Archive for March 26th, 2007
I Have a Question
March 26th, 2007
Why would a sitting United States Senator feel the need to carry a loaded pistol and two full magazines with him to work?
WASHINGTON — U.S. Capitol Police arrested a top aide to Sen. Jim Webb on Monday after he tried to enter a Senate office building carrying a loaded pistol and two fully loaded magazines that belonged to the senator.
Phillip Thompson sent a bag through the X-ray machine at Russell Senate Office Building, where Webb’s office is located. It detected the weapon and Capitol Police say they determined that Thompson didn’t have a license to carry the gun in Washington, D.C. Thompson was arrested and charged with carrying a pistol without a license and possession of an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition.
A senior Democratic aide said Webb gave the bag that contained the gun to Thompson when the aide drove the senator to the airport. Thompson said he forgot it was in the bag when he took it into the office building.
“To our knowledge, this incident was an oversight by the senator’s aide Phillip Thompson is a former Marine, a long-term friend and trusted employee of the senator. We are still awaiting facts,” Webb Communications Director Jessica Smith said in a statement.
My uncle is also a former Marine and he doesn’t carry a fully loaded weapon with two full magazines besides.
I sometimes enjoy going to the shooting range just for fun, but my pistol is unloaded and locked while on the way to and from the range and I don’t keep a full clip on me all the time either.
There are capitol police and so many other levels of security at the Capitol I just wonder why anyone would think he needs to be that heavily armed.
He is legal in Virginia (the Senator, that is) but it is illegal to carry a weapon in Washington D.C.
It will be interesting to hear the explanation of why a senator thinks he should be carrying or having loaded weapons in his possession or near his person while serving in the US Senate building.
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Spring (and pollen) are at the J Residence
March 26th, 2007
My pear tree is in full bloom.
This is the top part of my garden at the edge of the driveway. I couldn’t get the view from the bottom because the sun would have been in my face instead of at my back.
The winter flowers are still in bloom, but alas, the yard man, a full-blooded American, will change them out in a couple of weeks to petunias or something. And, no, that’s not a snake in the flowers. It’s a soaker hose.
Kind of a shot of the freshly cut grass in my yard. You can see the tree in my neighbor’s yard just beginning to bloom.
Yep, pretty soon the sprinklers will be turned on and the water bill will go up. I wonder if I can buy some kind of offsets for that.
I hope spring gets to you soon too if it hasn’t already. Everyone should have green cars and the sneezes. 
Iran Says Interrogating Kidnapped British Troops
March 26th, 2007
From this report:
LONDON — Iran said Monday it was interrogating 15 detained British sailors and marines to determine whether they intentionally entered Iranian waters — an indication the country might be seeking a way out of the confrontation with Britain.
Britain denies its personnel had left Iraqi territory when they were captured and detained by Iran — a contention backed by Iraq’s foreign minister, who called on Iran to release the group.
In comments read out by a newscaster, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehzi Mostafavi did not say what Iran plans to do with the British sailors, but he said they were being interrogated.
“It should become clear whether their entry (into Iran) was intentional or unintentional. After that is clarified, the necessary decision will be made,” Mostafavi said.
Britain and the United States have said the sailors and marines were intercepted Friday just after they completed a search of a civilian vessel in the Iraqi part of the Shatt al-Arab waterway leading to the Persian Gulf, where the border with Iran has historically been disputed.
Separately, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Baghdad that there was no connection between the seizures of the 15 and any other issues between the West and Iran. He, like Mostafavi, denied any aim for a prisoner swap. [And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in the middle of the desert in Arizona. Ed.]
“They entered Iranian territorial waters and were arrested and are undergoing the process of investigation and interrogation. It has nothing to do with other issues,” he said.
The United States holds at least five Iranians taken captive in Iraq, claiming they part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard force that provides funds, weapons and training to Shiite militias in Iraq.
The question of where exactly the 15 Britons were when detained has proved impossible to confirm independently, with Britain asserting they were in Iraqi waters but refusing to release precise geographical data and Iran asserting the opposite.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office sought to play down fears that the incident would deepen tensions with Iran, which threatened to charge the 15 with illegally entering its territory.
The seizure of the British service personnel has deepened troubles between Iran and the West, which is concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and accused the country of interfering with the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Blair’s spokesman said he intended to treat the seizure as a distinct issue. “This is a matter that should be dealt with on its own merits,” he said.
Iran rejected British requests to visit the group.
Let us pray that these men and woman return safely very soon.
In the Headlines Today
March 26th, 2007
Anna Nicole Smith died of an overdose. Does that surprise anyone?
In other news: Saddam Hussein and Abu Musad Al Zarqawi are still dead and the fate of bin Laden is still not known.
Gonzales Aide to Voluntarily Testify
March 26th, 2007
D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, is set to testify before a Senate committee on Thursday.
Mr. Sampson resigned earlier this month and is testifying voluntarily.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hopes to learn more about what happened at the Justice Department leading up to the firing of eight federal prosecutors last year.
Mr. Sampson’s former boss, Mr. Gonzales, has said he knew little about the firings, and indicated that Mr. Sampson worked unilaterally within Justice, without notifying superiors of important details.
Mr. Gonzales has said this lack of communication caused inaccurate testimony to Congress by Justice officials.
Mr. Sampson will give his side of the story on Thursday.
This will only cause a feeding frenzy as we all know the democrats are not interested in any crime that was committed, as there was not crime.
But they are after bigger fish such as Gonzales and Rove. Gonzales seems inept but it would make the Senate Judiciary committee majority sooo happy to have to have confirmation hearings on a new AG.
Dueling Campaign Messages (What’s New?)
