Sleepy Bear Cub

Kelli Ali-teardrop hitting the ground

Hancock Trailer

New Will Smith Superhero movie coming out in July of 2008.

Scary Weather

Taken Thursday night, April 3, 2008 Lariat # 2 – Sandridge Energy, South of Ft Stockton , TX Click on picture for better view.
Picture stolen from Rodger

Beginning of the end?

Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

A male orangutan, clinging precariously to overhanging branches, flails the water with a pole, trying desperately to spear a passing fish.

It is the first time one has been seen using a tool to hunt.

The extraordinary image, a world exclusive, was taken in Borneo on the island of Kaja, where apes are rehabilitated into the wild after being rescued from zoos, private homes or even butchers' shops.



"Orang hutan" means "forest man" in one of Indonesia's many languages and our long-armed cousins do indeed show a remarkable ability to mimic our behaviour.

This individual had seen locals fishing with spears on the Gohong River.

Although the method required too much skill for him to master, he was later able to improvise by using the pole to catch fish already trapped in the locals' fishing lines.

The image is part of a series taken for a new book, The Thinkers Of The Jungle, which also includes the first photograph of an orangutan swimming.

Thinkers Of The Jungle, by Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits and Jay Ullal, is published by Ullmann Publishing.

Next



Then

Another reason Minnesota sucks

"Democrats care so much more for the poor than Republicans do. We Democrats give them money. Republicans tell them to get a job and support themselves. Yeah, right."

--Al Franken

Al Franken's career as an entertainer made him famous and rich and positioned him to run for the U.S. Senate.

But now, just as he appears on the verge of securing the DFL endorsement to take on Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Franken could be tripped up by missteps in the way his show business enterprise was run.

Republicans, who for more than a year have eagerly unearthed controversial tidbits from Franken's comedy routines and books, have in recent weeks discovered several slip-ups in the celebrity's business life. On Thursday, they claimed to have found another possible irregularity, a charge that has yet to be resolved.

On Friday, Franken's campaign manager, Andy Barr, declined to say whether Franken had paid taxes on earnings in California between 2003 and 2007.

He said Franken's accountant is working with California officials to sort things out.

The latest Republican charge that Franken's taxes there have gone unpaid comes in the wake of earlier disclosures that Franken failed to pay workers' compensation and disability premiums in New York and botched the dissolution of his California corporation.

Since then, Franken has paid more than $25,000 in fines to New York and still owes more than $4,700 in corporate taxes and fines to California.

Franken supporters on Friday downplayed their candidate's corporate scrapes.

"I could be wrong, but anybody who has a little problem dealing with taxes has someone's sympathy," said former Gov. Wendell Anderson, who has endorsed Franken. "It's not a very sexy issue."

But state Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey said the issue will matter greatly to the millions of Minnesotans who follow the rules.

"I don't think Minnesotans want a U.S. Senator who doesn't pay his taxes," Carey said. "Why do Hollywood celebrities think there is one set of rules for them and one set of rules for everyone else when it comes to paying taxes?"

Whatch'yoo talkin' bout, Judge?

LOS ANGELES (April 25) - The honeymoon is over for Gary Coleman and his new bride.

The 40-year-old actor and his 22-year-old wife, Shannon Price, are set to appear on TV's "Divorce Court" on May 1 and 2. The couple wed in August after meeting on the set of the 2006 comedy "Church Ball."



Among the problems the pair discusses with Judge Lynn Toler are Coleman's anger and intimacy issues. Coleman and Price agree they have "ugly" monthly fights.



"If he doesn't get his way, he throws a temper tantrum like a five-year-old does," Price says, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press. "He like stomps the floor and yells, 'Meehhhh,' and starts throwing stuff around. He bashes his head in the wall, too."

Coleman says he gets frustrated because "the male is always the bad guy."

"When I try to state my case or explain things to her or try to get her to understand my point of view," Coleman says, "my point of view doesn't matter."

Price also complains that Coleman has no friends and inexplicably disappears from home in the middle of the night. When Toler presses him, Coleman admits he is negative.

"I don't have any friends and don't have any intention of making any," he says. "People will stab you in the back, mistreat you, talk about me behind your back, steal from you. And they're not really your friends. (They're) only there because you're a celebrity or because they want to get something from you."

Smackdown

Hillary Clinton Vs Barack Obama WWE 4-21-08

Dear Moonbat

Red State Update: Hillary Wins Pennsylvania

The sexiest woman in the world

at least according to FHM magazine.




The "Transformers" co-star Megan Fox tops FHM's annual 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll of FHM readers. The 21-year-old model-actress beat out the likes of Angelina Jolie (No. 12), Rihanna (No. 14), Kim Kardashian (No. 17), Paris Hilton (No. 77) and last year's champion, Jessica Alba (No. 3).

Fox debuted on the annual list in 2006 at No. 68 and ranked at No. 65 in 2007. Joining her in the top 10 this year are - in descending order - Jessica Biel, Alba, Elisha Cuthbert, Scarlett Johansson, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Hilary Duff, Tricia Helfer, Blake Lively and Kate Beckinsale. Britney Spears came in last place at No. 100.

Hilarious Tombstones

For more,
http://www.oddee.com/item_87522.aspx

Special request of my readers

From Dan Gust

As many of you know, my brother, Brian Gust is battling cancer. The fight is now going on four years. He has been using natural remedies, along with an organic diet, trying to maintain a good quality of life, while ridding his body of this cancerous tumor. There are good things happening, the cancer hasn't spread. That's very good, but the tumor continues to grow.
The majority of his treatment and of course the extra expense of an organic diet, is not covered by insurance. Consequently, he has to be selective in what he can afford to do to continue the battle.


Brian & his MN Hall of Fame award.

I certainly can't even imagine what he is going through. With his strong faith in God and support of his family and friends, he marches on. The things that he has accomplished in his life shows that he gives 110% at whatever he does. After graduating from Canby High School, he joined the Army and became a Green Beret in the Special Forces. He was the Engineer and Demolitions expert on his unit's HALO (high altitude low opening) Team, which was the Green Beret's skydiving infiltration team.


Hunting reunion in SD w/ former Green Berets (1971)- Hitcho, Mittleider, Fredrickson, Gust.

