We haven’t had a good CM post in a while, so when we do get one it’s with a very stylish twist.
A robber wearing a black evening gown, fishnet stockings, thigh-high boots and a black wig held up a gas station in Monterey, California. The robber stuffed the $290 proceeds from the theft into a black handbag, which perfectly matched his growth of beard.
Yup, this was a transvestite transaction.
Police caught the suspect when they noticed - get this - his fishnets hanging out of the door of the getaway car.
I don’t often agree with the editorial stances taken by the folks over at USA Today. They have an editorial today, though, that got my attention. I found myself agreeing with their assessment.
Their point is that the Teacher’s unions are fighting plans to bring scientists and engineers in to collaborate in designing and teaching courses in public schools. Why are the unions against it?
“The union leaders say raising teacher pay and improving working conditions, not bring in outside experts, is the way to enhance math and science teaching”.Â
Uh, sure. That’ll do it.
Let’s face it, teachers these days have to take lots and lots of courses on how to teach. But they are not required to actually know the subject matter all that well. My two oldest children are both studying to be teachers and they have to take almost no courses in the subject matter they will actually have to teach. Lots and lots of courses in teaching theory, though.
Bringing in people who actually work in the science and engineering fields will make learning more relevant to students. I remember taking course in college from “adjunct” professors who actually had real day jobs. In most cases, those adjuncts were much better teachers than the tenured professors. They could make the engineering courses relevant, not just theoretical. (Full disclosure, one of the adjuncts I had was the WORST teacher I ever had, hands down. But he was the exception).
Read the whole thing, they actually make sense.
A mexican Army officer shot two soldiers to death for refusing an order to clean up their base. The shootings happened at an Army base near Cancun.
Seems a bit harsh…..
Yale’s admission of a former Taliban official is generating a lot of attention in the blogosphere at the moment. Glenn Reynolds has more links today. I posted about it yesterday. The Taliban ruled Afganistan from 1996 until we removed them in 2001. Today I came across this story. Imagine being married at the age of four. Imagine being beaten nearly to death. Imagine having boiling water poured onto you. Imagine being scarred for life, both mentally and physically by the age of twelve.
"Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn’t find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already".
And this:
"When I was three years old my father died, and after a year my mother married again, but her second husband didn’t want me," says Gulsoma. "So my mother gave me away in a promise of marriage to our neighbor’s oldest son, who was thirty." "They had a ceremony in which I was placed on a horse [which is traditional in Afghanistan] and given to the man." Because she was still a child, the marriage was not expected to be sexually consummated. But within a year, Gulsoma learned that so much else would be required of her that she would become a virtual slave in the household.
And this:
"They beat me with electric wires," she says, "mostly on the legs. My father-in-law told his other children to do it that way so the injuries would be hidden. He said to them, ‘break her bones, but don’t hit her on the face.’"
Read the whole thing. Look at the pictures. Look at the eyes of that 12-year old girl. Her eyes are very, very old. Much too old for a little girl. Imagine yourself living in fear that your "family" will come and get you. Yale appears to be unable to understand what true evil is. Let me give you a hint: Recruiters for the US military are not evil. The Taliban are. Admitting an unrepentant former spokesman for the Taliban is to tolerate and enable the kind of evil this story tells of. Civilized people do not harbor someone from a regime that tolerated this kind of behavior. Civilized people condemn the actions AND the people who defended the actions. There’s an elephant in the room, Yale. Don’t you think it’s time to recognize it?
Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link. Welcome to the Boulevard. Take a moment to look around (Mainpage here)and leave a comment or two if you’d like.
Update: I found another link back to this post while looking for something else. Townhall’s Nail Yale also picked it up. Thank you!
Belmont Club makes a few excellent points in this analysis. When is it a civil war instead or an insurgency? Some of the commenters have some really good points as well.
“Politically what’s interesting is how the narrative has changed. Nobody is talking about the Sunni insurgency succeeding any more. Even the press hardly makes the claim of an insurgency on the brink of success”.
The MSM has been trumpeting one overheated headline after another about a “civil war”. Then suddenly they’ll say the country is “on the brink of a civil war”. Oddly, today’s headlines don’t even mention the term at all.
One commenter at a different site said that Iraq was “already lost”.
Can you smell a little desperation? The meme must be shifted before people realize they are being played. The MSM wants so badly to repeat their disgraceful performance on the Vietnam war.
H/T Instapundit for the link.
UPDATE: As usual, Gateway Pundit has a very good roundup. A million or so pilgrims and dancing in the streets. Yep, looks like a civil war to me.
Yet another biting story!
A woman has pleaded no contest to charges of biting part of a policeman’s ring finger off. The officer was called to a house where the woman and an unidentified man were having an altercation over a kitten. In the ensuing scuffle, the woman bit part of the officer’s finger off. It was not reattached.
The woman faces up to three years in prison.
Have you ever used that expression? I know I have.
Here’s a story that will give you a whole new mental image: An Ohio woman is being charged with felonious assault after biting a man’s tongue off. The victim is in intensive care after unsuccessful attempts to reattach 30% of his tongue. Apparently, the man and woman had been romantically involved. There is no word on what caused the incident.
Makes you wonder if the old saying “kiss and make up” is really a good idea, doesn’t it?
Like burning socks?
In a bizarre ritual to mark the vernal equinox, residents of Annapolis, Maryland burned old socks. Participants say it’s a way to mark the end of winter and look forward to the sockless days of summer. The ritual was started in the mid-1980’s by a boatyard worker tired of doing engine maintenance on boats. He stripped off his socks, put them in a paint can with some lighter fluid, then drank a beer while they blazed.
In other words, the burning of the socks is an excuse to have a few beers……
A court in Germany ordered that Viagra be administered to a horse.
No, really.
It seems a man refused to pay the full, agreed on price for the horse because it only had one testicle and the horse didn’t - ahem - perform properly. A vet was able to locate the missing testicle (you just can’t make this stuff up). The judge then ordered that Viagra be given to the horse. The horse then did his studly duties. The buyer was ordered to pay the full price.
There is no confirmation that the airline industry had anything to do with the missing testicle.
Well, this is interesting. It seems that airlines worldwide will lose about 1% of all checked luggage. Not bad, right?
 Except that mean 30 MILLION bags.
The largest percentage of bags (61%) are mishandled during transfers between flights.
(The report also says that virtually all of the “lost” luggage will be found and returned to it’s rightful owners within 31 or so hours. Only about 204,000 bags are never recovered).
Frankly, if I can, I try to use a carry-on. Some flights make you gate check those, but there’s a lot less chance your bag will be misplaced.
Criminal Masterminds | Gaius Tuesday, 21 March , 2006 | 
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