Some Camping Shots

Stayed over at our old standby, Lakeside Beach Park. Just a few shots I thought you might like. The first one, is of the sunset and the colors.  The sunsets hereabouts are awesome, on the lake.  I was actually trying to catch a lake freighter which was headed for the Saint Lawrence.  It’s the dark lump on the horizon, center right.  Obviously, I need better zoom capability.

Here’s one of the camper. It performed pretty well. That’s my older son, Matt to the left. As you can see, the campsites are large, and this one is particularly so. The heavier woods are behind us.

Here’s another shot of the sunset. I missed an absolutely beautiful flare shot, by about fifteen seconds.  But, at least, this one’s not too bad.

Here’s about 20 minutes later. The colors in these two shots, really don’t do justice to the colors I was attempting to photograph.

An interesting scenario has popped up over at Little Green Footballs which, I will quote to you in its entirety, since it’s a short one:

Mahir Sherif, attorney for Nuradin Abdi (who pleaded guilty in Ohio yesterday to plotting a terror attack on a shopping mall), says his client only admitted guilt because the ignorant infidel jury would not have grasped the subtle nuances of his plan to commit mass murder.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The attorney for a man accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Columbus says his client decided to plead guilty rather than risk life in prison.

Mahir Sherif says Nuradin Abdi was worried about a jury’s reaction given the country’s current mood.

He says Abdi would not have faced a jury of his peers but rather people with only limited understanding of the issues surrounding the war on terror.

Abdi pleaded guilty in federal court today to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. He is expected to receive ten years and be deported after serving his sentence.

Kate, over at Small Dead Animals, comes up with a similar story, similarly, short and to the point, involving somebody else:

Really, it makes perfect sense. Who else but those who have “walked a mile in his moccasins” are really fit to pass judgment on an accused? On the other hand, who knows how difficult it will be to find 12 convicted disemboweling sexual deviants;

Turns out, Teerhuis is Indian. In today’s Free Press story, he his demanding that his jury for the murder trial be a jury of “his peers”, meaning that the majority of them have to be Aboriginal.To the surprise of absolutely no one, Indians are seldom selected for jury duty due to the fact that people with criminal records cannot be selected. Teerhuis wants this overturned so he can get a jury of Indians.

This is mindboggling for more than the obvious reasons.

There is the fact that Teerhuis, despite being a degenerate sexual psychopath, assumes that a jury of Indians will overlook this and feel pity for him because he’s also Indian. This in turn raises the horrifying notion that he may actually be correct in his assumption.

In an article from 2003, Cox and Forkum suggested that were Fidel Castro ever brought to trial, in an attempt to bring him to justice, a jury of his peers would only consist of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Angus Kahn and the like.

I don’t think “too dumb” is the issue, here.  Abdi seems to me to be making an argument that I made mention of during the O.J. Simpson fiasco wherein the jury basically ignored the evidence.  What Simpson and his lawyer were looking for, is now referred to as “jury nullification”.  I submit that what Abdi and his mouthpiece are looking for, is precisely the same thing.

Seems to me that the statement made by the founders about ‘a jury of his peers”, was made with the assumption of a certain set of moral values and guiding principles.. that is to say, cultural values… being instilled in each of those peers.  Abdi’s complaint  is that they are not HIS set of moral values and guiding principles, and not HIS culture…but those of the American people.  But, how far can that statement be taken?  How far can we countenance such a complaint?

Are we, for example, To find a number of people who like a dog finding, and black street culture, to fulfill the requirement of having a jury of Michael Vick’s peers?
Or, in the case of the court trial of an Islamic Terrorist to purposely allowed juries to be erected, of  Arab terrorists, like our friend here, because his reasoning is precisely the same as the defendants?  I’m sure, that is such a jury would be to the liking of the defendant, but would it serve justice?

Of course not.

All this goes yet again to the point I’ve made repeatedly over the last seven years on this site; The founders of this country when they wrote our foundational documents, wrote and promoted them with a certain cultural value structure in mind, and made the assumption, that value structure would have the majority sway.  This business about “a jury of his peers” is yet another example of how our laws and our government, and yes even our judicial system, makes very little sense unless those cultural values do hold majority sway.