Returning to Minnesota after his service to his country during the Vietnam era, he joined the Minnesota Wrestling Club. It was his international Greco-Roman wrestling career that brought his name to legendary status. Brian was a 7-time U.S. National Greco-Roman Champion, winning Most Outstanding Wrestler Award twice. Brian represented the United States in two World Championships-1974 in Katowice, Poland placing 10th, and 1977 in Goteborg, Sweden placing 7th. In 1979 Brian won the gold medal at the Peer Gynt Cup in Oslo, Norway, the silver medal at the PanAm Games in Purerto Rico, and placed 5th in the European Grand Prix held in Afchafenburg, Germany. This set the stage to making the 1980 Olympic Team that was unable to compete in Moscow due to the Olympic boycott by President Carter.
Broke, after eight years of paying his own way, competing around the world, on his quest for Olympic Gold, he settled in Lakeville, MN, working, coaching and raising a family with his wife, Rae. It took ten years to pay off his Olympic debt, but he has always looked at the whole experience as a positive, life changing part of his life.
Today Brian is president of Olympic Colors, LLC, a painting company, and Olympic Outreach Ministries, Inc. His wife, four adult kids and a son-in-law are involved in the painting business.
Last Saturday night Brian was inducted into the Minnesota Wrestling Hall of Fame, which was a huge honor that he humbly accepted, giving thanks to his family and all those that supported him on his quest, most of all his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Yesterday morning (Tuesday, April 8, 2008), Brian was on the Fox and Family national news live. He was interviewed about his opinion on the '80 Olympic boycott and how he feels about Hillary Clinton's request for President Bush to boycott the '08 Olympic opening ceremonies.
As I watched him on TV, the tumor on his neck that is trying to kill him, was very obvious. He was there talking about his concern for today's athletes that might have to sacrifice being involved in the opening of this years Olympics. Thinking about others and praying for them, that's what Brian is about.
I thought, as I watched, what would happen if everyone that saw him yesterday sent in $5.00 to his ''Brian Gust Cancer Fund'' to help with his personal cancer research and medical expenses. I think it would be so easy. $5.00 isn't much, but, if everyone that receives this email sends in the five bucks and forwards the challenge to their contacts, who knows, it could be the answer to Brian's prayers, to have the funds to support his family and continue his very expensive fight. The toughest fight of his life.


Brian & Rae with the kids & grandkids.

Please join me and send a donation to:
Brian Gust Cancer Fund
@ TCF Bank
17269 Kenyon Av
Lakeville, MN 55044

You can find more information and follow Brian's progress at his Caring Bridge website.
www.caringbridge.org/visit/briangust

All of us, close to Brian, appreciate your prayers and support. I'm not very good at this sort of thing, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it worked! By the way, Brian has no idea that this is going out.

Respectfully,
Brian's brother, Dan

I would like to thank in advance for any help my readers can give the Gust family, Thank you all, Rex

Happy birthday DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will be celebrating its 50th anniversary at a conference in Washington today where it will reflect on the accomplishments of the last 50 years and the challenges of the future. DARPA’s mission is to prevent technological surprise for the United States and to create technological surprise for adversaries. A brief recap of its achievements verifies a job well done – the technologies it has developed have changed the face of warfare, catalyzed the information revolution, and continue to have a massive influence on the evolution of technology in daily life. Happy birthday DARPA.

DARPA was created by U.S. President Eisenhower in response to the totally unexpected Russian launch of the first artificial satellite to be put into outer space. Launched into geocentric orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, Sputnik was irrefutable evidence that the United States was in danger of losing its technological edge, and DARPA was formed on February 7, 1958 to develop advanced technology for the Armed Forces so the United States would never again suffer a technological surprise by another nation.

In the beginning, DARPA concentrated on space projects and developed the Saturn V rocket, which enabled the Apollo missions to the moon and wrested back the space race lead. The Saturn V also carried the first surveillance satellites into space, giving U.S. administration invaluable intelligence information on Russian missile program activities.

Some of DARPA’s greatest triumphs are well known, such as its ingenious ARPANET, which evolved into the Internet, its stealth aircraft, advanced precision munitions, and the UAVs which have dramatically changed warfare. The drive supplied by DARPA in developing semi-autonomous and autonomous air, land and sea-going robotics, will precipitate another global revolution over the next few decades.

Other DARPA achievements are less well-known: new materials such as gallium arsenide, used in high-speed circuits; new metals, such as beryllium, stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum; solid-state photon detectors, from visible to long wavelength, which led to night-vision capabilities allowing U.S. forces to “own the night”; microwave and millimeterwave monolithic integrated circuits, the essence of today’s cell phones and miniature GPS receivers; lithography that allowed the number of transistors to reach 100 billion on a chip smaller than the size of a thumbnail. Current DARPA programs hold the potential to have equally revolutionary impacts in the future. Today’s research, according to DARPA documents, holds promise to enable military-grade titanium at US$3.50 a pound, instead of US$35 a pound; high-quality military jet fuel processed from crops grown in the United States; a machine capable of rapidly translating foreign language speech and text as well as, if not better than, experienced linguists; a prosthetic arm so capable that a wounded Soldier could play the piano, throw a baseball, or pick up his child; a computer that can process at a rate faster than one billion million instructions per second.

DARPA is unique among government research organizations in the way it manages its annual budget. It owns no laboratories or test facilities – instead it solicits and funds research from industry, academia, and other government laboratories. These researchers are managed by DARPA’s world-class program managers, who are hired to bring their innovative ideas and technical expertise to DARPA for a short period of time – most of DARPA’s technical staff stays at the agency for four to six years. The constant influx of new expertise imbues DARPA with an energetic and dynamic outlook not often found in the government or even in private industry.

“DARPA program managers are effective leaders who are creative, work hard, and are not afraid of failure,” said DARPA’s Director, Dr. Tony Tether. “We are always looking for people interested in coming to DARPA to make breakthrough discoveries and to turn their dream into reality.” He notes that those interested in learning more about working at DARPA can visit the agency’s website, for more information.

“I’m honored to serve as Director as DARPA enters its sixth decade,” Tether continues.

“The urgency of maintaining technological surprise is as acute as ever. Everyone at DARPA feels a personal commitment to continuing to deliver revolutionary technologies in support of our men and women in uniform.”


DARPA Robot Dog

Valley Forge

"To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes ... without a house or hut to cover them until those could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarcely be paralleled."
-George Washington at Valley Forge,
April 21, 1778



During the battle of Valley Forge George Washington and his army were on the verge of loosing the battle to the British. His army was almost out of ammunition, clothing, food. But something wonderful happened that changed history. The Jewish people gathered up thousands of dollars and this money was given to Washington to purchase the things needed to win this battle. They did not ask for it back, no interest was charged, it was not a loan but a gift. This simple act changed the history of our country.

