InMuscatine

Bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman’s TV show will return to the air this summer, months after it was pulled when the reality star used a racial slur in a profanity-laced tirade.

Filming has begun on the fifth season, according to executives with A&E, the cable network that broadcast “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” Reruns of the show will start June 25, with new episodes, including ones from the fourth season that have not previously aired, coming a few weeks later.

The show features Chapman and crew chasing down bail jumpers in Hawaii and other states. It was pulled from the air in November when Chapman was heard in a taped phone conversation using a racial slur in reference to his son’s girlfriend, who is black.

[From `Dog the Bounty Hunter’ to return to A&E on Yahoo! News]

We are glad to hear this. While we do not condone the actions of Dog, we are dismayed at the people who wanted to effectively end his career for what amounted to being a human being. It is time for all of us to forgive and move on.

If this study is correct, it would sure seem to be so :

Air pollution increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) — dangerous blood clots in the veins — even at pollution levels the EPA deems “acceptable.”

Harvard researcher Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Italy studied 870 people diagnosed with DVT from 1995 to 2005. They compared their particulate air pollution exposure in the year before their diagnosis to that of 1,210 matched people without DVT.

They found that DVT risk goes up 70% for every 10 microgram-per-cubic-meterrise in particulate air pollution above 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (the lowest pollution level measured in the study).

[From Air Pollution Increases Blood Clot Risk, DVT Risk Jumps as Air Pollution Rises; Risk Seen Even at “Acceptable” Levels - CBS News]

Holy Dr. Kildare, Batman!

Perhaps living in Muscatine is more hazardous than anyone ever thought possible. We had earlier mentioned one possible outcome of the pollution kerfuffle was an enterprising, hungry attorney suing the business responsible with a class-action suit. This article only serves to sweeten the pot and make that possibility all the more likely.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy hearing from those who claim to have worked (or are working) for GPC and attempting to convince us Louisa Generating is causing all the pollution in Muscatine. ‘Tis to laugh. We always get a good chuckle from those e-mails.

Air pollution affects the heart and blood vessels even more than the lungs, notes Robert D. Brook, MD, a University of Michigan expert on the cardiovascular effects of air pollution. An editorial by Brook accompanies the Baccarelli report in the May 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study, Brook notes, adds DVT to a long list of cardiovascular illnesses linked to air pollution that includes heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, and sudden death.

And the heart attack / cardiovascular disease numbers are what? Low? Higher than average? We aim to find out - we have charged the crack InMuscatine investigative unit with finding out. If the data bears out the instances of cardiovascular disease are above what could be considered “normal” in Muscatine, then there may be something to this DVT study.

It’s not like a plethora of lawyers will find this blog via Google after we report the results of our investigation, or anything. Oh, wait - with 100k readers per day and Google rankings to the moon and back… yes, they will.

The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

[From UNITED STATES Climate Summary]

Sadly, even if the United States were covered in an ice-sheet 6 feet thick it still wouldn’t be enough evidence for the Global Warming crowd to believe global warming isn’t real.

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. ‘If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,’ he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

[From ‘My daughter deserved to die for falling in love’ | World news | The Observer]

Look well upon the face of true Islam.

It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand’s two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.

‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’ he said.

Remember well her heinous crime of talking - that is punishable by death. Worthy of death. Demanding of death. And where is the NOW gang? Cowering in a corner somewhere, nursing a serious case of cowardice.

He said his daughter’s ‘bad genes were passed on from her mother’.

What could we possibly add to make sense of that level of insanity?

Rand’s mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. ‘They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin’s home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,’ she said.

All for the unforgivable crime of not wanting to lose her daughter to Islam’s true nature.

Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn’t a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.’

On that day, madam, he practiced his religion.

The mother is now trying to raise enough money to escape abroad. ‘I miss my two boys,’ she said. ‘But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,’ said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.

And this woman has more courage than all of NOW put together.

A 78-year-old legally blind man nicknamed “The Hammer” has bowled a perfect game.

Dale Davis of Alta, Iowa, nailed 12 consecutive strikes and reached 300 on Saturday night during league play.

