by Ian Punnett

 

 

It was all about family on the first day of “Sarah Palin for VP” national roll-out.  

As part of the “get-to-know-her” PR push from the McCain campaign, the Palin family story and photo-ops illustrated the political spin:  Gov. Palin is a rock-solid Conservative with the Right values.

For example, she got a late-in-life bonus baby and it was joyous occasion.  Also, when the tests came back that the boy would suffer from Downs Syndrome, the Pro-Life Palin never even considered abortion.  With her rugged husband and adorable family at her side as the cameras snapped away, the first day of the Sarah Palin Story was picture perfect.

The first smudge on the image doesn’t amount to much--yet.  Yes, the McCain people confirmed, they were well aware of allegations of ethics violations against Gov. Palin for using her office to have her former brother-in-law fired from the State Police force and those accusations just aren’t true.  Sarah Palin rose to prominence because of principles and the McCain people are confident that there was nothing to these charges.  

Saturday there was another funny little tidbit that doesn’t amount to much on its own.  Sarah Palin is a devout, lifelong Christian who smoked pot at least a few times when it was legal to do so in Alaska.  The McCain campaign knew all about it but didn’t see that as problem.

Then it was revealed that Sarah Palin’s husband and oldest son are not registered Republicans.  Now, how somebody is registered may not have anything to do with how they vote and I respect “Independent” voters because I am one myself.

But there again was the pattern.  To the McCain campaign staff, the fact that governor’s “First Dude” was not a Republican was something that they were aware of and only accentuated Palin’s reputation as a fellow maverick, somebody out of the box, a woman who does not fit the Republican mold.

And now the new non-news story that Gov. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby, a young man she intends to marry in her senior year of high school and raise the child with.  

Again, the Conservative spin here I keep hearing is that this is not a story of teen promiscuity by the teen daughter of an abstinence-only, Evangelical governor, the headline should be something like “amazing family sticks to their Pro-Life principles.”   

And that’s as may be but, one more time, we’ve also been told that the McCain people knew all about this for a week but didn’t feel it was important.

So, what do we have?

We have an ethics-driven governor under investigation for an ethics violation.

We have lifelong Christian who smoked weed until it was made illegal.

We have a staunch, lifelong Republican governor with a non-Republican family.

We have a  conservative, Evangelical Christian, abstinence-only mom with a pregnant 17-year-old daughter.

What else does the McCain campaign know about Palin that they haven’t told us about yet?

What other odd admissions are next?

Sarah Palin is a faithful wife who has been known to go to movies alone with an old boyfriend from time to time?

She’s a non-drinker who has been investigated for moonshining (until it was made illegal)?

There are one or two nude photos taken by an old boyfriend floating around?

The old boyfriend was Barack Obama but the McCain people didn’t think that was relevant.

Maybe it’s all out now.

But only the McCain people know for sure.

 

By Ian Punnett

Forecasters maintain that Hurricane Gustav will hit Louisiana at some point during the night with devastating effect, officials pleaded with Gulf Coast residents to flee.  According to news reports, 95% have already.  Because of the near-certainties of the storm, Republicans said they'd abbreviate the opening day of their national convention and create a mood of sobriety and charity.

The French Quarter is a ghost town but that’s no surprise.  Even when there are people everywhere in the French Quarter, it has an eery, spectral feeling, layers of dank, fetid, Creole spiced history.

Still, I can’t imagine what it might be like to be walking in the French Quarter tonight.  

Or what it would be like to be the Louisiana delegation to the RNC walking around the warm, breezy streets of St. Paul while the state that they love and the people they left behind are in harm’s way.

And then there is the flooding and the tornadoes that will be the likely by-product of such a well-fed, warm water air mass.  Even when the Gulf Coast is out of the woods, it will still be looking for high ground.  

Watching the skies tonight yourself?  Don’t miss the amazing story of a piece of the sky that was missing in Florida the other night.

Take a look at this thought-provoking testimony:

I tend to notice the skies all the time, but in my 46 years, I have never seen anything like this. All clouds and haze abruptly broke off at the edges of this huge “wedge” of blue sky and were completely missing inside it. It was absolutely surreal.

