I was a lot bigger fan pre-Jerry Jones.)

But the following two stories are over the top, even for Texas, where football is more of a religion than a sport.

I received the following email this morning. This is not a joke or a spoof. It's a real email for a real 3-4 year old football league.

-----Original Message-----

From:
Sent: Sun 2/6/2011 11:33 PM
To:
Subject: city wide 3-4 year old football league registration

The city wide 3-4 year old league is currently registering for the upcoming season. 

The season starts in March. If you know of anyone that may be interested in registering, please forward this information. 

Registration will be held at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________ on Saturday from 2pm-3pm and on Sunday from 3-4pm.

Shouldn't they be weaned first?

Next, we have an article from no less an esteemed media outlet than the New York Times (for once, I find myself somewhat in agreement with that bastion of the left).

A $60 Million Palace for Texas High School Football

From his office window, Steve Williams surveyed the chaos of construction. His view consisted of rocks and dirt beneath bulldozers and cranes, but where others might see excess, he saw something brazen, bold and gloriously Texan.

The $60 million football stadium at Allen High School, where Williams is the district athletic director, was starting to take shape.

$60 million dollars for a football stadium - at a time when the state is undergoing massive budget cuts. The mind boggles.

This is no ordinary stadium, in no ordinary state, where football ranks near faith and family. Super Bowl XLV will take place a short drive southwest next Sunday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, but while the “big game” will repeatedly highlight football’s oversize importance in Texas, the folks in Allen need no reminders. Here, every game is big.

Williams — Bubba to his friends — arrived long before the boom, when Allen was more speck than sprawl, and now he cannot fathom all the fuss over this stadium, the calls from England, the Pacific Northwest, New York.

Bubba ... need I say more?

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Williams said Friday. “We got a lot more interest than we thought we would.”

Candidate for Understatement of the Year.

On football Friday nights ... cars park for miles down the street, where the aroma of barbecue is the local perfume. The scene is straight from “Friday Night Lights,” the overcrowded version.

“It’s controlled chaos,” said Anthony Gibson, the school’s fine arts director. “There’s an energy you can’t describe. When they say football is like religion in Texas, it’s true. From little kids all the way to the Super Bowl, we do football right.”

Too bad we don't do education right.

This big town started small, with one street, Main Street, and an annual parade that marched up, turned around and marched back. Bob Curtis, who recently retired as the district’s facilities director, was born in Allen, lived here all his life. As a teenager, he delivered groceries, and the customers left their doors unlocked and money on the kitchen counter. He stocked the cupboards and left change.

When Curtis played football in the early 1960s, Allen’s population hovered around 650, 18 of whom were in his high school graduating class. Williams arrived soon after and found a small community that farmed cotton and was centered on the high school.

These days, Allen is a relatively affluent suburb north of Dallas, with a professional hockey team (the Americans of the Central Hockey League), a church seemingly on every corner, several strip malls and rows and rows of brick houses, which line the subdivisions that dominate the landscape.

The high school, which more closely resembles a small college, remains the centerpiece. Its athletic center contains the football team’s offices, an indoor practice field, a weight room, a film room and separate locker rooms for football, soccer, basketball and track.

(The current stadium has) artificial turf and portable bleachers that bring its capacity to 14,200...

But that's not good enough. They need new turf and more seating - $60M worth of new turf and seating....

Parking and season tickets rank as the current stadium’s biggest challenges. The builders could have never anticipated Allen’s growth, the 8,000 fans who travel to away games, the 3,000 students who participate in home games, in football, in band, as spectators.

Some families have held season tickets for 25 or 30 years. Their children graduated, moved, had their own children, but the families kept the tickets for the town’s marquee Friday night events. New residents scramble for season tickets. Before this season, roughly 400 families entered a lottery for 70 available seats.

Even parents of band members complain about the seating. About 100 of them are volunteers, in part because they receive sideline access for games. And the team, the band, the spectators continue to grow. Band members alone consume 2,000 bottles of water every game. Imagine the bathroom lines that result.

