Jessica Spinks, Please Call Home

This one is a bit odd. A SCUBA diver found a high school class ring from Alton, Illinois recently. He found it in a sort of unusual place, too. The Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, to be precise. The diver has done his level best to get the ring back to the original owner, Jessica Spinks, a 2000 graduate of Alton High School. But she, and her family, are proving hard to find.

Greg Moretti found the Alton High School class ring a month ago off the coast of the northern Mariana Islands. The ring is engraved with the name Jessica Spinks, a 2000 graduate of the Illinois high school.

Moretti, who lives on the island of Saipan, believed Spinks could have been in the Navy, given that many enlisted members vacation or pass through the area while stationed in Guam or Japan.

Moretti struck out trying to find Spinks over the Internet and contacted the Alton School District by e-mail and sent it the ring.

On Thursday, Chris Norman, the school district's financial services director, confirmed through a recruiter that Spinks served in the Navy, though it's unclear if she remains enlisted.

So, if you know Ms. Spinks, tell her to phone home. Or where home used to be, at any rate.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

More people from Mexico illegally enter the United States than die in Mexico each year. That isn't a right-wing talking point, that is from the Mexican government itself.

Mexico's demographics agency found that an average of 577,000 people migrated to the U.S. each year between 2000-2005, compared to 495,000 deaths a year in the same period. In 2006, 559,000 migrated and there were 501,000 deaths.

Mexico had 104.9 million residents as of last year, an increase of 6.4 million since 2000.

Immigration to the U.S. has increased drastically since 1970, when 800,000 Mexicans lived north of the border. Today, there are about 11 million Mexicans living in the U.S., both legally and illegally, the report found.

The study also showed more and more Mexicans traveling illegally to the United States.

The total US live birth number in 2003 was just over 4 million. Almost 600,000 more per year are being added by mostly illegal immigration from Mexico alone. More people are coming here than are dying in Mexico. Do you think there may be a problem here? Is this a nation of immigrants? Sure. But this represents a flood - a torrent - of people into this country. Illegally. If the politicians want a real solution, first close the border. A lot of other things can be worked out, but close the border and stop the flood.

Spare Change?

Please, someone, please. Hand me just one of these coins. Just one. It's not a lot to ask, is it? Just don't drop it on my foot.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Royal Canadian Mint unveiled a welcome addition to any piggy bank on Thursday — a monster gold coin with a face value of C$1 million (455,000 pounds) that it says is the world's biggest, purest and highest denomination coin.

Weighing in at 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds), the limited edition coin easily dwarfs its closest rival, the 31 kg (68 pound) "Big Phil", which was made to honour the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and has a face value of a mere 100,000 euros (C$150,000).

The Canadian mint introduced the mega-coin, which is the size of an extra-large pizza, alongside the one-ounce gold bullion coins it is mass producing at its Ottawa plant.

It won't fit in my pocket since it's 21 inches in diameter, but hey, I'm willing to bear that burden. Really. (Now, a serious question. This is 99.999 percent pure gold - a new standard of purity. Will something this size deform over time? I don't know enough about the metallurgical properties of gold to know if it will flow over time.)

Buddy, can you spare a Canadian coin?

First They Came For The Oil Companies

But now, having devoured those, (T)Hugo Chavez has an even bigger appetite. He wants the banks and the biggest steel company in Venezuela.

Chavez's threat did not seem to signal an imminent takeover but rather appeared aimed at strong-arming the businesses to contribute more to local industry as he made a wide-ranging speech promising that Venezuela was headed for a classless society. Coming alongside recent moves to nationalize telecommunications, electricity companies and the oil sector, the warning was yet another sign that Chavez is serious about deepening his socialist revolution.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said. "If banks don't agree with this, it's better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

It was unclear if Chavez was referring only to Venezuelan banks including Mercantil Servicios Financieros CA and Banco Provincial SA, or also major international banks with subsidiaries in the country, such as New York-based Citigroup Inc. and Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA and Banco Santander Central Hispano SA.