In gratitude Washington showed his appreciation by having the Star of David and the Jewish menorah put on the back to the dollar bill. Look at the back of the dollar in the right side. Above the eagle you will see the six pointed star of the Jewish nation with the Shekinah glory (symbol of God) around it. Turn the dollar upside down and you see the menorah with flames.

The Jewish people saved our nation and changed history. Shouldn’t our nation help them to survive? Yet our government is trying to get them to give their land up to their enemies. Everything that happens in the Middle East is blamed on the Israelites our brothers and sisters in the Lord. God says, “I will bless those who bless you (Israel) and curse those that curse you.” We are on dangerous ground and need to wake up. We need to tell our friends about Israel and the Jewish people. The secular world could care less about them. Just listen to the news when something happens in the Middle East it’s always blamed on the little nation of Israel.

Isaiah 62:1 for Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.

Thanks Ken

Obama Flips off Hillary

During yesterday's (April 17th) Raleigh, NC speech

Confronting Ted Kennedy on dodging estate taxes

YAF/HotAir correspondent Jason Mattera asks Senator Ted Kennedy why he gets away with defending estate taxes even though his family avoids paying them.
Via Rodger

Recession?

Funny how the press reports economic news differently when there's a (D) beside the President's name.

During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn’t realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought that the economy was fine.

But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing.

Gas prices are going up. The economy is slowing. Talk of recession is seemingly everywhere. While the majority of people rate their personal finances positively, consumer confidence in the economy has plunged to a 16-year low, well below what it was during the last year of the Clinton administration when we were in a recession.

A Nexis search on news stories during the three-month period from July 2000 through September 2000 using the keywords “economy recession US” produces 1,388. By contrast, the same search over just the last month finds 3,166. Or, even more telling, take the three months from July through September last year, when the GDP was growing at a phenomenal 4.9 percent. The same type of Google search shows 2,475 news stories.

Over 78 percent more negative news stories discussed a recession when the economy under a Republican was soaring than occurred under a Democrat when the economy was shrinking.

A little perspective on the economy would be helpful. The average unemployment rate during President Clinton was 5.2 percent. The average under President George W. Bush is just slightly below 5.2. The current unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, almost half a percentage point lower than these averages.

The average inflation rate under Clinton was 2.6 percent, under Bush it is 2.7 percent. Indeed, one has to go back to the Kennedy administration to find a lower average rate. True the inflation rate over the last year has gone up to 4 percent, but that is still lower than the average inflation rate under all the presidents from Nixon through Bush’s father.
A true recession would be a decline in a America's gross domestic product for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Does this look like a DECLINE to you?

Despite the housing market slump, spiraling inflation, and an escalating credit crunch, the U.S. economy should still manage to advance 1% to 2% in the coming year. Not great, but certainly not The Great Depression 2.0, as warned by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

And yet, the mainstream media keep carping about us being in a recession! There isn't one, but all their doom-and-gloom reporting sure seems like an attempt to scare people into one (75% of Americans believe we're already in a recession – I can't imagine where they'd get that idea!). Seems like if the Democrats can't disparage us into losing in Iraq, they're gonna do all they can to tank a weak economy in order to blame Bush and then ride to the rescue with their patented "fix": a colossal tax wedgie.

Nope, no media bias here!

Nasty suprise

A German farmer who married a woman he met on the Internet has asked for the marriage to be annulled after finding out 'she' was a he.

Wolfgang Zober, 55, from Naumburg, said: "I don't meet many women as I am often out in the fields working all day, and so a friend suggested I try Internet dating.

"I was delighted when I contacted Randy Victoria, 38, and was delighted when I met her and realized she was as lovely as her photographs.

"She even knew loads about farming - I didn't realize that was because she used to be a farmer herself.

"We only had a kiss and cuddle before we married. But on my wedding night she told me she had a penis - and that her real name was Ralf. I was devastated.

"The only true thing she did say was that she had two children, but she was the father - not the mother."

I love Ty Pennington night...

POTD

Picture courtesy of Tank.

Alcohol and bow and arrows don't mix

RAPID CITY, South Dakota -- Rapid City police say an intoxicated man has been arrested for standing in the middle of a street on Monday night and threatening motorists with a bow and arrows. Loren Two Bulls, 23, of Rapid City, was arrested.

He's charged with six counts of aggravated assault and one count of theft of mislaid property.

Police say Two Bulls had a large razor knife, smelled of alcohol and slurred his words.

Two motorists called police.

People in one car said they saw a man shoot an arrow at another vehicle before taking aim at them. They say a third vehicle also passed while the man was aiming at cars.

Tsunami on Sun

Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar "tsunami" hurtling through the Sun's atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour.

The energy released in these explosions is phenomenal, about two billion times the annual world energy consumption in just a fraction of a second

Guns in Montana

Segment from Al Jazeera news, March 19, 2008
How ironic that this unbiased story does not come from any mainstream US sources. Guess we're too busy watching britney mess up her life.

Celebrity Jeopardy- The Best of Sean Connery

Celebrity Jeopardy - Best of Sean Connery | Funny Jokes at JibJab

October 4, 1924 – April 5, 2008

Civil Rights Documents Web Published By ACRR



Charlton Heston's Keynote Address at the Free Congress Foundation's 20th Anniversary Gala


December 20, 1997

What an honor it is to address the Free Congress Foundation. At a glance
"Free" reads as a verb rather than an adjective. "Free Congress." Not a bad
directive for Mr. Clinton. Anyway...


I like it when the party of Lincoln honors our free heritage. This nation
has been blessed by the minds and mettle of many good people, and indeed Abe
was among the best. A man of great moral character, a trait often lacking
among our leaders. This is disturbing, but not without remedy. One good
election can correct such ills.

Above all, I hope those of us gathered here tonight have more in common with
Mr. Lincoln than just party affiliation. Better that we grasp a common
vision than simply wear the cloak. Even our President pretends to be a
conservative when it suits him. We must be more than that.

I know... it's not easy. Imagine being point man for the National Rifle
Association, preserving the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I
was elected, and now I serve... as a moving target for pundits who've called
me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile and
crazy old man."

Maybe that comes with the territory. But as I have stood in the crosshairs
of those who aim at Second Amendment freedom, I have realized that guns are
not the only issue, and I am not the only target. It is much, much bigger
than that - which is what I want to talk to you about today.

I have come to realize that a cultural war is raging across our
land...storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our
self-confidence in who we are and what we believe.

