No Joy

This is not something I take any pleasure in reporting. Al Gore III, the son of the former vice president and current climate Cassandra hysteric has been arrested for possession of drugs. He was arrested after getting caught screaming down the highway in his Prius at 100 miles per hour.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said.

Al Gore III — whose father is a leading advocate of policies to fight global warming — was driving his environmentally friendly car at about 100 miles per hour on a freeway south of Los Angeles when he was pulled over by an Orange County sheriff's deputy at about 2:15 a.m.

The deputy smelled marijuana and searched the car, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. The search turned up a small amount of marijuana, along with prescription drugs including Valium, Xanax, Vicodin, Adderall and Soma. There were no prescriptions found, he said.

Gore was arrested on suspicion of drug possession and booked into the Inmate Reception Center in Santa Ana, about 34 miles south of Los Angeles, on $20,000 bail. Although he quickly identified himself as the son of the former vice president, Amormino said Gore received no special privileges.

I started out writing this post trying to describe my relationship with my own father, then decided not to publish that right now. Maybe someday, but not now. I'll just point out that Al Gore III may have, consciously or unconsciously, timed his actions at a time or in such a way as to do maximum damage to his father.

I have not exactly made a secret of my opinion of the father here. I think Al Gore is a hypocritical, lying opportunist trying to line his pockets at the expense of this country and Western civilization in general. (See Roger Simon's slam on the sins of the father, so to speak). But Gore III is an adult and one cannot help but think he did this for maximum impact. Whether he was planning it on a conscious level or not. This arrest will detract from the self-aggrandizement of Gore the father's concert extravaganza in only a few days.

UPDATE: Used the term "cassandra" improperly, which is why I should not post after a long day in the hot sun.

Vicksburg

On July 4, 1863 Confederate Lt. General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi to Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively surrendering control of the Mississippi River. The Confederacy was cut in two.

At 8 a.m. on July 3 Chaplain R. L. Howard of the 124th Illinois Infantry located near the Shirley House noticed "a white flag away to our left on the rebel works. Soon another appeared, and another and, directly, one in front of us. The firing ceased, and all was still, the first time since May 25th, thirty-nine days. Soon greybacks began to show themselves all along the lines. Heads first, cautiously, then bodies, and we straightened up too, in many places only a few yards from them. The works were mounted and we looked each other in the face, the line of motley and the line of blue. How eager we all were to see, and what did it all mean?" A few hours later Grant and Pemberton met beneath an oak tree on a slope between the lines to begin negotiations for the surrender of the 29,500-man garrison. No accord was forthcoming at this meeting. Following an exchange of communications, an agreement was reached early the next morning. It had been 14 months since Farragut's warships had first engaged the Vicksburg batteries, seven months since Grant's first expedition against the city, and 47 days since the appearance of the Federal army on the city's eastern approaches. On the morning of July 4, 1863, while Northern cities celebrated Independence Day, the Army of Vicksburg was formally surrendered. The Confederate troops marched out from their defenses and stacked their rifles, cartridge-boxes, and flags before a generally hushed Union army which witnessed the historic event with little cheering—a testimonial of respect for the courageous defenders of Vicksburg, whose line was never broken.

There is a rather good animated history of the Vicksburg campaign available at this website. Wikipedia entry on the campaign is here. Coupled with the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac commanded by George Gordon Meade on July 3rd, Vicksburg was a decisive turning point in the war.

Bearing Bad News

The warlords of the Animal Uprising™ are sending waves of bears to invade cities all across the country. Authorities in Fayetteville, Arkansas managed to capture one of them.

FAYETTEVILLE — A black bear was tranquilized and captured by Game & Fish Commission officers after being rounded up by police and neighbors near Joyce Boulevard and Old Wire Road, said Sgt. Shannon Gabbard, spokesman for the Fayetteville Police Department.

“A widelife officer tranquilized the bear, and the bear is going to wake up in a better environment for him,” said Gabbard.

The bear was spotted at several locations before being caught. He was first seen in a residential area on the east side of Arkansas 265 at Zion Road and Sterling Street, and later at Valerie Street near Signature Bank and then again after venturing outside of town, where he climbed a tree in a residential area to escape dogs.