Williams believes the new stadium will solve those issues. It will hold 18,000 spectators in a sunken bowl designed to improve sightlines. The stadium will include a two-tier press box, an indoor golf practice area, a high-definition video scoreboard, a practice room for wrestling, and enough parking for every car in Dallas, or close.

An indoor golf practice area?!?!? A hi-def video scoreboard?!?!? For a high school?!?!? Jesus H. Christ, I'm glad I'm not paying property taxes in that district.

“Look, football has always been a big deal here,” Williams said. “This is Texas. But this bond project is about much more than football. It’s about our school, our community.”

“It’s about tra-di-tion,” he added, accentuating the syllables.

To some, however, the stadium project will always embody excess simply because of its size and cost. In fact, with significant education cuts looming across the state, Allen anticipates an increasingly negative reaction as the stadium nears completion, with its first game scheduled for August 2012.

Most here are Cowboys fans who plan to participate in the Super Bowl festivities, if only because this is football, and this is Texas. Their monument to their favorite sport is a smaller version of the Jerry Jones-built palace that will host the Super Bowl next Sunday between Pittsburgh and Green Bay.

We all know how well that turned out.

Up the road, in a state known for and defined by size, Allen is building perhaps the most impressive high school stadium. But it will not be the state’s biggest. At least four high school stadiums are larger.

Which makes perfect sense, at least in Texas.

It's all about priorities. God forbid we should spend $60M on libraries, classrooms, or teachers. That would be a waste of money...

FOD 2011.02.07

It's obvious that plenty of Americans have nothing but contempt for the loser-in-chief currently taking up space in the White House. What is becoming painfully obvious is that he and his cronies have nothing but contempt for the American people and the rule of law.

A contemptuous administration

The Obama administration doesn’t hide its contempt for Congress, independent agencies, watchdog groups, the media and whistle-blowers. Now a federal judge has found the administration in contempt of court. It’s about time.

U.S. District Judge Martin L.C.Feldman found the US Department of the Interior in contempt of his order to lift a moratorium on deepwater drilling. DOI and Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar acted with “determined disregard” Feldman said in a Feb. 2 ruling. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantially identical moratorium, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt.”

When the executive branch is in contempt, it tempts a constitutional confrontation. In this drilling case, more than a balanced separation of powers is at stake; our faltering economy is involved too. “As a result [of the moratorium],” said Jim Adams, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, “thousands of workers are out of jobs, Americans are paying more for gasoline and heating oil, and our nation is becoming even more dependent on unstable nations for our energy needs.” The last thing Americans need is for everyday prices to go up. Before the unrest in Egypt, gasoline already had jumped above $3 per gallon. Mr. Obama’s policies against domestic fuel production hardly relieve demand pressures.

The White House is not a supreme branch of government. The administration must play by the same rules as everyone else. Judge Feldman has warned Mr. Obama that presidential authority is limited by the law.

It's not just the Gulf. We see the same theme being played out in Alaska.

Shell Moves Alaska Drilling To 2012, Citing Regulatory Delays

A lengthy U.S. regulatory process has forced Royal Dutch Shell to postpone offshore drilling plans in Alaska to 2012 from 2011 ... a company executive said Thursday.

The company requires a key air-quality permit before it can move forward ... said Pete Slaiby, vice president at Shell Alaska.

"We've been trying to [obtain] an air permit for five years...and now the continuous regulatory delays have forced us to make a decision...to forgo drilling in 2011," Slaiby said, speaking with reporters from Anchorage. "Shell is ready to drill."

FIVE YEARS?!?! For a single permit? I know that government bureaucracies are notoriously slow, but this is ridiculous.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell criticized the federal government for delaying issuance of the air-quality permit.

"It is unfathomable that a company can buy federal leases but can't get onto them within five years," Parnell said, speaking with reporters from Anchorage. He added that 35,000 jobs are on hold along with Shell's drilling plans.

35,000 jobs on hold, at a time when the reported unemployment rate is hovering around 9% (and the true unemployment rate is much higher). Of course, they're not jobs in the officially sanctioned green energy sector, so I guess they don't count.

