The mystery of the missing garden gnomes may finally have been solved.
Kimberly Rae Baker-Bundy, facing a Washington County Circuit Court theft warrant, turned herself in to the county jail late last week and now faces trial on the charges.
Although the 49-year-old Sherwood resident has not entered a plea, police think she roamed far and wide through Washington and Clackamas counties, perhaps for years, allegedly stealing items not solidly nailed down from area lawns, gardens and backyards.
"I've never seen a case like this," Sherwood police Detective Dwight Onchi said. "She literally had more stuff than you can imagine." ... Police began investigating the case in late 2002, when Onchi noticed a trend of police reports describing apparently random thefts of weathered birdhouses, gargoyles, ceramic frogs, signs and numerous other knickknacks.
"I kept saying to various officers, one day, we're going to come up on this whole yard full of ornaments," Onchi said. "And that's just what happened." ... The case broke just before Christmas that year, when a Sherwood couple, returning to their residence, saw a woman crossing their lawn carrying what appeared to be items from their backyard. The man tried unsuccessfully to stop her from driving off, but managed to get her license plate number, Onchi said.
The case took so long to put together, he said, due mainly to the difficulty of matching specific items recovered from Baker-Bundy's former residence with photographs of missing lawn items supplied by victims.
By the time police obtained a warrant to search the residence, Onchi said, they found huge piles of doormats, glass baubles, wagon wheels, wind chimes, lawn deer and numerous other items.
Inside the house, Onchi found what he called a lawn-ornament "chop shop."
Who knew there was a market for hot lawn ornaments? But she's lucky - around this neck of the woods she would be more likely to get a load of 00 buck if the dogs didn't get her first.
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:44 PM -
Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion of the Christ," opens next Wednesday. The New York Times reports that "tonight NBC plans to devote an entire edition of 'Dateline' to the debate over 'The Passion' by sending the show's anchor, Stone Phillips, to Jerusalem to uncover what really happened in the last days of Jesus's life."
It's about time someone got to the bottom of this!
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:55 PM -
Angst Alert!
Powerline has a nice roundup of Deaniac angst from Deano's famous blog.
and I will *never* donate money or time to a campaign that worked to destroy what my husband and I worked so hard to help create. And, unfortunately, now I know just how filthy this process really is. I know understand where the people who voted for Nader were coming from.
Posted by Renee in Ohio at February 18, 2004 12:40 PM
Now you're talking, Renee!
Thank you and Good Night!
Vote BUSH in 04 and then Dean has a chance to run again in 08.
Posted by Frisbeedude at February 18, 2004 12:41 PM
ANNAPOLIS — About 100 immigrants and illegal aliens arrived at the State House yesterday to oppose six bills designed to crack down on illegal immigrants, including one that will allow police officers to take them off the street without cause.
"I am totally illegal," said Zayd Torres, a Venezuelan living in Montgomery County.
Mr. Torres, 25, said he came to Annapolis after talking with officials at CASA of Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group, while looking for work.
"And I came because I thought that l personally was affected by these proposals," said Mr. Torres, who ate pizza provided by the group but remained outside the State House to avoid a possible identification check by police.
Mr. Torres said he also made phone calls for the advocacy group to garner community support for the protest and was among those who arrived in a caravan of cars and four vans provided by the group.
He'll probably vote in the next election too. And he was just one of the group.
It's nice to know that the USA doesn't have a monopoly!
Of asshats that is. The Donk primaries had me worried, but Tim Blair has a roundup of posts showing that it's a worldwide phenomenon. Here's a couple to prove the point. How about Australian "writer" Richard Neville who posts a picture of a suicide bombing in Israel and calls it Iraqi casulties in Baghdad? Pretty good, eh?
Then there's RESPECT. No, not the Aretha Franklin song. It's
the new political party for wingnuts across Europe, including Saddam's buttboy Georgie Galloway. It had included George "Moonbat" Monbiot too, but he took a powder so you can tell we are talking major dysfunction here. But not to worry, it still has the communists and peace freaks, as well as various Middle Eastern types and the odd trade unionist.
(Via Instapundit who asks where's the online audio?) Hugh Hewitt (2/17, 5:35 PM) dug up an audio tape of John Kerry's infamous testimony to Congress:
I played John Kerry's 1971 testimony on the radio program, and the response was intense. The first two hours brought scores of calls and e-mails which denounced Kerry for his slander of the military that served in Vietnam and for his understanding of the war. Kerry has thus far successfully dodged a discussion of the specifics of his testimony, and it was very hard to find the audio --it took my producer Duane considerable digging to find the tape.
The impact of actually hearing Kerry slander the military--his accent is unbelievable, and his tone of arrogance and condescension repulsive-- is powerful, and I do not believe he can serve successfully as Commander-in-Chief given the reactions I heard from veterans and currently serving military. We are in the middle of a war, and the Democrats are in the process of nominating a man hated by a large portion of the uniformed service for his actions of thirty years ago.
Kewl! Pond scum in action. I'm waiting to catch the reruns in campaign commercials everywhere. Much more by following the link.
