Humor for Today: We Need Some Relief!

Item 1: (from a friend's email)

The Republican Fisherman
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.

She shouted to him, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.'

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, 'You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.'

She rolled her eyes and said, 'You must be a Republican.'

'I am,' replied the man. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist, ' everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me'

The man smiled and responded, 'You must be a Democrat.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' said the man, 'you don't know where you are or where you are going.

You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air.

You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.

You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault.

Item 2:
Obama Whiplash by Tom Tomorrow (Seen at Salon)



Item 3: (People's Cube} Also see Three Republican Stooges



Item 4: "Hear No People" posted by Doctor Bulldog who comments:
... in the spirit of a time-honored tradition of artfully representing Presidents as monkeys, I submit the following for all you racist Libtards to freak out over:




Tags:fisherman joke,tom tomorrow,obama whiplash,obama chimp,bush chimp,chimp attack,three stooges,republican stooges,hear no people

Sarah and Amina: We Must Never Forget,,,

....and God speed the day we capture their murdering father Yaser Abdel Said!

Friends of Sarah and Amina Said present a pictorial tribute:

Amina and Sarah


See: Jihad Watch, Gringo Ranch, Habits Not Peculiar (1/01/09), Atlas Shrugs
h/t Gringo Ranch


Tags:sarah and amina,jihad watch,yaser said,muslim honor killings,gringo ranch,atlas shrugs,said sisters,americas most wanted

Blog Moving, Now Appearing at....

Latest postings for this webblog are now found at http://conservacity.us Please look for us there; thanks!

Bozo the Clown Dead....

Bozo the Clown is dead; Long Live Bozos!
Larry Harmon, who purchased the rights to Bozo from Capitol Records, is dead at 83. Harmon's franchise spawned a worldwide spewing of Bozos only recently diminished by the decline in such TV franchises. Despite Harmon's attempt to corner the Bozo market the name has entered the lexicon and "bozo" has come to mean " a man who is a stupid incompetent fool" or "an informal term for a youth or man; 'a nice guy'".

(MP3 "Down With the Clown" attached below)




Tags:clowns,bozo the clown,bozo,bozos,larry harmon

Dugout Paddlers Off For Florida...

Middletown Press reports today:

MIDDLETOWN — With a grey-clouded sky over the river five brave boaters set out for Key West in dugout canoes Thursday.

Setting forth in two handcrafted dugouts, Captain George Frick and four crew members headed down the Connecticut River towards Saybrook and the open water beyond. They are then to head down Long Island Sound to New York and then traverse the Inland (IntraCoastal) Waterway to Florida, a journey that will take about 6 weeks. We reported earlier on the making of the canoes and on an earlier trip down river to Greenport, Long Island. The photo at top is from an earlier excursion on the river and the one below is a view of two incomplete dugouts taken in Harbor Park, Middletown last year. A full account of the earlier trip can be read here and here (PDF). The top photo is from that site.

Here is an excerpt from a web site documenting the building of the canoes:

THE PROJECT
Getting the tree
An Eastern cottonwood tree -- 60 feet in length and 12 feet in circumference -- had been
identified on Wilcox Island under the Arrigoni Bridge. Ron Klattenberg, Middletown City
Council member and project organizer, observed that there were several auspicious signs
for this project. The first was the weather. The massive tree identified to be cut down for the
project fell during a storm; then subsequent days of rain helped wash the tree trunk down
parallel to the river for launching.
The cottonwood was floated downriver to Harbor Park in Middletown. Clients went
upriver to watch the process. Not only were the clients watching, so were police, fire and
Coast Guard boats. Everyone marveled at how George Frick, president of Friends of the
Connecticut River, was able to manage to straddle the tree without falling off, then to bring
it to shore.
Crafting the canoe: Trial and error
Now it was time for the AIC clients to begin the arduous and grueling process of chopping,
burning, and carving the tree into a canoe. Under the guidance of George Frick and Ron
Klattenberg, the young men set to work hollowing and carving out the dugout canoe. For
a month they burned the wood to make it soft, then dug out the tree, all the while using
primitive tools. Each day they carved, cooked lunch over the burning embers, then carved
some more. While there are no historical records as to how the Indians in fact crafted these
boats, Frick had some knowledge of the methods and type of shape that would be necessary
to make this journey successful.