Even members of obama's own party are getting fed up.

Alaska’s Congressional delegation has come out swinging against the Obama Administration at news that Shell is pushing back exploration plans in the Arctic.

That drew disgust from Senator Mark Begich (D - Alaska) – not at Shell, but at the White House.

“I put the total blame of this year delay on the EPA and the Obama Administration and their inability to get their act together,” Begich said. “They have a lack of ability over and over again to say OK, here’s the deadline, here’s what they’ll work within, they seem to be unable to do that, or put additional road blocks.”

... Senator Begich says the EPA should be aggressive in moving forward.  He said he’s not sure what the holdup is – whether it’s lack of organization, lack of resources, or intentional foot-dragging on fossil fuel development.

I don't think there's any doubt it's intentional foot-dragging. Remember when obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu stated that the administration should “figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the time he made the statement European gas cost $7 – $8 a gallon. (For a more thorough list of what obama has done to raise energy costs, eliminate jobs, and make this country more dependent on oil controlled by our enemies go here).

And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that Sarah Palin is from Alaska.

Begich says if the President wants to stand by his pledge to be more energy independent, as he called for last week at the State of the Union, then his administration should get serious.  Senator Lisa Murkowski agrees, and said in a written statement today that Shell’s inability to get a green light on its permits is damaging the national economy.

We have a president hell bent for leather on destroying our domestic energy industry, regardless of how many jobs it costs, what it does to energy prices, and the negative effect it has on national security. And while doing so he ignores rulings and injunctions that he doesn't agree with. 2013 can't get here soon enough...

Waiting For The Kickoff

The devil finds work for idle hands...

Sunday Funnies 2011.02.06

It's Super Bowl Sunday. Need I say more...

God knows I hate to provide Cowboy haters with any more ammunition (especially Harper), but one can't deny facts...

One morning in elementary school the students were going to a geography class. The teacher wanted to show the students where cities and states are.

The teacher asks the class, "Does anyone know where Pittsburgh is?"

Frank raises up his hand and says, "Yeah, Pennsylvania."

The teacher replies, 'Very good, Frank. Now can anyone tell me where Green Bay is?"

Rachel raises her hand and says, "That's in Wisconsin."

The teacher replies, "Very good, Rachel."

The teacher asks one more question: "Where's Dallas?"

Ross raises his hand and says, "Oh, oh, pick me, I know!"

The teacher says, "OK, Ross where is Dallas?"

"Last place."

Nothing

I've got nothing today. My brain is stuck in neutral. The best I could come up with is this.

Enjoy...

Friday Follies Happy Hour 2011.02.04

In honor of the Super Bowl this weekend, here's one of my all-time favorite performers performing one of my all-time favorite songs. Even if you're not a CW fan listen to the first 55 seconds while he talks about how much Bill Clinton likes this song.

Thanks Greenies

A quick follow-up to a recent post about the rolling brownouts we've been subjected to over the last few days (my power went out at least six times last night).

Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency (thanks to Mostly Cajun for the link)

A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service...

In related news, solar power decreases dramatically at night and on cloudy days...

And In Other News

The weather has been capturing the headlines around the state, but even with the cold and sleet some things continue unabated - unfortunately...

Nuevo Laredo police chief gunned down

The director of public security in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was gunned down Wednesday night, officials said, though details of the incident remained scarce.

Of course they remain scarce. People are scared to death to say anything.

The poor guy had only been in office for one month.

Rumors of how many others were killed along with the police chief swirled in Nuevo Laredo Thursday, but city officials declined to go on the record with details surrounding the incident.

More intimidation, more fear.

The investigation is an ongoing process, though early reports ... were that five of Farfan's security team were killed in the shooting.

Five more widows, who knows how many fatherless kids.

The Laredo Police Department received several reports of sporadic gunfire on the Mexican side of the border, possibly related to the fallout of the killing.

"There's reported instability on the Mexican side"

That's a candidate for Understatement of the Year.

