Did someone ask for a plumber?

Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber,"

had his fifteen minutes of fame during the 2008 election and was widely expected (we hoped) to disappear when the candidate who brought him into the spotlight lost.

BUT he's still a star in conservative circles -- and still saying some odd, hostile things. At an event Thursday for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (one of the lead organizations behind the Tax Day Tea Parties), Wurzelbacher suggested Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) should be lynched.

Wurzelbacher has a reputation for being a blunt, politically incorrect speaker. Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, "Why hasn't he been strung up?"

Wurzelbacher appeared at a Tea Party in Michigan on April 15, where he claimed that he and other protesters were wrong labeled as extremists.

"I'm here for one reason and one reason only: It's 'I love America,'" Wurzelbacher told the crowd. "Mainstream media wants to paint us as a bunch of extremists, right? We're in search of liberty and our freedoms. What's so extreme about that?" [...]

"Let me give you another extremist view, 'In God We Trust,'" he said to wild applause. "Say that too loud in some parts of America and you will be shot. It's terrible." "'In God We Trust' ... too loud in some parts of America and you will be shot."

I'm sorry it's usually not those of us that approve of separation of church and state that tend to be "packing heat" or SHOOTING PEOPLE.

What a day. RIP Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson 8. 29. 1958 – 6. 25. 2009

Tsk

Read it and weep

It's in South Carolina's Code of Laws, Title 16--Crimes and Offenses, Chapter 15 "Offenses Against Morality and Decency"

SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication.

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.

SECTION 16-15-70. "Adultery" defined.

"Adultery" is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person.

(thanks for the definition - we need to be clear)

from Daily Kos

Letter to Robert Byrd

The following is a letter from Bo Webb, of Peachtree, West Virginia, to Sen. Robert Byrd. Mr. Webb is a Vietnam veteran who now lives below a mountaintop removal coal mine, which uses huge explosives to blast away the tops of mountains.

Dear Sen. Byrd,

I write you today as a grandfather, and as a deep admirer of your inimitable contribution to our beloved state of West Virginia. As the son of a coal miner, I will always value your work to ensure economic investment and proper safety in our coalfields.

Soon, as you know, as the colorful peepers of red bush and wake robins pull from the clinch of winter, I will take my granddaughter's hand and roam our Clay Branch hollows in search of ramps. This has been a 150-year tradition in my family in the Coal River mountain range, as I am sure it was for your family along Wolf Creek.

This year, though, instead of that pungent smell of wild ramps and the blossoms of spring, my granddaughter will be exposed to the sickening haze of ammonium nitrate and diesel oil, and the after shower of silica dust that blankets our hollow like a plague. Our ancestral mountain in the Peachtree community is being destroyed for a mountaintop removal operation.

In your wonderful book last year, Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader, you wrote that we should never turn our backs on the lessons of our coal-mining fathers. My father, like others in my family, first started working in the mines at age 11. But it is the grave of my Uncle Clyde Williams, who died in the mine at Leevale here on Coal River Mountain at age 17, that also hovers in my mind as I walk these hills, gather herbs and berries, and hunt and fish with my grandchildren.

I want my children and grandchildren to have the right to dream and flourish as great contributors to our state in West Virginia. I don't want them to feel compelled to leave our state to look for employment or to realize their dreams. I want them to know that the rule of law protects them, their families and our mountains.

You, more than any other person in our state, understand this. When you went to Washington, D.C., for the first time to represent West Virginia, more than 130,000 union coal miners proudly toted their lunch pails and went to their jobs in the underground mines in our state. And you, as our voice in Washington, proudly made sure their safety and security were priorities to the rest of the country.

Today, only 20,000 West Virginia coal miners make up those ranks.

In many respects, strip mining and mountaintop removal operations have robbed my generation and my children of a chance to maintain our great Appalachian heritage, our beloved mountains and vibrant streams, and above all, any diverse economic development in our community.

In responding to the recent EPA decision to scrutinize mountaintop removal permits more closely last week, you wrote: "Every job in West Virginia matters. Everyone involved must act swiftly in concert and cooperation to remedy any problems that threaten coal jobs and the people who live in the local communities where coal is mined."

Sen. Byrd, as a grandfather, I write to you: If our grandchildren are going to have any jobs and future at all in West Virginia, we must get beyond the stranglehold of mountaintop removal coal operations and find a way to bring new jobs and life to our mountain communities.

This could be your greatest legacy, among many, Sen. Byrd. Your public role in co-sponsoring the Appalachian Mountain Restoration Act (S.696) to defend the health and safety of our communities and putting an end to mountaintop removal and its destruction of our local economies, would place our state back on track for responsible mining, more coal mining employment, and a step toward a diversified economy that includes loans and investment in manufacturing of renewable energy products, such as wind turbine and solar panels, and high-technology operations.

In your powerful Letter to a New President, you wrote: "What determines the quality of American democracy is the use we make of our power. We have institutions in place to help this country avoid the misuse of our power. Those institutions are Congress, the courts and public opinion. The more we cut off true debate and the exchange of ideas, and let those in power use emotion, misdirection and the manipulation of truth to whip the nation into action, the more likely we are to make dangerous mistakes in how we use our power. A representative democracy only works when the people are involved. We need them."

We need you now more than ever, Sen. Byrd, to bring new jobs, and restore a new sense of democracy to the coalfields of West Virginia.

as seen on the internets

is there any control at all over who gets to speak for the conservatives in this country ?

























I think it is who ever is holding The Conch.

Update

The novelist Paulo Coelho has just posted on his blog that the doctor who tried to save Neda Agha Soltan is his best friend, “who showed me [Iran's] beautiful culture when I visited Teheran in 2000, who fought a war in the name of the Islamic Republic (against Iraq), who took care of wounded soldiers in the frontline, who always stood by real human values”.

Drawn from this profile and from correspondents:

On Saturday, a woman was watching demonstrations on Karegar Avenue in Tehran when she was shot in the chest by a paramilitary Basiji. A 40-second video captured the killing; within hours, “Neda” became an icon — witting or unwitting — for the political movement in Iran.

Yesterday, the person behind the image emerged. She was Neda Agha Soltan, a philosophy student who was standing beside her professor (initial sources said her father).

Neda Agha Soltan was buried on Sunday. Her memorial service was scheduled for late afternoon in a mosque but was cancelled on orders from Iranian authorities.

Neda, "The voice"

A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face — swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.

An email explaining the incident:

"At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart.

I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

Neda Agha Soltan was born 1982 , She was studying Philosophy in university

Neda's death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.)

The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces — and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.

The same cycle has already become an undercurrent in Iran's current crisis. The largest demonstration, on Thursday of last week, was called by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to commemorate the deaths of protesters three days after they were killed.

Shiite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for "Neda" and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th day events are usually the largest and most important.

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. (See the Top Ten Players in Iran's Power Struggle.)

The belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shiite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It too helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when over 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a Martyrs' Museum or a Martyrs' cemetery.

The first Shiite martyr was Hussein, the prophet Mohammed's grandson. He believed it was better to die fighting injustice than to live with injustice under what he believed was illegitimate rule.

In the seventh century, Hussein and a band of fewer than 100 people, including women and children, took on the mighty Umayyad dynasty in Karbala, an ancient city in Mesopotamia now in modern-day Iraq. They knew they would be massacred.

Fourteen centuries later, Hussein's tomb in Karbala is one of the two holiest Shiite shrines — and millions of Iranians still make pilgrimages there every year. Just as Christians reenact Jesus' procession bearing the cross past the fourteen stops to Calvary before his crucifixion, so too do Shiites every year reenact Hussein's martyrdom in an Islamic passion play during the holy period of Ashura.

Because of Hussein, revolt against tyranny became part of Shiite tradition. Indeed, protest and martyrdom are widely considered duties to God. And nowhere is the practice more honored than in Iran, the world's largest Shiite country.

The revolutionaries exploited the deep passion about martyrdom as well as the timetable of Shiite mourning in whipping up greater opposition to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. With the deaths of "Neda" and others, they may now find the same phenomena used against them.