And speaking of Hugh, the evangelical outpost has a laugh at the expense of the not-quite-dead-yet Salon:
Salon claims that “right wing pundit and blogger” Hugh Hewitt is painting a false picture of John Kerry:
Hewitt now hopes to slap the same lefty card on Kerry -- never mind Kerry's Senate voting record, widely considered centrist, or the fact that Dean himself has grilled Kerry for being far to the right of his own campaign platform.
As Hugh noted on his own blog, American’s for Democratic Action (a group that claims to be “the premier liberal lobbying organization") measures the voting records ... of all members of Congress. ... A perfect score on the “Liberal Quotient” would be a score of 100. Kerry has a lifetime average of 92. If Kerry is a “centrist” then that must make Ted Kennedy (85) “center-right” and Joe Lieberman (75) a rabid right-winger.
Ommmmmmmmmmm! Ellisblog suspects that Bob Shrum and Tad Devine and Tommy V. may not subscribe to the Ashram principles of Democratic presidential politics. Ellisblog suspects that the lads are already editing negative television commercials. The kind that might lead one to the conclusion that Senator Edwards is a hypocritical sleazeball. They better hurry up and get them on the air. Because Big Media is signing on with John Edwards in a big way.
The best thing about Edwards is his stock of pure cornpone. There's a lot of laughs right now about his story of the little girl without a coat:
In his stump speech about the "two Americas," he has repeatedly deplored the plight of the 35 million Americans below the poverty line by imagining a 10-year-old girl "somewhere in America" who goes to bed "praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today, because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm."
Last week, after Mr. Edwards introduced an imagined scenario of a worker whose factory was shutting down the very night of the speech, reporters on his plane jokingly asked if this new character was the father of the girl. Mr. Edwards laughed and replied, "You guys are bad."
To some critics of Mr. Edwards, a more serious question is whether the coatless girl is any more representative of America's poor than Mr. Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare recipient. After all, clothing has become so cheap and plentiful (partly because of textile imports, which Mr. Edwards has proposed to limit) that there is a glut of second-hand clothing, and consequently most clothing donated to charity is shipped abroad. The second-hand children's coats that remain in America typically sell for about $5 in thrift shops.
"Edwards would do better to say there's a girl somewhere in America who's cold because her family can't afford to fix the furnace," said Robert E. Rector of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, who has analyzed data from the Census Bureau and other agencies on the living standards of the poor. Since the typical American family below the poverty line has a car, air-conditioning, a microwave oven, a stereo and two color televisions with cable or satellite service, Mr. Rector said, it was implausible to assume the family could not afford coats.
Senator Cornpone needs to get with the modern age, but it's kind of hard to get teared up about the obese poor.
... stories of children without coats appeal to sentimental paleolibs, even though--as Edwards surely knows--the problem of U.S. poverty is not, by and large, a problem of this sort of abject material want. Poor housing, yes. Poor schools, yes. Bad neighborhoods with bad services, yes. Never-formed families, yes. Restricted contacts, horizons and opportunities, yes. No coats, no. ...
And am I the only one who finds Edwards' award-winning spiel--about unemployed workers with "that vacant look, 'What do I do now?'" because "this is what they have done their entire lives and they know nothing else"--a bit condescending? Are these people or sheep? I mean, most Americans these days know there is a risk of unemployment and recession as the economy stumbles forward and that they need to be prepared to switch jobs. This isn't 1955. Shouldn't Edwards be "optimistic" enough to convince voters that these difficulties can be surmounted even as he pledges to help if he's president? ... Does Edwards, as a former plaintiff's lawyer, spend too much time finding victims? (Don't blame him. It's what he's done his entire life and he knows nothing else!) ...
And he's mighty good at it! Sniff!
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:42 PM -
I can't resist passing on the story of how Clark spent the final night of his campaign Wednesday in Little Rock after he bowed out of the race and began his bid to be John Kerry's vice president.
Semi-chilled Bud Light was the drink of choice, as it was on the Clark campaign bus. The already paper-thin wall separating the young Clark media embeds and the young Clark staffers was finally torn down, and both sides joined the general in the kitchen. There, at the top of his lungs, the former Supreme Allied Commander sang Madonna's "Like a Prayer" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." One ex-Clarkie quipped, "The scariest part was that he knew all the words."
Weasley's minders have to remember to cut him off after one Bud Light.
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:00 PM -
Nothing to see here, move along!
That's what Alex and her family say now according to Deborah Orin in the NY Post - I'm not John's Jane:
The young woman at the center of rumors linking her to John Kerry broke her silence yesterday to deny she had an affair with the married Democratic front-runner.
"I have never had a relationship with Sen. Kerry and the rumors in the press are completely false," Alexandra Polier, 27, said in a statement issued to The Associated Press in Nairobi, Kenya, where she is staying. ... Her parents issued a separate statement that said the rumors are "unfounded" and added, "We appreciate the way Sen. Kerry has handled the situation and intend on voting for him for president of the United States."