Chavez also warned the government could take over steel producer Sidor, which is majority controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA. Ternium's U.S.-traded shares closed down nearly 3.9 percent at $26.15 (19.21 euros) Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

The strong arm tactics of a thuggish regime. Seriously, anyone with any brains who stays in Venezuela right now is either too broke to leave or indulging in wishful thinking. Any company that is still in there is seriously screwed. The nationalizations have just begun. (Not that they could find anyone stupid enough to buy them out right now.) It will get a lot uglier there in the near future. The people of Venezuela are about to descend into a veritable hell on earth. While (T)Hugo tells them it is a paradise, of course.

Imus Will Sue CBS Radio

Don Imus is not going quietly. His lawyer announced today that Imus will sue for the entire unpaid balance of his $40 million contract - and that balance is virtually the full amount.

NEW YORK - Disgraced radio host Don Imus will sue CBS Radio for the huge portion of his $40 million contract that was left unpaid after he was fired for racist and sexist comments, his attorney said Thursday.

Martin Garbus, a First Amendment attorney, said he plans to file the breach of contract lawsuit by the end of next week.

Imus was barely into his third month of the five year contract.

Army Gets It Right

Ed Morrisey follows up on yesterday's kerfluffle about milbloggers. The reports yesterday indicated that there was a change to Army regulations to make it impossible for active duty bloggers to post information. Not so, according to the Army. A clarification has been sent out that places trust in the soldiers - the absolute right thing to do in this matter.

UPDATE AND BUMP: The Army has issued a clarification on this order:

• In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public forum.

• Army Regulation 350-1, “Operations Security,” was updated April 17, 2007 – but the wording and policies on blogging remain the same from the July 2005 guidance first put out by the U.S. Army in Iraq for battlefield blogging. Since not every post/update in a public forum can be monitored, this regulation places trust in the Soldier, Civilian Employee, Family Member and contractor that they will use proper judgment to ensure OPSEC.
o Much of the information contained in the 2007 version of AR 530-1 already was included in the 2005 version of AR 530-1. For example, Soldiers have been required since 2005 to report to their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer about their wishes to publish military-related content in public forums.
o Army Regulation 530-1 simply lays out measures to help ensure operations security issues are not published in public forums (i.e., blogs) by Army personnel.

• Soldiers do not have to seek permission from a supervisor to send personal E-mails. Personal E-mails are considered private communication. However, AR 530-1 does mention if someone later posts an E-mail in a public forum containing information sensitive to OPSEC considerations, an issue may then arise.

What does this mean? It means that bloggers will get trained in OpSec rules and regulations, and then allowed to police their own conduct. The key word here is "trust". The Army got this right today.

Ed asks if the report from Wired was wrong from the start. Possibly. I am extremely pleased that they cleared that up and that the important voices from our armed forces will not be silenced.

Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr., 1923-2007

Wally Schirra, one of the original "Mercury Seven" astronauts and the only astronaut from that group to have flown Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, has died at age 84.

Schirra died of a heart attack at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, said Ruth Chandler Varonfakis, a family friend and spokeswoman for the San Diego Aerospace Museum. NASA had said he died late Wednesday but the family and the medical examiner's office both said it was Thursday.

An aviation buff since childhood, known to fellow astronauts for his colorful personality and independent streak, Schirra became the third American to orbit the Earth in October 1962. He encircled the globe six times in a flight that lasted more than nine hours.

Americans in space before him were Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who flew suborbital flights in 1961, and John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, who orbited Earth earlier in 1962. The Soviet Union had beaten the United States into space, putting cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit in April 1961, weeks before Shepard's suborbital trip.

Schirra returned to space in 1965 as commander of Gemini 6 and guided his two-man capsule toward Gemini 7, already in orbit. On Dec. 15, 1965, the two ships came within a few feet of each other as they shot through space, some 185 miles above the Earth. It was the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit.

His third and final space flight in 1968 inaugurated the Apollo program that the following year put men on the moon.

Wally Schirra always came across as very likable, as I recall. Rest in peace, Captain.

“Patience? Heck, I’m Gonna Kill Something”

The original t-shirt was considerably more rude, but the two cartoon vultures may have been prescient. It seems that vultures in Spain are no longer waiting for things to die. They are killing living animals, in one case bringing down a cow and a calf with one swarm of over 100 birds. Paging Alfred Hitchcock.

In one incident, about 100 vultures killed a cow and her newborn calf, a rancher from the Mena Valley said, according to the Spanish government's office in Burgos, quoted by state news agency EFE.

