Monday, August 06, 2007
Beltway Comix: the FCC watchin' out for the little guy
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Two Bumper-Sticker Slogans Arrested in South Carolina
Two of John Edwards' bumper-sticker slogans (is it politically incorrect to call them accused terrorists?) were arrested after a traffic stop near Goose Creek, SC (hat tip: MND).
Forbes offers possible insight into the location of the vehicle:
| Goose Creek [is] home to the Naval Weapons Station. The station houses the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig, a military prison where enemy combatants have been held... |
No word on whether CAIR is rushing a legal team to South Carolina in order to mount a defense. MND adds: "My God, do you realize what this means? South Carolina police are profiling!" Or maybe there was a suspicious bumper sticker on the vehicle.
| 176 leads right into the Naval Weapons Station. It isn't military families at risk. NWS is the home of 2 sub squadrons and also the storage depot for our nukes and up to 60 million lbs. of conventional ordnance. |
A nuclear storage depot? This recalls a statement by Hassan Abbasi, one of Iran's top military strategists, in 2005.
One can't help but wonder whether there is a link between this bizarre incident and Abbasi's diatribe.
Perhaps John Edwards is right, because there's definitely more than enough bumper-sticker material here. Hey, I've got an idea, let's help the Democrats make it even harder for the U.S. to wiretap terrorists! Maybe that will help!
Update: Dan Riehl provides names and pictures.
They sound like militant Quakers to me.
| WIS News 10 spoke with officials at the Berkeley County Detention Center who said 24-year-old Ahmed Mohamed and 21-year-old Yousef Megahed, the occupants of the car, are still in police custody... The Berkeley County Sheriff's Department tells WIS News 10 the two men are not US citizens. |
Update II: Dan Riehl, doing yeoman's work on this story, points to an ABC News 4 report that "...[t]he men had at least one ready to go bomb and bomb making materials that include chemicals."
Let's see. A possible chemical terrorist attack organized by what may be a cadre of illegal aliens... I know what to do... let's leave the border wide open and prevent the government from listening in on terrorists!
Wireless competition: consumers hit the jackpot!
On March 5, 2006, AT&T's public relations arm issued a major press release. Entitled "AT&T, BellSouth to Merge: Combination Will Speed Innovation, Competition and Convergence", it quotes AT&T President Ed Whitacre as saying, "Our focus is on providing great service and innovative, competitively priced products for consumers and businesses...".
Well, it's 2007 and AT&T and BellSouth received regulatory approval to merge earlier in the year. Let's see how those innovative and competitively priced products stack up against the competition. According to MyRatePlan.com, the pricing for a basic family wireless package (in minutes) from each of the telcos looks something like this.
With a reconstituted "Ma Bell," consumers really have hit the jackpot. Thanks, FCC! Oh, and thank goodness the FCC decided not to open up the newly liberated 700MHz spectrum to wholesale competition. As you can tell from the chart, consumers already have entirely too many choices for affordable, high-quality wireless service!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Howard "Mujaha" Dean: Protect the (Fraudulent) Vote!
KavkazCenter -- home of the "caucasian mujahideen" -- warns us that the Bush administration "has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election... ...we must also assume that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the 2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the possibility that they would simply cancel the election..."
When the GOP wins elections, Democrats like Dean claim foul play. As for real fraud? Invariably, Democratic front groups like ACORN and ANSWER are involved. In 2006, ACORN registered more than a half million voters nationwide.
But because it was the Democratic Party and organized labor who paid "by-the-head" for the voters, it's fair to wonder how many of these 540,000 voters were real.
| ...Prosecutors in King and Pierce counties filed felony charges Thursday against seven employees of [Ed: ACORN's party affiliation -- Democratic -- is not mentioned anywhere in the entire article. Go figure.] ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, claiming they turned in more than 1,800 phony voter-registration forms... "This is the worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington. There has been nothing comparable to this," state Secretary of State Sam Reed said... ...Elsewhere, four ACORN canvassers in Kansas City, Mo., have pleaded guilty in federal court to felony voter-registration fraud. |
Yes, Governor Doctor Dean, let's suppress laws that require valid identification to ensure that felons, the deceased, illegal aliens, and non-existent "people" won't be disenfranchised. That sounds like the American way to me.
AP: Jamil Hussein is Back... with a Vengeance!
The AP's Steven Hurst resurrects a name from the past for a story on Baghdad's water supply. Yep, you guessed it:
| Jamil Hussein, a 52-year-old retired army officer who lives in northeast Baghdad, said the water that does flow smells and is unclean. Two of his children have severe diarrhea that the doctor attributed to drinking what tap water was available, even after it was boiled... |
Who knew? Jamil Hussein? Retired with kids?
My recommendation to The New Republic -- after it's reputation-destroying Scott Thomas Beauchamp debacle -- is to send someone out to northeast Baghdad for an exclusive interview with the Jamil Hussein! Now, dammit, now!
AT&T's iPhone: Innovation & Competition at $3,000/mo.
Remember this hilarious headline from AT&T's newsroom: "AT&T, BellSouth to Merge: Combination Will Speed Innovation, Competition and Convergence"? Ever checked out the spartan, utilitarian simplicity of AT&T's Voice Pricing Guidebook?
| I have a caveat emptor to top them all. I purchased an iPhone on opening day to use in lieu of a cumbersome laptop while traveling in Ireland and England for two weeks in early July. AT&T promises "easy, affordable, and convenient plans" in their advertising... On the way to the airport, I activated the per-use international roaming data plan - the only one offered to me. The rep quoted me $.005 per KB but did not disclose what that would translate to in layman's language... That's part one of the trap. However, I now pay $40 per month for unlimited data usage on the iPhone, so really -- how much could it be? $100 at the most, right? ... As we know, the iPhone can't be unlocked to use a European provider's SIM card for more reasonable rates while traveling. There's part two of the trap... To be safe, I went online to My Account at AT&T a couple days into the trip and again a week later and was told "usage data is currently unavailable"... and that's part three. I had no way of knowing specific usage data until I received my bill over the last weekend. A bill for $3000. |
Yes, innovation, competition and convergence. That's precisely what I think of when someone mentions AT&T.
Boing Boing: ATT + iPhone int'l. roaming data horror story
p.s., I wonder how AT&T's IPTV deployment (code-named "Project Lightspeed") is coming? Hint: here's an availability map.
p.p.s., Ever wondered what else is in the AT&T and iPhone contractual 'fine print'?
Line o' the Day: Foxy Edwards
"Democratic Hairball John Edwards demanded that his opponents return campaign donations because they have too much money. Specifically, donations from News Corp., which paid him $800,000 for a book. There are 2 Americas: One that John Edwards wants to follow his rules, and then there is John Edwards."
--Don Surber
Thursday, August 02, 2007
John Edwards: Man at Work
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