Flooding in NY

Hmm.. No wonder the roads are closed, I'm staying put till morning, Amtrak isn't running, neither are the buses. It sounds pretty serious out there.

Three die in accidents as floods ravage N.Y.

The Associated Press

Binghamton - Flooding from torrential rains swept away homes and businesses, closed the Thruway, forced mass evacuations and cut a chasm across Interstate 88 that claimed the lives of two truckers yesterday.

The deadly deluge that swamped parts of the East Coast began cutting across upstate New York Tuesday. By yesterday, flood warnings were posted from the Catskills to the Adirondacks, and a 50-mile section of the Thruway in the Mohawk Valley was shut down. Gov. George Pataki issued disaster declarations for a swath of central and eastern New York.

- TWO TRUCKERS DIE - Two truckers on I-88 - one headed east, the other west - separately drove their trucks into the 25-foot deep hole created by a collapsed culvert in Sidney, police said. It was raining hard at the time of the accidents and it was not clear if the truckers even saw the break, which created a jagged tear across the highway wide enough to swallow the cabs. The gap, created by the surging water of Carrs Creek, closed the road between exits 8 and 13. The truckers' names were not immediately released.

- DRIVER KILLED - A Chenango County man, Robert Stockwell, 31, died after driving his car through a washed-out section of road near his home in New Berlin.

- BINGHAMTON HIT HARD - The heaviest-hit area in New York was around Binghamton, which got 4.05 inches of rain Tuesday, the most received in a 24-hour period. Mayor Matthew Ryan declared a state of emergency for the city and ordered evacuations in some neighborhoods. A house floated down the rain-swollen Susquehanna River near the city yesterday, and whole villages in rural Delaware County were cut off by flood waters.

- GUARD ACTIVATED - Gov. George Pataki activated about 125 National Guard members for evacuation duties, rescue and traffic control. Several hundred people were being cared for at a Red Cross emergency shelter set up at Binghamton University after the Susquehanna, Chenango and other rivers flooded. Marilyn Weiner of the Red Cross said about 1,000 people had registered to get food, clothing or lodging. Pataki told CNN that thousands of people were evacuated.

- EMERGENCIES DECLARED - Thirteen counties declared states of emergency: Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Delaware, Broome, Cortland, Tioga, Chenango, Oneida, Montgomery, Schoharie, Otsego and Herkimer. Portions of Madsion County also were declared emergency areas.

- MOHAWK VALLEY - The Mohawk Valley was also deluged. Homes were evacuated around the Mohawk River, and the surging water forced the Thruway closure between Exit 28 at Fonda-Fultonville and Exit 31 at Utica. The closure was expected to last through this morning.

- MUDSLIDES - In rural Schoharie County, about 90 miles northeast of Binghamton, a mudslide closed a road and prevented emergency crews from reaching residents of a home cut off by the debris. The county's emergency management office said there were no reports of injuries from the mudslide but reported "quite a few roads" in the farming region were closed because of flooding.

AMTRAK HELL

Well, I'm stuck in Albany New York right now. I purchased a ticket from the Amtrak desk at Union station at precisely 8:15am Wednesday morning. The ticket that they issued me allowed for travel between Washington and Rochester NY including an hour layover at NY’s Penn station. Upon arriving at Penn station the big arrival/departure sign was displaying a message. My train wasn’t going to continue onto Rochester, it was terminating at Albany NY, with no other transportation options available. Ohhh…. Rough. I went first to the coffee place next to the Hudson news stand where I purchased a copy of this weeks economist, which featured an article about the new hit movie ‘Who killed the electric car? As psyched as I was on the article and the bagel lox and iced coffee I bought at some food kiosk; I really wanted to find out what the hell was up with the train ride to my sister’s wedding. I’m scheduled to be at some tux fitting appointment Thursday afternoon, and being late isn’t an option. Seeing the long ass line in front of the Amtrak counter I opted to call Amtrak on my cell phone in an attempt to divine what the hell was going on. So like there are all these floods across central New York right now. My uncle Jimmy in Schenevus NY lost the bridge connecting their driveway with the road and can’t get out. So rail service was canceled. Yippee.. I crashed with my cousin Amanda in Albany and we went out to a buncha bars and such in downtown Albany, NY. We met up with Alicia and her husband Claudio and went to Mahar's. What a crazy bar. If you drink 500 beers there they will give you a mug with your bar customer ID number written with a magic marker on it set into a shelf right behind the bar. And to boot the bar has a simple pc setup running some kind of bar software to count which beers you have had and which you still need to cross off your list. It prints a custom report each and every time you log in, WAY COOL!! Amanda and Sean both have tracked their tour of the world’s beers. This pub has 200 beers on the menu; it’s comparable to the brikskeller Inn in that respect. And so now I sit…. Trying to plot out a route that avoids the downed bridges and flooded out roads mucking up travel in central NY.

