Ballistic Biking Bush

What Cheney is to quail hunting, Bush is to bicycling. Details of his bizarre biking accident during last July's G8 Summit, where he sent a scottish constable to the hospital, finally came out today in the Scotsman:

HE MAY be the most powerful man in the world, but proof has emerged that President George Bush cannot ride a bike, wave and speak at the same time.

Scotland on Sunday has obtained remarkable details of one of the most memorably bizarre episodes of the Bush presidency: the day he crashed into a Scottish police constable while cycling in the grounds of Gleneagles Hotel.

The incident, which will do little to improve Bush's accident-prone reputation, began when he took to two wheels for a spot of early-evening exercise during last year's G8 summit at the Perthshire resort.

After a hard day's discussion with fellow world leaders, the president was looking for some relaxation. Instead, he ended up the subject of a police report in which the leader of the free world was described, in classic police language, as a "moving/falling object".

It was "about 1800 hours on Wednesday, 6 July, 2005" that a detachment of Strathclyde police constables, in "Level 2 public order dress [anti-riot gear]," formed a protective line at the gate at the hotel's rear entrance, in case demonstrators penetrated the biggest-ever security operation on Scottish soil.

The official police incident report states: "[The unit] was requested to cover the road junction on the Auchterarder to Braco Road as the President of the USA, George Bush, was cycling through." The report goes on: "[At] about 1800 hours the President approached the junction at speed on the bicycle. The road was damp at the time. As the President passed the junction at speed he raised his left arm from the handlebars to wave to the police officers present while shouting 'thanks, you guys, for coming'.

"As he did this he lost control of the cycle, falling to the ground, causing both himself and his bicycle to strike [the officer] on the lower legs. [The officer] fell to the ground, striking his head. The President continued along the ground for approximately five metres, causing himself a number of abrasions. The officers... then assisted both injured parties."

The injured officer, who was not named, was whisked to Perth Royal Infirmary. The report adds: "While en-route President Bush phoned [the officer], enquiring after his wellbeing and apologising for the accident."

At hospital, a doctor examined the constable and diagnosed damage to his ankle ligaments and issued him with crutches. The cause was officially recorded as: "Hit by moving/falling object."

No details of damage to the President are recorded from his close encounter with the policeman and the road, although later reports said he had been "bandaged" by a White House physician after suffering scrapes on his hands and arms.(emphasis added)

If the officer had not been in full riot gear his injuries,no doubt, would have been much worse. There is no word if the constable apologized for getting in the way of the presidential projectile.

I also noticed that Bush had scrapes on his hands. What, is he still not wearing gloves? Maybe we should take up a collection and buy him a pair gloves and, maybe, some catching mitts for his security detail.

Here are some earlier Bush biking posts:
- Bush Planted in the Ground -or- Where the Dubya' Meets the Road
- A Sheep, a Bike, and Boy Named George

Burn Out

Not Me! Not yet...Must be some other blogger...

My modem blew yesterday, power module burnt out, just up and died. I must've been surfing so hard, trying to catch up all the favorite blogginess, snark, and weird sites I visit and adore, that my new gateway modem crappped out.

Once again I was able to reach the sbcgobal tech support in under 2 minutes. No long phone-tree crap (though I hate the voice recog system) and was it was speedily determined that the hardware was faulty. So, still high marks to sbcglogal. Also the surfing speed was fast (while it lasted), almost double of what earthlink gave - along with all their grief.

However, all the customer service in the world can't save a service if their hardware product is a piece of shit. It can only extend the date of the demise

In other burn out news Kevin of Catch.com is moving on (growing up?) and retiring his blogging jersey.

In a way this makes me sad because he was one of the first to link to me back when I upgraded his picture of where senate leader, Dr. Frist, pissed himself.

Kevin - best of luck!

It's the end of the world as we knew it...

Fueled by clinical Bush Derangement Syndrome, which means I'm stuck in that pre-9/11 mindset, I remember those pre 9/11 days days when the Y2K computer mishap was going to bring civilization to a standstill.

It was fun back then engaging in those lofty disagreements that the millenium should rightly fall in the year 2001 because the was no year zero. OK, maybe that was a religious type blather over the Christian calendar rather than the true end of the world. But still in my derangement I pay attention to those end-of-times types like Bush.

