DON'T MESS WITH THE ANGELS

There are four major outlaw motorcycle clubs in t he United States:
　
The Hell's Angels were formed in 1948 in San Bernardino, California and have chapters all over the Western World. The Bandidos are based in Texas and have chapters in the major cities of the Americas, Europe and Australia. The Outlaws were formed in 1935 just outside Chicago and are reputed to be the wealthiest of the outlaw biker gangs. The Pagans have 44 chapters strung down the East Coast between New York and Miami and have the fiercest reputation of all the biker gangs.
　
I am very familiar with the Angels because their headquarters were near where I spent most of my law enforcement career. I can tell you that those suckers were a bunch of tough and mean hombres. What made them so dangerous in any confrontation was that they were not afraid to die.
　
Many, although not all of the Hells Angels chapters are believed to derive much of their income from the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamines. As with the other biker gangs, many of their ‘old ladies’ worked as pole dancers in strip clubs.
　
When I was working the streets, the ball peen hammer was their favorite weapon and they would swing it with reckless abandonment during brawls with members of other biker gangs. You really didn’t want to mess with the Angels.
　
I once visited a parolee in Riverside General Hospital. His swollen head and busted-up face looked so grotesque that I hardly recognized him. He told me he was riding with the Devil’s Disciples, a small biker gang, when they came across a group of Angeles. That’s all it took for the fur to fly. And he wasn’t about to file a police complaint – ‘Holy fuck man, how long do you think I’d stay alive if I did that?’
　
In New York, the people living in neighborhoods frequented by the Angels considered them their heroes because those neighborhoods remained almost completely crime and gang free – no crook in his right mind and no competing gang would infringe on the territory of the Hells Angels.
　
And now the Angels have taken on legitimate businesses for infringing on their long-time logo, the winged death head.



HELLS ANGELS SUE ALEXANDER McQUEEN AND SAKS OVER WINGED DEATH HEAD TRADEMARK
By Tamara Abraham
　
Mail Online
October 27, 2010
　
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation is suing Alexander McQueen for breach of trademark, after the fashion house featured motifs similar to its famous winged death head.
　
Lawyers for the motorcycle gang cited four products from the late designer's final collection, created shortly before his suicide in February this year.
　
They named the £895 'Hells Angels' jacquard box dress, and a £300 knuckle-duster ring in the complaint, as well as a scarf and a handbag.

It is also suing U.S. department store Saks Fifth Avenue and e-tailer Zappos.com for selling the products.
　
The complaint argues that the symbol has been used by the Hells Angels since at least 1948, and that it is protected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
　
'From decades of notoriety, the HAMC marks have acquired very widespread public recognition, consequently they evoke strong and immediate reactions whenever used,' it reads.
　
'The impact of these marks is virtually incomparable, and as a result they have great commercial value.'

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles on Monday. HAMC lawyer Fritz Clapp explained: 'This isn't just about money, it's about membership.
　
'If you've got one of these rings on, a member might get really upset that you're an imposter.'
　
Representatives for Saks, Zappos.com and Alexander McQueen, which is owned by PPR's Gucci Group, have refused to comment.
　
Yesterday Harry Potter costume designer Jany Temime was accused of copying an Alexander McQueen dress after film stills were released from the first instalment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADER VICTIMIZED TWICE

First she was sexually assaulted and then she was kicked off the cheerleading squad for not cheering for her rapist. The rapist, on the other hand, gets rewarded for being a star football player by having his one-year jail sentence suspended so he could continue to play on his school’s athletic teams. Actually this is not surprising. After all, in Texas, King Football rules!
　
CHEERLEADER REQUIRED TO CHEER FOR MAN WHO ASSAULTED HER
by Caroline Heldman
　
Ms. Magazine
October 15, 2010
　
If someone assaulted you, would you want to then cheer for his performance on a basketball court? A 16-year-old Texas high school student sure didn’t.
　
High school football star Rakheem Bolton and two others were indicted for sexual assault of a child–identified only as H.S.–at a post-game party in 2008. According to H.S.–a fellow student and cheerleader at Silsbee High–Bolton, football player Christian Rountree and another juvenile male forced her into a room, locked the door, held her down and sexually assaulted her. When other party-goers tried to get into the room, two of the men fled through an open window, including Bolton, who left clothing behind. Bolton allegedly threatened to shoot the occupants of the house when the homeowner refused to return his clothes.
　
In September 2010, Bolton pled guilty to a lesser charge of Class A Assault and was sentenced to one year in prison, a sentence that was suspended by the judge in lieu of two years probation, a $2,500 fine, community service and an anger management course.
　
Silsbee school officials had two responses to the incident. First, they urged H.S. to keep a low profile, such as avoiding the school cafeteria and not taking part in homecoming activities. With the support of her family, she refused to do so, rejecting the notion that she had anything to be ashamed of. Secondly, school officials kicked her off the cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer for Bolton. No kidding.
　
Bolton had been allowed back on campus during a brief period when one grand jury withdrew the charges before another grand jury reinstated them. During a basketball game, H.S. cheered for the entire team but refused to cheer "Rakheem" during his free-throws, so she was off the squad.
　
H.S.’s parents sued the school for violating her right to free speech, but an appeals court dismissed her case earlier this month. The bizarre reasoning: "In her capacity as cheerleader, [she] served as a mouthpiece through which the school could disseminate speech–namely, support for its athletic teams." Not cheering for Bolton "constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, [she] was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily." In other words, the "work of the school" is basketball, and H.S. was obligated to put on a robotic smile and cheer for the man who had assaulted her.
　
Silsbee High School officials should be held accountable for their actions. Richard Bain, Jr., the superintendent of schools, allegedly ordered H.S. to cheer for her attacker.

HAVE A HAPPY HALLOWEEN

For all you grownup kids, Hair Balls has Richard Connelly’s good advise on how to get drunk at a Halloween party without ending up embarrassed.
　
DRUNK HALLOWEEN PARTIES: FIVE WAYS TO AVOID HUMILIATION
By Richard Connelly
　
Houston Press Hair Balls
October 29, 2010
　
Halloween is especially dangerous this year -- it's on a Sunday, and so that means it's perfectly reasonable to have parties not only on Friday, but on Saturday too.

And that means double the chances of getting drunk and doing something you'll regret very much in the days to come.

How best to avoid drunken embarrassment? Well, you could stay sober, but there's really no way to do that at a costume party, or you will start asking yourself uncomfortable questions about why you're dressed as you are.

Instead, take these five tips to heart:

5. THAT’S NOT REALLY CATWOMAN; ON MONDAY SHE WILL BE JANE FROM ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
Yeah, yeah, a masked woman wielding a whip, tipsy on some appletinis, and you've had a few drinks yourself. This is not the time to bring up any long-hidden fantasies you may have been harboring involve leather and spanking. It will just make for a very, very awkward Monday staff meeting.

4. DON’T WEAR A COSTUME THAT INVOLVES AN ENGINEERING DEGREE TO TAKE A PISS
It may look great, but dude, remember this: You're not a woman, therefore you are not adept at dealing with complicated pieces of clothing while desperately needing to take a leak. No one-piece anything. Get a zipper, give yourself plenty of time.or go dressed as a baby, wearing adult diapers.

3. DO NOT GO DRESSED AS A BABY, WEARING ADULT DIAPERS
No one wants to see that, take our word for it.

2. JUST BECAUSE HE’S DRESSED LIKE JACK SPARROW, IT WON’T BE LIKE SLEEPING WITH JOHNNY DEPP
Especially if you wake up next to him in the morning.

1. NO FOUR LOKO
Come on, you've been warned.

EX-DA SHOULD BE MADE TO SERVE 18 YEARS ON DEATH ROW

I am a very strong supporter of the death penalty because I am absolutely convinced that capital punishment is a deterrent to premeditated murder. I know it is quite possible that a few innocent people may have been executed but that is no reason to abolish the death penalty. It goes without saying that I certainly do not want to see any innocent person executed.
　
I have often railed against the endless appeals for death row inmates because almost all of them have involved cold blooded killers where the evidence was overwhelming that they committed the murders for which they were condemned. However, in the case of Anthony Graves, I must admit that were it not for the numerous appeals in his behalf, an innocent man could have been put to death.
　
Anthony Graves, the victim of a malicious prosecutor, was freed Wednesday after serving 18 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. Kelly Siegler, a prominent former hard-nosed prosecutor, has blasted the ex-DA who prosecuted Graves for having committed the ‘worst’ case of prosecutorial misconduct she had ever seen.
　
Charles Sebesta, the DA in the Graves case, makes Mike Nifong, the disbarred malicious rogue prosecutor in the Duke rape case, look like Mother Teresa. There is only way justice can be served in this case and that is for Sebesta to be disbarred and made to serve 18 years on death row. Unfortunately that’s not going to happen. At the very least though, Sebesta should be sued by the state to reimburse it for the amount of compensation Graves will receive.
　
TEAM OVERTURNING GRAVES CASE BLASTS EX-DA
His handling of 1994 capital murder trial is labeled ‘travesty’
　
By Brian Rogers
　
Houston Chronicle
October 28, 2010
　
BRENHAM — A day after prosecutors dismissed the capital murder charges that sent Anthony Graves to death row in 1994, they accused the district attorney who convicted him of prosecutorial misconduct.
　
"Charles Sebesta handled this case in a way that could best be described as a criminal justice system’s nightmare," Kelly Siegler declared. "It’s a travesty, what happened in Anthony Graves’ trial."
　
Graves, now 45, was released from jail Wednesday after spending 18 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, according to Bill Parham, the current DA for Washington and Burleson counties.
　
Parham, Siegler and two investigators called a Thursday news conference at which they accused the former district attorney of hiding evidence and threatening witnesses.
　
Graves was convicted of capital murder in the 1992 deaths of a Somerville family: Bobbie Davis, 45, her 16-year-old daughter, and Davis’ four grandchildren, ages 4 to 9.
　
Sebesta on Thursday said the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct were "really stretching" and maintained that Graves is guilty. "Go back and look at the evidence," Sebesta said. "He was convicted by a jury."
　
Siegler said Sebesta indicted a woman without any evidence, fabricated evidence, manipulated witnesses and took advantage of victims. She said it "absolutely" was prosecutorial misconduct.
　
"The worst I’ve ever seen," Siegler said.
　
Asked if Sebesta should face criminal prosecution for his actions, Siegler said, "Well, the statute of limitations has run on all that." She also said Parham’s office has not discussed whether a complaint to the State Bar of Texas is appropriate.
　
Sebesta flatly denied any wrongdoing and responded to each allegation leveled at him by Siegler and Parham.
　
Graves was convicted of assisting Robert Earl Carter in the slayings, then helping set the family’s home on fire.

