From One Disaster to Another. 

Sheesh.

Captan Ed is reporting that the guy who got fired from the “Big Dig” in Boston, is the one now responsible for trying to rebuild 35W. I understand, you have to go with what’s available, for a given project.  But, whose good idea was this?

I guess we can call it the Big Bridge, but that may hit too close to home for J. Richard Capka, the federal highway official tapped by the Department of Transportation to run the Minneapolis bridge rebuilding project. Capka got terminated from that ill-starred project in 2002 and has remained a controversial figure ever since:

As well he might.  Perhaps they were just skimming over the resume, and noticed that he had a major disaster in his past.  Since the collapse of the 35W bridge would certainly be considered a disaster, they must’ve figured Capka would be a perfect fit.

The Jawa Report tells us the tale of the magic bullets:

Tuesday August 14, 2007: An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City…..(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)

The only problem, of course, is that the bullets are still in their casings. For Kos readers, this means that they have never been fired.

Hmmm. The lighting didn’t look quite right, to me. My suspicions are, that somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about firing a weapon, is trying to leave some political imagery.
Then, in the next post, there’s another picture:

Here, we see the issue clearly is that somebody’s guilty of assault with a dead weapon.

It appears to me, that both these photos have in fact been “Photoshopped”
What say we take reports from AFP with a couple grains of salt , for a while? Huh?

In the meantime, we would appear to have a new series of pictures for kids carrying posters reading “make love, not war”

Update:  (David L).   Not only is the picture a hoax.  It is a poor one at that.   As Bit wrote, the rounds were unspent, not fired.  However Bryan at Hot Air, (fifth update) establishes the rounds are not even military rounds   The ammunition is civilian.  Military rounds have color coded tips.

Not only is AFP passing off photoshopped pictures as genuine, they being photoshopped by those who simply do not have any military knowledge.

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The Reverend Sharpton is not mentioned, but in any case involving race, sex and money, it only a matter of time.  Kia Vaughn, Rutgers women’s basketball, is suing Don Imus for  libel, slander and defamation.   Lara Setraklas reports:

Don Imus is facing his first lawsuit from a player on the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team for derogatory comments that cost him his job as a radio host in April, ABC News has learned.

Kia Vaughn, star center for the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team, has filed a lawsuit against Imus for libel, slander and defamation — the first civil suit to be filed against the former radio host. Vaughn is asking for monetary damages of an unspecified amount.

Ok, I am not a lawyer.  However I am not charging for this opinion.   My theory is that Imus iis reponsible for what he said to his audience.

Problems:

• The team has twelve players.   Settling with one is an open invitation for the other eleven to sue.  This case is going to court.
• Libel is written or visual defamation.  Imus ddn’t write anything about Vaughn.
• Imus called the Rutger players ‘ho’s.”   Within the realm of [c]rap music, ho is term for any woman.   What the term was taken by Imus’ audience to mean is a debatable point. 
• Vaughn is claiming to be a virgin.   One, this seems to imply the need for her to prove this to the court.   Two, even showing herself to virgin, would not show she was not a whore, a woman who performs sexual acts for money.   Can any person prove that they have never performed a sex act for money?  I doubt it.
• Slander is a three party offense.    It a that a particular actor defamed a particular person to a particular audience.  Party A defamed Party B, in the eyes of Party C.   The Party C is this case would Imus’ radio audience.   The obstensive  purpose of the suit would to restore the standing in the eyes Party C, the audience.
• Can Vaughn show that the Imus in the Morning audience thought less of Vaughn when Imus called her a non-virgin?   Bit might be better qualified to answer this particular point.   However given my view of Imus’s audience, they would have increased esteem for an easy woman.  I mean it not like Imus audience was Boy Scouts.   Imus is a shock jock and audiences expect shock jocks to be well shocking.

I as I see it, this not a case about restoring esteem, but a raw grab for money.   Imus may be a jerk, but  I don’t seem him losing this case.

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Jim Angle on Hume’s show, last night:

We’ve told you how the use of food crops for biofuels has driven up the prices for tortillas in Mexico, breakfast cereal in the U.S. and beer in Germany.

Now Spiegel Online reports the price of Germany’s beloved gummy bears may soar next year because of the biofuel boom. That’s because the price of key ingredient glucose rose by 30 percent in 2006.

