Archive for August 2, 2008

…yep, it’s alive in the south…

There are times I ask myself, How the hell did you get here???!!!
These photos are ones I took a few minutes after a ‘Gathering” of Rebel Flags
[dragging on the ground behind their trucks] started in front
of the Church across the road. [don't get me started on that particular church.]
I left and went to town before it got so big I didn’t think I could stand it!
Now– some of you may have heard [read] me making light of my ‘neighbors across the creek’–
Know this: THESE lovely people in the photos with enlightened minds [choke] are their friends… and they [the neighbors] deal drugs. The County police aka good ole’ boys are
‘lookin’ into it and a watchin’ them’. [this is true...it’s just that their doing it in a lame way!]
All of the local folks are totally aware that I am “The Yankee lady… the damned socialist-commie democrat”.
Anyway– yes, racism and bigotry are alive in the south. And both those states of mind breed ignorance. Ignorance is nothing that can be debated or argued with– And things on my little spot in the world are very much the opposite from where I grew up. Our Nations Capitol. .. and admittedly, yes, there are times when I am afraid.

Trent Lott: The Doo Doo Is Getting Deeper (I hope you drown in it)

B’Man: I have written about this crook for quite some time (here, here, here and here) and have an obvious opinion about him. ThinkProgress has a post up in which recent testimony shows he has been intimidating witnesses with his Senatorial position (not that this is uncommon, just that here is another example of Mississippians being proved how they have been duped for so long).

Lawyer: Lott ‘Initiated Contact With People Surrounding’ Insurance Fraud Lawsuit

During a deposition last week, Jim Robie, an attorney for State Farm Insurance, alleged that former Mississippi senator Trent Lott had “urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” Questioning Lott’s nephew, Zach Scruggs, Robie asked if it had been his “custom” to have Lott “contact and encourage witnesses to give false information.” Scruggs refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment.

In an interview with LegalNewsline, Robie said Lott had “initiated contact with people surrounding” the case involving alleged efforts to “defraud” State Farm:

“Clearly, the record couldn’t be more plain that Sen. Lott and his associates were talking to people that were key advisers to Mr. Scruggs, paid consultants and those who were creating an illusion that simply doesn’t have any basic fact,” Robie told Legal Newsline on Thursday. […]

Robie said Lott, a leading Republican, initiated contact with people surrounding this case, something unprecedented for a U.S. Senator.

“Have you ever had a U.S. Senator call you?” he asked rhetorically.

A spokesman for Lott’s lobbying firm told Legal Newsline that “the former senator had no interest in justifying the implication with a response.”

Lott has previously been reported to have used his position in the Senate to put pressure on State Farm. In May, the New Yorker reported:

Charles Chamness, the C.E.O. of a national insurance trade association, has claimed that Lott had threatened him, in a telephone call, with “bringing down State Farm and the industry.” Lott also co-sponsored a proposal to strip the insurance industry of an antitrust exemption that had been in place since the nineteen-forties.

Robie says “he will continue his efforts to depose both Richard and Zach Scruggs, during which he will probe the influence of Lott.”

B’Man: Fellow Mississippi Rednecks, do you believe that Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, Haley Barbour or any of the other corrupt Mississippi reTHUGlicans are any better than this scumbag?

Knowing who is who!!

New offensive begins in Iraq

What exactly does al-Qaida look like? When they crash into someones home, do they know the difference?? really??

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/30/new-offensive-begins-in-iraq/

BAGHDAD – U.S.-backed Iraqi troops sealed off Baqouba and staged house-to-house searches Tuesday as they began a new offensive in Diyala province in the latest bid to clear al-Qaida in Iraq from its last major belt near the capital.

Iraqi security forces hope to build on recent security successes elsewhere in a new test of the country’s readiness to take over its own security and enable American troops to withdraw eventually.

The U.S. military said the improved abilities of the Iraqi troops have enabled the Americans to play a less high-profile role in operations, helping to lower the number of U.S. casualties so far this year.

Only nine American troop deaths have been recorded in Iraq in July with only two days left, according to an Associated Press tally based on military figures. The July figures also include the recovery of the bodies of two U.S. soldiers, kidnapped last year, raising the official monthly toll to 11 as of Tuesday.

So far, the lowest monthly death toll for American troops in Iraq was 19 in May. From January to July 2007, there were 655 U.S. military deaths. This year, there have been 219 deaths until now.

Winkler Gets Children Back– Justice?