How many of you own a gun? A show of hands maybe? How many own two or more
guns?


Thank you. I wonder - how many of you own guns but chose not to raise your
hand? How many of you considered revealing your conviction about a
constitutional right, but then thought better of it?

Then you are a victim of the cultural war. You are a casualty of the
cultural warfare being waged against traditional American freedom of beliefs
and ideas. Now maybe you don't care one way or the other about owning a gun.
But I could've asked for a show of hands of Pentecostal Christians, or
pro-lifers, or right-to-workers, or Promise Keepers, or school voucher-ers,
and the result would be the same. What if the same question were asked at
your PTA meeting? Would you raise your hand if Dan Rather were in the back
of the room with a film crew?

See? You have been assaulted and robbed of the courage of your convictions.
Your pride in who you are and what you believe, has been ridiculed,
ransacked and plundered. It may be a war without bullets or bloodshed, but
with just as much liberty lost. You and your country are less free.

And you are not inconsequential people! You in this room, whom many would
say are among the most powerful people on earth, you are shamed into
silence! Because you choose to own guns - affirmed by no less than the Bill
of Rights. But you embrace a view at odds with the cultural warlords. If
that is the outcome of cultural war, and you are victims, I can only ask the
gravely obvious question: What'll become of the right itself? Or other
rights not deemed acceptable by the thought police? What other truth in your
heart will you disavow with your hand?

I remember when European Jews feared to admit their faith. The Nazis forced
them to wear yellow stars as identity badges. It worked. So - what color
star will the pin on gun owners' chests? How will the self-styled elite tag
us? There may not be a Gestapo officer on every street corner, but the
influence on our culture is just as pervasive.

Now, I am not really here to talk about the Second Amendment of the NRA, but
the gun issue clearly brings into focus the warfare that's going on.

Rank-and-file Americans wake up every morning, increasingly bewildered and
confused at why their views make them lesser citizens. After enough
breakfast-table TV hyping tattooed sex-slaves on the next Rikki Lake, enough
gun-glutted movies and tabloid shows, enough revisionist history books and
prime-time ridicule of religion, enough of the TV anchor who cocks her head,
clucks her tongue and sighs about guns causing crime and finally the message
gets through: Heaven help the God-fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle
class, Protestant, or-even worse- admitted heterosexual, gun-owning or-even
worse-NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff, or-even worse-male working
stiff, because not only don't you count, you're a downright obstacle to
social progress. Your tax dollars may be just as delightfully green as you
hand them over, but your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion
is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant. And frankly,
mister, you need to wake up, wise up and learn a little something about your
new America... and until you do, would you mind shutting up?

That's why you didn't raise your hand. That's how cultural war works. And
you are losing.

That's what happens when a generation of media, educators, entertainers and
politicians, led by a willing president, decide the America they were born
into isn't good enough any more. So they contrive to change it through the
cultural warfare of class distinction. Ask the Romans if powerful nations
have ever fallen as a result of cultural division. There are ruins around
the world that were once the smug centers of small-minded, arrogant elitism.
It appears that rather than evaporate in the flash of a split atom, we may
succumb to a divided culture.

Although my years are long, I was not on hand to help pen the Bill of
Rights. And popular assumptions aside, the same goes for the Ten
Commandments. Yet as an American and as a man who believes in God's almighty
presence, I treasure both.

The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of wise old dead
white guys who invented our country. Now some flinch when I say that. Why?
It's true... they were white guys. So were most of the guys that died in
Lincoln's name opposing slavery in the 1860s. So why should I be ashamed of
white guys? Why is "Hispanic pride" or "black pride" a good thing, while
"white pride" conjures shaved heads and white hoods? Why was the Million Man
March on Washington celebrated as progress, while the Promise Keepers March
on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I'll tell you why:
Cultural warfare.

Now, Chuck Heston can get away with saying I'm proud of those wise old dead
white guys because Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan know I fought in their
cultural war. I was one of the first white soldiers in the civil rights
movement, long before it was fashionable. In 1963 I marched on Washington
with Dr. Martin Luther King to uphold the Bill of Rights. As vice-president
of the NRA I am doing the same thing.

But you don't see many other Hollywood luminaries speaking out on this, do
you? It's not because there aren't any. It's because they can't afford the
heat. They dare not speak up for fear of CNN or the IRS or SAG or ATF or NBC
or even W-J-C. It saps the strength of our country when the personal price
is simply too high to stand up for what you believe in. Today, speaking with
the courage of your conviction can be so costly, the price of principle can
be so high, that legislators won't lead and citizens can't follow, and so
there is no army to fight back. That's cultural warfare.

For instance: It's plain that our Constitution guarantees law-abiding
citizens the right to own a firearm. But if I stand up and say so, why is
the media assault on me such a slashing, sinister brand of derision filled
with hate?

Because Bill Clinton's cultural warriors want a penitent cleansing of
firearms, as if millions of lawful gun owners should genuflect in shame and
seek absolution by surrendering their guns. That's what is now literally
underway in England and Australia. Lines of submissive citizens, threatened
with imprisonment, are bitterly surrendering family heirlooms, guns that won
their freedom, to the blast furnace. If that fact does not unsettle you,
then you are already anesthetized, a ready victim of the cultural war.

You know that I stand first in line in defense for free speech. But those
who speak against the perverted and profane should be given as much due as
those who profit by it. You also know I welcome cultural diversity. But
those who choose to live on the fringe should not tear apart the seams that
secure the fabric of our society.

I've earned a fine and rewarding living in the motion picture industry, yet
increasingly I find myself embarrassed by the dearth of conscience that
drives the world's most influential art form. And I am an example of what a
lonely undertaking it can be.

Nobody opposed the obscene rapper Ice-T until I stood at Time-Warner's
stockholders meeting and was ridiculed by its president for wanting to take
the floor to read Ice-T's lyrics. Since I held several hundred shares of
stock he had no choice. Though the media were barred, I read those lyrics to
a stunned audience of average American people... shocked at lyrics that
advocating killing cops, sexually abusing women, and raping the nieces of
our Vice-President. The good guys won that time: Time-Warner fired Ice-T.

The gay and lesbian movement is another good example. Many homosexuals are
hugely talented artists and executives... also dear friends. I don't despise
their lifestyle, though I don't share it. As long as gay and lesbian
Americans are as productive, law-abiding and private as the rest of us, I
think America owes them absolute tolerance. It's the right thing to do.