Carter was executed in 2000. Two weeks before his death, he provided a sworn statement saying that his naming of Graves as an accomplice was a lie.
　
He also said it minutes before his death sentence was carried out: "Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. … I lied on him in court."
　
The most potentially damning allegation against Sebesta was that he threatened to pursue a conviction against Robert Carter’s wife if he did not testify against Graves, Siegler said.
　
Sebesta denied that he had a conversation with Carter like that. "We didn’t do that," he said.

KILLER CHANGED HIS STORY
　
Carter first named Graves as an accomplice days after the murders because he knew Graves was not there and thought he could easily provide an alibi for himself, Siegler said.
　
Two days later Carter recanted and said Graves was not involved, but months after that he told jurors in Graves’ trial that the two had worked together.
　
Siegler also said Sebesta threatened the woman with whom Graves was asleep with when the murder occurred by saying in open court that she was a suspect in the slayings.
　
Sebesta said it was hardly a threat when he alerted the court that she should be advised of her rights to not incriminate herself because she was a suspect.
　
Siegler said Sebesta indicted Carter’s wife, Theresa, without any evidence.
　
Sebesta said a grand jury returned the indictment after hearing evidence that included a burn on Theresa Carter’s shoulder. Robert Carter also had burns, which first led police to suspect him because the house had been torched.
　
Sebesta said he has never believed Carter’s recantations, which began two days after he first gave it to police. "I would not have tried him if I didn’t believe he was guilty," the former prosecutor insisted.
　
Parham said the case remains open because he believes there was a second man involved in the murder.
　
But, he said, Graves "unequivocally was not one of them."
　
Siegler noted that she and Parham could have dismissed the charges and said there simply was not enough evidence to convict again.
　
But it was important that the community and the victims’ family know that Graves did not "get away with murder," Siegler said.
　
"He’s an innocent man," she said.
　
Sebesta retired 12 years ago. In 2009, he took out ads in two Burleson County newspapers reiterating that he believed Graves was a killer, to dispute critical news media reports.

BAR COMPLAINT DISMISSED
　
In 2007, Houston attorney Robert Bennett filed a bar complaint saying Sebesta and two assistant district attorneys acted unethically in the prosecution.
　
The State Bar dismissed the complaint, and officials said Sebesta has no disciplinary record.
　
In 2006, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Graves’ conviction after ruling that prosecutors elicited false statements from two witnesses and withheld two statements that could have changed the outcome.
　
Since that ruling there were at least two special prosecutors before the case was handed to Parham, who hired Siegler, a former Harris County assistant district attorney, as a special prosecutor.

ONE SMALL WAY TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

For all those folks who are upset by the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., here is a suggestion how the Tea Party might help. It’s members could throw parties for illegals all over the country, get them drunk, give them a revolver if the guests don’t already have one, and get them to play Russian roulette. The odds will definitely be in favor of those wanting to reduce the number of those illegals.
　
MEXICAN SHOT DEAD BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AFTER REFUSING TO TAKE HIS TURN DURING GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE
　
Mail Online
October 29, 2010
　
Two illegal Mexican immigrants have been charged with causing the death of a third man during a game of Russian roulette after he refused to take his turn.
　
Juan Tomas Chaves Robles, 30, also of Mexico, was shot in the head when one of the two men picked up the gun, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.
　
In a scene that could have come straight from movie The Deer Hunter, the chamber of the revolver held a bullet and Robles was killed instantly.
　
Detectives arrested Antonio Vieyra, 31, and Cecilio Mendez-Ballesteros, 28, at separate addresses in Wilmington, Delaware.
　
Vieyra was charged with second degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony.

Mendez-Ballesteros, who shot Robles, was charged with first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony.
　
The two are being held without bail in Young Correctional Institution.
　
Master Sergeant Steven Barnes said that when officers were called to the home on Saturday afternoon, they found Robles in the living room with a gunshot wound to the head.
　
He had been at the home attending a party since Friday.
　
The three men were drinking with others when they began playing Russian roulette with a revolver brought to the party by Vieyra, Sgt. Barnes said.
　
Robles was shot after refusing to continue playing.
　
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating the immigration status of both suspects.
　
The Deer Hunter, which won five Oscars in 1978, stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Savage.
　
In it, captured U.S. soldiers were forced to play Russian roulette by their Vietcong guards as they bet on the outcome.

KILL HER, WAIT FOR CURFEW TO END, THEN DELIVER HER BODY TO THE COPS

Another parole success story. After all, he did not break curfew.

SEX OFFENDER: WOMAN ‘HAD TO DIE’
By Sarah Burge

The Press-Enterprise
October 26, 2010
　
A sex offense parolee who drove his dead girlfriend to the Lake Elsinore [California] sheriff's station last week admitted in a jailhouse interview Monday to strangling the woman.

Jason Richard Budrow, 30, a registered sex offender who lives in the unincorporated Good Hope area near Lake Elsinore, said he feared the 48-year-old woman was a police informant.
　
"She had to die," Budrow said.
　
Budrow is jailed on suspicion of murder at the Southwest Detention Center in French Valley.
　
Resting his heavily tattooed arms on the counter in front of him and gazing through the glass divider into the visitors' room, Budrow spoke calmly as he described how he killed the woman.

She came over to his trailer behind a liquor store off Highway 74, he said. The woman, with whom he said he had a sexual relationship, got scared after realizing that he had "discovered her." She was on her way to her car when he strangled her about 2 or 3 a.m. last Friday, Budrow said.
　
"I desecrated her body," he said, declining to elaborate.
　
Budrow said he shoved her body into the trunk of her white Chrysler Sebring convertible, then napped until his "curfew" -- an apparent reference to a parole requirement -- expired at 5 a.m.
　
Budrow said he drove away in the Sebring and at some point cut off the GPS-monitoring ankle bracelet that he must wear as a registered sex offender on parole.
　
"I murdered her while I was wearing that bracelet," he said.
　
Budrow declined to say what else he did in the hours before he arrived at the sheriff's station. If he had access to a gun, he said, he would have killed several other people. He did not explain why.

After pulling into the station parking lot and flagging someone down about 7:25 a.m., Budrow said he knelt on the pavement and put his hands in the air.
　
"I told them I had a body in my trunk," he said.

At first, he said, sheriff's officials were incredulous and asked if he was "playing games." He said they thought the trunk might have been booby trapped.
　
Budrow said he believed undercover law enforcement officers had been watching his every move and that he turned himself in because he was convinced they would eventually catch him.
　
The woman, Budrow said, knew he was involved in drug dealing and pimping and he thought she was going to reveal the names of "important people."
　
Sheriff's officials have said Budrow showed up at the sheriff's station and told a sergeant there was a body in the trunk. They declined to comment Monday on Budrow's statements.
　
Coroner's officials have not released the woman's name. Sheriff's officials said only that she was dating Budrow.
　
Until Friday, sheriff's officials said Budrow had complied with his registration requirements. He had been checking in at the Lake Elsinore station since June 2006.
　
Riverside County court records show Budrow pleaded guilty in 2004 to sexual penetration by force and was sentenced to three years in prison.
　
A probation officer's report says Budrow was staying with his grandparents in 2003 at a property they managed in Lakeland Village, near Lake Elsinore. He slipped into the bedroom of a 14-year-old neighbor one night and performed sex acts on the girl, court records say. The girl said she told him to stop but did not yell or resist out of fear for her safety, the report says.
　
Budrow told authorities he had been intoxicated from beer and marijuana, that he thought the girl was 17 and the encounter was consensual.
　
"He said if he did not confess, he could not live with himself, or run from the truth," the report says.

ETIQUETTE-CHALLENGED BANK ROBBER

Cutting in line. How rude! Didn’t his mother teach him any better?
　
FBI NOW CRITICIZING BANK ROBBERS FOR RUDENESS
By Richard Connelly
　
Houston Press Hair Balls
October 28, 2010
　
We've had the local FBI criticize bank robbers for a lack of fashion sense; they've ripped robbers for being somewhat portly and sloppy, but now they're really appalled.

Now the bank robbers are being rude.

"At approximately 10:15 a.m. [Wednesday], the man entered the Fiesta store and walked to the Chase bank located inside. Rudely, he cut in front of several customers to confront a teller," the agency reports in its latest release.

Robber, please. Decorum dictates that one wait for others to be served before requesting unmarked $20s and $100s.

The robbery occurred at a Fiesta on the northeast side of town. The robber made some moves that implied he had a weapon, the FBI says, but no weapon was seen. Perhaps the robber would have thought it rude to show.

The etiquette-challenged suspect is described as a "black male, early 40's, approximately 5'6" to 5'7" tall with a muscular build and a dark complexion. He was clean shaven and wore a red and white striped polo shirt, jeans and a light blue North Carolina Tar Heels baseball cap."