My family and I were leaving a restaurant at about an hour before sunset, maybe 7:30 PM, and we just stood in the parking lot for quite a while, gazing at this and trying to understand what could possibly cause such an effect. My boys expected Dad to explain this like everything else, but this was completely unexplainable.

Read more on that story at this link:

http://oregonskywatch.com/bluesky/?p=814

There’s a report tonight out of Sacramento that another dad might have explained something entirely different to his son--that he was the Zodiac Killer.  CBS 13 is reporting:

The Zodiac Killer attacked at least eight people, terrorizing the Bay Area and taunting police in the 60's and 70's. Thursday, the FBI confirmed to CBS13 they are now running laboratory tests on some items that may link a suspect to the killer.

The evidence was given to the FBI by a Pollock Pines man who also claims he recently found the disguise worn by the Zodiac Killer during one of his attacks. 

"The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance. He's my stepfather," says Dennis Kaufman. 

Eight years of Dennis Kaufman's life has been consumed with attempting to prove the only father he's known since he was five-years-old is none other than the Zodiac Killer. 

"This a handwriting comparison I did," says Kaufman, showing handwriting samples claiming to be his father's and the Zodiac Killer's, which bear a striking similarity. Kaufman says it's no coincidence.

"The composite is a dead ringer," says Kaufman, showing composite sketch of the killer next to his stepfather's -- a resemblance that is undeniable between pictures of Jack Tarrance and descriptions of the zodiac. 

Kaufman also claims his stepfather, in a taped phone conversation, indirectly admitted being the zodiac killer. 

Jack Tarrance died in 2006. Kaufman claims that while going through Tarrance's belongings, there were disturbing findings including a knife still covered with what could possibly be dried blood. 

Jack also left behind rolls of undeveloped film. Kaufman plans to hand over the film to the FBI. On one of the rolls he did develop, there were numerous gruesome images. 

"Appeared to be people who were murdered," he explains. 

Just recently, Kaufman found something that may unmask the zodiac killer. 

"It was a black hood with a zodiac on it," Kaufman explains. 

It's similar to the hood worn during an early attack, which is the possible key evidence connecting his stepfather to the killings. He also believes there are dozens more victims which were never linked to the Zodiac, including Kaufman's own mother who, he claims, was suffocated.

Great work--and so nice to see the FBI stepping up to the plate for the family of the would-be Zodiac Killer.

But why wouldn’t they do that with the family of the man we believe was D.B. Cooper?  The FBI has had fingerprints of William Gossett for weeks but still no confirmation or denial that the suspect found through this show is the most creative hijacker in US history.

Goes to show you, though, you just never know about some people.  Bill Gossett was a law-abiding, tax-paying family man who was in the service, teaching and even serving a community as a priest but he had criminal secret that no one would have guessed.

If it’s true, same thing with this man being identified now as the Zodiac Killer.

And you might be shocked to learn, Roald Dahl, one of the most famous children’s books of all time, had a secret too.  In an article in the Independent UK:

He is known to the world as the author of bestselling children’s books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Yet before he became a successful writer, Roald Dahl had a very different reputation – as the sexiest British spy in America.

A ribald portrait of Dahl’s second world war years as an undercover agent attached to the British embassy in Washington emerges from the pages of a new biography that credits the writer with a very special talent for the Anglo-American special relationship.

“Girls just fell at Roald’s feet,” declares Antoinette Marsh Haskell, the daughter of Dahl’s closest American friend.

His conquests included Millicent Rogers, the glamorous heiress to a Standard Oil fortune; and Clare Boothe Luce, the often times ultra-right-wing congresswoman and the sexually frisky wife of the publisher of Time magazine.

Dahl would later complain to friends that Boothe Luce, 13 years his senior, had left him saddle sore after three nights of bedroom capers.

Claire Booth Luce?  Who knew!  Who knew she was spelling her last name wrong . . . 

Same thing goes with the author of “Enter the Past Tense,” Ronald Haas.  Nobody knew he was CIA assassin and he was hiding in plain sight.  Goes to show you, you can’t always trust what we see.

