National Guard Member Attacked for being a National Guard Member

From Kiro TV by way of Ace 'O Spades...

National Guardsman Brutally Attacked In Pierce County

PARKLAND, Wash. -- The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is searching for five people who allegedly attacked a uniformed National Guardsmen walking along 138th Street in Parkland Tuesday afternoon.

The soldier was walking to a convenience store when a sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside him and the driver asked if he was in the military and if he had been in any action.

The driver then got out of the vehicle, displayed a gun and shouted insults at the victim. Four other suspects exited the vehicle and knocked the soldier down, punching and kicking him.

“And during the assault the suspects called him a baby killer. At that point they got into the car and drove off and left him on the side of the road,” Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

So when these creeps are caught, will they be charged with a hate crime?

Does It "Pay" to be an Illegal?

Just received this from a business associate

Dear Senator Boxer:

As a native U.S. citizen and Californian, and long time customer of our Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's provisions are accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, I only need to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years.

I recognize a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone else in the U.S. figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have paid taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine.

Is there a way I can apply to be an illegal retroactively? This would yield excellent results for me and my family. We paid pretty heavy taxes every year from 2000 thru 2005.

Another benefit in gaining an illegal status would be that our children would receive preferential treatment relative to their college/university applications and tuition.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process needed to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of all the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,

Should Walmart be A "Better Citizen"

I keep hearing over and over about how Walmart should be a better corporate citizen because the Walmart employees need to go on welfare to survive. This morning on the Sytman and Boze show on KTTH, they talked about certain politicians going after Walmart. Dan Sytman has a recap at his show prep blog. Well I have a few questions... first, if Walmart is so horrible to its employees, why do people line up to apply for work there?

But there is a bigger question here. Is it Walmart's responsibility to pay salaries and benefits above what the law requires and above what the market will bear? The obvious answer is no. Wal Marts job is to make money for the shareholders and based on the January 2006 numbers, profits of 11 billion on sales of 315 billion, they seem to be doing a good job at that. Also looking at the share price over the years, they appear to know what they are doing.

Now could they pay more than they need to? Yes they could but I need to ask those who complain about Walmart, when you shop there, and you know you do, do you tip the stock boy or the cashier? Do you pay an extra 10 or 20 percent? Because if the answer is no, then how are you any different than Walmart, simply paying market rate for a good or service?

For the record, I have never owned Walmart stock, I have never purchased anything from Walmart, because there is not one close to my house. I was in a Walmart once, in Bismarck N.D. My cousin picked me up at the airport and he stopped off to get something on the way to his house.

The Proper Way to Educate Kids, Including Minorities

I sent an email to the Seattle School District Board members about an NPR story, I heard about from Ace 'O Spades.

Here is the recap of the story:

Five years ago, the American Indian Charter High School in Oakland, Calif. was about to be closed down because of poor attendance and rock-bottom academic scores. But civil rights leader Ben Chavis joined the school as principal -- bringing his controversial political philosophy and unconventional curriculum -- and now the school has the highest academic scores in the city and a nearly 100 percent attendance rate. Emily Wilson of member station KALW reports.

Listen to the story, it is not very long. Somehow I think this is not an approach the Seattle School District would recommend. Sadly, these are the kinds of results I do not expect to see from the Seattle School District.

Russian math genius spurns prize and $1 million

I love this story from todays Seattle Times and not just because one of my degrees is in math and I may have some Russian blood.

A reclusive Russian won the math world's highest honor today for solving a problem that has stumped some of the discipline's greatest minds for a century — but he refused the award.

Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, won a Fields Medal — often described as math's equivalent of the Nobel prize — for a breakthrough in the study of shapes that experts say might help scientists figure out the shape of the universe.

Besides shunning the award for his work in topology, Perelman also seems uninterested, according to colleagues, in a separate $1 million prize he could win for proving the Poincare conjecture, a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space.

a bunch of stuff nobody really cares about...

Perelman is believed to live with his mother in St. Petersburg. Recent efforts to contact him proved fruitless.

Sen. Murray and Cantwell Deny Placing a Hold on S. 2590

The Washington D.C. offices of both Washington State Senators denied they were the ones who placed a hold on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, S.2590.

Please call your Senator and ask if they are the ones placing a hold and then report back the answer to Porkbusters.

Word Verification in the Comments

I turned on Word Verification in the comments because I was tired of deleting comment spam. If anyone knows the best way to go about finding these creeps and punishing them, please let me know.

We are Still Not Serious About Stopping Terrorism

I was talking with an end user of one of my companies products and he asked me how my vacation went last week. I told him for the most part it went fine except when it was time to go home, which happened to be the same day the news hit of the "beverage bombers". He then told me that he was in Glasgow Scotland at the time, which reminded me he was an airline pilot who flies international routes. He then told me how he was forced to check his bag and as he said..."I guess they were concerned I had something in my bag that would allow me to take control of the airplane." He then stated, "I am hoping eventually we realize we are at war".

Scary.

It Is Time We Start Profiling

I can not express it nearly as well as Ace 'O Spades, but it is WAY past time we started profiling Muslims.

The turning point for me was getting to the non air conditioned John Wayne Airport in Orange County CA. this past Thursday 3.5 hours early due to the "beverage bombers". I was expressing this to my sister in law, who I am fairly sure has never voted Republican in her life and she said "we need to start profiling". That was a real eye opener. For someone like her to say something like that tells me public opinion may be shifting. As I told her, the Muslim community needs to start feeling the pain because of those around them that are sympathetic towards or do not openly and publically condemn the actions of those who they claim are hijacking their religion. I hear a lot of talk after the fact that it is a small minority of Muslims but I am not hearing or seeing anything before hand to prevent the actions. Maybe if they were half as concerned about fellow Muslims attempting to commit mass murder in the name of Islam as they appear to be over potentially being profiled, I would be more sympathetic.

So in the meantime, I would suggest we profile all Muslim males and let it be know that it will continue as long as Muslim males appear to be the majority of perpetrators for terror plots such as 9/11, the British Subway bombings, Spain's 7/7, the beverage bombers, etc., etc., etc. Maybe the point will eventually get across that this is not acceptable behavior and the quickest way to put a stop to it is for Muslims to start policing their own.