When Did Hanging NOT Mean Foul Play?

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Census worker found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word on the chest of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher. He was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.

Investigators have said little about the case. FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is assisting state police and declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.

[snip]

"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a Census worker," said Beyer.

I may just being dense but what part of "hanged in a tree with 'Fed' etched in your chest' doesn't pretty much tell you foul play?

It Hurts

Jim Yeager has a YouTube posted at Skippy's place that makes me want to cry. Seriously.

Killing You Slowly

Full disclosure. I was born in West Virginia and still have a lot of relatives there. In spite of being called a "hillbilly" and a "ridge runner" and a few other choice names I am still proud of my "Mountain Mama" heritage.

However, I might have to rethink this whole "Take Me Home Country Roads" thing in light of the latest brilliance from the West Virginia DEP. This is really stupid but believe it or not, these folks have decided that it is OK for West Virginia waters to have higher levels of mercury in them than is recommended by the EPA because, get this... "West Virginians eat less fish than the average American".

The DEP's study shows that West Virginians consume less fish than the national average, and the agency is using the results to say mercury levels in West Virginia's waterways can be higher than the federal EPA recommends.

The Clean Water Act recommends that mercury not exceed 0.3 micrograms per gram of fish tissue.

West Virginia's standards are less stringent-0.5 micrograms per gram.

But that's okay, the DEP says, because a study conducted in November showed that West Virginians actually eat less fish than the national average.

Mike Arcuri is an environmental resources analyst with DEP's water quality standards program.

"The more fish people consume in a given area, the lower that number has to be in order to keep the public safe, if that makes any sense," he said. "And then if people are consuming lower numbers of fish, that number in the fish tissue can be a little bit higher because they're not taking as much in."

I don't want to even think where this kind of logic will take you. Just ignore the fact that mercury accumulates in the body.

Madness On the Right

As you probably remember President Obama wants to expand AmeriCorps in a big way and about a week ago, the Senate voted to expand national community service programs. This followed on the House passing a similar measure. When the President signs the bill AmeriCorps will grow from 75,000 to 250,000 potential slots.

As usual, progressive policy has the wingnuts going apeshit calling it a new "Hitler Youth" and such. As I mentioned in an earlier post the chief nutcase is not to be outdone, Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) calls the other wingnuttery and raises them a re-education camp or two.

This was Bachmann's response over the weekend to the Serve America Act:

"It's under the guise of, quote, 'volunteerism.' But it's not volunteers at all. It's paying people to do work on behalf of government. [...]

"I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

Like her buddy on the FOX Nutwork Glenn Beck, Madam Bachmann feels free to just make stuff up in order to incite the revolution she so dearly wants. First of all, the bills in both the House and Senate were largely bipartisan and recieved support from both sides. Secondly, AmeriCorps is a volunteer program and nothing in either the House or Senate bills require participation.

What you are seeing is wingnuts without an enemy. The progressive wind blowing in this country has them going crazy because there is nothing they can grab on to that makes a sensible argument against programs like Americorp. It's good for the youth of this nation to have an outlet for community service if they choose. Since there is nothing inherently evil in this or other progressive legislation coming down the pipe, they are forced to lie about them and even make up completely false premises like military police and taking away all the guns. Lies are all they have. They can't argue against these things strictly on merit so they have to resort to desperate lies and hope the dittoheads and other wingnuts swallow them and follow along.

The frightening thing about this is that some of them are swallowing the lies and we are seeing the results in the news pretty much everyday.

A Last Slap at the French

I know it's not a big thing but for some reason this epitomizes the small ugly aspects of the Bush administration. They wait until right until the end and then increase import duties on Roquefort cheese! What the hell is that all about? It would be different if it would actually have any other impact other than pissing off the French and hurting a few small farmers just a tiny bit. The U.S. accounts for maybe 2% of Roquefort cheese sales. The reason stated is even worse...to try and force the French to eat some of our hormone saturated and poison beef. Good for the French for not wanting their children eating crap and having their young girls mature at 9 years old. I don't often buy Roquefort but I'll make a point of spending some of my limited food budget on some just to spite them. I don't know why any self respecting Frenchman would eat American beef anyway when they have their glorious grass fed beef anyway.

Less than a week before it leaves office, the Bush administration has sparked anger across the Atlantic by tripling the import duty rate on roquefort cheese to 300%, a move which the US hopes will "shut down trade" in the sheep's milk product by making it prohibitively expensive.

The decision, part of Washington's attempts to force the EU into dropping its ban on hormone-treated beef, was greeted with disbelief by the French government and by farmers in the south-western Aveyron region who depend on the industry for their livelihoods.

"Maybe the Bush administration indulged itself by taking this decision just before it leaves," Robert Glandieres, president of the roquefort producers' group, told Reuters.

The tariff on roquefort, condemned as "incomprehensible and inadmissible" by the French government, will probably have a minimal effect, given exports to the US account for just 2% of annual sales. French farmers said it would mean "the end" for roquefort in the US and vowed to take "symbolic actions" in return.

That will show those couple of dozen French farmers a thing or two.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

To borrow from Forrest...

The whole debacle doesn't really deserve a lot of comment other than to question how somebody as obviously stupid and venal as Blagojevich ever got to the governor's office of Illinois. Who in the hell is stupid or clueless enough to keep on using his office phone to committ what he surely knows are crimes when he knows someone as bulldog determined as Patrick Fitzgerald has targeted him in an ongoing and far-reaching public corruption investigation? It is not like Fitz is a newbie in the game and he already has felled a number of the governor's political, business and patronage associates and a former governor. The man is obviously not bright enough to pound sand and deserves to be impeached and serve some serious time in the joint.

Needless Tragedy

This piece on CNN just astounded me. Since when does it make sense to give an 8 year old a damn loaded Uzi to shoot? Everybody involved, the 'certified' instructor, parent(s), gun club owner, whoever, needs some serious punishment. The heights to which human stupidity rise is just amazing. Anyone with any experience with automatic weapons should be aware of the tendency for the weapon to run up and even a big guy like me, knowing what to expect, was surprised at the force the weapons exerts when I qualified with one in the Navy. Stupid, stupid.

WESTFIELD, Massachusetts (AP) — An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.
An 8-year-old shot and killed himself with an Uzi submachine gun like the weapon shown here.

The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, Police Lt. Lawrence Valliere said.

The boy was with a certified instructor and “was shooting the weapon down range when the force of the weapon made it travel up and back toward his head, where he suffered the injury,” a police statement said. Police called it a “self-inflicted accidental shooting.”

The victim was taken to Baystate Medical Center where he died. His name was not released.

Although the death appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden district attorney’s office were investigating, officials said.

The club said on its Web site that the event, run in conjunction with C.O.P. Firearms and Training, is “all legal and fun.” People will be allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets, it said.