I'm keeping the quote short and sweet on this:

Temperatures in some parts of western New York plunged from 60 degrees to below freezing within a few hours.
posted by Kevin at 8:06 PM

AB sent $100. While she has generously supported Cryptogon in the past, AB now joins the elite handful of Cryptogon supporters who have sent single contributions of $100 or more.

MT sent $40. AH sent $20.

You should all know that your money is assisting Becky and me with getting our farm up and running. Becky has been buying and planting organic, open pollinated, heirloom vegetable seeds from Koanga Gardens. We will probably be buying some Australorp chicks from them as well, and lots of other goods. Your contributions are helping to make our dreams come true.

On behalf of Becky and myself, thank you all.
posted by Kevin at 6:16 PM

It's a phrase that pretty much sums it up when you're dealing with idiots who don't deserve a more thorough response:

AMERICAN rocker and writer Henry Rollins was reported to the National Security hotline during his recent Australian tour because of a book he was reading on a flight to Brisbane.

A furious Rollins was informed he was "nominated as a possible threat" for reading Jihad: The Rise Of Militant Islam In Central Asia, writes Kathy McCabe.

The incident happened on a flight from Auckland on the recent Big Day Out tour.

Rollins told Australian fans during his tour that he received a letter from a "nice woman" who worked "in one of those government areas that deals with anti-terrorism matters."

Here's Rollins' full response:

"I was reading a book called Jihad by Ahmed Rashid which is a history of Central Asia. I didn't speak to the man next to me past how do you do. I think Ahmed Rashid is published by Yale University Press. Bush's alma mater. Please tell your government and everyone in your office to go fuck themselves. Tell them twice. If your boss is looking for something to do, you can tell him I suggest he go fuck himself. Baghdad's safer than my hometown and your PM is a sissy. You have a nice night."

Yep. That about sums it up.
posted by Kevin at 6:01 PM

The Department of Pornland Security:

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

After the two men made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user's choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library's work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men.

They were officers of the security division of Montgomery County's Homeland Security Department, an unarmed force that patrols about 300 county buildings -- but is not responsible for enforcing obscenity laws.
posted by Kevin at 5:55 PM

After what happened to me at the hands of FedEx and unknown elements of the Them, I tried looking for other people who went through the same thing.

Check this out:

I am from the Detroit area of Michigan originally. I have spent the last four years in Grand Rapids, MI at Calvin College. In May I graduated with a degree in communication design. I worked at SpringHill Camp 44 the last few summers. Instead of jumping into career mode, I decided to run away, what college grad wouldn't want to go live abroad for a while? Thus, after much struggle (i.e. replacing my passport and visa after FedEx lost them) I started my English adventure. I love meeting God in new people, places and experiences and am excited for all that will happen this year.

If FedEx "lost" your passport, especially a passport with a visa document in it, please email me.
posted by Kevin at 5:02 PM

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that it is melting far faster than scientists had feared - twice as much ice is going into the sea as it was five years ago. The implications for rising sea levels - and climate change - could be dramatic.

Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.

This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.

Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.
posted by Kevin at 6:13 PM

* yawn *

A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.
posted by Kevin at 2:00 AM

The veil between worlds became thin for me today.

I have my U.S. passport, along with the appropriate visa that was issued by the New Zealand Consulate General in Los Angeles.

You better be sitting down for the story about how I happened to come into possession of this little, blue booklet. If you choose to read this, get comfortable. This is probably longer than it needs to be.

As I wrote earlier, FedEx didn't deliver the package on schedule. They told me it would be delivered today.

This afternoon, I noticed (from tracking online) that there had been no additional scans on the package since it arrived at the hub in Los Angeles on the day it was shipped. That was a bad sign.

I called FedEx and said that I wanted to know what the story was on this thing. They gave me the name of a person who was working the trace. (A 'trace' is FedEx lingo for the process of hunting down late/lost packages.) The customer service person said that the trace agent would be calling me soon. I think about two hours passed without a callback. I called again and got the person who was working the trace. She seemed befuddled, no explanation, "we're going to keep investigating," etc.