Which reminds me about that story at Physorg.com:

The advantage of using two eyes to see the world around us has long been associated solely with our capacity to see in 3-D. Now, a new study from a scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has uncovered a truly eye-opening advantage to binocular vision: our ability to see through things.

Read more:

http://www.physorg.com/news139138581.html

How cool is that?  We all have the potential for x-ray vision!  Dang it. I knew I wasted my money on those X-Ray Specs I ordered from the back of Boy’s Life Magazine.

How weird is going to be if we all had x-ray vision though!  That was supposed to be my super power over the super foxes of the 1970s.  Real flying foxes might have an odd super power though:

Scientists are investigating whether flying foxes are involuntarily reacting to the loss of habitat in Queensland by spreading deadly viruses including Hendra.

A horse veterinarian died from the Hendra virus earlier this month and five horses were destroyed after an outbreak at the Redlands Veterinary Clinic in south-east Queensland.

Researchers are looking into a rising number of flying fox-related viral outbreaks in other parts of the world, including the deadly ebola virus in Africa and the 2003 SARS epidemic in southern China.

There is an emerging theory that the animals' immune systems are reacting to human interference.

Some people even propose that it's like a biological weapon protect their ecological niche. Only when humans try to destroy that balance that “the virus jumps out.”

A virus that just “jumps out” when the species is threatened by humans is the stuff of science fiction, isn’t it?   How many space movies were predicated on the belief that aliens on some distant planet were just fine until we showed up and disrupted the local ecosystem?   To the immune system of a population of flying foxes, WE ARE the virus that must be repelled.  We are a bacteria on their owie.  Hendra is their Bactine.

The same thing could be said about hurricanes.  They don’t have brains, they don’t have a will, they are, to me, giant single-cell organisms, that can’t help themselves from killing.

That’s what makes them truly terrifying to me.  As a human, I depend on my reason.  Hurricanes cannot be reasoned with, they have no interest in bargains.  

To me, hurricanes are like Frankenstein’s monster when he tossed that little girl in the lake because he ran out of flowers to float.  Except that she didn’t float and she drowned and he just moved on without another thought.

Gustav is like that.  He’s big and almost super naturally strong and doesn’t mean any harm but cannot stop himself from killing either.  

The monster is on the loose and our best chance for survival will be respecting that raw power and not to get caught playing patty-cake with it on the shoreline.

Let's be careful out there.

 

By Ian Punnett

I’m having the worst case of deja vu tonight.  It was three years ago tonight that we were tracking Hurricane Katrina.  When I first went on the air the night that Katrina hit, we talked about our prayers and hopes that the hurricane would continue to weaken as it approached New Orleans and that it would deliver only a glancing blow to city.  By the end of the show that night, it was clear that that’s exactly what Katrina had done and I believe the last thing I said that night was that it looked like New Orleans was safe.

I went to bed so relieved and, like the rest of the world, woke up so horrified when the levies began to fail against the storm surge.

I love New Orleans.  It has everything I love in a vacation destination:  kind people, fascinating history, cool cemeteries, spooky Spanish moss, great food, beignets, dependable weather, rich coffee and creepy museums.To me, going to New Orleans is like vacationing in an episode of Scooby-Doo.

  

I fear that while Katrina buried New Orleans by jogging to the east, Gustav will bury New Orleans by heading to the west so once more I am asking you to hold that wonderful city and its in your prayers tonight and until they are safe from this storm.

Obviously, the Republicans fear another Katrina as well.  Politico.com says:

John McCain said the Republican National Convention may be postponed, after federal officials said Hurricane Gustav was gathering to a devastating Category 5 as it headed toward star-crossed New Orleans.

“It just wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster,” McCain told Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” in an interview taped for Sunday. “So we're monitoring it from day to day and I'm saying a few prayers, too.”

