News Roundup

• From the "Cornered Cat" - An 81 year old woman in Florida showed that the maternal instinct never ends.  When the ladies 61 year old daughter was getting into her truck to take them both to a TV show taping, sumdood decided to rob and beat the daughter.  The 81 year old woman, knowing that the thug had a gun and she had nothing but her attitude, started beating on the miscreant and drove him off.  How many times do I have to tell these people?  Don't mess with Grandma!
• From the "Then You Do It!" Department - A federal judge has stuck down parts of South Carolina's anti-illegal immigration statutes.  I suppose now that police officers are prohibited from inquiring into the immigration status of someone they suspect, all that's left for them to do is to ask nicely that illegal immigrants consider camping out on the front yard of the federal courthouse.  Hey, if the feds aren't going to enforce immigration laws, then maybe they ought to be inconvenienced by their refusal.
• From the "14 minutes, 55 seconds" Department - The Occupy Something movement has announced that they plan to bring their own floats to the Tournament of Roses Parade in California next weekend.  They are apparently going to have floats that include 'alternate' wordings for the Constitution, and of course, Cindy Sheehan will be there to speak.  I guess now that the Iraq war is over, she needs something new to make sure she gets her Vitamin D from the limelight.  I look forward to footage of soccer moms who have been camped out on the sidewalk in Pasadena for three days laying a beating on some hippies for screwing up their morning.
• From the "My Heart Bleeds" Department - Witnesses for Bradley Manning, the young twit who is accused of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, have asserted that their unit did not have appropriate levels of supervision.  In earlier testimony, Manning's defense team has asserted that he was under an unusual amount of stress because he was a closeted gay soldier before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and that prompted his crimes.  Here's my take - This whining little punk obviously shouldn't be issued non-blunted eating utensils because he can't be trusted to eat without injuring himself without proper supervision.  Same thing goes for using the men's room and getting himself dressed.  Not enough supervision?  What a crock. Military Intelligence teams are loosely lead at best.  A soldier, especially an analyst like Manning, has to be expected to be able to work on his own within very broad guidelines, so long as his work is supporting the goals of the team.  It's called being an adult.  Thousands of soldiers do the same job with the same amount of supervision, and they don't betray their country.  And as for  his assertion that being a gay soldier in the military is so stressful that he had to act like a twit, well, let's just say I don't buy it.  I knew intelligence soldiers who were in the closet before Clinton came out with DADT, which means that they were under continual threat of being investigated, losing their access and/or clearance, and being booted out of the military.  To my knowledge, none of them printed off a bunch of classified material and sent it to the Soviets.  Here's an alternate theory:  This piece of crap decided the Army was mean to him, and he wanted to get in good with someone who disliked the Army as much as he did, and he paid for his way into the in-crowd with classified material.  Now, he doesn't have the ability to sack up and accept the consequences for his actions, and is instead blaming everyone for his crimes.  Yes, his leadership failed, especially when they realized just what a little putz they had on their hands and didn't take him out of the SCIF by the seat of his pants and put him on human waste removal detail.  And yeah, having to be secretive and discreet about your sexuality sucks.  But that's no reason to betray your oath.
• From the "Qel Surpris" Department - Jimmy Carter has sent a letter to the new leader of North Korea, expressing his condolences for the death of Kim Jong Il and wishing him luck as he takes the reigns of the country.  You know, there have been those who express the opinion that Jimmy Carter is finally being surpassed as the worst president our republic has ever had now that Obama is being used as a proof of the Peter Principle.  But things like this turn the competition to be worst president ever into a horse race.  I think Obama is really going to have to up his game both now and after he leaves office in order to overtake Carter.