On the other hand, I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton's cultural
shock troops participate in gay-rights fundraisers but boycott gun-rights
fundraisers... and then claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents
with Boy Scouts, and suggest that sperm donor babies born into lesbian
relationships are somehow better served and more loved.

Such demands have nothing to do with equality. They're about the currency of
cultural war - money and votes - and the Clinton camp will let anyone in the
tent if there's a donkey on the hat, a check in the mail or some yen in the
fortune cookie.

Mainstream America is counting on you to draw your sword and fight for them.
These people have precious little time and resources to battle misguided
Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the
feminists who preach that it is a divine duty for women to hate men, blacks
who raise a militant fist with one hand while they seek preference with the
other, and all the New-Age apologists for juvenile crime, who see roving
gangs as a means of youthful expression, sex as a means of adolescent
merchandizing, violence as a form of entertainment for impressionable minds,
and gun bans as a means to Lord-knows-what. We have reached that point in
time when our national social policy originates on Oprah. I say it's time to
pull the plug.

Americans should not have to go to war every morning for their values. They
already go to war for their families. They fight to hold down a job, raise
responsible kids, make their payments, keep gas in the car, put food on the
table and clothes on their backs, and still save a little to live their
final days in dignity. They prefer the America they built - where you could
pray without feeling naïve, love without being kinky, sing without
profanity, be white without feeling guilty, own a gun without shame, and
raise your hand without apology. They are the critical masses who find
themselves under siege and long for you to get some guts, stand on principle
and lead them to victory in this cultural war.

Now if this all sounds a little Mosaic, the punchline of my sermon is as
elementary as the Golden Rule: In a cultural war, triumph belongs to those
who arm themselves with pride in who they are and then do the right thing.
Not the most expedient thing, not what'll sell, not the politically correct
thing, but the right thing.

And you know what? Everybody already knows what the right thing is. You and
I and President Clinton, even Ice-T, we all know. It's easy. You say wait a
minute, you take a long look in the mirror, then into the eyes of your kids
or grandkids, and you'll know what's right.

Don't run for cover when the cultural cannons roar. Remember who you are and
what you believe, and then raise you hand, stand up, and speak out. Don't be
shamed or startled into lockstep conformity by seemingly powerful people.
The maintenance of a free nation is a long, slow, steady process. And it's
in your hands.

Yes, we can have rules and still have rebels - that's democracy. But as
leaders you must do as Lincoln would do, confronted with the stench of
cultural war: Do what's right. As Mr. Lincoln said, "With firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in...
and then we shall save our country."

Defeat the criminals and their apologists, oust the biased and bigoted,
endure the undisciplined and unprincipled, but disavow the self-appointed
social engineers whose relentless arrogance fuels this vicious war against
so much we hold so dear. Do not yield, do not divide, do not call truce. Be
fair, but fight back.

It's the same blueprint our founding fathers left to guide us. Our enemies
see it as the senile prattle of an archaic society. I still honor it as the
United States Constitution, and that timeless document we call the Bill of
Rights.

Freedom is our fortune and honor is our saving grace.
Thank you.

---Charlton Heston

A complete list of things caused by global warming

According to the global warming cultists.

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, Africa hit hardest, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic lakes disappear, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird visitors drop, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, bluetongue, boredom, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain Siberian, British gardens change, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cancer deaths in England, cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cockroach migration, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, cremation to end, crime increase, crocodile sex, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, death rate increase (US), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, famine, farmers go under, fashion disaster, fever,figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flesh eating disease, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frostbite, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, god melts, golf Masters wrecked, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, health of children harmed, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, illness and death, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insurance premium rises, invasion of cats, invasion of herons, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, kitten boom, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers’ income increased (surprise surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, lush growth in rain forests, Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, mammoth dung melt, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mortality lower, mudslides, National security implications, new islands, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean waves speed up, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychosocial disturbances, puffin decline, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, rape wave, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, riches, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers dry up, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, sewer bills rise, sex change, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, shrinking ponds, shrinking shrine, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, suicide, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles crash, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus displaced, walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, wars threaten billions, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever.



A complete list of things caused by global warming. (with links to every single source)
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

Meanwhile in the People's Republic of Kalifornia

Special license plates shield officials from traffic tickets
By JENNIFER MUIR
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER




It's 1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday in February and a Toyota Camry is driving west on the 91 Express Lanes, for free, for the 470th time.

The electronic transponder on the dashboard – used to bill tollway users – is inactive. The Camry's owners, airport traffic officer Rudolph Duplessis and his wife, Loretta, have never had a toll road account, officials say.

They've never received a violation notice in the mail, either. Their car is registered as part of a state program which hides their home address on Department of Motor Vehicles records. The agency that operates the tollway does not have legal access to their address.

Their Toyota is one of 996,716 vehicles registered to motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to shield their addresses under the Confidential Records Program.

An Orange County Register investigation has found that the program, designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees – from police dispatchers to museum guards – who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too.

This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public.

The Register found that the confidential plate program shields these motorists in ways most of us can only dream about:

•Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras and breeze along the 91 toll lanes with impunity.

•Parking citations issued to vehicles with protected plates are often dismissed because the process necessary to pierce the shield is too cumbersome.

•Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that the drivers are "one of their own" or related to someone who is.

Exactly how many people are taking advantage of their protected plates is impossible to calculate. Like the Orange County Transportation Authority, which operates the tollway, many agencies have automated processes and have never focused on what happens to confidential plate holders. Sometimes police take note of the plate and don't write a ticket at all.

The Register used public records laws to obtain OCTA computer logs for the 91 Express Lanes and found 14,535 unpaid trips by motorists with confidential plates in the past five years. A Register analysis showed that was 3,722 separate vehicles, some running the toll road hundreds of times.

That's only about $29,500 in tolls, but under the penalty schedule set by state law, fines for chronic violators can reach $500 per toll, which would total more than $5 million for the confidential plate holders with multiple violations if they ignored warning notices. OCTA officials said that if they had been able to notify these people, they believe most would have paid before penalties ballooned.

Among the top violators on OCTA's list were Dwight and Michell Storay (he's a parole agent with the Department of Corrections), with 622 violations; Lenai and Arnold Carraway (she's an Orange County social worker), with 239 violations and Susie and Mike Stephen (she's a Chino Police Department dispatcher), with 227 violations.

Speaking through a corrections spokeswoman, Storay denied driving the toll roads without paying. He showed records indicating that he has a valid toll road account and said he had contacted the OCTA to settle the matter.

Lenai Carraway showed a reporter evidence that she had a toll road account, but had no evidence that she'd paid the tolls that OCTA listed as delinquent. Carraway said she planned to contact OCTA.

