THIS ... is ... what ... they ... want ... to ... train ... officers ... with?

Crazies to the left of us, crazies to the right of us ...

via David Horowitz writes me a letter by Rick Perlstein

via The Great Circle of Insanity by Kagro X

My God, they want someone who is actually 'qualified' ...

I'm not sure what all this means but if somewhat true and accurate, but you know the media and how likely that may be, the neighborhood is having a say in construction and contractors may actually be qualified.

The city is using a new process for planning the design and construction of a road project in which the contractor is selected based on qualifications, not simply the lowest bid.

The contractor can then start some of the structural work while final design, such as aesthetics, is being set. And even though the lowest bid isn't necessarily the one chosen, there is a maximum price set so the project can't go over budget.

That's one of the advantages to this approach on the Fourth Avenue project, said Jim Glock, city transportation director.

The new method of design planning, called construction management at-risk, was approved by the Legislature in 2004, and several jurisdictions are trying the process for the first time.

For real or just a new set new buzz words like those that rotate through the education field every 10 years or so?

The rightly pissed ...

Invisible Again

Before buying that motorcycle ...

Going through a mid life crisis? Think twice, and then again, before buying that motorcycle.

Deaths among motorcycle operators in their 40s jumped 230 percent from 1997 to 2005, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. For riders over 50, fatalities soared 400 percent.

Terrorism, hate crimes, vandalism ...

So when is it terrorism?

Arizona mosque targeted in "acid bomb" attack

Another 'nonlethal' dangerous weapon ...

Apparently it will not cause the pain of being shot in the eye with a small hi-velocity bean bag nor being electrocuted with a taser so how will our Republican breed of law-enforcers get their jollies?

The Incapacitating Flashlight --An LED flashlight makes culprits vomit-- by Prachi Patel-Predd
The flashlight, which is being developed for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), uses a range finder to measure the distance to the target's eyes so that it can adjust the energy of the light to a level that won't cause permanent damage. Then it rapidly shoots out pulses of light from an array of ultrabright light emitting diodes (LEDs).

The flashes incapacitate a person in two different ways, ...

This guy's pissed ...

Stop slamming Arizona!

Accountability along the border ...

A US Border Patrol agent, Nicholas Corbett, who shot and killed Dominguez River, an illegal border crosser, in January has been ordered to stand trial for second-degree murder.

Think the Republicans are good a securing our borders? ...

Well, think again:

1M lbs. of Chinese seafood slips past FDA inspection by Justin Pritchard
At least 1 million pounds of suspect Chinese seafood landed on American store shelves and dinner plates despite a Food and Drug Administration order that the shipments first be screened for banned drugs or chemicals, an Associated Press investigation found.

What's in a name? ...

Find the cheapest food manipulators, that is manufacturers, and get various poisons (specially from China) added to your food as filler and 'flavor.'

Now there's botulism (also poisonous) from Lakeside Foods Inc in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Does Lakeside Food package its botulism in Wisconsin or did it subcontract that out to China?

The following cheapest common denominators, that is brands, are complicit in spiraling the US food supply into the muck:

Albertson's, Happy Harvest, Best Choice, Food Club, Bogopa, Valu Time, Hill Country Fare, HEB, Laura Lynn, Kroger, No Name, North Pride, Shop N Save, Shoppers Valu, Schnucks, Cub Foods, Dierbergs, Flavorite, IGA, Best Choice and Thrifty Maid

U.S. issues new botulism warning for green beans

The complicit 57 ...

Enough Already with the Pathetic Excuses by Meteor Blades, Sun Aug 05, 2007

... Frankly, you [the complicit 57 Democratic Representatives and Senators] epitomize weak. Your every pore exudes feebleness. You are surrender monkeys. And you’ve just casually tossed away a basic protection as if it were a banana peel. ...

Arizona's Harry Mitchell is one of the complicit 57.

The Democratic Senate majority betrayed us again ...

16 Democrats voted to 'allow' BushCo to wiretap Americans without any oversight. A list of the Democratic betrayers is here and, of course, Dianne Feinstein is one of them.

Senate Democrats fail on FISA

By a vote of 60 to 28, the Senate just passed the bill that President Bush demanded today. Senators such as Mikulski, Klobuchar, and Feinstein promised to vote for the "Bond" version and the Democratic alternative bill for some unstated reason.

Really a pathetic showing by our Senators.

Update [2007-8-3 22:33:25 by andgarden]: I want to make a further point about this, because it connects to a problem I've had with Democrats for a few months. It is possible for them to oppose the President by not passing objectionable bills, amendments, and supplementals. They refuse to exercise this power--which only requires a simple majority. You can see the devastating results of this non-thinking tonight.

Something the oil companies don't want ... at least not yet.

Here's an article about a company that aims to 'coax' fuel from bacteria.

To do this, the company is employing tools from the field of synthetic biology to modify the genetic pathways that bacteria, plants, and animals use to make fatty acids, one of the main ways that organisms store energy. Fatty acids are chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms strung together in a particular arrangement, with a carboxylic acid group made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen attached at one end. Take away the acid, and you're left with a hydrocarbon that can be made into fuel.

Of course, the US isn't to blame and didn't make it worse, did it?

One of the more intellectually intact members of Bush's administration, Robert Gates, thinks up another reason the Iraqi's are at fault:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, returning from a four-day trip to the Middle East, offered a pessimistic view of Iraq's political progress Thursday, saying he thought that the United States had underestimated the level of distrust between the Shiite Muslim-led government and other ethnic groups.

And when I say Gates is intellectually intact I don't mean very intact. He equates the Iraq political environment to the US constitutional convention.

In addition, Gates sees bright spots in the possibility that the US may be able to create new little Saddam's in Anbar province:

However, he said that Sunni provincial leaders in once-restive Anbar province had been reaching out to the U.S. military, which had led to a drop in violence

"The developments at the local level, I think, are more encouraging than I would have expected three or four months ago," he said.

Iraq is falling apart but there's always some little light somewhere that can be protected and inflamed.