• Hey, Glenn, when you start making noises about MPG, and about getting a little too small for comfort, how about we talk about crash safety? I have, already. How about we talk about the idea that none of the vehicles you’re speaking about here, will survive the crash with a ten speed bike, and likely, neither will it’s passengers?
• The New Republic, has come up with a statement about Scott Thomas Beauchamp the short version of which is “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain over there”.  Bruce McQuain does a fairly decent job of dismantling that nonsense.. as does Joyner.  As such, other than linking it, and saying that the dodge was not unexpected, I’ll allow Bruce to handle this one and Joyner. Oh… and Michelle.
• Speaking of Joyner, he makes mention of the story coming up on a Phoenix that I hadn’t seen, previously.  Of course, I have seen the chopper crash coverage, I didn’t mention it, too much, because I have some rather strong personal feelings about that.  I’ve had friends who died in helicopter crashes, and I know of another crash, just west of here, a few years ago up around the Niagara Falls area, involving a local traffic chopper.  That crash and Phoenix, brought those situations back to mind, and frankly it, little too close to home for me to comment on, at the time.  But now, I see where they are actually considering something a little crazy; you will remember that the reason that the choppers were out in the first place was because of a high speed chase that was going on.  They are now planning, apparently, on charging the driver of the chased vehicle on felony murder charges.  To my mind, that stretches the law all out of shape. It stretches the credibility of the law, the prosecutors, and the police to be so charging the perpetrator.  The law, to my mind, was never intended to be used in that fashion.  If, in fact, it does end up being used in that fashion, the law should be rewritten to prevent such abuses in future.
• Before I forget, on other honorable mention at OTBs caption contest
  
• I’d actually already heard this one last night, but Billy heard it this morning… the joke… at least I hope it’s a joke, about how senator Ted Kennedy was going to be running a senate committee which was supposed to be expediting the recovery of underwater victims in Minneapolis.  Actually, I heard that he was supposed to be investigating how many people simply drove off the bridge… to the left… before it collapsed.  That such a joke makes it as far and as fast as it does, suggests that our national memory is still working.  At least, outside the people’s Republic of Massachusetts, and the halls of the DNC.
• Did you happen to notice the ironic annoyance of MADD, with Amtrak the other day? apparently, Amtrak has decided to offer liquor service to some of its premium passengers.  MADD has responded by demanding assurances that Amtrak won’t “overserve” its passengers.  Forgive me, but it seems to me that the only people that mothers against drunk driving should be concerned about, in terms of the alcohol consumed on the train, are the ones actually driving it.  Or, are we to now assume that the essential purpose of MADD has shifted from preventing drunk driving, to reinstating the eighteenth amendment?  I wonder if they understand just how much damage they’ve done their own credibility with this one.  Somehow, I doubt it.
• Paul, over at Power Line, was apparently on a conference call with John McCain today.  Well, I suppose, somebody has to.  If McCain’s comments, and pols notes on them, are to be believed Mr. McCain apparently has a grip on reality, as regards the immigration bill, at last.  According to fall, he attributes the political problem to his inability to convince people that the government would actually enforce the borders.  What Mr. McCain doesn’t seem to understand, is that no law is worth the powder to blow up unless it’s enforced.  Because the very next words out of his mouth are that the next time the legislation comes up he will include legal measures to create more confidence in enforcement, etc..  It is said that a man with a hammer, thinks that every problem that pops up in his path can be handled as if it was a nail.  So it is, apparently, with senator McCain.  All he knows is the law.  By my read, the larger problem with the good senator, is that he still can’t figure out why people don’t trust him after so many years of being “the maverick”.  The phrase “loose cannon on deck” leaps to mind.  By definition, not a very trustworthy situation.  He’s begun to understand the situation, but apparently the solution as yet eludes him, thereby disqualifying him for the White House, in my view.  Now, of course, it should be pointed out that there are a number of other people who have actually made it to the White House to share that disqualification.  Bill Clinton being among them.  Somehow, if I were senator McCain, I would have a real confidence problem , being placed in such company.  Wouldn’t you?
• Middle nineties around here today.  Before it got too hot, I actually got the chance to go out and clean the interior of the trailer, in preparation for the next tourney.  I have some photographs of the park from last weekend, which I may get around to putting up later tonight.

OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) – Investigators trying to fill gaps in a case with daunting legal and forensic issues returned Wednesday to the home of a woman suspected of killing her newborn son and hiding the bodies of three other pre-term infants.

Investigators must determine whether all four bodies found at the home were the offspring of Christy Freeman. Freeman, who also has four living children, has been charged in the death of one newborn found last week wrapped in a bloodied towel under her bathroom sink.

Why is this such a daunting task, you ask?  Good question.  It has to do with a double standard in a law that was created for the specific purpose of sidestepping the question of whether not abortion is murder.

The 2005 fetal homicide was designed to penalize those who kill a pregnant woman or her viable fetus, but it includes a provision shielding pregnant women from prosecution for actions that result in their own fetus’s death.

The question becomes, why on earth this woman would be charged with anything , since all she did was was abort… repeatedly…. which is supposedly not murder, you see. It seems to me time to address the central question, And therein, address the answer that pro abortionists have been sidestepping for years .

For those who still consider that abortion should be legal, ask yourselves; is what Christy Freeman did wrong?  At what point did she crossed the line between right and wrong?  What constitutes that line?  Is it when she buried the first body in the backyard? the second?  The third?  The fourth?  What, specifically, are the differences involved with aborting the way Freeman did it, and the way a doctor would do it, in terms of outcome? are they not equally dead? Would they charge her with practicing medicine without a license, per chance?
Mind you, this is not simply about abortion, though I suspect it will become emblematic for both sides.  The point of this piece, is that this case shows rather clearly, what happens when one overruns the basics in pursuit of a political goal not supported by said basics.
Or, dare I say the word “principles”, in this content?

Mrs. Clinton hinted that she would resume her husband’s failed practice of using million dollar missiles to blow up tents:

But she did not rule out U.S. attacks inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998. 

“If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured,” she said

Then unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan is a nuclear power.

Hat Tip, Jim Geraghty, National Review.

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Interesting note, the other day from Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell:

The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn’t that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after “solutions” that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.

His points about ethanol are well taken.  It’s a worthy article.  However, I can’t help but notice that we wouldn’t be buying this myth about ethanol being our salvation, if it wasn’t for our buying into the myths of “peak oil” and “global warming”… myths that Goodell seems to have bought into, already, since the remainder of the article grants those two minutes of the status of “operational assumption.”

I wonder if it’s occurred to anybody to look at the people in politics and who are pushing this nonsense, and what kind of financial gain they and their supporters are making off of
it?

I mean, think; That Congress is going ahead with this push toward ethenol despite all the counter indications against the idea, suggests that there is a goodly amount of money to be made someplace, and likely the politicians that are backing it, are the ones with the most to make off of it.
How about it, Jeff?  How about you put the massive Rolling Stone empire and all of its resources to work on that question? Or are you afraid that the myth of “Peak Oil” and the myth of “global warming”, that the left has been pushing for so many years, won’t suffer the challenge?

There seems to be an awful lot of speculation, this morning, as regards the cause of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. I guess it’s to be expected. Of course, the moonbats are already out, as I’ve pointed out already. But let’s get serious about this.

Personally, I’m OK with sitting back and waiting for the dust to settle on this one before I start making pronouncements.

Some of the possibilities, however, stand out;

• The bridge was under construction at the time.  Supposedly, the construction involved deck work, and nothing on the structures per se’.
• True, state reports indicated the bridge to be structurally deficient, however, that designation include some 80,000 different bridge structures around the country.  That designation does not indicate an immediate closure, by any stretch of imagination.
• Due to the construction, several lanes were closed, and when traffic there was, was concentrated in the remaining two lanes.  Did the redistribution of weight cause an issue?
• Was there some problem with the foundations of the supports?