Some German business people have had enough. They have formed an alliance that is seeking an end of government subsidies for biofuel crops. They say that in two to four years there will be food shortages — if crops continue to be diverted to biofuel production.

It was just a few days ago, that Spiegel posted an article about how things are going much better in Iraq than our own press is pleased to tell us about. Now, this, with Biofuels.
So what’s up with Spiegel, of late? They would appear to have come down with a serious case of reality., or something.

Recently, the Germans hundred into power a government that was significantly friendlier to the United States .  One could logically ask the question, whether Spiegel waking up and smelling the schnitzel, finally, was a symptom of the cause of that election or a reaction to it.

Look, Glenn, the reason that people are going to four wheel drive rigs like that, is that cars have been so seriously downsized… You tend to have to work tubes of KY into your monthly driving budget, just so that you can get in and out of the things without hurting yourself.  and you can forget about towing any kind of a trailer, be it a boat trailer, a camper, or a utility trailer , with one of them.  Whereas, of course, the SUV is rather well suited to such tasks.. a factor the Enviro-whackos don’t want to deal with, apparently.
Personally, I drive a Buick Rainier which is kind of like a Chevy Trailblazer except that it has much more in the way of refinements, such as air ride… which is something the Troueg has now, if a little late. The Rainier is actually in pretty much the same class as the VW and the MDX it’s supposed to be competitive with.

See also:

“It’s for the children” and “It’s for the environment”… equals in untruth

I haven’t commented on this before because frankly there wasn’t good enough evidence to comment on.  However, as it stands now there’s a good deal more in the way evidence, and I think it’s time I commented.

I’ll use Glenn Reynolds as the lead in:

LOOK WHO’S EDITING WIKIPEDIA! Various people, from Ace, to Charles Johnson, to Dan Riehl, are having fun tracking what’s going on. Turning Bill Frist into an African-American? Nice to see the New York Times’ fierce commitment to truth.

Ace, for his part, (at the link above) puts into words a suspicion it’s been floating around the back of my head since this story service to couple of days ago :

I see now why the NYT is so prone to comical errors. Those vaunted multiple layers of painstaking editorial oversight are apparently being employed to edit an online fake-encyclopedia in order to denigrate a competitor.

The staff of America’s Paper of Record (TM) are also busy dicking around on the internet all friggin’ day childishly vandalizing Wikipedia entries on George W. Bush and Tom Delay.

The electronic breadcrumb trail for this tampering, certainly leads right up to the firewall of the New York Times.  Don’t misunderstand; I am by no means attributing this tampering to official action by the Times.  This is not a defense of the Times,it’s more along the lines of the thought that they don’t have the ability to agreed on lunch, much less the ability to put together a coordinated attack of this level. it’s my view, that what we’re dealing with here, is an employee of the Times with a good deal of free time on their hands.

The pattern I’m seeing here, uniformly, is a concerted and coordinated effort, apparently on the part of leftists, in an attempt to discredit Wikipedia, or the subjects being edited.

My guess is, that even if the New York Times puts together any kind of an investigation on this, their IT folks are not going to be able to come up with evidence pointing to a particular individual.  certainly, the technology exists to do such tracing, but I have my doubts that it is employed there; most places don’t have it.. For the most part companies like that are more concerned about people breaking into the net than they are about abuse is from within.  Given that design parameter, it’s going to be difficult in the extreme to prove “Joe Smith’s” laptop was involved.

Even here, however, a trend is evident.  What is the biggest complaint coming from the liberal press these days?  It is the complaint that the “new media” isn’t up to the same standards as America’s “paper of record”.  Certainly, the official line about this from the various newspapers around the country would be logically reflected in the personal opinions of the rank and file of all those organizations.  So ask yourself:what possible reason would someone working at the New York Times have, in wanting to denigrate the reliability and accuracy of the new media?  This one would seem to be a no brainer.

The other half of this scenario, of course, is the overt denigration of republicans.  It’s no secret that the New York Times, and those working at the Times, are biased to the left.  Here, again, the connection seems a no-brainer.

As a bonus, we find the New York Times network involved in an editing of the entry for the Wall Street Journal.  Again, a no brainer as to why they’d want to do that.