I said something like this: I didn't feel that FedEx was taking this matter seriously enough. This was a life-altering f*ck up for me, and it was their fault. I said that I wanted FedEx corporate security involved with this right now. (From working at FedEx for all those years, I know that FedEx corporate security is a VERY serious outfit. They get to the bottom of things. It's all former spooks and FBI.) I also told the person on the phone that I was calling the FBI because we were potentially dealing with a federal crime; the theft of U.S. government documents, and the documents of a foreign government.

She said something like, yes sir, I understand sir, we'll call you sir, etc.

As soon as I hung up the phone with FedEx, I called the Los Angeles FBI field office. I told the person who answered that FedEx was saying that they had lost track of a package containing my passport and the visa documents issued by a foreign government. I told the FBI that I thought that this was a serious matter and that I wasn't sure if FedEx was taking it seriously.

I might as well have called the county dog catcher. The FBI told me that this was a matter for the State Department. They told me to call the State Department and go through the process of canceling the passport, etc. They gave me the number, blah blah blah blah.

At this point, I pretty much sank into my chair and let the shock and awe of this nonsense wash over me. I was going to have to apply for a new passport and somehow get that visa from the New Zealand consulate again, all in time to make my flight date, which is fast approaching.

Hours pass. I figured that I'd give FedEx 24 hours before I started the process of getting a new passport (which is a major pain in the ass).

I called FedEx again and spoke to the same woman. The package was nowhere to be found. FedEx security was now involved, she told me.

Here's where the weirdness begins:

Around 7:45pm, I got a call from a man in Huntington Beach who told me that he had my passport!

He said that he had ordered some suits from Barneys New York and that the package containing my passport was in that suit box, at the bottom.

I wish someone had a picture of my face at this moment. The expression must have been pretty good. All I was thinking was, "I don't care what the story is, I just want my passport back." I wasn't yet thinking about the fact that it made no sense at all that my FedEx envelope was inside some guy's sealed suit box from Barneys New York.

He gave me his name, his address and directions to his house. Conveniently, it was only about twenty minutes away!?!?! Wasn't that convenient? How many different places could that thing have ended up? You know, since it's jumping out of FedEx's document management system (which I dealt with for years as a FedEx courier) and into sealed boxes from Barneys...

I immediately drove over there.

It was a VERY wealthy, gated community near the beach. I had to give my name to the guard, etc. He let me in. Big houses. Shiny sports cars and SUVs. I found the house. I rang the door bell and a man came out holding the FedEx letter. His young son was with him.

It was kinda weird. The man took a really good look at me, and then pulled out my passport and looked at it under the light.

"I just want to make sure it's you."

He (or someone) had previously ripped open the FedEx letter. He said he thought it was an invoice for the suits... With an airbill on the outside that clearly listed the sender as the New Zealand Consulate General and the recipient as Kevin Flaherty.

Whatever.

I just wanted my passport.

He handed it over. And that's when it all started to hit me: This sh*t isn't adding up!

I asked, "That letter was inside the box that contained your suit order? The box from Barneys?"

"It was inside, at the bottom. Look, I'll show you. Go over to the garage."

I walked over. One of the several garage doors went up.

Yep. There was a very large box that definitely looked like it had been used to ship suits. The metal thing---that the suits hung from to prevent them from getting wrinkled---was at the bottom with some other shipping debris.

Now, I don't remember exactly how this got started, but I mentioned something about this passport being very important to me because it had a visa in it that would allow me to stay with my wife in New Zealand. The young boy said something like, "Oh yeah, we have to get visas all the time. We travel all over. To Africa and stuff."

* The gears in my head were really turning at this point *

I asked the dad what he did and he said that he ran, "a copier business." (I have since determined the business name and what it purports to be, etc.) There were some other details that I'll hold back for now.