Ultimately, the only insight I have, based on the known facts, is that there was some combination of these known facts, in combination with one or two unknown facts, that were the cause of this collapse… It will likely end up being a combination of factors that nobody could have foreseen.

Thomas Lifton,in the American Thinker, indulges in some speculation.  Alas, it is delicious.

Many on the left regard Rupert Murdoch, architect of the rise of Fox News Channel, as the anti-Christ. More accurately, Murdoch deserves the title of the anti-Pinch. Murdoch’s successful bid to take over Dow Jones & Company, publisher of Wall Street Journal, is a nightmare-come-true for Pinch Sulzberger, the hereditary occupant of the chairman of the board’s and publisher’s office at the New York Times.

Poor Pinch. Murdoch is everything that he is not. Conservative, smart, and wildly successful in the media business. As a result, Pinch faces serious challenges as a family member, business leader and corporate strategist

With or without the pressure of Rupert Murdock, Pinch Sulzberger is destroying the New York Times from within.  Just like poorly designed bridges, all rotten structures collapse from their own weight geven enough time.  Murdock will simply apply yet more pressure on Pinch’s rot.

I suppose somebody’s going to say it, so it may as well be me:

I wonder how long it’s going to be before somebody… some idiot… blames the 35W bridge collapse on George W. Bush?

Update and bump: (Bit) Well the answer of course is “Not long, at all”

Anything, absolutely anything, no matter how out of place, no matter how nonsensical, will be used as a weapon against Mr. Bush by the left. It’s called “desperation”.

I am certainly not going to be able to keep on top of this to the degree that the mainline news media is, particularly the Strib.

But both Fox and the Star Tribune, are reporting that the 35 W. bridge over the Mississippi river has collapsed at the end of rush hour.  Cause as yet unknown, injuries and or deaths as yet unknown, though the unofficial estimates of the injured are between 20 and 30.

There was construction going on on the bridge at the time,a nd has been since the start of the summer.  At this point there is no indication whether or not the construction was involved with the collapse.  Homeland Security, as you might expect, was involved, they are reporting that there is no indication of terrorist activity, and the assumption on their part at the moment is that we are dealing with some kind of an engineering issue.

No word, at this point, from our friends at the Captain’s Quarters.  If I recall correctly they live up in the Twins.

OK, now I’ve given you the basics.  Go find it.

Update: (Bit)

The Captain’s Ok. I’d forgotten about the Powerline boys being up there…they, too, are apparently OK.

This one really takes the cake.  O.J. Simpon one murders Ronald Goldman.  Two, planned to write a book on how he did it.  Three, lashs out of the Goldman Family for garnishing any book profits:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — O.J. Simpson lashed out Tuesday at the family of the late Ronald Goldman, a day after they won the rights to Simpson’s canceled “If I Did It” book about the slayings of Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife.

In an online interview featuring questions from hostile participants, the former football star criticized Goldman’s family for seeking to profit from the book after they said it promoted criminality and commercialized abuse.

Hat tip, James Taranto, Best of the Web.

“CAIR can go to Hell and they can take their 72 virgins with them.”

Young American’s Foundation.

Details, Byran, Hot Air.