So, criticizing dress style? Check. Physical fitness or lack of it? Check. Manners? Check.

We're not sure what's left to carp about. Penmanship on the demand note?

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU'RE BORED

I don’t know which of the six ‘Saw’ movies the killer was watching as he dispatched his victim, but guess what? ‘Saw 3D’, the seventh in the series, is opening in theaters today.
　
‘HE EXHALED AND THEN I TIGHTENED THE WIRE’: KILLER TELLS COURT HOW HE GARROTED SLEEPING HONOR STUDENT BECAUSE ‘HE WAS BORED’
　
Mail Online
October 28, 2010
　
The killer of a university student told a Manhattan court how he waited for his victim to take a last breath before brutally garroting him.
　
Jeromie Cancel, 24, made the sickening confession to police in a video interview and said he carried out the murder while watching horror movie Saw 'because he was bored'.
　
The body of honor student Kevin Pravia, 19, was found in his Manhattan apartment with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck in August 2008.

In the video confession, Cancel told officers: 'He exhaled and then I tightened the wire. And then he couldn't get no more breath.'
　
Cancel had told police he was invited up to Pravia's apartment in West 15th Street to sell the student $300 of cocaine.
　
In statements he made in 2008, the killer boasted of switching to a one-handed grip on the cord after Pravia had stopped struggling - so he could smoke a cigarette with his other hand and watch the film on DVD.
　
During the police interview he described how he took the cable from behind the TV and tied a large overhand knot as his victim was sleeping.

He then demonstrated how he lifted the student's head before slipping the cord around his neck.
　
'I just put my knee on him and pulled. As soon as he lifted his head - like, "wow! What's going on?" - I punched him in the side of his face,' the New York Post reported.

When Pravia fell asleep, Cancel wanted to steal his laptop and other items, but then decided to kill him.Cancel, who pleaded not guilty, will go on trial later this week. His lawyers are expected to argue that he was overcome by 'extreme emotional disturbance'.
　
If successful, he would be convicted of manslaughter and jailed for up to 25 years. Murder is punishable in New York by up to life in prison.

THE TEA PARTY: OY VEY

Bible-believing Christians are Israel’s most sincere and stalwart friends. The Israeli left-wing is a pro-Palestinian fifth column that will undermine Israel’s security. American and European liberals have proven to be enemies of the Jewish state.
　
AMERICA’S ‘TEA PARTY’ TO EXPAND TO ISRAEL
By Ryan Jones
　
Israel Today
October 27, 2010
　
The growing grassroots conservative movement in the US known as the "Tea Party" is set to expand to Israel this coming Sunday.
　
The opening rally will be held at the Zionist Organization of America House in Tel Aviv under the banner of "Say No to Obama."

Israeli organizers behind the event said the Israeli branch of the Tea Party will be just as patriotic and provocatively conservative as its American counterparts. The first order of business for the new branch will be combatting US President Barack Obama’s efforts to reinstate a Jewish building freeze in Judea and Samaria.
　
Organizers noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under a tremendous amount of pressure from Obama and the American liberal elite, and so they want to counter that with pressure of their own.
　
The Tel Aviv Tea Party rally is expected to be attended by several high-ranking members of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party.
　
There was concern months ago that the Tea Party’s deep Christian connections would keep most conservative Jews from joining or backing the movement. But the launch of an Israel branch has clearly proved that fear unfounded. Most conservative Jews have realized, or are starting to realize, that Bible-believing Christians are their most sincere and stalwart friends.

11TH HOUR APPEAL: NICE TRY AND GOOD RIDDANCE

After 20 years of endless appeals this scumbag was finally topped. His 11th hour appeal that one of the lethal injection drugs might not be safe – that’s a laugher – was turned down by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court. If Obama gets to appoint just one more justice the 5-4 conservative-liberal makeup of the court will shift to the liberals and we can probably kiss any further executions goodbye.
　
It is ironic that Arizona obtained its sodium thiopental from Britain which outlawed the death penalty in 1964.
　
ARISONA EXECUTES DEATH ROW INMATE AFTER BRITISH COMPANY SUPPLIES LETHAL INJECTION CHEMICAL
By Wil Longbottom
　
Mail Online
October 27, 2010
　
Arizona has executed a death row inmate after an unnamed British company supplied one of the chemicals used in lethal injections, it has been revealed.
　
Jeffrey Landrigan, 50, who was convicted of the murder of Chester Dean Dyer in 1989, had been granted a stay of execution over concerns about the legality of the substances used to kill him.
　
His lawyers had argued that the drug - sodium thiopental - might not meet U.S. standards and his planned execution violated his constitutional rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
　
But it was cleared to proceed after Supreme Court justices voted 5-4 in favor of overturning the federal judge's order postponing the execution.
　
Arizona officials said the sodium thiopental came from Britain, the first time a state has acknowledged obtaining the drug from outside the US since the shortage began slowing executions in the spring.
　
The sentence was carried out at 6.26am this morning.
　
In 1989, Landrigan escaped from an Oklahoma prison where he was serving time for second-degree murder.
　
He was convicted of strangling Chester Dyer in Arizona a year later during an armed burglary and was sentenced to death.

Judge Roslyn Silver blocked the execution 18 hours before it was due to take place after concluding that the state had not provided his legal team with enough information on the safety and legality of substances that would be used to kill him.
　
But the Supreme Court ruling overrides the lower court order, saying 'there is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe'.
　
It added: 'There was no showing that the drug was unlawfully obtained, nor was there an offer of proof to that effect.'
　
The state of Arizona had turned to getting supplies of sodium thiopental - which renders inmates unconscious - from abroad, due to the nationwide shortage of the drug in the U.S.
　
Chief Deputy Attorney General Tim Nelson said: 'This drug came from a reputable place. There's all sorts of wild speculation that it came from a third-world country, and that's not accurate.'

Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Illinois, the sole U.S. manufacturer of the drug, has blamed the shortage on unspecified problems with its raw-material suppliers and said new batches will not be available until January at the earliest.
　
There are no FDA-approved overseas manufacturers of the drug.
　
The limited supply has also directly affected executions in California, Kentucky and Oklahoma, and may affect executions in Missouri, which says its supply of sodium thiopental expires in January.

Sodium thiopental is the first of a sequence of three drugs administered in lethal injections that paralyse breathing and stop the heart.
　
Landrigan was the 24th person executed in Arizona since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992. There are currently 132 inmates on the state's death row.

PERKS OF THE JOB: TWO OUT OF THREE AIN'T BAD

Two out of three ain’t bad? That would be drinking and having sex!
　
DIANE BURNETTE’S JOB INCLUDED DRINKING, SMOKING WEED AND HAVING SEX, AND SHE’S SUING OVER IT
By Richard Connelly
　
Houston Press Hair Balls
October 26, 2010
　
Act now before this gets on Monster.com -- there's apparently a job out there that involves getting high, getting drunk and screwing.

That's if you believe the allegations of one Diane Burnett, and she's filed a suit, so there's at least a chance it's true.

Burnett said her boss at Mainland Tool -- there's got to be some punny reference there -- "forced [her] to drink alcoholic beverages, smoke marijuana and have a sexual relationship with [him]," according to the Southeast Texas Record.

Two out of three ain't bad?

No, no and no.

It would be very wrong to be forced to drink and get high to keep your job as office administrator, although knowing what we do of office-administrator jobs, it certainly would make the days pass quicker.

Burnett also alleges she was a whistleblower who was fired for reporting that the company was stealing from its customers; again, these are just allegations.

The suit was filed in Galveston County district court.

ONE VERY GOOD REASON

Do you need a good reason to vote the Democrats out of office? Well, here’s a very good one. In a desperate attempt to save his party's control of Congress, President Obama appeared on Al Sharpton’s radio show to plead for the vote of Sharpton’s followers in the coming election.

Sharpton, along with Jesse Jackson and their ilk, has been described as a RACIAL VULTURE. Sharpton had been an obscure black preacher until he gained national prominence by orchestrating the Tawana Brawley hoax. He is the fastest gun in the land whenever there is the slightest hint of racism by whites or the police against blacks, whether true or not. Sharpton is an out and out anti-Semite. In appearing on his radio show Obama was paying homage to a rabblerousing and race-baiting dangerous charlatan.
　
For being on Sharpton’s radio show, Obama has given us one very good reason to vote against Democrats. Please note that I said against Democrats, not for Republicans. Here are brief summaries of only three of many occasions when that racial vulture spewed his race-baiting venom with disastrous results:
　
On a Thanksgiving weekend in 1987, Tawana Brawley, a 15 year old black girl, was found curled up inside a garbage bag in a small Hudson Valley town. She was smeared with feces and the words "nigger," "KKK" and "bitch" were scrawled on her body. She claimed to have been abducted, beaten, and sexuallly assaulted for four days by six white law enforcement racists.

Needless to say, this case drew immediate world-wide media attention. Understandably, the black community throughout the United States was outraged. Sharpton and two black attorneys, Alton Maddox and Vernon Mason, assumed the mantle as Bawley's advisors. Sharpton orchestrated the whole sordid affair, thereby fanning the flames of black anger. Sharpton's role in this case made him an instant leader among black activists.

One cop and a prosecutor were identified as having participated in the abduction and sexual assault. So much abuse was heaped on the accused that it ruined the prosecutor's career and led the police officer to commit suicide. However, a lengthy grand jury investigation found all of the allegations to be a hoax. Subsequently, an in-depth investigation by six New York Times reporters also determined that the allegations were a hoax committed by Brawley to hide the fact from her mother that she had run off with a boyfriend.

The falsely accused prosecutor sued Sharpton, Maddox and Mason, winning a monetary judgement against all three. Maddox and Mason were eventually disbarred for unethical conduct. Sharpton has never apologized for his responsibility in the officer's suicide and in the porsecutor's ruined career. In fact, to this day Sharpton continues to insist that the Brawley scandal was not a hoax.