“It’s a great sport. It’s something the young, the old and the handicapped can do,” Davis said Thursday. “I guess I count as the old and handicapped.”

Davis has suffered from macular degeneration, a chronic eye disease, for the past decade. He can’t see out of his left eye and has limited peripheral vision in his right eye.

[From FOXNews.com - Iowa Blind Man, 78, Bowls Perfect Game]

Well… don’t you feel stupid now? What did you score the last time you bowled?

Well, so much for the “white knight” routine and taking on the status quo in Washington. It appears McCain is as dirty and on the take as any other politician in Washington.

Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.

[From McCain pushed land swap that benefits backer - Washington Post- msnbc.com]

Well, so much for that whole honesty and integrity thing. It’s official - the wheels have come off the Straight Talk Express.

Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.

When McCain’s legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.

It doesn’t matter if they “discussed” the deal or not - McCain flip-flopped. Period. End of Story. Full Stop. Something caused McCain’s reluctance to melt away faster than a snowball on a June day. The only question to be answered is what made the oh-so-pious McCain change his mind and give the appearance of impropriety.

In an interview, Betts said there is “absolutely no” connection between his contributions to McCain’s presidential bids and the deal involving rancher Fred Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership. While his company’s possible involvement was discussed casually before the bill’s passage, Betts said SunCor did not sign on to the project until afterward. “At no time during the consideration of this legislation was there any involvement by officials of SunCor,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a written response to questions.

Yeah! Who are you going to trust? Me, or your lying eyes?

We also point out there is absolutely no connection - aside from the land being in Arizona, McCain being the man to ram it through Congress, the man with the most to loose being a big McCain donor. Aside from those little things there is no connection what-so-ever.

As McCain positions himself as a champion of environmental causes, observers of the Yavapai Ranch swap say it shows a paradox in the senator’s positions. At times, he has fought to protect the delicate desert ecosystem. But when wildlife concerns have thwarted development, his loyalties have shifted.

“When the public trust intersects with private interests, basically, he has favored land development . . . in every case,” said Rob Smith, director of the Sierra Club’s Arizona affiliate.

Yep. That’s the two-faced McCain we have grown to know and despise. We are thoroughly convinced the man is mentally challenged, and that’s being kind.

Flagstaff Mayor Joseph C. Donaldson, a supporter of the swap, said McCain’s hesitation stemmed from his “insistence that the environment be protected.” But opponents were baffled by the senator’s seemingly contradictory positions. Said Blaeloch: “The bizarre thing to me regarding McCain is, we spent a lot of time with his staff, and we all seemed to be on the same page about the problems with this swap. But somehow, John McCain kept pushing it forward.”

But there was no connection - remember that. Someone has to, because apparently McCain can’t remember from one moment to the next.

As for McCain, some in the Verde Valley say they counted on him to broker a deal that would protect their precious river. Von Gausig now heads the water management commission that McCain added to the bill to gain community support. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $8 million over five years to fund water studies. But to date, none of that money has been budgeted.

Silly humans! There is a world of difference between creating bureaucracy and funding bureaucracy. It appears they heard what they wanted to hear, and McCain - or at least the lucent on McCain’s staff - can always claim McCain lived up to his word.

Even so, it appears the champion of campaign finance reform is just running business as usual in Washington. We have no doubt more and more of these stories will surface between now and the election. The MSM will labor mightily to elect McCain the Democrat, but they will do their best to destroy McCain if he gives them even a whiff of being an honest-to-God Conservative Republican.

We suspect the press is slowing waking up to the fact McCain shouldn’t be President, let alone be allowed near the White House. We welcome them to the party, no matter how late they are to arrive. We just hope they do some honest reporting on McCain, as there is a lot to report without hyperbole getting in the way, or making a mountain of shavings from grinding ideological and rhetorical axes.

Security researcher Aviv Raff has published code that would allow someone to take control of a computer running Internet Explorer, but there’s a catch. He’s not saying exactly where he’s hidden the attack.

“Somewhere in my blog, I embedded a proof-of-concept code which exploits this 0day vulnerability,” Raff wrote in a Wednesday blog posting. A 0day attack is a previously undisclosed software flaw that has not been fixed by the software maker.