Special guest tonight @ MARX

I'm taking a back seat tongiht and handing the wheels over to my good buddy Random. He spins down tempo dnb and laid back housey joints, stuff like that. seeya there!

3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

Update- John never made it; he was too busy drying out his flooded basement apartment. He'll be back at Marx sometime soon, maybe in two weeks or so.

Monday WTF?!??

Something strange for the Monday.

Priest in trouble over sex tape

A Romanian priest is in trouble after his plan to discredit a local councillor by filming him having sex in church backfired.

Father Petrica Florea, 47, from Costesti, convinced a local 17-year-old girl to seduce Constantin Moise, 74, on the altar of a local church.

He filmed the sex session and then planned to show it to parishioners so he could discredit the councillor and take his job.

But his parishioners were so horrified they chased him out of the church and called police, Romanian daily 7 Plus reported.

A police spokesman said: "The priest wanted to make Moise resign because he wanted the position for himself.

"He wanted to discredit the councillor in front of other people. But all he managed to do was anger his parishioners."

He added Father Florea was facing a criminal investigation on charges of attempted blackmail with a possible jail sentence if found guilty and would likely be expelled from the Church.

Stolen sidekick update.

She got her phone back! What a wonderful example of someone setting their mind to something and acomplishing that goal.

For the rest of the story and the wrap down, see http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

Who Killed the Electric Car? Part III

So… I saw it!! And WOW, it's an extremely well crafted and effective film that manages to blend informative wit and solid documentary work. I really hope as many people get to see it as possible once it's released on the 28th.

The viewing was held at the Motion Picture Association of America's Washington office on Eye Street, in their fabulous 50 seat screening room. The event was co-hosted by the national Resource Defense Council, Public Citizen and Sony Pictures Classics. OMG the food was pretty awesome, didn’t expect that at all, I had at least two of everything that had been brought out. Open bar to boot! At one point someone, whom later was introduced as Michael Barker, president of Sony Pictures Classics, jokingly observed that it looked as though I were having dinner. I told him, “the food is certainly welcome; however I’m really excited about this film”. He replied that, “we are all extremely excited about the film and hope that it does well.” Those egg rolls and crab puffs were yummy!

Upon receiving the gentle push from MPAA staff and hearing that the film would be starting soon, me and the friend I had come with, who had just earlier in the day taken a position as a deputy policy director at Public Citizen, found our way into the small theater and sat in the second row. Not before slamming another drink from the open bar mind you, lol.

Before the film began a couple of people had a few things to say including the movie’s director Chris Paine, Michael Barker and the President of Public Citizen, Joan Claybrook. Mike welcomed everybody to what he described as one of the best screening rooms in America. He was followed by Joan who took the opportunity to acknowledge the several different organizations that had worked together to make this screening possible. Chris spoke for a couple of minutes about some of the work that went into the film, thanked everyone for coming, stressed the seriousness of the issues involved and with that the lights began to dim.

The first thing you hear is Martin Sheen’s excellent narration explaining the awful effects that air quality is having on the health of people living in Los Angles. Asthma, lung lesions and chronic bronchitis in LA County are attributed to the poor air quality created by the millions of cars clogging the LA freeways. The fact that 19 pounds of C02 enters the air for every gallon of gas burned in an internal combustion engine is reinforced through the dramatic image of a fogged over camera lenses following several feet behind a tailpipe as the car accelerates and turns a corner.

