08:10 – More information is starting to come to light about the Trayvon Martin shooting. The media has been portraying this as a big, armed, white, fascist vigilante shooting down a small black boy armed only with a bag of snacks who was minding his own business. But according to the police report, things were a bit different than the way the media has been painting it. First, the community where the shooting occurred is one of the most crime-ridden and dangerous places in America. Second, that “little boy” was 6’3″ tall. Third, several eyewitnesses told police the same story: that Martin punched Zimmerman, who is actually Hispanic, to the ground, jumped on him, and started beating Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk. In light of that, it’s not surprising that the cops didn’t charge Zimmerman. It sounds to me like they should have given him a community service medal.
We made a good start yesterday on another batch of 30 chemistry kits. We’re down to less than a dozen in inventory. This is the slowest time of year but that’s still uncomfortably low.
I bet President Obama is embarrassed now about this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/obama-trayvon-martin_n_1375083.html
I don’t think that Zimmerman deserves a medal. My title for the Zimmerman/Martin confrontation would be dumb and dumber. If Zimmerman stayed in his vehicle, this mess would never have happened. If Martin hadn’t knocked Zimmerman to the ground and bashed his head on the sidewalk he’d still be alive. Zimmerman gets to live, but he may well have to explain his actions to a grand jury and/or jury.
Embarrassed? Forget it. No more than he is embarrassed by many, many other things he said that turned out not to be true. He’s one of the teflon-coated politicians – stuff like this somehow never sticks…
Time for some good news. This from Scientific American:
Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-close-to-becoming-ir
Yes!! Now can we stop wasting time and money on AGW? Case closed. We are all doomed. Let’s drill for oil and burn coal so all can have cheap energy. Why suffer when we are all going to die anyway.
It’s been a while since I came by. But I just wanted to know if you’ve heard of the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. I read about it on a Homeschooling board I frequent and thought about you.
The PDF is online now!
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2007/12/07/the-golden-book-of-chemistry-experiments.htm
Hi, Sarah. Long time, no hear.
Yes, I’ve heard of it. It was actually the first chemistry lab book I got. That would have been in 1961 or thereabouts, when I was about eight years old.
I’m with DaveB on that case; both parties very stupid and it came to a bad end for both of them, but not as bad for Zimmerman. Kid didn’t belong in that ‘hood bebopping around in his gangsta threads and Mr. Vigilante Supercop shouldn’t have chased the bugger. Now one mofo is dead and people are having to move outta their houses because asshole sons of bitches like Spite Lee tweeted the wrong fucking street address to the world, a police chief has resigned, etc., etc., while the usual suspect race hustlers whip up riots and mob frenzies….again.
Cops shoulda arraigned Supercop right away and charged him accordingly and at least TRIED to make this look legit; instead they wanted to be cute and cover their boy.
Nobody comes off looking good on this deal. And least of all the dipshit hustling commie hadji in the WH.
Charged him with what, OFD?
Dave, wasn’t Zimmerman just doing his job?
Charge him with any damn thing, assault, manslaughter, whatever, get him off the street and then bailed and the finding at some point that it was justified self-defense. Instead they played it cute. And are reaping the whirlwind. Stupid.
Was he just doing his job? Yeah, if someone can point me to where it says his job entailed chasing hoodlums through the ‘hood at night without waiting for backup, with unknown other possible assailants, unknown possible weapons, etc. Again, stupid.
And it evidently occurred to no one down there that a white cop-type guy blowing away a black teenager and then skating on home uncharged with anything would cause a shit-storm in the media and on the net, in this day and age. Stupidity writ large.
Is that kid any great loss? Maybe not. OTOH, some pretty bad hombres have grown up and turned their lives around.
The President is a total loss, though; thanks a bunch, Barry, for fanning the fucking flames. And by the way, Mr. President, if I had a son, I sure as hell wouldn’t have named him Trayvon! WTF. Do they just make UP these names outta thin air?
One thing is certain, we don’t know any details other than a Martin is dead, shot by Zimmerman.
I’ve dug through other sites reporting:
Zimmerman was walking back to his car (was he following Martin) and was confronted.
Corroborated by a witness that Martin was on top of Zimmerman. Police actually cuffed Zimmerman, took him in, and questioned him for about 5 hours before releasing him. Police reports should confirm that. Zimmerman suffered a broken nose and head injuries and did go to a hospital the next day. There should be records of that. The special prosecutor is going to have fun sorting this out.
