Media frenzy over 2 shark bites

Bull shark hunting along a beach in Panhandle

Sharks always have been and always will be on the coast of Florida. Take it from me, Fishing Sam, who lives in Daytona Beach half the year, and fishes as many of those days as possible.

If you are going to go swimming at the beach, which I recommend you do, consider a few things. Do not swim in low light conditions (morning, evening, or night) That's when sharks feed. Do not swim with shiny jewelry or near schools of baitfish. Lastly, do not swim in murky, low visibility water. A shark is more likely to mistake a leg or arm for a fish.

Always be observant, if you see a shark, get out of the water. You will usually see a dorsal and caudal fin break the water's surface. (Dolphins have a single fin break the surface, and rays will have two fins side-by-side break the surface.)

Sharks are not out to kill us, which the media sometimes seems to be scaring us to believe. It is not worth the media frenzy. You are more lightly to get injured from your car then from a shark. Of the 500 documented attacks in Florida, the fatality rate was 2.4 percent. Sharks have been swimming off our coasts forever, and hopefully they won't be disappearing soon because they are vital to an ocean environment. Just be observant and careful when at the beach and you will be fine.

Letter to Takeittokarl.blogspot.com

From the Mailbag:

I would like to thank you for providing this forum. I have spent years of frustration listening to those who've never served cast aspersions on the patriotism of those who have. This liberal, and her liberal democrat family have provided many years of service in the armed forces because we have a tradition in our family of contributing in some way to the country we love. At last count: one great grandfather, two grandfathers, one father, one father-in-law, one brother-in-law, one cousin, five uncles, two aunts, my husband and myself. It ends now. None of my children will ever willingly join the military now that they clearly see how true service is denigrated for political gain.


This whole website, Taking it To Karl, is from people who have served in the military patriotically fighting back Rove's trash talk.

Sen. Durbin why did you do it? Part II

Two statements of note thrown up from Republican's mouths. Each are equally offensive, clearly political, and far more deserving of an apology than Durbin's remarks.

The first is from Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana:

"Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians."



Lie.........


Next is Karl "Bush's only source of thinking" Rove:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."




Lie.........


And when asked to apologize Scott McClellan said:

"Whoa, whoa, who do you people think you are? I don't care if we just enraged half the country. My fellow wingnuts and I say lies and offensive remarks to whomever we want, whenever we want, because WE OWN THIS PLACE. My party is in power and it's going to be awhile until we are back in power, because moderate Republicans are starting to hate us, Americans are starting to hate us, and the whole world already hates us. We might as well screw up the country as much as we can and blame it on the Democrats. Oh yeah, also, this administration is going down the shit hole real fast, so we are going to have to distract the public anyway we can."

Sen. Durbin why did you do it?

Sen. Richard Durbin,

Why did you apologize for pointing out in an FBI report that some soldiers in Guantanamo Bay tortured people? I am not a torture apologist, you are not a torture apologist. Torture is always wrong. Besides, the Republicans in power use this as a means to attack you the messenger, instead of addressing the serious issues you bring up. Don't let them change the subject, torture at Guantanamo must still be addressed.
Political Fish Tales

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Here is what F* Bomb said about Durbin:

"I thought Durbin was totally out of line. I watched some of his comments on the floor of the United States Senate. For him to make those comparisons was one of the more egregious things I'd ever heard uttered on the floor of the United States Senate."

Like this guy has any legitimacy to talk about what is said on the Senate Floor?

How dare Cheney talk about egregious things when he told Sen. Leahy of Vermont to "go F*** himself" on the floor of the United States Senate! (Using profanity on the Senate floor while the Senate is in session is against the rules, but the Senate was "technically" not in session.)

The audacity of this guy is ridiculous. He plays Americans for fools. Cheney you're not high and righteous, you're like a volcano, spewing hot filth from your mouth.

Detention Camp 6, the future prison camp of Guantanamo Bay

A subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, has been awarded $30 million to build an improved 220-bed prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon announced.

Dick Cheney former CEO of Halliburton, who still receives deferred compensation, must be quite the happy camper. And although Cheney had reportedly pledged to donate his after-tax proceeds from his stock options to charity; we all know donations to charity= tax write-off. And Dick Cheney has no conflict of interest?

According to Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure report, the vice president's Halliburton benefits include three batches of stock options comprising 433,333 shares. He also has a 401(k) retirement account valued at between $1,001 and $15,000 dollars. His deferred compensation account was valued at between $500,000 and $1 million, and generated income of $50,000 to $100,000.

And that was in 2001! After all this Iraq work and the billions awarded to Halliburton, Cheney has got to be pleased at how well his former company is doing. Here are a few charts

The job is part of a larger contract that could be worth up to $500 million through 2010, the Pentagon said. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, in Norfolk, Va., is the contracting agency.

