Theodore's World

William Ayers turned back at Canadian border
The Toronto Star
An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.
Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.
“I don’t know why I was turned back,” Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. “I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn’t going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting … If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn’t possibly be a threat to Canada.”
Ayers made headlines this summer after Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin suggested that then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hung around with domestic terrorists like Ayers. The professor had hosted a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama in 1995, during his run for the state Senate. They also worked together on Chicago school reform and served on a charity board together.
Ayers first rose to notoriety in the early 1970s with the Weather Underground. The group claimed responsibility for bombings at the U.S. Capitol, a Pentagon restroom and New York City police headquarters. In 1970, a townhouse in New York the group was using to build a bomb blew up.
Nowadays, Ayers is known more for his work in educational reform. He has written or edited more than a dozen books — including his 2001 memoir Fugitive Days — and travels around the world giving lectures on education.
Jeffrey Kugler, executive director of the Centre for Urban Schooling, is deeply disappointed in the turn of events. For him it’s a question of academic freedom.

“It’s kind of ironic the day before Barack Obama is going to become president this is what the Canadian border security has done,” said Kugler. “It seems ridiculous that one university can’t have a professor from another university to come and give a lecture on an important educational topic.”

Kugler waited for five hours at the Toronto Island airport for Ayers. He was with a lawyer, but the border guard refused to allow Ayers to see the lawyer.

“The entire four or five hours he was not allowed to have representation at all. To me this is an issue of academic freedom. He could not be a threat to anyone ever. Anyone who knows anything about this man – he’s a distinguished scholar at the University of Illinois and he has been involved in education reform over the past 15 years. To imagine in any way he was a threat to Canada is really absurd.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
LOL I LOVE it! Now we just have to keep him out of the USA.
” I don’t know why I was turned back”
Hello! Maybe for being a TERRORIST and for for killing policemen, setting arson bombs in homes of judges, and building nail bombs among other things. This piece of excrement has a PhD and can’t figure out why a civilized Western democracy might want to deny him entry?
Canada doesn’t want our terrorists! Not even if they are a good friend of Obama’s. haha Hooray for Canada!!!
Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at” -Bill Ayers, New York Times, September 11, 2001
“Jeffrey Kugler, executive director of the Centre for Urban Schooling, is deeply disappointed in the turn of events. For him it’s a question of academic freedom. “
What a bunch of BS.

CNN’s Zain Verjee looks at the similarities between Inauguration Day in Washington and the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

Wild Thing’s comment………
Well that just about does it for me, how about you? Good Lord now we to be compared to the death cult of Islam and their crap compared to the Inauguration of Obama and his CULT of followers. What’s next, Obama announcing he has decided to go all out for his Muslim beliefs and then see him go into doing his rendition of the call to prayer for Islam.

Bush cuts sentences of Ramos, Compean
Agents convicted of shooting smuggler will be released from prison March 20
wnd
1:01 pm Eastern
President Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean today.
The announcement came on the last full day of Bush’s presidency. The sentences for Ramos and Compean are scheduled to expire March 20 but there was no immediate explanation for the time period between today’s announcement and that date.
Two years ago, Ramos and Compean began serving sentences of 11- and 12- years respectively for a 2005 incident in which they fired on a drug smuggler as he fled back into Mexico after bringing 750 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. near Fabens, Texas.
President Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean today.
The announcement came on the last full day of Bush’s presidency. The sentences for Ramos and Compean are scheduled to expire March 20 but there was no immediate explanation for the time period between today’s announcement and that date.
Two years ago, Ramos and Compean began serving sentences of 11- and 12- years respectively for a 2005 incident in which they fired on a drug smuggler as he fled back into Mexico after bringing 750 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. near Fabens, Texas.
The action by the president, who believes the border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
They were not pardoned. Their sentences were commuted. They still stand convicted, but they will no longer serve any time. At least they will be out by March. Now the way I understand this is they will be Felons?? Is that right, that means they cannot legally have certain things like if they wanted to buy a gun or something. Is that right?
I am thrilled they will be out soon so I guess I better not complain. I just wish the whole thing cleared them since they did nothing wrong.
They will be appearing on Glenn Beck on Fox News tonight.
I just now heard Sarah Palin is also going to be on his show in a few minutes.
Update: Sorry the announcement was wrong, He had the wives of Ramos and Compean on his show. It was still good to see it. And Sarah Palin was wonderful.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