Thus, I find fellowship with thinkers like Heather Wokusch when they write about the Implications of a US attack on Iran:

Consider that many in the US and Iran seek religious salvation through a Middle Eastern blowout. "End times" Christian fundamentalists believe a cataclysmic Armageddon will enable the Messiah to reappear and transport them to heaven, leaving behind Muslims and other non-believers to face plagues and violent death. Iran's new Shia Islam president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, subscribes to a competing version of the messianic comeback, whereby the skies turn to flames and blood flows in a final showdown of good and evil. The Hidden Imam returns, bringing world peace by establishing Islam as the global religion.

Both the US and Iran have presidents who arguably see themselves as divinely chosen and who covet their own country's apocalypse-seeking fundamentalist voters. And into this tinderbox Bush proposes bringing nuclear weapons.

As expected, the usual suspects press for a US attack on Iran. Neo-cons who brought us the "cakewalk" of Iraq want to bomb the country. There's also Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, busy coordinating the action plan against Iran, who just released the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review calling for US forces to "operate around the globe" in an infinite "long war." One can assume Rumsfeld wants to bomb a lot of countries.

And there's Israel, keen that no other country in the region gains access to nuclear weapons. In late 2002, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran should be targeted "the day after" Iraq was subdued, [link] and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, recently warned that if he wins the presidential race in March 2006, Israel will "do what we did in the past against Saddam's reactor," an obvious reference to the 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. It doesn't help that Iran's Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a myth and said that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

In the eyes of the Bush administration, however, Iran's worst transgression has less to do with nuclear ambitions or anti-Semitism than with the petro-euro oil bourse Tehran is slated to open in March 2006. Iran's plan to allow oil trading in euros threatens to break the dollar's monopoly as the global reserve currency, and since the greenback is severely overvalued due to huge trade deficits, the move could be devastating for the US economy.

So we remain pedal to the metal with Bush for an attack on Iran.

But what if the US does go ahead and launch an assault in the coming months? The Pentagon has already identified 450 strategic targets, some of which are underground and would require the use of nuclear weapons to destroy. What happens then?

You can bet that Iran would retaliate. Tehran promised a "crushing response" to any US or Israeli attack, and while the country ˆ ironically - doesn't possess nuclear weapons to scare off attackers, it does have other options. Iran boasts ground forces estimated at 800,000 personnel, as well as long-range missiles that could hit Israel and possibly even Europe. In addition, much of the world's oil supply is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of ocean which Iran borders to the north. In 1997, Iran's deputy foreign minister warned that the country might close off that shipping route if ever threatened, and it wouldn't be difficult. Just a few missiles or gunboats could bring down vessels and block the Strait, thereby threatening the global oil supply and shooting energy prices into the stratosphere.

Now for us unstable few who see the deja vu of the ramp up of bellicose rhetoric about Iran that is so 2003, where the same pattern was used to lead us into Iraq, it is a deja dit. And we hear the danger in our Bush paranoia:

Now consider the fact that former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi has said the Pentagon's plans to attack Iran were drawn up "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States." Writing in The American Conservative in August 2005, Giraldi added, "As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States."

Now it all makes sense why Bush wants a foreign government (with 9/11 terrosists ties) owned corporation to run our woefully under-protected ports.

But, of course, that is only a Bush-hating paranoid thought.

Nothing to see here - just go about your business...

Techie Tuesday: Chariot of the Dogs

If gas keeps going up, or we see a serious shortage of petrol due to poor foriegn relations (read another war in a oil producing country) I might get me one of these sulkies.

I imagine purina powered locomotion might catch on for around the corner shopping trips and such. Clean energy if you bring the pooper scooper.

Before you get all animal rights in my face, dontcha think it's better than a Mad Max scenario where we're shooting people in the face for the last bit of liquified horse power?

Check out this page on sulky specs and simple use of an age old thing call the lever.

For cost of about fifteen hundred clams this might be cheaper than some pure breads (and most El Caminos), make no bones about it...

(Thanks to Modern Pooch )

I'm back online with a non-sucky ISP

So far I am enthused with with the SBCglobal customer support. It is the first time in a very long time where once I input the the telephone number into the automated system that I didn't have to repeat it to the customer service agent. He had right there.

Also the wait time was neglible, less than a minute, for reaching a human voice that knew what they were talking about. Somehow I don't think these guys are outsorced overseas.

All this is first impression, but I'm impressed so far.

Now back to bloggy business...