But that's in sharp contrast to her father's attack on Kerry as a "sleazeball" just four days earlier, on Thursday, as quoted in Friday's edition of the British paper, The Sun. Those remarks certainly didn't indicate he intended to vote for Kerry.
"I think he's a sleazeball. I did kind of wonder if my daughter didn't get that kind of feeling herself," father Terry Polier, 56, was quoted as saying.
"He's not the sort of guy I would choose to be with my daughter . . . John Kerry called my daughter and invited her down to Washington two or three years ago.
"He invited her to be on his re-election committee. She talked to him and decided against it."
The father also was quoted as saying Alexandra's mother, Donna, thought Kerry was pursuing their daughter and was "after her."
The parents' statement yesterday didn't challenge The Sun's account.
No word on whether Vernon Jordan has lined up a job at Revlon for her. But just about anything is better than an Arkansas dirtnap.
But heck, I'm sure the media would tell us all about it if there was something to it. Or maybe not. Of course they could always have Scott Lindlaw "report" it.
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:35 PM -
Monday, February 16, 2004
Hmmm, giant puppets!
But it's weirder than that. I spotted this and this on FR and was a trifle dubious that this year's carnival in Nice had cloning as a theme. Cutting over to the official carnival web site I see that it is actually the "King of Clownery" not "Cloning" but that the theme is cloning as the floats and the web site attest. The non-Flash version of the site has mild stuff like two-headed clowns but if you really want to get creeped out, go in through the Flash side and find two-headed sheep and people walking dog-like clones of themselves. All with jaunty music. Boy that really gets me in a party mood!
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:24 AM -
Yikes!
They found evidence of Kerry infidelity. Is this what they call a "main squeeze"?
As a 20-year-old photographer documenting the country's struggle over the Vietnam War, Ken Light snapped the picture of John Kerry at a peace rally in Mineola. It captured the future senator alone at a podium, squinting into the sun.
Light did not photograph Jane Fonda on that warm June Sunday in 1971. The actress, who is reviled by many Vietnam veterans for her vocal stance against the war, did not even attend.
But when opponents of the Democratic presidential hopeful began e-mailing Light's picture to one another four days ago, it depicted Fonda standing by Kerry's side. The photo had been doctored.
"I'm horrified," said Light, 52, who grew up in East Meadow and now heads the graduate photojournalism program at the University of California at Berkeley. "I think this kind of alteration is probably one of the scariest forms of trickery, particularly when it's done against a political candidate."
For someone who "heads the graduate photojournalism program at the University of California at Berkeley" ole Ken doesn't seem to get out much. Ken, meet Fark. And Ken, your original snap from that day was really great.
Dag Vega, a spokesman for Kerry's campaign, said, "The smear tactics have started already."
Sheesh, another shut-in. Since Lurch served as Hanoi Jane's sock puppet in the early 70's, it's like we're so totally shocked to see a photo of them together.
Which reminds me. Did you know Jane got Lurch a small gig in Barbarella as the weird disembodied alien?
After reading the InstaPundit's response to a reader critical of his choice of BlogAds, I thought, "Hey why not me!" Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near the visitor count so my ads aren't as classy.
posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:51 PM -
Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. ... Tides established the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund to fund the antiwar movement. These projects fueled such hysterical protest organizations as MoveOn.org, the website that recently featured two separate commercials portraying George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. ... The antiwar movement often boasted that MoveOn.org and the radical website Indymedia provided them “alternate media coverage.” Indymedia, an enormous news and events bulletin board with local pages in most of the world’s major cities, provided a vital link for radical activists often with violent agendas to coordinate their protests. Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation.
The Institute for Global Communications is another leftist communications facilitator that received Tides grant money. IGC, which during the 1990s was the leading provider of web technology to the radical Left, links to “recommended sites” such as the War Resisters League (a group whose purpose is enabling peaceniks to refuse to pay taxes) and the leftist American Friends Service Committee. Most disturbing is the link to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, which has supported Slobodan Milosevic and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il. The IAC is the force behind International ANSWER, which sponsored the major antiwar (and anti-Bush) rallies before the invasion of Iraq. When ANSWER was outed as a Communist organization, United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member Leslie Cagan was created as a "moderate" alternative. UFPJ is also a Tides grant recipient.The Tides-funded “A Better Way Project,” which opposed war in Iraq, also coordinated efforts of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition. The celebrity-laden Win Without War Coalition, along with the Bill Moyers-funded Florence and John Schumann Foundation, ran full-page ads in the New York Times opposing the War on Terrorism.
There's a heck of a lot more (CAIR, National Lawyers Guild, Ruckus Society, etc.) and I haven't even gotten to the money that doesn't flow through the Tides Foundation. Looks like Terry fits right in with Lurch's old pals in the VVAW.
One other thing - reading about all these foundations funding non-profit organizations reminded me what a tidy little racket that is, not even counting the political shenanigans. See Prof. Jonathan Turley's article in USA Today - Non-profits' executives avoid scrutiny, valid reforms. Remember, just because you're running a non-profit organization doesn't mean you can't live very well indeed.
"It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out."
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