Susie Stephen did not respond to repeated requests for an interview; Chino police officials said they would investigate the situation.

It's impossible to tell whether every motorist included on the list knowingly exploited their confidential plates—and many of those contacted by The Register insisted it was some kind of mistake.

But by the time a California Highway Patrol officer recognized Loretta Duplessis' Camry from a "heavy hitter" list of toll evaders and pulled her over Feb. 27, the couple had racked up $34,805.95 in penalties from OCTA, according to a note the officer wrote on her citation. The couple did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including a note left on their front door in Riverside County.

An activist who lobbies for fair traffic laws said the entire program is out of control.

"They've exempted themselves from the rules they're enforcing," said Chad Dornsife, director of the Best Highway Safety Practices Institute. "They know it, is what's really sick about this. This isn't some surprise that when the camera comes out they don't have to worry about it."

Proponents of the program argue that confidential plates offer a necessary protection.

"I would highly doubt that anybody is registering their vehicles on a confidential basis to do anything but protect themselves," Garden Grove Police Capt. Mike Handfield said. "I just don't think people are thinking they're getting away with anything….Is the value of having a confidential plate and protecting the law enforcement community from people who might hurt them, is that worth that risk? I believe it is."

The Register asked the DMV for a list of the number of motorists participating in the program and the agencies they claim as an employer. But the DMV refused to provide those records unless The Register paid $8,442, which officials said was the cost of extracting the list from its database.

The Register felt that was an excessive cost to obtain public records; the DMV has refused to waive the fee.

CONFIDENTIAL HISTORY

The DMV first started withholding police officers' addresses from the public in 1978, back when anyone could walk into a DMV office with a license plate number and walk out with the car owner's home address. The purpose was to block criminals from finding out where police live, then using the information to harm the officers or their families.

Under the Confidential Records Program the name of the police agency appears in lieu of the officer's address.

In the first seven years of the program, lawmakers added judges, district attorneys – and themselves.

Since then, the list of people afforded confidentiality has swelled to include jail guards, district attorney investigators and National Park Service rangers, as well as city council members and city attorneys, among others.

Officials can keep the secret plates when they retire. If they change to a civilian job, they can stay shielded for another three years.

In some cases the secret plates have been negotiated as part of a labor contract. For example, museum security officers were added as part of an employment agreement with the state's public safety union in 2001.

Meanwhile, public access to DMV information was nearly eliminated in 1989 after the death of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. A private investigator found Schaeffer's home address through the DMV on behalf of an obsessed fan, who gunned down the 21-year-old at her Los Angeles apartment. Lawmakers responded by making every motorist's information confidential.

Today, addresses for every driver in the state are off limits to the public. Some businesses, such as insurance companies, financial institutions and businesses that contract with police to process citations, still maintain limited access through strict agreements with the DMV.

The level of protection granted to all motorists makes "it all but impossible for unauthorized individuals to receive residence address data from the DMV," officials told the Legislature in 2004.

The DMV said private data now available on the Internet makes it easy to find home addresses. "Such ready access makes it unnecessary to use DMV as an access point."

None of the lawmakers or agencies interviewed by The Register was able to point to a case where a person was harmed by information obtained through the DMV in the nearly 20 years since the Schaeffer case changed the law.

Still, police and lawmakers say that increasing access to information on the Internet makes it even more imperative that records are protected.

"The street has become a technological freeway that is being used by everybody, so the more layers of confidentiality you can add to those who need it the better," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Since 1980, lawmakers have passed 19 pieces of legislation adding more groups, revising the language or increasing the punishment against people who use the DMV to harm people with confidential plates.

In 2001 Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, who is now a state senator, sponsored legislation that allowed police chiefs to give the plates to non-sworn employees in "sensitive" positions, such as those testifying against other law enforcement officers, records show.

"Law enforcement came to me and asked me to sponsor it," said Oropeza, D-Carson.

This year, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda, is sponsoring a bill that would add some zoo veterinarians, animal control agency workers and humane society shelter workers to the program. After introducing the bill, he added firefighters and code enforcement officers, as well. He said the union that represents those workers – the American Federation of County Municipal Employees – asked for the protection to stave off retribution from criminals, such as people who run criminal dog fighting rings.

DMV employees must process requests for confidential records manually at a cost of $220,000 a year. The workload expands every time lawmakers allow a new group to participate in the program.

'COURTESY TO LAW ENFORCEMENT'

As the program has grown, so have the benefits.

Some police officers confess that when they pull over someone with a confidential license plate they're more likely to let them off with a warning. In most cases, one said, if an officer realizes a motorist has a confidential plate, the car won't be pulled over at all.

"It's an unwritten rule that we would extend professional courtesy," said Ron Smith, a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who worked patrol for 23 years. "Nine out of 10 times I would."

California Highway Patrol officer Jennifer Hink put it a little differently. "It's officer discretion … (But) just because you have confidential plates doesn't mean you're going to get out of a citation."

Many police departments that run red light camera programs systematically dismiss citations issued to confidential plates.

"It's a courtesy, law enforcement to law enforcement," San Francisco Police Sgt. Tom Lee said. "We let it go."

Four Orange County cities with red light cameras told the Register earlier this year that they don't have time to track down the addresses. The private companies that process the citations don't have access to the shielded information. Police officers do have access, but not the time.

State law requires police to mail out red light camera citations within 15 days; Orange County allows only 11. "It takes eight to 13 business days to receive that information back from the DMV," said Santa Ana Police officer Gary Fratus. "There are far too few to do it … The time frame is not conducive for us."

Some departments, for example, the cities of Los Alamitos and Los Angeles, send the citations to the agency listed in place of the home address. But they have no way of knowing whether the person ticketed ever received the citation. In Orange County, inactive red light camera citations are dismissed after a year.

San Diego is the only department interviewed by the Register that does the necessary work to track down protected plate holders. Laguna Woods and Santa Ana began doing the same this year after the Register began asking questions.

The shielded plates can also be a free pass to park illegally.

"Many agencies, especially parking citation processing agencies, report that the process is so cumbersome and costly that they simply dismiss the parking citation as it is not worth the time and effort necessary to identify the vehicle owner," the DMV told the legislature in 2004.

Sen. Oropeza said the problem isn't the confidential records program, it's that police are enforcing the law unevenly.

"Professional courtesy, that's a total inappropriate response," Oropeza said. "And to say they don't have time is totally inappropriate …The law should be applied equally to everybody."