Where things start taking a left turn, is when we start looking at pages that were edited by somebody outside the network of the New York Times.  For example, and it’s made from within the network of the Democratic party’s Congressional campaign committee , as Allah notes.

The pattern I’m seeing here, uniformly, is a concerted and coordinated effort, apparently on the part of leftists, in an attempt to discredit Wikipedia, or the subjects being edited. This strikes me as an attempt to control information. Information in the wrong hands will decidedly make life difficult for Democrats, you see.

Addendum:(Bit)

McQ notes apparent evidence of someone at Fox news doing the same thing, to Al Franken’s entry. As Bruce notes, why they would wish to do so, remains something of a mystery.

I admit to doing some legwork last night, and what I found is interesting:
Uniformly, the IP addresses listed as being the editors in these attacks, are forward facing firewalls, with, as you might expect, no INTERNAL ID. Say, a MAC address, for example.

Spoofing IP addresses… IE; making the receiving end think that you are on a network you are not on, is not all that unusual a trick. Being in information technology myself, I can tell you that I have seen it in play more than once… in particular in the banking environment.  (The attempts at access in that case were not successful.  )

But that that raises the question of what third party would be interested in causing all this uproar? The patterns of attack, thus far, would seem to suggest that the first targets for editing, were conservatives. They were also the most numerous.  The more recent, (and singular) attacks on a leftist entry…Al Franken’s entry, specifically… allegedly from inside the network at Fox news, could be taken as an attempt to muddy the water. My guess, based on those reported patterns, is some independent agent, or agents, with a leftist lean .  But it is exactly that; I guess.

No, I don’t know the answer.

And here’s the thing; and most IT departments …even the more knowledgeable ones …have no clue as to what the security data that their firewall is giving them.  And no idea how to read it.  I suppose we never will know what’s going on, therefore.

Ok the video is real, the script is good, the voice imperssionation is horrid,   Then it is an IMAO production.  Enjoy.

Another example of good triumphing over evil, because evil is so downright SSSTOOPID.

ASHLAND, Ky.-AP – Laughter might be unexpected in a liquor store where a robbery just occurred. But that’s how employees responded to the “Duct Tape Bandit” who hit Shamrock Liquors in Ashland and fled nearly empty handed.

Honestly, what in the world is somebody thinking trying to disguise themselves in this ?

The guy did get captured… apparently the owner took a ball bat to him…. one that was appropriately wrapped in duct tape of course….  So, I suppose he can certainly take his time about taking that tape off of himself.  Even so, I wonder how much hair got removed in that process. Hair, I’ll bet he didn’t know he had. He may still be working on it.

And let’s imagine that he tried to remove his disguise in a hurry. Do you suppose the blood chilling screaming would attract anybody’s attention?

Just for laughs , let’s assume further that by some miracle of fate, he manages to get the disguise off without attracting anybody’s attention.  Assuming further, that they manage to find the hairy ball of duct tape, not only do the cops have DNA evidence, but the cops also know they’re looking for a bald guy with no facial hair at all… including eyebrows… a rather unique description in itself, made moreso by the swelling and the blood from the rapid method of hair removal.

Reminds me of an old Richard Pryor joke, about the rape victim ripping the guys ummmm equipment off with her bare hands to prevent the attack.  She shows the results to the police officers taking the report, and one says to the other “well, this guy’s going to be easy to find. “

One more laugh; can you imagine the amount of embellishment that the story would require when his fellow inmates ask him what he did to end up in the Slam?

I’ve said it for years, now: The Unions are killing this country. The Jawa Report gives us one more example.

He said it.  Obomba says we’re “just killing civilians” in Afganistan.

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The Scooter, Phil Rizzuto, has died at age eigbty-nine.  Some players were better.  None were more beloved.  Dan Bollerman, reports: 

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — Phil Rizzuto, a Hall of Fame shortstop and 40-year broadcaster for the New York Yankees known for his catchphrase “holy cow,” has died. He was 89.

Listen as Scooter calls Roger Maris 61st,

More.