Explaining the obvious need to do something to improve air quality the films focuses next on the factors leading up to the ZEV mandate, a series of regulations enacted by the California Air Resources Board(CARB). This measure required that auto manufactures selling vehicles in California produce a certain percentage of cars that are Zero Emission Vehicles(ZEV). To conform to the terms of the mandate several auto manufactures began leasing and in some instances selling electric vehicles to the public in California and also in Arizona where a comparable state agency had adopted similar guidelines modeled after the California ZEV mandate.

GM for a time was the electric car volume sales leader of the whole world, its EV1 car was far and away the most respected and competent entry to emerge from the auto manufactures in response to the ZEV mandate. People lucky enough to obtain a lease had few complaints; it was fast, sleek and silent and didn’t use any gas whatsoever. Listening to the interviews with former EV1 drivers it’s quickly apparent why these people had such a close attachment to their cars. Interspersed between these customer testimonials were clips of the car racing around highways, peeling out in a parking garage and in a clip I had never seen before going head to head with a Mazda Mata and a Nissan 300zx and beating both vehicles in a zero to sixty test. I had heard the car was fast, but this particular clip proved to constitute dramatic evidence of the real world car credibility this vehicle had so rightly earned amongst enthusiasts.

An interview with Mel Gibson in this segment details the difficulties that many people experienced while simply trying to obtain leases for these futuristic cars. He mentioned that his application form contained sections requesting such personal information as tattoos and birthmarks, wtf? What possible motive might GM have in requiring potential customers to provide such information? It seems these measures were put in place to make it difficult for someone to abscond on the lease and keep the car as these identifying features would possibly aid police in tracking down the “stolen” property.

Next the focus turns back towards CARB and details the lobbying activities undertaken by the auto manufactures, oil companies and even the White House. Under intense pressure from these lobbying efforts CARB eventually succumbed and severally weakened the ZEV mandate, allowing the auto makers to get out of their obligations to continue producing ZEVs for sale or lease to the public.

This section of the film has interviews with several people who worked on the EV1 project at GM and other industry representatives who potentially may have been able to steer the project in a different direction. Watching these interviews is painful as each person attempts to deflect criticism away from them selves while denying that GM or the auto industry as a whole had setup these electric cars to fail in the marketplace. The one mantra that is tirelessly repeated is that there simply wasn’t any consumer demand for an electric car and that GM could no longer afford to produce the vehicle. According to Chelsea Sexton, an EV1 sales specialist featured in the film, GM was sitting on a waiting list of 4,000 interested parties and for some time denied the existence of such a list.

So now absolved of responsibility under law to produce electric vehicles the auto manufactures ceased making them. When the 3 year leases began to run out on the 800 or so cars that had made it to the road, GM1 took the cars back offering no option for lease holders to purchase them and had every last one crushed save for a few examples which were then donated to universities and museums after having key drive train components disabled.

There are some really poignant moments as EV lovers protest outside GM’s Burbank California storage depot asking for the opportunity to purchase the remaining 87 cars, the only ones left, before they were turned into scrap. Baywatch actress Alaxander Paul is interviewed several times during the film and is seen using the wall charger in her home to demonstrate how simple it was to top-up with one of these amazing cars. She was arrested by Burbank PD for refusing to get out of the path of a semi loaded up with EV1s headed for crushing. That’s dedication!

The rest of the film focuses on interviews from different parties that potentially could be to blame for this public policy disaster. Under careful examination are five suspects. These were batteries, oil companies, automobile manufactures, the government, CARB, hydrogen fuel cell technology and consumers. After watching as each case was made I have to, in my opinion, place the blame with the CARB. Their decision to allow the rules to be relaxed, in response to industry pressure, to the point where the auto makers were no longer required to produce electric cars made the program largely ineffective and served to completely undermine the spirit behind the mandate. These public officials shouldn’t have acted in such a spineless fashion in the face of powerful interests.

