gsp Thoughts From A Diva: 3/16/08 - 3/23/08

Thoughts From A Diva

Random images and thoughts from a misplaced Minnesota Diva trying to survive in Wisconsin.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Y B Normal?




You Are Very Normal



You scored 75% normal on this quiz



You are normal in practically every way. Yes, you're average.

But average definitely doesn't boring. You just fit in well with the mainstream.



Why You Are Normal:



You think fishnet stockings are trashy



If given the choice, you would choose to have more money over more time



You prefer your friends to your family



When you're in a car, you prefer to be the driver



You prefer fiction to non fiction

Idiot Drivers....

AdelaideNow... Blogs

Let me list my on-road hate list. Then I’ll offer a few thoughts to get the bloody idiots and hoons of the road off the road, to make our part of the world a safer place for others who want to stay alive.

TAILGATERS: Without question the most stupid bunch in our community. They take some kind of sadistic pleasure in monstering the car in front, reducing the distance between bumper and bumper to a crazy, minimal distance. I prefer to slow down to a crawl to force this type of lunatic to work his way by and out of my life, invariably causing inconvenience in the lane they chose to overtake.

Bwahahahah!!!! This made my morning. He could have been writing about my morning commute in Podunk, Wisconsin. Too funny!!!

Farewell...

Business slows, oldest brothel closes | NEWS.com.au

Hamburg's oldest brothel, in the heart of Germany's most famous red light district, has decided to close after a sharp fall in business.

Another one bites the dust...

Back to School?

Court to send parents back to school | NEWS.com.au

WESTERN Australia's Children's Court now has the power to force chronically negligent parents to attend parenting programs.

The new legislation has passed through the upper house of state parliament.

Under the law, the Children's Court can order parents who have repeatedly failed to control their children to take part in parenting programs.

This includes parents whose children repeatedly skip school, spray graffiti or engage in threatening behaviour.

Hmmm....maybe we can do something like this in our part of the world instead of putting parents in jail.

Trapped pilot whale cut free

Trapped pilot whale cut free | NEWS.com.au

A PILOT whale caught in lobster pot ropes north of Perth has been saved by fisheries officers.

The West Australian Fisheries Department boat Hamelin was sent out to the small whale this morning after fishermen alerted authorities that it had become entangled.

The crew of the Hamelin were initially going to wait for a specialist Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) team to examine the mammal, but it became clear they had to act immediately.

"The crew found the whale was in very poor condition and starting to drown,'' DEC team leader Doug Coughran said.

"Because the whale was small and very lethargic, a decision was made to cut some of the ropes, which fortunately allowed the whale to swim away.

"It became obvious to the Hamelin crew that the whale would have died before we were able to reach it.''


Woohoo! There is still good in this world! How wonderful they were actually able to think for themselves and free this animal before he died. Nice to know there are still humans that can think without the bureaucracy. Kudos to them.

Deportation

Paedophile deportation angers UK | NEWS.com.au

AUSTRALIA'S decision to deport a serial paedophile back to Britain has stunned the United Kingdom.

Raymond Horne, who spent more than 14 years behind bars in Australia for a string of child sex crimes, has flown back to Britain today after being deported from Queensland.


Why wouldn't they deport someone that is a criminal? Every country in the world deports non-citizens when they break the law. This man has been given multiple chances and has blown every one of them. It only makes sense to send him back to where he came from. Now, before anyone gets in my face, I do know that he has lived in Australia since he was five and he is now 61. But he never bothered to become an Australian citizen, so he does not get the same considerations as a citizen. He wasn't even under the assumption that since his parents were citizens, he was a citizen (like a story I read about in the US papers recently). He just simply couldn't be bothered to become a citizen.

So they deported his ass. Good for them.

Suit: Airport searches of laptops, other devices intrusive - CNN.com

Suit: Airport searches of laptops, other devices intrusive - CNN.com

The Customs and Border Protection defends the searches, saying the agency does not need to show probable cause to look inside suitcases or laptops.

"We have broad search authority at the borders to determine admissibility and look for anything that may be in violation of criminal law," says agency spokeswoman Lynn Hollinger.

Hollinger says electronic devices could contain evidence of possible ties to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography and other criminal activities.


This is crazy...I would be totally irritated to have someone go through my personal emails and such without cause. This is another one of those 'Homeland Security' options that needs to be removed. This is far beyond what should be allowed.

Cheater, Cheater

Facebook 'cheater' won't be expelled from college - CNN.com

Last term, Avenir became administrator of the online group Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions. In all, 147 classmates used the group to swap tips on assignments.

Avenir's supporters argued the online group he ran was no different from any kind of homework help or tutoring circle. But a professor, who had stipulated assignments be done independently, discovered the group, gave the student an F and then charged him with academic misconduct.


I agree...what is the difference between this group and a group of students meeting in person? I mean, I do understand that the students were supposed to be working independently, but that doesn't mean students don't ask for help on tough questions. To be expelled would have been very wrong. I think the punishment of getting a zero on the assignment was correct, but the professor blew this all out of proportion. This was not "academic misconduct."

WTF?

Panel probes troops' electrocution deaths in Iraq - CNN.com

A U.S. House committee chairman has begun an investigation into the electrocutions of at least 12 service members in Iraq, including that of a Pittsburgh soldier killed in January by a jolt of electricity while showering.

It is bad enough that there are IEDs and bullets to worry about...now, I have to worry about Anthony being killed in his shower. He leaves next week for Iraq and I thought he was going to be on a nice, safe base. Now, I find out the barracks aren't even really safe. Argh! Way too much stress!!!!

'Sand sailors' jam IEDs in desert

'Sand sailors' jam IEDs in desert - CNN.com

Dye and 300 other shipboard electronic warfare specialists were charged with teaching troops how to defuse the bombs by jamming the electronic signals the insurgents used to detonate them.

"They called on a Wednesday and told me I was leaving (for Iraq) on Saturday," said Dye, 38, who had spent his career on ships. "It was the right decision. Electronic warfare was our background, what we did it for a living."

They called themselves "sand sailors,"...

Things of interest...

I am on Spring Break, but thought I would list some things I found interesting today...

Euthanasia debate woman found dead - CNN.com

A French woman severely disfigured by facial tumors has been found dead just two days after a court rejected her request for an assisted suicide.
art.sebire.jpg

Sebire had suffered from a rare and incurable form of cancer for eight years.

Medical examiners were Thursday looking into the death of 52-year-old Chantal Sebire -- whose case had prompted nominally Roman Catholic France to reexamine its stance on euthanasia -- to determine whether anything illegal had taken place.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Freedom of Speech?

Whitewater police pursue anonymous blogger

Who is John Adams, the anonymous blogger at www.freewhitewater.com?

The Web site, Free Whitewater, was launched last spring and takes aim at the "narrow-minded" leaders of the community of 14,000 about 45 miles southeast of Madison.
Its targets range from the aesthetics of Whitewater's main streets to a controversial roundup of suspected illegal immigrants at the Star Packaging plant.

"Adams" charges in his blog that Whitewater is run by "a small, obstinate, and poorly educated local elite" who are hostile toward the 10,000 students at UW-Whitewater and the region's growing Mexican-American population.

I will continue to follow this story with interest...