In 1991, Sharpton also helped fan the flames of black anger against Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. A Jewish driver in a police escorted procession, which was returning from a cemetary, collided with another vehicle at an intersection. His car veered onto the sidewalk where it struck two seven year old black children, one of whom died. Some bystanders charged that the driver was speeding and ran a red light. A private Jewish ambulance, which had arrived at the scene, was ordered by the police to take the Jewish driver away. The ambulance attendants were also ordered not to attend to the two injured black children because a city ambulance had already been summoned.

Blacks were outraged, feeling that a Jew had been afforded favorable treatment at the expense of the injured children. There had long been tensions between Jews and blacks in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Sharpton's rantings and ravings over the incident were instrumental in causing a riot which lasted for four days. The rallying cry of blacks was "Get the Jews" and a Jewish seminary student was stabbed to death. Because the rioting was mishandled by the police, Lee Brown, New York's black police commissioner, lost his job and David Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, was defeated by Rudy Giuliani in his bid for another term in office.

In 1995, a landlord in Harlem tried to evict one of his tenants, a black music store owner, in order to expand his adjoining business. Sharpton organized a demonstration against the landlord, denouncing him as a "white interloper." Sharpton's inflammatory race-baiting rhetoric provoked one of his followers to take a gun into Freddie's Fashion Mart and slaughter seven customers before committing suicide.
　
With Sharpton’s ugly history as a racial vulture, why does the media keep kowtowing down to this four-flushing phony? And how can the President of the United States disgrace himself by associating with someone who has such a dark history and who always has a race card up his sleeve?

FIRING OF JUAN WILLIAMS BY NPR

Lee Lawrence is a former student of mine who has made me really proud. He is a SWAT team sergeant with the Houston Police Department. Lee is a long-time army paratrooper - and now a Green Beret - who recently served a tour of duty in Iraq. He is a true hero in every sense of the word.
　
Here are Lee’s thoughts on the recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR:
　
TRUTH: GOOD FOR THE GOOSE, BUT NOT GOOD FOR THE GANDER?
By H. Lee Lawrence
　
Fear is, with a few exceptions, largely a learned response. Although a few species exhibit fear from the moment of birth, an instinctive response bestowed upon them by a higher intelligence to ensure their survival in a predatory environment, most humans come to fear things based on experience – mostly bad experience. We learn that although we would like to think we are at the top of the food chain, we are not. If we are camping or hiking and encounter a bear, a reasonable person experiences a varying level of fear based on what they have learned about bears. We know that our childish notions of all bears being cute, cuddly and harmless are ill-conceived and foolish and truthfully, most bears are large, predatory and potentially dangerous, capable of inflicting serious bodily injury or death. Sane persons experience some level of fear and take appropriate action.
　
The firing of Juan Williams by NPR is disturbing on several levels. Not only did Mr. Williams exercise free speech, he also exercised free thought and, more importantly, spoke the truth. He was very candid and truthful about his thoughts and feelings – yes, thoughts and feelings. Those of us who generally believe ourselves to be sane are constantly criticized and sometimes, not unlike Juan Williams, even ostracized for not only speaking our minds, but for the very thought processes and feelings that spring from our minds based on our experiences. We are incessantly reminded that not only is our speech politically incorrect, but our very thought processes are wrong and unacceptable. Mr. Williams truthfully admitted that he experiences fear when he finds himself on a plane with Muslims. The left would have us believe that not only was it outrageous and indefensible to say such a horrible thing, but he and any of us who might also feel likewise under similar circumstances are dead wrong for feeling that way and maybe even mentally disturbed. Similarly, any of us who speak out against a mosque at Ground Zero because we feel it to be hurtful, insulting and inappropriate are also wrong, intolerant and clearly not engaging in sound, reasonable and sane thought.
　
It seems to me that truth, tolerance and free speech are only good for the goose, but not for the gander. The left can freely and openly rant on at us, admonishing us not only to be silent and not speak the truth about our thoughts and feelings, but insisting that we are fundamentally wrong for thinking the way we think or feeling the way we feel, blaming our fear, intolerance and warped thought processes on our own dysfunctional, even possibly pathological mental state. Sounds suspiciously like groupthink to me. More disturbing is that the real victims in this sad state of double standard intolerance are those priceless, splendid and uniquely American ideals of free speech, free thought and, most frightening of all - truth.
　
EDITOR’S NOTE: After Bob Walsh read this he wrote: It’s pretty obvious the problem was not what he [Williams] said, but where he said it. Fox is the anti-christ to liberals. Can't consort with the enemy or you will be destroyed. So much for open exchange of ideas.

HAVEN'T WE SEEN THIS BEFORE IN ONE OF THOSE VACATION MOVIE COMEDIES?

I love living in Houston, but why in the hell anyone would want to vacation in this city is beyond comprehension. After you’ve seen the rusting Astrodome and gone to the Space Center, there’s nothing worth seeing or doing within 50 miles. You’ve got to go to Galveston if you want to vacation in these here parts.

This woefully hilarious tale reminds me of one of those vacation movie comedies.
　
HOUSTON VACATION EVEN MORE HELLISH THAN EXPECTED, DETROIT COUPLE CLAIMS IN LAWSUIT
By Chris Vogel
　
Houston Press Hair Balls
October 26, 2010
　
Rude hotel workers, racist motorists and rotten cops.

For Russell Jarrett and his friend Helena Haggins of Detroit, a visit to Houston was the holiday from hell.

So much so, in fact, that the two are now suing their hotel, several HPD officers and the City of Houston in federal court.

According to Jarrett, 27, and Haggins, 22, the trouble started shortly after flying to Houston in April 2009 for a week of vacation and checking into a Marriott Courtyard hotel in northwest Houston just outside the 610 Loop. Jarrett used a debit card to pay for the room, knowing the hotel would immediately take out the entire amount owed plus place a hold on an additional amount to cover "incidentals." However, says Jarrett, the clerk overcharged Jarrett twice the total amount, plus additional charges for using the Internet.
　
When Jarrett complained, he says the clerk was rude but did agree to correct the charges. However, it would take nearly a week for the money to be placed back in Jarrett's debit account. Jarrett says he needed the money during his vacation and that Haggins asked the clerk to call the corporate offices to get the issue straightened out. In response, Jarrett claims, the clerk threw a book of matches at them.
　
Before retiring to their room for the night, Haggins says she told the clerk that she was going to complain.
　
The next day, Jarrett and Haggins rented a car, but they soon became lost just outside of Houston. That's when, according to the lawsuit, they ran into a truckload of racists.
　
"Before reentering the city limits," the lawsuit states, Jarrett and Haggins, both of whom are African-American, "were subjected to the racially motivated taunts and harassment, by a truck full of young white males."
　
Unnerved, Jarrett says he called the hotel asking if someone could direct him to the nearest police station, or if someone at the hotel could call the cops and tell them where Jarrett was located. The person working the desk allegedly told Jarrett that the hotel could not get involved. Jarrett then called the police and was told to meet up with officers at the hotel. After filling out a police report, Jarrett says he began to feel ill, so he and Haggins went to their room and watched TV until falling asleep.
　
The next morning, Jarrett and Haggins were awakened by the sound of fists pounding on their hotel room door. Wearing his boxers, Jarrett cracked the door open. It was the police, allegedly demanding that Jarrett and Haggins gather their belongings and leave at once. A hotel staff member was also there, supposedly telling the two vacationers they had been loud for two nights in a row, causing other customers to complain, that they had made and received "excessive" phone calls, and that they had threatened and harassed the hotel staff.
　
Jarrett and Haggins say all three accusations were completely untrue.
　
Jarrett says that when he asked for a few minutes of privacy to get dressed, the officers refused, repeatedly threatening to arrest them if they did not get out. That's when Jarrett says he called his dad, a lawyer in Detroit, to try to reason with the police.
　
At one point, according to the lawsuit, an officer began to "taunt and mock" Jarrett, saying, "Still need your Daddy to take care of your business - huh?" and "you go on back to Dee-troit and don't come back to Texas until you're a grown man."
　
In the end, claims Jarrett, he and Haggins were removed from the hotel, and "with limited cash on hand, improperly depleted funds available on debit cards, Jarrett's illness, and in an unfamiliar city, both [Jarrett and Haggins] experienced severe emotional distress and anxiety ...."
　
Much to the chagrin of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, we suspect the only way Jarrett and Haggins will be coming back to Houston is to collect a check if they win in court.

LOCO ON LOKO

It’s the Four Loko users that Obama has been wooing on college campuses and is counting on to help save the Democrats in next week’s election.
　
‘BLACKOUT IN A CAN’: CALLS FOR DANGEROUS ALCO-POP ‘FOUR LOKO’ TO BE BANNED AFTER NINE STUDENTS ARE HOSPITALIZED
　
Mail Online
October 26, 2010
　
A high-alcohol caffeinated drink nicknamed ‘blackout in a can' hospitalized nine underage university students in Washington earlier this month, a police investigation has found.
　
The undergraduates from Central Washington University were partying off campus when police found them passed out and ‘very intoxicated’, having drunk a controversial drink called Four Loko, among other spirits.
　
It was the second incident in October which has brought the drink to the attention of authorities following Ramapo College of New Jersey's campus ban after 17 students and six visitors fell ill.

Made up of caffeine, taurine, guarana, and alcohol, the drink is dangerous as it is both a stimulant and a depressant – when combined one does not necessarily feel the effects of the alcohol as the caffeine keeps one awake.
　
This often causes the consumer to drink more of the Four Loko, which is 12 per cent proof and produced by Phusion Projects LLC of Chicago, than they normally would because of the delayed 'drunk' feeling.
　
Originally some of the students thought that they had been drugged, but the latest findings convinced Central Washington University President James Gaudino to ban 'alcohol energy drinks' from his campus.