What!!?? How much money is this government going to give to this company? How ass backwards and illogical is it to give more contracts to a company that has been ridden with illegal activities and scandal.

Listed here:
- Halliburton charged $61 million too much for delivering gasoline to Iraqi citizens and was forced to repay it

-A Pentagon audit concluded Halliburton charged millions for meals never served to troops and was forced to repay

-Such a huge List of Halliburton offenses that I can't type all the links


And we are building this right after news that Gitmo was treating people like this.

Sen. Durbin read from an FBI agent's report of incidents seen at Guantanamo Bay:

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."

Sen. Durbin then commented on what he had just read from the FBI report:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

We want to create more environments that treat people like this? Unbelievable.

Kindasleazy Rice said what?

On the Fox fake-news show Sunday Rice said, "The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq."

Think Progress, right on top of things, was quick to point out how overtly lying Kindasleazy Rice (hence her nickname) was to the American people.

Think Progress goes down a list of a couple members of the Administration that distinctly say the exact opposite of what Rice is claiming:

Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld

I think the key point is that yes, Bush may have said the words "generational commitment," but not in context to the War in Iraq. "Encouraging democracy in that region (Middle East) is a generational commitment," is not the same as what Rice said, but THE ADMINISTRATION WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE IT IS. This is how this administration works.

I think many people would agree with the statement democracy is a good thing, and having it in the Middle East may be a good thing also. But I also believe those same people would feel the War in Iraq was a horrible idea because the two are not mutually exclusive. Encouraging democracy does not mean going to a costly war where thousands of soldiers have died for uncertain reasons. Anyway, what was the exact reason for this war?

And now Rice is misleading Americans by telling us the administration said, "it would be a generational commitment?" That is a lie. That "I told you so," excuse doesn't even exist. The War in Iraq is not part of the War on Terror, it is nearly inviting terrorists to the chaos known as Iraq.

What about Brendan Dobbins?

It is indeed tragic Natalee Holloway has been missing from Aruba for three weeks now, but at least she has the major media outlets helping her case. The MSM seems to have this problem, and I doubt they will admit, but it is a problem. When it comes to missing persons' cases, they seem to follow only certain people. Those people are white women, with pretty faces and blonde hair. And for that I say the MSM has the "white women" syndrome.

The reason I bring this up was around three months ago, a UF exchange student from Australia, Brendan Dobbins, was on a trip to Costa Rica for Spring Break. He went missing March 4. On campus, there were tables set up to donate money for the search of Brendan Dobbins because no one else was doing it.

MSM was nowhere to be found.

There was minimal support from the Costa Rican locals, police, the Australian government and the U.S. Embassy. (Given he did not have a U.S. visa, American embassy officials were reluctant at first to get involved.) Additionally, the Australian Government did not respond as expected, taking seven days to send in a consulate official from Mexico.

How much do you want to bet if Brendan was actually a blonde girl with a pretty face he would have been all over the news? I don't care if he was an Australian, he was in school here, in the United States at the University of Florida, and we should have treated him like our own. Like Natalee Holloway.

How many people have even heard of Brendan Robbins? He has only been missing for 3 months now.

Today the local Gainesville Sun reports in a short blurb, Brendan Dobbins' likely remains were found by fishermen in Costa Rica and have to be identified by dental records.

It seems like the "white women" syndrome can be helpful for some, but deadly for others.

Most recent polls on approval ratings of Bush

Courtesy of:

Gallup

Polling Report

What the Nation Thinks

I'm not saying all these sources are performing scientifically perfect polls, but each generally shows higher disapproval ratings for Dubya. Together all that data must mean something, or atleast it does to me. This now gives me some hope in my fellow Americans, hope that I had lost in the 2004 elections. But wow is change slow, I knew all along that the majority of Americans dissaproved of Dubya.

Technorati

While backtracking my site meter I came upon Technorati, a Web site that searches millions of blogs, based on what they are writing about. Seems like an efficient way to read a variety of opinions on whatever topic you would like.

Jon Stewart , the only man keeping me sane

Today's thoughts-

1) I feel like I should post a Daily Show clip each day. He is that good. He cuts through the garbage put out by the MSM.

2) On a completely different note, to all young republicans:
Join OPERATION YELLOW ELEPHANT

Hey Bush twins, it's your call to duty.

MSM won't report how many detainees have died in U.S. custody

I can't Get no, rights at Gitmo

It was left to an OPINION columnist, the New York Times's Thomas Friedman, not a news reporter, to declare on May 27 that "the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks?"

Terri Schiavo autopsy results

The political fight seems to be finished, all started by a woman who's health collapsed 15 years ago. It is still unknown what caused that, but here is what they do know.