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• I am reminded through several sources today that rush Limbaugh is celebrating his nineteenth anniversary on the year today.  I was around, for that first show.  It was scary, here in Rochester arena, by a small “one lung” daytimer rimshot station, WYSL/1030. Limbaugh, has since grown rather substantially, and is currently being carried on the 50,000 watt flamethrower in town, WHAM. WYSL for it’s part, has grown, as well, moving to 1040 when the station in Des Moines was forced to relinquish it’s farther reaches when the FCC imposed a 750 mile limit on clear-channel stations, and has since raised it’s power to 20,000 watts. hopefully, Limbaugh will continue to be with us .  We are, I think, going to need him in this next cycle.
• I have mentioned Michael savage, in these spaces, several times, over the years.  I say up front, I am not a listener.  Comments like the other day, are specifically and precisely why I’m not a listener.  I have enough trouble with leftist moonbats.  I certainly don’t need this more on adding to the mix.
• All I need to know about Jack Murtha is that he has not apologized for his false accusations against our troops at Hadditha. All I need to know about the Democratic party as a whole, is that not one of them has called for his apology, much less his resignation.
• There’s a growing yet unspoken consensus in the Democratic party, that the course they’ve been on for the last couple of years … the constant negative nonsense about Iraq…. has put them directly in line with an iceberg called the American voter. George Patton said this rather well; losing is hateful to a real American.  I extend that by suggesting that since WWII, someone who demands we lose, is called a Democrat.  They’ve already destroyed themselves, and noises about how maybe we can win this thing after all, are last ditch efforts to avoid that destruction. It’s too late to change course, now. All one needs to do now, is sit back and watch. Personally, I find the display rather satisfying.
• So the democratic presidential candidates are now suddenly not showing up to the DLC meeting, and are instead showing up to speak at the convention of Kos, one of the the hate sites of the left. that they show up to placate these hateful extremists would be damage enough, all by itself.  However, history plays a role here, as well.  The injury that the democrats are currently heading for use of a nature that is quite similar to the defeat of George McGovern in 1972.  In that case, as with this, the party went headlong left in response to a centrist republican.  In 1980, the far left politics of Jimmy Carter gave Ronald Reagan the biggest elective a landslide in American history.  That landslide was nearly duplicated in 1988 because of Dukakis and his politics.  In 2004, it was John Kerry’s turn to run left, tilting at Howard Dean’s wacko-left windmills, and so lost. In every one of these situations, every single one, the Democratic party has become a victim of its own left.  In fairness, it should also be said that the Republican party has also become a victim of its own left.  Personally, I’d take his confirmation that the republicans, at least, have learned that lesson, to be downfall of John McCain.  Reality, it would appear, has sunk and at last.  I also take as confirmation of this the number of people who are signing on to the idea that I’ve been expressing for several years, now, that being that George W. bush is no conservative.  Being rather, a centrist, at best.  Meanwhile, the Democrats are starting to see some backlash on their ‘Defeat for America at all costs” politics. I take as proof of this their recent noise about how there is some progress in Iraq, after all, and now from Obama about how he’d invade Pakistan. I will dare to make to you the following prediction, based on all of this.  Whether not the lessons about the fatal attraction of the left to both parties is learned will bear directly on the lecture notes in 2008.  The party learns that listen better, that the only way to survive is to disassociate itself from its own left, will win in 2008.

This is Comical:

WASHINGTON -AP- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Leaving aside what the left isn’t going to have a clue what to do about this one, (particularly in terms of their not been able to side which Democrat they hate more, Clinton, or Obama) …this goes to something that I’ve been saying for quite some time;

The Democrats, as a party, and as individuals they’re in, or always, invariably, all for the war we are not currently engaged in. Even if the one we are currently engaged in, was started by a Democrat.

Others blogging:

Captain’s Quarters, michellemalkin.com, QandO , Redstate, Little Green Footballs, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Riehl World View, Outside The Beltway, National Review, Confederate Yankee, Sister Toldjah,  Flopping Aces,  PoliPundit.com, Blue Crab Boulevard, JammieWearingFool, The Strata-Sphere,  Clayton Cramer, VodkaPundit, Macsmind, Wizbang,   Hot Air PoliBlog, 

Addendum: (David L)  Ed Morrissey, Captain’s Quarters, does not quite declare Barack Obama to be an idiot

Frankly, the only idea worse than invading Iran is invading Pakistan. One might expect a serious presidential candidate to avoid looking like an idiot while provoking an ally that still helps more than he hurts in that region. Obama seems determined to prove himself unserious.

Clayton Cramer makes a rather pity point:

The major selling point that Obama has to the billionaires is that he opposed the Iraq War. I think he just threw away that advantage.

Obama needed to cut into Mrs. Clinton’s lead.   All Obama has done has been to cut his own throat.

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John Fund, notes the obvious:

When Republicans win elections, liberals are quick to cry fraud. But when actual fraud is found, they are just as quick to deny it, if Democrats are the ones who benefit.

It’s a worthy your read, and gives a fairly decent overview of voter fraud has executed by democrats, to gain office.