Tags: dugout canoes,paddling to florida,connecticut river,middletown ct,george frick

Bird Mites and Human Infestation....

News articles today(here and video here) about a Long Island woman, infested with bird mites, who was taken from her home in a HazMat suit and put in quarantine isolation gave me quite a jolt. The woman was most likely infested by mites from an abandoned bird nest in her bathroom vent.

While I don't have any of the horrific symptoms of this type of bird mite infestation I live in close proximity to birds and regularly feed them. Birds, mainly sparrows and starlings, nest in the eaves, gutters and crannies of my house and I have several feeders on my porch. Doctors are quoted in the stories saying that, although the bird mites can cause extreme discomfort to humans they don't feed on humans, only attacking them when their bird host dies or leaves the nest.

Several websites (here and here) dealing with these pests strongly disagree with that assessment saying there are numerous instances of people driven to the brink of suicide by total household and personal infestation depriving them of sleep, causing constant torment. One man bought a parakeet in the hope that the mites would attack the bird and leave him alone. They got the poor bird alright, attacking it so hard that it had to be put down, but the pests remained in the home. Below is a photograph of a Northern fowl mite, one of several type of bird mites.



The Long Island woman, Nina Bradica, gave this account of her ordeal:

"My whole shower was covered with them," said Bradica, 45. "I didn't even know they were there at first, I was drying myself with my towel in the bathroom. That's how they got on me."

One of Bradica's doctors told CBS 2 HD bird mites can be a very severe problem.

"They can be a nuisance and some people have been infected for years with these bird mites and have had difficulty eradicating them," said Dr. Kenneth Steier.
Added Dr. Shadab Ahmed of Nassau Medical Center, "They can stick to the body. They are extremely tiny. I just sent three to be tested to the parasitology lab for identification."

Doctors say there is absolutely no public health hazard. Mites can't feed off human skin and will eventually drop off, but until then …
Bradica tried to describe her discomfort.

"They do go inside you. They go in your nose. They go in your ears. They go in your mouth."
she is covered with welts and red bumps and wonders if her home will ever be livable again.

Tags: bird mites,human bird mite infestation,birds,bird feeders,bird nest in home,household pests

Barack Obama at Wesleyan Commencement....

This will be a blog posting on the fly today. First a photo essay (a beautiful day for photography by the way) from Obama's appearance at Wesleyan University in Middletown to give the 176th annual commencement address in place of the ailing Ted Kennedy. Following the photos there will be an 8 minute video of the event and later I will add some comments about the address and also about remarks by President Michael Roth.

Funny, Obama thought he was at Wellesley; listen at around 6:10 in the video. (Omitted from the Obama campaign official You Tube video posted on Wesleying blog) And the Courant's blogger Melissa Pionzio thought she was at Palmer Field instead of Andrus Field ("Well, I'm here sitting under the trees on the side of Palmer field where the Wesleyan Commencement ceremonies will begin in about 45 minutes.") She also seems alarmed by the obvious presence of heavily armed security agents:

"There appears to be sharp shooters of some kind atop the glass connection between the campus chapel and I think Judd Hall (home of the psychology dept.) They are in black, with their arms folded - looks like there are about four of them. A woman with binoculars behind me confirmed that they have rifles up there, yikes!!

The following video runs a little over 8 minutes:

Tags: barack obama at wesleyan,barack obama,ted kennedy,wesleyan university,middletown ct,wesleyan commencement,global warming,climate change,progressive politics,michael roth,wesleying,