DMV spokesman Mike Marando said the agency may be able to come up with a more streamlined method of accessing the shielded addresses.

"We'll be happy to work with them," Marando said.

TROUBLE WITH TOLLS

Toll road operators face an added barrier in collecting payment because they don't have legal access to confidential addresses. The two agencies in Orange County handle the problem differently.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies, which operates the Foothill, San Joaquin Hills and Eastern toll roads, said it mails delinquent toll notices to the agency listed in lieu of the home address, and believes such tickets are getting paid.

"There is the potential that the violation may not be forwarded by the agency to the individual, but we have yet to experience that condition," Frank Barbagallo, deputy director of toll operations wrote in an e-mail.

The OCTA, the agency that runs the 91 Express Lanes, sends the violations to a collections agency in New York, which attempts to find home addresses through its own means.

It's an automated process OCTA inherited when it purchased the toll road in 2003. OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said that is why the agency was unaware of the thousands of confidential plate violations that had gone unpaid. The violations make up a fraction of the 14.5 million trips on the toll road each year.

After obtaining the OCTA logs, the Register used media access rights at the DMV to attach names to the license plates, then attempted to contact the top violators through the agency that employed them. The Register also tried to find personal telephones and attempted to contact the violators that way. Most motorists did not respond to the calls.

"With so many violations I'm stunned that the toll road wouldn't have at least reached out," said Orange County Sheriff Capt. Dave Nighswonger, who was contacted by The Register about a jail guard, Edward Lutz, who had 171 toll violations over a two-year period. "We can encourage our employees to reach out to them and reconcile that."

News of the violations caused officials in many of the agencies to launch internal investigations. The Los Angeles World Airport Police Organization, which employs Duplessis, said it was initiating a complete review of its confidentiality records.

Several agencies said their employees had toll accounts in good standing but had failed to add new vehicles to their accounts or had problems with their transponders. Some violators contacted OCTA after hearing from a reporter and paid the past-due tolls.

Unlike most motorists with toll account problems, many of these violators won't have to pay delinquent fees. Because of the protected plates, OCTA did not find them within the 66 days required by law and can't assess fines.

So Lutz, for example, the Orange County jail guard, simply paid the outstanding tolls, about $300, Nighswonger said.

Regular toll road customers caught in a similar situation are typically found through their DMV records, sent violation notices, and charged tens of thousands of dollars in fines if they ignore the bills.

As an example, the penalties on the account of an Orange County couple who accrued some 80 toll violations in 2003 because of an expired credit card ballooned from $580 in tolls to $53,550 in civil penalties, court records show.

After The Register found the toll road scofflaws, OCTA's Zlotnik acknowledged that the agency may not have been doing all it could to track them down. "Since this issue has arisen, we're looking at ways to address the situation to help prevent this from happening in the future," he said.

The Register found few checks on the confidential plates program.

The DMV does not independently audit the system, relying on the responsible agencies to monitor their own participants. But that doesn't always happen.

The San Bernardino Police Department could not identify a woman named Brenda Orantes, who ran up 411 violations on the 91 tollway under a confidential plate obtained through that department, the records show. Lt. Scott Paterson said Orantes is not an employee and is not listed as a relative.

A few agencies audit their program and were able to give a count of their participants. Fullerton Police, for example, said that 273 vehicles and 338 drivers have confidentiality through the department.

But most of those contacted, including the California Highway Patrol, the LAPD and the California Department of Corrections, were not able to tell a reporter how many people have obtained DMV confidentiality through their departments.

"We don't have a system to go through," LAPD Sgt. Leland Sands says. "That's not something that we would check."

Obama, Odinga supporters are the people that are burning christians alive

This is Raila Odinga. Who is Odinga? Odinga is Obama’s cousin. Odinga and Obama are from the same Kenyan Luo tribe. Odinga supporters are the people that are burning christians alive, trapped inside churches .Odinga (and most of his fanatical followers) are radical Islamists who have pushed for Islamic Sharia Law, total banning of other religions and closing of co-ed schools, night clubs and ‘public dressing style considered immoral’. Odinga was educated in Former Soviet controlled East Germany and maintains a strong loyalty to the vision of his ‘Educators’ and has allied with Islamist in order to gain their political support.

In 2006 Obama took a trip to Kenya and voiced his support for his fellow tribesman and political ally, Odinga.

Obama also directly attacked the sitting Kenyan leadership (Kibaki) calling them ‘corrupt’ (Kenya is one of the most stable places in Africa).

Odinga is the cat that ran on the socialist democrat ticket in Kenya and lost to sitting president Kibaki.

It’s not getting reported in the media that the looting and burning of businesses in Kisumu was targeted to both Kikuyus and Kenyan Indians. The economy of Kenya is controlled by these two groups because they are Entrepreneurial. But Kenyan Indians rarely get involved in Kenyan politics, they do not vote by choice, yet the Luos in Kisumu do not like them, that’s why their stores were getting burnt too.

Tribe of 540,000 Kikuyu, rivals of the Luo for Power, All but Vanishes From Kenyan City ethnically cleansed and massacred by Odinga’s butchers.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQprfiiJTXP7rSL3Qvr4lcG3Tt3wD8UGEAAG2

Yet Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with Odinga, his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

Odinga has now made a deal for support with Muslim fundamentalists. A photograph copy of a Memorandum of Understanding, dated and signed on August 29, 2007, between Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.
http://eakenya.org/newsevents/article.htm?id=8
Here is a summary on the agreement which was signed:

* It pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila’s election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees to 14 actions, listed a) through n) on page two.

* Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions.

* Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters. [Note: everywhere in Kenya, not just in “Muslim declared regions.”]

* “Popularize Islam, the only true religion. by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes.”
* “Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshippers of the cross.”
* “Outlaw gospel programs. on KBC, the National Broadcaster.”
* “Impose a total ban on the public consumption of alcoholic beverages.”
* “Impose an immediate ban on women’s public dressing styles that are considered immoral and offensive to the Muslim faith.”
http://eakenya.org/newsevents/article.htm?id=8

Raila Odinga has, in his own words, a “close personal friendship” with Barrack Hussein Obama Junior. When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi. Obama’s bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila’s “stooge.” http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=149_1199587542

In the recent elections in Kenya, violence broke out as Raila lost the elections:

This past weekend, women and children - entire families - were burned alive as a crowd of Kenyans torched a church where they had gathered to protect themselves.

The cause of the violence was Odinga’s inflammatory comments about the election:

When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election last week (12/27) to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of people were burned to death in a church set on fire. Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days.

