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H/T: Gateway Pundit

In Memorium - Star VI

Four years ago today, two good men lost their lives and a third almost lost his.

I worked with Kevin and Eric at the Sacramento County Main Jail over ten years ago. I didn't have the good fortune of ever meeting Joe.

You aren't forgotten guys...

Dep. Joe Kievernagel

Dep. Kevin Blount

Deputy Joseph M. Kievernagel (Pilot) and Deputy Kevin Blount (Flight Officer) were killed on July 13, 2005, while piloting the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department’s Helicopter, Star 6.

Deputy Joe Kievernagel, Deputy Kevin Blount and Deputy Eric Henrikson (Flight Officer in training) took off from Mather Air Field for routine patrol of Sacramento County. They soon responded to a burglary call at a Folsom business. After they cleared the call they flew over the Lake Natoma area where hundreds of people had gathered to get relief from the intense heat being experienced in the Sacramento area.

What happened next will remain in the hearts and minds of the Sheriff’s Department personnel forever.

Star 6 developed catastrophic engine trouble. Witnesses reported that it seemed that Deputy Kievernagel tried in vain to control the craft, Deputy Kievernagel desperately tried to land the ship somewhere away from the crowded lake area. Star 6 crashed into a nearby hillside and rolled. Deputies Kievernagel and Blount were killed. Deputy Eric Henrikson was critically injured.

Both officers were highly regarded professionals and truly dedicated to their assignments in Air Operations.

You guys want some Purell?

This looks sweet!

Henry (Pig-boy) Waxman is a dipshit.

He thinks that the legal drinking age is 18 in the United States.

This is the guy that's making public energy policy in America...

Muy Caliente!

Yum...

Happy Independence Day!

Be careful out there.

He must've seen the bill for his Cap & Trade...

Calif. Rep. Waxman hospitalized after fainting

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman remained in the hospital in his home state of California on Wednesday, a day after fainting in his office.

Waxman, 69, was not feeling well Tuesday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for "routine testing," spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said.

In a brief update late in the day, Waxman's staff disclosed that the congressman had fainted in his district office in California.

Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, last week finished steering climate change legislation through a close vote in the House. He had been gearing up to tackle health care later in the summer.

"Chairman Waxman did not feel well and fainted in his office," said the update from his office. "He is undergoing evaluation at Cedars-Sinai. He is feeling fine today and is in good spirits."

Bummer on that last sentence.

Sacramento will be scary this summer...

Word just came down that it looks like the Sacramento Co. Sheriff's Dept will be laying-off almost 200 deputies. SSD will be putting out almost half the amount of patrol deputies on every shift, if the budget cuts go through. SSD is already known throughout the county for having slow response-times to anything but in-progress calls. Now the response-time for even in-progress calls will be even longer.

Basically, in Sacramento County, if you call 9-1-1 - it's going to be a while. You'd best be able to handle your own business. Burglary reports? Forget it. Follow-up investigations on property crimes? Not gonna happen.

The criminals will have a field-day in Sacramento County in the coming months. They are already letting SSD know that they're planning on running amok, because they know SSD will be riding short. And it isn't the deputy's fault or even the Sheriff's Department's fault. It all comes down to money. There isn't enough of it.

Many cities and counties in Kalifornia are in the same shape.

What's funny about Sacramento County is that the Sheriff absolutely refuses to give CCW permits to law-abiding Sacramento County residents. He has basically already said that he (SSD) can't protect the citizens and yet refuses to let them have the means to protect themselves.

I think that is beyond negligent.

Hell of a state I live in...

Traitors!

To the Republican party and to their fellow Americans.

44 DemocRats voted AGAINST the biggest fraud perpetrated on the American people and these 8 traitors voted FOR it?

These 8 have absolutely no honor and should be recalled or voted out of office.

Disgusting.


H/T: Michelle Malkin

I really fail to understand...

Why people are so distraught over a dead child-molester...

Goodbye Farrah....

Man tries to rob bank, falls asleep instead...

I guess he failed in his victim-selection process...

I love it when I hear about a properly executed carotid-hold.

Well done, Ofc. Orel!

Retired Calif. officer tackles suspect, stops bank heist

Associated (with Terrorists) Press

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Cyndi Orel worked as a police officer for 25 years and never caught a bank robber. She was apparently saving that hobby for retirement. The retired Long Beach police officer foiled a bank robbery at a grocery store Saturday when she put a 220-pound bank robber in a chokehold until he passed out. Orel is about 5 feet 7 inches and 128 pounds

"I never caught a bank robber," Orel said Monday at press conference held by the Orange County sheriff''s office. "This was pretty exciting just because of the nature. You don''t have time to think about it. You just react."

Orel was at the Mission Viejo Albertsons store when a bank employee shouted that a man with a gun was trying to rob the branch. As another shopper scuffled with the robber, Orel put a sleeper hold on him, blocking blood to his brain and making him pass out twice. Later, they discovered the man did not have a gun.

Orel credited the man who helped subdue the robber, but sheriff''s spokesman Jim Amormino said she was "being modest because if it wasn''t for the control hold that she placed on him he would not have been rendered unconscious."

