Grandpa has returned to the basement

Bad news this afternoon:

NEW YORK -- Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 95.

Lewis, with his wife at his bedside, passed away Friday night, said Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly radio program. White made the announcement on the air during the Saturday slot where Lewis usually appeared.

About those ads...

I'm just about to drop Google AdSense due to the overwhelming amount of "impeach Bush" links and other such crap that is 180 degrees the opposite of my views. I'm having to constantly edit the settings, only to find them other such ads replacing them. While I'm well aware of their political leanings, I feel they have no right to push them on other sites that sign up for their service. Watch for changes soon.

More border fun...

While I missed the State of the Union address on Tuesday, I did get a chance to cover Bush's speech in Nashville in person on Wednesday, which was basically a recap of the night before. I have to say, I didn't care for his approach to the immigration problem:

I believe a very significant part of enforcing our border, make it easier for our Border Patrol to do the job, is to end this system that encourages smuggling and pressure on the border by people sneaking across, and saying if there is somebody that's willing to do a job an American won't do, let's give him a fool-proof pass so they can be here on a temporary basis.

Now, I'm against amnesty, and the reason I am is I believe if you grant amnesty to people that are here, it will cause another wave of people to want to come. (Applause.) But I am for recognizing reality and saying that if you're doing a job, if you're an employer and you're looking for somebody to do a job an American won't do, then here is a card for a temporary worker.

It's hard for me to take this seriously when I read things like this:

HOUSTON — A West Texas sheriff's deputy warned federal lawmakers Friday that drug traffickers are helping terrorists with possible al Qaeda ties cross the porous Texas-Mexico border into the United States.

Terry Simons, the chief deputy in Val Verde County, offered little evidence of his claims. An FBI special agent in Houston, Shauna Dunlap, said there is "no credible evidence" that supports the warning.

Or this:

Federal agents and local police assigned to a border security task force have seized two homemade bombs, material for 33 more, grenades, machine gun assembly kits and other weapons, drugs and cash in separate raids in Laredo, Texas.
The bombs and other paraphernalia are thought to belong to or be destined for rival drug cartels across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where a brutal yearlong war over the control of drug and alien smuggling routes into the United States has raged.
More than 150 people -- including the police chief, a city councilman and 13 police officers -- have been killed in the Mexican border town over the last year.

Followed by this:

In the past few days, Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department deputies and their families have received threats to stay off the Rio Grande. Sheriff Arvin West told ABC-7 Thursday morning, before departing for Houston that the Mexican military is behind all of this.

Sheriff West said, "There is no doubt in my mind -- from the first time going back to a couple of years ago and every time in between --- it's the Mexican military. In a nutshell, everybody's been trying to tell everybody that they were here...they've been here ...[and] they come here quite often, regularly."

Now Sheriff West is having to deal with threats being made against his deputies and their families. One Sheriff's Deputy, who refused to appear on camera out of fear, described the situation today in Hudspeth County as "very dangerous." and now, he said, "it's getting personal."

Meanwhile in the 11th Century...

...things are going pretty much like they've always have; the primates are calling for more heads, this time over some cartoons.

MUSLIM protesters threatened more terrorist attacks as they converged in their hundreds outside the Danish Embassy in London yesterday for what organisers said was the start of a new holy war in Britain.

As opposed to the old one from several weeks ago...

Parading banners that called for the killing of newspaper editors and broadcasters from the BBC who showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, they marched across the capital from the mosque in Regent’s Park after Friday prayers.

Meanwhile...

‘We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible,’ one preacher told worshippers at the al-Omari Mosque in the Gaza Strip as tensions spread over the publication of the cartoons, first in Denmark and later in Norway, France, Germany and Spain. ...

‘We must tell Europeans, we can live without you. But you cannot live without us,’ prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi told worshippers in Qatar. ‘We can buy from China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia... we will not be humiliated.’

In Lebanon, thousands of Palestinian refugees marched through the streets of their camps, burning Danish and Norwegian flags and calling on Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, to avenge the Prophet Mohammad.