At first a million man march was planned but Obama put in some frantic 11th hour calls to his cousin to call that off, since it would reflect badly on his campaign at home, (he is locked in a battle with Hillary and it was the day of the N.H. primary), to have the media filled with images of angry Blacks rioting over a diputed election result. Odinga agreed to hold off, but now he is getting impatient. The agreement is probably to try to give Obama enough time to get his own candidacy flowing smoothly among Democrats before unleashing the violence.

But Odinga can only hold off for so long, since he faces likely criminal charges over the organized slaughter of Kikuyu by his (and Obama’s) Luo tribesmen.

Odinga who is challenging the current Kenyan President Kubaki. It was established by references to an article in Time Magazine that Obama has a ‘very close friendship’ with Odinga. There are links in Wikipedia which show that Odinga has initiated coups in the past, been accused of corruption and is an all-round troublemaker. What’s worse, it became clear that Odinga’s supporters were killing and burning property on a rampage across Kenya to support Odinga’s bid to take over Kubaki’s presidency. However, now further, more shocking details have come out:

There appears to be growing evidence that the violence in Kenya was organized in advance, perhaps with Obama’s knowledge.

Bishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret confirms the killings were organized and planned. It is believed Odinga and his ODM Pentagon members had planned it all, long before elections, and especially William Ruto the MP for Eldoret North (the burning of women and children in a church).

He is tearing through the country using murder and rape as his weapons of choice. Justice Minister Martha Karua tsaid Odinga’s group (Orange Democratic Movement has planned to carry out systematic ethnic cleansing.This is a dangerous man in what has up until now been a pretty stable country on an unstable continent.

His ‘opposition party’ is opposed to democracy and free elections. Refusing to accept the result of the national election, Odinga will break the country, beat, “cleanse” rape until this depraved savage gets the power. Raila Odinga rejected a presidential invitation for talks.

The left wing media has been played by brilliantly by Odinga - this is part of his strategy.

Obama’s older brother still lives in Kenya. Abongo “Roy” Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must “liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture.” He urges his younger brother, Barack Hussein Obama to embrace his ‘African’ heritage.

The way Barack Obama describes his oldest half-brother in his book, Abongo (Roy) Obama inherited their father’s hard-drinking ways but straightened his life out by embracing Islam and his African heritage.

Abongo Obama began using his Luo tribal first name and had sworn off pork, smoking and drinking by the time of his younger brother’s 1992 wedding.

“Abongo’s new lifestyle has left him lean and clear-eyed, and at the wedding, he looked so dignified in his black African gown with white trim and matching cap that some of our guests mistook him for my father,” Obama wrote in Dreams From My Father.

Barrack Obama wrote about his brother. “But the magic of his laughter remains…”

As for his Cousin Odinga: Obama’s tacit support for this ruthless leader of the insurgent rebellion in Kenya is shaping up to be the 800 lb gorilla in the Obama ‘08 campaign.

In the latest development in the deepening ties between Obama’s pal Odinga (ODM party) and the Islamists. “Obama’s “cousin” the ruthless violent Raila Odinga now nominates the radical Sheikh he signed MOU with as a Member of Parliament (MP) ODM has presented six names to the Electoral Commission of Kenya for nomination as MPs. This will in effect raise their numbers in the House to 105. The proposed nominees include Sheikh Ahmed Dor, the cleric who spearheaded the MoU between ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga and some Muslim leaders.”

The Media presents Odinga and his supporters in such a way that they look like angels even as they kill people.

Obama’s Pal uses “Rape as a Weapon”
More brutal and gory details of the man Obama unequivocally supports. Obama is so busted. This is more than bad judgment, this is scary. Odinga’s has nefarious Arab ties and his hand in the ongoing violence that has all of Kenya in its barbaric clutches. Inconceivable horror. Gang rapings, murders and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Obama has backed Odinga unequivocally going so far as telling big media (out of TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein here),

Obama has had near-daily conversations with the U.S. Ambassador in Kenya or with opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Obama BACKS THIS MONSTER ODINGA UNEQUIVOCALLY? How on earth does he justify this?

All this points to a very different Obama than the Obama we see and hear in the media. Rather than being the new JFK he is the smiling face of the terror that is now sweeping Kenya. Are these the DREAMS FROM HIS FATHER that he has in store for America?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Niece Says Abortion is the New Civil Rights Cause

Memphis, TN (LifeNews.com) -- As Americans honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the fortieth anniversary of his assassination, his niece says abortion has become the civil rights cause of today. Dr. Alveda King , who has suffered from multiple abortions, says the destruction of human life is on par with the lack of civil rights of her uncle's generation.






In a speech at a church in downtown Memphis, King noted how her uncle was killed on this day in 1968.

But a short five years later the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited abortions in the Roe v. Wade decision -- one that King says has decimated the nation and the black community in particular.

"There are people dying in this country, everyday," she said, focusing on a the plight of a different set of powerless people. "They are unborn children."

"The fight against abortion is a new frontier in the civil rights movement," she said, according to an article in the Mississippi Daily Journal.

"My uncle often said that we don't follow through," King added. "He said that we admonish black women not to abort their babies but we don't show them how to care for them, don't give them options for life."

King bemoaned the number of black leaders today who embrace abortion.

The newspaper said King told the audience that African-American political leaders sold out their pro-life views for support from abortion advocates and other political groups for promoting civil rights.

"We didn't understand how dramatically abortion was affecting our community," she said. "The tradeoff between concentrating too much on other social issues and ignoring abortion has been a deadly tradeoff."

Ultimately, the newspaper said King wants African-Americans to have a new dream about how life can be for America.

"If we're not speaking for the voiceless, not being strong for those who are weak, we're not living Martin's dream," she said.


http://www.lifenews.com/nat3840.html



* Martin Luther King Blvd & Niece: Planned Parenthood has a penchant for locating abortuaries in minority, especially African American, neighborhoods, which is one reason that Hispanics have surpassed blacks as America's most populous ethnic group, after 10 million black women have killed their children, with Planned Parenthood's cut of the business at a BEL-estimated $2,500 billion in 2008 dollars. Thus it is especially cruel to blacks that the proposed mill site is in Portland on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Bill Diss has organized PreciousChildrenOfPortland. org, 503 334-6183, and in a pamphlet they quote MLK Jr.'s niece, Dr. Alveda King, speaking in Portland on April 20, 2007 saying, "My uncle would not want an abortion mill on a street named after him!"

Too Cute!!