Nuevo Laredo is one of the battlegrounds that is being contested by rival drug cartels. The Gulf cartel and its former enforcers, Los Zetas, have been fighting over the territory and its lucrative smuggling routes. The Sinaloa cartel also has been fighting for years to get a foothold in the area.

This is where I work - at least, for now...

In weather-related news, the main highway from Nuevo Laredo into the U.S. (Interstate 35) has been closed since early last night, from the border through mile marker 13. Sleet and sub-freezing temperatures resulted in accumulated ice on the roadway. Drivers down here are bad enough during normal conditions. Throw a little water or ice onto the streets and it's like drunken moose on roller skates. They don't have a clue (or insurance, or tires with tread, or windshields without cracks, or...).

Meat On The Hoof

I'm an unapologetic meat-eater. I like a good steak as much as anyone. Nevertheless, I am on the cow's side in this story.

Cow that escaped slaughterhouse has new adventure

Five years after a cow dubbed the "Unsinkable Molly B" leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that drew international attention, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.

Molly B was among an estimated 1,200 animals removed from the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in recent weeks as part of a massive effort to bail out its overwhelmed owners.

The bovine celebrity herself - an overweight black Angus breed said to be sore in the hoof but otherwise relatively healthy - was removed to a nearby ranch and is headed this week to a smaller farm sanctuary.

Molly B's relocation to a 20-acre ranchette known as the New Dawn MT Sanctuary has proven an adventure in its own right. ... video of the cow climbing a hill revealed the sanctuary had gotten the wrong animal - a male steer named "Big Mike." A mix-up left Molly B behind on another ranch.

Credit to those involved for their good intentions, but one would hope that the folks entrusted with Molly B's future are knowledgeable enough to tell steers from cows. In any event, the mix-up was corrected and Molly B ended up at her new home.

Molly B's second retirement will start another chapter in an unlikely story that began January 2006, when a yet-to-be-named 1,200 pound heifer skipped her date with doom by leaping a 5-foot-5-inch fence at Mickey's Packing Plant in Great Falls.

The cow raced through town with police and animal control on her heels, reportedly running into a conflict with a German Shepherd, dodging an SUV and negotiating through a rail yard. She swam across the Missouri River and later took three tranquilizer darts before eventually getting corralled.

Mickey's Packing Plant employees christened the spirited cow Molly B and voted 10-1 to spare her from slaughter.

Someone should make a movie about her. Free Molly B!

Cold As My Ex-Wife's Heart

As some of you are only too aware, schools, homes and businesses throughout Texas were without electricity at least temporarily yesterday as rolling brownouts swept across the state. The brownouts resulted from surging demand for electricity due to the near-record cold weather sweeping the state, and woeful lack of preparedness on the part of of power plant operators. Throw in the bungling and blatant favoritism of local officials in distributing what power they do get, and we end up with 'the huddled masses' - literally.

The official version - from Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's office (apparently Gov. GoodHair couldn't get his blow dryer to work):

"Due to severe cold weather conditions, ERCOT, the entity in charge of ensuring our electrical grid's reliability, was forced to institute rolling brownouts to protect against our statewide power grid going black. ERCOT advises that cold weather knocked approximately 50 of the 550 power plants in Texas, totaling 8,000 megawatts, offline this morning and also resulted in increased demand for electricity.  Lack of adequate winterization and preparation appear to be a major cause of the outages."

More specifically:

... many Texas power plants broke down because they’re not designed to handle lengthy cold spells.

... more than a day of very cold weather can lead to exposed pipes and other equipment at Texas power plants freezing. Unlike states like Illinois or New York where lengthy cold weather is expected, Texas power plants don’t have all of their equipment insulated or protected in the same way.

Starting a couple of days ahead of the cold weather we were warned to wrap our pipes, protect our plants, and bring our pets indoors. Don't power plant operators and government officials watch the news? Or do they think that, just because they are ignore so many laws and regulations, they can also ignore the laws of physics?  

