Heh. Saw one of these on the ride home from work tonight.

They probably have a "Gun Free House" sign in their front yard too.

I always thought that the late Sen. Strom Thurmond was best known for making it to 100 years old while a sitting Senator and for being the oldest and longest serving senator ever (at the time).

But according to CNN he was best known for the political platform of his failed 1948 Presidential run.

Genealogists say Rev. Al Sharpton's great-grandfather was a slave owned by the family of late Sen. Strom Thurmond, best known for advocating segregation.

What's more it seems like bad grammar.

Heh.

Statistics show that generally speaking you are better off resisting an attack than succumbing to it. Sure, a mugger may just take your wallet and leave. Or he may shoot you in the back of the head to make sure there are no witnesses. You just don't know.

And a group of senior citizens in Costa Rica wasn't about to wait to find out.

A tour bus of U.S. senior citizens defended themselves against a group of alleged muggers, sending two of them fleeing and killing a third in the Atlantic coast city of Limon, police said on Thursday.

One of the tourists _ a retired member of the U.S. military aged about 70 _ put assailant Warner Segura in a head lock and broke his clavicle after the 20-year-old and two other men armed with a knife and gun held up their tour bus Wednesday, said Luis Hernandez, the police chief of Limon, 80 miles east of San Jose.

The two other men fled when the 12 senior citizens started defending themselves. The tourists then drove Segura to the Red Cross where the man was declared dead. The Red Cross also treated one of the tourists for an anxiety attack, Hernandez said.

The tourists left on their Carnival cruise after the incident and Hernandez said authorities do not plan to press any charges against them, saying they acted in self defense.

"They were in their right to defend themselves after being held up," Hernandez said.

Hernandez said Segura had previous charges against him for assaults.

Five bucks says he was a Marine. (And why am I reminded of Gene Hackman's road rage incident?)

Here is a short write-up on the Lincoln Memorial as a Symbol of Democracy. (emphasis mine)

What makes the Lincoln Memorial so unique? The fact that it looks as much to the future as it does to the past. One of the interesting things about monuments and memorials is that they often say more about the generation that built them as they do about the person or period they were originally intended to commemorate. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial really says much more about this nation in the wake of the Civil War.

The generation that designed the Lincoln Memorial essentially constructed a highly idealized, colossal white-marble memorial to American democracy. The period between 1865-1909 was a period marked as a time of incredible technological advances, rapid industrial growth, and imperialistic expansionism; of enflamed patriotism during and after the Spanish-American War; and a continuance of Jim Crow laws, the exploitation of the working class, and Tammany Hall-style politics. Perhaps it should come as little surprise that the predominately white, classically minded and university educated, upper-middle class generation of architects and engineers that built the Lincoln Memorial would stress the theme of National Unity over that of Social Justice.

Completed in the wake of the First World War, the Lincoln Memorial was seen by its designers chiefly as a victorious symbol of American democracy over the dark forces threatening the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, whether they be in the form of saber-rattling autocratic monarchs or fledgling bolshevism. It would be left to future generations of Americans to restore balance to the twin themes of National Unity and Social Justice. It seems fair to suggest that another thing that makes the Lincoln Memorial unique is its power to continue to evolve as a symbol.

Who wrote this?

1 - a misguided high school teacher
2 - an idealistic college student
3 - the taxpayer funded National Park Service

If you said 3, go to the head of the class.

Since when did Wendy's start using Violent Femme's riffs in their songs. When I listened to the Femmes over 20 years ago they were anything but mainstream. And do we really need cheeseburger commercials playing songs about masturbation* and getting high?

When I'm out walkin' I strut my stuff
Man, I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite and I just might stop to check you out

Let me go on like I blister in the sun
Let me go on big hands I know you're the one

Body and heat I stain my sheets
I don't even know why
My girlfriend she's at the end and she is starting to cry...

*I love how Wikipedia tries to explain away the rumor.

Via Drudge:

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled "Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?"

Today's Lesson: Never Rob a Hummer Owner.

(Click for Video)

Apparently Scientology jokes can get you hard time in California. Keith Henson, an "engineer, writer and futurist" was convicted in California for heckling scientologists and interfering with their "religion".

Henson was convicted in 2001 under a California law (Sec. 422.6) that criminalizes any threat to interfere with someone else's "free exercise" of religion. One Usenet post that was introduced at his trial included jokes about sending a "Tom Cruise" missile against a Scientology compound (the actor is a prominent Scientologist). Picketing Scientology buildings and other "odd behavior" were also part of the charges, Deputy District Attorney Robert Schwarz said at the time.

Personally I don't see the point in heckling Scientologists, but upon sentencing Henson faces a year in prison which seems excessive for an internet joke and a one-man picket line. What's more, California is extraditing him from Arizona (thats right, extraditing him for a misdemeanor).

I wonder if any of the anti-war kooks turned rioters who vandalized the San Franscisco Chronicle building were persued so fervently. They were after all, interfering with the free exercise of the press.

"The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working trying to try push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy; alternatives and technology that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY

Related articles:
Vote early, vote often -- 08/23/2005
On Behalf of the Common Good -- 06/30/2004
Hillarycare II: Hillary's revenge -- 01/14/2004
Senator Clinton's racial joke -- 01/07/2004