Also, the MSM is touting Zimmerman is a WHIIIIIITE Hispanic. They are right in the sense that “Hispanic” is an ethnicity. If you remember your latest Census, you know Hispanic was not a check block for race. My wife hit me with her shoe (she’s Hispanic) when I checked “White” for her race. She knows better, though, since she served 20 in the Army, and the Army considers her White also. How does the MSM know that Zimmerman doesn’t have a Black racial heritage somewhere? Oh, wait a minute. That would make Zimmerman Black. Just like our President is Black, even though we know his mom was White.
Of the soapbox.
I am totally out of it on the Trayvon case. Comes from listening to, and reading, foreign news sources for US news. Which was plenty when I lived in Germany, and almost enough for living in the US. But I missed the original killing and am playing catch-up. Guess I will have to go back to the Yahoo news aggregator. Or is there a better one now?
Was in Ft. Wayne, IN for the overnight Mon. Because I have to take back roads to get there, it is a looong drive, and 04:30 just comes too early. I think I am giving up on the ‘budget’ motels. On a previous trip, I stayed in Accor’s Motel 6. Now French company Accor has wonderful places in Europe, but that place was barely acceptable. I was supposed to be in a no-smoking section, but smelled smoke throughout the night. I have a lot of equipment to lug to the room for safe-keeping and they claimed there were no ground-floor rooms, although I saw what looked like a courtyard of them with the curtains half-open, like they are when you first enter your room. That was still true in the morning when I left. Somebody near to me had a dog in their room that barked periodically throughout the night. It was a big, loud dog.
This time, I thought I would stay in the more expensive Red Roof Inn, another Accor property, directly across the street from Motel 6. I won’t be staying there again. I paid more, and got a far worse room. No smoke this time, because all the rooms open to the outside, instead of to a tenement style inside hallway. But there was trash on the floor when I entered the room, tub was cracked and somebody had obviously made mistakes while putting toenail polish on, with their foot resting on the tub edge. Took 5 minutes to get warm water for the morning shower; only off-air TV, no cable TV like the cheaper Motel 6 across the street; pool of liquid on the floor next to the toilet; asked for a wake-up call in the morning, but it did not happen (fortunately, it was just a back-up to my cell phone). I’m through with Accor in America. Will move on to something else next time.
Figured it was time to get a GPS, so on the way home (through Indy to drop off the recorded tapes for transfer to DVD) I stopped at Fry’s. I had gotten a recommendation from a guy who uses them a lot to find remote locations in his work, and when I looked for it, the Fry’s guy told me it was discontinued, and pointed me to its successor. I checked with him that it had lifetime maps and traffic. “Yup,” was the reply. By the time I got home, I realized it did not have the traffic option. Grrr.
Went to Amazon and ordered the correct one. Will return the one from Fry’s later in the week. This is the second item I will have returned to Fry’s for the reason of getting incorrect information from the sales people.
Mowed the lawn today. Earliest EVER. When I was first married, we used to go down to St. Louis in late April to visit my wife’s little sister, who attended a private school there. Folks there had mowed their lawns a couple times by then, but it was still another week or two when we got back, before I had to mow ours. My current lawn really could have been mowed last weekend, when most of the other neighbors did it, but I had no time. Weather liars say this is by far the hottest Indiana March ever, since records began in 1856.
I’m with MrAtoz: can we just get on with using up the planet now, and stop all this clearly useless ‘saving the planet’ nonsense? I have always maintained we are nothing but ants in the overall scheme of the Universe, and have long subscribed to George Carlin’s theory: why would we want to save Mother Nature, when she is doing her best to kill us off?
That was good, though, MrAtoz, very good. And enjoyable.
Say, what kinda shoe did your wife hit ya with? Better a beat-up old jungle boot than a spike heel deal, I say.
Shit, now I gotta run down and take one of them DNA swab samples and send it in, I might be part black, too, for all I know. I DO know that I am already part First Nations, though you wouldn’t know it from looking at my squarehead Nazi ass. And some of the First Nations people around here look even more Aryan than me!
Wait–the President HAD a white mom AND a white grandma? And white grandpa? Shazammmmm! He be white then. So we still haven’t had a black President. Hey, coulda had Alan Keyes or Herman Cain, but noooooooo…..
….too right-wing….
OK, off my own ratty little soapbox…
OFD wrote:
“…my squarehead Nazi ass.”
How do you know your donkey’s political leanings?
I realized it did not have the traffic option.