As many of you know, I get off the computer early evening and then spend the evening with Nicholas . I come back online around midnight to work on posts for the next day. Usually it takes about 4 to 5 hours and I am done by 5 a.m. or so and then I go to sleep.
While I was working on posts for today, it was around 2 in the morning , I started to smell something like smoke. A few minutes later one of the smoke alarms went off. Nicholas has put one on the ceiling of each room throughout the house. The only alarm that was going off was the one in the living room. I thought it was the battery because I didn’t see any smoke or fire but I could not figure out how to turn it off to put a new battery inside. I thought the smoke smell might be coming from outside or down the street. Someone with a wood burning fireplace since the nights have been a lot cooler then usual.
I turned on the light and got the small ladder to try and reach up to open it up. But as I turned on the light I saw the room was filled with a thin veil of smoke.
The smoke was inside our house and creeping into the kitchen nearby and the dining room… just slowing moving through the house.
Our kitty, Missy and our dog Sebastian were right at my side, following me from room to room. I woke Nick up and told him what was happening He had been sound asleep so he told me to do the talking and call 911. They were great and asked if there was a fire I said not that I could see but I asked if it could be electrical. I told her I turned off the heater just in case. And I as I was on the phone I was shutting down my computer.
We waited outside for the firemen to come and zoom they were here so fast. They were wonderful and ended up OK.
No fire, they said the smoke was from the AC/ heater and the engine/motor whatever it is had gotten very hot. And there was some plastic next to it. This part is important because 3 months ago we had it all fixed and this was the first time we had turned on the heat. But it had been on for two days straight since it has been in the 50’s to 60 all three days in the day time and colder at night.
Thank God it was not electrical that is what really scared me. I have heard stories how a home can burn down in minutes if it is electrical.
The firemen were so wonderful and asked me what I was doing up so late. haha So I told them how I had a blog and worked on it during the night. Nick handed them one of my little cards I hand out to people with the site address.
Sebastian made some new friends as some of the firemen were petting him while we talked afterward. And Missy being a kitty,decided she would wait till the all clear and then come back in the house from the patio.
So a HUGE thank you to Fire Station 8 and the firefighters.
Now we are to call the AC/Heater people and have them come and make it so this won’t happen again.
I have to tell you this was very scary. Thank God all is ok.

Everyone keeps talking about what color they think Michelle will wear to the Inaugural Balls on Tuesday.
Will she wear Nancy Reagan red?
Will she wear regal purple?
Jewel colours or winter white?

Source: HillBuzz
Since Michelle took a leave of absence from her job at the hospital to campaign for her husband full time last year, University of Chicago never filled her position or assigned her duties to others (said duties comprised of diverting poor black patients away from University of Chicago Hospital to lower-quality medical facilities so U Chicago would not be stuck with as many expensive indigent care cases. The Hospital wanted only patients with solid insurance coverage, so Michelle’s “community outreach” was focused on dissuading everyone out there without insurance cards from ending up on U Chicago Hospital’s rolls).
We hear they have no intention of hiring another “VP of Community and External Affairs” now that Michelle is gone for good, a position that was created solely for Michelle, coinciding perfectly with the moment in time the hospital wanted to triple her salary, out of the blue, coincidentally a few months after her husband was elected to the Senate.
OBAMA Politics
In 2002, Michelle Obama was hired by the University of Chicago Hospital as its “Executive Director for Community Affairs” at a salary of approximately $120,000.
In January of 2005, Barack Obama was sworn in as a United States Senator.
In March of 2005, Michelle Obama was promoted to “Vice President for Community and External Affairs” and her salary bumped nearly $200,000 (from $121,910 to $316,962). This position was “newly created” for Mrs. Obama.
In February of 2006, Barack Obama requested a $1 million earmark for a new hospital pavilion at the University of Chciago.
Effective 9 January 2009, Michelle Obama resigned her position at UCH.
Effective 14 January 2009, Michelle Obama’s VP position was eliminated, its functions absorbed into another executive’s position. This prompted writer Don Rose to ask “[If] that work can be folded into another guy’s, why was it separate in the first place?“

