Evening Snack

Exceptions aside, Cameron Park safety record is strong

Officials say rape and other violent crimes are rare in Cameron Park. When a Baylor student was sexually assaulted while jogging in the park in August 2003, park rangers said it was the first stranger-on-stranger rape case they knew of in at least 20 years. In the past three years, there have been two other sexual assault cases in the park, but both involved individuals who drove their victims into the park from somewhere else, police said.

When I was 16, I came back here (Waco) to visit family friends. I went to Cameron Park to basically waste time. While I was there, I got flashed. At that age, I thought it was rather amusing. I found out later that was not a smart place to go if you’re a young girl by yourself. That was many years ago. Sad to think, even though they claim it’s rare, nothing has really changed.

Arizona Principal Hesitates to Excuse Absences of GI’s Kids

She plans to take their children out of school for a week to spend time with their Army dad.

But when she asked for makeup work they could do at home, she initially was told they’d receive zeros if they didn’t go to class.

The head of the charter school they attend declared the absences inexcusable and told the Arizona Daily Star that Rios’ children would not be allowed to make up missed assignments. It now seems the principal is reconsidering.

Of course he’s reconsidering, after the entire country knows the principle is a horse’s a$$!

Ex-Prosecutor Says He Faced Partisan Questions Before Firing

John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy, William Kelley, “asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me.”

That’s partisan? No, I think that’s a legitimate legal question. Perhaps they would be angry because the Dems have a tendency to cheat? And maybe they were angry because he didn’t do diddly to correct the problem? Gee, I dunno, what do you think? Do you think voter fraud should be prosecuted? No matter which party is the perpetrators? I sure do! Dems, Repubs, doesn’t matter, if there’s fraud, then there should be prosecution!

Multitaskers, beware

Several research reports, both recently published and not yet published, provide evidence of the limits of multitasking. The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car.

And here I am, still trying to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. I’m impressed! 🙂 Ok, serious problem. People who think they can put on make up, read a book, talk on a phone, and drive at the same time really chap my hide!

Grisly details end search plans for A&M student

Thomas, who called on local media to give the Stewart family privacy, said Timothy Wayne Shepherd burned Stewart’s body in two barbecue grills on his patio at his apartment in the 17700 block of Red Oak in northwest Harris County.

That is one seriously sick SOB.

I Think?

Hmm…. Well, I’ll take it as a compliment! 🙂

So, I’m suppose to come up with just five blogs that make me think? That’s a tough one. There are so many that actually force me to use the gray cells (that would explain the headache).  I’m not going to say what I end up thinking, but…  🙂  Ok, here is just a tiny fraction:

1. Calvin’s Right Track

2. Freedom Eden

3. View from the cheap seats

4. Spring City Chronicles

5. PeteRepublic.org

I could make a list of closer to a hundred which would include just about every blog on my roll over there on the right, some more than others, but that would be impractical.  🙂  (I could also include a hundred more that I have bookmarked – left and right.)

Rules:
Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme. The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all – blogs that really get you thinking!

What Every Well Dressed Hypocrite Must Have

Swiped from Bear Creek Ledger

Left, or More Left

Obama and blue collars: Do they fit?
History says he must reach working-class voters — Hillary Clinton’s stronghold.

IN THE EARLY returns among the young, computer-savvy social networkers on the MySpace website, Barack Obama is running laps around Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama’s MySpace page has attracted more than twice as many friends as Clinton’s unofficial page on the site.

Early returns? The primaries haven’t even started yet, and they’re already touting a “winner”. Do those of voting age really use MySpace? I thought that was a pre-teen thing.

Obama’s early support is following a pattern familiar from the campaigns of other brainy liberals with cool, detached personas and messages of political reform, from Eugene McCarthy in 1968 to Gary Hart in 1984 to Bill Bradley in 2000. Like those predecessors, Obama is running strong with well-educated voters but demonstrating much less support among those without college degrees.

Brainy liberals? (zipping lip) Ok, there might be well educated libs (one is my oldest sister), but how well do they understand the REAL world?

That trend may be exaggerated at the moment by the fact that Obama, a relative newcomer, is better known among better-educated voters, and it could be mitigated in the future by his potential appeal to African Americans. But it is not a pattern Obama can allow to harden. All of the candidates whose support fit that profile ultimately lost the nomination to rivals whose support was rooted in the blue-collar and minority communities where Clinton is strongest in early surveys.

Here’s a clue: Even if you don’t have a PHD behind your name, does NOT mean you are too stupid to see through the facade of the liberal agenda. Actually, I sometimes think the more educated, the less common sense.

Democratic professionals often describe this sorting as a competition between upscale “wine track” candidates and blue-collar “beer track” contenders. Another way to express the difference is to borrow from historian John Milton Cooper Jr.’s telling comparison of the pugnacious Theodore Roosevelt and the idealistic Woodrow Wilson. Cooper described the long rivalry between Republican Roosevelt and Democrat Wilson as a contest between a warrior and a priest. In modern times, the Democratic presidential race has usually pitted a warrior against a priest.