‘We will not be satisfied with protests. The solution is the slaughter of those who harmed Islam and the Prophet,’ said Sheikh Abu Sharif, spokesman for the militant Osbet al-Ansar group, at a rally in Lebanon’s largest camp, the southern Ein al-Hilweh.

Let me get this straight, Muslims, who are upset at Islam being portrayed as a violent religion, are threatening death and beheadings to those who say Islam is religion of violence?

They are freaking out over a cartoon which reflects exactly what they are really saying.

OK...and now CNN is just reporting that mobs have set the Danish embassy in Damascus ablaze over this.

When is the world going to wake up and deal with these animals as they should be dealt with instead of worrying if they are going to "offend anyone" like the spineless wimps in our state department did yesterday?

Also, according to Instapundit, The Boston Globe is siding with the barbarians, comparing the Danish cartoonists to Nazis.

One thing about be being under the weather...

...is that I miss things like this. Now, I have most of these on DVD, but there's something about seeing these classics on the big screen as they were meant to. Then there's this I'd like to check out too. Maybe if I feel better.

I've been exposed

This is a first. I was covering the president's visit to Nashville yesterday and little did I know that Brittney from nashvilleistalking.com was there as well...

And took my picture standing in the press pool.














I'm standing second from the left.

More local fun

Three reports this morning: First... in the Nashville City Paper.

Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley denied Monday that the Bredesen administration orchestrated a widespread push to discredit a Republican state representative.

Rep. Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma) accused the Bredesen administration Friday of trying to discredit him after a former Bredesen official, Doyle “Butch” Lewis Jr., allegedly accused Matheny of having an arrest record. Matheny said that accusation is false.

and also in the Chattanooga Free-Press:

NASHVILLE — Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, is accusing the Bredesen administration and Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley of helping orchestrate a smear campaign against him that includes derogatory e-mail messages.
"I’ve been told personally by Mr. Cooley to tighten up my belt, that they were coming after me," Rep. Matheny told WLAC/Tennessee Radio Network on Friday. "The timing is too perfect. They’re trying everything they can to discredit me in every way."

Not to mention a story in the Knoxville News Sentinel. However, in the Tennessean, not a word...

Draw your own conclusions.

Break out the torches and pitchforks

Classic story: Monster is created. Monster goes out of control. Creator can't stop monster.

BERKELEY, CA--Last summer, the controversial “peace activist” Cindy Sheehan was the toast of the Democratic party when she camped outside of the President’s ranch and all but accused him of murdering her son.

Since then, however, Sheehan has become a growing thorn in the Democrats’ side, as her extremist views and bizarre behavior are increasingly targeted at democrats who, in Sheehan’s opinion, are not sufficiently “anti-war” for the “peace mom.”

More is here and here...

Rrrrrrr...

AP's take on the Monster and her friends...or should we say "comrades."

Random links

I may be Swimming through the Spin...but these days I'm also Suffering through the pain.

Vorticity touches on a smear of our local representitive and an old friend. More details are here too. The Rep. states in the comments on his blog that: "Lets just say sevral "R" are not too pleased with the shinanigans going on and have mentioned takeing bigger more agressive steps."

Newsweek has a story about former Justice Department officials who have turned on Bush and his policies. The magazine uses a lot of shining adjectives and adverbs to describe them, comparing the ringleader to Jimmy Stewart and another as "stocky, rumpled, genial, though possessing an enormous intellect." Nah, no bias here...

There's also this little piece about using Wikipedia to rewrite your own history. I'm betting we're going to see a lot more of this as time goes on.

Two recent posts on this blog: here and here have resulted in an e-mail to me from a Tullahoma Alderman who has the same opinion about the Tullahoma News that I do: mainly that they are biased and can not be trusted. While I shall not identify him, he says:I have witnessed their writers twist the truth, their editor will not publish our Letters to The Editor because it does not agree with the fodder agenda he represents. Other than Board meetings, we do not have a fair and balanced reporting media in Tullahoma -- quite the opposite in fact.

Very unusual for a Board majority not to be heard. One of their reporters actually called me for an interview and I gave it concerning a News article. My views were never published, but the other side got published!! I could go on and on.