Burst water pipes at two plants forced their shut-down. That triggered the power outages. Natural gas power plants that should have provided back up had difficulty starting for a couple of reasons. First, cold temperatures reduces the volume, and hence the pressure of a gas (remember your high school physics?) That led to low pressure in the gas lines. Contributing to the problem is that there is typically small amounts of water in natural gas pipelines. During cold weather this water can freeze and clog valves or cause them to stick.

On the bright side, our friends south of the border have agreed to help out by sending something other than illegal aliens and drugs north.

Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission agreed to transmit 280 megawatts of electricity to Texas between Wednesday and Thursday night.

A commission statement said the electricity would be transmitted at interconnection points in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, and Piedras Negras, which sits opposite of Eagle Pass.

Give 'em credit. Gracias.

Wrapping things up, Dewhurst said the demand placed on the Texas grid was nowhere near peak capacity. He said he was frustrated by the situation.

Gee, thanks, Dave. We are too. Now what are you going to do about it?

UPDATE: Here's some words of wisdom from a person who works in the power generating industry in another state. He knows far more about the problems caused by cold weather than I do.

Pissed Off Professor

We all have disagreements with our co-workers from time to time. But this is not the way to resolve them.

Professor charged with peeing on colleague's door

A California university professor has been charged with peeing on a colleague's campus office door.

Prosecutors charged 43-year-old Tihomir Petrov, a math professor at California State University, Northridge, with two misdemeanor counts of urinating in a public place. Arraignment is scheduled Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in San Fernando.

Investigators say a dispute between Petrov and another math professor was the motive.

The Los Angeles Times says Petrov was captured on videotape urinating on the door of another professor's office on the San Fernando Valley campus. School officials had rigged the camera after discovering puddles of what they thought was urine at the professor's door.

Goodness knows I've felt like doing this many times, both to colleagues and students. However, I've managed to restrain myself - so far...

Quick Hit

I'm sure the blogosphere will be flooded with comments about this in the days to come, but here's the first thing that jumped out at me.

Senate Republicans Lose Vote on Health Care

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Republican repeal movement ... "would take away seniors' rights to a free wellness check."

I guess that particular right was somehow left out of my copy of the Constitution...

Have The Commies Won After All?

Rare earth minerals are critical in making a wide variety of high-tech products, ranging from smart phones to smart bombs. The economies, national defense, and day-to-day life of developed countries are dependent on them.

Q: Who produces 95% of the world's rare earth supply?

A: China

Last fall China halted shipments of rare earth as a result of a fishing dispute with Japan.

Throughout the five weeks of the embargo, even when China expanded the rare earth shipping halt to include the United States and Europe, Beijing denied there was a ban.

Whatever it was called, a shipping suspension that started amid China’s diplomatic dispute with Japan over a wayward fishing trawler escalated into a broader international trade issue.

To many outsiders, the undeclared embargo looked like a pure power play — a sign China would wield its growing economic might and apply its chokehold on an important industrial resource with little regard for the conventions of international trade. The export quotas China continues to impose on rare earths, even when it does let ships leave the docks, are restricting global supplies and causing world market prices to soar far beyond what Chinese companies pay.

Actually, China holds only around 35% of the world's known rare earth reserves. Sizable deposits exist in the U.S., Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, and assorted other countries. China produces 95% of the world supply because it ignores environmental concerns when mining and processing the raw ore.

China feels entitled to call the shots because of a brutally simple environmental reckoning: It currently controls most of the globe’s rare earths supply not just because of geologic good fortune, although there is some of that, but because the country has been willing to do dirty, toxic and often radioactive work that the rest of the world has long shunned.

Sounds very similar to the situation we've gotten ourselves into with oil and gas. We have plenty of proven reserves, but the greenies think it's better to pay enemies of our country for a product we should be able to provide for ourselves.

And then we have the russkies.

BP signed a major deal that will give the Russian government a chunk of Britain's biggest oil firm.

Both companies have also agreed to co-operate in drilling for oil reserves in the Arctic.

Questions will be asked about the security of Britain's energy supplies, given Russia's history of playing politics with oil and other resources.