Wild Thing’s comment……
giggle…..Just having some fun here.
I honestly could care less. hahahhaa I would be interested if it was Jackie O, or Laura Bush. Both made being a woman a nice thing. And Jackie especially had impeccible taste.
They say it’s important because what Mrs O wears is likely to end up one day in the Smithsonian.

….Thank you Eden for sending this to me.

Town looks to record when you drink alcohol
Wants surveillance systems to help crack down on brawling
wnd
An official in North Dakota is hoping to force bar owners into installing surveillance cameras that monitor drinkers and record evidence police can use to crack down on bar fights.
Oliver County State’s Attorney Mike Liffrig asked the city of Center, N.D., to require the cameras after a bar brawl earlier this month left a man with severe facial injuries. Liffrig told the Associated Press that the surveillance footage would help prove wrongdoing in the rural town where bar fights are so common it makes Center seem like the Wild West.
Bar owners and local patrons, however, don’t like the idea of police keeping a recorded eye on what is done and said after a few beers.
Perry Wolf, owner of Lonewolf Saloon told the AP, “I don’t have a problem with the video camera, but I won’t put audio in here. That’s baloney.”

Wolf explained, “There are a lot of people who come to bars to talk about other people. I like to drink my beer, too, and my mouth might get a little loose.”

Dean Windhorst claims to have been beaten up twice in Center bar brawls, sporting a pair of black eyes and a busted lip for weeks after the last fight. Still, Windhorst opposes the cameras.
“It’s an invasion of privacy,” he said.
Center is a town of 700 about 40 miles northwest of Bismarck in a county ranked by the North Dakota Job Service as having the highest average annual wage among the state’s 53 counties since 1993.
Center’s City Attorney John Mahoney told the AP that Center is a quiet, friendly town and the city is determined to keep it that way.

“This is a good place to raise a family and we’re trying to draw people here,” Mahoney said. “This fighting gives us a black eye and we don’t need it – the city is very serious about getting a handle on this.”

Without the cameras, however, Mahoney feels there’s little authorities can do about the bar brawls that often break out, he says, between union and nonunion workers building power plants and wind farm projects in the county.

“One of the problems is that fights don’t get reported,” said Mahoney, “or they don’t get reported until several days later, and by then the evidence is stale and the trail is cool.”

Local bar owners, however, say they’d rather handle the problem themselves than subject their law-abiding customers to police surveillance.

“A lot of this has been cleaned up pretty good already,” Wolf told the AP. “I’ve owned this bar six years and I’ve only had to call 911 three or four times.”

Susan Cahoon, owner of Cahoon’s Bar & Grill, agreed that her customers wouldn’t like the idea of police watching their every drink. She said her business has a security camera to guard against burglary, but the problem of bar fights can be handled by banishing the rowdies from the bar.

Wolf explained, “There are a couple of local construction workers who are laid off and like to pick fights. They’re a couple of troublemakers who get drunk and get stupid. They were the source of a lot of the problems. Now they have to move on somewhere else.”

Rather than using surveillance cameras, police entered bars directly and subjected patrons to sobriety tests.

“[Officers] were talking to one of the guests, then physically pulled him off the barstool,” Richie Prisco, general manager at Champps bar in Fairfax County told the Reston Times. “They were really aggressive and nasty.”

According to the report, police hauled customers outside of establishments to conduct sobriety tests, then arrested them for public drunkenness should they fail.

In response to complaints the raids were overly aggressive, police spokeswoman Grinnan said, “I’ve had bar owners come up to me [and] ask what is going on, but I’ve also had some approach me aggressively, telling me I couldn’t be there and I was violating their constitutional rights.”