Neglect

The only thing worse than neglecting one's blog is neglecting one's commenters. I'm sorry. It's like ignoring one's editors.

Well, ignoring editors is a writer's pastime but commenters are the audience that are the true blogger's editors. Meaning that a blogger that doesn't allow comments really doesn't have any editorial feedback.

So I apologize for the recent limited response to comments.

No real excuse except that the dial up connection has taken the fun out of my blogging experience. Things time out and it takes longer to open a site than it takes to read it.

Hopefully by the weekend I'm back to regular posting and maybe, just maybe, a revamped look...

Was Cheney Hunting RINO?

I see that the effervescent Texan, Molly Ivins, has weighed in on the VP shooting incident. She gives us an idea of what kind of republican Harry Whittington is:

Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal — only by Texas Republican standards, and that sets the bar about the height of a matchbook. Nevertheless, Whittington is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of crime, punishment and prisons. He served on both the Texas Board of Corrections and on the bonding authority that builds prisons. As he has often said, prisons do not curb crime, they are hothouses for crime: "Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants."

In the day, whenever there was an especially bad case of new-ignoramus-in-the-legislature — a "lock 'em all up and throw away the key" type — the senior members used to send the prison-happy, tuff-on-crime neophyte to see Harry Whittington, a Republican after all, for a little basic education on the cost of prisons.

When Whittington was the chairman of Texas Public Finance Authority, he had a devastating set of numbers on the demand for more, more, more prison beds. As Whittington was wont to point out, the only thing prisons are good for is segregating violent people from the rest of society, and most of them belong in psychiatric hospitals to begin with. The severity of sentences has no effect on crime. (go read the rest)

Now I'm not suggesting that Cheney shot the man (in the face) because he was (take your pick) a soft-on-crime type, or that he was a lawyer, or that it would reduce the hunting party to a VP and two women-who were-not-their-wives, although the Ambassador to Switzerland reminds me of a much younger Lynne Cheney.

I just noticed a few things missing from all the coverage and few questions that need to be answered to give a complete and satisfactory answer to any lingering doubts about the the VP's judgement in this unfortunate affair. For instance:

-Did Cheney actually bag any quail when he turned and shot? Or did Dick pull up short yet still release his load?
-Did they plan on eating quail for supper and is using 7 1/2 shot conducive to avoiding a dentist after eating a small "peppered" game bird like quail?
-Was Whittington cogent and talking when he was loaded him on the gurney? Did they fear he wasn't going to make it?
-We know that Bush has Saddam's pistol, is there any chance that Cheney has Saddam's shotgun?

Much has been made about the delay in notifying (take your pick) the President, the White House Press Corps, the next of kin.

I must admit my first thought was that if Whittington died they'd stratergerize who would be to blame. As it was, they just blamed the victim for getting the line of fire. Why not just blame the few damn rogue birds? It's worked before.

But Andy Card and Karl Rove seem to be the first notified and they came up with a different plan which we are now seeing.

Though, I don't see how they are going to turn the Elmer Fudd meme around into a boost for the VP's falling poll numbers...

Earthlink Sucks and SBCGlobal Sucks Less

I finally signed up with a new ISP after shopping around. SBCglobal has a great deal at the moment. However one sales person told me I had to sign up for additional phone services (an estimated $30 a month) and switch my long distance to AT&T to qualify for the discount. This is pure crap and not referenced in their ads nor on their website where the special rate details are published.

Not an auspicious start. Later I called back and got the special price with no hassle.

So,I hope by the next weekend (fingers crossed)I should be back to full strength, blogging-wise.

Death of a Blog and Why Earthlink Still Sucks

This Blog has not died, not yet anyways. Checking my blog stats, I see that it's being kept alive by a few stalwarts and Google searches. I was happy to see that I made the first page for searches under earthlink sucks . Warms my heart!

Other Google hits that put me in their top ten, or first page, during the last 48 hours:

mit tin foil hat
tortured irish in 1971
how to kill rodents
culture smart card
sheeps vs goats
How to make hummus
quarter pounder with cheese "quote"
red vs blue turducken
how neanderthals killed
dog trick drop ball bucket godoggo
what would rambo do?

Even if you stop writing it is still out there. Check these posts out!

Maybe they fade in ranking and, but, possibly they endure as long as the storage medium lasts...Maybe that is forevever.

That can't be silenced, right? Now, in a democracy that should not be problem, right?