'We need to make sure that we're sending a strong message to students about the dangers of alcohol energy drinks and we need to know more about the way it affects health and behavior,' he said.
　
Professor Ken Briggs, head of the physical education department, added: '[The drinks are] a binge-drinker's dream because the caffeine and other stimulants allow a drinker to ingest larger volumes of alcohol without passing out.

'Being able to feel the effects of tiredness, loss of coordination and even passing out or vomiting are the body's defenses against consuming doses of alcohol that will kill you.
　
'Regardless, once the blood alcohol level reaches a certain level, you can drop like a box of rocks.'
　
Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is calling for federal food regulators to ban the beverages.
　
He said: 'They're marketed to kids by using fruit flavors that mask the taste of alcohol and they have such high levels of stimulants that people have no idea how inebriated they really are.
　
'They're packaged just like non-alcoholic drinks, but include a dangerous dose of malt liquor.'
　
Phusion Projects told CNN that they are doing 'all we can to ensure that our products are consumed safely and responsibly'.
　
'The unacceptable incident at Central Washington University, which appears to have involved hard liquor, such as vodka and rum, beer, our products, and possibly illicit substances, is precisely why we go to great lengths to ensure our products are not sold to underage consumers and are not abused,' a company statement said.

VOTE WISELY ON NOVEMBER 2ND

HEAVEN or HELL

While walking down the street one day a Corrupt Senator was tragically hit by a car and died.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

" Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises. The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him and says, "Now it's time to visit heaven...”

So, 24 hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell...

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.

"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The devil smiles at him and says,"Yesterday we were campaigning, Today, you voted.."

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIST YOUR GUNS ON YOUR NEXT TAX RETURN

You may have received the following e-mail:
　
Gun owners … Look what’s on the 2010 tax return….
　
Verified true on Snopes
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/blairholt.asp
　
If you have a gun, I hope it isn’t registered!
　
It begins … More freedom gone …. The right to protect yourself and your family gone! Now ALL GUNS must be listed on your next (2010) tax return!
　
Senate Bill SB-2099 will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own. It will require fingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun. This bill was introduced on February 24, 2009, by the Obama staff. BUT, this bill will only become public knowledge 30 days after the new law becomes effective! This is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Act of 1986. This means that the Finance Committee has passed this without the Senate voting on it at all. Trust Obama? You must be kidding!
　
Please send a copy of this e-mail to every gun owner you know.
------------
　
That e-mail goes on and on with a lot of extraneous crap. Everything that is written above is absolutely false!
　
I have little use for President Obama, but that dire warning for gun owners is from another asshole attacking Obama with an outright lie! The reason I am posting this is because you may have already received this phony message. I first received it last year, and then again several months ago. You’ll notice that the asshole forgot to change the year from 2009 to 2010 when he refers to SB-2099.
　
The asshole who generated this shit cleverly says 'Verified true on Snopes,' but if you go ahead and click on the link you will find that the tax return crap is just that - a lot of crap!
　
The warning that you must list your guns on the 2010 tax return is UTTERLY FALSE!!!!
　
By now all of you should realize that 95 percent of these anti-Obama e-mails are not true. Those assholes out there who generate this shit know that most readers will not verify the truth of the crap they put out.
　
That Snopes link refers to the Blair-Holt bill which proposes to restrict the ownership and purchase of guns with a retractable magazine and requires their registration. It does not involve tax returns. While still pending, that bill has no chance of becoming law. The Blair-Holt bill was NOT introduced ‘by the Obama staff’ and it does NOT have any support from the Obma administration.
　
So all you gun owners who may have already received this e-mail, you can relax. Instead of getting all exercised at Obama for this, you should be royally pissed off at the asshole who generated this phony shit.
　
EDITOR’S NOTE: I also posted this on PACOVILLA Corrections blog. Here is how Bob Waslsh responded: There is plenty of real stuff to go after Obama for that we don’t have to make stuff up.

And FJ said: There actually was a bill by this same number dealing with this same issue [that] was introduced in 2000 and died a timely death in committee. This [e-mail] has been going around ever since as a BS scare tactic.
　

SAFE SEX

Why don’t we just legalize prostitution and reap the benefits from taxing the world’s second oldest profession. That’s the same argument the proponents for legalizing drugs are using. Did I say, the world’s second oldest profession? Yes I did. Policing is the oldest profession!
　
PROSTITUTES ORDERED TO WEAR FLUORESCENT JACKET ON SPANISH HIGHWAS FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY
By Tom Worden
　
Mail Online
October 25, 2010
　
Street prostitutes have been ordered by police to wear fluorescent jackets to prevent road accidents outside a Spanish town.
　
Officers have been fining the sex workers £35 (40 euros) for failing to wear the brightly coloured clothing where they work, on the LL-11 highway near the town of Els Alamus, in Catalonia in north-east Spain.
　
They started wearing the jackets last week following a crackdown by the regional Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra.

Officers fined the women under a road traffic law which states pedestrians on major highways or hard shoulders must wear fluorescent jackets.
　
The law was introduced in 2004 to prevent the deaths of motorists whose cars have broken down on major roads.
　
The women have responded to the fines by buying the sleeveless yellow jackets and wearing them over their work outfits, often consisting of short skirts or shorts and skimpy tops.
　
A spokesman for the force said officers were not singling the women out, and were fining them under traffic laws applicable to all pedestrians.
　
Mayor Josep Maria Bea has been trying to drive the women out of the area.
　
The town hall recently passed a bylaw banning prostitutes from offering sex for sale in public areas.
　
Locals have complained about the women and say the streets are littered with condoms they leave behind.
　
Street prostitutes are a common sight on Spanish highways.
　
More than 300,000 women work as prostitutes in the country, where prostitution is not illegal.
　
Around 95 per cent are immigrants, mostly from South America and north Africa.
　
A recent survey found one in four Spanish men admitted to having paid for sex.
　
The industry generates an estimated £16billion a year to the Spanish economy.

HE HAD THEM WATCH A VIDEO OF A WOMAN HAVING SEX WITH A PIG

When they said they had to watch a woman having sex with a pig, could they have meant she was having sex with a cop?
　
JERRY WILSON: WHEN THE BOSS (ALLEGEDLY) MAKES YOU WATCH PIG-SEX VIDEOS
By Chris Vogel
　
There's nothing like a video of someone fucking a pig to spoil a perfectly fine day at the office.

So say, at least, a trio of women who are suing their boss for sexual harassment, claiming he exposed himself and had them watch a pornographic video involving the noble beast, sus scrofa domesticus.

According to the lawsuit filed in Harris County District Court, Jerry Wilson, president of the Houston-based company Premier Adjusters Inc., sexually harassed employees Beth Parchman, Jody Ivie and Sandra Borgstrom during the past two years.

The accusations against Wilson include sending e-mails and text messages containing photos of his genitals to the women, unwanted sexual advances, and requiring the women to watch sex movies.

"Specifically," the lawsuit states, Wilson had the women view a video "that depicted a woman having sex with a pig" and later forwarded them emails of "a scantily clad woman that had pig ears and a pig snout titled, 'Swine Flu after effects .... careful.' Furthermore, the three women claim that Wilson asked one of them if she would like "A big ole gooden or a good ole biggen," and "had trouble keeping his pants up on at least one occasion thereby exposing his genitals."
　
Wilson has not responded to Hair Balls' request for comment.
　
The women say that Wilson's alleged harassment has caused them "severe emotional distress," including "nausea, sleeplessness, night terrors, loss of sexual desire, depression, and loss of enjoyment of life."
　
In addition, they claim that Wilson has violated the company's Code of Ethics, found posted on the company's website, which states that employees will "conduct ourselves so as to command respect and confidence."
　
According to the lawsuit, the company and Wilson did "not command respect and confidence when they require their employees to watch a video of a pig having sex with a woman."

IT'S THE FANS THAT SHOULD BE PUNISHED (2)

Vancouver Canucks center Rick Rypien gets a six-game suspension for grabbing an obnoxious Minnesota Wild fan by his jersey as he was leaving the ice after receiving a game misconduct penalty. James Engquist, his antagonist, gets an apology, an invitation to dinner and some game tickets from National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman.
　
Engquist was unhappy with the suspension and told Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press that Rypien should have been fired for grabbing him. "In normal society, minimally, you'd be fired from the NHL." Engquist is also considering a lawsuit against Rypien.
　
What was Engquist doing standing over the runway in the middle of the game as Rypien was headed for the dressing room? Why wasn’t he in his seat? There’s only one reason Engquist left his seat for the runway and that was to get up close enough to Rypien so that the ejected player would be sure to hear his taunts.
　
As I said, there should be some way to punish a fan who is so obnoxious as to provoke retaliation by a player. Instead, NHL commissioner Bettman rewards the asshole handsomely. Rypien was clearly wrong in grabbing Engquist and deserved a suspension, but reward the fan who went out of the way to provoke him? Shame, shame on Gary Bettman!

TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEDOPHILE PRIESTS PROBLEM BEFORE YOU DUMP ON ISRAEL

After meeting for two weeks to study the exodus of Christians from the Middle East, bishops at a Vatican synod blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the exodus and issued a document declaring that Jews are not the ‘Chosen People,’ that Jews have no right to the ‘Promised Land’ and that Israel cannot use the holy scriptures to impose ‘injustices’ on the Palestinians. The synod also called for the internationalization of Jerusalem, Israel’s declared capitol.
　
Naturally the synod’s declaration, which strongly condemned all of the Jewish settlements and clearly blamed Israel for all of the turmoil in the Middle East, has received widespread coverage by the Arab media.
　
Here are some excerpts from Arab News.com:
　
__Asked about the passage at a news conference, Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, said: "We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people."
　
__"The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians," he added. "The justification of Israel’s occupation of the land of Palestine cannot be based on sacred scriptures."
　
__While recognizing "the suffering and insecurity in which Israelis live" and the need for Israel to enjoy peace within internationally recognized borders, the document was more expansive and detailed on the situation of Palestinians.
　
__It said Palestinians "are suffering the consequences of the Israeli occupation: the lack of freedom of movement, the wall of separation and the military checkpoints, the political prisoners, the demolition of homes, the disturbance of socio-economic life and the thousands of refugees."
　
__The synod’s concluding message repeated a Vatican call for Jerusalem to have a special status "which respects its particular character" as a city sacred to the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. [Special status is a euphemism for internationalization.]
　
I would strongly suggest that before Catholic bishops get all lathered up about injustices imposed on the Palestinians by Israelis, they look after the worldwide injustices imposed on young boys by their pedophile priests.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR THE LEFT, BUT NOT FOR THE RIGHT

The Netherlands, one of the most liberal countries in the world, has put Geert Wilders on trial for denouncing Islam. By putting him on trial while failing to prosecute Muslims for their hateful daily speeches, the Dutch government is letting political correctness dictate who can exercise freedom of speech and who cannot. That usually boils down to left-wingers having the right of free speech and right-wingers being denied that right.
　
Agreeing with Wilders that the three judges in his trial were biased against him, a special chamber of the court approved a request last week to dismiss the judges for his trial on charges of inciting hatred against Muslims, forcing the court to start the case all over again.
　
CANDIDLY SPEAKING: THE WILDERS TRIAL AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH
by Isi Leibler

The Jerusalem Post
October 11, 2010

The bizarre trial of Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, for having allegedly insulted Islam and incited hatred against Muslims, may have major long term repercussions on Europe.

Voted politician of the year in Holland in 2007, the highly charismatic Wilders has had a meteoric public career. The Freedom Party which he leads gained 24 seats in the recent elections, making it the third largest parliamentary party. With the new government now dependent on its votes to retain office, he has considerable influence in the formulation of policy.

Wilders represents the antithesis of political correctness. He courageously condemns the prevailing craven appeasement of Europeans to the intransigence and threats of violence emanating from Islamic fundamentalists. He considers the widespread migration of Muslims to European countries as an Islamic fundamentalist Trojan horse, and predicts that if the jihadists are not resisted, "Eurabia will be just a matter of time."

Last week in a speech in Berlin, Wilders stated:

__"They [the left] want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity that we refuse to fight for it... The same leftists who turned a blind eye to communism then, turn a blind eye to Islam today... we even hear a repetition of the old moral equivalence mantra. They used to say that Western "imperialism" was as bad as Soviet imperialism. They are now saying that Western "imperialism" is as bad as Islamic imperialism... Are we about to repeat the fatal mistake of the Weimar Republic? Are we succumbing to Islam because our commitment to freedom is already dead? No it will not happen."

Although accused of being a fascist, Wilders adamantly opposed and explicitly condemned right-wing extremists like Le Pen and Heider. "We will never join up with fascists." he repeatedly says.

He is also a passionate admirer and supporter of Israel, where he lived for two years and which he has visited over 40 times, frequently describing the Jewish state as "the West's first line of defense."

The threats and rewards offered by Islamic extremists for his murder are taken seriously, especially after the murder of media personality Theo Van Gogh by a Dutch Moroccan Islamic fanatic. Wilders has been under 24-hour police protection during the past six years.

The trial he faces will be a watershed for European democracy. He is being accused of inciting hatred because of the documentary film (Fitna) he produced which graphically links Islam to the violence prevailing in many Muslim societies. It highlights practices such as the stoning of adulterous women, beheadings, execution of apostates, honor killings, hanging of homosexuals, amputation of limbs for petty crimes, forced child marriages, female circumcision and other odious practices which to this day are prevalent in many Islamic countries.
　
……….it is surely Wilders' democratic right to express such views without facing criminal prosecution. Particularly so, when he condemns Islam as an extremist ideology but urges his followers to eschew violence against individual Muslims.

More importantly, his demand that Muslims in our society be integrated and that those imams and their followers who incite to violence be vigorously prosecuted and deported is a crucial prerequisite to any form of accommodation with Islamic migrants.

When his trial resumed last week, Wilders was entirely justified in saying "I am on trial, but on trial with me is the freedom of expression of many Dutch citizens."

In truth, this trial exemplifies cowardly European appeasement and capitulation to Muslims threats of violence and intimidation against any critics.

BICYCLISTS IN THE ROADWAY

Every time I come across a bicyclist riding in the roadway, it scares the shit out of me because I might run into him with my truck or because I might get hit by other drivers while I’m trying to get around him. It’s even worse when there are a group of cyclists. I know the cyclists have a right to be on the road but many of them act like they own the road and don’t give a damn about motor vehicle drivers.
　
When NYPD tried to do something about the cyclists’ disregard for the rules of the road, it got sued. And like with most lawsuits against the police, the city decided to settle out of court.
　
Here is what Centurion1950, a PoliceOne.com reader, said: Funny. I was a competitive cyclist for years. I don't consider it a victory. None of my old pals do either. The people I know who participate in these events brag about blowing through intersections and shutting down whole sections of cities to other traffic in order to make their statement. So I think she meant...Radical cyclists...

CRITICAL MASS CYCLISTS SETTLE SLUIT WITH NYPD
The 83 plaintiffs were among hundreds cited in the rides between 2004 and 2006
　
PoliceOne.com
October 22, 2010
　
(AP) NEW YORK — Bicyclists who were arrested or ticketed in Critical Mass rides in New York say they have settled with the city for nearly $1 million.
　
The 83 plaintiffs were among hundreds cited in the rides between 2004 and 2006. The rides are held regularly in cities worldwide to bring attention to the needs of urban bicyclists.
　
The civil rights lawsuit against the New York Police Department was filed in 2007. Lawyers for both sides learned of the settlement Monday.
　
The city's law department says the settlement is in the best interest of all parties.
　
The settlement doesn't include lawsuits filed by riders arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
　
Plaintiffs spokeswoman Barbara Ross calls the settlement a victory for all cyclists.

PROOF THAT HUMANS ARE THE MOST CRUEL OF ALL ANIMALS

No punishment would be too great for these subhuman perpetrators. It’s people like these who will morph into cold blooded murderers.
　
TRICK OR TREAT GONE WRONG: DOZENS OF HEADLESS ANIMALS FOUND ON RESIDENTIAL STREET IN HORRIFIC HALLOWEEN PRANK
　
Mail Online
October 22, 2010
　
A Miami neighborhood was left horrified on Thursday morning when they woke to find dozens of dead, headless animals littered along their street.
　
In a scene reminiscent of a horror movie, the bloodied remains of the animals were laid out over nearly two blocks in the residential area.
　
Decapitated goats, cats and different kinds of birds like pigeons and hens were strewn along the street in what some residents think may have been part of some kind of witchcraft or a religious ritual like Santeria.

Police are investigating if the bizarre find was in fact something more sinister or an early Halloween prank.
　
Santeria is a centuries old religion where sacrificial birds and animals are an offering during ceremonies as believers worship saints and feel they are cleansed of all evil.
　
Resident Marioly Perez who woke when she heard screeching tires said she was terrified at what was outside her front door: 'Nothing had a head. I have never seen anything like this. It's scary'.

Onlookers said that there was also a 'very large' animal that no one could identify.
　
Some neighbors said they saw five people dressed in white and others heard a loud bang and the sound of a speeding car's tires peeling away.
　
When they walked out of their homes they were faced with headless carcasses and body parts all over the road.

Perez said as well as the unsightly images the smell was suffocating as it appeared the animals may have been dead for a while.
　
Josefine Pita who also lives in the area said: 'We all love animals here. This is very, very depressing. You don't know what kind of crazy people are around your neighborhood'.
　
She added: 'It's very, very scary because you don't know if they are going to steal your animal'.
　
Miami's Sanitation Department arrived to clear away the bodies and intestines while the Fire Department hosed down the street to get rid of all remnants of the blood.

IT'S THE FANS THAT SHOULD BE PUNISHED

Professional ice hockey is a fast and furious game played by some really tough guys that generates a lot of fan excitement. As with other sports, fans can get carried away at games when supporting their home team. When they’ve had a few too many beers they tend to become absolutely boorish.

Years ago, before there was a glass barrier between the player benches and the stands, it was not uncommon for a visiting hockey player to leave the bench and jump into the stands to kick the shit out of some really obnoxious fan who had singling him out by shouting the vilest of obscenities at him.

I remember being at a New York Rangers game when the whole Philadelphia Flyers team jumped into the stands and whipped the living shit out of a bunch of drunks who had hurled beer and food at them. Many of the Ranger fans applauded the Flyers and the cops took the busted-up assholes to jail or to the hospital.
　
And from time to time I still see fans throwing beer and food at visiting players as they head for the dressing room after having been ejected from the game. And I’ve also seen them throw things at the visiting team as it is leaving the ice at the end of the game.
　
During Tuesday’s 6-2 loss at Minnesota, Vancouver Canucks forward Rick Rypien got into a scuffle with some Minnesota Wild players for which he received a double minor roughing penalty and a game misconduct. As he was headed down the runway to the dressing room he suddenly grabbed a taunting fan leaning over the railing. Rypien was pulled away by teammate Manny Melhotra.
　
The National Hockey League has suspended Rypien for six games.
　
James Engquist, 28, the obnoxious fan, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that he’s "definitely seeking legal representation. I was assaulted, that’s just the bottom line. I was just standing straight up applauding as he was getting kicked out. He was out of control. And then I said, ‘Way to be professional,’ and he obviously didn’t care for that comment and decided to grab me and almost dragged me over the rail."
　
Now if you believe Engquist’s version of what happened, I still have some beachfront property in Phoenix that I’ll sell you for a damn good price. You can bet that this asshole shouted obscenity-laced insults at Rypien and never calmly said, "Way to be professional."
　
I’m not implying that what Rypien did was right and that he did not deserve the six-game suspension. But I do not believe that fans should be able to yell and say whatever they want to the players, even if they’ve paid $300 for their ticket. There should be some way to punish a fan who is so obnoxious as to provoke retaliation by a player.