Interesting comparison. A pretty darn good president (Teddy R.) and a not so good one. Hmmmm….

Some candidates transcend these divisions. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was a warrior who quoted Aeschylus. Bill Clinton blended a warrior’s resiliency with a priest’s promise of transformative (“third way”) politics. But most Democratic candidates fall clearly on one or the other side of this divide.

Using Bill Clinton in the same sentence with the word warrior is beyond absurd! We all know what his “third way” was…or was it three way?

Since Obama entered the campaign, the question he’s faced most often is whether he is “black enough” to win votes from African Americans. But the more relevant issue may be whether Obama is “blue enough” to increase his support among blue-collar whites.

Just what the heck does “black enough” mean? The color of the man’s skin shouldn’t matter one whit. Nor gender. The fact that the Hildebeast is a socialist, and Barack is even more to the left than she is, will not bode well for either white collar or blue collar.

Young’uns

I just spent the last seven hours with these two. Oddly enough, I was completely sober. I’m reconsidering my sobriety, but just on certain occasions, like when children are involved.

Ick in law, grandkid #2 and I went to hear grandkid #1 sing. She did a darn good job if I do say so m’self. Though, whoever is in charge isn’t too well versed in picking songs to meet the voice range of the kids, but hey, what do I know, right?  I’m right proud of that kid.  She wasn’t nervous or anything.  🙂

We went to have lunch at a Mexican place. Yuck! It was not worth remembering the name. How can Mexican food have NO flavor? This is Texas fer petes sake!  My favorite BBQ joint (Uncle Dan’s) was closed. How rude!

Before everyone headed back to their personal domiciles, we had to go to Dairy Queen for the required ice cream type treat. After the girls started munching on theirs, I decided I had ordered the wrong thing. That brownie thingy looked really good as opposed to my overly chocolate Blizzard. No, there really isn’t such a thing as too much chocolate, but someone else excessive chocolate usually does look better.

Questions

Why do they add at least one ounce of air in a 3 ounce tube of toothpaste?

Does the man behind the counter at Whataburger really think it’s a good idea to flick french fries, wipe his hands on his butt, then grab chicken strips, all in front of the customers?

If you are going to make a left hand turn on a two lane road, why do you do it from the right hand shoulder?

If you know you have to be up at a certain hour in the morning, why would you stay out partying till the wee hours of the same morning?

Why do motels/hotels have only one package of regular coffee, yet provide two or three packages of decaf?

Morning Coffee 3/25/07

Activists remember a different Romney
Advocates for gay and abortion rights and the environment say the GOP candidate misled them on his positions.

Today, Romney is running for president and promising to pull the Republican Party in the opposite direction, returning it to the conservative principles of Ronald Reagan. He has renounced his support for abortion rights and has shifted his language on gay rights, campaign finance and other issues, bringing him more in step with Republican voters. He mocks Massachusetts, the state he led until January, as “sort of San Francisco East, Nancy Pelosi-style.”

I guess only Dems can have a change of heart.

Lawmakers push to restore civics education to school curriculum

“We have responsibilities to our community and to other people to be good citizens,” said Kurita, D-Clarksville. “And I think that civic classes are a way to teach how comprehensive this responsibility really is.”

Excellent idea, IF the class isn’t used to indoctrinate. They should probably throw in a class or two covering ethics.

Officer’s killer has lengthy record, police say
Gunman had fled twice in two weeks

The man who killed a Dallas police officer Friday fled days earlier from members of a federal fugitive task force who saw him leave the Oak Cliff home of a possible associate of the feared Mexican drug enforcers, the Zetas, police said Saturday.

So why would such a criminal, a possible Mexican drug enforcer, on the streets in this country?

Cabinet approves war’s name
Ministers unanimously agree to define last summer’s conflict as war, name it ‘Second Lebanon War’

The cabinet has also accepted a recommendation to award citations to soldiers who fought in the war based on these new definitions.

These people have nothing better to do than sit around and come up with a name for a war? Sheesh!

Pressure Mounts On Iran

Britain does not know where 15 captured British servicemen are being held, the Government has said as crisis talks continue to secure their release.

Foreign Office Minister Lord Triesman, speaking in Tehran, repeated demands for the group to be freed.

Ahmabooboo flexing his muscles doesn’t bode well for the entire world, much less those sailors.

‘We want these funerals to end’
Drunken drivers take horrible toll on family: cops

In court documents, the victim is referred to as “the fetus.”

But to Eileen Simmons of Aurora, she is baby Addison — her beautiful, perfectly formed great-granddaughter who died in a fiery car crash along with her mother, who would have given birth to her two weeks later.

This was a human being, killed by someone too selfish to recognize the risks of getting behind the wheel of a car.

Japan quake kills 1, injures 170

A powerful earthquake struck central Japan on Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring 170 others as it toppled buildings, triggered landslides and generated a small tsunami along the coast. The quake was followed throughout the day by aftershocks.

I pray the injured make a speedy recovery.