I’m hoping that the convention doesn’t have to be delayed because, as you know, I live in St. Paul, MN (or as Wolf Blitzer said the other day as he walked the floor of the Excel Engery Center, “St. Paul, Missouri”) and getting downtown is an incredible pain in the neck because of all the security.  Temp walls, barbed wire, huge police presence on the ground and in the air; it isn’t quite “Escape from New York,” but it’s close.  I rode my scooter down to haberdasher to pick up the new vestment that Heimie had made for me and it took me forever to get around the area that’s sealed off by police.  

Meanwhile, did you see this headline?

Michael Moore says, Hurricane Coming During GOP Convention 'Proof There Is a God in Heaven' 

Such a cheap shot, if you ask me, although he’s not the only one taking it.  It kind of reminds me of that whole Evangelical “let’s pray to make it rain on Obama’s acceptance speech” thing.  Yikes.  I mean, if storms were proof of God, shouldn’t priests being doing the weather on TV?

Then again:

A Chinese man who swore to God that he didn't owe money to a neighbour was hit by lightning a minute later.

The man, named Xu, made the oath in front of a crowd of neighbours in Fuqing city, reports Southeast Express.

He vowed that he had never borrowed money from Mr Huang, who claimed Xu borrowed 500 yuan, the equivalent of eighty dollars, from him three years earlier.

"He borrowed 500 yuan three years ago from me for a friend's marriage gift, but he has denied it ever since then," said Huang, who went to Xu's home to demand payment.

"I told him that if he dared to swear to God that he didn't owe me the money, then I would waive his debt," said Huang.

Xu made the oath, but was suddenly struck by lightning a minute later.

Step One:  Recover and get home from the hospital.  Step Two:  Pay the man!

Speaking of incredible stories from Asia, have you heard?

It's a currently big news in Indonesia. Metal wires about 10-20 cm long grow from a woman's body! Skeptics initially thought that is must be "self-inflicted". Doctors however, have other theories but have given up on providing any scientific or medical explanations.

The woman had this problem for 17 years and is currently being investigated by the Ministry of Health. Initial consultation with doctors and specialists found that the wires are also inside her body. At this stage, there were no current medical explanations or any case ever exist. Hence, there is but only one other possible consideration… Occult magic.

Not sure I agree with the iron-clad conclusion on the occult but it is fascinating.  I like my lap like I like my laptop--wireless.

Here’s the link to the video if you want to see it:

http://mysterytopia.com/2008/08/indonesian-woman-manusia-kawat-claims.html

The way the North Pole is melting, it might as well be in Indonesia.  Did you catch our friend Captain Kelly last week talking about the new Northwest Passage that will become the hot new shipping lane?  This update is at Physorg.com:

Satellite observations from mid-August depict that a new record of low sea-ice coverage could be reached in a matter of weeks.  Current ice coverage in the Arctic has already reached the second absolute minimum since observations from space began 30 years ago.  Because the extent of ice cover is usually at its lowest about mid-September, this year's minimum could still fall to set another record low. 

Because global warming is such a “polarizing” issue amongst Republicans, it will be interesting to see if it will come up much during the convention this week.

John McCain believes that man-made global warming is happening and that it is a threat to our national security and future success.  You’d think that if any Republican governors would be out there on the watchtower for global warming, it would be the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

By the way, I’m not sure about that pick.  Putting a governor with only 18 months experience on the ticket--even one as dynamic and appealing as Gov. Palin--will either be a touchdown or a fumble.  I can’t decide.

Sometimes I see pictures of McCain and Palin standing together and I think, that’s so crazy it just might work.  And other times I see them together and it looks like a photo from the Daddy-Daughter-Dinner-Dance at the club.

Either way, this week, I’ll be collecting stories from the streets of the Republican National Convention which is just down the street from me.  Who knows, I might even get invited to a party or two!  Should be fun.

Call me, “St. Paul Confidential.  Off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush . .  .”

by Ian Punnett

 

Just seven days ago we called it!  Right here I wrote about that crazy Tom Biscardi-hosted press conference about the supposed Bigfoot in a freezer and the ridiculous development that the DNA samples tested as “human” and “possum,” and I quote:

OK, how can a DNA sample be accidentally contaminated with possum?  Even in Georgia! 

Anyway, it’s too early for me to say “it’s a hoax” for a 100% certainty.  Maybe these guys aren’t the ones doing the duping, maybe they’re the ones getting duped.