Traffic is worthless. I have it on my GPS and it is almost always wrong. Delays when none are shown on the GPS. No delays when delays are shown on the GPS. My understanding is that the traffic information is basically transmitted on some subchannel on some FM radio band. The information is put into the system by some zit-faced teenager that is more interested in texting on his/her cellphone then providing traffic information. I turned traffic off on my GPS units.
Mowed the lawn today. Earliest EVER.
I mowed for the second time yesterday. First time was a week ago and the mower started being starved for fuel about half way through. Got through by massive choking when the engine would start coughing. Drained the gas tank and replacing the gas did not help. Bought a new fuel pump for $35.00 and installed it and that seems to have done the trick. The ZTR mower needs every bit of the 22hp to get the job done. This is the earliest I have mowed usually starting the second week in April.
OFD, the technical term is “chunkla” for the shoe. Although, I have a pic somewhere of my wife wearing jungle boots. I entered in ’79 and went to flight school right after officer basic and stayed in aviation. No jungle boots allowed after flaming crashes in ‘Nam and feet burning off.
Our twin daughters are lily white like me. I’ll never forget taking them out in their dual buggy and a neighbor saying “How cute! Where’s their mother” with my lovely brown wife standing there. Lock and load one chunkla! That’s always good for a spousal jab. Funny even 16 years later.
Raymond Thompson says:
Traffic is worthless. I have it on my GPS and it is almost always wrong.
Oh, well. Actually, the one with traffic was $10 cheaper on Amazon than the one without, and $30 cheaper than the one I got at Fry’s without traffic. I’m beginning to learn that Fry’s is no bargain compared to Amazon.
“Shit, now I gotta run down and take one of them DNA swab samples and send it in, I might be part black, too, for all I know. “
Don’t try and confuse the issue with facts. If it’s anything like aboriginality in Australia, it’s not your heritage, it’s how your “self-identify”.
Hey, on that subject, neither I nor my former wife have aboriginal heritage, but one of our sons is descended from Aborigines. He got mugged one night, coming home from a bar job, and two of the aboriginal attackers held him while another punched him and dropped him. That’s Aboriginal descent, isn’t it – being dropped by an Aborigine? Should be worth money to him.
I have never much cared for tuna–one of the very few foods I do not like. My mom served it a lot when I was a kid. Jeri had a family recipe for tuna noodle casserole, which I could tolerate. Actually, one time it tasted particularly good and I commented; she looked over at the prep area and saw that she had forgotten to add the tuna, as the can was sitting there unopened. From that point on, we often had “tuna noodle casserole without the tuna”, and it became one of her prime hits with our vegan friends.
However, the other day, a family member who also does not care for tuna, told me about adding soy sauce to the tuna, which radically alters the taste for the better. I just tried it, and it is true. In fact, it made the tuna almost addictive. I had to add more than just a sprinkle, but it really was fantastic. If you don’t much care for tuna, try it. It just might change your mind.
Chuck, funny story about the casserole. I will have to try the soy sauce. I usually scramble an egg in with a packet of tuna and a lot of onions.
I love tuna. Always have, always will. Salmon’s okay, but I greatly prefer tuna.
I used to make up a batch of what I suppose could be called tuna casserole and eat it over several days. Someone at work noticed and asked why I kept having the same thing. I said I liked the taste, it was easy to prepare, nutritious, cheap, and so on.
As I was walking away I heard her say loudly to a work colleague (with an incredulous voice) “I just asked Greg why he has tuna casserole for lunch so often.” I didn’t say anything but thought “You stupid bunt, I just told you“. She was one of the most annoying women I ever worked with.
I like fish and other seafood but I’m not crazy about it, as some people are. I guess my favourite meat is chicken, followed by a lean steak.
*bunt. Should be bint.
RBT wrote:
“We made a good start yesterday on another batch of 30 chemistry kits. We’re down to less than a dozen in inventory. This is the slowest time of year but that’s still uncomfortably low.”
I’ve been wondering for a while how long you’re going to keep doing this yourselves. Could you subcontract it to a smart high school senior? After the first half dozen of each type of kit I’d start getting pretty bored.
Chuck’s stay luck in motels sounds like my last stay in an Indiana motel. I stayed in a Super 8 motel on the west side of Indy in September 2002, because a tornado had taken out power and gas lines in my apartment complex. The picture quality on the TV was awful, and the only reason I didn’t write a nasty letter to the company about my stay is the moron behind the desk couldn’t find the paperwork to charge me. The motel in question is now sitting vacant.