ANOTHER USE FOR ARM & HAMMER BAKING SODA

Arm & Hammer works well in covering up the stench of cat litter. Here's the latest use for that outstanding product.
　
DRIVER KEPT DEAD FRIEND’S BODY IN HER CAR FOR 10 MONTHS FEARING POLICE WOULD ‘ACCUSE HER OF SOMETHING’
　
Mail Online
October 22, 2010
　
A woman drove around for ten months with the body of her dead friend concealed in her car.
　
As the flesh started to decompose she scattered baking soda in the vehicle to try to cover up the smell.
　
By the time the police discovered the dead body it was partially mummified and consisted of just skin and bones. It weighed just 30lb.
The bizarre saga started when the woman befriended a homeless woman in Fountain Valley, California, and let her sleep in the car.
　
The 57-year-old driver, from nearby Costa Mesa, says she did not know what to do when her friend died suddenly in December last year.
　
Sergeant Ed Everett, of Costa Mesa police, said: 'She felt she would be accused of something and with everything going on in her life she did not want to deal with that.'
　
The driver had fallen on hard times herself and was living with friends.
All that is known about the dead woman is that her first name was Signe and she was in her 50s or 60s.
　
Her remains were found after police were called when the car was reported for blocking a driveway. Officers also discovered a box of baking soda.
　
A post mortem examination showed no signs of foul play but the driver is still being questioned.

MURDERING ISRAELI JEWS IS A LEGITIMATE PART OF THE PEACE PROCESS

Mr. Obama, what part of the Palestinian belief that it’s OK to murder Israeli Jews do you not understand?
　
PALESTINIANS’ TRUE INTENTIONS MADE KNOW ON INTERNET
By Ryan Jones
　
Israel Today
October 20, 2010
　
Since Western leaders regularly ignore everything printed in the Arabic press and sidestep the contradictions presented by Arab opinion polls, researchers for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) decided to go to a source no one today ignores, social media, to find out what the Palestinians are really thinking.
　
Western media and politicians like to paint a picture of widespread moderation and liberalism in a Palestinian society that is frustrated, but just wants to live in peaceful coexistence with Israel.
　
But after conducting a lengthy survey of Palestinian participation on websites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, the FDD researchers found that "the Palestinian web landscape…is dominated by radicalism."
　
In their study titled "Palestinian Pulse," which was published in The National Interest, authors Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz said the results show a marked and irreversible rise in radical Islamic sentiment and overall rejection of Israel in Palestinian society.
　
They cautioned that by ignoring these trends and pushing ahead aggressively with a comprehensive peace settlement that does not take Palestinian sentiment toward Israel into account, the Obama Administration is just laying the groundwork for an escalation of the conflict.
　
"The US cannot afford to discount the potential impact of deepening Palestinian radicalism and rejectionism," they wrote. "If the online environment is even a relatively accurate indicator of Palestinian public sentiment, the Obama administration should consider the serious risks to Israeli security from an overly aggressive and premature push for a comprehensive peace agreement."
　
Western leaders and especially the media have for years done their best to ignore the true feelings, attitude and behavior of the "Palestinian street" as they push for an ill-advised land-for-peace settlement.
　
Most notably, anything and everything that Palestinian leaders say in Arabic to Middle East news agencies - in other words, what they say for local consumption by their own people - is summarily ignored by the rest of the world, even when it directly contradicts their conciliatory rhetoric in English.
　
When it comes to public opinion polls of Palestinian Arabs, politicians and reporters like to focus on answers that show a majority of Palestinians are in favor of the diplomatic peace process. But at the same time, they ignore those answers that show an equal number of Palestinians believe that murdering Israeli Jews is a legitimate part of that process. They also brush off the answers that show Palestinians will not see the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria as an end to the conflict.
　
With the international community so effectively closing its eyes to this readily available evidence that the Palestinians in general do not want true peace, there is little hope anyone in a position of power will pay attention to the new social media study.
　
But there is hope that it will serve to better educate that part of the population involved in social media regarding the context and underlying causes of the ongoing Middle East conflict.

BLACK ANTI-SEMITISM (2): Black candidate blames Jewish landlords for high rents

In BLACK ANTI-SEMITISM (9-6-06) I wrote that "Over the years, numerous public opinion surveys have revealed that blacks generally have a very low opinion of Jews. Obviously influenced by anti-Semitic sterotyping, blacks are convinced that they have been exploited by greedy Jews. They believe that Jews are inner-city absentee landlords, and that Jewish "slum lords" charge blacks higher rents while neglecting the maintenance of rental properties."
　
I also wrote that "It is ironic that blacks represent the largest anti-Semitic group in our country when ordinary Jews, in large numbers, stood and marched side by side with blacks during the 1960s civil rights movement. Leaders of the Jewish community have been among the most vocal and active supporters of black civil rights."
　
There was further proof of black anti-Semitism during the only debate that was scheduled to be held among candidates competing in this year’s campaign for Now York governor.
　
Jimmy McMillan, a black candidate representing the ‘Rent Is 2 Damn High’ party, stole Monday’s televised debate from the other candidates with his rants against high rents in New York. And who does McMillan blame for the high rents? Jewish landlords, of course.
　
Prominent blacks, including Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among others, have charged that absentee Jewish landlords and Jewish grocers are gouging blacks with unreasonably high prices. And then there were the frequent anti-Semitic rants by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright that his close friends Barack and Michelle Obama listened to for nearly 20 years.
　
While most blacks appear to harbor strong anti-Semitic views, Jews do have some good friends among the African-Americans who are thankful for the active support of the Jewish community in their fight against racism. Unfortunately, such friends are few and far between.

WHY SHARKS CIRCLE HUMAN PREY BEFORE ATTACKING

Two great white sharks swimming in the ocean spied about a dozen survivors of a sinking boat treading water.

"Follow me son." the father shark said to the son shark and they swam toward the surviving people.

"First, we swim around them a few times with just the tip of our fins showing." And they did.

"Well done, son! Now we swim around them a few times with all of our fins showing." And they did.
　
"Now we eat everybody." And they did.
　
When they were both gorged, the son asked," Dad, why didn't we just eat them all at first? Why did we swim around and around them?"

His wise father replied, "Because they taste better without the shit inside!"

ONE WAY TO MAKE A KID USEFUL

Two candidates for both DUMB MEXICAN OF THE MONTH and DUMB CRIMINAL OF THE MONTH. They’ve each got my vote for both honors.
　
LINDA ROSALES AND JESSICA ROSALES: FAIL IN SCHEME TO USE KID’S BREATH TO FOOL BREATHALYZER
By John Nova Lomax
　
Houston Press Hair Balls
October 20, 2010
　
We've all been there before: we've driven to a party and gotten shit-faced. And then we've been faced with a dilemma: How best to get you and all your kids home?

It's especially hard when the damn law has ordered that your car be fitted with an Interlock device. Those built-in Breathalyzers are sensitive. You can't even drive after two beers, much less the boatload you took on.
　
You could give up and call a cab, or ask a sober friend to give you a lift, but if you did that you wouldn't be as enterprising as Rio Grande Valley women Jessica Rosales, 28, and Linda Rosales, 31, two people who truly fail to grasp the concept of the designated driver...
　
No, if you're mom of the year timber like Jessica Rosales, you look to the back seat, and get one of your kids back there to blow in the Interlock for you, and awa-aaay you go.
　
A witness called cops to complain of a suspicious vehicle in front of his house. Police arrived to find the two women -- described in the arrest report as having "lost all use of their mental and physical faculties" and "a danger to themselves and others" -- attempting to coax a sober, ignition-giving exhalation from one of the five kids in the car. Brilliant!
　
In addition to the children -- a two-week-old baby, two 10-year-olds, a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old -- police also found open containers of alcohol.
　
Why not? Hell, if Junior's gonna blow your Interlock for you, you might as well have one more for the road. It's just a shame his little feet can't reach the pedals too. (What relation, if any, the Rosales women are to each other was not released.)
　
Both of the women are charged with child endangerment and public intoxication, and they remain in Cameron County jail. In addition to a conviction for felony theft, court records show that Linda Rosales has a criminal history that includes state jail felony theft and three arrests for DWI, while Jessica Rosales is amid a six-year probationary sentence for a December 2007 DWI. Bail is set at a cool $50,000 for each of the women.
　
Child endangerment, if determined to be of the second degree felony variety, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Maybe a cab wouldn't have been a bad idea after all...

BUYER'S REMORSE

From day-one of his presidency, Barack Obama, confident that Jewish voters would never desert him, set out to make Israel pay for all the conflicts in the Middle East. "Today, a sizable number of American Jews are having a serious case of buyer’s remorse when it comes to Obama." IT’S ABOUT TIME, HIGH TIME!
　
Part of a long article in the October 15 issue of The Jerusalem Post, THE JEWISH PROBLEM WITH OBAMA by Edward Klein with Richard Z. Chesnoff, follows. The article noted that "the Obama administration was not only outwardly hostile to Israel but perhaps, without even knowing it, hostile to Jews as well."
　
From the article by Klein and Chesnoff:
　
THE CURRENT Jewish problem with Obama can be traced back to his first full day on the job. On January 21, 2009, he summoned his national security team to the Oval Office and laid out a tough new policy toward Israel. According to my sources, Obama said that to make good on his campaign promise to extricate 200,000 American troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US had to create a grand coalition of "moderate" Muslim states and Israel to isolate Iran, which has made no secret of its ambition to become the nuclear hegemon in the Middle East.