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, for just a little while longer, because hoaxes are so distasteful--and potentially damaging.

So, at least I had it part right.  These two good ol’ boys knew it was a hoax but they say they were also getting played by Tom Biscardi in this article from Kathy Jefcoats of the AJC:

Two Clayton County men who “punk’d” the world with a bogus Bigfoot discovery were pawns of Tom Biscardi, a promoter who promised them books and movie deals, the pair’s attorney said Friday.

Now that Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer have walked away with $50,000, a purported middleman is out the money, and promoter Tom Biscardi of California is left holding a Halloween costume filled with road kill, the public may be wondering if the tail is now wagging the dog.

A police report filed Thursday by an Indiana man who said he fronted the $50,000 on behalf of Biscardi alleges Whitton and Dyer took the money “by deceitful means” in exchange for the frozen carcass of a Bigfoot-like creature they claimed to have found in north Georgia.

But the men’s attorney said the money was for publicizing the alleged find that Biscardi knew to be fabricated.

Man, and I thought I was a soft touch?  Not that I have that kind of money lying around but “I need to borrow 50k in order to buy a a giant block of ice with a Bigfoot in it from some jobless yokels in Georgia” may be the only pitch for money I haven’t got from a friend in the past.  And just to tell you how gullible I am when it comes to loaning friends money, my first question might just have been, “tell me more about the make and model of the freezer . . . “ 

Now you know why I work five jobs . . . wish I could win the lottery.

MADISON, Wis. -- A double-lottery-winning couple in Dane County doubled their winnings again.

Verlyn and Judith Adamson of Mount Horeb each claimed a $350,000 jackpot this week for having the winning numbers in the state SuperCash drawing last Saturday.

But they didn't mention at the time that they also held two more of the winning tickets.

They claimed two more $350,000 jackpots Thursday. All four were purchased at different locations, but with the same numbers and for the same drawing.

The total winnings increased to $1.4 million, or about $955,000 after taxes.

The Adamsons swear it’s true, that they are pursuing a patent for their formula and then referred any and all questions to their spokesman, Tom Biscardi.

Just kidding . . . 

Astronomers have shed light on how stars can form around a massive black hole, defying conventional wisdom.

(Can you shed light around a black hole?)

Scientists have long wondered how stars develop in such extreme conditions.

Molecular clouds - the normal birth places of stars - would be ripped apart by the immense gravity, a team explains in Science magazine.

But the researchers say stars can form from elliptical discs - the relics of giant gas clouds torn apart by encounters with black holes.

They made the discovery after developing computer simulations of giant gas clouds being sucked into black holes like water spiralling down a plughole.

Giant gas cloud that sucks as it spirals down a plughole?  Otherwise known as the “Biscardi Effect.”

A band of pre-eminent scientists and war-fighters has concluded that the nation's military might isn't powerful enough for the 21st Century; and so the National Research Council (NRC), an independent, congressionally-chartered body charged with assessing scientific issues, is urging the Pentagon and Congress to get cracking on developing a weapon capable of hitting any target in the world within an hour of being launched.

The NRC's Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability believes that there are threats (like nuclear terrorism) that the Pentagon's fleets of attack planes and missiles cannot handle and which have to be stopped with the immediacy of the push of a button by a future U.S. President. It's not quite a "death ray" but it's the closest existing technology can get to that fantasy weapon. Still, skeptics roll their eyes and say that the report's authors are like a bunch of junior high school boys who have seen all the James Bond movies and believe that if a weapon can be built, it must be built.

And the problem is . . . ?

 

I mean, if you listened to your mother’s warnings about putting somebody’s eye out, nobody would ever invent anything!

It does make you wonder about the next election, though, doesn’t?  Who’s finger do you want on the death ray button:  Barack Obama or John Mcain?

There’s only one man this country can trust with a death ray?

Tom Biscardi?  No!

Me, of course.   I’m on the only one you can trust to not abuse a death ray.  Unless somebody’s giving me a hard time during open lines like last night.  Then I might just have to get the caller’s GPS coordinates and vaporize them.   Sorry, can’t help myself but I’m working on it.   If you had a death ray, wouldn’t you just be itching to try it out just once? 