Hat tip photo:  Art.com

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Captain Ed notes Imus may be back very soon indeed…

I wonder if ABC got Al Sharpton’s endorsement on this decision. Don Imus, whose racially-charged description of the Rutgers womens’ basketball team not only got him fired but started a backlash against rap music, has reached an accommodation with CBS that will bring him back to the airwaves on its rival station:

Don Imus has reached a settlement with CBS over his multimillion-dollar contract and is negotiating with WABC radio to resume his broadcasting career there, according to CBS and a person familiar with the negotiations.Imus and CBS Radio “have mutually agreed to settle claims that each had against the other regarding the Imus radio program on CBS,” the network said in a statement Tuesday. …

CBS confirmed only that the settlement had been reached. The person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press that Imus is taking steps to make a comeback with WABC. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details had not been announced, also said the deal with CBS calls for a “non-disparaging” agreement that forbids the parties from speaking negatively about each other.

So now ABC will have Imus, while CBS has … Boomer Esiason. WFAN, where Imus broadcasted his show, just announced that they have signed the former NFL star to Imus’ old slot. CBS wound up settling a $120 million lawsuit and only got a quarterback.

Imus shouldn’t have been fired in the first place. That kind of violaton traditionally gets a suspension, and a few weeks off without pay would have been just and fair.

The ex radio guy in my pipes up… Purely from the perspective of programming and format, Boomer Esiason (Along with Craig Carton WKXW’s current afternoon host in New Jersey) makes more sense on WFAN, than Imus ever did. Best guess from here is that the MSNBC gig will likely be staying with Joe Scarborough.  Scott Fybush, over at NERW thinks that the YES network (The New York Yankees inhouse system) may pick up the show, however.  That, too, makes and a good deal of sense given that YES Has been picking up a simulcast of Mike and the Mad Dog, which is currently heard on WFAN every afternoon. the networking is already in place.

All that said, I think Ed makes a mistake in suggesting that Imus shouldn’t have been fired in the first place.

OK, granted, that kind of violation does get a suspension… usually. However, the incident in question could hardly be considered his first foray into the area on other side of the line. Further, to this day we’re still not familiar with all of the demands of good behavior that were laid down in his contract originally.  I seem to recall there were some .
The whole affair surrounding Don Imus, comes down to a matter of balance.  Personally, I think the man to be a blithering idiot.  At the same time, I tend to agree, that when CBS finally got around are reacting, by definition of was an overreaction.  Still, that overreaction was understandable, given that they’ve been biting their tounge for so many years with this guy.  that’s the price you pay for not reacting correctly the first time, I suppose.

It will be interesting to see how Don Imus does in the somewhat chastened mode he will be operating in.

There are some additional details as regards signal coverage for each station, that get rather technical, but suffice it to say that WABC’s transmitter in Lodi, NJ has a rather dramatically better coverage with its 50,000 Watts then does WFAN with it’s 50,000 Watts.  Mostly, that has to do with the fact that WFAN shares WCBS’s tower, out on High Island, through a diplexer. at least, when I’ve tuned up on New York City, which is fairly often, WABC is usually the strongest signal from the neighborhood on an order of scale.

All of these matters, I should think, will affect his ratings .

Fellow Rochester Rochester Blogger Chuck Simmins passes along a rather heartwarming story this morning about U.S. soldiers acting to save the life of a toddler who had fallen into a well.   Did we make any friends with this one, do you suppose?

Peter Nicholas down in Little Rock, writing for the Los Angeles Times this morning brings up an interesting point:

– Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cites her experience as a compelling reason voters should make her president, but nearly 2 million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady.

Clinton’s calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband’s presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election

Now why would they do that, do you suppose?   Perchance, to defeat anyone trying to force Hillary Clinton to run on her White House record by means of opposition research ?

Hillary, just a thought; this is not how I would advise you to attempt faking openness and honesty.

Longtime readers will know that I am not a fan of Michael Savage.  One area of agreement that we have, Savage and myself, is with regard to immigration.  No surprise that the witless wonders running San Francisco, headed by Geraldo Sandoval are wasting tax money and government time with resolutions like this one.

The point of disagreement, between Sandoval and Savage is that savage thinks the laws of this country as regards immigration should be enforced.   Sandoval, meanwhile seems to feel that such calls for enforcing of existing immigration laws, is somehow “racist”.

Amazing, isn’t it, the number of things that charges of racism are useful for?  In this case, they are useful tool in silencing political speech.