The only way to accomplish that goal, he stated, was to eliminate the poisonous effect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which provides Iran with an excuse to stir up trouble. Thus it was "a vital national interest of the United States" to stop Israel from building settlements in the occupied West Bank and housing in east Jerusalem, and force the Jewish state to resolve the Palestinian problem.

Previous White Houses had made similar noises about bringing peace to the Middle East, and at first Jewish leaders didn’t pay much attention to leaks emanating from the new administration about a fundamental change in American policy. However, a clue to the president’s true intentions came in March 2009, when Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, met with the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. "This is Israel’s moment of truth," Emanuel told Foxman. "This president is determined to make peace between Israel and the Arabs."

To many Jews, it seemed highly improbable that a brand-new president would choose to alienate Israel, America’s oldest and most loyal ally in the Middle East. But then, in July 2009, when Obama made his first overseas trip, he chose to visit three Muslim countries – Turkey, Saudi Arabia (where he bowed to King Abdullah) and Egypt. During a landmark speech in Cairo, he announced his intention to seek "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world."

Understandably enough, American Jews were annoyed that the president had failed to include Israel in his Mideast swing. But what rankled them even more was that Obama seemed to adopt the Arab narrative to explain the existence of Israel – namely, that Israel deserved to exist because of past Jewish suffering in Europe, particularly during the Holocaust. Nowhere in his Cairo speech did Obama mention the fact that Jews had a 3,000-year history in the Promised Land.

Things went from bad to worse when the president called a meeting of Jewish leaders in July. Fourteen major Jewish organizations were represented at this meeting.

"I agree with your goal to bring peace to the Middle East," Foxman told the president. "But the perception is that you’re only pressuring Israel and not the Arabs." Foxman said the president agreed. Another Jewish leader at the meeting said, "If you want Israel to take risks for peace, the best way is to make Israel feel that its staunch friend America is behind it."

"You are absolutely wrong," the president replied. "For the past eight years [under the Bush administration], Israel had a friend in the United States and it didn’t make peace."
　
On March 10 of this year, a relatively low-level official in the Interior Ministry issued a permit for 1,600 new housing units for Israelis in the Ramat Shlomo section of east Jerusalem. The ill-timed announcement came on the very day Vice President Joe Biden arrived to kick-start a round of indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu immediately apologized to Biden, who accepted his expression of regret. But Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, called off the "proximity talks."

The next day, at the regularly scheduled weekly breakfast meeting between the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama made his feelings clear. He was livid. As he saw it, the Israelis had purposely humiliated his vice president and tried to sabotage his peace plan. It was a personal affront, and he wouldn’t stand for such treatment. He instructed Clinton to call Netanyahu and read him the riot act.

The following day, during a 43-minute harangue, Clinton delivered a set of ultimatums to Netanyahu. Prefacing each remark with the phrase "I have been instructed to tell you," she demanded that Israel release a substantial number of Palestinian prisoners as a token of goodwill; lift its siege of Gaza; suspend all settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem; accept that a symbolic number of Palestinians be given the "right of return" to Israel under a future peace treaty; and agree to place the question of the status of Jerusalem at the top of the peace-talks agenda.

"If you refuse these demands," Clinton told Netanyahu, according to my sources, "the United States government will conclude that we no longer share the same interests." Netanyahu bit his tongue and remained noncommittal about the American demands, though he did eventually agree to ease the blockade of Gaza.

That same Friday, [Israel's] Ambassador Michael Oren was summoned to the State Department and given a severe dressing down. Someone who saw him that night at a party described him as "shaken." And things did not end there. Ten days later, Netanyahu was invited to the White House, where he was treated less than elegantly.

The White House seemed strangely indifferent to the feelings of resentment that its treatment of Netanyahu aroused in the Jewish community. For shortly after Netanyahu returned to Israel, the president risked provoking even greater Jewish outrage by insinuating that American troops were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because Israel refused to agree to peace with the Palestinians. The Israeli-Arab conflict "is costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasures," he said.

EVERYTHING IN TEXAS IS BIGGER

Talk about everything in Texas being bigger, the current election ballot for Harris County (Houston) has 175 candidates and propositions on it. The list of candidates includes 70 judges. Such a jungle ballot prevents most voters from making intelligent choices in selecting many of the candidates. Many voters will just vote a straight party ticket so they won’t have to bother with making so many choices.
　
My biggest bitch has always been about the election of partisan candidates for judicial positions. A judge should not be chosen because he seeks election as a Democrat or a Republican. Justice cannot be blind when a judge is influenced by a political party affiliation. As a matter of fact, I believe that all elective positions that are not legislative positions should be non-partisan.
　
It is hard for me to imagine that there may be longer ballots anywhere else out there. Yup partner, we really do things big in the Lone Star State.

CHINESE FIREFIGHTERS RESCUE MAN CAPTURED BY MODERN TOILET

I remember when Chinese and Japanese shitters were holes in the tile floors of private bathrooms and public restrooms. I think that’s where the term ‘shit hole’ must have come from. If you dropped anything down one of those holes you wouldn’t think of retrieving it unless your life depended on it. Apparently not so with the modern toilet.
　
From ABC News:
　
Chinese rescuers have freed a man after he got his arm stuck in a toilet pipe in an attempt to retrieve his mobile phone.
　
Emergency workers in eastern China say they found the man crouched over the toilet with his entire arm submerged in the drain.
　
They broke the porcelain bowl with crowbars and hammered the pipes, taking care not to injure the man.
　
They also managed to find the man's phone, but it no longer works.
　
It is not clear how the man managed to call for help.

THE UNITED NATIONS HAS LONG BEEN OUT OF CONTROL AS A CREDIBLE INSTITUTION

The Muslim dominated General Assembly punished Canada for its support of Israel by denying it a seat on the Security Council. The UN has long been an enemy of Israel and this is just one more example of that.
　
Let me suggest that the UN be renamed UNITED MUSLIM NATIONS.
　
CANADA PUNISHED IN UN FOR BACKING ISRAEL
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
　
IsraelNationalNews.com
October 18, 2010
　
The United Nations has humiliated Canada and rejected its bid for a seat as a non-permanent member on the Security Council, apparently because of Ottawa’s pro-Israel stand, according to Canadian media.
　
Newspapers in Canada called the rejection a "humiliating" defeat for Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, considered one of Israel’s staunchest supporters. The blow to Canada, which has been a non-permanent Council member until now, reflects the growing dominance of Muslim countries in the international body. Canada found itself in last place before the last round of General Assembly voting on the membership. Rather than face obvious defeat, Ottawa pulled out of the running.
　
The non-permanent members, beginning January 1, will include Lebanon, a declared enemy of Israel, Brazil, which is aligned with Iran, and South Africa, where anti-Israel groups flourish. Other members will be Gabon, Bosnia, Nigeria, India, Colombia, Germany and Portugal.
　
Writing in the Toronto Sun, Peter Worthington commented as follows:
　
__"The United Nations has long been out of control as a dispassionate, objective, credible institution for peace, human rights and justice, so it’s a wonder decent countries still pay attention to it…
　
__"Surely, it makes no sense to put Germany and Portugal on the Security Council — making four European countries represented. Besides, Portugal is a near-economic basket case, threatened with bankruptcy.
　
__"The truth is, Canada’s vigorous, unqualified support for Israel under Harper worked against us at the UN, which regularly condemns Israel for policies it ignores in other countries… While the UN regularly votes in favor of human rights, roughly half of the 192 member states abuse human rights in some form in their own countries.
　
__"As Groucho Marx said in a different context, he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that accepted him. Canada could say the same of the Security Council."

The Vancouver Sun noted a week before the voting that International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan’s announcement that Canada would try to strengthen trade ties with Israel might affect the outcome of the United Nations vote, and the analysis apparently was correct.
　
Van Loan declared that Canada’s ties to Israel were "very deep" and that the friendship between the two countries is "important."

IT'S NOT COWBOYS AND INDIANS, IT'S COWBOYS AND COPS

The shooting match will be held Saturday at Founders Ranch off N.M. 217, southwest of Edgewood. The ranch is a 480-acre property that includes 1800s-style clapboard storefronts, tents and the facade of a Spanish church.
　
COPS FACE OFF WITH COWBOYS IN NM SHOOTOUT
Old-fashioned shooters go up against modern guns
　
By Lee Ross
　
Mountain View Telegraph
October 17, 2010
　
ALBUQUERQUE — The Single Action Shooting Society's second annual Cops vs. Cowboys Shootout will go on this weekend.
　
The cowboys, who are all members of SASS, are only allowed to use single action pistols and old-fashioned rifles and shotguns. They match their guns against the modern sidearms used by law enforcement.
　
There are also penalties for missed shots, so the winning combination is one of speed and accuracy in loading guns, switching from one weapon to the next and accurately shooting a series of targets in order.
　
According to SASS marketing assistant Misty Miller - who goes by the intoxicating and mysterious SASS name Misty Moonshine - the only other difference in the two competitors is that cops will shoot slightly different targets than the cowboys. Their higher-powered weapons would destroy the metal targets that the cowboys use.
　
Last year's event brought about 30 cops from departments all over New Mexico, including departments in the East Mountains and the Estancia Valley. There were even a few cops from California and Texas. They pitted their skills against 55 cowboys from across the state and beyond.
　
It looks like the event has grown, Miller said. There are 63 entrants now, and she said that number usually doubles in the last few days before the event.
　
The proceeds from the event, generated from the cost of registration and sponsorships, will go to Carrie Tingley Hospital Foundation.
　
Last year about $2,000 was collected for Carrie Tingley, Miller said.