As I left, he said, "If you need anything else give me a call."

? ? ? ? ? WTF ? ? ? ? ?

Pause a moment. Let all of that sink in.

Did my call to the FBI upset the apple cart? Maybe They weren't expecting that move. (Even though the FBI didn't seem to give two sh*ts about this...) Maybe the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is up to. Maybe They came to assume that FedEx corporate security would start reviewing the surveillance video from the sort facility, and check the exact time and place that the package was last scanned. Maybe They thought that FedEx corporate security would indeed determine who pulled that package out of the system, and then go have a talk with them. Weird questions might be asked.

Just think about this for a second. Within about five hours of that call to the FBI, I got a call from a man telling me that my passport was INSIDE his suit box! And of all the places on the planet my passport could have wound up---after magically jumping into a sealed box---it was no more than a 20 minute drive away... at this dude's mansion! Come on over and pick it up! Sure! I might be so happy that I'd call FedEx and tell them I got my passport and they might call off the corporate security investigation into missing passports and visas in the Los Angeles hub.

My best guess is that I'm on some sort of sh*t list and that my private correspondence with a foreign government was too tempting a morsel to pass up. They wanted to know what the NZ consulate was sending me. When I flipped out, announced the "loss" of this package on Cryptogon, b*tched about wanting FedEx corporate security in on this and then called the god damned J. Edgars, I don't know.... Maybe They thought up this Barneys scheme to have a "good Samaritan" get that passport back to me so I'd shut up. They couldn't say it was mis-delivered to that guy's house, because there were no more FedEx scans past the point where it arrived in Los Angeles! Nevermind the fact that it's a totally different local FedEx station. It would have had to have been shipped to the wrong local station and then delivered to a house with an address that bore no similarities to mine. Oh yeah, with none of the "last mile" FedEx scans. The Barneys box scheme made much more sense. ;)

You can almost see the cracked lightbulbs going off above Their heads. "Tell him it was inside another box. That will explain how it got to your house without any FedEx scans."

Maybe the guy has absolutely nothing to do with this, and he's just a nice guy trying to return my passport to me. That's possible, maybe even likely. How in the Sweet Jesus my passport would have wound up on the inside of that sealed suit box is, however, the $64,000 question. All I know is that the last FedEx scan shows it arriving at the Los Angeles sort facility. That's it. Two days later, according to legend, it wound up in a random man's suit box. Just a hop, skip and a 20 minute drive away.

That's it boys and girls. As always, I couldn't make it up if I tried.

Question for Current FedEx Employees:

At some early stage of a domestic package's trip through the FedEx system, is the airbill electronically imaged? (All international airbills are immediately imaged. FedEx was doing that even when I worked there in the 1990s.) From the first contact I had with the trace agent, she knew where it was coming from. She said, "Let's see, this was coming from the New Zealand Consulate General. What was in the package?"

My response was, "I don't know why that matters, but it was my U.S. passport with a New Zealand visa attached."

So, if FedEx electronically images every domestic airbill, early on, this would explain how she knew where it was coming from. If, however, FedEx doesn't electronically image every airbill early on, that's weird.

Related: FedEx: One of Homeland Security's Best Friends

Possibly Related: The Trickster

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posted by Kevin at 11:42 PM

Horror:

AUSTRALIAN television tonight broadcast previously unpublished graphic images of the alleged physical abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

...

They included photographs of blood-soaked Iraqi prisoners who had been tortured or shot dead, footage of a prisoner repeatedly slamming his head into a metal door, and a film of naked male prisoners being forced to masturbate in front of the camera.