Orel said she learned the move at the police academy 28 years earlier, and only used it a few times during her years on patrol. She retired in 2006 but said she keeps active by running laps and lifting small weights.

Deputies arrested a 52-year-old man from Las Vegas, who they believe committed eight to 10 bank robberies, Amormino said.

I wish SarKozy was our president!

He's actually got a spine. And principals.

Unlike Barry.

Sarkozy Backs Drive to Eliminate the Burqa

VERSAILLES, France — President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed Parliament on Monday, laying out a vision of France that included a withering critique of burqas as an unacceptable symbol of “enslavement.”

Speaking at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy confronted one of the most hotly debated social issues in France, saying there was no room in the republic for burqas, the garments that some Muslim women wear to cloak their bodies and faces.

“The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue. It is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women.”

To enthusiastic applause, he said, “I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.”

Mr. Sarkozy gave his speech, a sober, wide-ranging address, in the first presidential appearance before Parliament since Charles Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s in the 19th century.

Presidents had been barred from entering Parliament since 1875, to protect the independence of lawmakers. But reforms carried out last summer through Mr. Sarkozy’s party opened the way for him to speak to Parliament.

Mr. Sarkozy entered through rows of French guards with raised swords, then delivered an American-style state-of-the-nation address that sketched out his view of France’s future.

Though he also spoke at length about the economy, Mr. Sarkozy’s strongest comments were about burqas. France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, estimated at five million, and traditional Islamic garments have been a divisive issue, especially since 2004, when the country passed legislation prohibiting head scarves and conspicuous religious symbols from public schools.

Mr. Sarkozy said that “in the republic, the Muslim religion must be respected like other religions.” But he declared, “the burqa is not welcome in France.” He added, “We cannot accept in our country women imprisoned behind bars, cut off from social life, deprived of identity.”

He's come to save the day!!!!

Hilarious!

Thanks Diane!

The greatest Father in the WORLD!

Happy Father's Day to all of you who are.

This is a re-post from last year. BlackFive beat me to it again...

Make sure you watch the videos.

Strongest Dad in the World
Rick Reilly
Sports Illustrated Issue date: June 20, 2005, p. 88

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."

"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."

Here's a comment from BlackFive's post. Another great Dad...

On this Father's Day, it is my son at Camp Baharia, Iraq that holds my heart so tenderly in his warrior's hands. The Hoyts' father-son connection is what The Father intended, and so it is with us. On our last phone call, he said, "I hate putting you through this, Dad.". His being gives my life purpose, and his purpose gives my heart the strength to remain strong for him and his mission. I am envious that, unlike Dick, I am unable to be with him, struggle with him, be victorious with him. It is the son that makes the father. Thanks for the story of love, strength, endurance. Love survives all things; Dick and Rick Hoyt prove God is true to His Word.

Posted by: twolaneflash | June 16, 2007 at 11:18 AM

God Bless Rick and Dick Hoyt.

Happy Father's Day

Change in Iran

Because every single person living on this planet deserves to live in Freedom.


H/T: BlackFive

If you Twitter...

If you're on Twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & pass it on.

It's Caturday!

I figured it's time to post something cute and sweet after all the serious posts of the last couple days.

From Zooborns

Baby Snow Leopards (sound like birds when they're little):





A baby Mountain Lion can't change his DNA.

If you want to know what's going on in Iran

Add Hamed Rad as a friend on your FaceBook account.

He's posting some great info about what's going on there. That's where the video below came from.

They're murdering people in Iran.

Achmadinijad's evil henchmen are murdering Iranian's.

This poor woman was doing nothing but standing in a street, watching the protests and she was gunned down. She was deliberately targeted by a roof-top sniper.

Her life is snuffed out, literally as you watch this video.

It's truly heart-breaking.

UPDATE I - video added. Please post this on your own blogs so that what's happening is seen by the whole world.

UPDATE II - Her name was Neda Soltan. She was 25.





What is Barry O'Bama doing about it?

Nothing.

Well, actually worse than nothing. He's actively working against the people that want freedom in Iran.

Newsmax has learned that the Obama administration also has zeroed out funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran from the State Department budget for fiscal 2010, just as protests in Iran are ramping up.

Funding for pro-democracy programs began in 2004, when Congress earmarked $1.5 million of the State Department budget for “educational, humanitarian, and non-governmental organizations and individuals inside Iran to support the advancement of democracy and human rights in Iran.”

The funding ramped up dramatically two years later, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested $75 million for pro-democracy programs. More than half of the $66.1 million Congress finally appropriated went to expand U.S. government-funded Persian language broadcasting services at Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

But no money has been earmarked for such programs in the administration’s fiscal 2010 foreign operations budget request. Congressional sources told Newsmax they doubted that a Democrat-controlled Congress would add it when the budget comes before a committee next week.

Controversy has surrounded the programs from the start, with pro-regime lobbying groups, such as the National Iranian-American Council urging the State Department to cancel the funding.

H/T: AOSHQ and Gateway Pundit.