The film manages to end on a positive note, showing many of the new electric car technologies that are on the horizon giving hope to the viewer that the tide will eventually turn and the auto manufactures will have little choice but to produce electric cars that meet consumer demand. The film provided me with my first look at the Tesla Roadster. I have looked all over the internet for a picture of this much talked about ultra performing electric sports car which has been partly financed by one of the Google founders, and have come up empty handed. The company behind this new vehicle is rather secretive and hasn’t to my knowledge released an image to the public up until now. It’s pretty sweet looking! With zero to sixty times under 4 seconds and a per charge range of 250 miles its sure to cause a commotion once it’s unveiled officially on July 12 in Santa Monica, California.

As the lights came up Joan Claybrook began to announce the panel they had assembled for the discussion session. First to be seated was Chris Paine, the director of the film. He was followed by Chelsea Sexton, the EV1 sales specialist featured in the film. Next we were introduced to Joseph J. Romm, the author of “The Hype about Hydrogen” whom had been quoted several times in the film during the fuel cell discussion. Next to be seated was R. James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Clinton administration. The final panel member was introduced as Deron Lovaas, Vehicle Campaign Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The first series of questions from the audience seemed to focus on things that others felt had been left from the film. Someone asked why hadn’t the investigation focused it’s scrutiny on the utility companies? Chelsea Sexton and Chris Paine answered that of all potential suspects the utility companies were probably the most eager to see electric vehicles prosper. Utility companies across California and Arizona had invested heavily in the necessary infrastructure to support the fledging vehicles, chargers in public parking lots, education campaigns and PSAs proclaiming the work they were doing to prepare for the proliferation of electric cars that advocates were sure would follow in the footsteps of the groundbreaking ZEV mandate. Well, we know how that turned out and as a result it is going to be more difficult to ramp up their infrastructure efforts again once the ball is rolling once again with this poor taste left in their mouths.

Everybody on the panel seemed to have a deep disdain for the hydrogen fuel cell technology, James Woolsey spoke most harshly about the technology saying that the billions of research dollars that had gone into developing the hydrogen fuel cell were a complete waste of peoples trust, innovation and time. He said that while fuel cells do have useful applications in several fixed single purpose installations, using them in transportation makes no sense whatsoever. I was aware that fuel cell technology had a long way to go but it seemed as though each panel member, especially Joe Romm, felt that the goal of hydrogen research was to serve as a deliberate distraction from research that should otherwise be focused on improving ZEVs. They talked about Alan C. Lloyd who accepted a position as the chairman of the California Fuel Cell Partnership while he was still serving as chair of CARB, while at the same time strangling the ZEV mandate. The California Fuel Cell Partnership receives funding from a variety of sources including oil companies and automobile manufactures.

Another question from the audience that sparked a response from the panel that was heartening to hear was about possibly creating legislation to restrict the size of SUVs. Across the panel everyone seemed to agree that that wouldn’t be a good idea and that the focus of any legislation should be targeted towards fuel economy standards and creating opportunities for ZEVs to be introduced into the marketplace. Woolsey went out of his way to stress that there was nothing inherently wrong with large vehicles, it is and has always been the fuel economy standards that need to be improved in order to decrease our use of non-renewable energy sources. For these vehicles to be adopted by the public at large they shouldn’t be terribly different from the gas powered cars they are to replace.

One of the points I came away with was that there really isn’t one single silver bullet that you can point to and blame for the death of the electric car in America. It was a combination of factors aligned against its success that ultimately doomed it. The panel seemed unified however in the opinion that GM set the car up to fail from the beginning and never seriously marketed it in a way that would have resulted in its widespread adoption. That combined with the cowardly abandonment of the California ZEV mandate and there you go, witness the death of the electric car.