WARNING: U.S. Foreign Policy lession follows:

Unpublished Abu Ghraib Torture Images
posted by Kevin at 2:33 AM

UPDATE: CRYPTOGON READER EMAIL

TH writes:

I personally go squirrel hunting with a 12GA with #5 shot 3inch turkey magnum shells... Shooting at squirrels at about 60 feet... MANY OF THE PELLETS GET STUCK IN THE SKIN WITH FEW GOING LESS THAN A CM INTO THE FLESH. What kind of bullsh*t is being pulled here with this proven drunkard?

Thanks for writing, TH! Your observations are appreciated. It's just good to know that there are women out there who can wield a 12GA with 3" mag loads!

UPDATE: FORGET MY ARTICLE BELOW

Read this instead: Secret Service stalls and delays for Cheney: Cover-up in progress and Shotgun ballistics don't match-up!:

The simple truth of the matter is that unless contact distances are involved (5 yards or less), most birdshot lacks the penetrating capability required to inflict meaningful wound trauma. Wounds from birdshot tend to be extremely gruesome, yet shallow. They often shred and destroy a large volume of tissue but don't penetrate deep enough to damage critical cardiovascular or CNS structures required for incapacitation. Clothing can further amplify these poor penetration characteristics.

- - - Original Entry Follows - - -

Believe me, I'm as sick of this story as the next guy, and nothing can possibly come of this because Cheney is powerful enough to make it all go away.

But...

According to dozens of sources (like MSNBC for example), Whittington was "about thirty yards" from Cheney when he was shot.

Thirty yards.

I'm not a ballistics expert, but I've spent a fair amount of time behind a lot of different shotguns.

And I've been thinking about this pellet in Whittington's heart.

"Thirty yards..." I mumbled to myself.

What type of shotgun was it? I assumed 12 gauge.

Nope.

It was a 28 gauge!

Folks, that's a pop gun in terms of shotguns.

What type of load was used? Number 7 1/2 birdshot.

Again, I'm not a ballistics expert. But at thirty yards, with a 28 gauge shotgun, firing #7 1/2 birdshot, is it possible to achieve vital organ penetration on a grown man? Forget likely or not likely, is it even possible!? Some of the answer might depend on the clothes the victim was wearing, the length of the barrel and the choke used, if any.

I then started wonder how many pellets struck Whittington.

Get this:

Until Tuesday's complications, physicians had said Whittington had been progressing well after being struck by birdshot in Saturday's hunting incident -- and that they were not concerned about the six to 200 pieces of birdshot that might still be lodged in his body.

Six to 200 pieces of birdshot?

They can't tell how many pellets hit Whittington?

That's very interesting.

Maybe these doctors forgot how to count.

Pellet in the heart???

The more pellets that are lodged in Whittington's body, the closer he was to Cheney when he was shot. And the closer he was to Cheney, the deeper the shot would penetrate.

So, give them a pass on the pellet reaching the heart from 30 yards out with a 28 gauge. But how can one possibly explain the "Six to 200 pieces of birdshot" nonsense?

My guess is that Whittington was MUCH closer to Cheney than thirty yards when the "accident" occurred.

In conclusion, I also have to say that I seriously doubt that Cheney consciously meant to murder Whittington. I don't know what the Hell happened out there, but I do know this: A 28 gauge shotgun, loaded with 7 1/2 birdshot COULD NOT be expected to do the job, unless the deed was to be done at point blank range.

So, why all the nonsense and the silence/coverup on the part of Cheney and his staff? The answer is probably much weirder than we could possibly imagine.
posted by Kevin at 2:31 AM

The third world is just around the corner.
Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Oh yeah:

It was a simple question that demanded an answer: Which is cleaner, the water in fast food restaurants' ice cubes or the water in the same restaurants' toilet.

Jasmine Roberts, 12, of New Tampa, Florida learned the all-too-horrifying answer.

"My hypothesis was that the fast food restaurants’ ice would contain more bacteria that the fast food restaurants’ toilet water," the young scientist told Tampa Bay's Channel 10.

She took samples from five different restaurants in the area. And just to give the ice cubes a fighting chance, she flushed each toilet before collecting her sample.