Ranchers have complained that vultures started attacking livestock several months ago when a feeding station set up in the Ordunte mountains was closed by the neighbouring province of Vizcaya. Vultures prefer to feed on the carcasses of dead animals, but carrion is scarce in modern Spain.

How long until a human becomes the blue plate special is anyone's guess. Remember, when you're in a car, vultures spotting you are thinking peasant under glass.

What A Load Of…….

Bat guano. A couple from Ballston Spa, New York have discovered the hideout of an entire division of the aerial shock troops of the Animal Uprising™. Unfortunately for them, they found it in their attic. Along with 3,500 pounds of bat guano.

Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly.

Then they forgot about the bats until they smelled a foul odor in January. When they checked the attic, they found dead bats and piles of guano.

An exterminator says hundreds of bats had been living in the attic, leaving behind 3,500 pounds of droppings.

It cost $25,000 to clean up the mess, and the couple's insurance company wouldn't cover it. They're fighting it out in court.

Bats do two things well (aside from their shock troop duties, of course), catch a lot of insects and produce enormous quantities of guano. (Which, incidentally, can be very hazardous to humans. Hence the large cleanup bill which was basically a hazmat situation).

Note: Ballston Spa is the home of the National Bottle Museum. I'll bet you never even knew there was such a thing, did you?

Hysterical

Andrew Sullivan, Taylor Marsh, at least one television station have fallen for a hoax. And not just any hoax, this one is a doozy.

Our own crazy conservative uncle Andrew Sullivan got snookered by a fake web site that reported the “news” that Fox was spinning off their hit TV series 24 into a Saturday morning children’s cartoon that featured Jack Bauer as a young cub scout torturing other kids and “kicking Arab ass.”

Here’s Andrew’s post:

Ann Coulter: set your Tivo. Money quote: “We spent a lot time doing research on this game,” says Surnow. “Using a sponge, team members must take the water from a filled bucket and squeeze the water from the soaked sponge into an empty bucket. First team to fill the empty bucket wins.” Surnow said he chose the Sponge Bucket Game because it provides opportunities for little Jack to interrogate the little Arabs.

“There’s a great scene before the game starts where little Jack takes an Arab kid named Abdul and sticks his head in the water-filled bucket,” says Surnow. “Jack keeps his head under the water until he drowns. The kid did not give Jack the answers he needed, and for the greater good of the Cub Scouts of America, Jack had to send a strong and clear message.”

That’s a strong “enhanced” message. Just like Mr Tenet says.

The irony in this piece regarding Tenet’s “enhanced message” will probably save Mr. Sullivan total embarrassment as he will more than likely claim he knew it was a joke all along, that you can’t fool him, he’s Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic!

But my friend Taylor Marsh has no such excuse:

What's really funny here is that the website Dateline Hollywood is so blatantly a humor site that their "About Us" page has the following history:

Dateline Hollywood was founded in 360 BC as “Gladiators Weekly” to cover the booming entertainment industry in the coliseums of ancient Rome. Its pioneering analysis of the statistics of lion mauls and emperor thumbs up/down made it the original publication to take the business of entertainment seriously. Its premiere edition included “The Ten Gladiators to Watch” and an analytic feature, “Deaths by Daggers Down LXVIII Percent.”

The publication now known as Dateline Hollywood covered a number of different amusing industries as the times changed, transforming from “Inside Slave Trade” to “Bubonic Plague Infestation Monthly” (later quarterly, yearly, and eventually publishing just once per century) to “What’s Hot in Renaissance Art,” “Miracle Play Today!” and, following a move to the young United States in the early 19th century, “Minstrel Show Monthly,” “The Ragtime Gazette,” and, following the editors’ realization in 1973 that ragtime’s popularity had faded, its current incarnation.

I got caught by an April Fool article myself. But I at least checked the dateline and it read April 3, so I got bitten. This is hysterical, though. Kudos to Dateline Hollywood for putting this one over.

Calling For A Truce

Daniel Henninger, in his weekly Opinion Journal column, call for a truce in the PC wars. I don't think he'll get one, but he makes a pretty good argument that political correctness has become toxic and should become, itself, a victim of political correctness.