Closer to home, a government-controlled Russian firm is poised to take over Wyoming uranium mines.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the license transfer of two Wyoming mines to a Russian company, despite concerns over national security raised by local and national government officials including senior House Republicans.

… Both groups worry that Wyoming’s uranium could in theory go overseas and serve against U.S. interests.

An organization called Rosatom reportedly controls the Russian firm involved in the acquisition. There are also reports that Rosatom “has provided Iran with uranium in the past.”

It all brings to mind Lenin's quote: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." 

I'm all for capitalism, and for not trashing the environment, but there must be some allowances made for national security, or at least national self-interest. Putting ourselves in a position where our enemies - and make no mistake about it, China and Russia, along with most if not all of OPEC, fall towards the enemy end of the 'countries who are our competitors' spectrum - have control over resources vital to our existence is the ultimate folly. 

The question is whether or not we can muster the political will to overcome the special interests arrayed in favor of the status quo. 

I am not optimistic...

It's So Cold...

the democrats have their hands in their own pockets...

my testicles have became ovaries...

hookers are charging 20 bucks just to blow on your hands...

my car won't start running and my nose won't stop...

I chipped a tooth on my soup...

we had to chop up the piano for firewood - but we only got two chords...

Boy Scouts were offering to de-ice little old ladies...

when I turned on the shower I got hail...

I saw chickens mugging the sheep just to get wool for sweaters...

Told You So

Last summer I posted about terrorists taking advantage of our ineffective porous practically non-existent security along the U.S.-Mexico border. Here's another example. (Note: For some reason Blogger has a problem with the embedded link in the "terrorists taking advantage" text. If you're just dying to read it here's the URL for your cut-n-paste pleasure - http://bergheimfollies.blogspot.com/2010/07/connect-dots.html)

Controversial Muslim cleric caught being smuggled into U.S. over Mexico border

U.S. border guards got a surprise when they searched a Mexican BMW and found a hardline Muslim cleric - banned from France and Canada - curled up in the boot. (Note: This story is from an English paper, so they use 'boot' instead of 'trunk.')

Said Jaziri ... was being smuggled into California when he was arrested, along with his driver Kenneth Robert Lawler.

Jaziri had allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling cartel $5,000 to take him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a 'safe place anywhere in the U.S.'

According to the court documents, a Mexican guide led Jaziri and a Mexican immigrant over the border fence near Tecate.

They then trekked across the rugged terrain under cover of darkness to a spot popular for drivers who pick up immigrants for smuggling runs into San Diego.

I don't get it. If the "spot popular for drivers who pick up immigrants" is that well known, why isn't kept under observation or patrolled? Or maybe even mined?

Which leads to the bigger question of why don't we make a serious effort to secure our borders and protect our country?

Which opens a great big can of worms. I'm tired of beating my head against this particular wall (see previous posts in the Border Issues category) so I'll pass on making any further comments for now, except for the following.

"Counterterrorism experts believe that radical Muslims and Islamic terrorists routinely sneak into the U.S. across the Southwest border since many of them are indistinguishable from Mexican illegal aliens."

Let Me See Your Hands

We hereby present the sad saga of an innocent democrap who was victimized by an overly friendly “Asian with straight white teeth, a tattoo on her butt, and a Gucci bag.”

How do we know he's a democrap? He's a minority from NY who has filed a lawsuit claiming that he received an overpriced 'happy ending.' He's not suing because of the happy ending, but because he thinks he was unfairly taken advantage of.

... he was unaware that it was illegal to pay for sex and was inebriated when negotiating a $120 digital manipulation.

'It's not my fault.'

'I didn't know any better.'

... Hubert Blackman, 22, claimed he only expected to receive a lap dance, “like at strip clubs,” when he called Las Vegas Exclusive Personals. But according to Blackman, the escort ... proposed providing more, offering a hand job for $200. Though “drunk on Courvoisier,” Blackman “got her to drop it to $120.”

Well, maybe he's not a true democrap. If he was he would have negotiated the price up, not down.

Blackman, pictured above, maintains he did not know it was illegal in Las Vegas to pay for sexual acts.