Ralph Nader was in the audience but not seated on the panel, he was in the last row and fielded several questions posed to him from the panel which I thought was odd. This made it awkward for everyone in the theater to hear him speak, we would crane over our shoulders towards the back of the room while listening to him speak and then turn back towards the panel to hear the response. He was rather harsh towards the film and sounded disappointed as he felt that the film wouldn’t inspire the critical activism in the public due to the films, as he worded it, the “technological euphoria” with which the film ends. He would have preferred that the film focus on the real problem, the 531 members of Congress that are the only way this technology could ultimately be proliferated. Industry will not champion change by them selves, that’s been proven time and time again. Joan Claybrook agreed and related her experience trying to get airbags into passenger cars, which ultimately took an act of congress to bring to the market place. Chelsea and Chris chimed in as well citing GM’s reluctance to put reliable batteries into the first series of EV1s, opting to use lead acid batteries instead of the more road worthy Nickel Metal Hydride technology that eventually found their way into the second generation models. Everyone seemed to agree that the major auto manufactures will resist change as much as they can up until Congress forces them to implement features that the consumer demands. So perhaps Nader’s comments weren’t so much a slam of the film but an expression of what we know to be true. He would have preferred to see a film that would inspire action instead of “technological euphoria”.

This about wraps up my notes from the night, if I have anything else to add I will, thanks for reading!

minimum wage politics

Congress just gave themselves a $3,300 a year pay raise last week, yet these creeps can't do the same for the people they claim to represent? The last time that the federal minimum wage was increased was fucking 1996. As a direct result America's poor working class find themselves struggling to sustain a quality of living that could possibly be deemed as "middle class" in Pakistan, Vietnam and North Korea. This is unacceptable!

For most working American families, pay has not risen nearly as much as their costs have. Based on a 40-hour work week minimum wage earners take home $10,712 per year before taxes, considerably lower than the poverty level. Members of Congress earned an annual $133,600 at the time the minimum wage was last raised. With their new raise to $168,500 per year, this represents a 26% pay hike over the past 10 years, compared with a 0% increase in the minimum wage.

It is troubling that members of Congress squeal loudly about the inability of companies to pay a higher minimum wage to their employees, yet these same representatives have no problem doling out taxpayer money to line their pockets further during a time of wildly increasing budget deficits. This action represents inexcusable irresponsibility, for which we all share the cost, quite literally.

Today, the real value of the minimum wage is more than $3.50 below what it was in 1968. Approximately 7.3 million workers currently are earning the federal minimum wage. Adults are the majority, 72%, of these workers, 61% of minimum-wage workers are women. More than a third of those working at minimum wage also care for children under the age of 18, with more than 700,000 of them single mothers.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005, introduced by Senator Kennedy as S.1062 and Representative Miller as H.R.2429, proposes to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps over two years, benefiting as many as 15.5 million hard working Americans.

This wage increase will give America’s economy a much needed boost, allowing working class wage earners the opportunity to purchase I-pods, refrigerators with water and ice service through the door and second hand late model SUVs.

Seventeen states have already enacted higher minimum wage laws. Evidence from these states and experience with past federal minimum wage increases demonstrates raising the minimum wage benefits working poor families, stimulates the economy and does not cause job loss. 72% of workers who would benefit from this increase are adults, and evidence from the last federal minimum wage increase shows that the average minimum wage worker brings home more than half of his or her family's weekly earnings.

Raising the minimum wage will allow Americans at the bottom of society to save. Currently the national savings rate, an excellent barometer of overall economic health, is at the lowest level since 1933. The 0.5 percent negative savings rate for 2005 followed a 1.8 percent rate of savings in 2004. The last negative rates occurred in 1932, a drop of 0.9 percent, and a record 1.5 percent decline in 1933. In those years Americans exhausted their savings to try to meet expenses in the wake of the worst economic crisis in U.S. history, commonly known as the Great Depression.

Congress should immediately move to enact this legislation; if for no other reason than to mollify mainstream voters outraged by bribery scandals in preparation for the congressional elections in November.

Tonight's the night....