The bug, which affects Internet Explorer 7 and IE 8, could allow an attacker to run unauthorized software on a victim’s computer. Raff informed Microsoft of the flaw on Tuesday and the software vendor has not yet patched it, Raff said.

[From http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/050708-0day-treasure-hunt-researcher-hides.html]

Tell us once again - how insecure are Apple Macintosh computers? We keep forgetting.

We remind the reader there has yet to be one documented case of a Mac OS X system being “pwned” remotely.

Conversely, this is just the latest in a long series of security flaws which allow “hackers” from afar to seize control of your Microsoft-powered PC .

France wants to force aid

down Myanmar’s throats

too bad the junta’s

stubborn like billy goats

Operation Burma Save!

A simple machine

we call the lever

and we see the UN

is as impotent as ever

Operation Burma Save!

Please let us in

the UN begged the thugs

while the junta was pulling out

from under them the rug

Operation Burma Save!

The junta will decide

how they will be lead

pay no mind

to the 100,000 dead

Operation Burma Save!

Give us your aid

and let us impound

but don’t you dare

stick around

Operation Burma Save!

The cyclone came

and knocked everything down

now the world sees

Myanmar’s ran

by a bunch of clowns

Operation Burma Save!

The world sent aid

by boat, plane, and truck

too bad the junta

could give a flying duck

Operation Burma Save!

The suffering is great

so the media said

too bad Myanmar’s junta

is so touched in the head

Operation Burma Save!

We begged and pleaded

but Myanmar said talk to the hand

they still won’t let

US planes land

Operation Burma Save!

The Muscatine Quarterback Club Committee is looking for a new volunteer group to organize Muscatine’s Great River Days Reunion. After this year’s event, the Club will no longer coordinate the community celebration.

“It’s been a celebrated event for right at 50 years and we are hoping that an interested group will come forward to take it on and bring new ideas,” Kerry Keller, Muscatine Quarterback Club president, said this morning.

[From MuscatineJournal.com | QB Club to give up Great River Days]

Please allow us to translate :

We are losing a boatload of money on this turkey, and we are looking for another sucker to step up to the plate.

How can we possibly state this? Simple. This :

If any organization is interested in becoming the new coordinators please contact Kerry Keller at 563-571-0155 or 563-263-3084 or Al Church at 563-299-2892.

If Al Church is involved, it is destined for failure.

Once upon a time, Al Church took it upon himself to attempt to steal the Turtle Races(tm) from the Muscatine Jaycees. Al had this crazy notion the Turtle Races(tm) made a boatload of money for the Jaycees. We know for a fact the most profitable races ever held netted the Jaycees just $300 in profit. If one were to take into account the man-hours that went into running a successful Race, the profit was about a buck an hour.

The Jaycees tried to explain to Al that he was nucking futz, and the Turtle Races(tm) were not the cash cow he thought they were. Al would not be reasoned with, and so we ended up with the Jaycees / Abusing Turtles stories in the Muscatine Journal. Reason just couldn’t seem to penetrate that huge, thick melon on top of Al’s neck.

Now, we can see more clearly Al’s motivation : the QB Club has probably been suffering declining revenues and the attempt to seize the Turtle Races(tm) was just an attempt to prop up the QB Club fiscally. Al was just a drowning man clawing at what he perceived as a life-preserver. Pathetic.

It’s a shame really. No, not that Muscatine will be losing Great River Days. Muscatine deserves to lose Great River Days. No, it’s a shame that many years ago when new ideas were presented, like always those in power shot the new ideas down. So now the roosters are back and looking to roost.

So congratulations Muscatine, and enjoy your death spiral !

Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.

“You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate,” Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday.

Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: “No.”

[From Cindy McCain says she’ll never release her tax returns on Yahoo! News]

If John McCain never touches a single penny of his wife’s wealth for any reason, then we - the public - have no right to see Cindy McCain’s finances. We are certain this is not the case, so the public has every right to see those finances.
More and more it looks as if the Straight Talk Express is flying off the rails.