Grinnan told the Times, “I’ve been an officer for over 17 years, and we’ve been doing it on and off over my entire career. As much as officers hate to spoil a good time, they hate even more to go out at 2 a.m. and work a death of anybody that is alcohol-related.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I would think all they need are a few bouncers to keep the fights down, that would be what I would do if I owned a bar. There is no need to make people feel big brother is watching them, this is not about tracking down terrorists.
The other part of the article about the police giving sobriety tests. I am totally against drunk driving , and I like one dea I heard on othe news a few weeks ago. This one bar they told about offers to pay the cab fare for the patron to get home.

.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

Kevin Quigley, right, a retired Ford employee, helps Alvin Hoffman, a disabled World War II veteran, at
a local grocery store. The DAV’s Local Veterans Assistance Program is designed to encourage and reward
creative volunteerism to improve the lives of veterans and advance the DAV’s mission.

A Special Difference for Disabled Veterans
DAV Magazine
By D. Clare
Kevin Quigley was driving toward an expressway onramp near his Wayne County, Mich., home when he first laid eyes on Alvin Hoffman. The World War II veteran seemed out of place as he trudged along with his groceries.

“I circled back around and found him on a rock. I thought he was lost. There weren’t a lot of homes. It was a mile and a half from the grocery store and he was walking,” recalled Quigley.

What began as a simple act of kindness, with Quigley giving the elderly man a ride home, soon turned into a pleasant routine. For the past 14 years, Quigley has helped Hoffman get his groceries and done odd jobs around his home.
Quigley is one of three people in the elderly man’s life who make independent living possible. Along with Hoffman’s neighbors all of the retired automotive industry employee’s basic needs are met.
Over the years, Quigley learned about the Army veteran’s combat service — service which contributed to his extreme loss of hearing.

“He’s my friend, and he’s an amazing connection to the past. There just aren’t that many World War II veterans left. I appreciate his service and enjoy the time I get to spend with him,” said Quigley, who is a retired Ford metal model maker.

With veterans of Hoffman’s generation aging and a new generation of veterans returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the needs of disabled veterans are on the rise.

“Our traditional voluntary service programs make an incredible difference for hundreds of thousands of veterans every year. But the unique, random acts of kindness that brighten lives deserve recognition as well,” said National Director of Voluntary Services Edward E. Hartman.

The new Local Veterans Assistance Program, or LVAP, was established to encourage DAV members, youths and patriotic citizens to use their time, talents and good will to help veterans. It recognizes the quiet heroes who reach out in creative ways to make a difference.

“Just about any service someone provides to enhance the lives of veterans is considered worthy of consideration,” Hartman said. “From a DAV member participating in service work or fundraising activities, to a friendly neighbor who cleans an elderly veteran’s gutters or gives a young veteran a lift to the base when his buddies are returning from deployment.”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I love to hear about stories like this. We owe our Veterans so much. We have lived in a better world because of the sacrifices our Veterans have made.

….Thank you Jack for sending this to me.
Army Combat Engineers
67-69
Jack’s blog is Conservative Insurgent

Army Spec. Gwen Beberg gets a kiss from her dog Ratchet after returning to the States from duty in Iraq and being reunited with her parents Pat and Ted Beberg and Ratchet. Beberg fought the military to get the dog out of Iraq and online petitions set up to encourage Ratchet’s release garnered over 77,000 signitures.

Ratchet the Iraq dog on hand to welcome soldier who rescued him
Star Tribune Minn.
Ratchet’s rescuer, Army Specialist Gwen Beberg, arrived home on Saturday, and their happy reunion made it clear that the bond that helped each survive Iraq was mutual. “I decided this was an animal I couldn’t part from.”
Let the record show that Pat Beberg got her daughter’s first homecoming hug. But when Ratchet, the dog that Army Specialist Gwen Beberg rescued last fall in Iraq, moved in for a slurpy kiss, everyone in Fridley’s VFW hall sighed with a collective, “Awwwwww.”

“Hey, baby. Oh, you got so big — Oh, you got so big,” said the soldier to the pup. “Yeah, who’s home? Who’s home, huh?”