That I get to see "Who killed the electric car?". I'm extremly excited, this work day needs to hurry up and be over. Fortunatley I have a lot to get done today before I can leave, so things should be over within short order on account of me staying busy for the duration of the day. I wonder what new revelations await? I can't imagine there's much more beyond the patent issues pertaining to the availability of NiMh batteries, we'll see tonight. I'll try and write up a whole review either later tonight or tommorow morning.

I'll be at Marx Cafe tonight, however I think I may ask my friend Calvin to spin for me tonight as I'm not sure that I'll have enough time to run home and get my records after seeing the film. Seeya!

Lawmakers are greedy pigs.

These fucking assholes have the nerve to grant themselves a cost of living increase yet won't do the same for the people they claim to represent? That's horseshit! The last time the federal minium wage was raised was fucking 1996. It's time to throw the bums out, the whole lot of em'.

House lawmakers take $3,300 pay raise

WASHINGTON — Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that would increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate. Lawmakers easily squelched an attempt by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the increase, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA.

This pretty shameful, a new low in fact. But dosen't this happen every year? Yes it does. These vermin have actually managed to lock the pay raise into being, such that to prevent it from occuring action would be required. wtf?

A full time minimum wage worker makes just $10,712 per year before taxes.

Yeah, it's not congress that's out of touch here; as they clearly have their self serving priorities in order. It's each and every American that should bear the shame for allowing these louts to continue operating a kleptocracy with no end in sight.

Prez Bush mocks the disabled, later apologizes.

this is kind of funny, I'm glad he called the guy and set it straight, but.... Bush still never answered the guy's question, I think that's a far worse transgression than ribbing the guy for wearing corrective lenses.

Bush apologizes for embarrassing reporter with vision problem
By NEDRA PICKLER
Jun 14, 2006, 16:45

President Bush, who often teases members of the White House press corps, apologized Wednesday after he poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses without realizing they were needed for vision loss.

The exchange occurred at a news conference in the Rose Garden.

Bush called on Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten and asked if he was going to ask his question with his "shades" on.

"For the viewers, there's no sun," Bush said to the television cameras.

But even though the sun was behind the clouds, Wallsten still needs the sunglasses because he has Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes progressive vision loss. The condition causes Wallsten to be sensitive to glare and even on a cloudy day, can cause pain and increase the loss of sight.

Wallsten said Bush called his cell phone later in the day to apologize and tell him that he didn't know he had the disease. Wallsten said he interrupted and told the president that no apology was necessary and that he didn't feel offended since he hadn't told anyone at the White House about his condition.

Continue reading...

Ricin threat a joke! MARX TNIGHT!!11

Here is an extreamly interesting story about the Ricin plot from several years ago. Remeber this? Apparently the whole story is bupkis, a fabrication! Who'd a thunk it?

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/200/...

Oh, and more importantly.....

MARX CAFE TONIGHT!!!
3203 Mount Pleasant St. NW

B-Boy battle, Car show in Virginia

I'm going to try and check this action out. Soundz rad!

GEs 1968 EV!

Wow, so GE was working on an electric car in the 1960s! I had no idea fuel cell technology has been around for as long as this article states. Did you know that the Gemini space missions relied on small, stable and powerful fuel cells? Standing up to entreched interests as oil and automobile manufactures proved to be too much apparently as this project was lost to history. I guess this idea never really went away though, I remember reading about electric cars (and steam) being commercially avaiable around the turn of the century before being replaced en mass by ICE vechiles. I think this time around electric transportation will really take off. This article even mentions hybrid vechiles using bascially the same defination as we use it today. crazy!

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/GE_EV_hearings.html

Stolen Sidekick, LOL!!1

OMG, what a wild story. I really hope we hear in the end that this poor girl gets her phone back. It's possible that the people who stole it have already thrown it into the trash or destroyed it. If they refuse to return it, well then the police should become involved and the perps should be charged w/ a crime, pocession of stolen property or something along those lines. I really don't think this is a hoax as some people have alleged, it seems to organic to be fake, like it's clear that the girl just wants her phone back. Also possible is that this is some sort of viral marketing effort on the behalf of t-mobile. If I was in the same position I too would just like to get the damn phone back and call it a night and were it returned I wouldn't press criminal charges, that tells me it's legit. Hopefully we'll get to see this play out over the next couple of days? I know I'll be watching.