-A coroner who performed an autopsy on Terri Schiavo reported Wednesday that she suffered from an irreversible brain injury and would not have recovered as her parents insisted was possible.

-It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

-"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," Jon Thogmartin, medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, told a press conference.

-"There was massive neuronal loss, or death. This was irreversible and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

-The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he added


I really hope Terri Schiavo's parents truly felt they could have saved their daughter, because why else would you put a person through this. No one deserves this, not even Bill Frist, renowned heart surgeon who said, "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

Oh so you thought she was coherent enough, and able enough to see things did you Mr. Frist?

The medical examiner said Ms. Schiavo was blind.

*This just in* Mr. Frist (R-Liar) now says he never said Teri Schiavo seemed to respond to visual stimuli.

Terri Schiavo protesters, with one sign saying "We are idiots."

Look at the horsepower

It's the most I've seen on a recreational boat with outboards.

But....

-Why are there two different brands of motors?
-How much weight can the stern hold? Those engines look heavy.
-What would the controls be, Mercury or Yamaha?
-Do all the props rotate the same way?
-Why are there three different lengths of lower units?
-How much gas does that guzzle?
-Why does a boat that size (doesn't look that big from the picture) need 950 horsepower?

I guess the Yamahas are kickers.

I can honestly say I know where the fish aren't

Top Spot Map of Daytona Beach Area

If I didn't have to keep pulling my shoes out of the muddy/sand bottom, and didn't have to watch for the more or less 30 stingrays I saw throughout my wading adventures, I might have been able to catch some fish! My buddy managed to catch a 7 pound catfish on a chartreuse salt water assassin jig. That was a first. The tip from the Florida Sportsman forum seemed to be a bust.

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My next spots I plan to try, whether they be via kayak, boat, or foot, will probably be in New Smyrna also. There are some docks close to deep water and a couple bridges that look pretty snooky that I can't wait to try. I'm just not quite sure how to get there. Any body want to come and explore?

Why you can always never reason with a Republican

Representative James Sensenbrenner

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-The Cheese State, abruptly gaveled the house judiciary meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans.

"He declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant."

It seems to me that Mr. Sensenbrenner, along with his sheep, don't want to deal with the ugly facts coming out of Guantanamo Bay. When Democrats try to debate what's happening there, it's called "irrelevant." The anti-intellect party will, at all costs, prevent any sort of discussion or debate on current events detrimental to their party.

Probably the best thing that could have happened was that the video was on Cspan2. People can see how Republican leaders act here.

The Downing Street "Memo"

The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

"The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was "fixed" to sell the case for war to the American public; and how the Bush Administration’s public assurances of "war as a last resort" were at odds with their privately stated intentions."

Downingstreetmemo.com

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy…. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

This better get media and political attention.

The Smoking Gun.

How this administration deals with unfavorable news

May 4 - Newsweek report claims Guantanamo interrogators desecrated the Quran

May 16- Newsweek retracts story under pressure from administration

"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," said editor Mark Whitaker.

So it seems the U.S. military failed to corroborate the story printed in Newsweek....

May 17- Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan, and many other righties, blamed the riots and deaths in Afghanistan after the Newsweek article, on the Newsweek article.

Then....
Afghan riots not tied to report on Quran handling, General says

"Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."

June 4- U.S. Confirms Quran mishandled

Confirmed incidents:
-Muslim holy book was splashed with urine
-detainee's Quran was deliberately kicked and another's was stepped on
-two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran

This does not seem like a respectful way to handle a religious document. Just imagine what the theocrats would have done if the Bible was in the place of the Quran.

More to my point is the way the administration dealt with the news. Deny it, say it's unsubstantiated, blame it for the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan, and then attack the messenger Newsweek, and the media in general.

When the truth comes out that military officials admit incidents ocurred where the Quran was desecrated by urine and obscenities, you would expect an apology or a retraction from the administration. Correct?

Instead we get this quote from McClellan,"It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals."

Admit it! Newsweek is much more credible than your misleading statements!

Eisenhower looking into the future

Eisenhower thought a few Texas politicians and oil millionaires were "stupid" nearly 50 years ago.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." - President Eisenhower to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, on Nov. 8, 1954

Eisenhower was a Republican who actually had reality based ideas.
- Being a war veteran, Eisenhower had the credentials to speak in matters of foreign policy and military. (Unlike this president)
- Eisenhower also recognized the abuse of power the military was potentially capable of with his predicition of the military industrial complex.

Although I'm a Floridian, and I truly feel we shouldn't be included in the red states, this is great just the same.

Saw it on BartCop:
Dear Red States

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving.
We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the entire Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's,
we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California.