Isn't that special?

From the Boston Herald - State trooper accused of transgender bias:

A transgender woman is alleging discrimination against a state trooper who called her “buddy” and “guy” and arrested her after she was caught speeding, flipped off the trooper, then stepped into traffic on Interstate 495.

Clairese Renee Morgan of Malden has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and wants troopers to go through mandatory training in transgender issues, according to Bay Windows newspaper.

Hmm, I wonder if "butthead" is OK?

And in related news, also from the Boston Herald, Con: Fund my sex change:

Not satisfied with his taxpayer-funded female hormones and laser hair removal, a convicted killer-turned-transsexual is again asking the state to pony up to complete his transformation into a woman.

Robert Kosilek, who is serving life in prison for strangling his wife, was back in federal court yesterday, again demanding that the state Department of Correction pay for his sex-change operation.
...
Kosilek, 57, claims he is suicidal and needs the sex change for “medical” reasons.

A psychiatrist testified in federal court that Kosilek - who is now known as Michelle - will kill himself if the surgery is not allowed.

And the problem is what, exactly? It surely makes one pine for the days of "Old Sparky." Clicking through yields a fetching snap of "Michelle."

I'm not holding my breath

(Via BrothersJudd) Georgie Anne Geyer at the San Diego Tribune astounds with Is the tide finally turning in Mexico?

In short, Mexico is so corrupt, so oligopolistic, so rotting inside with the privilege of the rich that it has to send its poor and its potential political activists to another country. And on top of that, it tries to blame the United States for its own failures.

When I was in Mexico last fall, after dozens of visits over the years, people on every political and social level confirmed these accusations, complaining to me of Fox's failures. Forty families still own 60 percent of Mexico. There are no voluntary organizations, no civic involvement, no family foundations – and thus, no accountability, allowing corruption to flourish. Mexico gains $28 billion from oil revenue and $20 billion from immigrant remittances. There is virtually no industrialization, no small business, no real chance at individual entrepreneurship. Under Fox, it has created only one-tenth of the 1 million jobs needed.

Ah, but there are new voices of change, of reason, of self-awareness in Mexico, in place of the hoary anti-gringo rants: the beginnings of a transformation of the debate.
The same week of the Fox visit, for instance, The New York Times ran a stunning article headlined “Some in Mexico See Border Wall as Opportunity.” It quotes men such as Jorge Santibanez, president of the College of the Northern Border, saying: “For too long, Mexico has boasted about immigrants leaving, calling them national heroes, instead of describing them as actors in a national tragedy; and it has boasted about the growth in remittances as an indicator of success, when it is really an indicator of failure.”

Other prominent Mexicans were quoted as saying, for instance, the formerly unthinkable: that a wall would be the “best thing that could happen for Mexico”; the “porous border” allowed “elected officials to avoid creating jobs.”
...
This is European social democracy, this is American New Deal, this is real development talk, in place of the tiresome historical Mexican attitude that everything is the gringos' fault and they should pay for it.
...
The fact that the free enterprise candidate for July's presidential election, Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN), is suddenly and unexpectedly surging ahead on his slogan of “My job will be to make sure you have a job” may show that the Mexican people are fed up. In addition, the fact that only 50,000 of the 400,000 Mexicans in the United States who were available to vote in the July Mexican elections have bothered to register can only indicate a generalized disgust with Mexican corruption and hopelessness, and perhaps even a turn toward American ways.

I'm not a big fan of European social democracy or New Deal development, but even that would be a miracle. The only problem is that if it happened, we would have to find some new hobby for our bleeding hearts. Maybe we could import Haiti?

Heard down at the barbershop

Q: What do you call a Mexican president who tours the USA selling the citizens of his country for illegal work?

A: A pimp.

Q: What do you call the citizens of the USA who roll out the red carpet for him?

A: Whoremongers.

Some other good ones:

Q: How do you know when a country is too wealthy?

A: They import poor people to keep the social workers and socialists amused.


Q: Why do aliens constitute a third of the inmates in Federal prisons?

A: Vincente Fox cared enough to only send the very best.

Harry Reid, brothel inspector

A reader suggests that the previous post would be more evocative if we had a few snaps of Harry Reid getting some more freebies, er, inspecting the other Nevada state industry that was mentioned. This is somewhat difficult because of ole Harry's apparent confusion on the subject:

but a little digging found a fetching snap of Harry diligently on the job:

What a selfless public servant!

It was just chump change!

Fuhgeddaboutit!

Everybody's favorite wise guy, the Oddfather himself, Senator Harry Reid got caught with his meat hooks in the cookie jar:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accepted free ringside tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission to three professional boxing matches while that state agency was trying to influence him on federal regulation of boxing.

Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada's agency feared might usurp its authority.

He defended the gifts, saying they would never influence his position on the bill and was simply trying to learn how his legislation might affect an important home state industry. "Anyone from Nevada would say I'm glad he is there taking care of the state's No. 1 businesses," he told The Associated Press.

Sure Harry, we believe ya! No word on whether he also got freebies at the Mustang Ranch. Of course, his big mistake was taking the tickets personally instead of having his kids do it, like he usually does.

Memorial Day, 2006

Memorial Day is actually Tuesday, May 30, but today or any day it's worth pondering how much we owe to our service men and women. Take it away, Toby Keith.

And let's not forget that we all have a duty to protect their backs from the traitors in our midst - Ben Stein:

The media are like grave robbers, robbing you of the certain knowledge that your spouses gave their lives for something deeply worthwhile: human dignity.

Your loved ones' lives and deaths had as much meaning at the lives and deaths of every American who died for freedom from Valley Forge to the Battle of the Bulge to Cho-Sin Reservoir to the Cu Chi tunnels to the Balkans to Kabul, Afghanistan, to Falluja, Iraq.

And if the media doesn't know it, every other American does. This is a very difficult fight, but the ordinary American knows what your loved ones have done and respects them.

Your families, your loved one, your children have more respect than Sean Penn and Barbra Streisand and the Dixie Chicks all put together times a million. And the media like to criticize because they know -- in their hearts -- that they will never have the guts that the man and woman in uniform have. I think media envy of your loved ones' courage has a lot do with media mockery of the war.

To heck with them. Your husbands are the real stars. Your wives and kids are the real stars. They burn brightly forever as long as there are free men and women and the longing for human freedom burns bright in the human heart.

What's wrong with this picture?

From a Raleigh, NC TV station - 'Clair' To Spread Clean Air Message Across Region:

A character modeled after a 10-year-old Chapel Hill student soon will be teaching youngsters across the region about the dangers of air pollution.

Clair, which is short for "clean air," is at the heart of a campaign being launched by Triangle Air Awareness to encourage residents to maintain the area's high quality of life by reducing air pollution.

"I hate to say it, but children listen a lot more closely. They go home and tell parents, 'We need to not drive so much. You need to turn off those lights when you leave the room.' They're very invested," clean air advocate Anne Galamb said.

They "go home" and hit up their parents with some ecoweenie propaganda they've learned? Where the heck were they? We knew the answer, of course:

"We also thought children would be more interested in hearing about clean air from somebody that was a child."

So, the organization enlisted McDougal Elementary School fifth-grader Madeline Taylor to play the role of Clair and found sponsors to finance a tour of area schools this fall.

Why is it that "professional educators" can always find classroom time for this sort of piffle, but can't manage to teach kids to read, write, or do arithmetic? One wonders how much time they would provide for a "spokestyke" named Neutron Nick who wanted to tell the kids about nuclear power, provided, of course, that his parents would let him skip class.

(Via Air Pollution News)

Everyone needs a hobby

Pupils perform 'alarming' feat:

A high-pitched alarm which cannot be heard by adults has been hijacked by schoolchildren to create ringtones so they can get away with using phones in class.

Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres.

They can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on

The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20.

Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology.

Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.

The article also asks why the pesky tykes don't just put the phone on vibrate. It's not as much fun, of course.

How do you say chutzpah in Chinese?

Chinese researcher fakes chip development:

A university in Shanghai has fired the dean of its microelectronics school for faking the development of a series of digital signal processors, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

"The Hanxin computer chip series are fake and the state-funded chip research is fraudulent," the Xinhua report said.
...
In March, the Chinese press published allegations that Chen fabricated the development of the Hanxin chip series, passing off remarked chips from Freescale Semiconductor as products of his own work. Friday's Xinhua report did not detail how Chen's fraud was carried out.

The Hanxin 1 chip was announced in 2003 and followed by several subsequent versions. At the time of their introduction, the Hanxin chips were hailed as a milestone in China's efforts to develop its own intellectual property. They were also cited as evidence that Shanghai was on its way to becoming a global center of chip design and production.

It must suck to be Professor Chen.

Today's Hoot!

There's a big gaming convention called E3 going on in Los Angeles, but the fun is being rationed - Prudes finger naked E3 Expo strumpets:

The Entertainment Software Association has effectively ruined the best chance that the average gamer will ever get of seeing a authentic expanse of female flesh by ordering "booth babes" at the E3 Expo in LA to put it away - or face the consequences.

No pictures by following the link. On the other hand, they could use the gals as-is in Chicago where that pesky global warming is promising days of unseasonably cold weather. Don't anyone tell Al Gore.