Don Imus, Bernard McGuirk, Trent Lott, Larry Summers, the Duke lacrosse team, Jimmy the Greek, the kid who yelled "water buffalo" at Penn, Howard Cosell, Jon Stewart, Chief Illiniwek, Jackie Mason and "South Park" all have in common only one thing: They have not been Politically Correct.

Some were brought down by it, and some have made a living from it. Today, there are people who even say that the satire on shows such as "South Park" or the "Daily Show" have made political correctness a harmless amusement. We have become so cool that we can simultaneously abide PC's merciless strictures against saying the wrong things about the right people even as we laugh at our subjugation to PC.

Despite the ironic mockery, political correctness still packs a punch. Say the wrong thing today and you can be gone tomorrow, your status as a top broadcaster, university president or politician obliterated. It happens in the small space of a sentence–defrocked, banished, gonzo. Outside a courtroom, I'm not aware of many other forces in American life that can do that……..

…….Duke was a particularly virulent strain of PC. It was breathtaking how fast the Duke incident broke into a politically correct scenario: privileged, women-baiting white males humiliate and assault a disadvantaged black female. Once rooted in the press, this "narrative" crushed the lives of the accused students, ruined the career of the team's coach and almost trumped the criminal justice system. For a falsity, that's pretty potent.

At a scholarly meeting two years ago, then-Harvard President Larry Summers suggested that women are underrepresented at the top of science and engineering because of what he described as the evidently more men than women who are "three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean." I recall back then reading the transcript of Mr. Summer's remarks, which is filled with caveats, obeisances, impenetrable prose and tangled logic. From this morass, it was possible to extract a big PC faux pas. But to think Mr. Summers was led from this turgid speech to the pyre, where his entire career as president of Harvard was immolated is, well, striking.

This is the way we live now: The only place where speech can occur without fear of job loss is on a cartoon show or in stand-up comedy. This means only the self-identified nuts can say what they want. Welcome to the asylum.

Henninger goes on to make an appeal to stop depriving people of their livelihoods over a stupid comment. Stop letting the Al Sharptons of the world cheerfully apply their raging double standards in such a ruthless fashion. Like I said, I doubt very much Henninger will get results, but maybe, eventually, if enough people rebel against this PC run amok, maybe it can at least be kept to a minimum.

I Dare You To Give Him A Ticket

Police in San Antonio, Texas couldn't even fool the greenest rookies on the force to try to give a ticket on the illegal parker. They preferred keeping all their extremities attached. Alligators get cranky when ticketed.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — All it takes is one illegally parked troublemaker to tie up freeway traffic — especially if it's an 8-foot alligator sprawled across the pavement.

"I don't remember any of this in the academy," police Officer Albert Silva said of the traffic jam early Sunday. "As far as I know, there's no procedure on this other than: 'Don't get bit."'

Police car sirens didn't persuade the big reptile to budge off Loop 410.

Police threw orange traffic cones at the gator, but it just snapped at the cones and flung them away.

The gator even assaulted a police car, biting a chunk out of its bumper.

Alligators, those tricksters of the Animal Uprising™ are now disguising themselves as parked cars. This isn't good. We'd recommend whacking each car firmly with a 9-iron as you pass them just to be sure they aren't disguised reptiles. (We won't be available to provide bail money, however. We're very busy here.) 

Panthers On The Prowl

New Jersey residents are terrified. Reports of a ginormous cat, possibly a panther are coming from residents in the Vineland area. Officials can't find any trace of the cat, but at least one resident managed to get a picture.

Residents of the community of Vineland reported seeing a large black animal with a cat-like long tail walking through the fields and woods during the weekend.

"I knew by the size that it was not a house cat. It wasn't a tiny dog. It looked like some kind of wild cat," said Zoe Paraskevas, who photographed it Saturday. "I just got chills. I said 'Oh, my God!"'

Felicia Fiocchi said she spotted something in the field behind their house on Sunday.

"I can't tell you if it was a panther, but I can tell you that it wasn't a domesticated house cat," said Fiocchi. She's worried about the possibility of a dangerous cat roaming the woods and fields where her four children sometimes play.

I hate to be contrarian about any article that details part of the Animal Uprising™ but if you look at the picture accompanying the article, it looks like a cat. And not a particularly big cat at that. But hey, back to our usual high-toned, calm coverage of all things animal:

You're all going to be eaten in your sleep! Feel better?