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11"

According to Rex Tomb, the FBI's spokesperson, Bin Laden has never been charged in connection with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. WTF? I found this wired article from 2001 that states that the FBI intends to charge Bin Laden once they have collected the necessary evidence required by a grand jury. Wow, it never happened and were still waiting for the evidience that bush we used as the justifcation for the invasion of Afganistan. I'm sick right now. This is awful, what is going on in the world these days??!?!

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” I asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Tiolet Paper gone wild!@

Ha ha.. MARX CAFE TONIGHT!

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > NATIONAL
Toilet Paper Spill Blocks N.Y. Thruway Traffic
Tuesday, June 06, 2006

BATAVIA, N.Y. — Please don't squeeze the Charmin. And don't dump it on the highway, either.

Crews on the New York State Thruway spent hours cleaning up the mess caused when a truck full of toilet paper caught fire.

It happened about 40 miles east of Buffalo. The driver of the rig managed to escape.

But roll after roll of the bathroom tissue spilled onto the highway, backing up traffic for miles. That, in turn, led to a separate accident involving two trucks. Police say no one was seriously hurt.

Who killed the EVs?

Great article about this upcoming film! There's some interesting details in here that i hadn't heard before. Like the fact that the filmaker was an EV1 driver himself, and GM took back the car without telling him while it was being serviced at a dealership with 2 months on the lease! WTF?

Three months later, activists discovered that 78 EV1s were in storage at a GM facility in the LA suburb of Burbank. They staged a month-long vigil for the vehicles' survival. To challenge the company's line that nobody wanted them, they found buyers for every last one and offered a total of $1.9 million.

At a time when america's auto makers are under such intense pressure to remain profitable, when foreign brands dominate the marketplace, these idiots are willfully destroying cars that people were willing to spend good money on. Something stinks!

Update: I just got an invite to a screening here in dc on the 20th, I'm hella excited. Thank you Bob! I'll be sure and post a full review after i see it.

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/Con...

Incompetent news round-up

LOLZZ!!1 Perfect for a friday, it dosen't get much better than this!

Thu Jun 1, 9:03 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - A would-be Japanese bank robber asked staff how he should carry out the crime before meekly obeying a request to leave and then accidentally stabbing himself in the leg with a knife he was carrying. The 58-year-old unemployed man went into a branch of the Saitama Resona Bank in the town of Kumagaya, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, intending to rob it, a police spokesman said.

According to local media reports the man first asked a bank teller, "Any idea how you rob a bank?" The teller alerted another member of staff, who asked the man to leave. "He left quietly when asked to," the police spokesman said.

However, the staff member escorting the man out of the bank noticed the knife sticking out of his pocket and a bloodstain on his trousers. Police arrested the man for illegal possession of a weapon. "He didn't brandish the knife at anyone ... but he injured himself in the leg," the police spokesman said.

oh, I wouldn't hold my breath for this to be returned any time soon. And how could something like this happen any way. Are Austrian tax collectors literally going door to door with a burlap sack?

Fri Jun 2, 8:17 AM ET

VIENNA, Austria - A tax collector in the southern Austrian city of Graz accidentally left $28,000 in cash in a black attache case he placed on top of a toilet in the men's room of a local restaurant Thursday, police said.

By the time he realized it was missing and went back, the cash was gone, authorities said.

As of Friday, no one had turned up with the money, prompting police in the city 120 miles south of Vienna to issue an appeal for its return.

ohh.. and this one takes the cake. have a great weekend!

Vandal fingered himself as suspect

A vandal who knocked over headstones in a US cemetery left police a small but important clue - his finger.

Police found the finger end stuck between two toppled gravestones in the cemetery in Fleming, New York state.

Officers, who say a total of 53 headstones were knocked over, later arrested a man missing a finger.

He has been charged with criminal mischief, criminal trespass and cemetery desecration, reports 13WHAM-TV.