Obviously, he was casing the joint. Meanwhile, Arlington, Washington was not as lucky. They were not able to capture the intruder.

ARLINGTON - The bears are out and wandering.

The city received several calls Monday and Tuesday regarding sightings of a black bear in the southern part of the city, said Kristin Banfield, assistant city administrator.

Most of the sightings centered on a wooded area to the east of the Arlington Municipal Airport and adjacent to the Arlington Community Youth Center and Arlington Skate Park, Banfield said. Other sightings were reported in the Gleneagle neighborhood.

No one reported feeling threatened and it's unclear if a bear or bears were seen in anyone's yard, Banfield said.

Not threatened? The bear is casing a youth center and a skate park. Obviously he's on the lookout for fast food. And last, but most definitely not least, there is a bear wandering around in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. A grizzly bear.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, July 3 (UPI) — Wildlife authorities in Anchorage, Alaska, said they are trying to capture a grizzly bear spotted wandering around the city's downtown.

The brown bear, thought by authorities to be a young 250-pound female, has been seen wandering crowded neighborhoods at night on an almost daily basis, the Anchorage Daily News reported Tuesday.

"She's not a troublemaker," state Fish and Game biologist Rick Sinnott told the Daily News. "But this is not an appropriate place for a brown bear."

When the bear begins conducting arm robberies - or even leg robberies - will she be considered a troublemaker then? Or will society be blamed? We all know the answer, don't we? The victim will be blamed for viciously assaulting the grizzly bear's teeth with their former extremities. 

When the bear begins conducting arm robberies - or even leg robberies - will she be considered a troublemaker then? Or will society be blamed? We all know the answer, don't we? The victim will be blamed for viciously assaulting the grizzly bear's teeth with their former extremities. 

Kitty Genovese For The New Millennium

Actually, this case from Wichita, Kansas makes the 38 witnesses to the Kitty Genovese murder look good. Those people did nothing while a madman stabbed Kitty Genovese to death. That's bad. But the witnesses in Wichita actually did something. That makes it worse.

They stepped over the stabbing victim to continue shopping and took pictures with a cell phone.

WICHITA, Kan. - As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday.

Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting."

The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.

Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital.

Two suspects have been arrested. A 19-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect who turned himself in had not been charged as of Tuesday, the Sedgwick County prosecutor's office said.

Revolting is much too mild a word. What those people did may not have broken any laws, but it violated every standard of human decency.

Ethanol And Debt Slavery

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
(Merle Travis, Sixteen Tons)

The Brazilian government has just raided a sugar cane plantation in Brazil and freed more than 1,000 people working as "debt slaves" to produce ethanol. Working 13-hour days in abominable conditions and unable to repay their debts to the company. For ethanol production.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazilian authorities said they raided an Amazon plantation where more than 1,000 laborers were found working 13-hour days, in horrendous conditions, cutting sugar cane for ethanol production.

Authorities said that if preliminary findings by investigators are confirmed, the raid would be Brazil's biggest to date against debt slavery, which is common in the Amazon.

Under the practice, poor laborers are lured to remote spots where they rack up debts to plantation owners charging exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.

But the Amazon plantation's owner — the biggest ethanol producer in the northeastern state of Para — vigorously denied the allegations Tuesday and said the workers make good money by Brazilian standards.

The raid took place in the remote town of Ulianopolis, where authorities discovered the workers a week ago, Brazil's Justice Ministry said in a statement. The company said the raid began Friday and lasted three days.

Police found 1,108 poor workers working from 4:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with only a short break for lunch, the statement said. They complained of paying exorbitant prices for food and medicine, and many walked miles to get to work while others were transported in ramshackle vans.

Many were sick from spoiled food or unsafe water, slept in cramped quarters on hammocks and did not have proper sanitation facilities, Humberto Celio, coordinator of the Labor Ministry's special unit that frees debt slaves, told the government news service Agencia Brasil.

Americans fought long and hard to break these debt bondage schemes that flourished at one time in the coal mining and agricultural sectors in the US. Why is it that the push for "environmentally friendly" things seems to entail so much unfriendliness to the humans involved?

When In The Course Of Human Events

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Read more »