Weird News

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by classicman

seems very fitting. Sad, but fitting.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[Shawnee123]

...

[classicman]

HAGGIS!!!!!!

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

seems very fitting. Sad, but fitting.

Sadly fitting, yet fittingly sad.

[Shawnee123]

If, by fittingly sad, you mean gross and ridiculous and freaking HYSTERICAL, then yes, yes it is fittingly sad.

...the president and CEO of the Wine and Liquor Wholesalers of America, who announced Tuesday that Palin will keynote the group's annual convention and and expo in Las Vegas in early April...

....The convention includes a "Wine and Spirits Tasting Competition," which, according to the press release, "secured a spot on the agenda after drawing overwhelming response and favorable feedback during its debut" last year.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...litical+Ticker)

One can only hope the wine and spirits tasting competition immediately precedes Palin's insightful keynote address.

[Shawnee123]

Nelnet Subpoenas Ed. Dept. for Records that Could Show the Bush Administration’s Complicity in 9.5 Scandal

http://higheredwatch.newamerica.net/..._bush_administ

Higher Ed Watch has learned that the student loan company Nelnet recently had a subpoena issued to the U.S. Department of Education for documents it believes will definitively show that the agency's former leaders signed off on the company's plan to aggressively grow its 9.5 percent student loan holdings. Nelnet took this action shortly after a federal court judge ruled in favor of allowing a False Claims lawsuit filed by Jon Oberg, the former Education Department researcher who uncovered the 9.5 student loan scandal, to proceed against the company and five other lenders.

Nelnet officials certainly believe that they were given the green light. In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the company’s lawyers made clear that they intend to make the Department’s role in the case a central part of their defense.


“In the case of Nelnet, the evidence would include witnesses to meetings between the company and the Department regarding this issue. It would include witnesses to phone calls between the company and the Department. It would include witnesses to the settlement agreement entered into between the company and the Department. All of these witnesses would testify to matters that reflect the intent of Nelnet...”


At Higher Ed Watch, we are pleased by these developments, as we believe that this type of information should have seen the light of day years ago. After all, doesn’t the public have a right to know whether government officials were complicit in a scheme to fleece taxpayers? And doesn’t it have the right to see how the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program has been a magnet for fraud and abuse?


As we’ve said before, Jon Oberg should be congratulated for his tenacity in trying to get to the bottom of the scandal. It looks like his efforts are starting to yield results.


[Editor's Note: A spokesman for Nelnet declined to comment on the subpoena, except to say,"We believe the allegations of the lawsuit are entirely meritless and intend to vigorously defend the claims."]

[classicman]

A judge Friday sent a Virginia man to prison for 15 years for sending a text message to a former Frederick woman he was previously convicted of assaulting.

In October 2005, Colin Akin Johnson stabbed Lakisha Frye seven times and almost cut off an ear, according to testimony in Frederick County Circuit Court.

In August 2006, Judge John H. Tisdale ordered Johnson to serve five years of a 20-year sentence in the Maryland Division of Correction for the first-degree assault conviction.

Released Jan. 29, 2009, after spending more than three years and three months behind bars, Johnson told Tisdale on Friday that his mistake "was allowing Lakisha back in my life ... I came out (of prison) and I was ready to go. I was trying to be the best dad I could be."

Johnson and Frye have a daughter together, and he also treated Frye's older daughter as his own, according to court testimony.

Tisdale recalled the heinousness of the 2005 crime during a 30-minute hearing Friday in which Johnson admitted sending the text message, which meant he had violated probation.

The judge refereed arguments between Assistant State's Attorney Teresa R. Bean and defense attorney Alan L. Winik. The two lawyers Friday were pushing for starkly different punishments for Johnson's offense.

Bean urged Tisdale to impose the previously suspended 15 years. Winik said a sanction was appropriate, but suggested the seven months Johnson has served since being arrested in June 2009 should be considered.

"Things should be kept in perspective," Winik said.

The text message Johnson, 32, sent Frye the day he was served with a protective order was not inflammatory, Winik said.

"Sorry about all this. Call me when you get a chance," he read from a document that stated the content of Johnson's text message.

Link

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

...

I love it. I guess if I was that close to a bear I would shoot the somofabitch too.

[SamIam]

Frankly, I don't think "Sorry about all this. Call me when you get a chance" would make much headway over stabbing someone 7 times. If he just wanted to make contact with his daughter, he should have gone through legal channels. Even at that, if I were that girl's mother, I wouldn't want him to come within a mile of my child. Who knows whether he's gotten himself a nice new knife. That was a horrific crime and Johnson was terminally stupid in his attempt to contact his victim. Yeah, the dude should go back to jail.

And yes, I have a personal issue with this. I was involved with a highly abusive man, and I finally called the police on him and he was given 90 days in the county jail and I was granted a restraining order against him. The fool tried to call me from jail to get me to drop the charges. Not bloodly likely after the things he had done. I hung up on him and reported him to the sheriff immediently. The judge gave him another 10 days for that little caper.

[TheMercenary]

Yea, we had to get a restraining order on one of my daughters boyfriends when she was 16. You should not mess around with psychos like that. Let the court deal with them. Sorry to hear you had to go through that Sam.

[classicman]

Johnson said after his release from prison he and Frye re-established a relationship. He said he later told her he wanted only a friendship with her, that he wanted to focus on the children.

"She erupted. She cursed me," Johnson said.

That's when she leveled the allegations against him that led to the Virginia protective order.

He recalled the number of supporters who testified on Johnson's behalf at his 2006 sentencing. He recalled a hearing the next March when Frye asked him to release her attacker from prison early.

"These cases don't have much logic to them," Tisdale said.

"Lakisha Frye has obviously not protected herself very well," he said, referring to her decision to live about five minutes away from the residence Johnson shared with his mother.

I typically agree, but this part seemed to make me wonder about what happened.
WTH was she thinking?

[toranokaze]

This is wrong for a number of reasons, first this guy gets out after only three years, then gets another 15 for a text message. WTF there is a harsher punishments for texting that stabbing.

[classicman]

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Link

[TheMercenary]

I read that article yesterday. Pretty strange, but if you don't know it is there in the first place, I am not sure it makes a difference. But I bet it makes a difference to those Muslim troops who are using them in combat.