As for his rationale in suing the escort service, Blackman said he believes the firm “engaged and encouraged misconduct and fraud acts” that constituted a “violation of corporation.”

While Blackman’s U.S. District Court complaint claims that he has suffered mental distress as a result of his escort interaction, that may be a pre-existing condition. The East Harlem resident said that he has previously been diagnosed with a “psychotic disorder,” but that it was not “really strong.”

Methinks he did have a pre-existing “psychotic disorder” that was, in fact, “really strong.”

Blackman reported “seeing things and hearing things,” but said that he has not been on medication for two years. Though he recently dropped out of community college because he “can’t concentrate,” Blackman said he hoped to return to school and eventually work in accounting or business.

Based on the above, I don't think he has much of a future in the private sector. He does, however, seem quite qualified for a government job...

Not Off To A Good Start

Got up early this morning. Well, early for me. I teach afternoon classes, so I tend to sleep in a little during the week. But Mondays I'm home with the family before I head south, so I get up with the wife and kids to participate in the off-to-school hustle and bustle (I don't know how they manage the rest of the week without me).

Anyway, I got everyone out the door and went to pour myself a cup of coffee and catch up on some odds and ends at the computer.

I filled the coffee cup up with milk and then topped it off with coffee. I didn't realize what I'd done until I went to add the sweetener. At least it was milk, not cream or half-and-half.

So I started the day with a cup of coffee-flavored milk. Hopefully it'll get better from here on out...

FOD - Bend Over

A recent Michell Malkin column notes that the number of waivers granted by the Department of Health and Human Services has jumped from 222 to 729 - in two short weeks! Even more telling, one-fourth of the waivers are for unions.

At the end of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services had granted some 222 temporary waivers to businesses small and large, insurers, labor, and other organizations that offer affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits. On Wednesday, the agency quietly updated its online list, which now reveals a whopping total of 729 Obamacare escapees – in addition to four states Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee – who collectively cover 2.1 million enrollees.

Most noteworthy: One-fourth of all the waivers (182) have gone to Big Labor groups across the country so far.

Without the HHS-approved exemptions, these health providers would have been forced to drop low-cost coverage for seasonal, part-time, and low-wage workers due to skyrocketing premiums. The only way they are keeping their health care is by successfully begging the feds to spare them from Obamacare. The Democrats’ law seeks to eliminate the low-cost plans (known as “mini-med” plans) under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing. The ultimate goal, as I’ve reported before: forcing a massive shift from private to public insurance designed by government-knows-best bureaucrats.

Congressional republicans plan to investigate the Obamacare waiver process. One hopes they will take a close hard look at the HHS reporting process as well.

Last year, the HHS website was very efficient posting a list of ObamaCare waivers that had been granted. Usually by the 3rd of the month the list was updated to included waivers that had been approved in the previous month. But something happened in January ... no new waivers (were) posted (until after the State of the Union speech)..

... the day after the President’s State of the Union, the new waivers are up. You may recall that there were 222 such waivers approved in November. That number has now jumped to 729 through the end of December. The total number of people covered by the waivers has gone from 1.5M to just under 2.2M.

Crap like this is just one more reason to unass that fool and his cronies ASAP. The blatant contradictions, hypocrisy, and outright lying by the loser-in-chief, aided and abetted by his lapdogs in the mainstream media, nauseates anyone who truly cares about the future of this country. Why the sudden lag in reporting waivers? Could it have something to do with efforts underway in congress to repeal obabacare? Or the timing of the SOTU address? Or both?

And the failure of the so-called mainstream media to investigate anything that might remotely cast a negative shadow on the left is sickening. Could it be that they have a vested interest in advancing the 'progressive' agenda?

Only a cynic would think so...

Sunday Funnies 2011.01.30

Here's hoping our friends up north can keep their sense of humor while struggling to cope with this winter's many inches of 'global warming'...

 

Q: What is the difference between Snowmen and Snowwomen?
A: Snowballs

Q. Why did the snowman have a smile on his face?
A. Because he saw the snowblower coming up the street.