The Super 8 Motels I’ve stayed in two other states since were fine. So it’s not the chain. I suspect that it’s a business model issue. I think the hotels are franchises, and the quality of your stay depends on the quality of the franchisee. That seems strange to say, given that so many fast food joints are franchises, and the one thing you can say about fast food joints is you’ll get the same exact thing at any restaurant in the chain.
I wonder if there is a good third party web site that rates hotels and motels.
A few years ago I started staying at Comfort Inn when I had the chance, or another (Quality Inn) in the same family (Choice Hotels). My sample size is not that large, but so far I have had no complaints at all. Not the cheapest perhaps, but pretty reasonable and very consistent. Even my wife has been happy.
My wife and I stayed at Comfort Suites in Ocean City, Maryland on our honeymoon. The suite (oversized room with a microwave and small fridge) seemed nice enough. As I recall it was rated better on the website where I found it than the Comfort Inn in Ocean City. I suspect though that has to do with Comfort Suites charging more than Comfort Inn, and therefore attracting a higher class of customers.
Bob, put down the Diet Coke, and sit down and take a deep breath. You just said something nice about a Mormon.
DIET Coke? I’ve never drunk anything diet in my life.
As to Mormons, I say nice things about them all the time. Here’s another one: “Romney is neither as sleazy as Gingrich nor as crazy as Santorum.”
I like diet cola because I don’t need all the sugar in the regular stuff. Tastes just as good – to me – and much healthier.
Nowadays I don’t stay in any hotel below 4* in cities, although I’ll stay in a 3* motel in country towns. I just don’t like offensive things, like cigarette burns on the carpets, noise, and so on. I’ve had pleasant and unpleasant surprised with hotels on coach tours. A hotel in Turkey was described as Tourist or Superior Tourist in the brochure, but was approaching 5* in reality. Had a marble floor, which impressed me. Another hotel on the same tour, supposedly First Class, was more like sub-Tourist. The room was a sauna and I dared not open the windows to let in some fresh cool air because I was afraid of malaria.
I don’t go anywhere so no need to fret about hotel and motel accomodations; rarely leave these two counties, and one of them only because of work commute. Haven’t flown on a commercial aircraft since ’94 and no plans to do so again in this life if it can be helped. (I’ve flown on lots of mil-spec aircraft in my time, however, but probably never on anything piloted by MrAtoz, as I was before his time, and wearing them spiffy jungle boots.
Can’t stand diet anything, and will go out of my way to avoid it all, and in cooking I am a disciple of the late Julia Child and will load up my stuff with fat, sugar, you-name-it. Which reminds me, how, pray tell, did the chatter change suddenly here recently to tuna casseroles and suchlike? I make a mean tuna casserole, usually doubling the normal load of tuna, solid albacore packed in wottuh, with elbow macaroni, sour cream, two or three cheeses, diced crisp bacon, peas and carrots, garlic, fresh ground black pepper, sea salt and a big splash of Frank’s Hot Sauce, finestkind. Garnished, perhaps, with French-fried onions and chopped hard-boiled eggs. Fresh tomato slices on the side with mozzarella and basil drizzled with olive oil.
Driving sleet here this afternoon and cars off the interstate and down into the median, because why? Yeah, the frigging imbeciles just cannot bear to slow down, they are physiologically incapable of using any common sense whatsoever, with a slick road surface, crappy visibility, etc., and the lazy sodding buggers can’t even be bothered to turn on their lights. I saw the traffic piled up ahead (jeezum crow, I swear sometimes that part of the state looks more and more like Joisey or Mass.) and tapped my Saab wagon’s hazard light button, only to have my finger go right through the dashboard. WTF?
That’s what I get for being Safety Boy on the highway today; they stayed on, even with the car shut off later. Turns out, ya gotta pull the fuse for them, but get this, due to brilliant Swedish engineering, that fuse ALSO controls the damn directionals. So this is temporary until we can get it in so somebody can use special little Swedish tools to pull the fasica off the dashboard to get at the switch.
And my darling spouse evidently spent $150 on a ticket so our darling Princess daughter, 19, can come home tonight from McGill in Montreal and go see The Prophet, Barack Hussein, many blessings be upon his name, at UVM tomorrow. Jesus wept.
Please. Kill. Me. Now.
I take it she isn’t actually an admirer of Obama…
I don’t wanna see you killed, just your damnable cats.
Speaking of tuna, our host has a wonderful, health looking recipe involving tuna somewhere. Haven’t seen it for a while though.
I wonder if there is a good third party web site that rates hotels and motels.
I rely heavily on http://www.tripadvisor.com when traveling and find it quite useful.