March 26th, 2007
If we didn’t already know it we know it now. Each major party is going to use the House vote from last week attaching ridiculous conditions on the military supplemental funding bill and plenty of pork to get the extra votes needed such as help for spinach growers, peanut storage help, dairy help etc. to the bill that was supposed to be about funding the troops.
The leadership chose not to use a plain up or down vote on whether or not to stop funding of the troops, but added so many restrictions to the bill it would do the same thing while sweetening the pot a bit for the Congressmen and women across the board who were having difficulty voting for the bill.
Let’s remember that bill passed by the barest majority of 118 which is exactly one more vote than half of the House. Two Republicans put it over the top.
Campaign staffers from both parties are using the vote on Democrats’ troop withdrawal plan to target vulnerable members of Congress in the 2008 races.
Within hours of the House’s 218-212 vote Friday, Republicans sent 50 campaign missives saying Democrats were “waving a white flag of surrender” by approving a war-funding bill that set a timetable for pulling troops from Iraq.
“It’s not a vote that’s going to be forgotten any time soon,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Democrats plan to portray votes against the bill as rubber stamps for an unpopular president when they campaign against the Republicans who opposed it.
“We had two choices: more troops, more money, more time, more of the same, no strings attached,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the Democratic Caucus chairman. “That is what the president has had for four years, and he has asked for another year of exactly the same thing.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said a vote against the bill equated to renewing President Bush’s “blank check for an open-ended commitment to a war without end.”
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) echoed this theme, saying Democrats were bringing accountability and oversight “for the first time in six years.”
The NRCC’s campaign message hitting 50 members, mostly freshmen, said approval of the measure was akin to setting “a date certain for retreat and defeat in Iraq” and embracing a plan “to cut off funding for our troops.”
Many of the freshman congressmen and women who voted for this bill campaigned in conservative districts as conservatives. Let’s see how that goes over at home and if the voters remember it when the next election rolls around.
Here’s a list of the freshmen congressmen who voted for this bill, after many of them campaigned as conservatives in conservative districts:
AZ-5: Harry Mitchell
AZ-8: Gabrielle Giffords
CA-11: Jerry McNerney
CO-7: Ed Perlmutter
CT-2: Joe Courtney
CT-5: Christopher Murphy
FL-16: Tim Mahoney
FL-22: Ron Klein
IA-1: Bruce Braley
IN-2: Joe Donnelly
IN-8: Brad Ellsworth
IN-9: Baron Hill
KS-2: Nancy Boyda
KY-3: John Yarmuth
MN-1: Timothy Walz
NC-11: Heath Shuler
NH-1: Carol Shea-Porter
NH-2: Paul Hodes
NY-19: John Hall
NY-20: Kirsten Gillibrand
NY-24: Michael Arcuri
OH-18: Zachary Space
PA-4: Jason Atmire
PA-7: Joe Sestak
PA-8: Patrick Murphy
PA-10: Christopher Carney
TX-22: Nick Lampson
WI-8: Steve Kagen
Rudeness on the Internet
March 26th, 2007
The anonymity of the internet makes people behave in ways they wouldn’t if they were face to face to the person about whom they are talking.
We’ve all seen it on blogs and on news sites that have message boards. Incivility at its ugly worst.
When a California woman recently gave birth to a healthy baby just two days after learning she was pregnant, the sudden change to her life was challenging enough. What April Branum definitely didn’t need was a deluge of nasty Internet comments.
Postings on message boards made cracks about Miss Branum’s weight (about 400 pounds — one reason she says didn’t realize sooner she was pregnant). They also analyzed her housekeeping ability, based on a photo of her home. And they called her names. “A pig is a pig,” one person wrote. Another suggested that she “go on the show ‘The Biggest Loser.’ ”
“The thing that bothered me most was, people assumed because I am overweight, I’m going to be a bad mom,” Miss Branum says. “And that is not one little bit true.”
It was yet another example of how the Internet — and the anonymity it affords — has given a public stage to people’s basest thoughts, ones that in earlier eras likely never would have traveled past the watercooler, the kitchen table or the next barstool.
Such incidents — and there are countless examples across cyberspace — also raise the question: Is there anything to be done about it? Or is a decline in civil discourse simply the price we pay for the advance of technology?
If it isn’t acceptable in person or in polite conversation it isn’t acceptable on the internet.
About Our Sidebar
March 26th, 2007
We have a blogroll of favorite blogs and sites to visit. It is deliberately not long because if I put in 100 sites I could not honestly tell you I read every one of them every day, so I’ve chosen my favorites.
If you have any suggestions of some I’ve missed please let me know and if they are daily reads for me I’ll certainly put them on. If they are not daily reads I will check them out and see if they interest me enough to make them a daily read for me.
This blog is new and it’s up to you to tell us what you want on it. You are our customers and our customers come first.
You will also notice I have added at the bottom of the sidebar a Breitbart news headline service for news and for politics. Click the appropriate box and you will see the headlines.
I have asked Tonto to give me a list of the liberal newspapers he would like to have listed but so far he hasn’t come up with a list, but I must say most of the newspapers and news services listed are already pretty liberal even if he disagrees with me.
I won’t link to the far left blogs and I won’t link to the extreme right blogs. That includes my former blog. We want a blog where we are not preaching to the choir but are showing our open-mindedness and diversity to a variety of readers.
We also want a blog that encourages our readers to discuss among themselves rather than having every post a comment by one of the bloggers. I will respond with a welcome or a comment as I see the need to do so, but don’t get hurt feelings if we don’t always comment on your comment. I have seen that too much on my former blog and have heard people say it is nothing but the bloggers talking to each other. Lesson learned, but I can’t stay quiet so I’ll be on the threads talking with you too, at least until we get more people commenting.
Let us know what you think. Feel free to email me by using the contact link on the sidebar to give us your ideas. I will forward any of Tonto’s email to him, and I must say he has a good following.