Winkler Gets Children back— Justice??

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com) –
FOX13 has learned that Mary Winkler has gotten her three daughters back. Winkler picked up her children Friday afternoon. The girls had been living with their paternal grandparents since Winkler killed her husband Matthew in 2006. Now it appears the bitter custody battle is coming to a close.

As soon as Winkler’s criminal trial ended, the custody battle began. But Friday, in an unexpected turn of events, she regained physical custody of her three children.

A source told FOX13 that Winkler picked the girls up Friday afternoon and brought them to her new home in McMinnville, Tennessee. She will soon enroll them in local schools.

“I don’t think anyone will ever understand fully or appreciate how she has felt while being separated from her children, one of which was one year old at the time,” said Rachel Putnam, the attorney handling Winkler’s custody case in a 2007 interview..

Winkler lost custody in 2006 when she was charged with the murder of her preacher husband Matthew Winkler.

Winkler was convicted of manslaughter in 2007 and has been fighting for custody of her children since her release from a mental facility.

Matthew’s parents, Dan and Diane Winkler, have had custody of the girls since 2006 and have been trying to adopt them.

“These young ladies have not expressed any desire to be with their mother or her family,” said Dan Winkler in 2007.

The Winkler’s filed appeals in an effort to stop Mary Winkler from having supervised visits and phone calls with her daughter.

But now, a source said they have turned over custody to the girls’ mother.

This is being called the first step to full custody, although no official court order has been filed.

It’s unclear why the Winkler’s suddenly turned over custody of the girls.

Attorneys for both Mary Winkler and the girls’ grandparents refused to comment.

ATTENTION Couch Potatoes!

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/health/article_212161584.shtml 

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=Exercise+pill&FORM=MSHHPM

 Scientists in California said they’ve found a way to offer the benefits of exercise in a pill.  The pill, which targets two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise, turned laboratory mice into long-distance runners and conferred many of the health benefits of exercise, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies said Thursday. The research, led by Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, is published in the journal Cell.

NEW YORK (AP) — Here’s a couch potato’s dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat? Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug — if you happen to be a mouse. Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice. Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.  “We have exercise in a pill,” said Ron Evans, an author of the study. “With no exercise, you can take a drug and chemically mimic it.” Evans, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, reports the work with colleagues in a paper published online Thursday by the journal Cell– They also report that in mice that did exercise training, a second drug made their workout much more effective at boosting endurance. After a month of taking that drug and exercising, mice could run 68 percent longer and 70 percent farther than other mice that exercised but didn’t get the drug. Both drugs have been studied by researchers for other uses. The no-exercise drug is in late-stage human testing by Kenilworth, New Jersey-based Schering-Plough Corp. to see whether it can prevent a complication of heart bypass surgery. Evans noted that the drugs might prove irresistible for professional athletes who seek an illegal edge. He said his team has developed detection tests for use by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Evans said he has no financial interest in either drug or the test. Resveratrol, a substance being studied for anti-aging effects, has also been reported to enable mice to run farther before exhaustion without exercise training. But the drugs in the new study appear to act more specifically on a process in muscles that boosts endurance, the researchers said. Still, it takes more than just altered muscles to turn a sedentary mouse into a distance runner, Evans said, and “honestly, I just don’t know how that happens. Whether it would happen in a person, I don’t know. I think it’s a small miracle it happened at all.” In fact, Evans said that when the experiment with sedentary mice was suggested by an outside scientist who was reviewing the lab’s research, “I didn’t think it was going to work.” The no-exercise drug is called AICAR. Previous experiments suggest that it might protect against gaining weight on a high-fat diet, which might make it useful for treating obesity, Evans said. But it would have to be taken for a long time, he said, so its safety in people would have to be assured. Experts who study muscle agreed that a drug like AICAR may prove useful someday in treating obesity and diabetes. Many drug companies are working on such drugs in diabetes because in animals, AICAR stimulates muscles to remove sugar from the blood, noted Laurie Goodyear of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. People who can’t exercise because of a medical condition like joint pain or heart failure might also benefit from such a drug, experts said. But Eric Hoffman of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington noted that AICAR mimics only aerobic exercise, not the strength training that might be more useful to bedridden people or the elderly, for example. He also cautioned that it’s not clear whether the new mouse results can be reproduced in people. Goodyear said exercise has such widespread benefits in the body that she doubts any one pill will ever be able to supply all of them. “For the majority of people,” she said, “it would be better to do exercise than to take a pill.”