Here’s another good question:  Who owns the moon?

Stefanie Olsen writes:

Within the next 10 years, the U.S., China, Israel, and a host of private companies plan to set up camp on the moon. So if and when they plant a flag, does that give them property rights?

A NASA working group hosted a discussion this week to ask: who owns the moon? The answer, of course, is no one. The Outer Space Treaty, the international law signed by more than 100 countries, states that the moon and other celestial bodies are the province of all mankind. 

But ownership is different from property rights. People who rent apartments, for example, don't own where they live, but they still hold rights.  (C-NET)

Who owns the moon?  Simple question.  The moon will belong to the first one to develop that death ray!

By Ian Punnett

 

 

There's a theme to tonight's blog:

Things that are hard to believe!  For example:

According to a website that tracks news from Malta, creationism in the classroom is on the rise there leading to this unusual claim: 

The dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids.
This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18.

I really want to believe that dinosaurs helped to build the pyramids not because I’m a Christian but because I am a fan of the Flintstones.  Still, I’d be willing to bet that if Ramses the Great had managed to get a bridle into the mouth of Brontosaurus and--yabba dabba doo--had tamed the beast into moving giant stones into place, it would have rated at least one wall painting. 

But!  If there were T-Rex’s running around while guys were trying to building the pyramids then at least we could question whether Ussein Bolt of Jamaica truly is the fastest man in the history of the planet.  I mean, you’ve got to wonder whether some Egyptian guy wandering into the bushes for a bathroom break might have come upon a T-Rex and set a land speed record heading back into camp that might never be broken.

So, I find that hard to believe.  So is this:

(BBC) A man accused of making two boys flog themselves until they bled at a Shia Muslim ceremony said they were happy to perform the ritual, a court has heard.

Syed Zaidi said he asked the boys, aged 14 and 15, if they wanted to self-flagellate at the Ashura ceremony.

The father admitted he allowed the boys to use his zanjeer zani, which has five curved blades attached to chains and a wooden handle, to flog themselves.

Let me be clear, teenage boys flogging themselves isn’t hard to believe, it’s flogging themselves with blades that gets tricky for me.  I have two teenage boys and when we ask them to do the dishes, they act like we’re asking them to flog themselves with sharp knives.

So, hard to believe.  But this next story?  I want to believe it!

A newborn baby that was abandoned outdoors by her 14-year-old mother during the Argentina winter was found safe Thursday after being kept alive and warm by a mother dog and her brood of puppies, Reuters reported.

Farmer Fabio Anze found the naked baby near the city of La Plata, Argentina, lying amongst his dog named China’s puppies. The baby was taken to the hospital.

Hospital officials said the baby was only a few hours old when she was found being protected by China, and was in good health.

And speaking of Chinese puppies:

BEIJING: The International Olympic Committee has asked the world governing body for gymnastics to investigate whether members of the Chinese women's team were too young to compete in the Olympics.

Of they’re not old enough to compete according to the rules of the IOC.  That having been said, with the gold medals around their necks, they are quite able to compete according to the judges.  For that matter, other than women’s gymnastics, can anybody else think of an Olympic sports where the physical advantage is in being pre-adolescent?

Not men’s gymnastics.  The only sport where it’s actually an advantage to not be so developed is women’s gymnastics.  Weird. 

Anyway, the Chinese maintain that they have the passports that prove these girls are old enough . . . but you can’t believe everything you read.

For example:

A local Kansas City affiliate is reporting that Gill Studios of Lenexa, which specializes in political literature, has been printing Obama-Bayh material.

Even so, NBC is reporting:

EMPORIA, Va. - Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine have been told by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign they will not be his vice presidential choice.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain says that he has made his choice for his running mate and he would report it except that he wrote the name down on a piece of paper and he can’t remember what house of his he left it in.

 

P.S.

Did you love that version of "Smoke on the Water" we played by Judith Owen?

Her songwriting is awesome too!

http://www.judithowen.net/