The two were reunited Saturday as Beberg returned to Spring Lake Park, completing a tour of duty that unexpectedly led to a cause célèbre. Rachet arrived in October, after Beberg’s efforts, coupled with almost 70,000 people signing online petitions and a little congressional nudging, prompted military officials to loosen the prohibition on U.S. troops adopting pets in Iraq.

Friends, family and supporters gathered at VFW Post 363 to witness the reunion, as well as to pay tribute to Beberg for her service. “I wish every soldier in the world, past, present and future, came home to a welcome like this,” she said to about 60 people.

Then she made a pitch for supporting Operation Baghdad Pups, a branch of SPCA International that rescues dogs and cats adopted by U.S. military personnel. More than 50 pets have been relocated to the United States.
Beberg adopted Ratchet as a month-old pup after fellow soldiers rescued him from a pile of burning trash. The pet’s unconditional love proved a comfort to Beberg during a difficult stretch.
Her parents, Pat and Ted Beberg, have been caring for Rachet, a feisty substitute for the daughter they hadn’t seen in person since September 2007. Beberg already is registered for fall classes at Northwestern Health Sciences University to study massage therapy. She also wants to train Ratchet to be a therapy dog.
So far, the transition from the scorching desert to subzero Minnesota has gone well.

Beberg bent low and nuzzled her dog, who acted as if he’d left her only that morning. “He loves Minnesota. He thinks it’s one gigantic field of treats.”

Wild Thing’s comment……
Wonderful story and what this dog has meant to this soldier is a bond that is very special.

Defacing the flag in honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama!!!!
US Flag Code: “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.”

Spectators cheer for President-elect Barack Obama during his appearance at Baltimore’s War Memorial Plaza.

Caprina Hooper (near) and her mother Ruth Hooper of Baltimore wave flags at War Memorial Plaza before President-elect Barack Obama’s arrival.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Well so much for respecting our American Flag.
And the double whammy insult it is with people at a War Memoria. Nice huh…NOT.

…..Thank you Eden for sending this to me.

.

Barack Hussein Obama starts his train trip in Philly with a speech In Philadelphia.

.

Partial text:

“We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to Washington. This is fitting because it was here, in this city, that our American journey began. It was here that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being denied.

It was a risky thing, meeting as they did in that summer of 1776. There was no guarantee that their fragile experiment would find success. More than once in those early years did the odds seem insurmountable. More than once did the fishermen, laborers and craftsmen who called themselves an army face the prospect of defeat.

And yet, they were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line — their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor — for a set of ideals that continue to light the world. That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by and for the people can endure. It was these ideals that led us to declare independence and craft our constitution, producing documents that were imperfect but had within them, like our nation itself, the capacity to be made more perfect.

We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began. The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.

And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”

But Obama’s “new Declaration of Independence” does not need God and does not want Him. Let us simply call it what it is: the Declaration of Independence from God, or – better yet – the “God Damn America Declaration of Independence.”

“We can also realize that the Declaration of Independence that Obama now wants to replace also implies another reality: the reality that a government that replaces God is a tyrannous institution.

You can understand why Obama – who fundamentally believes that ONLY government can save us, and who passionately believes that a gigantic government bureaucracy that intrudes into absolutely every aspect of our lives – would want to see that “old” Declaration of Independence as well as the “old” America itself go the way of the dinosaur.”

.

Wild Thing’s comment………
Dear God please know half of our country did not vote for this person. We love America and are sickened by what is happening.
Obama wants to abandon everything that our Nation was founded upon. He has a lot of nerve to say what he calling the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence “documents that were imperfect but had within them, like our nation itself, the capacity to be made more perfect.”…… but he keeps telling us this over and over how he loaths and disrespects our Constitution and all our documents that we have.
This is yet another speech he made, not yesterday but back in March 18th of 2008 and yes once again in Philadelphia, PA at Constitution Center.
It is called ‘A More Perfect Union’
Check this one out as well , the very opener of the video he is trashing our Constitution. He says it is stained!!!!
“PHILADELPHIA – “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

“Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations. “

.

……Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion – 1st Aviation Brigade – Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam