More ammunition for Wal Mart haters: being snake bit while shopping!

It seems like a lot of people spend time dissing Wal Mart stores, as they are the corporate poster child for ripping off their employees. I’ve heard a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t shop there, but getting snake bit beats them all! I’ll make sure to stay out of the Garden Department if, and when, I visit Eureka’s soon-to-open Wal Mart at the Bayshore Mall. Here’s what happened:

A man says he reached down to pick up a stick lying in the gardening aisle of a Wal-Mart in Idaho, only to discover that it was a rattlesnake that then bit his hand. Mica Craig says he was shopping in the outdoor garden department of a Lewiston store when he was bitten Saturday. The 47-year-old man from Clarkston, Wash., says it latched onto his hand and that he screamed and managed to shake loose the snake and stomped it to death.

The Lewiston Tribune (http://bit.ly/J4pfe5 ) reports a bystander drove Craig to a local emergency room. Craig says he was treated with six bags of anti-venom and was told that his hand could be permanently disfigured. He says doctors expect him to remain hospitalized until Tuesday.

Hi, my name is Dave and I’m addicted to basketball…and the Lakers

               Good Day Humboldt County!

  Hi, my name is Dave and I’m a sports fan. A Laker fan to be specific. I’ve had this affliction since the tender age of eleven when the Lakers moved to Los Angeles from Minnesota prior to the 1961 season.

  I admit to having too much memorabilia, but I enjoy collecting. It’s even more fun when friends and family buy me Laker related items. What can I say?

  Basketball has always been my favorite sport. I love playing it and watching it. I know. It’s a mindless pursuit and probably killing brain cells daily…but I can’t help myself. I just recently gained access to an indoor gym (joined a health club) and getting back into my “shooter’s zone.” I’m so slow it’s like watching someone in slow motion, but as the days turn to weeks and months I hope to improve my speed and agility. I think I have a little left in the tank at 61 (soon to be 62).

  So…no surprise I’m following the NBA Playoffs. When the Lakers finally got their act together and beat the Denver Nuggets on Saturday I was finally able to exhale. I think I would have enjoyed getting a colonoscopy over watching Game 5 and 6 when the Nuggets made the Lakers look lame. Despite my outright bias for the Lakers I can’t realistically see them getting past the Oklahoma Thunder (the 7-game series starts tonight).

That doesn’t mean I won’t be hoping for a miracle. If the Lakers “Bigs” show up, the team won’t have to resort to the do-or-die Kobe show. I know Kobe is great, but he’s going to have to accept the Lakers can’t win this series if he doesn’t pass the ball. A lot. As in taking half the usual amount of baskets and playing tougher defense.

  There’s other factors that give me hope like Steve Blake’s 3-point shot coming back (5 in game seven), the defense off the bench from Jordan Hill (even some scoring), Matt Barnes slashing style of defense has been effective, and Ramon Sessions is still coming into his own and giving the Lakers some speed at the point. Finally, you can’t discount what Metta World Peace brings to the court. Toughness. I just hope he can restrain himself from any more stupid things like giving his opponents concussions!

  The odds makers barely give LA a chance in this series. That’s fine with me…I really love underdogs!!!

                                                         A brief history of the Lakers:

Founded in 1947, the Lakers are one of the NBA's most famous and successful franchises.

The Minnestota Lakers came to Los Angeles prior to the 1961 season, making the Lakers the NBA's first West Coast team. The Lakers did not change their name after this move. Now you know why they’re called the Lakers despite the fact California is not know for it’s many lakes.

Besides the relocation to Los Angeles, a second big change to the team was the addition of point guard Jerry West. A third was the hiring of West's college coach Fred Schaus to helm the team, and a fourth was the post-season addition of Francis Dayle "Chick" Hearn as the Lakers' play-by-play announcer. Hearn would go on to hold that post for the next 41 years.

The new Los Angeles Lakers improved on the previous year's results before losing once more to the Hawks in the Western Conference Finals. The duo of Baylor and West proved to be lethal and they both finished among the NBA's top 10 scorers for the next four years.

September 1965 saw another team upheaval when the team was purchased by Canadian-American entrepreneur Jack Kent Cooke for $5 million. Also, rookie Gail Goodrich joined the team.The Lakers moved to Cooke's brand-new arena, The "Fabulous" Forum, in 1967 with new coach Bill van Breda Kolff.

The Lakers now play at Staples Center a multi-purpose sports arena in Downtown Los Angeles that opened on October 17, 1999. Adjacent to the L.A. Live development, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street. Staples Center is one of the major sporting facilities in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

AS IT STANDS: Most Americans prepare to vote, others get ready for war

          By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard
While most of the country follows the presidential campaign this year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is following a trend that should concern all Americans; a spike in hate groups.
So-called patriot groups, militias, and hate groups are preparing for a civil war if President Obama gets re-elected. These anti-government groups numbered 149 when Obama took office. There are over 1,200 today, an increase of 755 percent, according to SPLC, a nonprofit civil rights organization.
“The reality is that many of these groups are more and more fearful that Barack Obama will win re-election. You can see the anger rising along with that fear," said Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC report.

Last week, ten members of  a white supremacist skinhead group called American Front, which authorities described as a militia-styled, anti-Semitic domestic terrorist organization, were arrested in Florida.
The felony arrest charges include paramilitary training, attempting to shoot into an occupied dwelling, and evidence of prejudices while committing an offense. The last charge falls under Florida's hate-crimes law.
Once based in California, most of the groups activities and most of its members, are in Florida, according to what Potok wrote on the center’s Hatewatch blog.
The reason these anti-government and hate groups are fearful and preparing for war can be attributed to a variety of factors; radical propaganda, anxiety over the re-election of a black president, a sluggish economy, and an irrational fear the government will take away their guns.

I say irrational fear, because President Obama hasn’t passed one anti-gun law during his term thus far. The only people whose guns are taken away are criminals. The numbers of militia/hate groups have continued to grow, jumping from 824 in 2010 to 1274 this year, according to the SPLC report.
President Obama has actually been criticized for failing to crack down on gun proliferation. Last summer, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., led an investigation into an ATF gun-tracking operation and said the Obama administration has been less stringent than the Bush in gun-law enforcement.
In 2009 Obama drew criticism from the left for signing a bill that allowed gun owners to carry concealed weapons into national parks.
Some militias say exercising their constitutional right to bear arms does not mean they are committed to revolution. The poster boy for the militia movement is 20 year veteran, Ed LeStage .

When he found out his militia group, the 63rd Battalion of Lightfoot Militia,  was listed in the SPLC report, LeStage’s reaction was to deny his group was a danger to anyone unless they were communists or socialists who attacked them. 
That in itself is troubling, as his group believes socialists and communists are already running the government. The implication is obvious. LeStage  claims militias come from U.S. citizens’ desire to restore the country to its constitutional roots.
"He’s been after our guns," LeStage said. "Obama’s been the best gun salesman there ever was," he said in an interview with the Murrow News Service. There it is again. That fear of losing guns. I don’t see any basis for that fear, as I mentioned earlier.

On LeStage’s website he says we will probably lose our republic and turn into another socialist country if Obama is re-elected.
"Nov.8th should be the start of the next civil war," a member with the username "Thunder" wrote in January on LeStage’s website. "May GOD guide us safely," the member added.

There’s also been a steady rise in the number of hate groups, from 604 in 2000, to more than 1,000 last year, according to the SPLC report. Those include anti-gay groups, anti-Muslim groups, black separatists and "Christian Identity" groups, who hold racist and anti-Semitic views that overlap neo-Nazi beliefs.
One of the things that bothers me is the misuse of the word “patriot.” Too many hate groups co-opt the word. I consider myself a patriot, but don’t see the need to arm myself and prepare for a civil war because I want change. I have concerns about the government invading our privacy, and have written numerous columns on that subject.

Still, my reaction isn’t violence. I trust the power of the written word. I believe another civil war is not the answer, and preparing for one is unpatriotic. We must not let propaganda from hate groups steer us into a war no American can win.
This year’s presidential election is already so toxic I can’t help thinking the rhetoric will get worse now that Mitt Romney has emerged as the once and future candidate for the GOP.
As It Stands, not so quietly behind the scenes, hate groups and militias are preparing for a homegrown war if President Obama is re-elected. 

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is…

  

Google Images

The odd story for Saturday…a dead man wakes up at his funeral

I couldn’t resist sharing this story. I’ve read a lot of others like it where the supposedly deceased wakes up startling (and sometimes scaring the hell out of) funeral attendees.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose:

LUXOR, Egypt — The funeral of a 28 year-old waiter in southern Egypt turned into a celebration when he woke up after being declared dead. (Full story)

Weird Inventions by Guys Series – Part I: Fuzzy Wonders and Invisible Paddles

        Good Day Humboldt County!

Where would we be without visionaries who come up with crazy contraptions? This country has a rich history of inventors like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

But what about those inventions that didn’t become household names? We can’t let them slip into the trash pile of history…because their too damn funny!

Enjoy: 

     The Invisible Paddle Machine

The initiate, thinking he is showing off his manliness with an ordinary strength-testing device, is surprised by the sudden simultaneous actions of a 32-calibre blank cartridge exploding at the rear, a paddle striking "where his mother used to apply her slipper," and a spray of water discharging in his face. $21.00 $33.50 (with electrical shock attachment) $0.45 (box of 50 extra blanks)

                        THE FUZZY WONDER

"Fuzzy Wonder" is a spectacular Goat in every respect. It gallops, rears,wobbles, kicks,and bucks by the up-and-down motion of the handle-bar. The body is well-upholstered with best tanned wool skin, and has horns and eyes. Goat is packed in a chest with hinged cover, lock and key. Weighs about 200 pounds. $82.00 Horse, Donkey, Tiger or Camel Body, instead of goat body, extra...$10.00   (Source)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

How many Dolphins can you spot in the image below?

                    Okay…who is lifting the Moon?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  source

 

 There’s more than two dolphins in this picture…

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam

If anyone’s interested, this is how genocide gets it’s start…through extreme religious intolerance that boils over into all out war.

History tells us that by demonizing a sector of people – by race or religion – it becomes easier to involve the common citizenry in atrocities in the name of homeland security.

So don’t be surprised by what you’re about to read here. This is how it starts. Now we have to wonder how it’ll end?

from the DANGER ROOM:

“The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

The course, first reported by Danger Room last month and held at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, has since been canceled by the Pentagon brass. It’s only now, however, that the details of the class have come to light. Danger Room received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents from a source familiar with the contents of the class.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently ordered the entire U.S. military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material, a process that is still ongoing. But the officer who delivered the lectures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military.

For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.

“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,’” Dooley noted in a July 2011 presentation (.pdf), which concluded with a suggested manifesto to America’s enemies. “It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

Dooley’s ideological allies have repeatedly stated that “mainstream” Muslims are dangerous, because they’re “violent” by nature. Yet only a few of al-Qaida’s most twisted fanatics were ever caught musing about wiping out entire cities.

“Some of these actions offered for consideration here will not be seen as ‘political correct’ in the eyes of many,” Dooley adds. “Ultimately, we can do very little in the West to decide this matter, short of waging total war.”

Dooley, who has worked at the Joint Forces Staff College since August 2010, began his eight-week class with a straightforward, two-part history of Islam. It was delivered by David Fatua, a former West Point history professor. “Unfortunately, if we left it at that, you wouldn’t have the proper balance of points of view, nor would you have an accurate view of how Islam defines itself,” Dooley told his students. Over the next few weeks, he invited in a trio of guest lecturers famous for their incendiary views of Islam.

Shireen Burki declared during the 2008 election that “Obama is bin Laden’s dream candidate.” In her Joint Forces Staff College lecture, she told students that “Islam is an Imperialist/Conquering Religion.” (.pdf)”

Read the rest of the story here.

It’s a nice day to take a carousel ride down memory lane …

               Good Day Humboldt County!

 Todays trot down memory lane leads us to carousels and a little history about them. I vaguely recall my first ride on one and how fast it seemed to be going. My grandfather stood next to me as I clutched my steed for dear life.

I’ve taken all three of my sons on carousel rides when they were little and am now working on taking my grandchildren – all five of them – on carousel rides.

                    Here’s a bit of fun history: 

“The carousel was the first form of mechanical recreation and the original root of modern amusements,” says Bette Largent, president of the National Carousel Association. The earliest carousels date back to around A.D. 500, though you’d hardly recognize them: rather than lit-up spectacles, these were baskets hand-spun around a central pole. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that carousels as we know them came into existence.” Source

In the photo above - Jane's Carousel has 48 glass-eyed horses, with ornate saddles and gold-leaf detailing, that are housed in a pavilion in N.Y.'s Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was originally built in 1922 – Photo by Kate Appleton

We’re lucky to still have a beautiful working carousel in Humboldt County right off of highway 101 in Eureka. It sits in front of a car dealership – Harper Ford – that has been around for 100 years.

It was completely restored in the last decade, and continues to give children (and adults) rides when the weather allows. I’ve seen the craftsmanship of the wooden horses up close and can tell you they are real works of functional art.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Doctor’s group tell President Obama to quit eating hamburgers and hot dogs

                 Is nothing sacred anymore?

Pushy. Pushy. A group of hot dog and hamburger haters posing as doctors are telling the prez he can’t eat ‘em in public?

Say what? They want him, his family (that probably includes Bo) and his Cabinet members to stop eating such unhealthy foods as burgers and hot dogs in public because it sets a bad example.

Processed meats "kill more Americans every year than tobacco does," said Susan Levin of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "The White House would never set up a photo op showing the president buying cigarettes, so why is it OK to show him eating a hot dog?"

What next? Don’t let Obama be seen watching or playing baseball, or eating an apple pie? C’mon folks…give me a break here. How many generations of Americans have survived eating hot dogs and hamburgers? As long as you don’t eat too much of either, things should be fine. Pass the mustard please…

 

Prophets of Doom will need to find a new date as archaeologists find proof that Mayan Calendar DOES NOT END this year

There’s some recent news about the Mayan Calendar that is going to set some doomsayers back on their heels in shock.

The world is not ending this year…at least according to the Mayans who planned on existing well beyond Baktun 13. With this discovery, a lot of debate about the so-called doomsday date in 2012 can come to an end: 

“Archaeologists have found a stunning array of 1,200-year-old Maya paintings in a room that appears to have been a workshop for calendar scribes and priests, with numerical markings on the wall that denote intervals of time well beyond the controversial cycle that runs out this December.

For years, prophets of doom have been saying that we're in for an apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, because that marks the end of the Maya "Long Count" calendar, which was based on a cycle of 13 intervals known as "baktuns," each lasting 144,000 days. But the researchers behind the latest find, detailed in the journal Science and an upcoming issue of National Geographic, say the writing on the wall runs counter to that bogus belief.

"It's very clear that the 2012 date, while important as Baktun 13, was turning the page," David Stuart, an expert on Maya hieroglyphs at the University of Texas at Austin, told reporters today. "Baktun 14 was going to be coming, and Baktun 15 and Baktun 16. ... The Maya calendar is going to keep going, and keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future." Read the rest here.

PHOTO: Boston University archaeologist William Saturno carefully uncovers art and writings left by the Maya some 1,200 years ago. The art and other symbols on the walls may have been records kept by a scribe, Saturno theorizes. Saturno's excavation and documentation of the house were supported by the National Geographic Society. -  photo by Tyrone Turner / National Geographic