"Using the sterile beaker I scooped up some water and closed the lid."

She got two samples of ice from each establishment. One she requested from the drive-thru window, the other she got herself from the soda fountain.

"I found that 70-percent of the time, the ice from the fast food restaurant's contain more bacteria than the fast food restaurant's toilet water."

Three of the samples she collected from the drive-thru and four of the samples she collected herself didn't measure up to the toilet water.

Of the bacteria found in the ice, three out of the five restaurants tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, organisms that come from the feces of warm-blooded animals.
posted by Kevin at 2:27 AM

Oh sure, you want this crap in all of your IDs and credit cards:

"I haven't tested all RFID tags, but we did test the biggest brand and it is totally unprotected," Shamir said. Using this approach, "a cellphone has all the ingredients you need to conduct an attack and compromise all the RFID tags in the vicinity," he added.

Shamir said the pressure to get tags down to five cents each has forced designers to eliminate any security features, a shortcoming that needs to be addressed in next-generation products.
posted by Kevin at 2:11 AM

I'm packing to leave for New Zealand and I'm considering which books to take with me. I'm going to leave most of my political books behind. (What's the point? I think I pretty much 'get it' by now.) I've focused too much on the Political Economy of Death, Doom and the Apocalypse over the past couple of decades and I'd like to expand my horizons, if you know what I mean.

I'd like to know which books you guys find indispensable. It doesn't matter which topics; fiction, non-fiction, whatever. If it's must-read doom and gloom, include it anyway. Old habits die hard... ;) Oh yeah, we're going to need to train a dog. Any good dog training books you know of would be appreciated. I've started a thread in the forum if you would like to post a book suggestion.

Rebecca, my lovely wife, has been planting vegetables on our farmlet like a mad woman. She has also been painting the inside of the house and is going to do a concrete stain finish on the floor since neither of us wants carpet. (I know, she's very industrious!) As for strategic acquisitions, she purchased a hand-crank laundry wringer! She writes that this device was made by Acme of Glasgow:


I've sent the second to last wire transfer of money to New Zealand. The final one will include the revenue generated from selling my car and this gold. I need to start thinking about canceling my phone service, Netflix subscription, etc.

Oh, this is almost comical. Would you believe that FedEx missed the scheduled delivery of my passport, with the approved visa from the New Zealand consulate? That's right. The most important package I will probably ever receive in my life... is late.

I've never had a late FedEx package, and while I like the fact that I won't have to pay for the shipping charges, I would have rather had my passport (with that visa) back in my hands.

Ironically, long ago, I worked for FedEx; for five---long---years. For three of those years, I delivered expedites, otherwise known as the late packages. When I called FedEx to b*tch, I requested that the thing be sent out with the expedite courier THAT AFTERNOON. Having been that expedite courier at that same FedEx station, I knew the guy/girl hadn't left on the route yet.

"Uh, sir, I'm sorry to say that it didn't make it to the destination station. It's still in Los Angeles."

"Look, I want you to note on the trace report that the package better be delivered to me by 3pm, tomorrow, or they're going to be smelling my breath at the station. Do you understand?"

I actually don't know what I said, at that point, due to seething apoplexy, but it was something like that.

Once I get that small, blue booklet back in my hands, I'll be good to go.

That's pretty much it for now.
posted by Kevin at 1:31 AM

It's one thing when bums in Internet backwaters call the government a criminal syndicate, it's another thing, entirely, when elected representatives do it.

Barry Buzan---in a book unread outside of the foreign policy industrial complex---writes about the level of socio-political cohesion in a society. As that cohesion falls apart, the state turns inward on itself, and starts to see its own population as a national security threat.

Sound familiar?

Cynthia McKinney, the only House Representative to stand up to the Bush White House crime syndicate, has gone further than ever before in her efforts to warn people about what the Neo-Cons' ultimate goals actually entail for freedom in America.

During a recent radio interview on the Alex Jones Show, McKinney illustrated the nature of a corrupt occupational government, stating that the administration was "stolen in 2000 and stolen again in 2004." McKinney said that it was doing the government a favor to describe them as a "criminal syndicate."

"It appears to me that our country is literally being hollowed out....our economy is being hollowed out," said McKinney.
posted by Kevin at 3:41 PM

The fellow hunter who was shot and wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney has suffered a "minor heart attack" after a piece of birdshot migrated to his heart, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

Harry Whittington, 78, is in stable condition in intensive care and will remain hospitalized for up to seven days, hospital officials said.
posted by Kevin at 11:41 AM

I naturally shy away from light and seek out dark places in which to hide myself. Maybe there's some DARPA grant money in it for me:

A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot.

The Physarum polycephalum slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot's movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in which to hide itself.
posted by Kevin at 9:57 PM

UPDATE: Dummy Bomb :.

A military ordnance expert determined that a "dummy bomb" found on the westbound Foothill 210 Freeway Monday was a non-explosive device, police said.

...

A military expert said the device was a "Mark 84 Dummy Bomb." The military took control of the device and took it away.

UPDATE: POLICE REQUEST ASSISTANCE FROM U.S. MILITARY :.

Los Angeles police say bomb squad experts have requested help from military ordnance experts to determine what's inside a suspicious object found alongside the Foothill Freeway in Sylmar.

LAPD Officer Mike Lopez says the bomb squad requested the help after experts x-rayed the device and weren't able to determine what was inside.

UPDATE: The "suspicious package" looks nothing like the 1940s era "Fat Man" weapon! The local media is 100% clueless, as usual. My best guess is that this is some sort of artillery shell:


I don't need to hear about this sh*t so close to me getting the F out of this sh*thole!

The California Highway Patrol shut down the westbound Foothill Freeway at Roxford Street during rush hour traffic Monday after discovering what authorities said looked like a replica of a nuclear bomb.

All westbound lanes were shut down at 5 p.m. and would likely remain closed for at least two hours, CHP said.

The Los Angeles Police Department has sent its bomb squad to investigate. ABC7 reported that a replica of the famed "Fat Man" nuclear bomb had fallen off a pickup truck earlier in the day and landed on the side of the freeway.

The LAPD's Officer Mike Lopez said an evacuation of nearby homes near the freeways underpass may be necessary.
posted by Kevin at 5:52 PM

Anything Syria could do in the Forex markets is akin to a fly farting in the wind. This is, however, something that could start to snowball VERY fast if bigger players join in. Broad adoption of the euro for petroleum transactions spells doom for the dollar:

Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria said on Monday.

"This is a precaution. We are talking about billions of dollars. Switching to the euro will help us avoid settlement problems in the United Sates," Duraid Durgham told Reuters.

"The move is also needed to avoid complications with our correspondent banks, which have expressed a preference to deal in euro under these circumstances," he said.

Most of the government's foreign currency flows goes through the Commercial Bank, whose U.S. assets were frozen by Washington in 2004 as relations with Syria deteriorated.

The bank, which dominates the Syrian market, also stopped dealing with dollars for international private flows, such as imports, exports and letters of credit, Durgham said.

He said the switch would mean euro pricing for crude oil sales, a major foreign currency earner for Syria.

The latest official figure show Syria imported $6.7 billion goods in 2004 and exported $5.4 billion. Oil output is around 400,000 barrels per day.

Friendly Reminder: For those of you exiting out of U.S. dollars, look at a currency pair of your choice right now. ;)
posted by Kevin at 5:02 PM

What is it about Cheney and shotguns?

In any event, there's just one man down after Cheney's latest shotgun rampage. I wonder if Cheney had the opportunity to fearlessly slaughter any caged animals before the accident cut the day short:

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.

Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.

Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.

Related: Cheney's Shotgun Rampage
posted by Kevin at 1:11 PM